Short Fiction

coral.’ Of course, if in sheer gratitude at my silence you like to take me for a much-needed holiday to the Adriatic or somewhere equally interesting, paying all expenses, I shouldn’t dream of refusing.”

Later in the afternoon Clovis found his aunt and Mrs. Riversedge indulging in gentle exercise in the Jacobean garden.

“I’ve spoken to Mr. Brope about F.,” he announced.

“How splendid of you! What did he say?” came in a quick chorus from the two ladies.

“He was quite frank and straightforward with me when he saw that I knew his secret,” said Clovis, “and it seems that his intentions were quite serious, if slightly unsuitable. I tried to show him the impracticability of the course that he was following. He said he wanted to be understood, and he seemed to think that Florinda would excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there were probably dozens of delicately nurtured, pure-hearted young English girls who would be capable of understanding him, while Florinda was the only person in the world who understood my aunt’s hair. That rather weighed with him, for he’s not really a selfish animal, if you take him in the right way, and when I appealed to the memory of his happy childish days, spent amid the daisied fields of Leighton Buzzard (I suppose daisies do grow there), he was obviously affected. Anyhow, he gave me his word that he would put Florinda absolutely out of his mind, and he has agreed to go for a short trip abroad as the best distraction for his thoughts. I am going with him as far as Ragusa. If my aunt should wish to give me a really nice scarf-pin (to be chosen by myself), as a small recognition of the very considerable service I have done her, I shouldn’t dream of refusing. I’m not one of those who think that because one is abroad one can go about dressed anyhow.”

A few weeks later in Blackpool and places where they sing, the following refrain held undisputed sway:

“How you bore me, Florrie,
With those eyes of vacant blue;
You’ll be very sorry, Florrie,
If I marry you.
Though I’m easygoin’, Florrie,
This I swear is true,
I’ll throw you down a quarry, Florrie,
If I marry you.”

The Story of St. Vespaluus

“Tell me a story,” said the baroness, staring out despairingly at the rain; it was that light, apologetic sort of rain that looks as if it was going to leave off every minute and goes on for the greater part of the afternoon.

“What sort of story?” asked Clovis, giving his croquet mallet a valedictory shove into retirement.

“One just true enough to be interesting and not true enough to be tiresome,” said the baroness.

Clovis rearranged several cushions to his personal solace and satisfaction; he knew that the baroness liked her guests to be comfortable, and he thought it right to respect her wishes in that particular.

“Have I ever told you the story of Saint Vespaluus?” he asked.

“You’ve told me stories about grand-dukes and lion-tamers and financiers’ widows and a postmaster in Herzegovina,” said the baroness, “and about an Italian jockey and an amateur governess who went to Warsaw, and several about your mother, but certainly never anything about a saint.”

“This story happened a long while ago,” he said, “in those uncomfortable piebald times when a third of the people were Pagan, and a third Christian, and the biggest third of all just followed whichever religion the Court happened to profess. There was a certain king called Hkrikros, who had a fearful temper and no immediate successor in his own family; his married sister, however, had provided him with a large stock of nephews from which to select his heir. And the most eligible and royally-approved of all these nephews was the sixteen-year-old Vespaluus. He was the best looking, and the best horseman and javelin-thrower, and had that priceless princely gift of being able to walk past a supplicant with an air of not having seen him, but would certainly have given something if he had. My mother has that gift to a certain extent; she can go smilingly and financially unscathed through a charity bazaar, and meet the organizers next day with a solicitous ‘had I but known you were in need of funds’ air that is really rather a triumph in audacity. Now Hkrikros was a Pagan of the first water, and kept the worship of the sacred serpents, who lived in a hallowed grove on a hill near the royal palace, up to a high pitch of enthusiasm. The common people were allowed to please themselves, within certain discreet limits, in the matter of private religion, but any official in the service of the Court who went over to the new cult was looked down on, literally as well as metaphorically, the looking down being done from the gallery that ran round the royal bear-pit. Consequently there was considerable scandal and consternation when the youthful Vespaluus appeared one day at a Court function with a rosary tucked into his belt, and announced in reply to angry questionings that he had decided to adopt Christianity, or at any rate to give it a trial. If it had been any of the other nephews the king would possibly have ordered something drastic in the way of scourging and banishment, but in the case of the favoured Vespaluus he determined to look on the whole thing much as a modern father might regard the announced intention of his son to adopt the stage as a profession. He sent accordingly for the Royal Librarian. The royal library in those days was not a very extensive affair, and the keeper of the king’s books had a great deal of leisure on his hands. Consequently he was in frequent demand for the settlement of other people’s affairs when these strayed beyond normal limits and got temporarily unmanageable.

“ ‘You must reason with Prince Vespaluus,’ said the king, ‘and impress on him the error of his ways. We cannot have