Delicia began to feel as if she were in a kind of dull dream; there were flickering lines of light flashing before her eyes, and her limbs trembled. She heard the jeweller’s voice, going on again in its politely gossiping monotone, as though it were a long way off.
‘Of course La Marina is a wonderful creature, a marvellous dancer, and good-looking in her way, but common. Ah! common’s no word for it! She was the daughter of a costermonger in Eastcheap. Now, Lady Carlyon is a very different person; she is best known by her maiden name, Delicia Vaughan. She’s the author of that name; I daresay you may have read some of her books?’
‘I believe — yes, I think I have,’ murmured Delicia, faintly.
‘Well, there you are! She’s a really famous woman, and very much loved by many people, I’ve heard say; but, lord! her husband hardly gives her a thought! I’ve seen him in this very street walking with females that even I’d be ashamed to know; and it’s rumoured that he hasn’t got a penny of his own, and that all the money he throws about so lavishly is his wife’s; and if that’s the case, it’s really shameful, because of course she, without knowing it, pays for Marina’s jewels! However, there’s no accounting for tastes. I suppose Lady Carlyon’s too clever, or else plain in her personal appearance; and that’s why this diamond dove is going to La Marina instead of to her. Will you take the cuff-studs?’
‘Yes, thank you, I will take them,’ said Delicia, opening her purse with cold, trembling fingers, and counting out crisp bank-notes to the value of twenty pounds. ‘They are pretty, and very suitable for a — a gentleman.’
Unconsciously she laid an emphasis on the word ‘gentleman,’ and the jeweller nodded.
‘Exactly! There’s nothing vulgar about them, not the least suspicion of anything ‘fast’! Really you can’t be too particular in the choice of studs, for what with the sporting men, and the jockeys and trainers who get presents of valuable studs from their turf patrons, it’s difficult to hit upon anything really gentlemanly for a gentleman. But’ — and the worthy man smiled as he packed up the studs— ‘after all, real gentleman are getting very scarce! Allow me!’ Here he flung open the door of his establishment with the grace of a Sir Charles Grandison, and royally issued his command to the small boy in buttons attached to the shop, ‘See this lady to her carriage!’
How ‘this lady’ got into that carriage she never quite knew. The page boy did his part in carefully attending to her dress that it should not touch the wheel, in wrapping her round with the rich bear-skin rug that protected her from side winds, and in quietly grasping the shilling she slipped into his palm for his services, but she herself felt more like a mechanical doll moving on wires than a living, feeling woman. Her coachman, who always had enough to do in the management of the spirited horses which drew her light victoria, glanced back at her once or twice doubtfully, as he guided his prancing animals out of the confusion of Bond Street and drove towards the Park, considering within himself that, if he were going in an undesired direction, ‘her ladyship’ would speedily stop him; but her ladyship lay back in her cushioned seat, inert, indifferent, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. The fashionable pageant of the Park ‘season’ seemed to her a mere chaotic whirl; and several eager admirers of her beauty and her genius raised their hats to her in vain — she never perceived them. A curious numbness had crept over her; she wondered, as she felt the movement of the carriage, whether it was not a hearse, and she the dead body within it being carried to her grave! Then, quite suddenly, she raised herself and sat upright, glancing about at the rich foliage of the trees, the gay flower-beds and the up-and-down moving throng of people; a bright flush reddened her face, which for the past few minutes had been deadly pale, and as two or three of her acquaintances passed her in their carriages or on foot, she saluted them with her usual graceful air of mingled pride and sweetness, and seemed almost herself again. But she was not long able to endure the strain she put upon her nerves, and after one or two turns in the Row, she bade her coachman drive home. Arrived there, she found a telegram from her husband, running thus: —
‘Shall not return to dinner. Don’t wait up for me.’
Crushing the missive in her hand, she went to her own study immediately, the faithful Spartan following her, and there she shut herself up alone with her dog friend for a couple of hours. The scholarly peace of the place had its effect in soothing her, and in allaying the burning smart of her wounded spirit; and with a sigh of relief she sat down in her favourite arm-chair with her back purposely turned to the white marble ‘Antinous,’ whose cruel smile had nothing but mockery in it for a woman’s pain. Spartan laid his head on her knee, and she rested one hand caressingly on his broad brow.
‘I must think this worry out, Spartan!’ she said gently. ‘I feel as if I had swallowed poison and needed an antidote.’
Spartan wagged his bushy tail and looked volumes. Had he been able to speak, he might have said, ‘Why did you ever trust a man? Dogs are much more faithful!’
She sank into a profound reverie. Her brain was clear, logical and evenly balanced, and she had none of the flighty, fantastical, hysterical notions common to many of her sex. She had been trained, or rather, she had trained herself, in the splendid school of classic philosophy; and in addition to this, she was a devout Christian, one of the old-world type, who would have willingly endured martyrdom for the faith had it been necessary. She was not a church-goer, and she belonged to no special ‘sect;’ she had no vulgar vices to hide by an ostentatious display of public charities, but she had the most absolute and passionate belief in, and love for Christ, as the one Divine Messenger from God to man; and now she was bringing both her faith and her philosophic theories to bear on the present unexpected crisis in her life.
‘If I were a low woman, a vulgar woman, a virago in domestic life, or what the French call une femme impossible, I could understand his seeking a change from my detestable company anywhere and everywhere,’ she mentally argued; ‘but as things are, what have I done that he should descend from me to La Marina? Men will amuse themselves — I know that well enough — but need the amusement be obtained on such a low grade! And is it fair that my earnings should keep La Marina in jewels?’
At this latter thought she started up and began to pace the room restlessly. In so doing she came face to face with the marble bust of ‘Antinous,’ and she stopped abruptly, looking full at it.
‘Oh men, what were you made for?’ she demanded, half aloud. ‘To be masters of the planet? Then surely your mastership should be characterised by truth and nobility, not vileness and fraud! Surely God originally intended you for better things than to trample under your feet all the weak and helpless, to work ravage on the fairest scenes in nature, and to make miserable wrecks of all the women that love you! Yes, Antinous, I can read in your sculptured face the supreme Egotism of manhood, an Egotism which fate will avenge in its own good time! No wonder so few men are real Christians; it is too sublime and spiritual a creed for the male nature, which is a composition of wild beast and intellectual pagan. Now, what shall be my course of action? Shall I, Delicia, seeing my husband in the mud, go down into the mud also? Or shall I keep clean — not only clean in body but clean in mind? Clean from meanness, clean from falsehood, clean from spite, not only for his sake, but for the sake of my own self-respect? Shall I let things take their course until they culminate of themselves in the pre-ordained catastrophe that always follows evil? Yes, I think I will! Life after all is a shadow; and love, what is it?’ She sighed and shuddered. ‘Less than a shadow, perchance; but there is something in me which must outlast both life and love — something which is the real Delicia, who must hereafter answer to a Supreme Judge for the thoughts which have elevated or degraded her soul!’
She resumed her pacing to and fro.
‘How easy it would be to act like other women!’ she mused; ‘to rant and weep, and hysterically shriek complaints in the ears of “my lord” when he returns to-night; or begin the day to-morrow wit
h fume and fuss as hot and steaming as the boiling water with which I make the breakfast tea! Or to go and grumble to a female confidante who would at once sell her information for five shillings to the most convenient “society journal!” Or to sink right down into the deepest mire of infamy and write anonymous letters to La Marina, daughter of the green-grocer in Eastcheap! Or employ a detective to dodge his movements and hers! Heavens! How low we can fall if we choose! and equally how high we can stand if we determine to take a firm footing on
‘“Some snow-crowned peak,
Lofty and glittering in the golden glow
Of summer’s ripening splendour.”
Some people ask what is the good of “standing high?” Certainly you get on much better, in society at least, if you creep low, and crawl on very humble all-fours to the feet of the latest demi-mondaine, provided she be of the aristocracy. If you know how to condone the vulgarity of a prince and call his vices virtue, if you can pardon the blackguardism of a duke and speak of him as a “gentleman,” in spite of the fact that he is not fit to be tolerated among decent-minded people, you are sure to “get on,” as the phrase goes. To keep oneself morally clean is a kind of offence nowadays; but methinks I shall continue to offend!’ She passed her hand across her forehead dreamily. ‘Something has confused and stunned me; I cannot quite realise what it is. I think I had an idol somewhere, set up on a pedestal of gold; it has suddenly tumbled down of its own accord!’ She smiled vaguely. ‘It is not broken yet, but it has certainly fallen!’
That night, when Lord Carlyon returned about one o’clock, he found the house dark and silent. No one was waiting up for him but his valet, a discreet and sober individual who knew his master’s secrets and kept them; not at all because he respected his master, but because he respected his master’s wife. And the semi-obscurity and grave solitude of his home irritated ‘Beauty’ Carlyon to a most inconsistent degree, inasmuch as he had himself telegraphed to Delicia that she was not to sit up for him.
‘Where is her ladyship?’ he demanded haughtily. ‘Did she go out this evening?’
Gravely the valet assisted him to pull off his opera coat as he replied, —
‘No, sir — my lord, I mean — her ladyship dined alone, and retired early. I believe the maid said her ladyship was in bed by ten.’
Carlyon grumbled something inaudible and went upstairs. Outside his wife’s room he paused and tried the handle of her bedroom door; it was locked. Surprised and angry, he rapped smartly on the panels; there was no answer save a low, fierce growl from Spartan, who, suddenly rising from his usual post on the landing outside his mistress’s sleeping chamber, manifested unusual and extraordinary signs of temper.
‘Down, you fool!’ muttered Carlyon, addressing the huge beast. ‘Lie down, or it will be the worse for you!’
But Spartan remained erect, with ears flattened and white teeth a-snarl, and Carlyon, after rapping once more vainly at the closed door, gave it up as a bad job and retired to his own private room.
‘Never knew her so dead asleep before,’ he grumbled. ‘She generally stays awake till I come home.’
He flung himself into his bed with a kind of sullen rage upon him; things had gone altogether very wrong with him that evening. He had lost money (Delicia’s money) at play, and La Marina had been in what her intimates called ‘one of her nasty humours.’ That is, she had drunk a great deal more champagne than was good for her, and had afterwards exhibited a tendency to throw wine glasses at her admirers. She had boxed Carlyon’s ears, put a spoonful of strawberry ice down his back, and called him ‘a ha’porth of bad aristocrat.’
‘What do you suppose we artistes marry such fellows as you for?’ she had yelled, with a burst of tipsy laughter. ‘Why, to make you look greater fools than ever!’
And then she had shot a burnt almond nearly into his eye. And he had endured all this stoically, for the mere stupid satisfaction of having the other men round La Marina’s supper-table understand that she was his property at present, no matter to whom she might hereafter belong. But she had behaved so badly, and she had treated him with such ingratitude, that he, unconsciously to himself, longed for the fair, calm presence of Delicia, who always received him with the honour and worship he considered due to him as a man, a lord, and an officer in the Guards; and now when he came home, expecting to be charmed and flattered and caressed by her, she had committed the unwarrantable indiscretion of going to bed and falling sound asleep! It was really too bad! — enough to sting the lofty spirit of a Carlyon! And such is the curious self-pity and egotism of some men at their worst, that ‘his lordship’ felt himself to be a positively injured man as he settled his ‘god-like’ head upon his lonely pillow, and fell into an uneasy slumber, disturbed by very unpleasant dreams of his losses at baccarat, and the tipsy rages of Marina.
CHAPTER V
Next morning Delicia rose at about six o’clock and went out riding in the Row long before the fashionable world was astir. Attended by her groom and Spartan, who took long racing gambols on the grass beyond the railings of the ‘Ladies’ Mile,’ she cantered under the deep, dewy shade of the trees, and thought out her position in regard to her husband. In spite of inward grief and perplexity, she had slept well; for to a clear conscience and pure heart, combined with a healthy state of body, sleep is never denied. Mother Nature specially protects her straightforward and cleanly children; she keeps their faces young, their eyes bright, their spirits elastic, their tempers equable, and for the soothing of Delicia’s trouble this morning, the sunbeams danced about her in a golden waltz of pleasure, the leaves rustled in the wind, the flowers exhaled their purest fragrance and the birds sang. Riding easily on her beautiful mare ‘Phillida’ — who was almost as much a personal friend of hers as Spartan himself, and whom she had purchased out of the ‘royalties’ accumulating on one of her earlier works — she found herself more than usually receptive of the exquisite impressions of natural loveliness. She was aware of everything; from the white clouds that were heaped in snowy, mountainous ranges along the furthest visible edge of the blue sky, to the open-hearted daisies in the grass that stared up at the lately-risen sun with all the frankness of old friendship and familiarity. The fresh morning air and the exhilarating exercise sent a lovely colour to her cheeks, and as her graceful form swayed lightly to the half-coquettish, gay cantering of ‘Phillida,’ who was also conscious that it was a very agreeable morning, she felt as if the information she had so unexpectedly and reluctantly received in the jeweller’s shop in Bond Street on the previous day was a bad dream and nothing more. After about an hour’s riding she returned home at a quick trot, and on entering the house heard that her ‘lord and master’ had not yet risen. She changed her riding habit for one of her simple white morning gowns, and went into her study to open and read her numerous letters, and mark them in order for her secretary to answer. She was still engaged in this occupation when Lord Carlyon came down, slowly, sleepily, and in no very good humour.
‘Oh, there you are at last, Will!’ she said, looking up at him brightly. ‘You came home late last night, I suppose, and are tired?’
He stood still for a moment, wondering within himself why she did not give him her usual good-morning kiss.
‘It was not so very late,’ he said crossly. ‘It was only half-past twelve. You’ve often stayed awake waiting for me later than that. But last night, when I knocked at your door, you never answered me — you must have been dead asleep.’
This in a tone of injury.
Delicia read calmly through the letter she held in her hand, then set it aside.
‘Yes, I must have been,’ she replied tranquilly. ‘You see I work pretty hard, and nature is good enough to give me rest when I need it. You work hard too, Will, but in quite another way — you toil after amusement. Now that’s the hardest form of labour I know! Treadmills are nothing to it! No wonder you’re tired! Breakfast’s ready; let us go and have it; I’ve been out riding for an hour this morning, and I fee
l desperately hungry. Come along!’
She led the way downstairs; he followed slowly and with a vague feeling of uneasiness. He missed something in his wife’s manner — an indefinable something which he could not express — something that had always characterised her, but which now had unaccountably disappeared. It was as if a wide river had suddenly rolled in between them, forcing her to stand on one side of the flood and he on the other. He studied her observantly from under his fine eyelash growth, as she made the tea and with a few quick touches here and there altered the decorous formality of the breakfast-table into the similitude of an Arcadian feast of beauty by the mere artistic placing of a vase of flowers or a dish of fruit, and this done, handed him the morning’s newspaper with smiling and courteous punctilio.
‘Spartan seems to be turning crusty,’ he remarked as he unfolded the journal. ‘Last night, when I knocked at your door, he showed his teeth and growled at me. I didn’t know he had such an uncertain temper.’
Delicia looked round at her canine friend with a pretty air of remonstrance.
‘Oh, Spartan! What is this I hear?’ she said, whereat Spartan hung his head and tucked his tail well under his haunches. ‘Don’t you know your master when he comes home late? Did you take him for a regular “rake,” Spartan? Did you think he had been in bad company? Fie, for shame! You ought to know better, naughty boy!’
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 401
