He got up, still alert in his movement, out of his chair.
"You are going?"
"Yes. I have to meet "Better not" at the Marlborough to talk over His Majesty"s visit to Manchester."
"Ah!" she said.
"Better not" was the nickname given at Court to a certain much-valued gentleman about the king.
She did not try to detain Seymour. But when he had gone deep depression overcame her. She was the helpless victim of a tremendous reaction. So long as she had been in activity she had been able to endure. Even the horror of the _Bella Napoli_, complex and cruelly intense as the probing of steel among the nerves of the body, she had been able to live through without obvious flinching. But then there had been something to do, something to deal with, something to get the better of. There had been a necessity for action. And now there was nothing. Her activities were over. Seymour had broken the curious spell which for a short time had bound her, and now she realized everything with unnatural acuteness.
What was the good of coming into possession of her true self? What was the good of anything? Life was activity. Her late close contact with youth, her obligation to do something difficult and, to her, tremendous for youth had taught her that anew, and now she must somehow reconcile herself to extinction. For this was really what lay before her now--extinction while still alive. Better surely to be struggling with horrors than to be merely dying away. She even looked back to the scene with Beryl and thought of it almost with longing. For how she had lived in that scene! At moments during it she had entirely forgotten herself.
Was that perhaps life, the only real life--entire forgetfulness of self?
If so, how seldom she had lived! In all her sixty years, in all her so-called "great life," for how short a time she had lived!
She had just then, even in the midst of her reaction, a feeling of illumination. She was in darkness, but around the darkness, as if enclosing it and her in it, there was light, a light she had never been really aware of till now. Something within her said:
"I see!"
She went up to her bedroom, shut herself in, went to a bookshelf, and took down a Bible which stood on it. She turned its pages till she came to the Sermon on the Mount. Then she began to read. And presently, as she read, a queer thought came to her. "If the "old guard" could see me now!"
It was late when she stopped reading. She shut up the Holy Book, put it back on the shelf, and took down a volume of poems. And after reading the Bible she read the poem of the Wild Heart. And then she read nothing more. But her reading had waked up in her a longing which was not familiar to her except in connexion with what she supposed was the baser part of her, the part which had troubled, had even tortured her so many times in her life. She had often longed to do things for men whom she loved, or fancied she loved. Now she was conscious of a yearning more altruistic. She wished to be purely unselfish, if that were ever possible. And she believed it to be possible. For was not Seymour unselfish? He surely often forgot himself in her. But she had always remembered herself in others.
"What a monstrous egoist I have been all my life!" she thought, with a sense of despair. "Only once have I acted with a purely unselfish motive, and that was with Beryl. Yes, Beryl gave me the one opportunity I took advantage of. And now it is all over. Everything is finished. It is too late to try a new way of living."
She forgot many little sacrifices she had made in the war, or she did not count them to her credit. For patriotism in war seemed as natural to her as drawing breath. She was thinking of her personal life in connexion with individuals. She had once been unselfish--for Beryl. That was over. Everything was over. And yet Seymour had said that he felt as if at last she were coming into possession of her true self. So he had noticed a difference. It was as if what she had been able to do for Beryl had subtly altered her. But there was nothing more for her to do.
That evening she felt loneliness as she had never felt it before. A sort of mental nausea seized her as she dressed for her solitary dinner.
For whom was she changing her gown? For Murgatroyd! How grotesque the unwritten regulations of a life like hers were! Why go down to dinner at all? She had no appet.i.te. Nevertheless, everything was done in due order. Her hair was arranged. Cecile looked at her critically to see that everything was right. For Murgatroyd! Even a jewel was brought to be pinned in to the front of her gown. It was a big ruby surrounded by diamonds, and as it flashed in the light it brought back to her the hideous memory of Arabian.
What would he do now? It was very strange that after ten years she had been able, indeed she had been obliged, to revenge herself upon him, this man whom she had never known, to whom she had never even spoken.
And she had never dreamed of revenge. She had let him go with his prey.
Probably her jewels had enabled him to live as he wished to live for years. And now she had paid him back! Did Fate work blindly, or was there a terribly subtle and inexorable plan at work through all human life?
"Miladi does not like to wear this ruby?" said Cecile.
"Why do you say that?"
"Milady looks at it so strangely!"
"It reminds me of something. Yes, I will wear it to-night. But what"s the good?"
"Miladi--?"
"No one will see it but myself."
"Milady should go out more, much more, and receive company here."
"Perhaps I"ll give a series of dinners," said Lady Sellingworth with a smile.
And she turned away and went down.
Murgatroyd and a footman were waiting for her. On the dining table was a menu telling her what she had to eat, what her cook had been, and was, busy over in the kitchen. She sat down at the big table, picked up the menu and glanced at it. But she did not see what was written on it.
She saw only in imagination the years before her, perhaps five years, perhaps ten, perhaps even more. For her race was a long living one. She might, like some of her forbears, live to be very old. Ten years more of dinners like this one in Berkeley Square! Could that be endured? As she sipped her soup she thought of travelling. She might shut up the house, go over the seas, wander through the world. There were things to be seen. Nature spread her infinite variety for the sons and the daughters of men. She might advertise in _The Times_ for a travelling companion.
There would be plenty of answers. Or she might get one of her many acquaintances to come with her, some pleasant woman who would not talk too much, or too little.
Fish!
When, finally, some fruit had been put before her, and Murgatroyd and the footman had left the room, she remained--so she thought of it--like a mummy in the tomb which belonged to her. And presently through the profound silence she heard the hoot of a motor-horn. Someone going somewhere! Someone who had something to do, somewhere to go! Someone from whom all the activities had not pa.s.sed away for ever!
The motor-horn sounded again nearer. Now she heard the faint sound of wheels. The car was coming down her side of the Square. The buzz of the machine reached her ears now, then the grinding of brakes. The car had stopped somewhere close by, at the next house perhaps.
She heard an electric bell. That was in her own house. Then the car had stopped at her door.
She listened, and immediately heard a step in the hall. Murgatroyd, or the footman, was going to the door. She wondered who the caller could be. Possibly Seymour! But he never came at that hour.
A moment later Murgatroyd appeared in the room.
"Miss Van Tuyn has called, my lady, and begs you to see her."
"Miss Van Tuyn! Ask her--take her up to the drawing-room, please. I am just finishing. I will come in a minute."
"Yes, my lady."
Murgatroyd went out and shut the door behind him.
Then Lady Sellingworth took a peach from a dish in front of her and began to peel it. She had not intended to eat any fruit before Murgatroyd had given her this news. But she felt that she must have a few minutes by herself. Not long ago she had been appalled by the thought of extinction: had yearned for activity, had even desired opportunities for unselfishness. Now, suddenly, she was afraid, and clung to her loneliness. For she felt certain that Beryl had come to ask her to do something in connexion with Arabian. Something must have happened since their interview yesterday, and the girl had come to her to ask her help.
She ate the peach very slowly, scarcely tasting it. At last it was finished, and she got up from the table. She must not keep Beryl waiting any longer. She must go upstairs. But she went reluctantly, almost in fear, wondering, dreading what was coming upon her.
When she opened the drawing-room door she saw Beryl standing by the fire.
"Adela!"
Beryl came forward hurriedly with a nervous manner Lady Sellingworth had never noticed in her before. Her face was very pale. There were dark rings under her eyes. She looked apprehensive, distracted even.
"Do forgive me for bursting in on you like this at such an hour!"
"Of course!"
She took Beryl"s hand. It was hot, and clasped hers with a closeness that was almost violent.
"What is it? Is anything the matter?"
"I want your advice. I don"t--I don"t quite know what to do. You see, there"s n.o.body but you I can come to. I know I have no right--I have no claim upon you. You have been so good to me already. No other woman would have done what you have done. But you see, I promised never to--I can"t speak to anyone else. I might have gone to d.i.c.k Garstin perhaps.
. . . I don"t know! But as it is I can"t speak to a soul but you."