Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  The carriage stopped before a handsome house situated a little back from Park Lane. We were admitted by a man-servant gorgeous in red plush, white silk hose and powdered wig, who passed us on majestically to his twin-brother in height and appearance, though perhaps a trifle more disdainful in bearing, and he in his turn ushered us upstairs with the air of one who should say “See to what ignominious degradation a cruel fate reduces so great a man!” In the drawing-room we found Lord Elton, standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, and directly opposite him in a low arm chair, reclined an elegantly attired young lady with very small feet. I mention the feet, because as I entered they were the most prominent part of her person, being well stretched out from beneath the would-be concealment of sundry flounced petticoats towards the warmth of the fire which the Earl rather inconsiderately screened from view. There was another lady in the room sitting bolt upright with hands neatly folded on her lap, and to her we were first of all introduced when Lord Elton’s own effusive greetings were over.

  “Charlotte, allow me, — my friends, Prince Lucio Rimânez — Mr Geoffrey Tempest; gentlemen, my sister-in-law, Miss Charlotte Fitzroy.”

  We bowed; the lady gave us a dignified bend of the head. She was an imposing looking spinster, with a curious expression on her features which was difficult to construe. It was pious and prim, but it also suggested the idea that she must have seen something excessively improper once in her life and had never been able to forget it. The pursed-up mouth, the round pale-coloured eyes and the chronic air of insulted virtue which seemed to pervade her from head to foot all helped to deepen this impression. One could not look at Miss Charlotte long without beginning to wonder irreverently what it was that had in her long past youth so outraged the cleanly proprieties of her nature as to leave such indelible traces on her countenance. But I have since seen many English women look so, especially among the particularly ‘high bred,’ old and plain-featured of the “upper ten.” Very different was the saucy and bright physiognomy of the younger lady to whom we were next presented, and who, raising herself languidly from her reclining position, smiled at us with encouraging familiarity as we made our salutations.

  “Miss Diana Chesney,” — said the Earl glibly— “You perhaps know her father, prince, — you must have heard of him at any rate — the famous Nicodemus Chesney, one of the great railway-kings.”

  “Of course I know him” — responded Lucio warmly— “Who does not! I have met him often. A charming man, gifted with most remarkable humour and vitality — I remember him perfectly. We saw a good deal of each other in Washington.”

  “Did you though?” said Miss Chesney with a somewhat indifferent interest,— “He’s a queer sort of man to my thinking; rather a cross between the ticket-collector and custom-house officer combined, you know! I never see him but what I feel I must start on a journey directly — railways seem to be written all over him. I tell him so. I say ‘Pa, if you didn’t carry railway-tracks in your face you’d be better looking.’ And you found him humorous, did you?”

  Laughing at the novel and free way in which this young person criticised her parent, Lucio protested that he did.

  “Well I don’t,” — confessed Miss Chesney— “But that may be because I’ve heard all his stories over and over again, and I’ve read most of them in books besides, — so they’re not much account to me. He tells some of them to the Prince of Wales whenever he can get a chance, — but he don’t try them off on me any more. He’s a real clever man too; he’s made his pile quicker than most. And you’re quite right about his vitality, — my! — his laugh takes you into the middle of next week!”

  Her bright eyes flashed merrily as she took a comprehensive survey of our amused faces.

  “Think I’m irreverent, don’t you?” she went on— “But you know Pa’s not a ‘stage parent’ all dressed out in lovely white hair and benedictions, — he’s just an accommodating railway-track, and he wouldn’t like to be reverenced. Do sit down, won’t you?” — then turning her pretty head coquettishly towards her host— “Make them sit down, Lord Elton, — I hate to see men standing. The superior sex, you know! Besides you’re so tall,” she added, glancing with unconcealed admiration at Lucio’s handsome face and figure, “that it’s like peering up an apple-tree at the moon to look at you!”

  Lucio laughed heartily, and seated himself near her — I followed his example; the old Earl still kept his position, legs a-straddle, on the hearth-rug, and beamed benevolence upon us all. Certainly Diana Chesney was a captivating creature; one of those surface-clever American women who distinctly divert men’s minds without in the least rousing their passions.

  “So you’re the famous Mr Tempest?” she said, surveying me critically— “Why, it’s simply splendid for you isn’t it? I always say it’s no use having a heap of money unless you’re young, — if you’re old, you only want it to fill your doctor’s pockets while he tries to mend your poor tuckered-out constitution. I once knew an old lady who was left a legacy of a hundred thousand pounds when she was ninety-five. Poor old dear, she cried over it. She just had sense enough to understand what a good time she couldn’t have. She lived in bed, and her only luxury was a halfpenny bun dipped in milk for her tea. It was all she cared for.”

  “A hundred thousand pounds would go a long way in buns!” I said smiling.

  129”Wouldn’t it just!” and the fair Diana laughed— “But I guess you’ll want something a little more substantial for your cash Mr Tempest! A fortune in the prime of life is worth having. I suppose you’re one of the richest men about just now, aren’t you?”

  She put the question in a perfectly naïve frank manner and seemed to be unconscious of any undue inquisitiveness in it.

  “I may be one of the richest,” — I replied, and as I spoke the thought flashed suddenly across me how recently I had been one of the poorest!— “But my friend here, the prince, is far richer than I.”

  “Is that so!” and she stared straight at Lucio, who met her gaze with an indulgent, half satirical smile— “Well now! I guess Pa’s no better than a sort of pauper after all! Why, you must have the world at your feet!”

  “Pretty much so,” — replied Lucio composedly— “But then, my dear Miss Chesney, the world is so very easily brought to one’s feet. Surely you know that?”

  And he emphasized the words by an expressive look of his fine eyes.

  “I guess you mean compliments,” — she replied unconcernedly— “I don’t like them as a rule, but I’ll forgive you this once!”

  “Do!” said Lucio, with one of his dazzling smiles that caused her to stop for a moment in her voluble chatter and observe him with mingled fascination and wonderment.

  “And you too are young, like Mr Tempest,” — she resumed presently.

  “Pardon me!” interrupted Lucio— “I am many years older.”

  “Really!” exclaimed Lord Elton at this juncture— “You don’t look it, does he Charlotte?”

  Miss Fitzroy thus appealed to, raised her elegant tortoise-shell-framed glasses to her eyes and peered critically at us both.

  “I should imagine the prince to be slightly the senior of Mr Tempest” — she remarked in precise high-bred accents— “But only very slightly.”

  130”Anyhow,” resumed Miss Chesney “you’re young enough, to enjoy your wealth aren’t you?”

  “Young enough, or old enough; — just as you please;” — said Lucio with a careless shrug— “But as it happens — I do not enjoy it!”

  Miss Chesney’s whole aspect now expressed the most lively astonishment.

  “What does money do for you?” went on Lucio, his eyes dilating with that strange and wistful expression which had often excited my curiosity— “The world is at your feet, perhaps; yes — but what a world! What a trumpery clod of kickable matter! Wealth acts merely as a kind of mirror to show you human nature at its worst. Men skulk and fawn about you, and lie twenty times in as many hours in the hope to propitiate you and ser
ve their own interests; princes of the blood willingly degrade themselves and their position to borrow cash of you, — your intrinsic merit (if you have any) is thought nothing of, — your full pockets are your credentials with kings, prime ministers and councillors! You may talk like a fool, laugh like a hyena and look like a baboon, but if the chink-chink of your gold be only sufficiently loud, you may soon find yourself dining with the Queen if such be your ambition. If, on the contrary you happen to be truly great, brave, patient, and enduring, with a spark in you of that genius which strengthens life and makes it better worth living, — if you have thoughts which take shape in work that shall endure when kingdoms are swept away like dust before the wind, and if, with all this you are yet poor in current coin, why then, — you shall be spurned by all the crowned dummies of the world, — you shall be snubbed by the affluent starch-maker and the Crœsus who lives on a patent pill, — the tradesman from whom you buy bedsteads and kitchen ware, can look down upon you with lordly scorn, for does he not by virtue of his wealth alone, drive a four-in-hand, and chat on easy and almost patronizing terms with the Prince of Wales? The wealthy denizens of Snob-land delight in ignoring Nature’s elected noblemen.”

  131”But supposing” said Miss Chesney quickly, “you happen to be a Nature’s nobleman yourself, and have the advantage of wealth besides, surely you must fairly allow that to be rather a good thing, mustn’t you?”

  Lucio laughed a little —

  “I will retort upon you in your own words fair lady, and say ‘I guess you mean compliments.’ What I venture to imply however, is that even when wealth does fall to the lot of one of these ‘Nature’s noblemen,’ it is not because of his innate nobility that he wins social distinction. It is simply because he is rich. That is what vexes me. I for example, have endless friends who are not my friends so much as the friends of my income. They do not trouble to inquire as to my antecedents, — what I am or where I came from is of no importance. Neither are they concerned in how I live or what I do; whether I am sick or well, happy or unhappy, is equally with them a matter of indifference. If they knew more about me, it would perhaps be better in the long run. But they do not want to know, — their aims are simple and unconcealed, — they wish to make as much out of me, and secure as much advantage to themselves by their acquaintance with me as possible. And I give them their full way, — they get all they want, — and more!”

  His musical voice lingered with a curiously melancholy impressiveness on the last word, — and this time, not only Miss Chesney, but we all, looked at him as though drawn by some irresistible magnetic spell, and for a moment there was silence.

  “Very few people have any real friends,” — said Lord Elton presently. “And in that respect I suppose we’re none of us worse off than Socrates, who used to keep two chairs only in his house ‘one for myself, and another for a friend — when I find him!’ But you are a universal favourite Lucio, — a most popular fellow — and I think you’re rather hard on your set. People must look after themselves you know — eh?”

  Lucio bowed his head gravely.

  132”They must indeed,” he replied— “Especially as the latest news of science is that God has given up the business.”

  Miss Fitzroy looked displeased, — but the Earl laughed uproariously. At that moment a step was heard outside, approaching the open doorway of the drawing-room, and Miss Chesney’s quick ears caught the sound. She shook herself out of her reclining attitude instantly and sat erect.

  “It’s Sibyl!” she said with a half-laughing half-apologetic flash of her brown eyes at us all— “I never can loll before Sibyl!”

  My heart beat fast as the woman whom poets might have called the goddess of their dreams, but whom I was now disposed to consider as an object of beauty lawfully open to my purchase, entered, clad in simple white, unrelieved by any ornaments save a golden waistbelt of antique workmanship, and a knot of violets nestled among the lace at her bosom. She looked far lovelier than when I had first seen her at the theatre; there was a deeper light in her eyes and a more roseate flush on her cheeks, while her smile as she greeted us was positively dazzling. Something in her presence, her movements, her manner, sent such a tide of passion through me that for a moment my brain whirled in a dizzy maze, and despite the cold calculations I had made in my own mind as to the certainty I had of winning her for my wife, there was a wondrous charm of delicate dignity and unapproachableness about her that caused me for the moment to feel ashamed, and inclined to doubt even the power of wealth to move this exquisite lily of maidenhood from her sequestered peace. Ah, what fools men are! How little do we dream of the canker at the hearts of these women ‘lilies’ that look so pure and full of grace!

  “You are late, Sibyl,” said her aunt severely.

  “Am I?” she responded with languid indifference— “So sorry! Papa, are you an extemporized fire-screen?”

  Lord Elton hastily moved to one side, rendered suddenly conscious of his selfish monopoly of the blaze.

  133”Are you not cold, Miss Chesney?” continued Lady Sibyl, in accents of studied courtesy— “Would you not like to come nearer the fire?”

  Diana Chesney had become quite subdued, almost timid in fact.

  “Thank-you!” — she murmured, and her eyes drooped with what might have been called retiring maiden modesty, had not Miss Chesney’s qualities soared far beyond that trite description.

  “We heard some shocking news this morning, Mr Tempest,” said Lady Sibyl, looking at Lucio rather than at me— “No doubt you read it in the papers, — an acquaintance of ours, Viscount Lynton, shot himself last night.”

  I could not repress a slight start. Lucio gave me a warning glance, and took it upon himself to reply.

  “Yes, I read a brief account of the affair — terrible indeed! I also knew him slightly.”

  “Did you? Well, he was engaged to a friend of mine,” went on Lady Sibyl— “I myself think she has had a lucky escape, because though he was an agreeable man enough in society, he was a great gambler, and very extravagant, and he would have run through her fortune very quickly. But she cannot be brought to see it in that light, — she is dreadfully upset. She had set her heart on being a Viscountess.”

  “I guess,” said Miss Chesney demurely, with a sly sparkle of her eyes— “it’s not only Americans who run after titles. Since I’ve been over here I’ve known several real nice girls marry downright mean dough-heads just for the sake of being called ‘my lady’ or ‘your grace.’ I like a title very well myself — but I also like a man attached to it.”

  The Earl smothered a chuckling laugh, — Lady Sibyl gazed meditatively into the fire and went on as though she had not heard.

  “Of course my friend will have other chances, — she is young and handsome — but I really think, apart from the social point of view, that she was a little in love with the Viscount — —”

  134”Nonsense! nonsense!” said her father somewhat testily. “You always have some romantic notion or other in your head Sibyl, — one ‘season’ ought to have cured you of sentiment — ha-ha-ha! She always knew he was a dissolute rascal, and she was going to marry him with her eyes wide open to the fact. When I read in the papers that he had blown his brains out in a hansom, I said ‘Bad taste — bad taste! spoiling a poor cabby’s stock-in-trade to satisfy a selfish whim!’ ha-ha! — but I thought it was a good riddance of bad rubbish. He would have made any woman’s life utterly miserable.”

  “No doubt he would!” responded Lady Sibyl, listlessly; “But, all the same, there is such a thing as love sometimes.”

  She raised her beautiful liquid eyes to Lucio’s face, but he was not looking her way, and her stedfast gaze met mine instead. What my looks expressed I know not; but I saw the rich blood mantle warmly in her cheeks, and a tremor seemed to pass through her frame, — then she grew very pale. At that moment one of the gorgeous footmen appeared at the doorway.

  “Dinner is served, my lud.”

  “Good!” and the Earl
proceeded to ‘pair’ us all. “Prince, will you take Miss Fitzroy, — Mr Tempest, my daughter falls to your escort, — I will follow with Miss Chesney.”

  We set off in this order down the stairs, and as I walked behind Lucio with Lady Sibyl on my arm, I could not help smiling at the extreme gravity and earnestness with which he was discussing church matters with Miss Charlotte, and the sudden enthusiasm that apparently seized that dignified spinster at some of his remarks on the clergy, which took the form of the most affectionate and respectful eulogies, and were totally the reverse of the ideas he had exchanged with me on the same subject. Some spirit of mischief was evidently moving him to have a solemn joke with the high-bred lady he escorted, and I noted his behaviour with a good deal of inward amusement.

  135”Then you know the dear Canon?” I heard Miss Charlotte say.

  “Most intimately!” replied Lucio with fervour— “and I assure you I am thankful to have the privilege of knowing him. A truly perfect man! — almost a saint — if not quite!”

  “So pure-minded!” sighed the spinster.

  “So free from every taint of hypocrisy!” murmured Lucio with intense gravity.

  “Ah yes! Yes indeed! And so — —”

  Here they passed into the dining-room and I could hear no more. I followed with my beautiful partner, and in another minute we were all seated at table.

  XII

  The dinner went on in the fashion of most dinners at great houses, — commencing with arctic stiffness and formality, thawing slightly towards the middle course, and attaining to just a pleasant warmth of mutual understanding when ices and dessert gave warning of its approaching close. Conversation at first flagged unaccountably, but afterwards brightened under Lucio’s influence to a certain gaiety. I did my best to entertain Lady Sibyl, but found her like most ‘society’ beauties, somewhat of a vague listener. She was certainly cold, and in a manner irresponsive, — moreover I soon decided that she was not particularly clever. She had not the art of sustaining or appearing to sustain interest in any one subject; on the contrary, she had, like many of her class, an irritating habit of mentally drifting away from you into an absorbed reverie of her own in which you had no part, and which plainly showed you how little she cared for anything you or anyone else happened to be saying. Many little random remarks of hers however implied that in her apparently sweet nature there lurked a vein of cynicism and a certain contempt for men, and more than once her light words stung my sense of self-love almost to resentment, while they strengthened the force of my resolve to win her and bend that proud spirit of hers to the meekness befitting the wife of a millionaire and — a genius. A genius? Yes, — God help me! — that is what I judged myself to be. My arrogance was two-fold, — it arose not only from what I imagined to be my quality of brain, but also from the knowledge of what my wealth could do. I was perfectly positive that I could buy Fame, — buy it as easily as one buys a flower in the market, — and I was more than positive that I could buy love. In order to commence proving the truth of this, I threw out a ‘feeler’ towards my object.