I had seen enough of London by this time to know that the dresses which
had been made for me at home were by no means the _mode_; but after I
had put on the best-fitting of my simple quaker-like costumes with a
string of the family pearls about my neck and another about my head, not
all the teaching of the good women of the convent could prevent me from
thinking that my husband and his friends would have no reason to be
ashamed of me.
We were a party of six in all, whereof I was the only woman, and we
occupied a large box on the first tier near the stage, a position of
prominence which caused me a certain embarrassment, when, as happened
at one moment of indefinable misery, the opera glasses of the people in
the dress-circle and stalls were turned in our direction.
I cannot say that the theatre impressed me. Certainly the building
itself did not do so, although it was beautifully decorated in white and
gold, for I had seen the churches of Rome, and in my eyes they were much
more gorgeous.
Neither did the audience impress me, for though I had never before seen
so many well-dressed people in one place, I thought too many of the men,
when past middle life, seemed fat and overfed, and too many of the
women, with their plump arms and bare shoulders, looked as if they
thought of nothing but what to eat and what to put on.
Nor did the performers impress me, for though when the curtain rose,
disclosing the stage full of people, chiefly girls, in delicate and
beautiful toilettes, I thought I had never before seen so many lovely
and happy faces, after a while, when the faces fell into repose, I
thought they were not really lovely and not really happy, but hard and
strained and painful, as if life had been very cruel.
And, above all, I was not impressed by the play, for I thought, in my
ignorance of such productions, that I had never heard anything so
frivolous and foolish, and more than once I found myself wondering
whether my good nuns, if they could have been present, would not have
concluded that the whole company had taken leave of their senses.
There was, however, one thing which did impress me, and that was the
leading actor. It was a woman, and when she first came on to the stage I
thought I had never in my life seen anybody so beautiful, with her
lovely soft round figure, her black eyes, her red lips, her pearly white
teeth, and a smile so sunny that it had the effect of making everybody
in the audience smile with her.
But the strange thing was--I could not account for it--that after a few
minutes I thought her extremely ugly and repellent, for her face seemed
to be distorted by malice and envy and hatred and nearly every other bad
passion.
Nevertheless she was a general favourite, for not only was she applauded
before she did anything, but everything she said, though it was
sometimes very silly, was accompanied by a great deal of laughter, and
everything she sang, though her voice was no great matter, was followed
by a chorus of applause.
Seeing this, and feeling that her appearance had caused a flutter of
interest in the box behind me, I laughed and applauded also, in
accordance with the plan I had prepared for myself, of sharing my
husband's pleasures and entering into his life, although at the bottom
of my heart I really thought the joy was not very joyful or the mirth
very merry.
This went on for nearly an hour, and then a strange thing happened. I
was leaning forward on the velvet barrier of the box in front of me,
laughing and clapping my hands with the rest, when all at once I became
aware that the lady had wheeled about, and, walking down the stage in
the direction of our box, was looking boldly back at me.
I could not at first believe it to be so, and even now I cannot say
whether it was something in her face, or something whispered at my back
which flashed it upon my mind that this was the woman my husband ought
to have married, the woman whose place I had taken, the woman of the
foolscap document and the letters in the purple ribbon.
After that I could play my poor little part no longer, and though I
continued to lean on the yellow velvet of the barrier in front of me I
dropped my eyes as often as that woman was on the stage, and hoped and
prayed for the end of the performance.
It came at length with a crash of instruments and voices, and a few
minutes afterwards my husband and I were in the cab on our way back to
the hotel.
I was choking with mingled anger and shame--anger at my husband for
permitting me to come to a place in which I could be exposed to a public
affront from his cast-off mistress, shame at the memory of the pitiful
scheme for entering into his life which had fallen to such a welter of
wreck and ruin.
But my husband himself was only choking with laughter.
"It was as good as a play," he said. "Upon my soul it was! I never saw
anything funnier in the whole course of my life."
That served him, repeated again and again, until we reached the hotel,
when he ordered a bottle of wine to be sent upstairs, and then shook
with suppressed laughter as we went up in the lift.
Coming to our floor I turned towards my bedroom, wishing to be alone
with my outraged feelings, but my husband drew me into one of our
sitting-rooms, telling me he had something to say.
He put me to sit in an arm-chair, threw off his overcoat, lit a
cigarette, as well as he could for the spurts and gusts of his laughter,
and then, standing back to the fire-place, with one hand in his pocket
and his coat-tail over his arm, he told me the cause of his merriment.
"I don't mind telling you that was Lena," he said. "The good-looking
girl in the scarlet dress and the big diamonds. She spotted me the
moment she stepped on to the stage. Must have guessed who you were, too.
Did you see how she looked at you? Thought I had brought you there to
walk over her. I'm sure she did!"