‘Hail, hyacinth! Harbinger of spring …’
Miss Hospice hesitated.
Before being whirled away, before descending deeper, it would be well to decide in what situation it was to be.
Should it be growing or cut. Should it be lying severed. Besmirched. Should it be placed in some poor, weary hand, withering upon a quilt. Should it wave upon a hill-top, or break between the slabs of crumbling marble of the theatre tiers beneath the Acropolis; the soul of a spectator. Should it be well wired, writhing in a wreath. Or, should it be a Roman hyacinth, in which case, should she trace Christianity to its sources, musing on many a mummery by the way?
She raised a delicate witty face.
Or … should she seek another flower instead? Above her the branches of the chestnut-trees rocked rhythmically. A warm wind rippling round St Dorothy stirred the dark violet of the Bougainvillea along the wall.
‘What have you found?’ Lady Anne inquired.
She was seated before the Palace, a panther skin upon her knee.
‘Only—’
‘Then come and help me, do. To make it less schismatical, I believe I’m going to take off the tail.’
‘Oh, no. Give it a careless twist.’
Lady Anne snapped her scissors.
‘It’s such an infamy!’ she declared.
‘Mrs Shamefoot will say you tried to slight her if you harm a hair.’
‘I begin to think we’ve made a mistake …’
‘Well, she’s in the saddle now. The window’s up.’
‘I fear it’ll cause a good deal of horror, scandal and surprise.’
‘I don’t see why it should.’
‘It must be altogether impossible or why aren’t we allowed to go near? Why must it be concealed behind a thousand towel-horses, and a million screens. Oh, Madge, you haven’t a conception what I shall endure when the curtains come away. My dear, I shall probably have to sit down. All my amusement in the procession’s gone.’
And Lady Anne buried her face in her panther skin because of the sun.
‘No doubt it’s better than we expect. Kitty Wookie got a glimpse from the organ loft.’
‘She’s such a cunning creature. What does she say?’
‘She says it’s a thing quite by itself. Apart.’
‘What does she mean by that?’
‘She says, of course, it’s entirely without reticence …’
‘For instance!’
‘Apparently, the features are most carefully modelled. The ennui of half the world is in her eyes – almost, as always. And she is perched upon a rather bewildering throne, in a short silver tunic, showing her ankles up to her knees.’
‘Aurelia always said it would jar.’
‘It depends. Miss Wookie’s easily scared. Very likely it’s exquisitely lovely.’
‘I wouldn’t willingly offend the Segry-Constables or the Nythisdenes or the Doneburning’ems or the Duke.’
‘I should tack a pocket to my libbard skin and let it make very little difference …’
‘Walter has told her she shall sleep a night in the Cathedral whenever she likes.’
‘He might have offered her the pink room here for the matter of that.’
‘It wouldn’t do. She wishes to watch the colour roll back into the glass again.’
‘What a curious caprice!’
‘I call it simply shallow.’
‘I’d die of terror. Mrs Cresswell – they say, constantly …’
‘Oh, nonsense! At most she’ll confront the dark.’
‘For a nervous soul what could be more appalling?’
‘You forget she isn’t timid.’
‘It’s hard to tell. She gave me the saddest, the whiptest, look last night as I passed her in the lane.’
‘Those tristful glances of hers are so irritating. Especially when everyone tries to kill her with kindness.’
‘That’s probably why she does it.’
‘Well, I’d be so glad if you’d leave a book for her at the “Four Fans” whenever you go for a walk.’
‘Such an address almost makes one flurried.’
‘Still, poor thing, one understands intuitively, she wouldn’t choose the Cresswell Arms … And to stop, on the contrary, at Stockingham, where Sir Victor, I believe … and the Flagellites, of course, is overrun still by a firm from … and, frankly, I’m not altogether sorry. For, if there’s anything I dislike, it’s a house-warming.’
‘In Ashringford, what egotists we are.’
‘Are we?’
‘Tell me where the book is I’m to bear?’
‘It’s here; Harvester’s Vaindreams!’
‘Not exactly the kind of book, is it, to take to her?’
‘Why not? He has such a strange, peculiar style. His work calls to mind a frieze with figures of varying heights trotting all the same way. If one should by chance turn about it’s usually merely to stare or to sneer or to make a grimace. Only occasionally his figures care to beckon. And they seldom really touch.’
‘He’s too cold. Too classic, I suppose.’
‘Classic! In the Encyclopaedia Britannica his style is described as odd spelling, brilliant and vicious.’
‘All the same, dear, if you wouldn’t mind carrying it across.’
‘Shall I allude to the tail at all while I’m there?’
‘Too late! I fear it’s already off.’
Lady Anne turned.
She was sufficiently alert to feel the vibration from a persistent pair of eyes.
‘May I come in?’
With her weight entirely on one foot and an arm raised towards a gilt rosette Miss Wardle was leaning against the wrought-iron gate.
‘By all means, do.’
‘Might I have a word with the Bishop?’
‘Unhappily, he’s gone round to Miss Spruce.’
‘Something serious?’
‘I trust not. She has sent to him so often in extremis that really—’
‘Then perhaps I’d better confess to you.’
Lady Anne glanced away.
Clouds, like scattered cities, dashed the blue.
‘You needn’t,’ she said. ‘I guess. I sympathize. Or will try to. You mean to leave us for St John’s!’
‘St John’s is still without a roof.’
‘But ultimately, I understood, it will have one.’
Miss Wardle drew a deep breath.
‘No,’ she said, slightly shocked, ‘it’s not that – I’m married!’
‘Already!’
‘I can scarcely credit it either.’
‘To Mr Pet?’
‘Lippo Lippi man! He’s too sweet to be true.’
‘I’m delighted. I’m glad you seem so happy.’
‘… He’s twenty-three … Five for elegance. Four for luck. Three for fate!’
‘Of course now, he’ll need a little change?’
‘A change! But Peter raves about Ashringford. He says there’s nowhere like it.’
‘No honeymoon?’
Mrs Pet opened a black parasol.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘A honeymoon must always end in a certain amount of curiosity. So we’ve decided not to have one, but just stop here.’
‘It’s really refreshing to find anyone nowadays who tries to avoid a fuss!’
‘Peter, you see, insisted that the wedding should be quite – quite – quiet. For although you mightn’t think it, he’s as sensitive, in his way, as anybody in the town. And so, I simply walked from Wormwood to Violet Villas with a travelling clock and a bag.’
‘How dull. And surely a trifle dusty?’
‘It was my first small sacrifice,’ Mrs Pet said, sitting down. ‘As a girl I used always to say I would be married in my point d’espagne.’
‘You must make up for it at the unveiling. A dot of gold … against those old monks’ stalls …’
‘I’m very uncertain yet whether I shall go.’
‘Indeed, I don’t feel up to it myself.’
‘After all, one isn’t always inclined for church!’
Lady Anne fetched a sigh.
‘I’ve a tiny favour to ask,’ she said.
Mrs Pet twirled, quite slightly, her parasol.
‘If you wish to be really charming exert your influence! Keep your husband at home.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
‘During the little masque amuse your husband indoors.’
‘But I’ve no influence with him at all!’
‘Have you none … ?’
‘Hardly any.’
‘At any rate promise to do what you can.’
Mrs Pet stared, reflexive, across the mors-in-vita of the Cathedral green.
‘I realize my limitations,’ she said.
‘But you mustn’t!’
‘According to The Ashringford Chronicle there’ll be almost a procession.’
‘Oh, nothing half so formal …’
‘And one of the Olneys, it appears, as the curtains fall away, will break from behind a pillar with a basket of cattleya orchids, and say: “Accept these poor flowers.” ’
‘Not in the Cathedral: only in the porch.’
‘And those foolish, silly Scouts are to fire off minute-guns from the walls.’
‘I haven’t seen the Chronicle.’
‘Sometimes,’ Mrs Pet protested, ‘I have no loftier wish than to view the world with Kate Greenaway’s eyes!’
‘I’m all nerves,’ she explained, ‘to-day, and here’s Hypolita and the Bishop!’
It was Hypolita’s turn.
Aurelia had gone away to a pale silver palace in Bath, where she was casting into purest English the Poemetti of Pascoli.
‘We looked in for a moment at the Four Fans,’ Dr Pantry said.
‘Well! …’
‘Mrs Shamefoot wasn’t quite up, but I spoke to her under the door.’
‘Anything new?’
‘She sent her love! … She will make her vigil on the eve of the day.’
‘Surely, if she spends a night in the Cathedral somebody should be within call?’
‘Things change so, don’t they,’ Hypolita said, ‘when the daylight goes? Frequently, even the shadow of a feather boa …’
‘Who would look after her?’
‘One of the students, perhaps—’
‘Ah, no flirtations!’
‘It should be an old, or quite an elderly man.’
‘What elderly person is there?’
‘In this neighbourhood there’re so many. There’s such a choice!’
The Bishop was affected.
‘I don’t mind being ninety.’
‘You, Walter? Certainly not.’
‘Mr Poyntz, perhaps …’
‘He’d need to raise a bed.’
‘Still, on Sunday he manages wonderfully well without.’
‘I’m down in the garden every morning by five …’
‘My dear, whatever for?’
‘Besides, she refuses! She desires to be alone.’
Lady Anne gazed at her sister-in-law in dismay.
How was it possible that one did nothing to such a terribly shiny nose?
She considered it etched against the effortless chain of hills, designed, apparently, to explain that the world was once made in a week.
The morning was so clear the distances seemed to shrink away – one could even trace the race-course, to its frail pavilion, by the artificial fence.
‘It will be so nice when it’s all over,’ she exclaimed.
‘All over, Anne?’
‘The unveiling—’
‘Life was never meant to be quite easy!’
When Hypolita began upon Life, she simply never stopped.
Dr Pantry raised his wife’s wrist and examined the watch.
‘Are you coming, my dear, to—’
‘Oh, my dear, very likely!’
‘Then make haste: the bells will begin directly …’
But to-day she invented an entirely new excuse.
‘I must run indoors first to wave my white hairs,’ she said.