‘Sally,’ her father said, ‘I could not make out where you sat at Vespers, child, to-night.’
In the old-world Deanery drawing-room, coffee and liqueurs – a Sunday indulgence – had been brought in.
Miss Sinquier set down her cup.
Behind her, through the open windows, a riot of light leaves and creepers was swaying restively to and fro.
‘I imagine the Font hid me,’ she answered with a little laugh.
Canon Sinquier considered with an absent air an abundant-looking moon, then turned towards his wife.
‘To-morrow, Mary,’ he said, ‘there’s poor Mrs Cushman again.’
At her cylinder-desk, between two flickering candles, Mrs Sinquier, while her coffee grew cold, was opening her heart to a friend.
‘Do, Mike, keep still,’ she begged.
‘Still?’
‘Don’t fidget. Don’t talk.’
‘Or dare to breathe,’ her daughter added, taking up a Sunday journal and approaching nearer the light.
‘ “At the Olive Theatre,” ’ she read, ‘ “Mrs Starcross will produce a new comedy, in the coming autumn, which promises to be of the highest interest.” ’
Her eyes kindled.
‘O God!’
‘ “At the Kehama, Yvonde Yalta will be seen shortly in a Japanese piece, with singing mandarins, geishas, and old samurai—” ’
‘ “Mr and Mrs Mary are said to be contemplating management again.” ’
‘Heavens above!’
‘ “For the revival of She Stoops to—” ’
Crescendo, across the mist-clad Close broke a sorrowful, sated voice.
‘You can fasten the window, Sarah,’ Canon Sinquier said.
‘It’s Miss Biggs!’
‘Who could have taught her? How?’ the Canon wondered.
Mrs Sinquier laid down her pen.
‘I dread her intimate dinner!’ she said.
‘Is it to be intimate?’
‘Isn’t she always? “Come round and see me soon, Miss Sarah, there’s a dear, and let’s be intimate!” ’
‘Really, Sally!’
‘Sally can take off anyone.’
‘It’s vulgar, dear, to mimic.’
‘Vulgar?’
‘It isn’t nice.’
‘Many people do.’
‘Only mountebanks.’
‘I’d bear a good deal to be on the stage.’
Canon Sinquier closed his eyes.
‘Recite, dear, something; soothe me,’ he said.
‘Of course, if you wish it.’
‘Soothe me, Sally!’
‘Something to obliterate the sermon?’
Miss Sinquier looked down at her feet. She had on black babouches all over little pearls with filigree butterflies that trembled above her toes.
‘Since first I beheld you, Adèle,
While dancing the celinda,
I have remained faithful to the thought of you;
My freedom has departed from me,
I care no longer for all other negresses;
I have no heart left for them; –
You have such grace and cunning; –
You are like the Congo serpent.’
Miss Sinquier paused.
‘You need the proper movements …’ she explained. ‘One ought really to shake one’s shanks!’
‘Being a day of rest, my dear, we will dispense with it.’
‘I love you too much, my beautiful one –
I am not able to help it.
My heart has become just like a grasshopper, –
It does nothing but leap.
I have never met any woman
Who has so beautiful a form as yours.
Your eyes flash flame;
Your body has enchained me captive.
Ah, you are like the rattlesnake
Who knows how to charm the little bird,
And who has a mouth ever ready for it
To serve it for a tomb.
I have never known any negress
Who could walk with such grace as you can,
Or who could make such beautiful gestures;
Your body is a beautiful doll.
When I cannot see you, Adèle,
I feel myself ready to die;
My life becomes like a candle
Which has almost burned itself out.
I cannot then find anything in the world
Which is able to give me pleasure:
I could well go down to the river
And throw myself in so that I might cease to suffer.
Tell me if you have a man,
And I will make an ouanga charm for him;
I will make him turn into a phantom,
If you will only take me for your husband.
I will not go to see you when you are cross:
Other women are mere trash to me;
I will make you very happy
And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief.’
‘Thank you, thank you, Sally.’
‘It is from Ozias Midwinter.’
Mrs Sinquier shuddered.
‘Those scandalous topsies that entrap our missionaries!’ she said.
‘In Oshkosh—’
‘Don’t, Mike. The horrors that go on in certain places, I’m sure no one would believe.’
Miss Sinquier caressed lightly the Canon’s cheek.
‘Soothed?’ she asked.
‘… Fairly.’
‘When I think of those coloured coons,’ Mrs Sinquier went on, ‘at the Palace fête last year! Roaming all night in the Close … And when I went to look out next day there stood an old mulattress holding up the baker’s boy in the lane.’
‘There, Mary!’
‘Tired, dear?’
‘Sunday’s always a strain.’
‘For you, alas! it’s bound to be.’
‘There were the Catechetical Classes to-day.’
‘Very soon now Sally will learn to relieve you.’
Miss Sinquier threw up her eyes.
‘I?’ she wondered.
‘Next Sunday; it’s time you should begin.’
‘Between now and that,’ Miss Sinquier reflected, shortly afterwards, on her way upstairs, ‘I shall almost certainly be in town.’
‘O London – City of Love!’ she warbled softly as she locked her door.