It was a spring day, but it was cold and wet. Ariadne stood on the platform of the little station, her famous black cape clutched about her, the saffron scarf she had tied round her head now sagging at the back of her neck, her faded auburn hair blowing across her face. There was a wild distinction about her as she stood lonely and peevish in the rain, surrounded by the paraphernalia of a country station, crates of indignant poultry and sporting dogs on chains.
Laura was a little bit late. A fly had had to be ordered because of the rain. The new jingle and pony Guy had lately bought in the market, all had agreed would not be hospitable on such a day. The fly, manure scented, had been late picking up Laura at the vicarage. The horse, with broken knees and a spavined hock, could not be hurried on any account, not even Ariadne’s.
An old porter, as soon as he saw Laura, came forward and took Ariadne’s shapeless holdall. There had been something too strange about that apparition for a superstitious Cornishman to approach it without support. Ariadne had stood remote and uninviting until Laura appeared. Uninviting and peevish.
In fact, if Laura had been in a less enthusiastic and hospitable mood she might have compared the expression on Ariadne’s peaky face to that of one of those indignant hens. But Laura was bursting with loving-kindness. Nothing was good enough for Ariadne: it was disgraceful of the weather to behave as it did, and as for that old fly and its smells — it was a hideous insult to genius.
She had dreamed of driving Ariadne through the sweet lanes, with Edward the pony groomed and shining, transfigured by a wise diet of unaccustomed corn, spanking along, while she flourished but never used the whip, the sky a rich Cornish blue and the hedges pink with dog-roses.
Ariadne sank back into the dusty shadow of the fly. She was really very tired and this didn’t seem a propitious beginning to the new enterprise. She would go straight to bed as soon as she reached the vicarage, she decided. That would save the bother of sitting up and talking and being introduced to the Vicar. Not that she found the prospect of meeting him at all alarming. No solemnity in the encounter; on the contrary she was well prepared to meet a kindred spirit; she knew he had edited an æsthetic magazine when he was at Oxford in the ‘nineties. She knew about his nonsense verses and how as a freshman he had accepted an invitation to breakfast with a prominent undergraduate, in coal, for lack of a pencil at the moment, on a sheet of Bromo.
All the more reason for being at one’s best for the introduction, which she decided should take place the following day. Tomorrow she would get up leisurely, at about three-thirty, yes, about three-thirty, and make her first appearance at tea. This she was revolving in her mind while Laura was nervously regretting the weather, fly, smells and her own lateness at the station. She was obviously desperately anxious about Ariadne’s comfort, and that was all to the good.
‘I think you should go straight to bed when we get in. You must be awfully tired.’
Almost thought-reading, smiled Ariadne to herself.
‘Oh, no,’ she protested, turning her smile to wanness. ‘I shall be all right.’
She knew that was quite safe. Still protesting, she was urged up to her bedroom by Laura, Guy following, actually carrying her luggage, the holdall and a large tapestry bag,
The Vicar was out, nervously postponing the encounter with Ariadne. Not that he was afraid either, for he had heard enough about her to know that here was no menace of the dreaded church fowl. His acquaintance with Laura had been allowed to ripen into friendship immediately, with an assurance that she would not ever take an undue interest in parish matters. He was frightened, even shocked, by religious women. Let them be nuns, by all means. There was nothing more delightful in theory than a good nun. Let them remain enclosed if possible until death. But the church fowls, pecking about the altar steps with farmyard familiarity. No! He would like to have it trespass. He had even considered the possibility of erecting a board to that effect, for the discouragement of Miss Want, who seemed to think the church was at all hours her pleasaunce.
He was fond of the company of women out of church, so long as they were intelligent, presentable, and, for choice, happily married. Artists, too, were preferred.
He had prepared a special little dinner for Ariadne to eat in bed, because he knew that Laura was going to insist upon her retiring there at once. It was a tentative message, a taste of his quality, he hoped. Laura carried it up to her. Sole garnished with hard-boiled eggs stuffed with caviare and a dish of his own bottled cherries, which he and Laura had watched turning over slowly like ducks in their syrup, bumping gently into each other without disturbing their shapes. A dash of liqueur, and beside them a little bowl of Cornish cream, which the Vicar hoped Ariadne would not allow to blur the clean perfection of his cherries. But she did.
A simple little vicarage meal, a glass or two of Chablis to wash it down. There was, after all, something besides altar wine in the cellar.
☙
It was no one’s fault that Miss Want had not been warned of Ariadne’s presence at the vicarage, or perhaps it was that no one considered himself responsible. Her existence had for the moment been blotted out in the excitement of Ariadne’s installation, for that was almost what it amounted to. It so happened that on the very day of the arrival, Miss Want had been struggling against wind and rain over Goonhilly Downs, determined to hear Mass properly celebrated at a reasonable pace, somewhere in the Lizard district which was notable in those days as an Anglo-Catholic stronghold. She was away ten days, longer than she had meant, then stayed at home tidying her cottage for another three days — just to tease Father St John and keep the vicarage guessing.
I shan’t even tell them where I’ve been! I shan’t! So there. Let them wonder. Let them be surprised when they hear! Very good for them.
But they didn’t wonder; her absence was simply a blank. And when she appeared at the vicarage gate, more than a week after Ariadne’s arrival, Laura, looking out of their bedroom window, said:
‘Hullo! There’s Miss Want … I’d forgotten all about her.’
‘Good Lord!’ said Guy. ‘So had I.’
It happened also that as Miss Want propped her bicycle up against the clematis by the front door (a deplorable habit of hers), the shrill voice of Ariadne struck like the ping of an arrow on her ear. A moment later the Vicar emerged from the porch, smiling his charming smile, at what Miss Want was perhaps justified in describing (on first glance) as a weird looking female wrapped up in veils.
Father St John must have forgotten, too, for his smile faded swiftly into the startled-deer look that Miss Want knew so well. Good heavens! she had never been told.
‘Ah! Here you are, Miss Want! Quite a stranger. You haven’t met Miss Berden, have you?’
‘No, I haven’t.’ Miss Want peered through the veils, then, fixing the Vicar with a severe glance —
‘Father, I have a message for you from Father Marston and that is why I am here. May I see you alone for a moment?’
‘So sorry, Miss Want, but I am just taking Miss Berden up to the church. She is going to paint a fresco for me and we are going to settle exactly where, and do measurements, probably,’ he added inconsequently. ‘We will be back for tea, I expect. Pray go in. You will find the Mallorys. Your dog, Miss Want. Please leave him outside. He smells.’
This maddening compound of courtesy and downright rudeness was only too familiar, and in the face of the extraordinary being who was gazing at her with lifted veil and glittering curiosity, it was intolerable, humiliating. Each lady was dumbfounded by the appearance of the other, for neither had been warned. Just vicarage carelessness.
Josephine Want could not make up her mind. Should she seize her bicycle and make a dignified retreat or accept the invitation to tea, whereby she could probe the mystery of this new arrival? The dignified retreat would deprive her, possibly for days, of any information beyond village gossip. This was, she declared to herself, her natural impulse. Yet, there was a stronger one, unacknowledged, a throbbing curiosity which won easily, and she walked in, mumbling:
‘I may as well see Mrs Mallory for a minute about another sweet lesson, as I’m here.’ She knew she would stay to tea.
Mrs Mallory! Why not Laura? Long ago she had wished that the Mallorys would call her Jo. She had even hinted at it. ‘Everybody calls me Jo!’ she had said brightly, striding beside Laura on a windy walk, but there was no response. They were familiar enough to play tricks on her. But she remained Miss Want. Ah! Perhaps it was simply respect? But no, those silly tricks which she always took in such good part? Not much respect there, but mostly playful. Except, of course, for the shooting incident of the gun which she could not forgive. It was not a question of the social side of things. Heavens, no. She was an officer’s daughter, born and bred in the army.
After all, who were the Mallorys? That flamboyant creature had a queer background, artists and actors and such like — fairly well-known ones, it must be admitted.
As for Laura, she was a clergyman’s daughter, but was that a criterion? Street women had up for soliciting constantly described themselves as daughters of clergymen or actresses. There wasn’t much in it really.
She found Laura in the kitchen, looking less like a street-walker than usual, dressed in a pretty red blouse and a grey tweed skirt, getting the tea-things ready. She greeted the visitor with one of her most engaging smiles, because it had really been too bad of them to forget poor Miss Want, and then the shock of Ariadne in the front door without any warning must have been shattering. She must be nice to Miss Want and arrange another sweet lesson, and Guy must not tease her. He, too, knew that, and came out of the study to greet her. They put her in the only armchair unoccupied by books and papers. Ariadne would expect to sit on it when she came in from her walk with the Vicar. Miss Want took out her tatting (for that was what it was) as she did when she first called on the Mallorys to find out why they were there. Laura who had never seen tatting before, had thought it was nervous excitement, but the Vicar had explained later when asked:
‘Tatting, lady, tatting — just tatting.’
In moments of agitation it was a great help to Miss Want. She could fidget as much as she liked and produce some very pretty work at the same time.
Conversation was restrained. Friendly questions about her absence were met with vague generalities such as the state of the roads and trippers on the Lizard beaches.
Tatting increased in violence.
Then it came out.
‘Who is the lady I met in the porch?’
‘That is our friend, Ariadne Berden.’
‘Your friend? Oh, your friend …’ Her wild eyes roved from one to the other. Were they teasing her?
‘We asked her down here to do our portraits. She is a good artist.’
Now she was lost again in a maze of suppositions.
‘Oh, your friend,’ she repeated, swaying to her tatting.
‘She’s been ill and needs a change of air.’
‘She certainly looks quite washed out. Has she begun your portraits?’
‘Not yet. She’s not up to it yet.’
‘I see,’ slowly. ‘Father St John said something about a fresco in the church. She is able—?’
The tatting fell to the floor and was swiftly recovered with a weatherbeaten hand.
So she knew about that already. Oh, naughty Father, thought Laura. What a rogue.
‘Oh, that’s not got very far yet.’ She realised that she said this as though she were soothing a feverish patient.
‘She was a friend of Oscar Wilde’s,’ Guy said to ginger up the conversation.
‘Goodness! Had he any women friends?’ This she considered a rather smart remark. It showed that she knew what it was all about, though she was fundamentally a bit hazy.
Well, really, to meet a friend of Oscar Wilde’s … that would be something to talk about and think about. So when the high-pitched voice of Ariadne was heard in the hall, Miss Want quivered with a new sensation, and watched the door.
Ariadne, unswathing her scarves and veil, entered with a frail smile. A chair had been hastily cleared for her so that Miss Want need not be disturbed in mind or body. Ariadne sank into it with only a glance at the usurped seat — a glance which turned into a stare at its occupant. She also had never seen tatting before. Nor had she ever remembered to have been in a room with anyone at all like Miss Want. Interest was kindling on both sides. Something new! Ariadne the artist was always in search of it and Josephine needed it desperately.
The afternoon mellowed surprisingly: the invitation to tea launched by Miss Want as she rose to go was accepted by Ariadne almost eagerly.
The Mallorys were, of course, included.
‘And you will come, Father?’ She twitched at him as she went out.
‘Perhaps. Perhaps. Thank you. Don’t expect me.’
‘All right. Just as you please,’ she retorted, proudly grasping the handle-bar of her bicycle. They all stood and watched her push it up the circular drive.
‘Incredible,’ murmured Ariadne, appraising the lines of that determined back. The Vicar, nervously relieved at the success of this encounter, retired to the kitchen, resolving to cook a calf’s head for dinner. It had been waiting for him all day in the larder, its glazed eyes shaded by long thick lashes.
‘Most unusual.’ He had stared at it fascinated. ‘Poor little dear.’ Now it was prepared for him, but there was much to do, and Laura was called upon to make a vinaigrette sauce for the brains.
‘Quite easy. I’ve hard-boiled the eggs for you. You’ve only to make an ordinary dressing, cut up a few gherkins and shallots, throw in the brains and give it a good beating at the end.’
‘It sounds very simple.’
‘So it is. You can’t go wrong unless you use malt vinegar.’
‘You know there isn’t any in the house.’
Dinner was begun at ten-thirty.
After dinner Ariadne amused herself and everyone else with lightning sketches of Miss Want in various attitudes, tatting, walking up the drive and leaping on to her machine. The small cloud that had gathered almost imperceptibly over Ariadne’s relations with the Mallorys had been turning into a cumulus, but it melted under the charm of her cleverness, the spell of wit that flashed at her pencil point.
Guy said, ‘You should do us all.’
She put her pencil away. ‘Another time.’ She blushed faintly.
The small cloud had gathered while Ariadne argued with Guy about art, especially at meals, her voice shrilling into a scream of dissent. It had darkened when Ariadne came wandering in from solitary country walks, laden with wispy and ragged wild flowers for which she demanded jars and jars of water, spilt in transit to window-seats soon littered with floral debris and earwigs.
Then the Vicar got tired of preparing Ariadne’s breakfast and Laura’s eager servitude slackened in a heat wave. It was now June. Herring roes on toast, streaky bacon grilled dry and crisp, the only way Ariadne could eat it, every possible egg device — all this was very well in the first flush of pity and admiration.
Ariadne always lay abed until she smelt lunch. Then she would trail down, smiling wanly, just in time to have the first helping of whatever was on the menu. Her appetite was good, though she ate daintily. Laura was glad of all this, though she was apt to remind herself of the proud genius starving in a Chelsea garret. It was surely doing Ariadne good to be down at the vicarage, whatever happened.
If only Ariadne had alluded, however vaguely, to those portraits. If only she could have shown the slightest intention of doing them, how the Mallorys would have forbidden her to do such a thing. They had never really wanted her to do the work. It was simply a way of getting her out of London and into some comfort. Laura was well aware that Guy had been sceptical, that it was to please her that he had suggested the plan. Doing a kind thing, sitting back and watching and suddenly getting tired of it.
Then Laura would get nervous and susceptible, and now here were more clouds gathering in this queer ecclesiastical outpost. Guy was already in demand as a preacher. He had plenty to say and knew how to say it. The rule that Lay-readers should not preach from the pulpit was naturally ignored. He took the pulpit as he would take the stage. His Sunday School had the village children more and more enthralled. In fact there was no doubt that Mallory was making a stir in the High Anglican community.