The Price of Things by Elinor Glyn
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Elinor Glyn >> The Price of Things
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He spoke lightly, but his yellow green eyes were keen.
"Look at her well--she is capable of mischief. Her extreme
stupidity--only the brain of a rodent or a goat--makes her more
difficult to manipulate than the cleverest diplomat, because you can
never be sure whether the blank want of understanding which she displays
is real or simulated. She is a perfect actress, but very often is quite
natural. Most women are either posing all the time, or not at all.
Harietta's miming only comes into action for self-preservation, or
personal gain, and then it is of such a superb quality that she leaves
even me--I, who am no poor diviner--confused as to whether she is
telling a lie or the truth."
"What an exceptional character!" Denzil was thrilled.
"An absence of all moral sense is her great power," Verisschenzko
continued, while he watched her narrowly, "because she never has any of
the prickings of conscience which even most rogues experience at times,
and so draws no demagnetising nervous uncertain currents. If it were not
for an insatiable extravagance, and a capricious fancy for different
jewels, she would be impossible to deal with. She has information,
obtained from what source I do not as yet know, which is of vital
importance to me. Were it not for that, one could simply enjoy her as a
mistress and take delight in studying her idiosyncrasies."
"She has lovers?"
"Has had many; her role now is that of a great lady and so all is of a
respectability! She is so stupid that if that instinct of
self-preservation were not so complete as to be like a divine guide, she
would commit betises all the time. As it is, when she takes a lover it is
hidden with the cunning of a fox."
"Who did you say the first husband was--?"
"A German of the name of Von Wendel--he used to beat her with a stick, it
is said--so naturally such a nature adored him. I did not meet her until
she had got rid of him and he had disappeared. She would sacrifice any
one who stood in her way."
"Your friend, the present husband, looks pretty epuise--one feels sorry
for the poor man."
Then, as ever, at the mention of the debacle of Stanislass,
Verisschenzko's eyes filled with a fierce light.
"She has crushed the hope of Poland--for that, indeed, one day she
must pay."
"But I thought you Russians did not greatly love the Poles?"
Denzil remarked.
"Enlightened Russians can see beyond their old prejudices--and
Stanislass was a lifetime friend. One day a new dawn will come for our
Northern world."
His eyes grew dreamy for an instant, and then resumed their watch of
Harietta. Denzil looked at him and did not speak for a while. He had
always been drawn to Stepan, from a couple of terms at Oxford before the
Russian was sent down for a mad freak, and did not return. He was such a
mixture of idealism and brutal commonsense, a brain so alert and the warm
heart of a generous child--capable of every frenzy and of every
sacrifice. They had planned great things for their afterlives before the
one joined his regiment, and learned discipline, and the other wandered
over many lands--and as they sat there in the Cafe de Paris, the thoughts
of both wandered back to old days gapping the encounters for sport in
Russia and in India between.
"They were glorious times, Denzil, weren't they?" Verisschenzko said
presently, aware by that wonderfully delicately attuned faculty of his of
what his friend was thinking. "We had thought to conquer the sun, moon
and stars--and who knows, perhaps we will yet!"
"Who knows? I feel my real life is only just beginning. How old are we,
Stepan? Twenty-nine years old!"
Afterwards, as they went out, they passed the Boleskis close, and the
two rose and spoke to Verisschenzko, with empressement. He introduced
Captain Ardayre and they talked for a few minutes, Harietta Boleski
all smiles and flattering cajoleries now--and then they said
good-night and went out.
But as Stepan passed, a man half hidden behind a pillar leaned
forward and looked at him, and in his light blue eyes there burned a
jealous hate.
"Ah, Gott in Himmel!" he growled to himself. "It is he whom she
loves--not the pig-fool who we gave her to--one day I shall kill him--"
and he raised his glass of Rhine wine and murmured "Der Tag!"
That evening Sir John Ardayre had taken his bride to dine in the Bois,
and they were sitting listening to the Tziganes at Armenonville.
Amaryllis was conscious that the evening lacked something. The
circumstances were interesting--a bride of ten days, and the environment
so illuminating--and yet there was John smoking an expensive cigar and
not saying _anything!_ She did not like people who chattered--and she
could even imagine a delicious silence wrought with meaning. But a stolid
respectable silence with Tziganes playing moving airs and the romantic
background of this Paris out-of-door joyous night life, surely demanded
some show of emotion!
John loved her she supposed--of course he did--or he never would have
asked her to marry him, rich as he was and poor as she had been. She
could not help going over all their acquaintance; the date of its
beginning was only three months back!
They had met at a country house and had played golf together, and then
they had met again a month later at another house, in March, but she
could not remember any love-making--she could not remember any of those
warm looks and those surreptitious hand-clasps when occasion was
propitious, which Elsie Goldmore had told her men were so prodigal of in
demonstrating when they fell in love. Indeed, she had seen emotion upon
the faces of quite two or three young men, for all her secluded life and
restricted means, since she had left the school in Dresden, where a
worldly maiden aunt had pinched to send her, German officers had looked
at her there with interest in the street, and the clergyman's three sons
and the Squire's two, when she returned home. Indeed, Tom Clarke had gone
further than this! He had kissed her cheek coming out of the door in the
dark one evening, and had received a severe rebuff for his pains.
She had read quantities of novels, ancient and modern. She knew that love
was a wonderful thing; she knew also that modern life and its exigencies
had created a new and far more matter-of-fact point of view about it than
that which was obtained in most books. She did not expect much, and had
indulged in none of those visions of romantic bliss which girls were once
supposed to spend their time in constructing. But she did expect
_something_, and here was nothing--just nothing!
The day John had asked her to marry him he had not been much moved. He
had put the question to her simply and calmly, and she had not dreamed of
refusing him. It was obviously her duty, and it had always been her
intention to marry well, if the chance came her way, and so leave a not
too congenial home.
She had been to a few London balls with the maiden aunt, a personage of
some prestige and character. But invitations do not flow to a penniless
young woman from the country, nor do partners flock to be presented to
strangers in those days, and Amaryllis had spent many humiliating hours
as a wall-flower and had grown to hate balls. She was not expansive in
herself and did not make friends easily, and pretty as she was, as a
girl, luck did not come her way.
When she had said "Yes" in as matter-of-fact a voice as the proposal of
marriage had been made to her, Sir John had replied: "You are a dear,"
and that had seemed to her a most ordinary remark. He had leaned
over--they were climbing a steep pitch in search of a fugitive golf
ball--and had taken her hand respectfully, and then he had kissed her
forehead--or her ear--she forgot which--nothing which mattered much, or
gave her any thrill!
"I hope I shall make you happy," he had added. "I am a dull sort of a
fellow, but I will try."
Then they had talked of the usual things that they talked about, the most
every-day,--and they had returned to the house, and by the evening every
one knew of the engagement, and she was congratulated on all sides, and
petted by the hostess, and she and John were left ostentatiously alone in
a smaller drawing-room after dinner, and there was not a grain of
excitement in the whole conventional thing!
There was always a shadow, too, in John's blue eyes. He was the most
reserved creature in this world, she supposed. That might be all very
well, but what was the good of being so reserved with the woman you liked
well enough to make your wife, if it made you never able to get beyond
talking on general subjects!
This she had asked herself many times and had determined to break down
the reserve. But John never changed and he was always considerate and
polite and perfectly at ease. He would talk quietly and with commonsense
to whoever he was placed next, and very seldom a look of interest
flickered in his eyes. Indeed, Amaryllis had never seen him really
interested until he spoke of Ardayre--then his very voice altered.
He spoke of his home often to her during their engagement, and she grew
to know that it was something sacred to him, and that the Family and its
honour, and its traditions, meant more to him than any individual person
could ever do.
She almost became jealous of it all.
Her trousseau was quite nice--the maiden aunt had seen to that. Her niece
had done well and she did not grudge her pinchings.
Amaryllis felt triumphant as she walked up the aisle of St. George's,
Hanover Square, on the arm of a scapegrace sailor uncle--she would not
allow her stepfather to give her away.
Every one was so pleased about the wedding! An Ardayre married to an
Ardayre! Good blood on both sides and everything suitable and rich and
prosperous, and just as it should be! And there stood her handsome,
stolid bridegroom, serenely calm--and the white flowers, and the
Bishop--and her silver brocade train--and the pages, and the bridesmaids.
Oh! yes, a wedding was a most agreeable thing!
And could she have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is
the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the
altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give me a son."
The most curious emotions of excitement rose in her when they went off in
the smart new automobile en route for that inevitable country house "lent
by the bridegroom's uncle, the Earl de la Paule, for the first days of
the honeymoon."
This particular mansion was on the river, only two hours' drive from her
aunt's Charles Street door. Now that she was his wife, surely John would
begin to make love to her, real love, kisses, claspings, and what not.
For Elsie Goldmore had presumed upon their schoolgirl friendship and
been quite explicate in these last days, and in any case Amaryllis was
not a miss of the Victorian era. The feminine world has grown too
unrefined in the expression of its private affairs and too indiscreet for
any maiden to remain in ignorance now.
It is true John did kiss her once or twice, but there was no real warmth
in the embrace, and when, after an excellent dinner her heart began to
beat with wonderment and excitement, she asked herself what it meant.
Then, all confused, she murmured something about "Good-night," and
retired to the magnificent state suite alone.
When she had left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine
and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but
an anguish almost of despair in his eyes.
Amaryllis thought of that night--and of other nights since--as she sat
there at Armenonville, in the luminous sensuous dusk.
So this was being married! Well, it was not much of a joy--and why, why
did John sit silent there? Why?
Surely this is not how the Russian would have sat--that strange Russian!
CHAPTER III
It was nearing sunset in the garden below the Trocadero. A tall German
officer waited impatiently not far from the bronze of a fierce bull in a
secluded corner under the trees; he was plainly an officer although he
was clothed in mufti of English make. He was a singularly handsome
creature in spite of his too wide hips. A fine, sensual, brutal male.
He swore in his own language, and then, through the glorious light,
a woman came towards him. She wore an unremarkable overcoat and a
thick veil.
"Hans!" she exclaimed delightedly, and then went on in fluent German with
a strong American accent.
He looked round to be sure that they were alone, and then he clasped her
in his arms. He held her so tightly that she panted for breath; he kissed
her until her lips were bruised, and he murmured guttural words of
endearment that sounded like an animal's growl.
The woman answered him in like manner. It was as though two brute
beasts had met.
Then presently they sat upon a seat and talked in low tones. The woman
protested and declaimed; the man grumbled and demanded. An envelope
passed between them, and more crude caresses, and before they parted the
man again held her in close embrace--biting the lobe of her ear until she
gave a little scream.
"Yes--if there was time--" she gasped huskily. "I should adore you like
this--but here--in the gardens--Oh! do mind my hat!"
Then he let her go--they had arranged a future meeting. And left alone,
he sat down upon the bench again and laughed aloud.
The woman almost ran to the road at the bottom and jumped into a waiting
taxi, and once inside she brought out a gold case with mirror and powder
puff, and red greases for her lips.
"My goodness! I can't say that's a mosquito!" and she examined her ear.
"How tiresome and imprudent of Hans! But Jingo, it was good!--if there
only had been time--"
Then she, too, laughed as she powdered her face, and when she alighted at
the door of the Hotel du Rhin, no marks remained of conflict except the
telltale ear.
But on encountering her maid, she was carrying her minute Pekinese dog in
her arms and was beating him well.
"Regardez, Marie! la vilaine bete m'a mordu l'oreil!"
"Tiens!" commented the affronted Marie, who adored Fou-Chou. "Et le cher
petit chien de Madame est si doux!"
* * * * *
Stanislass Boleski was poring over a voluminous bundle of papers when his
wife, clad in a diaphanous wrap, came into his sitting room. They had a
palatial suite at the Rhin. The affairs of Poland were not prospering as
he had hoped, and these papers required his supreme attention--there was
German intrigue going on somewhere underneath. He longed for Harietta's
sympathy which she had been so prodigal in bestowing before she had
secured her divorce from that brute of a Teutonic husband, whom she
hated so much. Now she hardly ever listened, and yawned in his face when
he spoke of Poland and his high aims. But he must make allowances for
her--she was such a child of impulse, so lovely, so fascinating! And here
in Paris, admired as she was, how could he wonder at her distraction!
"Stanislass! my old Stannie," she cooed in his ear, "what am I to wear
to-night for the Montivacchini ball? You will want me to look my best, I
know, and I just love to please you."
He was all attention at once, pushing the documents aside as she put her
arms around his neck and pulled his beard, then she drew his head back to
kiss the part where the hair was growing thin on the top--her eyes fixed
on the papers.
"You don't want to bother with those tiresome old things any more; go and
get into your dressing-gown, and come to my room and talk while I am
polishing my nails,--we can have half an hour before I must dress. I'll
wait for you here--I must be petted to-night, I am tired and cross."
Stanislass Boleski rose with alacrity. She had not been kind to him for
days--fretful and capricious and impossible to please. He must not lose
this chance--if it could only have been when he was not so busy--but--
"Run along, do!" she commanded, tapping her foot.
And putting the papers hastily in a drawer with a spring lock, he went
gladly from the room.
Her whole aspect changed; she lit a cigarette and hummed a tune, while
she fingered a key which dangled from her bracelet.
No one eclipsed Madame Boleski in that distinguished crowd later on.
Her clinging silver brocade, and the one red rose at the edge of the
extreme decolletage, were simply the perfection of art. She did not wear
gloves, and on her beautifully manicured hands she wore no rings except
a magnificent ruby on the left little finger. It was her caprice to
refuse an alliance. "Wedding rings!" she had said to Stanislass. "Bosh!
they spoil the look. Sometimes it is chic to have a good jewel on one
finger, sometimes on another, but to be tied down to that band of homely
gold! Never!"
Stanislass had argued in those early days--he seldom argued now.
"My love!" he cried, as she burst upon his infatuated vision, when ready
for the ball, "let me admire you!"
She turned about; she knew that she was perfection.
Her husband kissed her fingers, and then he caught sight of the ruby
ring. He examined it.
"I had not seen this ruby before," he exclaimed in a surprised voice,
"and I thought I knew all your jewel case!"
She held out her hand while her big, stupid, appealing hazel eyes
expressed childish innocence.
"No--I'd put it away, it was of other days--but I do love rubies, and so
I got it out to-night, it goes with my rose!"
He had perceived this. Had he not become educated in the subtleties of a
woman's apparel? For was it not his duty often, and his pleasure
sometimes, to have to assist at her toilet, and to listen for hours to
discussions of garments, and if they could suit or not. He was even
accustomed now to waiting in the hot salons in the Rue de la Paix, while
these stately perfections were being essayed. But the ruby ring worried
him. Why had she asked him to give her just such a one only last month,
if she already possessed its fellow?... He had refused because her
extravagance had grown fantastic, but he had meant to cede later. Every
pleasure of the senses he always had to secure by bribes.
"I do not understand why?--" he began, but she put her hand over his
mouth and then kissed him voluptuously before she turned and shrilly
cried to Marie to bring her ermine cloak.
The maid's eyes were round and sullen with resentment; she had not
forgotten the beating of Fou-Chou! "As for the ear of Madame!" she said,
clasping the tiny dog to her heart, as she watched her mistress go
towards the lift from the sitting-room, "as for that maudite ear, thy
teeth are innocent, my angel! But I wish that he who is guilty had bitten
it off!" Then she laughed disdainfully.
"And look at the old fool! He dreams of nothing! And if he dreamed, he
would not believe--such _insenses_ are men!"
Meanwhile the Boleskis had arrived at the hotel of the Duchesse di
Montivacchini, that rich and ravishing American-Italian, who gave the
most splendid and exclusive entertainments in Paris. So, too, had arrived
Sir John and Lady Ardayre, brought on from the dinner at the Ritz by
Verisschenzko.
Denzil had left that morning for England, or he would have had the
disagreeable experience of meeting his _soi-disant_ cousin, to whom he
had applied the epithet "toad." For Ferdinand Ardayre had just reached
the gay city from Constantinople, and had also come to the ball with a
friend in the Turkish Embassy.
He happened to be standing at the door when the Boleskis were announced,
and his light eyes devoured Harietta--she seemed to him the ideal of
things feminine--and he immediately took steps to be presented. Assurance
was one of his strongest cards. He was a fair man--with the fairness of a
Turk not European--and there was something mean and chetive in his
regard. He would have looked over-dressed and un-English in a London
ball-room, but in that cosmopolitan company he was unremarkable. He had
been his mother's idol and Sir James had left him everything he could
scrape from his highly mortgaged property. But certain tastes of his own
made a Continental life more congenial to him, and he had chosen early to
enter a financial house which took him to the East and Constantinople. He
was about twenty-seven years old at this period and was considered by
himself and a number of women to be a creature of superlative charm.
The one burning bitterness in his spirit was the knowledge that Sir John
Ardayre had never recognised him as a brother. During Sir James' lifetime
there had been silence upon the matter, since John had no legal reason
for denying the relationship, but once he had become master of Ardayre he
had let it be known that he refused to believe Ferdinand to be his
father's son. On the rare occasions when he had to be mentioned, John
called him "the mongrel" and Ferdinand was aware of this. A silent,
intense hatred filled his being--more than shared by his mother who,
until the day of her death, two years before, had always plotted
vengeance--without being able to accomplish anything. Either mother or
son would willingly have murdered John if a suitable and safe method had
presented itself. And now to know that John had married a beautiful
far-off cousin and might have children, and so forever preclude the
possibility of his--Ferdinand's--own inheritance of Ardayre was a further
incentive to hate! If only some means could be discovered to remove John,
and soon! But while Ferdinand thought these things, watching his
so-called brother from across the room, he knew that he was impotent.
Poisons and daggers were not weapons which could be employed in civilised
Paris in the twentieth century! If they would only come to
Constantinople!
Amaryllis Ardayre had never seen a Paris ball before. She was enchanted.
The sumptuous, lofty rooms, with their perfect Louis XV gilt _boiseries_,
the marvellous clothes of the women, the gaiety in the air! She was
accustomed to the new weird dances in England, but had not seen them
performed as she now saw them.
"This orgie of mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as
he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the
fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle
of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the
skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted--all are
feverish--all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the
eve of a cataclysm--it is a dance Macabre."
Amaryllis turned, startled, to look at him, and she saw that his eyes
were full of melancholy, and not mocking as they usually were.
"A dance Macabre! You do not approve of these tangoes then?"
He gave a small shrug of his shoulders, which was his only form of
gesticulation.
"Tangoes--or one steps--I neither approve nor disapprove--dancing should
all have its meaning, as the Greek Orchises had. These dances to the
Greeks would have meant only one thing--I do not know if they would have
wished this to take place in public, they were an aesthetic and refined
people, so I think not. We Russians are the only so-called civilised
nation who are brutal enough for that; but we are far from being
civilised really. Orgies are natural to us--they are not to the French or
the English. Savage sex displays for these nations are an acquired taste,
a proof of vicious decay, the middle note of the end."
"I learned the tango this Spring--it is charming to dance," Amaryllis
protested. She was a little uncomfortable--the subject, much as she
was interested in the Russian's downright views, she found was
difficult to discuss.
"I am sure you did--you counted time--you moved your charming form this
way and that--and you had not the slightest idea of anything in it beyond
anxiety to keep step and do the thing well! Yes--is it not so?"
Amaryllis laughed--this was so true!
"What an incredibly false sham it all is!" he went on. "Started by
niggers or Mexicans for what it obviously means, and brought here
for respectable mothers, and wives, and girls to perform. For me a
woman loses all charm when she cheapens the great mystery-ceremonies
of love--"
"Then you won't dance it with me?" Amaryllis challenged smilingly--she
would not let him see that she was cast down. "I do so want to dance!"
His eyes grew fierce.
"I beg of you not! I desire to keep the picture I have made of you since
we met--later I shall dance it myself with a suitable partner, but I do
not want you mixed with this tarnished herd."
Amaryllis answered with dignity:
"If I thought of it as you do I should not want to dance it at all." She
was aggrieved that her expressed desire might have made him hold her less
high--"and you have taken all the bloom from my butterfly's wing--I will
never enjoy dancing it again--let us go and sit down."
He gave her his arm and they moved from the room, coming almost into
conflict with Madame Boleski and her partner, Ferdinand Ardayre, whose
movements would have done honour to the lowest nigger ring.
"There is your friend, Madame Boleski--she dances--and so well!"
"Harietta is an elemental--as I told you before--it is right that she
should express herself so. She is very well aware of what it all means
and delights in it. But look at that lady with the hair going grey--it is
the Marquise de Saint Vrilliere--of the bluest blood in France and of a
rigid respectability. She married her second daughter last week. They all
spend their days at the tango classes, from early morning till
dark--mothers and daughters, grandmothers and demi-mondaines, Russian
Grand Duchesses, Austrian Princesses--clasped in the arms of incredible
scum from the Argentine, half-castes from Mexico, and farceurs from New
York--decadent male things they would not receive in their ante-chambers
before this madness set in!"
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