Merry Go Round by W. Somerset Maugham

grandmother, for his mother married Lord Vizard very shortly after her husband's death. Even now she's a beautiful woman. In those days she was perfectly gorgeous; her photograph was in all the shop-windows – her prime coincided with the fashion for young men to buy the portraits of celebrated beauties they did not know, and the chastest women thought it no shame for their pictures to be exposed in every stationer's shop or to decorate the chimney-piece of a platonic counter-jumper. At that time Lady Vizard's doings were minutely chronicled in the papers that concern themselves with such things, and her parties were thronged with all the fashion of London. She was to be seen at every race-meeting surrounded by admirers; of course she had a box at the opera, and at Homburg attracted the most august attention.'
    'Did Mr Kent ever see her?' asked Bella.
    'He used to spend part of his holidays with her, and she dazzled him as she dazzled everyone else. Frank told me that Basil simply worshipped his mother; he has always had a passion for beauty, and was immensely proud of her magnificent appearance. I used at one time occasionally to meet her at parties, and she struck me as one of the most splendid, majestic women I ever saw; one felt that something like that must have looked Madame de Montespan.'
    'Was she fond of her son?'
    'In her way. Naturally she didn't want him bothering around her. She kept her youth marvellously. Lord Vizard was younger than herself, and she didn't much care to produce a boy who was very nearly grown up. So she was quite pleased that old Mrs Kent, whom she detested, should look after him. But when he came to stay she filled his pockets with money, took him to the play every night and thoroughly amused him. I dare say she too was pleased with his good looks, for at sixteen he must have been more beautiful than a Greek ephebe. But if ever he showed any signs of inconvenient attachment, I
doubt whether Lady Vizard encouraged him. From Harrow he went to Oxford, and Frank, who is a very acute observer, told me that then Basil was a peculiarly innocent boy, absurdly open and frank, who never kept a secret from anybody, and said without thinking, ingenuously, everything that came into his head. Of course scandal for a good many years had been busy with Lady Vizard; her extravagance was notorious, and Vizard was known to be neither rich nor generous; but his wife did everything that cost a great deal of money, and her emeralds were obviously worth a fortune. Even Basil cannot have helped seeing how many masculine friends she had, though perhaps, when he was spending with her the occasional week to which he looked forward so intensely, she took pains that nothing too flaunting should come to his eyes; and when strange gentlemen slipped sovereigns into his hand he pocketed them under the impression that his own merit had earned them. And now I must go to bed.'
    Miss Ley, with a tantalizing smile, rose from her chair, but Bella stopped her.
    'Don't be cattish, Mary. You know I want to hear the rest of the story.'
    'Are you aware that it's past one o'clock?'
    'I don't care, you must finish it now.'
    Miss Ley, having created this small diversion, sat down again, proceeding, not at all against her will, with the recital.
    'Basil's only vanity was his mother, and he talked of her incessantly, taking a manifest pride in her social success and the admiration which everywhere she excited; he would have staked his life on her immaculate character, and when the crash came he was simply overwhelmed. You remember the case; it was one of those in which a prudish English public takes keen delight. Every placard announced in huge letters that for the especial delectation of the middle classes a divorce in high life was being fought at the Law Courts in which there were no less than four co-respondents. It appeared that Lord Vizard, chiefly because he was frightened of his wife's extravagance, had at last filed a petition in