CHAPTER XII
CONTROVERSY AND CONFIDENCES
After this incident, the guests melted away, singly and by pairs andfamilies, thanking Nitocris and her father with much _empressement_ for"the delightful afternoon," and "the extraordinary entertainment whichthey had so much enjoyed," and many regrets that "the poor Adept, whoreally was so very clever and had mystified them all so delightfully,"had overdone himself and got ill, and so on, and so on, through theendless repetitions and variations usual on such occasions.
A small party, including the Hartleys, the Van Huysmans, Merrill, andLord Leighton, had been asked to stay to dinner, but it happened thatthey had a conversazione already included in the day's programme, and sothey took their departure soon after the others, the Professor, it mustbe confessed, in a somewhat morose frame of mind. Like all men ofsimilar mental constitution, he hated to be mystified, and now, for thefirst time in his long career of investigation into apparently abstrusephenomena, he had been absolutely stumped by this perfect-mannered,quiet-spoken gentleman from the East who performed wonders in broaddaylight, on a plot of grass amidst a crowd of people, and did notdeign to even touch the things he worked his miracles with. If he hadonly used some sort of apparatus, or condescended to some concealment,after the manner of others of this kind, there might have been a chanceof finding a means of exposure; but the whole performance had been sotransparently open and aboveboard that Professor Marcus Hartley, D.Sc.,M.A., F.R.S., etc., etc., felt that, as a consistent materialist, he hadnot been given a fair chance. Still, he did not despair; and by the timehe got back into his own den he had resolved that when it did come, asof course it must do sooner or later, the exposure of Phadrig the Adeptand the vindication of Natural Law should be complete and final.
A discussion of the same marvels naturally bulked largely in theconversation during dinner at "The Wilderness." Mrs van Huysman did notcontribute much wisdom to it beyond the assertion of her conviction thatsuch things were wicked and should be stopped by law, at which herdaughter was sufficiently unfilial to draw a diverting picture of astalwart policeman trying to arrest an elusive adept who could probablymake himself invisible at will, or call to his aid fire-breathingdragons, just as easily as he could make a tennis ball evaporate intothin air, or grow lovely witch-roses and wither them to ashes with abreath.
"I do think it was a bit mean of him not to let that poor young man haveone of them, if he was willing to take the risk. Especially as he justwanted to go on working for Science for ever. Fancy what a single manmight do if he could just keep right on with his life-work for, say, athousand years without having to stop it to die and be born again,according to Niti's pet theory. What couldn't a man like that do forhuman knowledge!"
"Would you have had one of those roses, Brenda, if the Prince'smiracle-worker had offered you one?" asked Nitocris, smiling, but stillwith a decided note of seriousness in her tone.
"I?" laughed Brenda, leaning back in her chair. "Sakes, no, child! I'vehad a pretty good time so far, and I hope it won't be over just yet;but, after all, there must be a limit even to the combinations of humanlife, and a time would have to come when you'd just be doing the sameold things over and over again. And, besides that, think of the horrorof living on and on and seeing every one you loved--husband and wife,and children and grandchildren--grow old and die, and leave you alone ina world of strangers. No; life's a good thing if you only have fair playin the world; but so is death when you've lived your life. It's onlylike going to bed, after all. Eternal life would be like a day with nonight to it, and that, I guess, would get a bit monotonous after acentury or two. What do you think, Professor?"
"My dear Miss van Huysman," replied her host with one of his rare buteloquent smiles, "since I began to study the question with anythinglike enlightenment, I have not been able to look upon what we call life,by which I mean existence in this or some other world, as anything buteternal. In its manifestations to our senses it is, I admit, merelytransitory, a brief span of time between two other states which, forwant of a better word, we may call two eternities; but I must confessthat, to me, a human existence beginning with the cradle and ending withthe grave is merely a more or less tragic riddle without an answer: inother words, a meaningless absurdity. I find it quite impossible toconceive any deity or presiding genius of the universe who could beguilty of such a colossally useless tragedy as human life would be underthose circumstances."
"I can't see it, my dear Marmion," said Brenda's father a triflegruffly, for he had not yet quite recovered from the disquietingexperiences of the afternoon. "What does it matter whether we live againor not as long as we live cleanly and do our work honestly while we arealive? Surely if we leave this world a little bit better, a little bitricher in knowledge, than we find it, these poor little lives of ours,such as they are, and that's not much--will not have been lived in vain.Of course, as you know, I'm just a common, low-down materialist whocan't rise to the poetry of things as you can with this gorgeous theoryof re-incarnation of yours.
"I should very much like to believe it if I could, as I once said to aneminent revivalist on the war-path in the States; but the trouble with aman who is honest with himself is that he can no more make himselfbelieve what doesn't seem true to him than he can make himself hungrywhen he isn't. All the horrible history of religious persecution is justthe story of a lot of bigots in power trying to force helpless people todo what they couldn't do honestly. The awful part of the business isthat they were most likely all wrong, and didn't know it."
"But, at least, Professor, I hope you are able to give them credit forhonest intentions, however mistaken they might have been?" interposedMerrill, who was the son of a country parson and had so far preservedhis simple faith intact. It may be remarked here, that Nitocris was wellaware of this, and loved her strong-souled sailor all the better for it.Franklin Marmion did not, but then he thought any creed good enough for"a mere fighting man."
"There were schemers and scoundrels among them on both sides, sir,"replied the American quietly. "The temptation was too big; but I amquite willing to allow that the majority of them, even the Inquisitors,were honest zealots who really did think it right to produce any amountof suffering and misery here on earth in order to get mattersstraightened out, as they thought, hereafter. Charles V. was the mostenlightened monarch of his age and the worst persecutor, and Torquemada,away from his religion, was as kind-hearted a man as ever lived. Calvinwas a good man, but he watched Servetus burn, and our own PilgrimFathers on the other side were just about as hard men as any when itcame to arguing out a religious question with whips and pillories andthumbscrews, and the like. I don't want to offend any one's sentiment orquestion any one's faith. To each man the belief that satisfies him, butpersonally I have no use for a religion that can't get itself believedwithout persecution."
"I quite agree with you there, Professor," replied Merrill, who felt alittle chilled by the perfect aloofness with which the other spoke, andwas wondering what his dear old father, living his quiet, saintly lifeamong the Derbyshire dales, would have thought of such cold-bloodedheresy. "I have always looked upon that sort of brutal intolerance as aform of religious mania--sincere, but still mania, and the story of itis the most awful chapter in human history----"
"Except, perhaps, the story of war," interrupted Professor Marmion, witha snap in his voice. Monomania, more or less harmless, is a notinfrequent affliction of very high intelligences, and a quiteunreasoning hatred of war was his, although within the last few days hehad come to suspect disquieting misgivings on the subject, possibly inconsequence of the higher knowledge to which he was attaining.
"My dear sir," replied Merrill quite good-humouredly, and not at allsorry for the diversion, "I am glad to say that I agree with you also.No man who has not actually fought can have any just idea of theappalling abominations of war, and I am sure that no men hate it moredevotedly than those who have to fight. But we have to take the world asit is, and not as we would like it to be; and as l
ong as we have peoplein it who want to set it on fire for their own brutally selfishpurposes, we shall have to keep the fire-extinguishers in good order."
In obedience to an appealing glance from his daughter, the Professor didnot reply. His opponent in the bloodless arena of Science saved him byinterrupting:
"Yes, sir. I differ from my friend Marmion on a good many points, andthat's one of them. You have the honour to serve in the biggestfire-extinguishing institution on earth. It was the British Navy thatput out Napoleon's bonfire that he was making of the world: you kept thering round us and Spain, and round Russia and Japan, and you've savedmore conflagrations than half a dozen Noah's floods would put out.That's why the Kaiser and his tin-hatted firebrands have such a healthydislike for you. They'd have had the world on fire years ago if theyhadn't had to worry about you."
"I think you must admit, Professor Marmion," said Lord Leighton, who hadso far been busy with his own new thoughts and the contemplation of theinspirer of them, "that it is people like these on whom the real guiltof the crime of war rests. Now that the pressure of the bear's paw isremoved, Germany is the danger-spot of the world. The Maroocan businessproved that pretty clearly; and nothing but our friendship with Americaand France and Japan, and the ability to strike hard and instantly atsea, saved Europe, and perhaps the world, from something like arepetition of the Napoleonic wars."
"With Mister William Hohenzollern a Napoleon," added Professor vanHuysman, with a half-suppressed snort. "It seems to me as though thatgentleman had been spreading himself round Europe as German War-Lord solong that he's getting tired of playing at it, and 's just spoiling fora real fight."
"That is very possible," said Merrill; "but happily he hasresponsibilities, and even the German war party would not follow him asfar as he would like to go, to say nothing of the Liberals and theSocialists. Personally, I must say that I think we have had a much moredangerous person, as far as the peace of the world is concerned, on thelawn of 'The Wilderness' this afternoon."
"Of course you mean that hateful Russian Prince who brought that equallyhateful Adept, as he calls himself, with him," said Nitocris, with anunwonted harshness that made every one look up.
"Oh, Niti," exclaimed Brenda, "and I asked you to let me bring him!"
"I'm very sorry, dear," she replied quietly, but with a smile ofreassurance. "It was not your fault, of course. He may have been verynice to you, but I am obliged to say that the first moment I looked athim I was possessed by some inexplicable feeling of dislike, and evenfear, although I certainly never hated or feared any one before. If Ihad met him before I got your note, I really think I should have askedyou to spare us the honour. It seemed to me as though there wassomething uncanny about the man. It was very curious."
Her father looked up at her for a moment, wondering what would happen ifhe were to explain the mysterious antipathy there and then. The littletheological discussion would look very small after such a revelation asthat. But he, too, had had a revelation which the somewhat desultoryconversation had done something to press home upon him. He had seen theadvent of the Queen, and heard what she had said to Phadrig with othereyes and ears than his guests had done, for to them it had only beenNitocris who had gone to him and said a few inaudible words, which theyhad taken as a request for the conclusion of his "performance."
He had seen back through the mists of many centuries and recognised themas they had been, and he had learned that Oscarovitch the Russian hadnow entered the circle of the Queen's, and therefore his own, influence.A sudden anxiety for the safety of his darling Niti had awakened in hisheart. He had seen the lust for possession flame in the man's eyes, andnow that he knew who he was--and had been--he determined that whateverother adventurer might set the world aflame, the Modern Skobeleff shouldnot do it if he and his Royal ally on the Higher Plane could prevent it.His coming had been a curious coincidence, possibly a consequence ofobscure causes; but, for some reason or other, he felt himself beginningto look with a more favourable eye on Commander Mark Merrill--perhapsbecause he was the impersonation of uncompromising hostility toeverything that Oscarovitch represented.
Dinner had come to an end now, and so Nitocris took advantage of endinga conversation which bade fair to become somewhat awkward. She glancedround the table and rose, saying:
"Don't you think we've had polemics enough for one little dinner, Dad?There's a lovely moon, so we'll have our coffee on the verandah, and youand Mr van Huysman can settle the affairs of the universe comfortablyover your pipes. Give Lord Leighton and Mr Merrill something to smoke,and we will join you when we have got some wraps."
When they got back from Nitocris's rooms Mrs van Huysman elected to takeher coffee in a big, deep-seated armchair by the drawing-room window.She said that she had felt the sun a little, and might possibly indulgein forty winks--which she did within a few minutes of gettingcomfortably arranged in it. Then Nitocris took Brenda by the arm andwalked her half-way down the lawn.
"I want to take possession of Lord Leighton for about half an hour,dear, if you don't mind. I've got something very serious to say to him.Dad, with the characteristic cowardice of his sex, has left it to me tosay. It's--well, it's about a mummy: a female mummy, or, at least, Isuppose I ought to say a mummy that was once a female--about fivethousand years ago."
"My dear Niti----"
"No, no, don't interrupt me, for goodness' sake. It's too serious. It isreally. We've had something like a tragedy here in the last few days,and things seem to have been, as you would say, a good deal mixed upever since. I don't understand it a bit; but they have been."
"But, my dear Niti, what on earth can you have to say to LordLeighton about a--a female mummy? What possible interest can afive-thousand-year-old corpse have for him?"
"Don't, Brenda, don't--at least not just now! Wait till I've told you,and then you'll see," said Nitocris, pressing her arm closer to herside. "Lord Leighton is, as I think you know, an enthusiastic student ofEgyptian antiquities. He was also, or thought he was, in love with myunworthy self. He found this mummy in a royal tomb at Memphis. He--well,I suppose, stole it--of course under the usual licence from theKhedive--and sent it home to Dad. Now comes the mystery. That was themummy of Nitocris, the daughter of the great Rameses, and it was thedead image of my living self."
"Oh, but, Niti--what do you mean?"
"I don't know, Brenda. I wish I did. All I do know is that it was stolenthat very night out of Dad's study in the Old Wing, and that I've got totell Lord Leighton all about it. I'm sure Dad could have told him muchbetter, only somehow he seems afraid."
"Oh, is that all--just the stealing of what was perhaps a very valuablerelic? They try to steal much fresher corpses than that in the States ifthere are dollars in the business."
"Don't be brutal, Brenda! I know you don't mean it, and it isn't likeyou. Now, listen. Before he went to Egypt this time Lord Leighton askedme to marry him. I said 'No,' and for two reasons. I knew that he likedme very much--he always has done--and poor Dad took his liking for loveand encouraged him: but I'm a woman and, I know, that liking isn'tlove--and then I love some one else. And now he, I mean LordLeighton--loves some one else. Turn your face to the moon. Yes, you knowwho the some one else is. I'm so glad, for I do think you----"
"Niti, you're talking arrant nonsense for an educated young woman. I'veonly known His Lordship for a day, and how can you----"
"Because female Bachelors of Science and graduates of Vassar, whateverstupid people may say, have hearts _as_ well as intellects, dear, and sothey know. I seem to have had a kind of sixth sense given to me to-day,and, when you met Lord Leighton, I saw it, and I believe you _felt_ it.I saw your eyes brighten and your face flush--only a little, but it did,and so did his. You know my belief in the Doctrine. You may have beenlovers--perhaps wedded lovers--once upon a time, as they say in thefairy tales."
"How awful--no, I mean how wonderful--if it could only be true! And now,as you've told me all this, you might as well tell me who your some oneelse is
."
"Really, Brenda, I thought you had more perception. He's there on theverandah smoking with your Lord Leighton."
"Oh! Then, of course, you're going to marry him?"
"I'm sorry to say Dad doesn't want me to. With all his genius andlearning he is a perfect child in that sort of thing. He has no idea ofNatural Selection. Now listen again, Brenda.. When I had to tell Markthat Dad wouldn't let me marry him, he picked me up out of a chair inthe verandah there, where your father and mine are sitting, and kissedme three times."
"And I'll gamble ten cents that you kissed him back. That's NaturalSelection, if I know anything about it. Niti, if that man--and he is aman--doesn't get killed in a fight, he'll marry you in spite of all themisguided scientific Dads on earth. Don't you worry. You've made me justhappy. I'm not emotional that way, but I'd like to kiss you if the moonwasn't so bright. Suppose we go back and try to assist the kindly Fatesa little bit?"
The Fates which, in some dimly-perceived fashion, seem to shape ourlittle successive phases of existence, were certainly in a kindly moodthat "lovely night in June." The two Professors had retired to FranklinMarmion's sanctum for the discussion of whisky and soda and thepossibilities of physical manifestations of the Occult. Mrs van Huysmanwas frankly and comfortably sleeping in the deep, amply-cushionedarmchair, and the two young men were almost as frankly pining forsweeter companionship than their own.
But the pairing off, which was so deftly managed by Nitocris, did not atfirst appear entirely satisfactory to them, yet a very few minutes'conversation sufficed to convince them of the wisdom of the arrangement.Brenda, with all the delicate tact which makes every highly-trainedwoman a skilled diplomatist, managed, not only to completely charmMerrill as a man who is in love with another woman likes to be charmed,but also to make him understand even more clearly than he had done howgreatly the Fates had blessed him by giving him the love of such a girlas Nitocris; and then, by a few very deftly conveyed suggestions, shefurther gave him to understand that, so far as Lord Leighton had everbeen an unconscious obstacle in his path, he was even now engaged inremoving himself. Wherefore Commander Merrill enjoyed his smoke andstroll under the beeches a good deal more than he had anticipated.
More difficultly ambiguous, certainly, was the position in which LordLeighton found himself with Nitocris, but here also her tact andperfect candour helped his own innate chivalry to accomplish all thatwas desirable with the slightest possible friction. She began by tellinghim, as she had told Brenda, of the mysterious stealing of the Mummy,and made a sort of apology for her father having deputed the telling ofit to her--of course, in perfect innocence of the real reason for hisdoing so. He deplored with her the loss of what they both believed to bea priceless relic of the Golden Age of Egypt, but he passed it overlightly, chiefly for the reason that there was something in his mindjust now that was much more serious than even the loss of the mummy ofher long-dead namesake.
There had been a little silence between them after he had made hiscondolences, and then he said, with a hesitation which told quiteplainly what was coming:
"Miss Marmion, I have a rather awkward confession to make to you--I havegot to tell you, in fact, I think it is my duty to--well, honestly Ireally don't quite know how to put it properly, but--but--er, somethinghas happened to me to-day that is a good deal more important to me, atleast, than the disappearance of half a dozen royal mummies."
"Indeed?" said Nitocris, with a demurely perfect assumption ofignorance. "A good many things seem somehow to have happened to-day. Itis something connected with that wonderful Adept's marvels, perhaps?They have certainly astonished most of us, I think."
"No," he replied, still a trifle hesitatingly, "it is nothing connectedwith him or his miracles, as far as I know, except that there wascertainly something decidedly queer about the man and the impression hemade upon one. Of course I have seen something like the same thing inEgypt and the Farther East; but he seemed quite what I might calluncanny. Still, that's not the point, although possibly it may have hadsomething to do with it."
He hesitated again. She looked at him with a sideway glance, and said,almost in a whisper: "Yes?"
The moonlight was bright enough for him to see the notes ofinterrogation in her eyes, and he took the plunge.
"Miss Marmion, I once told you that I loved you and wanted you for mywife, and--and the real fact is that it--I mean I know now that itwasn't true--and so I thought I ought to tell you. You know, of course,that the Professor----"
"My dear Lord Leighton," she answered, with an air of quite superiorwisdom, "my learned father is a very clever man in his own subjects: butI think I know a great deal more about this particular one than he does.You are quite right. You did not love me. You liked me very much, I haveno doubt----"
"Yes, and so I do still, and always shall do, but----"
"But your liking was great enough to make you mistake it for love.Women's instincts are quicker and keener in these relations than men'sare, and I saw that you did not love me as a real woman has to be loved,and, to be quite frank with you, some one else did. I like you verymuch, Lord Leighton, and I am going to go on liking you; but, you see, Icould not give you what I had already given away. Now, you have told meso much that you ought to tell me a little more. How did your suddenenlightenment on that interesting subject come about?"
He was infinitely relieved by the absolutely frank and friendly way inwhich she had treated the whole subject, and so he had courage to replywith a laugh:
"In short, Miss Marmion, you ask me who the other girl is. Well, youcertainly have a right to know, because, curiously enough, I might neverhave got to know her but for you----"
"Is it Brenda?"
The question was whispered, and he replied in a whisper:
"Yes; do you think I have any chance?"
A cohort of wild cats would not have torn Brenda's secret out of herfriend's soul, and so she replied in a tone that was almost judicious inits evenness:
"That, my friend, is a question that you can only get answered by askinganother--and you must ask her, not me."
"Oh yes, of course I must," he said rather limply. "But she's sosplendid--so beautiful, so exquisite--and--I do wish she wasn't so veryrich. You see, even if I had the great good fortune to--to get her tomarry me, I have lots for both; and, you know, the moment an Englishmanwith a title gets engaged to an American millionairess everybody saysthat he is simply dollar-hunting."
"That, unfortunately, is usually too well justified by the facts," shereplied seriously. "But only the most idiotic and ignorant of gossipscould possibly say that of you. Every one who is any one knows that theKyneston coronet does not want re-gilding."
And then she went on, glancing sideways at him again:
"Still, as you know perfectly well, in matters of this kind, these verydelicate diplomatic considerations, I do not care whether it is aquestion of fifty shillings a week or fifty thousand a year. You oncepaid me the very great compliment of offering me rank, position, andalmost everything that a girl, from the merely material point of viewcould ask for. I refused, because I felt certain that you and I did notlove each other--however much we may have liked and respected eachother--as a man and woman ought to do, unless they become guilty of agreat sin against each other. To put it in a very hackneyed way, we werenot each other's affinities. I had already found mine--and I think, andhope, that you have found yours--and I wish you all the good fortunethat you may, and, perhaps, can win."
"If is very, very good of you, Miss Marmion; but do you think youcould--well, help me a little? I know I don't deserve it."
"No, sir, you do not," she laughed softly, because the other two werecoming back on to the lawn. "I wonder that you have--I have half a mindto say the impudence--to ask such a thing. You have confessed yourfickleness in an almost shameless way; and now you ask me to help youwith the other girl! No, my lord: if I know anything of Brenda vanHuysman's nature, there is no one who can help you except yourself. Ofcourse she might----"
"Do you really think she might--I mean in that way?"
"Who am I that I should know the secrets of another woman's soul?" shereplied, with unhesitating prevarication. "There she is. Go and ask her,and take my best wishes with you. Now I am going to talk to _my_affinity for a few minutes."
"So it was Merrill, after all!" he said to himself, as they joined theothers. "Well, I'm glad. He's a splendid fellow; and she--of course,she's worth the love of the best man on earth--and I'm afraid that'snot--anyhow, I'll have Miss Brenda's opinion on the subject before I gohome to-night."
It now need hardly be added that the said opinion was not only entirelysatisfactory, but also very sweetly expressed.
The Mummy and Miss Nitocris: A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension Page 13
