Ashlyme, who had been out buying mastic, wandered onto the Terrace of the Fallen Leaves and could not find his way off again. The crowds confused him. He ran into Paulinus Rack, who was sitting at a table with Livio Fognet, the lithographer, and their patron the Marchioness “L.” A shy young novelist stood behind the Marchioness’s chair, admiring the famous curve of her upper arm. They were all delighted to see Ashlyme. What a stranger he was!
“Has the plague lifted, then?” he said, staring puzzledly about him. It was the only reason he could think of for a celebration.
They were amused. Had he never heard of sunshine? He accepted a cup of tea the Marchioness had poured especially for him, but declined to watch the antics of the Barley brothers down on the canal bank. He could not think of them, he explained, as a sideshow.
“Aren’t you being a little naive, old chap?” said Livio Fognet. He winked at the Marchioness’s novelist.
“After all,” chided the Marchioness, “we must think of them as something!” She laughed shrilly and then seemed to lose her confidence. “Mustn’t we?”
A bemused silence followed. After a minute her novelist said, “I don’t think Rack himself could have put it better.” He blushed. He was saved by a general movement toward the railings. A murmur of laughter went up and down the terrace. “Oh, do look, Paulinus!” cried the Marchioness. “One of them has fallen in, right up to the knees!”
Rack gave her a mechanical glance and a twist of his fat lips. He shrugged. “My dear Marchioness,” he said, and moved his chair closer to Ashlyme’s. He could create a small eddy of intimacy in any crowd. We, he was able to suggest, with a touch of one plump hand, have nothing in common with these people. Why are we here at all? Only because they need us. It was a flattering device, and he owed to it much of his social and financial success. “Fognet’s a buffoon, I’m afraid,” he murmured, leaning forward a little. “And the Marchioness a parasite. I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”
“But I love the Marchioness,” said Ashlyme loudly. “Don’t you?”
Rack looked at him uncertainly. “You surprise me.” He laughed. He raised his voice. “By the way,” he said, “how is Audsley King?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Marchioness plaintively. “We are all appalled by her situation.”
The Barley brothers, egged on by the laughter from above, linked arms and jumped into the canal together, showering the tables along the terrace with bright drops of spray. They had found a spot where the water was deeper. It surged and bubbled; then their great red faces appeared, puffing and blowing, above its greenish surface. “Gor!” they said. “It i’n’ ’alf cold!” They coughed and spat, they shook their heads about and stuck their fingers in their ears to get the water out. The little screams of the women encouraged them to thrash about (it could hardly be called swimming); to blow bubbles; and to push one another under. Presently they dragged themselves out, water gushing out of their trouser legs and running down the towpath. They grinned stupidly upward, too exhausted now to go back in for their shoes.
Ashlyme was enraged by this display.
“Audsley King is coughing her left lung up, Marchioness,” he said bitterly. “She is dying, if you want to know. What will you do about that?” He laughed. “I do not see you abroad much in the plague zone!”
The Marchioness blinked into her teacup. It seemed for a moment she would not answer. Finally she said: “You judge people by unrealistic standards, Master Ashlyme. That is why your portraits are so cruel.” She looked thoughtfully at the tea leaves, then got to her feet and took the arm of her novelist. “Though I daresay we are as stupid as you make us appear.” She adjusted her dove-grey gloves. “I hope you’ll tell Audsley King that we are still her friends,” she said. And she went away between the surrounding tables, exchanging a word here and there with people that she knew. Once or twice the young novelist looked angrily back at Ashlyme, but she touched his shoulder in a placatory way and soon they were lost to view.
Paulinus Rack bit his lip. “Damn!” he said. “I shall have to pay for that later.” He stared across the canal. “You’ll find you’ve carried this attitude too far one day, Ashlyme.”
“What are you going to do when the plague reaches the High City, Rack?” asked Ashlyme with some contempt.
Rack ignored him. “Your work may be less fashionable in future. If I were you I would be prepared for that. Never insult the paying customers.” He made a dismissive gesture. “You cannot save Audsley King anyway,” he said.
Ashlyme was furious. He grabbed at Rack’s arm. Rack looked frightened and pulled it away. Ashlyme caught him by the fingers instead. He twisted them. “What do you know?” he jeered. “I’ll have her out of there within the week.” Rack only curled his lip. He made no attempt to free his fingers, so Ashlyme, horrified to have committed himself to the rescue attempt in public, twisted them harder. “What do you say to that?” He wanted to see Rack wince, or hear him apologise, but nothing like that happened. They sat there for some time, looking at one another defiantly. Rack must have been in considerable pain. Livio Fognet, who did not seem to understand the situation, winked and grinned impartially at them. It came on to rain. The High City opened its umbrella and took itself off to Mynned, while the Barley brothers put their arms over their heads to protect themselves from the rain and, groaning, watched their shoes float away towards Alves. Ashlyme let Rack’s fingers go. “Within the week,” he repeated.
“I’ll just go and have a word with Angina Desformes,” said Livio Fognet.
“There is a certain time of the afternoon,” said Audsley King, “when everything seems repellent to me.”
The city was unseasonably dank again, the air chilly and lifeless. Tarot cards were scattered across the floor of the studio as if someone had flung them there in a fit of rage. Audsley King lay in a nest of brocade pillows on the faded sofa, her thin body propped up on one elbow. On the easel in front of her she had a grotesque little charcoal sketch, in which a conductor, beating time with extravagant sweeps of his baton, cut off the heads of the poppies which made up his orchestra. It was full of overt violence, quite unlike her usual work. It was unfinished, and she regarded it with flushed features and angry, frustrated gestures. In her preoccupation she had let the studio fire burn down, but she did not seem to feel the cold. This wasn’t a good sign.
Ashlyme stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. He felt shy, guilty, inadequate: not so much in the knowledge of the betrayal he had come to effect, as in his inability thereby to make any real change in her circumstances. He had never before been so aware of the bareness of the grey floorboards, the impermanent air of the canvases piled in the corners, the age and condition of the furniture. He opened his mouth to say, “In the High City they would take more care of you,” but thought better of it. Instead he studied the two new paintings that hung unframed on the wall. Both were of Fat Mam Etteilla, and showed her crouching on the floor shuffling the cards. Under one of them the artist had written in a slanting hand, the door into the open! They were hurried and careless, like the cartoon on the easel, as if she had lost faith in her technique-or her patience with the very medium.