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

by Marie Corelli

  “Law,” murmured the gardener’s wife, as she dusted the deserted little rooms in ‘Restful Harbour’—” who’d a’ thought it at her time o’ life!”

  “Which we never knows what we shall be!” returned the gardener himself, gloomily, as he trained the Gloire-de-Dijon roses to grow more symmetrically round the windows of the house. “She was such a real lady, I’d never a’ believed she’d a’ gone advertising of herself in one of they public prints!”

  But the reckless Jane, in happy ignorance of the comments passed upon her actions by her country acquaintances, did not stop in her mad career with her presentation at Court and her broomstick portrait in the Lady’s Pictorial. As a matter of fact, she had only just begun to move her arms in what is called the ‘swim.’ Supported by Mrs. Maddenham, who never — left — her except to take the sleep which is necessary, — even — to — Society vampires, Jane spent a good deal of money. She bought a magnificent house in Grosvenor Place, fully furnished, from an impecunious nobleman, who told her languidly that he was “stoney-broke on the turf,” an expression which — she did — not quite understand — but vaguely grasping the — fact — that — he — had once been a gentleman and was now compelled to be a slang-talking beggar, she delicately referred him to her lawyers in order that the purchase of his property might be arranged to his entire satisfaction, without inflicting upon him any unnecessary degradation or pain. The matter was finally settled, and Jane found herself mistress of what the auctioneers call ‘a palatial residence,’ which ‘palatial residence,’ necessitated her hiring an equally ‘palatial ‘staff of servants to keep it in proper order. One would have thought that the trouble and inconvenience generally attendant on a luxurious establishment would have been too much for Jane, and would have put her out of humour, she having been so long accustomed to the simplest habits of life, — but on the contrary she seemed more placid and passive than ever. One old friend, who journeyed up from Ashleigh-in-the-Dell to see her in her new surroundings, went back again sorely troubled, and opined solemnly that Jane was going mad. “Poor old Miss Belmont,” she said, sadly, “there’s a queer look in her eyes which I don’t like. All this fuss of going to Court and being in Society is turning her head.

  She seems quite weak and silly, — and as for that Mrs. Maddenham, why Mrs. Maddenham simply lives on her!’

  In this respect the country friend was right. Mrs. Maddenham did live on Jane, and very good living she found it. She often congratulated herself on the way in which she had got Jane ‘under her thumb,’ and she would often boast of her cleverness among her ‘swagger’ friends, saying, —

  “Oh, yes! Poor old Jane! She’s a dear, — she’ll do anything for me! Do you want a ball got up? Jane’s the very person I You can have her rooms for nothing, — they’re — splendid I — and she will be only too delighted to hire the band and pay for the supper. I have only to ask her. You see, she came into her fortune rather late, poor dear, and she doesn’t know much about good society, but she’s very anxious to learn. Oh, she’s not common or vulgar by any means, she’s very well born, and very well connected. I chose her house for her, you know, and I got her all her servants. She can’t do a thing without me, and of course she’s very much indebted to me for introducing her to my ‘set.’”

  Thus would the Honourable Mrs. Maddenham talk by the hour, and the ‘swagger’ set gradually came to realise the convenience of having a Jane among them, — a Jane who kept open house and gave everybody as much food and drink as they could gorge and swill without bursting, — a Jane who did not mind paying for theatre parties and late suppers at the Savoy, — and moreover, a Jane who never interfered or looked obtrusive, but who wore quiet colours, good old lace, and very few jewels, and who was content to sit among them in more or less silence, with — folded — hands — and a kind of silly smile on her countenance which meant, or appeared — to — mean, — absolutely nothing. — It — was this silly — smile which made some of her former acquaintances think she had a ‘screw loose,’ or was ‘dotty.’

  “I don’t think you know at what rate you are living,” said a would-be adviser to her one day. The ‘silly smile’ appeared in its full breadth on Jane’s amiable visage, but she said nothing. “That Mrs. Maddenham, for instance,” went on her visitor, “she costs you a good deal.”

  “I hope so,” replied Jane, — still smiling, “I want her to cost me a good deal. She is a very useful person to me.”

  “Dotty — oh, dotty!” groaned the would-be adviser to himself in bitterness of spirit. “The money has turned her poor old brain.”

  But this was a mistake. Jane’s brain was not by any means ‘turned,’ — it was, on the contrary, particularly well balanced. Had some of her fashionable acquaintances been able to exactly guess the logical precision of that brain-balance, they would have been considerably startled; and probably the Honourable Mrs. Maddenham would have been more startled than anybody. But surface observers were content to draw their conclusions from Jane’s ‘silly smile,’ and also from a certain vague look of timidity and bewilderment which was occasionally reflected in her mild blue eyes; and they found it refreshing, as well as courteous and honourable, to go to Jane’s parties, eat of her food, drink of her wine, criticise her domestic arrangements, and stare at the rich, stiff, sober-tinted silks she wore, and then remark to one another in somewhat audible undertones:— “Poor old thing! Very passée, isn’t she? I wonder if any one will propose to her for her money? She wouldn’t be half bad as a wife, — too old for larks, and plenty of manner about her!”

  Yes; this was a point which was never questioned — Jane’s ‘manner.’ It was a particular manner, which is fast becoming obsolete, — a manner which expressed dignity, grace, and a refinement as delicate as it was rare. When ‘swagger’ people condescendingly dined with her through the invitations of Mrs. Maddenham, Jane received them with that special ‘manner’ of hers which none of them could imitate or compete with, — that exquisite bearing which silently implies everything courteous with-not being in the least affected or hypocritical. It was an old - fashioned manner, — but it was not without charm. And when at table the ‘up-to-date’ man or woman talked slang, and said certain things were ‘ripping’ and other things ‘tommy-rot,’ Jane sat silent and absorbed, looking at her plate as earnestly as though she saw a pretty little picture of ‘Restful Harbour’ right in the middle of its polished centre. When titled ladies of known birth and breeding lolled in her drawing-room, with their feet slightly elevated to show their shoes and a portion of their ankles, and smoked cigarettes till the air reeked with tobacco, Jane made no sort of observation on this ‘new’ custom brought into vogue by the votaries of rank and fashion. She merely sat, like a thoughtful queen, in her chair, and watched the proceedings. She was careful that her gorgeous flunkeys (whom she kept through the advice of Mrs. Maddenham) should not fail to see every lady provided with the necessary smoking materials, and she endured the fumes heroically without a cough of protest. But she did not smoke herself. And the consequence of this was that, though she knew it not, she looked like a forlorn, castaway lady of noble birth fallen accidentally amongst a set of female rowdies.

  One day the Honourable Mrs. Maddenham said to Jane, “Why don’t you bike?”

  “Why don’t I. — . — . what?” murmured Jane in a gentle flutter of amazement.

  “Bike!” repeated Mrs. Maddenham forcibly. “Get a pair of knickers and a short skirt and learn to ride on a bicycle. It’s awfully good exercise for you.” Jane’s mouth opened a little way, as though she expected a sugar-plum to drop into it, and the dawn of the ‘silly smile’ began to spread out among the fine and pretty little wrinkles of her meditative face.

  “Get a pair of knickers and a short skirt!” she echoed musingly. “Have you got them?”

  “Of course I have!” returned Mrs. Maddenham jubilantly. “I’ll put them on and spin round here to-morrow. You must see me on my wheel, — I look first-rate!”


  And sure enough, with the morrow Jane did see her. And Jane nearly died of it. The Honourable Mrs. Maddenham, in a short tweed skirt with knickers appearing beneath, sitting astride on a bicycle, her thick ankles and flat feet well exposed, and working at the machine she thus immodestly bestrode with the measured regularity of a convict working the treadmill, was certainly a sight calculated to bring such a woman as Jane was almost to the brink of the grave. Not with shock or surprise, but — with laughter! Ah! — nobody knew how Jane could laugh if she liked! Such a merry, wholesome un-spoilt, altogether frank and delightful laugh it was, — a laugh that matched her manner, — an old-fashioned, obsolete laugh. She did not laugh in the presence of Mrs. Maddenham — she was far too courteous for that; but when Mrs. Maddenham’s hard-working, thick legs had borne her, red and perspiring, afar from Jane’s wondering view, and she was no more seen, then it was that Jane laughed till she cried.

  “Dear, dear me!” said Jane, wiping her eyes with her dainty handkerchief. “What an extraordinary place this London is to be sure; It is like a big lunatic asylum! What with the people climbing into monster wheels for the sake of looking out of the windows — of — small cars, and then flying up in aeroplanes, rushing — up — and down on a ‘switch-back,’ and climbing ‘belvedere towers,’ it seems to me that they all want to turn themselves — into squirrels and monkeys instead of men and women. But Mrs. Maddenham on a bicycle is the most comical sight — of — all I Poor thing I — poor thing! How ashamed those grown-up sons and daughters of hers must be when they see her exposed to the gaze of the public like that! She’s really very useful to me, though, — I never thought I should get so much fun out of her!” Whereby it will doubtless be realised that Jane was not so silly as she sometimes seemed. Any way she flatly refused to ‘bike,’ which was one most excellent proof of her sanity and self-respect, though Mrs. Maddenham said it was ‘narrow.’ “All the best set ‘bike,’” Mrs. Maddenham declared. “Women’s legs have never had fair play till now. What are our legs for, I should like to know? We’ve had to hide them under long skirts for ages except on the stage — it is time they should see daylight.”

  Jane shivered as though a douche of cold water had been poured down her back, — then blushed as deeply as though scalding wine had been poured down her throat. That women’s legs ‘should see daylight’ seemed to her a remarkable proposition, not without a touch of the weird and fantastic. And she remained firmer than ever in her determination to be ignorant of the ‘bike’ and its various attractions.

  Jane now began to be very well known in Society. She was frequently referred to in the ‘fashionable jottings,’ and whenever it was announced that Miss Belmont was ‘at home’ the fact created a certain stir. By degrees it was whispered in several ‘exclusive’ sets that to have Jane installed in Grosvenor Place was a great convenience. Gentlemen desirous of making love to other gentlemen’s wives arranged (through Mrs. Maddenham) to meet their fair libertines at Jane’s afternoon teas and evening crushes (both which kind of festivities were always arranged by Mrs. Maddenham), — and ladies equally wishful of making love to other ladies’ husbands followed the same course of procedure. ‘Old Miss Belmont’ saw nothing and knew nothing, they averred; she was a dear old dummy, most useful in the place where Mrs. Maddenham had put her. What a delightful party she gave, for instance at Henley, on her superb house-boat, when Mrs. Maddenham invited all the guests, and when it was hardly possible for Jane herself to find a seat at her own luncheon table! That was a grand time! When the lovely Lady Repousse slipped a teaspoonful of ice-cream behind the shirt-collar and down the back of the Most Dignified and Serene His Highness of Lumpfernel, and His Highness of Lumpfernel, yelling with laughter, flung pellets of bread at Lady Repousse and informed the assembled company that he knew she had thick ankles. It was so witty of His Highness! And altogether the manners of the ‘set’ surrounding him were so entirely charming! The hilarious customs of a beanfeast were tame in comparison to the ‘ripping fun’ Mrs. Maddenham got up on Jane’s house-boat at Henley. Nobody paid much attention to Jane on that occasion, except one man of about six-and-twenty, the Honourable Arthur Morvyn, the impecunious second son of the late Earl of Drumleigh. Arthur Morvyn, when the evening came on and the air of the river grew chilly, found a shawl somewhere and put it round Jane’s shoulders, whereat she looked up at him with a sudden tenderness in her eyes and thanked him more effusively than such a simple action would seem to warrant. And while he hesitated, standing by her chair and thinking within himself that she was a ‘ladylike old girl,’ she told him gently that she had once known his father very intimately.

  “Indeed!” said Arthur Morvyn, feeling his moustache dubiously.

  “Yes,” answered Jane, “he used often to visit my father at Ashleigh-in-the-Dell before he became Earl of Drumleigh. He had friends in the neighbourhood, with whom he used to stay. I saw a good deal of him when I was young.”

  “Really!” and Arthur Morvyn, remembering that she had twenty thousand a year, sought about in his brain for a suitable compliment, “I shouldn’t have thought you were old enough to remember my father,—”

  “He was just seven years my senior,” returned Jane calmly.

  “Regularly gives herself away!” thought Arthur Morvyn in amazement. “If she were only up-to-date she’d wear a carroty wig, put on ‘young’ frocks and pass for thirty. Rum old truth-teller, ‘pon my life.”

  Yet he was so much impressed by the ‘rum old truth-teller’ that he could not help thinking a great deal about her, not only during that Henley week but for some time afterwards.

  One day the Honourable Mrs. Maddenham came to Jane in a great flutter of excitement and said, —

  “My dear, I have got a splendid chance for you! A magnificent opportunity to make your mark once and for all in Society and to be acknowledged as one of the very tip-top leaders of fashion! You will be charmed!”

  “Shall I?” asked Jane with her ‘silly smile.’

  “Shall you?” echoed Mrs. Maddenham, “I should think so, indeed! What woman would not be proud and grateful to entertain Royalty!”

  “What sort of ‘Royalty’?” inquired Jane doubtfully. For she remembered His Serene Highness of Lumpfernel with no particular ardour or enthusiasm.

  Mrs. Maddenham laughed rather boisterously.

  “What a dear thing you are!” she exclaimed—” what a quaint, dear thing! You are positively humorous sometimes! I know quite what you mean when you ask ‘what sort of royalty?’ — though you know they are all of the same kind, little and big — all connected with first-class German houses,” — this as if she were speaking of business firms with whom she was connected in some kind of trade. “But this time it’s tip-top royalty, my dear!” and looking cautiously round she drew nearer to Jane and whispered something in her ear. Then she pulled herself back with a jerk and a triumphant smile. “There! What do you think of that! It will simply make you!”

  Jane did not know what to think of it. The two names whispered in her ear had certainly startled her, and a gentle and old-fashioned loyalty of soul made her at once desirous of doing her best to entertain the great personages whom Mrs. Maddenham had mentioned, not out of any personal vanity, but simply because she felt that if such exalted individuals chose to honour her house by a visit, nothing could possibly be too good for them. But all the same she was puzzled and bewildered.

  “You must forgive me if I am rather dense,” she said at last, after a pause, “but I do not quite understand. How is it that these gentlemen know of me? And why should they propose to visit me at all? I have not invited them, — and would not have presumed so far.”

  “Ah! that’s my management!” exclaimed Mrs. Maddenham triumphantly, “I have been working you up step by step, and now I have got you to the very top of the tree. Leave everything in my hands! All I want to know is whether you give me carte blanche? I will manage the whole affair splendidly for you!”

  “But,” persisted Jane mildly, �
�why do they want to come to me? What makes them think of coming?”

  Mrs. Maddenham was a little bit confused. It would never do to tell the whole truth to Jane, — she would never understand. She would never — see — the — necessity, — the — convenience, — the — in short, the everything of the matter. So she said evasively, “They wish to do you honour, my dear! That’s all. And if you are not pleased and proud, you are very ungrateful. Shall I say you — will — be — happy to receive them, — and — get — the — day fixed? It will have to be a late supper-party I think?”

  Jane considered a little, — then, with a slight sigh, folded her hands meekly and, with an air of resignation, “Do as you think best,” she said,’

  ‘But please say everything that is respectful and right on my part to their Royal Highnesses.”

  Mrs. Maddenham grinned to herself at the words ‘respectful and right.’

  “Poor old Jane! She’s too funny for anything!” she soliloquised. “As if any one cared a hang for her ‘respectful and right’ greetings! She ought to have lived in the Middle Ages.”

  She began her preparations in earnest, and very soon London knew that ‘old Miss Belmont’s’ house was to be a scene of ‘royal’ revelry. Mrs. Maddenham sent out all the invitations, for it was to be a ‘select’ party, — a ‘submitted’ list, including some of the most noted of the fashionable beauties and otherwise ‘ripping’ women. Rumours of the ‘Royal’ condescension about to be extended to Jane reached Ashleigh-in-the-Dell and excited spleen and envy in the gentle breasts of the Squire’s lady and the Squire’s fair daughters.