Priscilla Craven

“ The world is better without it. Take your place in the heart of one man, not in the passions of many.”
Claudia thought over these words as she thoughtfully pulled on her gloves. And simultaneously she recalled a scene soon after Gilbert’s proposal when she had, as to-night, stood in front of the mirror and slowly divesting herself of her garments, half shyly, half exultingly, because of her love of beauty, had watched the charms of her body emerge. She had rejoiced in her own comeliness because it was a gift she was bringing to her husband, a wedding gift such as few women could present. ”

“ Passion had got both of us by the throat. I loved you, but although I didn’t realize it, passion blinded my eyes to your real character and how unsuitable we were to one another. And passion urged you on to marry me, when you ought to have married a nice, tame woman who would have been content with occasional crumbs. Oh! why does Nature bring the wrong people together! Why! Why! Gilbert, I wish we had been lovers instead of husband and wife, then—then the mistake would not have been irrevocable.”
He was genuinely shocked. “Claudia, I would rather not listen to such things. ”

“ The motor was passing a large burial ground, the tombstones showing by the railings like dreary grey ghosts in the darkness, shut in with the wet, dripping trees, and looking hungrily at life passing a few yards away. Underneath those tombstones were hearts and brains in silent decay that had once been men and women. Claudia watched them flit by and she was silent now. She wondered if those tombstones had a message for her. Were not the dead saying “Live! live! live! Death started out to meet as soon as you were born.” ”

“ His faithful soul was afraid she had called him.
“Only talking to myself, Billiken,” she said, smiling at him. “Why, even you, Billie—I am your little world, your sun and your moon and your stars, but you like me to stroke and pat you. Oh, Billie! I must be first with someone. I don’t belong to anyone really, not of my own free will, and I want to so much, so much. I’m not strong enough to stand alone. I don’t want to stand alone.”
She was first with Frank, the only thing that mattered in his life. ”

“ Claudia knew she was taking in the idea, for whenever Fay wanted to reason with herself, she always thought in silence. She always took a special interval from life to do her thinking.
“But what am I to fight for?” she said at length.
“To keep your own respect and the respect and admiration of all who know you. Poor Jack loves you very much in his way, and he is distracted. Help to steady him, Fay. He is beginning to look at life more seriously. He admires you immensely as an artist, make him admire you as a woman. ”

“ She had lost that happy, absorbed look a woman wears when she is in love, but her personality had gained from the social point of view, for she was more arresting, more vivid, and she had always been accounted a good companion and conversationalist. But Claudia had not studied le monde où l’on s’ennuie for some years for nothing, and though she had hitherto kept a little aloof from certain phases, she was not ignorant, nor likely to let her vanity lead her into foolishness. The obvious love-hunter only amused her, and she used such men just as much as it suited her convenience. ”

“ Colin laughed. He was always on very cheery terms with Patricia, and she with him. It was she, Claudia remembered, who had once so highly extolled Paton as a possible husband. At that time she had not appeared to have any penchant for him. But sometimes the knowledge of her love comes suddenly to a young girl. Perhaps it had come suddenly to Pat. And she would make him a very nice wife. She was loyal to the core, and she would believe in him. She would fight for him, if necessary, through thick and thin, the bigger the fight the more she would like it. ”

“ Claudia shook her head. She refused to be drawn. “Impossible to define. Those who have it do not need a definition, and those who have it not—will never find one. Didn’t someone once say: ‘Art is life seen through a temperament’?”
“But I’m not an artist,” he replied quickly, “only a merchant, who purveys works of art through the medium of a printing-press. Do you think that only professed artists may possess a temperament?”
“Of course not. That would be too ridiculous. I daresay some of the greatest artists are inarticulate.” ”

“ Claudia pondered a minute, twisting an old French marquise ring round and round her little finger. “I should think,” she said slowly, “it’s the ability to notice and enjoy all the pleasures of the wayside. Yes, that’s somewhere near it. The man who enjoys life is the one who saunters along, admiring the flowers in the hedgerows, sniffing the different perfumes, watching the insects and the birds, filling his lungs with the good fresh air. The man who doesn’t know how to enjoy life is the one who rushes across country in the fastest touring car he can buy.”
Gilbert rose and looked at the clock. ”

“ A satirical smile curved her lips as she tried to imagine Gilbert married to The Girlie Girl.
“A family stands or falls together,” said Gilbert heavily, noting the smile with inward resentment. Lately he had often seen that smile on his wife’s lips.
“Oh! surely not, nowadays. It is hard enough to have your own sins come home to roost, but to have your sister’s and your brother’s and your cousin’s and your aunt’s—Oh! life would be too hard!”
“Don’t be flippant; we are discussing a serious matter.”
“All the more reason not to lose our sense of humour. Undiluted seriousness is—the devil. ”

“ Claudia knew that such times bare the man or woman of mannerisms and conventionalities, and expose the real ego. Two or three times before she had thought she liked men, but always on further and closer knowledge she had found them disappointing. Then she had been annoyed with herself for even that faint stirring of interest. In some unaccountable way she had felt humiliated when her brain failed to approve of them. But Gilbert could not disappoint her. How could such an admittedly clever man disappoint any woman? ”

“ He wondered if he had put his foot in it as he watched her ascend in the lift. Gilbert had told him that he had “got out of a stupid dinner-party ... a woman likes those sort of things ... her province, you know....” Fritz Neeburg was a bachelor and knew little of women, either by experience or temperament, but he realized that it was not a real smile of genuine amusement. He felt vaguely that it was like the early bloom of a peach which masks the hidden acidity. Then he recalled that Claudia lately had not been half so gay and spontaneously happy as in the early months of her marriage. ”

“ This afternoon he mingled with the crowd, but he did not heed it, so that he did not see a woman in a motor energetically waving her hand to him and directing the chauffeur to stop.
“Mr. Paton—oh! Mr. Paton, what a day-dream!”
It was Claudia herself, looking altogether charming in light summer attire. There were waving, greeny-blue ostrich feathers in her Leghorn hat and around her neck. The softness of the feathers and the peculiar shade of blue accentuated the creamy tint of her skin and the brightness of her eyes. ”

“ The music was humming in his ears, there was a heady odour from a group of lilies beside them, and—and Claudia was glad to see him. “I should not have come otherwise,” he added. He smiled at her, and though he used the smile very seldom, it was quite attractive.
She met his eyes squarely without the least bit of a flutter, but a faint flush rose to her smooth cheeks. “Well, come,” she said, putting her hand within his arm. “I am engaged for this—but my partner has kept me waiting. So he can lose the dance. A laggard dancer, like a laggard lover, deserves to lose his partner.” ”

“ She had always taken it for granted that she would marry without making it her business to do so. She had looked with soft, speculative eyes at the men she met. Perhaps it will be this one—perhaps I shall sit next to him at dinner to-night—perhaps he will be one of my partners at the dance to-morrow! A girl who knows that she is attractive to men always has this feeling consciously or unconsciously. Now this feeling had merged into something else, the happy glow of knowledge. Love had come.
It seemed to Claudia that it had come rather suddenly, although she had known Gilbert for many years. ”

“ There was an insidious Eastern perfume that always trailed after Sybil Iverson, and the room Claudia entered was heavy with it. The hangings and huge divan were Oriental in colouring and material. The sun was excluded from the room by pink curtains closely shrouding the windows, and electric lamps with becoming shades were burning. Her mother was in the dressing-room, prostrate under the hands of the masseur, who had a great reputation among women, especially those who were on the borderland of youth and middle age. ”

“ Patricia gave an audible chuckle, and Claudia looked imploringly at her mother.
“Purple patches,” said Circe vaguely, “stand for all [70] the wonderful emotions and sensations that make this life a thing of magic and mystery. A purple patch—what is it? It may be a minute, a second even—the look from someone’s eyes caught in a crowd—a chord of music—a whiff of perfume—an hour of passion—a day of memories—the song of a bird—anything rare and evanescent. Purple patches are moments of crystallization, of ecstasy, of poetry, of life ”

“ He showered kisses on her passionate, trembling lips, kisses that sent a wild thrill of fearful joy through her, that made the placid, sunny garden rock and reel before her eyes, and gave her a vivid glimpse of what marriage might mean. And no man had ever roused her passions before. This man had always had the power to do so since the dinner-party when he had held her hand in his and asked if he might claim the privileges of old friendship and call her Claudia. ”

“ Claudia had an almost Greek appreciation and love for physical fitness, and had Gilbert not been a most personable man, her interest in his mental achievements might have evaporated. But because he was strong and came of healthy stock, the night-oil that he had burned had so far left no mark upon him. There was no doubt that he had personality, that he would never be overlooked wherever he went. Claudia could never have married a handsome man without brains, but it is doubtful if she could have loved anything lacking in physical fitness. ”

“ There was no man alive that would not have been touched by her beautiful, pleading eyes. She promised so much. The hint of passion in her eyes and colouring would have allured any man, and Gilbert was by nature a passionate animal. Passion and ambition had [86] warred from his youth, and he had deliberately crushed out his warm human instincts. Until he met Claudia they had been absolutely under control. Now, as on the night he had proposed to her, something swept over him like a huge wave and swamped his brain. ”

“ You had deliberately left this sweet, sunny garden and—and me, and gone back to those stuffy chambers. We haven’t seen one another for four days, and you’d gone back to your work.”
There was an edge to her voice that roused him.
“Claudia, dear, I am very happy here with you, but one can’t control one’s thoughts or shut watertight doors on one’s affairs. A woman’s life is different. Men cannot help mingling their business with their pleasure.” ”

“ She must not be gloomy when Pat was coming down to announce her engagement. True, her own experience of married life had not been ideal, but Colin was different, and anyway, one had no right to dash the hopes of the newly-engaged. Some married couples are happy. She must be glad. She was glad. If it were not that inflated windbag, the vicar, it must be the remembrance of her own happy anticipations when she had first become engaged to Gilbert that made her feel blue. The sun to-day did not seem brilliant and wonderful, but only tiresomely hot. ”

“ She had heard a vague rumour of Swansea’s attentions to Claudia from another quarter and saw no reason to doubt Circe’s news. She was nettled, and felt she was being placed in a false position. It revived old memories. Circe had possessed this trick as a young girl.
“Gilbert is bound to do well,” she said hastily.
“Of course.” Circe lit another cigarette. “But the future—well, it is the future! Futures are like horses—you can never count on them! If they could only invent automatic horses and automatic futures! ”

“ Lady Currey was not at all pleased with her son’s engagement, and she said so. She came to town for this purpose, and made Gilbert give her lunch while she strongly disapproved, from the hors d’œuvres to the coffee. She had the soulless good looks which Time, as if contemptuous, neglects to touch. And because she could afford to do so, she purposely dressed in a middle-aged, sober fashion which she considered dignified. She had a great sense of her own importance, and the modern grandmother of fifty in ninon and picture-hats was to her extreme anathema. ”

“ She was leaning a little forward, her elbow on her knee, and he could see the rise and fall of her bosom, the soft curves outlined by the clinging chiffon. And though he sat outwardly unmoved, something tingled within him and strained like a dog in a leash.
Claudia sat up with a shrug of her shoulders. It was a little trick of hers that suited her dark eyes. “I have been gloriously doing nothing in particular, the same things as I did last year, meeting much the same people and talking much the same talk. ”

“ Claudia would have explained to anyone else that her hostess had insisted on her presence, and thus have soothed down old-fashioned prejudices, but Lady Currey’s tone annoyed her.
“Oh!” she said carelessly, “women are neither treated as children nor inmates of a harem nowadays. We have progressed, you know. Women are freeing themselves. Did you never revolt in your heart of hearts?”
“My pleasure was always to do as my husband wished.”
“What is that about me?” said Sir John, coming up to them. “How do you do, Claudia. I am sorry Gilbert is not able to come. But it shows the right spirit. ”

“ She and Circe were much the same age. Sybil Daunton-Pole had flashed into society like a brilliant comet, a trail of admirers behind her, when Gilbert’s mother, the amiable daughter of the then Home Secretary, had been one of the small and unremarked stars that dot the social firmament.
Lady Currey had brought her husband a considerable sum of money, but the only thing for which she needed money was to gratify her craze for old china. If she had any heart or soul it was given to her specimens of priceless Ming and old Chelsea. She spent hours every day dusting her cabinets. ”

“ Rhoda was late, but as Claudia knew her habits she had ordered lunch a quarter of an hour later than usual.
“I’m late, dear. So sorry. But I put on six hats and hated them all, so I’ve come out in the ugliest.” It was a queer-shaped one, that showed the tip of her nose and part of an ear.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll get run over when you wear a hat like that?” laughed Claudia.
“It does make the day seem gloomy, I admit. But a hat like this intrigues a man. He doesn’t know what else there is to it. There’s nothing like mystery about a hat. ”

“ As he looked at the beautiful vivid woman among the cushions of the armchair, he recalled the quiet, orderly life he had led with the one who had borne his name, [244] the lack of anything approaching exaltation or beauty in their relationship, the prosaic monotony of their days, and he wondered if he had not been the greatest of God’s fools. What would life be with such a woman as the one Who now sat plaiting her fingers in her lap, her very finger-tips pulsating with life? The magnetism of her womanhood reached him as he stood, and made his breath come more quickly. ”