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Red Hair (The Vicissitudes of Evangeline), a novel by Elinor Glyn |
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Part 8 |
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_ 300 PARK STREET, Friday morning, _November 25th._ I know just the meaning of dust and ashes, for that is what I felt I had had for breakfast this morning, the day after "Carmen." Lady Ver had given orders she was not to be disturbed, so I did not go near her, and crept down to the dining-room, quite forgetting the master of the house had arrived. There he was, a strange, tall, lean man with fair hair, and sad, cross, brown eyes, and a nose inclined to pink at the tip--a look of indigestion about him, I feel sure. He was sitting in front of a _Daily Telegraph_ propped up on the teapot, and some cold, untasted sole on his plate. I came forward. He looked very surprised. "I--I'm Evangeline Travers," I announced. He said "How d'you do?" awkwardly. One could see without a notion what that meant. "I'm staying here," I continued. "Did you not know?" "Then won't you have some breakfast? Beastly cold, I fear," politeness forced him to utter. "No, Ianthe never writes to me. I had not heard any news for a fortnight, and I have not seen her yet." Manners have been drummed into me from early youth, so I said, politely, "You only arrived from Paris late last night, did you not?" "I got in about seven o'clock, I think," he replied. "We had to leave so early--we were going to the opera," I said. "A Wagner that begins at unearthly hours, I suppose?" he murmured, absently. "No, it was 'Carmen,' but we dined first with my--my--guardian, Mr. Carruthers." "Oh!" We both ate for a little. The tea was greenish black--and lukewarm. No wonder he has dyspepsia. "Are the children in, I wonder?" he hazarded, presently. "Yes," I said. "I went to the nursery and saw them as I came down." At that moment the three angels burst into the room, but came forward decorously and embraced their parent. They do not seem to adore him as they do Lady Ver. "Good-morning, papa," said the eldest, and the other two repeated it in chorus. "We hope you have slept well and had a nice passage across the sea." They evidently had been drilled outside. Then, nature getting uppermost, they patted him patronizingly. "Daddie, darling, have you brought us any new dolls from Paris?" "And I want one with red hair, like Evangeline," said Yseult, the youngest. Sir Charles seemed bored and uncomfortable; he kissed his three exquisite bits of Dresden china, so like and yet unlike himself--they have Lady Ver's complexion, but brown eyes and golden hair like his. "Yes; ask Harbottle for the packages," he said. "I have no time to talk to you. Tell your mother I will be in for lunch," and making excuses to me for leaving so abruptly--an appointment in the City--he shuffled out of the room. I wonder how Lady Ver makes his heart beat! I _don't_ wonder she prefers--Lord Robert. "Why is papa's nose so red?" said Yseult. "Hush!" implored Mildred. "Poor papa has come off the sea." "I don't love papa," said Corisande, the middle one. "He's cross, and sometimes he makes darling mummie cry." "We must always love papa," chanted Mildred, in a lesson voice. "We must always love our parents, and grandmamma, and grandpapa, and aunts and cousins--amen." The "amen" slipped out unawares, and she looked confused, and corrected herself when she had said it. "Let's find Harbottle. Harbottle is papa's valet," Corisande said, "and he is much thoughtfuller than papa. Last time he brought me a Highland boy doll, though papa had forgotten I asked for it." They all three went out of the room, first kissing me, and courtesying sweetly when they got to the door. They are never rude or boisterous, the three angels--I love them. Left alone, I did feel like a dead fish. The column "London Day by Day" caught my eye in the _Daily Telegraph_, and I idly glanced down it, not taking in the sense of the words, until "The Duke of Torquilstone has arrived at Vavasour House, St. James's, from abroad," I read. Well, what did it matter to me--what did anything matter to me?--Lord Robert had met us in the hall again, as we were coming out of the opera; he looked very pale, and he apologized to Lady Ver for his abrupt departure. He had got a chill, he said, and had gone to have a glass of brandy, and was all right now, and would we not come to supper, and various other _empresse_ things, looking at her with the greatest devotion. I might not have existed. She was capricious, as she sometimes is. "No, Robert, I am going home to bed. I have got a chill, too," she said. And the footman announcing the electric at that moment, we flew off and left them, Christopher having fastened my sable collar with an air of possession which would have irritated me beyond words at another time, but I felt cold and dead, and utterly numb. Lady Ver did not speak a word on the way back, and kissed me frigidly as she went into her room; then she called out: "I am tired, snake-girl; don't think I am cross. Good-night." And so I crept up to bed. To-morrow is Saturday and my visit ends. After my lunch with Lady Merrenden, I am a wanderer on the face of the earth. Where shall I wander to? I feel I want to go away by myself, away where I shall not see a human being who is English. I want to forget what they look like; I want to shut out of my sight their well-groomed heads; I want--oh, I do not know what I do want. Shall I marry Mr. Carruthers? He would eat me up, and then go back to Paris to the lady he loves. But I should have the life I like--and the Carruthers's emeralds are beautiful--and I love Branches--and--and---- "Her ladyship would like to see you, miss," said a footman. So I went up the stairs. Lady Ver was in a darkened room, soft pink blinds right down beyond the half-drawn blue silk curtains. "I have a fearful head, Evangeline," she said. "Then I will smooth your hair," and I climbed up behind her and began to run over her forehead with the tips of my fingers. "You are really a pet, snake-girl," she said, "and you can't help it." "I can't help what?" "Being a witch. I knew you would hurt me when I first saw you, and I tried to protect myself by being kind to you." "Oh, dear Lady Ver!" I said, deeply moved. "I would not hurt you for the world, and indeed you misjudge me. I have kept the bargain to the very letter--and spirit." "Yes, I know you have to the letter, at least, but why did Robert go out of the box last night?" she demanded, wearily. "He said he had got a chill, did not he?" I replied, lamely. She clasped her hands passionately. "A chill! You don't know Robert. He never had a chill in his life," she said. "Oh, he is the dearest, dearest being in the world. He makes me believe in good and all things honest. He isn't vicious, and isn't a prig, and he knows the world, and he lives in its ways like the rest of us, and yet he doesn't begin by thinking every woman is fair game and undermining what little self-respect she may have left to her." "Yes," I said. I found nothing else to say. "If I had had a husband like that I would never have yawned," she went on; "and besides, Robert is too masterful and would be too jealous to let one divert one's self with another." "Yes," I said again, and continued to smooth her forehead. "He has sentiment, too--he is not matter-of-fact and brutal--and oh, you should see him on a horse!--he is too, too beautiful." She stretched out her arms in a movement of weariness that was pathetic and touched me. "You have known him a long, long time?" I said, gently. "Perhaps five years, but only casually until this season. I was busy with some one else before. I have played with so many." Then she roused herself up. "But Robert is the only one who has never made love to me. Always dear and sweet, and treating me like a queen, as if I were too high for that, and having his own way, and not caring a pin for any one's opinion. And I have wanted him to make love to me often. But now I realize it is no use. Only, you sha'n't have him, snake-girl! I told him as we were going to the opera you were as cold as ice, and were playing with Christopher, and I am going to take him down to Northumberland with me to-morrow out of your way. He shall be my devoted friend, at any rate. You would break his heart, and I shall still hold you to your promise." I said nothing. "Do you hear? I say: _You_ would break his heart. He would be only capable of loving straight to the end. The kind of love any other woman would die for--but--you--You are Carmen." At all events, not _she_, nor any other woman, shall ever see what I am or am not. My heart is not for them to peck at. So I said, calmly: "Carmen was stabbed!" "And serve her right! Fascinating, fiendish demon!" Then she laughed, her mood changing. "Did you see Charlie?" she said. "We breakfasted together." "Cheerful person, isn't he?" "No," I said. "He looked cross and ill." "Ill!" she said, with a shade of anxiety. "Oh, you only mean dyspeptic." "Perhaps." "Well, he always does when he comes from Paris. If you could go into his room and see the row of photographs on his mantelpiece, you might guess why." "Pictures of 'Sole Dieppoise' and 'Poulet a la Victoria aux Truffes,' no doubt," I hazarded. She doubled up with laughter. "Yes, just that," she said. "Well, he adores me in his way, and will bring me a new Cartier ring to make up for it--you will see at luncheon." "He is a perfect husband, then." "About the same as you will find Christopher. Only Christopher will start by being an exquisite lover. There is nothing he does not know, and Charlie has not an idea of that part. Heavens!--the dulness of my honeymoon!" "Mrs. Carruthers said all honeymoons were only another parallel to going to the dentist or being photographed. Necessary evils to be got through for the sake of the results." "The results!" "Yes, the nice house and the jewels and the other things." "Oh! Yes, I suppose she was right, but if one had married Robert one would have had both." She did not say both what--but oh, I knew! "You think Mr. Carruthers will make a fair husband, then?" I asked. "You will never really know Christopher. I have been acquainted with him for years. You will never feel he would tell you the whole truth about anything. He is an epicure, and an analyst of sensations. I don't know if he has any gods--he does not believe in them if he has; he believes in no one, and nothing, but perhaps himself. He is violently in love with you for the moment, and he wants to marry you, because he cannot obtain you on any other terms." "You are flattering," I said, rather hurt. "I am truthful. You will probably have a delightful time with him, and keep him devoted to you for years, because you are not in love with him; and he will take good care you do not look at any one else. I can imagine if one were in love with Christopher he would break one's heart, as he has broken poor Alicia Verney's." "Oh, but how silly! People don't have broken hearts now; you are talking like out of a book, dear Lady Ver." "There are a few cases of broken hearts, but they are not for book reasons--of death and tragedy, etc.--they are because we cannot have what we want, or keep what we have--" and she sighed. We did not speak for a few minutes, then she said, quite gayly: "You have made my head better; your touch is extraordinary; in spite of all, I like you, snake-girl. You are not found on every gooseberry-bush." We kissed lightly, and I left her and went to my room. Yes, the best thing I can do is to marry Christopher. I care for him so little that the lady in Paris won't matter to me, even if she is like Sir Charles's "Poulet a la Victoria aux Truffes." He is such a gentleman, he will at least be kind to me and refined and considerate--and the Carruthers emeralds are divine, and just my stones. I shall have them reset by Cartier. The lace, too, will suit me, and the sables, and I shall have the suite that Mrs. Carruthers used at Branches done up with pale, pale green, and burn all the early Victorians! And no doubt existence will be full of triumphs and pleasure. But oh--I wish--I wish it were possible to obtain--"both!" _ |
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