Which was the real Venice?
Which was the real woman?
CHAPTER V
ON the following day, which was warm and damp; Lady Holme drove to Bond Street, bought two new hats, had her hand read by a palmist who called himself “Cupido,” looked in at a ladies’ club and then went to Mrs. Wolfstein, with whom she was engaged to lunch. She did not wish to lunch with her. She disliked Mrs. Wolfstein as she disliked most women, but she had not been able to get out of it. Mrs. Wolfstein had overheard her saying to Lady Cardington that she had nothing particular to do till four that day, and had immediately “pinned her.” Besides disliking Mrs. Wolfstein, Lady Holme was a little afraid of her. Like many clever Jewesses, Mrs. Wolfstein was a ruthless conversationalist, and enjoyed showing off at the expense of others, even when they were her guests. She had sometimes made Lady Holme feel stupid, even feel as if a good talker might occasionally gain, and keep, an advantage over a lovely woman who did not talk so well. The sensation passed, but the fact that it had ever been did not draw Lady Holme any closer to the woman with the “pawnbroking expression” in her eyes.
Mrs. Wolfstein was not in the most exclusive set in London, but she was in the smart set, which is no longer exclusive although it sometimes hopes it is. She knew the racing people, nearly all the most fashionable Jews, and those very numerous English patricians who like to go where money is. She also knew the whole of Upper Bohemia, and was a persona gratissima in that happy land of talent and jealousy. She entertained a great deal, generally at modish restaurants. Many French and Germans were to be met with at her parties; and it was impossible to be with either them or her for many minutes without hearing the most hearty and whole-souled abuse of English aspirations, art, letters and cooking. The respectability, the pictures, the books and the boiled cabbage of Britain all came impartially under the lash.
Mrs. Wolfstein’s origin was obscure. That she was a Jewess was known to everybody, but few could say with certainty whether she was a German, a Spanish, a Polish or an Eastern Jewess. She had much of the covert coarseness and open impudence of a Levantine, and occasionally said things which made people wonder whether, before she became Amalia Wolfstein, she had not perhaps been—well really—something very strange somewhere a long way off.
Her husband was shocking to look at: small, mean, bald, Semitic and nervous, with large ears which curved outwards from his head like leaves, and cheeks blue from much shaving. He was said to hide behind his anxious manner an acuteness that was diabolic, and to have earned his ill-health by sly dissipations for which he had paid enormous sums. There were two Wolfstein children, a boy and a girl of eleven and twelve; small, swarthy, frog-like, self-possessed. They already spoke three languages, and their protruding eyes looked almost diseased with intelligence.
The Wolfstein house, which was in Curzon Street, was not pretty, Apparently neither Mrs. Wolfstein nor her husband, who was a financier and company promoter on a very large scale, had good taste in furniture and decoration. The mansion was spacious but dingy. There was a great deal of chocolate and fiery yellow paint. There were many stuffy brown carpets, and tables which were unnecessarily solid. In the hall were pillars which looked as if they were made of brawn, and arches with lozenges of azure paint in which golden stars appeared rather meretriciously. A plaster statue of Hebe, with crinkly hair and staring eyeballs, stood in a corner without improving matters. That part of the staircase which was not concealed by the brown carpet was dirty white. An immense oil painting of a heap of dead pheasants, rabbits and wild duck, lying beside a gun and a pair of leather gaiters, immediately faced the hall door, which was opened by two enormous men with yellow complexions and dissipated eyes. Mrs. Wolfstein was at home, and one of the enormous men lethargically showed Lady Holme upstairs into a drawing-room which suggested a Gordon Hotel. She waited for about five minutes on a brown and yellow sofa near a table on which lay some books and several paper-knives, and then Mrs. Wolfstein appeared. She was dressed very smartly in blue and red, and looked either Oriental or Portuguese, as she came in. Lady Holme was not quite certain which.
“Dear person!” she said, taking Lady Holme’s hands in hers, which were covered with unusually large rings. “Now, I’ve got a confession to make. What a delicious hat!”