The Edwardians (12 page)

Lady Clementina thereupon invited Margaret to stay in her house for a week. She did it as ungraciously as she could—which was very ungraciously indeed—but still she did it. She would take Margaret to the Palace with Agatha that evening. She would look after Margaret for Sylvia. For a week.

Sylvia rewarded her by instantly releasing her hand. Her thanks were profuse, and what Clemmie called ‘gushing.' And now she must go, she exclaimed—hoping that her departure would not appear indecently precipitate, but now that she had gained her point she really could not endure the company of these old grenadiers any longer—she would send the carriage back with Margaret's things, she said, and Margaret's maid; “dear, dear Clemmie, how kind you are,” she cried, embracing the gaunt form again and appealing to Lady Wexford and Lady Porteviot to say was Clemmie not kind? to which those ladies grimly assented; and then, lowering her veil, gathering up her belongings, her gloves, her boa, her cloak, she swept towards the door distributing radiant smiles to everybody. “And now,” she thought as she tripped downstairs, “let them say what they like about me, I've given their old tongues something to wag about for a week at least,” and looking at her watch she saw that she would not be more than an hour late for her appointment with her hairdresser.

Yes, she was indeed a beautiful woman, she decided, catching sight of herself in a long mirror as she came out of the cloak room at Buckingham Palace. She was alone in the passage, but for the beefeaters, and they affected her no more than so many pieces of furniture. She could take stock of herself in the mirror without any consciousness of men watching her; beefeaters were not men, they were effigies stuck down at intervals; no more men than sentries, or dummies in suits of armour. So she loitered, having come out of the cloak room only to face an unexpected mirror that returned to her, full-length, the image of the complete woman she might have postulated from the head-and-shoulders revealed to her in the mirror propped on the cloak room table. There, she had scrutinised a lovely head, something after the manner of Lely, she thought—having been told so innumerable times—and the bare shoulders, oyster satin, and pearls of Lely, all of which she affected on state occasions because she knew they accorded with her type of beauty. Here, in the long mirror, she saw herself not only as a kit-cat, but full-length: oyster satin flowing out at her feet; pearls vanishing into the valley between her breasts, pearls looped round her wrists, a rosy scarf tossed round her shoulders. She wore no tiara. The fact that Lady Roehampton wore no tiara at Court balls made other women say, with a half-deprecatory, half-envious laugh, that Lady Roehampton was an unconventional woman. Such daring was almost insolent. It was almost rude. But the Order of St. John of Jerusalem caught and held her rosy scarf.

Satisfied by the image that the mirror returned to her, she gave herself a little smile. Lady Roehampton's smile was famous; her lips parted slowly, and as though reluctantly, but with an extreme sweetness; and when the smile faded away, beholders said that it died like the closing chords of music. Poets had written about it; Browning, whom she had once met in a box at the Opera, had written a graceful compliment on the back of her programme. “When Sylvia smiles,” it began. When Sylvia smiled it was indeed impossible to believe that Sylvia was an angel straight from Heaven. All the world of feminine voluptousness seemed to be gathered up and released in that one divine curving of the loosened lips. There was no humour in it, but there was an indescribable caress. It indicated that Sylvia thoroughly knew her most feminine business, and when Sylvia smiled nowadays people's thoughts turned, not without envy, towards Sebastian. No one ever saw Sylvia now without immediately thinking of Sebastian, for she was the kind of woman whose presence instantly suggests the thought of her lover and his ownership. Would he keep her? would she keep him? was she faithful to him? such were the questions that people asked themselves not only whenever they saw them together, but whenever they saw Lady Roehampton alone. Her past had been populous; Lord Roehampton—so they thought, but therein they erred—cared for nothing but racing; now she had caught the most notorious young man in London. How would it end?—But meanwhile we are keeping the lady standing in the passage.

Her progress towards the ballroom was as well worth watching as her smile, and it was a pity that there should be only beefeaters to watch it. But the beefeaters gazed stonily at their halberds. The strains of a waltz dictated the rhythm of her steps, for she moved always harmoniously, with the carriage of a woman who has been accustomed to feel all eyes turned upon her. She moved without haste, and with seeming unconsciousness, as upright as an Egyptian who has borne burdens on her head, yet with the stateliness of a woman whose only burden has been a crown. She moved now, down the passage between the beefeaters, as though she were in her right and natural surroundings, advancing towards a royal ballroom crowded with the fashion of London and the dignity of Empire, a ballroom where a lane would be made for her, in deference not so much to her worldly station as to her personal prerogative; but then that was her peculiar property, to move always as though her surroundings were right and natural, whether advancing in her satin and pearls down a corridor of Buckingham Palace, or emerging in her tweeds and brogues from a crofter's cottage, stooping under the low lintel, to take her place (on a shooting-stick) among the guns for an after-luncheon photograph of Lord Tomnoddy's party on his Perthshire moors. Whatever she did, she made her circumstances appear singularly apposite and becoming. The same applied to whatever she wore, for she was blessed with that enviable quality of investing every colour seen on her with a fresh significance; thus blue appeared more vividly blue, grey more subtly grey, black more intensely black, when affected by her; and tweeds or taffeta held their place as the only wear for woman, according as Lady Roehampton wore taffeta or tweeds. She had her imitators, who were surprised and chagrined to find that the same vestments on them did not produce the same effect.

A county family entering the passage just then saw her, and with a little thrill of excitement whispered her name. Father, mother, and daughter, they had ‘arrived' at the big house in Belgrave Square for the season. An announcement to that effect had appeared in
The Times,
omitting to add that Lord and Lady O. were martyrising themselves for the sake of what they considered to be their duty towards their daughter. Of impeccable respectability and historic lineage, they had long looked forward with dread to this year when it would be necessary to transport themselves, their household, their carriages, and their plate up to London in May and devote themselves for three months to the task of taking their Alice ‘out,' involving not only weariness for them, but also a constant irritating anxiety as to possible contact with things and people of whom they would disapprove. Careful as they might be of the houses where they would allow their Alice to go, society and manners had grown so lax—in their opinion—that the very nicest houses might be invaded by the objectionable. Here, for instance, even at Buckingham Palace, even at the Court ball, the first person they saw was a person to whom Lady O. could certainly not allow her Alice to speak. The notorious Lady Roehampton! That her very presence was demoralising was proved by the effect it produced on two out of the three members of the county family. Alice actually shivered with a dreadful envious rapture, as though at possibilities suddenly revealed; Lord O. stared, adjusted his broad red ribbon, and thought, “Gad! that's a fine woman and no mistake.” Lady O. alone remained faithful to the family standard. She drew herself up, so that a diamond in her tiara came into line with a sconce and flashed a prismatic spot of light into the eye of a beefeater and made him blink. Never, she thought, never! not if the King himself introduces her.

Lady Roehampton's entry into the ballroom created the stir which she accepted as her due. The foreign ambassador who bent to kiss her hand symbolised in his gesture the disposition of all the men who looked at her and drew slightly aside to make way. Her charm ripened, as always, before this homage. Crowded though the room was, and brilliantly diverse, she became a focus, filling the space around her with an aroma of graciousness that disengaged itself from her whole personality. Very slowly she moved about, eagerly attended, appearing scarcely to notice those who pressed their claims upon her, yet rewarding them all at length with a smile that singled each one out as the object of her special favour. Yet it is permitted to ask, having a novelist's privilege, what actually occupied her mind, behind an exterior of such exquisite confidence? Was she so well accustomed to the spirit of such gatherings that they could hold no glamour for her, such as they held for Lord and Lady O.'s Alice, up from the country? Uniforms, jewels, orders; names famous for past history or present achievement; wealth, government, representation, royalty—had this pageant indeed no power to stir her imagination? Was she too closely herself a part of it? Could she indeed give two fingers to the Viceroy-designate without thinking of the India that he would govern? Could she nod to the First Sea Lord while nothing more than “Dear old Jacky!” brushed across her mind? Did she, in short, unlike Lord and Lady O.'s Alice, forget to associate people with their historic or official labels? Did she not even formulate to herself the thought, “Here am I, the beautiful Sylvia Roehampton, as famous in Paris as in London, painted by every fashionable painter from Carolus Duran to Sargent, entering the ballroom at a Court ball”? Did she take that, with everything else, for granted?

Those, perhaps, are questions which cannot be answered; chiefly because the person concerned, however helpful and well-disposed, could herself have provided no answer. There can be no doubt that the beautiful Sylvia would have looked blankly at the inquisitive novelist. How does one answer a man who asks one whether one is conscious of speaking one's own language? “He is speaking to me in English; I am replying to him in English; he is Viceroy of India; I am the most beautiful woman in London”—the parallel seems obvious and futile. Clearly, she never thought about such things; by the very admission that she thought about them, the question would have been automatically answered; the speaker of English would have been revealed as a foreigner.

Meanwhile, very stately and gracious (M. de Soveral always said he knew no other woman who could contrive to look stately and voluptuous at the same time, so that you wondered whether she were more
grande dame
or
grande amoureuse
)
,
she yielded herself up to the arms of young Ambermere and to the rhythm of a waltz. Aware or not aware, she had no intention of remaining in the crowd when the most desirable part of the room was up towards the royal dais, and the dance seemed the quickest method of making her way to where she wished to be. Therefore she danced, and the dance served her well, for presently she stood talking with the King, who, catching sight of her, had beckoned to her to relieve his boredom, and was now laughing with her while young Ambermere hung about in attendance and the rest of the room observed them out of one eye—the obsequious eye always cocked upon royalty—though they pretended to be doing nothing of the sort. Lady Roehampton was well known to be in the King's intimate set, and many were the looks of envy, disparagement, and criticism cast upon her as she stood easily swaying her fan and talking to the King and making him laugh. Many were the women who wished themselves in her shoes—the wives of civil servants, the young wives of territorial peers richer in birth than in elegance, the wives of Chilean secretaries of legation—but those who were honest with themselves must admit that they could not make as good a job of it as Lady Roehampton was making. Confronted with the King they would, in fact, have found themselves in extreme embarrassment. It was a delirious but a fearful situation; for the King, genial as he could be, was known to lose interest easily and to drum with irritable fingers upon the arm of his chair or upon the dinner table. What a gulf there was between amusing the King and boring him! and, for a woman, all depended upon which side of the gulf she occupied. Life and death were in it. Now perhaps many a woman present tonight thought she could have swept a curtsey as luxuriant as Lady Roehampton's; but what woman would have backed herself to sustain that initial gesture with equal ease and success? No wonder they looked with envy and commented with satire. Lady Roehampton, conscious of their glances, could afford to relish their satire.

The Italian Ambassador and Marchesa Potini, coming within range of the royal eye, must be greeted by his Majesty; nothing less than an impulsive step forward and an outstretched hand would meet the demands of civility towards the Italian Excellencies. Lady Roehampton, discreetly withdrawing, was perhaps slightly relieved by this intervention. Etiquette forbade that she should retire altogether, but she could remain, so to speak, in abeyance, whispering to young Ambermere, until diplomatic civilities should be over and she should be in request again or receive her dismissal. But Marchesa Potini showed no disposition to relinquish the King; a handsome, commanding Roman, her hair brushed upwards in eighteenth-century fashion to display her ears, which were remarkable for their smallness and exquisite modelling, she continued to talk with great determination in her husky voice, and already Lady Roehampton's experienced eye discerned the signs of boredom under the perfection of the royal manner. Not that the King could be called distrait; no, but he had begun to fiddle with the silver bracelet round his wrist. There was nothing for Sylvia to do but to draw the Potinis tactfully away.

They sat for a moment together on a sofa, all three of them, and Sebastian came up. bowed to the ambassadress, and asked Lady Roehampton for a dance. Through his gravity his eyes twinkled. The marchesa, far from insensible to the charm of handsome young men—and Sebastian undoubtedly looked very handsome in his blue and gold uniform, with the scarlet collar—the marchesa tapped him playfully with her fan. “So here is our reprobate,” she said; “and what wild story are we to hear next? Are you to risk your life again, or break another heart?”