“Frequently!”
“I’m afraid you’ll think me rude and inquisitive,” continued Lady Winsleigh, with a coaxing air, “but — but may I ask—”
“Anything in the world,” interrupted Violet coolly. “Ask away! But I’m not bound to answer.”
Lady Winsleigh reddened with indignation. “What an insulting creature!” she thought. But, after all, she had put herself in her present position, and she could not very well complain if she met with a rebuff. She made another effort.
“Sir Francis Lennox told me—” she began.
The Vere interrupted her with a cheerful laugh.
“Oh, you come from him, do you? Now, why didn’t you tell me that at first? It’s all right! You’re a great friend of Lennie’s, aren’t you?”
Lady Winsleigh sat erect and haughty, a deadly chill of disgust and fear at her heart. This creature called her quondam lover, “Lennie” — even as she herself had done, — and she, the proud, vain woman of society and fashion shuddered at the idea that there should be even this similarity between herself and the “thing” called Violet Vere. She replied stiffly —
“I have known him a long time.”
“He’s a nice fellow,” went on Miss Vere easily— “a leetle stingy sometimes, but never mind that! You want to know about Sir Philip Errington, and I’ll tell you. He’s chosen to mix himself up with some affairs of mine—”
“What affairs?” asked Lady Winsleigh rather eagerly.
“They don’t concern you,” returned Miss Vere calmly, “and we needn’t talk about them! But they concern Sir Philip, — or he thinks they do, and insists on seeing me about them, and holding long conversations, which bore me excessively!”
She yawned slightly, smothering her yawn in a dainty lace handkerchief, and then went on —
“He’s a moral young man, don’t you know — and I never could endure moral men! I can’t get on with them at all!”
“Then you don’t like him?” questioned Lady Winsleigh in rather a disappointed tone.
“No, I don’t!” said the Vere candidly. “He’s not my sort. But, Lord bless you! I know how he’s getting talked about because he comes here — and serve him right too! He shouldn’t meddle with my business.” She paused suddenly and drew a letter from her pocket, — laughed and tossed it across the table.
“You can read that, if you like,” she said indifferently. “He wrote it, and sent it round to me last night.”
Lady Winsleigh’s eyes glistened eagerly, — she recognized Errington’s bold, clear hand at once, — and as she read, an expression of triumph played on her features. She looked up presently and said —
“Have you any further use for this letter, Miss Vere? Or — will you allow me to keep it?”
The Vere seemed slightly suspicious of this proposal, but looked amused too.
“Why, what do you want it for?” she inquired bluntly. “To tease him about me?”
Lady Winsleigh forced a smile. “Well — perhaps!” she admitted, then with an air of gentleness and simplicity she continued, “I think, Miss Vere, with you, that it is very wrong of Sir Philip, — very absurd of him, in fact — to interfere with your affairs, whatever they may be, — and as it is very likely annoying to you—”
“It is,” interrupted Violet decidedly.
“Then, with the help of this letter — which, really — really — excuse me for saying it! — quite compromises him,” and her ladyship looked amiably concerned about it, “I might perhaps persuade him not to — to — intrude upon you — you understand? But if you object to part with the letter, never mind! If I did not fear to offend you, I should ask you to exchange it for — for something more — well! let us say, something more substantial—”
“Don’t beat about the bush!” said Violet, with a sudden oblivion of her company manners. “You mean money?”
Lady Winsleigh smiled. “As you put it so frankly, Miss Vere—” she began.
“Of course! I’m always frank,” returned the Vere, with a loud laugh. “Besides, what’s the good of pretending? Money’s the only thing worth having — it pays your butcher, baker, and dressmaker — and how are you to get along if you can’t pay them, I’d like to know! Lord! if all the letters I’ve got from fools were paying stock instead of waste-paper, I’d shut up shop, and leave the Brilliant to look out for itself!”
Lady Winsleigh felt she had gained her object, and she could now afford to be gracious.
“That would be a great loss to the world,” she remarked sweetly. “An immense loss! London could scarcely get on without Violet Vere!” Here she opened her purse and took out some bank-notes, which she folded and slipped inside an envelope. “Then I may have the letter?” she continued.
“You may and welcome!” returned Violet.
Lady Winsleigh instantly held out the envelope, which she as instantly clutched. “Especially if you’ll tell Sir Philip Errington to mind his own business!” She paused, and a dark flush mounted to her brow — one of those sudden flushes that purpled rather than crimsoned her face. “Yes,” she repeated, “as he’s a friend of yours, just tell him I said he was to mind his own business! Lord! what does he want to come here and preach at me for! I don’t want his sermons! Moral!” here she laughed rather hoarsely, “I’m as moral as any one on the stage! Who says I’m not! Take ’em all round — there’s not a soul behind the footlights more open and above-board than I am!”
And her eyes flashed defiantly.
“She’s been drinking?” thought Lady Winsleigh disgustedly. In fact, the “Vere’s Own” tipple had begun to take its usual effect, which was to make the Vere herself both blatant and boisterous.
“I’m sure,” said her ladyship with frigid politeness, “that you are everything that is quite charming, Miss Vere! I have a great respect for the — the ornaments of the English stage. Society has quite thrown down its former barriers, you know! — the members of your profession are received in the very best circles—”
“I ain’t!” said Violet, with ungrammatical candor. “Your Irvings and your Terrys, your Mary Andersons and your Langtrys, — they’re good enough for your fine drawing-rooms, and get more invitations out than they can accept. And none of them have got half my talent, I tell you! Lord bless my soul! if they’re respectable enough for you, — so am I!”
And she struck her hand emphatically on the table, Lady Winsleigh looked at her with a slight smile.
“I must really say good-bye!” she said, rising and gathering her furs about her. “I could talk with you all the morning, Miss Vere, but I have so many engagements! Besides I mustn’t detain you! I’m so much obliged to you for your kind reception of me!”
“Don’t mention, it!” and Violet glanced her over with a kind of sullen sarcasm. “I’m bound to please Lennie when I can, you know!”
Again Lady Winsleigh shivered a little, but forced herself to shake hands with the notorious stage-Jezebel.
“I shall come and see you in the new piece,” she said graciously. “I always take a box on first nights? And your dancing is so exquisite! The very poetry of motion! So pleased to have met you! Good-bye!”
And with a few more vague compliments and remarks about the weather, Lady Winsleigh took her departure. Left alone, the actress threw herself back in her chair and laughed.
“That woman’s up to some mischief,” she exclaimed sotto voce, “and so is Lennie! I wonder what’s their little game? I don’t care, as long as they’ll keep the high-and-mighty Errington in his place. I’m tired of him! Why does he meddle with my affairs?” Her brows knitted into a frown. “As if he or anybody else could persuade me to go back to — ,” she paused, and bit her lips angrily. Then she opened the envelope Lady Winsleigh had left with her, and pulled out the bank-notes inside. “Let me see — five, ten, fifteen, twenty! Not bad pay, on the whole! It’ll just cover the bill for my plush mantle. Hullo! Who’s there?”
Some one knocked at her door.
“Co
me in!” she cried.
The feeble Tommy presented himself. His weak mouth trembled more than ever, and he was apparently conscious of this, for he passed his hand nervously across it two or three times.
“Well, what’s up?” inquired the “star” of the Brilliant, fingering her bank-notes as she spoke.
“Miss Vere,” stammered Tommy, “I venture to ask you a favor, — could you kindly, very kindly lend me ten shillings till to-morrow night? I am so pressed just now — and my wife is ill in bed — and—” he stopped, and his eyes sought her face hopefully, yet timidly.
“You shouldn’t have a wife, Tommy!” averred Violet with blunt frankness. “Wives are expensive articles. Besides, I never lend. I never give — except to public charities where one’s name gets mentioned in the papers. I’m obliged to do that, you know, by way of advertisement. Ten shillings! Why, I can’t afford ten pence! My bills would frighten you, Tommy! There go along, and don’t cry, for goodness sake! Let your fiddle cry for you!”
“Oh, Miss Vere,” once more pleaded Tommy, “if you knew how my wife suffers—”
The actress rose and stamped her foot impatiently.
“Bother your wife!” she cried angrily, “and you too! Look out! or I tell the manager we’ve got a beggar at the Brilliant. Don’t stare at me like that! Go to the d —— l with you!”
Tommy slunk off abashed and trembling, and the Vere began to sing, or rather croak, a low comic song, while she threw over her shoulders a rich mantle glittering with embroidered trimmings, and poised a coquettish Paris model hat on her thick untwisted coils of hair. Thus attired, she passed out of her dressing-room, locking the door behind her, and after a brief conversation with the jocose acting manager, whom she met on her way out, she left the theatre, and took a cab to the Criterion, where the young Duke of Moorlands, her latest conquest, had invited her to a sumptuous luncheon with himself and friends, all men of fashion, who were running through what money they had as fast as they could go.
Lady Winsleigh, on her way home, was tormented by sundry uncomfortable thoughts and sharp pricks of conscience. Her interview with Violet Vere had instinctively convinced her that Sir Philip was innocent of the intrigue imputed to him, and yet, — the letter she had now in her possession seemed to prove him guilty. And though she felt herself to be playing a vile part, she could not resist the temptation of trying what the effect would be of this compromising document on Thelma’s trusting mind. It was undoubtedly a very incriminating epistle — any lawyer would have said as much, while blandly pocketing his fee for saying it. It was written off in evident haste, and ran as follows: —
“Let me see you once more on the subject you know of. Why will you not accept the honorable position offered to you? There shall be no stint of money — all the promises I have made I am quite ready to fulfill — you shall lose nothing by being gentle. Surely you cannot continue to seem so destitute of all womanly feeling and pity? I will not believe that you would so deliberately condemn to death a man who has loved, and who loves you still so faithfully, and who, without you, is utterly weary of life and broken-hearted! Think once more — and let my words carry more weight with you!”
“BRUCE-ERRINGTON.”
This was all, but more than enough!
“I wonder what he means,” thought Lady Winsleigh. “It looks as if he were in love with the Vere and she refused to reciprocate. It must be that. And yet that doesn’t accord with what the creature herself said about his ‘preaching at her.’ He wouldn’t do that if he were in love.”
She studied every word of the letter again and again, and finally folded it up carefully and placed it in her pocket-book.
“Innocent or guilty, Thelma must see it,” she decided. “I wonder how she’ll take it! If she wants a proof — it’s one she’ll scarcely deny. Some women would fret themselves to death over it — but I shouldn’t wonder if she sat down under it quite calmly without a word of complaint.” She frowned a little. “Why must she always be superior to others of her sex! How I detest that still solemn smile of hers and those big baby-blue eyes! I think if Philip had married any other woman than she — a woman more like the rest of us who’d have gone with her time, — I could have forgiven him more easily. But to pick up a Norwegian peasant and set her up as a sort of moral finger-post to society — and then to go and compromise himself with Violet Vere — that’s a kind of thing I can’t stand! I’d rather be anything in the world than a humbug!”
Many people desire to be something they are not, and her ladyship quite unconsciously echoed this rather general sentiment. She was, without knowing it, such an adept in society humbug, that she even humbugged herself. She betrayed herself as she betrayed others, and told little soothing lies to her own conscience as she told them to her friends. There are plenty of women like her, — women of pleasant courtesy and fashion, to whom truth is mere coarseness, — and with whom polite lying passes for perfect breeding. She was not aware, as she was driven along Park Lane to her own residence, that she carried with her on the box of her brougham a private detective in the person of Briggs. Perched stiffly on his seat, with arms tightly folded, this respectable retainer was quite absorbed in meditation, so much so that he exchanged not a word with his friend, the coachman, beside him. He had his own notions of propriety, — he considered that his mistress had no business whatever to call on an actress of Violet Vere’s repute, — and he resolved that whether he were reproved for over-officiousness or not, nothing should prevent him from casually mentioning to Lord Winsleigh the object of her ladyship’s drive that morning.
“For,” mused Briggs gravely, “a lady ‘as responsibilities, and ‘owever she forgets ‘erself, appearances ‘as to be kep’ up.”
With the afternoon, the fog which had hung over the city all day, deepened and darkened. Thelma had lunched with Mrs. Lorimer, and had enjoyed much pleasant chat with that kindly, cheerful old lady. She had confided to her, part of the story of Sir Francis Lennox’s conduct, carefully avoiding every mention of the circumstance which had given rise to it, — namely, the discussion about Violet Vere. She merely explained that she had suddenly fainted, in which condition Sir Francis had taken advantage of her helplessness to insult her.
Mrs. Lorimer was highly indignant. “Tell your husband all about it, my dear!” she advised. “He’s big enough, and strong enough, to give that little snob a good trouncing! My patience! I wish George were in London — he’d lend a hand and welcome!”
And the old lady nodded her head violently over the sock she was knitting, — the making of socks for her beloved son was her principal occupation and amusement.
“But I hear,” said Thelma, “that it is against the law to strike any one, no matter how you have been insulted. If so, — then Philip would be punished for attacking Sir Francis, and that would not be fair.”
“You didn’t think of that, child, when you struck Lennox yourself,” returned Mrs. Lorimer, laughing. “And I guarantee you gave him a good hard blow, — and serve him right! Never mind what comes of it, my dearie — just tell your husband as soon as ever he comes home, and let him take the matter into his own hands. He’s a fine man — he’ll know how to defend the pretty wife he loves so well!” And she smiled, while her shining knitting-needles clicked faster than ever.
Thelma’s face saddened a little. “I think I am not worthy of his love,” she said sorrowfully.
Mrs. Lorimer looked at her with some inquisitiveness.
“What makes you say that, my dear?”
“Because I feel it so much,” she replied. “Dear Mrs. Lorimer, you cannot, perhaps, understand — but when he married me, it seemed as if the old story of the king and the beggar-maid were being repeated over again. I sought nothing but his love — his love was, and is my life! These riches — these jewels and beautiful things he surrounds me with — I do not care for them at all, except for the reason that he wishes me to have them. I scarcely understand their value, for I have been poor all my life, a
nd yet I have wanted nothing. I do not think wealth is needful to make one happy. But love — ah! I could not live without it — and now — now—” She paused, and her eyes filled with sudden tears.
“Now what?” asked Mrs. Lorimer gently.
“Now,” continued the girl in a low voice, “my heart is always afraid! Yes! I am afraid of losing my husband’s love. Ah, do not laugh at me, dear Mrs. Lorimer! You know people who are much together sometimes get tired, — tired of seeing the same face always, — the same form—”
“Are you tired, dearie?” asked the old lady meaningly.
“I? Tired of Philip? I am only happy when he is with me!” And her eyes deepened with passionate tenderness. “I would wish to live and die beside him, and I should not care if I never saw another human face than his!”
“Well, and don’t you think he has the same feelings for you?”
“Men are different, I think,” returned Thelma musingly. “Now, love is everything to me — but it may not be everything to Philip. I do believe that love is only part of a man’s life, while it is all a woman’s. Clara told me once that most husbands wearied of their wives, though they would not always confess it—”
“Clara Winsleigh’s modern social doctrines are false, my dear!” interrupted Mrs. Lorimer quickly. “She isn’t satisfied with her own marriage, and she thinks everybody must be as discontented as herself. Now, my husband and I lived always together for five and twenty years, — and we were lovers to the last day, when my darling died with his hand in mine — and — and — if it hadn’t been for my boy, — I should have died too!”
And two bright tears fell glittering on the old lady’s knitting.
Thelma took her hand and kissed it fondly. “I can understand that,” she said softly; “but still, — still I do believe it is difficult to keep love when you have won it! It is, perhaps, easy to win — but I am sure it is hard to keep!”
Mrs. Lorimer looked at her earnestly.
“My dear child, don’t let that frivolous Winsleigh woman put nonsense into your pretty head. You are too sensible to take such a morbid view of things, — and you mustn’t allow your wholesome fresh nature to be contaminated by the petulant, wrong-headed notions that cloud the brains of idle, fashionable, useless women. Believe me, good men don’t tire of their wives — and Sir Philip is a good man. Good wives never weary their husbands — and you are a good wife — and you will be a good, sweet mother. Think of that new delight so soon coming for you, — and leave all the modern, crazy, one-sided notions of human life to the French and Russian novelists. Tut-tut!” continued the old lady tenderly. “A nice little ladyship you are, — worrying yourself about nothing! Send Philip to me when he comes home — I’ll scold him for leaving his bird to mope in her London cage!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 119