“BLACK her great boots! Not I,” Miss Sinquier said to herself as she
turned her back on Mary Lodge to wend her way westward across the Park.
She was to meet Mrs. Sixsmith at a certain club on Hay Hill towards dusk
to learn whether any tempting offer had been submitted Sir Oliver for
her pearls.
“If I chose I suppose I could keep them,” she murmured incoherently to
herself as she crossed the Row.
It was an airless afternoon.
Under the small formal trees sheltering the path she clapped her
sunshade to, and slackened speed.
The rhododendrons, in vivid clumps of new and subtle colours brushing
the ground, were in their pride. Above, the sky showed purely blue. She
walked on a little way towards Stanhope Gate when, overcome by the
odoriferous fragrance of heliotropes and xenias, she sank serenely to a
bench.
Far off by the Serpentine a woman was preaching from a tree to a small
audience gathered beneath. How primeval she looked as her arms shot out
in argument, a discarded cock’s-feather boa looped to an upper bough
dangling like some dark python in the air above.
Miss Sinquier sat on until the shadows fell.
She found her friend on reaching Hay Hill in the midst of muffins and
tea.
“I gave you up. I thought you lost,” Mrs. Sixsmith exclaimed, hitching
higher her veil with fingers super-manicured, covered in oxydized metal
rings.
“I was dozing in the Park.”
“Dreamy kid.”
“On my back neck I’ve such a freckle.”
“Did you see Mammy Mary?”
“I did.”
“Well?”
“Nothing; she offered me Miss Jacks’ leavings.”
“Not good enough.”
“What of Sir Oliver?”
“I hardly know how to tell you.”
“Has he——?”
Mrs. Sixsmith nodded.
“He has had an offer of two thousand pounds,” she triumphantly said,
“for the pearls alone.”
“Two thousand pounds!”
“Call it three o’s.”
“Okh!”
“Consider what commercial credit that means....”
“I shall play Juliet.”
“Juliet?”
“I shall have a season.”
“Let me take the theatre for you.”
“Is it a dream?”
“I will find you actors—great artists.”
“Oh, God!”
“And, moreover, I have hopes for the silver, too. Sir Oliver is
enchanted with the spoons—the Barnabas spoon especially. He said he had
never seen a finer. Such a beautiful little Barny, such a rapture of a
little sinner as it is, in every way.”
Miss Sinquier’s eyes shone.
“I’ll have that boy.”
“What—what boy?”
“Harold Weathercock.”
“You desire him?”
“To be my Romeo, of course.”
“It depends if the Dream will release him.”
“It must! It shall!”
“I’ll peep in on him and sound him, if you like.”
“We’ll go together.”
“Very well.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“In Foreign-Colony Street. He and a friend of his, Noel Nice, share a
studio there. Not to paint in, alas! It’s to wash.”
“What?”
“They’ve made a little laundry of it. And when they’re not acting
actually, they wash. Oh! sometimes when Mr. Nice spits across his iron
and says Pah! it makes one ill.”
“Have they any connection?”
Mrs. Sixsmith bent her eyes to her dress.
“Mr. Sixsmith often sent them things ... little things,” she said. “His
linen was his pride. You might annex him, perhaps. He’s played Mercutio
before.”
“Is he handsome?”
“Paul? He’s more interesting than handsome. _Unusual_, if you know....”
“What _did_ you do to separate?”
“I believe I bit him.”
“You did!”
“He ran at me with the fire-dogs first.”
“I suppose you annoyed him?”
“The cur!”
“Something tells me you’re fond of him still.”
From her reticule Mrs. Sixsmith took a small note-book and made an entry
therein.
“... The divine Shakespeare!” she sighed.
“I mean to make a hit with him.”
“Listen to me.”
“Well?”
“My advice to you is, hire a playhouse—the Cobbler’s End, for
example—for three round months at a reasonable rent, with a right,
should you wish, to sub-let.”
“It’s so far off.”
“Define ‘far off.’”
“Blackfriars Bridge.”
“I’ve no doubt by paying a fortune you could find a more central
position if you care to wait. The Bolivar Theatre, possibly——; or the
Cone.... At the Cone, there’s a joy-plank from the auditorium to the
stage, so that, should you want to ever, you can come right out into the
stalls.”
“I want my season at once,” Miss Sinquier said.
Mrs. Sixsmith toyed with her rings.
“What do you say,” she asked, “to making an informal début (before
‘royal’ auspices!) at the Esmé Fisher ‘Farewell’ coming off next week?”
“Why not!”
“Some of the stage’s brightest ornaments have consented to appear.”
“I’d like particulars.”
“I’ll send a note to the secretary, Miss Willinghorse, straight away,”
Mrs. Sixsmith murmured, gathering up her constant Juno beneath her arm,
and looking about her for some ink.
“Send it later, from the Café Royal.”
“I can’t go any more to the Café Royal,” Mrs. Sixsmith said. “I owe
money there.... To all the waiters.”
“Wait till after we’ve seen the Washingtons.”
“The Washingtons? Who are they?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Besides, I’ve a small headache,” Mrs. Sixsmith said, selecting herself
a quill.
“What can I do to relieve it?” Miss Sinquier wondered, taking up a
newspaper as her friend commenced to write.
Heading the agony list some initials caught her eye.
“_S——h S——r._ Come back. All shall be forgiven,” she read.
“I can’t epistolize while you make those _unearthly_ noises,” Mrs.
Sixsmith complained.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Where are we going to dine?”
“Where is there wonderful to go?”
“How about a grill?”
“I don’t mind.”
“The Piccadilly? We’re both about got up for it.”
Miss Sinquier rolled her eyes.
“The Grill-room at the Piccadilly isn’t going to cure a headache,” she
remarked.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
X
TO watch Diana rise blurred above a damp chemise from a fifth-floor
laundry garden in Foreign-Colony Street, Soho, had brought all Chelsea
(and part of Paris) to study illusive atmospherical effects from the
dizzy drying-ground of those versatile young men, Harold Weathercock and
Noel Nice.
Like a necropolis at the Resurrection, or some moody vision of Blake,
would it appear under the evanescent rays of the moon.
Nighties, as evening fell, would go off into proud Praxiteles—torsos of
Nymphs or Muses: pants and ready-mades, at a hint of air would pirouette
and execute a phantom ballet from Don John.
Beyond the clothes lines was a Pagoda, set up in an extravagant mood,
containing a gilded Buddha—a thorn and a symbol of unrighteousness to a
convent of Ursulines whose recreation yard was underneath.
Here, at a certain hour when the Mother Superior was wont to walk round
and round her preserves, a young, bewhiskered man frequently would come
bearing ceremonial offerings of rice or linen newly washed, and falling
flat before the shrine would roll himself about and beat the ground as
if in mortal anguish of his sins before her fascinated eye. Here, too,
from time to time, festivities would take place—sauteries (to a
piano-organ), or convivial _petits soupers_ after the play.
An iron ladder connected the roof with the work and living-rooms below.
Ascending this by the light of the stars, Mrs. Sixsmith and the _New
Juliet_, gay from a certain grill, audaciously advanced, their playful
screams rendered inaudible by the sounds of a tricksome waltz wafted
down to them from the piano-organ above.
Items of linen nestling close to a line overhead showed palely against
the night like roosting doves.
“Help.... Oh! she’s falling,” Mrs. Sixsmith screamed. “Are you there,
Mr. Nice?”
“Give me your hand,” Miss Sinquier begged.
“Should she rick her spine....”
“Whew-ps!” Miss Sinquier exclaimed, scrambling to the top.
London, beyond the frail filigree cross on the Ursulines’ bleached wall,
blazed with light. From the Old Boar and Castle over the way came a
perfect flood of it. And all along the curved river-line from
Westminster to St. Paul’s glittered lamps, lamps, lamps.
Folding an arm about her friend’s “wasp” waist, Mrs. Sixsmith whirled
her deftly round to a wild street air:
“_I like your ways,
I like your style,
You are my darling_——”
she hummed as the organ stopped.
“Come to finish the evening?”
A small, thick-set, grizzled man with dark æsthetic eyes and a pinkish
nose, the result maybe of continuously tinting it for music-hall
purposes, addressed the breathless ladies in a broad, inquiring voice.
“Is that _you_, Mr. Smee?” Mrs. Sixsmith asked, surprised.
“Call me ‘Shawn.’”
“We’ve only come on business.”
“Don’t! You make me laf.”
“Then—do it,” Mrs. Sixsmith serenely said, resting her left knee against
an empty keg of beer.
“They’re not back from the theatre yet.”
“Turn for us till they come.”
Mr. Smee dashed from a crimpled brow a wisp of drooping hair.
“By your leave, ladies,” he said, “I’ll just slip across to the Old Boar
and Castle and sample a snack at the bar.”
“Don’t run off, Mr. Smee. You really mustn’t. On tiles, they say, one
usually meets with _cats._”
“Oh, my word.”
Mrs. Sixsmith placed a hand to her hip in the style of an early John.
“How long is it—say—since we met?” she inquired. “Not since my wedding,
I do believe.”
“What’s become of those kiddy bridesmaids you had?” Mr. Smee warily
asked.
“Gerty Gale and Joy Patterson?—I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Oh, my word.”
“Well, how goes the world with _you_, Mr. Smee?”
“So-so. I’ve been away on tour. Mildred Milson and Co. Oh! my Lord—it
was. No sooner did we get to Buxton—down in Derbyshire—than Miss Milson
fell sick and had to be left behind.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Exposure.... On Bank Holiday some of the company hired a three-horse
char-à-banc and drove from Buxton over to Castleton Caves—my hat. What
hills!—and from there we went to take a squint at Chatsworth, where Miss
Milson came over queer.”
“And how does Mrs. Smee?”
“So-so.”
“One never sees her now.”
“There she sits all day, reading Russian novels. Talk of gloom!”
“Really?”
“Oh, it is!”
“Well.... I’m fond of thoughtful, theosophical reading, too, Mr. Smee,”
Mrs. Sixsmith said. “Madame Blavatsky and Mrs. Annie Besant are both
favourites with me.”
Mr. Smee jerked an eloquent thumb.
“Who have you brought along?”
“She’s a special pal of mine.”
“Married?”
“Mon Dieu,” Mrs. Sixsmith doubtfully said. “Je _crois_ que c’est une
Pucelle.”
“Never!” Mr. Smee, completely mystified, hazarded.
“Fie donc. Comme c’est _méchant._”
“Wee, wee.”
Mrs. Sixsmith tittered.
“She’s going into management very soon.”
“Swank?”
“We seek a Romeo, Mr. Smee.”
“Now, now...!”
“Don’t look like that, Mr. Smee—nobody’s asking you,” Mrs. Sixsmith
murmured.
Mr. Smee scratched reflectively his head.
“Who is it you’re after?” he asked.
“We fancied Mr. Weathercock might suit.”
“God has given him looks, but no brains,” Mr. Smee emphatically
declared. “No more brains than a cow in a field.”
“His is indeed a charming face,” Mrs. Sixsmith sighed. “And as to his
brains, Mr. Smee—why, come!”
“Who’s to create the countess?” he asked.
“Lady Capulet? It’s not determined yet.”
“Why not canvass the wife?”
“Has she been in Shakespeare before?”
“From the time she could toddle; in a _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, when
not quite two, she was the Bug with gilded wings.”
“Pet!”
“Sure....”
Mrs. Sixsmith clasped prayerfully her hands.
“And in Mr. Smee,” she said, “I see the makings of a fine Friar
Lawrence!”
“How’s that?”
“With a few choice _concetti._”
“Faith!”
“I see the lonely cell, the chianti-flask, the crucifix....”
“Gosh!”
“I see Verona ... the torrid sky ... the town ascending, up, up, up. I
hear the panting nurse. She knocks. Your priest’s eyes glisten. She
enters, blouse-a-gape—a thorough coster. You raise your cowl....
Chianti? She shakes her head. Benedictine? No! no! A little Chartreuse,
then? Certainly not! Nothing.... You squeeze her waist. Her cries ‘go
through’ Lady Capulet and her daughter in the distant city on their way
to mass. Romeo enters. So!” Mrs. Sixsmith broke off as Mr. Weathercock
and a curly-headed lad, followed by a swathed woman and a whey-faced
child, showed themselves upon the stairs.
Mrs. Sixsmith sought Miss Sinquier’s arm.
“Listen to me, my darling!” she said.
“Well?”
“Write.”
“What?”
“Write.”
“Why?”
“Because I fear we intrude.”
“Intrude?” Harold Weathercock exclaimed, coming up. “I assure you it’s a
treat....”
Mrs. Sixsmith threw a sidelong, intriguing glance across her shoulder.
“Who’s the cure in plaits?” she demanded.
“It’s Little May Mant—she’s seeing her sister home.”
“Oh!... Is that Ita?” Mrs. Sixsmith murmured, stepping forward to
embrace Miss “Ita Iris” of the Dream.
Miss Sinquier swooped.
“I’m having a season,” she, without further preamble, began. “And I want
to persuade you to join....”
“Principal?”
“Yes.”
“I should like to play for you,” Mr. Weathercock said.
“Harold!”
Miss Mant addressed him softly.
“Well?”
“Honey husband....”
“Hook it!”
“Give me a cigarette.”
“Mary!” her sister called.
“Quick! ’cos of Ita.”
“Mary Mant.”
Miss Mant tossed disdainfully an ultra large and “pasty”-faced head.
“Why must you insult me, Ita?” she bitterly asked. “You _know_ I’m Miss
Iris.”
“I know you’re Miss Mant.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m _not._”
“I tell you, you are!”
“Liar!”
“M-A-N-T!”
“Oh, stow it,” Mr. Smee said. “Put it by.”
“I’m Réné Iris.”
“Réné Rats.”
Mrs. Sixsmith looked detached.
“Is that a wash-tub?” she asked.
“Certainly.”
“What’s that odd thing floating, like the ghost of a child unborn?”
“It belongs to Mrs. Mary.”
“There’s a rumour—she refuses a fortune to show herself in Revue.”
“With her hearse-horse tread....”
“Sh——. Harold worships her.”
“Oh, no.”
“He sees things in her that we don’t, perhaps.”
“To some ideas,” Mrs. Sixsmith said, “I suppose she’s very blooming
still....”
“If it wasn’t for her figure, which is really a disgrace.”
Miss Iris smiled.
She had a tired mouth, contrasting vividly with the artificial freshness
of her teeth.
“When I reach my zenith,” she declared, “it’s Farewell.”
“Shall you assist at poor Esmé Fisher’s?”
“A couple of songs—that’s all.”
Mrs. Sixsmith looked away.
“Naturally,” Miss Sinquier was saying, “one can’t expect instantly to be
a draw. More than—perhaps—just a little!”
“With a man who understands in the Box Office....”
“Someone with a big nose and a strong will, eh?”
Mr. Nice lifted a rusty iron and wiped it across his leg.
“In my opinion,” he said, “to associate oneself with a sanctified
classic is a huge mistake. And why start a season on the tragic tack?”
“Because——”
“Suppose it’s a frost?”
“Oh!”
“Suppose your venture fails. Suppose the thing’s a drizzle.”
“What then?”
“There’s a light comedy of mine that should suit you.”
“Of yours!”
“Appelled _Sweet Maggie Maguire._”
“Tell me why she was sweet, Mr. Nice,” Mrs. Sixsmith begged.
“Why she was sweet? I really don’t know.”
“Was she sentimental...?”
“She was an invalid. A bed-ridden beauty ... and, of course, the hero’s
a Doctor.”
“Oh! my word!”
“Is there anyone at home?” A tired voice came thrilling up from below.
“Who comes?”
Mrs. Sixsmith started.
“It sounds to me like my husband,” she said, with an involuntary nervous
movement of the hands.
“I forgot,” Mr. Weathercock said. “He mentioned he might blow in.”
“Oh!”
“I’d take to my heels!” Miss Iris advised.
Mrs. Sixsmith stood transfixed.
The moonlight fell full on her, making her features look drawn and
haggard.
------------------------------------------------------------------------