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THE FLOWER BENEATH
THE FOOT
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH
[Illustration]
THE
FLOWER BENEATH
THE FOOT
BEING A RECORD OF THE EARLY LIFE OF
ST. LAURA DE NAZIANZI AND THE
TIMES IN WHICH SHE LIVED
[Illustration]
BY
RONALD FIRBANK
WITH A DECORATION BY C. R. W. NEVINSON
AND PORTRAITS BY AUGUSTUS JOHN
AND WYNDHAM LEWIS
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
1923
To
Madame Mathieu and
Mademoiselle Dora Garnier-Pagès
“Some girls are born organically good: I wasn’t.”
ST LAURA DE NAZIANZI.
“It was about my eighteenth year that I conquered my _Ego_.”
IBID.
I
Neither her Gaudiness the Mistress of the Robes, or her Dreaminess the
Queen were feeling quite themselves. In the Palace all was speculation.
Would they be able to attend the _Fêtes_ in honour of King Jotifa,
and Queen Thleeanouhee of the Land of Dates?--Court opinion seemed
largely divided. Countess Medusa Rappa, a woman easily disturbable, was
prepared to wager what the Countess of Tolga “liked” (she knew), that
another week would find the Court shivering beneath the vaulted domes
of the Summer-Palace.
“I fear I’ve no time (or desire) now, Medusa,” the Countess answered,
moving towards the Royal apartments, “for making bets,” though turning
before the ante-room door she nodded: “Done!”
She found her sovereign supine on a couch piled with long Tunisian
cushions, while a maid of honour sat reading to her aloud :
“_Live with an aim, and let that aim be high!_” the girl was saying as
the Countess approached.
“Is that you, Violet?” her Dreaminess enquired without looking round.
“How is your condition, Madam?” the Countess anxiously murmured.
“Tell me, do, of a place that soothes and lulls one----?”
The Countess of Tolga considered.
“Paris,” she hazarded.
“Ah! Impossible.”
“The Summer-Palace, then,” the Countess ejaculated, examining her long
slender fingers that were like the tendrils of a plant.
“Dr Cuncliffe Babcock flatly forbids it,” the Royal woman declared,
starting slightly at the sound of a gun: “That must be _the Dates_!”
she said. And in effect, a vague reverberation, as of individuals
cheering, resounded fitfully from afar. “Give me my diamond anemones,”
the Queen commanded, and motioning to her Maid: “Pray conclude,
mademoiselle, those lofty lines.”
With a slight sigh, the lectress took up the posture of a Dying
Intellectual.
“_Live with an aim, and let that aim be high!_” she reiterated in tones
tinged perceptibly with emotion.
“But not _too_ high, remember, Mademoiselle de Nazianzi....”
There was a short pause. And then--
“Ah Madam! What a dearest he is!”
“I think you forget yourself,” the Queen murmured with a quelling
glance. “You had better withdraw.”
“He has such strength! One could niche an idol in his dear, dinted
chin.”
“Enough!”
And a moment later, the enflamed girl left the room warbling softly:
_Depuis le Jour_.
“Holy Virgin,” the Countess said, addressing herself to the ceiling.
“Should his Weariness, the Prince, yield himself to this caprice....”
The Queen shifted a diamond bangle from one of her arms to the other.
“She reads at such a pace,” she complained, “and when I asked her
_where_ she had learnt to read so quickly, she replied ‘On the screens
at Cinemas.’”
“I do not consider her at all distinguished,” the Countess commented
turning her eyes away towards the room.
It was a carved-ceiled, and rather lofty room, connected by tall
glass doors with other rooms beyond. Peering into one of these the
Countess could see reflected the “throne,” and a little piece of
broken Chippendale brought from England, that served as a stand for a
telephone, wrought in ormolu and rock-crystal, which the sun’s rays at
present were causing to emit a thousand playful sparks. Tapestry panels
depicting the Loves of _Mejnoun and Leileh_ half concealed the silver
_boisèries_ of the walls, while far down the room, across old rugs from
Chirvan that were a marvellous wonder, showed fortuitous jardinières,
filled with every flowering-kind of plant. Between the windows were
canopied recesses, denuded of their statues by the Queen’s desire, “in
order that they might appear suggestive,” while through the windows
themselves, the Countess could catch across the fore-court of the
castle, a panorama of the town below, with the State Theatre and the
Garrisons, and the Houses of Parliament, and the Hospital, and the low
white dome, crowned by turquoise-tinted tiles of the Cathedral, which
was known to all churchgoers as _the Blue Jesus_.
“It would be a fatal connexion,” the Queen continued, “and it must
never, never be!”
By way of response the Countess exchanged with her sovereign a glance
that was known in Court circles as her _tortured-animal_ look: “Their
Oriental majesties,” she observed, “to judge from the din, appear to
have already endeared themselves with the mob!”
The Queen stirred slightly amid her cushions.
“For the aggrandisement of the country’s trade, an alliance with
Dateland is by no means to be depreciated,” she replied, closing her
eyes as though in some way or other this bullion to the State would
allow her to gratify her own wildest whims, the dearest, perhaps, of
which was to form a party to excavate (for objects of art) among the
ruins of Chedorlahomor, a _faubourg_ of Sodom.
“Am I right, Madam, in assuming it’s Bananas?...” the Countess queried.
But at that moment the door opened, and his Weariness the Prince
entered the room in all his tinted Orders.
Handsome to tears, his face, even as a child had lacked innocence.
His was of that _magnolia_ order of colouring, set off by pleasantly
untamed eyes, and teeth like flawless pearls.
“You’ve seen them? What are they like.... Tell Mother, darling?” the
Queen exclaimed.
“They’re merely dreadful,” his Weariness, who had been to the
railway-station to welcome the Royal travellers, murmured in a voice
extinct with boredom.
“They’re in European dress, dear?” his mother questioned.
“The King had on a frock coat and a cap....”
“And she?”
“A tartan-skirt, and checked wool-stockings.”
“She has great individuality, so I hear, marm,” the Countess ventured.
“Individuality be ----! No one can doubt she’s a terrible woman.”
The Queen gently groaned.
“I see life to-day,” she declared, “in the colour of mould.”
The Prince protruded a shade the purple violet of his tongue.
“Well, it’s depressing,” he said, “for us all, with the Castle full of
blacks.”
“That is the least of my worries,” the Queen observed. “Oh, Yousef,
Yousef,” she added, “do you wish to break my heart?”
The young man protruded some few degrees further his tongue.
“I gather you’re alluding to Laura!” he remarked.
“But what can you _see_ in her?” his mother mourned.
“She suits my feelings,” the Prince simply said.
“Peuh!”
“She meets my needs.”
“She’s so housemaid.... I hardly know...!” the Queen raised beautiful
hands bewildered.
“Très gutter, ma’am,” the Countess murmured dropping her voice to a
half-whisper.
“She saves us from _cliché_,” the Prince indignantly said.
“She saves us from nothing,” his mother returned. “Oh, Yousef, Yousef.
And what _cerné_ eyes, my son. I suppose you were gambling all night at
the Château des Fleurs?”
“Just hark to the crowds!” the Prince evasively said. And never too
weary to receive an ovation, he skipped across the room towards the
nearest window, where he began blowing kisses to the throng.
“Give them the Smile Extending, darling,” his mother beseeched.
“Won’t you rise and place your arm about him, Madam,” the Countess
suggested.
“I’m not feeling at all up to the mark,” her Dreaminess demurred,
passing her fingers over her hair.
“There is sunshine, ma’am ... and you have your _anemones_ on ...”
the Countess cajoled, “and to please the people, you ought indeed to
squeeze him.” And she was begging and persuading the Queen to rise, as
the King entered the room preceded by a shapely page (of sixteen) with
cheeks fresher than milk.
“Go to the window, Willie,” the Queen exhorted her Consort fixing an
eye on the last trouser button that adorned his long, straggling legs.
The King, who had the air of a tired pastry-cook, sat down.
“We feel,” he said, “to-day, we’ve had our fill of stares!”
“One little bow, Willie,” the Queen entreated, “that wouldn’t kill you.”
“We’d give perfect worlds,” the King went on, “to go, by Ourselves, to
bed.”
“Get rid of the noise for me. _Quiet them._ Or I’ll be too ill,” the
Queen declared, “to leave my room to-night!”
“Should I summon Whisky, Marm?” the Countess asked, but before there
was time to reply the Court physician, Dr Cuncliffe Babcock was
announced.
“I feel I’ve had a relapse, Doctor,” her Dreaminess declared.
Dr Babcock beamed: he had one blind eye--though this did not prevent
him at all from seeing all that was going on with the other.
“Leave it to me, Madam,” he assured, “and I shall pick you up in _no_
time!”
“Not Johnnie, doctor?” the Queen murmured with a grimace. For a glass
of _Johnnie Walker_ at bed-time was the great doctor’s favourite
receipt.
“No; something a little stronger, I think.”
“We need expert attention, too,” the King intervened.
“You certainly are somewhat pale, sir.”
“Whenever I go out,” the King complained, “I get an impression of
raised hats.”
It was seldom King William of Pisuerga spoke in the singular tense, and
Doctor Babcock looked perturbed.
“Raised hats, sir?” he murmured in impressive tones.
“Nude heads, doctor.”
The Queen commenced to fidget. She disliked that the King should appear
more interesting than herself.
“These earrings tire me,” she said, “take them out.”
But the Prince, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the success of his
appearance with the crowd, had already begun tossing the contents of
the flower vases into the street.
“Willie ... prevent him! Yousef ... I forbid you!” her Dreaminess
faintly shrieked. And to stay her son’s despoiling hand she skimmed
towards him, when the populace catching sight of her, redoubled their
cheers.
Meanwhile Mademoiselle de Nazianzi had regained again her composure.
A niece of her Gaudiness the Mistress of the Robes (the Duchess of
Cavaljos), her recent début at Court, had been made under the brightest
conceivable of conditions.
Laura Lita Carmen Etoile de Nazianzi was more piquant perhaps than
pretty. A dozen tiny moles were scattered about her face, while on
either side of her delicate nose, a large grey eye surveyed the world
with a pensive critical glance.
“Scenes like that make one sob with laughter,” she reflected, turning
into the corridor where two of the Maids of Honour, like strutting
idols, were passing up and down.
“Is she really very ill? Is she _really_ dying?” they breathlessly
enquired.
Mademoiselle de Nazianzi disengaged herself from their solicitously
entwining arms.
“She is not!” she answered, in a voice full of eloquent inflections.
But beguiled by the sound of marching feet, one of the girls had darted
forward towards a window.
“Oh Blanche, Blanche, Blanchie love!” she exclaimed, “I could dance to
the click of your brother’s spurs.”
“You’d not be the first to, dear darling!” Mademoiselle de Lambèse
replied, adjusting her short shock of hair before a glass.
Mademoiselle de Lambèse believed herself to be a very valuable piece of
goods, and seemed to think she had only to smile to stir up an Ocean of
passion.
“Poor Ann-Jules,” she said: “I fear he’s in the clutches of that awful
woman.”
“Kalpurnia?”
“Every night he’s at the Opera.”
“I hear she wears the costume of a shoe-black in the new ballet,”
Mademoiselle de Nazianzi said, “and is too strangely extraordinary!”
“Have you decided, Rara,[1] yet, what you’ll wear for the ball?”
“A black gown and three blue flowers on my tummy.”
“After a Shrimp-tea with the Archduchess, I feel I _want_ no dinner,”
Mademoiselle Olga Blumenghast, a girl with slightly hunched shoulders
said, returning from the window.
“Oh? Had she a party?”
“A curé or two, and the Countess Yvorra.”
“Her black bordered envelopes make one shiver!”
“I thought I should have died it was so dull,” Mademoiselle Olga
Blumenghast averred, standing aside to allow his Lankiness, Prince
Olaf (a little boy wracked by all the troubles of Spring), and Mrs
Montgomery, the Royal Governess, to pass. They had been out evidently
among the crowd, and both were laughing heartily at the asides they had
overheard.
“’Ow can you be so frivolous, your royal ’ighness?” Mrs Montgomery
was expostulating: “for shame, wicked boy! For shame!” And her cheery
British laugh echoed gaily down the corridors.
“Well _I_ took tea at the Ritz,” Mademoiselle de Lambèse related.
“Anybody?”
“Quite a few!”
“There’s a rumour that Prince Yousef is entertaining there to-night.”
Mademoiselle Blumenghast tittered.
“Did you hear what he called the lanterns for the _Fête_?” she asked.
“No.”
“A lot of ‘bloody bladders’!”
“What, what a dearest,” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi sighed beneath her
breath. And all along the almost countless corridors as far as her
bedroom door, she repeated again and again: “What, _what_ a dearest!”
II
Beneath a wide golden ceiling people were dancing. A capricious concert
waltz, drowsy, intricate, caressing, reached fitfully the supper-room,
where a few privileged guests were already assembled to meet King
Jotifa and Queen Thleeanouhee of the Land of Dates.
It was one of the regulations of the Court, that those commanded to
the King’s board, should assemble some few minutes earlier than the
Sovereigns themselves, and the guests at present were mostly leaning
stiffly upon their chair-backs, staring vacuously at the olives and
salted almonds upon the table-cloth before them. Several of the ladies
indeed had taken the liberty to seat themselves, and were beguiling
the time by studying the menu or disarranging the smilax, while one
dame went as far as to take, and even to nibble, a salted almond. A
conversation of a non-private kind (carried on between the thin,
authoritative legs of a Court Chamberlain) by Countess Medusa Rappa and
the English Ambassadress, was being listened to by some with mingled
signs of interest.
“Ah! How clever Shakespere!” the Countess was saying: “How gorgeous!
How glowing! I once knew a speech from ‘Julia Sees Her!...’ perhaps his
greatest _œuvre_ of all. Yes! ‘Julia _Sees_ Her’ is what I like best of
that great, great master.”
The English Ambassadress plied her fan.
“Friends, Comrades, Countrymen,” she murmured, “I used to know it
myself!”
But the lady nibbling almonds was exciting a certain amount of
comment. This was the Duchess of Varna, voted by many to be one of the
handsomest women of the Court. Living in economical obscurity nearly
half the year round, her appearances at the palace were becoming more
and more infrequent.
“I knew the Varnas were very hard up, but I did not know they were
_starving_,” the Countess Yvorra, a woman with a would-be indulgent
face, that was something less hard than rock, remarked to her neighbour
the Count of Tolga, and dropping her glance from the Count’s weak chin
she threw a fleeting smile towards his wife, who was looking “Eastern”
swathed in the skin of a blue panther.
“Yes, their affairs it seems are almost desperate,” the Count returned,
directing his gaze towards the Duchess.
Well-favoured beyond measure she certainly was, with her immense placid
eyes, and bundles of loose, blonde hair. She had a gown the green of
Nile water, that enhanced to perfection the swan-like fairness of her
throat and arms.
“I’m thinking of building myself a Villa in the Land of Dates!” she was
confiding to the British Ambassador, who was standing beside her on her
right: “Ah, yes! I shall end my days in a country strewn with flowers.”
“You would find it I should say too hot, Duchess.”
“My soul has need of the sun, Sir Somebody!” the Duchess replied,
opening with equanimity a great black ostrich fan, and smiling up at
him through the sticks.
Sir Somebody Something was a person whose nationality was written all
over him. Nevertheless, he had despite a bluff, and somewhat rugged
manner, a certain degree of feminine sensitiveness, and any reference
to the _soul_ at all (outside the Embassy Chapel), invariably made him
fidget.
“In moderation, Duchess,” he murmured, fixing his eyes upon the golden
head of a champagne bottle.
“They say it is a land of love!” the Duchess related, raising
indolently an almond to her sinuously-chiselled lips.
“And even, so it’s said, too,” his Excellency returned: “of licence!”
when just at this turn of things the Royal cortège entered the
supper-room, to the exhilarating strains of King Goahead’s War-March.
Those who had witnessed the arrival of King Jotifa and his Queen
earlier in the afternoon, were amazed at the alteration of their aspect
now. Both had discarded their European attire for the loosely-flowing
vestments of their native land, and for a brief while there was some
slight confusion among those present as to which was the gentleman,
or which the lady of the two. The king’s beard long and blonde,
should have determined the matter outright, but on the other hand the
Queen’s necklet of reeds and plumes was so very misleading.... Nobody
in Pisuerga, had seen anything to compare to it before. “Marvellous,
though terrifying,” the Court passed verdict.
Attended by their various suites, the royal party gained their places
amid the usual manifestation of loyal respect.
But one of the Royal ladies as it soon became evident was not yet come.
“Where’s Lizzie, Lois?” King William asked, riveting the Archduchess’
empty chair.
“We’d better begin without her, Willie,” the Queen exclaimed, “you know
she never minds.”
And hardly had the company seated themselves when, dogged by a
lady-in-waiting and a maid-of-honour, the Archduchess Elizabeth of
Pisuerga rustled in.
Very old and very bent, and (even) very beautiful, she was looking as
the Grammar-books say, ‘meet’ to be robbed, beneath a formidable tiara,
and a dozen long strands of pearls.
“Forgive me Willie,” she murmured, with a little high shrill tinkling
laugh: “but it was so fine, that after tea I, and a Lady, went paddling
in the Basin of the Nymphs.”
“How was the water?” the King enquired.
The Archduchess repressed a sneeze: “Fresh,” she replied, “but not
too....”
“After sunset, beware dear Aunt, of chills.”
“But for a frog, I believe nothing would have got me out!” the august
lady confessed as she fluttered bird-like to her chair.
Forbidden in youth by parents and tutors alike the joys of paddling
under pain of chastisement, the Archduchess Elizabeth appeared to
find a zest in doing so now. Attended by a chosen lady-in-waiting (as
a rule the dowager Marchioness of Lallah Miranda) she liked to slip
off to one of the numerous basins or natural grottos in the castle
gardens, where she would pass whole hours in wading blissfully about.
Whilst paddling, it was her wont to run over those refrains from the
vaudevilles and operas (with their many shakes and rippling _cadenzi_),
in favour in her day, interspersed at intervals by such cries as: “Pull
up your skirt, Marquise, it’s dragging a little my friend below the
knees ...” or, “A shark, a shark!” which was her way of designating
anything that had fins, from a carp to a minnow.
“I fear our Archduchess has contracted a slight catarrh,” the Mistress
of the Robes, a woman like a sleepy cow, observed, addressing herself
to the Duke of Varna upon her left.
“Unless she is more careful, she’ll go paddling once too often,” the
Duke replied, contemplating with interest, above the moonlight-coloured
daffodils upon the table board, one of the button-nosed belles of Queen
Thleeanouhee’s suite. The young creature, referred to cryptically among
the subordinates of the Castle, as ‘Tropical Molly,’ was finding fault
already it seemed with the food.
“Take it away,” she was protesting in animated tones: “I’d as soon
touch a foot-squashed mango!”
“No _mayonnaise_, miss?” a court-official asked, dropping his face
prevailingly to within an inch of her own.
“Take it right away.... And if you should _dare_ sir! to come any
closer...!”
The Mistress of the Robes fingered nervously the various Orders of
Merit on her sumptuous bosom.
“I trust there will be no contretemps,” she murmured, glancing uneasily
towards the Queen of the Land of Dates, who seemed to be lost in
admiration of the Royal dinner-service of scarlet plates, that looked
like pools of blood upon the cloth.
“What pleases me in your land,” she was expansively telling her host,
“is less your food, than the china you serve it on; for with us you
know there’s none. And now,” she added, marvellously wafting a fork,
“I’m for ever spoilt for shells.”
King William was incredulous.
“With you no china?” he gasped.
“None, Sir, none!”
“I could not be more astonished,” the king declared, “if you told
me there were fleas at the Ritz,” a part of which assertion Lady
Something, who was blandly listening, imperfectly chanced to hear.
“Who would credit it!” she breathed, turning to an attaché, a young man
all white and pensieroso, at her elbow.
“Credit what?”
“Did you not hear what the dear king said!”
“No.”
“It’s almost _too_ appalling ...” Lady Something replied, passing a
small, nerveless hand across her brow.
“Won’t you tell me though,” the young man murmured gently, with his
nose in his plate.
Lady Something raised a glass of frozen lemonade to her lips.
“Fleas,” she murmured, “have been found at the Ritz.”
“.............!.............?.......!.....!!!”
“Oh and _poor_ Lady Bertha! And poor good old Mrs Hunter!” And Lady
Something looked away in the direction of Sir Somebody, as though
anxious to catch his eye.
But the British Ambassador and the Duchess of Varna were weighing the
chances of a Grant being allowed by Parliament for the excavation of
Chedorlahomor.
“Dear little Chedor,” the Duchess kept on saying, “I’m sure one would
find the most enthralling things there. Aren’t _you_, Sir Somebody?”
And they were still absorbed in their colloquy when the King gave the
signal to rise.
Although King William had bidden several distinguished Divas from the
Opera House to give an account of themselves for the entertainment of
his guests, both King Jotifa and Queen Thleeanouhee with disarming
candour declared that, to their ears, the music of the West was hardly
to be borne.
“Well I’m not very fond of it either,” her Dreaminess admitted,
surrendering her skirts to a couple of rosy boys, and leading the way
with airy grace towards an adjacent salon, “although,” she wistfully
added across her shoulder, to a high dignitary of the Church, “I’m
trying, it’s true, to coax the dear Archbishop to give the first act
of _La Tosca_ in the Blue Jesus.... Such a perfect setting, and with
Desiré Erlinger and Maggie Mellon...!”
And as the Court now pressed after her the rules of etiquette became
considerably relaxed. Mingling freely with his guests, King William had
a hand-squeeze and a fleeting word for each.
“In England,” he paused to enquire of Lady Something, who was warning a
dowager, with impressive earnestness, against the Ritz, “have you ever
seen two cooks in a kitchen-garden?”
“No, never, sir!” Lady Something simpered.
“Neither,” the King replied moving on, “have _we_.”
The Ambassadress beamed.
“My dear,” she told Sir Somebody, a moment afterwards, “my dear, the
King was simply charming. Really I may say he was more than gracious!
He asked me if I had ever seen two cooks in a kitchen-garden, and I
said no, never! And he said that neither, either, had he! And oh isn’t
it so strange how few of us ever have?”
But in the salon, one of Queen Thleeanouhee’s ladies had been desired
by her Dreaminess to sing.
“It seems so long,” she declared, “since I heard an Eastern voice, and
it would be such a relief.”
“By all means,” Queen Thleeanouhee said, “and let a _darbouka_ or two
be brought! For what charms the heart more, what touches it more,” she
asked, considering meditatively her babouched feet, “than a _darbouka_?”
It was told that, in the past, her life had been a gallant one,
although her adventures, it was believed, had been mostly with men.
Those however, who had observed her conduct closely, had not failed
to remark how often her eyes had been attracted in the course of the
evening towards the dimpled cheeks of the British Ambassadress.
Perceiving her ample form not far away, Queen Thleeanouhee signalled to
her amiably to approach.
_Née_ Rosa Bark (and a daughter of the Poet) Lady Something was perhaps
not sufficiently tactful to meet all the difficulties of the rôle in
which it had pleased life to call her. But still, she tried, and did do
her best, which often went far to retrieve her lack of _savoir faire_.
“Life is like that, dear,” she would sometimes say to Sir Somebody,
but she would never say what it was that life was like. ‘_That_,’ it
seemed....
“I was just looking for my daughter,” she declared.
“And is she as sympathetic,” Queen Thleeanouhee softly asked, “as her
mamma?”
“She’s shy--of the Violet persuasion, but that’s not a bad thing in a
young girl.”
“Where _I_ reign, shyness is a quality which is entirely unknown...!”
“It must be astonishing, ma’am,” Lady Something replied, caressing a
parure of false jewels, intended, indeed, to deceive no one, “to be a
Queen of a sun-steeped country like yours.”
Queen Thleeanouhee fetched a sigh.
“Dateland--my dear, it’s a scorch!” she averred.
“I conclude, ma’am, it’s what _we_ should call ‘conservatory’ scenery?”
Lady Something murmured.
“It is the land of the jessamine-flower, the little amorous
jessamine-flower,” the Queen gently cooed with a sidelong smiling
glance, “that twines itself sometimes to the right-hand, at others to
the left, just according to its caprices!”
“It sounds I fear to be unhealthy, ma’am.”
“And it is the land also, of romance, my dear, where _shyness_ is a
quality which is entirely unknown,” the Queen broke off, as one of her
ladies, bearing a _darbouka_, advanced with an air of purposefulness
towards her.
The hum of voices which filled the room might well have tended to
dismay a vocalist of modest powers, but the young matron known to the
Court as ‘Tropical Molly,’ and whom her mistress addressed as Timzra,
soon shewed herself to be equal to the occasion.
“Under the blue gum-tree
I am sitting waiting,
Under the blue gum-tree
I am waiting all alone!”
Her voice reached the ears of the fresh-faced ensigns and the beardless
subalterns in the Guard Room far beyond, and startled the pages in the
distant dormitories, as they lay smoking on their beds.
And then, the theme changing, and with an ever-increasing passion,
fervour and force:
“I heard a Watch-dog in the night ...
Wailing, wailing ...
Why is the watch-dog wailing?
He is wailing for the Moon!”
“That is one of the very saddest songs,” the King remarked, “that I
have ever heard. ‘Why is the watchdog wailing? He is wailing for the
Moon!’” And the ambitions and mortifications of kingship, for a moment
weighed visibly upon him.
“Something merrier, Timzra!” Queen Thleeanouhee said.
And throwing back her long love-lilac sleeves, Timzra sang:
“A negress with a margaret once, lolled frousting in the sun
Thinking of all the little things that she had left undone ...
With a hey, hey, hey, hey, hi, hey ho!”
“She has the air of a cannibal!” the Archduchess murmured behind her
fan to his Weariness, who had scarcely opened his lips except to yawn
throughout the whole of the evening.
“She has the air of a ----” he replied, laconically, turning away.
Since the conversation with his mother earlier in the day, his thoughts
had revolved incessantly around Laura. What had they been saying to the
poor wee witch, and whereabouts was she to be found?
Leaving the salon, in the wake of a pair of venerable politicians, who
were helping each other along with little touches and pats, he made
his way towards the ballroom, where a new dance known as the Pisgah
Pas was causing some excitement, and gaining a post of vantage, it
was not long before he caught a glimpse of the agile, boyish figure
of his betrothed. She passed him, without apparently noticing he was
there, in a whirlwind of black tulle, her little hand pressed to the
breast of a man like a sulky eagle; and he could not help rejoicing
inwardly, that, _once_ his wife, it would no longer be possible for her
to enjoy herself exactly with whom she pleased. As she swept by again
he succeeded in capturing her attention, and nodding meaningly towards
a deserted picture-gallery, wandered away towards it. It was but
seldom he set foot there, and he amused himself by examining some of
the pictures to be seen upon the walls. An old shrew with a rose ... a
drawing of a man alone in the last extremes ... a pink-robed Christ ...
a seascape, painted probably in winter, with cold, hard colouring....
“Yousef?”
“Rara!”
“Let us go outside, dear.”
A night so absolutely soft and calm, was delicious after the glare and
noise within.
“With whom,” he asked, “sweetheart, were you last dancing?”
“Only the brother of one of the Queen’s Maids, dear,” Mademoiselle de
Nazianzi replied. “After dinner, though,” she tittered, “when he gets
Arabian-Nighty, it’s apt to annoy one a scrap!”
“_Arabian-Nighty?_”
“Oh, never mind!”
“But (pardon me dear) I do.”
“Don’t be tiresome, Yousef! The night is too fine,” she murmured
glancing absently away towards the hardly moving trees, from whose
branches a thousand drooping necklets of silver lamps palely burned.
Were _those_ the “bladders” then?
Strolling on down hoops of white wisteria in the moon they came to the
pillared circle of a rustic-temple, commanding a prospect on the town.
“There,” she murmured smiling elfishly, and designating something, far
below them, through the moonmist, with her fan: “is the column of
Justice and,” she laughed a little, “of _Liberty_!”
“And there,” he pointed inconsequently, “is _the Automobile Club_!”
“And beyond it ... The Convent of the Flaming-Hood....”
“And those blue revolving lights; can you see them, Rara?”
“Yes, dear ... what are _they_, Yousef?”
“Those,” he told her, contemplating her beautiful white face against
the dusky bloom, “are the lights of the Café Cleopatra!”
“And what,” she questioned, as they sauntered on, pursued by all the
sweet perfumes of the night, “are those berried-shrubs, that smell so
passionately?”
“I don’t know,” he said: “Kiss me, Rara!”
“No, no.”
“Why not?”
“Not now!”
“Put your arm about me, dear.”
“What a boy he is!” she murmured, gazing up into the starry clearness.
Overhead a full moon, a moon of circumstance, rode high in the sky,
defining phantasmally far off, the violet-farded hills beyond the town.
“To be out there among the silver bean-fields!” he said.
“Yes, Yousef,” she sighed, starting at a Triton’s face among the
trailing ivy on the castle wall. Beneath it, half concealed by
water-flags, lay a miniature lake: as a rule now, nobody went near the
lake at all, since the Queen had called it ‘_appallingly smelly_,’ so
that, for rendezvous, it was quite ideal.
“Tell me, Yousef,” she presently said, pausing to admire the beautiful
shadow of an orange-tree on the path before them: “tell me, dear, when
Life goes like that to one--what does one do!!”
He shrugged. “Usually nothing,” he replied, the tip of his tongue (like
the point of a blade) peeping out between his teeth.
“Ah, but isn’t that being strong?” she said half-audibly, fixing her
eyes as though fascinated upon his lips.
“Why,” he demanded with an engaging smile that brought half-moons to
his hollow cheeks: “What has the world been doing to Rara?”
“At this instant, Yousef,” she declared, “it brings her nothing but
Joy!”
“You’re happy, my sweet, with me?”
“No one knows, dearest, how much I love you.”
“Kiss me, Rara,” he said again.
“Bend, then,” she answered, as the four quarters of the twelve strokes
of midnight rang out leisurely from the castle clock.
“I’ve to go to the Ritz!” he announced.
“And _I_ should be going in.”
Retracing reluctantly their steps they were soon in earshot of the
ball, and their close farewells were made accompanied by selections
from _The Blue Banana_.
She remained a few moments gazing as though entranced at his retreating
figure, and would have, perhaps, run after him with some little
capricious message, when she became aware of someone watching her from
beneath the shadow of a garden vase.
Advancing steadily and with an air of nonchalance, she recognised
the delicate, sexless silhouette and slightly hunched shoulders of
Olga Blumenghast, whose exotic attraction had aroused not a few
heartburnings (and even feuds) among several of the grandes dames about
the court.
Poised flatly against the vases’ sculptured plinth, she would have
scarcely have been discernible, but for the silver glitter of her gown.
“Olga? Are you faint?”
“No; only my slippers are _torture_.”
“I’d advise you to change them, then!”
“It’s not altogether my feet, dear, that ache....”
“Ah, I see,” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi said, stooping enough to scan the
stormy, soul-tossed eyes of her friend: “you’re suffering, I suppose on
account of Ann-Jules?”
“He’s such a gold-fish, Rara ... any fingers that will throw him
bread....”
“And there’s no doubt, I’m afraid, that lots do!” Mademoiselle de
Nazianzi answered lucidly, sinking down by her side.
“I would give all my soul to him, Rara ... my chances of heaven!”
“Your chances, Olga----” Mademoiselle de Nazianzi murmured, avoiding
some bird-droppings with her skirt.
“How I envy _the men_, Rara, in his platoon!”
“Take away his uniform, Olga, and what does he become?”
“Ah _what_----!”
“No.... Believe me, my dear, he’s not worth the trouble!”
Mademoiselle Blumenghast clasped her hands brilliantly across the nape
of her neck.
“I want to possess him at dawn, at dawn,” she broke out: “Beneath a sky
striped with green....”
“Oh, Olga!”
“And I never shall rest,” she declared, turning away on a languid heel,
“until I _do_.”
Meditating upon the fever of Love, Mademoiselle de Nazianzi directed
her course slowly towards her room. She lodged in that part of the
palace known as ‘The Bachelors’ Wing,’ where she had a delicious
little suite just below the roof.
“If she loved him absolutely,” she told herself, as she turned the
handle of her door, “she would not care about the colour of the sky--;
even if it snowed, or hailed!”
Depositing her fan upon the lid of an old wedding-chest that formed
a couch, she smiled contentedly about her. It would be a wrench
abandoning this little apartment that she had identified already with
herself, when the day should come to leave it for others more spacious
in the Keep. Although scarcely the size of a ship’s cabin, it was
amazing how many people one could receive together at a time merely by
pushing the piano back against the wall, and wheeling the wedding-chest
on to the stairs, and once no fewer than seventeen persons had sat
down to a birthday _fête_, without being made too much to feel like
herrings. In the so-called salon, divided from her bedroom by a folding
lacquer screen, hung a few studies in oils executed by herself, and
which, except to the initiated, or the naturally instinctive, looked
sufficiently enigmatic against a wall-paper with a stealthy design.
Yes it would be a wrench to quit the little place, she reflected, as
she began setting about her toilet for the night. It was agreeable
going to bed late without anybody’s aid, when one could pirouette
interestingly before the mirror in the last stages of déshabille, and
do a thousand (and one) things besides[2] that one might otherwise
lack the courage for. But this evening being in no frivolous mood, she
changed her ball-dress swiftly for a robe-de-chambre bordered deeply
with ermins, that made her feel nearer somehow to Yousef, and helped
her to realise, in its various facets, her position as future Queen.
“Queen!” she breathed, trailing her fur flounces towards the window.
Already the blue revolving lights of the Café Cleopatra were growing
paler with the dawn, and the moon had veered a little towards the
Convent of the Flaming-Hood. Ah ... how often as a lay boarder there
had she gazed up towards the palace wondering half-shrinkingly what
life “in the world” was like; for there had been a period indeed, when
the impulse to take the veil had been strong with her--more, perhaps,
to be near one of the nuns whom she had _idolised_ than from any more
immediate vocation.
She remained immersed in thoughts, her introspectiveness fanned
insensibly by the floating zephyrs that spring with morning. The slight
sway-sway of the trees, the awakening birds in the castle eaves, the
green-veined bougainvilleas that fringed her sill--these thrilled her
heart with joy. All virginal in the early dawn what magic the world
possessed! Slow speeding clouds like knots of pink roses came blowing
across the sky, sailing away in titanic bouquets above the town.
Just such a morning should be their wedding-day! she mused, beginning
lightly to apply the contents of a jar of Milk of Almonds to her breast
and arms. Ah, before that Spina Christi lost its leaves, or that
swallow should migrate ... that historic day would come!
Troops ... hysteria ... throngs.... The Blue Jesus packed to
suffocation.... She could envisage it all.
And there would be a whole holiday in the Convent, she reflected
falling drowsily at her bedside to her knees.
“Oh! help me heaven,” she prayed, “to be decorative and to do right!
Let me always look young, never more than sixteen or seventeen--at the
_very_ outside, and let Yousef love me--as much as I do him. And I
thank you for creating such a darling, God (for he’s a perfect dear),
and I can’t tell you how much I love him; especially when he wags it!
I mean his tongue.... Bless all the sisters at the Flaming-Hood--above
all Sister Ursula ... and be sweet, besides, to old Jane.... Shew me
the straight path! And keep me ever free from the malicious scandal of
the Court: Amen.”
And her orisons (ending in a brief self-examination) over, Mademoiselle
de Nazianzi climbed into bed.
III
In the Salle de Prince or Cabinet d’Antoine, above the Café Cleopatra,
Madame Wetme the wife of the proprietor, sat perusing the Court
gazettes.
It was not often that a _cabinet particulier_ like Antoine was
disengaged at luncheon time, being as a rule reserved many days in
advance, but it had been a ‘funny’ season, as the saying went, and
there was the possibility that a party of late-risers might look in yet
(officers, or artistes from the Halls), who had been passing a night on
the ‘tiles.’ But Madame Wetme trusted not. It was pleasant to escape
every now and again from her lugubrious back-drawing-room that only
faced a wall, or to peruse the early newspapers without having first
to wait for them. And to-day precisely was the day for the hebdomadal
_causerie_ in the _Jaw-waws’ Journal_ on matters appertaining to
society, signed by that ever popular diarist “Eva Schnerb.”
“Never,” Madame Wetme read, ”was a gathering more brilliant than
that which I witnessed last night! I stood in a corner of the Great
ball room and literally _gasped_ at the wealth of jewels.... Beauty
and bravery abounded but no one, _I_ thought, looked better than our
most-gracious Queen, etc.... Among the supper-guests I saw their
Excellencies Prince and Princess Paul de Pismiche,--the Princess
impressed me as being _just_ a trifle pale: she is by no means
strong, and unhappily our nefarious climate does not agree with
everybody! Their Excellencies, Sir Somebody and Lady Something (Miss
Ivy Something charming in cornflower _charmeuse_ danced indefatigably
all the evening, as did also one of the de Lambèse girls). The
Count and Countess of Tolga--she all in blue furs and literally
_ablaze_ with gorgeous gems (I hear on excellent authority she is
shortly relinquishing her post of Woman of the Bedchamber which she
finds is really too arduous for her). The Duchess of Varna, looking
veritably radiant (by the way where has she been?) in the palest of
pistachio-green mashlaks, which are all the rage at present.
* * * * *
“_Have you a Mashlak?_
* * * * *
“Owing to the visit of King Jotifa and Queen Thleeanouhee, the Eastern
mashlak is being worn by many of the smart women about the Court. I saw
an example at the Opera the other night in silver and gold _lamé_ that
I thought too----”
Madame Wetme broke off to look up, as a waiter entered the room.
“Did Madame ring?”
“No!...”
“Then it must have been ‘Ptolomy’!” the young man murmured, bustling
out.
“I daresay. When will you know your bells?” Madame Wetme retorted,
returning with a headshake to the gazette: Her beloved Eva was full of
information this week and breathlessly she read on:
“I saw Minnie, Lady Violetrock (whose daughter Sonia is being educated
here) at the garden _fête_ the other day, at the Château des Fleurs,
looking chic as she _always_ does, in a combination of petunia and
purple ninon raffling a donkey.
“I hear on the best authority that before the Court goes to the
Summer-Palace later on, there will be at least _one_ more Drawing-room.
Applications, from those entitled to attend, should be made to the Lord
Chamberlain as _soon_ as possible.”
One more Drawing-room--! the journal fell from Madame Wetme’s hand.
“I’m getting on now,” she reflected, “and if I’m not presented soon, I
never will be....”
She raised imploring eyes to the mural imagery--to the “Cleopatra
couchant,” to the “Arrival of Anthony,” to the “Sphinx,” to the “Temple
of Ra,” as though seeking inspiration: “Ah my God!” she groaned.
But Madame Wetme’s religion, her cruel God, was the _Chic_: The God
Chic.
The sound of music from below reached her faintly. There was not a
better orchestra (even at the Palace) than that which discoursed at the
Café Cleopatra--and they played, the thought had sometimes pleased her,
the same identical tunes!
“Does it say when?” she murmured, reopening the gazette. No: But it
would be “before” the Court left.... And when would that be?
“I have good grounds for believing,” she continued to read: “that in
order to meet his creditors, the Duke of Varna is selling a large
portion of his country estate.”
If it were true ... Madame Wetme’s eyes rested in speculation on the
Oleanders in the great flower-tubs before the Café, if it were true,
why the Varnas must be desperate, and the Duchess ready to do anything.
“Anything--for remuneration,” she murmured, rising and going towards a
table usually used for correspondence. And seating herself with a look
of decision, she opened a leather writing-pad, full of crab-coloured
ink-marked blotting paper.
In the fan-shaped mirror above the writing-table she could see herself
in fancy, all veils and aigrettes, as she would be on “the day” when
coiffed by Ernst.
“Among a bevy of charming débutantes, no one looked more striking
than Madame Wetme, who was presented by the Duchess of Varna.” Being
a client of the house (with an unpaid bill) she could _dictate_ to
Eva.... But first, of course, she must secure the Duchess. And taking
up her pen she wrote: “Madame Wetme would give the Duchess of Varna
fifty thousand crowns to introduce her at Court.” A trifle terse
perhaps?? Madame Wetme considered. How if the Duchess should take
offence.... It was just conceivable! And besides, by specifying no
fixed sum, she might be got for less.
“Something more mysterious, more delicate in style....” Madame Wetme
murmured with a sigh, beginning the letter anew:
“If the Duchess of Varna will call on Madame Wetme this afternoon,
about five, and partake of a cup of tea, she will hear of something _to
her advantage_.”
Madame Wetme smiled: “That should get her!” she reflected, and
selecting an envelope, she directed it boldly to the Ritz. “Being hard
up, she is sure to be there!” she reasoned, as she left the room in
quest of a page.
The French maid of the Duchess of Varna was just putting on her
mistress’s shoes, in a private sitting-room at the Ritz, when Madame
Wetme’s letter arrived.
The pleasure of being in the capital once more, after a long spell
of the country, had given her an appetite for her lunch and she was
feeling braced after an excellent meal.
“I shall not be back, I expect, till late, Louison,” she said to her
maid, “and should anyone enquire where I am, I shall either be at the
Palace, or at the Skating-Rink.”
“Madame la Duchesse will not be going to her corsetier’s?”
“It depends if there’s time. What did I do with my shopping-list?”
the Duchess replied, gathering up abstractedly a large, becoroneted
vanity-case and a parasol. She had a gown of khaki and daffodil and a
black tricorne hat trimmed with green. “Give me my other sunshade, the
jade--and don’t forget--: On me trouvera, Soit au Palais Royal, soit,
au Palais de Glace!” she enjoined sailing quickly out.
Leaving the Ritz by a side door, she found herself in a quiet, shady
street, bordering the Regina Gardens. Above a sky so blue, so clear, so
luminous seemed to cry out: “Nothing matters! Why worry? Be sanguine!
Amuse yourself! Nothing matters!”
Traversing the gardens, her mind preoccupied by Madame Wetme’s note,
the Duchess branched off into a busy thoroughfare, leading towards the
Opera, in whose vicinity lay the city’s principal shops. To learn of
anything to one’s advantage was, of course, always welcome, but there
were various other claims upon her besides that afternoon, which she
was unable, or loath to ignore--the palace, a _thé dansant_ or two, and
then her favourite rink ... although the unfortunate part was, most of
the rink instructors were still unpaid, and, on the last occasion she
had hired a man to waltz with her, he had taken advantage of the fact
by pressing her waist with greater freedom than she felt he need have
done.
Turning into the Opera Square with its fine arcades, she paused,
half furtively, before a Florist’s shop. Only her solicitors and a
few in the secret were aware that the premises known as _Haboubet of
Egypt_ were her own; for fearful lest they might be occupied one day
by sheriffs’ officers, the little business venture had been kept the
closest mystery. Lilies “from Karnak,” Roses “from the Land of Punt”
(all grown in the gardens of her country house, in the purlieus of the
capital) found immediate and daily favour among amateurs of the choice.
Indeed as her gardener frequently said, the demand for Roses from the
Land of Punt, was more than he could possibly cope with without an
extra man.
“I may as well run in and take whatever there’s in the till,” she
reflected--“not that, I fear, there’s much....”
The superintendent, a slim Tunisian boy, was crouching pitcher-posture
upon the floor, chanting languidly to himself, his head supported by an
osier pannier lately arrived from “Punt.”
“Up, Bachir!” the Duchess upbraided. “Remember the fresh consignments
perish, while you dream there and sing.”
The young Tunisian smiled.
He worshipped the Duchess, and the song he was improvising as she
entered, had been inspired by her. In it (had she known) he had led her
by devious tender stages to his Father’s fondouk at Tifilalet “on the
blue Lake of Fetzara,” where he was about to present her to the Cheikh,
and the whole assembled village, as his chosen bride.
The Duchess considered him. He had a beautiful face spoiled by a bad
complexion, which doubtless (the period of puberty passed) he would
outgrow.
“Consignment him come not two minute,” the youth replied.
“Ah Bachir? Bachir!”
“By the glorious Koran, I will swear it.”
“Be careful not to shake those _Alexandrian Balls_,” the Duchess
peremptorily enjoined pointing towards some Guelder-roses--“or they’ll
fall before they’re sold!”
“No matter at all. They sold already! An American lady this morning,
she purchase all my Alexandrian-Balls; two heavy bunch.”
“Let me see your takings.”...