Part 11 (2/2)
Probably there is no weed in all the human garden which grows so fast as vanity. Lady Sellingworth's vanity grew and grew with the years until it almost devoured her. It became an idee fixe in her. A few people no doubt knew this--a few women. But she was saved from all vulgarity of vanity by an inherent distinction, not only of manner but of something more intimate, which never quite abandoned her, which her vanity was never able to destroy. Although her vanity was colossal, she usually either concealed it, or if she showed it showed it subtly. She was not of the type which cannot pa.s.s a mirror in a restaurant without staring into it. She only looked into mirrors in private. Nor was she one of those women who powder their faces and rouge their lips before men in public places. It was impossible for her to be blatant. Nevertheless, her moral disease led her gradually to fall from her own secret standard of what a woman of her world should be. Craven had once said to himself that Lady Sellingworth could never seek the backstairs. He was not wholly right in this surmise about her. There was a time in her life--the time when she was, or was called, a professional beauty--when she could scarcely see a man's face without watching it for admiration.
Although she preserved her delightfully unselfconscious manner she was almost ceaselessly conscious of self. Her own beauty was the idol which she wors.h.i.+pped and which she presented to the world expectant of the wors.h.i.+p of others. There have been many women like her, but few who have been so clever in hiding their disease. But always seated in her brain there was an imp who understood, was contemptuous and mocked, an imp who knew what was coming to her, what comes to all the daughters of men who outlive youth and its shadowy triumphs. Her brain was ironic, while her temperament was pa.s.sionate, and greedy in its pursuit of the food it clamoured for; her brain watched the unceasing chase with almost a bitterness of sarcasm, merging sometimes into a bitterness of pity. In some women there seems at times to be a dual personality, a woman of the blood at odds with a woman of the grey matter. It was so in Lady Sellingworth's case, but for a long time the former woman dominated the latter, whose empire was to come later with white hair and a ravaged face.
At the age of thirty-five, after some years of brilliant and even of despotic widowhood, she married again--Lord Sellingworth.
He was twenty-five years older than she was, ruggedly handsome, huge, lean, self-possessed, very clever, very worldly, and that unusual phenomenon, a genuine atheist. There was no doubt that he had a keen pa.s.sion for her, one of those pa.s.sions which sometimes flare up in a man of a strong and impetuous nature, who has lived too much, who is worn out, haunted at times by physical weariness, yet still fiercely determined to keep a tight grip on life and life's few real pleasures, the greatest of which is perhaps the indulgence of love.
Like her first marriage this marriage was apparently a success. Lord Sellingworth's cleverness fascinated his wife's brain, and led her to value the pursuits of the intellect more than she had ever done before.
She was proud of his knowledge and wit, proud of being loved by a man of obvious value. After this marriage her house became more than ever the resort of the brilliant men of the day. But though Lord Sellingworth undoubtedly improved his wife's mental capacities, enlarged the horizon of her mind, and gave her new interests, without specially intending it he injured her soul. For he increased her worldliness and infected her with his atheism. She had always been devoted to the world. He continually suggested to her that there was nothing else, nothing beyond. All sense of mysticism had been left out of his nature. What he called ”priestcraft” was abhorrent to him. The various religions seemed to him merely different forms of superst.i.tion, the a.s.sertions of their leaders only varying forms of humbug. He was greedy in searching for food to content the pa.s.sions of the body, and was restless in pursuit of nutriment for the mind. But not believing in the soul he took no trouble about it.
Lady Sellingworth had this man at her feet. Nevertheless, in a certain way he dominated her. In hard mental power he was much her superior, and her mind became gradually subservient to his in many subtle ways. It was in his day that she developed that noticeable and almost reckless egoism which is summed up by the laconic saying, ”after me the deluge.” For Lord Sellingworth's atheism was not of the type which leads to active humanitarianism, but of the opposite type which leads to an exquisite selfishness. And he led his wife with him. He taught her the whole art of self-culture, and with it the whole art of self-wors.h.i.+p, subtly extending to her mind that which for long had been concerned mainly with the body. They were two of the most selfish and two of the most charming people in London. For they were both thorough bred and naturally kind-hearted, and so there were always showers of crumbs falling from their well-spread table for the benefit of those about them. Their friends had a magnificent time with them and so did their servants. They liked others to be pleased with them and satisfied because of them. For they must live in a warm atmosphere. And nothing makes the atmosphere so cold about a man or woman as the egoism which shows itself in miserliness, or in the unwillingness that others should have a good time.
When Lady Sellingworth was thirty-nine Lord Sellingworth died abruptly.
The doctors said that his heart was worn out; others said something different, something less kind.
For the second time Lady Sellingworth was a widow; for the second time she spent the period of mourning in Paris. And when it was over she went for a tour round the world with a small party of friends; Sir Guy Letchworth and his plain, but gay and clever wife, and Roger Brand, a millionaire and a famous Edwardian.
Brand was a bachelor, and had long been a devoted adherent of Lady Sellingworth's, and people, of course, said that he was going to marry her. But they eventually came back from their long tour comfortably disengaged. Brand went back to his enormous home in Park Lane, and Lady Sellingworth settled down in number 18A Berkeley Square.
She was now forty-one. She had arrived at a very difficult period in the life of a beauty. The freshness and bloom of youth had inevitably left her. The adjectives applied to her were changing. The word ”lovely” was dropped. Its place was taken by such epithets as ”handsome,” ”splendid looking,” ”brilliant,” ”striking,” ”alluring.” People spoke of Lady Sellingworth's ”good days”; and said of her, ”Isn't she astonis.h.i.+ng?”
The word ”zenith” was occasionally used in reference to her. A verb which began to be mixed up with her a good deal was the verb ”to last.” It was said of her that she ”lasted” wonderfully. Women put the question, ”Isn't it miraculous how Adela Sellingworth lasts?”
All this might, perhaps, be called complimentary. But women are not as a rule specially fond of such compliments. When kind friends speak of a woman's ”good days” there is an implication that some of her days are bad. Lady Sellingworth knew as well as any woman which compliments are left-handed and which are not. On one occasion soon after she returned to London from her tour round the world a woman friend said to her:
”Adela, you have never looked better than you do now. Do you know what you remind me of?”
The woman was an American. Lady Sellingworth replied carelessly:
”I haven't the slightest idea.”
”You remind me of our wonderful Indian summers that come in October. How do you manage it?”
That come in October?
These words struck a chill through Lady Sellingworth. Suddenly she felt the autumn in her. She had been in America: she had known the glory of its Indian summer; she had also known that Indian summer's startling sudden collapse. Winter comes swiftly after those almost unnaturally golden days. And what is there left in winter for a woman who has lived for her beauty since she was sixteen years old? The freedom of a second widowhood would be only chill loneliness in winter. She saw herself like a figure in the distance, sitting over a fire alone. But little warmth would come from that fire. The warmth that was necessary to her came from quite other sources than coal or wood kindled and giving out flames.
Her vanity shuddered. She realized strongly, perhaps, for the first time, that people were just beginning to think of her as a woman inevitably on the wane. She looked into her mirror, stared into it, and tried to consider herself impartially. She was certainly very good-looking. Her tall figure had never been made ugly by fatness. She was not the victim of what is sometimes called ”the elderly spread.” But although she was slim, considering her great height, she thought that she discerned signs of a thickening tendency. She must take that in time. Her figure must not be allowed to degenerate. And her face?
She was so accustomed to her face, and so accustomed to its being a beautiful face, that it was difficult to her to regard it with cold impartiality. But she tried to; tried to look at it as she might have looked at the face of another woman, of say, a rival beauty.
What age did the face seem to be? If she had seen it pa.s.sing by in the street what age would she have guessed its owner to be? Something in the thirties; but perhaps in the late thirties? She wasn't quite certain about it. Really it is so difficult to look at yourself quite impartially. And she did not wish to fall into exaggeration, to be hypercritical. She wished to be strictly reasonable, to see herself exactly as she was. The eyes were brilliant, but did they look like young eyes?
No, they didn't. And yet they were full of light. There was nothing faded about them. But somehow at that moment they looked terribly experienced. With a conscious effort she tried to change their expression, to make them look less full of knowledge. But it seemed to her that she failed utterly. No, they were not young eyes; they never could be young eyes. The long accustomed woman of the world was mirrored in them with her many experiences. They were beautiful in their way, but their way had nothing to do with youth. And near the eyes, very near, there were definite traces of maturity. A few, as yet very faint, lines showed; and there were shadows; and there was--she could only call it to herself ”a slightly hollow look,” which she had never observed in any girl, or, so far as she remembered, in any young woman.
She gazed at her mouth and then at her throat. Both showed signs of age; the throat especially, she thought. The lips were fine, finely curved, voluptuous. But they were somehow not fresh lips. In some mysterious way, which really she could not define, life had marked them as mature.
There were a couple of little furrows in the throat and there was also a slightly ”drawn” look on each side just below the line of the jaw. By the temples also, close to the hair, there was something which did not look young.
Lady Sellingworth felt very cold. At that moment she probably exaggerated in her mind the effect of her appearance. She plunged down into pessimism about herself. A sort of desperation came upon her.
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