Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII.

At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of
furniture. Huge beds, like four-masted ships, with furled sails
of shining coloured stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted
and gilded. Beds of walnut and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds
of every date and fashion from the time of Sir Ferdinando, who
built the house, to the time of his namesake in the late
eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them
grandiose, magnificent.

The finest of all was now Anne's bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir
Ferdinando, had had it made in Venice against his wife's first
lying-in. Early seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant
art in the making of it. The body of the bed was like a great
square sarcophagus. Clustering roses were carved in high relief
on its wooden panels, and luscious putti wallowed among the
roses. On the black ground-work of the panels the carved reliefs
were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in spirals up
the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top of
each column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same
carved flowers.

Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table
beside her, in their rich light her face, her bare arm and
shoulder took on warm hues and a sort of peach-like quality of
surface. Here and there in the canopy above her carved golden
petals shone brightly among profound shadows, and the soft light,
falling on the sculptured panel of the bed, broke restlessly
among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress on the
blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little
posteriors of the sprawling putti.

There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. "Come in,
come in." A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of
golden hair, peered round the opening door. More childish-
looking still, a suit of mauve pyjamas made its entrance.

It was Mary. "I thought I'd just look in for a moment to say
good-night," she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Anne closed her book. "That was very sweet of you."

"What are you reading?" She looked at the book. "Rather second-
rate, isn't it?" The tone in which Mary pronounced the word
"second-rate" implied an almost infinite denigration. She was
accustomed in London to associate only with first-rate people who
liked first-rate things, and she knew that there were very, very
few first-rate things in the world, and that those were mostly
French.

"Well, I'm afraid I like it," said Anne. There was nothing more
to be said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable
one. Mary fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama
jacket. Leaning back on her mound of heaped-up