CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LITTLE RIFT.
It was summer-time in London; the butterfly season, in which the metropolis of the world puts on such a splendour of gaiety and luxury that it is hard to remember the fog and damp and dreariness of a long winter; hard to believe that this stately West End London can ever be otherwise than beautiful. Are not her hotels palaces, and her parks paradises of foliage and flowers, fashion and beauty—with only an occasional incursion from the Processional Proletariat? Country cousins seeing the great city in this joyous season may be excused for thinking that life in London is always delectable; and, bored to death in their country quarters in the dull depth of an agricultural winter, or suffering under the discomforts of a ten-mile journey behind a pair of “boilers,” on a snow-bound road, to a third-rate ball, may not unnaturally envy the children of the city their January and February dances, and dinners, and theatres, all, as these rustics imagine, within a quarter of an hour’s drive.
Eve Vansittart thoroughly enjoyed the pleasures of a London season; the jaunts and excitements by day; Hurlingham, Sandown, Ascot, Henley, Lord’s, Barn Elms; the ever-delightful morning ride, the evening drive in the Park, with its smiling flower-beds, ablaze with gaudy colour that rivalled the scarlet plumes and shining breast-plates flashing past now and again between the close ranks of carriages. Yes, London was brilliant, vivid, noisy, full of startling sights and sounds by day; and by night a city of enchantment, where one might wander from house to house to mingle in a mob of more or less beautiful women, and beautiful gowns, and diamonds that took one’s breath away by their magnificence. A city of fairyland, with awnings over stately doorways, and gardens and balconies aglitter with coloured lamps; and gorgeous reception-rooms where one heard all that there is of the most exquisite in modern music—violin and ’cello, tenor and soprano—the stars of opera and concert-hall, breathing their finer strains for the delight of these choicer assemblies.
There are circles and circles in London, as many as in the progressive After-life of Esoteric Buddhism, and it is not to be supposed that a small Hampshire squire, with a paltry three thousand a year, was in the uppermost and most sacred heaven; but the circles touch and mingle very often in the larger gatherings of the season, and though Eve Vansittart was not on intimate terms with duchesses, she often rubbed shoulders with them, and for an evening lived the life they lived, and thrilled to the same melodious strains, and melted almost to tears to the same music of Wolff or Hollmann, till pleasure verged upon pain, and borne upon the long-drawn notes of violin or ’cello, came sad, sweet memories of the years that were gone. Vansittart knew plenty of people who were decidedly “nice,” and these included a sprinkling of the nobility, and a good many givers of fine parties. His wife’s beauty and charm of manner ensured her a prompt acceptance among people outside that circle of old friends who would have accepted her as a duty, even had she been neither lovely nor amiable.
The most enjoyable parties must at last produce satiety, if they come every night, and sometimes two or three in a night; and there came a time when Eve’s strength began to flag, and her spirits to droop a little in the midst of these pleasures, this paradise of music and Parisian comedy, of dances after midnight, and coaching meets at noon.
Vansittart noticed the pallid morning face and purple shadows under the dark grey eyes.
“We are doing too much, Eve,” he said anxiously. “I am letting you kill yourself.”
“It is a very pleasant kind of death,” answered Eve, smiling at him across the small breakfast-table, where a grilled chicken for him, a dish of strawberries for her, comprised the simple repast, a repast over which they always lingered as long as their engagements allowed, since it was the only confidential hour in the day. At luncheon people were always running in; or there was a snug little party invited for that friendly meal. Dinner was rarely eaten at home, except when they had a dinner-party. “It is a very delicious death, and I shall take a long time killing. Perhaps when I am as old as Honoria, Duchess of Boscastle, I shall begin to feel I have had enough.”
“My dearest, I love to see you happy and amused, but I mustn’t let you wear yourself out. We must have a quiet day now and then.”