Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  ‘I heard something last night that displeased me very much, Delicia,’ he said, affecting a high moral tone. ‘It concerns you, and I should like to speak to you about it.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Delicia, with the very slightest lifting of her delicate eyebrows.

  ‘Yes.’ And Lord Carlyon hummed and hawed for a couple of dubious seconds. ‘You see, you are a woman, and you ought to be very careful what you write. A man told me that in your last book there were some very strong passages, — really strong — you know what I mean — and he said that it is very questionable whether any woman with a proper sense of delicacy ought to write in such a manner.’

  Delicia looked at him steadily.

  ‘Who is he? My book has probably touched him on a sore place!’

  Carlyon did not answer immediately; he was troubled with an awkward cough.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘it was Fitz-Hugh; you know him — an awfully good fellow, — has sisters and all that — says he wouldn’t let his sisters read your book for the world, and it was deuced disagreeable for me to hear, I can tell you.’

  ‘You have read my book,’ said Delicia, slowly; ‘and did you discover anything of the nature complained of by Captain Fitz-Hugh?’

  Again Lord Carlyon coughed uncomfortably.

  ‘Well, upon my word, I don’t exactly remember now, but I can’t say I did!’

  Delicia still kept her eyes fixed upon him.

  ‘Then, of course, you defended me?’

  Carlyon flushed, and began to butter a piece of toast in nervous haste.

  ‘Why, there was no need for defence,’ he stammered. ‘The whole thing is in a nutshell — an author’s an author, man or woman, and there’s an end of it. Of course you’re alone responsible for the book, and, as I said, if he don’t like it he needn’t read it, and no one asked him to give it to his sisters!’

  ‘You prevaricate,’ interrupted Delicia, steadily; ‘But perhaps it is as well you did not think it necessary to defend me to such a man as Captain Fitz-Hugh, who for years has been the notorious lover of Lady Rapley, to the disgrace of her husband who permits the scandal. And for Captain Fitz-Hugh’s sisters, who are the chief purveyors of slander in the wretched little provincial town where they live, each one of them trying her best to catch the curate or the squire, I shall very willingly write a book some day that deals solely with the petty lives lived by such women — women more unclean in mind than a Swift, and lower in the grade of intellect than an aspiring tadpole, who at any rate has the laudable ambition and intention of becoming an actual frog some day!’

  Carlyon stared, vaguely startled and chilled by her cold, calm accents.

  ‘By Jove! You are cutting, you know, Delicia!’ he expostulated. ‘Poor Fitz-Hugh! he can’t help himself falling in love with Lady Rapley—’

  ‘Can’t help himself!’ echoed Delicia, with supreme scorn. ‘Can he not help disgracing her? Is it not Possible to love greatly and nobly, and die with the secret kept? Is there no dignity left in manhood? Or in womanhood? Do you think, for instance, that I would permit myself to love any other man but you?’

  His handsome face flushed, and his eyes kindled. He smiled a self-satisfied smile.

  ‘Upon my life, that’s splendid — the way you say that!’ he exclaimed. ‘But all women are not like you—’

  ‘I know they are not,’ she replied. ‘Captain Fitz-Hugh’s sisters, for example, are certainly not at all like me! They do well to avoid my book; they would find female cant and hypocrisy too openly exposed there to please them. But with regard to your complaint — for I regard it to be a complaint from you — you may challenge the whole world of slander-mongers, if you like, to point to one offensive expression in my writings — they will never find it.’

  He rose and put his arm round her. At his touch she shuddered with a new and singular aversion. He thought the tremor one of delight.

  ‘And so you will never permit yourself to love any other man but me?’ he asked caressingly, touching the rich masses of her hair with his lips.

  ‘Never!’ she responded firmly, looking straight into his eyes. ‘But do not misunderstand my meaning! It is very possible that I might cease to love you altogether — yes, it certainly might happen at any moment; but I should never, because of this, love another man. I could not so degrade myself as to parcel my affections out in various quarters, after the fashion of Lady Rapley, who has descended voluntarily, as one of our latter-day novelists observes, “to the manners and customs of the poultry yard.” If I ceased to love you, then love itself for me would cease. It could never revive for anyone else; it would be dead dust and ashes! I have no faith in women who love more than once.’

  Carlyon still toyed with her hair; the undefinable something he missed in her fretted and perplexed him.

  ‘Are you aware that you look at me very strangely this morning, Delicia?’ he said at last; ‘Almost as if I were not the same man! And this is the first time I have ever heard you speak of the possibility of your ceasing to love me!’

  She moved restlessly in his embrace, and presently, gently putting him aside, rose from the breakfast-table and pretended to busy herself with the arrangement of some flowers on the mantelpiece.

  ‘I have been reading philosophy,’ she answered him, with a tremulous little laugh. ‘Grim old cynics, both ancient and modern, who say that nothing lasts on earth, and that the human soul is made of such imperishable stuff that it is always out-reaching one emotion after another and striving to attain the highest perfection. If this be true, then even human love is poor and trifling compared to love divine!’ Her eyes darkened with intensity of feeling. ‘At least, so say some of our sage instructors; and if it be indeed a fact that mortal things are but the passing shadow of immortal ones, it is natural enough that we should gradually outlive the temporal in our desire for the eternal.’

  Carlyon looked at her wonderingly; she met his gaze fully, her eyes shining with a pure light that almost dazzled him.

  ‘I can’t follow all your transcendental theories,’ he said, half pettishly; ‘I never could. I have always told you that you can’t get reasoning men to care about any other life than this one — they don’t see it; they don’t want it. Heaven doesn’t suggest itself to them as at all a jolly sort of place, and you know, if you come to think of it, you’d rather not have an angel to love you; you’d much rather have a woman.’

  ‘Speak for yourself, my dear Will,’ answered Delicia, with a slight smile. ‘If angels, such as I imagine them to be, exist at all, I should much prefer to be loved by one of them than by a man. The angel’s love might last; the man’s would not. We see these things from different points of view. And as for this life, I assure you I am not at all charmed with it.’

  ‘Good heavens! You’ve got everything you want,’ exclaimed Carlyon, ‘Even fame, which so rarely attends a woman!’

  ‘Yes, and I know the value of it!’ she responded. ‘Fame, literally translated, means slander. Do you think I am not able to estimate it at its true worth? Do you think I am ignorant of the fact that I am followed by the lies and envies and hatreds of the unsuccessful? Or that I shut my eyes to the knowledge of the enmity that everywhere pursues me? If I were old, if I were poor, if I were ugly, and had scarcely a gown to my back, and still wrote books, I should be much more liked than I am. I daresay some rich people might even be found willing to “patronise” me!’ She laughed disdainfully. ‘But when these same rich people discover that I can afford to patronise them, — who is there that can rightly estimate the measure or the violence of their antipathy for me? Yet when I say I am not charmed with life, I only mean the “social” life; I do not mean the life of nature — of that I am never tired.’

  ‘Well, this morning, at any rate, you appear to be tired of me,’ said Carlyon, irritably. ‘So I suppose I’d better get out of your way!’

  She made no answer whatever. He fidgeted about a little, then began to grumble again.

  ‘I’m sor
ry you’re in such a bad humour.’ At this she raised her eyebrows in smiling protest. ‘Yes, you know you’re in a bad humour,’ he went on obstinately; ‘you pretend you’re not, but you are. And I wanted to ask you a question on your own business affairs.’

  ‘Pray ask it!’ said Delicia, still smiling. ‘Though, before you speak, let me assure you my business affairs are in perfect order.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on uneasily; ‘these d —— d publishers often wriggle out of bargains, and try to “do” a woman. That firm, now — the one that has just published your last book — have they paid you?’

  ‘They have,’ she answered with composure. ‘They are, though publishers, still honourable men.’

  ‘It was to be eight thousand, wasn’t it?’ he asked, looking down at the lapels of his well-fitting morning-coat and flicking a speck of dust off the cloth.

  ‘It was, and it is,’ she answered. ‘I paid four thousand of it into your bank yesterday.’

  His eyes flashed.

  ‘By Jove! What a clever little woman you are!’ he exclaimed. ‘Fancy getting all that cash out of your brain-pan! It’s quite a mystery to me how you do it, you know! I can never make it out—’

  ‘There’s no accounting for the public taste,’ said Delicia, watching him with the pained consciousness of a sudden contempt. ‘But you need not puzzle yourself over the matter.’

  ‘Oh, I never bother my head over literature at all!’ laughed Carlyon, becoming quite hilarious, now that he knew an extra four thousand pounds had been piled into his private banking account. ‘People often ask me, “How does your wife manage to write such clever books?” And I always reply, “Don’t know, never could tell. Astonishing woman! Shuts herself up in her own room like a silkworm, and spins a regular cocoon!” That’s what I say, you know; yet nobody ever seems to believe me, and lots of fellows swear you must get a man to help you.’

  ‘It is part of man’s conceit to imagine his assistance always necessary,’ said Delicia, coldly smiling. ‘Considering how loudly men talk of their own extraordinary abilities, it is really astonishing how little they manage to do. Good-bye! I’m going upstairs to spin cocoons.’

  He stopped her as she moved to leave the room.

  ‘I say, Delicia, it’s awfully sweet of you to hand over that four thousand—’

  She gave a little gesture of offence.

  ‘Why speak of it, Will? You know that half of every sum I earn is placed to your account; it has been my rule ever since our marriage, and there is really no need to allude to what is now a mere custom of business.’

  He still held her arm.

  ‘Yes, that’s all very well; but look here, Delicia, you’re not angry with me for anything, are you?’

  She raised her head and looked straightly at him.

  ‘No, Will — not angry.’

  Something in her eyes intimidated him. He checked himself abruptly, afraid to ask her anything more.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he stammered hurriedly. ‘I’m glad you’re not angry. I thought you seemed a little put out; but it’s jolly that I’m mistaken, you know. Ta-ta! Have a good morning’s grind.’

  ‘And as she went, he drew out a cigar from his silver case with rather shaking fingers, and pretended to be absorbed in lighting it. When it was finally lit and he looked up, she was gone. With a sigh, he flung himself into an arm-chair and puffed away at his choice Havana in a sore and miserable confusion of mind. No human being, perhaps, is quite so sore and miserable as a man who is born with the instincts of a gentleman and yet conducts himself like a cad. There are many such tramps of a decayed and dying gentility amongst us — men with vague glimmerings of the ancient chivalry of their race lying dormant within them, who yet lack the force of will necessary to plan their lives resolutely out upon those old-fashioned but grand foundations known as truth and loyalty. Because it is ‘the thing’ to talk slang, they pollute the noble English language with coarse expressions copied from stable conversation; and because it is considered ‘swagger’ to make love to other men’s wives, they enter into this base form of vulgar intrigue almost as if it were a necessary point of dignity and an added grace to manhood. If we admit that men are the superior and stronger sex, what a pitiable thing it is to note how little their moral forces assist in the elevation of woman, their tendency being to drag her down as low as possible! If she be unwedded, man does his best to compromise her; if he has married her, he frequently neglects her; if she be another’s wife, he frequently tries to injure her reputation. This is ‘modern’ morality, exhibited to us in countless varying phases every day, detailed every morning and evening in our newspapers, witnessed over and over again through every ‘season’s’ festivities; and this, combined with atheism, and an utter indifference as to the results of evil, is making of ‘upper class’ England a something worse than pagan Rome was just before its fall. The safety of the country is with what we elect to call the ‘lower classes,’ who are educating themselves slowly but none the less surely; but who, it must be remembered, are not yet free from savagery, — the splendid brute savagery which breaks out in all great nations when aristocratic uncleanness and avarice have gone too far, — a savagery which threw itself panting and furious upon the treacherous Marie Antoinette of France, with her beauty, her wicked wantonness, her thoughtless extravagance and luxury, and her cruel contempt for the poor, and never loosened its fangs till it had dragged her haughty head to the level of the scaffold, there to receive the just punishment of selfishness and pride. For punishment must fall sooner or later on every wilful misuser of life’s opportunities; though had anyone told Lord Carlyon this by way of warning, he would have bidden him, in the choicest of ‘swagger’ terms, to ‘go and be a rotten preacher!’ And in saying so, he would have considered himself witty. Yet he knew well enough that his ‘little affair’ with La Marina was nothing but a deliberate dishonour done to his blameless wife; and he was careful to avoid thinking as to where the money came from as he flung it about at cards, or in restaurants, or on race-courses.

  ‘After all,’ he considered now, as he smoked his cigar leisurely, and allowed his mind to dwell comfortably on the reflection of that four thousand pounds placed to his account, ‘she likes her work; she couldn’t get on without it, and there’s nothing so much in her handing me over half the “dibs” as she’s got all the fame.’

  And through some curious process of man’s logic he managed to argue himself into a perfect state of satisfaction with the comfortable way the world was arranged for him through his wife’s unremitting toil.

  ‘Poor little soul!’ he murmured placidly, glancing at his handsome face in an opposite mirror, ‘She loves me awfully! This morning she half pretends she doesn’t, but she would give every drop of blood in her body to save me from a pin-prick of trouble. And why shouldn’t she? Women must have something to love; she’s perfectly happy in her way, and so am I in mine.’

  With which consoling conclusion he ended his meditations, and went out for the day as usual.

  On returning home to dinner, however, he was considerably put out to find a note waiting for him in the hall; a note from his wife, running thus: —

  ‘Shall not return to dinner. Am going to the “Empire” with the Cavendishes; do not wait up for me.’

  ‘Well, I call that pretty cool!’ he muttered angrily. ‘Upon my word, I call that infernally cool!’

  He marched about the hall, fuming and fretting for a minute or two, then he called his valet.

  ‘Robson, I sha’n’t want dinner served,’ he said snappishly; ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘Very good, my lord.’

  ‘Did her ladyship leave any message?’

  ‘None, my lord. She merely said she was going to dine with Mr and Mrs Cavendish, and would probably not be back till late.’

  He frowned like a spoilt child.

  ‘Well, I sha’n’t be back till late either, if at all,’ he said fretfully. ‘Just come and get me i
nto my dress suit, will you?’

  Robson followed him upstairs obediently, and bore with his caprices, which were many, during the business of attiring him for the evening. He was in an exceedingly bad humour, and gave vent to what the children call a ‘bad swear’ more than once. Finally he got into a hansom and was driven off at a rattling pace, the respectable Robson watching his departure from the open hall door.

  ‘You’re a nice one!’ remarked that worthy personage, as the vehicle containing his master turned a sharp corner and disappeared. ‘Up to no end of pranks; as bad and worse than if you was the regular son of a king! Yes, taking you on and off, one would almost give you credit for being a real prince, you’ve got so little conscience! But my lady’s one too many for you, I fancy; she’s quiet but she’s clever; and I don’t believe she’ll keep her eyes shut much longer. She can’t, if you’re a-going on continual in the way you are.’

  Thus Robson soliloquised, shutting the street door with a bang to emphasise the close of his half-audible observations. Then he went up into Delicia’s study to give Spartan some dinner. Spartan received the plateful brought to him with majestic indifference, and an air which implied that he would attend to it presently. He had a little white glove of Delicia’s between his paws, and manifested no immediate desire to disturb himself. He had his own canine ideas of love and fidelity; and though he was only a dog, it may be he had a higher conception of honour and truth than is attained by men, who, in the excess of self-indulgence, take all the benefits of love and good fortune as their ‘rights,’ and are destitute of even the saving grace of gratitude.

  CHAPTER VI

  It was no impetus of feminine recrimination or spite that had caused Delicia to go out on that particular evening, and thus deprive her husband of her society in the same abrupt fashion with which he had so often deprived her of his. Mr and Mrs Cavendish were old friends of hers. They had known her when she was a little orphan girl with no brothers or sisters — no companions of her own age to amuse her — nothing, in fact, but her own pensive and romantic thoughts, which had, though she then knew it not, helped to weave her now brilliant destiny. They were elderly, childless people, and they had always been devoted to Delicia, so that when Mrs Cavendish paid an unexpected call in the afternoon and stated that she and her husband were ‘mopy,’ and that they would take it very kindly if Delicia would come and dine with them, and afterwards accompany them to the ‘Empire,’ for which they had a box near the stage, Delicia readily accepted the proposition as a welcome change from her own uncomfortable and unprofitable thoughts. To begin with, she had grown so accustomed now to her husband’s telegrams announcing that he would not be back to dinner, that she accepted his absence as a far greater probability than his home-returning. Therefore she was glad of the chance of dining in friendly company. Next, the idea of going to the ‘Empire’ filled her with a certain sense of pained curiosity and excitement. La Marina was the chief attraction there, and she had never seen her. So she shut up her books and papers, put on a simple black skirt, and a pretty blouse of soft pink chiffon, daintily adorned with a shoulder-knot of roses, tied her rich hair up, in the fashion of the picture of Madame le Brun, with a strip of pink ribbon, bade good-bye to Spartan, gave him her glove to guard by way of consolation, and then went with her old friend, leaving for her husband, in case he should return, the brief note that had vexed his high mightiness so seriously. And it was with a strained anticipation and sharp unrest that she sat in the box at the ‘Empire,’ withdrawn from view as much as possible, and waited for the appearance of the famous dancer, whose performance was advertised on the programme as ‘Marvellous Evolution! The Birth of a Butterfly! La Marina!’ The music-hall was crowded, and looking down on the densely-packed arena, she saw rows and rows of men, smoking, grinning, whispering in each other’s ears, — some sitting squat in their fauteuils, with the bulging appearance of over-filled flour sacks, the extended feet beyond the sacks, and the apoplectically swelled heads on the tops thereof, suggestive of the full meals just enjoyed, — others, standing up with opera glasses levelled at the promenade, or else leering in the same direction without glasses at all. There were young men, sodden and stupid with smoke and drink, — and old men, blear-eyed and weak-jointed, painfully endeavouring to assume the airs of joyous juvenility. There were fast women, with eyelashes so darkened with kohl as to give them the appearance at a distance of having no eyes at all, but only black sockets; — middle-aged frowsy feminine topers, whose very expression of face intimated a ‘looking forward to the next glass,’ — and a few almost palsy-stricken antiquities of womanhood, the possible ruins of fifty-year-ago ballet-girls and toe-and-heel stage ‘fairies,’ who sat in the stalls twisting their poor old mouths into the contortion of a coquettish smile — a contortion dreadfully reminding one of the way a skull grins when some careless gravedigger throws it out of the mould where it has hidden its ghastly mirth for perhaps twenty years. All this seething witches’ cauldron of life, Delicia looked down upon with a mingling of shame and sorrow. Were these low-looking creatures real humanity? — the humanity which God created and redeemed? Surely not! They were more like apes than human beings — how was it? — and why was it? She was still pondering the question when old Mr Cavendish spoke.