"Hurry up, Mary," she said, "I"m as hungry as a hunter."
A voice floated through the window like an echo: "Irish murder; latest details."
"Shut the window, Mary," she said sharply.
CHAPTER VII
THE Hotel Vesuvius is a singular place. It stands on the north side of Piccadilly, and for the general its stuccoed front and severe sash windows breathe an air of early Victorian respectability. Probably it was once a ducal mansion, for it has all the necessary ugliness, solidity and size; now it is the most remarkable instance of what can be done by a proprietor who remembers that an address in Piccadilly exempts him from the rules which govern Bloomsbury. One enters it through a small hall all alight with white and gold paint. Right and left are the saloon bar and the buffet; this enables the customer to select either without altering the character of his accommodation, while a.s.suming superiority for a judicious choice. A broad straight staircase leads up to the big supper room on the first floor. Above are a score of private dining-rooms.
Victoria jumped out of the cab and walked up the steps, handing the liveried commissionaire two shillings to pay the cabman. This was an inspiration calculated to set her down at once with the staff as one who knew the ropes. In the white and gold hall she halted for a moment, puzzled and rather nervous. She had never set foot in the Vesuvius; she had never heard it mentioned without a smile or a wink. Now, a little flushed and her heart beating, she realised that she did not know her way about.
Victoria need have had no fears. Before she had time to take in the scene, a tall man with a perfectly groomed head and a well fitting evening dress bowed low before her.
"Madame wishes no doubt to deposit her wrap," he said in gentle tones.
His teeth flashed white for a moment.
"Yes," said Victoria, . . . "Yes, where is the cloak room?"
"This way, madame. If madame will permit me. . . ." He pointed towards the end of the hall and preceded her steps. An elderly woman behind the counter received Victoria"s wrap and handed her a bra.s.s token without looking at her. While she pulled up her gloves she looked round curiously. The cloak room was small; behind the counter the walls were covered by a mahogany rack with some hundred pigeon-holes. The fiercer light of an unshaded chandelier beat down upon the centre of the room.
Victoria was conscious of an extraordinary atmosphere, a blend of many scents, tobacco smoke, leather; most of the pigeon-holes were bursting with coloured wraps, many of them vivid blue or red; here and there long veils, soiled white gloves hung out of them; a purple ostrich feather hung from an immense black hat over a white and silver Cingalese shawl.
Victoria turned sharply. The man was inspecting her coolly with an air of intentness that showed approval.
"Where does madame wish to go?" he asked as they entered the hall. "In the buffet perhaps?"
He opened the door. Victoria saw for a second a long counter laden with bottles, at which stood a group of men, some in evening dress, some in tweed suits; she saw a few women among them, all with smiles upon their faces. Behind the counter she had time to see the barmaid, a beautiful girl with dark eyes and vivid yellow hair.
"No, not there," she said quickly. It reminded her of the terrible little bar of which Farwell had given her a glimpse. "You are the manager, I believe . . . I want to go up into the supper room."
"Certainly, madame; will madame come this way?"
The manager preceded her up to the first floor. On the landing, two men in tweeds suddenly stopped talking as she pa.s.sed. A porter flung the glazed door open. A short man in evening dress looked at her, then at the manager. After a second"s hesitation the two men in tweeds followed her in.
The manager put his hands in his pockets, walked up to the other man and nodded towards the door.
"_Pas mal, hein?_"
"_Epatante,_" said the short man. "_Du chic. Et une peau!_"
The manager smiled and turned to go downstairs. "_Surveillez moi ca Anatole,_" he said.
Victoria, meanwhile, had stopped for a moment on the threshold, a little dazed by the scene. Though it was only half-past ten, the eighty tables of the Vesuvius were almost every one occupied; the crowd looked at first like a patchwork quilt. The room was all white and gold like the hall; a soft radiance fell from the lights hidden in the cornice; two heavy chandeliers with faintly pink electric bulbs and a few pink shaded lights on the table diffused a roseate glow over the scene. Victoria felt like an intruder, and her discomfiture was heightened by the gripping hot perfume. But already a waiter was by her side; she let him be her pilot. In a few seconds she found herself sitting at a small table alone, near the middle of the room. The waiter reappeared almost at once carrying on a tray a liqueur gla.s.s containing some colourless fluid. She had ordered nothing, but his adroitness relieved her. Clearly the expert had divined her inexperience and had resolved to smooth her way.
She lifted the gla.s.s to her lips and sipped at it. It was good stuff, rather strong. The burn on her palate seemed to brace her; she looked round the room. It was a peculiar scene; for the Vesuvius is a luxurious place, and a provincial might well be excused for thinking it was the Carlton or the Savoy; indeed there was something more outwardly opulent about it. It suggested a place where men not only spent what they had but spent more. But for a few men in frock-coats and tweeds it would have been almost undistinguishable from the recognised resorts of fashion. Victoria took stock of her surroundings; of the shining plate and gla.s.s, the heavy red carpet, the red and gold curtains, drawn but fluttering at the open windows. The guests, however, interested her more. At half the tables sat a woman and a man, at others a woman alone before a little gla.s.s. What struck her above all was the beauty of the women, the wealth they carried on their bodies. Hardly one of them seemed over thirty; most of them had golden or vivid red hair, though a few tables off Victoria could see a tall woman of colour with black hair stiffened by wax and pierced with ma.s.sive ivory combs. They mostly wore low-necked dresses, many of them white or faintly tinted with blue or pink. She could see a dark Italian-looking girl in scarlet from whose ears long coral earrings drooped to her slim cream-coloured shoulders.
There was an enormously stout woman with puffy pink cheeks, strapped slightly into a white silk costume, looking like a rose at the height of its bloom. There were others too! short dark women with tight hair; minxish French faces and little shrewd dark eyes; florid Dutch and Belgian women with ma.s.sive busts and splendid shoulders, dazzlingly white; English girls too, most of them slim with long arms and rosy elbows and faintly outlined collar bones. Many of these had the aristocratic nonchalance of "art" photographs. Opposite Victoria, under the other chandelier, a splendid creature, white as a lily, with flashing green eyes, copper coloured hair, had thrown herself back in her armchair and was laughing at a man"s joke. Her head was bent back, and as she laughed her splendid bust rose and fell and her throat filled out. An elderly man with a close clipped grey moustache, immaculate in his well-cut dress clothes, leaned towards her with a smile on his brown face.
Victoria turned her eyes away from the man, (a soldier, of course), and looked at the others. They, too, were a mixed collection. There were a good many youths, all clean shaven and mostly well-groomed; these talked loudly to their partners and seemed to fill the latter with merriment; now and then they stared at other women with the boldness of the shy.
There were elderly men too; a few in frock coats in spite of the heat, some very stout and red, some bald and others half concealing their scalps under cunning hair arrangements. The elderly men sat mostly with two women, some with three, and lay back smiling like courted pachas. By far the greater number of the guests, however, were anything between thirty and forty; and seemed to cover every type from the smart young captain with the tanned face, bold blue eyes and a bristly moustache, to ponderous men in tweeds or blue reefer jackets who looked about them with a mixture of nervousness and bovine stolidity.
From every corner came a steady stream of loud talk; continually little shrieks of laughter pierced the din and then were smothered by the rattling of the plates. The waiters flitted ghostly through the room with incredible speed, balancing high their silver trays. Then Victoria became conscious that most of the women round her were looking at her; for a moment she felt her personality shrivel up under their gaze. They were a.n.a.lysing her, speculating as to the potentialities of a new rival, stripping off her clothes too and her jewels. It was horrible, because their look was more incisive than the merely brutal glance by which a man takes stock of a woman"s charms.
She pulled herself together however, and forced herself to return the stares. "After all," she thought, "this is the baptism of fire." She felt strengthened, too, as she observed her rivals more closely.
Beautiful as most of them seemed at first sight, many of them showed signs of wear. With joyful cruelty Victoria noted here and there faint wrinkles near their eyes, relaxed mouths, cheekbones on which rosacia had already set its mark. She could not see more than half a dozen whose beauty equalled hers; she threw her head up and drew back her shoulders.
In the full light of the chandelier she looked down at the firm white shapeliness of her arms.
"Well, how goes it?"
Victoria started and looked up from her contemplation. A man had sat down at her table. He seemed about thirty, fairish, with a rather ragged moustache. He wore a black morning coat and a grey tie. His hands and wrists were well kept and emerged from pale blue cuffs. There was a not unkindly smile upon his face. His tip tilted nose gave him a cheerful, rather impertinent expression.
"Oh, I"m all right," said Victoria vaguely. Then with an affectation of ease. "Hot, isn"t it?"
"Ra-_ther_," said the man. "Had your supper?"
"No," said Victoria, "I don"t want any."
"Now, come, really that"s too bad of you. Thought we were going to have a nice little family party and you"re off your feed."
"I"m sorry," said Victoria smiling. "I had dinner only two hours ago."
This man was not very attractive; there was something forced in his ease.
"Well, have a drink with me," he said.
"What"s yours?" asked Victoria. That was an inspiration. The plunge braced her like a cold bath. The man laughed.
"Pop, of course. Unless you prefer a Pernot. You know "absinthe makes the . . ."" He stopped and laughed again. Victoria did likewise without understanding him. She saw that the other women laughed when men did.
They filled their gla.s.ses. Victoria liked champagne. She watched the little bubbles rise, and drank the gla.s.s down. It was soft and warm. How strong she felt suddenly. The conversation did not flag. The man was leaning towards her across the table, talking quickly. He punctuated every joke with a high laugh.
"Oh, I say, give us a chance," floated from the next table. Victoria looked. It was one of the English girls. She was propped up on one elbow on the table; her legs were crossed showing a long slim limb and slender ankle in a white open work stocking. A man in evening dress with a foreign looking dark face was caressing her bare arm.
"Penny for your thoughts," said Victoria"s man.
"Wasn"t thinking," she said. "I was looking."
"Looking? are you new here?"
"Yes, it"s the first time I"ve come."
"By Jove! It _must_ be an eye-opener." He laughed.
"It is rather. It doesn"t seem half bad."
"You"re right there. I"m an old stager." A slightly complacent expression came over his face. He filled up the gla.s.ses. "You don"t spoil the collection, you know," he added. "You"re a bit of all right."
He looked at her approvingly.
"Am I?" She looked at him demurely. Then, plunging once more, "I hope you"ll still think so by and by." The man"s eyes dwelled for a moment on her face and neck, his breath became audible suddenly. She felt his foot softly stroke hers. He drew his napkin across his lips.