The Murder of Delicia

by Marie Corelli

Certainly Carlyon had nothing to desire or to complain of in his destiny. A crowned king might have envied him; unweighted with care, no debts, no difficulties, a perpetual balance at his banker's, a luxurious home, arranged not only with all the skill that wealth can command, but also with the artistic taste that only brains can supply; a lovely wife whose brilliant endowments were the talk of two continents, and last, but not least, the complete unfettered enjoyment of his own way and will. Delicia never played the domestic tyrant over him; he was free to do as he liked, go where he would and see whom he chose. She never catechised him as to the nature of his occupations or amusements, and he, on his part, was wise enough to draw a line between a certain 'fast set' he personally favoured, and the kind of people he introduced to her, knowing well enough that were he to commit the folly of bringing some 'shady' character within his wife's circle of acquaintance, it would be only once that the presence of such a person would be tolerated by her. For she had very quick perceptions; and though her disposition was gentleness itself, she was firmly planted in rectitude, and managed to withdraw herself so quietly and cleverly from any contact with social swindlers and vulgar nouveaux riches, that they never had the ghost of a chance to gain the smallest footing with her. Unable to obtain admittance to her house, they took refuge in scandal, and invented lies and slanders concerning her, all of which fell flat owing to her frankly open life of domestic peace and contentment. Sneers and false rumours were inserted about her in the journals; she ignored them, and quietly lived them down, till finally the worst thing anyone could find to say of her was that she was 'idiotically in love' with her own husband.

'She's a perfect fool about him!' exclaimed the Tookseys and Snookseys, angrily. 'Everybody knows Paul Valdis is madly in love with her. It's only she who never seems to see it!' 'Perhaps she does not approve of the French fashion of having a lover as well as a husband,' suggested a Casual Caller of the male sex. 'Though it is now la mode in England, she may not like it. Besides, Paul Valdis has been "madly in love," as you call it, a great many times!'

The Tookseys and Snookseys sighed, shivered, rolled up their eyes and shrugged their shoulders. They were old and ugly and yellow of skin; but their hearts had a few lively pulsations of evil left in them still, and they envied and marvelled at the luck of a woman—a literary female, too, good heavens! to think of it!—who not only had the handsomest man in town for a husband, but who could also have the next handsomest—Paul Valdis, the great actor—for a lover, if she but 'dropped the handkerchief.'

And while 'society' thus talked, Delicia worked, coining money for her husband to spend as he listed. She reserved her household expenses, and took a moderate share of her earnings for her own dress, but all the rest was his. He drove 'tandem' in the Row with two of the most superb horses ever seen in that fashionable thoroughfare. In the early spring mornings he was seen cantering up and down on a magnificent Arab, which for breed and action was the envy of princes. He had his own four-in-hand coach, which he drove to Ranelagh, Hurlingham, and the various race meetings of the year, with a party of 'select' people on top—the kind of 'select' whom Delicia never knew or cared to know, consisting of actresses, betting men, 'swells about town,' and a sprinkling of titled dames, who had frankly thrown over their husbands in order to drink brandy privately, and play the female Don Juan publicly. Occasionally a 'candid friend,' moved by a laudable desire to make mischief between husband and wife, would arrive, full-armed at all points with gossip, and would casually remark to Delicia,—

'Oh, by the way, I saw your husband at Ranelagh the other day with—well!—some rather odd people!' To which Delicia would reply tranquilly, 'Did you? I hope he was amusing himself.' Then with a straight, half-disdainful look of her violet eyes at the intruding meddler, she would add, 'I know what you mean, of course! But it is a man's privilege to entertain himself in his own fashion, even with "odd" people if he likes. "Odd" people are always infinitely diverting, owing to their never being able to recognise their own abnormal absurdity. And I never play spy on my husband. I consider a wife who condescends to become a detective as the most contemptible of creatures living.'

Whereupon the 'candid friend,' vexed and baffled, would retire behind an entrenchment of generalities, and afterwards, at 'afternoons' and social gatherings, would publicly opine that, 'It was most probable Mrs Carlyon was carrying on a little game of her own, as she seemed so indifferent to her husband's goings-on. She was a deep one, oh, yes! very deep! She knew a thing or two!—and perhaps, who could tell?—Paul Valdis had his own reasons for specially "fixing" her with his dark, passionate eyes whenever she appeared in her box at the theatre where he was playing the chief character in an English version of "Ernani."

It was true enough that Delicia was hardly ever seen at the places her husband most frequented, but this happened because he was fond of racing and she was not. She disliked the senseless, selfish and avaricious side of life so glaringly presented at the favourite 'turf' resorts of the 'swagger' set, and said so openly.

'It makes me think badly of everybody,' she declared once to her husband, when he had languidly suggested her 'turning up' at the Oaks. 'I begin to wonder what was the use of Christ dying on the cross to redeem such greedy, foolish folk. I don't want to despise my fellow-creatures, but I'm obliged to do it when I go to a race. So it's better I should stay at home and write, and try to think of them all as well as I can.'

And she did stay at home very contentedly; and when he was absent with a party of his own particular 'friends,' dispensing to them the elegant luncheon and champagne which her work had paid for, she was either busy with some fresh piece of literary labour, or else taking her sweet presence into the houses of the poor and suffering, and bringing relief, hope and cheerfulness, wherever she went. And on the morning when the sunshine placed a crown on her head, and hurled a javelin of light full in the cold eyes of the marble Antinous, she was in one of her brightest, most radiant moods, satisfied with her lot, grateful for the blessings which she considered were so numerous, and as unconscious as ever that there was anything upside down in the arrangement which had resulted in her being obliged to 'love, honour, obey,' keep, and clothe, six feet of beautiful man, by her own unassisted toil, while the said six feet of beautiful man did nothing but enjoy himself.

The quaint 'Empire' clock, shaped as a world, with a little god of love pointing to the hours numbered on its surface, chimed two from its golden bracket on the wall before she laid down her pen for the day. Then, rising, she stretched her fair, rounded arms above her head, and smiled at the daffodils in the vase close by—bright flowers which seemed fully conscious of the sunshine in that smile. Anon, she moved into the deep embrasure of her wide lattice window, where, stretched out at full length, lay a huge dog of the St Bernard breed, winking lazily with one honest brown eye at the sunbeams that danced about him.