Ronald Firbank

“ Miss Sinquier clasped her hands.
“One has heard of them often, of course.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Mary have won repute throughout the realm,” Mrs. Sixsmith impressively said, wondering (as middlewoman) what commission she should ask.
“Mrs. Mary, I dare say, is no longer what she was!”
“Mrs. Mary, aujourd’hui, is a trifle, perhaps, full-blown, but she’s most magnetic still. And a warmer, quicker heart never beat in any breast.”
“In her heyday, Sir Oliver—but you wouldn’t have seen her, of course.” ”

“ Lady Mary showed distress.
“For goodness sake, my dear,” she addressed Miss Sinquier, “do leave yourself alone. I want the glass.”
But Miss Sinquier seemed engrossed.
At her elbow a slip of a “Joy-baby” was holding forth with animation to Mrs. Sixsmith and Mrs. Smee.
“That was one of my dreams,” she was saying, “and last night again I had another—in spite of a night-light, too! It began by a ring formed of crags and boulders enclosing a troop of deer—oh, such a herd of them—delicate, distinguished animals with little pom-pom horns, and some had poodles’ tails. ”

“ Miss May Mant woke her with a start.
“Oh!”
“I laid it to-day in the stalls.”
“Extraordinary child.”
“Crumbs in the boxes, I’ve noticed, encourage mice.... They must come from the spring, I think, under the stage.”
“One ought to set a trap!”
“Poor creatures ... they enjoy a good play, I expect, as much as we do,” Miss Mant murmured, setting down the kettle she was holding and lowering her cheek graciously for a kiss.
“Well?”
“You were asleep.”
“Was I horrid?”
“You looked too perfectly orchidaceous.”
“Orchidaceous?”
“Like the little women of Outa-Maro.”
Miss Sinquier sat up. ”

“ Miss Sinquier shivered.
“Is it a good house?” she inquired.
“Splendid. Outside they’re flying five ‘full’ boards.... There’s not a single vacant place. Poor Sydney Iphis gave half a guinea for a seat in the slips.”
“Are you here all alone?”
“I’m with Sir Oliver Dawtry,” Mrs. Sixsmith replied, “except when I’m running about!... Can I sell anyone anything?” she inquired, raising sonorously her voice. “Vanilla! Caramel! Chocolate!... Comfits,” she warbled. ”

“ Operated on by others. At the mercy of chance fingers, unskilled fingers, tender fingers; nails of all sorts. Unable to progress alone. Finding fulfilment through friction and because of friction. Stung into sentiency gradually, bit by bit—a toe at a time.
After all there was a zest in it; and who should blame the raw material should an accident occur by the way....
Careless of an intriguing world about her, Miss Sinquier left her hotel, just so as to arrive at Angrezini’s last.
“For Thou knowest well my safety is in Thee,” she murmured to herself mazily as her taxi skirted the Park. ”

“ From a pinnacle a devil with limbs entwined about some struggling crowned-coiffed prey, grimaced.
“For I yearn for those kisses you gave me once
On the steps by Bakerloo!” Miss Sinquier crooned caressingly, craning further out.
Under the little old lime trees by the Cathedral door lounged Lady Caroline Dempsey’s Catholic footman.
Miss Sinquier considered him.
In her mind’s eye she saw the impression her own conversion would make in the parochial world.
“Canon Sinquier’s only daughter has gone over to Rome....” Or, “Canon Sinquier’s daughter has taken the veil.” ”

“ She started as a fan of seabirds’ feathers skimmed her arm.
“Sylvester’s come,” Mrs. Sixsmith in passing said.
113“Oh!”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Scared?”
“You know, he always belittles people. Sylvester traduces everyone; he even crabs his daughter; he damns all he sees.”
“Boom!”
“How he got up those narrow stairs is a mystery to me,” Mrs. Sixsmith smiled.
Miss Sinquier raised her face towards the bustling stars. An elfish horse-shoe moon, felicitously bright, struck her as auspicious. ”

“ Pazza per amore,” she warbled, leaping lightly over the footlights into the stalls.
The auditorium, steeped in darkness, felt extinguished, chill.
Making a circuit of the boxes, she found her way up a stairway into the promenade.
Busts of players, busts of poets, busts of peris, interspersed by tall mirrors in gilt-bordered mouldings, smiled on her good-day.
Sinking to a low, sprucely-cushioned seat, she breathed a sigh of content.
Rid of the perpetual frictions of the inevitable 105personnel, she could possess the theatre, for a little while, in quietude to herself. ”

“ Here, soon a year ago, while weaving herself a garland (she was playing at being Europa with the Saunders’ Fifeshire bull; flourishing flowers at it; tempting it with waving poppies; defying it to bear her away from the surrounding stagnance) , the realization of her dramatic gift first discovered itself.
And then, her thoughts tripped on, he came: the Rev. George—“just as I was wondering to whom to apply”—and drew all Applethorp to S. Ann-on-the-Hill by the persuasive magnetism of his voice; largely due—so he said—to “scientific production.” To the Bromley Breath! ”

“ Miss Sinquier sighed; she had not closed her eyes the whole night through.
“One needs a blind,” she mused, “and a pane——.” She looked about her for something to throw.
Cinquecento, Italian things—a chest, a crucifix, a huge guitar, a grim, carved catafalque all purple sticks and violet legs (Juliet’s) crowded the floor.
“A mess of glass ... and cut my feet ...;” she murmured, gathering about her a négligé of oxydized knitted stuff and sauntering out towards the footlights in quest of air.
104Notwithstanding the thermometer, she could hear Miss May Mant breathing nasally from behind her door. ”

“ Mrs. Sixsmith slipped an encircling arm about Miss Sinquier’s waist.
“Always remember,” she said, “to a City man, twelve hundred sounds less than a thousand. Just as a year, to you and me, sounds more than eighteen months!”
“I’ll not forget.”
51“Here is Sir Oliver now.”
Through the swing doors an elderly man with a ruddy, rather apoplectic face, and close-set opaque eyes, precipitantly advanced.
“Ladies!”
“‘Ladies’ indeed, Sir Oliver.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mrs. Sixsmith sighed.
“It isn’t up to much. Anything good she sells—on account of bailiffs.”
“Pooh! She should treat them all en reine.”
Mrs. Smee looked wise.
“Always be civil with bailiffs,” she said; “never ruffle them! If you queen a sheriff’s officer remember there’s no getting rid of him. He clings on—like a poor relation.”
“Oh, well,” Mrs. Sixsmith replied, “I always treat the worms en reine, not,” she added wittily, “that I ever have....”
Miss Sinquier twirled herself finally about.
“There,” she murmured, “I’m going out into the wings.”
95“When’s your call?”
“After Lady Mary.” ”

“ DEAR MOTHER,—I saw your notice in a newspaper not very long ago, and this morning I came across it again in the Dispatch. Really I don’t know what there can be to “forgive,” and as to “coming back!”—I have undertaken the management of this theatre, where rehearsals of Romeo and Juliet have already begun. This is the little house where Audrey Anderson made her début, and where Avize Mendoza made such a hit. You could imagine nothing cosier or more intimate if you tried. ”

“ Half-way down the row, on the Knightsbridge side, you caught a glimpse of it set well back in its strip of garden with a curtain of rustling aspen-trees before the door.
Erected towards the close of the eighteenth century as a retreat for a fallen minister, it had, on his demise, become the residence of a minor member of the reigning Royal House, from whose executors, it had, in due course, passed into the hands of the first histrionic couple in the land. ”

“ Sixsmith smiled and rose.
“Sir Oliver hasn’t yet come!” she said, imprinting on Miss Sinquier’s youthful cheek a salute of hospitality.
“He hasn’t? And I made sure I should be last.”
Mrs. Sixsmith consulted the time.
“From the Bank to the Poultry, and from the Poultry on...; just consider,” she calculated, subsiding leisurely with Miss Sinquier upon a spindle-legged settee.
“You telephoned?”
“I told him all your story.”
“Well?”
“He has promised me to do his utmost.”
“He will?”
“You should have heard us. This Mrs. 50Bromley, he pretends.... Oh, well ... one must not be too harsh on the dead.” ”

“ Smee’s sallies at times are not for young ears,” Mrs. Smee loftily observed. “His witticisms,” she added, “aren’t for everyone.”
“My friend, Miss Tird, who came to watch me dress, was quite upset by his cochônneries!”
“Although your little friend appears scarcely to be nine, she seems dazed by her sex and power,” Mrs. Smee unfavourably commented.
126“I’ll have to go, I suppose,” Miss Sinquier sighed, “and see how matters stand.”
“Prenez garde: for when making up, he mostly makes a palette of his hand,” Mrs. Sixsmith said. ”

“ Sixsmith sighed, when the door opening gently was followed by the entry of Mrs. Smee.
“Am I disturbing you?” she asked.
“No, come in.”
“I want to tell you, my husband isn’t himself.”
“He’s ill?”
“He’s not himself.”
“In what way?”
“It’s a hard thing for a wife to confess. But for a première he’s nearly always in wine.”
121“Is he ... much?”
“I never knew him like it!”
Mrs. Sixsmith examined her nails.
“So violent?” she ventured.
“He’s more confused, dear, than violent,” Mrs. Smee explained. “He seems to think we’re doing The Tempest; Romeo’s tanned breast he takes for Ferdinand’s. ”

“ Mary, her ladyship, has joined the struggle.”
“Murder!” called a voice.
“Glory be to God.”
Mrs. Sixsmith rolled her eyes.
“Da!” she gasped, as Lady Mary, a trifle dazed but decked in smiles, came bustling in.
“Oh, Men! Men! Men!” she exclaimed, 92going off into a hearty laugh. “Rough, angelic brutes...!”
She was radiant.
She had a gown of shot brocade, a high lace ruff and a silver girdle of old German work, that had an ivory missal falling from it.
“Quarrelsome, quarrelling kings,” she stuttered, drifting towards a toilet-table—the very one before which Miss Sinquier was making her face. ”

“ There was nothing left to do but to throw a last glance at the wreaths.
“From the artists and staff of the Source Theatre as a trifling proof of their esteem”—such the large lyre crushing her own “Resurgam.” And there also was the Marys’ with their motto: “All men and women are merely players. They have their exits and their entrances.” And the “Heureuse!” tribute by the sexton’s tools—she craned—was Yvonde de Yalta’s, it appeared.
“Yvonde de Yalta!”
Mrs. Sixsmith gulped.
132“You grieve?”
Canon Sinquier stood beside her. ”

“ All the wonderful day stretched before her, and in the evening she would take a ticket perhaps for some light vaudeville or new revue.
She studied the pleasure announcements on the motor-buses as they swayed along.
Stella Starcross—The Lady from the Sea—This evening, Betty Buttermilk and Co.—Rose Tournesol—Mr. and Mrs. Mary’s Season: The Carmelite—The Shop Boy—Clemenza di Tito. To-night!
Miss Sinquier blinked.
Meanwhile the family teapot was becoming a bore.
Until the shops should open up it might be well to take a taxi and rest in the Park for an hour. ”

“ There. One has only to speak his name for Juno to jerk her tail.”
“With whom is he at present?”
“With Sydney Iphis.”
“We went last night to see Mrs. Starcross,” Sir Oliver said.
“She’s no draw.”
“I long to see her,” Miss Sinquier breathed.
“I understand, my dear young lady, you’ve an itch for the footlights yourself.”
Miss Sinquier began eating crumbs at random.
“God knows!” she declared.
“C’est une âme d’élite, Sir Oliver.”
“You’ve no experience at all?”
“None.”
Sir Oliver refused a dish.
“We old ones ...” he lamented. “Once 54upon a time, I was in closer touch with the stage.” ”

“ You were her friend. Her champion....”
“Dear Canon—don’t ... don’t: You mustn’t! She’s at peace. Nothing can fret her. Nothing shall fret her ... ever now. And, you know, as a manageress, she was liable to vast vexations.”
“My poor pet.”
“She’s hors de combat: free from a calculating and dishonest world; ah, Canon!”
“We shall expect you, then, dear Sally’s friend, to dinner this evening at eight,” Canon Sinquier murmured as he walked away.
Mrs. Sixsmith put up a large chiffon sunshade 140and hovered staccato before the dwindling spires and ogee dome of S. Irene. ”

“ A gravel sweep leading between a pair of grotesquely attenuated sphinxes conducted, via a fountain, to the plain, sober façade in the Grecian style.
Moving demurely up this approach some few minutes prior to the hour telegraphically 59specified by the mistress of the house, Miss Sinquier, clad in a light summer dress, with a bow like a great gold butterfly under her chin, pulled the bell of Mary Lodge.
Some day others would be standing at her own front gate, their hearts a-hammer.... ”

“ 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 82a 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. ”

“ You see ... I’ve lost my heart here—! Tell them so—oh! especially to the men.... Whereabouts was I born? In Westmorland; yes. In England, Sir! Inquisitive? Why not at all: I was born in the sleepy peaceful town of Applethorp (three p’s) , in the inmost heart—right in the very middle,” Miss Sinquier murmured, tucking a few field flowers under her chin, “of the Close.”
14 II “SALLY,” her father said, “I could not make out where you sat at Vespers, child, to-night.”
In the old-world Deanery drawing room, coffee and liqueurs—a Sunday indulgence—had been brought in.
Miss Sinquier set down her cup. ”

“ In the crescent-shaped, cedar-walled, cedar-beamed room, a table at a confidential angle had been reserved.
“There’s a big gathering here to-night,” Sir Oliver observed, glancing round him, a “board-room” mask clinging to him still.
Miss Sinquier looked intellectual.
“I find it hot!” she said.
“You do.”
“I find London really very hot.... It’s after the north, I suppose. In the north it’s always much cooler.”
“Are you from the north?”
“Yes, indeed she is,” Mrs. Sixsmith chimed 52in. “And so am I,” she said. “Two north-country girls!” she added gaily.
Sir Oliver spread sentimentally his feet. ”