‘Queen,’ Daisy said to him one day. ‘If a fair young gentleman with large blue eyes should call and ask for Mrs Collins you’re to say she has gone out … But he’ll find the Sisters in. The Aunt and the Niece will be in the Yew-tree walk. With the Mother.’
‘Very good, miss.’
‘And, Queen—!’
‘Fie, miss.’
‘Bashful?’
‘I’m surprised.’
The Yew-tree walk, the cause of so much gloom, ran ring-like about the house, to meet again before the drawing-room windows above the main road, where a marble nymph with a worn flat face dispensed water, rather meanly, out of a cornucopia into a trough full of green scum.
On a garden swing near by the Countess was swaying fitfully to and fro.
‘Units, tens, hundreds, thousands … Tens of thousands … Hundreds of thousands! Units—’ she was murmuring cryptically to herself with half rapt looks.
‘Shall I push you, Mabs?’
‘No. Ta.’
‘To prevent the perspiration? …’
The Countess sighed.
‘I’d sell my soul for an ice.’
‘A strawberry …’
‘Or vanilla.’
‘I told Queen we’d be in.’
‘Where’s mum?’
‘Upstairs. Trying on. It’s the armpits again …’
‘Goodness!’
‘Do you know the new snook, Mab?’
‘Is there one?’
‘A beauty.’
‘Not before Bianca.’
‘It’s a pity the child’s so young …’
‘Carissima!’
‘Her little amours. Tell me about them … Has she many?’
‘She makes new conquests from day to day.’
‘Tell me things, Mabel.’
‘What things?’
‘All sorts of things.’
‘Really!’
‘In Italy have they Brussels sprouts – like we have?’
‘In Italy they’ve everything,’ the Countess replied.
‘Can he speak English?’
‘Fluently. Oh! …’
‘Swear?’
‘Certainly.’
‘A foreign husband wouldn’t suit me – not if he stayed abroad.’
‘No?’
‘Mabsey!’
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. In the afternoon the yew-trees turn quite blue.’
‘The quietness … You can almost hear the clouds go by.’
‘Let’s all lie down on the grass as if we were dead.’
‘It’s too hot for rough games.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder if it rained.’
‘Pitter-patter!’
‘Every now and then she turns her great beseeching eyes at me and whispers “Aunt”. Aunt! she says, come back with me to Rome. Come! And let me have no nonsense now. Oh, Blanche, I reply … it’s my poverty, dear. But what can one do on a penny a week?’
‘Papa, poor-old-gentleman, was saying how you should be going to school.’
‘That was what he said.’
‘He can’t force me to if I choose to remain unlettered.’
‘It’s for the companionship there’d be.’
‘Never.’
‘School isn’t so dreadful, Daisy.’
‘Nothing would induce me to go.’
The Countess rocked drowsily.
‘At York Hill,’ she said, ‘looking back on it all, I seem to have enjoyed everything. Even the walks! Oh … Often we’d go round the city walls … or along the Ouse perhaps out to Bishopsthorpe and there we’d take the ferry. All we screaming girls and governesses in mid-river … Oh, good gracious!’
‘I remember the letters you sent from there. And the complaints that were in them!’
‘And in the evening of course there’d be Preparation … Oh—! That was always a time for mischief … One of us, Annie Oldport perhaps (“Any-Old-Port” we used to call her), would give her next neighbour a squeeze, with orders to pass it on. How we did thrill when little Evelyn Rise, one of the new kids, took hold of the Principal herself. “What are you doing to me, Evelyn?” “I’m pinching you, Mrs Whewell.” “Are you indeed! Well, then—” And she dealt her a blow on the ears before us all … Oh, Evelyn Rise! She was a little silly … She hadn’t any brains at all.’
‘No brains, Mabsey?’
‘No,’ the Countess crooned. ‘She hadn’t any.’
‘There! Queen’s beckoning …’
‘Imbecile.’
‘It may be him.’
‘Who, him?’
‘Your husband.’
‘Hardly.’
‘Your Excellency …’
‘Here I am.’
‘There’s a person at the gate.’
‘Open it then.’
‘I fear it’s a trouble.’
‘A stranger.’
‘It’s perhaps the Count.’
‘It looks to be like a woman.’
‘The Sisters have gone away, Queen …’
‘Does she refuse her name?’
‘Quite.’
‘A foreigner?’
‘And so suspicious.’
‘The Aunt’s away from home …’
‘I’ve often heard of the Black Hand, your Excellence, and lately I’ve noticed chalk-marks on the gate.’
‘Ah, Dio!’
‘Is there no gentleman, Queen?’
‘No, miss.’
‘It may be Jocaster Gisman.’
‘What Gisman?’
‘The accomplice of Bessie Bleek that suffocated seven little boys and girls and was tried and executed for doing so …’
‘Oh, heavens!’
‘Jocasta got herself off at the last Assizes – there were extenuating circumstances the judge said – and so he forgave her.’
‘Bô!’
‘Mercy!’
‘My dear, it’s me,’ Miss Dawkins said, peering through the fence.
‘That is so,’ she added, with an impetuous bound.
‘Oh, the child!’
‘Her aversion – I should say it’s a flea,’ Miss Dawkins commented, subsiding upon the swing.
The Countess pushed it.
‘Of all the surprises!’ she said.
‘I refused to give my name because it makes me cry to say it. I break down …’
‘You’ve not found them then?’
‘No, dear.’
‘I imagined you in the I’s.’
‘I sail for India within a week.’
‘The cathedral cities bring you north?’
‘York and – they rhyme together … the first few letters. And I cling to every straw.’
‘Courage.’
‘Call me Ola.’
‘Ola.’
‘When I was in the Holy City I saw you one day.’
‘When was it?’
‘During Passion Week.’
‘Were you with friends?’
‘I scarcely knew anybody. I had an introduction to Countess Roderigos Samurez Dalmatia, but as I didn’t like the look of her I didn’t make use of it.’
‘I’ve heard of her often,’ the Countess said, ‘through the Grittis.’
‘Besides a letter to Princess Anna di Portici …’
‘Her house is occupied at present by the Marquesa Refoscosca!’
‘And a card for Monsignor Ferrol.’
‘Old débauché.’
‘Well … and how’s the pleasant husband?’
‘Oio? He’s in Orvieto still. It’s the Vintage …’
Miss Dawkins looked devout.
‘In my opinion,’ she said, ‘Orvieto wine is superior to the best Castelli.’
‘You should have a dozen, dear, of our Old-Old-Old – the Certosa, if I knew where it would find you.’
‘I’m at the “Wheat Sheaf”. ’
‘What?’
‘Yes. I thought I’d repose myself there until I start.’
‘If you’ve made no other plans you’ll just stay and rest with us until your ship sails.’
‘It’s kind of you to ask me, but what will your kindred say?’
‘My dear, they’ll love to have you. And mum will tell you so herself. She’s with the tailor now.’
‘It’s the arm-pits! …’
‘This is my little sister.’
‘And is that your babe?’
‘Isn’t she a darling!’
‘Tell me, Contessa – have I changed since Greece?’
‘I should say you’re a little stouter.’
‘Ireland makes one sloppy.’
‘And I? …’
‘My dear, you don’t look fifteen.’
‘She’s seventeen,’ Daisy said, ‘or thereabouts. And the child will soon be two.’
‘Were I to have a child I should be just like a lunatic,’ Miss Dawkins declared.
‘With your tender heart I wonder you don’t marry.’
‘Marriages are made in heaven, you know.’
‘Let me find you someone!’
‘You, my dear … I’ve a sprig of the real Chinduai charm-flower from the Malay. I’ve only to wear it!’
‘Why don’t you then?’
‘Voyagers lose their illusions somehow … They lose them …’
‘Take off your hat and really rest!’
‘Shall I?’
‘Do.’
‘It’s pretty peaceful here anyway,’ Miss Dawkins said, with a sigh, her eyes riveted upon the cornucopia of the niggardly nymph.
‘Is it iron?’ she inquired.
‘What, the water? It’s always rather brown …’
Miss Dawkins pressed a hand to her hip.
‘It looks like a stream of brandy,’ she said, going off into a laugh.