Читать книгу The Way of Ambition - Robert Hichens - Страница 10

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Mrs. Shiffney had more money than she knew how to spend, although she was recklessly extravagant. Her mother, who was dead, had been an Austrian Jewess, and from her had come the greater part of Mrs. Shiffney's large personal fortune. Her father, Sir Willy Manning, was still alive, and was a highly cultivated and intelligent Englishman of the cosmopolitan type; Mrs. Shiffney derived her peculiar and attractive look of high breeding and her completely natural manner from him. From her mother she had received the nomadic instinct which kept her perpetually restless, and which often drove her about the world in search of the change and diversion which never satisfied her. Lady Manning had been a feverish traveller and had written several careless and clever books of description. She had died of a fever in Hong-Kong while her husband was in Scotland. Although apparently of an unreserved nature, he had never bemoaned her loss.

Mrs. Shiffney had a husband, a lenient man who loved comfort and who was fond of his wife in an altruistic way. She and he got on excellently when they were together and quite admirably when they were parted, as they very often were, for yachting made Mr. Shiffney feel "remarkably cheap." As he much preferred to feel expensive he had nothing to do with The Wanderer unless she lay snug in harbor. His hobby was racing. He was a good horseman, disliked golf, and seldom went out of the British Isles, though he never said that his own country was good enough for him. When he did cross the Channel he visited Paris, Monte Carlo, Homburg, Biarritz, or some place where he was certain to be in the midst of his "pals." The strain of wildness, which made his wife uncommon and interesting, did not exist in him, but he was rather proud of it in her, and had been heard to say more than once, "Addie's a regular gipsy," as if the statement were a high compliment. He was a tall, well-built, handsome man of fifty-two, with gray hair and moustache, an agreeable tenor voice, which was never used in singing, and the best-cut clothes in London. Although easily kind he was thoroughly selfish. Everybody had a good word for him, and nobody, who really knew him, ever asked him to perform an unselfish action. "That isn't Jimmy's line" was their restraining thought if they had for a moment contemplated suggesting to Mr. Shiffney that he might perhaps put himself out for a friend. And Jimmy was quite of their opinion, and always stuck to his "line," like a sensible fellow.

Two or three days after Mrs. Shiffney's visit to Claude Heath her husband, late one afternoon, found her in tears.

"What's up, Addie?" he asked, with the sympathy he never withheld from her. "Another gown gone wrong?"

Mrs. Shiffney shook her powerful head, on which was a marvellous black hat crowned with a sort of factory chimney of stiff black plumes.

Mr. Shiffney lit a cigar.

"Poor old Addie!" he said. He leaned down and stroked her shoulder. "I wish you could get hold of somebody or something that'd make you happy," he remarked. "I'm sure you deserve it."

His wife dried her tears and sniffed two or three times almost with the frankness of a grief-stricken child.

"I never shall!"

"Why not, Addie?"

"There's something in me—I don't know! I should get tired of anyone who didn't get tired of me!"

She almost began to cry again, and added despairingly:

"So what hope is there? And I do so want to enjoy myself! I wonder if there ever has been a woman who wanted to enjoy herself as much as I do?"

Mr. Shiffney blew forth a cloud of smoke, extending the little finger of the hand which held his cigar.

"We all want to have a good time," he observed. "A first-rate time. What else are we here for?"

He spoke seriously.

"We are here to keep things going, I s'pose—to keep it up, don't you know? We mustn't let it run down. But if we don't enjoy ourselves down it goes. And that doesn't do, does it?"

He flicked the ash from his cigar.

"What's the special row this time?" he continued, without any heated curiosity, but with distinct sympathy.

Mrs. Shiffney looked slightly more cheerful. She enjoyed telling things if the things were closely connected with herself.

"Well, I want to start for a cruise," she began. "I can't remain for ever glued to Grosvenor Square. I must move about and see something."

She had just been for a month in Paris.

"Of course. What are we here for?" observed her husband.

"You always understand! Sit down, you old thing!"

Mr. Shiffney sat down, gently pulling up his trousers.

"And the row is," she continued, shaking her shoulders, "that I want Claude Heath to come and he won't. And, since he won't, he's really the only living man I want to have on the cruise."

"Who is he?" observed Mr. Shiffney. "I've never heard of him. Is he one of your special pals?"

"Not yet. I met him at Max's. He's a composer, and I want to know what he's like."

"I expect he's like all the rest."

"No, he isn't!" she observed decisively.

"Why won't he come? Perhaps he's a bad sailor."

"He didn't even trouble himself to say that. He was in such a hurry to refuse that he didn't bother about an excuse. And this afternoon he called, when I was in, and never asked for me, only left cards and bolted, although I had been to his house to ask him to come on The Wanderer."

"Afraid of you, is he?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. He's never been among us."

"Poor chap! But surely that's a reason for him to want to get in?"

"Wouldn't you think so? Wouldn't anyone think so? The way I'm bombarded! But he seems only anxious to keep out of everything."

"A pose very likely."

"I don't believe it is."

"I leave it to you. No one sharper in London. Is he a gentleman—all that sort of thing?"

"Oh, of course!"

Mr. Shiffney pulled up his trousers a little more, exposing a pair of striped silk socks which emerged from shining boots protected by white spats.

"To be sure. If he hadn't been he'd have jumped at you and The Wanderer."

"Naturally. I shan't go at all now! What an unlucky woman I always am!"

"You never let anyone know it."

"Well, Jimmy, I'm not quite a fool. Be down on your luck and not a soul will stay near you."

"I should think not. Why should they? One wants a bit of life, not to hear people howling and groaning all about one. It's awful to be with anyone who's under the weather."

"Ghastly! I can't stand it! But, all the same, it's a fearful corvée to keep it up when you're persecuted as I am."

"Poor old Addie!"

Mr. Shiffney threw his cigar into the grate reflectively and lightly touched his moustaches, which were turned upward, but not in a military manner.

"Things never seem quite right for you," he continued.

"And other women have such a splendid time!" she exclaimed. "The disgusting thing is that he goes all the while to Violet Mansfield."

"She's dull enough and quite old too."

"No, she isn't dull. You're wrong there."

"I daresay. She doesn't amuse me."

"She's not your sort."

"Too feverish, too keen, brainy in the wrong way. I like brains, mind you, and I know where they are. But I don't see the fun of having them jumped at one."

"He does, apparently, unless it's really Charmian."

"The girl? She's not bad. Wants to be much cleverer than she is, of course, like pretty nearly all the girls, except the sporting lot; but not bad."

"Jimmy"—Mrs. Shiffney's eyes began once more to look audacious—"shall I ask Charmian Mansfield to come on the yacht?"

"You think that might bring him? Why not ask both of them?"

"No; I won't have the mother!"

"Why not?"

"Because I won't!"

"The best of reasons, too."

"You understand us better than any man in London."

She sat reflecting. She was beginning to look quite cheerful.

"It would be rather fun," she resumed, after a minute. "Charmian Mansfield, Max—if he can get away—Paul Lane. It isn't the party I'd thought of, but still—"

"Which of them were you going to take?"

"Never mind."

"I don't. And where did you mean to go?"

"I told him to the Mediterranean."

"But it wasn't!"

"Oh, I don't know! Where can one go? That's another thing. It's always the same old places, unless one has months to spare, and then one gets bored with the people one's asked. Things are so difficult."

"One place is very much like another."

"To you. But I always hope for an adventure round the corner."

"I've been round a lot of corners in my time, but I might almost as well have stuck to the club."

"Of course you might!"

She got up.

"I must think about Charmian," she said, as she went casually out of the room.

Mrs. Shiffney turned the new idea over and over in her restless mind, which was always at work in a desultory but often clever way. She could not help being clever. She had never studied, never applied herself, never consciously tried to master anything, but she was quick-witted, had always lived among brilliant and highly cultivated people, had seen everything, been everywhere, known everyone, looked into all the books that had been talked about, cast at least a glance at all the pictures which had made any stir. And she gathered impressions swiftly, and, moreover, had a natural flair for all that was first-rate, original, or strange. As she was quite independent in mind, and always took her own line, she had become an arbiter, a leader of taste. What she liked soon became liked in London and Paris throughout a large circle. Unfortunately, she was changeable and apt to be governed by personal feeling in matters connected with art. When she cast away an artist she generally cast away his art with him. If it was first-rate she did not condemn it as bad. She contented herself with saying that she was "sick of it." And very soon a great many of her friends, and their friends, were sick of it, too. She was a quicksand because she was a singularly complete egoist. But very few people who met her failed to come under the spell of her careless charm, and many, because she had much impulse, swore that she had a large heart. Only to her husband, and occasionally, in a fit of passion, to someone who she thought had treated her badly, did she show a lachrymose side of her nature. She was noted for her gaiety and joie de vivre and for the energy with which she pursued enjoyment. Her cynicism did not cut deep, her irony was seldom poisoned. She spoke well of people, and was generous with her money. With her time she was less generous. She was not of those who are charitable with their golden hours. "I can't be bothered!" was the motto of her life. And wise people did not bother her.

She had seen that, for a moment, Claude Heath had been tempted by the invitation to the cruise. A sudden light had gleamed in his eyes, and her swift apprehension had gathered something of what was passing in his imagination. But almost immediately the light had vanished and the quick refusal had come. And she knew that it was a refusal which she could not persuade him to cancel unless she called someone to her assistance. His austerity, which attracted her whimsical and unscrupulous nature, fought something else in him and conquered. But the something else, if it could be revived, given new strength, would make a cruise with him, even to all the old places, quite interesting, Mrs. Shiffney thought. And any refusal always made her greedy and obstinate. "I will have it!" was the natural reply of her nature to any "You can't have it!"

She often acted impulsively, hurried by caprices and desires, and that same evening she sent the following note to Charmian: