“Ah yes, yes. It comes back to me now—I remember which Hilliers they are. Well, Hillier has asked me to dine with him and go to the Russian Ballet. Rather nice of him. I’m going, and—do you know why I accepted, Madeline?”
“You like the Russian Ballet.”
“I was told that Mrs. Kellynch andyouwere to be of the party.”
“I’m glad you’re going,” she answered. “Bertha’s so awfully kind——” She stopped suddenly, as if she had made agaffe.
He smiled. “Really? And what has Bertha’s kindness to do with it?”
“Oh, nothing. I mean she always takes me out wherever she can; she’s so good-natured.”
“She strikes me as being a very beautiful and brilliant person,” said Rupert coldly. “Very wonderful—very delightful. … It appears that Mrs. Hillier has influenza.”
“Oh yes,” said Madeline quickly—too quickly.
“You knew it? No; you thought that she probablywouldhave,” said he, laughing, as he struck a match. Then he leant back, smoking, with that slow, subtle smile about nothing in particular that had a peculiar, hypnotic effect upon Madeline.
She adored him more and more every moment. She knew she was never at her best in his company; he made her nervous, shy, and schoolgirlish, and so modest that she seemed to be longing to ooze away, to eliminate herself altogether. Then he said:
“Well, Madeline, it wouldn’t be nice if I kept you too long away from your mother—she won’t trust me with you again.”
She jumped up.
“Have I been too long?”
“Nonsense, child,” he said. “But still——” With one look at the clock he rather hurriedly gave her her belongings.
“I’m going to put you into a nice taxi, and send you home. We shall meet at Hillier’s dinner, that will be nice, and we shall see the wonderful ballet together.”
She murmured that it would be lovely.
“I should like to drive you home,” he said rather half-heartedly, as they stood at the door in the rain; “in fact, I should insist upon doing so …”
“Oh no!”
… “But I have an appointment with a friend I’m expecting to call for me here. Au revoir, then!”
She went away happy, disturbed, anxious and delighted, as she always was when she had seen him. She ran straight to her dressing-table, took off her hat, put something gold in her hair and tried to look Byzantine.
He returned to the little table. He had it cleared, and ordered fresh tea and cakes. Then he took out his watch.
In about twenty minutes, during which he grew rather nervous and impatient, he rose and went to the door again to greet another guest, who had been invited to tea an hour and a half later than Madeline.
She also was a young girl, good-looking, very dark and rather inclined to fullness in face and figure. When I say that she had handsomeregular aquiline features, two thick curtains of black hair drawn over her ears, from which depended long ear-rings of imitation coral, it seems almost unnecessary to add (for this type of girl always dresses in the same way) that she wore a flat violet felt hat, the back of which touched her shoulders, a particularly tight dark blue serge coat and skirt, a very low collar, and lisle thread stockings which showed above low shiny shoes with white spats. In her hands she held a pair of new white gloves, unworn.
She bounced in with a good deal ofaplomb, and, without apologising for her lateness, began to chatter a little louder than most of the people present, and with great confidence.
“No, not China tea, thanks. I prefer Indian. Oh, not cream cakes; I hate them. Can’t I have hot tea-cakes? Thanks. I’ve no idea what the time is. I’ve been to Mimsie’s studio. She would insist on doing a drawing of me, and I’m sitting to her”—she turned her face a little on one side—“like this, you know.”
“Is it like you, Miss Chivvey?”
“Oh, good gracious, I hope not! At least I hope I’m not likeit! I don’t want to have a pretty picture, I’m sure. But Mimsie’s awfully clever. It’s sure to be all right. Do you know her? I must take you to her studio one day.”
“Thanks immensely,” said Rupert Denison, a little coolly. “But—it may seem odd to you, but I haven’t the slightest desire to increase my acquaintance at my age. In fact, do you know, I think I know quite enough people—in every set,” he added.
As he poured out some milk, she jumped and gave a little shriek.
“Oh,don’tdo that. I never take milk. What a bad memory you’ve got! Funny place this, isn’t it?” She was looking round. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”
“Don’t you like the plan of it?” he said, looking round at the walls and ceiling. “It may not be perfect, but really, for London, it isn’t bad. It seems to me that anyone can see that it was designed by a gentleman.”
“You mean anyone can see it’s not designed by an architect?” she asked, with a laugh so loud that he raised a finger.
He then carefully introduced the subject of hats and advised her to go, for millinery, to Selfridge. They discussed it at length, and it was settled by his offering her a hat as a birthday present. She accepted, of course, with a loud laugh.
Rupert, with his mania for educating and improving young people, had begun, about a fortnight ago, trying to polish Miss Chivvey.But he had his doubts as to its being possible; and he was, all the same, beginning to be a little carried away. She was sometimes (he owned) amusing; and it was unusual for him to be laughed at. How differently Madeline regarded him!
However, he drove Moona home to Camden Hill and promised to meet her and help her to choose a hat.
“But I sha’n’t let you interfere too much. What do men know of millinery?” she asked contemptuously.
“I am sure I know what would suit you,” he replied. “You see, you’re very vivid, and very much alive; you stand out, so you really want, if I may say so, attenuating, subduing, shading.”
“Perhaps you would like me to put my head in a bag?”
“No one would regret that more than I should.”
“I foresee we’re going to quarrel about this hat,” she answered. “Now, Mr. Denison, do let me explain to you, I don’t want anythingsmart. I don’t want to look likeParis Fashions.”
“No? What do you want to look like?”
“Why, artistic, of course! What a blighter you are!”
Rupert winced at this vague accusation. They were nearly at her house and he put his hand on hers in a way that was rather controlling than caressing.
“Let me have one little pleasure. Let me choose your hat myself,” he said. He was terrified at the idea of what she might come out in on artistic grounds. Then she would tell all her friends it was a present from him! She had no sort of reticence.
“Well, I suppose you must have your own way. Do you really know anything about it?” she asked doubtfully.
“Rather. Everything!”
They arrived. She jumped out.
“Well, I’ll ring you up and tell you when I can go there and meet you. Good-bye! Youarea nut!”
THE first six months after his marriage it used to give Nigel a thrill of gratification and vanity to go home to his house, one of the finest in Grosvenor Street, and splendidly kept up. Then he had suddenly grown horribly sick of it, longed for freedom in a garret, and now he associated it with no thrill of pride or pleasure, but with boredom, depression, quarrels and lack of liberty. Liberty! Ah! That was it; that was what he felt more than anything else. He had married for money chiefly togetliberty. One was a slave, always in debt—but it was much worse now. The master of the house lost all his vitality, gaiety and air of command the moment he came into the hall.
“Where’s Mrs. Hillier?”
“Mrs. Hillier is in the boudoir, sir.”
The boudoir was a little pink and blue Louis Seize room on the ground floor, opposite the dining-room. From the window Mary couldwatch for Nigel. That was what she always did. She hardly ever did anything else. Few women were so independent of such aids to idleness as light literature (how heavy it generally is!), newspapers, needlework or a piano. Few people indeed had such a concentrated interest in one subject. She was sitting in an arm-chair, with folded hands, looking out of the window. It was a point of vantage, whence she could see Nigel arrive more quickly than from anywhere else.
As soon as he caught the first glimpse of her at the window it began to get on his nerves. It was maddening to be waited for. …
“You’re five minutes late,” she said abruptly, as he came in. She always spoke abruptly, even when she wanted to be most amiable. He was determined not to be bad-tempered, and smiled good-naturedly.
“Am I? So sorry.” He was very quick and rapid in every word and movement, but soft and suave—never blunt, as she was.
“Where have you been?”
“I went to look at those pictures in Bond Street,” he replied, without a moment’s hesitation.
He had come straight from seeing Bertha—on the subject of Madeline and Rupert—but he never thought of telling her that.
“Oh! Why didn’t you takeme?”
“I really don’t know. I didn’t think of it, I suppose. We’ll go another day.”
He sat down opposite her and began to smoke a cigarette, having permission always. She sat staring at him with clasped hands and eager eyes.
Bertha’s description of her as having flat red hair, a receding chin and long ear-rings was impressionistically accurate. It was what one noticed most. Mrs. Hillier was plain, and not at all pleasant-looking, though she had a pretty figure, looked young, and might have been made something of if she had had charm. There was something eager, sharp and yet depressed about her, that might well be irritating.
She got up and came and stood next to Nigel; playing with his tie, a little trick which nearly drove him mad, but he was determined to hide it. When he couldn’t bear it any longer he said: “That will do, dear.”
She moved away.
“How do you mean ‘that will do’?”
“Nothing; only don’t fidget.”
“You’re nervous, Nigel. You are always telling me not to fidget.”
“Am I? Sorry. Where are the children?”
“Never mind the children for a minute. They’re out with Mademoiselle.”
“Seen much of them to-day?”
“They came in to lunch. No, I havenot, as a matter of fact. Do you expect me to spend my whole time with children of eight and nine?”
He didn’t answer, but it was exactly what he really did expect, and would have thought perfectly natural and suitable.
“Some women,” continued Mary, “seem to care a great deal more for their children than they do for their husbands. I’mnotlike that—I don’t pretend to be.”
Nigel already knew this, to his great regret.
“I care more for you than I do for the children,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“What do you mean by ‘Yes’?”
“I was assenting: that’s all. I meant—that you’ve told me all this before, my dear. Haven’t you?”
“Do you object? Do youmindmy caring more for you than for the children?”
“If I object to anything it’s only to your repeating yourself. I mean—we’ve had all this; haven’t we?”
“Nigel, are you trying to quarrel with me for loving you better than the children?”
Nigel turned pale with irritation but controlled himself and stood up and looked out of the window.
“Not in the least. It’s most flattering. I only don’t want to be told it every time I see you. … I mean that of course I should think it perfectly natural if you were fond of the children too.”
“Iamfond of them,” she answered, “but they are not everything to me. They don’t fill up my whole time and all my thoughts. They won’t do instead of you.”
“No one suggested that, I think. Have you been for a drive to-day?”
“No—I haven’t.”
“What a funny woman you are, Mary! You might as well not have a motor for all the use you make of it.”
“I had nowhere to go.”
He looked at some invitation cards on the mantelpiece. “Oh, my dear, that’s absolute nonsense. You mean you don’t care to go anywhere. Itisextraordinary, how you drop people, Mary! When we first came to this house we had a lot of parties and things. Now you never seem to care for them.”
“It’s quite true,” she answered. “We did have parties and things. They made me miserable. I hated them.”
“Rather odd; aren’t you?”
“I hated them and loathed them,” she continued. “For it only meant there were crowds of women who tried to flirt with you.”
“That’s anidée fixeof yours, my dear. Pure fancy, you know.”
“Well; all I know is I hated to see you talking to the women who came here. I tell you, quite frankly,that’sthe reason why I’ve given up accepting invitations and giving them. Of course, if youinsist, I will. I would do anything you told me.”
“Oh, good God, no! Let’s cut out the parties, then. Don’t have them forme! I thought it would be fun for you. … Whatdoyou do all day, Mary, if I may ask? You never seem to have any shopping—or hobbies—or anything that other women have to do.”
“I do the housekeeping in the morning,” she said; “I see cook and look after everything to make things asyoulike.”
“And I’m sure you do it very well indeed. But it doesn’t take long; and after that——?”
“I sit in that chair looking out of the window for you.”
He bit his lip impatiently, trying not to be irritable.
“It’s very nice of you, Mary, I’m sure. But I do wish you wouldn’t!”
“Why not? Don’t youlikeme to be waiting for you?”
“No—I don’t. I should like to think you were enjoying yourself; having a good time.”
“Well, I shouldn’t do it if you took me out with you always.”
“My dear, I’m always delighted to take you with me, but I can’t take you everywhere.”
“Where can’t you take me?”
“Well—to the club!” He smiled, and took up a newspaper.
“I suppose you must go to your club sometimes,” she said rather grudgingly. “But tell me, Nigel, would you like us to go in more for society again as we used at first?”
He thought a moment. There were more quarrels when they saw more people—in fact, the fewer people they met the fewer subjects arose for scenes.
“Well,” he said, “suppose you give just one party this year. Just to ‘keep our circle together,’ as they say—then we can stop it again, if you like.”
“What sort of party?”
“Any sort. Musical, if you like.”
“Oh! that means having horrid singers and players, and performers! I don’t like that set, Nigel.”
“All right. Let’s give a dance. We’ve got a splendid floor.”
“Adance? Oh no. I don’t dance; and I couldn’t bear to see you dancing with anyone.”
“This is all very flattering, my dear, but you know you’re really rather absurd. Girls wouldn’t be fighting to dance with an old married man like me. Altogether,—the way you regard me,—the way you imagine I’m the marked-down prey of every woman you know,—would be too comical if it wasn’t so pathetic.”
“Oh, really? So you say! You’re thirty-five;—you’re better-looking than ever.”
“Thanks. It’s very kind of you to think so.” He laughed rather contemptuously. “What a fatuous idiot I should be if I believed you. But—to go back to what we were talking about—it really is in a way rather a pity you’re gradually dropping everybody like that. It seems to me that one should either have a cosy, clever, interesting little set of amusing and really intimatefriends; or else, a large circle of acquaintances; or both. I’m not speaking of parties, for me. No man of course cares about all that sort of rot; it’s only for you; women like going out as a rule.”
“I didn’t care much about the sort of society you introduced me to when we first married. I didn’t like any of them much.”
“What’s the matter with them?” he asked. He knew she had always felt morbidly and bitterly out of it because she mistakenly believed that everybody was interested in thefact that her grandfather had made a fortune in treacle, and that her husband was Lord Wantage’s nephew. As a matter of fact, no one who came to the house cared in the slightest degree about either of these circumstances (even if they knew them) but merely wished candidly to enjoy themselves in a large, jolly, hospitable house, owned by a very attractive man with a large number of amusing friends and, apparently, a harmless and good-natured little wife. Mary detested and soon put a stop to intimate or Bohemian friends who sat up all night smoking, talking art or literature, or being musical; and she managed rapidly to reduce their circle to a much smaller one at a much greater distance. She had not a single intimate friend. With women she only exchanged cards. “What’s wrong with them all?” Nigel repeated, for he was beginning to lose patience.
“Oh! their manners are all right. If you really want to know what I think of the whole set—I mean that sort of half-clever, half-smart set you were in—the barristers and writers, artists, sporting and gambling men, and women mad on music and the theatre—well, it is that the men are silly and frivolous, and the women horrid and—andfast! Some are cold and just as hard as nails, others arepositivelywicked! I admit most of the men have nice manners and the women are not stupid. They all dress well.”
Nigel was silent a moment.
“Well, after all, if you don’t like them, why should you see them?” he said, good-naturedly enough. He did not feel inclined to defend all his acquaintances. “But may I ask, do you consider that this set, as you call it, lead auselesslife?”
“Yes; of course I do.”
“Oh! Good. That’s all I wanted to know.”
“I see what you mean quite well,” she said, walking up and down the room. “You thinkIlead a useless life—that I’m not accomplished or literary or even domestic, or social. You think I lead an empty life with all my money.”
“Well, why shouldn’t you, if you like it? But I wish you enjoyed it yourself more, that’s the point.”
“I can never enjoy myself—if you want to know, Nigel—except when I’m with you; and even then I’m often not happy, because I think you don’t care to be with me.”
“Oh, Mary! really! How awful you are! What rot all this is! I can’t say more than that you can do whatever you like from morning to night, and that I don’t wish to interfere with you in any possible way.”
“But I should like you to bewithme more.”
He restrained the obvious retort (that she didn’t make herself agreeable).
“Well, Iamwith you.” He humoured her gently.
“Yes—at this moment.”
“Aren’t we going to dine together?”
“Yes, we are. But about an hour afterwards I know you’ll find some sort of excuse either to go out, or to go into the library and read. Why can’t you read while I’m looking at you? Why not?”
“Don’t be always looking forward, meeting troubles half way,” he said jokingly. “Perhaps I sha’n’t read.” Then, after a moment’s pause: “Excuse my saying so, my dear, but ifyousometimes read a book, or the papers, or saw more people, you would have more to tell me when we did meet, wouldn’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter about that. You can tell me what you’ve been reading or seeing. Who did you see at the picture gallery? Was Mrs. Kellynch there?”
“Look here”—he was looking at the paper—“would you like to go to the opera after dinner? Let’s go one of these days soon.”
“No; I shouldn’t like it at all.”
He stared at her in surprise.
“Why not, pray? I thought you enjoyed it the other night?”
“Youenjoyed it,” she replied.
“I thought you seemed rather pleased with yourself when we went out, with all your furs and tiaras and things. You looked very smart,” he said pleasantly.
“Well, I tell you I hated it, Nigel.”
“And why?”
Mary was at least candid, and she spoke bluntly.
“Because we met Mrs. Kellynch; and you talked to her and seemed pleased to see her.”
“Oh, good heavens! I can hardly cut dead all the women I ever knew before we were married.”
“Do you think her pretty?” said Mary.
“Yes, of course I do; and so does everyone. She is pretty. It’s a well-known fact. But what does it matter? It’s of no interest to me.”
“Are you sure it isn’t? Didn’t you tell me you were almost engaged once?”
“Oh,dolet’s drop the prehistoric,” he entreated, appearing bored. “Never mind about ancient history now. She’s married and seems very happy.” (He stopped himself in time from saying like us.) “Kellynch is a very good sort.”
“Is he? Do you envy him?”
“Mary, really, don’t be absurd. Let me tell you that there’s not one man in a hundred who could stand …” and he moved a step farther away.
“Could stand what?” She came nearer to him. “My caring for you so much?”
Half-a-minute passed in something near torture, as she played with his tie again, and he controlled himself and spoke with a determinedly kind smile.
“Go along and dress for dinner,” he said.
“What shall I wear?”
“Oh! Your pretty yellow teagown,” he answered.
She could not go out in that, he was reflecting, and if he suddenly wanted to go for a walk——
“Very well, Nigel. Oh, dear Nigel! I don’t mean to be disagreeable.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” he answered, “let’s leave it at that, my dear.”
“All right,” she said smiling, and went away, with a rather coquettish kiss of the hand to him.
He opened the door and shut it after her, with gallant attention. Then he threw up his arms with a despairing gesture.
“My God! What a woman! Why—why was I such a fool? … How much longercanI bear it?”
The Hilliers’ relatives and intimate friends often said cheerfully about them: “Mary is very fond of Nigel, but she rather gets on his nerves.”
No one seemed yet to have discovered that there was a large double tragedy in that simple, commonplace sentence.
IT had long been Nigel’s dream, since he had practically given up all hope of calm and peaceful happiness at home, to have, at least, a secret sorrow that everyone knew of and sympathised with. And certain people did feel for him, understanding the great worry of his wife’s morbid jealousy. But the general public thought him extremely fortunate to have married a woman—or rather a young girl—whose enormous wealth was only equalled by her extraordinary devotion. Yet from the one person who mattered, the look of tacit sympathy was denied him. How it would have soothed him and made him absolutely happy! And Bertha was the only human being who must never be allowed to know of his domestic troubles. She was extremely proud, and it would have caused her great anger and pain to think that after throwing her over (as he really had, for worldly advantages), heshould then want to come back, complain ungratefully of the benefactress he had chosen and philander and amuse himself again. So he had never referred to his unhappy life. His plan was deeper than that. It was to appear merely the amusing friend, until by some chance, he should feel his way to be more secure; to be, in fact, a kind of tame cat, acamarade, useful, and intellectually sympathetic, unselfishly devoted—until, perhaps, the time might come when she might find she could not do without him. His calculations happened to be completely wrong, but that, of course, he could not know. Like all collectors, whether of women or of any other works of art or nature, although a connoisseur, he did not quite recognise the exceptional when he met it—his rules of life were too general. And his love for Bertha—what word can one use but the word-of-all-work, love, which means so many variations and shades, and complications of passion, sentiment, vanity and attraction?—his love had greatly increased, was growing stronger: sometimes he wondered whether it was the mere contradictory, defiant obstinacy of the discouraged admirer; and, certainly, there was in his devotion a strong infusion of a longing to score off his tyrannising wife and the fortunate, amiable Percy. Nigel’s jealousy ofPercy—and not of Percy only, but in a less degree of most men Bertha knew—was not very far behind his wife’s jealousy of him. A morbid propensity that causes great suffering in domestic life is often curiously infectious to the very person for whom it creates most suffering. Nigel sometimes found himself positively imitating Mary in many little ways; watching, and listening and asking indirect questions to find things out: if he had dared he would have made Bertha a violent scene every time her husband came into the house! He tried to hide it and had made Percy like him. But Bertha could see perfectly well the tinge of jealousy for every other friend of hers, and an inclination to crab and run down and sit out, especially, any smart young man. This neither amused nor annoyed her. She did not think about it.
Nigel really felt, besides, that most cruel of all remorse—selfishremorse, that he had cheated himself in having thrown over love for money. For his was not, after all, a mere smug, second-rate nature which gold, and what it meant, in however great quantities, could really ever satisfy. Putting aside the fact that his wife irritated him nearly to madness, even if he had been allowed to live alone, and perfectly free,—wealth and its gratifications wouldnever have made him happy. He had mistaken himself in a passing fit of despair and cupidity, aided by the torturing agonies of being deeply in debt all round, and the ghastly fear of a social smash.
He had a longing to feel at ease; he had a love of pleasure, too, of freedom, of idleness; and the sort of talent that consists in brilliantly describing what one could do and what one would like to do: in sketching schemes, verbally—literary, financial, artistic, no matter what—with so much charm, such aplomb that everyone believed in him, and enjoyed to hear his projects, but he had not either the genius that compels its owner to work nor the steadiness, the determination of character that makes a man a successful drudge, who gets there in the end.
Nigel is being rather severely analysed. But let it be understood that with it all, besides having very great charm of look and manner, wit and high spirits, in certain ways he was quite a good fellow: he had no sneers for the more fortunate, no envy, nothing petty: he was warm-hearted, generous even—when it did not cross some desire of his; lavish with money, both on himself and on anyone who aided his pleasure, and quite kind and tender-hearted in that he couldn’t bear to see anyonesuffer—even Mary, with whom, as a matter of fact, he was very weak.
The saint thinks only of the claims of others: the criminal solely of his own. Between these extremes, there are, obviously, countless shades. Unfortunately, Nigel had this in common with the worst; that when he really wanted anything, everything had to go to the wall: all rights of others, principles and pity were forgotten, everything was thrown over—everyone pushed out of the way. He became unscrupulous. So when he had required money he threw over his first love who, he knew, adored him; now when he found out the mistake and was seriously in love with Bertha, he would have thrown over anything on earth to get her, and admired himself for doing it. He thought himself now noble-spirited and sporting. He would have run away with her at any moment, even if he thought they would have two or three hundred a year to live on, or nothing at all. Not only that, he would have been devoted to her and worshipped her and never reproached her—and been faithful to her too—until he fell in love with someone else, which might, or might not have happened.
Often he wondered why he cared so much more for Bertha now that she was twenty-eight than when she was eighteen. Perhaps she hadreally increased in charm: certainly she had in magnetism and in knowledge of the world, and she was just as attractive, a sweet little creature whom one wanted to protect and yet whom, in a way, one could lean on and rely on, too. She was so subtle, so strangely wise and sensible—she seemed to know everything while having the naïve, unconscious air of a person who knows next to nothing. And all these gifts she used—for what? She made Percy happy, she was charming and kind, clear-sighted, indulgent (if a little cynical), and always amusing; full of dash and spirit, and yet with the most feminine softness, and above all that invaluable instinct, always, for doing and saying the right thing … and (he knew instinctively) a genius for love. …
Yes, he thought, she was an extraordinary woman! There was nobody like her: in his opinion she was thrown away on Percy. Butshedid not think so, and he envied, hated the husband, with an absurd bitterness—envied him for several reasons, but chiefly because Nigel had now developed what had been in abeyance at the time of their youthful engagement—that real sensuous discrimination, which has comparatively little to do with taste for beauty, that power of weighingamorous values, given only to the authentic Sybarite.
On the day arranged for the Russian Ballet party, Nigel made an excuse for seeing Bertha to arrange tactics with regard to Rupert and Madeline. She told him she was expecting the Futurist painter, the Italian, Semolini, but she received him first.
“About Rupert, now,” said Nigel. “Isn’t it odd?—I always think of Rupert with a rapier concealed somewhere about his person. Ruperts and rapiers are inseparably associated in my mind. Well—shall I, after supper, drive back with Rupert and praise up Miss Irwin—or not?”
“Yes, if you think it is a good thing.”
“IfI think it’s a good thing! Nothing in the world has such a good effect on a man as the admiration of another man for the girl he admires.”
“But don’t do too much digging in the ribs—don’t overdo it. Rupert, though he doesn’t carry a rapier, isn’t quite a modern cynical man, and with all his affectations I believe he has a very sweet nature. He’ll be good to Madeline—I want her to be happy.”
“Well, at any rate, if she likes him she may as well have her fling at him,” said Nigel carelessly.
Bertha looked annoyed.
“That isn’t the point only—silly! If she likedyouever so much and you were free, do you suppose I would take her side—help her?”
“I hope not,” said Nigel insinuatingly, suddenly changing his seat to one close to Bertha.
She looked calmly away, as if bored.
He saw it was the wrong tone and stood up, with his back to the mantelpiece, looking at her.
“I like your frock, Bertha.”
She looked down at it.
“You have an extraordinary air of not knowing what you have got on. I never saw a woman look so unconscious of her dress. There’s a good deal of the art that conceals art about it, I fancy. Your clothes are attractive—in an impressionist way!”
“The only thing I think of about my dresses, is that they should make people admire me—not my dressmaker,” said Bertha candidly. “I don’t care for much variety, and I leave real smartness to Madeline and the other tall, slim girls. My figure is so wrong! How dare I be short and tiny, and yet not thin, nowadays?”
“You’re exquisite—at least in my opinion. I’ve never been an admirer of the lamp-post as the type of a woman’s figure.”
She looked bored again. “Oh, please don’t! I don’t care what you like—so long as you likeMary, who was very graceful andchic, I thought, the other night at the opera.”
It was Nigel’s turn to look bored.
“Yes. … What is this chap like, this Semolini man?”
“He’s not like anything. He’s a nice little thing.”
“Signor Semolini,” announced the servant.
A very small, very brown young man came in, clean-shaven, with large bright blue eyes, black hair, and a single eyeglass with a black ribbon.
They greeted him cordially, convinced him that he was welcome, made him feel at home, gave him tea. It was his first visit, but no one was ever shy long with Bertha. He soon began chattering very volubly in a sort of English, which, if not exactly broken, was decidedly cracked.
“I like those things of yours—at the gallery, I mean,” said Nigel patronisingly. He was always patronising to all artists, even when he didn’t know them, as in this case, to be cranks. “I think they’re top-hole; simplyawfullygood, I thought. I didn’t quite understand them, though, I admit.”
“But you saw ze idea?”
“What idea?”
“Why, the simultaneity of the plastic states of mind in the art? That is our intoxicating object, you know.”
“Oh, that! Ah, yes—yes, quite so. I thought it was that.” Nigel looked knowing, and shook his head wisely.
Under this treatment the young Italian became very animated.
“You were right! You see, it is ze expansion of coloured forms in space, combined with the co-penetration of plastic masses which forms what we call futurism.”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Nigel. “It would be. I mean to say—well!—almost anyone would guess that, wouldn’t they?”
Semolini turned to Bertha, talking more and more quickly, and gesticulating with a little piece of bread and butter in his right hand. “It is ze entire liberation from the laws of logical perspective that makes movement—the Orphic cubism—if you will allow me to say so!”
“Oh, certainly,” smiled Bertha. “Dosay so!”
“Orphic cubism! I say! Isn’t that a bit strong before a lady?” murmured Nigel.
Semolini laughed heartily without understanding a word, and continued to address himself to Bertha, whose eyes looked sympathetic.“It is painting, pure painting—painting new masses with elements borrowed chiefly from the reality of mental vision!” cried the artist.
“Funny! Just what I was going to say!” said Nigel.
Bertha contented herself with encouraging smiles.
The young Italian was due to lecture on his views, and had to leave. At least three appointments were made with him, none of which Nigel had the slightest intention of keeping—to “go into the matter more thoroughly”—then Semolini vanished, charmed with his reception.
“Good heavens! will someone take me away and serve me up on a cold plate?” said Nigel, directly he had gone. “Look here, Bertha, is the chap off his head, a fraud, or serious?”
“Awfully serious. Are you going to see him to look into the matter?”
“Ithinknot,” said Nigel, “at least I don’t want to see his pictures, face to face, until I’ve insured my life. I must think of my widow and the children.”
Here Nigel’s young brother, Charlie, arrived. He was a slimmer, younger, but less good-looking edition of Nigel. He had just come downfrom Oxford, was pleasant, gentle, and appeared to be trying to repress a natural inclination to be a nut. He called on Bertha in the hope of seeing Madeline.
“I say, the Futurist chap has just been here,” said Nigel to Charlie.
“Good! What’s he like?”
“A little bit of all right. Frightfully fascinating, as girls say,” said Nigel.
“He’s not so bad,” said Bertha mildly.
“Isn’t he? I’ve seen the pictures. But whatishe like? The sort of chap you’d like to be seen with?” asked the young man.
“Well—not acutely,” replied Nigel.
“Very dark, is he? quite black?”
“Yes.”
“Good teeth?”
“Yes, several.”
“Clean-shaven?”
“Not very.”
There was a pause.
“But is he really an Italian?” asked Charlie.
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Nigel carelessly.
“What then?” asked Bertha, laughing.
“Scotch, probably.”
“Very likely, if he’s clever. They say all the clever people come from Scotland,” Charlie remarked.
“And the cleverer they are, the sooner they come, I suppose,” said Bertha. “Fancy the MacFuturist in a kilt!”
“But where does he come from … where does he really live?” continued Charlie, who seemed to have a special, suspicious curiosity on the subject.
“Rapallo,” said Bertha.
“Where’s that?”
“The first turning to the left on the map as you go to Monte Carlo,” said Nigel.
“But whatdidhe say—was he very odd and peculiar?”
“Oh, he carried on like one o’clock about Futurism,” said Bertha.
“I thought every moment would be my next,” said Nigel.
“What nonsense you’re both talking,” said Bertha.
“Yes, and if Charlie thinks he’s going to sit me out by asking questions, he’s jolly well mistaken,” Nigel said. “Look here, old chap, Bertha’s going out. I know she wants to get into her glad raiment. I’ll drop you.”
“Right-o!” said Charlie, jumping up.
They took their leave. Bertha looked amused.
ARRANGEMENTS had been made that Mrs. Nigel Hillier was to have a little dinner at home for her mother (with whom Nigel was not supposed to be on terms); and she and her parent were to go to the St. James’s Theatre, for which two stalls had been purchased. Nigel pretended he was dining with an old friend at the club.
Coming in brightly, but, as usual, losing half his personality in the hall, he found Mary at seven o’clock sitting in the little boudoir, in the usual arm-chair, looking our for him, not, apparently, thinking of dressing for dinner.
“Hallo, Mary!” he said. “Hadn’t you better get ready for your mother?”
“No,” she responded rather coldly and bitingly, “I’ve put mother off.”
He glanced at her with self-control. She looked, he thought, far more bitter than usual.
“That’s a pity, because you will be alone—dear. Besides, the stalls will be wasted.”
“No, they won’t,” she said. “You’ll stay at home with me, and take me to the St. James’s. You can easily put off your man at the club.” She looked him full in the eyes.
Colour rose to his face and then faded away.
“I’m sorry, my dear, but that’s impossible.”
“It isn’t impossible—you mean you don’t want to do it. … Oh, do please—please, Nigel!” She came towards him and played with his tie—the trick of hers that he hated most.
She mistook his silence, which was hesitation as to what plan to adopt, for vacillation, and thought she was going to win. …
“Oh, ’oo will, ’oo will!” she exclaimed, with a rather sickly imitation of a spoilt child, with her head on one side. It was a pose that did not suit her in any way.
He drew back; the shiny red hair gave him a feeling of positive nausea. She was attempting to defeat him—she was trying to be coquettish—poor thing! … She suspected something; she hadn’t put off her mother for nothing. … He was going to the Russian Ballet with Bertha—how could he leave Bertha in the lurch? With Madeline and Rupert, too—what harm was there in it? (The fact that he heartilywished therewashad really nothing to do with the point.)
Husbands and wives usually know when opposition is useless. Mary privately gave it up when she heard Nigel speak firmly and quickly—not angrily.
“I’ve made the arrangement now, and I can’t back out.”
“And what about me?” she said, in a shrill voice.
He went out of the room hastily, saying:
“I can’t help it now; if you alter your arrangements at the last minute—stop at home and read a book, or take some friend to the St. James’s.”
He ran upstairs like a hunted hare; he was afraid of being late. He had got his table at the Carlton.
Left alone in the boudoir, a terrible expression came over Mary’s face. She said to herself quite loudly:
“He is not going to the club; he’d give it up if he were. It’s something about that woman. …”
A wave of hysteria came over her, also a half-hearted hope of succeeding still by a new kind of scene. …
There were two large china pots on the mantelpiece; she threw them, first one, then the other, at the half-open door, smashingthem to atoms. Excited at her own violence, she ran upstairs screaming, regardless of appearance:
“You sha’n’t go! You sha’n’t go! I hate you. I’ll kill myself. Oh—oh—oh! Nigel! Nigel!”
At eight to the minute Nigel in the Palm Court received Bertha Kellynch dressed in black, Madeline in white, and Rupert Denison with a little mauve orchid in his buttonhole.
The dinner, subtly ordered, was a complete success, and Madeline Irwin was in a dream of happiness, but Bertha was sorry to see that Nigel, who was usually remarkably moderate in the matter of champagne, and to-night drank even less than usual, had the whole evening a trembling hand. Even at the ballet, where he was more than usually ready to enjoy every shade of the enjoyable, he was not quite free from nervous agitation. He did not drive Rupert home, but let Rupert drop him in Grosvenor Street at twelve-thirty—for a slight supper was inevitable and Rupert had taken them to the Savoy.
Mrs. Hillier was in bed and asleep. The maid said she had been ill and excited. The maid, frightened, had sent for the doctor. His remedy had succeeded in calming her.
The next day Mary seemed subdued, and was amiable. Both ignored the quarrel. Nigel believed it would not occur again. He thought his firmness had won and that she was defeated. He did not understand her.