December Love Part 12

Underneath all her conquering charm, hidden away like a trembling bird under depths of green leaves, there was a secret diffidence of which she had occasionally been conscious during her life. It had no doubt been born with her, had lived in her as long as she had lived. Very few people knew of its existence. But she knew, had known of it as long as she remembered. Now that diffidence seemed to hold her with talons, to press its beak into her heart.

She felt that she could not face the world with any a.s.surance if she lost her beauty. She had charm, cleverness, rank, position, money. She knew all her advantages. But at that moment she seemed to be confronting penury. And as she continued to look into the mirror ugliness seemed to grow in the woman she saw like a spreading disease till she felt that she would be frightened to show herself to anyone, and wished she could hide from everyone who knew her.

That absurdly morbid fit pa.s.sed, of course. It could not continue, except in a woman who was physically ill, and Lady Sellingworth was quite well. But it left its mark in her mind. From that day she began to take intense trouble with herself. Hitherto she had been inclined to trust her own beauty. She had relied on it almost instinctively.

And that strange, hidden diffidence, when it had manifested itself, had manifested itself in connexion with social things, the success of a dinner, or with things of the mind, the success or non-success of a conversation with a clever man. She had never spoken of it to anyone, for she had always been more or less ashamed of it, and had brought silence to her aid in the endeavour to stamp it out lest it should impair her power over others. But now it was quickened within her. It grew, and in its growth tortured her.

"How do you manage it?"

That not very kind question of the friend who had compared her to an Indian summer remained with Lady Sellingworth. Since she had considered herself in the mirror she had realized that she had attained that critical period in a beauty's life when she must begin incessantly to manage to continue a beauty. Hitherto, beyond always dressing perfectly and taking care to be properly "turned out," she had done less to herself than many women habitually do. Now she swung to the opposite extreme. There is no need to describe what she did. She did, or had done to her, all that she considered necessary, and she considered that a very great deal was necessary.

A certain Greek, who was a marvellous expert in his line, helped her at a very high figure. And she helped herself by much rigid abstinence, by denying natural appet.i.tes, by patient physical discipline. Her fight against the years was tremendous, and was conducted with extraordinary courage.

But nevertheless it seemed to her that a curse was put upon her; in that she was surely one of those women who, once they take the first step upon the downward slope, are compelled to go forward with a d.a.m.nable rapidity.

The more she "managed it" the more there seemed to be to manage.

From the time when she frankly gave herself into the clutches of artificiality the natural physical merit of her seemed to her to deteriorate at a speed which was headlong.

A hideous leap in the downward course took place presently. She began to dye her hair. She was not such a fool as to change its natural colour.

She merely concealed the fact that white hairs were beginning to grow on her head at an age when many simple people, who don't care particularly what they look like--sensible clergymen's wives in the provinces, and others unknown to fashion--remain as brown as a berry, or as pleasantly auburn as the rind of a chestnut.

The knowledge of those hidden white hairs haunted her. She felt horribly ashamed of them. She hated them with an intense, and almost despairing, hatred. For they stamped the terrific difference between her body and her nature.

It seemed to her that in her nature she retained all the pa.s.sions of youth. This was not strictly true, for no woman over forty has precisely the same pa.s.sions as an ardent girl, however ardent she may be. But the "wild heart," spoken of by Lady Sellingworth to Craven, still beat in her breast, and the vanity of the girl, enormously increased by the pa.s.sage of the years, still lived intensely in the middle-aged woman.

It was perhaps this natural wildness combined with her vanity which tortured Lady Sellingworth most at this period of her life. She still desired happiness and pleasure greedily, indeed with almost unnatural greediness; she still felt that life robbed of the admiration and the longing of men would not be worth living.

Beryl Van Tuyn had spoken of a photograph of Lady Sellingworth taken when she was about forty-nine, and had said that, though very handsome, it showed a _fausse jeunesse_, and revealed a woman looking vain and imperious, a woman with the expression of one always on the watch for new lovers. And there had been a cruel truth in her words. For, from the time when she had given herself to artificiality until the time, some nine years later, when she had plunged into what had seemed to her, and to many others, something very like old age, Lady Sellingworth had definitely and continuously deteriorated, as all those do who try to defy any natural process. Carrying on a fight in which there is a possibility of winning may not do serious harm to a character, but carrying on a fight which must inevitably be lost always hardens and embitters the combatant. During those years of her _fausse jeunesse_ Lady Sellingworth was at her worst.

For one thing she became the victim of jealousy. She was secretly jealous of good-looking young women, and, spreading her evil wide like a cloud, she was even jealous of youth. To be young was to possess a gift which she had lost, and a gift which men love as they love but few things. She could not help secretly hating the possessors of it.

She had now become enrolled in the "old guard," and had adopted as her device their motto, "Never give up." She was one of the more or less mysterious fighters of London. She fought youth incessantly, and she fought Time. And sometimes the weariness and the nausea of battle lay heavy upon her. Her expression began to change. She never lost, she never could lose, her distinction, but it was slightly blurred, slightly tarnished. She preserved the appearance of bonhomie, but her cordiality, her good nature, were not what they had been. Formerly she had had marvellous spirits; now she was often accompanied into the world by the black dog. And when she was alone he sat by the hearth with her.

She began to hate being a widow. Sometimes she thought that she wished she had had children. But then it occurred to her that they might have been daughters, lovely girls now perhaps, showing to society what she had once been. With such daughters she would surely have been forced into abdication. For she knew that she could never have entered into a contest with her own children. Perhaps it was best as it was, best that she was childless.

She might no doubt have married a third time. Sir Seymour Portman, a bachelor for her sake, would have asked nothing better than to become her husband. And there were other middle-aged and old men who would gladly have linked themselves with her, and who did not scruple to tell her so. But now she could not bear the idea of making a "suitable"

match. Lord Sellingworth had been old, and she had been happy with him.

But she had felt, and had considered herself to be, young when she had married him. The contrast between him and herself had been flattering to her vanity. It would be different now. And besides, with the coming of middle age, and the fatal fading of physical attraction, there had come into her a painful obsession.

As much as she hated youth in women she was attracted by it in men. She began secretly to worship youth as it showed itself in the other s.e.x.

Something in her clamoured for the admiration and the longing of the young men who were amorous of life, who were comparatively new to the fray, who had the ardour and the freshness which could have mated with hers when she was a girl, but which now contrasted violently with her terribly complete experience and growing morbidity. She felt that now she could never marry a man of her own age or older than herself, not simply because she could not love such a man, but because she would be perpetually in danger of loving a man of quite another type.

She entered upon a very ugly period, perhaps the ugliest there can be in the secret life of a woman. And it was then that there came definitely into her face, and was fixed there, the expression noted by Miss Van Tuyn in the photograph in Mrs. Ackroyd's drawing-room, the expression of a woman on the pounce.

There is no food so satisfying to the vanity of a middle-aged woman as the admiration and desire of young men. Lady Sellingworth longed for, and sought for, that food, but not without inward shame, and occasionally something that approached inward horror. For she had, and never was able to lose, a sense of what was due not merely to herself but to her better self. Here the woman of the blood was at grips with the woman of the grey matter. And the imp enthroned somewhere within her watched, marked, remembered, condemned.

That imp began to persecute Lady Sellingworth. She would have slain him if she could, for he was horribly critical, and remained cold through all her intensities. In Paris he had often been useful to her, for irony is appreciated in Paris, and he was strongly ironical. Often she felt as if he had eyes fixed upon her sardonically, when she was giving way to the woman in her blood. In Paris it had been different. For there, at any rate in all the earlier years, he had been criticizing and laughing at others. Now his attention was always on her. There were moments when she could almost hear his ugly, whispering voice telling her all he thought about her, about her appearance, her conduct, her future, about her connexions with others now, about the loneliness that was coming upon her. She saw many other women who were evidently content in, and unconscious of, their follies. Why was she not like them? Why had she been singled out for this persecution of the brain. It is terrible to have a brain which mocks at you instead of happily mocking at others.

And that was her case. Later she was to understand herself better; she was to understand that her secret diffidence was connected with the imp, was the imp's child in her as it were; later, too, she was to learn that the imp was working for her eventual salvation, in the moral sense.

But she had not yet reached that turning in the path of her life.

During all this period her existence was apparently as successful and brilliant as ever. She was still a leader in London, knowing and known to everyone, going to all interesting functions, receiving at her house all the famous men and women of the day. To an observer it would have seemed that she occupied an impregnable position and that she was having a wonderful time. But she was really a very unhappy woman at violent odds with herself.

On one occasion when she was giving a dinner in her house a discussion broke out on the question of happiness. It was asked by someone, "If you could demand of the G.o.ds one gift, with the certainty of receiving it, what gift would you demand?" Various answers were given. One said, "Youth for as long as I lived"; another "Perfect health"; another "Supreme beauty"; another "The most brilliant intellect of my time"; another "The love and admiration of all I came in contact with."

Finally a sad-looking elderly man, poet, philosopher, and the former administrator of a great province in India, was appealed to. His answer was, "Complete peace of mind." And on his answer followed the general discussion about happiness.

When the party broke up and Lady Sellingworth was alone she thought almost desperately about that discussion and about the last answer to the question which had been put.

Complete peace of mind! How extraordinary it would be to possess that!

She could scarcely conceive of it, and it seemed to her that even in her most wonderful days, in her radiant and careless youth, when she had had almost everything, she had never had that. But then she had not even wanted to have it. Complete peace seems but a chilly sort of thing to youth in its quick-silver time. But later on in life we love combat less.

Suddenly Lady Sellingworth realized the age of her mind, and it seemed to her that she was a horrible mixture of incongruities. She was physically aging slowly but surely. She had appet.i.tes which were in direct conflict with age. She had desires all of which turned towards youth. And her mind was quite old. It must be, she said to herself, because now she was sitting still and longing to know that complete peace of mind which an old man had talked of that evening at her dinner table.

A sort of panic shook her as she thought of all the antagonists which at a certain period of life gather together to attack and slay youth, all vestiges of youth, in the human being; the unsatisfied appet.i.tes, the revolts of the body, the wearinesses of soul, and the subtle and contradictory desires which lie hidden deep in the mind.

She was now intensely careful about her body, had brought its care almost to the level of a finely finished art. But she had not troubled about the disciplining of her mind. Yet the undisciplined mind can work havoc in the tissues of the body. Youth of the mind, if preserved, helps the body to continue apparently young. It may not be able to cause the body actually to look young, but in some mysterious way it throws round the body a youthful atmosphere which deceives many people, which creates an illusion. And the strange thing is that the more intimate people are with one possessing that mental youthfulness, the more strong is the illusion upon them. Atmosphere has a spell which increases upon us the longer we remain bathed in it. Lady Sellingworth said all this to herself that night, and rebuked herself for letting her mind go towards old age. She rebelled against the longing for complete peace of mind because she now connected such a longing with stagnation. And men, especially young men, love vivacity, restlessness, the swift flying temperament. Such a temperament suggests to them youth. It is old age which sits still. Youth is for ever on the move.

"I must not long for peace or anything of that kind!" she said to herself.

Nevertheless the lack of all mental peace ravages the body.

She scarcely knew what to do for the best. But eventually she tried to take her mind in hand, for she was afraid of it, afraid of its age, afraid of the effect its age might eventually have upon her appearance.

So she strove to train it backwards towards youthfulness. For now she was sure that she was not one of those fortunate women who have naturally young minds which refuse to grow old. She knew a few such women. She envied them almost bitterly. There was no need for them to strive. She watched them surrept.i.tiously, studied them, tried to master their secret.

Presently a tragic episode occurred in her life.

She fell in love with a man of about twenty-three. He was the son of people whom she knew very well in Paris, French people who were almost her contemporaries, and was the sporting type of Frenchman, very good-looking, lively, satirical and strong. He was a famous lawn tennis player and came over to London for the tournament at Wimbledon. She had already seen him in Paris, and had known him when he was little more than a boy. But she had never thought much about him in those days. For in those days she had not been haunted by the pa.s.sion for youth which possessed her now.

Louis de Rocheouart visited at her house as a matter of course, was agreeable and gallant to her because she was a charming and influential woman and an old friend of his family. But he did not think of her as a woman to whom it was possible that a man of his age could make love.

He looked upon her as one who had been a famous beauty, but who was now merely a clever, well-preserved and extremely successful member of the "old guard" of society in London. Her "day" as a beauty was in his humble opinion quite over. She belonged to his mother's day. He knew that. And his mother happened to be one of those delightful Frenchwomen who are spirituelle at all ages, but who never pretend to be anything they are not. His mother's hair was already grey, and she had two married daughters, one of whom had been trusting enough to make her a grandmother.

While Rocheouart was in London a number of popular middle-aged women banded together and gave a very smart ball at Prince's. Lady Sellingworth was one of the hostesses, all of whom danced merrily and appeared to be in excellent spirits and health. It was certainly one of the very best b.a.l.l.s of the season, and young men turned up at it in large numbers. Among them was young Rocheouart.

Lady Sellingworth danced with him more than once. That night she had almost managed to deceive herself as to the real truth of life. The ball was being such a success; the scramble for invitations had been so great; the young men evidently found things so lively, and seemed to be in such exuberant spirits, that she was carried away, and really felt as if youth were once more dancing through her veins and shining out of her eyes.

The "old guard" were _in excelsis_ that night; the Edwardians were in their glory on the top of the world. Probably more than one of them thought, "They can say what they like but we can cut out the girls when we choose." Their savoir faire was immense. Many of them still possessed an amazing amount of the joie de vivre. And some of them were thoroughly sensible women, saved from absurdity by the blessed sense of humour.

But Lady Sellingworth was by this time desperately in love with Louis de Rocheouart, and her sense of humour was in abeyance that night. In consequence, she was the victim of a mortification which she was never to forget as long as she lived.

Towards the end of the evening she happened to be standing with Sir Seymour Portman near the entrance to the ballroom, and overheard a sc.r.a.p of conversation between two people just behind them.

A girl's light voice said:

"Have you heard the name Cora Wellingborough has given to this ball?"

(The d.u.c.h.ess of Wellingborough was one of the hostesses.)

"No," replied a voice, which Lady Sellingworth recognized as the voice of young Rocheouart. "What is it?"

"She calls it 'The Hags' Hop'! Isn't it delicious of her? It will be all over London to-morrow. The name will stick. In the annuals of London festivities to-night will always be remembered as the night of the famous Hags' Hop."