Delphi collected works o.., p.408
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli, page 408
part #22 of Delphi Series Series
‘At last in my wretched life I am allowed a moment’s pleasure!’ he said, conveying into his fine eyes a touch of the Beautiful Sullenness expression which he generally found answer so well with women.
Lady Brancewith laughed, unfurling her fan.
‘Dear me, how very tragic!’ she said. ‘I had, no idea you were so wretched, Lord Carlyon! On the contrary, I thought you were one of the most envied of men!’
Carlyon was silent a moment, looking at her intently.
‘The only man in the world to be really envied is your husband,’ he said morosely.
Delicia, hidden by the protecting curtain, kept herself quite still. A smile of disdain came on her proud mouth as she thought within herself, ‘What liars men are! I have heard him say often that Lord Brancewith ought to be hounded out of the clubs for allowing his wife to dishonour his name! And now he declares him to be the only man in the world to be really envied!’
But Carlyon was speaking again, and some force stronger than herself held her there motionless, an unwilling listener.
‘You have never been kind to me,’ he complained, the Beautiful Sullenness look deepening in his eyes. ‘Lots of other fellows get a chance to make themselves agreeable to you, but you never give me the ghost of one. You are awfully hard on me — Lily!’
He paused a moment before uttering Lady Brancewith’s Christian name, then spoke it softly and lingeringly, as though it were a caress. She, by way of reply, gave him a light tap on the cheek with her fan.
‘And you are awfully impertinent,’ she said, smiling. ‘Don’t you remember you are a married man?’
‘I do, to my cost,’ he answered. ‘And you are a married woman!’
‘Oh, but I am so different,’ she declared naïvely. ‘You see, you have got a wonderful celebrity for a wife — clever and brilliant, and all that. Now, poor Brancewith is a dreadful, dear old dunce, and I should really die if I hadn’t some other man to speak to sometimes—’
‘Or several other men!’ he put in, taking her fan from her hand and beginning to wave it to and fro.
She laughed.
‘Perhaps! How jealous you are! Do you treat your wife to these sort of sarcasms?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about my wife,’ he said pettishly. ‘My wife and I have nothing in common.’
‘Really!’ Lily Brancewith yawned slightly. ‘How often that happens in married life, doesn’t it? She is here to-night, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, she is in the rooms somewhere,’ and Carlyon began to look decidedly cross. ‘She was quite the centre of attraction till you came in. Then, of course, it was a case of a small star paling before the full moon in all her splendour!’
‘How sweetly poetical! But please don’t break my fan,’ and she took the delicate toy in question from him. ‘It cost twenty guineas, and it isn’t paid for yet.’
‘Let me settle the bill,’ said Carlyon, looking adoringly into her eyes, ‘or any amount of bills!’
A faint tremor ran through Delicia’s body, as though a cold wind were playing on her nerves. Bending a little forward, she listened more intently.
‘Generous man!’ laughed Lady Brancewith. ‘I know your wife has made you rich, but I remember the time when you were not a bit flush of money, were you, poor boy! But you were always very nice and very complimentary, even then.’
‘Glad you admit it,’ said Carlyon, drawing a little nearer to her. ‘The memory of it may decide you not to throw me over now!’
‘What nonsense you talk!’ and Lady Brancewith gave him her hand to hold. ‘I want to see your wife; do introduce me to her! I have often been on the point of meeting her, but never have done so. She doesn’t know the people I know, and I don’t know the people she knows, so we’ve always missed each other. She is such a genius! Dunce as you are, you must have sense enough to be very proud of her!’
Carlyon looked dubious. Then he suddenly said, —
‘Well, I don’t know! I think a clever woman — a writer of books, you know, like my wife — is a mistake. She is always unsexed.’
As the word passed his lips, Delicia rose, pale, fair and calm in her glistening robes, and confronted them. Like an austere white angel suddenly descended from heaven to earth she stood, — quite silent, — looking straight at her husband and his companion with such a grand scorn in her dark violet eyes as made Carlyon shrink within himself like a beaten hound. Lady Brancewith glanced up at her with a half-impertinent, half-questioning smile, but not a word did Delicia utter. One moment she stood surveying the disloyal, ungracious and ungrateful churl who owed all he possessed in the world to her tenderness and bounty; then coldly, quietly, and with an unshaken grace of bearing and queenliness of movement, she turned away, her soft satin train sweeping them by as she moved forward into the crowded rooms and disappeared.
‘Who was that wonderful-looking woman?’ asked Lady Brancewith, eagerly.
Carlyon flushed, anon grew deadly pale.
‘That was Delicia — my wife,’ he answered curtly.
‘That! That the novelist!’ almost screamed Lady Brancewith. ‘Why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you introduce me? I had no idea she was like that! I thought all literary women wore short hair and spectacles! Good gracious me! And she must have heard you say you considered her “unsexed!” Billy, what a brute you are!’
Carlyon started angrily. The fair Lily and he used in former days to call each other ‘Billy’ and ‘Lily’ so frequently that a wag among their acquaintance made a rhyme on them, running thus: —
‘Lily and Billy
Are invariably silly!
and at that time he did not mind it. But now, considering that he was ‘Lord’ Carlyon, he did not care to be addressed as ‘Billy,’ and his resentment showed itself pretty plainly on his darkened countenance. But Lady Brancewith was too much excited to heed his annoyance.
‘The idea!’ she continued. ‘If she was sitting there all the while she must have heard everything! A nice mess you have made of it! If I were in her place, I’d throw you off like a pair of old shoes!’
‘I haven’t the least doubt you would,’ he said with temper. ‘It’s the way you behave with most men who have the honour of sharing your favour!’
Lily Brancewith showed her pearly teeth in a savage little smile.
‘You were always what is called “rather shady,” Billy,’ she observed calmly. ‘But I didn’t give you credit for being quite a cad! Ta-ta! I’m going to find your wife and introduce myself to her. You know in society people said you were to be pitied for marrying a “literary” celebrity, but I shall put the gossips right on that point — I shall tell everybody it is she who is to be pitied for marrying a military nonentity!’
With a light laugh at her own sarcasm she left him, and started on a voyage of discovery after Delicia. The people were wedged together in groups at every available point to watch the dancing of “La Marina,” who had commenced her performance, and who was announced for that evening as ‘Mademoiselle Violet de Gascon’ out of deference to the ‘proprieties,’ who might possibly have been shocked had they been too openly told that the figurante was the ‘Empire’s’ famous ‘Marina,’ though they were quite aware of the fact all the time. For in the strange motley we call society, one of the chief rules is that if you know a truth you must never say it; you must say something else, as near to a lie as possible. For example, if you are aware, and everybody else is aware, that a lady of exalted title has outraged, or is outraging, every sense of decency and order in her social and private life, you must always say she is one of the purest and most innocent creatures living. Of course, if she is a nobody, without any rank at all, you are at liberty to give her poor name over to the dogs of slander to rend at will; but if she is a countess or a duchess, you must entirely condone her vulgar vices. Think of her title! Think of her family connections! Think of the manner in which her influence might be brought to bear on some little matter in which you personally have an interest! Lady Brancewith knew all this well enough; she knew exactly how to play her cards, and she was sufficiently a woman of the world to salute ‘La Marina’ with a pretty bow and compliment as soon as her dance was finished, and to express the plaintive wish, uttered sighingly, ‘How glad I should be if I were half so clever!’
Whereat Marina sniffed the air dubiously and said nothing. ‘Jewlia Muggins,’ alias ‘Violet de Gascon,’ knew a thing or two, and was not to be taken in by Lady Brancewith or any of her set. She was keenly disappointed. Delicia had not been present to see her dance, and she had very much wished to create a favourable impression on that ‘sweet thing in white’ as she called her. She had danced her best, gracefully, and with an exquisite modesty; too exquisite for many of the gentlemen assembled, some of whom whispered to each other that she was ‘going off’ a bit, simply because they could not see much above her slender ankles. She herself, however, cared nothing for what they said or thought, and at the conclusion of her dance she boldly asked her hostess where Lady Carlyon was.
‘She has gone home, I am sorry to say,’ was the reply. ‘She is not very well, she tells me; and she found the heat of the room rather trying.’
‘Are you speaking of the guest of the evening — Lady Carlyon?’ inquired Lady Brancewith, sweetly.
‘Yes. She extremely regretted having to leave so early, but she works hard, you know, and she is not at all robust.’
Here Lady Dexter’s attention was distracted by the claims of a long-haired violinist desirous of performing a ‘classical’ piece immediately, which, when it did begin, had the effect of driving many people down to supper or out of the house altogether; and in the general scrimmage on the stairs ‘La Marina’ found herself elbowing Lord Carlyon.
‘Your wife’s gone home,’ she said curtly. ‘Why didn’t you go with her?’
‘I have another engagement,’ he answered coldly.
‘Not with me!’ she said, showing all her even white teeth in a broad grin. ‘I talked ever so long to Lady Carlyon this evening, and told her just what I thought of you!’
His eyes darkened furiously, and the lines of his mouth grew hard and vindictive.
‘You wild cat!’ he said savagely. ‘If you have dared—’
‘Puss, puss! Pretty puss!’ laughed Marina. ‘Cats have claws, my Lord Bill, and they scratch occasionally!’
With a swish of her silken skirts she darted past him into the supper-room, where she immediately became surrounded by a circle of young noodles, who evidently deemed it a peculiar glory and honour to be allowed to hand chicken salad to the gifted creature who nightly knocked her own nose with her foot in the presence of a crowded house. What was any art compared to this? What was science? What was learning? What was virtue? Nothing, — less than nothing! To have a shapely leg and know how to hit your nose with your foot, is every day proved to be the best way for a woman to have what is called a ‘good time’ in this world. She needn’t be able to spell, she may drop her h’s broadcast, she may ‘booze’ on brandy, — but so long as the nose is hit every night with the foot in an accurate and rhythmic manner, she will always have plenty of jewels and more male admirers than she can conveniently manage. For there is no degradation that can befall a woman which man will not excuse and condone; equally there is no elevation or honour she can win which he will not grudge and oppose with all the force of his nature! For man loves to hold a strangulation-grip on the neck of all creation, women included; and the idea that woman should suddenly wrench herself out of his grasp and refuse to be either trapped like a hare, hunted like a fox, or shot like a bird, is a strange, new and disagreeable experience for him. And very naturally he clings to the slave type of womanhood, and encourages the breed of those who are willing to become dancers and toys of his ‘harem,’ for, if all women were to rise to the height of their true and capable dignity, where should he go to for his so-called ‘fun’?
Some thoughts of this kind were in Lord Carlyon’s head as he threw on his opera-coat and prepared to leave the scene of revelry at the Dexters. The pale, noble face of Delicia haunted him; the disdain of her clear eyes still rankled in his soul; and he was actually indignant with her for what he considered ‘that offensive virtue of hers,’ which shamed him, and which had, for a moment at least, made ‘the most distinguished Lady Brancewith’ seem nothing but a common drab, daubed with paint and powder. Even as he thought of her thus, the fair and faithless Lily approached him, smiling, with a coaxing and penitent air.
‘Still huffy?’ she inquired sweetly. ‘Poor, dear thing! Did it fret and fume and turn nasty?’ She laughed, then added, ‘Don’t be cross, Billy! I was very rude to you just now — I’m sorry! See!’ and she folded her hands with an appealing air. ‘Drive home with me, will you? I’m so lonely! Brancewith’s at Newmarket.’
Carlyon hesitated, looking at her. She was undoubtedly very lovely, despite her artificial flesh tints and distinctly dyed hair.
‘All right!’ he said with a stand-offish manner of coldness and indifference, ‘I don’t mind seeing you home.’
‘How sweet and condescending of you!’ and Lady Brancewith threw on her mantle gleaming with iridescent jewels and showered with perfumed lace. ‘So good of you to bore yourself with my company!’
Her eyes flashed; she was in a dangerous mood, and Carlyon saw it. In silence he piloted her through the ranks of attendant flunkeys, and when her carriage came bowling up to the door assisted her into it.
‘Good-night!’ he then said, raising his hat ceremoniously.
Lily Brancewith turned white with sudden passion.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’ she asked.
He smiled, thoroughly enjoying the position.
‘No, I have changed my mind. I am going home — to my wife!’
Lady Brancewith trembled, but quickly controlled herself.
‘So right of you,’ she said, smiling. ‘So proper!’ Then, putting out her hand, she caught him by the coat-sleeve. ‘Do you know what I wish for you?’ she said slowly.
‘Can’t imagine!’ he responded carelessly. ‘Something nasty, no doubt.’
‘Yes, it is something nasty!’ She laughed under her breath as she spoke. ‘Something nasty, yet very commonplace, too. I wish your wife may discover the kind of man you are, — and stop your allowances! Good-night!
She smiled brilliantly; the horses started suddenly and he drew back, smothering an angry oath. Another moment and the carriage had rolled away, leaving him alone staring at the pavement. He stood for a little lost in gloomy meditation; then, summoning a hansom, was driven home at a brisk pace, having made up his mind to ‘face it out,’ as he inwardly said, with Delicia.
‘She can’t help loving me,’ he mused. ‘She always has loved me, and she is not a woman likely to change her feelings in a hurry. I’m sorry she saw me with Lily Brancewith; and of course, if that jade Marina has really been talking to her there’ll be a devil of a row. I must make it right with her somehow, and I think I know the best way to go to work.’ Here he smiled. ‘Poor little woman! I daresay she feels awfully sore; but I know her character — a few loving words and plenty of kisses and embraces, and she’ll be just the same as ever she was, and — and — by Jove! I’ll see if I can’t turn over a new leaf. It’ll be infernally dull, but I’ll try it!’
And perfectly satisfied with the plan he had formulated in his own mind for setting things straight, he arrived at his own house. The door was opened to him by Robson, who informed him that her ladyship had returned about an hour ago and was waiting to see him in her study.
‘In her study, did you say?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, my lord. Her ladyship said, would you kindly go up at once, as soon as you came in.’
A touch of ‘nerves’ affected him as he threw off his coat and began to ascend the stairs. He saw Robson extinguish the gas in the hall and descend kitchenwards, and a great silence and darkness seemed to encompass the house as he paused for a moment outside his wife’s room. Then, slowly and with some hesitation, he lifted the velvet portière and entered.
CHAPTER XI
Delicia was at her desk, writing. She had taken off her rich evening costume and was clad in a loose robe of white cashmere that fell down to her feet, draping her after the fashion of one of Fra Angelico’s angels. Her hair was unbound from its ‘dress coiffure’ of elaborate twists and coils, and was merely thrust out of her way at the back of her head in one great knot of gold. She rose as her husband entered, and turned her face, deadly pale and rigid as a statue’s, full upon him. He paused, looking at her, and felt his braggart courage oozing out at his fingers’ ends.
‘Delicia,’ he began, making a poor attempt at smiling. ‘Delicia, I am awfully sorry—’
Her eyes, full of a burning indignation, flashed upon him like lightning and struck him, despite himself, into silence.
‘Spare yourself and me any further lies!’ she said, in a low voice that vibrated with intense passion. ‘There is no longer any need of them. You have shown me yourself as you are, in your true colours — the mask has fallen, and you need not stoop to pick it up and put it on again. It is mere waste of time!’
He stared at her, foolishly pulling at his moustache and still trying to smile.
‘You called me “unsexed” to-night,’ she went on, never removing her steadfast gaze from his face. ‘Do you know what the word means? If not, I will tell you. It is to be like the women you admire! — to be like “La Marina,” who strips her body to the gaze of the public without either shame or regret; it is to be like Lady Brancewith, who flings her husband’s name and honour to the winds for any fool to mock at, and who in her high position is worse, yes, worse than “La Marina,” who at any rate is honest in so far that she admits her position and makes no pretence of being what she is not! But I, — what have I done that you should call me “unsexed?”’
