Part 30
As she concluded her little effort she looked eagerly at her husband, expecting a flash of gratitude from his expressive eyes, and not only for coming to his rescue, but for refraining from the common jealousy of wives. But Ordham averted his gaze, conscious of a still more intense irritation. Mabel was not clever enough to play her part in daily intercourse, little as she suspected it; and there were times when she quite forgot the rôle she now knew it was necessary to act in order to reinspire her husband with the belief that he had married the ideal woman. Few women can spend their lives in full dress. In humbler walks of life than Mabel’s, the wife exhibits herself to her husband in curl papers and untidy wrappers. Mabel’s toilettes would have been perfect on a desert island had her trunks been washed ashore, but to let her mind run down at the heels was a temptation not to be resisted, now and again, for had she not bagged her quarry? And although she schemed to please her husband, adopted all the wise advice of Lady Pat, crossing him in nothing and surrounding him with diversions, still would she read no more books, still would she chatter; and she avoided “clever” men and women as she would the plague. To know how to manage a man was cleverness enough; what she did not know was that deft management, while it may achieve certain results, is not always redolent of charm. Ordham avoided her by the aid of every device his fertile brain could suggest, for he dreaded the moment when self-restraint would snap and betray him into wounding the poor little thing. She might be a silly child, but he appreciated that she loved him devotedly. This uxorious affection, however, was irritating him in more ways than one. Since their return to town hardly a day had passed that she had not given him a present. Extravagant and wealthy, it delighted her to shower costly “trifles” on her husband; his rooms were littered with superb and superfluous baubles. The new cigarette case in his pocket was of gold incrusted with jewels, the old silver necessaries of his dressing-table had been replaced with gold; he had now five watches, eight cigarette cases and match boxes, fourteen ash trays, three sets of white pearls of the first water and one of black, more cuff links than he pretended to count, four sets of furnishings for his writing table, one of gold, one of Russian enamel, one of Dresden china, and one of antique silver; and so on, ad infinitum. Many of these precious objects were inscribed “Jackie.”
Only that morning it had occurred to him that all this stuff represented a sum far in excess of the wretched thousand pounds which had caused him so much torment and debasement of spirit, and he had felt not only vexed at the senseless extravagance, but sick of saying “Thank you”; the constant repetition of which phrase creates in time a sense of obligation fatal both in love and friendship. Feeling that if called upon once more to tell her, upon her daily return from Bond Street, that she was the most marvellous and the most generous creature in the world, he should disgrace himself, he had announced with playful decision that she must waste no more money on him; he could not accustom himself all at once to such extravagance, had a vague sense of defrauding the poor—these were the only excuses he could think of. Mabel, who had heard of his princely expenditures in Paris on an income of £500 a year, was astonished, but inferred that he still felt the difference in their fortunes, and had too much humour to return her presents with the money she had given him. But nothing had been further from Jackie’s mind than this delicate hair-splitting. The £200,000 he regarded as a right and proper marriage settlement, not as a present; he had never mentioned the subject to his wife. And whereas nobody liked making presents better than himself, he made appropriate ones; and if he gave none to Mabel, it was because he could think of nothing she did not possess already.
So he avoided her eyes when she flew to his relief, left his seat once more, and with his back to them ground his teeth. He had himself well in hand, but he was still too young to have at his absolute command that gay and impenetrable mask, that perfect suavity of manner, for which he is celebrated to-day. Nevertheless, he always rallied his unevenly developed gifts in such crises as these.
“I don’t think it is worth while to discuss the question from an ethical standpoint,” he said in a moment, turning to his wife with a smile on his lips and none in his eyes. “Countess Tann, admitting that she ever dwelt without the pale, will not be driven back by any act of ours. She has the strongest character of any person I have ever known. The question is merely this: I feel under certain obligations of hospitality to her which I should be glad to discharge, and she is a great artist who gives the world far more than it can ever give her in return. Granting that she is this Margaret Hill of Levering’s, society is now too deeply in her debt to consider anything but the interest it must pay as long as she remains in the position to demand it.”
“I quite agree with you—up to a certain point.” Mrs. Cutting had almost visibly choked over the largest doses of British insolence she had ever been called upon to swallow, but she forced her lips to smile. “I am quite willing to take a box at the opera, show myself often, and lend it to my friends at other times—there are so many Americans in London just now. I am not as young and as modern as you are, but at least I should never dream of boycotting a stage artist in her own sphere; I am as ready as any one to acknowledge the debt of the ordinary mortal to genius. And nothing has ever distressed me more than the dreadful tales of gifted people dying in garrets because a selfish world would not pause to listen to them. But never, willingly at least, have I received under my roof a woman of blemished reputation. My mother and my grandmother were both leaders of society in New York, and that was their inflexible rule; I was brought up on it. As you English people are so much more—charitable, let us call it—I have endeavoured to make up my mind to believe no gossip unproven by the divorce courts; but really, some things are a bit too flagrant, and one professional beauty, at least, who was here this afternoon will never come again by invitation. And if I decline to receive a woman who has fairly blossomed in the sunshine of royalty, and who is well born and bred, I can hardly be expected to receive a creature that began life as a social outcast. I do not assert anything so foolish, of course,” she added hastily, “as that we have not a certain small percentage of wicked and foolish women in American society. I am merely emphasizing the standard of the country, and I for one shall continue to uphold it as a matter both of principle and inclination.”
“Both are highly commendable, but, it strikes me, a trifle provincial and inconvenient. In a new country I can understand that you must draw hard and fast lines, but now that you have come to live among people that are quite sure of themselves, why not emulate their independence? It has struck me more than once since I have had the pleasure of knowing so many Americans, that we have more independence, freedom, under our old-fashioned monarchy, than you under a form of government where those words may be worn meaningless with too constant iteration; you seem to have an idea that their antithesis is aristocratic.”
“I don’t think you see my point.” Mrs. Cutting’s tones were so even that they were monotonous, and she fixed her eyes on her fan. “You English aristocrats indulge in the fiction that you are above all laws, are a law unto yourselves. You are mental and moral anarchists. With us it is quite different. It may be because we are new, but one thing is quite positive: our standards are higher than yours, and they are fixed. We are as free of mind as you are, but we don’t choose to use our freedom in the same way. We reverence the laws we have accepted from the highest authority, because they are right and proper laws, because they conduce to purity of conduct and true happiness. But you—you English might exist on a planet of your own. And yet you are a mass of contradictions. Mr. Wilde was lamenting to-day, for the fortieth time, of British provincialism, respectability, philistinism. Others make the same lament. I have seen little of it myself. You—I am talking of your class, of course,—use those characteristics as an excuse when it happens to be convenient. To be just, I have not the slightest doubt that most of the women I meet are faithful wives, but it is only because the reverse does not appeal to them; they would admit, if pushed to the wall, that the laws made to govern the conduct of common mortals do not apply to them—certainly not! But if their anarchy—or, shall we say, their insolence?—does not take that form, it does some other. The only absolutely well-regulated women, according to the American standard, that I have met in England, are, it would seem, survivals from your middle class.”
“It is irresistible, dear Mrs. Cutting, to ask why, since you admire your own country and despise ours, you have come to live among us?”
Mrs. Cutting raised her cold angry eyes and met the cold impassive eyes opposite. Even had she been less fond of him, the utter absence of insolence in his voice and face, the repose and detachment of his manner, would have compelled her admiration. He continued with a smile: “It would be a genuine deprivation were you to leave us in a fit of disgust, but I am afraid you will, one of these days, unless you make up your mind to take us as we are, swallow us whole.”
“It has occurred to me once or twice of late that I may return to New York.” She paused a moment and then continued deliberately: “It is an intensely disagreeable and humiliating conclusion to have come to, but I believe that I am a snob. It annoys me the more as I have no justification, like so many of these Americans at present going the pace in London, wild with delight at being able to address peers of the realm as ‘Bertie’ and ‘Billy.’ Even the founder of my family in America helped to model its social structure. What is the secret of this fascination of England for the well-born of the United States? Perhaps its mere picturesque contrast to our republican institutions, architecture, customs. Perhaps some harking back of the blood. Perhaps it is an unconscious attempt to live the literature of our childhood, where all the fascinating characters were kings and queens, lords and ladies. Perhaps the sleepless American instinct to go straight to the top, that ‘the best is none too good for us,’ as our slang so patly expresses it. Perhaps because you have reached the superlative, while we are still in the comparative degree. No doubt, however, the reason, or all the reasons, are given the complete and final expression in that one hideous little word, ‘snob.’”
Ordham had never felt so much respect and liking for his mother-in-law. His eyes softened and he said solicitously: “I hope you are not unhappy here. Surely no American has ever been so well treated.”
“Ah! There is another point. One must live in, not merely visit, England, to discover that its reasoning runs something like this: ‘We do not say, of course, that you are not as good as we are—pray, what does that matter? But you are different, and being different, of course you are not quite as good.’”
Ordham laughed heartily. “I never heard it so cleverly put!” The warmth in his voice and eyes brought the colour back to Mrs. Cutting’s face, the animation to her glance. “Indeed, you must never leave us! We should miss you too dreadfully. And you are one of us—really!—however some stupid people may regard the majority of Americans. Is not my mother devoted to you?”
“How devoted do you think Lady Bridgminster could be to any one?”
“Oh, I was not thinking of affection. She never pretends to much of that. But with whom else is she so intimate?—and at least you have never found her rude.”
“Bad manners are not one of her fads, as they are with a good many I could mention; and, beyond all question, I like her better than any woman in London, for, in her way, she is genuine; she is, in fact, too arrogant to be anything else. But that she regards me wholly as her equal—not for a moment do I believe anything of the sort. And the position is beginning to gall me.”
“Momma!” Mabel had listened to this conversation appalled, almost breathless. “Surely, you would not go away and leave me?”
“Not for a while yet, darling—certainly not! But I feel that the time will come when we shall have to satisfy ourselves with a yearly interchange of visits.” She looked at Ordham as if bracing herself again. “Let us have it out. We like each other too well to quarrel, and it is better to come to a complete understanding now than to be continually bringing up unpleasant subjects. Nothing disgusts me more than this English worship of what you call personality. To receive people that have forfeited their social rights merely because they have some remarkable personal charm, have painted a picture, or written a book, is putting a premium upon libertinage, swells the ‘artistic’ hordes that hardly dare be virtuous lest they be thought second-rate. Nor do I in the least believe in the sincerity of all this kow-towing to talent. You are a great and bored people, you must have fads; that is all there is to it!”
“Does all that mean you will not receive Countess Tann?” He stood up, looking appealingly at his mother-in-law, whom he liked better for sticking to her little guns, inconvenient as they were to himself. He drew his arms together, after his fashion when nervous. “Are you really unrelenting? Will you not call on Countess Tann, and ask her to come here? I shall feel very awkward if you do not. My mother has promised to be nice to her, but I am not living in her house.”
“Do, mother,” whispered Mabel.
But on this point Mrs. Cutting was pure steel, although she found it no easy matter to resist Ordham when he deigned to coax. “No—I am desperately sorry, but I cannot. You must not ask it of me. If I forced myself to take that woman by the hand, I should lose my self-control and be rude to her. But, indeed, to touch her would be a physical as well as a moral impossibility. I am very sorry. I hate to deny you anything.”
She swept out of the room hastily, and Mabel looked apprehensively at her husband, who, for the fourth time, was striking a match with his back to her.
“Jackie!”
Jackie gritted his teeth, but answered politely, “Well, Mabel?”
“Are you angry with me? It is too severe of mother.”
“Of course not. How can you say such a thing?”
“Well, you have a right to be. But perhaps I can talk mother over.”
“I am sure you cannot. But it doesn’t matter. I fancy Countess Tann will understand—she is an American! Besides, no doubt we have wasted a lot of talk and temper over nothing. She will be much too busy for society. Your mother might have sacrificed her principles by leaving a card. A Wagner prima donna who is to sing eighteen times in five weeks, besides rehearsing with a scratch company, would no doubt herself spare you the indignity of meeting a woman who not only has been as much gossiped about as some eight or ten that were here to-day, but who hails from the ranks—”
“Jackie! Please don’t talk as if we were dreadful snobs.”
“On the contrary, I think your mother did herself an injustice. What more natural than to prefer England to America? Besides, she has the courage of her opinions—I think nobody, certainly not Americans, appreciates that sort of courage as much as the English. By the way, you will not mind if I dine with my mother to-night? I have rather neglected her.”
“Your mother dines out every night of her life! Do you really mean that you will leave me if I beg you not to?”
“Oh, I am sure you will not do that—you are quite the most charmingly unselfish person in the world.”
Once more he watched those great crystal tears well up and over. The sight fascinated him as a phenomenon, but he too was pure steel. Mabel saw the long line of his jaw grow longer and harder under the fine firm flesh, stared into the eyes that were veiled to conceal their glitter. He felt immeasurably older than this poor silly child to whom, under God knew what delusion, he had fastened himself for life, and he was still determined to treat her with what kindness and consideration he could command. He took out his handkerchief and dried her eyes. “I am so sorry! But you must let me play the dutiful son once in a while. Suppose you take your dinner in bed. You will feel that much more refreshed to-morrow.”
“Will you come home early?” sobbed Mabel.
“Of course!”
L THE ROOM IN THE TEMPLE
Ordham did dine with his mother, whom he knew to be alone, but he left her after coffee, and drove to the Temple. He roamed about the gardens for a time, watching the ghost shadows of the ancient buildings, the blue-black mystery of the river that it took an American artist to interpret; then made his way to the Inner Temple and ascended to an upper floor, opening a door with a latch-key. The gas he lit revealed, not an office, but a comfortably furnished den, the walls covered with the red paper dear to the heart of even the exceptional man. There were several boxes of cigars and cigarettes on a buffet, a tea service, a roller desk, manifestly locked, and on the walls all the photographs he had taken of Styr during their summer. They were really creditable performances, and he had put them under glass, not only for personal reasons, but because he fully appreciated their unique value, even though he had no mind that any eyes but his should behold them. The collection represented Styr in every costume familiar to opera goers: in her Fedora gowns, in other home toilettes, and in Alpine costume leaning on her staff against a background of rocks, the cross on Kochel, and the glacier above Berchtesgaden. Several times Fräulein Lutz had been induced to snap the camera and take them together.
Ordham had now revelled in this unsuspected refuge for something over two months. At the castle Mabel had been too much occupied to enter his rooms save now and then on a sentimental excursion; but in the comparative seclusion of town and increasing ennui, she not only wandered in and out of his rooms perpetually, whether he were there or not, but took an inexplicable pleasure in upsetting and rearranging his things. This was a phase of matrimony for which Ordham was wholly unprepared, although he recalled an amusing picture Styr had drawn of one phase of the American household: the front bedroom the common sitting room; formality, much less exclusiveness, practically unknown. He had assumed that among the wealthy classes, accustomed to large houses, life would be planned on the European scale; but while he was given his own suite as a matter of course in Grosvenor Square, the ancient instinct was planted in Mabel, whose ancestors had been simple democratic folk to whom the traditions of their new country were dear, despite their social eminence. It never occurred to her that what was her Jackie’s was not her own, nor was it in her to suspect that she could fail to be welcome at all hours and seasons.
Ordham had been amused at first, but not for long. When only his opportune return diverted her from a cabinet which contained Styr’s letters and photographs, he was so incensed that he nearly ordered her out instead of gently conducting her forth to admire a new picture. After a day of black, albeit invisible, sulks, that gift for compromise which seldom failed him came to his rescue; and a week later found him installed in The Temple, with solitude within and beauty without, and only the roar of the Strand in his ears. Here he wrote his letters to Styr, read and reread hers, smoked, and dwelt upon the happiness of the past summer, as his eyes travelled from presentment to presentment of its heroine. He also enjoyed the sensation of deceiving his wife, for he felt that it was even a duty to balk a gregarious nature like that, and this secret life that he shared with Styr alone was eminently agreeable to the future master of the diplomatic art. Too proud to write of his disappointment to his friend, however her presence might have tempted confession, the very fact that he had taken this room as a solitary retreat would have told the whole story to his acute correspondent, even had not that atmosphere of melancholy superseded the subtle exaltation of those letters written from Ordham when his energies were humming and he was excited with a foretaste of power.
He lit the fire and a cigar, and settled himself into the ample Morris chair, but not with his usual sense of unqualified delight. Heretofore, when he had entered this room, it was to banish all unpleasant thought, all haunting doubt; but to-night he intended to open certain water-tight compartments and look squarely on their contents. He fancied that this unusual disposition to confront and probe must be inspired by the woman who had pricked his energies in so many other ways. Certainly, had he never known her, he would, after some such crisis as this evening’s understanding with his mother-in-law, have gone at once to the theatre, postponed indefinitely the admission that his marriage was a mistake.
No man could be more direct, more outspoken, than Ordham when it suited him, and this was his chief charm for people thrown much in his society,—betraying, as it did, the cool courage under his listless habit, furnishing the high lights, as it were, for that formal indubitably diplomatic nature. To-night he put several facts into the plainest possible English. He was mortally tired of his wife, hopelessly disappointed in her. He could have resigned himself to her intellectual lacks, trusting to time and his own assiduous tutoring to furnish her skull respectably; but her character was so utterly without variety, depth, mystery, interest of any sort, that the task of stuffing the brain was not worth while. Neither time nor determination can create a personality, and to Ordham’s mind people without strong individual characteristics were hardly worthy of visibility, no matter how admirable the shell. He had caught himself staring at Mabel in wonderment, half fancying he saw behind her that stately romantic elusive figure of his wooing, suggesting infinite possibilities. Had he been hypnotized, and where had she gone? True, Mabel was as beautiful as ever, as tall, her manners retained their grace, her head its lofty poise; but her features lost their dignity, her eyes their dreams, the moment she began to chatter; and heavens, how she did chatter!
He was still annoyed and embarrassed at this prospect of early paternity, still felt that this projection of himself would appropriate what was left of his youth; but at least it had the merit of causing a certain tenderness to linger. Not for the world would he have given Mabel a hint of his present evolution; he had only to remind himself of her pathetic condition to be delivered of the temptation. But later, when she was well again, strong, more tactless than ever in her renewed beauty and social successes, should he hate her? This was the ghost that had been tapping at his brain for weeks. He had no desire to hate his wife. It would be demoralizing, inconvenient, a constant source of irritation. Could he but crowd the world between them, wean her until she shared his own indifference, he fancied he could accept his lot philosophically; a well-bred ornamental wife was not to be despised. But inflict himself with her society and pertinacious affections he would not.