‘What is this second or first, cart before horse, century?’ demanded Rebekah, speaking with venom tempered by a kind of unwilling respect. Sweyn patiently informed her that, for instance, 4000 b.c. was long before 1000 b.c.
‘So this dating is all phooey? No?’ was Rebekah’s comment.
‘It is a convenience, that’s all,’ explained Sweyn.
‘When I am needing a convenience, I am going to the ladies’ cloakroom, isn’t it?’ demanded Rebekah.
This unanswerable query provoked an outburst of ‘cover-up’ talk from the rest of the table. Sweyn told Laura loudly that in the thirteenth century a Danish legal document called the Codex Runicus had been compiled and that at about the same time a prayer-book had been written in runes for the benefit of a Danish notable of the era who was not conversant with Latin.
Laura responded with a rather vague reference to the Breeches Bible and realised, too late, that she had perpetrated a gaffe, but her face was partially saved by Binnen, who, equally unfortunately, took the opportunity to inform all and sundry that in September compost and stable manure were spread on the bulb-fields.
‘For heavens’ sake!’ shouted Binnie’s brother, the blue-eyed Florian, who, up to this point, had conversed little and that only with his Aunt Opal, who, to his apparent fury, had been given him as a dinner-partner and to whom he had been, on the whole, extremely rude. ‘Can’t we get away from ordure?’
‘Yes, we can,’ said Lord Byron, rising from his chair. ‘We can, indeed. I have the honour to inform you all that Binnie and I propose to be married in the near future. We invite you all to the wedding and will let you know the date as soon as possible.’
If Bernardo’s idea had been to change the subject, he succeeded admirably. Every woman of his family and connections, with the exception of Binnie, contributed an opinion, a congratulation or, in the case of Grandmother Rebekah, a denunciation.
‘You are to marry this C. of E. chit?’ she yelled. ‘No, not! I have promised you this twenty months to Aaron Lomberg for his daughter Rachel!’
‘You should have told me, Grandmamma,’ said Bernardo, ‘and then I would have told you that my tastes do not lie in the direction of Rachel Lomberg. She is a nice girl and I shall always regard her with brotherly affection, but…’
‘You are marrying for money, you think!’ screamed Rebekah. ‘Let me tell you that you are not! Bernard’s money will never go to this little Miss Prim and Proper! If anybody gets it, it will be divided.’
‘English as she is spoke by Grandmamma,’ muttered Bernardo to Binnie. ‘Listen, darling,’ he added, addressing his aged relative, ‘I have never supposed that any of the van Zestien money would go to little Binnie, but, if I married Rachel Lomberg, none of it would go to me, either. And Aaron Lomberg has six sons, remember. Why do you think my dear mamma insisted on calling me Bernardo? The old man is tickled to death to have a namesake. What says my cousin Florian? Binnie, my dear, let’s leave the table and seek romance beside the waters of comfort, otherwise one of the canals of Amsterdam, for they flow more quietly than ever flowed the Don.’
‘I’ll be glad to,’ said Binnie, with her accustomed giggle. There ensued a short silence, broken, as the door closed behind the couple, by noisy whoops of distress and fury from Grandmother Rebekah. Then everybody began to speak, except for Laura. Her attention had been caught by the expression on the face of Binnie’s brother Florian when Bernardo had addressed him.
It was a face of remarkable beauty. Florian was fair-haired, fair-skinned and looked incredibly young and pure unless and until he smiled. His smile added years to his appearance, and a devil, instead of an angel, flashed out and his hyacinth-blue eyes became cat-like slits of Satanic wickedness. Laura had never seen such an evil and fascinating change in anybody, for, upon the receipt of Bernardo’s announcement of the engagement, Florian had suddenly smiled. Of Bernardo’s pointed question with regard to the testamentary depositions of his grandfather, he had taken no notice at all.
‘The Aztecs,’ said Professor Derde gallantly, ‘followed cults common to primitive civilisations everywhere. They were nature worshippers and their religion embraced corn goddesses, the rain god and the Lady of the Turquoise Skirt. She was the protector and deity of rivers and lakes. Older cults appear to have envisaged the Seven-Snake goddess of crops and corn, but—’
‘I am not for these goddesses,’ moaned Rebekah, suspending her more spectacular evidences of grief and rage in favour of a milder form of protest. ‘Religion belongs to the men.’
Nobody disputed this point, neither was she given time to elaborate upon it, for Dame Beatrice at once remarked that Picasso’s preoccupation with bulls was connected less with the corrida than with a folk-memory which took him back to the days of the later Roman empire and the Mithraic sacrifices.
The professors leapt upon this red-herring with relief, alacrity and tremendous gusto. Even the so-far almost silent Petra and Binnen’s younger daughter Ruby joined in, and so, to Laura’s surprise, did Florian, his extraordinary beauty restored, the wolfish smile gone, his strange eyes deeply blue again and as innocent as those of a young child.
‘Oh, for a picture or a portrait bust!’ said Opal, looking into his face.
‘Yes,’ said his grandmother Binnen, ‘I think Florian must sit for his portrait. Except for snapshots, we have had no picture of him since he was five.’
‘His head should be cast in bronze,’ said Opal, eagerly.
‘In pure gold, you mean,’ said Florian, smiling again and with the same evil effect. Rebekah pricked up her ears.
‘Who could afford?’ she demanded.
‘Runes were often inscribed on metal,’ said Sweyn, hastily. ‘They were incised on the blades of swords. The swords of the Northmen were well adapted for inscriptions, for they were long and fairly broad, and the last phase of the Runic script, being sharply angular, was pre-eminently suitable…’
At this point Rebekah rose from the table and announced that she must go. She, her daughter and Bernardo were catching a plane in the morning back to London. Their departure broke up the party. This, Laura thought, was as well. Runes, bulbs and the Aztecs seemed inexhaustible subjects of conversation. Derde’s last reference was to Tlaloc, the rain-god. When, escorted by the professors, Dame Beatrice and Laura reached the street, the rain, as though invoked, was pouring down. Derde appeared to be gratified by this.
‘I have known it happen before,’ he mildly stated. ‘There is more in these ancient religions than some people think.’
CHAPTER THREE
Scottish Air on a Barrel-Organ
‘I’ve heard them lilting at our ewe-milking,
Lasses a’lilting before dawn o’ day;
But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning,
The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.’
Jane Elliot
« ^ »
Well!’ said Laura when she and Dame Beatrice were again in their own hotel. ‘I wonder what it would have been like if ghastly old Rebekah and her daughter hadn’t gatecrashed the party?’
‘But I don’t think they did gate-crash it, child. I think somebody invited them. How else could they have known that the dinner was to take place? They had come from England, remember. Besides, I liked Rebekah. There is always something to be said for those who call a spade a damned shovel.’
‘The daughter didn’t seem to think they would be welcomed, anyhow, and I don’t believe they were. Who would have invited them?’