Amanda had come back to England in a state of extravagantly vigorous womanhood.Benham's illness, though it lasted only two or three weeks, gave her a sense of power and leadership for which she had been struggling instinctively ever since they came together.For a time at Locarno he was lax-minded and indolent, and in that time she formed her bright and limited plans for London.Benham had no plans as yet but only a sense of divergence, as though he was being pulled in opposite directions by two irresistible forces.To her it was plain that he needed occupation, some distinguished occupation, and she could imagine nothing better for him than a political career.
She perceived he had personality, that he stood out among men so that his very silences were effective.She loved him immensely, and she had tremendous ambitions for him and through him.
And also London, the very thought of London, filled her with appetite.Her soul thirsted for London.It was like some enormous juicy fruit waiting for her pretty white teeth, a place almost large enough to give her avidity the sense of enough.She felt it waiting for her, household, servants, a carriage, shops and the jolly delight of buying and possessing things, the opera, first-nights, picture exhibitions, great dinner-parties, brilliant lunch parties, crowds seen from a point of vantage, the carriage in a long string of fine carriages with the lamplit multitude peering, Amanda in a thousand bright settings, in a thousand various dresses.She had had love; it had been glorious, it was still glorious, but her love-making became now at times almost perfunctory in the contemplation of these approaching delights and splendours and excitements.
She knew, indeed, that ideas were at work in Benham's head; but she was a realist.She did not see why ideas should stand in the way of a career.Ideas are a brightness, the good looks of the mind.One talks ideas, but THE THING THAT IS, IS THE THING THAT IS.And though she believed that Benham had a certain strength of character of his own, she had that sort of confidence in his love for her and in the power of her endearments that has in it the assurance of a faint contempt.She had mingled pride and sense in the glorious realization of the power over him that her wit and beauty gave her.
She had held him faint with her divinity, intoxicated with the pride of her complete possession, and she did not dream that the moment when he should see clearly that she could deliberately use these ultimate delights to rule and influence him, would be the end of their splendour and her power.Her nature, which was just a nest of vigorous appetites, was incapable of suspecting his gathering disillusionment until it burst upon her.
Now with her attention set upon London ahead he could observe her.
In the beginning he had never seemed to be observing her at all, they dazzled one another; it seemed extraordinary now to him to note how much he had been able to disregard.There were countless times still when he would have dropped his observation and resumed that mutual exaltation very gladly, but always now other things possessed her mind....
There was still an immense pleasure for him in her vigour; there was something delightful in her pounce, even when she was pouncing on things superficial, vulgar or destructive.She made him understand and share the excitement of a big night at the opera, the glitter and prettiness of a smart restaurant, the clustering little acute adventures of a great reception of gay people, just as she had already made him understand and sympathize with dogs.She picked up the art world where he had laid it down, and she forced him to feel dense and slow before he rebelled against her multitudinous enthusiasms and admirations.South Harting had had its little group of artistic people; it is not one of your sleepy villages, and she slipped back at once into the movement.Those were the great days of John, the days before the Post Impressionist outbreak.John, Orpen, Tonks, she bought them with vigour.Artistic circles began to revolve about her.Very rapidly she was in possession....
And among other desirable things she had, it seemed, pounced upon and captured Lady Marayne.
At any rate it was clear that that awful hostile silence and aloofness was to end.Benham never quite mastered how it was done.
But Amanda had gone in one morning to Desborough Street, very sweetly and chastely dressed, had abased herself and announced a possible (though subsequently disproved) grandchild.And she had appreciated the little lady so highly and openly, she had so instantly caught and reproduced her tone, that her success, though only temporary in its completeness, was immediate.In the afternoon Benham was amazed by the apparition of his mother amidst the scattered unsettled furnishings of the new home Amanda had chosen in Lancaster Gate.He was in the hall, the door stood open awaiting packing-cases from a van without.In the open doorway she shone, looking the smallest of dainty things.There was no effect of her coming but only of her having arrived there, as a little blue butterfly will suddenly alight on a flower.
"Well, Poff!" said Lady Marayne, ignoring abysses, "What are you up to now, Poff? Come and embrace me....""No, not so," she said, "stiffest of sons...."She laid hold of his ears in the old fashion and kissed one eye.
"Congratulations, dear little Poff.Oh! congratulations! In heaps.
I'm so GLAD."
Now what was that for?
And then Amanda came out upon the landing upstairs, saw the encounter with an involuntary cry of joy, and came downstairs with arms wide open.It was the first intimation he had of their previous meeting.He was for some minutes a stunned, entirely inadequate Benham....
4
