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.‘God Save the King!’ cried the less noble onlookers in delight as great bangs and collisions and screams filled the air.Bottles of best champagne from the crashed coaches rolled into open sewers where they were eagerly retrieved by the crowds; ‘God Save the King!’ they yelled again as the gowns of several ladies of the nobility unravelled in an unimaginable and most entertaining manner and dogs and horses went quite berserk.Filipo di Vecellio and his sister Francesca had had the good sense to walk from St Martin’s Lane, arriving on time but rather dusty and crowd-battered; on the way Philip had spoken yet again to his sister, very seriously, about how she must be pleasing to their noble host so that even more noble commissions would be forthcoming.The Duke, already ensconced, kissed the pretty sister’s hand and plied them with champagne and cold chicken from a huge hamper he had had installed inside his box at the far end of the Abbey, whilst just outside the door a large chamberpot served duty for gentlemen (ladies of course did not need such vulgar appurtenances).There were a number of people in the Duke’s small box and it was crowded and excited and already smelled rather hot: the Duke’s elderly wife was unfortunately not able to attend but the young signorina was installed between him and another elderly noble gentleman in the front while her brother sat behind with various noble spinsters of uncertain age who waved champagne glasses pleasedly at his appearance.Grace glanced back to her brother in some alarm at the proximity of the Duke, whose wrinkled hand was clamped almost at once upon her knee, but Filipo was smiling at the ladies, and searching the crowd for other noble faces.Many of the guests not directly in the eye of the waiting bishops had had the sense to arrange food and wine in the same manner as the Duke and a cheerful buzz of laughter and conversation filled the Abbey.People were soon calling in a most confident and somewhat inebriated manner to one another across the aisle; everyone was dressed in their finest clothes; much expensive lace was to be seen, gold lace even, and jewels sparkled and glittered and competed under the chandeliers.At one point the Duke indicated to Francesca a group of elegant, aging duchesses in a box nearby who maintained a silent, noble hauteur amid the loud sociability.‘They can do no other, m’dear,’ boomed the Duke in a loud voice, ‘they dare not speak or smile because their cheeks are full of little corks.’‘I beg your pardon?’ said the young girl politely, thinking she must have misheard him as she tried heroically yet again to disengage her knee.‘Cork!’ boomed the Duke.‘It fills out all the hollows where they have lost their teeth but if they smile or speak or eat, the corks will fall out!’ On receiving this information the laughter of the girl rang out unchecked just for a moment around the Abbey: it ceased abruptly when she became aware of the Duke’s old wrinkled hand now fumbling under her petticoats.‘Oh look! Look!’ she cried extremely loudly (to her brother’s mortification) as she stood quickly and pointed at where the Royal Couple, deposited at last, were making their way through rose petals and down the aisle.‘Huzzah for His Majesty!’ the inebriated Nobles shouted: as their host stood to huzzah, Francesca took the opportunity to grab her brother’s arms as she used to and, with some acrobatics in the small box, drag him into her own small seat and literally clamber backwards to sit behind him; the Duke and Filipo di Vecellio were both surprised when the nobleman felt again for a knee.The organ blazed out and kettledrums rolled.A semblance of quietitude reigned briefly among the guests: the young King was red-robed and proud, the new young bride rather dumpy (it was true) and bewildered.There was comparative silence while the crowns were placed upon the heads of the new monarchs with much pomp and circumstance (with perhaps just a little to-ing and fro-ing to chamberpots and just a little tinkling of glasses to be heard, hopefully not by their new Majesties).However once the Archbishop of Canterbury climbed to the altar to begin his sonorous sermon, those whose position, like the Duke’s, at the far end of the Abbey precluded any chance of hearing or seeing anything of the fine words, took the beginning as a sign for dinner to begin in earnest.A loud cacophony of knives and forks and mutton and fish and glasses and animated conversation ensued.It was noted at one moment that the Signorina Francesca di Vecellio had her face hidden behind her fan and that her body was shaking.Their host the Duke nodded approvingly into his claret, such emotion on such a day, by God he would like to take the little lady home with him, and his head fell gracefully on to his large glass as he became, for the moment, dead to the world, snoring slightly.Filipo took the opportunity to rebuke his sister quietly over his shoulder.‘You should not point and shout and I have told you it is so unfashionable to laugh like that!’ he whispered, but then began to laugh himself when he saw the tears of glee in the girl’s face as she surveyed the rumbustious scene in Westminster Abbey and the red-faced spinster ladies beside her screeching, and their snoring host.Indeed by the time the coronated couple appeared, crowned, walking slowly and solemnly back down the aisle, all pretence at decorum had disappeared and many chop bones and glasses were waved at them in a cheerful and well-wishing manner and the old Duke woke at once and shouted, ‘Huzzah for the King!’ and was only prevented from falling into the path of their Majesties by the dexterity of his guests.Such exciting adventures in her exciting new life: but every day Grace was there, in a corner of her brother’s studio, watching, waiting, learning from observing her brother some of the many things she would need to know, to be an artist.Within a few more months Grace’s new gowns were too small in all sorts of places and she needed unlacing and re-sewing: Miss Ffoulks’ kind thimbles were put to use after all.And within a few months Grace, who had been too afraid of being found to be an ignorant Bristolian to actually speak at the dinner-table herself, became confident enough to join in the conversations: asked questions in quick, accented English, her dark eyes shining with curiosity and enjoyment, for Grace had a million words inside her.She laughed; she recounted the coronation, she waved her hands about, she asked everybody questions in an accent like her brother’s: ‘Such good English,’ they all said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]