The Pretty Lady Part 21

Lady Queenie had imposed terms on her family, and under threats of rupture, of separation, of scandal, Lady Queenie's exotic nest had come into existence in the very fortress of unchangeable British convention. The phenomenon was a war phenomenon due to the war, begotten by the war; for Lady Queenie had said that if she was to do war-work without disaster to her sanity she must have the right environment. Thus the putting together of Lady Queenie's nest had proceeded concurrently with the building of national projectile factories and of square miles of offices for the girl clerks of ministries and departments of government.

The footman left G.J. alone in a room designated the boudoir. G.J.

resented the boudoir, because it was like nothing that he had ever witnessed. The walls were irregularly covered with rhombuses, rhomboids, lozenges, diamonds, triangles, and parallelograms; the carpet was treated likewise, and also the upholstery and the cus.h.i.+ons.

The colourings of the scene in their excessive brightness, crudity and variety surpa.s.sed G.J.'s conception of the possible. He had learned the value of colour before Queen was born, and in the Albany had translated principle into practice. But the hues of the boudoir made the gaudiest effects of Regency furniture appear sombre. The place resembled a gigantic and glittering kaleidoscope deranged and arrested.

G.J.'s glance ran round the room like a hunted animal seeking escape, and found no escape. He was as disturbed as he might have been disturbed by drinking a liqueur on the top of a c.o.c.ktail. Nevertheless he had to admit that some of the contrasts of pure colour were rather beautiful, even impressive; and he hated to admit it. He was aware of a terrible apprehension that he would never be the same man again, and that henceforth his own abode would be eternally stricken for him with the curse of insipidity. Regaining somewhat his nerve, he looked for pictures. There were no pictures. But every piece of furniture was painted with primitive sketches of human figures, or of flowers, or of vessels, or of animals. On the front of the mantelpiece were perversely but brilliantly depicted, with a high degree of finish, two nude, crouching women who gazed longingly at each other across the impa.s.sable semicircular abyss of the fireplace; and just above their heads, on a scroll, ran these words:

"The ways of G.o.d are strange."

He heard movements and a slight cough in the next room, the door leading to which was ajar. Concepcion's cough; he thought he recognised it. Five minutes ago he had had no notion of seeing her; now he was about to see her. And he felt excited and troubled, as much by the sudden violence of life as by the mere prospect of the meeting.

After her husband's death Concepcion had soon withdrawn from London.

A large engineering firm on the Clyde, one of the heads of which happened to be const.i.tutionally a pioneer, was establis.h.i.+ng a canteen for its workmen, and Concepcion, the tentacles of whose influence would stretch to any length, had decided that she ought to take up canteen work, and in particular the canteen work of just that firm.

But first of all, to strengthen her prestige and acquire new prestige, she had gone to the United States, with a powerful introduction to Sears, Roebuck and Company of Chicago, in order to study industrial canteenism in its most advanced and intricate manifestations.

Portraits of Concepcion in splendid furs on the deck of the steamer in the act of preparing to study industrial canteenism in its most advanced and intricate manifestations had appeared in the ill.u.s.trated weeklies. The luxurious trip had cost several hundreds of pounds, but it was war expenditure, and, moreover, Concepcion had come into considerable sums of money through her deceased husband. Her return to Britain had never been published. Advertis.e.m.e.nts of Concepcion ceased.

Only a few friends knew that she was in the most active retirement on the Clyde. G.J. had written to her twice but had obtained no replies.

One fact he knew, that she had not had a child. Lady Queenie had not mentioned her; it was understood that the inseparables had quarrelled in the heroic manner and separated for ever.

She entered the boudoir slowly. G.J. grew self-conscious, as it were because she was still the martyr of destiny and he was not. She wore a lavender-tinted gown of Queen's; he knew it was Queen's because he had seen precisely such a gown on Queen, and there could not possibly be another gown precisely like that very challenging gown. It suited Queen, but it did not suit Concepcion. She looked older; she was thirty-two, and might have been taken for thirty-five. She was very pale, with immense fatigued eyes; but her ridiculous nose had preserved all its originality. And she had the same slightly masculine air--perhaps somewhat intensified--with an added dignity. And G.J.

thought: "She is as mysterious and unfathomable as I am myself." And he was impressed and perturbed.

With a faint, sardonic smile, glancing at him as a physical equal from her unusual height (she was as tall as Lady Queenie), she said abruptly and casually:

"Am I changed?"

"No," he replied as abruptly and casually, clasping almost inimically her ringed hand--she was wearing Queenie's rings. "But you're tired.

The journey, I suppose."

"It's not that. We sat up till five o'clock this morning, talking."

"Who?"

"Queen and I."

"What did you do that for?"

"Well, you see, we'd had the devil's own row--" She stopped, leaving his imagination to complete the picture of the meeting and the night talk.

He smiled awkwardly--tried to be paternal, and failed.

"What about?"

"She never wanted me to leave London. I came back last night with only a handbag just as she was going out to dinner. She didn't go out to dinner. Queen is a white woman. n.o.body knows how white Queen is. I didn't know myself until last night."

There was a pause. G.J. said:

"I had an appointment here with the white woman, on business."

"Yes, I know," said Concepcion negligently. "She'll be home soon."

Something infinitesimally malicious in the voice and gaze sent the singular idea shooting through his mind that Queen had gone out on purpose so that Concepcion might have him alone for a while. And he was wary of both of them, as he might have been of two pagan G.o.ddesses whom he, a poor defiant mortal, suspected of having laid an eye on him for their own ends.

"_You've_ changed, anyhow," said Concepcion.

"Older?"

"No. Harder."

He was startled, not displeased.

"How--harder?"

"More sure of yourself," said Concepcion, with a trace of the old harsh egotism in her tone. "It appears you're a perfect tyrant on the Lechford Committee now you're vice-chairman, and all the more footling members dread the days when you're in the chair. It appears also that you've really overthrown two chairmen, and yet won't take the situation yourself."

He was still more startled, but now positively flattered by the world's estimate of his activities and individuality. He saw himself in a new light.

"This what you were talking about until five a.m.?"

The butler entered.

"Shall I serve tea, Madam?"

Concepcion looked at the man scornfully:

"Yes."

One of the minor stalwarts entered and arranged a table, and the other followed with a glittering, steaming tray in his hands, while the butler hovered like a winged hippopotamus over the operation.

Concepcion half sat down by the table, and then, altering her mind, dropped on to a vast chaise-longue, as wide as a bed, and covered with as many cus.h.i.+ons as would have stocked a cus.h.i.+on shop, which occupied the princ.i.p.al place in front of the hearth. The hem of her rich gown just touched the floor. G.J. could see that she was wearing the transparent deep-purple stockings that Queen wore with the transparent lavender gown. Her right shoulder rose high from the ma.s.s of the body, and her head was sunk between two cus.h.i.+ons. Her voice came smothered from the cus.h.i.+ons:

"d.a.m.n it! G.J. Don't look at me like that."

He was standing near the mantelpiece.

"Why?" he exclaimed. "What's the matter, Con?"

There was no answer. He lit a cigarette. The ebullient kettle kept lifting its lid in growing impatience. But Concepcion seemed to have forgotten the tea. G.J. had a thought, distinct like a bubble on a sea of thoughts, that if the tea was already made, as no doubt it was, it would soon be stewed. Concepcion said:

"The matter is that I'm a ruined woman, and Queen can't understand."

And in the bewildering voluptuous brightness and luxury of the room G.J. had the sensation of being a poor, baffled ghost groping in the night of existence. Concepcion's left arm slipped over the edge of the day-bed and hung limp and pale, the curved fingers touching the carpet.

Chapter 27

THE CLYDE