X
BELGRAVIA
Dora was receiving her guests at the top of the staircase, at the entrance of the large drawing-room. Philip found about thirty people already arrived, and he proceeded to shake hands and distribute words of welcome. At half-past ten it had become difficult to circulate in the rooms; the staircase and hall were crowded, but a stream of carriages still flowed up.
At eleven o'clock the fête was at its height, veritably dazzling. The lights, the flowers, made it a fairy scene. It was a phantasmagoria of heads, bare shoulders, black coats, diamonds, shimmering satins, and priceless lace; and, permeating the whole, a perfume as of hot-house flowers.
All the types of society were to be recognised in the throng – the diplomatists, with their eternal smile and irreproachably cut clothes; the aristocracy, with its frigid bored look, occasionally smiling, as if by mechanism; the City by its biblical noses; the Stock Exchange by those cold, metallic, careworn men, aged before their time by the wrinkles that money preoccupations plough on their foreheads; literature by men bright and interested in everything around them, cheerily provoking ripples of laughter among the women, and recounting their best anecdotes among the men. The fine arts were represented by a few noble-looking heads rising out of Shakespeare collars.
On all sides were exquisite toilettes, setting off forms of dazzling fairness and admirable poise – a complete representative crowd of that calm, proud, haughty British nation, full of dignity, robust health, and self-confidence; a nation that holds in its hands the destinies of half the earth.
Lorimer and de Lussac met in a corner of the drawing-room.
"What a reception!" said de Lussac. "All London is rubbing shoulders here, in order to have a look at the man who has invented the famous shell."
"And his wife," added Lorimer.
"And his wife," repeated de Lussac. "I never saw her looking so lovely. Raphael might have drawn the oval of her face, Murillo her eyes, Titian her hair, Rubens her shoulders."
"And a modern English painter the sadness of her brow," said Lorimer. "Doesn't she look bored, poor woman?"
"That puts the finishing touch, and helps to make her superb – ideal. A calm, cold, sad face is the one mieux portée in England. It is almost de rigueur. Nothing is such bad form as to appear to enjoy life. She is quite à la mode."
"A la mort," said Lorimer. "My dear fellow, I'll tell you what it is, such parties as this give me shivers down the back. Your countrywoman, Madame Vigée-Lebrun, was right when she said, 'The English amuse themselves as the French bore themselves.'"
"Then why do you come here, old fellow?"
"Oh, I! Why, I come as a doctor. I am deeply interested in a special case. I am studying and following carefully the progress of a malady. I am here diagnosing."
"And your patient is" …
"Our worthy host," said Lorimer.
"How do you find him to-day?"
"The disease is taking its course; he will get over it; but the cure will take time."
Lorimer fixed his eyeglass in his eye, and surveyed the crowd.
"Ah," he ejaculated, letting his glass drop again, "how I preferred the good little Bohemian Sunday suppers, the pretty little house in St. John's Wood! The servants were dismissed, and everybody helped everybody else. There was a house where gaiety reigned supreme, en autocrate! And what music we used to have! What glorious talks, what delicious discussions on every topic under the sun! Artists, writers, journalists, out-vied one another in brilliancy. Politics were put aside, and the Bourse and all that makes modern life insufferable. We were never more than twelve of us, so that the conversation could always be general, and, for that matter, the house did not contain a room large enough to hold comfortably more than a dozen people. How all the guests harmonised together! Those were parties. Here they are funereal functions. In a small room conversation is easy, people can talk easily. In a large room one is swamped, and feels like a solution of oneself."
"I see," said de Lussac, "that in spite of all your successes, you have remained a philosopher."
"More than ever. But look round you. Look at all these faces. These people touch a spring to make themselves smile. Oh, if that is your fashion of enjoying yourself, thanks, I prefer something else. Every time I come among this set, I am taken with furious longings every quarter of an hour to rush into the street and shout, to assure myself that I am alive. Poor old Grantham! It was his dream to see his wife shine in society. Poor devil! and such a good fellow, not to speak of his great future as a painter. However, there is our hostess coming towards us. Look at her! How happy she looks, this queen with her new crown – a capital model for 'Mary Stuart going to the Scaffold.'"
De Lussac, recognising some people he knew, moved off to join their group. Lorimer went towards Dora, who smiled with relief at seeing him in the crowd. Everyone seemed to have arrived now, and there was no need for her to remain at her post; but, in case of possible fresh comers, she stayed near the entrance of the room. She looked pale, her face was drawn with fatigue, and her eyes looked unnaturally large.
"Oh, what good it does one to see an old friend's familiar face in a crowd like this," she said to Lorimer, drawing him back towards the doorway of the large drawing-room. "My dear Gerald, I don't believe I know by sight the half of my guests."
The idea struck her as so funny that she began to laugh heartily.
"Do you know half?" exclaimed Lorimer; "that is very good really. As for the crowd, don't complain of that. An English hostess is a failure if people do not stifle in her drawing-room; and if half a dozen women faint, then the party is a social success that covers its giver with glory. The society papers talk of her. – You seem tired."
"Yes," said Dora, "tired – at the end of my strength and my courage."
"Let me take you to the buffet."
They went down together. Lorimer got her a biscuit, an ice, and a glass of champagne, and this light refreshment reanimated her.
On their way back to the drawing-room Lorimer took up the thread of the conversation again.
"Come now, my dear Dora," said he, "your lot is very enviable after all, you know. You are young, beautiful, rich, adored – one of the queens of society. What more do you ask?"
"I ask nothing more," replied Dora; "I ask a great deal less. A queen in society! I had rather be queen at home, as I used to be. We were left in peace in those times. Now all the idlers pry into our life. And why? Oh, it is too silly! Because Philip refused to sell Sir Benjamin Pond a picture which he was painting for me. Yes, that is what is occupying them to-night. They all go to have a look at the portrait, one after another, and then they laugh. Can you conceive such a thing? There exists, or rather there existed, a painter who loved his wife, and did not mind showing it! Is it not droll? So vulgar, you know! It appears that it creates high fun at the clubs. Ah, you may talk about women's tongues, but to retail rubbish and circulate scandal, you must get a dozen men together in a club smoking-room. They are beyond competition, my dear Gerald. I would give all my guests for a couple of intimate friends, for a couple of devoted relatives. Ah, you may say what you like, blood is thicker than afternoon tea."
"You were too happy," said Lorimer, who had been amused at Dora's tirade; "now you must share your happiness a little."
"Yes, and my husband with everybody. Where is my share? How I should like to leave this room and go and sit in a quiet corner for a good talk, such as we used to have in the good old times in the other house."
"Why move? Stay where you are, and instead of thinking yourself on show, try and imagine that all this crowd is here for your amusement. I know all your guests personally or by sight. I am your 'Who's who' for to-night. Make use of me. I will show and explain the magic lantern."
"So you shall," said Dora, amused by the suggestion. "Now, then, who is that horrible creature painted and dyed, with eyes half out of her head and an eternal sickly smile on her face?"
"Lady Agatha Ashby, an old grump of the fashionable world. No one knows her age. Some say it is seventy-two, others put it at a hundred and seventy-two. She is enamelled, and the mouth, as you see it, is fixed in that way with a smile that lasts three hours. They say she used to be pretty and rather witty. Makes it her duty to know everybody worth knowing. Will probably leave memoirs behind her – a diary at anyrate."
"And those?" said Dora, indicating two couples passing near her.
"The Earl of Gampton. Behind him the Countess, a young American woman, who brought him three million dollars, with which he has been able to get his coat-of-arms out of pawn. Our British aristocracy gets regilded in Chicago and New York."
"How can a woman love or respect a man who allows himself to be purchased for a title of nobility?"
"And," said Lorimer, "how can a man love or respect a woman who buys him, and degrades him in his own eyes?"
"You are right," responded Dora. "I cannot see any possible element of happiness in such marriages. She is ugly," she added, after taking a second look at the Countess.
"Beauty fades," said Lorimer, in excuse for Lord Gampton.
"Yes, but ugliness remains," replied Dora.
"And the dollars, too, happily – it is a compensation – a fine indemnity."
"Not always; fortunes have been known to fade too."
"Ah," ejaculated Lorimer, as there passed by him a middle-aged man, fairly good-looking, but wearing a forbidding, sulky expression, "there is Sir George Hardy. He has not inflicted his wife on you."
"No, thank Heaven! – if what people say is true."
"True enough. People don't ask Lady Hardy, but Sir George is a philosopher; he does not resent being asked out alone; and he has the good sense never to try and introduce one to his wife. There are two kinds of women – those you marry, and those you don't introduce to your friends. Sir George has them both in one."
"What a dead-weight such a woman must be! To be proud of one's wife, to be proud of one's husband – that is one of the great keys to happiness in married life. Oh, Gerald, do look at that imposing-looking matron; who is she?"
"The Dowager-Countess of Chausey, pretty well known for her serious flirtations in 1850."
"How can a woman of her age go about so outrageously uncovered? So long as English women do not show their feet, they think they are all right. Her dress is perfectly indecent."
"Not the dress, but its contents," said Lorimer. "The Countess might, it is true, draw a veil across the past and leave something to the imagination of the beholder. But the fun of the thing is, that the dowager is one of the vice-presidents of the society recently founded for the suppression of the nude in our museums and picture galleries. O the British matron!"
"What a proud carriage she has for a woman of her age," said Dora.
"One would think she was carrying the Holy Grail – two Holy Grails in a Parsifal procession."
"Upon my word, I do believe," said Dora, "that women nowadays trust to providence to keep their dresses on their backs! But what lovely frocks! I do not understand how there can still be people who say that the English woman does not know how to dress."
"Not now. A few years back one might have said with truth that the German woman was covered, the English woman was clothed!"
"Not always," said Dora, laughing.
"The American was arrayed, but the French woman alone was dressed. In the present day, the English woman of good society dresses as tastefully as her French sisters, and this fact would be known in France, if English women had not that bad habit of putting all their oldest garments into requisition when they travel."
"French women have not much to teach us now."
"One or two things still. A little Parisian dressmaker, who would come over and set up in England to teach English women to hold their dresses up in the street, ought to make a fortune in no time. It is the most graceful, artistic, and typical movement of the French woman."
"On the other hand, my dear Gerald," said Dora, "French women mince or trot or proceed, English women walk. We are their superiors in many things."
"We might make comparisons without end, and finally be sorely puzzled where to award the prize."
Here the servant announced "Mrs. Van der Leyd Smith."
"Smythe – not Smith," said the new arrival, indignantly turning to the domestic.
"That is the mother of Lady Gampton," whispered Lorimer to Dora.
Dora rose and went to shake hands with her.
"I am a little late," she said; "I have been to the Queen's Theatre to see Majella. It is a play that will draw crowded houses till the end of next season. You have seen it, of course."
"Yes," said Dora, "I was at the first night – allow me to introduce its author – Mr. Gerald Lorimer."
"What a pleasure to meet you!" said she, as Lorimer came forward and bowed. "I congratulate you sincerely; your play is a chef-d'œuvre. The house was packed to-night, and the enthusiasm boundless."
"I am happy the public appreciate the play," said Lorimer, bowing his acknowledgments of her compliments.
"Majella will place our old friend in the front rank of the dramatic authors of the day."
"And fill his coffers to the brim," said the American lady, with a knowing glance, which meant, "that is the main thing."
Lorimer and Dora exchanged comprehensive looks. The lady's wink had explained in one flash the motto of New York. Not who are you? nor what are you? nor yet what have you done? but how much do you make?
Loud and evidently sincere applause was heard coming from the smaller drawing-room where the concert was being given. Presently there appeared, making towards the staircase, a tall fair young man who replied by smiles and repeated bows to the bravos which were accorded to him by this blasé audience of people, little accustomed to lavish applause on anyone. It was Schowalski, a well-known pianist who came to London every year to give a concert, and play in drawing-rooms during the season. At a certain distance, Schowalski's head recalled that of his celebrated compatriot and confrère Paderewski; however, he had not the delicate, finely chiselled profile which gives the latter his striking and unforgetable physiognomy. Taller, more vigorous, more solidly and massively built, with long light hair, straight and thick, and his enormous moustache falling in a semicircle around the mouth, he might have sat for Brennus or Vercingetorix.
Dora held out her hand as he was about to go downstairs.
"Thanks a thousand times," said she; "you have played like an angel."
And she introduced him to the American lady still at her side.
"I had the honour of making madame's acquaintance in New York," said Schowalski, bowing.
"Really," replied Mrs. W. G. van der Leyd Smythe, "when was that?"
"Why, two years ago in New York, in your drawing-room, where I had the honour of playing."
"That's true – I think I remember – in January 1896; yes, yes – delighted to meet you again, Mr. … I never can remember names – what is his name again?" asked she of Dora.
Schowalski heard no more. He bowed, shook hands with a few friends and disappeared.
"Schowalski is one of the greatest pianists of the day," said Dora.
"I know, I know," said the lady with the string of names, "but what impertinence to enter into conversation with your guests, as if he had been invited. Upon my word, the effrontery of these musicians!"
She followed him with her eyes as she stared through a pair of long-handled glasses, that are a weapon of offence in the fingers of some women.
"Well, to be sure," she cried, "if he isn't shaking hands with Lady Gampton now! My dear Mrs. Grantham, in New York we do not entertain musicians, we engage them to entertain us – we pay them and we are quits."
"My dear Mrs. Van der Leyd Smith" —
"Smythe," said the lady, correcting Dora.
"Excuse me, I never can remember names. In England, artists like Schowalski are received by the aristocracy and even at Court. Perhaps that makes them so bold as to think they may be fit to associate with the aristocracy of New York."
"Take that," she said to herself.
The magnificent New Yorker fanned herself, smiled a little awry, and went to join the group which held her daughter, the Countess of Gampton.
Lorimer had not lost a word of the conversation. He would fain have cried "Bravo."
"For a débutante," said he, "you are going strong – that was promising."
"My dear Gerald, I feel that I am getting spiteful – I shall bite soon."
Just at this moment, quite near the door, she perceived a lady taking notes. She had already noticed her before – this person who drew up every now and then near certain groups, carefully studied the dresses, and looked up and down the people whom she did not seem to know.
"Do tell me," Dora said to Lorimer, "who is that woman who puzzles me so? What is she doing? She seems to be taking notes; just now she was making little sketches – she is an artist, no doubt."
"How innocent you are!" cried Lorimer, laughing loudly. "Yes, she is an artist, if you will – who works for some fashion paper – or a lady reporter taking notes for a society paper."
"But I do not know her," said Dora; "I am perfectly sure I never asked her here."
"You, no; but perhaps someone else. For that matter reporters find their way pretty nearly everywhere without invitation. It is their calling. This one is taking notes, to publish in her paper an account of your party."
"But it is an insult," cried Dora; "I wish they would leave me alone. I don't want accounts in papers – my house is private."
"Wait a moment – why, yes," exclaimed Lorimer, who had just put up his eyeglass to look at the lady in question; "yes, of course, I know her, she writes for The Social Wave, a paper for people in the swim. Shall I introduce her to you?"
"Oh, no thank you, please don't," replied Dora.
"Some time ago," continued Lorimer, "I used to meet her often at parties. She is a rather clever little woman, and has the knack of turning out readable paragraphs. She is tolerated everywhere for the sake of what she writes – you know, there are plenty of people who like publicity."
Lorimer had noticed that the lady reporter had let fall two leaves from her notebook. He watched his opportunity, picked them up, and brought them to Dora.
"Look, we are going to have some fun. I have samples. Listen, 'Lady Mardon looked thrillingly lovely in electric blue … her superb shoulders'" …
"Enough, enough," said Dora. "The idea of it."
"Wait a minute; here is something else. 'Lady Margaret Solby wore a dream of sea-green and salmon, and was the admiration of everyone. Mrs. Van der Leyd Smythe received congratulations on all sides on the subject of her daughter's marriage with the young Earl of Gampton.'"
"And people read that!" said Dora.
"Certainly, and, more wonderful still, people buy it. Oh, listen to this, here is something that concerns you personally. 'Mrs. Philip Grantham wore a dress of white satin, trimmed with lace and silver embroidery, and, blazing with diamonds and emeralds, received her guests with a simplicity and a grace which will speedily make her one of the most popular hostesses in London.' Now, that is what I call amiable; she treats you with generosity." And seeing that Dora seemed very much annoyed, he added, "That is the kind of literature that delights our modest countrywomen."
"There are no more journalists," said Dora, with disgust, "there are only concierges."
She took the pages and tore them in shreds. Then, with a little feeling of shame at having been amusing herself at the expense of her guests, she rose, made a little sign to Lorimer, and was soon swallowed up in the crush, saying a few pleasant words here and there to her acquaintances as she went.
Lorimer went down to the buffet, where he found Schowalski, who was going in heavily for sandwiches, cakes and ices and champagne. The appetite of musicians is proverbial!
"Ah, Monsieur Lorimer," said he, "I am so glad to see you, you will be the very man to render me a little service. I have just finished," he added in confidence, "a grand concerto in four parts for the piano. In that concerto I have expressed all the great sorrows of life: First, an adagio – sad, full of tears; then a grand allegro, full of despair. You understand, don't you? Well, what I am trying to find is a title, a telling title. As a playwright you know the importance of a good title. Can you suggest something?"
"My dear sir," said Lorimer, "great sorrows are silent."
"What do you mean?" asked the pianist, for whom British humour was a closed letter. "Are you joking with me? How can one be silent and make music?"
The most thankless task in the world is explaining a joke to a person who has not seen it. Lorimer did not try, and after suggesting Les peines du Cœur, Angoisses de l'âme, Le Mal de dents, Les Désespoirs de l'Amour, and a few other eye-tickling titles, he left the puzzled composer and made his way upstairs. It was close upon midnight, the hour at which supper was to be served.