Edward Benson - Scarlet and Hyssop - A Novel

"But if you take them away, my dear, what will you put in their place!"

"Why, the portraits of you and me and Anthony: you and me on each side of the fireplace, and Anthony in the middle."

This suggestion was a happy one, and had been put into effect. The portraits in question were admirable examples of a very eminent painter of the day, and Henry as large as life, with the unmistakable features of his race, sat smoking his cigar, so natural, on one side of the Italian fireplace, while on the other hung Mrs. Maxwell in her crimson gown with all her diamonds on. Both pictures were diabolically clever, and much more like the sitters than the sitters (happily for them) had any idea: for where Mrs. Maxwell saw only the impressionist blurs of coloured light which indicated her priceless stones, the painter had finely observed and faithfully represented an intolerably ostentatious opulence; where Mr. Maxwell saw only that he was, as usual, smoking a cigar, the painter had seen the man who liked to be painted as doing so. Besides, the glowing end of it, smouldering beneath its white ash, was marvellously indicated, and Mr. Maxwell often declared he could almost catch a whiff of it. Between them hung Anthony, a young man of about twenty-three. He was undoubtedly the son of each of his parents. And the two parents were turned fondly, as in life, towards the hope of the house, and the hope of this house, beautifully dressed, also as in life, stared somewhat vacuously in front of him.

It was, in fact, on Anthony, quite as much as on the mounting of the ladder of social distinction, that his mother's ambitions centred, and Anthony, it must be allowed, was largely that which his mother would have him be; but on the great question of the potency of wealth, its being able to get for you, if you spend it properly, anything you wish, from a wife or an ancestor to a pair of shoes, she did not feel certain of his soundness. There were other things, too, about Anthony which puzzled his mother: he was accustomed to read poetry, and appeared to enjoy Wagner, a curious crookedness, so she thought, in one otherwise honest. But both mother and son were agreed that, wherever he got his shoes, he could not do better than get his wife from Andrew Brereton's house, the prospective bride being Maud Brereton, a young goddess of about eighteen years and six feet of wholesome growth, whom her mother invariably alluded to as "my little girl."

To-night it certainly seemed that the new patron saint of England, St. Sovereign, received definite canonization. Royalty, stars and garters, wit, talent, beauty, and birth, all came and bowed the knee. Even a stray copy of the menu at dinner was picked up by an enterprising reporter for publication next day in the paper he represented, so that Mr. Maxwell's inimitable chef would have the opportunity of living his triumph o'er again. Dinner was not till half-past eight, and a feast that costs five pounds a head necessarily takes time to negotiate, especially since Mr. Maxwell always ate largely and slowly of every dish that was put before him, so that before the gentlemen left the dining-room the less favoured guests had already begun to arrive. Among these was Guardina, who with great good sense had declined her dinner invitation for the very excellent reason that if she dined there she would eat too much, and if she ate too much she would not be able to sing. "And I am here to sing," she added, being without illusions.

Among the diners there had been Mrs. Brereton and Lady Alston, and the former, following her invariable practice of always paying court to Jack's wife, linked her arm in Marie's as they were going upstairs, to the momentary consternation of Mrs. Maxwell, who clearly saw from her place at the end of the procession of ascending ladies that there were several women of higher rank behind her.

"Dear Marie, I haven't seen you for a whole two days," she said. "Where have you hidden yourself? And I never expected to see you here."

"Why not? Surely the dinner was excellent, and is not Guardina to sing?"

"Yes, of course. Oh, I see, you are laughing at me. Don't be cross, Marie."

"I'm not cross, only frank."

"Oh, but frankness is such a bore, except when you use it as a weapon of concealment. In fact, I was talking to Jack about that very point two days ago. As a means of convincing people that you are not telling the truth, there is nothing so certain as to tell it."

This Bismarckian but imaginative résumé of the conversation in the Park came out quite glibly, and Marie laughed.

"Really, Mildred, you have a way with you," she said. "Jack went out yesterday morning in a vile temper, and came back after riding with you like a drifting angel, all sweetness and smiles. What had you done to him?"

"I forget what we talked about – probably about him, for that always puts a man in a good temper quicker than anything else. I'm so glad it was successful."

Marie sat down on a gilt Louis XV chair upholstered in Genoese velvet.

"I shall send him to you whenever he is in a bad temper, I think," she went on, "with a ticket pinned on to him, 'Please return in good condition.'"

Mildred laughed.

"Dearly as I like Jack," she said, "I am not sure that my affection would quite go to those lengths. Because Jack in an odious temper is like – well, like Jack in an odious temper. I know nothing, indeed, to compare to him."

"Well, I wish you would tell me your secret."

"My dear, there is none. Besides, another woman can so often put a man in a good temper, when his wife could not possibly."

"That doesn't say much for matrimony."

Mildred looked up a moment, and then fell to fingering her fan again.

"Oh, matrimony is such an excellent institution that a few little disadvantages of that sort really don't weigh. But certainly what I say is true. And you know it is just the same with us. Jack can put me in a good temper when my dear Andrew would assuredly fare pretty badly if he tried."

"I never quite knew why you married him."

"Oh, for a variety of reasons. He was very rich, I liked him, he wanted to marry me. And we have been very happy. One can't look for perfection in one's husband any more than in one's own servants or one's horses. The point is that they should not have any vices, and on the whole suit you."

"Is that the modern theory?" asked Marie.

"No, I don't know that it is exclusively modern. But what's the matter, Marie? What was Jack in a bad temper about?"

Marie frowned.

"Jack was coarse. I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. Do you remember my going home with Jim two nights ago from your house, when I was going to see Blanche about the bazaar? Well, he hinted that I had not been to see her at all. Now, what are you to do when your husband behaves like that?"

Mildred laughed.

"Dear me! is that all? Men are coarse folk, you will not recognise that, and when they are in a bad temper they say all sorts of things they don't mean. Now, I can tell you how I should deal with that. I should simply have laughed in his face, laughed with a wide mouth. But as for letting it disturb my peace of mind – You, too, of all people, who simply are the most enviable woman in London."

"So you tell me," said Marie; "but I don't quite know why."

"Oh, my dear, if it was not you I should think you were fishing for compliments – Why? Because you have the brains to be sometimes amused and sometimes bored at what absorbs all of us; because you are young; because somehow or other you are the person; because you make any woman standing near you look dowdy and coarse – "

Marie laughed.

"I am stifled in my own perfections," she said. "Let me get a breath of air."

"Guardina is just going to oblige us with one," said Mildred. "She really is like the girl in the fairy stories out of whose mouth drop diamonds and pearls. I suppose she is paid at least a sovereign a note. How pleasant that must be! Look, there is poor Nellie Leighton standing close to her, as if she hoped to be able to pick some of them up. What a wonderful woman! Not a penny of any sort to bless herself with, an insatiable appetite for pleasure, and the most light-hearted and appreciative woman I know. She sees us; she is coming over here."