To Say Nothing of the Dog (50 page)

“The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,” I said. “The Victorians liked art that was representational.”

“And crowded,” she said. “No wonder Lady Schrapnell was having trouble getting a craftsman to make a reproduction.”

“I had made sketches,” I said. “I think the craftsmen refused on moral grounds.”

Verity surveyed it intently, her head to one side. “That cannot possibly be a seahorse.”

“Neptune’s chariot,” I said. “And this over here is the Parting of the Red Sea. Next to Leda and the Swan.”

She reached out and touched the swan’s outstretched wing. “You were right about it being indestructible.”

I nodded, looking at its cast-iron solidity. Even the roof falling in on it would scarcely have dented it.

“And hideous-looking things are never destroyed,” she went on. “It’s a law. St. Pancras Station wasn’t touched in the Blitz. And neither was the Albert Memorial. And it
is
hideous.”

I agreed. Even the drooping peonies and the ivy couldn’t hide that fact.

“Oh!” Tossie said behind us, in a transport of joy. “That’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen!”

She fluttered up, Terence in tow, and stood gazing at it, her gloved hands clasped under her chin. “Oh, Terence, isn’t it the most cunning thing you’ve ever seen?”

“Well . . .” Terence said dubiously.

“Look at the darling cupids! And the Sacrifice of Isaac! O! O!” She uttered a series of screamlets that made the workman doing the hammering look up in irritation. He saw Tossie, spit his nails out onto the floor, and nudged his companion. The companion looked up from his sawing. The hammerer said something to him that made him burst into a wide and toothless smile. He tipped his cloth cap to Tossie.

“I know,” I murmured to Verity. “Get their names.”

As the workmen were under the impression that I was going to report them to the curate for leering, it took some time, but when I got back, Tossie was still going on about the bishop’s bird stump.

“O, look!” she mini-screamed. “There’s Salome!”

“Widge and Baggett,” I whispered to Verity. “They don’t know the curate’s name. They refer to him as Bug-Eyes.”

“And look,” Tossie exclaimed. “There’s the platter, and there’s John the Baptist’s head!”

And this was all very well, but so far it didn’t look like a life-changing experience. Tossie had ooh-ed and ahh-ed like this over the china wooden shoe at the jumble sale. And over Miss Stiggins’s cross-stitched needlecases. And even if she was having an Epiphany (depicted above Neptune and his chariot on the side facing the pillar), where was Mr. C?

“O, I do wish I had one,” Tossie enthused. “For our dear home, Terence, after we’re married. One exactly like it!”

“Isn’t it rather large?” Terence said.

The south door banged open, and Baine came in, looking like something from the wreck of the Hesperus, and carrying an oilcloth-wrapped parcel.

“Baine!” Tossie called, and he squelched his way over to us.

“I’ve brought your shawl, miss,” he said, folding the tarp back from a corner of a pew and setting the bundle down and beginning to unwrap it.

“Baine, what do you think of this?” Tossie said, indicating the bishop’s bird stump. “Don’t you agree it’s the most beautiful piece of art you’ve ever seen?”

Baine straightened and looked at it, blinking water out of his eyes.

There was a considerable pause while Baine wrung out his sleeve. “No.”

“No?”
Tossie said, making it into a screamlet.

“No.” He bent over the pew, opening the oilcloth to reveal the shawls, neatly folded and perfectly dry. He straightened again, reached inside his coat for a damp handkerchief, wiped his hands on it, and picked the pink shawl up by the corners. “Your shawl, miss,” he said, holding it out to her.

“I don’t want it now,” Tossie said. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean the sculpture is a hideous atrocity, vulgarly conceived, badly designed, and shoddily executed,” he said, folding the shawl carefully and bending to lay it back in the bundle.

“How
dare
you say that?” Tossie said, her cheeks very pink.

Baine straightened. “I beg your pardon, miss. I thought you were asking my opinion.”

“I
was,
but I expected you to tell me you thought it was beautiful.”

He bowed slightly. “As you wish, miss?’ He looked at it, his face impassive. “It is very beautiful.”

“I
don’t
wish,” she said, stamping her little foot. “How can you not think it’s beautiful? Look at the cunning little Babes in the Wood! And the sweet little sparrow with a strawberry leaf in its mouth!”

“As you wish, miss.”

“And
stop
saying that,” she said, her ruffles quivering with rage. “Why do you say it’s an atrocity?”

“This,” he extended his hand toward the bishop’s bird stump, “is cluttered, artificial, and,” he looked pointedly at the Babes in the Wood, “mawkishly sentimental, intended to appeal to the aesthetically uneducated middle class.”

Tossie turned to Terence. “Are you going to allow him to say such things?” she demanded.

“It is a bit cluttered,” Terence said. “And what’s that supposed to be?” he added, pointing to the Minotaur, “A horse or a hippopotamus?”

“A
lion,”
Tossie said, outraged. “And there’s Androcles taking a thorn out of its paw.

I looked at Verity. She was biting her lip.

“And it is
not
mawkishly sentimental,” Tossie said to Baine.

“As you wish, miss.”

His life was saved by the timely arrival of the curate and Mrs. Mering from behind the hoardings.

“The Roman cavalry,” Verity murmured.

“Directly beneath Bacchus, holding a bunch of grapes,” I murmured back.

“I do hope you will consider having a jumble sale at your bazaar,” Mrs. Mering was saying, steering the curate toward us. “People have so many treasures in their attics that make excellent jumble sale items.”

She stopped at the sight of the bishop’s bird stump. “Something like this, for instance. Or an umbrella stand. Vases are so useful. We had a china one with a painted waterfall at our fête which sold for—”

Tossie interrupted her.
“You
think this is beautiful, don’t you?” she said to the curate.

“Indeed I do,” he said. “I consider it an example of all that is best in modern art,” he said. “Excellent representations and a high moral tone. Particularly the depiction of the Seven Plagues of Egypt. It was donated a number of years ago by the Trubshaw family on the death of Emily Jane Trubshaw. She had purchased it at the Great Exhibition, and it was her most treasured possession. The vicar tried to dissuade them from donating. He felt it should remain in the family’s possession, but they were adamant?”

“I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Tossie said.

“I quite agree,” the curate said. “It has always reminded me of the Albert Memorial?’

“I
adore
the Albert Memorial,” Tossie said. “I glimpsed it when we went to Kensington to hear Mrs. Guppy speak on ectoplasm, and I couldn’t rest until Papa had taken me to see it. I love the mosaics and the gilt spire!” She clasped her hands together. “And the statue of the Prince, reading the catalogue of the Great Exhibition!”

“It is an extraordinary monument,” Terence said.

“And indestructible,” Verity murmured.

“I find the sculptures representing the four continents particularly well-rendered,” the curate said, “though in my opinion Asia and Africa are scarcely suitable for young ladies?’

Tossie colored prettily. “I thought the elephant was absolutely cunning. And the frieze of great scientists and architects?’

“Have you ever seen St. Pancras Railway Station?” the curate asked. “I consider that an extraordinary example of architecture as well. Perhaps you’d care to see the work we’re doing on the church?” he asked her. “It is not, of course, on a par with the Albert Memorial, but J.O. Scott has done some excellent work.” He took Tossie’s arm and led her up to the choir. “The galleries have been cleared and all the box pews have been removed.”

He pointed up at the clerestory arches above, still holding onto Tossie’s arm. “Scott has had iron girders inserted in each of the timber beams to tie the clerestory walls together and make them much stronger. It is a classic example of how superior modern building materials are, compared to old-fashioned stone and wood.”

“Oh, I think so, too,” Tossie said eagerly.

Actually, it was a classic example of trying to turn the
Titanic.
When the cathedral caught fire on the night of November fourteenth, the iron girders had buckled and bent and then collapsed, taking the clerestory arches and the internal colonnades with them. Without the girders, the church might have remained standing. The outer walls and the tower, which hadn’t been renovated to make them stronger, had.

“After we’ve completed the renovations,” the curate was saying to Tossie, we will have a church befitting this modern age, a church which will be treasured hundreds of years from now. Would you like to see the renovations we are doing on the tower?”

“Oh, yes,” Tossie nodded, making her curls bob prettily.

There was a sound from over by the south door, and I looked up. It was a young woman in a gray dress. She had a large basket and a long nose, and she strode across the nave to the bishop’s bird stump with sharp, staccato-sounding steps, like rifle shots.

“Miss Sharpe,” the curate said, looking caught out. “Allow me to introduce—”

“I only came to deliver these for the bazaar,” Miss Sharpe said. She thrust the basket at him and then withdrew it when she saw the curate was holding Tossie’s arm. “It is penwipers. Two dozen.” She turned. “I will leave them in the vestry.”

“Oh, but can you not stay, Miss Sharpe?” the curate said, extricating his arm from Tossie’s. “Miss Mering, allow me to introduce Miss Delphinium Sharpe.”

I wondered if she was a relation of Mrs. Chattisbourne’s.

“I was so hoping we could discuss the arrangement of the stalls for the bazaar, Miss Sharpe,” the curate said.

“I shall not be able to attend the fête. I will leave these in the vestry,” she said again. She turned and started her rifle-fire way back across the nave.

“We should love to see St. Pancras Railway Station, shouldn’t we, Mama?” Tossie said. A door slammed loudly.

“It’s a sterling example of neo-Gothic,” the curate said, flinching a little. “I feel that architecture should reflect society, particularly churches and railway stations.”

“Oh, so do I,” Tossie said.

“I . . .” Mrs. Mering said, and Tossie and the curate both turned to look at her. She was looking at the bishop’s bird stump, and she had an odd, tentative look on her face.

“What is it, Mama?” Tossie said.

Mrs. Mering put her hand uncertainly to her bosom and frowned slightly, the way people do when they are trying to decide whether they have chipped a tooth.

“Are you ill?” Terence said, taking hold of her arm.

“No,” she said. “I’ve just had the oddest feeling . . . it . . .” She frowned. “I was looking at the . . .” she waved the hand that had been on her bosom at the bishop’s bird stump, “. . . and all at once, I . . .”

“You received a spirit message?” Tossie said.

“No, not a message,” Mrs. Mering said, probing at the tooth. “It . . . I had the oddest feeling. . . .”

“A premonition?” Tossie prompted.

“Yes,” Mrs. Mering said thoughtfully. “You . . .” She frowned, as if trying to remember a dream, and then turned and stared at the bishop’s bird stump. “It had . . . We must go home at once.”

“Oh, but you can’t go yet,” Verity said.

“I so wanted to discuss the Treasure Hunt with you,” the curate said, looking disappointedly at Tossie. “And the arrangement of the fancy goods tables. Can’t you at least stay to tea?”

“Baine!” Mrs. Mering said, ignoring both of them.

“Yes, madam,” Baine, who had gone back over by the south door, said.

“Baine, we must return home at once,” Mrs. Mering said, and started across the nave toward him.

Baine hurried to meet her, bringing an umbrella. “Has something happened?” he said.

“I have had a Warning,” Mrs. Mering said, looking much more like herself. “When is the next train?”

“In eleven minutes,” he said immediately. “But it is a local train. The next express to Reading isn’t till 4:18.”

“Bring the carriage round,” she said. “Then run ahead to the station and tell them to hold the train for us. And take down that umbrella. It’s bad luck to have an open umbrella indoors. Bad luck!” She clutched her heart. “Oh, what if we are too late?”

Baine was struggling to get the umbrella furled. I took it from him, and he nodded gratefully and took off for the station, running.

“Wouldn’t you like to sit down, Aunt Malvinia?” Verity asked.

“No, no,” Mrs. Mering said, shaking off her hand. “Go and see if the carriage is here yet. Is it still raining?”

It was, and the carriage was. Terence and the driver helped her down the steps and bundled her and her travelling skirts into it.

I took advantage of the momentary delay to shake the curate’s hand. “Thank you so much for showing us the church, Mr.—?” I said.

“Mr. Henry!” Mrs. Mering called from the carriage. “We shall miss our train.”

The south door banged open, and Miss Sharpe emerged and walked rapidly down the steps past us and up Bayley Street. The curate looked after her.

“Goodbye,” Tossie said, leaning out the window. “I should so love to see St. Pancras.”

I tried again, my foot on the carriage step. “Good luck with your church bazaar, Mr.—?”

“Thank you,” he said absently. “Goodbye, Mrs. Mering, Miss Mering. If you will excuse me—” He hurried after Miss Sharpe. “Miss Sharpe!” he called. “Wait! Delphinium! Dellie!”

“I don’t believe I caught your name—” I said, leaning out the window.

“Mr. Henry!” Mrs. Mering snapped. “Driver!” And we rattled off.

“Every man meets his Waterloo at last.”

Wendell Phillips

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