CHAPTER X
THE STAGE FILLS
The party which gradually assembled on the lawn about four was somewhatsmall, but very select. Nitocris had too much common sense and too muchreal consideration for her friends and acquaintances to get together amere mob of well-dressed people of probably incompatible tastes andtemperament, and call it a party. She disliked an elbowing crowd and aclatter of fashionably shrill tongues with all the aversion of adelicately developed sensibility. No consideration of rank or socialpower or wealth had the slightest weight with her when she wasdistributing cards of invitation, wherefore the said cards were all themore eagerly awaited by those who did, and did not, get them. The resultof this in the present case was that, although every one accepted andcame, rather less than fifty people had the run of the broad lawns andthe leafy wilderness about them on that momentous afternoon.
The first of the arrivals was Professor Hartley, reputed to be thegreatest mathematician in England. He was a large man with rather heavyfeatures, lit up by alert grey eyes, a big, dome-like cranium, and amanner that was modest almost to diffidence. He brought his wife, aslim and somewhat stern-featured lady, who, in the domestic sense, kepthim in his place with inflexible decision, and worshipped him in hisprofessional capacity, and two pretty, well-dressed, and obviouslywell-bred daughters. Their carriage drew up, turned into the driveprecisely at four. Punctuality was the Professor's one and only socialvice.
Next came Commander Merrill in a hansom. This would be one of the veryfew meetings that he could hope for with his lost beloved--as he nowsadly thought of her--before he put H.M.S. _Blazer_ into commission, andso punctuality on his part was both natural and excusable. Then came afew more carriages containing very nice people with whom we have herebut little concern; and then Miss Brenda, deeply regretting herbeautiful Napier, with her father and mother in a very smart Savoyturn-out followed by a coronetted brougham drawn by a splendid pair ofblack Orloffs. This was followed by an equally smart dog-cart driven bya rather slightly-built but well set-up young man with a lightmoustache, bronzed skin, and brilliant blue eyes. He was good-looking,but if his features had been absolutely plain he could never have lookedcommonplace, for this was Lord Lester Leighton, son of the Earl ofKyneston, and twenty generations of unblemished descent had made him thearistocrat that he was.
Nitocris did not like pompous announcements by servants, and so shereceived her guests, who were all acquaintances or friends, in thegreat porch through which many a brilliant presence had passed, and hadtwo maids waiting inside to see to the wants of the ladies, and theirown coachman and a couple of grooms to attend to matters outside.
Merrill was made as happy as possible by a bright smile, a realhand-clasp instead of the usual Society paw-waggle, and instructions togo and make himself agreeable and useful. Brenda also received a hearty"shake"--Nitocris did not believe in kissing in public--and when theProfessor and Mrs Huysman had gone in, she whispered:
"I suppose that's the Prince's brougham. You must wait here, dear, anddo the introductions. You're responsible, you know."
Brenda assented with a nod and a smile, as the brougham drew up and thesmart tiger jumped down and opened the door. The Prince got out, and wasfollowed by Phadrig the Adept. As she looked at the two men, Nitocrisfelt as though a wave of cold air had suddenly enveloped her wholebeing--body and soul.
"Niti, this is our friend, Prince Oscar Oscarovitch, whom you have beenkind enough to let me invite by proxy. Prince, this is Miss NitocrisMarmion."
Of course all the world knew of Oscar Oscarovitch, the modern Skobeleff,the lineal descendant of Ivan the Terrible, the crystal-brained,steel-willed man who was to be the saviour and regenerator ofhalf-ruined, revolution-rent Russia, but this was the first time thatNitocris had met him in her present life. When she had returned hisstately bow, she looked up and saw with a strange intuition, whichsomehow seemed half-reminiscent an almost perfect type of the primitivewarrior through the disguise of his faultless twentieth-century attire.He was nearly two inches over six feet, but he was so exquisitelyproportioned that he looked less than his height. His skin was fair andsmooth, but tanned to an olive-brown. His forehead was of medium height,straight and square, with jet-black brows drawn almost straight acrossit above a pair of rather soft, dreamy eyes that were blue or blackaccording to the mood of their possessor. His nose was strong andslightly curved, with delicately sensitive nostrils. A dark glossymoustache and beard trimmed _a la_ Tsar, partly hid full, almost sensuallips and a powerful somewhat projecting chin.
As their eyes met the shiver of revulsion passed through her again. Shehardly heard his murmured compliments, but her attention awoke when heturned to the man who was standing behind him, and said with a verygraceful gesture of his left hand:
"Miss Marmion, this is the gentleman whom you have so graciouslypermitted me to bring to your house. This is Phadrig the Adept, as he isknown in his own ancient land of Egypt, a worker of wonders which reallyare wonders, and not mere sleight-of-hand conjuring tricks. He has beengood enough to accompany me in order to convince the learned of the Westthat the Immemorial East could still teach it something if it chose."
Nitocris bowed, and as she looked at the figure which now stood besidethe Prince, she shivered again. She had a swift sense of standing in thepresence of implacable enemies, and yet she had never seen these menbefore, and, for all she knew, she had not an enemy in the world. Shewas intensely relieved when Lord Lester Leighton came up and held outhis hand, and she was able to ask the Prince and his companion to gothrough to the lawn.
No one would have recognised the shabby denizen of the grimy room inCandler's Court, Borough High Street, in the tall, dignified Easterngentleman who walked with slow and stately step through the spacious oldhall of "The Wilderness." He was clad in a light frock-coat suit ofirreproachable cut and fit. The correctly-creased trousers metbrightly-burnished, narrow-toed tan boots; a black-tasselled scarlettarbush was set square on his high forehead, and the dark red tie underhis two-ply collar just added the necessary touch of Oriental colour tohis costume, and went excellently with the lighter red of the tarbush.It is hardly necessary to say that when he and the Prince went out on tothe lawn, they were, as a Society paper report of the function wouldhave put it, "the observed of all observers."
"I'm so glad you were able to be here in time for my little party, LordLeighton," said Nitocris, when she had ended the welcoming of the otherguests. "Dad will be delighted, too----"
She stopped rather suddenly, remembering that Dad would have to tell hisyoung friend the sad story of the mysterious loss of the Mummy; butanother subject was uppermost in her mind just then, and, taking refugein it, she went on quickly:
"Come along to the lawn. I want to introduce you to a very distinguishedgentleman--and his wife and daughter. No less a person, my lord, thanthe great Professor Hoskins van Huysman!"
"What!" exclaimed Leighton, with a laugh that was almost boyish for sucha serious and learned young man. "_The_ Huysman: the Professor's mostdoughty antagonist in the arena of symbols and theorems? Oh, now that_is_ good!"
"Yes; I think you will find him very interesting," replied Nitocris,hoping in her soul that he would find Brenda a great deal moreinteresting. "Come along, or Dad will be beginning to think that I amneglecting my duties, and I must be on quite my best behaviour to-day.We are favoured by the presence of another very celebrated celebrityto-day. That tall man who came in just before you was Prince OscarOscarovitch."
"Oh yes," he said lightly; "I recognised the brute."
"The brute? Dear me, that is rather severe. Then you know His Highness?"she asked in a low, almost eager, voice.
"There are not many men in the Near or Far East who have not some causeto know His Highness," he replied in a serious tone, tinged by thesuspicion of a sneer. "He is about the finest specimen of thewell-veneered savage that even Russia has produced for the lastcentury. He is a brilliant scholar, statesman, and soldier; delightfulamong his equals--or those he
chooses to consider so--charming to men,and, they say, almost irresistible to women; but to his opponents andhis inferiors, a pitiless brute-beast without heart, or soul, or honour.A curious mixture: but that's the man."
"How awful!" murmured Nitocris. "Fancy a man like that being in such aposition!"
But, although she did not understand why, she had heard hisharshly-spoken words with a positive sense of relief. They exactlytranslated and crystallised her first inexplicable feelings of desperateaversion--almost of terror.
She led Leighton to a little group on the left side of the lawn,composed of the three Professors and the wives and daughters of two ofthem. As they approached them, Nitocris became sensible of a curiouskind of nervousness. She did not know that by this commonplace actionshe was reuniting two links in a long-severed chain of destiny, but shehad a dim consciousness that she was going to do something much moreimportant than merely introducing two strangers to each other. Shelooked quite anxiously at Brenda, who had turned towards them as theycame near, and saw that, just for the fraction of a second, her eyesbrightened, and a passing flush deepened the delicate colour in hercheeks. It was almost like a glance of recognition, and yet she had onlyheard his name two or three times, and certainly had never seen himbefore. Then she looked swiftly at Leighton. Yes, there was a flushunder his tan and a new light in his eyes. When she had completed theintroductions she looked away for a moment, and said in her soul:
"Thank goodness! If that is not a case of love at first sight, I shan'tbelieve that there is any such thing, whatever the poets and romancersmay say."
Yes, her womanly intuition was right as far as it reached; but she couldnot yet grasp the full meaning of the marvel which she had helped tobring about. With her father, she believed in the Doctrine ofRe-Incarnation as the only one which affords a logical and entirely justsolution of the bewildering puzzles and ghastly problems of human lifeas seen by the eyes of ignorance. She had grasped in its highest meaningthe truth--that Man is really a living soul, living from eternity toeternity. An immortality with one end to it was to her an unthinkableproposition which could not possibly be true. For her, as for herfather, Eternal Life and Eternal Justice were one. Where a man ended onelife, from that point he began the next: for good or for evil, forignorance or for knowledge. A life lived and ended in righteousness(not, of course, in the narrow theological sense of the term) beganagain in righteousness, and in evil meant inexorably a re-beginning inevil. That was Fate, because it was also immutable Justice. Manpossessed the Divine gift of free will to use or abuse as he would, sofar as his own life-conduct was concerned; but there was no evasion ofthe adamantine law of the survival and progress of the fittest, which,in the course of ages, infallibly proved to be the best. This, in aword, was why "some are born to honour and some to dishonour."
Yet she had still to fathom an even subtler mystery than this: themystery of sexual love. Why should one man and one woman, out of all theteeming millions of humanity, be irresistibly attracted to each other bya force which none can analyse or define? Why should a woman, confrontedwith the choice between two men, one of whom possesses every apparentadvantage over the other, yet feel her heart go out to that other, andimpel her to follow him, even to the leaving of father and mother andhome, and all else that has been dear to her? Why in the soul of everytrue man and woman is Love, when it comes, made Lord of all, and all inall? It is because Love is co-eternal with Life, and these two haveloved, perchance wedded, many times before in other lives which theyhave lived together, and, with the succession of these lives, their lovehas grown stronger and purer, until "falling in love" is merely arecognition of lovers; unconscious, no doubt, to those who have notprogressed far enough in wisdom, but none the less necessary andinevitable for that.[1]
Is it not from ignorance of this truth, or wilful denial of this law,that all the miseries of mismarriage come forth? Again the woman hasthe choice. She obeys the bidding of her own lust of wealth and comfortand social power, or she submits to the pressure of family influence, orthe stress of poverty, and crushes--or thinks she does--the ages-oldlove out of her heart and marries the man she does not love, never hasloved, and never can. She has defied the eternal Law of Selection. Shehas desecrated the sanctity of an immortal soul, and she has defiled thetemple of her body. She has sold herself for a price in themarket-place, and has become a prostitute endowed by law with aconventional respectability, and for this crime she pays the penalty ofunsated heart-hunger. Instead of the fruits of Eden distilling theirsweet juices into her blood, the apples of Gomorrah turn perpetually toashes in her mouth. Often weariness and despair drive her to the briefintoxication of the anodyne of adultery, a further crime which is onlythe natural consequence of the first.
But it must not be thought that women are the only sexual criminals.There are male as well as female prostitutes made respectable byconvention, and the debt-burdened man of title who marries to get goldto re-gild his tarnished coronet is the worst of these; for too often hedrags an innocent but ignorant maiden down to his own vile level. Yetthe chief criminal of all is not the individual, but the Society whichnot only encourages, but too often compels the crime. For this it alsopays the penalty. The collective crime brings the collective curse,for, if human history proves anything, it proves that the Society whichpersistently denies the Law of Selection, and continually defiles theAltar of Love, in the end goes down through a foul welter of lust andgreed and gluttony into the nethermost Pit of Destruction.
Nitocris had not learned this yet. It was not within the plan of EternalJustice that her virgin soul, purified by the strenuous labour of manylives towards the Light, should yet be darkened by the shadow of suchgrim knowledge as this. It was enough for her now that she should be theministering angel of Love and Light.
But at the same moment, standing on that smooth, shady lawn, there werealso two incarnations of the destroying angels of Hate and Darkness, foreven here, amidst this pleasant scene of seemingly innocent pleasure andlaughter, the Eternal Conflict was being continued, as it is and mustbe, wherever man comes in contact with his kith and kind.
Soon after Nitocris and Brenda had joined the group, Phadrig approachedthe Prince, who happened for the moment to be standing alone at thebottom of the lawn, and said softly in Russian:
"Highness, my dream, as you are pleased to call it, has proved true.That is the Queen--she who was once the daughter of the great Rameses,Lady of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms."
"What?" laughed the Prince. "Miss Marmion, that lovely English girl,your old Egyptian Mummy re-vivified! Well, have it as you like. You arewelcome to your dreams as long as you use your arts to help me to layhands on the beautiful reality. I have seen many a fair woman, andthought myself in love with some of them, but by the beard of Ivan, Ihave never seen one like this. I tell you, Phadrig, that the moment myeyes looked for the first time into hers, only a few minutes ago, I knewthat I had found my fate, and, having found it, I shall take very goodcare that I don't lose it. And you shall help me to keep it; I shall tryevery fair means first to make her my princess, for, whether she wasonce Queen of Egypt or not, she is worthy now to sit beside a sovereignon his throne--and it might be that I could some day give her such aplace--but have her I will, if not as fairly-won wife and consort, thenas stolen slave and plaything, to keep as long as my fancy lasts. Andlisten, Phadrig," he went on in a low tone, but with savage intensity."Your life is mine, for I gave it back to you when the lifting of afinger would have sent you into what you would call another incarnation;and from this day forth you must devote it to this end until it isattained, one way or the other. I know you don't care for money aswealth, but in this world it is the right hand of power, and that youlove. All that you need shall be yours for the asking in exchange foryour faithful service. Are you content with the bargain?"
"No, Highness, that will not content me," replied Phadrig, in a voicethat had no expression save unalterable resolve.
"What! Is not that enough for you, a penniless seller
of curios?" saidthe Prince, with a sneer in his tone. "Then I will add to it the readyaid and unquestioning obedience of our secret police, here and inEurope. Will that satisfy you?"
"I do not need the help of your police, Highness," answered theEgyptian, in the same passionless accents. "They are skilful and brave,but they have not the Greater Knowledge. I could turn the wisest of theminto a fool, and frighten the bravest out of his senses in a fewminutes. Use them yourself, Highness, should it become necessary. Theywould be less than useless to me."
"Then what will satisfy you?" asked the Prince impatiently, but with noshow of anger, for he knew the strange power of the man whose help heneeded.
"I do not ask you to believe in the reality of what you call my dreams,Highness," replied Phadrig slowly, "but I do ask--nay, I require, as theprice of my faithful service, your solemn promise in writing, signed andattested, that, if and when my dreams become realities, and your ownhopes are fulfilled, the independence and sovereignty of the AncientLand shall be restored; her temples and tombs and palaces shall berebuilt; her ancient worship revived in my person, and the sceptre ofRameses replaced in the hand of Nitocris the Queen."
The Prince was silent for a few moments. To grant the seeminglyextravagant demand meant to reduce the splendid dream and scheme of hislife to cold, tangible writing, and to put into this man's hand thepower to betray him. On the other hand, their aims were one, and onlythrough him could Phadrig hope to realise his dreams. Of course theywere only dreams; but he was faithful to them, and so he would befaithful to him. At the worst it would be easy to arrange a burglary,or, for the matter of that, a murder in Candler's Court, and that wouldmake an end of the matter.
"Very well, Phadrig," he said at length. "It is settled. I will trustyou, for it is necessary that we should trust each other. You shall havewhat you ask for within a week. Now I must go. I shall tell them that Ihave been arranging the exhibition of your powers which you are going togive them. It will be well to startle them sufficiently to shake theirBritish beef-sense up into something like fear. Make them wonder, but,for the sake of our hostess, don't frighten them too much."
Phadrig only acknowledged his promise with a bow, and he turned away andjoined the growing group in which Nitocris and Brenda were still thecentral objects of attraction.
+------------------------------------------------------------+|FOOTNOTE: || ||[1] The Doctrine, of course, affords the same explanation of||friendships between man and man, and woman and woman. || |+------------------------------------------------------------+
The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension Page 11