And Mrs. Rush-Marvelle and Mrs. Van Clupp observed her manoeuvres with maternal interest, while the cunning-faced, white-headed Van Clupp conversed condescendingly with Mr. Rush-Marvelle, as being a nonentity of a man whom he could safely patronize.
As the glory of the sunset paled, and the delicate, warm hues of the summer twilight softened the landscape, the merriment of the brilliant assembly seemed to increase. As soon as it was dark, the grounds were to be illuminated by electricity, and dancing was to be continued indoors — the fine old picture-gallery being the place chosen for the purpose. Nothing that could add to the utmost entertainment of the guests had been forgotten, and Thelma, the fair mistress of these pleasant revels, noting with quiet eyes the evident enjoyment of all present, felt very happy and tranquil. She had exerted herself a good deal, and was now a little tired. Her eyes had a dreamy, far-off look, and she found her thoughts wandering, now and then, away to the Altenfjord — she almost fancied she could hear the sigh of the pines and the dash of the waves mingling in unison as they used to do when she sat at the old farm-house window and span, little dreaming then how her life would change — how all those familiar things would be swept away as though they had never been. She roused herself from this momentary reverie, and glancing down at the recumbent gentleman at her feet, touched his shoulder lightly with the edge of her fan.
“Why do you not dance, you very lazy Mr. Lorimer?” she asked, with a smile.
He turned up his fair, half-boyish face to hers and laughed.
“Dance! I! Good gracious! Such an exertion would kill me, Lady Errington — don’t you know that? I am of a Sultan-like disposition — I shouldn’t mind having slaves to dance for me if they did it well — but I should look on from the throne whereon I sat cross-legged, — and smoke my pipe in peace.”
“Always the same!” she said lightly. “Are you never serious?”
His eyes darkened suddenly. “Sometimes. Awfully so! And in that condition I become a burden to myself and my friends.”
“Never be serious!” interposed Beau Lovelace, “it really isn’t worth while! Cultivate the humor of a Socrates, and reduce everything by means of close argument to its smallest standpoint, and the world, life, and time are no more than a pinch of snuff for some great Titantic god to please his giant nose withal!”
“Your fame isn’t worth much then, Beau, if we’re to go by that line of argument,” remarked Errington, with a laugh.
“Fame! By Jove! You don’t suppose I’m such an arrant donkey as to set any store by fame!” cried Lovelace, a broad smile lighting up his face and eyes. “Why, because a few people read my books and are amused thereby, — and because the Press pats me graciously on the back, and says metaphorically, ‘Well done, little ‘un!’ or words to that effect, am I to go crowing about the world as if I were the only literary chanticleer? My dear friend, have you read ‘Esdras’? You will find there that a certain king of Persia wrote to one ‘Rathumus, a story-writer.’ No doubt he was famous in his day, but, — to travesty hamlet, ‘where be his stories now?’ Learn, from the deep oblivion into which poor Rathumus’s literary efforts have fallen, the utter mockery and uselessness of so-called fame!”
“But there must be a certain pleasure in it while you’re alive to enjoy it,” said Lord Winsleigh. “Surely you derive some little satisfaction from your celebrity, Mr. Lovelace?”
Beau broke into a laugh, mellow, musical, and hearty.
“A satisfaction shared with murderers, thieves, divorced women, dynamiters, and other notorious people in general,” he said. “They’re all talked about — so am I. They all get written about — so do I. My biography is always being carefully compiled by newspaper authorities, to the delight of the reading public. Only the other day I learned for the first time that my father was a greengrocer, who went in for selling coals by the half-hundred and thereby made his fortune — my mother was an unsuccessful oyster-woman who failed ignominiously at Margate — moreover, I’ve a great many brothers and sisters of tender age whom I absolutely refuse to assist. I’ve got a wife somewhere, whom my literary success causes me to despise — and I have deserted children. I’m charmed with the accuracy of the newspapers — and I wouldn’t contradict them for the world, — I find my biographies so original! They are the result of that celebrity which Winsleigh thinks enjoyable.”
“But assertions of that kind are libels,” said Errington, “You could prosecute.”
“Too much trouble!” declared Beau. “Besides, five journals have disclosed the name of the town where I was born, and as they all contradict each other, and none of them are right, any contradiction on my part would be superfluous!”
They laughed, — and at that moment Lady Winsleigh joined them.
“Are you not catching cold, Thelma?” she inquired sweetly. “Sir Philip, you ought to make her put on something warm, — I find the air growing chilly.”
At that moment the ever-ready Sir Francis Lennox approached with a light woolen wrap he had found in the hall.
“Permit me!” he said gently, at the same time adroitly throwing it over Thelma’s shoulders.
She colored a little, — she did not care for his attention, but she could not very well ignore it without seeming to be discourteous. So she murmured, “Thank you!” and, rising from her chair, addressed Lady Winsleigh.
“If you feel cold, Clara, you will like some tea,” she said. “Shall we go indoors, where it is ready?”
Lady Winsleigh assented with some eagerness, — and the two, beautiful women — the one dark, the other fair — walked side by side across the lawn into the house, their arms round each other’s waists as they went.
“Two queens — and yet not rivals?” half queried Lovelace, as he watched them disappearing.
“Their thrones are secure!” returned Sir Philip gaily.
The others were silent. Lord Winsleigh’s thoughts, whatever they were, deepened the lines of gravity on his face; and George Lorimer, as he got up from his couch on the grass, caught a fleeting expression in the brown eyes of Sir Francis Lennox that struck him with a sense of unpleasantness. But he quickly dismissed the impression from his mind, and went to have a quiet smoke in the shrubbery.
CHAPTER XXIII.
“La rose du jardin, comme tu sais, dure peu, et la saison des roses est bien vite écoulée!” — SAADI.
Thelma took her friend Lady Winsleigh to her own boudoir, a room which had been the particular pride of Sir Philip’s mother. The walls were decorated with panels of blue silk in which were woven flowers of gold and silver thread, — and the furniture, bought from an old palace in Milan, was of elaborately carved wood inlaid with ivory and silver. Here a tête-à-tête tea was served for the two ladies, both of whom were somewhat fatigued by the pleasures of the day. Lady Winsleigh declared she must have some rest, or she would be quite unequal to the gaieties of the approaching evening, and Thelma herself was not sorry to escape for a little from her duties as hostess, — so the two remained together for some time in earnest conversations and Lady Winsleigh then and there confided to Thelma what she had heard reported concerning Sir Philip’s intimate acquaintance with the burlesque actress, Violet Vere. And they were both so long absent that, after a while, Errington began to miss his wife, and, growing impatient, went in search of her. He entered the boudoir, and, to his surprise, found Lady Winsleigh there quite alone.
“Where is Thelma?” he demanded.
“She seems not very well — a slight headache or something of that sort — and has gone to lie down,” replied Lady Winsleigh, with a faint trace of embarrassment in her manner. “I think the heat has been too much for her.”
“I’ll go and see after her,” — and he turned promptly to leave the room.
“Sir Philip!” called Lady Winsleigh. He paused and looked back.
“Stay one moment,” continued her ladyship softly. “I have been for a long time so very anxious to say something to you in private. Please let me speak now. You �
�� you know” — here she cast down her lustrous eyes— “before you went to Norway I — I was very foolish—”
“Pray do not recall it,” he said with kindly gravity “I have forgotten it.”
“That is so good of you!” and a flush of color warmed her delicate cheeks. “For if you have forgotten, you have also forgiven?”
“Entirely!” answered Errington, — and touched by her plaintive, self-reproachful manner and trembling voice, he went up to her and took her hands in his own. “Don’t think of the past, Clara! Perhaps I also was to blame a little — I’m quite willing to think I was. Flirtation’s a dangerous amusement at best.” He paused as he saw two bright tears on her long, silky lashes, and in his heart felt a sort of remorse that he had ever permitted himself to think badly of her. “We are the best of friends now, Clara,” he continued cheerfully, “and I hope we may always remain so. You can’t imagine how glad I am that you love my Thelma!”
“Who would not love her!” sighed Lady Winsleigh gently, as Sir Philip released her hands from his warm clasp, — then raising her tearful eyes to his she added wistfully, “You must take great care of her, Philip — she is so sensitive, — I always fancy an unkind word would kill her.”
“She’ll never hear one from me!” he returned, with so tender and earnest a look on his face, that Lady Winsleigh’s heart ached for jealousy. “I must really go and see how she is. She’s been exerting herself too much to-day. Excuse me!” and with a courteous smile and bow he left the room with a hurried and eager step.
Alone, Lady Winsleigh smiled bitterly. “Men are all alike!” she said half aloud. “Who would think he was such a hypocrite? Fancy his dividing his affection between two such contrasts as Thelma and Violet Vere! However, there’s no accounting for tastes. As for man’s fidelity, I wouldn’t give a straw for it — and for his morality — !” She finished the sentence with a scornful laugh, and left the boudoir to return to the rest of the company.
Errington, meanwhile, knocked softly at the door of his wife’s bedroom — and receiving no answer, turned the handle noiselessly and went in. Thelma lay on the bed, dressed as she was, her cheek resting on her hand, and her face partially hidden. Her husband approached on tiptoe, and lightly kissed her forehead. She did not stir, — she appeared to sleep profoundly.
“Poor girl!” he thought, “she’s tired out, and no wonder, with all the bustle and racket of these people! A good thing if she can rest a little before the evening closes in.”
And he stole quietly out of the room, and meeting Britta on the stairs told her on no account to let her mistress be disturbed till it was time for the illumination of the grounds. Britta promised, — Britta’s eyes were red — one would almost have fancied she had been crying. But Thelma was not asleep — she had felt her husband’s kiss, — her heart had beat as quickly as the wing of a caged wild bird at his warm touch, — and now he had gone she turned and pressed her lips passionately on the pillow where his hand had leaned. Then she rose languidly from the bed, and, walking slowly to the door, locked it against all comers. Presently she began to pace the room up and down, — up and down, — her face was very white and weary, and every now and then a shuddering sigh broke from her lips.
“Can I believe it? Oh no! — I cannot — I will not!” she murmured. “There must be some mistake — Clara has heard wrongly.” She sighed again. “Yet — if it is so, — he is not to blame — it is I — I who have failed to please him. Where — how have I failed?”
A pained, puzzled look filled her grave blue eyes, and she stopped in her walk to and fro.
“It cannot be true!” she said half aloud,— “it is altogether unlike him. Though Clara says — and she has known him so long! — Clara says he loved her once — long before he saw me — my poor Philip! — he must have suffered by that love! — perhaps that is why he thought life so wearisome when he first came to the Altenfjord — ah! the Altenfjord!”
A choking sob rose in her throat — but she repressed it. “I must try not to weary him,” she continued softly— “I must have done so in some way, or he would not be tired. But as for what I have heard, — it is not for me to ask him questions. I would not have him think that I mistrust him. No — there is some fault in me — something he does not like, or he would never go to—” She broke off and stretched out her hands with a sort of wild appeal. “Oh, Philip! my darling!” she exclaimed in a sobbing whisper. “I always knew I was not worthy of you — but I thought, — I hoped my love would make amends for all my shortcomings!”
Tears rushed into her eyes, and she turned to a little arched recess, shaded by velvet curtains — her oratory — where stood an exquisite white marble statuette of the Virgin and Child. There she knelt for some minutes, her face hidden in her hands, and when she rose she was quite calm, though very pale. She freshened her face with cold water, rearranged her disordered hair, — and then went downstairs, thereby running into the arms of her husband who was coming up again to look, as he said, at his “Sleeping Beauty.”
“And here she is!” he exclaimed joyously. “Have you rested enough, my pet?”
“Indeed, yes!” she answered gently. “I am ashamed so be so lazy. Have you wanted me, Philip?”
“I always want you,” he declared. “I am never happy without you.”
She smiled and sighed. “You say that to please me,” she said half wistfully.
“I say it because it is true!” he asserted proudly, putting his arm round her waist and escorting her in this manner down the great staircase. “And you know it, you sweet witch! You’re just in time to see the lighting up of the grounds. There’ll be a good view from the picture-gallery — lots of the people have gone in there — you’d better come too, for it’s chilly outside.”
She followed him obediently, and her reappearance among her guests was hailed with enthusiasm, — Lady Winsleigh being particular effusive, almost too much so.
“Your headache has quite gone, dearest, hasn’t it?” she inquired sweetly.
Thelma eyed her gravely. “I did not suffer from the headache, Clara,” she said. “I was a little tired, but I am quite rested now.”
Lady Winsleigh bit her lips rather vexedly, but said no more, and at that moment exclamations of delight broke from all assembled at the brilliant scene that suddenly flashed upon their eyes. Electricity, that radiant sprite whose magic wand has lately been bent to the service of man, had in less than a minute played such dazzling pranks in the gardens that they resembled the fabled treasure-houses discovered by Aladdin. Every tree glittered with sparkling clusters of red, blue, and green light — every flower-bed was bordered with lines and circles of harmless flame, and the fountains tossed up tall columns of amber rose, and amethyst spray against the soft blue darkness of the sky, in which a lustrous golden moon had just risen. The brilliancy of the illuminations showed up several dark figures strolling in couples about the grounds — romantic persons evidently, who were not to be persuaded to come indoors, even for the music of the band, which just then burst forth invitingly through the open windows of the picture-gallery.
Two of these pensive wanderers were Marcia Van Clupp and Lord Algernon Masherville, — and Lord Algy was in a curiously sentimental frame of mind, and weak withal, “comme une petite queue d’agneau affligé” He had taken a good deal of soda and brandy for his bilious headache, and, physically, he was much better, — but mentally he was not quite his ordinary self. By this it must not be understood that he was at all unsteadied by the potency of his medicinal tipple — he was simply in a bland humor — that peculiar sort of humor which finds strange and mystic beauty in everything, and contemplates the meanest trifles with emotions of large benevolence. He was conversational too, and inclined to quote poetry — this sort of susceptibleness often affects gentlemen after they have had an excellent dinner flavored with the finest Burgundy. Lord Algy was as mild, as tame, and as flabby as a sleeping jelly-fish, — and in this inoffensive, almost tender mood of his, Ma
rcia pounced upon him. She looked ravishingly pretty in the moonlight, with a white wrap thrown carelessly round her head and shoulders, and her bold, bird-like eyes sparkling with excitement (for who that knows the pleasure of sports, is not excited when the fox is nearly run to earth?), and she stood with him beside one of the smaller illuminated fountains, raising her small white hand every now and then to catch some of the rainbow drops, and then with a laugh she would shake them off her little pearly nails into the air again. Poor Masherville could not help gazing at her with a lack-lustre admiration in his pale eyes, — and Marcia, calculating every move in her own shrewd mind, saw it. She turned her head away with a petulant yet coquettish movement.
“My patience!” she exclaimed; “yew kin stare! Yew’ll know me again when yew see me, — say?”
“I should know you anywhere,” declared Masherville, nervously fumbling with the string of his eye-glass. “It’s impossible to forget your face, Miss Marcia!”
She was silent, — and kept that face turned from him so long that the gentle little lord was surprised. He approached her more closely and took her hand — the hand that had played with the drops in the fountain. It was such an astonishingly small hand. — so very fragile-looking and tiny, that he was almost for putting up his eye-glass to survey it, as if it were a separate object in a museum. But the faintest pressure of the delicate fingers he held startled him, and sent the most curious thrill through his body — and when he spoke he was in such a flutter that he scarcely knew what he was saying.
“Miss — Miss Marcia!” he stammered, “have — have I said — anything to — to offend you?”
Very slowly, and with seeming reluctance, she turned her head towards him, and — oh, thou mischievous Puck, that sometimes takest upon thee the semblance of Eros, what skill is thine! . . . there were tears in her eyes — real tears — bright, large tears that welled up and fell through her long lashes in the most beautiful, touching, and becoming manner! “And,” thought Marcia to herself, “if I don’t fetch him now, I never will!” Lord Algy was quite frightened — his poor brain grew more and more bewildered.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 114
