CHAPTER IV
Lady Sellingworth was afraid. In spite of her many triumphs in the pastshe had a deep distrust of life. Since the tragedies of her middle ageher curious natural diffidence, which the habit of the world had neverbeen able to subdue, had increased. In ten years of retirement, in thehundreds of hours of solitude which those ten years had held for her, ithad grown within her. And now it began to torment her.
Life brings gifts to almost everyone, and often the gift-bearer'sapproach is absolutely unexpected. So it had been in Lady Sellingworth'scase. She had had no premonition that a change was preparing for her.Nothing had warned her to be on the alert when young feet turned intoBerkeley Square on a certain Sunday in autumn and made towards herdoor. Abruptly, after years of neglect, it seemed as if life suddenlyremembered that there was a middle-aged woman, with lungs which stillmechanically did their work, and a heart which still obstinatelypersisted in beating, living in Berkeley Square, and that scarcely abare bone had been thrown to her for some thousands of days. And thenlife brought her Craven, with an unusual nature, with a surely romanticmind, with a chivalrous sense that was out of the fashion, withfaculties making for friendship; life offered, or seemed to offer herCraven, to whisper in her ear, "You have been starving alone for along time. To tell the truth, I had forgotten all about you. I did notremember you were there. I don't quite know why you persist inbeing there. But, as you do, and as you are wearing thin for want ofsustenance, here is something for you!"
And now, because of what life had done, Lady Sellingworth was afraid.When she had parted from her friends after the theatre party, and wasonce more alone in her big house, she knew thoroughly, absolutely, forthe first time what life had done.
All the calm, the long calm of her years of retirement from theworld, had gone. She now knew how strangely safe she had felt in herloneliness. She had felt surely something of the safety of a nun of oneof the enclosed orders. In her solitude she had learnt to understandhow dangerous the great world is, how full of trials for the nerves,the temper, the flesh, the heart. The woman who goes into it needs tobe armed. For many weapons thrust at her. She must be perpetually on thealert, ready to hold her own among the attacking eyes and tongues. Andshe must not be tired, or dull, or sad, must not show, or follow, hervarying moods, must not quietly rest in sincerity. When she had lived inthe world Lady Sellingworth had scarcely realized all this. But inher long retirement she had come fully to realize it. There had been astrange and embracing sense of safety permeating her solitary life. Shehad got up in the morning, she had gone to bed at night, feeling safe.For the storms of the passions were stilled, and though desire mightstir sometimes, it soon slept again. For she never took her desire intodanger. She did not risk the temptations of the world.
But now all the old restlessness, all the old anxiety and furtiveuneasiness of the mind, had returned. She was again what she had oftenbeen more than ten years ago--a woman tormented. And--for she knewherself now--she knew what was in store for her if she gave herselfagain to life and her own inclinations.
For it had all come back; the old greedy love of sympathy andadmiration, the old worship of strength and youth and hot blood and goodlooks, the old longing for desire and love, the old almost irritablepassion to possess, to dominate, to be first, to submerge another humanbeing in her own personality.
After ten years she was in love again, desperately in love. But she wasan elderly woman now, so elderly that many people would no doubt thinkthat it was impossible that she should be in love. How little suchpeople knew about human nature! The evening had been almost as wonderfuland as exciting to her as it could have been to a girl. When she hadcome into the hall of the Carlton and had seen Craven through the glass,had seen his tall figure, smooth, dark hair, and animated face glowingwith health after the breezes and sunrays of Beaconsfield, she had knowna feeling that a girl might have understood and shared.
And she was sixty!
What was to be done?
Craven was certainly fond of her already. Quietly she had triumphed thatnight. Three women had seen and had quite understood her little triumph.Probably all of them had wondered about it, had been secretly irritatedby it. Certainly Beryl had been very much irritated. But in spite ofthat triumph, Lady Sellingworth felt almost desperately afraid thatnight when she was alone. For she knew how great the difference wasbetween her feeling for Craven and his feeling for her. And with greaterintimacy that difference, she felt sure, must even increase. For shewould want from him what he would never want or even dream of wanting,from her. He would be satisfied in their friendship while she would bealmost starving. He would never know that cruel longing to touch whichmarks the difference between what is love and what is friendship.
If she now let herself go, took no drastic step, just let life carryher on, she could have a strange and unusual, and, in its way, beautifulfriendship, a friendship which to a woman with a different nature fromhers might seem perfect. She could have that--and what would it be toher?
She longed to lay violent hands on herself; she longed to tear somethingthat was an essential part of her to pieces, to scatter it to a wind,and let the wind whirl it away.
She knelt down that night before getting into bed and prayed. Andwhen she did that she thought of Sellingworth and of his teachings andopinions. How he would have laughed at her if he had ever seen her dothat! She had not wanted to do it in the years when she had been withhim. But now, if his opinions had been well founded, he was only dustand perhaps a few fragments of bone. He could not laugh at her now. Andshe felt a really desperate need of prayer.
She did not pray to have something that she wanted. She knew that wouldbe no use. Even if there was a God who attended to individuals, he wouldcertainly not give her what she wanted just then. To do so would bedeliberately to interfere with the natural course of things, arbitrarilyto change the design. And something in Lady Sellingworth's brainprevented her from being able even for a moment to think that God wouldever do that. She prayed, therefore, that she might cease to want whatshe wanted; she prayed that she might have strength to do a tremendouslycourageous thing quickly; she prayed that she might be rewarded fordoing it by afterwards having physical and mental peace; she prayed thatshe might be permanently changed, that she might, after this last trial,be allowed to become passionless, that what remained of the fiercelyanimal in her might die out, that she might henceforth be as old innature as she already was in body. "For," she said to herself, "onlyin that oldness lies safety for me! Unless I can be all old--mind andnature, as well as body--I shall suffer horribly again."
She prayed that she might feel old, so old that she might cease frombeing attracted by youth, from longing after youth in this dreadfultormenting way.
When she got up from her knees it was one o'clock. She took two tabletsof aspirin and got into bed. And directly she was in bed an ideaseemed to hit her mind, and she trembled slightly, as if she had reallyreceived a blow. She had just been praying for something earnestly,almost violently, and she had prayed with clear understanding, with theunderstanding that a long and fully lived life brings to every reallyintelligent human being. Did she really want her prayer to be answered,or had she been trying to humbug herself? She had thought of a testwhich would surely prove whether she was genuine in her desire to escapefrom the torment that was lying in wait for her or not. Instead ofreceiving a visit from her Greek to-morrow, instead of being at home toCraven in the late afternoon, instead of giving herself up to the lurewhich must, she knew, certainly lead her on to emotional destruction,she might do this: she might telephone to Sir Seymour Portman to come toher and tell him that she would reward his long faithfulness.
It would be a way out. If she could bring herself to do it she wouldmake herself safe. For though Seymour Portman had been so faithful, andshe had never rewarded him, he was not a man any woman would dare toplay with. Lady Sellingworth knew that she would never break a promiseto him, would never play fast and loose with him. He was strong andhe w
as true, and he had very high ideals and an almost stern code ofhonour. In accepting him as her husband she would shut a door of steelbetween herself and her past, with its sins and its many follies. Shewould begin again, as an old woman with a devoted husband who wouldknow--none better--how to make himself respected, how to hold by hisrights.
People might smile at such a marriage, but it would be absolutelysuitable. Seymour was a few years older than she was. But he was stillstrong and upright, could still sit a horse as well as any man, stillhad a steady hand with his gun. He was not a ruin. She would be ableto rest on him. A more perfect support for a woman than Seymour, ifhe loved, was surely not created. He was a gentleman to the core, andtotally incapable of insincerity. He was fearless. He belonged to herworld. He was _persona grata_ at Court and in society. And he loved herin that extraordinary and very rare way--as the one woman. All he neededin a woman quite evidently he found in her. How? Why? She did not know,could not understand. But so it was. She would absolutely satisfy hisdesires.
The aspirin was stilling her nerves. She lay without moving. Had shebeen a humbug when she prayed? Had she prayed knowing quite well thather prayer was not going to be answered, not intending, or wishing,really, that it should be answered? Had she prayed without any beliefin a Being who had the power and probably the will to give her what sheasked for? Would she have prayed at all had she been sure that if sheoffered up a petition to be made old in nature as well as in body itwould certainly be granted?
"I don't know! I don't know!" she whispered to herself.
The darkness of the big room suddenly seemed very strange. And shethought how odd it was that human beings need in every twenty-four hoursa long period of blackness, that they make blackness by turning outlight, and stretch themselves out in it as if getting ready for burial.
"Burial! If I'm not a humbug, if really I wish for peace, to-morrow Ishall send for Seymour," she said to herself. "Through him I can getpeace of mind. He will protect me against myself, without even knowingthat he is doing it. I have only to speak a sentence to him and allpossibility of danger, torment and wildness will be over for ever."
And then she thought of the safety of a prison. But anything was surelybetter than misery of mind and body, than wanting terribly from someonewhat he never wants to give you, what he never wants from you.
Torment in freedom, or stagnant peace in captivity behind the prisondoor--which was the more desirable? Craven's voice throughthe telephone--their conversation about Waring--Seymour's longfaithfulness--if he were here now! How would it be? And if Craven--No!No!
Another tablet of aspirin--and sleep!
Lady Sellingworth did not pray the next morning. But she telephonedto Seymour Portman, and said she would be at home about five in theafternoon if he cared for an hour's talk. She gave no hint that she hadany special reason for asking him to come. If he only knew what was inher mind! His firm, quiet, soldier's voice replied through the telephonethat of course he would come. Somehow she guessed that he had had anengagement and was going to give it up for her. What would he not giveup for her? And yet he was a man accustomed to command, and to whomauthority was natural. But he was also accustomed to obey. He was theperfect courtier, devoted to the monarchy, yet absolutely free from theslave instinct. Good kings trust such men. Many women love them.
"Why not I?" Lady Sellingworth thought that day.
And it seemed to her that perhaps even love might be subject to willpower, that a determined effort of will might bring it or banish it. Shehad never really tested her will in that way in connexion with love. Butthe time had come for the test to be made.
"Perhaps I can love Seymour!" she said to herself. "Perhaps I could haveloved him years ago if I had chosen. Perhaps I have only to use my willto be happy with him. I have never controlled my impulses. That has beenmy curse and the cause of all my miseries."
At that moment she entirely forgot the ten years of self-control whichwere behind her. The sudden return to her former self had apparentlyblotted them out from her memory.
After telephoning to Seymour Portman she wrote a little note to Cravenand sent it round to the Foreign Office. In the note she explainedbriefly that she was not able to see him that afternoon as had beenarranged between them. The wording of the note was cold. She could nothelp that. She wrote it under the influence of what she thought of justthen as a decision. If she did what she believed she intended to do thatafternoon she would have to be cold to Craven in the future. With hertemperament it would be impossible to continue her friendship withCraven if she were going to marry Sir Seymour. She knew that. But shedid not know how frigid, how almost brusque, her note to Craven was.
When he read it he felt as if he had received a cold douche. It startledhim and hurt him, hurt his youthful sensitiveness and pride. And hewondered very much why Lady Sellingworth had written it, and what hadhappened to make her write to him like that. She did not even ask himto call on her at some other time on some other day. And it had been shewho had suggested a cosy talk that afternoon. She had been going toshow him a book of poems by a young American poet in whose work she wasinterested. And they would have talked over the little events of thepreceding evening, have discussed Moscovitch, the play, the persistenceof love, youth, age, everything under the sun.
Craven was severely disappointed. He even felt rather angry and hurt.Something in him was up in arms, but something else was distressed andanxious. It was extraordinary how already he had come to depend uponLady Sellingworth. His mother was dead. He certainly did not think ofLady Sellingworth as what is sometimes called "a second mother." Therewas nothing maternal about her, and he was fully aware of that. Besides,she did not fascinate him in the motherly way. No; but owing to thegreat difference in their ages he felt that he could talk to her as hecould talk to nobody else. For he was in no intimate relation with anyother woman so much older than himself. And to young women somehow onecan never talk so freely, so companionably. Even in these modern dayssex gets in the way. Craven told himself that as he folded up LadySellingworth's letter. She was different. He had felt that for him therewas quite a beautiful refuge in Berkeley Square. And now! What couldhave happened? She must surely be vexed about something he had done,or about something which had occurred on the previous evening. And hethought about the evening carefully and minutely. Had she perhaps beenupset by Lady Wrackley and Mrs. Ackroyde? Was she self-conscious as hewas, and had she observed their concentration upon herself and him? Or,on the other hand, could she had misunderstood his manner with Miss VanTuyn? He knew how very sensitive women are about each other. And LadySellingworth, of course, was old, although he never bothered, and seldomthought, about her age. Elderly women were probably in certain ways evenmore sensitive than young women. He could well understand that. And hecertainly had rather made love to Miss Van Tuyn because of the horriblyobserving eyes of the "old guard." And then, too, Miss Van Tuyn hadfinally almost required it of him. Had she not told him that she hadinsisted on Lady Sellingworth's being asked to the theatre to entertainBraybrooke so that Craven and she, the young ones, might have a nicelittle time? After that what could he do but his duty? But perhaps LadySellingworth had not understood. He wondered, and felt now hurt andangry, now almost contrite and inclined to be explanatory.
When he left the Foreign Office that day and was crossing the Mall hewas very depressed. A breath of winter was in the air. There was a bankof clouds over Buckingham Palace, with the red sun smouldering justbehind their edges. The sky, as it sometimes does, held tenderness,anger and romance, and was full of lures for the imagination and thesoul. Craven looked at it as he walked on with a colleague, a man calledMarshall, older than himself, who had just come back from Japan, andwas momentarily translated. He voyaged among the clouds, and was carriedaway across that cold primrose and delicate green, and his journeywas into the ineffable, and beyond the rim of the horizon towards thesatisfaction of the unexpressed, because inexpressible, desires. AndMarshall talked about Japanese art and presently
about geishas, notstupidly, but with understanding. And Craven thought: "If only I weregoing to Berkeley Square!" He had come down to earth, but in thecondition which yearns for an understanding mind. Lady Sellingworthunderstood him. But now--he did not know. And he went with Marshalldrearily to the St. James's Club and went on hearing about geishas andJapanese art.
The bell sounded in Berkeley Square, and a footman let in Sir SeymourPortman, who was entirely unconscious that Fate had been workingapparently with a view to the satisfaction of his greatest desire. Hehad long ago given up hope of being Adela Sellingworth's husband. Twicethat hope had died--when she had married Lord Manham, and when she hadmarried Sellingworth. Adela could not care for him in that way. But nowfor many years she had remained unmarried, had joined him, as it were,in the condition of being lonely. That fact had helped him along theroad. He could go to her and feel that he was in a certain degreewanted. That was something, even a good deal, in the old courtier'slife. He valued greatly the welcome of the woman whom he still lovedwith an undeviating fidelity. He was thankful, selfishly, no doubt--heoften said so to himself--for her loneliness, because he believedhimself able to cheer it and to alleviate it. And at last he had ceasedto dread any change in her way of life. His Adela had evidently at last"settled down." Her vivacious temperament, her almost greedy love oflife, were abated. He had her more or less to himself.
As he mounted the staircase with his slow, firm step, holding hissoldierly figure very upright, he was looking forward to one of theusual quiet, friendly conversations with Adela which were his greatestenjoyments, and as he passed through the doorway of the drawing-room hiseyes turned at once towards the sofa near the big fireplace, seeking forthe tall figure of the woman who so mysteriously had captured hisheart in the long ago and who had never been able to let it out of herkeeping.
But there was no one by the fire, and the butler said:
"I will tell her ladyship that you are here, sir."
"Thank you, Murgatroyd," said Sir Seymour.
And he went to the fireplace, turned round, and began to warm his flatback.
He stood there thus till his back was quite warm. Adela was rather slowin coming. But he did not mind that. It was happiness for him to be inher house, among her things, the sofas and chairs she used, the carpether feet pressed every day, the books she read, the flowers she hadchosen. This house was his idea of a home who had never had a homebecause of her.
Meanwhile upstairs, in a big bedroom just overhead, Lady Sellingworthwas having a battle with herself of which her friend was totallyunconscious. She did not come down at once because she wanted definitelyand finally to finish that battle before she saw again the man by thefire. But something said to her: "Don't decide till you have seen himagain. Look at him once more and then decide." She walked softly up anddown the room after Murgatroyd had told her who was waiting for her, andshe felt gnawed by apprehension. She knew her fate was in the balance.All day she had been trying to decide what she was going to do. All dayshe had been saying to herself: "Now, this moment, I will decide, andonce the decision is made there shall be no going back from it." It waswithin her power to come to a decision and to stick to it; or, if itwere not within her power, then she was not a sane but an insane woman.She knew herself sane. Yet the decision was not arrived at when SirSeymour rang the bell. Now he was waiting in the room underneath and thematter must be settled. An effort of will, the descent of a flight ofstairs, a sentence spoken, and her life would be made fast to an anchorwhich would hold. And for her there would be no more drifting upondangerous seas at the mercy of tempests.
"Look at him once more and then decide."
The voice persisted within her monotonously. But what an absurdinjunction that was. She knew Seymour by heart, knew every feature ofhim, every expression of his keen, observant, but affectionate eyes, theway he held himself, the shapes of his strong, rather broad hands--thehands of a fine horseman and first-rate whip--every trick of him,every attitude. Why look at him, her old familiar friend, again beforedeciding what she was now going to do?
"Look at him as the man who is going to be your husband!"
But that was surely a deceiving insidious voice, suggesting to herweakness, uncertainty, hesitation, further mental torment and furtherdebate. And she was afraid of it.
She stood still near the window. She must go down. Seymour had alreadybeen waiting some time, ten minutes or more. He must be wonderingwhy she did not come. He was not the sort of man one cares to keepwaiting--although he had waited many years scarcely daring to hope forsomething he longed for. She thought of his marvellous happiness, hiswonderful surprise, if she did what she meant--or did she mean it--todo. Surely it would be a splendid thing to bring such a flash ofradiance into a life of twilight. Does happiness come from making othershappy? If so, then--She must go down.
"I will do it!" she said to herself. "Merely his happiness will beenough reward."
And she went towards the door. But as she did so her apprehension grewtill her body tingled with it. A strange sensation of being physicallyunwell came upon her. She shrank, as if physically, from the clutchinghands of the irrevocable. If in a hurry, driven by her demon, she wereto say the words she had in her mind there would be no going back. Shewould never dare to unsay them. She knew that. But that was just thegreat advantage she surely was seeking--an irrevocable safety fromherself, a safety she would never be able to get away from, break outof.
In a prison there is safety from all the dangers and horrors of theworld outside the prison. But what a desperate love of the state she nowcalled freedom burned within her! Freedom for what, though? She knew andfelt as if her soul were slowly reddening. It was monstrous that thoughtof hers. Yet she could not help having it. It was surely not her faultif she had it. Was she a sort of monster unlike all other women of herage? Or did many of them, too, have such thoughts?
She must go down. And she went to the door and opened it. And directlyshe saw the landing outside and the descending staircase she knew thatshe had not yet decided, that she could not decide till she had lookedat Seymour once more, looked at him with the almost terrible eyes ofthe deeply experienced woman who can no longer decide a thing swiftly inignorance.
"I shall do it," she said to herself. "But I must be reasonable, andthere is no reason why I should force myself to make up my mind finallyup here. I have sent for Seymour and I know why. When I see him, when Iam with him, I shall do what I intended to do when I asked him to come."
She shut her bedroom door and began to go downstairs, and as she wentshe imagined Seymour settled in that house with her. (For, of course, hewould come to live in Berkeley Square, would leave the set of rooms heoccupied now in St. James's Palace.) She had often longed to have a malecompanion living with her in that house, to smell cigar smoke, to heara male voice, a strong footstep in the hall and on the stairs, to seethings that implied a man's presence lying about, caps, pipes, walkingsticks, golf clubs, riding crops. The whole atmosphere of the housewould be changed if a man came to live with her there, if Seymour came.
But--her liberty?
She had gained the last stair and was on the great landing before thedrawing-room door. Down below she heard a faint and discreet murmur ofvoices from Murgatroyd and the footman in the hall. And as she pausedfor a moment she wondered how much those two men knew of her and of herreal character, whether they had any definite knowledge of her humanity,whether they had perhaps realized in their way what sort of woman shewas, sometimes stripped away the _Grande Dame_, the mistress, and lookedwith appraising eyes at the stark woman.
She would never know.
She opened the door and instantly assumed her usual carelessly friendlylook.
Sir Seymour had left the fire, and was sitting in an armchair with abook in his hand reading when she came in; and as she had opened thedoor softly, and as it was a long way from the fireplace he did not hearher or instantly realize that she was there. She had an instant in whichto contemplate him as he sat there, li
ke a man quietly at home. Onlyone lamp was lit. It stood on a table behind him and threw light on hisrather big head thickly covered with curly and snow-white hair, the hairwhich he sometimes smilingly called his "cauliflower." The light fell,too, aslant on his strong-featured manly face, the slightly hooked nose,large-lipped, firm mouth, shaded by a moustache in which some darkhairs were mingled with the white ones, and chin with a deep dent in themiddle of it. His complexion was of that weather-beaten red hue which isoften seen in oldish men who have been much out in all weathers. Therewere many deep lines in the face, two specially deep ones slantingdownwards from the nose on either side of the mouth. Above the nosethere was a sort of bump, from which the low forehead slightly retreatedto the curves of strong white hair. The ears were large but well shaped.In order to read he had put on pince-nez with tortoise-shell rimmedglasses, from which hung a rather broad black riband. His thin figurelooked stiff even in an arm-chair. His big brown-red hands held the bookup. His legs were crossed, and his feet were strongly defined by thesnowy white spats which partially concealed the varnished black boots.He looked a distinguished old man as he sat there--but he looked old.
"Is it possible that I look at all that sort of age?" was LadySellingworth's thought as, for a brief instant, she contemplated him,with an intensity, a sort of almost fierce sharpness which she wasscarcely aware of.
He looked up, made a twitching movement; his pince-nez fell to his blackcoat, and he got up alertly.
"Adela!"
She shut the door and went towards him, and as she did so she thought:
"If I had seen Alick Craven sitting there reading!"
"I was having a look at this."
He held up the book. It was Baudelaire's "_Les Fleurs du Mal_."
"Not the book for you!" she said. "Though your French is so good."
"No."
He laid it down, and she noticed the tangle of veins on his hand.
"The dandy in literature doesn't appeal to me. I must say many of thesepoets strike me as decadent fellows, not helped to anything like realmanliness by their gifts."
She sat down on the sofa, just where she had sat to have those longtalks with Craven about Waring and Italy, the sea people, the colours ofthe sails on those ships which look magical in sunsets, which move on asif bearing argosies from gorgeous hidden lands of the East.
"But never mind Baudelaire," he continued, and his eyes, heavily liddedand shrouded by those big bushy eyebrows which seem to sprout almostwith ardent violence as the body grows old, looked at her with meltingkindness. "What have you been doing, my dear? The old dog wants to know.There is something on your mind, isn't there?"
Lady Sellingworth had once said to Sir Seymour that he reminded her of abig dog, and he had laughed and said that he was a big dog belonging toher. Since that day, when he wrote to her, he had often signed himself"the old dog." And often she had thought of him almost as one thinks ofa devoted dog, absolutely trustworthy, ready for instant attack on yourenemies, faithful with unquestioning faithfulness through anything.
As he spoke he gently took her hand, and she thought, "If Alick Cravenwere taking my hand!"
The touch of his skin was warm and very dry. It gave her a woman'sthoughts, not to be told of.
"What is it?" he asked.
Very gently she released her hand, and as she did so she looked on italmost sternly.
"Why?" she said. "Do I look unhappy--or what? Sit down, Seymour dear."
She seemed to add the last word with a sort of pressure, with almostself-conscious intention.
He drew the tails of his braided morning coat forward with both handsand sat down, and she thought, "How differently a young man sits down!"
"Unhappy!" he said, in his quiet and strong, rather deep voice.
He looked at her with the scrutinizing eyes of affection, whose gazesometimes is so difficult to bear. And she felt that something withinher was writhing under his eyes.
"I don't think you often look happy, Adela. No; it isn't that. But youlook to-day as if you had been going through something which had triedyour nerves--some crisis."
He paused. She remained silent and looked at his hands and then at hiseyelids and eyebrows. And there was a terrible coldness in her scrutiny,which she did not show to him, but of which she was painfully aware.His nails were not flat, but were noticeably curved. For a moment thethought in her mind was simply, "Could I live with those nails?"She hated herself for that thought; she despised herself for it; sheconsidered herself almost inhuman and certainly despicable, and sherecalled swiftly what Seymour was, the essential beauty and finenessof his character, his truth, his touching faithfulness. And almostsimultaneously she thought, "Why do old men get those terribly bushyeyebrows, like thickets?"
"Perhaps I think too much," she said. "Living alone, one thinks--andthinks. You have so much to do and I so little."
"Sometimes I think of retiring," he said.
"From the court?"
"Yes."
"Oh, but they would never let you!"
"My place could be filled easily enough."
"Oh, no, it couldn't."
And she added, leaning forward now, and looking at him differently:
"Don't you ever realize how rare you are, Seymour? There is scarcelyanyone left like you, and yet you are not old-fashioned. Do you knowthat I have never yet met a man who really was a man--"
"Now, now, Adela!"
"No, I will say it! I have never met a real man who, knowing you, didn'tthink you were rare. They wouldn't let you go. Besides, what would youretire to?"
Again she looked at him with a scrutiny which she felt to be morallycruel. She could not refrain from it just then. It seemed to comeinevitably from her own misery and almost desperation. At one moment shefelt a rush of tenderness for him, at another an almost stony hardness.
"Ah--that's just it! I dare say it will be better to die in harness."
"Die!" she said, as if startled.
At that moment the thought assailed her, "If Seymour were suddenly todie!" There would be a terrible gap in her life. Her loneliness thenwould be horrible indeed unless--she pulled herself up with a sort offierce mental violence. "I won't! I won't!" she cried out to herself.
"You are very strong and healthy, Seymour," she said, "I think you willlive to be very old."
"Probably. Palaces usually contain a few dodderers. But is anything thematter, Adela? The old dog is very persistent, you know."
"I've been feeling a little depressed."
"You stay alone too much, I believe."
"It isn't that. I was out at the theatre with a party only last night.We went to _The Great Lover_. But he wasn't like you. You are a reallygreat lover."
And again she leaned forward towards him, trying to feel physically whatsurely she was feeling in another way.
"The greatest in London, I am sure."
"I don't know," he said, very simply. "But certainly I have the gift offaithfulness, if it is a gift."
"We had great discussions on love and jealousy last night."
"Did you? Whom were you with?"
"I went with Beryl Van Tuyn and Francis Braybrooke."
"An oddly uneven pair!"
"Alick Craven was with us, too."
"The boy I met here one Sunday."
Lady Sellingworth felt an almost fierce flash of irritation as she heardhim say "boy."
"He's hardly a boy," she said. "He must be at least thirty, and I thinkhe seems even older than he is."
"Does he? He struck me as very young. When he went away with thatpretty girl it was like young April going out of the room with all thedaffodils. They matched."
The intense irritation grew in Lady Sellingworth. She felt as if shewere being pricked by a multitude of pins.
"Beryl is years and years younger than he is!" she said. "I don't thinkyou are very clever about ages, Seymour. There must be nearly ten yearsdifference between them."
Scarcely had she said this than her mind added,
"And about thirty years'difference between him and me!" And then something in her--she thoughtof it as the soul--crumpled up, almost as if trying to die and knownothing more.
"What is it, Adela?" again he said, gently. "Can't I help you?"
"No, no, you can't!" she answered, almost with desperation, no longerable to control herself thoroughly.
Suddenly she felt as if she were losing her head, as if she might breakdown before him, let him into her miserable secret.
"The fact is," she continued, fixing her eyes upon him, as a criminalmight fix his eyes on his judge while denying everything. "The factis that none of us really can help anyone else. We may think we cansometimes, but we can't. We all work out our own destinies in absoluteloneliness. You and I are very old friends, and yet we are far away fromeach other, always have been and always shall be. No, you haven't thepower to help me, Seymour."
"But what is the matter, my dear?"
"Life--life!" she said, and there was a fierce exasperation in hervoice. "I cannot understand the unfairnesses of life, the cruelinjustices."
"Are you specially suffering from them to-day?" he asked, and for amoment his eyes were less soft, more penetrating, as they looked at her.
"Yes!" she said.
A terrible feeling of "I don't care!" was taking possession of her, wasbeginning to drive her. And she thought of the women of the streets who,in anger or misery, vomit forth their feelings with reckless disregardof opinion in a torrent of piercing language.
"I'm really just like one of them!" was her thought. "Trimmed up as alady!"
"Some people have such happy lives, years and years of happiness, andothers are tortured and tormented, and all their efforts to be happy, oreven to be at peace, without any real happiness, are in vain. It is ofno use rebelling, of course, and rebellion only reacts on the rebel andmakes everything worse, but still--"
Her face suddenly twisted. In all her life she thought she had neverfelt so utterly hopeless before.
Sir Seymour stretched out a hand to put it on hers, but she drew away.
"No, no--don't! I'm not--you can't do anything, Seymour. It's no use!"
She got up from the sofa, and walked away down the long drawing-room,trying to struggle with herself, to get back self-control. It was likemadness this abrupt access of passion and violent despair, and she didnot know how to deal with it, did not feel capable of dealing with it.She looked out of the window into Berkeley Square, after pulling backcurtain and blind. Always Berkeley Square! Berkeley Square till absoluteold age, and then death came! And she seemed to see her own funeralleaving the door. Good-bye to Berkeley Square! She let the blind drop,the curtain fall into its place.
Sir Seymour had got up and was standing by the fire. She saw him in thedistance, that faithful old man, and she wished she could love him. Sheclenched her hands, trying to will herself to love him and to want totake him into her intimate life. But she could not bring herself to goback to him just then, and she did not know what she was going to do.Perhaps she would have left the room had not an interruption occurred.She heard the door open and saw Murgatroyd and the footman bringing intea.
"You can turn up another light, Murgatroyd," she said, instantlyrecovering herself sufficiently to speak in a natural voice.
And she walked back down the room to Sir Seymour, carrying with her alittle silver vase full of very large white carnations.
"These are the flowers I was speaking about," she said to him. "Have youever seen any so large before? They look almost unnatural, don't they?"
When the servants were gone she said:
"You must think me half crazy, Seymour."
"No; but I don't understand what has happened."
"_I_ have happened, I and my miserable disgusting mind and brain andtemperament. That's all!"
"You are very severe on yourself."
"Tell me--have you ever been severe on me in your mind? You don't reallyknow me. Nobody does or ever will. But you know me what is called well.Have you ever been mentally severe, hard on me?"
"Yes, sometimes," he answered gravely.
She felt suddenly rather cold, and she knew that his answer hadsurprised her. She had certainly expected him to say, "Never, my dear!"
"I thought so," she said.
And, while saying it, she was scarcely conscious that she was telling alie.
"But you must not think that such thoughts about you ever make the leastdifference in my feeling for you," he said. "That has never changed,never could change."
"Oh--I don't know!" she said in a rather hard voice. "Everything canchange, I think."
"No."
"I suppose you have often disapproved of things I have done?"
"Sometimes I have."
"Tell me, if--if things had been different, and you and I had cometogether, what would you have done if you had disapproved of myconduct?"
"What is the good of entering upon that?"
"Yes; do tell me! I want to know."
"I hope I should find the way to hold a woman who was mine," he said,with a sort of decisive calmness, but with a great temperateness.
"But if you married an ungovernable creature?"
"I doubt if anybody is absolutely ungovernable. In the army I have hadto deal with some stiff propositions; but there is always a way."
"Is there? But in the army you deal with men. And we are so utterlydifferent."
"I think I should have found the way."
"Could he find the way now?" she thought. "Shall I do it? Shall I riskit?"
"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked; "almost as if you werelooking at me for the first time and were trying to make me out?"
She did not answer, but gave him his tea and sat back on her sofa.
"You sent for me for some special reason. You had some plan, someproject in your mind," he continued. "I did not realize that at first,but now I am sure of it. You want me to help you in some way, don'tyou?"
She was still companioned by the desperation which had come upon herwhen she had made that, for her, terrible comparison between Beryl VanTuyn's age and Craven's. Somehow it had opened her eyes--her own remark.In hearing it she had seemed to hear other voices, almost a sea ofvoices, saying things about herself, pitying things, sneering things,bitter things; worst of all, things which sent a wave of contemptuouslaughter through the society to which she belonged. Ten years multipliedby three! No, it was impossible! But there was only one way out. She wasalmost sure that if she were left to herself, were left to be her ownmistress in perfect freedom, her temperament would run away with heragain as it had so often done in the past. She was almost sure thatshe would brave the ridicule, would turn a face of stone to the subtlecondemnation, would defy the contempt of the "old guard," the sorrowand pity of Seymour, the anger of Beryl Van Tuyn, even her ownself-contempt, in order to satisfy the imperious driving force withinher which once again gave her no rest. Seymour could save her from allthat, save her almost forcibly. Safety from it was there with her inthe room. Rocheouart, Rupert Louth, other young men were about her for amoment. The brown eyes of the man who had stolen her jewels looked downinto hers pleading for--her property. After all her experiences couldshe be fool enough to follow a marshlight again? But Alick Craven wasdifferent from all these men. She gave him something that he reallyseemed to want. He would be sorry, he would perhaps be resentful, if shetook it away.
"Adela, if you cannot trust the old dog whom can you trust?"
"I know--I know!"
But again she was silent. If Seymour only knew how near he perhaps wasto his greatest desire's fulfilment! If he only knew the conflict whichwas raging in her! At one moment she was on the edge of giving in, andflinging herself into prison and safety. At another she recoiled. Howmuch did Seymour know of her? How well did he understand her?
"You said just now that you had sometimes been hard on me in your mind,"she said abruptly. "What about?"
"That's all long ago."
"How long ago?"
"Years and years."
"Ten years?"
"Yes--quite."
"You have--you have respected me for ten years?"
"And loved you for a great many more."
"Never mind about love! You have respected me for ten years."
"Yes, Adela."
"Tell me--have you loved me more since you have been able to respectme?"
"I think I have. To respect means a great deal with me."
"I must have often disgusted you very much before ten years ago. Iexpect you have often wondered very much about me, Seymour?"
"It is difficult to understand the great differences between your owntemperament and another's, of course."
"Yes. How can faithfulness be expected to understand its opposite? Youhave lived like a monk, almost, and I--I have lived like a courtesan."
"Adela!"
His deep voice sounded terribly hurt.
"Oh, Seymour, you and I--we have always lived in the world. We know allits humbug by heart. We are both old--old now, and why should we pretendto each other? You know how lots of us have lived, no one better. And Isuppose I have been one of the worst. But, as you say, for ten years nowI have behaved myself."
She stopped. She longed to say, "And, my God, Seymour, I am sick ofbehaving myself!" That would have been the naked truth. But even to him,after what she had just said, she could not utter it. Instead, she addedafter a moment:
"A great many lies have been lifted up as guiding lamps to men in thedarkness. One of them is the saying: 'Virtue is its own reward.' I havebehaved for ten years, and I know it is a lie."
"Adela, what is exasperating you to-day? Can't you tell me?"
Once more she looked at him with a sharp and intense scrutiny. Shethought it was really a final look, and one that was to decide her fate;his too, though he did not know it. She knew his worth. She knew thevalue of the dweller in his temple, and had no need to debate aboutthat. But she was one of those to whom the temple means much. She couldnot dissociate dweller from dwelling. The outside had always had atremendous influence upon her, and time had not lessened that influence.Perhaps Sir Seymour felt that she was trying to come to some greatdecision, though he did not know, or even suspect, what that decisionwas. For long ago he had finally given up all hope of ever winning herfor his wife. He sat still after asking this question. The lamplightshone over his thick, curly white hair, his lined, weather-beaten,distinguished old face, broad, cavalryman's hands, upright figure, shoneinto his faithful dog's eyes. And she looked and took in every physicaldetail, as only a woman can when she looks at a man whom she isconsidering in a certain way.
The silence seemed long. At last he broke it. For he had seen anexpression of despair come into her face.
"My dear, what is it? You must tell me!"
But suddenly the look of despair gave place to a mocking look which heknew very well.
"It's only boredom, Seymour. I have had too much of Berkeley Square. Ithink I shall go away for a little."
"To Cap Martin?"
"Perhaps. Where does one go when one wants to run away from oneself?"
And then she changed the conversation and talked, as she generallytalked to Sir Seymour, of the life they both knew, of the doings atCourt, of politics, people, the state of the country, what was likely tocome to old England.
She had decided against Seymour. But she had not decided for Craven.After a moment of despair, of feeling herself lost, she had suddenlysaid to herself, or a voice had said in her, a voice coming from sheknew not where:
"I will remain free, but henceforth I will be my own mistress infreedom, not the slave of myself."
And then mentally she had dismissed both Seymour and Craven out of herlife, the one as a possible husband, the other as a friend.
If she could not bring herself to take the one, then she would not keepthe other. She must seek for peace in loneliness. Evidently that washer destiny. She gave herself to it with mocking eyes and despair in herheart.
PART FIVE
December Love Page 20
