lady grote did not consider it part of her duties as a hostess to appear at breakfast on sunday morning; indeed, she would have considered it rather a breach of them to do so. the women of the party had their breakfasts in their own rooms, and she knew quite enough of men to be sure that, however sprightly in disposition, they vastly prefer a smoking-room kind of meal, sitting sideways to the table, not speaking unless they feel disposed, and with the power of erecting a palisade round themselves by a propped-up morning paper, to making themselves agreeable, even to the woman who most engaged their attention the evening before.
the frenchman is differently constituted, and at however immature an hour likes to take up again, as near as possible to the point at which he left it, his mood of the evening before; but upon the english mind sleep seems to leave a sort of tarnish which must be scoured off in silence with fish and sausages before it becomes an agreeable and polished surface again. then, after a round of golf or a game of tennis for those who require “exposure,” like a photograph, before their proper image reappears, or an hour or so in an armchair in a well-shaded light for those to whom, like a mushroom, darkness and warmth are necessary for their{95} morning development, the saturday-till-monday englishman finds that the burden of life is light again.
but mere avoidance of her guests from notions of politeness did not form the entire reason of lady grote’s self-effacement on sunday morning. a whole catechism of telephonic inquiries delivered here and at her house in london yesterday evening required her attention, and she was busy with her secretary for an hour over these and over a similar catechism which she sent forth on her own account.
one evening during the ensuing week she was giving a party at her london house, at which two russian dancers would appear, and she must issue some more invitations for that; on another evening she had a dinner-party, at which the principal guest was one who was entitled to inspect the proposed list of those he would meet, and intimate if there was anyone else he would like to be present. (he had just instructed that he would like to see an extraordinarily dull couple, who must accordingly be invited.) that disposed of tuesday and thursday evening, on wednesday and friday she was dining out, and on saturday again she came down here to entertain. that only left monday evening, and on that she was going to the opera to hear kuhlmann sing tristan. it was necessary, she was afraid, to ask two or three people to her box, for she could scarcely occupy it alone. but that was what she longed to do: she wanted to be quite by herself, without the distraction of any other presence, and give herself up to the mood which that wonderful voice, and that soft-pawed savage personality produced in her....
the evenings then were simple enough, but the rest of the five days was more complicated, and the things she wanted to do, and the people she wished to see, had to be fitted into the hours like the closely-joining{96} fragments of a jig-saw puzzle. she had all the time there was: every moment of the next week belonged to her, but it was maddening to think that there were so many under vitalized and uninterested people in the world, on whose hands time hung heavy, who invented dreary employments to fill the undesired hours, who were glad (so far as they were capable of any positive emotion) when the day was over, who went to sleep in chairs, or read books that did not in the least amuse them merely in order that the hands of the clock should trace their circles unyawned-at.
it was a hideously stupid arrangement, that whereas you could buy or somehow or other obtain, if you were rich and clever, everything else that made life pleasant, all your cleverness and all the wealth of midas could not purchase for you one single second of time, without which everything else was non-existent! and to think of all those people who had much more time than they wanted, and had no idea how to use it! think also of the armies and battalions of the young who had no conception of the value of the golden treasure that ran through their fingers! poor people, too, how many a poor man would gladly accept, say a thousand pounds in return for a year! that would come to twenty pounds a week: she would gladly have taken any amount of weeks at that rate. fancy having the chance of living the last twenty-four hours over again for three pounds and a few shillings! why the joy just of waking this morning was worth a hundred times that, but by no expenditure of millions could she ever get it back again. it had gone down plump into the dark well, where all dead days and moments lay faintly glimmering, or black and forgotten.
certainly it was a waste of that most precious and unpurchasable commodity to devote a single moment{97} to a regret so unavailing, but she did not at once pull herself up (while waiting for miss armitage to unravel the complication of engagements that caused the hours of tuesday to overlap in so inconvenient a manner), or use the minutes in skating a little further on the very thin ice of the french short stories that had been recommended her, or even call in her manicure. every now and then, and, so it seemed to her, with increasing frequency during this last year or two, some shadow fell across the brilliance of the sunshine that lay on her path. it did not come from any intervening object, any troublesome circumstance that interposed itself between her and the sun, it seemed rather as if the sun itself blazed less brightly, making a dusk even at noonday.
nor was this failure to be laid to the door of that thief, time, the inveterate flower-stealer, for she had still too many flowers in her garden, and even buds yet undeveloped, to miss the spoils of his maraudings. nor again did she fear the approach of old age, for it was mere waste of energy to spend a thought over the inevitable, or the final arrival of the grim doorkeeper, who equally certainly would open the portals that led into whatever lay beyond.
for herself, she had no doubt as to what lay beyond: she was so sure that when once that door closed behind you there would be nothing any more, fair or foul, bright or dark, that no speculation on the subject could have the smallest interest. it would all be over and done with: out of the dark stream above which in the sunshine the fly danced and hovered would come a great sucking mouth, and gulp it down. there would be a ripple on the surface which would in a moment die away, and most assuredly there would be no fly there in the sunshine. sometimes the great{98} fish rose at you, and missed you, and you had another dance, but sooner or later he swallowed you. sometimes you were already floating, water-logged, on the stream, not dancing any more—that was what old age meant—and then, perhaps, the sooner the great ugly mouth caught you, the better.
but the shadow that sometimes, as now, lay across her garden was not of this nature: it was derivable from no fear of old age or death. it was rather due to a certain obstinate, uninvited questioning as to what was the good of it all, this intense pursuit of distraction of any kind that frightened away tranquillity and leisure, this hot fever of living. but good or bad, the only alternative to amusing yourself was boring yourself, which was a more obvious idiocy. yet was there, possibly, a certain tedium arising out of the mere repetition of experience and excitements, however delightful in themselves, if there was nothing, in mrs. cyril pounce’s inimitable american phrase, “back of them?”
well, her secretary had disentangled tuesday for her, and read out in her calm, monotonous voice the hours of her engagements. one had to be omitted, but as that was only a bazaar in aid of something, it was quite as easy to send a suitable cheque without demanding an equivalent, as to visit the bazaar in person and carry away something she didn’t want. certainly there was nothing “back of” the bazaar. she was sorry for the blind or for indigent spinsters, or for anybody who wasn’t enjoying himself, but she couldn’t make them any happier by buying an object, than by paying for it without getting it.... mrs. pounce! that wonderful woman was coming down in time for lunch to-day, and was to motor back to town after dinner. she would probably be dressed in diamonds,{99} with a petticoat of pearls. she was much richer than anybody else had ever been, and so was entitled to respect, but at the moment what lady grote envied her for was her simple rule of life, which was never to do anything “back of” which there was not something more.
at present her chief ambition seemed to be to know the whole of london. she had nearly accomplished that, but one of the few vacant spaces in her social stamp-book was the place where the lord thorley specimen should have been. she knew she would meet him here, and so, with great good nature, helen grote had invited her down for sunday afternoon. that seemed about fair—henry had a vague horror of her as a collector, so lady grote had not asked her down from saturday till monday. but henry must just put up with her for a few hours, that was not too much to ask, especially since so many other people were coming down for this curtailed visit, people she had not room to saddle herself with for a whole week-end, but people who wanted so much to get to grote somehow. mrs. pounce! and at the thought of mrs. pounce and the divine applicability of her name to her methods, helen began to come out of the shadow again. there was mrs. pounce, who had travelled ten or fifteen years longer than she in this vale of tears, and yet had abated not one jot of her insatiable demands on life, or had ever begun to weep. but then, mrs. pounce had had the great luck to begin her explorations from the very bottom of the ladder, whereas poor helen had started on the very topmost rung. if you started there, you had either to descend, or, take wings and soar. but for soaring there had to be something “back of it” all.... mrs. pounce could never really arrive at the haven where she would be, and certainly{100} long before she ever thought she had got there, the great fish would have got her instead.... and even if she ever thought she had quite got there, her whole time would be taken up in maintaining her precarious balance, whereas helen grote would be obliged to do something quite outrageous ever to lose hers.
society, success, position, all that vocabulary of ridiculous phrases, had only a meaning for such as had not got them. if you had all these things, not even round you but at your feet, you were unconscious of them: the words became gibberish. the only happiness was in getting: what you had got you took for granted. you didn’t want to possess anything of which the essence was yours, just as you never bought a book you had already read. and lady grote had read a very large number of such books.
but the shadow cleared off when miss armitage produced such a smooth tuesday for her, and the thought of mrs. pounce proved such a tonic. she was about a hundred times as clever as mrs. pounce, and it would be absurd to allow even a half-hour of shadow to darken her own existence, when mrs. pounce so gladly stepped ahead through thunderclouds and baffling storm to secure her ultimate serenity.
so, dismissing miss armitage, she sent for the manicurist, who always paid a visit here on sunday morning, coming down from london, quite at his own expense in the sure and certain hope of securing an admirable return on his speculation. there were always half a dozen woman in the house who would take advantage of his services and, since mr. boyton was here, at least one man. mr. pantitzi, for such was his florid name was also an expert on the hair, and brought down in his discreet wallet little bottles, whose contents, judiciously selected and mixed, produced colours that{101} defied detection. lady grote adored talking to mr. pantitzi about the wickedness of the world as he, with his sad, cynical face, made the requisite mixture. “and our tears,” as she once expressed it, “mingle with the poisonous dye.”
the passing of the shadow produced a reaction, and, looking at herself in the glass, after miss armitage had gone to the telephone, she determined to have a crowded hour of glorious mr. pantitzi, and to introduce a rather deeper shade of red into her hair. as a girl, she had owned a superb titian hue, but mr. pantitzi’s ministrations had only in part preserved it. but now was the time to start again: it had not yet “gone so far” as to render a rejuvenescence absurd, and she intensely wanted to encourage herself by presenting to the world the vivider hues of youth.
she was forty, and she owned, even with eagerness, to that exact number of years, conscious that she looked not within six years of that age which gives pause to every woman. probably nobody believed her, for apart from the fact that she had a son of nineteen there was no record in the kindly page of peerages which gave away what she quite freely admitted. but the right criterion of youth is the consciousness of youth, and this morning, after the passage of the shadow, she felt ten years younger than her age.... it was worth while looking the age you felt, and recalling the excitements of the early thirties, she knew that she could live back into those agitating days, if her hair would back her up. at the moment it had got a little cendré; there was a dullness as of ashes about it. but with an hour to spare she would rectify all that.
the room where she sat adjoined her bedroom, on the other side of it was her bathroom; beyond that again was her maid’s room. it was not quite an ideal{102} arrangement, since she had to pass through her sitting-room to reach her bathroom, but the little suite formed a corner of the house, and was pleasantly withdrawn by baize doors and a little passage of its own from the big corridor. her maid, as a matter of fact, never slept in the room beyond the bathroom, but only used it as a sort of dress-wardrobe, and sewing-room by day. in fact, the little nest of rooms was really a sort of flat, an island of her own in the great hotel of a house. no one penetrated there uninvited: if anyone from the rest of the house, even gracie or grote, wanted to see her, inquiry must first be made over the silver and white enamel telephone that stood on her table as to whether she was disengaged.... silver and white were indeed the only two colours used in the furnishing and decoration of the room. the floor was painted white, and on it were strewn white skins: the walls were of white boiseries with silver panels: there were silver brocade chairs and chairs of white embroidery: silver fire-dogs stood on the white-tiled hearth, and gracie the consistent used to tell her that she should have the logs of wood white-washed. without accurately knowing why, she, with all her vivid colour-scheme of life, felt an intense satisfaction in this uncoloured nest that somehow represented her, and, as all rooms should be, was a projection of herself.
people were apt to smile at the mention of the famous little white room: those unkindly disposed called it the most finished cynicism, while even her friends were inclined to think it an affectation, though they would have been puzzled to be obliged to mention any other instance of pose in her works and days. but, as a matter of fact, both friends and foes were wrong in their judgments; the room was the sincerest possible translation of something that she truly and intimately felt.{103} those who knew her superficially, and, even more, those who knew her with a certain thoroughness, would have beggared the rainbow of its hues before they hit on white as the colour that matched her, and there was only one person in the world, and that robin, to whom this white room seemed the real setting for his mother.
naturally enough, the boy was utterly ignorant concerning the sum of what the world gabbled or whispered about her, and had he been told it, or any portion of it, he would have believed not a single syllable. but on the other hand he had that instinctive knowledge, not of what she did but of what she actually was, which no man but a son can have, and that only when it concerns just one woman in the world. for if the love of a boy for a girl is the blindest of passions, that of a son for a mother, when it has any real existence at all, is the most clear-sighted, piercing through mind and husk unimpeded, like some magical ray, and recording only the bone, the structure itself, on which the skin and tissues are hung.
robin alone, then, in his right of entry into a certain secret place in his mother’s heart, was alone also in his right of entry into this room without inquiry, and presently he came whistling in.
“morning, mother,” he said. “when are you and i going on the river? oh, i say, i was sorry for you last night, being left with that fellow. or do you like him?”
“mr. kuhlmann? yes, don’t you?”
robin picked up a cigarette.
“well, speaking quite candidly, isn’t he rather a bounder?”
she laughed. nobody but robin could possibly have said that to her: there was the unique refreshment of it.{104}
“i rather think he is,” she said. “but, then, you and i settled long ago, darling, that i liked bounders.”
“i know. frightfully catholic of you. sings, doesn’t he?”
“so much so that nobody else can be considered to sing.”
robin considered this.
“well, that’s something,” he said. “he wanted to tip me, too, which was quite kind in intention. he thought i was at school.”
“you do look about sixteen,” said his mother. “how much was it? did you take it?”
“very likely, isn’t it? especially when i won eleven pounds last night.”
the mournful mr. pantitzi, who had been sent for, entered at this moment with his restorative little wallet. he looked as if he had come to announce a death, and lady grote felt a slight tremor of suppressed laughter run through robin’s side as he leaned against her, perched on the arm of her chair.... so mr. pantitzi was sent to be sad in the bathroom.
robin waited, heroically self-contained, until he had vanished.
“my!” he said. “who sent for the undertaker? what is it?”
“my italian stainer and polisher, dear. he’s going to stain and polish me. mind you don’t scream when you see me at lunch, because i shall have red hair by then!”
“whaffor?” asked robin.
“just a change, darling. besides, it used to be red. not too red, you know; coppery, like a new penny.”
“why shouldn’t i have mine dyed, too?” asked robin. “i’ll have it dyed emerald green, i think. we should be a pretty pair.{105}”
“do, darling, and we might give an acrobatic performance as the polychromatic linnets. don’t talk such nonsense, but tell me exactly all about yourself. are you playing cricket for cambridge?”
“rather not. there came a day after which i didn’t make a run.”
“oh, i’m sorry, robin. i know you wanted to,” said she. “and to think that i spent a whole hour at lord’s the other day, in order to try to understand what it was all about.”
“any success?”
“no, dear, not a particle. it seemed to me the most confused thing i ever saw. everyone kept walking about every minute or two. why did they do that? and if i made the rules, the man who hit the ball away would have to go and fetch it.”
robin pondered over this remarkable innovation.
“certainly it sounds fairer,” he admitted, “but, then it wouldn’t be the same game.”
“i thought that would be such an advantage. but i was determined to understand something about it, if you were going to play for cambridge. i was going to lord’s again this week.”
“well, you needn’t now. that’s a silver lining to the black cloud.”
“what cloud?” she asked. “oh, i see, the fact of your not getting into the—the—eleven, aren’t there?”
“yes. you used to know that well enough when i was at school.”
“i know i did. but i’ve forgotten. you see, cricket doesn’t enter really very essentially into my life, except when it concerns your precious self. go on, robin; tell me heaps more about yourself. my appetite for cricket is rather bird-like. i peck and go away. birds, isn’t that what they call you?{106}”
“if you happen to be a robin and a linnet there’s not much else to say,” remarked robin.
“no, it sounds natural. but go on—i didn’t mean to interrupt. have you fallen in love with anybody lately?”
“yes, last night, with mrs. lockwater. o-oh!”
lady grote burst into a peal of laughter.
“my dear, she’s a little old for you, isn’t she?” she said. “and she’s got a husband already, which is a pity.”
“but you don’t want to marry everyone you fall in love with, do you?” asked he. “you want—you just want. i don’t mind about her husband a bit.”
“you would if you saw him. but perhaps she would divorce him. he’s got whiskers.”
“lor! why did she ever marry him, then? or perhaps he grew them afterwards!”
“no, he’s the sort of person who always had whiskers. do promise me that you will never grow whiskers, darling. they seem to damn the soul, don’t they! i should turn in my grave if i thought you were growing whiskers. so if by chance, when i am quite dead, you want to grow whiskers, mind you dig me up with an order from the secretary for cemeteries, whoever it is, and you’ll find me lying on my face, and—and a trace of mineral poison in my lungs.”
“why that?” asked robin.
“just to make it more exciting. i was only adding detail to a bald narrative. isn’t there anybody else besides mrs. lockwater? surely there was somebody last easter.”
robin laughed.
“yes, there was,” he said. “there was a girl in tiddlewinks.”
“what are they? how do you get there?{107}”
“it’s a revue, mother. i had forgotten all about it till you suggested it. she sang ‘oysters on the pier.’ you never saw anybody so fetching.”
“oh, but she mustn’t fetch you. i don’t think i should like her as a daughter-in-law. or are oysters ‘off’ now, since it is june?”
“fairly off. but they might come on again. i wish you’d go and see her. you might tell me what you thought.”
“that is a very odd thing to ask of an aged and respectable mother,” said lady grote, looking about twenty-five.
“no, it isn’t. i could ask you to do anything, because you would understand. of course it’s all chaff——”
she laid her hand on his, interrupting.
“my dear, you’ve said something that isn’t all chaff,” she said. “you told me you could ask me to do anything because i would understand. oh, robin, don’t ever forget that you felt that. it’s an enchanting thing for a mother to have said to her by her son. oh, you bone of my bone! i almost wish you would do something quite out of the pale, in order to see whether i didn’t stick to you. do be had up for some really awful charge, like taking a penny from a blind beggar.... there’s that damned telephone ringing. just see what it wants, or tell it quite straight that it can’t have it.”
robin listened, and as he listened, stiffened slightly.
“oh, yes,” he said, with so icy a politeness that his mother instantly guessed to whom he was speaking.
“yes, i’m afraid that she’s particularly engaged just now.”
lady grote got up.{108}
“hold on a minute, robin,” she said. “i want to say one word to mr. kuhlmann.”
robin very rudely made what is called “a face” at his mother, and replaced the receiver with so great a peremptoriness that he chipped a piece of enamel off it.
“darling, you’ve got no manners,” she said.
“i know. badly brought up. but, then, you see i’ve got you for the present. and then it’s the turn of the undertaker. but i wish you would come on the river instead.”
“but, darling, mr. pantitzi with—with his plumes and his coffin. don’t insist.”
“will you come if i insist?” asked the boy.
“i suppose so. what a bully you are! no one else in the wide world treats me like that. go away, while i finish dressing and explaining to mr. pantitzi. we won’t take anyone else, shall we?”
“not even mr. kuhlmann,” said robin confidently.
some twenty more guests came down from london that morning in time for lunch, to spend the afternoon, dine and scurry back to town again by train or motor that evening, since the sleeping accommodation of the house was already taxed to its limit. mrs. pounce, very nearly covered with pearls, glided about from group to group as they sat in the loggia, or beneath the big awning that covered in one end of the terrace, as if moving on castors, and steadily and relentlessly worked her way into introduction to and conversation with anyone whom she did not know who was worth knowing. there was an excursion in the steam launch five miles up the river to where another hostess was keeping open sunday, and a party of her guests came down the river to have tea at grote. some played{109} lawn tennis, and since the man who had just won the open championship at wimbledon was among the sunday arrivals, there was a sort of queue of incompetent but eager ladies to be his partner, and the poor young man, who would far more contentedly have sat in the shade, and flirted desperately with each of his partners for the period of a set, was obliged to play for some four hours on end.
others were taken to a golf links some twenty miles distant and indulged in mixed foursomes, and the more sedentary, having exhausted the current scandalous topics, made up bridge-tables in the loggia. a troop of servants hovered about all afternoon with trays of cigarettes and iced drinks in long glasses, to give support and stimulant to the hours that intervened between lunch and tea, between tea and dinner.
a fever of mere living, a determination to make the most out of the present moment, whether bridge or scandal or games were the tincture in which the present moment was administered, pervaded the huge, extravagant restaurant, in which were collected the prettiest women and the most notable men who at the moment were the cream on that great saturated tipsy-cake called “the great world,” as opposed to the world generally.
from all nations, peoples and languages were they gathered together; france, germany and russia all sent representatives to this court of mayfair, which was as exclusive in one sense as it was democratic in another. for into other courts any successful grocer and his wife can penetrate and make their obeisance, provided they have wealth, benevolence and respectability to be their sponsors, but mere benevolence and respectability were as powerless as unweaned babes to secure an entry on to lady grote’s lawn. so, too, was mere birth;{110} the door was shut courteously but perfectly firmly in the face of anyone whose sole claim to coming in was something to do with william the conqueror or plantagenets generally; lady grote, in fact, was very exclusive in her hospitalities towards her own class, which, as a rule, consider it to be its right not so much to be excluded but to exclude.
on the other hand, as opposed to the usual procedure of less notable courts, the complete absence of anything approaching respectability was by no means a bar to entrance, though dullness, just ordinary, uncriminal, respectable dullness, quite unaccustomed in other places to be turned away, was here ejected with remarkable swiftness. but wealth, given that it was of pounce-like proportions, here as elsewhere could show a ticket of admittance, even when totally unaccompanied by benevolence and respectability, for wealth in sufficient quantities had, in lady grote’s mind, a certain distinction: it implied power....
wealth, indeed, to-day was considerably represented, and notable blends from america, germany and (originally) palestine could, by forming a small semitic syndicate, have bought up the rest of the crowd, had it been for sale. not to mention mrs. pounce, sir isaac levison was there, playing bridge for extremely small points and almost squealing with dismay when his partner, greatly daring, incurred penalties. lady gurtner was there, too; she had two valid claims for admittance, the first of which was the really colossal wealth of her husband, sir hermann gurtner, a german jew, like in appearance to a small london fog, all black and yellow; the second her own almost lascivious enjoyment of the circles into which she had so firmly and industriously climbed. like all her sisterhood,{111} she had a speciality to attract people to her house beyond mere food and magnificent tapestries, for with a good deal of acumen, on her entry into london life but a few years ago, she had foreseen a “boom” in poetry, and made her house an absolute parnassus. there all the bards, french, english and german, congregated, and read aloud their latest productions. nobody, or very few at the most, really cared about poetry, bad, good, or indifferent, but in a certain prominent set in london it was the fashion to simulate a passion for verse, and on the “viewless wings of poesy,” with this set as pilots, she soared with prodigious rapidity. in bright blue stockings, assumed for the purpose of flight, she mounted into the blue, and now being able to pick and choose her friends, instead of having eagerly to welcome anybody who would come, she was beginning to throw both the poetical set and the poets overboard like ballast, for she found there were others whom poetry, especially the recitation of it after dinner, when they preferred poker, positively kept away.
she was a very good linguist, being german on her mother’s side, and having lived much as a girl in france, and before sir hermann married her had been a governess in a family, where, as is the custom with governesses, she did not come down to dinner. now, by the revolution of the wheel of fate, she was able to ask her late employers to dinner, and send them in towards the tail of her more resplendent guests. she was a snob of purest ray serene, and dressed her tall and beautiful figure in the most amazing gowns.
sir hermann had lately built an enormous house in curzon street, and had furnished it with anything in the way of tapestry, lacquer, louis xv., and old oak that was expensive enough. there was no taste of any sort exercised over his purchases; the only point was{112} that they should be extremely costly, and in consequence the whole house resembled a museum. he spoke german with an english accent, french with a german accent and english with a yiddish accent. but he spoke all three sparingly, for he had nothing much to say in any of them.
to-day lady gurtner had brought down a young neapolitan poet on lady grote’s invitation, who recited some amorous outpourings of his own to an enraptured audience, who understood not a word he was saying, for he shouted and whispered and bellowed and hissed in the dialect of the neapolitan camorra, of which society he was a prominent and active member. but it was wildly exciting to see anybody get so excited, especially since it was a sort of apollo who raved, and he was further notable for having killed his wife, whom he passionately adored, for the very best of motives. these stanzas were addressed to her, and when he came to the last line in which he told her that her last hour was come, he gave a wild scream (which so startled the tennis-champion that he served a double fault) and burst into a torrent of tears. this was immensely thrilling, and he was a great success until, on his being sufficiently comforted by lady gurtner and a friend or two of the poetical fanatics, whose hands he grasped so hard that they were covered with bruises next day, he proceeded to console himself further by getting drunk, and was in consequence unable to appear at dinner. but he had done his “stunt,” he had contributed his quota of excitement, and it did not particularly matter what happened to him afterwards, for nobody really wanted to hear “giustizia” again.
it was lady grote’s amiable custom to devote some portion of the hours to each of her guests after the morning, which she claimed as her own, and since she{113} had not yet had a word with mr. boyton she took him for a short stroll in the woods above the river in the half hour before dinner. sunset flamed between the powdered trunks of the beech-trees, but the river in the valley below, from which the light had been withdrawn, lay like a broad riband of pale green, reflecting the sky above the flaming west.
his admiration for her was perfectly sincere, his expression of it verged on the dithyrambic, because that was his habit of speech when he paid his florid tributes to the aristocracy, and because he also wished, if possible, to get an invitation for next sunday, when, so he had ascertained, some very august people were expected.
“i want to applaud you, my dear lady,” he said, “every moment of the exquisite day that i pass here. if i followed my inclination, my hands would be mere ribands of raw flesh before evening. like some celestial and magical amalgam you weld into a complete whole the amazingly different units that come here to pay you homage. why is it that no one else has the smallest idea of how to do it, or, to put it differently, how is it that you have so complete a recipe for making us all homogeneous?”
lady grote, for all her splendour, was the most modest of mankind, but she rather liked other people being immodest, so to speak, about her.
“oh, mr. boyton,” she said, “do you think they are really enjoying themselves? if they are, it has nothing to do with me——”
he interrupted.
“let us instantly find a horse-marine,” he said, “to whom to confide that astounding information. where is a horse-marine; i insist on a horse-marine being produced without delay. you are like that industrious{114} conjurer whom i remember seeing in ancient days at the egyptian hall, who kept with a touch of his deft hand half a dozen plates and a washing basin all miraculously dancing together on a small table without pause or collision. you have the touch—nature is it, or art? i suspect the consummate art that counterfeits nature—the touch that makes the whole world grin. we, cross-grained people, are just a collection of smiles when we are here. and what a supreme collection! i, the commonest of your specimens, cannot help swelling with scarcely decent exultation at the fact that for the moment i belong to it. think of them! lord thorley moving about in worlds not realized. i always feel inclined to address him, ‘come down, o maid, from yonder mountain height.’ there is something virginal about that beautiful, aloof mind.”
she laughed.
“i saw him revoke just now at bridge,” she said. “that was human of him.”
“no, i take it the other way round. he was soaring somewhere on eagle’s wings; his revoke was but a moulted feather, an eagle’s feather that fluttered down from the empyrean. but i insist on going on with the survey of your spinning plates. there is our dear duchess, whom i take to be no other than an incarnation of la grande bretagne out on a bank holiday. there is monsieur pelleton, who no less surely stands for france, and there is sir hermann gurtner, who, although he plays bridge by the thames, is no less surely the spirit of the ‘watch by the rhine,’ for the moment, it is true, asleep. there is mrs. pounce, in whom we are right to behold the states of america united in one small and imperfectly constructed human frame, for the shortness of her legs is as remarkable as the length of her tongue. there is geoffrey belling{115}ham, in whose eyes abide the visions of velasquez, and in whose mouth a confused noise welters; there is kuhlmann, in whose mouth song itself makes its home, and in whose eyes, as far as i can judge, a wild cat. and each of these great personages requires, in the ordinary way, a whole stage to himself, with a mute and enthralled audience. but here they are merely harmonious and humble spectators, who but rise from their seats to applaud.”
mr. boyton outlined this brilliant little sketch in the manner of a lightning artist at a music-hall. it seemed dashed in with all the effervescent charm of an improvisation, but behind the improvisation, just as in the case of the music-hall artist, there had been much quiet study in the composition of its neat phrasing. but it came out fresh as the milky-green of the beech foliage above him.
“ah, but you have left out robin and mrs. lockwater,” said lady grote. “do say something delicious about robin.”
“just now they appeared to be enacting the fable of endymion and the moon in reversed r?les,” said mr. boyton. “robin as endymion was attempting to wake up the moon. the moon appeared gratified but drowsy.”
“that will do; that is charming. robin is the most awful flirt. he has always got a moon on hand, which changes with remarkable rapidity. but we must get back, i am afraid; it is nearly dinner-time. don’t dress, mr. boyton, unless you feel inclined. there are lots of people going back to town after dinner who won’t.”
“i am not among them. i shall certainly dress to show that i am staying here. and you go to town to-morrow?{116}”
“yes, till saturday, when some other people are kind enough to come down here.”
“how kind of them; how remarkably kind!” he said. “it is most self-sacrificing of them. i shall picture them this time next week, those unfortunate guests of yours, boring themselves down here, while i stew in town.”
there was more than a hint conveyed here, and with the utmost good nature she took it.
“ah, do come and bore yourself, too,” she said. “come down on sunday. i wish i could ask you to stay, but we are quite full.”
“my dear lady, it is too kind of you. i have warned you before that i am utterly incapable of refusing any invitation from you.”
“that is charming, then; i shall expect you. look, we are going to have a little illumination to-night on the terrace. i think it will look rather pretty. or will it be too like a railway station with green lights and red lights, and a large crowd having dinner in the refreshment-room, which is the loggia, and then rushing away in different directions? basle railway station, you know, where everybody eats in a great hurry and then disperses to germany and switzerland and france. i rather adore railway stations; there is a sense of movement.”
“there is that very often on the channel,” said he. “but your illuminations are charming. they altogether extinguish the rather sad light which comes at the beginning and end of every day.”
“i know. i dislike the twilight in the evening. it reminds one that there’s a day gone. it’s like the curtain coming down at the end of a play. but the morning twilight i love; that is the curtain going up on the first act. something is going to happen, and you{117} don’t know what. in the evening something has happened, and you do know what.”
“in this instance a perfectly charming day has happened,” said he.
“that is nice of you. but nothing quite comes up to what you expect of it. the evening is the sadder light.”
“i have heard—i do not know with what truth—” said he, “that there are people so fortunate as to experience very agreeable sensations after sunset.”
this was thoroughly boytonian, the sort of thing that made people laugh at their own thoughts. but on this occasion her own thoughts did not amuse her. they were too serious.
