“No? Well, I will get some dear old lady ‘in reduced circumstances’ to do that. There are so many of them — all with excellent references. Someone about my own age would do, — for after all, I’m over forty!”
He uttered an exclamation of impatience.
“Why will you say that?”
“Because it’s true!” she replied. “According to this planet’s time. But “ — here her eyes flashed with a strange and almost unearthly lustre—” there are other planets — other countings! And by these, I am — well! — what I am!”
He looked at her in mingled doubt and wonder.
“Diana!” he said, entreatingly—” Will you not trust me?”
“In what way?” she asked, with sudden coldness—” What trust do you seek?”
“Listen!” he went on eagerly—” My science has worked its will upon you, with the most amazing success — but there is something beyond my science — something which baffles me, — which I cannot fathom! It is in you, yourself — you have learned what I have failed to learn, — you know what I do not know!”
A smile suddenly irradiated her lovely face, — so might an angel smile in giving a benediction.
“I am glad you realize that!” she said, quietly—” For it is true! But what I have learned — what I know — I cannot explain to myself or impart to others.”
He stood amazed, — not so much at her words as at her manner of uttering them. It was the unapproachable, ethereal dignity of her attitude and expression that awed and held him in check.
“You would not understand or believe it possible,” she went on, “even if I tried to put into words what is truly a wordless existence, apart from you altogether, — apart not only from you, but from all merely human things—”
“Ah!” he interrupted quickly—” That is just the point. You say ‘merely’ human, as if you had passed beyond humanity!”
She looked at him steadily.
“Humanity thinks too much of itself,” she said, slowly. “Its petty ambitions, — its miserable wars, — its greed of gain and love of cruelty! — what is it worth without the higher soul! In this universe — even in this planet, humanity is not all! There are other forces — other forms, — but — as I have said, I cannot explain myself, and it is time to say good-bye. I am glad I have been of use in helping you to succeed in what you sought to do; and now I suppose you will make millions of money by your ability to re-establish life and youth. And will that make you happy, I wonder?”
His face grew stem and impassive.
“I do not seek happiness,” he said—” Not for myself. I hope to make happiness for others. Yet truly I doubt whether happiness is possible in this world, except for children and fools.”
“And sorrow?” she queried.
“Sorrow waits on us hand and foot,” he replied—” There is no condition exempt from it.”
“Except mine!” she said, smiling. “I am relieved of both sorrow and joy — I never seem to have known either! I am as indifferent to both as a sunbeam! Good-bye!” He held her hand, and his dark eyes searched her lovely face as though looking for a gleam of sympathy.
“Good-bye!” he rejoined—” But not for long! Remember that! Those whom you knew in England will not recognise you now, — you will have many difficulties, and you may need a friend’s counsel — I shall follow you very soon!”
“Why should you?” she asked, lightly. His grasp on her hand tightened consciously.
“Because I must!” he answered, passionately. “Don’t you see? You draw me like a magnet! — and I cannot resist following my own exquisite creation!”
She released her hand with a decided movement.
“You mistake!” she said—” I am not your creation. You, of yourself, can create nothing. I am only a result of your science which you never dreamed of I — which you could not foresee! — and which you will never master! Good-bye!”
She left him at once with this word, despite his last entreating call, “Diana!” and passing through the private gate to the high road, so disappeared. Like a man in a trance, he stood watching till the last glimpse of her dress had vanished — then, with a mist of something like tears in his eyes, he realized that a sudden blank loneliness had fallen upon him like a cloud.
“Something I shall never master!” he repeated, as he went slowly homeward. “If woman I shall! — but if not — !”
And here he checked his thoughts, not daring to pursue them further.
So they parted, — he more bewildered and troubled by the “success” of Ms experiment than satisfied, — while she, quite unconscious of any particular regret or emotion, started on her journey to England. Never had she received so much attention, and the eagerness displayed by every man she met to wait upon her and assist her in some way or other, amused her while it aroused a certain scorn.
“It is only looks that move them!” she said to herself. “The same old tale! — Youth and beauty! — and never a care whether I am a good or an evil thing! And yet one is asked to ‘respect’ men!”
She went on her way without trouble. The chef de gare at Geneva was full of gentle commiseration at the idea of so young and lovely a creature travelling alone, and placed her tenderly, as though she were a hot-house lily to be carried “with care,” in a first-class compartment of “Dames Seules” where a couple of elderly ladies received her graciously, with motherly smiles, and remarked that she was “very young to travel alone.” She deprecated their attention with becoming grace — but said very little. She looked at their wrinkles and baggy throats, and wondered, whether, if they knew of Dr. Dimitrius and went to him, he could ever make them young and beautiful again? It seemed impossible, — they were too far gone! They were travelling to London, however; and she cheerfully accepted their kindly proposal that she should make the journey in their company. On the way through Paris she wrote a brief letter to Sophy Lansing, saying that she would call and see her as soon after arrival in London as possible, and adding as a postscript: “I have changed very much in my appearance, but I hope you will still know me as your friend, Diana.”
The two ladies with whom chance or fate had thrown her in company, turned out to be of the. “old” English aristocracy, and were very simple, gently-mannered women who had for many years been intimate friends. They were both widows; their children were grown up and married, and many reverses of fortune, with loss of kindred, had but drawn them more closely together. Every year they took little inexpensive holidays abroad, and they were returning home now after one of these spent at Aix-les-Bains. They were fascinated by the extraordinary beauty of the girl they had volunteered to chaperon, and, privately to one another, thought and said she ought to wear a veil. For, no man saw her without seeming suddenly “smitten all of a heap,” as the saying is, — and, after one or two embarrassing experiences at various stations en route, where certain of these smitten” had not scrupled to walk up and down the platform outside their compartment just to look at the fair creature within, one of the worthy dames suggested, albeit timidly, that perhaps — only perhaps! — a veil might be advisable? — as they were soon going across the sea — and the rough salt wind and spray were so bad for the complexion! Diana smiled. She understood. And for the rest of the journey she tied up her beautiful head and face in American fashion with an uncompromising dark blue motor veil through which hardly the tip of her nose could be seen.
They crossed the Channel at night, and breakfasted together at Dover. Once in the train bound for London, Diana’s companions sought tactfully to find out, who she was. Something quite indefinable and unusual about her gave them both a touch of “nerves.” She seemed removed and aloof from life’s ordinary things, though her manner was perfectly simple and natural. She gave her name quite frankly and added that she was quite alone in the world.
I have one friend, — Miss Sophy Lansing,” she said— “You may have heard of her. She is a leading Suffragette and a very clever writer. I am going to her now.”
The ladies glanced at each other and smiled.
“Yes, — we have heard of her,” said one. “But I hope she will not make you a Suffragette! Life has much better fortune in store for you than that!”
“You think so?” — and Diana shrugged her graceful shoulders indifferently— “Anyway, I am not interested in political matters at all. They are always small and quarrelsome, — like the buzzing of midges on a warm day!” One of her companions now took out her card-case.
“Do come and see me in town!” she said, kindly—” I should be very glad if you would. I live a very quiet, humdrum life and seldom see any young people.”
Diana smiled as she accepted the card.
“Thank you so much!” she murmured, — seeing at a glance the name and address “Lady Elswood, Chester Square,” and thinking how easy it was for youth and beauty to find friends—” I will certainly come.”
“And don’t forget me!” said the other lady—” I live just round the corner, — only a few steps from Lady Elswood’s house, so you can come and see me also.”
Diana expressed her acknowledgment by a look, reading on the second card now proffered: “Mrs. Gervase,” and the address indicated.
“I will!” she said, and yet in her own mind she felt that these two good-natured women were the merest shadows to her consciousness, and that she had not the remotest idea of going to visit them at any time.
London reached, they parted, — and Diana, taking a taxi-cab and claiming her modest luggage from the Custom-house officials, was driven straight to Sophy Lansing’s flat in Mayfair, which she had left under such different circumstances close on a year ago. Miss Lansing was in, said the servant who opened the door, — and Diana had hardly waited in the drawing-room five minutes, when there was a rush of garments and quick feet and Sophy herself appeared. But at the door she stopped — transfixed.
“There’s some mistake,” she said at once— “You must have come to the wrong flat. I expected a friend, — Miss May. You are not Miss May.”
Diana held out both hands.
“Sophy, don’t you know me?” she said, smiling—” Won’t you know me? Surely you recognize my voice? I told you in my letter from Paris that I was changed —
I thought you would understand—”
But Sophy stood mute and bewildered, her back against the door by which she had just entered. For half a minute she felt she knew the sweet thrill of the voice that was Diana’s special gift, — but when she looked at the exquisite girlish beauty of the — the “person” who had intruded upon her, as she thought on false pretences, she was unreasonably annoyed, her annoyance arising, though she would never have admitted it, from a helpless consciousness of her own inferiority in attractiveness.
“Nonsense!” she said, sharply. “Whoever you are, you can’t take me in! My friend is a middle-aged woman, — older than I am — you are a mere girl! Do you think I don’t know the difference? Please leave my house!”
At these words, a delightful peal of lilting laughter broke from Diana’s lips. Sophy stared, indignant and speechless, while Diana slipped off a watch bracelet from her slender wrist.
“Very well, dear!” she said. “If you don’t want to know me, you shan’t! Here is the little watch you lent me when I went away last year — after I was drowned, you remember? — in place of my own which I’m glad to see you are wearing. You know I took up a position with the Dr. Féodor Dimitrius whose advertisement you sent me, — he wanted me to help him in a scientific experiment. Well! — I did, — and I am the result of his work.
I see you don’t believe me, so I’ll go. I told the taxi man to wait. I’m so sorry you won’t have me!”
Sophy Lansing listened amazed and utterly incredulous. That voice — that sweet laughter — they had a familiar ring; but the youthful features, the exquisite complexion of clear cream and rose — these were no part of the Diana she had known, and she shook her head obstinately.
“You may have met my friend in Geneva,” she said, stiffly. “But how you got my watch from her, I am at a loss to imagine — unless she lent it to you to travel with. You look to me like a runaway schoolgirl playing a practical joke. But whoever you are, you are not Diana May.”
Smilingly Diana laid the watch she had taken off down on the table.
“Very well, I will leave this here,” she said. “It is yours, — and when I am gone it will help you to remember and think over all the circumstances. You had my letter from Paris?”
“I had a letter,” replied Sophy, coldly, “from my friend, Miss May.”
Diana laughed again.
“I wrote it,” she said. “How droll it seems that you should know my handwriting and not know me! And I thought you would be so pleased! — you, who said I was going to be ‘a wonderful creature,’ and that ‘Cinderella should go to the Prince’s Ball!’ And now you won’t recognize me! — it’s just as if you were ‘jealous because I’m pretty!’ I may as well explain before I go, that Dr. Dimitrius, for whom I’ve been working all the year, is one of those scientific ‘cranks’ who think they can restore lost youth, create beauty and prolong life — like Faust, you know! He wanted a Subject to practise upon, — and I was no earthly use to anyone, he took me! And he’s turned me out as you see me — all new and fresh as the morning! And I believe I shall last a long while!”
But here Sophy Lansing uttered a half suppressed scream.
“Go away!” she gasped—” You — you are a mad girl! You’ve escaped from some asylum! — I’m sure you have!”
With swift dignity Diana drew herself up and gazed full and pitifully at her quondam friend.
“Poor Sophy!” she said—” I’m sorry for you! I thought you had more character — more self-control! I am not mad — I am far saner, than you are. I have told you the truth — and one more thing I can tell you — that I have lost all power to be hurt or offended or disappointed, so you need not think your failure to believe me or your loss of friendship causes me the least pain! I have gone beyond all that. You are keeping the door closed, — will you let me pass?”
Really frightened and trembling violently, Sophy Lansing moved cautiously to one side, and as cautiously opened the door. Her scared eyes followed every movement of the graceful, aerial girl-figure which professed to be Diana’s, and she shrank away from the brilliant glance of the heavenly dark blue ‘eyes that rested upon her with such almost angelic compassion. She heard a softly breathed “Good-bye!” and a gentle sweep of garments then — a pause, and Diana was gone. She rushed to the window. Yes, — there was the taxi waiting, — another minute, and she saw her girl visitor enter it. The vehicle soon disappeared, its noisy grind and whir being rapidly lost in the roar of the general traffic.
“It was not — it could not have been Diana!” almost sobbed Sophy to herself. “I felt — oh, yes! — I felt it was something not quite human!”
Then, turning to the table where the watch-bracelet had been left, she took it up. It was indubitably her bracelet, with her monogram in small rabies and diamonds on the back of the watch. She had certainly lent it — almost given it — to Diana, and she herself was wearing Diana’s own watch which Mr and Mrs. Polydore May had given her as “a souvenir of our darling child!” It was all like a wild dream! — where had this girl come from?
“She is frightfully beautiful!” exclaimed Sophy at last, in an outburst of excited feeling—” Simply unearthly! Even if she were Diana, I could not have her here! — with me! —— never-never! She would make me look so old! So plain — so unattractive! But of course she is not Diana! — no ‘beauty doctor’ could make a woman over forty look like a girl of eighteen or less! She must be an adventuress of some sort! She couldn’t be so beautiful unless she were. But she won’t palm herself off on me! My poor old Diana! I wonder what has become of her!”
Meanwhile “poor old Diana,” somewhat perplexed by the failure of her friend to accept her changed appearance on trust, was thinking out the ways an
d means of her new life. She had plenty of money, for Dimitrius had placed two thousand pounds to her credit in a London bank, — a sum which she had no hesitation in accepting, as the price of her life, risked in his service. The thought now struck her that she would go to this bank, draw a small cheque, and explain that she had arrived alone in London, and wished to be recommended to some good hotel. This proved to be an excellent idea, The manager of the bank received her in his private office, and, fairly dazzled by her beauty, placed his friendliest services at her disposal, informing her that he was a personal friend of Dimitrius, and that he held him in the highest esteem and honour. To prove his sincerity he personally escorted her to a quiet private hotel of the highest respectability, chiefly patronized by “county” ladies “above suspicion.” Here, or his recommendation, she took a small suite overlooking the Park. Becoming more and more interested in her youth, loveliness and loneliness, he listened sympathetically while she mentioned her wish to find some middle-aged lady of good family who would reside with her as a chaperon and companion for a suitable annual salary, — and he promised to exert himself in active search for a person of quality who would be fitted for the post. He was a good-looking man, and though married, was susceptible to the charms of the fair sex, and it was with undisguised reluctance that he at last took his leave of the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, with many expressions of courtesy, and commiserating her enforced temporary solitude.
“I wish I could stay with you!” he said, regardless of convention.
“I’m sure you do!” answered Diana, sweetly. “Thank you so much! You have been most kind!”
A look from the lovely eyes accompanied these simple words which shot like a quiver of lightning through the nerves of the usually curt, self-possessed business man, and caused him to stammer confusedly and move awkwardly as at last he left the room. When he was gone Diana laughed.
“They are all alike!” she said—” All worshippers of outward show! Suppose that good man knew I was over forty? Why, he wouldn’t look at me!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 861
