Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  “Madame,” replied El-Râmi bowing profoundly, “I cannot in one moment unravel so complex an Enigma.”

  She smiled, not ill-pleased, and met his dark, fiery, penetrating glance unreservedly, — then, drawing off her long loose glove, she held out her small beautifully-shaped white hand.

  “Try me,” she said lightly, “for if there is any truth in ‘brain-waves’ or reflexes of the mind, the touch of my fingers ought to send electric meanings through you. I am generally judged as of a frivolous disposition because I am small in stature, slight in build, and have curly hair — all proofs positive, according to the majority, of latent foolishness. Colossal women, however, are always astonishingly stupid, and fat women lethargic — but a mountain of good flesh is always more attractive to man than any amount of intellectual perception. Oh, I am not posing as one of the ‘misunderstood’; not at all — I simply wish you to look well at me first and take in my ‘frivolous’ appearance thoroughly, before being misled by the messages of my hand.”

  El-Râmi obeyed her in so far that he fixed his eyes upon her more searchingly than before, — a little knot of fashionable loungers had stopped to listen, and now watched her face with equal curiosity. No rush of embarrassed colour tinged the cool fairness of her cheeks — her expression was one of quiet, half-smiling indifference — her attitude full of perfect self-possession.

  “No one who looks at your eyes can call you frivolous, Madame,” said El-Râmi at last.— “And no one who observes the lines of your mouth and chin could suspect you of latent foolishness. Your physiognomy must have been judged by the merest surface-observers. As for stature, we are aware that goes for naught, — most of the heroes and heroines of history have been small and slight in build. I will now, if you permit me, take your hand.”

  She laid it at once in his extended palm, — and he slowly closed his own fingers tightly over it. In a couple of minutes, his face expressed nothing but astonishment.

  “Is it possible!” he muttered— “can I believe—” he broke off hurriedly, interrupted by a chorus of voices exclaiming— “Oh, what is it? — do tell us!” and so forth.

  “May I speak, Madame?” he inquired, bending towards Irene, with something of reverence.

  She smiled assent.

  “If I am surprised,” he then said slowly, “it is scarcely to be wondered at, for it is the first time I have ever chanced across the path of a woman whose life was so perfectly ideal. Madame, to you I must address the words of Hamlet— ‘pure as ice, chaste as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.’ Such an existence as yours, stainless, lofty, active, hopeful, patient, and independent, is a reproach to men, and few will love you for being so superior. Those who do love you, will probably love in vain, — for the completion of your existence is not here — but Elsewhere.”

  Her soft eyes dilated wonderingly, — the people immediately around her stared vaguely at El-Râmi’s dark impenetrable face.

  “Then shall I be alone all my life as I am now?” she asked, as he released her hand.

  “Are you sure you are alone?” he said with a grave smile.— “Are there not more companions in the poet’s so-called solitude, than in the crowded haunts of men?”

  She met his earnest glance, and her own face grew radiant with a certain sweet animation that made it very lovely.

  “You are right,” she replied simply— “I see you understand.”

  Then with a graceful salutation, she prepared to move away — Roy Ainsworth pressed up close to her.

  “Are you satisfied with your fortune, Madame Vassilius?” he asked rather querulously.

  “Indeed I am,” she answered. “Why should I not be?”

  “If loneliness is a part of it,” he said audaciously, “I suppose you will never marry?”

  “I suppose not,” she said with a ripple of laughter in her voice.— “I fear I should never be able to acknowledge a man my superior!”

  She left him then, and he stood for a moment looking after her with a vexed air, — then he turned anew towards El-Râmi, who was just exchanging greetings with Sir Frederick Vaughan. This latter young man appeared highly embarrassed and nervous, and seemed anxious to unburden himself of something which apparently was difficult to utter. He stared at Féraz, pulled the ends of his long moustache, and made scrappy remarks on nothing in particular, while El-Râmi observed him with amused intentness.

  “I say, do you remember the night we saw the new Hamlet?” he blurted out at last.— “You know — I haven’t seen you since—”

  “I remember most perfectly,” said El-Râmi composedly—”’To be or not to be’ was the question then with you, as well as with Hamlet — but I suppose it is all happily decided now as ‘to be.’”

  “What is decided?” stammered Sir Frederick— “I mean, how do you know everything is decided, eh?”

  “When is your marriage to take place?” asked El-Râmi.

  Vaughan almost jumped.

  “By Jove! — you are an uncanny fellow!” he exclaimed.— “However, as it happens, you are right. I’m engaged to Miss Chester.”

  “It is no surprise to me, but pray allow me to congratulate you!” and El-Râmi smiled.— “You have lost no time about it, I must say! It is only a fortnight since you first saw the lady at the theatre. Well! — confess me a true prophet!”

  Sir Frederick looked uncomfortable, and was about to enter into an argument concerning the pros and cons of prophetic insight, when Lady Melthorpe suddenly emerged from the circling whirlpool of her fashionable guests and sailed towards them with a swan-like grace and languor.

  “I cannot find the dear Baroness,” she said plaintively. “She is so much in demand! Do you know, my dear El-Râmi, she is really almost as wonderful as you are! Not quite — oh, not quite, but nearly! She can tell you all your past and future by the lines of your hand, in the most astonishing manner! Can you do that also?”

  El-Râmi laughed.

  “It is a gipsy’s trick,” he said,— “and the bonâ-fide gipsies who practise it in country lanes for the satisfaction of servantgirls, get arrested by the police for ‘fortune — telling.’ The gipsies of the London drawing-rooms escape scot-free.”

  “Oh, you are severe!” said Lady Melthorpe, shaking her finger at him with an attempt at archness— “You are really very severe! You must not be hard on our little amusements, — you know in this age, we are all so very much interested in the supernatural!”

  El-Râmi grew paler, and a slight shudder shook his frame. The Supernatural! How lightly people talked of that awful Something, that like a formless Shadow waits behind the portals of the grave! — that Something that evinced itself, suggested itself, nay, almost declared itself, in spite of his own doubts, in the momentary contact of a hand with his own, as in the case of Irene Vassilius. For in that contact he had received a faint, yet decided thrill through his nerves — a peculiar sensation which he recognised as a warning of something spiritually above himself, — and this had compelled him to speak of an “Elsewhere” for her, though for himself he persisted in nourishing the doubt that an “Elsewhere” existed. Roy Ainsworth, the artist, observing him closely, noted how stern and almost melancholy was the expression of his handsome dark face, — then glancing from him to his brother, was surprised at the marked difference between the two. The frank, open, beautiful features of Féraz seemed to invite confidence, and acting on the suggestion made to him by Madame Vassilius, he spoke abruptly.

  “I wish you would sit to me,” he said.

  “Sit to you? For a picture, do you mean?” And Féraz looked delighted yet amazed.

  “Yes. You have just the face I want. Are you in town? — can you spare the time?”

  “I am always with my brother” — began Féraz hesitatingly.

  El-Râmi heard him, and smiled rather sadly.

  “Féraz is his own master,” he said gently, “and his time is quite at his own disposal.”

  “Then come and let us talk it over,” said Ainsw
orth, taking Féraz by the arm. “I’ll pilot you through this crowd, and we’ll make for some quiet corner where we can sit down. Come along!”

  Out of old habit Féraz glanced at his brother for permission, but El-Râmi’s head was turned away; he was talking to Lord Melthorpe. So, through the brilliant throng of fashionable men and women, many of whom turned to stare at him as he passed, Féraz went, half-eager, half-reluctant, his large fawn-like eyes flashing an innocent wonderment on the scene around him, — a scene different from everything to which he had been accustomed. He was uncomfortably conscious that there was something false and even deadly beneath all this glitter and show, — but his senses were dazzled for the moment, though the poet-soul of him instinctively recoiled from the noise and glare and restless movement of the crowd. It was his first entry into so-called “society”; — and, though attracted and interested, he was also somewhat startled and abashed — for he felt instinctively that he was thrown upon his own resources, — that, for the present at any rate, his brother’s will no longer influenced him, and with the sudden sense of liberty came the sudden sense of fear.

  CHAPTER V.

  TOWARDS midnight the expected Royal Personage came and went; fatigued but always amiable, he shed the sunshine of his stereotyped smile on Lady Melthorpe’s “crush” — shook hands with his host and hostess, nodded blandly to a few stray acquaintances, and went through all the dreary, duties of social boredom heroically, though he was pining for his bed more wearily than any work-worn digger of the soil. He made his way out more quickly than he came in, and with his departure a great many of the more “snobbish” among the fashionable set disappeared also, leaving the rooms freer and cooler for their absence. People talked less loudly and assertively, — little groups began to gather in corners and exchange friendly chit-chat, — men who had been standing all the evening found space to sit down beside their favoured fair ones, and indulge themselves in talking a little pleasant nonsense, — even the hostess herself was at last permitted to occupy an arm-chair and take a few moments’ rest. Some of the guests had wandered into the music-saloon, a quaintly decorated oak-panelled apartment which opened out from the largest drawing-room. A string band had played there till Royalty had come and gone, but now “sweet harmony” no longer “wagged her silver tongue,” for the musicians were at supper. The grand piano was open, and Madame Vassilius stood near it, idly touching the ivory keys now and then with her small white, sensitive-looking fingers. Close beside her, comfortably ensconced in a round deep chair, sat a very stout old lady with a curiously large hairy face and a beaming expression of eye, who appeared to have got into her pink silk gown by some cruelly unnatural means, so tightly was she laced, and so much did she seem in danger of bursting. She perspired profusely and smiled perpetually, and frequently stroked the end of her very pronounced moustache with quite a mannish air. This was the individual for whom Lady Melthorpe had been searching, — the Baroness von Denkwald, noted for her skill in palmistry.

  “Ach! it is warm!” she said in her strong German accent, giving an observant and approving glance at Irene’s white-draped form.— “You are ze one womans zat is goot to look at. A peach mit ice-cream, — dot is yourself.”

  Irene smiled pensively, but made no answer.

  The Baroness looked at her again, and fanned herself rapidly.

  “It is sometings bad mit you?” she asked at last.— “You look sorrowful? Zat Eastern mans — he say tings disagreeable? You should pelieve me, — I have told you of your hand — ach! what a fortune! — splendid! — fame, — money, title, — a grand marriage—”

  Irene lifted her little hand from the keyboard of the piano, and looked curiously at the lines in her pretty palm.

  “Dear Baroness, there must be some mis — take,” she said slowly.— “I was a lonely child, — and some people say that as you begin, so will you end. I shall never marry — I am a lonely woman, and it will always be so.”

  “Always, always — not at all!” and the Baroness shook her large head obstinately. “You will marry; and Gott in Himmel save you from a husband such as mine! He is dead — oh yes — a goot ting; — he is petter off — and so am I. Moch petter!”

  And she laughed, the rise and fall of her ample neck causing quite a cracking sound in the silk of her bodice.

  Madame Vassilius smiled again, — and then again grew serious. She was thinking of the “Elsewhere” that El-Râmi had spoken of, — she had noticed that all he said had seemed to be uttered involuntarily, — and that he had hesitated strangely before using the word “Elsewhere.” She longed to ask him one or two more questions, — and scarcely had the wish formed itself in her mind, than she saw him advancing from the drawing-room, in company with Lord Melthorpe, Sir Frederick Vaughan, and the pretty frivolous Idina Chester, who, regardless of all that poets write concerning the unadorned simplicity of youth, had decked herself, American fashion, with diamonds enough for a dowager.

  “It’s too lovely!” the young lady was saying as she entered.— “I think, Mr. El-Râmi, you have made me out a most charming creature! Unemotional, harmless and innocently worldly’ — that was it, wasn’t it? ‘Well now, I think that’s splendid! I had an idea you were going to find out something horrid about me; — I’m so glad I’m harmless! You’re sure I’m harmless?”

  “Quite sure!” said El-Râmi with a slight smile. “And there you possess a great superiority over most women.”

  And he stepped forward in obedience to Lady Melthorpe’s signal, to be introduced to the ‘dear’ Baroness, whose shrewd little eyes dwelt upon him curiously.

  “Do you believe in palmistry?” she asked him, after the ordinary greetings were exchanged.

  “I’m afraid not,” he answered politely— “though I am acquainted with the rules of the art as practised in the East, and I know that many odd coincidences do occur. But, — as an example — take my hand — I am sure you can make nothing of it.”

  He held out his open palm for her inspection — she bent over it, and uttered an exclamation of surprise. There were none of the usual innumerable little criss-cross lines upon it — nothing, in fact, but two deep dents from left to right, and one well-marked line running from the wrist to the centre.

  “It is unnatural!” cried the Baroness in amazement.— “It is a malformation! There is no hand like it!”

  “I believe not,” answered El-Râmi composedly.— “As I told you, you can learn nothing from it — and yet my life has not been without its adventures. This hand of mine is my excuse for not accepting palmistry as an absolutely proved science.”

  “Must everything be ‘proved’ for you?” asked Irene Vassilius suddenly.

  “Assuredly, Madame!”

  “Then have you ‘proved’ the Elsewhere of which you spoke to me?”

  El-Râmi flushed a little, — then paled again.

  “Madame, the message of your inner spirit, as conveyed first through the electric medium of the brain, and then through the magnetism of your touch, told me of an ‘Elsewhere.’ I may not personally or positively know of any ‘elsewhere,’ than this present state of being, — but your interior Self expects an ‘Elsewhere,’ — apparently knows of it better than I do, and conveys that impression and knowledge to me, apart from any consideration as to whether I may be fitted to understand or receive it.”

  These words were heard with evident astonishment by the little group of people who stood by, listening.

  “Dear me! How ve — ry curious!” murmured Lady Melthorpe.— “And we have always looked upon dear Madame Vassilius as quite a free-thinker,” — here she smiled apologetically, as Irene lifted her serious eyes and looked at her steadily— “I mean, as regards the next world and all those interesting subjects. In some of her books, for instance, she is terribly severe on the clergy.”

  “Not more so than many of them deserve, I am sure,” said El-Râmi with sudden heat and asperity.— “It was not Christ’s intention, I believe, that the preachers of His G
ospel should drink and hunt, and make love to their neighbours’ wives ad libitum, which is what a great many of them do. The lives of the clergy nowadays offer very few worthy examples to the laity.”

  Lady Melthorpe coughed delicately and warningly. She did not like plain speaking, — she had a “pet clergyman” of her own, — moreover, she had been bred up in the provinces among “county” folk, some of whom still believe that at one period of the world’s history “God” was always wanting the blood of bulls and goats to smell “as a sweet savour in His nostrils.” She herself preferred to believe in the possibility of the Deity’s having “nostrils,” rather than take the trouble to consider the effect of His majestic Thought as evinced in the supremely perfect order of the Planets and Solar Systems.

  El-Râmi, however, went on regardlessly.

  “Free-thinkers,” he said, “are for the most part truth-seekers. If everybody gave way to the foolish credulity attained to by the believers in the ‘Mahatmas’ for instance, what an idiotic condition the world would be in! We want free-thinkers, — as many as we can get, — to help us to distinguish between the False and the True. We want to separate the Actual from the Seeming in our lives, — and there is so much Seeming and so little Actual that the process is difficult.”

  “Why, dat is nonsense!” said the Baroness von Denkenwald.— “Mit a Fact, zere is no mistake — you prove him. See!” and she took up a silver penholder from the table near her.— “Here is a pen, — mit ink it is used to write — zere is what you call ze Actual.”