Part 1
CAPRICE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
VAINGLORY
INCLINATIONS
ODETTE: a Fairy Tale for Weary People
GLENMOUTH: A Romantic Novel [_In Preparation_]
+CAPRICE+
BY
RONALD FIRBANK
❦
_With a Frontispiece by Augustus John_
LONDON GRANT RICHARDS LTD. ST MARTIN’S STREET LEICESTER SQUARE MDCCCCXVII
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE GARDEN CITY PRESS LTD., LETCHWORTH
TO
STEPHEN HAMMERTON
Τίς δ’ ἀγροιῶτίς τοι θελγει νόον, οὐκ ἐπισταμένα τὰ βράκε’ ἔλκην ἐπὶ τῶν σφύρων.—_Sappho._
I
THE clangour of bells grew insistent. In uncontrollable hilarity pealed S. Mary, contrasting clearly with the subdued carillon of S. Mark. From all sides, seldom in unison, resounded bells. S. Elizabeth and S. Sebastian, in Flower Street, seemed in loud dispute, while S. Ann “on the Hill,” all hollow, cracked, consumptive, fretful, did nothing but complain. Near by S. Nicaise, half-paralysed, and impotent, feebly shook. Then, triumphant, in a hurricane of sound, S. Irene hushed them all.
It was Sunday again.
Up and up, and still up, the winding ways of the city the straggling townsfolk toiled.
Now and again a pilgrim perhaps would pause in the narrow lane behind the Deanery to rest.
Opening a black lacquer fan and setting the window of her bedroom wide, Miss Sarah Sinquier peered out.
The lane, very frequently, would prove interesting of an afternoon.
Across it, the Cathedral rose up before her with wizardry against the evening sky.
Miss Sinquier raised her eyes towards the twin grey spires, threw up her arms, and yawned.
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.” Or, “Miss Sinquier, having suffered untold persecution at the hands of her family, has been received into the Convent of the Holy Dove.”
Her eyes strayed leisurely from the powdered head and weeping shoulder-knots of Lady Caroline Dempsey’s Catholic footman. The lack of movement was oppressive.
Why was not Miss Worrall in her customary collapse being borne senseless to her Gate in the Sacristan’s arms? And why to-night were they not chaunting the Psalms?
Darting out her tongue, Miss Sinquier withdrew her head and resumed her book.
“Pouf!”
She shook her fan.
The room would soon be dark.
From the grey-toned walls, scriptural, a _Sasso Sassi_ frowned.
“In all these fruitful years,” she read, “the only instance he is recorded to have smiled was at a great rat running in and out among some statues.... _He_ was the Ideal Hamlet. Morose of countenance, and cynical by nature, his outbursts, at times, would completely freeze the company.”
Miss Sinquier passed her finger-tips lightly across her hair.
“Somehow it makes no difference,” she murmured, turning towards a glass. To feign Ophelia—no matter what!
She pulled about her a lace Manilla shawl.
It was as though it were Andalusia whenever she wrapped it on.
“_Dona Rosarda!_”
“_Fernan Perez? What do you want?_”
“_Ravishing Rosarda, I need you._”
“_I am the wife of Don José Cuchillo—the Moor._”
“_Dona Rosarda Castilda Cuchillo, I love you._”
“_Sh——! My husband will be back directly._”
Stretched at ease before a pier-glass, Miss Sinquier grew enthralled.
An hour sped by.
The room was almost dark.
Don José would wish his revenge.
“_Rosarda._”
“_Fernando?_”
“_Ah-h!_”
Miss Sinquier got up.
She must compose herself for dinner—wash off the blood.
Poor Fernan!
She glanced about her, a trifle Spanish still.
From a clothes-peg something hanging seemed to implore.
“To see me? Why, bless you. Yes!”
With an impetuous, pretty gesture she flung it upon a couch.
“How do I like America?”
“I adore it.... 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._”
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.
Behind her, through the open windows, a riot of light leaves and creepers was swaying restively to and fro.
“I imagine the _Font_ hid me,” she answered with a little laugh.
Canon Sinquier considered with an absent air an abundant-looking moon, then turned towards his wife.
“To-morrow, Mary,” he said, “there’s poor Mrs. Cushman again.”
At her cylinder-desk, between two flickering candles, Mrs. Sinquier, while her coffee grew cold, was opening her heart to a friend.
“Do, Mike, keep still,” she begged.
“Still?”
“Don’t fidget. Don’t talk.”
“Or dare to breathe,” her daughter added, taking up a Sunday journal and approaching nearer the light.
“‘At the Olive Theatre,’” she read, “‘Mrs. Starcross will produce a new comedy, in the coming autumn, which promises to be of the highest interest.’”
Her eyes kindled.
“Oh God!”
“‘At the Kehama, Yvonde Yalta will be seen shortly in a Japanese piece, with singing mandarins, geishas, and old samurai—’”
“Dear Lord!”
“‘Mr. and Mrs. Mary are said to be contemplating Management again.’”
“Heavens above!”
“‘For the revival of _She Stoops to——_’”
Crescendo, across the mist-clad Close broke a sorrowful, sated voice.
“You can fasten the window, Sarah,” Canon Sinquier said.
“It’s Miss Biggs!”
“Who could have taught her? How?” the Canon wondered.
Mrs. Sinquier laid down her pen.
“I dread her intimate dinner!” she said.
“Is it to be intimate?”
“Isn’t she always? ‘Come round and see me soon, Miss Sarah, _there’s_ a dear, and let’s be intimate!’”
“Really, Sally!”
“Sally can take off anyone.”
“It’s vulgar, dear, to mimic.”
“Vulgar?”
“It isn’t nice.”
“Many people do.”
“Only mountebanks.”
“I’d bear a good deal to be on the stage.”
Canon Sinquier closed his eyes.
“Recite, dear, something; soothe me,” he said.
“Of course, if you wish it.”
“Soothe me, Sally!”
“Something to obliterate the sermon?”
Miss Sinquier looked down at her feet. She had on black babouches all over little pearls with filigree butterflies that trembled above her toes.
“_Since first I beheld you, Adele, While dancing the celinda, I have remained faithful to the thought of you; My freedom has departed from me,_ _I care no longer for all other negresses; I have no heart left for them;— You have such grace and cunning;— You are like the Congo serpent._”
Miss Sinquier paused.
“You need the proper movements....” she explained. “One ought _really_ to shake one’s shanks!”
“Being a Day-of-rest, my dear, we will dispense with it.”
“_I love you too much, my beautiful one— I am not able to help it. My heart has become just like a grasshopper,— It does nothing but leap. I have never met any woman Who has so beautiful a form as yours. Your eyes flash flame; Your body has enchained me captive._
_Ah, you are like the rattlesnake Who knows how to charm the little bird, And who has a mouth ever ready for it To serve it for a tomb. I have never known any negress Who could walk with such grace as you can. Or who could make such beautiful gestures;_ _Your body is a beautiful doll._
_When I cannot see you, Adele, I feel myself ready to die; My life becomes like a candle Which has almost burned itself out. I cannot then find anything in the world Which is able to give me pleasure: I could well go down to the river And throw myself in so that I might cease to suffer._
_Tell me if you have a man, And I will make an ouanga charm for him; I will make him turn into a phantom, If you will only take me for your husband. I will not go to see you when you are cross: Other women are mere trash to me; I will make you very happy And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief._”
“Thank you, thank you, Sally.”
“It is from _Ozias Midwinter._”
Mrs. Sinquier shuddered.
“Those scandalous topsies that entrap our missionaries!” she said.
“In Oshkosh—”
“Don’t, Mike. The horrors that go on in certain places, I’m sure no one would believe.”
Miss Sinquier caressed lightly the Canon’s cheek.
“Soothed?” she asked.
“... Fairly.”
“When I think of those coloured coons,” Mrs. Sinquier went on, “at the Palace fête last year! Roaming all night in the Close.... And when I went to look out next day there stood an old mulattress holding up the baker’s boy in the lane.”
“There, Mary!”
“Tired, dear?”
“Sunday’s always a strain.”
“For you, alas! it’s bound to be.”
“There were the Catechetical Classes to-day.”
“Very soon now Sally will learn to relieve you.”
Miss Sinquier threw up her eyes.
“I?” she wondered.
“Next Sunday it’s time you should begin.”
“Between now and _that_,” Miss Sinquier reflected, shortly afterwards, on her way upstairs, “I shall almost certainly be in town.”
“O London—City of Love!” she warbled softly as she locked her door.
III
IN the Gazebo at the extremity of the garden, by the new parterre, Miss Sinquier, in a morning wrapper, was waiting for the post.
Through the trellis chinks, semicircular, showed the Close, with its plentiful, seasoned timber and sedate, tall houses, a stimulating sequence, architecturally, of whitewash, stone and brick.
Miss Sinquier stirred impatiently.
Wretch—! to deliver at the Palace before the Deanery, when the Deanery was as near!
“Shower down over there, Oh Lord, ten thousand fearsome bills,” extemporaneously she prayed, “and spare them not at all; Amen.”
Hierarchic hands shot upwards.
Dull skies.
She waited.
Through the Palace gates, at length, the fellow lurched, sorting as he came.
“Dolt!”
Her eyes devoured his bag.
Coiled round and round like some sleek snake her future slumbered in it.
Husband; lovers ... little lives, perhaps—yet to be ... besides voyages, bouquets, diamonds, chocolates, duels, casinos...!
She shivered.
“Anything for me, Hodge, to-day,” she inquired, “by chance?”
“A fine morning, Miss.”
“Unusually.”
It had come....
That large mauve envelope, with the wild handwriting, and the haunting scent, was from _her._
As she whisked away her heart throbbed fast. Through the light spring foliage she could see her father, with folded hands, pacing meditatively to and fro before the front of the house.
“Humbug!” she murmured, darting down a gravel path towards the tradesmen’s door.
Regaining her room, she promptly undid the seal.
“_Panvale Priory, Shaftesbury Avenue,_ “_London, W._
“Mrs. Albert Bromley presents her compliments to Miss S. Sinquier and will be pleased to offer her her experience and advice on Thursday morning next at the hour Miss Sinquier names.
“P.S. Mrs. Bromley already feels a parent’s sympathetic interest in Miss Sinquier. Is she dark or fair...? Does she shape for Lady Macbeth or is she a Lady Teazle?”
“Both!” Miss Sinquier gurgled, turning a deft somersault before the glass.
To keep the appointment, without being rushed, she would be obliged to set out, essentially baggageless, to-night—a few requisites merely, looped together and concealed beneath her dress, would be the utmost she could manage.
“A lump here and a lump there!” she breathed, “and I can unburden myself in the train.”
“Okh!”
She peeped within her purse.
... And there was Godmother’s chain that she would sell!
It should bring grist; perhaps close on a thousand pounds. Misericordia: to be compelled to part with it!
Opening a levant-covered box, she drew out a long flat tray.
Adorable pearls.
How clearly now they brought her Godmother to mind ... a little old body ... with improbable cherry-cheeks, and excrescent upper lip, with always the miniatures of her three deceased husbands clinging about one arm.... ‘Aren’t they pleasant?’ she would say proudly every now and then.... What talks they had had; and sometimes of an evening through the mauve moonlight they would strut together.
Ah! She had been almost ugly then; clumsy, gawky, _gauche._...
Now that she was leaving Applethorp, for ever perhaps, how dormant impressions revived!
The Saunders’ Fifeshire bull, one New Year’s night, ravaging the Close, driven frantic by the pealings of the bells. The time poor Dixon got drowned—at a Flower Show, a curate’s eyes—a German governess’s walk—a mould of calves-foot-jelly she had let fall in the Cathedral once, on her way somewhere—
She replaced ruefully her pearls.
What else?
Her artist fingers hovered.
Mere bridesmaid’s rubbish; such frightful frippery.
She turned her thoughts to the room.
Over the bed, an antique Bush-knife of barbaric shape supposed to have been _Abraham’s_, was quite a collector’s piece.
It might be offered to some museum perhaps. The Nation ought to have it....
She sighed shortly.
And downstairs in the butler’s room there were possessions of hers, besides. What of those Apostle spoons, and the two-pronged forks, and the chased tureen?
Leonard frequently had said it took the best part of a day to polish her plate alone.
And to go away and leave it all!
“Oh God, help me, Dear,” she prayed. “This little once, Oh Lord! For Thou knowest my rights....”
She waited.
Why did not an angel with a basket of silver appear?
“Oh, well....”
Gripper, no doubt, would suspect something odd if she asked for her things “to play with” for an hour....
A more satisfactory scheme would be to swoop into the pantry, on her way to the station, and to take them away for herself.
She had only to say: “Make haste with them crevets,” for Gripper to go off in a huff, and Leonard, should he be there, would be almost sure to follow.
Men were so touchy.
Hush.
Her mother’s voice came drifting from below.
“Kate! Kate! Kate! Kate!”
She listened.
“Have the chintz curtains in the white room folded,” she could hear her say, “and remember what I said about the carpet....”
Dear soul!
Miss Sinquier sniffed.
Was it a tear.
Dear soul! Dear souls...!
“Never mind,” she murmured, “they shall have _sofas_ in their box on the night of my début....”
She consoled herself with the thought.
IV
“MAKE haste now with them crevets!”
“For shame, Miss. I shall go straight to the Dean!”
“Cr-r-r-evets!” Miss Sinquier called.
Clad in full black, with a dark felt _chapeau de resistance_ and a long Lancastrian shawl, she felt herself no mean match for any man.
“C-r-r-r,” she growled, throwing back her shawl.
After all, were not the things her own?
She laughed gaily.
“If dear Mrs. Bromley could see me,” she beamed, tucking dexterously away an apostolic spoon.
“‘St. Matthew—St. Mark—St. Luke—St. John— _These_ sprang into bed with their breeches on.’”
At a friendly frolic once, a Candidate for Orders had waltzed her about to that.
She recalled Fräulein’s erudite query still:
“Pray, why did they not take off all like the others?”
And the young man’s significant reasons and elaborate suppositions, and Fräulein’s creamy tone as she said she _quite_ understood.
Miss Sinquier turned a key.
S-s-s-st!
“Butter fingers.”
In a moment she must run.
Terrible to forgo her great tureen....
She poked it. What magnitude to be sure!
Impossible to tow it along.
Under the circumstances, why not take something less cumbersome instead?
There were the Caroline sauce-boats, or the best Anne teapot, hardly, if ever, in use.
Her ideas raced on.
And who could resist those gorgeous grapes, for the train?
Together with their dish....
“Tudor, ‘Harry’!” she breathed.
From the corridor came a hum of voices.
Flinging her wrap about her, Miss Sinquier slipped quietly out by way of a small room, where the Canon preserved his lawn.
Outside, the moon was already up—a full moon, high and white, a wisp of cloud stretched across it like a blindfold face.
Oh Fame, dear!
She put up her face.
Across the garden the Cathedral loomed out of a mist as white as milk.
“The damp,” she reasoned, “alone, would justify her flight.”
She shivered.
How sombre it looked in the lane.
There were roughs there frequently, too.
“Villains....”
She felt fearfully her pearls.
After all, the initial step in any career was usually reckoned the worst.
Some day, at the King’s, or the Canary, or the Olive, in the warmth of a stage dressing-room, she would be amused, perhaps, and say:
“I left my father’s roof, Sir, one sweet spring night—without so much as a word!”
V
RAINDROPS were falling although the sky was visibly brightening as Miss Sinquier, tired, and a little uncertain, passed through the main exit of Euston terminus.
She wavered a moment upon the curb.
On a hoarding, as if to welcome her, a dramatic poster of Fan Fisher unexpectedly warmed her heart; it was almost like being met....
There stood Fan, at concert pitch, as Masha Olgaruski in _The Spy._
Miss Sinquier tingled.
A thing like that was enough to give one wings for a week.
She set off briskly, already largely braced.
Before meeting Mrs. Bromley on the morrow much would have to be done.
There was the difficulty of lodgement to consider.
Whenever she had been in the metropolis before she had stayed at _Millars_ in Eric Street, overlooking Percy Place; because Mr. Millar had formerly been employed at the Deanery, and had, moreover, married their cook....
But before going anywhere she must acquire a trunk.
Even Church dignitaries had been known to be refused accommodation on arriving at a strange hotel with nothing but themselves.
She threw a glance upwards towards a clock.
It was early yet!
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.
The weather was clearing fast; the day showed signs of heat.
She hailed a passing cab.
“Hyde Park,” she murmured, climbing slowly in.
She thrilled.
Upon the floor and over the cushions of the cab was sprinkled fresh confetti—turquoise, pink and violet, gold and green.
She took up some.
As a mascot, she reflected, it would be equivalent to a cinqfoil of clover, or a tuft of edelweiss, or a twist of hangman’s rope.
VI
FROM the big hotel in the vicinity of the Marble Arch, to the consulting rooms in Shaftesbury Avenue of Mrs. Albert Bromley, it appeared, on inquiry, that the distance might easily be accomplished in less than forty minutes.
Miss Sinquier, nevertheless, decided to allow herself more.
Garmented charmingly in a cornflower-blue frock with a black gauze turban trimmed with a forest of tinted leaves, she lingered uplifted by her appearance before the glass.
The sober turban, no doubt, would suggest to Mrs. Bromley, Macbeth—the forest-scene, and the blue, she murmured, “might be anything.”
It occurred to her as she left her room that Mr. Bromley might quite conceivably be there to assist his wife.
“Odious if he is,” she decided, passing gaily out into the street.
It was just the morning for a walk. A pale silvery light spread over Oxford Street, while above the shop fronts, the sun flashed down upon a sea of brass-tipped masts, from whence trade flags trembled in a vagrant breeze. Rejoicing in her independence, and in the exhilarating brightness of the day, Miss Sinquier sailed along. The ordeal of a first meeting with a distinguished dramatic expert diminished at every step. She could conjecture with assurance, almost, upon their ultimate, mutual understanding. But before expressing any opinion, Mrs. Bromley, no doubt, would require to test her voice; perhaps, also, expect her to dance and declaim.
Miss Sinquier thrust out her lips.
“Not before Albert! Or, at any rate not yet....” she muttered.
She wondered what she knew.
There was the thing from _Rizzio._ The Mistress of the Robes’ lament upon her vanished youth, on discovering a mirror unexpectedly, one morning, at Holyrood, outside Queen Mary’s door.
Diamond, Lady Drummond, bearing the Queen a cap, raps, smiles, listens ... smiles, raps again, puts out her leg and rustles ... giggles, ventures to drop a ring, effusive facial play and sundry tentative noises, when catching sight of her reflection, she starts back with:
“O! obnoxious old age. O! hideous horror. O! youthful years all gone. O! childhood spent. Decrepitude at hand.... Infirmities drawing near....”
Interrupted by Mary’s hearty laugh.
“Yes,” Miss Sinquier decided, crossing into Regent Street, “should Mrs. Bromley bid me declaim, I’ll do Diamond.”
Her eyes brightened.
How prettily the street swerved.
As a rule, great thoroughfares were free from tricks.
She sauntered.
“A picture-palace.”
And just beyond were the playhouses themselves.
Theatreland!
Shaftesbury Avenue with its slightly foreign aspect stretched before her.
With a springing foot she turned up it.
Oh, those fragile glass façades with the players’ names suspended!
There was the new Merrymount Theatre with its roguish Amorini supporting torches and smiling down over gay flower-boxes on to the passers-by.
And beyond, where the burgeoning trees began must be Panvale Priory itself.
Miss Sinquier surveyed it.
It looked to be public offices....
On the mat, dressed in a violet riband, with its paw in the air, lay a great sly, black, joyous cat.
“Toms!”
She scratched it.
Could it be Mrs. Bromley’s?
In the threshold, here and there, were small brass plates, that brought to mind somehow memorial tablets to departed virtue at home.
Miss Sinquier studied the inscriptions.
Ah, there showed hers!
“M-m-m!” she murmured, commencing to climb.
Under the skylight a caged bird was singing shrilly.
As much to listen, as to brush something to her cheeks, Miss Sinquier paused.
If a microscopic mirror could be relied upon she had seldom looked so well.