December Love - Robert Hichens
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These knew how to admire and long for a beautiful woman quite as well
as the men of the moors and the hunting field, and they were often more
subtle in their ways of showing their feelings.
Lady Sellingworth had horses named after her and books dedicated to her.
She moved in all sets which were penetrated by the violent zest for the
life of the big world, and in all sets she more than held her own. She
was as much at home in Chelsea as she was at Newmarket. Her beautifully
disguised search for admiration extended far and wide, and she found
what she wanted sometimes in unexpected places, in sombre Oxford
libraries, in time-worn deaneries, in East-End settlements, through
which she flashed now and then like a bird of Paradise, darting across
the murk of a strange black country on its way to golden regions, as
well as in Mayfair, in the Shires, in foreign capitals, and on the moors
of Scotland.
Her husband was no obstacle in her way. She completely dominated him,
even though she gave him no child. He knew she was, as he expressed it,
"worth fifty" of him. Emphatically he was the husband of his wife, and
five years after their marriage he died still adoring her.
She was sorry; she was even very sorry. And she withdrew from the great
world in which she had been a moving spirit now for over ten years for
the period of mourning, a year. But she was not overwhelmed by sorrow.
It is so very difficult for the woman who lives by, and for, her beauty
and her charm for men to be overwhelmed. One man has gone and she mourns
him; but there are so many men left, all of them with eyes in which
lamps may be set and with hearts to be broken.
It was at this time that she became very familiar with Paris.
She wanted to be away from London, so she took an apartment in Paris,
and began to live there very quietly. Friends, of course, came to see
her, and she began to study Paris thoroughly, not the gay, social Paris,
but a very interesting Paris. Presently her freedom from the ordinary
social ties began to amuse her. She had now so much time for all sorts
of things which women very much in society miss more often than
not. Never going to parties, she was able to go elsewhere. She went
elsewhere. Always there had dwelt caged in her a certain wildness which
did not come from her English blood. There was a foreign strain in
her from the borders of Asia mingled with a strong Celtic strain. This
wildness which in her girlhood she had let loose happily in games and
sports, in violent flirtations, and in much daring skating over thin
ice, which in her married life had spent itself in the whirl of society,
and in the energies necessary to the attainment of an unchallenged
position at the top of things, in her widowhood began to seek an outlet
in Bohemia.
Paris can be a very kind or a very cruel city, in its gaiety hiding
velvet or the claws of a tiger. To Lady Sellingworth--then Lady
Manham--it was kind. It gave her its velvet. She knew a fresh type
of life there, with much for the intellect, with not a little for the
senses, even with something for the heart. It was there that she visited
out-of-the-way cafes, where clever men met and talked over every subject
on earth. A place like the Cafe Royal in London had no attraction for
the Lady Sellingworth over sixty. That sort of thing, raised to the
_nth_ degree, had been familiar to her years and years ago, before Beryl
Van Tuyn and Enid Blunt had been in their cradles.
And the freedom of her widowhood, with no tie at all, had become
gradually very dear to her. She had felt free enough in her marriage.
But this manner of life had more breathing space in it. There is no
doubt that in that Paris year, especially in the second half of it, she
allowed the wild strain in her to play as it had never played before,
like a reckless child out of sight of parents and all relations.
When the mourning was over and she returned to London she was a woman
who had progressed, but whether upon an upward or a downward path who
shall decide? She had certainly become more fascinating. Her beauty was
at its height. The year in Paris, lived almost wholly among clever and
very unprejudiced French people, had given her a peculiar polish--one
Frenchman who knew English slang called it "a shine"--which made her
stand out among her English contemporaries. Many of them when girls had
received a "finish" in Paris. But girls cannot go about as she had gone
about. They had learnt French; she had learnt Paris. From that
time onward she was probably the most truly cosmopolitan of all the
aristocratic Englishwomen of her day. Distinguished foreigners who
visited London generally paid their first private call on her. Her house
was European rather than English. She kept, too, her apartment in Paris,
and lived there almost as much as she lived in London. And, perhaps, her
secret wildness was more at home there.
Scandal, of course, could not leave her untouched. But her position in
society was never challenged. People said dreadful things about her, but
everyone who did not know her wanted to know her, and no one who knew
her wished not to know her. She "stood out" from all the other women in
England of her day, not merely because of her beauty--she was not more
beautiful than several of her contemporaries--but because of her gay
distinction, a daring which was never, which could not be, ill bred,
her extraordinary lack of all affectation, and a peculiar and delightful
bonhomie which made her at home with everyone and everyone at home with
her. Servants and dependents loved her. Everyone about her was fond of
her. And yet she was certainly selfish. Invariably almost she was kind
to people, but herself came first with her. She made few sacrifices,
and many sacrificed themselves to her. There was seldom a moment when
incense was not rising up before her altar, and the burnt offerings to
her were innumerable.
And all through these years she was sinking more deeply into slavery,
while she was ruling others. Her slavery was to herself. She was the
captive of her own vanity. Her love of admiration had developed into
an insatiable passion. She was ceaselessly in her tower spying out for
fresh lovers. From afar off she perceived them, and when they drew near
to her castle she stopped them on their way. She did not love them and
cast them to death like Tamara of the Caucasus. No; but she required of
them the pause on their travels, which was a tribute to her power. No
one must pass her by as if she were an ordinary woman.
Probably there is no weed in all the human garden which grows so fast as
vanity. Lady Sellingworth's vanity grew and grew with the years until
it almost devoured her. It became an idee fixe in her. A few people no
doubt knew this--a few women. But she was saved from all vulgarity of
vanity by an inherent distinction, not only of manner but of something
more intimate, which never quite abandoned her, which her vanity was
never able to destroy. Although her vanity was colossal, she usually
either concealed it, or if she showed it showed it subtly. She was not
of the type which cannot pass a mirror in a restaurant without staring
into it. She only looked into mirrors in private. Nor was she one of
those women who powder their faces and rouge their lips before men in
public places. It was impossible for her to be blatant. Nevertheless,
her moral disease led her gradually to fall from her own secret standard
of what a woman of her world should be. Craven had once said to himself
that Lady Sellingworth could never seek the backstairs. He was not
wholly right in this surmise about her. There was a time in her
life--the time when she was, or was called, a professional beauty--when
she could scarcely see a man's face without watching it for admiration.
Although she preserved her delightfully unselfconscious manner she was
almost ceaselessly conscious of self. Her own beauty was the idol which
she worshipped and which she presented to the world expectant of the
worship of others. There have been many women like her, but few who have
been so clever in hiding their disease. But always seated in her brain
there was an imp who understood, was contemptuous and mocked, an imp who
knew what was coming to her, what comes to all the daughters of men who
outlive youth and its shadowy triumphs. Her brain was ironic, while her
temperament was passionate, and greedy in its pursuit of the food it
clamoured for; her brain watched the unceasing chase with almost a
bitterness of sarcasm, merging sometimes into a bitterness of pity. In
some women there seems at times to be a dual personality, a woman of
the blood at odds with a woman of the grey matter. It was so in Lady
Sellingworth's case, but for a long time the former woman dominated the
latter, whose empire was to come later with white hair and a ravaged
face.
At the age of thirty-five, after some years of brilliant and even of
despotic widowhood, she married again--Lord Sellingworth.
He was twenty-five years older than she was, ruggedly handsome, huge,
lean, self-possessed, very clever, very worldly, and that unusual
phenomenon, a genuine atheist. There was no doubt that he had a keen
passion for her, one of those passions which sometimes flare up in a man
of a strong and impetuous nature, who has lived too much, who is
worn out, haunted at times by physical weariness, yet still fiercely
determined to keep a tight grip on life and life's few real pleasures,
the greatest of which is perhaps the indulgence of love.
Like her first marriage this marriage was apparently a success. Lord
Sellingworth's cleverness fascinated his wife's brain, and led her to
value the pursuits of the intellect more than she had ever done before.
She was proud of his knowledge and wit, proud of being loved by a man of
obvious value. After this marriage her house became more than ever the
resort of the brilliant men of the day. But though Lord Sellingworth
undoubtedly improved his wife's mental capacities, enlarged the horizon
of her mind, and gave her new interests, without specially intending it
he injured her soul. For he increased her worldliness and infected
her with his atheism. She had always been devoted to the world. He
continually suggested to her that there was nothing else, nothing
beyond. All sense of mysticism had been left out of his nature. What he
called "priestcraft" was abhorrent to him. The various religions seemed
to him merely different forms of superstition, the assertions of their
leaders only varying forms of humbug. He was greedy in searching for
food to content the passions of the body, and was restless in pursuit of
nutriment for the mind. But not believing in the soul he took no trouble
about it.
Lady Sellingworth had this man at her feet. Nevertheless, in a certain
way he dominated her. In hard mental power he was much her superior, and
her mind became gradually subservient to his in many subtle ways. It was
in his day that she developed that noticeable and almost reckless egoism
which is summed up by the laconic saying, "after me the deluge." For
Lord Sellingworth's atheism was not of the type which leads to active
humanitarianism, but of the opposite type which leads to an exquisite
selfishness. And he led his wife with him. He taught her the whole
art of self-culture, and with it the whole art of self-worship, subtly
extending to her mind that which for long had been concerned mainly with
the body. They were two of the most selfish and two of the most charming
people in London. For they were both thorough bred and naturally
kind-hearted, and so there were always showers of crumbs falling from
their well-spread table for the benefit of those about them. Their
friends had a magnificent time with them and so did their servants. They
liked others to be pleased with them and satisfied because of them. For
they must live in a warm atmosphere. And nothing makes the atmosphere
so cold about a man or woman as the egoism which shows itself in
miserliness, or in the unwillingness that others should have a good
time.
When Lady Sellingworth was thirty-nine Lord Sellingworth died abruptly.
The doctors said that his heart was worn out; others said something
different, something less kind.
For the second time Lady Sellingworth was a widow; for the second time
she spent the period of mourning in Paris. And when it was over she
went for a tour round the world with a small party of friends; Sir Guy
Letchworth and his plain, but gay and clever wife, and Roger Brand, a
millionaire and a famous Edwardian.
Brand was a bachelor, and had long been a devoted adherent of Lady
Sellingworth's, and people, of course, said that he was going to marry
her. But they eventually came back from their long tour comfortably
disengaged. Brand went back to his enormous home in Park Lane, and Lady
Sellingworth settled down in number 18A Berkeley Square.
She was now forty-one. She had arrived at a very difficult period in the
life of a beauty. The freshness and bloom of youth had inevitably left
her. The adjectives applied to her were changing. The word "lovely" was
dropped. Its place was taken by such epithets as "handsome," "splendid
looking," "brilliant," "striking," "alluring." People spoke of Lady
Sellingworth's "good days"; and said of her, "Isn't she astonishing?"
The word "zenith" was occasionally used in reference to her. A verb
which began to be mixed up with her a good deal was the verb "to
last." It was said of her that she "lasted" wonderfully. Women put the
question, "Isn't it miraculous how Adela Sellingworth lasts?"
All this might, perhaps, be called complimentary. But women are not as
a rule specially fond of such compliments. When kind friends speak of
a woman's "good days" there is an implication that some of her days are
bad. Lady Sellingworth knew as well as any woman which compliments are
left-handed and which are not. On one occasion soon after she returned
to London from her tour round the world a woman friend said to her:
"Adela, you have never looked better than you do now. Do you know what
you remind me of?"
The woman was an American. Lady Sellingworth replied carelessly:
"I haven't the slightest idea."
"You remind me of our wonderful Indian summers that come in October. How
do you manage it?"
That come in October?
These words struck a chill through Lady Sellingworth. Suddenly she felt
the autumn in her. She had been in America: she had known the glory of
its Indian summer; she had also known that Indian summer's startling
sudden collapse. Winter comes swiftly after those almost unnaturally
golden days. And what is there left in winter for a woman who has lived
for her beauty since she was sixteen years old? The freedom of a second
widowhood would be only chill loneliness in winter. She saw herself like
a figure in the distance, sitting over a fire alone. But little warmth
would come from that fire. The warmth that was necessary to her came
from quite other sources than coal or wood kindled and giving out
flames.
Her vanity shuddered. She realized strongly, perhaps, for the first
time, that people were just beginning to think of her as a woman
inevitably on the wane. She looked into her mirror, stared into it,
and tried to consider herself impartially. She was certainly very
good-looking. Her tall figure had never been made ugly by fatness. She
was not the victim of what is sometimes called "the elderly spread." But
although she was slim, considering her great height, she thought that
she discerned signs of a thickening tendency. She must take that in
time. Her figure must not be allowed to degenerate. And her face?
She was so accustomed to her face, and so accustomed to its being a
beautiful face, that it was difficult to her to regard it with cold
impartiality. But she tried to; tried to look at it as she might have
looked at the face of another woman, of say, a rival beauty.
What age did the face seem to be? If she had seen it passing by in the
street what age would she have guessed its owner to be? Something in
the thirties; but perhaps in the late thirties? She wasn't quite
certain about it. Really it is so difficult to look at yourself quite
impartially. And she did not wish to fall into exaggeration, to be
hypercritical. She wished to be strictly reasonable, to see herself
exactly as she was. The eyes were brilliant, but did they look like
young eyes?
No, they didn't. And yet they were full of light. There was nothing
faded about them. But somehow at that moment they looked terribly
experienced. With a conscious effort she tried to change their
expression, to make them look less full of knowledge. But it seemed to
her that she failed utterly. No, they were not young eyes; they never
could be young eyes. The long accustomed woman of the world was mirrored
in them with her many experiences. They were beautiful in their way, but
their way had nothing to do with youth. And near the eyes, very near,
there were definite traces of maturity. A few, as yet very faint, lines
showed; and there were shadows; and there was--she could only call it
to herself "a slightly hollow look," which she had never observed in any
girl, or, so far as she remembered, in any young woman.
She gazed at her mouth and then at her throat. Both showed signs of age;
the throat especially, she thought. The lips were fine, finely curved,
voluptuous. But they were somehow not fresh lips. In some mysterious
way, which really she could not define, life had marked them as mature.
There were a couple of little furrows in the throat and there was also
a slightly "drawn" look on each side just below the line of the jaw. By
the temples also, close to the hair, there was something which did not
look young.
Lady Sellingworth felt very cold. At that moment she probably
exaggerated in her mind the effect of her appearance. She plunged down
into pessimism about herself. A sort of desperation came upon her.
Underneath all her conquering charm, hidden away like a trembling bird
under depths of green leaves, there was a secret diffidence of which she
had occasionally been conscious during her life. It had no doubt been
born with her, had lived in her as long as she had lived. Very few
people knew of its existence. But she knew, had known of it as long as
she remembered. Now that diffidence seemed to hold her with talons, to
press its beak into her heart.
She felt that she could not face the world with any assurance if she
lost her beauty. She had charm, cleverness, rank, position, money. She
knew all her advantages. But at that moment she seemed to be confronting
penury. And as she continued to look into the mirror ugliness seemed to
grow in the woman she saw like a spreading disease till she felt that
she would be frightened to show herself to anyone, and wished she could
hide from everyone who knew her.
That absurdly morbid fit passed, of course. It could not continue,
except in a woman who was physically ill, and Lady Sellingworth was
quite well. But it left its mark in her mind. From that day she began
to take intense trouble with herself. Hitherto she had been inclined
to trust her own beauty. She had relied on it almost instinctively.
And that strange, hidden diffidence, when it had manifested itself,
had manifested itself in connexion with social things, the success of
a dinner, or with things of the mind, the success or non-success of a
conversation with a clever man. She had never spoken of it to anyone,
for she had always been more or less ashamed of it, and had brought
silence to her aid in the endeavour to stamp it out lest it should
impair her power over others. But now it was quickened within her. It
grew, and in its growth tortured her.
"How do you manage it?"
That not very kind question of the friend who had compared her to an
Indian summer remained with Lady Sellingworth. Since she had considered
herself in the mirror she had realized that she had attained that
critical period in a beauty's life when she must begin incessantly to
manage to continue a beauty. Hitherto, beyond always dressing perfectly
and taking care to be properly "turned out," she had done less to
herself than many women habitually do. Now she swung to the opposite
extreme. There is no need to describe what she did. She did, or had done
to her, all that she considered necessary, and she considered that a
very great deal was necessary.
A certain Greek, who was a marvellous expert in his line, helped her at
a very high figure. And she helped herself by much rigid abstinence,
by denying natural appetites, by patient physical discipline. Her fight
against the years was tremendous, and was conducted with extraordinary
courage.
But nevertheless it seemed to her that a curse was put upon her; in that
she was surely one of those women who, once they take the first step
upon the downward slope, are compelled to go forward with a damnable
rapidity.
The more she "managed it" the more there seemed to be to manage.
From the time when she frankly gave herself into the clutches of
artificiality the natural physical merit of her seemed to her to
deteriorate at a speed which was headlong.
A hideous leap in the downward course took place presently. She began to
dye her hair. She was not such a fool as to change its natural colour.
She merely concealed the fact that white hairs were beginning to grow on
her head at an age when many simple people, who don't care particularly
what they look like--sensible clergymen's wives in the provinces, and
others unknown to fashion--remain as brown as a berry, or as pleasantly
auburn as the rind of a chestnut.
The knowledge of those hidden white hairs haunted her. She felt horribly
ashamed of them. She hated them with an intense, and almost despairing,
hatred. For they stamped the terrific difference between her body and
her nature.
It seemed to her that in her nature she retained all the passions of
youth. This was not strictly true, for no woman over forty has precisely
the same passions as an ardent girl, however ardent she may be. But the
"wild heart," spoken of by Lady Sellingworth to Craven, still beat in
her breast, and the vanity of the girl, enormously increased by the
passage of the years, still lived intensely in the middle-aged woman.
It was perhaps this natural wildness combined with her vanity which
tortured Lady Sellingworth most at this period of her life. She still
desired happiness and pleasure greedily, indeed with almost unnatural
greediness; she still felt that life robbed of the admiration and the
longing of men would not be worth living.
Beryl Van Tuyn had spoken of a photograph of Lady Sellingworth taken
when she was about forty-nine, and had said that, though very handsome,
it showed a _fausse jeunesse_, and revealed a woman looking vain and
imperious, a woman with the expression of one always on the watch for
new lovers. And there had been a cruel truth in her words. For, from the
time when she had given herself to artificiality until the time, some
nine years later, when she had plunged into what had seemed to her,
and to many others, something very like old age, Lady Sellingworth had
definitely and continuously deteriorated, as all those do who try
to defy any natural process. Carrying on a fight in which there is
a possibility of winning may not do serious harm to a character, but
carrying on a fight which must inevitably be lost always hardens and
embitters the combatant. During those years of her _fausse jeunesse_
Lady Sellingworth was at her worst.
For one thing she became the victim of jealousy. She was secretly
jealous of good-looking young women, and, spreading her evil wide like a
cloud, she was even jealous of youth. To be young was to possess a
gift which she had lost, and a gift which men love as they love but few
things. She could not help secretly hating the possessors of it.
She had now become enrolled in the "old guard," and had adopted as her
device their motto, "Never give up." She was one of the more or less
mysterious fighters of London. She fought youth incessantly, and she
fought Time. And sometimes the weariness and the nausea of battle lay
heavy upon her. Her expression began to change. She never lost, she
never could lose, her distinction, but it was slightly blurred, slightly
tarnished. She preserved the appearance of bonhomie, but her cordiality,
her good nature, were not what they had been. Formerly she had had
marvellous spirits; now she was often accompanied into the world by the
black dog. And when she was alone he sat by the hearth with her.
She began to hate being a widow. Sometimes she thought that she wished
she had had children. But then it occurred to her that they might have
been daughters, lovely girls now perhaps, showing to society what she
had once been. With such daughters she would surely have been forced
into abdication. For she knew that she could never have entered into a
contest with her own children. Perhaps it was best as it was, best that
she was childless.