Chapter Twelve. Is Distinctly Enigmatical.
Distinction among women is rapidly becoming a lost art. Woman nowadays is nothing if not modern in her views. After her presentation, her natural enthusiasm and charming high spirits usually cause her to take a too tolerant and rosy view of life, with the result that she degenerates into being merely smart. She becomes absorbed in Man and Millinery. Dress is her keynote. A lady’s luggage has during the past ten years assumed alarming proportions, and a fashionable woman rushes eagerly to a house-party for the express purpose of airing the latest triumphs of Paquin or Lentheric. She is expected to make as many alterations in her costume as a quick-change artiste at the music-halls. In old times a tailor-made gown was worn for breakfast; but now a smart gown is put on for the morning meal, afterwards to be changed for a walking-costume or a suit for motor-driving. Luncheon demands another dainty gown, and tea brings out that luxurious and poetical garment, the tea-gown. At quite a small party this is sometimes retained for dinner, but for a big affair a magnificent dress is donned; and the same gown, whether designed for the morning or the evening, must never be worn twice.
Except when she was entertaining for a political purpose, the Duchess of Penarth’s functions were characterised by an exclusiveness which belonged more to the mid-Victorian period than to latter-day London. Her Grace was a well-known hostess, and as her house-parties in Derbyshire usually included a member of the royal family, her circle of guests was a small and exceedingly smart one. If any outsider was admitted to her balls, he or she was always a brilliant person. Every season, of course, sees a new recruit to the ranks of these distinguished strangers—the latest empire-builder, the newest millionaire, or the most recently discovered society beauty. Dudley Chisholm had several times accompanied Claudia to balls at Penarth House, and knew well that everything was most magnificently done.
The carriage drew up in the long line that slowly filed into the old-fashioned courtyard, there to set down the guests. As Dudley looked out upon the lights of Piccadilly the rhymer’s jingle recurred to him:
Oh! the tales that you could tell,
Piccadilly.
(Fit for Heaven, fit for hell),
Piccadilly.
Of the folk who buy and sell,
Of the merry marriage bell,
Of the birthday, of the knell,
Of the palace, of the cell,
Of the beldame, and the belle,
Of the rest of them who fell,
Piccadilly.
Yes, he hated it all. But it was the end—his last night with the woman who had for so long held him enthralled.
He believed he had broken the spell when he left her at Albert Gate a few mornings before; but he now discovered that he had been mistaken. Her tears had moved him. Although she was much to blame, he could not bear to see her suffer.
Up that wide staircase, well-known for its ancient handrail of crystal, they passed to the ballroom, which, as was usual at Penarth House, presented a most brilliant coup d’oeil. The women, all of them splendidly attired, ranged from the freshest débutante to the painted brigade of frivolous fifty, the members of which exhibit all the pitiful paraphernalia of the womanhood which counterfeits the youth it has lost and wreathes the death’s head in artificial smiles. The crush was great, but even before Dudley and Lady Richard Nevill had entered the ballroom his beautiful companion was receiving homage from every side. Her arrival was the clou of the entertainment, and Her Grace, an elderly, rather stout person, wearing a magnificent tiara, came fussily forward to greet her.
Chisholm was quick to notice that Claudia had no desire to dance with any of the host of partners who at once began to petition her. Many of the men he knew—and heartily hated. Young scions of noble houses, a bachelor millionaire with black, mutton-chop whiskers, a reckless young peer, in whose company Claudia had often of late been seen, all crowded about her, smiling, paying compliments, and bowing over her hand.
But to all of these she excused herself. She was not feeling well, she declared, and as yet could not possibly dance. So by degrees her court slowly dissolved, and for a time she and Dudley were left alone. As may be imagined, there was much whispering in all quarters about her re-appearance in public with Chisholm.
They sat out several dances in a cool anteroom, dimly lit and filled with palms. In the half darkness they clasped hands, but they spoke very little, fearing lest others might overhear. Chisholm sat as one dead to all around him. As he passed through the great ballroom with its myriad lights and restless crowd he had mechanically returned the salutes of those who knew him, without recognising a single man or woman. In his present mood friends and enemies were alike to him—all of them so many shapes from the past.
To the woman at his side he clung, and to her alone. The memory of their bygone happiness he could not put aside. He would be compelled to make his adieux to life very soon—perhaps, indeed, in a few hours—and his only regret was for her. He could tell her nothing, and when he was dead she, like the others, would spurn his memory.
That thought caused him to grip the small, white-gloved hand he held. His lips moved convulsively, but in that subdued light Claudia could not detect his agitation. He was unusually sad and apprehensive, fearful of some impending catastrophe—that was all she knew.
She had tried to arouse him by making caustic and amusing criticisms regarding those about them, but all to no purpose. Her witticisms provoked no smile. He seemed utterly lost in his melancholy reflections.
“Listen!” she said at last. “There’s a waltz. Let us go.”
She rose and led him into the ballroom, where a moment later they were whirling along together in the smart crowd, compelling even jealous onlookers to describe them as splendidly matched. As Dudley steered his beautiful partner among the other dancers the music caused a flow of sad memories to surge through his brain—memories of the hundreds of balls at which they had been happy in each other’s love.
He laughed bitterly within himself as he saw her smile at a man she knew. Yes, when he was dead she would, he supposed, mourn for him for the first day and forget him on the second, just as completely as she had forgotten her indulgent husband. He saw that look of recognition exchanged between them; but the man’s face was unfamiliar. He was young, rather sallow-faced, with a dark-brown beard.
But he made no comment. As this waltz was their last, why should he spoil it? Upon her all argument was expended in vain, he declared to himself bitterly.
The floor was perfect, the music excellent, and quickly the old flush of pleasure came back to her face.
“You are enjoying it?” he whispered to her.
“And why don’t you, Dudley?” she asked. “You really ought to put on a more pleasant expression. People will remark upon it.”
“Let them say what they will,” he replied in a hard tone. “They cannot hurt me now.”
“Well, dear, you look as grave as if you were at a funeral. Forgive me for speaking plainly, won’t you?”
“I am grave because I cannot take leave of all that I have learnt to love without a feeling of poignant regret,” he answered. “In future I shall be debarred from all this.”
“Why? Are you going to enter a monastery, or something?” she asked, her old easy-going insouciance now returning to her.
“No, not exactly that!” he answered ambiguously.
“Really, I can’t make you out to-night, Dudley,” she answered as, now that the waltz had ended, he was conducting her across the room. “I do wish you’d tell me this extraordinary secret which is oppressing you. Once you used to tell me everything. But now—”
“Ah! it is different now,” he said.
“Because you mistrust me?”
“No, because our love must end,” he replied in a voice so low that none overheard.
She looked at him swiftly with a pained expression, still unable to discover the reason of his extraordinary attitude of melancholy and despair.
“Even if it must be as you have said, surely it is unnecessary to exhibit your heart upon your sleeve in public?” she argued. “Your words have placed upon me a heavy burden of sorrow, God knows! But I have learned to wear a mask, and only give myself up to wretchedness in the silence of my own room.” She spoke the truth. Well-versed, indeed, was she in all the feminine artifices. He knew quite well that her gaiety was assumed, for he had noticed how her hand trembled, and he had seen how quickly her breast rose and fell beneath its lace. Though her heart was stirred to its very depths, to the smart world in which she delighted to move she betrayed not a single sign of grief. She was just the gay, reckless woman who was so popular as a host and so eagerly sought as guest, the pretty woman of the hour, the brilliant object of so much scandal.
“Ah!” he said briefly, “you are a woman.”
“Yes,” she answered in a deep, intense whisper. “A woman who has always loved you, Dudley, and who loves you still!”
At that instant the Duchess of Penarth approached them and carried Claudia away to be introduced to some notable person—who was “dying to know” her. No sooner had she left him than Dudley found himself face to face with a tall, elderly man who sat for South Staffordshire and was one of the staunchest supporters of the Government.
Naturally they exchanged greetings, and fell to chatting. While they were thus engaged the young brown-bearded man to whom Claudia had given a covert sign of recognition passed them.
“Do you happen to know that fellow’s name?” Chisholm asked, well aware that his friend was a popular figure in society and knew every one.
“What, the young fellow now speaking to Lady Meldrum? Oh, don’t you know? That’s the Grand-Duke Stanislas.”
“The Grand-Duke?” echoed the Under-Secretary, as the truth at once became apparent. No doubt he had watched them separate and was now on his way in search of her.
“And is that elderly woman with white hair Lady Meldrum? I’ve heard of her. Wife of a big iron-founder in Glasgow, isn’t she?”
“That’s so,” his friend answered. “But haven’t you met their ward, Muriel Mortimer? She was presented last year. Awfully pretty girl. There she is, in cream, sitting close by Lady Meldrum. You should know her. Let me introduce you. I’m an old friend of the family, you know, and she’s been wanting to know you for ever so long.”
At first he held back, declaring that he had to return to the House before it rose; but the Member for South Staffordshire would take no refusal, and a moment later the Under-Secretary found himself bowing before a fair-haired girl with a sweet, innocent-looking face, dimpled cheeks that blushed slightly as he was introduced, and a pair of large wide-open blue eyes that looked out upon him in wonder.
About twenty-two he judged her to be, fragile, pretty, almost childlike in her artless grace. Her complexion was perfect, and her rather plainly made toilette of cream chiffon suited her beauty admirably. Indeed, demure and rather shy, she seemed out of place in that crowd of the more brilliant butterflies of fashion.
A moment before, Dudley Chisholm had turned away from the dancers and had intended to drive down to the House in order to while away the rest of the night, but now this resolution was forgotten, because he had at once become interested in the girl with whom he had just made acquaintance, and all the more so when he recollected the colonel’s strange warning down at Wroxeter. He was bending towards her, speaking in commonplaces, reflecting the while that there certainly was nothing in her outward appearance to cause him terror.
And yet the colonel had prophesied correctly in regard to their meeting and had warned him to avoid her. Why? The mystery underlying the words of his friend was certainly remarkable.
He was really attracted towards her by her childlike absence of artificiality. Though the shyness of the débutante had scarcely worn off, she committed no errors of etiquette. As she slowly fanned herself, she talked to him with all the gravity and composure of a woman of the world.
Lady Meldrum had also been introduced to him by the honourable Member for South Staffordshire, and she was, he discovered, a rather gushing, good-looking woman of the type prone to paying compliments quite indiscriminately.
Women nowadays keep their good looks much longer than they used to do. The woman of forty, and even the woman of fifty, to-day is not so old as the woman of thirty was—well, thirty years ago. For this reason, no doubt, and because we are becoming so very Continental, the married women reign supreme, and appear to reign for ever. It seems absurd to read in the list of beauties at a ball, the names of mothers and daughters bracketed together; but, in several instances, if the truth were told, it should be the daughter’s name, and and not the mother’s, which ought to be left out.
“Do you know, Mr Chisholm, I have already paid a visit to your chambers,” her ladyship laughed. “Lady Richard Nevill took me up with her, fearing that I should catch cold while waiting in the carriage. She has been staying with us down at Fernhurst. Perhaps you have heard?”
“She told me so,” the Under-Secretary answered, at once summing her up as a rather vulgar person who had opened the door of society by means of a key fashioned out of gold.
“And now I must let you into another secret,” she went on fussily. “I took Muriel to the House the other night, and we heard you speak.”
He smiled.
“I don’t know what subject you heard me speak upon, Miss Mortimer,” he said, turning to the blue-eyed girl in cream, “but I hope you were edified.”
“I was intensely interested,” the young girl said. “Mr Blackwood,” she added, indicating the Honourable Member who had introduced them,—“took us all through the House and showed us the library, the dining-rooms, the Lobby, and all the places that I’d read about. I had no idea the House of Commons was such a wonderful place and so full of creature comforts.”
“Its wonders are very often tiresome,” he remarked with a little smile. “As a show-place, Miss Mortimer, it is one of the sights of England. As a place in which to spend half one’s days it is not the most comfortable, I assure you.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Lady Meldrum; “of course; I quite understand. A man holding such an important position in the Government as you do can have but little time for leisure. I saw you with Lady Richard Nevill just now. She brought you here, of course.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I go out very little.”
“And she induced you to come here with her. Charming woman! She was the light and soul of our party at Fernhurst.”
And as the wife of the Jubilee knight continued to make claims upon Dudley’s attention, he was prevented from exchanging more than a few words with the sweet-faced girl against whom he had been so strangely warned by the man who for so many years had been one of his closest friends.
This plump wife of the estimable Scotch iron-founder was a recent importation into society. She had, he heard, been “taken up” by Claudia, and owed all her success to her ladyship’s introductions. It is not given to every one to entertain a Grand-Duke for the shooting, and her fame as a hostess had been considerably increased by her good fortune in this respect.
She chattered steadily until the tall, thin-faced Duke of Penarth himself strolled past, bowed on catching sight of her, and stayed to talk for a few moments. Lady Meldrum did not hesitate when it was necessary to choose between a sprat and a whale. She at once turned aside from Dudley, thus giving him a chance to improve the occasion with her ward.
Yes, he decided, she was possessed of a charming ingenuousness; and yet at the same time there was nothing of the school-miss about her.
She had given a very candid and amusing opinion regarding the controversy which had taken place in the House at the time of her visit, and had openly expressed her admiration of the determined and outspoken manner in which he had supported the Government and crushed the arguments of the Opposition.
“I really suspect you to be a politician, Miss Mortimer,” he laughed presently. “You seem well-versed in so many points of our foreign policy.”
“Oh,” she answered with a smile. “I read the papers in preference to novels, that’s the reason.”
Another waltz was commencing. As he turned to glance to the centre of the room, his eyes fell upon a couple gliding together among the dancers. He bit his lip, for he recognised them as the Grand-Duke and the woman who only an hour ago had vowed that she still loved him.
He turned back again to that pale, childish face with the blue eyes, and saw truth, honesty, and purity mirrored there.
Yet he had been distinctly and seriously warned against her—even her.
Why, he wondered, had the colonel spoken in so forcible a fashion, and yet refused a single word of explanation?
It was an enigma, to say the least of it.
