The Londoners

Title: The Londoners

an absurdity

Author: Robert Hichens

Release date: August 22, 2022 [eBook #68809] Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: Germany: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1912

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68809

Credits: Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

THE LONDONERS

AN ABSURDITY

BY

ROBERT HICHENS

AUTHOR OF

"THE GARDEN OF ALLAH," "THE FRUITFUL VINE," ETC.

COPYRIGHT EDITION

LEIPZIG

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

1912

CONTENTS.

[Pg 7]

THE LONDONERS.

CHAPTER I.

"NOT ELLIMAN."

Mrs. Verulam came into her drawing-room slowly and rather wearily. It was a sultry afternoon in May—indeed, the papers were quite in a ferment about the exceptional heat-wave that was passing over London; and a premature old General, anxious apparently to be up to time, had just died of tropical apoplexy in Park Lane. Possibly it was the weather that had painted the pallor on Mrs. Verulam's exceedingly pretty face. Beneath her mist of yellow hair her dark-grey eyes looked out pathetically, with the sort of pathos that means nothing in particular—the grace of an indefinite sorrow. She was clad in a pale-pink tea-gown, elaborately embroidered in dull green and gold, and she was followed by her maid, the faithful Marriner, whose hands were full of bright-coloured cushions. The windows of the drawing-room, which faced Park Lane, and commanded a distant view of the Parade on Sunday mornings, stood open, and striped awnings defied the sunbeams above them. London hummed gently[Pg 8] in the heat; and an Admiral in the next house but one might almost be heard ordering his valet, with many

terrible expressions of the sea, to get out his ducks, and be quick about it.

"Oh, Marriner!" said Mrs. Verulam, in the voice which all self-respecting men worshipped and compared with Sarah Bernhardt's—"oh, Marriner, how terribly hot it is!"

"The heat is severe, ma'am, for the season of the year," replied Marriner.

Mrs. Verulam sat down on an immense sofa near the window, and Marriner proceeded to bank her up with cushions. She glanced into a tiny hand-mirror which hung by a silver chain at her side.

"I am as pale as a Pierrot," she murmured.

"I beg pardon, ma'am."

"Pierrot, Marriner, is the legendary emblem of—but it is too hot for history."

Marriner, who was ever athirst for information, looked disappointed. She had been on the eve of improving her mind, but the heat precluded the sweet processes of further education, so the poor soul was downcast. She bit her lip, secretly imitating a well-known actor whom she worshipped, and wondered why life is so full of misery. Mrs. Verulam lay back on the cushions and glanced wearily around. Her eyes fell upon an oval table that stood near by. Various notes and cards lay on it, and an immense bouquet of dull-red roses.

"What is all that?" she asked, with a fatigued gesture towards the table.

Marriner wheeled it forward till it stood beside the sofa, then she lifted the bouquet and turned it in her hands.

"From Mr. Hyacinth Rodney, ma'am," she said.

[Pg 9]

A thin smile curved Mrs. Verulam's lips. She took the flowers, glanced at their dusky beauty, touched their velvet petals with her fingers, then laid them down carelessly.

"They are remarkably fine specimens, ma'am," said Marriner. "I often think——" she checked herself.

"Yes, Marriner; what do you think?"

"That we are like the flowers, ma'am: we fade and die so soon."

"Dear me, Marriner, what original thoughts you have!"

"I can't help them coming, ma'am. They seem to take me like a storm, ma'am."

"Oh! more cards: General and Mrs. Le Mesurier, Lord Simeon, the Prince and Princess of Galilee—what curious names people are born with!—Mr. Marchington. Why will so many people call?"

"I think they wish to see you, ma'am."

"I know. But that's just it, Marriner; that is the problem."

"I like problems, ma'am."

"Then resolve me this one. Why do people with immortal souls spend their lives in leaving tiny oblongs of pasteboard on other people with immortal souls whom they scarcely know and don't care a straw about? Why do they do it, Marriner?"

"Might I speak, ma'am?"

"I ask you to."

"I don't feel convinced that their souls are immortal, ma'am. I have my doubts, ma'am."

"Then you are in the fashion. But that makes it all the more strange. If we have only one life, Marriner, why should we waste it in leaving cards?"

"Very true, ma'am."

A certain excitement had crept into Mrs. Verulam's[Pg 10] grey eyes. She raised herself on her cushions dramatically.

"Marriner, we are fools!" she cried; "that is why we do it. That is why we do a thousand things that bore us—a thousand things that bore other people. Give me all those notes."

Marriner collected the envelopes which lay upon the table and handed them respectfully to her mistress. Mrs. Verulam tore them open one by one.

"'To have the honour to meet the Prince and Princess of——' 'Lady Emily Crane at home; conjuring and acrobats. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mr. Pettingham at home; the Unattached Club. Views of the Holy Land and a lecture. Supper, midnight.' 'Lady Clondart at home. Dancing. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mrs. Vigors at home. Sartorius will exhibit his performing panthers. Ten o'clock.' 'Sir Algernon Smith at home. The Grafton Galleries. Madame Melba will sing. Eleven o'clock.' 'Mrs.——' Oh! I can't open any more. Heavens! are we human, Marriner? Are we thinking, sentient beings that we live this life of absurdity? Acrobats, conjurors, the Holy Land, panthers, Melba. Thus do we deliberately complicate our existence, already so complicated, whether we will or no. Ah, it is intolerable! The season is a disease. London is a vast lunatic asylum."

"Oh, ma'am!"

"And we, who call ourselves the smart world, are the incurable patients. Give me something to read. Let me try to forget where I am and what I am."

She lay back trembling. Marriner handed to her the World. She opened it, and her eyes fell upon these words: "I really think that Mrs. Verulam is the smartest woman in town. Her mother, Lady Sophia Tree, is[Pg 11] famous for her knowledge of the art of dress, but Mrs. Verulam surpasses even Lady Sophia in her understanding of what to wear and how to wear it. I met her driving in the Park on Friday in an exquisite creation of cinnamon canvas with touches of blue, that suited her dark-grey eyes and her exquisite golden-brown hair to——"

"Marriner, why do you give me this to read?"

"I thought you had not seen it, ma'am."

Mrs. Verulam threw the paper down.

"Leave me, Marriner," she said in a low voice.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Wait. Is Mrs. Van Adam's room quite ready for her?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Take Mr. Rodney's roses, unfasten them, and put them in vases about the room."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Now spray me, Marriner."

Marriner took up a silver bottle, pressed a minute bladder, and scattered a shower of tiny scented drops over the pretty face as pale as a Pierrot; then, carrying the burden of dull-red roses, she withdrew from the room as softly as a cat.

Mrs. Verulam lay back on the coloured cushions, and closed her eyes so tightly that her forehead was wrinkled in a frown. The Admiral who lived in the next house but one was just setting bravely forth in his ducks, on which the sun shone approvingly. At the doors of many houses stood carriages, and many pretty women were stepping into them dressed for dining, concerts, or drums. The Row was fairly full of crawlers, whose dull eyes—glazed with much staring—glanced eternally around in search of food for gossip. Flowers flamed along the Park[Pg 12] railings from the Corner to the Marble Arch, and a few unfashionable people, who were fond of plants, examined the odorous pageant in botanical attitudes that seemed strangely out of place in London. And the concert of the town continued. Its music came faintly to the ears of Mrs. Verulam, as it had come now for so many seasons. For she was twenty-nine, and had not missed a London summer since she was eighteen, except that one, eight years ago, which followed the sudden death of a husband with whom she had never been really in love.

Lying there alone, Mrs. Verulam said to herself that she was utterly sick of this concert, which each succeeding year persistently encored. She heard the distant wheels, and thought of the parties to which they were rolling. She heard the very remote music of a band; and that reminded her of the quantities of cotillons she had led, and of the innumerable faces of men that she had wiped out of mirrors with her lace handkerchief. How curiously they flashed and faded on the calm surface of the imperturbable glass, their eyes full of gay or of languid enquiry, their mouths gleaming in set society smiles!

Was it a property of cotillon mirrors, she wondered, to make all men look alike, neat, vacuous, self-satisfied? Half unconsciously she fluttered her tiny handkerchief as if she passed it across an invisible mirror. And now the surface was clean and clear, empty of masks for a moment. Then there was borne on it a big and bearded countenance. It seemed too large almost to be called a face. Hair flourished upon that countenance as prickles upon the porcupine. Large and ox-like eyes of a reddish-brown hue stared heavily out beneath brows that seemed like thatched eaves. Mrs. Verulam, in fancy, gazed upon this apparition in the mirror and laid her handkerchief aside.[Pg 13] She would not wipe the red-brown eyes, the thick lips, the intrusive hair away. And then, suddenly, she laughed to herself, thinking of the dancing sequel to her deed of the cotillon, and of what it would be like in reality.

"Poor fellow!" she thought. "He would die in a valse. That is why I will not, dare not, wipe him out of the mirror from which I long to eliminate for ever the other faces."

And she thought of a far-off cabbage-garden somewhere on the outskirts of Berkshire, where life was surely peaceful, contemplative, and more worthy than in London. Fruits ripened there. Pears hung upon the tree and cherries slept in the sun. And the bearded face was often bent wrathfully above the hapless snail or erring maggot. At least, so Mrs. Verulam supposed. For she had never yet visited this sweet Eden of vegetables and manly labours. Some day, perhaps, she would go there. Some day! Some day! She opened her eyes and glanced up. They fell upon a pet of hers, a ruddy squirrel with a bushy tail, which scrambled in a revolving cage such as squirrels are supposed to love. Persistently the squirrel scrambled and the golden cage went round. Mrs. Verulam watched it, and her mind sprang to the obvious comparison. She saw London, the cage, herself the squirrel turning in it and longing to be free. And how she pitied the squirrel! What woman has not bowels of mercy for herself? She had revolved through so many seasons. Would she revolve

through many more? Suddenly an expression of stern resolve came into the pretty Pierrot face clouded by bright hair. Mrs. Verulam thrilled with a great determination. Her manner was almost Napoleonic as she sat upright and clasped her hands together in a gesture of negation. She swept the cards on the table into a heap.[Pg 14] She flung the notes of invitation aside. She sprang up and went over to the squirrel. He peered at her with his bright and beady little eyes.

"Tommy," she said, "listen to me. Do you know that you are like me? Do you know that I, too, am in a cage—that I, too, am turning and turning in a prison that is monotonous as a circus, in which everyone and everything must go round and round and round? I am so tired of it, Tommy; so tired of my cage. And yet, do you know, half the world is trying to get into it—and can't! Isn't that absurd? To try to get into society! Oh, Tommy——"

"Mrs. Van Adam!" said the footman at the door.

Mrs. Verulam turned as a tall, slim, boyish-looking creature in a red gown and a red-and-black hat came upon her with a sweet rush and took her in strong arms of affection.

"Dearest Daisy!"

"Darling Chloe!"

The footman looked pleased beneath his powder. Perhaps it was his agreeable smile which drew Mrs. Verulam's attention to him.

"Francis, say 'not at home' this afternoon," she murmured, with a gesture of dismissal.

"Yes, ma'am."

And Francis took his smile below-stairs, leaving the two friends alone. They stood for a moment by the squirrel's cage, watching each other with kind eyes that were yet alight with sparks of criticism. For all sweet women are critics, just as all sweet babies are like their fathers. The laws of nature are so strangely immutable. Then Mrs. Van Adam said, in a low contralto voice that was almost manly:

[Pg 15]

"I believe you are sweeter here than you were in Paris. How do you manage it? America would love you."

"I am not a Duke."

"That's true, but you would come right next."

"And you! Oh, Chloe, in that hat! But why is your hair cut short?"

Mrs. Van Adam laughed, and took off the scarlet and black hat.

"It was so hot on our plantation in Florida that I wanted to have as little about me as possible," she said.

"It makes you look just like a boy!"

"I'll grow it again here."

"Have you brought a maid?"

"No. I want to engage a London woman."

"Come and sit down. It is so strange for us to be together again. How many years is it since we were schoolgirls in Paris, getting education instead of gowns? And now——"

"You're a little widow, and the darling of London!"

"And you——By the way, how is Mr. Van Adam?"

"I am told he is quite well."

Mrs. Verulam raised her eyebrows.

"You are told, Chloe!" she said. "You are told!"

But Mrs. Van Adam was looking about the room with eager dark eyes.

"Your house is delicious!" she exclaimed. "I shall love to be here. Florida is lonely, and New York is—well, it has no aristocracy. And a capital without an aristocracy is like a town man without a silk hat. The toilet is incomplete. It was cool of me to cable you that I was coming. But you don't mind?"

"I am delighted. I have been wanting you to come for so long."

[Pg 16]

"And the season is just beginning?"

The weariness that had died in Mrs. Verulam's eyes sprang up in them again.

"Yes," she said; "it is just beginning."

Mrs. Van Adam made an ecstatic gesture. There was in her manner something of the vivacity of a colt: a frolicsome readiness for bodily movement, a quickness of limb that goes with gaiety, and a sweeping appreciation of the luxury of joy. Her eyes danced and brimmed over with light, and expectation of pleasure turned her appearance almost to that of a child who sees a vision of sugar-plums.

"That's lucky!" she cried. "Daisy, you don't know how I feel about your society; I have never been in it, but I have heard of it ever since I was a girl in Paris. You told me a little then."

"I knew very little then."

"Well, you told me just all you knew, and it sounded perfect."

"Chloe, when I was in Paris I was a little fool." But Mrs. Van Adam did not seem to hear the remark; she was bent upon speaking, and she went on: "Since then I've heard the travellers' tales of the Holy Land."

"The Holy Land!"

"London, dear. Some of our travellers abuse the old town, it's true; but they want to go back to it when April comes round, all the same. I think it gets into their blood, as the East gets into the blood of lovers of the picturesque; anyhow, it's got into mine. Daisy, you think I'm pretty still, don't you?"

"Pretty—yes; lovely with that short hair."

"And I'm immensely rich, of course; and I'm an American. Give me London to play with."

[Pg 17]

"But, my dear Chloe——"

"Yes. Now do. You can give it me. I know that. Our papers are full of your triumphs. You are the pet of society."

"Nonsense, Chloe!"

"But you are; you go everywhere."

"Yes; that is why I am so tired—that is why——"

"Let me go with you. Oh, Daisy, if you only knew how I long to get into London society!"

"Oh, Chloe, if you only knew how I long to get out of it!"

Mrs. Van Adam looked quite petrified by this exclamation. She drew her black brows together, screwed up her eyes, and scrutinised Mrs. Verulam with a merciless curiosity, such as a child displays before a strange and ineffable monster. Her scrutiny was silent, exhaustive, and apparently conclusive, since she closed it with the remark:

"You little joker, you haven't altered a bit since Paris!" Then, without giving Mrs. Verulam time to assert the truth of her announced feeling, Chloe turned to the table that stood beside the sofa: "Cards!" she said. "What a heap! All yesterday's?"

"Or to-day's."

"And notes—invitations?"

Mrs. Verulam nodded.

"May I look at them?"

"If you like. They're stupid things."

"Stupid! They beat diamonds." She took one up with reverent fingers. "'To have the honour to meet the Prince and Princess of——'"

Mrs. Van Adam read the words aloud in a voice that shook with emotion. Her eyes glowed behind a veil of[Pg 18] moisture as they gazed upon the sacred pasteboard. It seemed for a moment as if she would bend her pretty head and touch it with her pretty lips; but she was a woman of strong character, and she refrained. What that silent struggle cost her the world will never know. After a period of profound silence she laid the card down gently, as one lays down a blessed relic. Then she sprang upon Mrs. Verulam and passionately embraced her.

"Oh, you darling!" she cried.

Before Mrs. Verulam could either acquiesce or protest Mrs. Van Adam had fallen upon the other invitations, as the drowning man falls upon the straw. She rifled the big envelopes of their contents. She tore Lady Emily Crane from her modest concealment, brought Sir Algernon Smith into the sunlight in the twinkling of an eye, laid Lady Clondart upon the table like a Patience, and put Mrs. Vigors on end against a flower-vase. The acrobats, the conjuror, the Holy Land, Madame Melba, the panthers of Sartorius—she faced them all, and drew a deep breath that was like a sob. Heaven opened out before her, and she lay back against a cushion prostrated and overwhelmed. In great moments such as these the human creature feels its smallness, and hears the mighty inexorable pulse beating in the huge and mysterious heart of life. These two women were pale and silent while you could have counted a hundred, the one laid low by ennui, occasioned by the same cause that laid the other low by ecstasy. Thus do even the closest friends differ.

At last Mrs. Van Adam lifted herself up, and spoke in a low voice as of an Anglican in Westminster Abbey:

"Take me with you, Daisy—oh, do—do take me with you!"

"Where?"

[Pg 19]

"To Lady Emily Crane's, to Mr. Pettingham's, to Lady Clondart's, Mrs. Vigors', Sir Algernon Smith's, and—oh, Daisy!—to have the honour to meet the—you know, I can't say it. Let me see the panthers, and the Holy Land, and the Prince and Princess."

"They are not in the least good-looking."

"The panthers, Daisy?"

"No; the royalties. Those I mean—they are foreign and plain."

"That doesn't matter. It is so unnecessary for them to take the trouble to be handsome; for us it's quite—quite different."

Mrs. Verulam smiled; but the smile flitted, and the bored expression returned.

"If I did take you, Chloe, you would find it all terribly dull, especially Mr. Pettingham's."

"Doesn't he know good people—not religious, you know, but good?"

"Oh yes—everybody in London; but his parties are dreadful. You sit in the pitch dark while he describes to you how he discovered Venice or Vienna, and shows you the Lido or Lowndes Square, upside down as often as not. His coloured slides are really agonising."

"But his guests?"

"Oh! they're all right, of course, so far as any—any smart people are all right."

Mrs. Van Adam was about to utter a fervent protest, but Mrs. Verulam displayed sudden energy. She sat straight up, planted her little feet firmly on a tiny satin footstool, clasped her soft hands, and said: