Part 18 (2/2)

One morning in the middle of November I was overfed at receiving an invitation from Mrs Anson to dine at The Boltons, and a couple of days later the sum of my happiness was rendered complete by finding myself seated beside Mabel in her own home.

The house possessed an air of magnificence and luxury which I scarcely expected. It was furnished with great elegance and taste, while the servants were of an even more superior character than the house itself.

Among the homes of my many friends in the West End this was certainly the most luxurious, for money seemed to have been literally squandered upon its appointments, and yet withal there was nothing whatever garish nor any trace of a plebeian taste. There was a combined richness and quietness about the whole place which impressed one with an air of severity, while the footman who ushered me in was tall, almost a giant in stature, and solemn as a funeral mute.

Mrs Anson rose and greeted me pleasantly, while Mabel, in a pretty gown of coral-pink, also shook my hand and raised her fine dark eyes to mine with a glance of pleasure and triumph. It was, no doubt, due to her that I had been bidden there as guest. A red-headed, ugly-faced man named Hickman, and a thin, angular, irritating woman, introduced to me as Miss Wells, were my only fellow-guests. The man regarded me with some suspicion as I entered, and from the first I took a violent dislike to him. It may have been his forbidding personal appearance which caused my distrust. Now that I reflect, I think it was. His face was bloated and deeply furrowed, his eyes large, his lips thick and flabby, his reddish beard was ill-trimmed and scanty. He was thick-necked; his face was further disfigured by a curious dark-blue scar upon the left jaw, and I could not help remarking within myself, that if some faces resembled those of animals, his was closely allied to that of a savage bulldog. Indeed, I had never before seen such an eminently ugly face as his.

Yet he spoke with the air and perfect manner of a gentleman. He bowed with refined dignity as I was introduced, although I thought his smile seemed supercilious, while I was almost certain that he exchanged a curious, contemptuous look with Mabel, who stood behind me.

Was he aware of our little exchanges of confidences? Had he secretly watched us in our walks along the leafy byways of Kensington Gardens, and detected that I loved her? It seemed very much as though he had, and that he had endeavoured to disparage me in her eyes.

At Mrs Anson's invitation, I took Mabel in to dinner, and sat next her, while opposite us sat the dog-faced man with the irritating spinster.

The latter was a fitting companion for him, bony of countenance, her back straight as a board, her age uncertain, and her voice loud, high-pitched, and rasping. She wore a number of bangles on her left wrist; one of them had pigs and elephants hanging on it, with hearts, crosses, bells, and framed and glazed shamrock leaves mixed in. That would not have mattered much had she not been eating, but as dinner progressed the room grew a trifle warm, and she unfortunately had a fan as well as those distressing bangles, which fan she rhythmically waved to and fro, playing the orchestra softly when fanning herself, or loudly as she plied her knife and fork ”click-clack, jingle-jingle, tinkle-tinkle, click-clack!” until the eternal music of those pigs, elephants, crosses, hearts and bells prevented anything beyond a jerky conversation. She turned and twisted and toyed with her _menu_, tinkling and jingling the whole time like a coral consoler or an infant's rattle. Little wonder, I thought, that she remained a spinster. With such an irritating person to head his household, the unfortunate husband would be a candidate for Colney Hatch within a month. Yet she was evidently a very welcome guest at Mrs Anson's table, for my hostess addressed her as ”dear,” and seemed to consider whatever positive opinion she expressed as entirely beyond dispute.

I liked Mrs Anson. Although of that extremely frigid type of mother, very formal and unbending, observing all the rules of society to the letter, and practically making her life a burden by the conventionalities, she possessed, nevertheless, a warm-hearted affection for her child, and seemed constantly solicitous of her welfare. She spoke with the very faintest accent with her ”r's,” and I had, on the first evening we had met at the colonel's, wondered whether she were of Scotch, or perhaps foreign, extraction. The general conversation in the interval of the Irritating Woman's orchestra turned upon foreign travel, and incidentally, in answer to an ingenious question I put to her, she told me that her father had been German, but that she had nearly all her life lived in England.

The Irritating Woman spoke of going to the Riviera in December, whereupon Mabel remarked--

”I hope mother will go too. I'm trying to persuade her. London is so dull and miserable in winter compared with Cannes or Nice.”

”You know the Riviera well, I suppose?” I inquired of her.

”Oh, very well,” she responded. ”Mother and I have spent four winters in the south. There's no place in Europe in winter like the Cote d'Azur--as the French call it.”

”I much prefer the Italian Riviera,” chimed Miss Wells's high-pitched voice. She made it a point of honour to differ with everybody. ”At Bordighera, Ospedaletti, San Remo, and Ala.s.sio you have much better air, the same warmth, and at about half the price. The hotels in Nice and Cannes are simply ruinous.” Then, turning to Mrs Anson, she added, ”You know, dear, what you said last year.”

”We go to the Grand, at Nice, always,” answered Mrs Anson. ”It is dear, certainly, but not exaggeratedly so in comparison with the other large hotels.”

”There seems of late to have been a gradual rise in prices all along the Riviera,” remarked Hickman. ”I've experienced it personally. Ten or twelve years ago lived in Nice for the season for about half what it costs me now.”

”That exactly bears out my argument,” exclaimed the Irritating Woman, in triumph. ”The fact is that the French Riviera has become far too dear, and English people are, fortunately for themselves, beginning to see that by continuing their journey an extra twenty miles beyond Nice they can obtain just as good accommodation, live better, breathe purer air, and not be eternally worried by those gaudy tinsel-shows called Carnivals, or insane attempts at hilarity miscalled Battles of Flowers.”

”Oh, come, Miss Wells,” protested Mabel, ”surely you won't condemn the Battles of Flowers at Nice! Why, they're acknowledged to be amongst the most picturesque spectacles in the world!”

”I consider, my dear, that they are mere rubbishy ruses on the part of the Nicois to cause people to buy their flowers and throw them into the roadway. It's only a trick to improve their trade.”

We all laughed.

”And the Carnival?” inquired Hickman, much amused.

”Carnival!” she snorted. ”A disgraceful exhibition of a town's lawlessness. A miserable pageant got up merely to attract the unsuspecting foreigner into the web spread for him by extortionate hotel-keepers. All the so-called fun is performed by paid mountebanks; the cars are not only inartistic, but there is always something extremely offensive in their character, while the orgies which take place at the masked b.a.l.l.s at the Casino are absolutely disgraceful. The whole thing is artificial, and deserves no support at all from winter visitors.”

Mrs Anson, for once, did not agree with this sweeping condemnation, while Mabel declared that she always enjoyed the fun of the battles of flowers and paper confetti, although she admitted that she had never had the courage to go out on those days when the pellets of lime, or ”harp confetti,” are permitted. Both Hickman and myself supported Mabel in defence of the annual fetes at Nice as being unique in all the world.

But the Irritating Woman was not to be convinced that her opinions were either ill-formed or in the least distorted. She had never been present at a Carnival ball, she admitted, but it had been described to her by two estimable ladies who had, and that was, for her, sufficient. They were a pair of pious souls, and would, of course, never exaggerate to the length of a lie.

Dinner over, the ladies retired, and Hickman and myself were left to smoke and gossip. He was certainly a very ugly man, and at times a.s.serted an overbearing superiority in conversation; but having watched him very closely, I at length arrived at the conclusion that this was his natural manner, and was not intended to be offensive. Indeed, ever since that first moment when I had entered and been introduced, he had shown himself to be very pleasant and affable towards me.

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