'What happened to the anarchist?' I asked. 'He fled to London and I understand that Scotland Yard are searching for him all over the East End.' 'Why the East End?' I queried. 'That is where all good anarchists gather. They sit in cafes and discuss politics in loud and quarrelsome voices. The police know that, so that is where they will be looking for him.' 'So if he is a wise anarchist, he will be staying in a completely different part of London?' 'If he has any sense, yes,' he answered. 'And the memorial service?' 'A very tedious affair. After a lifetime of Good Works it was inevitable that her passing would be attended by representatives of every Charity, Mission to the Heathen and Society for Promoting This and That in the country. Pew upon pew of worthy citizens, pious expressions and a long sermon in which the Canon expressed his belief that Miss Windermere is already busy in Heaven, no doubt pursuing off-colour Angels, Saints and Martyrs with bowls of soup. I think we can expect a mass emigration from Heaven in the near future.' 'Goodness,' I said. 'What a sad tale. I do hope the anarchist is not lurking somewhere in the vicinity.' 'I did see a most furtive little man, wearing a long-black cloak on the omnibus,' interposed Gwendolen at this juncture. 'He was carrying a large Gladstone bag.' 'Did you see where he alighted?' asked George.
'Oh dear! I do believe that it was at the same place that we disembarked,' said Gwendolen. 'He must be following us.' 'Unless any of us has connections with the Russian Royal Family we are unlikely to be the target of his dark plot,' said George. 'I did once have a night of passion with a Hungarian Count,' volunteered Gwendolen. 'Well, two.' 'Two nights or two Hungarian Counts,' I asked. 'Two Hungarians,' said Gwendolen. 'The Count and his Countess.' 'How advanced of you,' I said. 'And how exciting.'
'It was more strange than exciting,' replied Gwendolen. 'The Count occupied his time almost entirely by sniffing my more intimate garments and wrapping them round his body. While he then spent himself rolling around on the floor, the Countess-who had commenced by disrobing me with great care-then proceeded to chastise me with her stick, before engaging me in a positive orgy of Sapphic delights.'
'Gracious me,' I responded. 'Cecily, I learned that night that there is much that an older woman can teach a young and innocent girl.' 'Innocent. Oh Gwendolen! that is not an epithet with which I would reproach you. I, of all people know the very day oh which you lost your Innocence.' 'You debauched me,' said Gwendolen.
'That is not a pretty word,' I replied crossly. 'Yours were the first hands that were ever laid on my virginal body. But, dear Cecily, I am only teasing. It was the most delicious initiation into the mysteries of love. To this day I can remember the delicate play of your fingers on my pussey. You were most gentle-and most thorough.'
At this turn of the conversation, I once more felt a familiar warmth spreading through my body. I snuggled up against Gwendolen as we walked and then reached out to draw George into our comfortable companionship. 'Is it true what Gwendolen says about your titties?' he asked, his arm linked in mine. 'Modesty forbids me to sing my own praises,' I replied. 'But they are I consider two of my finest features.' 'I look forward to feasting my eyes on them,' he continued. 'Cecily will be better pleased if you feast more than your eyes on them,' said Gwendolen. 'I have always found that Cecily most appreciates some nibbling. Not to mention a sharp nip or two when she is well advanced in her enjoyment.' 'Please stop it,' I implored them. 'Such talk is causing me positively to swell with anticipation. My nipples are rubbing most painfully against my bodice.' 'I also am swelling with anticipation,' answered George.
'We must put off all such thoughts and deeds for the near future.
Where is the gallery?' 'Just around the next corner,' I said. 'I hope this will not be too stuffy an occasion. But you should enjoy my cousin's paintings. They are held in some quarters to be rather advanced.' With that, we arrived and when he had handed over our coats and Gwendolen's tartan travelling rug, we passed into an already crowded salon. But here I must explain a little about my Cousin Algernon. Cousin Algernon had the unusual claim to fame of having been found as a baby in a handbag in the Left Luggage Office on Brighton Station. After such a Bohemian start to life, it was I suppose inevitable that he became an artist when he grew up. Of course like all proper artists, he led a properly scandalous life, chiefly with his model Babette, a voluptuous creature who came originally from Northamptonshire and who cooked well. Actually the fact that she came from Northamptonshire-Kettering to be precise-was not generally known. Nor was the fact that her real name was Edith. Instead like all proper artists models, it was understood that she was a Parisienne and had been either a seamstress or a midinette before a struggling and penniless artist had discovered her and transferred her to his atelier to grace both canvas and bed.
Babette was, as I have suggested, a big woman. In fact she was huge.
Cousin Algernon, himself a big man and an altogether larger-than-life character with a commendable appetite for all the good things in life, delighted in painting Babette. Most frequently he depicted her in Classic guise. Babette, wearing little except some carefully placed, vaguely Grecian draperies or wisps of white muslin, displayed herself in a variety of mythic poses. Here she was taking part in the Bath of Psyche. Here she was Diana Surprised by Actaeon. Most frequently she was a nymph or some such, being ravished by Zeus, or on occasion by what seemed like the entire Pantheon of Greek Gods, in any number of disguises: a Swan, a Bull, a Stallion-and in one memorable instance what appeared to be a Parrot, although Cousin Algernon insisted that it was an Eagle. He did later also admit that it was one of his less successful works. Babette was also the central figure in a completely different series of paintings. Working in what he described as his French Interior Realist mode, Cousin Algernon showed her, this time without any trace of clothing whatsoever, as a washerwoman or scrubbing floors, laying a fire or at some other domestic task.
Whether it is the habit of French servants to perform their duties stark naked I do not know, but the paintings clearly made a considerable impression in London. In truth these vigorous oils of big Babette, for instance, leaning over a tub full of suds, her huge forearms and magnificent bosom highlighted by the painter's art, were not unpleasing, if occasionally verging on the laughable. The views of Babette scrubbing were for the most part seen from behind. The great spheres of her buttocks rose like a double moon to fill the scene.
Every roll of fat was lovingly rendered and she seemed to glow with what I gather is called 'rude health.' His latest masterpiece, Babette at the Mangle had quite a crowd of admirers around it. Cousin Algernon had managed to give the impression of a woman panting and-heaving with her exertions, her breasts swaying and shaking as she turned the mangle while her skin glowed and there was the sheen of perspiration on her body. I noticed that the preponderance of the people at the viewing were men, and men of a middle aged and generally prosperous men. I was told by an elderly man, who claimed some knowledge of things artistic, that Cousin Algernon had successfully created a small fashion among the cognoscenti for such scenes of domestic undress. A number of fellow artists, all living and working nearby in north London, had followed his lead. Known in the art world as the Crouch End School, they had a growing and enthusiastic band of collectors quite clamouring of their works. Of course, my informant confided in me, many of the academic critics poured scorn on the Crouch End School. Mr. Ruskin had described Cousin Algernon's work as 'A battery of buttocks, thrust into the Public's face' while the Academy steadfastly refused to hang his pictures. Nonetheless, as someone who dabbled in dealing, he could vouch for the fact that a surprising number of the more flamboyant Views of Babette, as he called them, could be seen discreetly displayed in many of the most reputable gentlemen's clubs. 'Indeed,' said my aesthetic informant, 'if one could but see through the grey facades of Pall Mall, I fancy we would be regaled with the mouth-watering sight of Babette's mountainous buttocks flaunted cheek to cheek, so to say, along almost the full length of the street.* Be that as it may, many of the privileged viewers at the gallery, as they gazed intently at every detail of Babette's anatomy, were showing those powers of concentration and stamina, that must have accounted for their undoubted success in business and public affairs. I noticed also that for many there was an improving moral lesson to be gained from a close perusal of the paintings. 'Ah! The dignity of Honest Toil!' announced one gentleman as he raised his pince-nez to his eyes, the better to scrutinise the spread of Honest Toil's thighs.