herself, interrupted in her cogitations by the appearance of her maid.
“The train your Grace we shall miss it....”
“Nonsense!” the duchess answered following, leaving the flowers alone
again to their subtle exhalations.
“I’m glad _I’m_ in a Basket!”
“I have no water. I cannot reach the water.”
“Life’s bound to be uncertain when you haven’t got your roots!”
XIV
On a long-chair with tired, closed eyes lay the Queen. Although spared
from henceforth the anxiety of her son’s morganatic marriage, yet,
now that his destiny was sealed, she could not help feeling perhaps
he might have done better. The bride’s lineage was nothing to boast
of--over her great-great-grandparents, indeed, in the year 17--it
were gentler to draw a veil--while, for the rest, disingenuous,
undistinguished, more at home in the stables than in a drawing-room,
the Queen much feared that she and her future daughter-in-law would
scarcely get on.
Yes, the little princess was none too engaging, she reflected, and her
poor sacrificed child if not actually trapped....
The silken swish of a fan, breaking the silence, induced the Queen to
look up.
In waiting at present was the Countess Olivia d’Omptyda, a person of
both excellent principles and birth, if lacking, somewhat, in social
boldness. Whenever she entered the royal presence she would begin
visibly to tremble, which considerably flattered the Queen. Her Father,
Count “Freddie” d’Omptyda, an infantile and charming old man, appointed
in a moment of unusual vagary Pisuergan Ambassador to the Court of
St James’, had lately married a child wife scarcely turned thirteen,
whose frivolity, and numerous pranks on the high dames of London, were
already the scandal of the _Corps Diplomatique_.
“Sssh! Noise is the last vulgarity,” the Queen commented, raising a
cushion embroidered with raging lions and white uncanny unicorns higher
behind her head.
Unstrung from the numerous _fêtes_, she had retired to a distant
boudoir to relax, and, having partly disrobed, was feeling remotely
Venus of Miloey with her arms half-hidden in a plain white cape.
The Countess d’Omptyda furled her fan.
“In this Age of push and shriek ...” she said and sighed.
“It seems that neither King Geo, nor Queen Glory, _ever_ lie down of a
day!” her Dreaminess declared.
“Since his last appointment, neither does Papa.”
“The affair of your step-mother and Lady Diana Duff Semour,” the Queen
remarked, “appears to be assuming the proportions of an Incident!”
The Countess dismally smiled. The subject of her step-mother, mistaken
frequently for her grand-daughter, was a painful one: “I hear she’s
like a colt broke loose!” she murmured, dropping her eyes fearfully to
her costume.
She was wearing an apron of Parma-violets, and the Order of the Holy
Ghost.
“It’s a little a pity she can’t be more sensible,” the Queen returned,
fingering listlessly some papers at her side. Among them was the
_Archæological Society’s_ initial report relating to the recent finds
among the Ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah. From Chedorlahomor came the
good news that an _amphora_ had been found, from which it seemed that
men, in those days, rode sideways, and women straddle-legs, with
their heads to the horses’ tails, while a dainty cup, ravished from a
rock-tomb in the Vale of Akko, ornamented with naked boys and goblets
of flowers, encouraged a yet more extensive research.
“You may advance, Countess, with the Archæologists’ report,” the Queen
commanded. “Omitting (skipping, I say) the death of the son of Lord
Intriguer.”[11]
“‘It was in the Vale of Akko, about two miles from Sââda,” the Countess
tremblingly began, “that we laid bare a superb tear-bottle, a unique
specimen in _grisaille_, severely adorned with a matron’s head. From
the inscription, there can be no doubt whatever that we have here an
authentic portrait of Lot’s disobedient, though unfortunate wife. Ample
and statuesque (as the salten image she was afterwards to become),
the shawl-draped, masklike features are by no means beautiful. It is
a face that you may often see to-day, in down-town ‘Dancings,’ or
in the bars of the dockyards, or wharfs, of our own modern cities,
Tilbury, ’Frisco, Vera Cruz--a sodden, gin-soaked face, that helps to
vindicate, if not, perhaps, excuse, the conduct of Lot.... With this
highly interesting example of the Potters’ Art, was found a novel
object, of an unknown nature, likely to arouse, in scientific circles,
considerable controversy....”
And just as the lectrice was growing hesitant, and embarrassed, the
Countess of Tolga, who had the _entrée_, unobtrusively entered the room.
She was looking particularly well in one of the new standing-out skirts
ruched with rosebuds, and was showing more of her stockings than she
usually did.
“You bring the sun with you!” the Queen graciously exclaimed.
“Indeed,” the Countess answered, “I ought to apologise for the
interruption, but the _poor little thing_ is leaving now.”
“What? has the Abbess come?”
“She has sent Sister Irene of the Incarnation, instead....”
“I had forgotten it was to-day.”
With an innate aversion for all farewells, yet the Queen was accustomed
to perform a score of irksome acts daily that she cordially disliked,
and when, shortly afterwards, Mademoiselle de Nazianzi accompanied by
a Sister from the Flaming-Hood were announced, they found her quite
prepared.
Touched, and reassured at the ex-maid’s appearance, the Queen judged,
at last, it was safe to unbend. Already very remote and unworldly in
her novice’s dress, she had ceased, indeed, to be a being there was
need any more to either circumvent, humour, or suppress; and now that
the threatened danger was gone, her Majesty glanced, half-lachrymosely,
about among her personal belongings for some slight token of “esteem”
or _souvenir_. Skimming from cabinet to cabinet, in a sort of hectic
dance, she began to fear, as she passed her bibelots in review, that
beyond a Chinese Buddha that she believed to be ill-omened, and which
for a nun seemed hardly suitable, she could spare nothing about her
after all, and in some dilemma, she raised her eyes, as though for
a crucifix, towards the wall. Above the long-chair a sombre study
of a strangled negress in a ditch by Gauguin conjured up to-day with
poignant force a vivid vision of the Tropics.
“The poor Duchess!” she involuntarily sighed, going off into a train of
speculation of her own.
Too tongue-tied, or, perhaps, too discreet, to inform the Queen that
anything she might select would immediately be confiscated by the
Abbess, Sister Irene, while professing her rosary, appraised her
surroundings with furtive eyes, crossing herself frequently with a
speed, and facility due to practice whenever her glance chanced to
alight on some nude shape in stone. Keen, meagre, and perhaps slightly
malicious, hers was a curiously pinched face--like a cold violet.
“The Abbess is still in retreat; but sends her duty,” she ventured as
the Queen approached a gueridon near which she was standing.
“Indeed? How I envy her,” the Queen wistfully said, selecting, as
suited to the requirements of the occasion, a little volume of a mystic
trend, the _Cries of Love_ of Father Surin,[12] bound in grey velvet,
which she pressed upon the reluctant novice, with a brief, but cordial,
kiss of farewell.
“She looked quite pretty!” she exclaimed, sinking to the long-chair as
soon as the nuns had gone.
“So like the Cimabue in the long corridor ...” the Countess of Tolga
murmured chillily; It was her present policy that her adored ally, Olga
Blumenghast, should benefit by Mademoiselle de Nazianzi’s retirement
from Court, by becoming nearer to the Queen, when they would work all
the wires between them.
“I’d have willingly followed her,” the Queen weariedly declared, “at
any rate, until after the wedding.”
“It seems that I and Lord Derbyfield are to share the same closed
carriage in the wake of the bridal coach,” the Countess of Tolga said,
considering with a supercilious air her rose _suède_ slipper on the
dark carpet.
“He’s like some great Bull. What do you suppose he talks about?”
The Countess d’Omptyda repressed a giggle.
“They tell me Don Juan was nothing _nothing_ to him.... He cannot see,
he cannot be, oh every hour. It seems he can’t help it, and that he
simply _has_ to!”
“Fortunately Lady Lavinia Lee-Strange will be in the landau as well!”
The Queen laid her cheek to her hands.
“I all but died, dear Violet,” she crooned, “listening to an account
of her Ancestor, who fell, fighting Scotland, at the battle of Pinkie
Cleugh.”
“These well-bred, but detestably insular women, how they bore one.”
“They are not to be appraised by any ordinary standards. Crossing the
state saloon while coming here what should I see, ma’am, but Lady
Canon of Noon on her hands and knees (all fours!) peeping below the
loose-covers of the chairs in order to examine the Gobelins-tapestries
beneath....”
“Oh----”
“‘Absolutely authentic’ I said! as I passed on, leaving her looking
like a pick-pocket caught in the act.”
“I suppose she was told to make a quiet survey....”
“Like their beagles and deer-hounds, that their Landseer so loved to
paint, I fear the British character is, at bottom, _nothing_ if not
rapacious!”
“It’s said, I believe, to behold the Englishman at his _best_, one
should watch him play at tip-and-run.”
“You mean of course at cricket?”
The Queen looked doubtful: She had retained of a cricket-match at
Lord’s a memory of hatless giants waving wooden sticks.
“I only wish it could have been a long engagement,” she abstrusely
murmured, fastening her attention on the fountains whitely spurting in
the gardens below.
Valets in cotton-jackets and light blue aprons bearing baskets of
crockery and _argenterie_, were making ready beneath the tall Tuba
trees, a supper _buffet_ for the evening’s Ball.
“Flap your wings, little bird
O flap your wings----”
A lad’s fresh voice, sweet as a robin’s, came piping up.
“These wretched workpeople----! There’s not a peaceful corner,” the
Queen complained, as her husband’s shape appeared at the door. He was
followed by his first secretary--a simple commoner, yet, with the air,
and manner, peculiar to the husband of a Countess.
“Yes, Willie? I’ve a hundred head-aches. What is it?”
“Both King Geo and Queen Glory, are wondering where you are.”
“Oh, really, Willie?”
“And dear Elsie’s asking after you too.”
“Very likely,” the Queen returned with quiet complaisance, “but
unfortunately, I have neither her energy, or,” she murmured with a
slightly sardonic laugh, “her appetite!”
The Countess of Tolga tittered.
“She called for fried-eggs and butcher’s-meat, this morning, about the
quarter before eight,” she averred.
“An excellent augury for our dynasty,” the King declared, reposing
the eyes of an adoring grandparent upon an alabaster head of a Boy
attributed to Donatello.
“She’s terribly foreign, Willie...! Imagine ham and eggs ...” the Queen
dropped her face to her hand.
“So long as the Royal-House----” The King broke off, turning gallantly
to raise the Countess d’Omptyda, who had sunk with a gesture of
exquisite allegiance to the floor.
“Sir ... Sir!” she faltered in confusion, seeking with fervent lips her
Sovereign’s hand.
“What is she doing, Willie?”
“Begging for Strawberry-leaves!” the Countess of Tolga brilliantly
commented.
“Apropos of Honours ... it appears King Geo has signified his intention
of raising his present representative in Pisuerga to the peerage.”
“After her recent _Cause_, Lady Something should be not a little
consoled.”
“She was at the début of the new diva, little Miss Hellvellyn (the
foreign invasion has indeed begun!), at the Opera-House last night, so
radiant....”
“When she cranes forward out of her own box to smile at someone into
the next, I can’t explain ... but one feels she ought to hatch,” the
Queen murmured, repairing capriciously from one couch to another.
“We neglect our guests, my dear,” the King expostulatingly exclaimed,
bending over his consort anxiously from behind.
“Tell me, Willie,” she cooed, caressing the medals upon his breast, and
drawing him gently down: “tell me? Didst thou enjoy thy cigar, dear,
with King Geo?”
“I can recall in my time, Child, a suaver flavour....”
“Thy little chat, though, dearest, was well enough?”
“I would not call him crafty, but I should say he was a man of
considerable subtlety ...” the King evasively replied.
“One does not need, my dearest nectarine, a prodigy of intelligence
however to take him in!”
“Before the proposed Loan, love, can be brought about, he may wish to
question thee as to thy political opinions.”
The Queen gave a little light laugh.
“No one knows what my political opinions are; I don’t myself!”
“And I’m quite confident of it: But, indeed, my dear, we neglect our
functions.”
“I only wish it could have been a _long_ engagement, Willie....”
XV
In the cloister eaves, the birds were just awakening, and all the
spider scales, in the gargoyled gables, glanced fresh with dew. Above
the Pietà, on the porter’s gate, slow-speeding clouds, like knots
of pink roses, came blowing across the sky, sailing away in titanic
bouquets towards the clear horizon. All virginal in the early sunrise
what enchantment the world possessed! The rhythmic sway-sway of the
trees, the exhalations of the flowers, the ethereal candour of this
early hour,--these raised the heart up to their Creator.
Kneeling at the casement of a postulant’s cell, Laura de Nazianzi
recalled that serene, and just thus had she often planned must dawn her
bridal day!
Beyond the cruciform flower-beds, and the cloister wall, soared the
Blue Jesus, the storied windows of its lofty galleries aglow with
light.
“Most gracious Jesus. Help me to forget. For my heart aches. Uphold me
now.”
But to forget to-day, was well-nigh she knew impossible....
Once it seemed she caught the sound of splendid music from the
direction of the Park, but it was too early for music yet. Away in the
palace, the Princess Elsie must be already astir ... in her peignoir,
perhaps? The bridal-garment unfolded upon the bed: But no; it was said
the bed indeed was where usually her Royal-Highness’ dogs....
With a long and very involuntary sigh, she began to sweep, and put in
some order, her room.
How forlorn her cornette looked upon her _prie-Dieu_! And, oh, how
stern, and “old”!
Would an impulse to bend it slightly but only so, _so_ slightly, to an
angle to suit her face, be attended, later, by remorse?
“Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper vergini, beato
Michaeli Archangelo (et _tibi_ Pater), quia peccavi nimis cogitatione,
verbo et opere,” she entreated, reposing her chin in meditation, upon
the handle of her broom.
The bluish shadow of a cypress-tree, on the empty wall, fascinated her
as few pictures had.
“Grant my soul Eyes,” she prayed, cheerfully completing her task.
In the corridor, being a general holiday, all was yet quite still.
A sound, as of gentle snoring, came indeed from behind more than
one closed door, and the new _pensionnaire_ was preparing to beat a
retreat, when she perceived, in the cloister, the dumpish form of Old
Jane.
Seated in the sun by the convent well, the Porteress was sharing a
scrap of breakfast with the birds.
“You’re soonish for Mass, love,” she broke out, her large archaic
features surcharged with smiles.
“It’s such a perfect morning, I felt I must come down.”
“I’ve seen many a more promising sunrise before now, my dear, turn to
storm and blast! An orange sky overhead, brings back to me the morning
that I was received; ah, I shall never forget, as I was taking my Vows,
a flash of forked lightning, and a clap of Thunder (Glory be to God!)
followed by a water-spout (Mercy save us!) bursting all over my Frinch
lace veil....”
“What is your book, Old Jane?”
“Something light, love, as it’s a holiday.”
“_Pascal_....”
“Though it’s mostly a _Fête_ day I’ve extra to do!” the Porteress
averred, dropping her eyes to the great, glistening spits, upon the
Cloister flags. It was her boast she could distinguish Monsignor Potts’
round splash from Father Geordie Picpus’ more dapper fine one, and
again the Abbess’ from Mother Martinez de la Rosa’s--although these
indeed shared a certain opaque sameness.
“Of course it’s a day for private visits.”
“Since the affair of Sister Dorothea and Brother Bernard Soult, private
visits are no longer allowed,” the Porteress returned, reproving
modestly, with the cord of her discipline, a pert little lizard, that
seemed to be proposing to penetrate between the nude toes of her
sandalled foot.
But on such a radiant morning it was preposterous to hint at “Rules.”
Beneath the clement sun a thousand cicadas were insouciantly chirping,
while birds, skimming about without thoughts of money, floated lightly
from tree to tree.
“Jesus--Mary--Joseph!” the Porteress purred, as a Nun, with her face
all muffled up in wool, crossed the Cloister, glancing neither to right
nor left, and sharply slammed a door: for, already, the Convent was
beginning to give signs of animation. Deep in a book of Our Lady’s
Hours, a biretta’d priest was slowly rounding a garden path, while
repairing from a _Grotto-sepulchre_, to which was attached a handsome
indulgence, Mother Martinez de la Rosa appeared, all heavily leaning on
her stick.
Simultaneously the matins bell rang out, calling all to prayer.
The Convent Chapel founded by the tender enthusiasm of a wealthy widow,
the Countess d’Acunha, to perpetuate her earthly comradeship with the
beautiful Andalusian, the Doña Dolores Baatz, was still but thinly
peopled some few minutes later, although the warning bell had stopped.
Peering around, Laura was disappointed not to remark Sister Ursula in
her habitual place, between the veiled fresco of the “Circumcision” and
the stoup of holy-water by the door.
Beyond an offer to “exchange whippings” there had been a certain
coolness in the greeting with her friend, that had both surprised and
pained her.
“When those we rely on wound and betray us, to whom should we turn but
Thee?” she breathed, addressing a crucifix, in ivory, contrived by
love, that was a miracle of wonder.
Finished Mass, there was a general rush for the Refectory!
Preceded by Sister Clothilde, and followed, helter-skelter, by an
exuberant bevy of nuns, even Mother Martinez, who being shortsighted
would go feeling the ground with her cane, was propelled to the measure
of a hop-and-skip.
Passing beneath an archway, labelled “Silence” (the injunction to-day
being undoubtedly ignored), the company was welcomed by the mingled
odours of tea, _consommé_, and fruit. It was a custom of the Convent
for one of the Sisters during meal-time to read aloud from some
standard work of fideism, and these edifying recitations, interspersed
by such whispered questions as: “Tea, or _Consommé_?” “A Banana, or a
Pomegranate?” gave to those at all foolishly, or hysterically inclined,
a painful desire to giggle. Mounting the pulpit-lectern, a nun with an
aristocratic, though gourmand little face, was about to resume the arid
life of the Byzantine monk, Basilius Saturninus, when Mother Martinez
de la Rosa took it upon herself, in a few patriotic words, to relax all
rules for that day.
“We understand in the world now,” a little faded woman murmured to
Laura upon her right: “that the latest craze among ladies is to gild
their tongues; but I should be afraid,” she added diffidently, dipping
her banana into her tea, “of poison, myself!”
Unhappy at her friend’s absence from the Refectory, Laura, however,
was in no mood to entertain the nuns with stories of the present pagan
tendencies of society.
Through the bare, blindless windows, framing a sky so bluely luminous,
came the swelling clamour of the assembling crowds, tinging the
languid air as with some sultry fever. From the _Chausée_, music
of an extraordinary intention--heated music, crude music, played
with passionate élan to perfect time, conjured up, with vivid,
heartrending prosaicness, the seething Boulevards beyond the high old
creeper-covered walls.
“I forget now, Mother, which of the Queens it is that will wear a
velvet train of a beautiful orchid shade: But one of them will!” Sister
Irene of the Incarnation was holding forth.
“I must confess,” Mother Martinez remarked, who was peeling herself a
peach, with an air of far attention: “I must confess, I should have
liked to have cast my eye upon the _lingerie_....”
“I would rather have seen the ballwraps, Mother, or the shoes, and
evening slippers!”
“Yes, or the fabulous jewels....”
“Of course Sister Laura saw the _trousseau_?”
But Laura made feint not to hear.
Discipline relaxed, a number of nuns had collected provisions and
were picnicking in the window, where Sister Innez (an ex-Repertoire
actress) was giving some spirited renderings of her chief successful
parts--_Jane de Simerose_, _Frou-Frou_, _Sappho_, _Cigarette_....
“My darling child! I always sleep all day and only revive when there’s
_a Man_,” she was saying with an impudent look, sending the scandalised
Sisters into delighted convulsions.
Unable to endure it any longer, Laura crept away.
A desire for air and solitude, led her towards the Recreation ground.
After the hot refectory, sauntering in the silken shade of the old
astounding cedars, was delightful quite. In the deserted alleys,
the golden blossoms of the censia-trees, unable to resist the sun,
littered in perfumed piles the ground, overcoming her before long with
a sensation akin to _vertige_. Anxious to find her friend, Laura turned
towards her cell.
She found Sister Ursula leaning on her window-ledge all crouched
up--like a Duchess on “a First Night.”
“My dear, my dear, the _crowds_!”
“Ursula?”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Perhaps I’ll go, since I’m in the way.”
“Touchy Goose,” Sister Ursula murmured wheeling round with a glance of
complex sweetness.
“Ah, Ursula,” Laura sighed, smiling reproachfully at her friend.
She had long almond eyes, one longer and larger than the other, that
gave to her narrow, etiolated face, an exalted, mystic air. Her hair,
wholly concealed by her full coif, would be inclined to rich copper or
chestnut: Indeed, below the pinched and sensitive nostrils, a moustache
(so slight as to be scarcely discernible) proved this beyond all
controversy to be so. But perhaps the quality and beauty of her hands
were her chief distinction.
“Do you believe it would cause an earthquake, if we climbed out, dear
little one, upon the leads?” she asked.
“I had forgotten you overlooked the street by leaning out,” Laura
answered, sinking fatigued to a little cane armchair.
“Listen, Laura...!”
“This cheering racks my heart....”
“Ah, Astaroth! There went a very ‘swell’ carriage.”
“Perhaps I’ll come back later: It’s less noisy in my cell.”
“Now you’re here, I shall ask you, I think, to whip me.”
“Oh, no....”
“Bad dear Little-One. Dear meek soul,” Sister Ursula softly laughed.
“This maddening cheering,” Laura breathed, rolling tormented eyes about
her.
A crucifix, a text: _I would lay Pansies at Jesus’ Feet_, two fresh
eggs in a blue paper bag, some ends of string, a breviary, and a birch,
were the chamber’s individual, if meagre, contents.
“You used _not_ to have that text, Ursula,” Laura observed, her
attention arrested by the preparation of a Cinematograph Company on the
parapet of the Cathedral.
The Church had much need indeed of Reformation! The Times were
incredibly low: A new crusade ... she ruminated, revolted at the
sight of an old man holding dizzily to a stone-winged angel, with a
wine-flask at his lips.
“Come, dear, won’t you assist me now to mortify my senses?” Sister
Ursula cajoled.
“No, really, no--!--!--!”
“Quite lightly: For I was scourged, by Sister Agnes, but yesterday,
with a heavy bunch of keys, head downwards, hanging from a bar.”
“Oh....”
“This morning she sent me those pullets’ eggs. I perfectly was touched
by her delicate sweet sympathy.”
Laura gasped.
“It must have hurt you?”