December Love - Robert Hichens
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But Caroline was in Paris.
Lady Sellingworth looked at her watch. Craven lived not far off. He
might be at home by now. But perhaps she had better give him, and
herself, a little more time. For she was still undecided, did not yet
know what she was going to do. Impulse drove her on, but something
else, reason perhaps, or fear, or secret, deep down, painfully acquired
knowledge, was trying to hold her back. She remembered her last stay
in Paris, her hesitation then, her dinner with Caroline Briggs, the
definite decision she had come to, her effort to carry it out, the
terrible breakdown of her decision at the railway station and its
horrible result.
Disaster had come upon her because she had yielded to an impulse ten
years ago. Surely that should teach her not to yield to an impulse
now. But the one was so different from the other, as different as that
horrible man in Paris had been from young Craven. That horrible man in
Paris! He had disappeared out of her life. She had never seen him again,
had never mentioned him to anybody. He had gone, as mysteriously as he
had come, carrying his booty with him, all those lovely things which
had been hers, which she had worn on her neck and arms and bosom, in her
hair and on her hands. Sometimes she had wondered about him, about
the mentality and the life of such a man as he was, a creature of the
underworld, preying on women, getting up in the morning, going to bed
at night, with thoughts of crime in his mind, using his gift of beauty
loathsomely. She had wondered, too, how it was that such loathsomeness
as his was able to hide itself, how it was that he could look so manly,
so athletic, even so wistful and eager for sympathy.
But Seymour Portman had seen through him at a first glance. Evidently
that type of man had a power to trick women's instincts, but was less
successful with men. Perhaps Caroline was right, and the whole question
was simply one of the lust of the eye.
Young Craven was good-looking too. But surely she had not been attracted
to him, brought into sympathy with him merely because of that. She hoped
not. She tried hard to think not. A woman of her age must surely be
beyond the lure of mere looks in a man unconnected with the deeper
things which make up personality.
And yet ten years ago she had been lured towards a loathsome and utterly
abominable personality by mere looks. Certainly her nature inclined her
to be a prey to just that--the lust of the eye.
(Caroline Briggs was horribly apposite in some of her remarks.)
She tried to reconstitute her evenings with Craven in her imagination,
keeping the conversation exactly as it had been, but giving him a
thoroughly plain face, a bad complexion, mouse-coloured feeble hair,
undistinguished features, ordinary eyes, and a short broad figure.
Certainly it would have made a difference. But how much difference?
Perhaps a good deal. But he had enjoyed the conversation as much as she
had, and there was nothing in her appearance now to arouse the lust of
the eye. Suddenly it occurred to her that she possessed now at least
one advantage. If a young man were attracted by her it must be her
personality, herself in fact, which attracted him. It could not be her
looks. And surely it is better to attract by your personality than by
your looks.
A woman's voice whispered within her just then, "It is better to attract
by both. Then you are safe."
She moved uneasily. Then she got up and went to the telephone. The
chances were in favour of Craven's being in his flat by now.
As she put her hand on the receiver, but before she took it down, Lady
Sellingworth thought of the Paris railway station, of what had happened
there, of the stern resolution she had come to that day, of the tears of
blood that had sealed it, of the will that had enabled her to stick to
it during ten years. And she thought, too, of that phrase of Caroline
Briggs's concerning the lust of the eye.
"I won't go!" she said to herself.
And she took the receiver down.
Almost immediately she was put through, and heard Craven's voice at
the other end, the voice which had recited those lines from Browning's
"Waring" by the fire, saying:
"Yes? Who is it?"
"Lady Sellingworth," she replied.
The sound of the voice changed at once, became eager as it said:
"Oh--Lady Sellingworth! I have only just come in. I know what it is."
"But how can you?"
"I do. You want me to dress for dinner. And we are to go in a cab and be
very respectable instead of Bohemian. Isn't that it?"
She hesitated. Then she said:
"No; it isn't that."
"Do tell me then!"
"I think--I'm afraid I can't come."
"Oh, no--it can't be that! But I have reserved the table in the corner
for us. And we are going to have gnocchi done in a special way with
cheese. Gnocchi with cheese! Please--please don't disappoint me."
"But I haven't been very well the last two days, and I'm rather afraid
of the cold."
"I am so sorry. But it's absolutely dry under foot. I swear it is!"
A pause. Then his voice added:
"Since I came in I have refused an invitation to dine out to-night. I
absolutely relied on you."
"Yes?"
"Yes. It was from Miss Van Tuyn, to dine with her at the _Bella
Napoli_."
"I'll come!" said Lady Sellingworth. "Good-bye."
And she put up the receiver.
CHAPTER V
Miss Van Tuyn had not intended to stay long in London when she came over
from Paris. But now she changed her mind. She was pulled at by three
interests--Lady Sellingworth, Craven and the living bronze. A cold hand
had touched her vanity on the night of the dinner in Soho. She had felt
angry with Craven for not coming back to the Cafe Royal, and angrier
still with Lady Sellingworth for keeping him with her. Although she did
not positively know that Craven had spent the last part of the evening
in the drawing-room at Berkeley Square, she felt certain that he had
done so. Probably Lady Sellingworth had pressed him to go in. But
perhaps he had been glad to go, perhaps he had submitted to an influence
which had carried him for the time out of his younger, more beautiful
friend's reach.
Miss Van Tuyn resolved definitely that Craven must at once be added to
the numerous men who were mad about her. So much was due to her vanity.
Besides, she liked Craven, and might grow to like him very much if she
knew him better. She decided to know him better, much better, and wrote
her letter to him. Craven had puzzled a little over the final sentence
of that letter. There were two reasons for its apparently casual
insertion. Miss Van Tuyn wished to whip Craven into alertness by giving
his male vanity a flick. Her other reason was more subtle. Some instinct
seemed to tell her that in the future she might want to use the stranger
as a weapon in connexion with Craven. She did not know how exactly. But
in that sentence of her letter she felt that she was somehow preparing
the ground for incidents which would be brought about by destiny, or
which chance would allow to happen.
That she would some day know "the living bronze" she felt certain. For
she meant to know him. Garstin's brutal comment on him had frightened
her. She did not believe it to be just. Garstin was always brutal in his
comments. And he lived so perpetually among shady, or more than shady,
people that it was difficult for him to believe in the decency of
anybody who was worth knowing. For him the world seemed to be divided
into the hopelessly dull and conventional, who did not count, and the
definitely outrageous, who were often interesting and worthy of being
studied and sometimes painted. It must be obvious to anyone that
the living bronze could not be numbered among the merely dull and
conventional. Naturally enough, then, Garstin supposed him to be a
successful blackmailer. Miss Van Tuyn was not going to allow herself
to be influenced by the putrescence of Garstin's mind. She had her own
views on everything and usually held to them. She had quite decided
that she would get to know the living bronze through Garstin, who
always managed to know anyone he was interested in. Being totally
unconventional and not, as he said, caring a damn about the proprieties,
if he wished to speak to someone he spoke to him, if he wished to paint
him he told him to come along to the studio. There was a simplicity
about Garstin's methods which was excused in some degree by his fame.
But if he had not been famous he would have acted in just the same way.
No shyness hindered him; no doubts about himself ever assailed him.
He just did what he wanted to do without _arriere pensee_. There was
certainly strength in Garstin, although it was not moral strength.
The morning after the dinner in Soho Miss Van Tuyn telegraphed to Fanny
Cronin to come over at once, with Bourget's latest works, and engaged
an apartment at Claridge's. Although she sometime dined in the shadow
of Vesuvius, she preferred to issue forth from some lair which was
unmistakably smart and comfortable. Claridge's was both, and everybody
came there. Miss Cronin wired obedience and would be on the way
immediately. Meanwhile Miss Van Tuyn received Craven's note in answer to
hers.
She grasped all its meaning, surface and subterranean, immediately. It
meant a very polite, very carefully masked, withdrawal from the sphere
of her influence. The passage about Soho was perfectly clear to her
mind, although to many it might have seemed to convey an agreeably
worded acceptance of her suggestion, only laying its translation into
action in a rather problematical future, the sort of future which would
become present when "neither of us has an engagement."
Craven had evidently been "got at" by Adela Sellingworth.
On the morning after Miss Van Tuyn's telegram to Paris Fanny Cronin
arrived, with Bourget's latest book in her hand, and later they settled
in at Claridge's. Miss Cronin went to bed, and Miss Van Tuyn, who had no
engagement for that evening, went presently to the telephone. Although
in her note to Craven by implication she had left it to him to suggest
a tete-a-tete dinner in Soho, she was now resolved to ask him. She was a
girl of the determined modern type, not much troubled by the delicacies
or inclined to wait humbly on the pleasure of men. If a man did not show
her the way, she was quite ready to show the way to him. Without being
precisely of the huntress type, she knew how to take bow and arrow in
her hand.
She rang up Craven, and the following dialogue took place at the
telephone.
"Yes? Yes?"
"Is Mr. Craven there?"
"Yes, I am Alick Craven. Who is it, please?"
"Don't you know?"
"One minute! Is it--I'm afraid I don't."
"Beryl Van Tuyn."
"Of course! I knew the voice at once, but somehow I couldn't place it.
How are you, Miss Van Tuyn?"
"Dangerously well."
"That's splendid."
"And you?"
"I'm what dull people call very fit and cheery."
"How dreadful! Now, tell me--are you engaged to-night? I'm sure you
aren't, because I want you to take me to dine at the _Bella Napoli_.
We agreed to tell each other when we were free. So I take you at your
word."
"Oh, I'm awfully sorry!"
"What?"
"I'm ever so sorry."
"Why?"
"I have a dinner engagement to-night."
"What a bore! But surely you can get out of it?"
"I'm afraid not. No, really I can't."
"Send an excuse! Say you are ill."
"I can't honestly. It's--it's rather important. Besides, the fact is,
I'm the host."
"Oh!"
The timbre of Miss Van Tuyn's voice changed slightly at this crisis in
the conversation.
"Oh--if you're the host, of course. . . . You really _are_ the host?"
"Yes, I really am. So you see!"
"No, but I hear and understand. Never mind. Ask me another night."
"Yes--that's it. Another night. Thank you so much. By the way, does the
living bronze--"
"What? The living what?"
"Bronze! . . . The living bronze--"
"Oh, yes. Well, what about it?"
"Does it wear petticoats or trousers?"
"Trousers."
"Then I think I rather hate it."
"You--"
But at this point the exchange intervened. Then something happened; and
then Craven heard a voice saying:
"No, darling! It's the teeth--the teeth on the left-hand side. You know
when we were at the Carlton I was in agony. Tell Annie not to--"
It was useless to persist. Besides, he did not want to. So he put up
the receiver. Almost immediately afterwards he was rung up by Lady
Sellingworth, hung on the edge of disappointment for an instant, and
then was caught back into happiness.
When he finally left the telephone and went to his bedroom to change his
clothes, but not to "dress," he thanked God for having clinched matters
so swiftly. Lady Sellingworth had certainly meant to let him down. Some
instinct had told him what to say to her to make her change her mind.
At least, he supposed so. For she had abruptly changed her mind after
hearing of Miss Van Tuyn's invitation. But why had she meant to give up
the dinner? What had happened between his exit from her house and her
ringing him up? For he could not believe in the excuse of ill-health
put forward by her. He was puzzled. Women certainly were difficult to
understand. But it was all right now. His audacity--for he thought it
rather audacious of him to have asked Lady Sellingworth to dine alone
with him at the _Bella Napoli_--was going to be rewarded. As he changed
his clothes he hummed to himself:
"_O Napoli! Bella Napoli_!"
At Claridge's meanwhile Miss Van Tuyn was not humming. As she came away
from the telephone she felt in a very bad temper. Things were not going
well for her just now in London, and she was accustomed to things going
well. As in Craven's letter, so just now at the telephone, she had been
aware of resistance, of a distinct holding back from her influence.
This was a rare experience for her, and she resented it. She believed
Craven's excuse for not dining with her. It was incredible that a
young man who had nothing to do would refuse to pass an evening in her
company. No; he was engaged. But she had felt at the telephone that
he was not sorry he was engaged; she still felt it. He was going to do
something which he preferred doing to dining with her. The tell-tale
line showed itself in her low white forehead.
Fanny Cronin had gone to bed; otherwise they might have dined downstairs
in the restaurant, where they would have been sure of meeting people
whom Miss Van Tuyn knew. She did not choose to go down and dine alone.
A lonely dinner followed by a lonely evening upstairs did not appeal to
her; for a moment, like Lady Sellingworth in Berkeley Square, she felt
the oppression of solitude. She went to the window of her sitting-room,
drew the curtain back, pulled aside the blind, and looked out. The night
was going to be fine; the sky was clear and starry; the London outside
drew her. For a moment she thought of telephoning to Garstin to come
out somewhere and dine with her. He was rude to her, seldom paid her
a compliment, and never made love to her. But he was famous and
interesting. They could always get on in a tete-a-tete conversation. And
then there was now that link between them of the living bronze and her
plan with which Garstin was connected. She meant to know that man; she
meant it more strongly now that Craven was behaving so strangely. She
dropped the blind, drew the curtains forward, went to the fire, and lit
a cigarette.
She wondered where Craven was dining. At some delightful restaurant with
someone he liked very much. She was quite sure of that; or--perhaps
he had told her a lie! Perhaps he was dining at Number 18A, Berkeley
Square! Suddenly she felt certain that she had hit on the truth. That
was it! He was dining in Berkeley Square with Adela Sellingworth.
They were going to have another evening together. Possessed by this
conviction, and acting on an almost fierce impulse--for her vanity was
now suffering severely--she went again to the telephone and rang up Lady
Sellingworth. When she was put through, and heard the characteristic
husky voice of her so-called friend at the other end of the line, she
begged Lady Sellingworth to come and dine at Claridge's that night and
have a quiet talk over things. As she had expected, she got a
refusal. Lady Sellingworth was engaged. Miss Van Tuyn, with a discreet
half-question, half-expression of disappointment, elicited the fact
that Lady Sellingworth was dining out, not having people at home. The
conversation concluded at both ends with charming expressions of regret,
and promises to be together as soon as was humanly possible.
Again Miss Van Tuyn believed an excuse; again her instinct told her that
she had invited someone to dine who was glad to be engaged. There was
only one explanation of the two happy refusals. She was now absolutely
positive that Lady Sellingworth and Craven were going to dine together,
and not in Berkeley Square, and Craven was going to be the host, as he
had said. He had invited Lady Sellingworth to go out and dine somewhere
alone with him, and she had consented to do so. Where would they go? She
thought of the _Bella Napoli_. It was very unlikely that they would
meet anyone there whom they both knew, and they had met at the _Bella
Napoli_. Perhaps they--or perhaps _she_--had romantic recollections
connected with it! Perhaps they had arranged the other evening to
dine there again--and without Beryl Van Tuyn this time! If so, the
intervention at the telephone must have seemed an ironic stroke to them
both.
For a moment Miss Van Tuyn's injured vanity made her feel as if they
were involved in a plot directed against her and her happiness, as if
they had both behaved abominably to her. She had always been so charming
to Lady Sellingworth, had always praised her, had taken her part, had
even had quite a cult for her! It was very disgusting. It showed Miss
Van Tuyn how right she had been in generally cultivating men instead
of women. For, of course, Craven could not get out of things with an
experienced rusee woman of the world like Adela Sellingworth. Women of
that type always knew how to "corner" a man, especially if he were young
and had decent instincts. Poor Craven!
But at the telephone Miss Van Tuyn had felt that Craven was glad to be
engaged that evening, that he was looking forward to something.
After sitting still for a few minutes, always with the tell-tale line in
her forehead, Miss Van Tuyn got up with an air of purpose. She went to a
door at the end of the sitting-room, opened it, crossed a lobby, opened
double doors, and entered a bedroom in which a large, mild-looking
woman, with square cheeks, chestnut-coloured smooth hair, large,
chestnut-coloured eyes under badly painted eyebrows, and a mouth with
teeth that suggested a very kind and well-meaning rabbit, was lying
in bed with a cup and a pot of camomile tea beside her, and Bourget's
"_Mensonges_" in her hand. This was Fanny Cronin, originally from
Philadelphia, but now largely French in a simple and unpretending way.
The painted eyebrows must not be taken as evidence against her. They
were the only artificiality of which Miss Cronin was guilty; and as an
unkind fate had absolutely denied her any eyebrows of her own, she had
conceived it only decent to supply their place.
"I've got back to '_Mensonges_,' Beryl," she said, as she saw Miss Van
Tuyn. "After all, there's nothing like it. It bites right into one, even
on a third reading."
"Dear old Fanny! I'm so glad you're being bitten into. I know how you
love it, and I'm not going to disturb you. I only came to tell you that
I'm going out this evening, and may possibly come back late."
"I hope you will enjoy yourself, dear, and meet pleasant people."
Miss Cronin was thoroughly well trained, and seldom asked any questions.
She had long ago been carefully taught that the duty of a _dame de
compagnie_ consisted solely in being alive in a certain place--the place
selected for her by the person she was _dame de compagnie_ to. It was,
after all, an easy enough profession so long as a beneficent Providence
permitted your heart to beat and your lungs to function. The place
at present was Claridge's Hotel. She had nothing to do except to
lie comfortably in bed there. And this small feat, well within her
competence, she was now accomplishing with complete satisfaction to
herself. She took a happy sip of her camomile tea and added:
"But I know you always do that. You have such a wide choice and are so
clever in selection."
Miss Van Tuyn slightly frowned.
"There isn't such a wide choice in London as there is in Paris," she
said rather morosely.
"I dare say not. Paris is much smaller than London, but much cleverer,
I think. Where would you find an author like Bourget among the English?
Which of _them_ could have written '_Mensonges_'? Which of _them_
could--"
"I know, dear, I know! They haven't the bite. That is what you mean.
They have only the bark."
"Exactly! And when one sits down to a book--"
"Just so, dear. The dog that can only bark is a very dull dog. I saw a
wonderful dog the other day that looked as if it could bite."
"Indeed! In London?"
"Yes. But I'm sure it wasn't English."
"Was it a poodle?"
"No, quite the contrary."
Fanny Cronin looked rather vague. She was really trying to think what
dog was quite the contrary of a poodle, but, after the Channel, her mind
was unequal to the effort. So she took another sip of the camomile tea
and said:
"What colour was it?"
"It was all brown like a brown bronze. Well, good night, Fanny."
"Good night, dear. I really wish you would read '_Mensonges_' again when
I have finished with it. One cannot read over these masterpieces too
often."
"You shall lend it me."
She went out of the room, and Fanny Cronin settled comfortably down once
more to the competent exercise of her profession.
It was now nearly eight o'clock. Miss Van Tuyn went to her bedroom. She
had a maid with her, but she did not ring for the woman. Instead she
shut her door, and began to "do" things for herself. She began by taking
off her gown and putting on a loose wrapper. Then she sat down before
the dressing-table and changed the way in which her corn-coloured hair
was done, making it sit much closer to the head than before, and look
much less striking and conspicuous. The new way of doing her hair
changed her appearance considerably, made her less like a Ceres and more
like a Puritan. When she was quite satisfied with her hair she got out
of her wrapper, and presently put on an absolutely plain black coat and
skirt, a black hat which came down very low on her forehead, a black
veil and black suede gloves. Then she took a tightly furled umbrella
with an ebony handle out of her wardrobe, picked up her purse, unlocked
her door and stepped out into the lobby.
Her French maid appeared from somewhere. She was a rather elderly woman
with a clever, but not unpleasantly subtle, face. Miss Van Tuyn said a
few words to her in a low voice, opened the lobby door and went out.
She took the lift, glided down, walked slowly and carelessly across the
hall and passed out by the swing door.
"A taxi, madam?" said the commissionaire in livery.
She shook her head and walked away down Brook Street in the direction of
Grosvenor Square.
As Craven had predicted it was a fine clear night, dry underfoot, starry
overhead. If Miss Van Tuyn had had with her a chosen companion she would
have enjoyed her walk. She was absolutely self-possessed, and thoroughly
capable of taking care of herself. No terrors of London affected her
spirit. But she was angry and bored at being alone. She felt almost
for the first time in her life neglected and even injured. And she was
determined to try to find out whether her strong suspicions about Lady
Sellingworth and Craven were well founded. If really Craven was giving
a dinner somewhere, and Lady Sellingworth was dining with friends
somewhere else, she had no special reason for irritation. She might
possibly be mistaken in her unpleasant conviction that both of them had
something to do which they preferred to dining with her. But if they
were dining together and alone she would know exactly how things were
between them. For neither of them had done what would surely have been
the natural thing to do if there were no desire for concealment; neither
of them had frankly stated the truth about the dinner.
"If they are dining together they don't wish me to know it," Miss Van
Tuyn said to herself, as she walked along Grosvenor Square and turned
down Carlos Place. "For if I had known it they might have felt obliged
to invite me to join them, as I was inviting them, and as I was the one
who introduced Adela Sellingworth to the _Bella Napoli_."
And as she remembered this she felt more definitely injured. For she had
taken a good deal of trouble to persuade Lady Sellingworth to dine out
in Soho, had taken trouble about the food and about the music, had, in
fact, done everything that was possible to make the evening entertaining
and delightful to her friend. It was even she, by the way, who had
beckoned Craven to their table and had asked him to join them after
dinner.