CHAPTER II
A fortnight later Craven received a note from his old friend saying thatBraybrooke had spoken about him to "Adela Sellingworth," and that shewould be glad to know him. Braybrooke was off to Paris to stay with theMariguys, but all Craven had to do was to leave a card at Number 18A,Berkeley Square, and when this formality had been accomplished LadySellingworth would no doubt write to him and suggest an hour for ameeting. Craven thanked his friend, left a card at Number 18A, and a dayor two later received an invitation to go to tea with Lady Sellingworthon the following Sunday. He stayed in London on purpose to do this,although he had promised to go into the country from Saturday to Monday.Braybrooke had succeeded in rousing keen interest in him. It was notCraven's habit to be at the feet of old ladies. He much preferredto them young or youngish women, unmarried or married. But LadySellingworth "intrigued" him. She had been a reigning beauty. She had"lived" as not many English women had lived. And then--the stolen jewelsand her extraordinary indifference about their loss!
Decidedly he wanted to know her!
Number 18A, Berkeley Square was a large town mansion, and on the greenfront door there was a plate upon which was engraved in bold lettering,"The Dowager Countess of Sellingworth." Craven looked at this plate andat the big knocker above it as he rang the electric bell. Almost as soonas he had pressed the button the big door was opened, and a very tallfootman in a pale pink livery appeared. Behind him stood a handsome,middle-aged butler.
A large square hall was before Craven, with a hooded chair and a bigfire burning on a wide hearth. Beyond was a fine staircase, which had abalustrade of beautifully wrought ironwork with gold ornamentations. Hegave his hat, coat and stick to the footman--after taking his name,the butler had moved away, and was pausing not far from thestaircase--Craven suddenly felt as if he stood in a London more solid,more dignified, more peaceful, even more gentlemanlike, than the Londonhe was accustomed to. There seemed to be in this house a large calm, analmost remote stillness, which put modern Bond Street, just around thecorner, at a very great distance. As he followed the butler, walkingsoftly, up the beautiful staircase, Craven was conscious of a flavour inthis mansion which was new to him, but which savoured of spacious times,when the servant question was not acute, when decent people did notmove from house to house like gipsies changing camp, when flats wereunknown--spacious times and more elegant times than ours.
The butler and Craven gained a large landing on which was displayeda remarkable collection of oriental china. The butler opened a tallmahogany door and bent his head again to receive the murmur ofCraven's name. It was announced, and Craven found himself in a greatdrawing-room, at the far end of which, by a fire, were sitting threepeople. They were Lady Sellingworth, the faithful Sir Seymour Portman,and a beautiful girl, slim, fair, with an athletic figure, and vividlyintelligent, though rather sarcastic, violet eyes. This was Miss BerylVan Tuyn. (Craven did not know who she was, though he recognized atonce the erect figure, faithful, penetrating eyes and curly whitehair--cauliflower hair--of the general, whom he had often seen abouttown and "in attendance" on royalty at functions.)
Lady Sellingworth got up to receive him. As she did so he was almoststartled by her height.
She was astonishingly tall, probably well over six feet, very slim, thineven, with a small head covered with rather wavy white hair and set on along neck, sloping shoulders, long, aristocratic hands on which she woreloose white gloves, narrow, delicate feet, very fine wrists and ankles.Her head reminded Craven of the head of a deer. As for her face, oncemarvellously beautiful according to the report of competent judges whohad seen all the beauties of their day, it was now quite frankly a ruin,lined, fallen in here and there, haggard, drawn. Nevertheless, lookingupon it, one could guess that once upon a time it must have been aface with a mobile, almost imperial, outline, perhaps almost insolentlystriking, the arrogant countenance of a conqueror. When gazing at it onegazed at the ruin, not of a cottage or of a gimcrack villa, but at theruins of a palace. Lady Sellingworth's eyes were very dark and stillmagnificent, like two brilliant lamps in her head. A keen intelligencegazed out of them. There was often something half sad, half mocking intheir expression. But Craven thought that they mocked at herself ratherthan at others. She was very plainly dressed in black, and her dress wasvery high at the neck. She wore no ornaments except a wedding ring, andtwo sapphires in her ears, which were tiny and beautiful.
Her greeting to Craven was very kind. He noticed at once that hermanner was as natural almost as a frank, manly schoolboy's, carelessly,strikingly natural. There could never, he thought, have been a grainof affectation in her. The idea even came into his head that she wasas natural as a tramp. Nevertheless the stamp of the great lady wasimprinted all over her. She had a voice that was low, very sensitive andhusky.
Instantly she fascinated Craven. Instantly he did not care whether shewas old or young, in perfect preservation or a ruin. For she seemed tohim penetratingly human, simply and absolutely herself as God had madeher. And what a rare joy that was, to meet in London a woman of thegreat world totally devoid of the smallest shred of make-believe! Cravenfelt that if she appeared before her Maker she would be exactly as shewas when she said how do you do to him.
She introduced him to Miss Van Tuyn and the general, made him sit nextto her, and gave him tea.
Miss Van Tuyn began talking, evidently continuing a conversationwhich had been checked for a moment by the arrival of Craven. She wasobviously intelligent and had enormous vitality. She was also obviouslypreoccupied with her own beauty and with the effect it was having uponher hearers. She not only listened to herself while she spoke; sheseemed also to be trying to visualize herself while she spoke. In herimagination she was certainly watching herself, and noting with interestand pleasure her young and ardent beauty, which seemed to Craven moreremarkable when she was speaking than when she was silent. Shemust, Craven thought, often have stood before a mirror and carefully"memorized" herself in all her variety and detail. As he sat therelistening he could not help comparing her exquisite bloom of youth withthe ravages of time so apparent in Lady Sellingworth, and being struckby the inexorable cruelty of life. Yet there was something whichpersisted and over which time had no empire--charm. On that afternoonthe charm of Lady Sellingworth's quiet attention to her girl visitorseemed to Craven even greater than the charm of that girl visitor'svivid vitality.
Sir Seymour, who had the self-contained and rather detached manner ofthe old courtier, mingled with the straight-forward self-possession ofthe old soldier thoroughly accustomed to dealing with men in difficultmoments, threw in a word or two occasionally. Although a grave, even arather sad-looking man, he was evidently entertained by Miss Van Tuyn'svolubility and almost passionate, yet not vulgar, egoism. Probably hethought such a lovely girl had a right to admire herself. She talked ofherself in modern Paris with the greatest enthusiasm, cleverly groupingParis, its gardens, its monuments, its pictures, its brilliant men andwomen as a decor around the one central figure--Miss Beryl Van Tuyn.
"Why do you never come to Paris, dearest?" she presently said to LadySellingworth. "You used to know it so very well, didn't you?"
"Oh, yes; I had an apartment in Paris for years. But that was almostbefore you were born," said the husky, sympathetic voice of her hostess.
Craven glanced at her. She was smiling.
"Surely you loved Paris, didn't you?" said Miss Van Tuyn.
"Very much, and understood it very well."
"Oh--that! She understands everything, doesn't she, Sir Seymour?"
"Perhaps we ought to except mathematics and military tactics," hereplied, with a glance at Lady Sellingworth half humorous, halfaffectionate. "But certainly everything connected with the art of livingis her possession."
"And--the art of dying?" Lady Sellingworth said, with a lightly mockingsound in her voice.
Miss Van Tuyn opened her violet eyes very wide.
"But is there an art of dying? Living--yes; for that is being and iscontinu
ous. But dying is ceasing."
"And there is an art of ceasing, Beryl. Some day you may know that."
"Well, but even very old people are always planning for the future onearth. No one expects to cease. Isn't it so, Mr. Craven?"
She turned to him, and he agreed with her and instanced a certain oldduchess who, at the age of eighty, was preparing for a tour roundthe world when influenza stepped in and carried her off, to the greatvexation of Thomas Cook and Son.
"We must remember that that duchess was an American," observed SirSeymour.
"You mean that we Americans are more determined not to cease than youEnglish?" she asked. "That we are very persistent?"
"Don't you think so?"
"Perhaps we are."
She turned and laid a hand gently, almost caressingly, on LadySellingworth's.
"I shall persist until I get you over to Paris," she said. "I do wantyou to see my apartment, and my bronzes--particularly my bronzes. Whenwere you last in Paris?"
"Passing through or staying--do you mean?"
"Staying."
Lady Sellingworth was silent for an instant, and Craven saw the halfsad, half mocking expression in her eyes.
"I haven't stayed in Paris for ten years," she said.
She glanced at Sir Seymour, who slightly bent his curly head as if inassent.
"It's almost incredible, isn't it, Mr. Craven?" said Miss Van Tuyn. "Sounlike the man who expressed a wish to be buried in Paris."
Craven remembered at that moment Braybrooke's remark in the club thatLady Sellingworth's jewelry were stolen in Paris at the Gare du Nord tenyears ago. Did Miss Van Tuyn know about that? He wondered as he murmuredsomething non-committal.
Miss Van Tuyn now tried to extract a word of honour promise from LadySellingworth to visit her in Paris, where, it seemed, she lived veryindependently with a _dame de compagnie_, who was always in one roomwith a cold reading the novels of Paul Bourget. ("Bourget keeps onwriting for _her_!" the gay girl said, not without malice.)
But Lady Sellingworth evaded her gently.
"I'm too lazy for Paris now," she said. "I no longer care for movingabout. This old town house of mine has become to me like my shell. I'mlazy, Beryl; I'm lazy. You don't know what that is; nor do you, Mr.Craven. Even you, Seymour, you don't know. For you are a man of action,and at Court there is always movement. But I, my friends--" She gaveCraven a deliciously kind yet impersonal smile. "I am a contemplative.There is nothing oriental about me, but I am just a quiet Britishcontemplative, untouched by the unrest of your age."
"But it's _your_ age, too!" cried Miss Van Tuyn.
"No, dear. I was an Edwardian."
"I wish I had known you then!" said Miss Van Tuyn impulsively.
"You would not have known _me_ then," returned Lady Sellingworth, withthe slightest possible stress on the penultimate word.
Then she changed the conversation. Craven felt that she was not fond oftalking about herself.