“It all sounds wonderfully simple,” said Denis.
“It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are wonderfully simple.” (Quotation marks again.) “When I have to do my aphorisms,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, “I prelude my trance by turning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that ensures that the Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous rush, but in aphorismic drops. You see the idea?”
Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a notebook. “I did a few in the train today,” he said, turning over the pages. “Just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my carriage. I find the train very conducive to good work. Here they are.” He cleared his throat and read:
“ ’The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it is from the Summit that one gets the view.’ ”
“ ’The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart.’ ”
It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes repeated itself.
“ ’Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I believe in God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil.’ ”
Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. “That last one,” he said, “is particularly subtle and beautiful, don’t you think? Without Inspiration I could never have hit on that.” He reread the apophthegm with a slower and more solemn utterance. “Straight from the Infinite,” he commented reflectively, then addressed himself to the next aphorism.
“ ’The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns.’ ”
Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s forehead. “I don’t exactly know what that means,” he said. “It’s very gnomic. One could apply it, of course to the Higher Education—illuminating, but provoking the Lower Classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I suppose that’s what it is. But it’s gnomic, it’s gnomic.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed imploringly: dinner was growing cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith from meditation. He turned to Denis.
“You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your Inspiration. Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on the Niagara of the Infinite.”
There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smith got up, laid his hand for an instant on Denis’s shoulder, and said:
“No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely on your discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred things that one doesn’t wish to be generally known.”
“Of course,” said Denis. “I quite understand.”
VII
At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture. Huge beds, like four-masted ships, with furled sails of shining coloured stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted and gilded. Beds of walnut and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion from the time of Sir Ferdinando, who built the house, to the time of his namesake in the late eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them grandiose, magnificent.
The finest of all was now Anne’s bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir Ferdinando, had had it made in Venice against his wife’s first lying-in. Early seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant art in the making of it. The body of the bed was like a great square sarcophagus. Clustering roses were carved in high relief on its wooden panels, and luscious putti wallowed among the roses. On the black groundwork of the panels the carved reliefs were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in spirals up the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top of each column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved flowers.
Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table beside her, in their rich light her face, her bare arm and shoulder took on warm hues and a sort of peach-like quality of surface. Here and there in the canopy above her carved golden petals shone brightly among profound shadows, and the soft light, falling on the sculptured panel of the bed, broke restlessly among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress on the blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little posteriors of the sprawling putti.
There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. “Come in, come in.” A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair, peered round the opening door. More childish-looking still, a suit of mauve pyjamas made its entrance.
It was Mary. “I thought I’d just look in for a moment to say good night,” she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Anne closed her book. “That was very sweet of you.”
“What are you reading?” She looked at the book. “Rather second-rate, isn’t it?” The tone in which Mary pronounced the word “second-rate” implied an almost infinite denigration. She was accustomed in London to associate only with first-rate people who liked first-rate things, and she knew that there were very, very few first-rate things in the world, and that those were mostly French.
“Well, I’m afraid I like it,” said Anne. There was nothing more to be said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable one. Mary fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama jacket. Leaning back on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne waited and wondered what was coming.
“I’m so awfully afraid of repressions,” said Mary at last, bursting suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced the words on the tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp for new air almost before the phrase was finished.
“What’s there
