It was night. Half undressed, Irene was sitting on the edge of her bed
stitching away at an unfinished garment of pale pink silk. Her head was
bent over her work and her thick hair hung perpendicularly down on
either side, making an angle with her tilted face. The light clung
richly to her bare arms and shoulders, was reflected by the curved and
glossy surfaces of her tight-drawn stockings. Her face was extremely
grave; the tip of her tongue appeared between her teeth. It was a
difficult job.
Round her, on the walls of the enormous room which had once been the
bedchamber of the Cardinal Alderano Malaspina, fluttered an army of
gesticulating shapes. Over the door sat God the Father, dressed in a
blue crêpe de Chine tunic and enveloped in a mantle of red velvet, which
fluttered in the divine afflatus as though it had been so much bunting.
His right hand was extended; and in obedience to the gesture a squadron
of angels went flying down one of the side walls towards the window. At
a _prie-Dieu_ in the far corner knelt Cardinal Malaspina, middle-aged,
stout, with a _barbiche_ and moustache, and looking altogether, Irene
thought, like the current British idea of a French chef. The Archangel
Michael, at the head of his troop of Principalities and Powers, was
hovering in the air above him, and with an expression on his face of
mingled condescension and respect—condescension, inasmuch as he was the
plenipotentiary of the _Padre Eterno_, and respect, in view of the fact
that His Eminence was a brother of the Prince of Massa Carrara—was
poising above the prelate’s head the red symbolic hat that was to make
him a Prince of the Church. On the opposite wall the Cardinal was
represented doing battle with the powers of darkness. Dressed in scarlet
robes he stood undaunted on the brink of the bottomless pit. Behind him
was a carefully painted view of the Malaspina palace, with a group of
retainers and handsome coaches in the middle distance and, immediately
behind their Uncle, whom they gallantly supported by their prayers, the
Cardinal’s nephews. From the pit came up legions of hideous devils who
filled the air with the flapping of their wings. But the Cardinal was
more than a match for them. Raising a crucifix above his head, he
conjured them to return to the flames. And the foiled devils, gnashing
their teeth and trembling with terror, were hurled back towards the pit.
Head foremost, tail foremost, in every possible position they came
hurtling down towards the floor. When she lay in bed, Irene could see
half a dozen devils diving down at her; and when she woke up in the
morning, a pair of plunging legs waved frantically within a foot of her
opening eyes. In the wall space over the windows the Cardinal’s cultured
leisures were allegorically celebrated. Nine Muses and three Graces,
attended by a troop of Hours, reclined or stood, or danced in studied
postures; while the Cardinal himself, enthroned in the midst, listened
to their conversation and proffered his own opinions without appearing
to notice the fact that all the ladies were stark naked. No one but the
most polished and accomplished man of the world could have behaved in
the circumstances with such perfect _savoir-vivre_.
In the midst of the Cardinal’s apotheosis and entirely oblivious of it,
Irene stitched away at her pink chemise. Undressing, just now, she had
caught sight of it lying here in her work-basket; she hadn’t been able
to resist the temptation of adding a touch or two there and then. It was
going to be one of her masterpieces when it was done. She held it out in
her two hands, at arm’s length, and looked at it, lovingly and
critically. It was simply too lovely.
Ever since Chelifer’s arrival she had been able to do a lot of work on
her underclothes. Mrs. Aldwinkle, absorbed by her unhappy passion, had
completely forgotten that she had a niece who ought to be writing lyrics
and painting in water-colours. Irene was free to devote all her time to
her sewing. She did not neglect the opportunity. But every now and then
her conscience would suddenly prick her and she would ask herself
whether, after all, it was quite fair to take advantage of poor Aunt
Lilian’s mournful preoccupation to do what she did not approve of. She
would wonder if she oughtn’t, out of loyalty to Aunt Lilian, to stop
sewing and make a sketch or write a poem. Once or twice in the first
days she even acted on the advice of her conscience. But when in the
evening she brought Aunt Lilian her sketch of the temple, and the lyric
beginning “O Moon, how calmly in the midnight sky ...”—brought them with
a certain triumph, a consciousness of virtuous actions duly
performed—that distracted lady showed so little interest in these
artistic tokens of niecely duty and affection that Irene felt herself
excused henceforward from making any further effort to practise the
higher life. She went on with her stitching. Her conscience, it is true,
still troubled her at times; but she did nothing about it.
This evening she felt no conscientious qualm. The garment was so lovely
that even Aunt Lilian, she felt sure, would have approved of it. It was
a work of art—a work of art that deserved that honourable title just as
richly as “O Moon, how calmly in the midnight sky”; perhaps even more
richly.
Irene folded up the unfinished masterpiece in rose, put it away, and
went on with her undressing. To-night, she decided, as she brushed her
hair, she would tell Aunt Lilian how right she had been about Hovenden.
That ought to please her. “How grateful I am,” she would say. And she’d
tell her how much she liked him—almost, almost in _that_ way. Not quite
yet. But soon; she felt somehow that it might happen soon. And it would
be the real thing. Real and solid. Not flimsy and fizzy and imaginary,
like the episodes with Peter and Jacques and the rest of them.
She put on her dressing-gown and walked down the long corridor to Mrs.
Aldwinkle’s room. Cardinal Alderano was left alone with his devils and
the obsequious angels, his nine naked Muses and the Eternal Father.
When Irene came in, Aunt Lilian was sitting in front of her
looking-glass, rubbing skin food into her face.
“It appears,” she said, looking at herself in the glass, critically, as
Irene had looked at her masterpiece of fine sewing, “that there’s such a
wonderful electric massage machine. I forget who told me about it.”
“Was it Lady Belfry?” Irene suggested. The image of Lady Belfry’s face
floated up before her mind’s eye—smooth, pink, round, youthful looking,
but with that factitious and terribly precarious youthfulness of beauty
scientifically preserved.
“Perhaps it was,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle. “I must certainly get one of
them. Write to Harrod’s about it to-morrow, will you, darling?”
Irene began the nightly brushing of her aunt’s hair. There was a long
silence. How should she begin about Hovenden? Irene was thinking. She
must begin in some way that would show how really and genuinely serious
it all was. She must begin in such a way that Aunt Lilian would have no
possible justification for taking up a playful tone about it. At all
costs, Aunt Lilian must not be allowed to talk to her in that well-known
and dreaded vein of bludgeoning banter; on no account must she be given
an opportunity for saying: “Did she think then that her silly old auntie
didn’t notice?” or anything of that kind. But to find the completely
fun-proof formula was not so easy. Irene searched for it long and
thoughtfully. She was not destined to find it. For Aunt Lilian, who had
also been thinking, suddenly broke the silence.
“I sometimes doubt,” she said, “whether he takes any interest in women
at all. Fundamentally, unconsciously, I believe he’s a homosexualist.”
“Perhaps,” said Irene gravely. She knew her Havelock Ellis.
For the next half hour Mrs. Aldwinkle and her niece discussed the
interesting possibility.
------------------------------------------------------------------------