THE SECOND HONEYMOON
Only three of the electric lights were on in the music-room. In the rosy
light and half shadows the room looked larger than when seen in
daylight, and different.
She had wandered from the Mazurka into Paderewski's Mélodie Op. 8. No.
3, a lonesome sort of tune it seemed to him, as he dropped into a chair,
crossed his legs and listened.
Then as he listened he began to think. Up to this his thoughts had been
in confusion, chasing one another or pursued by the monstrosity of the
situation. Now he was thinking clearly.
She was his, that girl sitting there at the piano with the light upon
her hair, the light upon her bare shoulders and the sheeny fabric of her
dress. He had only to stretch out his hand and take her. Absolutely his,
and he had only met her twice. She was the most beautiful woman in
London, she had a mind that would have made a plain woman attractive,
and a manner delightful, full of surprises and contrarieties and
tendernesses--and she loved him.
The Arabian Nights contained nothing like this, nor had the brain that
conceived Tantalus risen to the heights achieved by accident and
coincidence.
She finished the piece, rose, turned over some sheets of music and then
came across the room--floated across the room, and took her perch on the
arm of the great chair in which he was sitting. Then he felt her fingers
on his hair.
"I want to feel your bumps to see if you have improved--Ju-ju, your head
isn't so flat as it used to be on top. It seems a different shape
somehow, nicer. Blunders is as flat as a pancake on top of his head.
Flatness runs in families I suppose. Look at Venetia's feet! Ju-ju, have
you ever seen her in felt bath slippers?"
"No."
"I have--and a long yellow dressing gown, and her hair on her shoulders
all wet, in rat tails. I'm not a cat, but she makes me feel like one and
talk like one. I want to forget her. Do you remember our honeymoon?"
"Yes."
She had taken his hand and was holding it.
"We were happy then. Let's begin again and let this be our second
honeymoon, and we won't quarrel once--will we?"
"No, we won't," said Jones.
She slipped down into the chair beside him, pulled his arm around her
and held up her lips.
"Now you're kissing me really," she murmured; "you seemed half
frightened before--Ju-ju, I want to make a confession."
"Yes?"
"Well--somebody pretended to care for me very much a little while ago."
"Who was that?"
"Never mind. I went last night to a dance at the Crawleys' and he was
there."
"Yes."
"Yes--is that all you have to say? You don't seem to be very much
interested."
"I am though."
"I don't want you to be too much interested, and go making scenes and
all that--though you couldn't for you don't know his name. Suffice to
tell you--as the books say--he is a very handsome man, much, much
handsomer than you, Ju--Well, listen to me. He asked me to run off with
him."
"Run off with him?"
"Yes--to Spain. We were to go to Paris first and then to Spain--Spain,
at this time of year!"
"What did you say?"
"I said: 'Please don't be stupid.' I'd been reading a novel where a girl
said that to a man who wanted to run off with her--she died at the
end--but that's what she said at first--Fortunate I remembered it."
"Why?"
"Because--because--for a moment I felt inclined to say 'yes.' I know it
was dreadful, but think of my position, you going on like that, and me
all alone with no one to care for me--It's like a crave for drink. I
must have someone to care for me and I thought you didn't--so I nearly
said 'yes.' Once I had said what I did I felt stronger."
"What did he say?"
"He pleaded passionately--like the man in the book, and talked of roses
and blue seas--he's not English--I sat thinking of Venetia in her felt
bath room slippers and yellow wrapper. You know she reads St. Thomas à
Kempis and opens bazaars. She opened one the other day, and came back
with her nose quite red and in a horrid temper--I wonder what was inside
that bazaar?--Well, I knew if I did anything foolish Venetia would
exult, and that held me firm. She's not wicked. I believe she is really
good as far as she knows how, and that's the terrible thing about her.
She goes to church twice on Sunday, she takes puddings and things to old
women in the country, she opens bazaars and subscribes to ragged
schools--yet with one word she sets everyone by the ears--Well, when I
got home from the dance I began to think, and to-day, when they were all
out, I had my boxes packed and came right back here. I'd have given
anything to see their faces when they got home and found me gone."
She sprang up suddenly. A knock had come to the door, it opened and a
servant announced Miss Birdbrook.
Venetia had not changed that evening, she was still in her big hat. She
ignored Jones, and, standing, spoke tersely to Teresa.
"So you have left us?"
"Yes," replied the other. "I have come back here, d'you mind?"
"I?" said Venetia. "It's not a question of my minding in the least, only
it was sudden, and as you left no word as to where you were going we
thought it best to make sure you were all right."
She took her seat uncomfortably on a chair and the Countess of Rochester
perched herself again by Jones.
"Yes, I am all right," said she, with her hand resting on his shoulder.
Venetia gulped.
"I am glad to know it," she said. "We tried to make you comfortable--I
cannot deny that mother feels slightly hurt at having no word from you
before leaving, and one must admit that it cannot but seem strange to
the servants your going like that--but of course that is entirely a
question of taste."
"You mean," said Teresa, "that it was bad taste on my part--well, I
apologise. I am sorry, but the sudden craving to get--back here was more
than I could resist. I would have written to-night."
"Oh, it does not matter," said Venetia, "the thing is done. Well, I must
be going--but have you both thought over the future and all that it
implies?"
"Have we, Ju-ju?" asked the girl, caressingly stroking Jones' head.
"Yes," said Jones.
"I'm sure," went on Venetia with a sigh, "I have always done my best to
keep things together. I failed. Was it my fault?"
"No," said Teresa, aching for her to be gone. "I am sure it was not."
"I am glad to hear you say that. I always tried to avoid interfering in
your life. I never did--or only when ordinary prudence made me speak, as
for instance, in that baccarat business."
"Don't rake up old things," said Teresa suddenly.
"And the Williamson affair," got in Venetia. "Oh, I am the very last to
rake up things, as you call it. I, for one, will say no more of things
that have happened, but I _must_ speak of things that affect myself."
"What is affecting you?"
"Just this. You know quite well the financial position. You know what
the upkeep of this house means. You can't do it. You plainly can't do
it. Your income is not sufficient."
"But how does that affect you?"
"When tradespeople talk it affects me; it affects us all. Why not let
this house and live quietly, somewhere in the country, 'til things blow
over?"
"What do you mean by things blowing over?" asked Teresa. "One would
think that you were talking of some disgrace that had happened."
Venetia pulled up her long left hand glove and moved as though about to
depart. She said nothing but looked at her glove.
During the whole of this time she had neither looked at nor spoken to
Jones, nor included him by word in the conversation. Her influence had
been working upon him ever since she entered the room. He began now
more fully to understand the part she had played in the life of
Rochester. He felt that he wanted to talk to Venetia as Rochester had,
probably, never talked.
"A man once said to me that the greatest mistake a fellow can make is to
have a sister to live with him after his marriage," said Jones.
Venetia pulled up her right hand glove.
"A sister that has had to face mad intoxication and _worse_, can endorse
that opinion," said she.
"What do you mean by worse?" fired Teresa.
"I mean exactly what I say," replied Venetia.
"That is no answer. Do you mean that Arthur has been unfaithful to me?"
"I did not say that."
"Well, what can be worse than intoxication--that is the only thing worse
that I know of--unless murder. Do you mean that he has murdered
someone?"
"I will not let you drag me into a quarrel," said Venetia; "you are
putting things into my mouth. I think mad extravagance is worse than
intoxication, inasmuch as it is committed by reasonable people
uninfluenced by drugs or alcohol. I think insults levelled at
inoffensive people are worse than the wildest deeds committed under the
influence of that demon alcohol."
"Who are the inoffensive people who have been insulted?"
"Good gracious--well, of course you don't know--you have not had to
interview people."
"What people?"
"Sir Pleydell Harcourt for instance, who had sixteen pianos sent to him
only last week, to say nothing of pantechnicon vans and half the
contents of Harrods' and Whiteleys', so that Arlington Street was
blocked, simply blocked, the whole of last Friday."
"Did he say Arthur had sent them?"
"He had no direct proof--but he knew. There was no other man in London
would have done such a thing."
"Did you send them, Ju-ju?"
"No," said Jones. "I did not."
Venetia rose.
"You admitted to me, yourself, that you did," said she.
"I was only joking," he replied.
Teresa went to the bell and rang it.
"Good night," said Venetia, "after that I have nothing more to say."
"Thank goodness," murmured Teresa when she was gone. "She made me shiver
with her talk about extravagance. I've been horribly extravagant the
last week--when a woman is distracted she runs to clothes for
relief--anyhow I did. I've got three new evening frocks and I want to
show you them. I've never known your taste wrong."
"Good," said Jones, "I'd like to see them."
"Guess what they cost?"
"Can't."
"Two hundred and fifty--and they are a bargain. You're not shocked, are
you?"
"Not a bit."
"Well, come and look at them--what's the time? Half past ten." She led
the way upstairs.
On the first landing she turned to the left, opened a door and disclosed
a bed-room where a maid was moving about arranging things and unpacking
boxes.
A large cardboard box lay open on the floor, it was filled with snow
white lingerie. The instinct to bolt came upon Jones so strongly that he
might have obeyed it, only for the hand upon his arm pressing him down
into a chair.
"Anne," said the Countess of Rochester, "bring out my new evening gowns,
I want to show them."
Then she turned to the cardboard box. "Here's some more of my
extravagance. I couldn't resist them, Venetia nearly had a fit when she
saw the bill--Look!"
She exhibited frilled and snow white things, delicate and diaphanous and
fit to be worn by angels. Then the dresses arrived, and were laid out on
the bed and inspected. There was a black gown and a grey gown and a
confection in pale blue. If Jones had been asked to price them he would
have said a hundred dollars. Like most men he was absolutely unconscious
of the worth of a woman's dress. To a woman a Purdy and a ten guinea
Birmingham gun are just the same, and to a man, a ten guinea Bayswater
dress is little different, if worn by a pretty girl, from a seventy
guinea Bond Street--is it Bond Street--rig out. Unless he is a man
milliner.
Jones said "beautiful," gave the palm to the blue, and watched them
carried off again by the maid.
He had left his cigarettes down stairs; there were some in a box on a
table, she made him take one and lit it for him, then she disappeared
into a room adjoining, returning in a few minutes dressed in a kimono
covered with golden swallows and followed by the maid. Then she took her
seat before a great mirror and the maid began to take down her hair and
brush it.
As the brushing went on she talked to the maid and to Jones
upon all sorts of subjects. To the maid about the condition of
her--Teresa's--hair, and a new fashion in hair dressing, to Jones about
the Opera, the stoutness of Caruso, and kindred matters.
The hair having been arranged in one great gorgeous plait, Jones
suddenly breaking free from a weird sort of hypnotism that had held him
since first entering the room, rose to his feet.
"I'll be back in a minute," said he.
He crossed the room, reached the door, opened it and passed out closing
the door. In the corridor he stood for half a moment with his hand to
his head.
Then he came down the stairs, crossed the hall, seized a hat and
overcoat, put them on and opened the hall door.
All the way down the stairs and across the hall, he felt as though he
were being driven along by some viewless force, and now, standing at the
door, that same force pushed him out of the house and on to the steps.
He closed the door, came down the steps, and turned to the right.