Thelma
congratulated on taking the kiss than you in receiving it! But she's not
a bad old soul,--only a little too fond of money. But, Thelma, whom do
_you_ care for most? You did tell me once, but I forget!"
She turned her lovely face and star-like eyes upon him, and, meeting his
laughing look, she smiled.
"How often must I tell you!" she murmured softly. "I do think you will
never tire of hearing! You know that it is you for whom I care most, and
that all the world would be empty to me without you! Oh, my husband--my
darling! do not make me try to tell you how much I love you! I
cannot--my heart is too full!"
The rest of their drive homeward was very quiet--there are times when
silence is more eloquent than speech.
CHAPTER XXI.
"A small cloud, so slight as to be a mere speck on the fair blue
sky, was all the warning we received."--PLINY.
After that evening great changes came into Thelma's before peaceful
life. She had conquered her enemies, or so it seemed,--society threw
down all its barricades and rushed to meet her with open arms.
Invitations crowded upon her,--often she grew tired and bewildered in
the multiplicity of them all. London life wearied her,--she preferred
the embowered seclusion of Errington Manor, the dear old house in
green-wooded Warwickshire. But the "season" claimed her,--its frothy
gaieties were deemed incomplete without her--no "at home" was considered
quite "the" thing unless she was present. She became the centre of a
large and ever-widening social circle,--painters, poets, novelists, wits
savants, and celebrities of high distinction crowded her rooms, striving
to entertain her as well as themselves with that inane small talk and
gossip too often practiced by the wisest among us,--and thus surrounded,
she began to learn many puzzling and painful things of which in her old
Norwegian life, she had been happily ignorant.
For instance, she had once imagined that all the men and women of
culture who followed the higher professions must perforce be a sort of
"Joyous Fraternity," superior to other mortals not so gifted,--and,
under this erroneous impression, she was at first eager to know some of
the so-called "great" people who had distinguished themselves in
literature or the fine arts. She had fancied that they must of necessity
be all refined, sympathetic, large-hearted, and noble-minded--alas! how
grievously was she disappointed! She found, to her sorrow, that the tree
of modern Art bore but few wholesome roses and many cankered buds--that
the "Joyous Fraternity" were not joyous at all--but, on the contrary,
inclined to dyspepsia and discontentment. She found that even poets,
whom she had fondly deemed were the angel-guides among the children of
this earth,--were most of them painfully conceited, selfish in aim and
limited in thought,--moreover, that they were often so empty of all true
inspiration, that they were actually able to hate and envy one another
with a sort of womanish spite and temper,--that novelists, professing to
be in sympathy with the heart of humanity, were no sooner brought into
contact one with another, than they plainly showed by look, voice, and
manner, the contempt they entertained for each other's work,--that men
of science were never so happy as when trying to upset each other's
theories;--that men of religious combativeness were always on the alert
to destroy each other's creeds,--and that, in short, there was a very
general tendency to mean jealousies, miserable heart-burnings and utter
weariness all round.
On one occasion, she, in the sweetest simplicity, invited two lady
authoresses of note to meet at one of her "at homes,". . . she welcomed
both the masculine-looking ladies with a radiant smile, and introduced
them, saying gently,--"You will be so pleased to know each other!" But
the stony stare, stiff nod, portentous sniff, and scornful smile with
which these two eminent females exchanged cold greetings, were enough to
daunt the most sympathetic hostess that ever lived--and when they at
once retired to different corners of the room and sat apart with their
backs turned to one another for the remainder of the evening, their
attitude was so uncompromising that it was no wonder the gentle Thelma
felt quite dismayed and wretched at the utter failure of the
_rencontre_.
"They would _not_ be sociable!" she afterwards complained to Lady
Winsleigh. "They _tried_ to be as rude to each other as they could!"
Lady Winsleigh laughed. "Of course!" she said. "What else _did_ you
expect! But if you want some fun, ask a young, pretty, and brilliant
authoress (there are a few such) to meet an old, ugly and dowdy one (and
there are many such), and watch the dowdy one's face! It will be a
delicious study of expression, I assure you!"
But Thelma would not try this delicate experiment,--in fact, she began
rather to avoid literary people, with the exception of Beau Lovelace.
His was a genial, sympathetic nature, and, moreover, he had a winning
charm of manner which few could resist. He was not a bookworm,--he was
not, strictly speaking, a literary man,--and he was entirely indifferent
to public praise or blame. He was, as he himself expressed it, "a
servant and worshipper of literature," and there is a wide gulf of
difference between one who serves literature for its own sake and one
who uses it basely as a tool to serve himself.
But in all her new and varied experiences, perhaps Thelma was most
completely bewildered by the women she met. Her simple Norse beliefs in
the purity and gentleness of womanhood were startled and outraged,--she
could not understand London ladies at all. Some of them seemed to have
no idea beyond dress and show,--others looked upon their husbands, the
lawful protectors of their name and fame, with easy indifference, as
though they were mere bits of household furniture,--others, having
nothing better to do, "went in" for spiritualism,--the low spiritualism
that manifests itself in the turning of tables and moving of
side-boards--not the higher spiritualism of an improved, perfected, and
saint-like way of life--and these argued wildly on the theory of matter
passing through matter, to the extent of declaring themselves able to
send a letter or box through the wall without making a hole in it,--and
this with such obstinate gravity as made Thelma fear for their reason.
Then there were the women-atheists,--creatures who had voluntarily
crushed all the sweetness of the sex within them--foolish human flowers
without fragrance, that persistently turned away their faces from the
sunlight and denied its existence, preferring to wither, profitless, on
the dry stalk of their own theory;--there were the "platform-women,"
unnatural products of an unnatural age,--there were the great ladies of
the aristocracy who turned with scorn from a case of real necessity, and
yet spent hundreds of pounds on private theatricals wherein they might
have the chance of displaying themselves in extravagant costumes,--and
there were the "professional" beauties, who, if suddenly deprived of
elegant attire and face-cosmetics, turned out to be no beauties at all,
but very ordinary, unintelligent persons.
"What is the exact meaning of the term, 'professional beauty'?" Thelma
had asked Beau Lovelace on one occasion. "I suppose it is some very poor
beautiful woman, who takes money for showing herself to the public, and
having her portraits sold in the shops? And who is it that pays her?"
Lovelace broke into a laugh. "Upon my word, Lady Errington,--you have
put the matter in a most original but indubitably correct light! Who
pays the 'professional beauty,' you ask? Well, in the case of Mrs.
Smith-Gresham, whom you met the other day, it is a certain Duke who pays
her to the tune of several thousands a year. When he gets tired of her,
or she of him, she'll find somebody else--or perhaps she'll go on the
stage and swell the list of bad amateurs. She'll get on somehow, as long
as she can find a fool ready to settle her dressmaker's bill."
"I do not understand!" said Thelma,--and her fair brows drew together in
that pained grave look that was becoming rather frequent with her now.
And she began to ask fewer questions concerning the various strange
phases of social life that puzzled her,--why, for instance, religious
theorists made so little practical use of their theories,--why there
were cloudy-eyed eccentrics who admired the faulty drawing of Watts, and
the common-place sentence-writing of Walt Whitman,--why members of
Parliament talked so much and did so little,--why new poets, however
nobly inspired, were never accepted unless they had influential friends
on the press,--why painters always married their models or their cooks,
and got heartily ashamed of them afterwards,--and why people all round
said so many things they did not mean. And confused by the general
insincerity, she clung,--poor child!--to Lady Winsleigh, who had the
tact to seem what she was not,--and the cleverness to probe into
Thelma's nature and find out how translucently clear and pure it was--a
perfect well of sweet water, into which one drop of poison, or better
still, several drops, gradually and insidiously instilled, might in time
taint its flavor and darken its brightness. For if a woman have an
innocent, unsuspecting soul as delicate as the curled cup of a Nile
lily, the more easily will it droop and wither in the heated grasp of a
careless, cruel hand. And to this flower-crushing task Lady Winsleigh
set herself,--partly for malice pretense against Errington, whose
coldness to herself in past days had wounded her vanity, and partly for
private jealousy of Thelma's beauty and attractiveness.
Within a short time she had completely won the girl's confidence and
affection,--Sir Philip, forgetting his former suspicions of her, was
touched and disarmed by the attachment and admiration she openly
displayed towards his young wife,--she and Thelma were constantly seen
together, and Mrs. Rush-Marvelle, far-sighted as she generally was,
often sighed doubtfully and rubbed her nose in perplexity as she
confessed she "couldn't quite understand Clara." But Mrs. Rush-Marvelle
had her hands full of other matters,--she was aiding and abetting Marcia
Van Clupp to set traps for that mild mouse Lord Masherville,--and she
was too much absorbed in this difficult and delicate business to attend
to anything else just then. Otherwise, it is possible she might have
scented danger for Thelma's peace of mind, and being good-natured, might
have warded it off before it approached too closely,--but, like
policeman who are never within call when wanted, so friends are seldom
at hand when their influence might be of real benefit.
The Van Clupps were people Thelma could not get on with at all--she
tried to do so because Mrs. Rush-Marvelle had assured her they were
"charming"--and she liked Mrs. Marvelle sufficiently well to be willing
to please her. But, in truth, these rich and vulgar Yankees seemed to
her mind less to be esteemed than the peasants of the Altenfjord, who in
many instances possessed finer tact and breeding than old Van Clupp, the
man of many dollars, whose father had been nothing but a low navvy, but
of whom he spoke now with smirking pride as a real descendant of the
Pilgrim Fathers. An odd thing it is, by the way, how fond some Americans
are of tracing back their ancestry to these virtuous old gentlemen! The
Van Clupps were of course not the best types of their country--they were
of that class who, because they have money, measure everything by the
money-standard, and hold even a noble poverty in utter contempt. Poor
Van Clupp! It was sometimes pitiable to see him trying to be a
gentleman--"going in" for "style"--to an excess that was