FUTURISM
It had long been Nigel's dream, since he had practically given up all
hope of calm and peaceful happiness at home, to have, at least, a secret
sorrow that everyone knew of and sympathised with. And certain people
did feel for him, understanding the great worry of his wife's morbid
jealousy. But the general public thought him extremely fortunate to have
married a woman--or rather a young girl--whose enormous wealth was only
equalled by her extraordinary devotion. Yet from the one person who
mattered, the look of tacit sympathy was denied him. How it would have
soothed him and made him absolutely happy! And Bertha was the only human
being who must never be allowed to know of his domestic troubles. She
was extremely proud, and it would have caused her great anger and pain
to think that after throwing her over (as he really had, for worldly
advantages), he should then want to come back, complain ungratefully of
the benefactress he had chosen and philander and amuse himself again. So
he had never referred to his unhappy life. His plan was deeper than
that. It was to appear merely the amusing friend, until by some chance,
he should feel his way to be more secure; to be, in fact, a kind of tame
cat, a _camarade_, useful, and intellectually sympathetic, unselfishly
devoted--until, perhaps, the time might come when she might find she
could not do without him. His calculations happened to be completely
wrong, but that, of course, he could not know. Like all collectors,
whether of women or of any other works of art or nature, although a
connoisseur, he did not quite recognise the exceptional when he met
it--his rules of life were too general. And his love for Bertha--what
word can one use but the word-of-all-work, love, which means so many
variations and shades, and complications of passion, sentiment, vanity
and attraction?--his love had greatly increased, was growing stronger:
sometimes he wondered whether it was the mere contradictory, defiant
obstinacy of the discouraged admirer; and, certainly, there was in his
devotion a strong infusion of a longing to score off his tyrannising
wife and the fortunate, amiable Percy. Nigel's jealousy of Percy--and
not of Percy only, but in a less degree of most men Bertha knew--was not
very far behind his wife's jealousy of him. A morbid propensity that
causes great suffering in domestic life is often curiously infectious to
the very person for whom it creates most suffering. Nigel sometimes
found himself positively imitating Mary in many little ways; watching,
and listening and asking indirect questions to find things out: if he
had dared he would have made Bertha a violent scene every time her
husband came into the house! He tried to hide it and had made Percy like
him. But Bertha could see perfectly well the tinge of jealousy for every
other friend of hers, and an inclination to crab and run down and sit
out, especially, any smart young man. This neither amused nor annoyed
her. She did not think about it.
Nigel really felt, besides, that most cruel of all remorse--_selfish_
remorse, that he had cheated himself in having thrown over love for
money. For his was not, after all, a mere smug, second-rate nature which
gold, and what it meant, in however great quantities, could really ever
satisfy. Putting aside the fact that his wife irritated him nearly to
madness, even if he had been allowed to live alone, and perfectly
free,--wealth and its gratifications would never have made him happy.
He had mistaken himself in a passing fit of despair and cupidity, aided
by the torturing agonies of being deeply in debt all round, and the
ghastly fear of a social smash.
He had a longing to feel at ease; he had a love of pleasure, too, of
freedom, of idleness; and the sort of talent that consists in
brilliantly describing what one could do and what one would like to do:
in sketching schemes, verbally--literary, financial, artistic, no matter
what--with so much charm, such aplomb that everyone believed in him, and
enjoyed to hear his projects, but he had not either the genius that
compels its owner to work nor the steadiness, the determination of
character that makes a man a successful drudge, who gets there in the
end.
Nigel is being rather severely analysed. But let it be understood that
with it all, besides having very great charm of look and manner, wit and
high spirits, in certain ways he was quite a good fellow: he had no
sneers for the more fortunate, no envy, nothing petty: he was
warm-hearted, generous even--when it did not cross some desire of his;
lavish with money, both on himself and on anyone who aided his pleasure,
and quite kind and tender-hearted in that he couldn't bear to see
anyone suffer--even Mary, with whom, as a matter of fact, he was very
weak.
The saint thinks only of the claims of others: the criminal solely of
his own. Between these extremes, there are, obviously, countless shades.
Unfortunately, Nigel had this in common with the worst; that when he
really wanted anything, everything had to go to the wall: all rights of
others, principles and pity were forgotten, everything was thrown
over--everyone pushed out of the way. He became unscrupulous. So when he
had required money he threw over his first love who, he knew, adored
him; now when he found out the mistake and was seriously in love with
Bertha, he would have thrown over anything on earth to get her, and
admired himself for doing it. He thought himself now noble-spirited and
sporting. He would have run away with her at any moment, even if he
thought they would have two or three hundred a year to live on, or
nothing at all. Not only that, he would have been devoted to her and
worshipped her and never reproached her--and been faithful to her
too--until he fell in love with someone else, which might, or might not
have happened.
Often he wondered why he cared so much more for Bertha now that she was
twenty-eight than when she was eighteen. Perhaps she had really
increased in charm: certainly she had in magnetism and in knowledge of
the world, and she was just as attractive, a sweet little creature whom
one wanted to protect and yet whom, in a way, one could lean on and rely
on, too. She was so subtle, so strangely wise and sensible--she seemed
to know everything while having the naive, unconscious air of a person
who knows next to nothing. And all these gifts she used--for what? She
made Percy happy, she was charming and kind, clear-sighted, indulgent
(if a little cynical), and always amusing; full of dash and spirit, and
yet with the most feminine softness, and above all that invaluable
instinct, always, for doing and saying the right thing ... and (he knew
instinctively) a genius for love. ...
Yes, he thought, she was an extraordinary woman! There was nobody
like her: in his opinion she was thrown away on Percy. But _she_
did not think so, and he envied, hated the husband, with an absurd
bitterness--envied him for several reasons, but chiefly because Nigel
had now developed what had been in abeyance at the time of their
youthful engagement--that real sensuous discrimination, which has
comparatively little to do with taste for beauty, that power of
weighing amorous values, given only to the authentic Sybarite.
* * * * *
On the day arranged for the Russian Ballet party, Nigel made an excuse
for seeing Bertha to arrange tactics with regard to Rupert and Madeline.
She told him she was expecting the Futurist painter, the Italian,
Semolini, but she received him first.
"About Rupert, now," said Nigel. "Isn't it odd?--I always think of
Rupert with a rapier concealed somewhere about his person. Ruperts and
rapiers are inseparably associated in my mind. Well--shall I, after
supper, drive back with Rupert and praise up Miss Irwin--or not?"
"Yes, if you think it is a good thing."
"_If_ I think it's a good thing! Nothing in the world has such a good
effect on a man as the admiration of another man for the girl he
admires."
"But don't do too much digging in the ribs--don't overdo it. Rupert,
though he doesn't carry a rapier, isn't quite a modern cynical man, and
with all his affectations I believe he has a very sweet nature. He'll be
good to Madeline--I want her to be happy."
"Well, at any rate, if she likes him she may as well have her fling at
him," said Nigel carelessly.
Bertha looked annoyed.
"That isn't the point only--silly! If she liked _you_ ever so much and
you were free, do you suppose I would take her side--help her?"
"I hope not," said Nigel insinuatingly, suddenly changing his seat to
one close to Bertha.
She looked calmly away, as if bored.
He saw it was the wrong tone and stood up, with his back to the
mantelpiece, looking at her.
"I like your frock, Bertha."
She looked down at it.
"You have an extraordinary air of not knowing what you have got on. I
never saw a woman look so unconscious of her dress. There's a good deal
of the art that conceals art about it, I fancy. Your clothes are
attractive--in an impressionist way!"
"The only thing I think of about my dresses, is that they should make
people admire me--not my dressmaker," said Bertha candidly. "I don't
care for much variety, and I leave real smartness to Madeline and the
other tall, slim girls. My figure is so wrong! How dare I be short and
tiny, and yet not thin, nowadays?"
"You're exquisite--at least in my opinion. I've never been an admirer of
the lamp-post as the type of a woman's figure."
She looked bored again. "Oh, please don't! I don't care what you
like--so long as you like Mary, who was very graceful and _chic_, I
thought, the other night at the opera."
It was Nigel's turn to look bored.
"Yes. ... What is this chap like, this Semolini man?"
"He's not like anything. He's a nice little thing."
"Signor Semolini," announced the servant.
A very small, very brown young man came in, clean-shaven, with large
bright blue eyes, black hair, and a single eyeglass with a black ribbon.
They greeted him cordially, convinced him that he was welcome, made him
feel at home, gave him tea. It was his first visit, but no one was ever
shy long with Bertha. He soon began chattering very volubly in a sort of
English, which, if not exactly broken, was decidedly cracked.
"I like those things of yours--at the gallery, I mean," said Nigel
patronisingly. He was always patronising to all artists, even when he
didn't know them, as in this case, to be cranks. "I think they're
top-hole; simply _awfully_ good, I thought. I didn't quite understand
them, though, I admit."
"But you saw ze idea?"
"What idea?"
"Why, the simultaneity of the plastic states of mind in the art? That is
our intoxicating object, you know."
"Oh, that! Ah, yes--yes, quite so. I thought it was that." Nigel looked
knowing, and shook his head wisely.
Under this treatment the young Italian became very animated.
"You were right! You see, it is ze expansion of coloured forms in space,
combined with the co-penetration of plastic masses which forms what we
call futurism."
"Oh yes, of course," said Nigel. "It would be. I mean to
say--well!--almost anyone would guess that, wouldn't they?"
Semolini turned to Bertha, talking more and more quickly, and
gesticulating with a little piece of bread and butter in his right hand.
"It is ze entire liberation from the laws of logical perspective that
makes movement--the Orphic cubism--if you will allow me to say so!"
"Oh, certainly," smiled Bertha. "_Do_ say so!"
"Orphic cubism! I say! Isn't that a bit strong before a lady?" murmured
Nigel.
Semolini laughed heartily without understanding a word, and continued to
address himself to Bertha, whose eyes looked sympathetic. "It is
painting, pure painting--painting new masses with elements borrowed
chiefly from the reality of mental vision!" cried the artist.
"Funny! Just what I was going to say!" said Nigel.
Bertha contented herself with encouraging smiles.
The young Italian was due to lecture on his views, and had to leave. At
least three appointments were made with him, none of which Nigel had the
slightest intention of keeping--to "go into the matter more
thoroughly"--then Semolini vanished, charmed with his reception.
"Good heavens! will someone take me away and serve me up on a cold
plate?" said Nigel, directly he had gone. "Look here, Bertha, is the
chap off his head, a fraud, or serious?"
"Awfully serious. Are you going to see him to look into the matter?"
"I _think_ not," said Nigel, "at least I don't want to see his pictures,
face to face, until I've insured my life. I must think of my widow and
the children."
Here Nigel's young brother, Charlie, arrived. He was a slimmer, younger,
but less good-looking edition of Nigel. He had just come down from
Oxford, was pleasant, gentle, and appeared to be trying to repress a
natural inclination to be a nut. He called on Bertha in the hope of
seeing Madeline.
"I say, the Futurist chap has just been here," said Nigel to Charlie.
"Good! What's he like?"
"A little bit of all right. Frightfully fascinating, as girls say," said
Nigel.
"He's not so bad," said Bertha mildly.
"Isn't he? I've seen the pictures. But what _is_ he like? The sort of
chap you'd like to be seen with?" asked the young man.
"Well--not acutely," replied Nigel.
"Very dark, is he? quite black?"
"Yes."
"Good teeth?"
"Yes, several."
"Clean-shaven?"
"Not very."
There was a pause.
"But is he really an Italian?" asked Charlie.
"Shouldn't think so," said Nigel carelessly.
"What then?" asked Bertha, laughing.
"Scotch, probably."
"Very likely, if he's clever. They say all the clever people come from
Scotland," Charlie remarked.
"And the cleverer they are, the sooner they come, I suppose," said
Bertha. "Fancy the MacFuturist in a kilt!"
"But where does he come from ... where does he really live?" continued
Charlie, who seemed to have a special, suspicious curiosity on the
subject.
"Rapallo," said Bertha.
"Where's that?"
"The first turning to the left on the map as you go to Monte Carlo,"
said Nigel.
"But what _did_ he say--was he very odd and peculiar?"
"Oh, he carried on like one o'clock about Futurism," said Bertha.
"I thought every moment would be my next," said Nigel.
"What nonsense you're both talking," said Bertha.
"Yes, and if Charlie thinks he's going to sit me out by asking
questions, he's jolly well mistaken," Nigel said. "Look here, old chap,
Bertha's going out. I know she wants to get into her glad raiment. I'll
drop you."
"Right-o!" said Charlie, jumping up.
They took their leave. Bertha looked amused.