December Love
Page 5
CHAPTER V
Though ordinary enough in her youthful egoism, and entirely _du jour_ inher flagrantly shown vanity, Miss Van Tuyn, as Craven was to find out,was really something of an original. Her independence was abnormal andwas mental as well as physical. She lived a life of her own, and herbrain was not purely imitative. She not only acted often originally,but thought for herself. She was not merely a very pretty girl. She wassomebody. And somehow she had trained people to accept her daring way oflife. In Paris she did exactly what she chose, and quite openly. Therewas no secrecy in her methods. In London she pursued the same housetopcourse. She seldom troubled about a chaperon, and would calmly give alunch at the Carlton without one if she wanted to. Indeed, she had beenseen there more than once, making one of a party of six, five of whomwere men. She did not care for women as a sex, and said so in theplainest language, denouncing their mentality as still afflicted by anarrowness that smacked of the harem. But for certain women she had acult, and among these women Lady Sellingworth held a prominent, perhapsthe most prominent, place.
Three days after his visit to the Hyde Park Hotel Craven, having nodinner invitation and feeling disinclined for the well-known formalityof the club where he often dined, resolved to yield to a faintinclination towards a very mild Bohemianism which sometimes beset him,and made his way in a day suit to Soho seeking a restaurant. He walkedfirst down Greek Street, then turned into Frith Street. There he peepedinto two or three restaurants without making up his mind to sample theircooking, and presently was attracted by a sound of guitars giving forthwith almost Neapolitan fervour the well-known tune, "O Sole Mio!" Themusic issued from an unpretentious building over the door of which wasinscribed, "Ristorante Bella Napoli."
It was a cold, dark evening, and Craven was feeling for the momentrather depressed and lonely. The music drew his thoughts to dear Italy,to sunshine, a great blue bay, brown, half-naked fishermen pulling innets from the deep with careless and Pagan gestures, to the thoughtless,delicious life only possible in the golden heart of the South. He didnot know the restaurant, but he hesitated no longer. Never mind what thecooking was like; he would eat to the sound of those guitars which heknew were being thrummed by Italian fingers. He pushed the swing doorand at once found himself in a room which seemed redolent of the countrywhich everyone loves.
It was a narrow room, with a sanded floor and the usual small tables.The walls were painted with volcanic pictures in which Vesuvius played aprincipal part. Vesuvius erupted on one wall, slept in the moonlight onanother, at the end of the room was decked out in all the glories of anextremely Neapolitan sunset. Upon the ceiling was Capri, stretchingout from an azure sea. For the moment the guitars had ceased, but theirplayers, swarthy, velvet eyed, and unmistakable children of Italy, satat ease, their instruments still held in brown hands ready for furtherplucking of the sonorous strings. And the room was alive with the uproarof Italian voices talking their native language, with the large andunselfconscious gestures of Italian hands, with the movement of Italianheads, with the flash and sparkle of animated Italian eyes. Chianti wasbeing drunk; macaroni, minestra, gnocchi, ravioli, abione were beingeaten; here and there Toscanas were being smoked. Italy was in the warmair, and in an instant from Craven's consciousness London was blottedout.
For a moment he stood just inside the door feeling almost confused.Opposite to him was the padrona, a large and lustrous woman with sleepy,ox-like eyes, sitting behind a sort of counter. Italian girls, withcoal-black hair, slipped deftly to and fro among the tables servingthe customers. The musicians stared at Craven with the fixed, unwinkingdefiniteness which the traveller from England begins to meet with soonafter he passes Lugano. Where was a table for an Englishman?
"Ecco, signorino!"
An Italian girl smiled and beckoned with a sort of intimate livelinessand understanding that quite warmed Craven's heart. There was a tablefree, just one, under Vesuvius erupting. Craven took it, quickly orderedall the Italian dishes he could think of and a bottle of Chianti Rosso,and then looked about the long, little room. He looked--to see Italianfaces, and he saw many; but suddenly, instead of merely looking, hestared. His eyelids quivered; even his lips parted. Was it possible?Yes, it was! At a table tucked into a corner by the window were sittingBeryl Van Tuyn and actually--Santa Lucia!--Lady Sellingworth! And theywere both eating--what was it? Craven stretched his neck--they were botheating Risotto alla Milanese!
At this moment the guitars struck up that most Neapolitan of songs, the"Canzona di Mergellina," the smiling Italian girl popped a heaped-upplate of macaroni blushing gently with tomato sauce before Craven, andplaced a straw bottle of ruby hued Chianti by the bit of bread at hisleft hand, and Miss Van Tuyn turned her corn-coloured head to have agood look at the room and, incidentally, to allow the room to have agood look at her.
The violet eyes, full of conscious assurance, travelled from table totable and arrived at Craven and his macaroni. She looked surprised,then sent him a brilliant smile, turned quickly and spoke to LadySellingworth. The latter then also looked towards Craven, smiled kindly,and bowed with the careless, haphazard grace which seemed peculiar toher.
Craven hesitated for an instant, then got up and threading his wayamong Italians, went to greet the two ladies. It struck him that LadySellingworth looked marvellously at home with her feet on the sandedfloor. Could she ever be not at home anywhere? He spoke a few words,then returned to his table with Miss Van Tuyn's parting sentence in hisears; "When you have dined come and smoke your Toscana with us."
As he ate his excellently cooked meal he felt pleasantly warmed and eventhe least bit excited. This was a wholly unexpected encounter. To meetthe old age and the radiant youth which at the moment interested himmore than any other old age, any other radiant youth, in London, inthese surroundings, to watch them with the music of guitars in hisears and the taste of ravioli on his lips, silently to drink to them inauthentic Chianti--all this gave a savour to his evening which he hadcertainly not anticipated. When now and then his eyes sought the tabletucked into the corner by the window, he saw his two acquaintancesplunged deep in conversation. Presently Miss Van Tuyn lit a cigarette,which she smoked in the short interval between two courses. She moved,and sat in such a way that her profile was presented to the room asclearly and definitely as a profile stamped on a finely cut coin.Certainly she was marvellously good-looking. She had not only the beautyof colouring; she had also the more distinguished and lasting beauty ofline.
An Italian voice near to Craven remarked loudly, with a sort of coarsesentimentality:
"_Che bella ragassa!_"
Another Italian voice replied:
"_Ha ragione di venire qui con quella povera vecchia! Com'e brutta lavecchiezza!_"
For a moment Craven felt hot with a sort of intimate anger; but theguitars began "Santa Lucia," and took him away again to Naples. And whatis the use of being angry with the Italian point of view? As well beangry with the Mediterranean for being a tideless sea. But he glancedat the profile and remembered the words, and could not help wonderingwhether Miss Van Tuyn's cult for Lady Sellingworth had its foundationsin self-love rather than in attraction to her whom Braybrooke had called"the most charming _old_ woman in London."
Presently Miss Van Tuyn, turning three-quarters face, sent him a"coffee-look," and he saw that a coffee apparatus of the hour-glass typewas being placed on the table by the window. He nodded, but held up aclean spoon to indicate that his zabaione had yet to be swallowed.She smiled, understanding, and spoke again to Lady Sellingworth. A fewminutes later Craven left his table and joined them, taking his Toscanawith him.
They were charmingly prepared for his advent. Three cups were on thetable, and coffee for three was mounting in the hour glass. The twofriends were smoking cigarettes.
As he prepared to sit down on the chair placed ready for him with hisback to the window, Miss Van Tuyn said:
"One minute! Please give the musicians this!"
She put five shillings into his hand.
"Of course not! But do let me--"
"No, no! This is my little treat to Lady Sellingworth. She has neverbeen here before."
Craven went round to the musicians and carried out his directions. As hedid so he saw adoring looks of comprehension come into their darkfaces, and, turning, he caught a wonderful smile that was meant forthem flickering on the soft lips of Miss Van Tuyn. That smile was asprovocative, as definitely full of the siren quality, as if it haddawned for the only lover, instead of for three humble Italians,"hairdressers in the daytime," as Miss Van Tuyn explained to Cravenwhile she poured out his coffee.
"I often come here," she added. "You're surprised, I can see."
"I must say I am," said Craven. "I thought your beat lay rather in thedirection of the Carlton, the Ritz, and Claridge's."
"You see how little he knows me!" she said, turning to LadySellingworth.
"Beryl does not always tread beaten paths," said Lady Sellingworth toCraven.
"I hate beaten paths. One meets all the dull people on them, the peoplewho hope they are walking where everyone walks. Beaten paths are likethe front at Brighton on a Sunday morning. What do you say to ourcoffee, dearest?"
"It is the best I have drunk for a long while outside my own house,"Lady Sellingworth answered.
Then she turned to Craven.
"Are you really going to smoke a Toscana?"
"If you really don't mind? It isn't a habit with me, but I assure you Iknow how to do it quite adequately."
"He's an artist," said Miss Van Tuyn. "He knows it's the only cigar thatreally goes with Vesuvius. Do light up!"
"I'm thankful I came here to-night," he said. "I felt very dull andterrifically English, so I turned to Soho as an antidote. The guitarslured me in here. I was at the Embassy in Rome for a year. In the summerwe lived at the Villa Rosebery, near Naples. Ever since that time I'vehad an almost childish love of guitars."
Miss Van Tuyn held up a hand and formed "Sh!" with her rosy lips.
"It's the Barcarola di Sorrento!" she whispered.
A silence fell in the narrow room. The Italian voices were hushed. Thepadrona dreamed behind her counter with her large arms laid upon it,like an Italian woman spread out on her balcony for an afternoon'swatching of the street below her window. And Craven let himself goto the music, as so many English people only let themselves go whensomething Italian is calling them. On his left Miss Van Tuyn, with onearm leaning on the table, listened intently, but not so intently thatshe forgot to watch Craven and to keep track of his mind. On his rightLady Sellingworth sat very still. She had put away her only half-smokedcigarette. Her eyes looked down on the table cloth. Her very tallfigure was held upright, but without any stiffness. One of her handswas hidden. The other, in a long white glove, rested on the table, andpresently the fingers of it began gently to close and unclose, making,as they did this, a faint shuffling noise against the cloth.
Miss Van Tuyn glanced at those fingers and then again at Craven, but forthe moment he did not notice her. He was standing by the little harbourat the Villa Rosebery, looking across the bay to Capri on a warm summerevening. And the sea people were in his thoughts. How often had heenvied them their lives, as men envy those whose lives are utterlydifferent from theirs!
But presently Miss Van Tuyn's persistent and vigorous mind must have gotsome hold on his, for he began to remember her beauty and to feelthe lure of it in the music. And then, almost simultaneously, he wasconscious of Lady Sellingworth, of her old age and of her departedbeauty. And he felt her loss in the music.
Could such a woman enjoy listening to such music? Must it not ratherbring a subtle pain into her heart, the pain that Italy brings to herdevotees, when the years have stolen from them the last possibilitiesof personal romance? For a moment Craven imaginatively projected himselfinto old age, saw himself with white hair, a lined face, heavily-veinedhands, faded eyes.
But her eyes were not faded. They still shone like lamps. Was she,perhaps, the victim of a youthful soul hidden in an old body, liketrembling Love caged in a decaying tabernacle from which it could notescape?
He looked up. At the same moment Lady Sellingworth looked up. Their eyesmet. She smiled faintly, and her eyes mocked something or someone; fate,perhaps, him, or herself. He did not know what or whom they mocked.
The music stopped, and, after some applause, conversation broke outagain.
"Have you given up Italy as you have given up Paris?" Miss Van Tuynasked of Lady Sellingworth.
"Oh, yes, long ago. I only go to Aix now for a cure, and sometimes inthe early spring to Cap Martin."
"The hotel?"
"Yes; the hotel. I like the pine woods."
"So do I. But, to my mind, there's no longer a vestige of real romanceon the French Riviera. Too many grand dukes have passed over it."
Lady Sellingworth laughed.
"But I don't seek romance when I leave London."
"No?"
She looked oddly doubtful for a moment. Then she said:
"Mr. Craven, will you tell us the truth?"
"It depends. What about?"
"Oh, a very simple matter."
"I'll do my best, but all men are liars."
"We only ask you to do your best."
"We!" he said, with a glance at Lady Sellingworth.
"Yes--yes," she said. "I go solid with my sex."
"Then--what is it?"
"Do you ever go travelling--ever, without a secret hope of romancemeeting you on your travels, somewhere, somehow, wonderfully, suddenly?Do you?"
He thought for a moment. Then he said:
"Honestly, I don't think I ever do."
"There!" said Miss Van Tuyn triumphantly. "Nor do I."
She looked half defiantly, half inquisitively at Lady Sellingworth.
"My dear Beryl!" said the latter, "for all these lacks in yourtemperament you must wait."
"Wait? For how long?"
"Till you are fifty, perhaps."
"I know I shall want romance at fifty."
"Let us say sixty, then."
"Or," interrupted Craven, "until you are comfortably married."
"Comfortably married!" she cried. "_Quelle horreur!_"
"I had no idea Americans were so romantic," said Lady Sellingworth, withjust a touch of featherweight malice.
"Americans! I believe the longing for romance covers both sexes and allthe human race."
She let her eyes go into Craven's.
"Only up till a certain age," said Lady Sellingworth. "When we love tosit by the fire, we can do very well without it. But we must be carefulto lay up treasure for our old age, mental treasure. We must cultivatetastes and habits which have nothing to do with wildness. A man inSorrento taught me about that."
"A man in Sorrento!" said Miss Van Tuyn, suddenly and sharply on thealert.
"Yes. He was a famous writer, and had, I dare say, been a famous loverin his time. One day, as we drove beyond the town towards the hills,he described to me the compensations old age holds for sensible people.It's a question of cultivating and preparing the mind, of filling thestorehouse against the day of famine. He had done it, and assured methat he didn't regret his lost youth or sigh after its unrecoverablepleasures. He had accustomed his mind to its task."
"What task, dearest?"
"Acting in connexion with the soul--his word that--as a thoroughlyefficient substitute for his body as a pleasure giver."
At this moment the adoring eyes of the three musicians who were"hairdressers in the daytime" focussed passionately upon Miss Van Tuyn,distracted her attention. She felt masculinity intent upon her andresponded automatically.
"The dear boys! They are asking if they shall play the Pastorale for me.Look at their eyes!" she said.
Craven did not bother to do that, but looked instead at hers, wonderinga little at her widespread energy
in net casting. Was it possible thatonce Lady Sellingworth had been like that, ceaselessly on thelookout for worship, requiring it as a right, even from men who werehairdressers in the daytime? As the musicians began to play he met hereyes again and felt sure that it could not have been so. Whatever shehad done, whatever she had been, she could never have frequented theback stairs. That thought seemed a rather cruel thrust at Miss Van Tuyn.But there is a difference in vanities. Wonderful variety of nature!
When the players had finished the Pastorale and "A Mezzanotte," andhad been rewarded by a long look of thanks from Miss Van Tuyn whichevidently drove them over the borders of admiration into the regionsof unfulfilled desire, Lady Sellingworth said she must go. And then anunexpected thing happened. It appeared that Miss Van Tuyn had asked acertain famous critic, who though English by birth was more Parisianthan most French people, to call for her at the restaurant and take heron to join a party at the Cafe Royal. She, therefore, could not go yet,and she begged Lady Sellingworth to stay on and to finish up theevening in the company of Georgians at little marble tables. But LadySellingworth laughingly jibbed at the Cafe Royal.
"I should fall out of my _assiette_ there!" she said.
"But no one is ever surprised at the Cafe Royal, dearest. It is the oneplace in London where--Ah! here is Jennings come to fetch us!"
A very small man, with a pointed black beard and wandering green eyes,wearing a Spanish sombrero and a black cloak, and carrying an ebonystick nearly as tall as himself, at this moment slipped furtively intothe room, and, without changing his delicately plaintive expression,came up to Miss Van Tuyn and ceremoniously shook hands with her.
Lady Sellingworth looked for a moment at Craven.
"May I escort you home?" he said. "At any rate, let me get you a taxi."
"Lady Sellingworth, may I introduce Ambrose Jennings," said Miss VanTuyn in a rather firm voice at this moment.
Lady Sellingworth bent kindly to the little man far down below her.After a word or two she said:
"Now I must go."
"Must you really? Then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi."
"If it's fine, I will walk. It seems more suitable to walk home afterdining here."
"Walk! Then let us all walk together, and we'll persuade you into theCafe Royal."
"Dick Garstin will be there," said Ambrose Jennings in a frail voice,"Enid Blunt, a Turkish refugee from Smyrna who writes quite decentverse, Thapoulos, Penitence Murray, who is just out of prison, and Smiththe sculptor, with his mistress, a round-faced little Russian girl.She's the dearest little Bolshevik I know."
He looked plaintively yet critically at Lady Sellingworth, and pulledhis little black beard with fingers covered with antique rings.
"Dear little bloodthirsty thing!" he added to Lady Sellingworth. "Youwould like her. I know it."
"I'm sure I should. There is something so alluring about Bolshevism whenit's safely tucked up at the Cafe Royal. But I will only walk to thedoor."
"And then Mr. Craven will get you a taxi," said Miss Van Tuyn. "Shall wego?"
They fared forth into the London night--Craven last.
He realized that Miss Van Tuyn had made up her mind to keep both himand Jennings as her possessions of the evening, and to send LadySellingworth, if she would go home early, back to Berkeley Squarewithout an escort. Her cult for her friend, though doubtless genuine,evidently weakened when there was any question of the allegiance of men.Craven made up his mind that he would not leave Lady Sellingworth untilthey were at the door of Number 18A, Berkeley Square.
In the street he found himself by the side of Miss Van Tuyn, behind LadySellingworth and Ambrose Jennings, who were really a living caricatureas they proceeded through the night towards Shaftesbury Avenue. Thesmallness of Jennings, accentuated by his bat-like cloth cloak, hisample sombrero and fantastically long stick, made Lady Sellingworth looklike a moving tower as she walked at his side, like a leaning tower whenshe bent graciously to catch the murmur of his persistent conversation.And as over the theatres in letters of fire were written the namesof the stars in the London firmament--Marie Lohr, Moscovitch, ElsieJanis--so over, all over, Lady Sellingworth seemed to be written forCraven to read: "I am really not a Bohemian."
"Do you genuinely wish Lady Sellingworth to finish the evening at theCafe Royal?" he asked of his companion.
"Yes. They would love her there. She would bring a new note."
"Probably. But would she love them?"
"I don't think you quite understand her," said Miss Van Tuyn.
"I'm quite sure I don't. Still--"
"In past years I am certain she has been to all the odd cafes of Paris."
"Perhaps. But one changes. And you yourself said there were--or was ithad been?--two Adela Sellingworths, and that you only knew one."
"Yes. But perhaps at the Cafe Royal I should get to know the other."
"May she not be dead?"
"I have a theory that nothing of us really dies while we live. Our abodechanges. We know that. But I believe the inhabitant is permanent. We arewhat we were, with, of course, innumerable additions brought to us bythe years. For instance, I believe that Lady Sellingworth now is whatshe was, to all intents and purposes, with additions which naturallyhave made great apparent changes in her. An old moss-covered house,overgrown with creepers, looks quite different from the same house whenit is new and bare. But go inside--the rooms are the same, and under themoss and the creepers are the same walls."
"It may be so. But what a difference the moss and the creepers make.Some may be climbing roses."
Craven felt the shrewd girlish eyes were looking at him closely.
"In her case some of them certainly are!" she said. "Oh, do look at themturning the corner! If Cirella were here he would have a subject for oneof his most perfect caricatures. It is the leaning tower of Pisa with abat."
The left wing of Ambrose Jennings's cloak flew out as he whirled intoRegent Street by Lady Sellingworth's side.