December Love

by Robert Hichens

  CHAPTER III

  Craven realized that he had "given himself away" directly Braybrooke wasgone. The two empty glasses stood on a low table in front of his chair.He looked at them and for an instant was filled with anger againsthimself. To be immortal--he was old-fashioned enough to believesurreptitiously in his own immortality--and yet to be deflected fromthe straight path of good sense by a couple of dry Martinis! It washumiliating, and he raged against himself.

  Braybrooke had certainly gone away thinking that he, Craven, had fallenin love with Lady Sellingworth. That thought, too, might possiblyhave come out of one of those little glasses, the one on the left. Butnevertheless it would stick in Braybrooke's mind long after the Martiniswere forgotten.

  And what if it did?

  Craven said that to himself, but he felt far less defiant thansensitively uncomfortable. He was surprised by himself. Evidently he hadnot known his own feelings. When Braybrooke mentioned Seymour Portmanas a suitable husband for Lady Sellingworth something strong, almostviolent, had risen up in Craven to protest. What was that? And why washe suddenly so angry? He was surely not going to make a fool of himself.He felt almost youthfully alarmed and also rather excited. An odd senseof romance suddenly floated about him. Did that too come from thosecursed dry Martinis? Impossible to be sure for the moment. He foundhimself wondering whether teetotallers knew more about their souls thanmoderate drinkers, or less.

  But the odd sense of romance persisted when the effect of the dryMartinis must certainly have worn off. It was something such asCraven had never known, or even imagined before. He had had his littleadventures, and about them had thrown the woven robes that gleam withprismatic colours; he had even had deeper, passionate episodes--as hethought them--in his life. As he had acknowledged in the _RistoranteBella Napoli_ he had seldom or never started on a journey abroad withouta secret hope of romance meeting him on the way. And sometimes it hadmet him. Or so he had believed at the time. But in all these episodes ofthe past there had been something definitely physical, something almosthorribly natural, a prompting of the body, the kind of thing whichbelongs to youth, any youth, and which any doctor could explain in a fewcrude words. Even then, in those now dead moments, Craven had sometimesfelt sensitive youth's impotent anger at being under the yoke which islaid upon the necks of innumerable others, clever, dull, aristocratic,common, the elect and the hopelessly vulgar.

  In this new episode he was emancipated from that. He was able to feelthat he was peculiar, if not unique. In the strong attraction which drewhim towards Lady Sellingworth there was certainly nothing of the--well,to himself he called it "the medically physical." Something of the bodythere might possibly be. Indeed, perhaps it was impossible that thereshould not be. But the predominant factor had nothing whatever to dowith the body. He felt certain of that.

  When he got home from the Club he found on his table a note from BerylVan Tuyn:

  HYDE PARK HOTEL, Thursday.

  My dear Mr. Craven,--What a pity you couldn't get away last night.But you were quite right to play Squire of Dames to our dear LadySellingworth. We had a rather wonderful evening after you had gone. DickGarstin was in his best vein. Green chartreuse brings out his genius ina wonderful way. I wish it would do for me what it does for him. ButI have tried it--in small doses--quite in vain. He and I walked hometogether and talked of everything under the stars. I believe he is goingto paint me. Next time you make your way to the Bella Napoli we mightgo together. Two lovers of Italy must always feel at home there, andthe sight of Vesuvius is encouraging, I think. So don't forget that my"beat," as you call it, often lies in Soho.

  Isn't dear Adela Sellingworth delightful? She looked like a wonderfulantique in that Italian frame. I love every line in her face and wouldgive my best bronze to have white hair like hers. But somehow I amalmost glad she didn't fall to the Cafe Royal. She is right. It is tooGeorgian for her. She is, as she says, definitely Edwardian and wouldscarcely understand the new jargon which comes as easily as how d'you doto _our_ lips.

  By the way, coming out of the Cafe Royal last night I saw a livingbronze.--Yours,

  BERYL VAN TUYN.

  This note half amused and half irritated Craven on a first reading. Ona second reading irritation predominated in him. Miss Van Tuyn'sdetermined relegation of Lady Sellingworth to the past seemed somehowto strike at him, to make him--or to intend to make him--ridiculous; andher deliberate classing of him with herself in the underlined "_our_"seemed rather like an attempt to assert authority, the authority ofyouth over him. But no doubt this was very natural. Craven was quitesure that Miss Van Tuyn cared nothing about him. But he was a notdisagreeable and quite presentable young man; he had looked into herviolet eyes, had pressed her hand, had held it longer than was at allnecessary, had in fact shown that he was just a young man and easilysusceptible; and so she did not choose to let an elderly woman takepossession of him even for an hour without sharpening a weapon or twoand bringing them into use.

  No wonder that men are conceited when women so swiftly take up arms ontheir account!

  For a moment Craven almost disliked Miss Van Tuyn, and made up his mindthat there would be no "next time" for him in Soho while she was inLondon. He knew that whenever they met he would feel her attraction;but he now classed it with those attractions of the past which weredisgustingly explicable, and which just recently he had learnt tounderstand in a way that was almost old.

  Was he putting on horn spectacles while his eyesight was stillunimpaired? He felt doubtful, almost confused for a moment. Was his newfeeling for Lady Sellingworth subtly pulling him away from his youth?Where was he going? Perhaps this new sensation of movement was onlydeceptive; perhaps he was not on the way to an unknown region. Fora moment he wished that he could talk freely, openly, with someunderstanding friend, a man of course. But though he had plenty ofmen friends he could not think of one he would be able to confide hispresent feelings to.

  Already he began to realize the human ridicule which always attends uponany departure from what, according to the decision of all absolutelyordinary people, is strictly normal.

  Everybody would understand and approve if he were to fall desperatelyin love with Beryl Van Tuyn; but if he were to prefer a great friendshipwith Lady Sellingworth to a love affair with her youthful and beautifulfriend no one would understand, and everybody would be ready to laughand condemn.

  He knew this and yet he felt obstinate, mulish almost, as he sat down toreply non-committally to Miss Van Tuyn's letter. It was only when he didthis that he thought seriously about its last words.

  Why had she troubled to write them down? Comparatively young though hewas he knew that a woman's "by the way" usually means anything ratherthan what it seems to mean--namely, a sentence thrown out by chancebecause it has just happened to turn up in the mind. "A living bronze."Miss Van Tuyn was exceptionally fond of bronzes and collected them withenthusiasm. She knew of course the Museum at Naples. Craven had oftenvisited it when he had been staying at the Villa Rosebery. He couldremember clearly almost every important bronze in that wonderfulcollection. He realized what "a living bronze" must mean when written ofby a woman. Miss Van Tuyn had evidently seen an amazingly handsome mancoming out of the Cafe Royal. But why should she tell him about it?Perhaps her motive was the very ordinary one, an attempt to rouse theswift jealousy of the male animal. She was certainly "up" to allthe usual feminine tricks. He thoroughly realized her vanity and,contrasting it with Lady Sellingworth's apparently almost careless lackof self-consciousness, he wondered whether Lady Sellingworth could everhave been what she was said to have been. If so, as a snake sheds itsskin she must surely have sloughed her original nature. He was thankfulfor that, thankful for her absolute lack of pose and vanity. He evendelighted in her self-mockery, divined by him. So few women mocked atthemselves and so many mocked at others.

  If Miss Van Tuyn had intended to give a flick to his jealousy at the endof her letter she had failed. If she met fifty living bronzes and addedthem to her collecti
on it was nothing to him. He compared his feelingwhen Braybrooke had suggested Seymour Portman as a husband for LadySellingworth with his lack of feeling about Miss Van Tuyn and herbronze, and he was almost startled. And yet Miss Van Tuyn was lovely andcertainly did not want him to go quite away out of her ken. And, whenshe chose, she had made him very foolish about her.

  What did it all mean?

  He wrote a little letter in answer to hers, charmingly polite, butrather vague about Soho. At the end of it, before signing himself"Yours"--he could do no less with her letter before him--he put, "Ifeel rather intrigued about the living bronze. Was it in petticoats ortrousers?"