The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars (4 page)

Lady Diana stopped to arrange a rebellious eyelash with her rose-tipped fingers and carried on:

“You’ll have to travel with me should the necessity arise. I am sure that you’ve heard all about the thousands and thousands of miles which I have covered on Continental railroads. A French humorist had the audacity to call me the Madonna of the Sleeping Cars. To call me a madonna of any sort is a consummate bit of irony because, although I may look like one, I have none of the other attributes. As a matter of fact, I have been in every European watering-place; I’ve lost more billets-doux than you could shake a stick at, between the pages of timetables and illustrated magazines; there is not a customs officer in any country who doesn’t recognize the perfume of my valises, and who doesn’t know the most sacred details of my lingerie. They say that to go away is to die a little, but it’s my theory that to die would be to go too far and that to travel is simply
to change one’s ideas. I count on you to amuse me whenever the telegraph poles are too far apart—to give light to the solemnity of long tunnels—to put a little spice into the faded menus of dining-cars and to chase the flies out of the hotel lobbies wherever we may happen to be.”

Lady Diana gave me no time to answer. She added, “Of course it’s impossible to pay you what you’re really worth. You have a perfectly lovely title and my fortune would never
suffice, but I offer you five hundred pounds a month just for your cigars, your gardenias, and your silk socks. Will you accept that?”

This declaration, issuing from the lips of such a famous beauty, amused and at the same time disconcerted me. I bowed. “I accept, Lady Diana, except for the five hundred pounds. I don’t rent my services, I give them. I will be your secretary—how shall I say?—for the love of Art, if you like, and possibly because I don’t know what to do with myself and because I’m bored.”

My reply must have astonished Lady Wynham for she lowered her brows. “I would have preferred not to be under obligations to you. I have never considered it very nice to accept things without giving something in exchange.”

“My dear lady, your sympathy and your kindness will be ample recompense for me.”

Lady Wynham hesitated before she replied, “All right. A week from today you will probably have earned one and conquered the other.”

Then she added, “For the sake of good form, my dear Prince, would you mind showing me your papers? To be frank about it, one can be a prince and still be a burglar. I like to know, once and for all, where I stand in regard to my associates.”

I satisfied her curiosity. She handed back my papers exactly the way a guardian of the law returns an automobile license to a motorist who has been speeding, and, slipping her arm familiarly through mine, she suggested that we take a look around her house.

Her room was not devoid of originality. It consisted of a very large, low bed, spread with baby blue, and watched over by two electric lights, which went out when her little thumb
touched the magic button. A tremendous white bearskin—imported from Greenland—faithfully awaited her small pink feet. The petals of a dozen American Beauty roses fell casually from a crystal vase. On the walls I caught a glimpse of some ancient engravings by Nanteuil, an original by Felician Rops, a picture by Alma-Tadema, absurdly childish in its character, and a tremendous portrait of Milady herself, seated before her dressing-table.

Lady Diana made me admire her white marble bathroom—worthy of a Roman Empress—and her dressing-room, done in Nile green silk, where bottles of perfume alternated with vials of cosmetics, a complete laboratory for the upkeep of the epidermis.

The next day I embarked on my new career. I kept my little apartment in Kensington because I felt that it was more correct to live there, and I consecrated all my waking hours to this charming, although difficult, aristocrat. Every day she found some means of introducing me to her friends. They were astonished to learn that the Prince Séliman was in the employ of the beautiful widow from Berkeley Square. Some even insinuated that I was concerned less in defending her interests than in attacking her virtue. But let the gossips spread their poisonous remarks through the smoking-rooms of clubs, and the most exclusive drawing-rooms. In spite of any desires I may have had, I confined myself to kissing Lady Diana’s proffered hand but twice a day.

The morning after the consultation with Professor Traurig I penetrated into the confines of her boudoir at about eleven o’clock. Ordinarily she was dressed—sparsely, I admit—and helped me with the business of reading her mail, but this time her maid, a French girl called Juliette, told me:

“Oh, Monsieur—I can’t understand what Milady can have done last night! She went out after dinner in the simplest of tailor-made suits and she never returned until five o’clock this morning! I asked her if I could do anything for her, but she only said, ‘No, you may have the evening to yourself.’ ”

A voice called to me through the closed door:

“Gerard! Come in, please. I want to talk to you.”

I went into the sanctuary. Lady Diana was still in bed. She made me sit down beside her; straightened out her pillow with a vicious little fist, and looked at me—her arms forming a right angle behind her head.

“Gerard—please don’t scold me. I did a bit of slumming on my own last night—but it’s a little your fault, or, if you don’t admit that—it’s on account of that idiot Traurig with his questionnaire. Only an old bounder would ask such things.”

“Lady Diana!”

“But really, Gerard, I’ll never do it again.”

Her angelic blue eyes gazed at me. There was no question as to their sincerity. She asked me in a gentle voice, so gentle, “Gerard, do you really think I’m a bad woman?”

Is a woman really bad when she tries to hide her shortcomings the way Circe did, and when she is dressed by the best
couturiére
in the world? How can one distinguish between good and bad in anybody? People’s minds are like beehives. If the “rainbow” is an intoxicating drink of which the various ingredients form a liquid prism, why, then, should not Lady Diana’s ego be a rainbow of virtues and vices which can triumph over the most fastidious morals?

“My dear,” I said, affectionately caressing her little wrist, “you are not a bad woman. You’re a philanthropist.”

“A philanthropist! Gerard, don’t exaggerate things. Remember that Lord Wynham is watching us from the soft spot
in heaven where he is expiating his immoderate love for roast beef and thick puddings. Lord Wynham would probably take exception to your last remark.”

“I thought you understood that I was speaking figuratively.”

“Oh, well, if that’s the case—I suppose you’ve given me a back-handed rebuke. So much the better. Anyway, Gerard, you may as well know the whole truth. One day, perhaps, I shall be forced to live—to earn my pocket money—by permitting unwelcome kisses.”

“Lady Diana, your language astonishes me. I can’t imagine your accepting, for any reason in the world, advances which your own caprice did not desire.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, Gerard,” she said, suddenly becoming serious, “because you don’t know the intimate details of my life. Remember, you’ve only been with me for five months. It’s highly probable that I’ll be ruined before long.”

“Ruined?”

“The terrific income taxes after the War caused Lord Wynham to sell all his property in Kent. He got about a million and a half pounds out of that. I’ve spent the lion’s share since he died. There were some government bonds and some negotiable stocks. Poker, baccarat, and two or three other little extravagances devoured all those. What I have now is my castle in Glensloy and about six hundred thousand pounds, which are practically all invested in industrials. They are worrying me. You’ve heard of Sumatra rubber and Bengal oil. Yesterday there were some disturbing reports about the rubber company, and the revolution in Bengal is likely to stop the wells from flowing—”

“Lady Diana, why didn’t you tell me about this before? I would have tried to—”

“My dear boy, I was far from worrying about it myself. My
broker—I’ll get even with him one day—never gave me a word of advance information. I am now under the impression that he is in with the people who’ve tried to start a panic in connection with the rubber company—but, after all, the real point is that before the autumn I am practically certain to be in a bad situation.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t mean that I’m going to jump off Westminster Bridge, but that in order to hold my position, in order to keep up appearances, I may find it necessary to accept the amateurish kisses of the first millionaire who comes along.”

There was a knock at the door. Juliette came in with a card. Lady Diana read aloud:

“
Caroline, Ltd., One-Twenty-Six New Bond Street
.

“Why, that’s my dressmaker,” she said. “I suppose he has some new model that he wants me to display. Go and see what it’s all about, Gerard.”

I went into the drawing-room where I found Mr. Caroline, Ltd. looking very sober and severe. He saluted me with a low bow. He knew me by sight and spoke without preamble.

“Prince, I’ve taken the liberty of presenting myself this morning to ask a slight favor of Lady Wynham.”

“Why, of course. You want the use of her name to popularize a new model?”

“No, no. That isn’t exactly what I mean—”

Caroline Limited’s ambassador pulled out a paper from his pocket, offered it to me, and said, “The firm would be much obliged if you would be kind enough to ask Lady Wynham to pay her bill. She recalls, I am sure, her eleven dresses of last winter, her four evening wraps, her three fur coats, and a few trifles, bringing the whole thing to a matter of eight thousand, two hundred and fifteen pounds.”

I looked at the man with the most distant air and said, “I cannot understand, sir, how such a house as Caroline Limited can have so far lost its dignity. When a dressmaking establishment is fortunate enough to dress Lady Diana Wynham it is only too glad to wait until she has leisure to consider her bill, and her check requires no investigation.”

“Oh, Prince, I know exactly what you mean, but there are situations when—in any case, Madam Caroline would be happy if Lady Wynham would pardon her and pay her. If not the entire amount—at least, something on account.”

I thought I understood. “So that’s it. Well, then, why didn’t you say so in the first place? I had no idea that the financial condition of Caroline Limited was so precarious.”

The emissary raised his brows, appeared shocked that I should question the standing of his firm, and, with a supreme effort explained, “Pardon me, Prince. Our financial situation is not precarious. It is Lady Wynham’s which has made us a bit apprehensive. Do you read the
Financial News
?”

And, in order to convince me, the gentleman pulled the last edition from his pocket. With a peremptory finger he showed me the latest Stock Exchange quotations. Beside them I read these lines:

We hear on good authority that the Sumatra Rubber Company is going out of business today. They say there is something dishonest about it. The people on the inside insinuate that there may be a legal investigation about various things
.

“Prince,” he added, “everyone knows that the best part of Lady Wynham’s fortune is invested in rubber stocks; therefore, you can surely understand why we are looking out for ourselves, and you will allow me to beg that you won’t forget us.”

I had no more than rid myself of that unwelcome guest when the representative of Daring and Pillow, the interior
decorators in Regent Street, was announced. He presented me the itemized statement of the work which those famous decorators had executed in the course of two years in the Berkeley Square House—9,552 pounds, a few shillings, and some pence. I put two and two together, remembered what the dressmaker had said, and, completely at a loss as to what to do, I told Lady Diana all about it, showing her, at the same time, the newspaper report.

She went pale under the brutality of such a cruel shock and nervously crumpled the paper in her fingers.

“Naturally,” she said, “all my creditors are upset. The rats are running around to try and get a few bits of what is left of the cheese.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it, Lady Diana?”

“I am going to see my broker in Lombard Street. I am going to have an interview with my lawyers, Smith and Jones, to find out if I can do anything to that bandit, and I am going to lunch with Somerset Wiffle at the Carlton to ask him to interest the Speaker of the House of Commons on the subject of this rubber company failure. While I am doing all that you must write to the Duchess of Southminster, who is President of the Tuberculosis Society of the Isle of Wight, to the effect that I agree to assist at her charity matinée on the third of May at Garrick’s Theater. I even count on you to suggest an original idea. Please try to understand me, Gerard. My boat is getting full of water. I am sinking slowly. If things go from bad to worse I’ll go under this summer, but, I don’t want anyone to know that! The essential thing in this world is to know how to sink on Medusa’s oars—always smiling. In France I believe you call that
avoir de panache
, Gerard. I want my
panache
to tickle Nelson’s boots on the column of Trafalgar and I want it to drive mad that menagerie composed of hyenas, jackals and wolves that they call ‘All London.’ ”

UNDER HER NEGLIGÉE, LADY DIANA’S BREASTS were like two doves caught in a pink net.

“Well, old darling,” she said, “inasmuch as you seem unable to give me an original idea I must ask you something frankly. Would I look ridiculous if I should dance stark naked at the Charity performance at the Garrick?”

“Oh, Lady Diana!”

And when I said that, it was not the servile approbation of a friend, trying to flatter, but the exclamation of a connoisseur, who knows the value of a figure which conforms to the ideals of Praxiteles.

I added, “But of course not—you must be joking. Your best friends are unanimous in admitting the grace of your figure, the suppleness of your limbs and, in general, the classical beauty of your entire one hundred and twenty pounds.”