[CHAPTER III]
Stephen de Lisle’s second letter, eagerly looked for by Madame Claire, came the following week.
“Dear Claire,
“Thank God for your letter. It’s put new life into me; and I assure you, I needed it. Of course it’s all tommyrot what you say about old age. Who wouldn’t want to run and jump about again, and be able to digest anything, and sit up late at night? I think this having to be coddled and looked after is an infernal nuisance.
“Yes, I was a fool to take your refusal as I did, but that can’t be helped now. You forgive me, and besides, I know well enough the loss was mine. But I couldn’t have endured London all these years. Too many people, too much noise, and too much dirt. Still, I may, gout and rheumatism permitting, come to see you and my godson and the grandchildren yet. I’m glad you remembered how fond I was of that child Judy. Most attractive child I ever saw. Twenty-seven, you say? It doesn’t seem possible. Don’t let her get married in a hurry. She is perfectly right to wait for the real thing. Instinct is the lead to follow, and hers is a right one.
“That was a wonderful letter of yours, Claire. I hope there will be many more. They give me something to look forward to. I haven’t a half dozen young people about me as you have. I’ve one niece, Monica de Lisle. Ugly, churchy, uninteresting female. You may remember her.
“Cannes is delightful, but alas! I am too old to enjoy more than the sun and the color of the sky. How do you manage to keep so young in your mind? Bob used to say you’d die young if you lived to be a hundred, and he was right.
“I’m reading Shakespeare mostly. I find the old ones the best, and he’s the best of the old ones. Omniscient, he was.
“Well, well, write again soon. Don’t tire yourself, but—write soon. Do you remember old Jock Wetherby? He’s here at this hotel. Tottering on the brink, and ten years my junior. Drink—women—all the cheapening vices. Looks it, too.
“Tell me about Judy and the others.
“Yours ever,
“Stephen.”
“P.S.—I’ve got the ugliest nurse in Christendom.”
Madame Claire read extracts from this letter to Judy, who was immensely pleased at the impression she must have made.
“Though what he saw in me, I can’t think,” she said. “My chief points, judging from photographs, were shoe-button eyes, a fringe, and a prominent stomach. But there’s no accounting for these infatuations.”
“I do wish he would come to London,” said Madame Claire as she folded the letter. “After all, London is the best place for old people. They get more consideration here than anywhere else in the world.”
The Kensington Park Hotel certainly harbored its share. On those rare occasions when Madame Claire took a meal in the dining-room she was always struck by the number of white, gray, or shining pink heads to be seen. And the faces that went with them were usually placid and content. In the lounge at tea-time they fought the war over again, they made or unmade political reputations, they discussed the food, the latest play, and most of all they discussed—the women at least—Royalty and the nobility. Not even in the drawing-rooms of the very great were exalted names so freely and intimately spoken of. One old dame with an ear trumpet, who later comes into the story, had once or twice, at Judy’s or Noel’s request, been invited into Madame Claire’s sitting room. Noel called her the Semaphore. From her they learned what it was the Royal family had for breakfast the morning war was declared, or what Princess Mary said to young Lord B—— when he trod on her toe at a dance. How these stray bits of gossip or surmise ever filtered their way down the old lady’s ear trumpet was a mystery to every one. She was an old woman of strange importance. She envied no one under Heaven. She possessed a small black instrument that seemed to be the focusing point of every fine wire of invention. She seemed to be the central office of the world’s “They Say” bureau. No one was ever rude to her, and no one, except perhaps Madame Claire and her grandchildren, ever really disbelieved her, because hardly any one does altogether disbelieve rumors, even when they come from such a source. Her greatness of course was at its height during the war, when she was generously supplied with the most astounding pieces of secret information by obliging young nephews. However, she bore the flatness of peace with serenity, contenting herself with the doings of the great. Of such, with variations, is the kingdom of Kensington!
A day or two later Eric and Louise came together to see Madame Claire. It was so long since they had done this that she felt a little flutter of hope, believing that it indicated a better state of things between them. But she found soon enough that she was wrong. Louise was possessed—in the sense that people one reads of in the Bible were possessed—by her own special demon of jealousy.
She was not jealous of any other woman—it was far less simple than that. She was jealous of the ease with which her husband made friends, of his popularity, of his charm. They had been guests at a rather political house party, where Eric was unmistakably the center of attraction. She was aware that she had been more tolerated than liked, and the knowledge did not contribute to her peace of mind. She was determined to make him feel (on any grounds whatsoever) inferior to her. She could understand and respect superiority of birth, but she distrusted and resented superiority of intellect.
“A most successful week-end,” Eric told his mother, drawing up a chair beside hers. “Their house is lovely, and I am very fond of them all. I should like to think that I am one-half as good a host as Charles Murray-Carstairs.”