December Love

  CHAPTER II

  Craven went away from Berkeley Square that night still under thespell and with a mind unusually vivid and alive. As he had told LadySellingworth, he was now twenty-nine and no longer considered himselfyoung. At the F.O. there are usually a good many old young men, just asin London society there are always a great many young old women. Cravenwas one of the former. He was clever, discreet and careful in his work.He was also ambitious and intended to rise in the career he had chosen.To succeed he knew that energy was necessary, and consequently hewas secretly energetic. But his energy did not usually show above thesurface. Tradition rather forbade that. He had a quiet, even a lazymanner as a rule, and he thought he often felt old, especially inLondon. There was something in the London atmosphere which he consideredantagonistic to youth. He had felt decades younger in Italy, especiallywhen his ambassador had taken him to Naples in summer-time. But that wasall over now. It might be a long time before he was again attachedto an embassy.

  When he reached his rooms, or, rather, his flat, which was just offCurzon Street, he went to look at his bookshelves, and ran his fingeralong them until he came to the poems of William Watson, which were nextto Rupert Brooke's poems. After looking at the index he found the lyriche wanted, sat down, lit his pipe, and read it four times, thinking ofLady Sellingworth. Then he put away the book and meditated. Finally--itwas after one o'clock--he went almost reluctantly to bed.

  In the morning he, of course, felt different--one always feels differentin the morning--but nevertheless he was aware that something definitehad come into his life which had made a change in it. This something washis acquaintance with Lady Sellingworth. Already he found it difficultto believe that he had lived for twenty-eight years without knowing her.

  He was one of those rather unusual young men who feel strongly thevulgarity of their own time, and who have in them something which seemsat moments to throw back into the past. Not infrequently he felt thatthis mysterious something was lifting up the voice of the _laudatortemporis acti_. But what did he, the human being who contained thisvoice and many other voices, know of those times now gone? They seemedto draw him in ignorance, and had for him something of the fascinationwhich attaches to the unknown. And this fascination, or something akinto it, hung about Lady Sellingworth, and even about the house in whichshe dwelt, and drew him to both. He knew that he had never been in anyhouse in London which he liked so much as he liked hers, that in noother London house had he ever felt so much at home, so almost curiouslyin place. The mere thought of the hall with its blazing fire, itsbeehive-chair, its staircase with the balustrade of wrought ironwork andgold, filled him with a longing to return to it, to hang up his hat--andremain. And the lady of the house was ideally right in it. He wonderedwhether in the future he would often be there, whether Lady Sellingworthwould allow him to be one of the few real intimates to whom her door wasopen. He hoped so; he believed so; but he was not quite certain aboutit. For there was something elusive about her, not insincere but justthat--elusive. She might not care to see very much of him although heknew that she liked him. They had touched the fringe of intimacy on thepreceding night.

  After his work at the Foreign Office was over he walked to the club,and the first man he saw on entering it was Francis Braybrooke just backfrom Paris. Braybrooke was buying some stamps in the hall, and greetedCraven with his usual discreet cordiality.

  "I'll come in a moment," he said. "If you're not busy we might have atalk. I shall like to hear how you fared with Adela Sellingworth."

  Craven begged him to come, and in a few minutes they were settled in twodeep arm-chairs in a quiet corner, and Craven was telling of his firstvisit to Berkeley Square.

  "Wasn't I right?" said Braybrooke. "Could Adela Sellingworth ever be aback number? I think that was _your_ expression."

  Craven slightly reddened.

  "Was it?"

  "I think so," said Braybrooke, gently but firmly.

  "I was a--a young fool to use it."

  "I fancy it's a newspaper phrase that has pushed its way somehow intothe language."

  "Vulgarity pushes its way in everywhere now. Braybrooke, I want tothank you very much for your introduction to Lady Sellingworth. You wereright. She has a wonderful charm. It's a privilege for a young man, asI am I suppose, to know her. To be with her makes life seem more what itought to be, what one wants it to be."

  Braybrooke looked extremely pleased, almost touched.

  "I am glad you appreciate her," he said. "It shows that real distinctionhas still a certain appeal. And so you met Beryl Van Tuyn there."

  "Do you know her?"

  Braybrooke raised his eyebrows.

  "Know her? How should I not know her when I am constantly running overto Paris?"

  "Then I suppose she's very much 'in it' there?"

  "Yes. She is criticized, of course. She lives very unconventionally,although Fanny Cronin is always officially with her."

  "Fanny Cronin?"

  "Her _dame de compagnie_."

  "Oh, the lady who reads Paul Bourget!"

  "I believe she does. Anyhow, one seldom sees her about. Beryl Van Tuynis very audacious. She does things that no other lovely girl in herposition would ever dare to do, or could do without peril to herreputation. But somehow she brings them off. Mind, I haven't a wordto say against her. She is exceedingly clever and has mastered thedifficult art of making people accept from her what they wouldn't acceptfor a moment from any other unmarried girl in society. She may be saidto have a position of her own. Do you like her?"

  "Yes, I think I do. She is lovely and very good company."

  "Frenchmen rave about her."

  "And Frenchwomen?"

  "Oh, they all know her. She carries things through. That really is theart of life, to be able to carry things through. Her bronzes are quiteremarkable. By the way, she has an excellent brain. She cares forthe arts. She is by no means a fribble. I have been surprised by herknowledge more than once."

  "She seems very fond of Lady Sellingworth. She wants to get her over toParis."

  "Adela Sellingworth won't go."

  "Why not?"

  "She seems to hate Paris now. It is years since she had stayed there."

  After a pause Craven said:

  "Lady Sellingworth is something of a mystery, I think. I wonder--Iwonder if she feels lonely in that big house of hers."

  "Far more people feel lonely than seem lonely," said Braybrooke.

  "I expect they do. But I think that somehow Lady Sellingworth seemslonely. And yet she is full of mockery."

  "Mockery?"

  "Yes. I feel it."

  "But didn't you find her very kind?"

  "Oh, yes. I meant of self-mockery."

  Braybrooke looked rather dubious.

  "I think," continued Craven, perhaps a little obstinately, "that shelooks upon herself with irony, while Miss Van Tuyn looks upon otherswith irony. Perhaps, though, that is rather a question of the differentoutlooks of youth and age."

  "H'm?"

  Braybrooke pulled at his grey-and-brown beard.

  "I scarcely see--I scarcely see, I confess, why age should be moredisposed to self-mockery than youth. Age, if properly met andsuitably faced--that is, with dignity and self-respect, such as AdelaSellingworth undoubtedly shows--has no reason for self-mockery; whereasyouth, although charming and delightful might well laugh occasionally atits own foolishness."

  "Ah, but it never does!"

  "I think for once I shall have a cocktail," said Braybrooke, signing toan attendant in livery, who at that moment came from some hidden regionand looked around warily.

  "You will join me, Craven? Let it be dry Martinis. Eh? Yes! Two dryMartinis."

  As the attendant went away Braybrooke added:

  "My dear boy, if you will excuse me for saying so, are you not gettingthe Foreign Office habit of being older than your years? I hope you willnot begin wearing horn spectacles while your sight is still unimpaired."

  Craven laughed an
d felt suddenly younger.

  The two dry Martinis were brought, and the talk grew a little morelively. Braybrooke, who seldom took a cocktail, was good enough to allowit to go to his head, and became, for him, almost unbuttoned. Craven,entertained by his elderly friend's unwonted exuberance, talked morefreely and a little more intimately to him than usual, and presentlyalluded to the events of the previous night, and described hisexpedition to Soho.

  "D'you know the _Ristorante Bella Napoli_?" he asked Braybrooke."Vesuvius all over the walls, and hair-dressers playing Neapolitantunes?"

  Braybrooke did not, but seemed interested, for he cocked his head to oneside, and looked almost volcanic for a moment over the tiny glass inhis hand. Craven described the restaurant, the company, the generalatmosphere, the Chianti and Toscanas, and, proceeding with artfulingenuity, at last came to his climax--Lady Sellingworth and Miss VanTuyn in their corner with their feet on the sanded floor and a smokingdish of Risotto alla Milanese before them.

  "Adela Sellingworth in Soho! Adela Sellingworth in the midst of such asociety!" exclaimed the world's governess with unfeigned astonishment."What could have induced her--but to be sure, Beryl Van Tuyn is famousfor her escapades, and for bringing the most unlikely people into them.I remember once in Paris she actually induced Madame Marretti to goto--ha--ah!"

  He pulled himself up short.

  "These Martinis are surely very strong!" he murmured into his beardreproachfully.

  "I don't think so."

  "My doctor tells me that all cocktails are rank poison. They set upfermentation."

  "In the mind?" asked Craven.

  "No--no--in the--they cause indigestion, in fact. How poor AdelaSellingworth must have hated it!"

  "I don't think she did. She seemed quite at home. Besides, she has beento many of the Paris cafes. She told me so."

  "It must have been a long time ago. And in Paris it is all so different.And you sat with them?"

  Craven recounted the tale of the previous evening. When he came to theCafe Royal suggestion the world's governess looked really outraged.

  "Adela Sellingworth at the Cafe Royal!" he said. "How could Beryl VanTuyn? And with a Bolshevik, a Turkish refugee--from Smyrna too!"

  "There were the Georgians for chaperons."

  "Georgians!" said Braybrooke, with almost sharp vivacity. "I really hatethat word. We are all subjects of King George. No one has a right toclaim a monopoly of the present reign. I--waiter, bring me two more dryMartinis, please."

  "Yes, sir."

  "What was I saying? Oh, yes--about that preposterous claim of certaingroups and coteries! If anybody is a Georgian we are all Georgianstogether. I am a Georgian, if it comes to that."

  "Why not? But Lady Sellingworth is definitely not one."

  "How so? I must deny that, really. I know these young poets and painterslike to imagine that everyone who has had the great honour of livingunder Queen Victoria--"

  "Forgive me! It isn't that at all."

  "Well, then--oh, our dry Martinis! How much is it, waiter?"

  "Two shillings, sir."

  "Two--thank you. Well, then, Craven, I affirm that Lady Sellingworth isas much a Georgian as any young person who writes bad poetry in CheyneWalk or paints impossible pictures in Glebe Place."

  "She would deny that. She said, in my presence and in that of SirSeymour Portman and Miss Van Tuyn, that she did not belong to this age."

  "What an--what an extraordinary statement!" said Braybrooke, drinkingdown his second cocktail at a gulp.

  "She said she was--or rather, had been--an Edwardian. She would not haveit that she belonged to the present day at all."

  "A whim! It must have been a whim! The best of women are subject tocaprice. It is the greatest mistake to class yourself as belonging tothe past. It dates you. It--it--it practically inters you!"

  "I think she meant that her glory was Edwardian, that her real life wasthen. I don't think she chooses to realize how immensely attractive sheis now in the Georgian days."

  "Well, I really can't understand such a view. I shall--when I meether--I shall really venture to remonstrate with her about it. Andbesides, apart from the personal question, one owes something to one'scontemporaries. Upon my word, I begin to understand at last why certainvery charming women haven't a good word to say for Adela Sellingworth."

  "You mean the 'old guard,' I suppose?"

  "I don't wish to mention any names. It is always a mistake to mentionnames. One cannot guard against it too carefully. But having done whatshe did ten years ago dear Adela Sellingworth should really--but it isnot for me to criticise her. Only there is nothing people--women--aremore sensitive about than the question of age. No one likes to be laidon the shelf. Adela Sellingworth has chosen to--well--one might feelsuch a very drastic step to be quite uncalled for--quite uncalled for.And so--but you haven't told me! Did Adela Sellingworth allow herself tobe persuaded to go to the Cafe Royal?"

  "No, she didn't."

  "Thank God for that!" said the world's governess, looking immenselyrelieved.

  "I escorted her to Berkeley Square."

  "Good! good!"

  "But we walked to the door of the Cafe Royal."

  "What--down Shaftesbury Avenue?"

  "Yes!"

  "Past the Cafe Monico and--Piccadilly Circus?"

  "Yes!"

  "What time was it?"

  "Well after ten."

  "Very unsuitable! I must say that--very unsuitable! That corner by theMonico at night is simply chock-a-block--I--I should say, teems, that'sthe word--teems with people whom nobody knows or could ever wish toknow. Beryl Van Tuyn should really be more careful. She grows quitereckless. And Adela Sellingworth is so tall and unmistakable. I do hopenobody saw her."

  "I'm afraid scores of people did!"

  "No, no! I mean people she knows--women especially."

  "I don't think she would care."

  "Her friends would care _for_ her!" retorted Braybrooke, almostseverely. "To retire from life is all very well. I confess I think it amistake. But that is merely one man's opinion. But to retire from life,a great life such as hers was, and then after ten years to burst forthinto--into the type of existence represented by Shaftesbury Avenueand the Cafe Royal, that would be unheard of, and really almostunforgivable."

  "It would, in fact, be old wildness," said Craven, with a faint touch ofsarcasm.

  "Old wildness! What a very strange expression!"

  "But I think it covers the suggested situation. And we know what oldwildness is--or if we don't some of the 'old guard' can teach us. ButLady Sellingworth will never be the one to give us such a horriblelesson. If there is a woman in London with true dignity, dignity of thesoul, she has it. She has almost too much of it even. I could almostwish she had less."

  Braybrooke looked suddenly surprised and then alertly observant.

  "Less dignity?" he queried, after a slight but significant pause.

  "Yes."

  "But can a _grande dame_, as she is, ever have too much dignity of thesoul?"

  "I think even such a virtue as that can be carried to morbidity. It maybecome a weapon against the happiness of the one who has it. Those whohave no dignity are disgusting. As Lady Sellingworth said to me, theycreate nausea--"

  "Nausea!" interrupted Braybrooke, in an almost startled voice.

  "Yes--in others. But those who have too much dignity wrap themselves upin a secret reserve, and reserve shuts out natural happiness, I think,and creates loneliness. I'm sure Lady Sellingworth feels terribly alonein that beautiful house. I know she does."

  "Has she told you so?"

  "Good heavens--no. But she never would."

  "She need not be alone," observed Braybrooke. "She could have acompanion to-morrow."

  "I can't imagine her with a Fanny Cronin."

  "I don't mean a _dame de compagnie_. I mean a husband."

  Craven's ardent blue eyes looked a question.

  "Seymour Portman is always there waiting and hoping."
/>
  "Sir Seymour?" cried Craven.

  "Well, why not?" said Braybrooke, almost with severity. "Why not?"

  "But his age!"

  The world's governess, who was older than Sir Seymour, though not a soulknew it, looked more severe.

  "His age would be in every way suitable to Adele Sellingworth's," hesaid firmly.

  "Oh, but--"

  "Go on!"

  "I can't see an old man like Sir Seymour as _her_ husband. Oh, no! Itwouldn't do. She would never marry such an old man. I am certain ofthat."

  Braybrooke pinched his lips together and felt for his beard.

  "I hope," he said, lifting and lowering his bushy eyebrows, "I hope, atany rate, she will never be so foolish as to marry a man who is whatis called young. That would be a terrible mistake, both for her andfor him. Now I really must be going. I am dining to-night rather earlywith--oh, by the way, it is with one of your chiefs--Eric Learington.A good fellow--a good fellow! We are going to some music afterwards atQueen's Hall. Good-bye. I'm very glad you realize Adela Sellingworth'sgreat distinction and charm. But--" He paused, as if consideringsomething carefully; then he added:

  "But don't forget that she and Seymour Portman would be perfectlysuitable to one another. She is a delightful creature, but she is nolonger a young woman. But I need not tell you that."

  And having thus done the needless thing he went away, walking with acertain unwonted self-consciousness which had its source solely in dryMartinis.