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The Master Mummer, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 3 - Chapter 8 |
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_ BOOK III CHAPTER VIII "This, then," the Prince remarked, raising his eyeglass, "is the young lady whose romantic history you have been recounting to me? But, my dear lady, she is charming!" Madame held out her hands affectionately and kissed Isobel, who had entered the room with her cousin, on both cheeks. Then she took her by the hand and presented her to the Prince of Cleves and several others of the company. Isobel was a little pale, but her manner was perfectly easy and self-possessed. She was dressed, somewhat to my surprise, in the deepest mourning, and she even wore a band of black velvet around her neck. "My dear child," her aunt said pleasantly, "I scarcely think that your toilette is a compliment to us all. White should be your colour for many years to come." Isobel raised her eyes. Her tone was no louder than ordinary, but somehow her voice seemed to be possessed of unusually penetrating qualities. "My dear aunt," she said, "you forget I am in mourning for my stepfather, Monsieur Feurgeres, who was very good to me." A company of perfectly bred people accepted the remark in sympathetic silence. There was not even an eyebrow raised, but I fancy that Isobel's words, calmly spoken and with obvious intent, struck the keynote of her future relations with her aunt. Isobel, a few minutes later, brought her cousin over to me. "Adelaide is very anxious to know you, Arnold!" she said quietly. This was all the introduction she offered. Immediately afterwards her aunt called Isobel away to be presented to a new arrival. "Mr. Greatson," Adelaide said earnestly, "I cannot tell you how delighted I am that all this trouble is over, and that Isobel is coming to us. But I think--I think she is paying too great a price. I think my mother is hatefully, wickedly cruel!" "My dear young lady," I protested, "I do not think that you must say that. Your mother's conditions are necessary. In fact, whether she made them or not, I think that they would be inevitable." "You are not even to come to Illghera with us? Not to visit us even?" I shook my head. "I belong to the great family of Bohemians," I reminded her, "who have no possessions and but one dress suit. What should I do at Court?" "What indeed!" she answered, with a little sigh, "for you are a citizen of the greater world!" "There is no such thing," I answered. "We carry our own world with us. We make it small or large with our own hands." "For some," she murmured, "the task then is very difficult. Where one lives in a forcing-house of conventions, and the doors are fast locked, it is very easy to be stifled, but it is hard indeed to breathe." "Princess," I said gravely, "have you examined the windows?" "I do not understand you," she answered. "But it is simple, surely," I declared. "Even if you must remain in the forcing-house, it is for you to open the windows and breathe what air you will. For your thoughts at least are free, and it is of our thoughts that our lives are fashioned." She sighed. "Ah, Mr. Greatson," she said, "one does not talk like that at Court." "You have a great opportunity," I answered. "Character is a flower which blossoms in all manner of places. Sometimes it comes nearest to perfection in the most unlikely spots. Prosperity and sunshine are not the best things in the world for it. Sometimes in the gloomy and desolate places its growth is the sturdiest and its flowers the sweetest." The service of dinner had been announced. The English Ambassador took Adelaide away from me, but as she accepted his arm she looked me in the eyes with a grave but wonderfully sweet smile. "I thank you very much, Mr. Greatson," she said. "Our little conversation has been most pleasant." The Archduchess swept up to me. She was looking a little annoyed. "Mr. Greatson," she said, "Isobel is pleading shyness--an absurd excuse. She insists that you take her in to dinner. I suppose she must have her own way to-night, but it is annoying." Madame looked at me as though it were my fault that her plans were disarranged, which was a little unfair. And then Isobel, very serene, but with that weary look about the eyes which seemed only to have increased during the evening, came quietly up and took my arm. "If this is to be our last evening, Arnold, we will at least spend as much of it as possible together," she said gently. "I will be a very dutiful niece, aunt, to-morrow." We moved off together, but not before I was struck with something singular in Madame's expression. She stood looking at us two as though some wholly new idea had presented itself to her. She did not follow us into the dining-room for some few moments. The dinner itself, for an informal one, was a very brilliant function. There were eighteen of us at a large round table, which would easily have accommodated twenty-four. The Cardinal, whose scarlet robes in themselves formed a strange note of colour, sat on the Archduchess's right, touching scarcely any of the dishes which were continually presented to him, and sipping occasionally from the glass of water at his side. The other men and women were all distinguished, and their conversation, mostly carried on in French, was apt, and at times brilliant. Isobel and I perhaps, the former particularly, contributed least to the general fund. Isobel met the advances of her right-hand neighbour with the barest of monosyllables. Lady Delahaye, who sat on my left, left me for the most part discreetly alone. Yet we two spoke very little. I could see that Isobel was disposed to be hysterical, and that her outward calm was only attained by means of an unnatural effort. Yet I fancied that my being near soothed her, and every time I spoke to her or she to me, a certain relief came into her face. All the while I was conscious of one strange thing. The Archduchess, although she had the Cardinal on one side and the Prince of Cleves on the other, was continually watching us. Her interest in their conversation was purely superficial. Her interest in us, on the contrary, was an absorbing one. I could not understand it at all. The conclusion of dinner was marked by an absence of all ceremony. The cigarettes had already been passed round before the Archduchess rose, but those who chose to remain at the table did so. Isobel leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Come with me into the drawing-room. I want to talk to you." I obeyed, and the Archduchess seemed to me purposely to leave us alone. We sat in a quiet corner, and when I saw that there were tears in Isobel's eyes, I knew that my time of trial was not yet over. "Arnold," she said quietly, "you care--whether I am happy or not? You have done so much for me--you must care!" "You cannot doubt it, Isobel," I answered. "I do not. This sort of life will not suit me at all. I do not trust my aunt. I am weary of strangers. Let us give it all up. Take me back to London with you. I feel as though I were going into prison." "Dear Isobel," I said, "you must remember why we decided that it was right for you to rejoin your people." "Oh, I know," she answered. "But even to the last Monsieur Feurgeres hesitated. My mother would never have wished me to be miserable." I shook my head. "I believe that Feurgeres was right," I answered. "I believe that your mother would wish to see you in your rightful place. I believe that it is your duty to claim it." Then I think that for the first time Isobel was unfair to me, and spoke words which hurt. "You do not wish to have me back again," she said slowly. "I have been a trouble to you, I know, and I have upset your life. You want me to go away." I did not answer her. I could not. She leaned forward and looked into my face, and instantly her tone changed. Her soft fingers clutched mine for a moment. "Dear Arnold," she whispered, "I am sorry! Forgive me! I will do what you think best. I did not mean to hurt you." "I am quite sure that you did not, Isobel," I answered. "Listen! I am speaking now for Allan as well as for myself, and for Arthur too. To tear you out of our lives is the hardest thing we have ever had to do. Your coming changed everything for us. We were never so happy before. We shall never know anything like it again. If you were what we thought, a nameless and friendless child, you would be welcome back again, more welcome than I can tell you. But you have your own life to live, and it is not ours. You have your own place to fill in the world, and, forgive me, your mother's memory to vindicate. Monsieur Feurgeres was right. For her sake you must claim the things that are yours." "But shall I never see you again, Arnold?" she asked, with a little catch in her breath. I set my teeth. I could see that the Archduchess was watching us. "Our ways must lie far apart, Isobel," I said. "But who can say? Many things may happen. The Princess Isobel may visit the studios when she is in London or at Homburg. She may patronize the poor writer whose books she knows." Isobel sat and listened to me with stony face. "I wonder," she murmured, "why the way to one's duty lies always through Hell?" Isobel's lips were quivering, and I dared make no effort to console her. The Archduchess came suddenly across the room to us, and bent affectionately over Isobel. "My dear child," she said, "you are overtired. Go and talk to Adelaide. She is alone in the music-room. I have something to say to Mr. Greatson." Isobel rose and left us at once. The Archduchess took her place. She was carrying a fan of black ostrich feathers, and she waved it languidly for some time as though in deep thought. "Mr. Greatson," she said at length. I turned and found her eyes fixed curiously upon me. These were moments which I remembered all my life, and every little detail in connection with them seemed flashed into my memory. The strange perfume, something like the burning of wood spice, wafted towards me by her fan, the glitter of the blue black sequins which covered her magnificent gown, the faint smile upon her parted lips, and the meaning in her eyes--all these things made their instantaneous and ineffaceable impression. Then she leaned a little closer to me. "Mr. Greatson," she repeated, "I know your secret!" _ |
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