by Edith Nesbit
“The rest of the family,” said the new chauffeur,—” do I have to call for them anywhere?”
“They come home with me usually,” she said, “ but to-day they’re away — except Mr. Denis. — No,” she said on a sudden impulse, “Mr. Denis will not be here to-night. You will just have to fetch me.”
“Can you trust your servants?” he asked abruptly.
“We haven’t any — only an old deaf and dumb woman who comes in the mornings. I told you it was all like a fairy story.”
“Aren’t you afraid to be alone here at night?”
“No,” she said, “why should I? And Mr. Mosenthal’s usually within call — only just now he’s in Germany.”
“Does your chauffeur remain on duty here during the day?”
“Not usually. If I want you to stay I’ll tell you. There’s a little den for chauffeurs in the passage near the lift. It’s quite comfortable. Forrester uses it. There’s electric light and books and a writing table and all that. Oh, and do you mind telling me your name.”
“I mind extremely,” he said gravely. “ It is part of the Arabian Nights character of your environment that I should be unable to tell you my name. Would Smith do — just to call me by, John Smith?”
She stood looking down for a moment; then looked at him with candid eyes and said:
“I am so glad I found you. I know I can trust you, completely.”
“You have,” he said, “ and it’s an exquisite promotion for a poor dog of a taxicab driver.”
When Sylvia got back into her sitting-room her anxiety about her lover came to her in a flash — like light when a blind is withdrawn, and she found, fully formed at the back of her mind, the determination that Denis should not be here to-night. Nothing should prevent her seeing Templar alone — hearing his explanations — having his hands in hers, her head on his shoulder.
So when Denny, rather pale after his “state” of yesterday, came in for tea — he brought no letters — she said:
“What about going back to the Wood House to-night, Denny?”
“Aren’t you dancing?”
“Yes, — but after .... wouldn’t you enjoy riding home in a taxicab through the moonlight?”
“If you would. Yes, it would be very beautiful. Yes. I should.”
“I didn’t mean me,” she said, a little confused among the tea-cups. “ I shall stay here. But I thought you’d like it. All alone, you know. A sort of adventure. You know you love adventures.”
“I’m not sure that I love adventures as much as I did. I’d rather stay with you. But I’ll go, if you say so.”
“Well, I think you’d find it fun. I shall be too sleepy to talk to-night,” she lied, a little ashamed but quite determined, “ and I’m sure you’ll love it, really.”
“Very well,” he said, “but don’t trouble about me. It’s enough that you want to be left alone.”
That made her still more ashamed, but triumphant, too. Now the way was clear. Nothing would come between her and her lover. He would come home with her to-night, and she would tell him that she could be married this week after all.
Why should she run the chance of another day like this? Love, it seemed, had power to turn the most ordinary mishaps into nightmare horrors. She would not give Love the chance of playing her this trick again. How silly she had been. And how wretched. And all for nothing. She would see him to-night.
CHAPTER XIII. THE HEAD.
Denny had gone to the music room, and was playing that same air whose spirit she had likened to that of Tristan. Sandra was bored — tired to the soul. All these new dreams and sensations and half-understood awakenings, coming into a life that had, for many months, held only hard work and deserved successes, had worn her out. She was like a man who, long living on bread and water, abruptly dines too well. She now experienced a sort of emotional indigestion: a desire not to have any more. The little adventure of the new chauffeur had been the last course — the course too much. She wanted to be quiet — not to have things happening — to go to bed early, and sleep long.
It seemed to her that what would be the best of all, would be to see him at the theatre; to hear what had happened to keep him away from her; to say a few fond, tired words as she drove back with him from the theatre; and then to say good-night to him at the top of the lift, to go to bed and to sleep and sleep and sleep, — and to wake up in the morning to the soft cradling sense that he loved her, that he couldn’t help not having come on Sunday, and that they were going to be married quite soon (she would tell him that in the motor), that everything was perfectly right, and that there was nothing to worry about. She would wire for Dusa to come up to-morrow. She longed for another woman now to whom to show her “trousseau things.”
Yet to-night she would be alone in The House With No Address. She had arranged to get rid of Denny. Was it not foolish to waste a chance like that? If her lover insisted on coming in to say good-night.... Well, if he wanted to, very much .... She threw away the lily, now nearly dead and smelling too sweet; and, going into Gertrude Steinhart’s room telephoned to the florist in Regent Street for roses — red roses — plenty of them, and at once. Miss Steinhart was a good customer. The flowers arrived quite quickly. Sandra carried the wooden box into The House With No Address, and filled bowls, vases, tall glasses and fat pots. Then she remembered how she had filled the Wood House with flowers yesterday and he had not come. It was a bad omen. She swept the roses, dripping, into her looped skirt, made to throw them into the dust-box in the kitchen, — and hesitated — that seemed a desecration. After all, flowers were flowers, and why be profane? Finally, she carried them into her bedroom and filled wash hand basin and jug and tumbler with them. The omen would not work there. From that distance they could not prevent his coming. She wanted him to come then? The farewell in the motor would not, after all, content her? Who knows? It is certain that she did not know herself.
She and Denny drove to the Hilarity together.
“You’re sure the head’s all right?” she asked as they went. “ It must be right to-night because this is your benefit — your music. Everything must be perfect.”
“I’m quite sure,” he said. “Would I fail you? What is Salome’s dance without the head — the dance of love and horror? It is a better head than the last one, too. It’s made of something different — not wax — a new composition. It’s much more like life — like death, I mean. You’ll find it will inspire you, Princess. I wish I could see you dance it. I hate having to work that silly trick, to take the head from you. It means I never see you dance. I want to see you dance . . ..”
“Couldn’t you get someone else to work the thing?”
“No — never. Promise me you’ll never let anyone else give you the head or take it from you. It’s not much I can do for you — don’t let anyone else do that. But I do want to see the dance just this once. The first and last time.”
“Well, look here . . .. “ the jealous love in his voice moved her. She was going to be so happy herself. She wanted to make everyone else happy. At that moment she would have denied Denny nothing. And this was such a natural, loving, flattering little wish of his. “I’ll tell you what. Slip up and see the dance. You can easily get back in time to take the head. And I’ll dance my very best, dear, to please you.” She found his hand, cold and thin as a bird’s claw, and pressed it between her warm palms.
“You’re always doing something for me,” he said. “Every bit of life I’ve had you’ve given me. It all belongs to you, Princess.”
“Then I’m very rich,” she said lightly. “ I think I am the richest girl in the world — but I wish I wasn’t so tired.”
“You won’t be tired when you begin,” he said. “ I often feel like that — as if I couldn’t be troubled to lift the bow — and yet when I begin — the first note — glory and fire I it’s all changed and I feel that I could play for ever. But you have to keep alive — not to rest too long. If I didn’t play every day — if I were to keep
my hands still for a day and a night and another day, I should never play anymore, never be tired any more, never want to play or to rest or to do anything at all, ever any more, forever and ever.”
The slow dreamy voice made it seem necessary to break in on it with sharp commonplace. This kind of talking, “mooning” Aunt Dusa called it, always preceded the worst of his “ states.”
“Well,” she said, “ you’re going to play your very best to-night — and I’m going to dance my very best. And to-morrow you and Aunt Dusa will come up to London, and we’ll have a special supper party, and enjoy ourselves very much, indeed; and next month we shall have a holiday, and you can go to any place in Europe you like, and see new things, and everything’s going to be lovely.”
She kept the tap of small talk running till they came to the stage door, when she scurried in, bundled up unrecognisably, as usual. Denny followed, on his crutch. She turned back quickly, and before she had time to reckon, John Smith was beside her.
“If Mr. Templar — the gentleman I spoke to you about — if you see him don’t forget to tell him to wait in Dean Street, and we can pick him up as we go.”
For it had suddenly struck her that perhaps he would not come into the theatre, lest the sight of him should unnerve her as it had done the last time.
He might just wait opposite the stage door as he had done that other night that seemed so long past, and was really only four days ago.
Denny’s symphony began. He had insisted at the last moment, that the orchestra should only perform the last two movements. In the others, he made new arrangements. The Forest dance was beautiful as always, but the more severe among the critics observed that Sylvia was not at her best. But the same critics did not fail to perceive that Pan surpassed himself. Never had he played so perfectly. And never before had he played on the stage without the accompaniment of the orchestra. For after the first air the orchestra was silent and the sound of the flute alone showered clear bird notes faster and faster in an air that no one in the audience had heard before. And as the tender gaiety of the air asserted itself again and again through the bird trills and flutings, the spirit of it entered into Sylvia, — and the Forest dance became a dance of youth and spring and happy love.
In the Sea-dance, the orchestra supplied only the murmur of a sea far away. The flute hidden by the shelter, made the music for it. And the music was the love symphony’s second movement — doubt, yearning, sadness, regret, and longing, beyond words. Sylvia wove it all into the dance, and it became a new dance, a dance that troubled the hearts of those who beheld it, stirring old memories and the ghosts of forgotten desire.
The Dance of Worship was like nothing that she had ever done.
Thrilled in every fibre by the music, and by the wild leap of her genius to answer it, Sylvia robed herself for the Salome dance. She never left much to her dresser — to-night she left nothing. Dusky draperies, gleaming jewels, she put all in its place with fingers that did not tremble, but were alive to their tips with conscious mastery of the coming hour. In each of her dances to-night she had gone beyond all that her genius had ever taught her to do. The Salome dance should surpass those last dances, by just so much. To find that she could, without anything that could be called a rehearsal, adapt her dance to Denny’s music exalted her with the pride of achievement and the confidence of proved power.
She leaned her hands on her long dressing table and looked at her reflection in the glass. The expression was exactly right — she had caught it at last — the look of the woman tormented by the flame of desire, beaten by the rods of terror and remorse — a woman on whose jewelled brow were heaped the sorrows and despairs of a lost world.
“My!” said her dresser, “you do look awful, Miss. Keep it up. That’ll knock ‘em!”
“I mean to,” said Sandra, smiling brilliantly.”
“You do, every time,” said the dresser. “ But to-night you’ve done the trick and a bit over. I never heard anything like it. Howling like wild beasts they was. There ain’t no one like you, Miss, and never has been. And you deserve it every inch. That’s what I say. There’s heaps of time; they ain’t got the throne on yet. Here’s your veil — I suppose we shall be seeing you in a white one with orange blossoms one of these days.”
“What makes you say that?” Sandra asked, stock still, with the veil in her hands.
“Well — no offence, Miss, but you keeping yourself so to yourself — of course we know it’s because you’ve got a gentleman that gives satisfaction. And you aren’t one of the kind you could think of anything short of marriage about.”
“Well,” said Sylvia on the impulse of the full moment, “ the fact is, I am — going to be married, I mean.”
“Lor!” said the dresser, overcome by surprise, “if I didn’t think so! Well, Miss, I wish you joy, and I do hope it won’t be quiet at a registry, and the papers saying, ‘ Secret Wedding. Dancer weds Peer.’”
“It won’t be that,” said Sylvia.
“What I mean is,” said the dresser, “ I hope we’ll all be there to wish you joy, for of all the dear, kind, good ladies. What might his name be, Miss, if I might ask?”
“Mr. Templar, Edmund Templar,” said Sandra, and really, if you come to think of it, there seemed no reason why she should not say it.
“Well,” said the dresser, “he’s a lucky gentleman — that’s all I can .... There — there’s your call, Miss. You go on and knock ‘em.”
Salome’s dismal draperies swished through the narrow passage and the orchestra called, called, called, in the deep, troubled notes of the last movement of the Love Symphony.
The dresser, when she had laid everything in order, strayed out to chat a little with the stage carpenter, and told him the romantic news, and the name of the fortunate man who was to marry Miss Sylvia. There was — any way you look at it — no reason why she should not have done so. Sylvia had made no secret of it. The carpenter for his part saw no reason for secrecy. Thus, before the Salome dance was over, everyone behind the scenes knew Sylvia’s beautiful secret — and even the name of her fortunate lover. Dressing rooms, corridors, and the green room hummed on the news, like bees on a honeyed flower.
And on the stage Salome was treading the first measure of her dance to the music of the Love Symphony’s last movement. She had only heard the airs of it, roughly represented by Denny with flute and violin. The stately tragic splendour of it, the fullness of the orchestration, the mastery of the technique, caught her in a web of wonder that he, her poor, dear, lame Denny, should be the Master that this music proved him. But the web broke almost on the instant, to set her free to interpret the music — and almost before the conscious power so to interpret it had crowned her soul with pride and sovereignty, all conscious effort vanished, swept away like a veil in a storm wind — leaving her soul naked and subject before the music’s supreme control.
She danced — and her audience were held by her magic, and by the spell that held her. The house was hushed to a breathless rapture of horror and delight.
The grey veils descended — slowly the King and the Queen, the courtiers and the slaves faded away and Salome danced alone among the shadows.
The little ticking sound which warned her that it was time to take the head, was, for the first time, heard by the audience. In the swirl and swing of her dance she caught at the head, and whirled it with her in the wild rhythm of her going. And at the touch of it, there came for the first time to her nerves, strung far beyond their natural pitch, the sense of what it was that she was representing.
She had danced the Salome because the Management and Uncle Moses told her that she must dance it — and she had said that the wax head was “ gruesome,” and “ horrid,” and “ creepy.” But she had felt these things only with the surface of her soul. Now in its very depths she felt that she was dancing to express the horrible desire of a woman for a dead man — and that the head that she held in her hands was the head of that man who in life had been desired, but whom
now no one would ever any more desire. It may have been the texture of the head that drove this new old thought home to her — it was, as Denny had said, of some material other than wax, a new composition. It was colder than wax, and heavier. Its surface yielded a little to her finger-tips. A dead man’s head, she thought, would feel just like that. She wished Denny had ordered another wax head — she was used to the wax head. This one was too heavy, and she didn’t like the feel of it. It was like the india rubber stalks of artificial roses — only colder. She would have one like the other, after to-night.
And all the time her dancing feet twinkled to the passionate, tragic rhythm, and the head swayed in her hands to the rush and pulse of the passionate, tragic air.
This head was heavier — but it was more inspiring, too. One ought to feel what one was dancing. The features of the head were masked by the flowing hair and beard, just as the wax head’s had been — but there was something about it that made the dance real — real. Suppose it really were the head of some one she loved — Edmund Oh, horrible! — but
she caught it to her breast in a transport of imagined anguish — if Edmund had not loved her — and she had really been a dancing girl, and had asked for his head . . . not expecting to get it, and then held it — adored, desired — but still unpossessed, in her hands! She raised the head above her in an agony of almost real emotion — and the music throbbed its agony into hers. Denny had been right — this was the music for the dance of Love and Death. She was creeping over the stage now, in wide curves, the head cradled in her arms, as a mother cradles a child.
“Ah!” she sighed on a note of incommunicable triumph and despair — and the music drew towards its ending. The machine ticked like a death-watch in an old wall, and she resigned the head at the right moment — the only act in which her dance resembled any dance that she had ever danced before. The grey veils lifted — and Salome lay, her dance ended, before the feet of Herod and Herodias.
And there was a hush of moments before the applause broke out. They rose in their places — they shouted for her — men clapped and shouted themselves hoarse — women screamed their “Bravas,” and tore the flowers from their bosoms to throw on the stage. But Salome would not show herself.