THE LITTLE HOUSE IN MAYFAIR.
The little house in Mayfair was very bright and gay. What conventional
words are those! It was nothing of the kind. It was dim and poetical. No
light that could be kept out of it was permitted to come in. The quality
of light in London, even in April, is not exquisite, and perhaps the
Contessa's long curtains and all the delicate draperies which she loved
to hang about her were more desirable to see than that very poor thing
in the way of daylight which exists in Mayfair. Bice, who was a child of
light, objected a little to this shutting out, and she would have
objected strongly, being young enough to love the sunshine for itself,
but for the exquisite reason which the Contessa gave for the interdict
she had put upon it. "Cara," she said, "if you were all white and red
like those English girls (it is _tant soit peu_ vulgar between
ourselves, and not half so effective as your _blanc mat_), then you
might have as much light as you pleased; but to put yourself in
competition with them on their own ground--no, Bice mia. But in this
light there is nothing to desire."
"Don't you think, then, Madama," said Bice, piqued, "that no light at
all would be better still, and not to be seen the best----"
"Darling!" said the Contessa, with that smile which embodied so many
things. It answered for encouragement and applause and gentle reproof,
and many other matters which words could but indifferently say, and it
was one of her favourite ways of turning aside a question to which she
did not think fit to give any reply. And Bice swallowed her pique and
asked no more. The lamps were all shaded like the windows in this bower
of beauty. There was scarcely a corner that was not draped with some
softly-falling, richly-tinted tissue. A delicate perfume breathed
through this half-lighted world. Thus, though neither gay nor bright, it
realised the effect which in our day, in the time when everything was
different, was meant by these words. It was a place for pleasure, for
intimate society, and conversation, and laughter, and wit; for music and
soft words; and, above all, for the setting off of beauty, and the
expression of admiration. The chairs were soft, the carpets like moss;
there were flowers everywhere betraying themselves by their odour, even
when you could not see them. The Contessa had spared no expense in
making the little place--which she laughed at softly, calling it her
doll's house--as perfect as it could be made.
And here the two ladies began to live a life very different from that of
the Randolphs' simple dwelling. Bice, it need scarcely be said, had
fulfilled all the hopes of her patroness, else had she never been
produced with such bewildering mystery, yet deftness, to dazzle the eyes
of young Montjoie at the Hall. She had realised all the Contessa's
expectations, and justified the bills which Madame di Forno-Populo
looked upon with a certain complacency as they came in, as something
creditable to her, as proof of her magnificence of mind and devotion to
the best interests of her _protegee_. And now they had entered upon
their campaign. It had annoyed her in this new beginning, amid all its
excitements and hopes, to be called upon by Sir Tom for explanations
which it was not to her interest to give; which she had, indeed, when
she deliberately sowed the seed of mystery, resolved not to give. To
allow herself to be brought to book was not in her mind at all, and she
was clever enough to mystify even Sir Tom, and keep his mind in a
suspense and uncertainty very painful to him. But she had managed to
elude his inquiries, and though it had changed the demeanour of Sir Tom,
and entirely done away with the careless good humour which had been so
pleasant, still she felt herself now independent of the Randolphs, and
had begun her life very cheerfully and with every promise of great
enjoyment. The Contessa "received" every day and all day long, from the
time when she was visible, which was not, however, at a very early hour.
About four the day of the ladies began. Sometimes, indeed, before that
hour two favoured persons, not always the same, who had accompanied
them home from the Park, would be admitted to share a dainty little
luncheon. Bice now rode at the hour when everybody rides, with the
Contessa, who was a graceful horsewoman, and never looked to greater
advantage than in the saddle. The two beautiful Italians, as they were
called, had in this way, within a week of their arrival, caused a
sensation in the Row, and already their days overflowed with amusement
and society. Few ladies visited the little house in Mayfair, but then
they were not much wanted there. The Contessa was not one of those
vulgar practitioners who profess in words their preference for men's
society. But she said, so sweetly that it was barbarous to laugh (though
many of her friends did so), that, having one close companion of her own
sex, her dearest Bice, who was everything to her, she was independent of
the feminine element. "And then they are so busy, these ladies of
fashion; they have no leisure; they have so many things to do. It is a
thraldom, a heavy thraldom, though the chains are gilded." "Shall we see
you at Lady Blank Blank's to-night? You must be going to the Duchess's?
Of course we shall meet at the Highton Grandmodes!" "Ah!" cried the
Contessa, spreading out her white hands, "it is fatiguing even only to
hear of it. We love our ease, Bice and I; we go nowhere where we are
expected to go."
The gentlemen to whom this speech was made laughed "consumedly." They
even made little signs to each other behind back, and exploded again.
When she looked round at them they said the Contessa was a perfect
mimic, better than anything on the stage, and that she had perfectly
caught the tone of that old Lady Barbe Montfichet, who went everywhere
(whom, indeed, the Contessa did not know), and laughed again. But it was
not at the Contessa's power of mimicry that they laughed. It was at the
delicious falsehood of her pretensions, and the thought that if she
pleased she might appear at the Highton Grandmodes, or meet the best
society at Lady Blank Blank's. These gentlemen knew better; and it was a
joke of which they never tired. They were not, perhaps, the most
desirable class of people in society who had the _entree_ in the
Contessa's little house; they were old acquaintances who had known her
in her progress through the world, mingled with a few young men whom
they brought with them, partly because the boys admired these two lovely
foreign women; partly because, with a certain easy benevolence that cost
them nothing, they wanted the Contessa's little girl, whoever she was,
to have her chance. But few, if any, of these astute gentlemen, young or
old, was in any doubt as to the position she held.
Nor was she altogether without female visitors. Lady Anastasia, that
authority of the press, who made the public acquainted with the
movements of distinguished strangers and was not afraid of compromising
herself, sometimes made one at the little parties and enjoyed them much.
The Dowager Lady Randolph's card was left at the Contessa's door, as was
that of the Duchess, who had looked upon her with such consternation at
Lucy's party in the country. What these ladies meant it would be curious
to know. Perhaps it was a lingering touch of kindness, perhaps a wish to
save their credit in case it should happen by some bewildering turn of
fortune that La Forno-Populo might come uppermost again. Would she dare
to have herself put forward at the Drawing-room was what these ladies
asked each other with bated breath. It was possible, nay, quite likely,
that she might succeed in doing so, for there were plenty of
good-natured people who would not refuse if she asked them, and of
course so close a scrutiny was not kept upon foreigners as upon native
subjects; while, as a matter of fact, the Dowager Lady Randolph was
right in her assertion that, so far as could be proved, there was
nothing absolutely fatal to a woman's reputation in the history of the
Contessa. Would she have the courage to dare that ordeal, or would she
set up a standard of revolt, and declare herself superior to that
hall-mark of fashion? She was clever enough, all the people who knew her
allowed, for either _role_; either to persuade some good woman, innocent
and ignorant enough, to be responsible for her, and elude the researches
of the Lord Chamberlain, or else to retreat bravely in gay rebellion and
declare that she was not rich enough, nor her diamonds good enough, for
that noonday display. For either part the Contessa was clever enough.
Meanwhile Bice had all the enjoyment, without any of the drawbacks of
this new life. It was far more luxurious, splendid, and even amusing,
than the old existence of the watering-places. To ride in the Park and
feel herself one of that brilliant crowd, to be surrounded by a
succession of lively companions, to have always "something going on,"
that delight of youth, and a continual incense of admiration rising
around her enough to have turned a less steady head, filled Bice's cup
with happiness. But perhaps the most penetrating pleasure of all was
that of having carried out the Contessa's expectations and fulfilled her
hopes. Had not Madame di Forno-Populo been satisfied with the beauty of
her charge, none of these expenses would have been incurred, and this
life of many delights would never have been; so that the soothing and
exhilarating consciousness of having indeed deserved and earned her
present well-being was in Bice's mind. The future, too, opened before
her a horizon of boundless hope. To have everything she now had and
more, along with that one element of happiness which had always been
wanting, the certainty that it would last, was the happy prospect within
her grasp. Her head was so steady, and the practical sense of the
advantage so great, that the excitement and pleasure did not intoxicate
her; but everything was delightful, novel, breathing confidence and
hope. The guests at the table, where she now took her place, equal in
importance to the Contessa herself, all flattered and did their best to
please her. They amused her, either because they were clever or because
they were ridiculous--Bice, with youthful cynicism, did not much mind
which it was. When they went to the opera, a similar crowd would flutter
in and out of the box, and appear afterwards to share the gay little
supper and declare that no _prime-donne_ on the stage could equal the
two lovely blending voices of the Contessa and her ward. To sit late
talking, laughing, singing, surrounded by all this worship, and to wake
up again to a dozen plans and the same routine of pleasure next day,
what heart of seventeen (and she was not quite seventeen) could resist
it? One thing, however, Bice missed amid all this. It was the long
gallery at the Hall, the nursery in Park Lane, little Tom crowing upon
her shoulder, digging his hands into her hair, and Lucy looking on--many
things, yet one. She missed this, and laughed at herself, and said she
was a fool--but missed it all the same. Lucy had come, as in duty bound,
and paid her call. She had been very grave--not like herself. And Sir
Tom was very grave; looking at her she could not tell how; no longer
with his old easy good humour, with a look of criticism and anxiety--an
uneasy look, as if he had something to say to her and could not. Bice
felt instinctively that if he ever said that something it would be
disagreeable, and avoided his presence. But it troubled her to lose this
side of her landscape, so to speak. The new was entrancing, but the old
was a loss. She missed it, and thought herself a fool for missing it,
and laughed, but felt it the more.
The only member of the household with whom she remained on the same easy
terms as before was Jock, who came to the house in Mayfair at hours when
nobody else was admitted, though he was quite unaware of the privilege
he possessed. He came in the morning when Bice, too young to want the
renewal which the Contessa sought in bed and in the mysteries of the
toilette, sometimes fretted a little indoors at the impossibility of
getting the air into her lungs, and feeling the warmth of the morning
light. She was so glad to see him that Jock was deeply flattered, and
sweet thoughts of the most boundless foolishness got in to his head.
Bice ran to her room, and found one of her old hats which she had worn
in the country, and tied a veil over her face, and came flying
downstairs like a bird.
"We may go out and run in the Park so long as no one sees us," she
cried. "Oh, come; nobody can see me through this veil."
"And what good will the air do you through that veil?" said Jock
contemptuously. "You can't see the sun through it; it makes the whole
world black. I would not go out if I were you with that thing over my
face, the only chance I had for a walk. I'd rather stay at home; but
perhaps you like it. Girls are such----"
"What? You are going to swear, and if you swear I will simply turn my
back. Well, perhaps you didn't mean it. But I mean it. Boys are
such---- What? little prudes, like the old duennas in the books, and that
is what you are. You think things are wrong that are not wrong. But it
is to an Englishman the right thing to grumble," Bice said, with a smile
of reconciliation as they stepped into the street. On that sweet morning
even the street was delightful. It restored them to perfect satisfaction
with each other as they made their way to the Park, which stretched its
long lines of waving grass almost within sight.
"And I suppose," said Jock, after a pause, "that you like being here?"
Bice gave him a look half friendly, half disdainful. "I like living,"
she said. "In the country in what you call the quiet, it is only to be
half alive: we are always living here. But you never come to see us
ride, to be among the crowd. You are never at the opera. You don't talk
as those others do----"
"Montjoie, for instance," said Jock, with a strange sense of jealousy
and pain.
"Very well, Montjoie. He is what you call fun; he has always something
to say, _betises_ perhaps, but what does that matter? He makes me
laugh."
"Makes you laugh! at his wit perhaps?" cried Jock. "Oh, what things
girls are! Laugh at what a duffer like that, an ass, a fellow that has
not two ideas, says."
"You have a great many ideas," said Bice; "you are clever--you know a
number of things; but you are not so amusing, and you are not so
good-natured. You scold me; and you say another, a friend, is an
ass----"
"He was never any friend of mine," said Jock, with a hot flush of anger.
"That fellow! I never had anything to say to him."
"No," said Bice, with a smiling disdain which cut poor Jock like a
knife. "I made a mistake, that was not possible, for he is a man and you
are only a boy."
To describe Jock's feelings under this blow would be beyond the power of
words. He inferior to Montjoie! he only a boy while the other was a man!
Rage was nothing in such an emergency. He looked at her with eyes that
were almost pathetic in their sense of unappreciated merit, and, deeper
sting still, of folly preferred. In spite of himself, Locksley Hall and
those musings which have become, by no fault of the poet's, the
expression of a despair which is half ridiculous, came into his mind. He
did not see the ridicule. "Having known me to decline"--his eyes became
moist with a dew of pain--"If you think that," he said slowly,
"Bice----"
Bice answered only with a laugh. "Let us make haste; let us run," she
cried. "It is so early, no one will see us. Why don't you ride, it is
like flying? And to run is next best." She stopped after a flight, swift
as a bird, along an unfrequented path which lay still in the April
sunshine, the lilac bushes standing up on each side all athrill and
rustling with the spring, with eyes that shone like stars, and that
unusual colour which made her radiant. Jock, though he could have gone
on much faster, was behind her for the moment, and came up after her,
more occupied by the shame of being outrun and laughed at than by
admiration of the girl and her beauty. She was more conscious of her own
splendour of bloom than he was: though Bice was not vain, and he was
more occupied by the thought of her than by any other thought.
"Girls never think of being able to stay," he said, "you do only what
can be done with a rush; but that's not running. If you had ever seen
the School Mile----"
"Oh no, I want to see no miles," cried Bice; "this is what I like, to
have all my fingers tingle." Then she suddenly calmed down in a moment,
and walked along demurely as the paths widened out to a more frequented
thoroughfare. "What I want," she said, "is little Tom upon my shoulder,
and to hear him scream and hold by my hair. Milady does not look as if I
pleased her now. She has come once only and looked--not as she once
looked. But she is still kind. She has made this ball for me--for me
only. Did you know? do you dance then, if nothing else? Oh, you shall
dance since the ball is for me. I love dancing--to distraction; but not
once have I had a single turn, not once, since we came to England," Bice
said with a sigh, which rose into a laugh in another moment, as she
added, "It will be for me to come out, as you say, to be introduced into
society, and after that we shall go everywhere, the Contessa says."