XVII
SUSY had decided to wait for Strefford in London.
The new Lord Altringham was with his family in the north, and though shefound a telegram on arriving, saying that he would join her in town thefollowing week, she had still an interval of several days to fill.
London was a desert; the rain fell without ceasing, and alone in theshabby family hotel which, even out of season, was the best she couldafford, she sat at last face to face with herself.
From the moment when Violet Melrose had failed to carry out her planfor the Fulmer children her interest in Susy had visibly waned. Oftenbefore, in the old days, Susy Branch had felt the same abrupt change oftemperature in the manner of the hostess of the moment; and often--howoften--had yielded, and performed the required service, rather than riskthe consequences of estrangement. To that, at least, thank heaven, sheneed never stoop again.
But as she hurriedly packed her trunks at Versailles, scraped togetheran adequate tip for Mrs. Match, and bade good-bye to Violet (grownsuddenly fond and demonstrative as she saw her visitor safely headedfor the station)--as Susy went through the old familiar mummery of theenforced leave-taking, there rose in her so deep a disgust for thelife of makeshifts and accommodations, that if at that moment Nick hadreappeared and held out his arms to her, she was not sure she would havehad the courage to return to them.
In her London solitude the thirst for independence grew fiercer.Independence with ease, of course. Oh, her hateful useless love ofbeauty... the curse it had always been to her, the blessing it mighthave been if only she had had the material means to gratify and toexpress it! And instead, it only gave her a morbid loathing of thathideous hotel bedroom drowned in yellow rain-light, of the smell of sootand cabbage through the window, the blistered wall-paper, the dusty waxbouquets under glass globes, and the electric lighting so contrived thatas you turned on the feeble globe hanging from the middle of the ceilingthe feebler one beside the bed went out!
What a sham world she and Nick had lived in during their few monthstogether! What right had either of them to those exquisite settingsof the life of leisure: the long white house hidden in camellias andcypresses above the lake, or the great rooms on the Giudecca with theshimmer of the canal always playing over their frescoed ceilings! Yetshe had come to imagine that these places really belonged to them, thatthey would always go on living, fondly and irreproachably, in the frameof other people's wealth.... That, again, was the curse of her love ofbeauty, the way she always took to it as if it belonged to her!
Well, the awakening was bound to come, and it was perhaps better thatit should have come so soon. At any rate there was no use in letting herthoughts wander back to that shattered fool's paradise of theirs. Only,as she sat there and reckoned up the days till Strefford arrived, whatelse in the world was there to think of?
Her future and his?
But she knew that future by heart already! She had not spent her lifeamong the rich and fashionable without having learned every detail ofthe trappings of a rich and fashionable marriage. She had calculatedlong ago just how many dinner-dresses, how many tea-gowns and how muchlacy lingerie would go to make up the outfit of the future Countess ofAltringham. She had even decided to which dressmaker she would go forher chinchilla cloak-for she meant to have one, and down to her feet,and softer and more voluminous and more extravagantly sumptuous thanViolet's or Ursula's... not to speak of silver foxes and sables... noryet of the Altringham jewels.
She knew all this by heart; had always known it. It all belonged to themake-up of the life of elegance: there was nothing new about it. Whathad been new to her was just that short interval with Nick--a lifeunreal indeed in its setting, but so real in its essentials: the onereality she had ever known. As she looked back on it she saw how muchit had given her besides the golden flush of her happiness, the suddenflowering of sensuous joy in heart and body. Yes--there had been theflowering too, in pain like birth-pangs, of something graver, stronger,fuller of future power, something she had hardly heeded in her firstlight rapture, but that always came back and possessed her stilled soulwhen the rapture sank: the deep disquieting sense of something thatNick and love had taught her, but that reached out even beyond love andbeyond Nick.
Her nerves were racked by the ceaseless swish, swish of the rain on thedirty panes and the smell of cabbage and coal that came in under thedoor when she shut the window. This nauseating foretaste of the luncheonshe must presently go down to was more than she could bear. It broughtwith it a vision of the dank coffee-room below, the sooty Smyrna rug,the rain on the sky-light, the listless waitresses handing about foodthat tasted as if it had been rained on too. There was really no reasonwhy she should let such material miseries add to her depression....
She sprang up, put on her hat and jacket, and calling for a taxi droveto the London branch of the Nouveau Luxe hotel. It was just one o'clockand she was sure to pick up a luncheon, for though London was emptythat great establishment was not. It never was. Along those sultryvelvet-carpeted halls, in that great flowered and scented dining-room,there was always a come-and-go of rich aimless people, the busy peoplewho, having nothing to do, perpetually pursue their inexorable task fromone end of the earth to the other.
Oh, the monotony of those faces--the faces one always knew, whether oneknew the people they belonged to or not! A fresh disgust seized her atthe sight of them: she wavered, and then turned and fled. But on thethreshold a still more familiar figure met her: that of a lady inexaggerated pearls and sables, descending from an exaggerated motor,like the motors in magazine advertisements, the huge arks in whichjewelled beauties and slender youths pause to gaze at snowpeaks from anAlpine summit.
It was Ursula Gillow--dear old Ursula, on her way to Scotland--and sheand Susy fell on each other's necks. It appeared that Ursula, detainedtill the next evening by a dress-maker's delay, was also out of a joband killing time, and the two were soon smiling at each other overthe exquisite preliminaries of a luncheon which the head-waiter hadauthoritatively asked Mrs. Gillow to "leave to him, as usual."
Ursula was in a good humour. It did not often happen; but when it didher benevolence knew no bounds.
Like Mrs. Melrose, like all her tribe in fact, she was too much absorbedin her own affairs to give more than a passing thought to any oneelse's; but she was delighted at the meeting with Susy, as her wanderingkind always were when they ran across fellow-wanderers, unless themeeting happened to interfere with choicer pleasures. Not to be alonewas the urgent thing; and Ursula, who had been forty-eight hours alonein London, at once exacted from her friend a promise that they shouldspend the rest of the day together. But once the bargain struck her mindturned again to her own affairs, and she poured out her confidencesto Susy over a succession of dishes that manifested the head-waiter'sunderstanding of the case.
Ursula's confidences were always the same, though they were usuallyabout a different person. She demolished and rebuilt her sentimentallife with the same frequency and impetuosity as that with which shechanged her dress-makers, did over her drawing-rooms, ordered newmotors, altered the mounting of her jewels, and generally renewed thesetting of her life. Susy knew in advance what the tale would be; butto listen to it over perfect coffee, an amber-scented cigarette ather lips, was pleasanter than consuming cold mutton alone in a mouldycoffee-room. The contrast was so soothing that she even began to take alanguid interest in her friend's narrative.
After luncheon they got into the motor together and began a systematicround of the West End shops: furriers, jewellers and dealers in oldfurniture. Nothing could be more unlike Violet Melrose's long hesitatingsessions before the things she thought she wanted till the moment cameto decide. Ursula pounced on silver foxes and old lacquer as promptlyand decisively as on the objects of her surplus sentimentality: she knewat once what she wanted, and valued it more after it was hers.
"And now--I wonder if you couldn't help me choose a grand piano?" shesuggested, as the last antiquarian bowed them out.
"A piano?"
"Yes: for Ruan. I'm sending one down for Grace Fulmer. She's coming tostay... did I tell you? I want people to hear her. I want her to getengagements in London. My dear, she's a Genius."
"A Genius--Grace!" Susy gasped. "I thought it was Nat...."
"Nat--Nat Fulmer?" Ursula laughed derisively. "Ah, of course--you've beenstaying with that silly Violet! The poor thing is off her head aboutNat--it's really pitiful. Of course he has talent: I saw that longbefore Violet had ever heard of him. Why, on the opening day of theAmerican Artists' exhibition, last winter, I stopped short before his'Spring Snow-Storm' (which nobody else had noticed till that moment),and said to the Prince, who was with me: 'The man has talent.' Butgenius--why, it's his wife who has genius! Have you never heard Graceplay the violin? Poor Violet, as usual, is off on the wrong tack. I'vegiven Fulmer my garden-house to do--no doubt Violet told you--becauseI wanted to help him. But Grace is my discovery, and I'm determined tomake her known, and to have every one understand that she is the geniusof the two. I've told her she simply must come to Ruan, and bring thebest accompanyist she can find. You know poor Nerone is dreadfully boredby sport, though of course he goes out with the guns. And if one didn'thave a little art in the evening.... Oh, Susy, do you mean to tell meyou don't know how to choose a piano? I thought you were so fond ofmusic!"
"I am fond of it; but without knowing anything about it--in the waywe're all of us fond of the worthwhile things in our stupid set,"she added to herself--since it was obviously useless to impart suchreflections to Ursula.
"But are you sure Grace is coming?" she questioned aloud.
"Quite sure. Why shouldn't she? I wired to her yesterday. I'm giving hera thousand dollars and all her expenses."
It was not till they were having tea in a Piccadilly tea-room that Mrs.Gillow began to manifest some interest in her companion's plans. Thethought of losing Susy became suddenly intolerable to her. The Prince,who did not see why he should be expected to linger in London out ofseason, was already at Ruan, and Ursula could not face the evening andthe whole of the next day by herself.
"But what are you doing in town, darling, I don't remember if I've askedyou," she said, resting her firm elbows on the tea-table while she tooka light from Susy's cigarette.
Susy hesitated. She had foreseen that the time must soon come when sheshould have to give some account of herself; and why should she notbegin by telling Ursula?
But telling her what?
Her silence appeared to strike Mrs. Gillow as a reproach, and shecontinued with compunction: "And Nick? Nick's with you? How is he, Ithought you and he still were in Venice with Ellie Vanderlyn."
"We were, for a few weeks." She steadied her voice. "It was delightful.But now we're both on our own again--for a while."
Mrs. Gillow scrutinized her more searchingly. "Oh, you're alone here,then; quite alone?"
"Yes: Nick's cruising with some friends in the Mediterranean."
Ursula's shallow gaze deepened singularly. "But, Susy darling, then ifyou're alone--and out of a job, just for the moment?"
Susy smiled. "Well, I'm not sure."
"Oh, but if you are, darling, and you would come to Ruan! I know Fredasked you didn't he? And he told me that both you and Nick had refused.He was awfully huffed at your not coming; but I suppose that was becauseNick had other plans. We couldn't have him now, because there's no roomfor another gun; but since he's not here, and you're free, why youknow, dearest, don't you, how we'd love to have you? Fred would be tooglad--too outrageously glad--but you don't much mind Fred's love-making,do you? And you'd be such a help to me--if that's any argument! Withthat big house full of men, and people flocking over every night todine, and Fred caring only for sport, and Nerone simply loathing it andridiculing it, and not a minute to myself to try to keep him in a goodhumour.... Oh, Susy darling, don't say no, but let me telephone at oncefor a place in the train to morrow night!"
Susy leaned back, letting the ash lengthen on her cigarette. Howfamiliar, how hatefully familiar, was that old appeal! Ursula felt thepressing need of someone to flirt with Fred for a few weeks... and herewas the very person she needed. Susy shivered at the thought. She hadnever really meant to go to Ruan. She had simply used the moor as apretext when Violet Melrose had gently put her out of doors. Rather thando what Ursula asked she would borrow a few hundred pounds of Strefford,as he had suggested, and then look about for some temporary occupationuntil--
Until she became Lady Altringham? Well, perhaps. At any rate, she wasnot going back to slave for Ursula.
She shook her head with a faint smile. "I'm so sorry, Ursula: of courseI want awfully to oblige you--"
Mrs. Gillow's gaze grew reproachful. "I should have supposed you would,"she murmured. Susy, meeting her eyes, looked into them down a long vistaof favours bestowed, and perceived that Ursula was not the woman toforget on which side the obligation lay between them.
Susy hesitated: she remembered the weeks of ecstasy she had owed to theGillows' wedding cheque, and it hurt her to appear ungrateful.
"If I could, Ursula... but really... I'm not free at the moment." Shepaused, and then took an abrupt decision. "The fact is, I'm waiting hereto see Strefford."
"Strefford' Lord Altringham?" Ursula stared. "Ah, yes-I remember. Youand he used to be great friends, didn't you?" Her roving attentiondeepened.... But if Susy were waiting to see Lord Altringham--one of therichest men in England! Suddenly Ursula opened her gold-meshed bag andsnatched a miniature diary from it.
"But wait a moment--yes, it is next week! I knew it was next week he'scoming to Ruan! But, you darling, that makes everything all right.You'll send him a wire at once, and come with me tomorrow, and meet himthere instead of in this nasty sloppy desert.... Oh, Susy, if you knewhow hard life is for me in Scotland between the Prince and Fred youcouldn't possibly say no!"
Susy still wavered; but, after all, if Strefford were really boundfor Ruan, why not see him there, agreeably and at leisure, instead ofspending a dreary day with him in roaming the wet London streets, orscreaming at him through the rattle of a restaurant orchestra? She knewhe would not be likely to postpone his visit to Ruan in order to lingerin London with her: such concessions had never been his way, and wereless than ever likely to be, now that he could do so thoroughly andcompletely as he pleased.
For the first time she fully understood how different his destiny hadbecome. Now of course all his days and hours were mapped out in advance:invitations assailed him, opportunities pressed on him, he had only tochoose.... And the women! She had never before thought of the women. Allthe girls in England would be wanting to marry him, not to mention herown enterprising compatriots. And there were the married women, who wereeven more to be feared. Streff might, for the time, escape marriage;though she could guess the power of persuasion, family pressure, all theconverging traditional influences he had so often ridiculed, yet, asshe knew, had never completely thrown off.... Yes, those quiet invisiblewomen at Altringham-his uncle's widow, his mother, the spinstersisters--it was not impossible that, with tact and patience--and thestupidest women could be tactful and patient on such occasions--theymight eventually persuade him that it was his duty, they might put justthe right young loveliness in his way.... But meanwhile, now, atonce, there were the married women. Ah, they wouldn't wait, they weredoubtless laying their traps already! Susy shivered at the thought. Sheknew too much about the way the trick was done, had followed, too often,all the sinuosities of such approaches. Not that they were very sinuousnowadays: more often there was just a swoop and a pounce when the timecame; but she knew all the arts and the wiles that led up to it. Sheknew them, oh, how she knew them--though with Streff, thank heaven, shehad never been called upon to exercise them! His love was there for theasking: would she not be a fool to refuse it?
Perhaps; though on that point her mind still wavered. But at anyrate she saw that, decidedly, it would be better to yield to Ursula'spressure; better to meet him at Ruan, in a congenial setting, where shewould ha
ve time to get her bearings, observe what dangers threatenedhim, and make up her mind whether, after all, it was to be her missionto save him from the other women.
"Well, if you like, then, Ursula...."
"Oh, you angel, you! I'm so glad! We'll go to the nearest post office,and send off the wire ourselves."
As they got into the motor Mrs. Gillow seized Susy's arm with a pleadingpressure. "And you will let Fred make love to you a little, won't you,darling?"
The Glimpses of the Moon Page 17