[152]
The face of life seemed now to change for Claudia. Her admirers were bolder with their compliments, more pressing in their invitations; and although some of them were secretly rather intimidated by her direct-glancing, critical eyes and occasionally cynical tongue, they gave her plainly to understand that she need not waste her sweetness upon the desert air. She had lost that happy, absorbed look a woman wears when she is in love, but her personality had gained from the social point of view, for she was more arresting, more vivid, and she had always been accounted a good companion and conversationalist. But Claudia had not studied le monde où l’on s’ennuie for some years for nothing, and though she had hitherto kept a little aloof from certain phases, she was not ignorant, nor likely to let her vanity lead her into foolishness. The obvious love-hunter only amused her, and she used such men just as much as it suited her convenience.
Besides Frank Hamilton she found only one man that really interested her and whose companionship she enjoyed—Charles Littleton, the American publisher. She had met him since their first dinner-party at one or two houses she frequented, and a sort of cheery understanding had grown up between them. Her brain was much more subtle than his, but he always responded when she led the way. He had a sense of humour and all sorts of stories to tell her of authors whom she only knew between bookcovers. His talk was always racy, and he occasionally used quaint idioms and expressions that gave his conversation a different flavour from that which was usually poured into her ears at dinners and at homes.
The breach between Claudia and Gilbert had not been lessened by Jack’s mésalliance. Gilbert writhed under the publicity, and though he knew it was a nine-days’ wonder and would soon evaporate, he was infuriated with the house of Iverson and the offspring of Circe. A letter[153] from his mother, quite illogical and trying to make him appear responsible for the marriage, made him more irritable. His reply to it was dignified, pointing out her untenable position—the attitude of a strong man towards women must be maintained, even with a mother—but he felt the sting of it all the same. His father, whom he met the next day, was not illogical, but there was an atmosphere of chilliness and silence on the subject which was probably more unpleasant to him than his mother’s letter. A comic paper came out with a cartoon showing him giving advice on her contracts to The Girlie Girl. In view of it all, Claudia’s attitude was the worst of all. She took up Jack’s own attitude, that he was at liberty to do as he pleased with his life. She was logical and perfectly calm during their discussions, and Gilbert, to his great disgust, found himself forced into becoming illogical, which is enough to exasperate any lawyer, even a briefless one.
“It’s a disgrace to us all,” he said stormily, his sombre grey eyes dark under the lowered lids, “a beastly scandal.”
“Why are we disgraced?” said Claudia calmly, also forced to assume a position she had never meant to take. “She’s not your wife, she’s Jack’s.” A satirical smile curved her lips as she tried to imagine Gilbert married to The Girlie Girl.
“A family stands or falls together,” said Gilbert heavily, noting the smile with inward resentment. Lately he had often seen that smile on his wife’s lips.
“Oh! surely not, nowadays. It is hard enough to have your own sins come home to roost, but to have your sister’s and your brother’s and your cousin’s and your aunt’s—Oh! life would be too hard!”
“Don’t be flippant; we are discussing a serious matter.”
“All the more reason not to lose our sense of humour. Undiluted seriousness is—the devil. After all, aren’t we[154] making a great fuss over nothing in particular? I confess I was furious at first, but—Jack isn’t a German Crown Prince or the heir of great possessions, you know. I daresay it’s a lucky escape for some nice girl.”
“A pretty way to speak of your own brother!” he flung at her.
“Oh, Gilbert! how old-fashioned you are! Don’t you know a brother may be a friend or a stranger nowadays? I’m fond of Jack, but I don’t think he is cut out to take a firm and virtuous position on the family hearthrug. He’s always been much too good-looking and too rich to acquire goodness or have it thrust upon him. He seems genuinely fond of her. I am quite curious to see her.”
She settled herself more comfortably in the corner of the couch and took up a book, as if to indicate that the subject was exhausted. Gilbert stood looking down upon her in his golfing kit. He made spasmodic efforts to take exercise—he had put on a couple of stone since their marriage—and being Saturday, he was free from his chambers. They both belonged to the club at Sunningdale, but lately he never suggested that she should accompany him. Secretly, he was ashamed that she should see how badly out of form he was, for Claudia played fairly regularly, and had a good, clean stroke of her own.
“See her?” he ejaculated. “I must ask you not to try and see her or identify yourself with this disastrous marriage in any way.” He made use of the word ask, but the tone made it equivalent to forbid. He did not want to go and play golf, although he felt he ought to, and the picture that Claudia made in her soft silken draperies, snugly ensconced in the well-warmed room, gave an additional edge to his tone.
Claudia raised her expressive eyebrows and turned a page of the book.
[155]
“Really, Gilbert, I will not ask her here to meet you——”
“I should think not, indeed!”
“—but I have promised Jack that I will go and see her. What I do in future depends on—her and myself. After all, she is Jack’s wife and he is fond of her.”
“Do you know this woman is—is notorious, that she is what men call ‘hot stuff’? Can’t you see that she has only married your brother to fleece him and degrade his family?”
His eyes were black with anger and his lower lip protruded pugnaciously, just as his father’s did. Claudia watched him, fascinated, for this was the first real quarrel they had had. In the midst of a pregnant silence the door opened, and the manservant announced “Mr. Paton.”
They were both so angry that they had not time enough to pull down the blinds before Paton was in the room, and he saw two people as he had never seen them before. Then they both recovered themselves—Claudia more easily than her husband—and went forward to greet him.
“Colin, what a delightful surprise!” cried Claudia, taking his hand in hers. “I am glad to see you again.” Perhaps there was also a little relief at the interruption of an unpleasant scene, but she was unfeignedly glad to feel his firm hand-clasp once more. She was almost surprised herself to find how glad she was.
“Hallo, old chap, back again, then?” said Gilbert. “It’s good to see you. Safe and sound, eh? You look fit enough,” he added, ruefully casting a look down at himself. “Why do some men put on fat and others don’t?”
Paton laughed. “I suppose I belong to the lean kine. Yes, I think you have put on flesh, Gilbert.”
In truth he was a little shocked at the deterioration in his old friend’s appearance. He had always been rather heavy for his age, but now a heaviness of the[156] spirit as well as of the body seemed to have settled upon him. Surely the lids drooped more over the rather lifeless eyes, and his chin and jowl were coarser? He himself was much the same as when he had left England before the wedding, spare, erect, in obvious good form.
“It’s abominable,” said Gilbert. “It isn’t what I eat, either.”
The manservant opened the door again. “The car is at the door, sir.”
“Going golfing?” smiled Paton. “Ah! I haven’t done that for a great while. Sounds sort of homely and English. I’m sure you could beat me into a cocked hat, Claudia, and I used to give you—how many strokes a hole?”
“Ah! but I’ve been practising religiously with the deadly purpose of defeating you when you returned,” laughed Claudia gaily, the colour back again in her smooth, creamy cheeks. It was jolly to see Colin again. One could always talk nonsense or sense to Paton, and she suddenly realized that nobody had ever taken his place in that respect. “I’ll take you on to-morrow at Stoke Poges. I am thirsting for vengeance for old affronts.”
“I say! I shall expect at least to get a ball in my eye or a gentle tap with the brassie. Still, let me like a golfer fall! I’ll take you on. And, Gilbert, what’s your form?”
“Oh! he’s going down to see his parents to-morrow,” replied Claudia carelessly, ringing for the tea. “When did you land?”
“Yesterday.”
Claudia was pleased. He had lost no time in coming to see them.
Although Paton had been his friend long before he had known Claudia, Gilbert had a curious feeling that he was not wanted. He felt they were eager to talk over[157] many things. Paton would probably tell her all about his travels—well, travellers’ tales were apt to be boring.
“I shall see you again soon, Colin. I’d arranged to go this afternoon.”
“Let’s have lunch together early next week.”
“I will if I can, but I’m infernally busy just now. Get a vacation soon though, thank goodness.”
The door closed behind him, and as if the impulse were mutual, they found themselves shaking hands again.
“Colin, what a long time you’ve been away. Don’t dare to tell me you’ve any plans for going away again, because I shall really hit you on the head with the brassie and incapacitate you.”
It was a woman who teased him now, not the fresh, eager-eyed girl he had left. But from most men’s point of view she had gained more, much more than she had lost. She had acquired a nice, physical balance, that had been wanting before. She had the charm of early maturity. She was a woman who knew her power over men, and knew just what that power meant. She was on the surface even more frankly gay and charming, but it hid certain reserves. She would pretend to be more confidential and open, but would be less so. She would never shut a door with a bang in anybody’s face, but it would be shut quietly all the same. In the few minutes that he had been with her, Colin realized all this and, mingled with his admiration for her development—for he found her far handsomer than she had been—there was a touch of regret for the girl who had talked about anything and everything, and as frankly answered questions as she asked them. She was Gilbert’s wife, a woman of the world, and—a great deal more.
“Taking stock of me?” she laughed, meeting his eyes. “But I don’t think Topsy had growed much this time.”
“On the contrary, I think she has grown a good deal,”[158] he said quietly. “You haven’t grown into a giraffe or a fat Boy Joey, but all the same you have grown.”
She rested her head on her hand, her elbow propped on the arm of the couch, and looked speculatively at him. He reminded her of those days before her marriage, when she had spelt marriage with a capital letter. And—yes—she did look back at herself from one side of a huge gulf. Was that gulf growth? She realized more what life meant, and might mean. She had touched hard facts, unalterable laws of nature, great moments, petty awakenings ... was all that growth?
“Perhaps you are right,” she said slowly.
“I am sure I am right. You have shot up at an alarming rate. You think before you speak now, a most potent symptom! In the old days you would have blurted out ‘I haven’t grown,’ with great suddenness and force, and I should have been laid low by your vehemence.”
Claudia smiled. “You mean I begin to know that I don’t know. I think I do realize that my landmarks are shifting.”
“An awfully good sign,” he said cheerfully. “I’m always pulling up mine and planting them again. A constantly uprooted landmark gathers no moss.... Do I smell the smell of muffins? Claudia, this is heaven, indeed, and you are the ministering angel.”
“There isn’t much of an angel about me,” said Claudia, rather jerkily, when the servant had withdrawn. “If I’m growing—I’m growing much nastier. I’m growing so short-tempered and prickly, and——”
She stopped. She had heard a faint, a very faint sound at the door. Paton, whose hearing was as quick as her own, had heard it too.
“Is that my old friend, Billie the Blessed Dachshund?” he asked. “Bless his stumpy legs! May I let him in?”
She nodded, surprised to find that her eyes had suddenly filled with tears. Why, she did not know. What[159] had she been about to confess to him? It was just as well Billie had interrupted.
Billie gave Paton a royal welcome, a most unusual welcome for him. For of all the hands that caressed him, he liked Paton’s next to his adored mistress. Billie would have told you that there are hands and hands. Some are heavy as lead on small dogs’ heads, some are blunt and stupid, some are cold and clammy, and send a shiver down a dog’s spine, and there are hands that are delicate and sensitive, and convey a sense of liking that is most comforting to the canine tribe.
“Verdict—not grown!”
They both laughed heartily, and Billie stood with a smile—it certainly was a smile—and with his tail wagging surveying them both.
“You have preserved your figure admirably, Billie. I’ll proceed to put it in jeopardy with this lump of sugar.... How nice of you, Claudia, to remember no milk in my tea.”
“I suppose you saw that Gilbert and I were having—what shall I call it?—a row when you came in?” said Claudia calmly, her hands busy among the silver. “Oh! we were in a most exciting part when the door opened.”
“All couples quarrel occasionally, don’t they?” he said lightly. “That’s part of the joys of married life, isn’t it? Marriage is a sort of licence to quarrel and afterwards make it up.”
“Oh! we don’t quarrel as a rule. Perhaps it would be better if we did. No, this was a special and particular quarrel, with a particular verse and chapter. You’ve heard of Jack’s asinine marriage, of course?”
“Yes it was in the papers when I landed.”
“What do you think about it?”
“Now, what is the good of asking me that? Do you want me to tell you what I wouldn’t have done, or what[160] I think he should have done? What’s the use? He’s done what he wanted to do.”
“Ah! you take that attitude too.”
“What can one say about a man’s marriage, except perhaps to regret or be glad? I don’t pretend that if I were a boy’s father, I shouldn’t be horribly annoyed with him for doing a thing that will probably be a failure. It was a surprise to you?”
“Absolutely. You know the sort of man Jack is. There have always been Girlie Girls of sorts. Only marriage is a different proposition, isn’t it? ‘Blest be the tie that binds,’ et cetera.”
He nodded. “A great pity, of course. Have you seen her? What is she like?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her yet. That was the finishing touch to our quarrel. I’ve promised Jack to go and see her. After all, Jack is my brother, and he put it in such a way that—well, I felt I wanted to see her. I suppose she will be too awful for words?”
He hesitated for a moment. He wondered why it jarred on him, the idea of her going to see Fay Morris. He had heard a good many stories about her, and he had several times come in contact with music-hall artistes—there had been some on the boat he went out on. But he was catholic in his tastes and mind, and personally he would never have drawn aside from contact with another human being. But Claudia with Fay Morris, Claudia in the Bohemian, over-heated atmosphere of the music-hall!
“Yes, I see, you think it will be all that. I suppose Jack is quite mad.”
He forced himself to be just. “I don’t think we can say that. You know, all sorts of stories go round about such people, and she may be quite—quite maligned. She is young, only twenty-two, and there’s every chance with youth, you know. She can’t be viciously fair, fat and[161] forty. And you were always interested in humans, Claudia.”
“Oh, yes! I still am, more so than ever. If someone were just taking me to see her as a curiosity, it would be different. But, Colin, she’s my sister-in-law! Suppose she talks Cockney, and drops her aitches, and calls me ‘dearie’ or something!”
“Perhaps it won’t be as bad as that,” suggested Colin, not liking the picture at all, and wishing he could go with her. “What does Jack say about her?”
“Oh! nothing that tells you anything. And I can’t ask such questions of him, can I? Of course, Gilbert is furious at the idea of my going to see her. I think—I think he was going to forbid me to go and visit her, when you came in. What do you think?”
He hesitated, for he knew it was a ticklish matter to arbitrate, or attempt to do so, between husband and wife.
“I don’t need to think at all,” he said, after a pause. “You’re his sister, and you’ve got to do the thinking. And what you think should go, as the Americans say.”
“Ah!” She drew a deep breath and put her hand impulsively on his arm, a little trick she had with people she liked. “You are a real comfort, Colin. In future I shall throw all my problems on you.”
Frank Hamilton came in, as he was patting her hand, the two standing close together, and instant jealousy and suspicion filled him at the sight. It was the first time he had ever seen Claudia show any particular favour to a man, she was rather difficult to approach, and though it encouraged him not to be too diffident, he was also very angry with her. A couple of years ago he would have shown by his manner that he had noticed the little incident, but he had learned some of the usages of Mayfair, and he controlled himself. It showed itself, however, in a little stiffness.
“Oh! Mr. Hamilton, let me introduce you to my old[162] friend, Mr. Colin Paton. He has just come back from the Argentine, where I suppose there are no pictures?”
“Only Nature’s, and those of the most wonderful. I read an account of one of your exhibitions in a paper that was sent out to me, Mr. Hamilton. I should have liked to see that show.”
“Mr. Paton educated my taste in pictures,” said Claudia, with a friendly glance at him. “He insisted on my liking the good things, and then I really did.”
“Don’t believe her, Mr. Hamilton, she was always an excellent natural judge of pictures.”
“But I did like them rather painty, at first, Colin, you must admit that. Do you remember that Leighton I adored and the Dicksee I found so poetical? And I made you stand and gaze at them, too. You must have stored up many a grudge against me for that.”
Hamilton had heard Claudia speak of “a friend now abroad,” who had been her constant companion at picture-galleries and who had lent her several art books. But he had somehow got the idea that the friend was middle-aged, if not old. He wondered how he had got the idea, but something in Claudia’s tone had conveyed it to his mind. The man that he saw was neither quite young, middle-aged, nor old, and yet Hamilton felt there was a steady fund of youth in him. He instinctively understood that this man’s judgment would be worth having, that those quiet, keen eyes would make short work of his careless and meretricious paintings. For, though usually he was amply content with his own ability, he was aware at intervals that some of it left much to be desired, both in form and execution. He had a heaven-born gift for catching a likeness, and a great feeling for colour, but his technique was faulty, and lately he had done too much and too little.
“I shall be giving another exhibition next month. I hope you will come to it,” he replied.
[163]
“I shall make a point of doing so.”
“We’ll go together,” said Claudia promptly, so promptly and so simply that some of the sting went out of his jealousy. After all, this man was exceedingly good form, and all that, but he was not good-looking, and though he knew about art, apparently he did nothing in that line. And Claudia had told him that she liked people who did things.
He determined to make a possible enemy into a friend. “Mr. Paton, if you are interested in the service of art, do persuade your friend here to give me some more sittings for her portrait. I made a ghastly failure of my first attempt, but I think I can do much better now. I’ve got the thing in my mind and I’m aching to begin.”
“Having your portrait painted, Claudia? That’s good news. To increase the joy of nations you must give him some sittings.”
“It’s so tiresome sitting still,” said Claudia, looking at him plaintively out of the corners of her eyes. “I never was great at sitting still.” Woman-like, she did not give the real reason. She had begun to be afraid of those sittings, and as she met Frank’s eyes she felt that feeling re-awaken. He was too good-looking, too attractive to sit to.
“There!” exclaimed Frank. “That’s what an artist has to contend with. Laziness, pure laziness! And she calls herself interested in art!”
“Paint Mrs. Jacobs instead,” teased Claudia, with a gleam of mischief in her eyes, which set his blood afire.
“I’ve said it—inwardly.... Mr. Paton, help me.”
“I would like to see a good portrait of you,” said Colin earnestly. “You ought to make such a good subject. I quite understand Mr. Hamilton’s anxiety to paint you. Do it—for the sake of your friends.”
She looked at Hamilton, but she really answered Paton. After all, she had not too many real friends, and he was[164] the best of them all, the most faithful, the most reliable and unchanging.
“Very well. I’ll make a martyr of myself in the cause of friendship. I’ll come one day next week. Will that do?”