Mrs. Maxwell was a voluminous woman of gorgeous exterior, who would have
been pained to hear herself alluded to as a woman instead of a lady.
There was, as she had more than once acutely remarked, a breeding that
is altogether independent either of beauty or wit, and Cleopatra herself
might have been utterly without it.
"And that," said Mrs. Maxwell, "is what makes the difference between a
lady and not a lady."
The inference which she herself drew and meant to be drawn is too
obvious to need pointing out, especially when we remember that she
certainly had neither beauty nor wit, except in so far as it may be held
a proof of ability to have married a money-lender of Jewish extraction
and enormous wealth. But Mrs. Maxwell had ambition, and an amazing
industry. Years ago when she married her Henry she had made up her mind
that, if there was any power whatever in the fact of millions, she
would procure whatever was to be procured with them, and in especial she
had set her heart on bringing not to her feet, but to her table and her
ballroom, all that was noblest and highest in the land. The task had
been far less arduous than she had anticipated, and she felt on this
night of the 16th of May that the prize had been publicly presented to
her. Every one who was any one was going to cross her threshold that
night; a favoured three or four dozen were going to dine there first,
and the rest would come in afterwards. Earls and Countesses were among
them. There was not room for all such nowadays at Mrs. Maxwell's table.
The form that the entertainment was going to take was a concert, for, as
Mrs. Maxwell said, you can dance anywhere for the cost of your
shoe-leather and a couple of trumpets; but it meant a prettier penny
than most people can find in their purse to hear Pagani and Guardina
sitting in a comfortable chair instead of that dreadful draughty
opera-house, and having to go to that cold, creepy "foyure" to get a
glass of lemonade. There was no nonsense or affectation, it will be
remarked, about Mrs. Maxwell's French, which she used ruthlessly in her
conversation, and all her epithets ran in well-matched pairs, like her
horses.
The Maxwells' house stood in Piccadilly overlooking the Green Park, and
it had been purchased as it stood, glass, plate, china, and books
complete, from its owner, who was in straitened circumstances. There
were not many books in the bargain, but among them, luckily enough, was
the callers' book of the late owner, and for the sake of continuity and
general interest Mrs. Maxwell's visitors went on writing their names
there without a break, since the book at the time of their taking
possession was only about half full. It was curious to observe how at
first there was a sort of slump in distinguished names, which now had
completely rallied and developed into a boom; in fact, on the last few
pages half the names were the same as those on the earlier part of the
book.
Among the many other desirable objects in the house were the pictures.
These included several very fine Italian pictures by great masters,
"Raffle," as Mrs. Maxwell rather familiarly called that eminent artist,
being notably represented. They had occasioned a somewhat violent
difference between their present master and mistress, Mrs. Maxwell
maintaining that it was impossible to feel easy and comfortable beneath
such serious-like pictures, Transfigurations and what not, and observing
with some heat that you couldn't sit quiet in your chair with St.
Stephen stoned and bleeding immediately above your head. Eventually a
compromise had been arrived at, and they had been removed from the
drawing-room into the corridor. But even more pointed had been the
discrepancies arising from the small but exquisite half-dozen of Dutch
pictures that had hung in the dining-room. Mr. Maxwell, again, had been
disposed to leave everything exactly as they had found it, arguing that
a family who had lived in the house for a couple of hundred years knew
more about what was suitable to the house than they. This had inflamed
his wife.
"It's a matter of taste, Maxwell," she said; "and I've got as much right
to my own taste as any Duke in the kingdom. And I maintain that while
you're eating your dinner there's no pleasure in looking at a row of
pots and pans hung on the wall, as if to remind you of where your food
has been, and cheeses and what not. And as for that picture of old
Dutchmen eating I don't know what horror, and smoking their pipes the
while, why, it's enough to turn the good wholesome food in your stomach.
And that's my opinion, whether you like it or not."
Mr. Maxwell, who was a just man except in matters of money-lending,
realized that he did not feel as keenly as this.
"But if you take them away, my dear, what will you put in their place!"
"Why, the portraits of you and me and Anthony: you and me on each side
of the fireplace, and Anthony in the middle."
This suggestion was a happy one, and had been put into effect. The
portraits in question were admirable examples of a very eminent painter
of the day, and Henry as large as life, with the unmistakable features
of his race, sat smoking his cigar, so natural, on one side of the
Italian fireplace, while on the other hung Mrs. Maxwell in her crimson
gown with all her diamonds on. Both pictures were diabolically clever,
and much more like the sitters than the sitters (happily for them) had
any idea: for where Mrs. Maxwell saw only the impressionist blurs of
coloured light which indicated her priceless stones, the painter had
finely observed and faithfully represented an intolerably ostentatious
opulence; where Mr. Maxwell saw only that he was, as usual, smoking a
cigar, the painter had seen the man who liked to be painted as doing so.
Besides, the glowing end of it, smouldering beneath its white ash, was
marvellously indicated, and Mr. Maxwell often declared he could almost
catch a whiff of it. Between them hung Anthony, a young man of about
twenty-three. He was undoubtedly the son of each of his parents. And the
two parents were turned fondly, as in life, towards the hope of the
house, and the hope of this house, beautifully dressed, also as in life,
stared somewhat vacuously in front of him.
It was, in fact, on Anthony, quite as much as on the mounting of the
ladder of social distinction, that his mother's ambitions centred, and
Anthony, it must be allowed, was largely that which his mother would
have him be; but on the great question of the potency of wealth, its
being able to get for you, if you spend it properly, anything you wish,
from a wife or an ancestor to a pair of shoes, she did not feel certain
of his soundness. There were other things, too, about Anthony which
puzzled his mother: he was accustomed to read poetry, and appeared to
enjoy Wagner, a curious crookedness, so she thought, in one otherwise
honest. But both mother and son were agreed that, wherever he got his
shoes, he could not do better than get his wife from Andrew Brereton's
house, the prospective bride being Maud Brereton, a young goddess of
about eighteen years and six feet of wholesome growth, whom her mother
invariably alluded to as "my little girl."
To-night it certainly seemed that the new patron saint of England, St.
Sovereign, received definite canonization. Royalty, stars and garters,
wit, talent, beauty, and birth, all came and bowed the knee. Even a
stray copy of the menu at dinner was picked up by an enterprising
reporter for publication next day in the paper he represented, so that
Mr. Maxwell's inimitable _chef_ would have the opportunity of living his
triumph o'er again. Dinner was not till half-past eight, and a feast
that costs five pounds a head necessarily takes time to negotiate,
especially since Mr. Maxwell always ate largely and slowly of every dish
that was put before him, so that before the gentlemen left the
dining-room the less favoured guests had already begun to arrive. Among
these was Guardina, who with great good sense had declined her dinner
invitation for the very excellent reason that if she dined there she
would eat too much, and if she ate too much she would not be able to
sing. "And I am here to sing," she added, being without illusions.
Among the diners there had been Mrs. Brereton and Lady Alston, and the
former, following her invariable practice of always paying court to
Jack's wife, linked her arm in Marie's as they were going upstairs, to
the momentary consternation of Mrs. Maxwell, who clearly saw from her
place at the end of the procession of ascending ladies that there were
several women of higher rank behind her.
"Dear Marie, I haven't seen you for a whole two days," she said. "Where
have you hidden yourself? And I never expected to see you here."
"Why not? Surely the dinner was excellent, and is not Guardina to sing?"
"Yes, of course. Oh, I see, you are laughing at me. Don't be cross,
Marie."
"I'm not cross, only frank."
"Oh, but frankness is such a bore, except when you use it as a weapon of
concealment. In fact, I was talking to Jack about that very point two
days ago. As a means of convincing people that you are not telling the
truth, there is nothing so certain as to tell it."
This Bismarckian but imaginative _résumé_ of the conversation in the
Park came out quite glibly, and Marie laughed.
"Really, Mildred, you have a way with you," she said. "Jack went out
yesterday morning in a vile temper, and came back after riding with you
like a drifting angel, all sweetness and smiles. What had you done to
him?"
"I forget what we talked about--probably about him, for that always puts
a man in a good temper quicker than anything else. I'm so glad it was
successful."
Marie sat down on a gilt Louis XV chair upholstered in Genoese velvet.
"I shall send him to you whenever he is in a bad temper, I think," she
went on, "with a ticket pinned on to him, 'Please return in good
condition.'"
Mildred laughed.
"Dearly as I like Jack," she said, "I am not sure that my affection
would quite go to those lengths. Because Jack in an odious temper is
like--well, like Jack in an odious temper. I know nothing, indeed, to
compare to him."
"Well, I wish you would tell me your secret."
"My dear, there is none. Besides, another woman can so often put a man
in a good temper, when his wife could not possibly."
"That doesn't say much for matrimony."
Mildred looked up a moment, and then fell to fingering her fan again.
"Oh, matrimony is such an excellent institution that a few little
disadvantages of that sort really don't weigh. But certainly what I say
is true. And you know it is just the same with us. Jack can put me in a
good temper when my dear Andrew would assuredly fare pretty badly if he
tried."
"I never quite knew why you married him."
"Oh, for a variety of reasons. He was very rich, I liked him, he wanted
to marry me. And we have been very happy. One can't look for perfection
in one's husband any more than in one's own servants or one's horses.
The point is that they should not have any vices, and on the whole suit
you."
"Is that the modern theory?" asked Marie.
"No, I don't know that it is exclusively modern. But what's the matter,
Marie? What was Jack in a bad temper about?"
Marie frowned.
"Jack was coarse. I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. Do you remember
my going home with Jim two nights ago from your house, when I was going
to see Blanche about the bazaar? Well, he hinted that I had not been to
see her at all. Now, what are you to do when your husband behaves like
that?"
Mildred laughed.
"Dear me! is that all? Men are coarse folk, you will not recognise that,
and when they are in a bad temper they say all sorts of things they
don't mean. Now, I can tell you how I should deal with that. I should
simply have laughed in his face, laughed with a wide mouth. But as for
letting it disturb my peace of mind-- You, too, of all people, who
simply are the most enviable woman in London."
"So you tell me," said Marie; "but I don't quite know why."
"Oh, my dear, if it was not you I should think you were fishing for
compliments-- Why? Because you have the brains to be sometimes amused
and sometimes bored at what absorbs all of us; because you are young;
because somehow or other you are _the_ person; because you make any
woman standing near you look dowdy and coarse----"
Marie laughed.
"I am stifled in my own perfections," she said. "Let me get a breath of
air."
"Guardina is just going to oblige us with one," said Mildred. "She
really is like the girl in the fairy stories out of whose mouth drop
diamonds and pearls. I suppose she is paid at least a sovereign a note.
How pleasant that must be! Look, there is poor Nellie Leighton standing
close to her, as if she hoped to be able to pick some of them up. What a
wonderful woman! Not a penny of any sort to bless herself with, an
insatiable appetite for pleasure, and the most light-hearted and
appreciative woman I know. She sees us; she is coming over here."
Mrs. Leighton, in fact, opened her mouth sideways towards one ear, which
was her way of smiling, and rustled elaborately across the room. She
laid an affectionate hand on Marie's arm, and looked as if she had
something very important to say.
"She is going to sing the 'Zitanella,'" she whispered as the accompanist
played a brilliant chromatic passage to compel silence. "Quite too
divine for words. And I have bought a new house. Rustic."
But at the moment a sound as faint and far-away as the ring of a musical
glass pierced the air. Guardina's lips were hardly parted, but that
spear of sound thrilled through the room. Certainly, if she was paid a
sovereign a note, that first note of the "Zitanella" was good measure.
Then it broke like quicksilver into a thousand perfectly round and
shining globules of sound, collected itself again, poised, quavered,
trilled, thrilled, perched as it were like a bird on the topmost twig of
sound, and vanished like a conjurer's handkerchief into air. Mrs.
Leighton again extended her mouth over her right cheek.
"Too delicious!" she said. "And how we are to pay for it all--the house
I mean--I haven't got the remotest idea. It is so comfortable having no
money at all: you not only don't, but you can't pay for anything, and
it's no use thinking about it. Marie, you must come down and see it.
There are two spare bedrooms all white and chintz. When I am there I
always dream of milk and butter and litters of pigs. Yes, isn't Guardina
marvellous? I wish she would lend me her vocal cords for a week. I
would willingly lend her anything I have for a fortnight."
The end of Guardina's song was marked by a sort of general post, and
Marie was snapped up by Mr. Maxwell, if such a phrase can properly be
used of so deliberate a process. His interpretation of the art of
conversation chiefly consisted in opening his mouth as if he was going
to speak, and then shutting it again, like a fish in an aquarium. The
person with whom he was conversing he stood over in an encompassing
manner, with an air of proprietorship. Elsewhere Anthony had cornered
Mildred Brereton's little girl, who evidently wanted to go away, but was
checked by her mother's eye, which from time to time pinned her like a
fluttering butterfly to the spot. She herself was taken possession of by
Mrs. Maxwell, who, unlike her husband, was as voluminous in speech as
she was in person. Arthur Naseby, close beside them, was half listening
to his hostess's conversation, while he was discussing a quantity of
subjects entirely unfit for discussion with Mrs. Leighton.
"Yes, I'm sure she sings beautiful," said Mrs. Maxwell, "and so true.
She seems to hit the note every time. What a thing to have a gift like
that! and I'm sure she makes the most of it. Why, I remember her first
coming out, and she went away in a hanson-cab from the opera. But she
can go handsomer than cabs now!"
Mrs. Brereton again pinned the unfortunate Maud to her seat.
"And what a brilliant party you have got together, Mrs. Maxwell!" she
said. "Positively, there is every one here one has ever heard of, and
absolutely nobody that one hasn't heard of. That is so clever of you! It
is easy enough to get people, but the difficulty is to not have the
wrong ones. I'm sure you must find it so."
Mrs. Maxwell sighed.
"It's as much as Anthony and me can do in a week's work to go through
the calling-book," she said. "Talk of weeding, you never saw such a deal
of it as we have to do. People seem to think they can all come for the
calling. But one must be careful, and I try never to ask any one whom a
single one of my guests would be sorry to have in their own houses."
Mrs. Brereton smiled a congratulatory smile.
"We should most of us be very glad to see them in ours," she said.
Mrs. Maxwell's mood grew more sublime.
"And the pushing and the shoving that some people do to get asked to
other people's houses," she said, "why, it fair passes belief. Now,
Maxwell has no spirit. 'Let 'em all come,' he says, like that horrid
vulgar song; but I said, 'No, Maxwell--if they all come, half of them
will keep away, and them's the very half you want, and where shall we be
then?' There's Guardina going to sing again, with Pagani this time.
She's got to sing two solos and two duos. How wonderfully their voices
suit! you would say they was made for each other. Excuse me, there's the
Duchess of Perth just come, and I must say a word to her."
Arthur Naseby sank into the unoccupied seat.
"Anything more divine I never wish to hear," he said in a shrill
whisper. "And the diamonds have caught an added lustre for their
brilliant surroundings. To-night Mrs. Maxwell is one coruscation, with a
collation to follow."
"How true, too, what she said about Pagani and Guardina," murmured Mrs.
Brereton. "It takes that sort of person to say that sort of thing. I am
not nervous personally, but"--and her eye caught sight of Maud and
Anthony again--"but she is an excellent good kind woman," she added with
a very distinct change of tone.
"And what of the new man, Jim Spencer?" asked Naseby. "Are there
developments? I always look on you as a sort of barometer. You can tell
what is going to happen before it does happen."
Mildred looked round.
"A little cloud like a man's hand," she said.
"Rising out of South Africa. You mean his head will follow?"
"Hush! That's the worst of having these great people to sing. One cannot
talk."
"So unsociable," said Arthur Naseby.
The room where they sat was the ballroom, with six windows overlooking
Piccadilly. It would have held certainly a hundred couples on the floor,
and, crowded as it was now, it must have contained twice the number. All
the world, as Mrs. Brereton had said, was there, and if it was true
that, as Mrs. Maxwell hoped, every one present would have been glad to
see any of the guests at their houses, the world, it must be confessed,
was of very catholic if not apostolic tendencies. It would be, in fact,
impossible to imagine a more heterogeneous gathering: here a peer of
European reputation, whose very name was considered by the country at
large to be synonymous with solid respectability, was being talked to by
a woman who in other circles, and in widely different ways, was also of
European reputation, and who seemed capable of quite making him forget
for the moment, at any rate, the happy colonies which were intrusted to
his wise and well-judged care; here a traveller recently returned from
regions which were supposed to be impenetrable on account of the
cannibal habits of their denizens was relating to two overdressed
dowagers the internal horrors which ensued on drinking the only water
which could be found in these abandoned spots; here a terrible man with
curiously arched eyebrows and carmine-coloured cheeks, who looked like a
decadent wax-work, was retailing to a brilliant _débutante_, in discreet
whispers, things that made her white shoulders shake with laughter, till
she was whisked away by an indignant mother. Princes of royal blood
mingled with the crowd, which bobbed as they approached, and
straightened itself again to make itself amusing, and all talked and
giggled and gabbled together with the utmost freedom and impartiality.
But the predominant feature of the entertainment which brought all its
heterogeneous components into one harmonious whole was Wealth: Wealth
burst from the throat of the singers, Wealth gleamed from the gilded
chairs and Genoese upholstering, Wealth beamed from the ropes of pearls
and diamonds which encircled lean necks and plump necks, old necks and
young necks, and sat enthroned on black and gray and white and brown,
and particularly on golden, hair. There were no doubt many people there
who were not rich, but the wives of such were pretty, or had some
_cachet_ other than mere good breeding about them; but it is certain
that there was no one in London who was very rich who had not at any
rate been asked for that night, and but few who had not come. This
probably was what Mrs. Maxwell meant when she said there was no one
there whom any of her guests would not have liked to have at their own
houses, and, with exceptions so few as to be negligible, she was
perfectly right. All the plutocracy, in fact, were there, English,
American, German, Greek, and Jew, with all the mixtures of religion,
race and language which wealth, with its wonderful amalgamating power,
can bring together. It was, in fact, a typical English party, for there
was there all that money could buy and all those whom the power of money
could bring. That is why it was so very full. People of birth and
breeding were there, who screamed with unkindly laughter at Mrs. Maxwell
and her bevy of quite impossible millionaires, yet they drank her
champagne and danced to her fiddles with the greatest goodwill in the
world, and had Mrs. Maxwell a hundred sons, each of whom would be as
rich as Anthony, they would have hurled two hundred daughters at their
heads; and had she a hundred daughters, it is perfectly certain that at
least two hundred coronets, prospective or immediate, some with
strawberry leaves, some with pearls, some possibly, even with
fleur-de-lis, would have been laid at their feet. There were, of course,
many people who still were not seen in Mrs. Maxwell's drawing-rooms, and
who persisted in looking over her head when they met her elsewhere, but
she in her turn called them "stuck-up," so the honours were pretty
evenly divided. The world in general, moreover, distinctly agreed with
Mrs. Maxwell, and said how absurd it was to give yourself airs.
Mrs. Maxwell by this time was getting to know the ropes sufficiently
well to refrain from telling people how honoured she felt by seeing them
at her house; she also was sufficiently well acquainted with the minute
appetite the English have for music and the great appetite that our
healthy nation has for food. Consequently the concert, at which every
item was admirable and performed by first-rate artists, was short, and
the supper, also in the hands of first-rate artists, elaborate. Her
other preparations also were on the most complete scale, and
Bridge-tables were ready in one room, all sorts of nicotine and spirits
in another, and in the garden behind, brilliantly illuminated as to its
paths and decently obscure as to its seats, there were plenty of
opportunities to enjoy the coolness of the night air, which many people
seemed to find refreshing and invigorating. In the supper-room, finally,
there was a huge sort of bar for the rank and file, and a quantity of
small tables for the very elect. "In fact," as Mildred Brereton said to
Jack as they strolled about the garden after a violent tussle to get
food, owing to the invincible determination of every one to eat without
delay, "it is as good as the best restaurant, and there is no bill
afterwards."
Jack laughed.
"You mistake the character of the entertainment," he said. "It is a
_salon_; I heard Mrs. Maxwell say so, and not a restaurant. Also, the
bill is your presence here."
"I expect many people would like to know another restaurant conducted on
the same principle," said Mildred; "but for you to say that sort of
thing is absurd, Jack. I believe Marie is making you as old-fashioned as
herself."
Jack swore gently.
"Has she been old-fashioned to-night?" he asked.
"Immensely. She told me about her row with you."
"How like a woman! They have to unburden to their friends about
everything. What's the good of unburdening?"
"Jack, you are such a pig--so am I; that is why we are friends. But,
anyhow, I can see what a pearl she is. Sometimes I've half a mind to
finish with the whole affair. Marie makes----"
He turned on her fiercely.
"You don't dare," he said.
"My good man, it is no use storming. You get your way in the world, I
allow, for somehow or other most people are afraid of you. But if you
think I am, you are stupendously mistaken. To resume--half a mind, I
said. When I have the whole mind you shall be instantly told. I am
scrupulously fair in such matters, and I recognise the justice of your
knowing first."
She got up as she spoke.
"I shall now go home," she said.
He laid his hand on her arm.
"No, don't go yet, Mildred," he said. "And I wish to Heaven you would
not say such horrible things. But never mind that: you don't mean it.
Sit down again."
She laughed.
"I mean every word," she said, "also that I must go. Come; Andrew is
sure to be playing Bridge. You can just drive me home. I will leave the
carriage for him."
Jack rose also.
"Won't he look for you?" he asked.
"Not for long, and then he will play some more Bridge."