VII
SUBJECTIVE. On a rack in the loom. Powerless oneself to grasp the design. Operated on by others. At the mercy of chance fingers, unskilled fingers, tender fingers; nails of all sorts. Unable to progress alone. Finding fulfilment through friction and because of friction. Stung into sentiency gradually, bit by bit—a toe at a time.
After all there was azestin it; and who should blame the raw material should an accident occur by the way....
Careless of an intriguing world about her, Miss Sinquier left her hotel, just so as to arrive at Angrezini’s last.
“For Thou knowest well my safety is inThee,” she murmured to herself mazily as her taxi skirted the Park.
Having disposed of her Anne teapot for close on seventy pounds, she was looking more radiant than ever in a frail Byzantine tunic that had cost her fifty guineas.
“Thy Sally’s safety,” she repeated, absently scanning the Park.
Through the shadowy palings it slipped away, abundantly dotted with lovers. Some were plighting themselves on little chairs, others preferred the green ground: and beyond them, behind the whispering trees, the sky gleamed pale and luminous as church glass.
Glory to have a lover too, she reflected, and to stroll leisurely-united through the evening streets, between an avenue of sparkling lamps....
Her thoughts turned back to the young man in the Café Royal.
“Of all the bonny loves!” she breathed, as her taxi stopped.
“Angrezini!”
A sturdy negro helped her out.
“For Thou knowest very well——” her lips moved faintly.
The swinging doors whirled her in.
She found herself directly in a small bemirrored room with a hatch on one side of it, in which an old woman in a voluminous cap was serenely knitting.
Behind her dangled furs and wraps that scintillated or made pools of heavy shade as they caught or missed the light.
Relinquishing her own strip of tulle, Miss Sinquier turned about her.
Through a glass door she could make out Mrs. Sixsmith herself, seated in a cosy red-walled sitting-room beyond.
She was looking staid as a porcelain goddess in a garment of trailing white with a minute griffin-eared dog peeping out its sheeny paws and head wakefully from beneath her train.
At sight of her guest Mrs. Sixsmith smiled and rose.
“Sir Oliver hasn’t yet come!” she said, imprinting on Miss Sinquier’s youthful cheek a salute ofhospitality.
“He hasn’t? And I made sure I should be last.”
Mrs. Sixsmith consulted the time.
“From the Bank to the Poultry, and from the Poultry on...; just consider,” she calculated, subsiding leisurely with Miss Sinquier upon a spindle-legged settee.
“You telephoned?”
“I told him all your story.”
“Well?”
“He has promised me to do his utmost.”
“He will?”
“You should have heard us. This Mrs.Bromley, he pretends.... Oh, well ... one must not be too harsh on the dead.”
“Poor little woman.”
“Let me admire your frock.”
“You like it?”
“I never saw anything so waggish.”
“No, no,please——!”
“Tell me where they are!”
“What?”
“I’m looking for your pearls.”
“They’re in my hair.”
“Show me.”
“I’ll miss them terribly.”
“Incline!”
“How?”
“More.”
“I can’t!”
“They’re very nice. But bear in mind one thing——”
“Yes?”
Mrs. Sixsmith slipped an encircling arm about Miss Sinquier’s waist.
“Always remember,” she said, “to a City man, twelve hundred sounds less than a thousand. Just as a year, to you and me, sounds more than eighteen months!”
“I’ll not forget.”
“Here is Sir Oliver now.”
Through the swing doors an elderly man with a ruddy, rather apoplectic face, and close-set opaque eyes, precipitantly advanced.
“Ladies!”
“‘Ladies’ indeed, Sir Oliver.”
“As if——”
“Monster.”
“Excuse me, Serephine.”
“Your pardon rests with Miss Sinquier,” Mrs. Sixsmith said with melodious inflections as she showed the way towards the restaurant. “Address your petitions to her.”
In the crescent-shaped, cedar-walled, cedar-beamed room, a table at a confidential angle had been reserved.
“There’s a big gathering here to-night,” Sir Oliver observed, glancing round him, a “board-room” mask clinging to him still.
Miss Sinquier looked intellectual.
“I find it hot!” she said.
“You do.”
“I find London really very hot.... It’s after the north, I suppose. In the north it’s always much cooler.”
“Are you from the north?”
“Yes, indeed she is,” Mrs. Sixsmith chimedin. “And so amI,” she said. “Two north-country girls!” she added gaily.
Sir Oliver spread sentimentally his feet.
“The swans at Blenheim; the peacocks at Warwick!” he sighed.
“What do you mean, Sir Oliver?”
“Intimate souvenirs....”
“I should say so.... Swans and peacocks! I wonder you’re prepared to admit it.”
“Admit it?”
“Outside ofConfessions, Sir Oliver.”
Miss Sinquier raised a hurried hand to her glass.
“No, no, no, no, no, no wine!” she exclaimed. “Something milky....”
“Fiddlesticks. Our first little dinner.”
“Oh, Sir Oliver.”
“And not, I trust, our last!”
“I enjoy it so much—going out.”
Mrs. Sixsmith slapped her little dog smartly upon the eyes with her fan.
“Couch-toi,” she admonished.
“What can fret her?”
“She fancies she sees Paul.”
“Worthless fellow!” Sir Oliver snapped.
“I was his rib, Sir Oliver.”
“Forget it.”
“I can’t forget it.”
“J-j-j——”
“Only this afternoon I ran right into him—it was just outside the Café Royal....”
“Scamp.”
“He looked superb. Oh, so smart; spats, speckled trousers, the rest all deep indigo. Rather Russian.”
“Who?”
“My actor-husband, Paul. There. One has only to speak his name for Juno to jerk her tail.”
“With whom is he at present?”
“With Sydney Iphis.”
“We went last night to see Mrs. Starcross,” Sir Oliver said.
“She’s no draw.”
“I long to see her,” Miss Sinquier breathed.
“I understand, my dear young lady, you’ve an itch for the footlights yourself.”
Miss Sinquier began eating crumbs at random.
“God knows!” she declared.
“C’est une âme d’élite, Sir Oliver.”
“You’ve no experience at all?”
“None.”
Sir Oliver refused a dish.
“We old ones ...” he lamented. “Onceupon a time, I was in closer touch with the stage.”
“Even so, Sir Oliver, you still retain your footing.”
“Footing, f-f-f——; among the whole demned lot, who persists still but, perhaps, the Marys?”
“Take the Marys. A word to them; just think what a boon!”
“Nothing so easy.”
Miss Sinquier clasped her hands.
“One has heard of them often, of course.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Mary have won repute throughout the realm,” Mrs. Sixsmith impressively said, wondering (as middlewoman) what commission she should ask.
“Mrs. Mary, I dare say, is no longer what she was!”
“Mrs. Mary,aujourd’hui, is a trifle, perhaps, full-blown, but she’s most magnetic still. And a warmer, quicker heart never beat in any breast.”
“In her heyday, Sir Oliver—but you wouldn’t have seen her, of course.”
The baronet’s eyes grew extinct.
“In my younger days,” he said, “she was comeliness itself ... full of fun. I well recallher as the ‘wife’ inMacbeth;I assure you she was positively roguish.”
“Being fairly on now in years,” Miss Sinquier reflected, “she naturally wouldn’t fill very juvenile parts—which would be a blessing.”
“She too often does.”
“She used to make Paul ill——” Mrs. Sixsmith began, but stopped discreetly. “Oh, listen,” she murmured, glancing up towards the nigger band and insouciantly commencing to hum.
“What is it...?”
“It’s theBelle of Benares—
“‘My other females all yellow, fair or black,To thy charms shall prostrate fall,As every kind of elephant doesTo the white elephant Buitenack.And thou alone shall have from me,Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee,The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee.’”
“‘My other females all yellow, fair or black,To thy charms shall prostrate fall,As every kind of elephant doesTo the white elephant Buitenack.And thou alone shall have from me,Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee,The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee.’”
“‘My other females all yellow, fair or black,To thy charms shall prostrate fall,As every kind of elephant doesTo the white elephant Buitenack.And thou alone shall have from me,Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee,The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee.’”
“‘My other females all yellow, fair or black,
To thy charms shall prostrate fall,
As every kind of elephant does
To the white elephant Buitenack.
And thou alone shall have from me,
Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee,
The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee.’”
“Serephine, you’re eating nothing at all.”
“I shall wait for the patisserie, Sir Oliver.”
“Disgraceful.”
“Father Francis forbids me meat; it’s a little novena he makes me do.”
“‘The great Jaw-waw that rules our land,And pearly Indian sea,Has not suchab-solutecommandAs thou hast over me,With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy,Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee.’”
“‘The great Jaw-waw that rules our land,And pearly Indian sea,Has not suchab-solutecommandAs thou hast over me,With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy,Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee.’”
“‘The great Jaw-waw that rules our land,And pearly Indian sea,Has not suchab-solutecommandAs thou hast over me,With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy,Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee.’”
“‘The great Jaw-waw that rules our land,
And pearly Indian sea,
Has not suchab-solutecommand
As thou hast over me,
With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy,
Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee.’”
“Apropos of pearls ...” Sir Oliver addressed Miss Sinquier, “I look forward to the privilege before long of inspecting your own.”
“They’re on her head, Sir Oliver!”
Sir Oliver started as a plate was passed unexpectedly over him from behind.
“Before approaching some City firm, it’s possible Lady Dawtry might welcome an opportunity of acquiring this poor child’s jewels for herself,” Mrs. Sixsmith said.
“Lady Dawtry!”
“Why not?”
“Lady Dawtry seldom wears ornaments; often I wish she would.”
“I wonder you don’tinsist.”
Sir Oliver fetched a sigh.
“Many’s the time,” he said, “I’ve asked her to be a little more spectacular—but she won’t.”
“How women do vary!” Mrs. Sixsmith covertly smiled.
“To be sure.”
“My poor old friend...?”
Sir Oliver turned away.
“I notice Miss Peters here to-night,” he said.
“Whipsina?”
“With two young men.”
“Un trio n’excite pas de soupçons, they say.”
“They do....”
“Have you a programme for presently, Sir Oliver?”
“I’ve a box at the Kehama.”
Miss Sinquier looked tragic.
“It’ll have begun!” she said.
“At a variety, the later the better as a rule.”
“I never like to missanypart.”
“My dear, you’ll miss very little; besides it’s too close to linger over dinner long.”
“Toc, toc; I don’t find it so,” Sir Oliver demurred.
Mrs. Sixsmith plied her fan.
“I feel very much like sittingà laChaste Suzanne, in the nearest ice-pail!” she declared.