CHAPTER SEVEN
John Keats ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’
The first course, a delicate asparagus soup, passed politely enough, with Lydia offering timid comments on the Melbourne weather, to which Robert Sanderson responded in hearty agreement.
‘They say, if you don’t like the weather, just wait half an hour and it changes. Makes matters of dress dashed difficult, I can tell you.’
‘Not so much for gentlemen,’ observed Phryne. ‘You are forced to wear the same uniform whether it is hot or cold, wet or dry; I believe it has been described as the “Assyrian Panoply of the Gentleman”. Do you not get tired of it?’
‘Yes, perhaps, Miss Fisher, but what would you have me do? I can’t go about in old flannel bags and a red tie, like those artist chaps up in Heidelberg. The people who have done me the honour to entrust me with the exercise of sovereign power expect a certain standard, and I am delighted to follow their wishes. In this, at least, I can please them. Not, alas, in much else.’
Phryne digested this speech along with the asparagus soup. Anyone who could clothe a trite statement in such orotund periods was obviously born to be a politician. The soup passed, and the entree — whitebait with accompaniments of lemon and buttered toast — made its appearance. The food was delicious, but the conversation was beginning to bore Phryne. Mindful of her task, she could not divert the company with anything shocking, which was her usual method of gaining either interesting conversation or sufficient silence to eat in comfort. Mrs Cryer was holding forth on the insolence of the poor.
‘A dirty man — I mean, really smelly — opened the door of my taxi, and had the nerve to ask for money! And when I gave him a penny, he almost threw it at me, and called me a most insulting name.’
Phryne diverted a few entrancing moments wondering what he had called her. A mean bitch, perhaps, which would seem to meet the case admirably.
‘A similar thing happened to me,’ reminisced Sanderson. Phryne looked at him. She was hoping that her good opinion of him was not about to be spoiled. ‘A grubby fellow polished the windows of my car, with a villainously dirty rag, so that I could hardly see out of ’em, then asked me for a sixpence — and offered to clean ’em again for a shilling, with a new rag.’
Sanderson chuckled, but Mrs Cryer bridled.
‘I hope that you did not give him anything, Mr Sanderson!’
‘Of course I did, ma’am.’
‘But he would only spend it on drink! You know what the working classes are!’
‘Indeed, ma’am, and why should he not spend it on drink? Would you deprive the poor, whose lives are bad and miserable and comfortless enough, of the solace of a little relief from grinding poverty? A sordid, sodden relief perhaps, but would you be so heartless as to deny the poor even that pleasure in which all of us indulge at your generous expense?’ He looked meaningfully at the glass of wine at Mrs Cryer’s place — it was her third, yet she had eaten very little. An unbecoming flush mounted to her hostess’s hairline, and Phryne leapt in the conversational breach, her opinion of the MP confirmed. She had a feeling that she had heard the speech before — Dr Johnson, was it? — but it did him credit. However, Phryne wanted to gain a few points with Mrs Cryer, and this seemed to be a good time to earn some.
‘Tell me, Mr Sanderson, what party do you belong to? I know so little about politics in Melbourne.’
‘I am, and always have been, a Tory, and I am pleased to say that we are presently in an excellent position. At the moment I have the honour to represent the electorate in this area; I was born here. My father came from Yorkshire, but I have never been home. Never had the time, somehow. There are many things that keep me here. At present, for example, we are setting up soup-kitchens, and a measure of work will be provided for the unemployed, for which they will receive sustenance wages.’
‘Won’t that be very expensive?’
‘Yes, probably, but we cannot allow the working men to starve.’
‘What about the working women?’ asked Phryne artlessly. There was a shocked silence.
‘Why, Miss Fisher, don’t say that you’re a suffragette!’ giggled Mrs Cryer. ‘So indelicate!’
‘Did you vote in the last election, Mrs Cryer?’ asked Robert Sanderson, and his hostess glared at him. Phryne thought that she had better leave politics alone, and changed the subject.
‘Any of you gentlemen interested in flying?’
To Phryne’s great relief, one Alan Carroll piped up from across the table with an enthusiastic summary of the latest Avro, and the conversation went on to a discussion of scientific miracles, the telephone, the wireless, the car, the electric train, the flying machine and the chip-heater.
The roast chickens were brought in, and the conversation flagged. Lydia, however, continued to speak to her husband in vicious undertones. Phryne was unobtrusively attentive and what she heard confirmed her opinion that despite Lydia’s vapid appearance she had a whim of iron.
‘I tell you that Matthews is crooked. He’s laughing at your naivety. You must not believe him, that gold mine is fake. There was an article in the
Mr Andrews took his tongue-lashing meekly.
Dinner concluded with ices and custards and fruit, and the ladies withdrew to take coffee and gossip. Lydia clung to Phryne but did not speak, and Phryne had no further chance to talk to the Princesse, who was holding her own court in a corner, along with a flagon of orange liqueur and a samovar. Phryne sipped coffee, then shook off Lydia for ten minutes. She re-emerged to find the ballroom in darkness. She understood that the dancers were to begin, and found the Princesse attached to her elbow.
‘You have decided?’ she whispered.
‘I agree, provided that you tell me what you find,’ Phryne answered without turning her head. The old woman cackled disconcertingly.
‘Quiet, now. They are going to perform.’
The guests were silenced by a painful mixture of Schoen- berg and Russsian folk-song, derived from musically obtuse Styrian peasants who had absorbed their atonality along with their mother’s milk. The sound hurt; but it could not be ignored. Too much of it, Phryne was convinced, would curdle custard.
The music gave a sudden screech, and the young woman, whose name Phryne had discovered was Elli, leapt into the ring of people. She was dressed in her leotard, with the addition of an apron and a long fair wig, done in plaits. She was both comic and rather touching, as she skipped along, occasionally pausing to pick flowers, which she gathered in her apron. She danced a little childish, almost clumsy dance, indicating that it was spring and a lovely day. She knelt to dip water from a pool, then caught sight of her reflection. She made a few grimaces, and unplaited her hair, trying out the effect and smiling through the long tresses.
Creeping, silent as a cat, came Sasha, almost invisible in his unrelieved black, with a white mask in his hand. The maiden caught sight of him, bridled, and dimpled coyly. Sasha smiled, a guileless grin, and they danced a clumsy
Sasha stood still, and donned the mask, immediately seeming taller, thinner and infinitely more alarming. His clumsiness became sinister when topped with a death’s head. Even the mask was primitive; not a full skull but the bony frontal ridges and hollow eyesockets, cracked and broken and grey, as if he had been long buried. Under the half-mask was Sasha’s own smooth jaw and soft red mouth, which somehow made it worse. The maiden danced her rustic little dance a few more steps, and Death followed her, now not at all clumsy. Without seeing him, she moved and dodged, eluding his grasp, until she turned and beheld him, and fled with a shriek.
Death pursued her, slowly, then faster, blocking and obstructing her course, until she ran into his arms. His feral grin chilled Phryne’s spine, especially as she recalled her own wish to kiss that mouth. The maiden shuddered in the arms of Death; her knees gave way, and he bore her into the same peasant
