But although by the grace of Providence the city of Cuna-Cuna had been
spared, other parts of the island had sustained irremediable loss.
In the Province of Casuby, beyond the May Day Mountains, many a fair
Banana, or Sugar estate, had been pitifully wrecked, yet what caused
perhaps the widest regret among the Cunan public was the destruction of
the famous convent of Sasabonsam. One of the beauties of the island,
one of the gems of tropic architecture, celebrated, made immortal (in
_The Picnic_), by the Poet Marcella, had disappeared. A Relief Fund
for those afflicted had at once been started, and as if this were not
enough, the doors of the Villa Alba were about to be thrown open for
“An Evening of Song and Gala,” in the causes of charity.
“Prancing Nigger, dis an event to take exvantage ob; dis not a lil
t’ing love to be sneezed at at all,” Mrs. Mouth eagerly said upon
hearing the news, and she had gone about ever since, reciting the names
of the list of Patronesses, including that of the Cunan Archbishop.
It was the auspicious evening.
In their commodious, jointly-shared bedroom, the Miss Lips, the fair
Lips, the smiling Lips were maiding one another in what they both
considered to be the “Parisian way”; a way, it appeared, that involved
much nudging, arch laughter, and, even, some prodding.
“In love? Up to my ankles! Oh, yes.” Edna blithely chuckled.
“Up to your topnot!” her sister returned, making as if to pull it.
But with the butt end of the curling-tongs, Edna waved her away.
Since her visit to the Villa Alba “me, an’ Misteh Ruiz” was all her
talk, and to be his reigning mistress the summit of her dreams.
“Come on man wid dose tongs; ’cos I want ’em myself,” Miami murmured,
pinning a knot of the sweet Night Jasmyn deftly above her ear.
Its aroma evoked Bamboo.
Oh, why had he not joined her? Why did he delay? Had he forgotten
their delight among the trees, the giant silk-cotton-trees, with the
hammer-tree-frogs chanting in the dark: Rig-a-jig-jig, rig-a-jig-jig?
“Which you like de best man, dis lil necklash or de odder?” Edna asked,
essaying a strand of orchid tinted beads about her throat.
“I’d wear dem both,” her sister advised.
“I t’ink, on de whole, I wear de odder; de one he gib me de time he
take exvantage ob my innocence.”
“Since dose imitation pearls, honey,--he gib you anyt’ing else?”
“No; but he dat generous! He say he mean to make me a lil pickney gal
darter: An’, oh, won’t dat be a day,” Edna fluted, breaking off at the
sound of her mother’s voice in the corridor.
“... and tell de cabman to take de fly-bonnets off de horses,” she was
instructing Ibum as she entered the room.
She had a gown of the new mignonette satin, with “episcopal” sleeves
lined with red.
“Come, girls, de cab is waiting; but perhaps you no savey dat.”
They didn’t; and, for some time, dire was the confusion.
In the Peacock drawing-room of the Villa Alba, the stirring ballet
music from _Isfahan_ filled the vast room with its thrilling madness.
Upon a raised estrade, a corps of dancing boys, from Sankor, had glided
amid a murmur of applause.
The combination of charity and amusement had brought together a crowded
and cosmopolitan assembly, and early though it was, it was evident
already that with many more new advents there would be a shortage of
chairs. From their yachts had come several distinguished birds of
passage, exhaling an atmosphere of Paris and Park Lane.
Wielding a heavy bouquet of black feathers, Madame Ruiz, robed in a
gown of malmaison cloth-of-silver, watched the dancers from an alcove
by the door.
Their swaying torsos, and weaving gliding feet, fettered with chains of
orchids and hung with bells, held a fascination for her.
“My dear, they beat the Hodeidahs! I’m sure I never saw anything like
it,” the Duchess of Wellclose remarked admiringly: “That little one
Fred,” she murmured, turning towards the Duke.
A piece of praise, a staid, small body in a demure lace cap chanced to
hear.
This was “the incomparable” Miss McAdam, the veteran ballet mistress
of the Opera-house, and inventrix of the dance. Born in the frigid
High Street of Aberdeen, “Alice,” as she was universally known among
enthusiastic patrons of the ballet, had come originally to the tropics
as companion to a widowed clergyman in Orders, when, as she would
relate (in her picturesque, native brogue), at the sight of _Nature_
her soul had awoke. Self-expression had come with a rush; and, now
that she was ballet mistress of the Cunan opera, some of the daring
_ensembles_ of the Scottish spinster would embarrass even the good
Cunans themselves.
“I’ve warned the lads,” she whispered to Madame Ruiz: “to cut their
final figure, on account of the Archbishop. But young boys are so
excitable, and I expect they’ll forget!”
Gazing on their perfect backs, Madame Ruiz could not but mourn the fate
of the Painter, who, like Dalou, had specialized almost exclusively
on this aspect of the human form; for, alas, that admirable Artist
had been claimed by the Quake; and although his portrait of Madame
Ruiz remained unfinished ... there was still a mole, nevertheless, in
gratitude, and as a mark of respect, she had sent her Rolls car to the
Mass in honour of his obsequies, with the _crêpe_ off an old black
dinner-dress tied across the lamps.
“I see they’re going to,” Miss McAdam murmured, craning a little to
focus the Archbishop, then descanting to two ladies with deep purple
fans.
“Ah, well! It’s what they do in _Isfahan_,” Madame Ruiz commented,
turning to greet her neighbour Lady Bird.
“Am I late for Gebhardt?” she asked, as if Life itself hinged upon the
reply.
A quietly silly woman, Madame Ruiz was often obliged to lament the
absence of intellect at her door: accounting for it as the consequence
of a weakness for negroes, combined with a hopeless passion for the
Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford.
But the strident cries of the dancers, and the increasing volume of
the music, discouraged all talk, though ladies with collection-boxes
(biding their time) were beginning furtively to select their next
quarry.
Countess Katty Taosay, _née_ Soderini, a little woman and sure of the
giants, could feel in her psychic veins which men were most likely to
empty their pockets: English Consul ... pale and interesting, he not
refuse to stoop and fumble, nor Follinsbe “Peter,” the slender husband
of a fashionable wife, or Charlie Campfire, a young boy like an injured
camel, heir to vast banana estates, the darling, and six foot high if
an inch.
“Why do big men like little women?” she wondered, waving a fan powdered
with blue _paillettes_: and she was still casting about for a reason,
when the hectic music stopped.
And now the room echoed briefly with applause, while admiration
was divided between the superexcellence of the dancers, and the
living beauty of the rugs which their feet had trod--rare rugs from
Bokhara-i-Shareef, and Kairouan-city-of-Prayer, lent by the mistress of
the house.
Entering on the last hand-clap, Mr. and Mrs. Mouth, followed by their
daughters, felt, each, in their several ways, they might expect to
enjoy themselves.
“Prancing Nigger, what a _furore_!” Mrs. Mouth exclaimed. “You b’lieb,
I hope, now, dat our tickets was worth de money.”
Plucking at the swallow-tails of an evening “West-End,” Mr. Mouth was
disinclined to reopen a threadbare topic.
“It queah how few neegah dair be,” he observed, scanning the brilliant
audience, many of whom, taking advantage of an interval, were flocking
towards a buffet in an adjoining conservatory.
“Prancing Nigger, I feel I could do wid a glass ob champagne.”
Passing across a corridor, it would have been interesting to have
explored the spacious vistas that loomed beyond: “Dat must be one ob de
priveys,” Edna murmured, pointing to a distant door.
“Seben, Chile, did you say?”
“If not more!”
“She seem fond ob flowehs,” Mr. Mouth commented, pausing to notice
the various plants that lined the way: from the roof swung showery
azure flowers that commingled with the theatrically-hued cañas, set
out in crude, bold, colour-schemes below, that looked best at night.
But in their malignant splendour, the orchids were the thing. Mrs.
Abanathy, Ronald Firbank (a dingy lilac blossom of rarity untold),
Prince Palairet, a heavy blue-spotted flower, and rosy Olive Moonlight,
were those that claimed the greatest respect from a few discerning
connoisseurs.
“Prancing Nigger, you got a chalk mark on your ‘West-End.’ Come heah,
sah, an’ let me brush it.”
Hopeful of glimpsing Vittorio, Miami and Edna sauntered on. With arms
loosely entwined about each other’s hips, they made, in their complete
insouciance, a conspicuous couple.
“I’d give sumpin’ to see de bedrooms, man, ’cos dair are chapels,
an’ barf-rooms, besides odder conveniences off dem,” Edna related,
returning a virulent glance from Miss Eurydice Edwards, with a
contemptuous, pitying smile.
Traversing a throng, sampling sorbets, and ices, the sisters strolled
out upon the lawn.
The big silver stars, how clear they shone--infinitudes, infinitudes.
“Adieu, hydrangeas, adieu, blue, burning South!”
The concert, it seemed, had begun.
“Come chillens, come!”
In the vast drawing-room, the first novelty of the evening--an aria
from _Sumaïa_--had stilled all chatter. Deep-sweet, poignant, the
singer’s voice was conjuring Sumaïa’s farewell to the Greek isle of
Mitylene, bidding farewell to its gracious women, and to the trees of
white, or turquoise, in the gardens of Lesbos.
“Adieu, hydrangeas--”
Hardly a suitable moment, perhaps, to dispute a chair! But neither the
Duchess of Wellclose or Mrs. Mouth were creatures easily abashed.
“I pay, an’ I mean to hab it.”
“You can’t; it’s taken!” the duchess returned, nodding meaningly
towards the buffet, where the duke could be seen swizzling whisky at
the back of the bar.
“Sh’o! Dese white women seem to t’ink dey can hab ebberyt’ing.”
“Taken,” the duchess repeated, who disliked what she called the _parfum
d’Afrique_ of the “sooties,” and as though to intimidate Mrs. Mouth,
she gave her a look that would have made many a Peeress in London quail.
Nevertheless in the stir that followed the song, chairs were
forthcoming.
“From de complexion dat female hab, she look as doh she bin boiling
bananas!” Mrs. Mouth commented comfortably, loud enough for the duchess
to hear.
“Such a large congregation should su’tinly assist de fund!” Mr. Mouth
resourcefully said, envisaging with interest the audience; it was not
every day that one could feast the gaze on the noble baldness of the
Archbishop, or on the subtle _silhouette_ of Miss Maxine Bush, swathed
like an idol in an Egyptian tissue woven with magical eyes.
“De woman in de window dah,” Mrs. Mouth remarked, indicating a dowager
who had the hard, but resigned look of the Mother of six daughters, in
immediate succession. “Hab a look, Prancing Nigger, ob your favourite
statesman.”
“De immortal Wilberforce!”
“I s’poge it’s de whiskers,” Mrs. Mouth replied, ruffling gently her
“Borgia” sleeves for the benefit of the Archbishop. Rumour had it he
was fond of negresses, and that the black private secretary he employed
was his own natural son, while some suspected indeed a less natural
connexion.
But Madame Hatso (of Blue Brazil, the Argentine; those nights in
Venezuela and Buenos Ayres, “bis” and “bravas”! How the public had
roared) was curtseying right and left, and glancing round to address
her daughters, Mrs. Mouth perceived with vexation that Edna had
vanished.
In the garden he caught her to him: “Flower of the Sugar cane!”
“Misteh Ruiz....”
“Exquisite kid.”
“I saw you thu de window-glass all de time, an’ dair was I! laughing so
silent-ly....”
“My little honey.”
“... no; ’cos ob de nabehs,” she fluted, drawing him beneath the great
flamboyants that stood like temples of darkness all around.
“Sweetheart.”
“I ’clar to grashis!” she delightedly crooned as he gathered her up in
his arms.
“My little Edna...?...?...?”
“Where you goin’ wid me to?”
“There,” and he nodded towards the white sea sand.
A yawning butler, an insolent footman, a snoring coachman, a drooping
horse....
The last conveyance had driven away, and only a party of “b--d--y
niggers,” supposed to be waiting for their daughter, was keeping the
domestics from their beds.
Ernest, the bepowdered footman, believed them to be thieves, and could
have sworn he saw a tablespoon in the old coon’s pocket.
Hardly able to restrain his tears, Mr. Mouth sat gazing vacuously at
the floor.
“Wha’ can keep de chile?... Oh Lord ... I hope dair noddin’ wrong.”
“On such a lovely ebenin’ what is time!” Mrs. Mouth exclaimed, taking
up an attitude of night-enchantment by the open door.
A remark that caused Butler, and subordinate, to cough.
“It not often I see de cosmos look so special!”
“Ef she not heah soon, we better go widout her,” Miami murmured, who
was examining the visitors’ cards on the hall table undismayed by the
eye of Ernest.
“It’s odd she should so procrastinate; but la jeunesse, c’est le
temps ou l’on s’amuse,” Mrs. Mouth blandly declared, seating herself
tranquilly by her husband’s side.
“Dair noddin’, I hope, de matteh....”
“Eh, suz, my deah! Eh, suz.” Reassuringly, she tapped his arm.
“Sir Victor Virtue, Lady Bird, Princess Altamisal,” Miami tossed their
cards.
“Sh’o it was a charming ebenin’! Doh I was sorry for de duchess, wid de
duke, an’ he all nasty drunk wid spirits.”
“I s’poge she use to it.”
“It was a perfect skangle! Howebber, on de whole, it was quite an
enjoyable pahty--doh dat music ob Wagner, it gib me de retches.”
“It bore me, too,” Miami confessed, as a couple of underfootmen made
their appearance, and joining their fidgeting colleagues by the door,
waited for the last guests to depart, in a mocking, whispering group.
“Ef she not here bery soon,” Miami murmured, vexed by the servants’
impertinent smiles.
“Sh’o, she be here directly,” Mrs. Mouth returned, appraising through
her fan-sticks the footmen’s calves.
“It daybreak already!” Miami yawned, moved to elfish mirth by the
over-emphasis, of rouge on her mother’s round cheeks.
But under the domestics’ mocking stare, their talk at length was
chilled to silence.
From the garden come the plaintive wheepling of a bird (intermingled
with the coachman’s spasmodic snores), while above the awning of the
door, the stars were wanly paling.
“Prancing Nigger, sah, heah de day. Dair no good waitin’ any more.”
It was on their return from the Villa Alba, that they found a letter
signed “Mamma Luna,” announcing the death of Bamboo.