I
It would not have occurred to you that Mrs. Avalon was a discontented
woman. It would not even have occurred to you that she could be, for
what had she not? She was, of course, the wife of John Avalon, K.C. But
she was more than that, she was Fay Avalon. Now of the lovely, the
gracious Fay Avalon, what shall be said that has not already been said?
She was a figure of the world, and in it most centrally situated. She
had not pushed, but she was _there_. More, she was a figure of legend,
remote and courteous. Every one knew about her, but of nothing against
her, and this was so because she was a lady who never by any means
sought any publicity but that which the love and respect of her wide
acquaintance spread for her. She was, in fact, a darling. It was the
fashion to speak well of Fay Avalon, and it is only shallow people who
say that all fashions are shallow because they change. There is nothing
in the world that does not change, and if fashions change oftener than
most that is because--well, it is difficult to say exactly why that is,
and anyway that is not the place for it.
Now why are people like sheep? But perhaps it would be better to ask:
“Why, in nearly all novels and conversations, is there one law for the
rich and another for the poor?” For in nearly all novels and
conversations there is a sort of asinine implication that among the
rich, the social, there is no real friendship, but that real friendship
exists only among the poor. For years and years and years England has
been living under a tyranny, a silly tyranny: it is called the
middle-class, and it is belauded by all because nearly all belong to it.
Now if a writer writes of the middle-class he is said to have a sense of
the Reality of Life, but if he writes of the poor wretches who continue
to eke out a miserable existence on their capital in Mayfair, it is said
of him that he is writing of people who do not matter, people who are
not worth writing about, people among whom none of the real emotions
exist, and so on. The patricians never protest, for a gentleman is one
who can take abuse properly, the same, of course, applying to a lady.
But the others, the Backbone of England! Oh, what a Backbone that is,
and how swiftly it becomes a jawbone when it is scratched by a
well-aimed bit of contumely! But what does all that matter, particularly
when we were talking of Fay Avalon, and how charming she was. She had
many real friends, and these confided much in her, but in them she did
not confide. Fay Avalon was not capable of telling even the least of her
troubles to any one, for she was shy. Beneath her polish, her wit, her
grave courtesy--a rare enchantment, that--her supreme ability as a
hostess at whose table enemies were notably changed to friends, she was
as shy as a girl. Never, never, in all her brilliant life, and it really
was a very brilliant life, had she been able to exclude the idea that
she might very easily bore people, that, in fact, she was not nearly so
clever and amusing as other people. That is why she never confided: she
only seemed to....
One of the many secrets that Fay Avalon hid within herself was that she
was romantic, deeply. She had always been romantic. John Avalon, K.C.,
had never been romantic, and never knew anything of his wife’s trouble.
He loved his wife jealously, but being a great K.C. is, of course, a
very tiring way of life, and so he spent most of his time with her in
sleeping.
Romance came into the life of Fay Avalon at a time when she would
sometimes say: “I am older than most women.” She was thirty-eight years
old, and so she was sorry for herself, and then romance came. It was
Prince Nicholas Pavlovitch Shuvarov who brought it. He was, of course, a
refugee from Bolshevy, and it was said that before the Revolution his
people had owned half of Petrograd, as was only natural, for there are
countless Russians of the old order in London and Paris whose people
once owned halves of Petrograd, not to speak of the Grand Dukes who made
such a mess of all of it. But Prince N. P. Shuvarov was charming, and he
was an artist. You knew that because people went about saying he was
charming and an artist. You were asked to respect him because he earned
his living, and of course you did what you were asked, although you were
not aware of any particular esteem instantly alight in the eyes of those
to whom you volunteered the information that you worked in the City. But
life is different for Russians, they look so tragic, even when drunk,
and so one went on respecting old Shuvarov for earning his living. He
did this amazing feat by going about doing ghastly drawings of his
friends Lady This and Lady That, which he somehow sold to the
illustrated journals of the week, where they appeared in all sorts of
colours under headings like “The Third of Five Lovely Sisters” or
“Popular Daughter of a Great American,” and boldly signed “Shuvarov.”
He was everywhere, in a quiet and pleasant way. Sometimes he was at Fay
Avalon’s, but only sometimes at Fay Avalon’s. Superior people who had
read Dostoeffsky called him Nicholas Pavlovitch, which is of course the
proper way to address a Russian gentleman; while others just called him
Shove-off, though not as though they meant it, for every one liked him.
Women found him attractive. These Russians, they said, are so Sombre.
Mrs. Mountjenkins said he had Magnetism. “One can feel it,” she said,
“when he comes into a room.” Lady Carnal said he was charming and so
_sound_.
In Prince Nicholas Pavlovitch Shuvarov, then, Mrs. Avalon found romance.
No breath of scandal had even been breathed against her, and no such
breath was breathed now. Her purity and her lovely aloofness were
landmarks of London society in the second decade of this century.
Colonel Repington, you will remember, remarked them in particular.
During the period of the war alone he sat beside her thirty-eight times
for luncheon, twenty-eight times for dinner, not to speak of the
innumerable times when he said “Good-evening” to her in such a way that
she not only heard him but answered him. He reports a conversation in
which Fay Avalon was distinctly heard to say to the Home Secretary that
she detested all secret vices like drugs and love, especially
middle-aged love.
“One should live in public,” said Mrs. Avalon. “It is the private life
that has ruined so many great lives and rotted so many good brains.”
“Quite,” said the Home Secretary. “Quite.” But in a few days he had to
resign owing to liver trouble--so it was said--and Mrs. Avalon fell in
love with Prince N. P. Shuvarov. Her one lapse, you understand. All her
life she had longed for this one thing, romance; and at last it had
come, in the sombre eyes of a stranger.
Mrs. Avalon did not know much about that Kind of Thing--the “private
life”--but she knew a good deal about her friends, and that was a good
deal more than she intended they should know about her. She organised
her life to suit her love. It sounds beastly, that, but then you do not
know Fay Avalon and I do, and that is why I know that nothing she did
could ever be so beastly as if any one else did it, for she was a
darling. As for Prince Shuvarov, he was Russian all the way and could
organise nothing. She adored that....