Jane paused a little and looked at her sister-in-law with kindly but resolute eyes.
‘You see, my dear, it’s different for you,’ she said. ‘You’ve never been so very much a widow, have you?’
Mrs Tower looked at her. She blushed a little. She even felt slightly uncomfortable. But of course Jane was much too simple to intend an innuendo. Mrs Tower gathered herself together with dignity.
‘I’m so upset that I really must go to bed,’ she said. ‘We’ll resume the conversation tomorrow morning.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be very convenient, dear. Gilbert and I are going to get the licence tomorrow morning.’
Mrs Tower threw up her hands in a gesture of dismay, but she found nothing more to say.
The marriage took place at a registrar’s office. Mrs Tower and I were the witnesses. Gilbert in a smart blue suit looked absurdly young and he was obviously nervous. It is a trying moment for any man. But Jane kept her admirable composure. She might have been in the habit of marrying as frequently as a woman of fashion. Only a slight colour on her cheeks suggested that beneath her calm was some faint excitement. It is a thrilling moment for any woman. She wore a very full dress of silvery grey velvet in the cut of which
I recognized the hand of the dressmaker in Liverpool (evidently a widow of unimpeachable character) who had made her gowns for so many years; but she had so far succumbed to the frivolity of the occasion as to wear a large picture hat covered with blue ostrich feathers. Her gold-rimmed spectacles made it extraordinarily grotesque. When the ceremony was over the registrar (somewhat taken aback, I thought, by the difference of age between the pair he was marrying) shook hands with her, tendering his strictly official congratulations; and the bridegroom, blushing slightly, kissed her. Mrs Tower, resigned but implacable, kissed her; and then the bride looked at me expectantly. It was evidently fitting that I should kiss her too. I did. I confess that I felt a little shy as we walked out of the registrar’s office past loungers who waited cynically to see the bridal pairs, and it was with relief that I stepped into Mrs Tower’s car. We drove to Victoria Station, for the happy couple were to go over to Paris by the two o’clock train, and Jane had insisted that the wedding-breakfast should be eaten at the station restaurant. She said it always made her nervous not to be on the platform in good time. Mrs Tower, present only from a strong sense of family duty, was able to do little to make the party go off well; she ate nothing (for which I could not blame her, since the food was execrable, and anyway I hate champagne at luncheon) and talked in a strained voice. But Jane went through the menu conscientiously.
‘I always think one should make a hearty meal before starting out on a journey,’ she said.
We saw them off, and I drove Mrs Tower back to her house.
‘How long do you give it?’ she said. ‘Six months?’
‘Let’s hope for the best,’ I smiled.
‘Don’t be so absurd. There can be no “best”. You don’t think he’s marrying her for anything but her money, do you? Of course it can’t last. My only hope is that she won’t have to go through as much suffering as she deserves.’
I laughed. The charitable words were spoken in such a tone as to leave me in small doubt of Mrs Tower’s meaning.
‘Well, if it doesn’t last you’ll have the consolation of saying: “I told you so”,’ I said.
‘I promise you I’ll never do that.’
‘Then you’ll have the satisfaction of congratulating yourself on your self-control in not saying: “I told you so”.’
‘She’s old and dowdy and dull.’
‘Are you sure she’s dull?’ I said. ‘It’s true she doesn’t say very much, but when she says anything it’s very much to the point.’
‘I’ve never heard her make a joke in my life.’
I was once more in the Far East when Gilbert and Jane returned from their honeymoon and this time I remained away for nearly two years. Mrs Tower was a bad correspondent and though I sent her an occasional picture-postcard I received no news from her. But I met her within a week of my return to London; I was dining out and found that I was seated next to her. It was an immense party, I think we were four-and-twenty, like the blackbirds in the pie, and, arriving somewhat late, I was too confused by the crowd in which I found myself to notice who was there. But when we sat down, looking round the long table I saw that a good many of my fellow-guests were well known to the public from their photographs in the illustrated papers. Our hostess had a weakness for the persons technically known as celebrities and this was an unusually brilliant gathering. When Mrs Tower and I had exchanged the conventional remarks that two people make when they have not seen one another for a couple of years I asked about Jane.
‘She’s very well,’ said Mrs Tower with a certain dryness.
‘How has the marriage turned out?’
Mrs Tower paused a little and took a salted almond from the dish in front of her.
‘It appears to be quite a success.’
‘You were wrong then?’
‘I said it wouldn’t last and I still say it won’t last. It’s contrary to human nature.’
‘Is she happy?’
‘They’re both happy.’
‘I suppose you don’t see very much of them.’
‘At first I saw quite a lot of them. But now ...’ Mrs Tower pursed her lips a little. ‘Jane is becoming very grand.’
‘What do you mean?’ I laughed.
‘I think I should tell you that she’s here tonight.’
‘Here?’
I was startled. I looked round the table again. Our hostess was a delightful and an entertaining woman, but I could not imagine that she would be likely to invite to a dinner such as this the elderly and dowdy wife of an obscure architect. Mrs Tower saw my perplexity and was shrewd enough to see what was in my mind. She smiled thinly.
‘Look on the left of our host.’
I looked. Oddly enough the woman who sat there had by her fantastic appearance attracted my attention the moment I was ushered into the crowded drawing-room. I thought I noticed a gleam of recognition in her eye, but to the best of my belief I had never seen her before. She was not a young woman, for her hair was iron-grey; it was cut very short and clustered thickly round her well-shaped head in tight curls. She made no attempt at youth, for she was conspicuous in that gathering by using neither lipstick, rouge, nor powder. Her face, not a particularly handsome one, was red and weather-beaten; but because it owed nothing to artifice had a naturalness that was very pleasing. It contrasted oddly with the whiteness of her shoulders. They were really magnificent. A woman of thirty might have been proud of them. But her dress was extraordinary. I had not often seen anything more audacious. It was cut very low, with short skirts, which were then the fashion, in black and yellow; it had almost the effect of fancy-dress and yet so became her that though on anyone else it would have been outrageous, on her it had the inevitable simplicity of nature. And to complete the impression of an eccentricity in which there was no pose and of an extravagance in which there was no ostentation she wore, attached by a broad black ribbon, a single eyeglass.
‘You’re not going to tell me that is your sister-in-law,’ I gasped.
‘That is Jane Napier,’ said Mrs Tower icily.
At that moment she was speaking. Her host was turned towards her with an anticipatory smile. A baldish white-haired man, with a sharp, intelligent face, who sat on her left, was leaning forward eagerly, and the couple who sat opposite, ceasing to talk with one another, listened intently. She said her say and they all, with a sudden movement, threw themselves back in their chairs and burst into vociferous laughter. From the other side of the table a man addressed Mrs Tower: I recognized a famous statesman.
‘Your sister-in-law has made another joke, Mrs Tower,’ he said.
Mrs Tower smiled.
‘She’s priceless, isn’t she?’
let me have a long drink of champagne and then for heaven’s sake tell me
all about it,’ I said.
Well, this is how I gathered it had all happened. At the beginning of their honeymoon Gilbert took Jane to various dressmakers in Paris and he made no objection to her choosing a number of ‘gowns’ after her own heart; but he persuaded her to have a ‘frock’ or two made according to his own design. It appeared that he had a knack for that kind of work. He engaged a smart French maid. Jane had never had such a thing before. She did her own mending and when she wanted ‘doing up’ was in the habit of ringing for the housemaid. The dresses Gilbert had devised were very different from anything she had worn before; but he had been careful not to go too far too quickly, and because it pleased him she persuaded herself, though not without misgivings, to wear them in preference to those she had chosen herself Of course she could not wear them with the voluminous petticoats she had been in the habit of using, and these, though it cost her an anxious moment, she discarded.
‘Now if you please,’ said Mrs Tower, with something very like a sniff of disapproval, ‘she wears nothing but thin silk tights. It’s a wonder to me she doesn’t catch her death of cold at her age.’
Gilbert and the French maid taught her how to wear her clothes, and, unexpectedly enough, she was very quick at learning. The French maid was in raptures over Madame’s arms and shoulders. It was a scandal not to show anything so fine.
Wait a little, Alphonsine,’ said Gilbert. ‘The next lot of clothes I design for Madame we’ll make the most of her.’
The spectacles of course were dreadful. No one could look really well in gold-rimmed spectacles. Gilbert tried some with tortoiseshell rims. He shook his head.
‘They’d look all right on a girl,’ he said. ‘You’re too old to wear spectacles, Jane.’ Suddenly he had an inspiration. ‘By George, I’ve got it. You must wear an eyeglass.’
‘Oh, Gilbert, I couldn’t’
She looked at him and his excitement, the excitement of the artist, made her smile. He was so sweet to her she wanted to do what she could to please him. ‘I’ll try,’ she said.
When they went to an optician and, suited with the right size, she placed an eyeglass jauntily in her eye Gilbert clapped his hands. There and then, before the astonished shopman, he kissed her on both cheeks.
‘You look wonderful,’ he cried.
So they went down to Italy and spent happy months studying Renaissance and Baroque architecture. Jane not only grew accustomed to her changed appearance, but found she liked it. At first she was a little shy when she went into the dining-room of an hotel and people turned round to stare at her, no one had ever raised an eyelid to look at her before, but presently she found that the sensation was not disagreeable. Ladies came up to her and asked her where she got her dress.
Do you like it?’ she answered demurely. ‘My husband designed it for me.’
‘I should like to copy it if you don’t mind.’
Jane had certainly for many years lived a very quiet life, but she was by no means lacking in the normal instincts of her sex. She had her answer ready.
‘I’m so sorry, but my husband’s very particular and he won’t hear of anyone copying my frocks. He wants me to be unique.’
She had an idea that people would laugh when she said this, but they didn’t; they merely answered:
‘Oh, of course I quite understand. You are unique.’
But she saw them making mental notes of what she wore, and for some reason this quite ‘put her about’. For once in her life that she wasn’t wearing what everybody else did, she reflected, she didn’t see why everybody else should want to wear what she did.
‘Gilbert,’ said she, quite sharply for her, ‘next time you’re designing dresses for me I wish you’d design things that people can’t copy.’
‘The only way to do that is to design things that only you can wear.’
‘Can’t you do that?’
‘Yes, if you’ll do something for me.’
‘What is it?’
‘Cut off your hair.’
I think this was the first time that Jane jibbed. Her hair was long and thick and as a girl she had been quite vain of it; to cut it off was a very drastic proceeding. This really was burning her boats behind her. In her case it was not the first step that cost so much, it was the last; but she took it (‘I know Marion will think me a perfect fool, and I shall never be able to go to Liverpool again,’ she said), and when they passed through Paris on their way home Gilbert led her (she felt quite sick, her heart was beating so fast) to the best hairdresser in the world. She came out of this shop with a jaunty, saucy, impudent head of crisp grey curls. Pygmalion had finished his fantastic masterpiece: Galatea was come to life.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but that isn’t enough to explain why Jane is here tonight amid this crowd of duchesses, Cabinet Ministers, and suchlike; nor why she is sitting on one side of her host with an Admiral of the Fleet on the other.’
‘Jane is a humorist,’ said Mrs Tower. ‘Didn’t you see them all laughing at what she said?’
There was no doubt now of the bitterness in Mrs Tower’s heart.
‘When Jane wrote and told me they were back from their honeymoon I thought I must ask them both to dinner. I didn’t much like the idea, but I felt it had to be done. I knew the party would be deadly and I wasn’t going to sacrifice any of the people who really mattered. On the other hand I didn’t want Jane to think I hadn’t any nice friends. You know I never have more than eight, but on this occasion I thought it would make things go better if I had twelve. I’d been too busy to see Jane until the evening of the party. She kept us all waiting a little-that was Gilbert’s cleverness-and at last she sailed in. You could have knocked me down with a feather. She made the rest of the women look dowdy and provincial. She made me feel like a painted old trollop.’
Mrs Tower drank a little champagne.
‘I wish I could describe the frock to you. It would have been quite impossible on anyone else; on her it was perfect. And the eyeglass! I’d known her for thirty-five years and I’d never seen her without spectacles.’
‘But you knew she had a good figure.’
‘How should I? I’d never seen her except in the clothes you first saw her in. Did you think she had a good figure? She seemed not to be unconscious of the sensation she made but to take it as a matter of course. I thought of my dinner and I heaved a sigh of relief Even if she was a little heavy in hand, with that appearance it didn’t so very much matter. She was sitting at the other end of the table and I heard a good deal of laughter. I was glad to think that the other people were playing up well; but after dinner I was a good deal taken aback when no less than three men came up to me and told me that my sister-in-law was priceless, and did I think she would allow them to call on her? I didn’t quite know whether I was standing on my head or my heels. Twenty-four hours later our hostess of tonight rang me up and said she had heard my sister-in-law was in London and she was priceless and would I ask her to luncheon to meet her? She has an infallible instinct, that woman: in a month everyone was talking about Jane. I am here tonight, not because I’ve known our hostess for twenty years and have asked her to dinner a hundred times, but because I’m Jane’s sister-in-law’
Poor Mrs Tower. The position was galling, and though I could not help being amused, for the tables were turned on her with a vengeance, I felt that she deserved my sympathy.
‘People never can resist those who make them laugh,’ I said, trying to console her.
‘She never makes me laugh.’
Once more from the top of the table I heard a guffaw and guessed that Jane had said another amusing thing.
‘Do you mean to say that you are the only person who doesn’t think her funny?’ I asked, smiling.
‘Had it struck you that she was a humorist?’
‘I’m bound to say it hadn’t.’
‘She says just the same things as she’s said for the last thirty-five years, I laugh when I see everyone else does because I don’t want to seem a perfect
fool, but I am not amused.’
‘Like Queen Victoria,’ I said.
It was a foolish jest and Mrs Tower was quite right sharply to tell me so. I tried another tack.
‘Is Gilbert here?’ I asked, looking down the table.
‘Gilbert was asked because she won’t go out without him, but tonight he’s at a dinner of the Architects’ Institute or whatever it’s called.’
‘I’m dying to renew my acquaintance with her.’
‘Go and talk to her after dinner. She’ll ask you to her Tuesdays.’
‘Her Tuesdays?’
‘She’s at home every Tuesday evening. You’ll meet there everyone you ever heard of They’re the best parties in London. She’s done in one year what I’ve failed to do in twenty.’
‘But what you tell me is really miraculous. How has it been done?’ Mrs Tower shrugged her handsome but adipose shoulders.
‘I shall be glad if you’ll tell me,’ she replied.
After dinner I tried to make my way to the sofa on which Jane was sitting, but I was intercepted and it was not till a little later that my hostess came up to me and said:
‘I must introduce you to the star of my party. Do you know Jane Napier? She’s priceless. She’s much more amusing than your comedies.’
I was taken up to the sofa. The admiral who had been sitting beside her at dinner was with her still. He showed no sign of moving and Jane, shaking hands with me, introduced me to him.
Do you know Sir Reginald Frobisher?’
We began to chat. It was the same Jane as I had known before, perfectly simple, homely and unaffected, but her fantastic appearance certainly gave a peculiar savour to what she said. Suddenly I found myself shaking with laughter. She had made a remark, sensible and to the point, but not in the least witty, which her manner of saying and the bland look she gave me through her eyeglass made perfectly irresistible. I felt light-hearted and buoyant. When I left her she said to me:
‘If you’ve got nothing better to do, come and see us on Tuesday evening. Gilbert will be so glad to see you.’
‘When he’s been a month in London he’ll know that he can have nothing better to do,’ said the admiral.
65 Short Stories Page 107
