IX
“BLACK her great boots! Not I,” Miss Sinquier said to herself as she turned her back on Mary Lodge to wend her way westward across the Park.
She was to meet Mrs. Sixsmith at a certain club on Hay Hill towards dusk to learn whether any tempting offer had been submitted Sir Oliver for her pearls.
“If I chose I suppose I could keep them,” she murmured incoherently to herself as she crossed the Row.
It was an airless afternoon.
Under the small formal trees sheltering the path she clapped her sunshade to, and slackened speed.
The rhododendrons, in vivid clumps of new and subtle colours brushing the ground, were in their pride. Above, the sky showed purely blue. She walked on a little way towards Stanhope Gate when, overcome by the odoriferousfragrance of heliotropes and xenias, she sank serenely to a bench.
Far off by the Serpentine a woman was preaching from a tree to a small audience gathered beneath. How primeval she looked as her arms shot out in argument, a discarded cock’s-feather boa looped to an upper bough dangling like some dark python in the air above.
Miss Sinquier sat on until the shadows fell.
She found her friend on reaching Hay Hill in the midst of muffins and tea.
“I gave you up. I thought you lost,” Mrs. Sixsmith exclaimed, hitching higher her veil with fingers super-manicured, covered in oxydized metal rings.
“I was dozing in the Park.”
“Dreamy kid.”
“On my back neck I’ve such a freckle.”
“Did you see Mammy Mary?”
“I did.”
“Well?”
“Nothing; she offered me Miss Jacks’ leavings.”
“Not good enough.”
“What of Sir Oliver?”
“I hardly know how to tell you.”
“Has he——?”
Mrs. Sixsmith nodded.
“He has had an offer of two thousand pounds,” she triumphantly said, “for the pearls alone.”
“Two thousand pounds!”
“Call it three o’s.”
“Okh!”
“Consider what commercial credit that means....”
“I shall play Juliet.”
“Juliet?”
“I shall have a season.”
“Let me take the theatre for you.”
“Is it a dream?”
“I will find you actors—great artists.”
“Oh, God!”
“And, moreover, I have hopes for the silver, too. Sir Oliver is enchanted with the spoons—the Barnabas spoon especially. He said he had never seen a finer. Such a beautiful little Barny, such a rapture of a little sinner as it is, in every way.”
Miss Sinquier’s eyes shone.
“I’ll have that boy.”
“What—what boy?”
“Harold Weathercock.”
“You desire him?”
“To be my Romeo, of course.”
“It depends if the Dream will release him.”
“It must! It shall!”
“I’ll peep in on him and sound him, if you like.”
“We’ll go together.”
“Very well.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“In Foreign-Colony Street. He and a friend of his, Noel Nice, share a studio there. Not to paint in, alas! It’s to wash.”
“What?”
“They’ve made a little laundry of it. And when they’re not acting actually, they wash. Oh! sometimes when Mr. Nice spits across his iron and says Pah! it makes one ill.”
“Have they any connection?”
Mrs. Sixsmith bent her eyes to her dress.
“Mr. Sixsmith often sent them things ... little things,” she said. “His linen was his pride. You might annex him, perhaps. He’s played Mercutio before.”
“Is he handsome?”
“Paul? He’s more interesting than handsome.Unusual, if you know....”
“Whatdidyou do to separate?”
“I believe I bit him.”
“You did!”
“He ran at me with the fire-dogs first.”
“I suppose you annoyed him?”
“The cur!”
“Something tells me you’re fond of him still.”
From her reticule Mrs. Sixsmith took a small note-book and made an entry therein.
“... The divine Shakespeare!” she sighed.
“I mean to make a hit with him.”
“Listen to me.”
“Well?”
“My advice to you is, hire a playhouse—the Cobbler’s End, for example—for three round months at a reasonable rent, with a right, should you wish, to sub-let.”
“It’s so far off.”
“Define ‘far off.’”
“Blackfriars Bridge.”
“I’ve no doubt by paying a fortune you could find a more central position if you care to wait. The Bolivar Theatre, possibly——; or the Cone.... At the Cone, there’s a joy-plank from the auditorium to the stage, sothat, should you want to ever, you can come right out into the stalls.”
“I want my season at once,” Miss Sinquier said.
Mrs. Sixsmith toyed with her rings.
“What do you say,” she asked, “to making an informal début (before ‘royal’ auspices!) at the Esmé Fisher ‘Farewell’ coming off next week?”
“Why not!”
“Some of the stage’s brightest ornaments have consented to appear.”
“I’d like particulars.”
“I’ll send a note to the secretary, Miss Willinghorse, straight away,” Mrs. Sixsmith murmured, gathering up her constant Juno beneath her arm, and looking about her for some ink.
“Send it later, from the Café Royal.”
“I can’t go any more to the Café Royal,” Mrs. Sixsmith said. “I owe money there.... To all the waiters.”
“Wait till after we’ve seen the Washingtons.”
“The Washingtons? Who are they?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Besides, I’ve a small headache,”Mrs. Sixsmith said, selecting herself a quill.
“What can I do to relieve it?” Miss Sinquier wondered, taking up a newspaper as her friend commenced to write.
Heading the agony list some initials caught her eye.
“S——h S——r.Come back. All shall be forgiven,” she read.
“I can’t epistolize while you make thoseunearthlynoises,” Mrs. Sixsmith complained.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Where are we going to dine?”
“Where is there wonderful to go?”
“How about a grill?”
“I don’t mind.”
“The Piccadilly? We’re both about got up for it.”
Miss Sinquier rolled her eyes.
“The Grill-room at the Piccadilly isn’t going to cure a headache,” she remarked.