Every class was represented at Lady Fridoline’s garden-party; or rather it might be said that everybody in London whom any one could care to see was to be found on her ladyship’s lawn or was to be hunted for tin her ladyship’s extensive shrubberies. Literature and the Stage were not more conspicuous than Church and Bar — Church represented by its most famous preachers, Bar by its most notorious advocates, to say nothing of a strong contingent of popular curates and clever stuff gowns.
Every noteworthy arrival from the great world of English-speaking people across the Atlantic was to be seen at Lady Fridoline’s, from the scholar and enthusiast who had written seven octavo volumes to prove that Don Juan was the joint work of Byron’s valet, Fletcher, and the Countess Guiccioli, to the miniature soubrette, the idol of New York, who had come to be seen and to conquer upon the boards of a London theatre. Everybody was there, for the afternoon was late, and the throng was thickest just at this hour.
Gerard Hillersdon went about from group to group, everywhere received with cordiality and empressement, but lingering nowhere — not even when the tiny soubrette told him she was just dying for another ice, and she reckoned he’d take her to the tree over there to get one — always in quest of that one somebody who made it worth his while to run the gauntlet of everybody. One of his oldest friends seized upon him, a man with whom he had been at Oxford seven years before, with whom he had maintained the friendship begun in those days, and who was not to be put off with the passing hand-shake which served for other people “I want a talk with you, Hillersdon. Why didn’t you ‘look me up last Tuesday? We were to have dined and done a theatre. Don’t apologise; I see you forgot all about it. By Jove, old fellow,’ you are looking dreadfully washed out. What have you been’ doing with yourself?”
Nothing beyond the usual mill-round. A succession of late parties may have impaired the freshness of my complexion.”
“Come up the river with me. Let me see, to-morrow will be Saturday. We can go to Oxford by the afternoon express, spend a couple of nights at the Mitre, look up the dons whom we knew as undergrads, and row down to Windsor by Tuesday night.”
I should adore it; but it’s impossible. I have an engagement which will keep me in London. I shall see you again presently.”
He slipped out of the little group in which his friend figured. He had made the circuit of the lawn, looking right and left for that tall and graceful form which his eye would have recognised even afar off; and now he plunged into the shrubberied labyrinth which lay between the fine, broad lawn and the high walls which secluded Lady Fridoline’s domain from the vulgar world.
He passed a good many couples sauntering slowly in the leafy shade, and talking in those subdued accents which seem to mean very much, and generally mean very little. At last, in the distance, he saw the form and face he was seeking — a tall, dark woman, -with proudly poised head and splendid eyes, who walked with leisurely step, and tossed her parasol to and fro with a movement eminently expressive of ennui.
She was walking with a young man who was supposed to be a fast ascending star in the heaven of literature — a young man who was something of a journalist, and something of a poet, who wrote short stories in the magazines, was believed to contribute to Punch, and was said to have written a three-volume novel. But however brilliantly this young gentleman may have been talking, Edith Champion had evidently had enough of him, for at sight of Hillersdon her face lighted up, and she held out her hand in eager welcome.
They clasped hands, and he turned back and walked on her right in silence, while the journalist prattled on her left. Presently they met another trio of a mother and daughters, and the journalist was absorbed and swept along by this female brood, leaving Mrs. Champion and Hillersdon tête-à-tête.
“I thought you were not coming,” she said.
“Did you doubt I should be here after you had told me I should sec you? I want to see as much of you as possible to-day.”
“Why to-day more than all other days?”
“Because it is my last day in town.”
“What, you are leaving so soon? Before Goodwood?”
“I don’t care two straws for Goodwood.”
“Nor do I. But why bury one’s self in the country or at some German bath too early in the year? Autumn is always long enough. One need not anticipate it. Is your doctor sending you away? Are you going for your cure?”
“Yes, I am going for my cure.”
“Where?”
“Immerschlafenbad,” he answered, inventing a name on the instant.
“I never heard of the place. One of those new springs which doctors are always developing, no doubt. Every fashionable physician has his particular fad in the way of a watering-place. And you are really going to-morrow?”
“To-morrow I shall be gone.”
“How shall I live without you?” she sighed, with the prettiest skin-deep sentiment, which wounded him almost more than her disdain could have done. “At least I must have all your society till you are gone. You must dine with me and share my opera-box. ‘Don Giovanni’ is an opera of which one can never have too much, and a new soprano is to be the Zerlina, a South American girl of whom great things are expected.”
“Is Mr. Champion at home?”
“No, he is in Antwerp. There is something important going on there something to do with railways. You know how he rushes about. I shall have no one but my cousin, Mrs. Gresham, whom you know of old, the Suffolk vicar’s lively wife. We shall be almost tête-à-tête. I shall expect you at eight o’clock.”
“I will be punctual. What a threatening day!” he said, looking up at the gathering darkness which gave a wintry air to the summer foliage. “There must be a storm coming.”
“Evidently. I think I had better go home. Will you take me to my carnage?”
“Let me get you some tea before you go.”
They strolled across the grass to the leafy tent. A good many people had gone, scared by the thunder-clouds. Lady Fridoline had deserted her post in the portico, tired of saying good-bye, and was taking a hasty cup of tea amidst a little knot of intimates. She was lamenting the non-arrival of some one.
“So shameful to disappoint me, after distinctly promising to be here,” she said.
“Who is the defaulter, dear Lady Fridoline?” asked Mrs. Champion.
“Mr. Jermyn, the new thought-reader.”
“Jermyn!” echoed a middle-aged man, who was attending to Lady Fridoline’s tea, “Jermyn, the mystery man. I should hardly call him by the old name of thought-reader. He marks a new departure in the region of the uncanny. He is not content with picking up pins, or finding unconsidered trifles. He unearths people s secrets, reads their hidden lives in a most uncomfortable way. I have seen a large party reduced to gloom by half an hour of Mr. Jermyn. I would as soon invite Mephistopheles to a garden-party. But people are so morbid, they will hazard anything for a new sensation.”
“It is something to touch only the fringe of other worlds,” replied Lady Fridoline, “and whatever Mr. Jermyn’s power may be, it lies beyond the plummet line of our thought or touch. He told me of circumstances in my own life that it was impossible for him to have discovered except by absolute divination.”
“Then you believe in his power of divination?” asked Mrs. Champion, with languid interest.
“I can’t help believing.”
“Yes, because you have not found out the trick of the thing. There is always a trick in these things, which is inevitably found out sooner or later; and then people wonder that they can have been so foolish as to believe,” said Mrs. Champion.
The curtain of leaves parted as she spoke, and a young man came through the opening — a young man whom Lady Fridoline welcomed eagerly.
“I was just telling my friends how disappointed I should be if you did not come,” she said, and then, turning to Edith Champion, she introduced the new-comer as Mr. Jermyn.
“Lady Fridoline has been trying to make us feel creepy by her des
cription of your occult powers, Mr. Jermyn,” said Mrs. Champion, “but you do not look a very alarming personage.”
“Lady Fridoline exaggerated my poor gifts in her infinite kindness,” replied Jermyn, with a laugh that had a gnome-like sound to Mrs. Champion’s ears.
“Mr. Jermyn was a pleasant-looking young man, tall, slim, and fair, with a broad, strongly marked brow, which receded curiously above the temples, and with hair and moustache of that pale yellowish hue which seems most appropriate to the faun and satyr races. Something in the way this short curling hair was cut about brow and ears, or in the shape of the ears themselves, suggested the satyr type; otherwise there was nothing in the young man’s physiognomy, bearing, or dress which made him different from other well-bred and well-dressed men of his age. His laugh had a fresh and joyous ring, which made it agreeable to hear, and he laughed often, looking at the commonest things in a mirthful spirit.
Lady Fridoline insisted upon his taking some refreshment, and when he had disposed of a lemon-ice, she carried him off for a stroll round the lawn, eager to let people see her latest celebrity. There was a little buzz of talk, and an obvious excitement in the air as he passed group after group. He had shown himself rarely in society, and his few performances had been greatly discussed and written about. Letters exalting him as a creature gifted with superhuman powers had alternated with letters denouncing him as an impostor in one of the most popular daily papers. The people who are always ready to believe in the impossible were loud in the assertion of his good faith, and would not hear of trickery or imposture.
There was an eager expectation of some manifestation of his powers this afternoon, as he walked across the lawn with Lady Fridoline, and people who had been on the point of departure lingered in the hope of being thrilled and frightened, as they had heard of other people being thrilled and frightened, by this amiable-looking youth with the fair complexion and yellow hair. The very incongruity of that fair and youthful aspect with the ghastly or the supernatural made Justin Jermyn so much the more interesting.
He walked about the grounds with his hostess for some time, all her duties of leave-taking suspended, and she to all appearance absorbed in earnest conversation with the Fate-Revealer, every one watchful and expectant. Hillersdon and Mrs. Champion were sitting side by side upon a rustic bench, the lady no longer in a hurry to depart.
“You don’t believe in any nonsense of this kind, I know,” she said, in her low, listless voice, without looking at her companion.
‘I believe in nothing but disillusion, the falsehood inherent in all things.”
“You are in an unhappy mood to-day, I think,” she said, with a touch of interest.
Atmospherical, perhaps,” he answered, with a laugh. You can hardly expect anybody to feel very happy under that leaden sky.”
Lady Fridoline and her companion had separated. He was walking towards the house; she was going rapidly from group to group, talking and explaining with animated gestures.
“There is going to be a performance,” said Mrs. Champion, rising. “If there is any excitement to be had let us have our share of it.”
“You want the secrets of your life to be read?” asked Gerard.; “Yes, yes, yes. I want to see what modern magic can do.”
“And you are not afraid? That is because yours is only a surface life — an existence that begins and ends in wealth and luxury, fine clothes and fine horses. What have you to fear from sorcery? There are no more secrets in your life than in a doll’s life.”
“You are very impertinent.”
“I am going away, and I can afford to quarrel with you. Would to God I could stir some kind of feeling in you — yes, even make you angry before I go.”
“I am afraid you are an egotist,” she said, smiling at him with lovely, inscrutable eyes.
She went across the lawn to Lady Fridoline.
“Are we going to have any magic?” she asked.
“You must not utter that word before Mr. Jermyn, unless you want to offend him. He has a horror of any idea of that kind. He calls his wonderful gift only insight, the power to look through the face into the mind behind it, and from the mind to the life which the mind has shaped and guided. He claims no occult power — only a keener vision than the common run of mankind. He is going to sit in the library for the next half-hour, and if anybody wants to test his powers they can go in — one at a time — and talk to him.”
Anybody seemed likely to be everybody in this case, for there was a general and hurried movement towards the house.
“Come,” said Edith Champion peremptorily, and she and Hillersdon followed the crowd, getting in advance of most people, with swift, vigorous steps.
The library at Fridoline House was a large room that occupied nearly the whole of one wing. It was approached by a corridor, and Mrs. Champion and her escort found this corridor choked with people, all eager to interview Mr. Jermyn.
The approach to the oracle was strongly defended, however, by two gentlemen, who had been told off for that purpose, one being a Colonel of Engineers and the other a Professor of Natural Science.
“We shall never get through this herd,” said Gerard, looking with infinite contempt at the throng of smart people, all panting for a new sensation. “Let us try the other door.”
He was an intimate at Fridoline House, and knew his way to the small ante-room at the back of the library. If the door of that room were unguarded he and his companion might surprise the wizard, and steal a march upon all that expectant frivolity in the corridor. The whole thing was beneath contempt, no doubt, and he, Gerard Hillersdon, was not even faintly interested in it, but it interested Edith Champion, and he was anxious to gratify her whim.
He led her round by the hall and Lady Fridoline’s boudoir, to the room behind the library, opened the door ever so gently, and listened to the voices within.
“It is wonderful, positively wonderful,” said a voice in awe-stricken undertones.
“Are you satisfied, madam? Have I told you enough?” asked Jermyn.
“More than enough. You have made me utterly miserable.”
Then came the flutter of a silken skirt, and the opening and closing of a door, and then Jermyn looked quickly towards that other door which Hillersdon was holding ajar.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“A lady who would like to talk with you before you are exhausted by that clamorous herd in the corridor. May she come to you at once?”
“It is Mrs. Champion,” said Jermyn. Yes, let her come in.”
“He could not possibly have seen me,” whispered Edith Champion, who had been standing behind the door.
“He divined your presence. He is no more a magician than I am in that matter,” said Hillersdon as she passed him, and closed the door behind her.
She came out after a five minutes’ conference, much paler than when she entered.
“Well, has he told the lovely doll her latest secret, the mystery of a new gown from Felix or Raunitz?” asked Gerard.
“I will see you now, if you have anything to say to me, Mr. Hillersdon,” said Jermyn airily.
“I am with you in a moment,” answered Gerard, lingering on the threshold, and holding Mrs. Champion’s hand in both of his. “Edith, what has he said to you? you look absolutely frightened.”
“Yes, he has frightened me — frightened me by telling me my own thoughts. I did not know I was so full of sin. Let me go, Gerard. He has made me hate myself. He will do as much for you, perhaps. He will make you odious in your own eyes. Yes, go to him; hear all that he can tell you.”
She broke from him, and hurried away, he looking after her anxiously. Then, with a troubled sigh, he went to hear what this new adept of a doubtful science might have to say to him.
The library was always in shadow at this hour, and now, with that grey threatening sky outside the long narrow Queen Anno windows, the room was wrapped in a wintry darkness, against which the smiling countenance of the diviner stood out in luminous
relief.
“Sit down, Mr. Hillersdon, I am not going to hurry because of that mob outside,” said Jermyn gaily, throwing himself back in the capacious arm-chair, and turning his beaming face towards Hillersdon. “I am interested in the lady who has just left me, and I am still more interested in you.”
“I ought to feel honoured by that interest,” said Hillersdon, “but I confess to a doubt of its reality. What can you know of a man whom you have seen for the first time within the last half-hour?”
“I am so sorry for you,” said Jermyn, ignoring the direct question, “so sorry. A young man of your natural gifts — clever, handsome, well-bred — to be so tired of life already, so utterly despondent of the future and its infinite chances, that you are going to throw up the sponge, and make an end of it all to-night. It is really too sad.”
Hillersdon stared at him in blank amazement. Justin Jermyn made the statement as if it were the most natural thing in the world that he should have fathomed another man’s intention.
“I cannot accept compassion from any one, least of all from a total stranger,” said Hillersdon, after that moment of surprise.
“Pray what is there in my history or my appearance that moves you to this wild conjecture?”
“No matter by what indications I read your mind,” answered Jermyn lightly. “You know I have read you right. You are one of my easiest cases; everything about you is obvious — stares me full in the face. The lady who has just left us needed a subtler power of interpretation. She does not wear her heart upon her sleeve; and yet I think she will admit that I startled her. As for you, my dear fellow, I am particularly frank with you because I want to prevent your carrying out that foolish notion of yours. The worst thing that a man can do with his life is to throw it away.”
“I admit no man’s right to offer me advice.”
“You think that is out of my line. I am a fortune-teller, and nothing else. Well, I will tell you your fortune, Mr. Hillersdon, if you like. You will not carry out your present intention — yet awhile, or in the mode and manner you have planned. Good afternoon.” He dismissed his visitor with a careless nod as he rose to open the door communicating with the corridor, whence came a buzz of eager voices, mixed with light laughter. People were prepared to be startled, yet could but regard the whole business in a somewhat jocular spirit. It was only the select few who gave Justin Jermyn credit for occult power.
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 891
