Lalage's Lovers Part 9

"She must make a beginning some day," I said.

"I still think she'd be better in bed," said Lalage.

"After lunch," I said firmly, "You ought not to be vindictive, Lalage.

It's a long time since that trouble about the character of Mary."

"I'm not thinking of that," said Lalage.

"And she's not a bishop. Why should you starve her?"

"Very well," said Lalage. "Do whatever you like, but don't blame me afterward if she's---- she was, on the steamer, horribly."

We fed Miss Battersby on some soup, a fragment of fried fish and a gla.s.s of light wine. She evidently wanted to eat an omelette as well, but Lalage forbade this. Whether she was actually put to bed afterward or merely laid down I do not know. She must have been at least partially undressed, for Lalage and Hilda were plentifully supplied with cigarettes during the afternoon.

CHAPTER VI

Lalage, Hilda, and I went for a drive in one of the attractive carriages which ply for hire in the Lisbon streets. We drove up one side of the Avenida de Liberdade and down the other. I did the duty of a good cicerone by pointing out the fountains, trees and other objects of interest which Lalage and Hilda were sure to see for themselves. When we had exhausted the Avenida I suggested going on to Belem. Lalage did not seem pleased. She said that driving was not her idea of pleasure. She wanted something more active and exciting. I agreed.

"We'll go in a tram," I said.

"Where to?"

"Belem."

"Belem's a church, isn't it, Hilda?"

Hilda and I both admitted that it was.

"Then we can't go there," said Lalage decidedly.

"Why not?" I ventured to ask.

"You said yourself that it wouldn't be decent."

"Oh!" I said, "you're thinking of those poor bishops; but you haven't done anything to the Portuguese patriarch yet. Besides, only half of Belem is a church. The other half is a school, quite secular."

"The only things I really want to see," said Lalage, "are the dead Portuguese kings in gla.s.s cases."

"The what?"

"The dead kings. Stuffed, I suppose. Do you mean to say you've been here nearly four years and don't yet know the way they keep their kings, like natural history specimens in a museum? Why, that was the very first thing Hilda found out in the guide book."

"I didn't," said Hilda. "It was you."

"Let's credit Selby-Harrison with the discovery," I said soothingly. "I remember now about those kings. But the exhibition has been closed to the public now for some years. We shan't be able to get in."

"What's the use of being an amba.s.sador," said Lalage, "if you can't step in to see a dead king whenever you like?"

An amba.s.sador may be able to claim audiences with deceased royalties, but I was not an amba.s.sador. I offered Lalage as an alternative the nearest thing at my command to dead kings.

"The English cemetery," I said, "is considered one of the sights of Lisbon. If you are really interested in corpses we might go there."

"I hate Englishmen," said Lalage. "All Englishmen."

"That's why I suggested their cemetery. It will be immensely gratifying to you to realize what a lot of them have died. The place is nearly full and there are lots of yew trees."

Lalage did me the honour of laughing. Hilda, after a minute's consideration, also laughed. But they were not to be distracted from the dead kings.

"We'll go back to the hotel," said Lalage, "and rout out poor p.u.s.s.y.

She'll be wanting more food by this time. You can go and call on the present King or the Queen Mother, or whoever it is who keep the key of that mausoleum and then come back for us. By the way, before you go, just tell me the Portuguese for an ice. It's desperately hot."

I told her and then got out of the carriage. I did not call upon either the King or his mother. They were in Cintra, so I should not have had time to get at them even if I had wished. I saw my chief, and, with the fear of Lalage before my eyes, worried him until he gave me a letter to a high official. From him I obtained with great difficulty the permission I wanted. I returned to the hotel. Miss Battersby, though recovering rapidly, was still too feeble to accompany us; so Lalage, Hilda, and I set off without her.

The dead kings were a disappointment. Hilda's nerve failed her on the doorstep and she declined to go in. Lalage and I went through the exhibition alone. I observed, without surprise, that Lalage turned her eyes away from the objects she had come to inspect. I ventured, when we got out, to suggest that we might perhaps have spent a pleasanter afternoon at Belem. Lalage snubbed me sharply.

"Certainly not," she said. "I'm going in for the Vice-Chancellor's prize for English verse next year and the subject is mortality. I shall simply knock spots out of the other compet.i.tors when I work in those kings.

"'Sceptre and crown Must tumble down,'

You know the sort of thing I mean."

"That's not original," I said. "I remember it distinctly in the 'Golden Treasury,' though I have forgotten the author's name."

"It wasn't meant to be original. I quoted it simply as an indication of the sort of line I mean to take in my poem."

"You'll win the prize to a certainty. When you publish the poem afterward with notes I hope you'll mention my name. Without me you wouldn't have got at those kings."

"In the meanwhile," said Lalage, "I could do with some tea and another ice. Couldn't you, Hilda?"

Hilda could and did. I took them to an excellent shop in the Rua Aurea, where Hilda had three ices and Lalage four, after tea. I only had one.

Lalage twitted me with my want of appet.i.te.

"I can't eat any more." I said. "The thought of poor Miss Battersby sitting alone in that stuffy hotel has spoiled my appet.i.te."

"The hotel is stuffy," said Lalage. "Where are you stopping?"

I mentioned Mont 'Estoril and Lalage at once proposed to move her whole party out there.

There were difficulties with the Lisbon hotel keeper, who wanted to be paid for the beds which Lalage and Hilda had not slept in as well as for that which Miss Battersby had enjoyed during the afternoon. Lalage argued with him in French, which he understood very imperfectly, and she boasted afterward that she had convinced him of the unreasonableness of his demand. I, privately, paid his bill.

There were also difficulties with Miss Battersby. She had, so Hilda told me, the strongest possible objection to putting on her clothes again.

But Lalage was determined. In less than an hour after our return to the hotel I was sitting opposite to Miss Battersby, who was swathed rather than dressed, in a railway carriage, speeding along the northern sh.o.r.e of the Tagus estuary.

I had, early in the summer, made friends with a Mr. and Mrs Dodds, who were living in my hotel. Mr. Dodds was a Glasgow merchant and was conducting the Portuguese side of his firm's business. Mrs. Dodds was a native of Paisley. They were both very fond of bridge, and I had got into the habit of playing with them every evening. We depended on chance for a fourth member of our party, and just at the time of Lalage's visit were particularly fortunate in securing a young English engineer who was installing a service of electric light somewhere in the neighbourhood.

The Doddses were friendly people and I had gradually come to entertain a warm regard for them in spite of the extreme severity of their bridge and Mrs. Dodds's habit of speaking plainly about my mistakes. I would not, except under great pressure, cause any inconvenience or annoyance to the Doddses. But Lalage is great pressure. When she said that I was to spend the evening talking to her I saw at once that the bridge must be sacrificed. My plan was to apologize profusely to the Doddses, and leave them condemned for one evening to sit bridgeless till bedtime.