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The Master Mummer, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 2 - Chapter 10 |
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_ BOOK II CHAPTER X Isobel never hesitated. I think that instinctively she accepted him without demur. Her eyes flashed back to him all those nameless things which his own greeting had left unspoken. She took his hands, and looked him frankly in the face. "All my life," she said softly, "I have wanted to meet someone who could say that to me." He was dressed in a suit of mediaeval court clothes, black from head to foot, and fashioned according to the period of the play in which he was acting. But if he had worn the garments of a pierrot or a clown, one would never have noticed it. The man's individuality, magnetic and irresistible, triumphed easily. Mr. Grooten had passed away. It was the great Feurgeres, whose sad shining eyes lingered so wistfully upon Isobel's face. "I can say more than that," he went on. "And now that I see you, Isobel, I wonder that I have not said it long ago. You are like her, child--very like her!" "I am glad," Isobel murmured. "Please tell me--everything!" "Everything--for me--is soon told," he answered, his voice dropping almost to a whisper, his eyes still fixed upon Isobel's, yet looking her through as though she were a shadow. "I loved your mother. I was the man--whom your mother loved! The years of my life began and ended there." Their hands had fallen apart a little while before, but Isobel, with an impulsive gesture, stooped down and raised the fingers of his left hand to her lips. I turned away. It seemed like sacrilege to watch a man's soul shining in his eyes. I walked to the other end of the long narrow room, and examined the swords which lay ready for use against the wall. It was not many minutes, however, before Feurgeres recalled me. "To-night," he said, "I was coming to see Mr. Greatson." "It is better," she murmured, "to have met you like this." He smiled very slightly, yet it seemed to me that the curve of his lips was almost a caress. There was certainly nothing left now of Mr. Grooten. "I think that I, too, am glad," he said. "Your mother suffered all her life because she permitted herself to care for me. We mummers, you see, Isobel, though the world loves to be amused, are always a little outside the pale. I think," he added, with a curious little note of bitterness in his tone, "that we are not reckoned worthy or capable of the domestic affections." "You do not believe--you cannot believe," she murmured, "that there are many people who are so foolish! It is the dwellers in the world who are mummers--those who live their foolish, orderly lives with their eyes closed, and oppressed all the while with a nervous fear of what their neighbours are thinking of them. Those are the mummers--but you--you, Monsieur, are Feurgeres--the artist! You make music on the heartstrings of the world!" For myself I was astonished. I had not often seen Isobel so deeply moved. I had never known her so ready, so earnest of speech. But Feurgeres was almost agitated. For the first time I saw him without the mask of his perfect self-control. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes were soft as a woman's. He raised Isobel's hand to his lips, and his voice, when he spoke, shook with real emotion. "You are the daughter of your mother, dear Isobel," he said. "Beyond that, what is there that I can say--I, who loved her!" "You can tell me about her," Isobel said gently. "That is what I have been hoping for!" "A little, a very little," he answered, "and more to-night, if you will. I have already written to Mr. Greatson, and I meant in a few hours to tell him everything. But I would have you know this, Isobel, and remember it always. Your mother was a holy woman. For my sake, for the sake of the love she bore me, she abandoned a great position. She broke down all the barriers of race, and all the conventions of a lifetime. She lost every friend she had in the world; she even, perhaps, in some measure, neglected her duty to you. Yet you were seldom out of her thoughts, and her last words committed you to my distant care. I have, perhaps, ill-fulfilled her charge, Isobel. Yet I have been watching over you sometimes when you have not known it." "You were my saviour once," she said, "you and Arnold here, when I sorely needed help." "I came from America at a moment's notice," he said, "when it seemed to me that you might need my help. I broke the greatest contract I had ever signed, and I placed my liberty, if not my life, at the mercy of your wonderful police system. But those things count for little. I have been forced, Isobel, to leave you very much to yourself. You come of a race who would regard any association with me as defilement. And there is always the chance that you may be able to take your proper position in the world. That is why it has been my duty to keep away from you, why I have been forced to leave to others what I would gladly have done myself. To-night you will understand everything." "Nothing that you can tell me of my family or myself," she answered, "will ever make me forget that, whereas of them I know nothing, you have been my guardian angel. It was you who rescued me from the one person in this world of whom I have been miserably, hatefully afraid. It was not my family who saved me. It was you!" A shrill bell was ringing outside. We heard the commotion of hurrying footsteps, the call-boy's summons, the creaking of moving scenery. Feurgeres glanced at the watch which stood upon his table. His manner seemed to undergo a sudden change. The man no longer revealed himself. "The curtain is going up," he said. "I can stay with you but two minutes longer. I am coming to see Mr. Greatson to-night, Isobel, after the performance, and I wish to see him alone. This is at once our meeting and our farewell." "Our farewell!" she repeated doubtfully. "Surely you are not going to leave us--so soon! You cannot mean that?" "To-morrow," he said, "I leave for St. Petersburg. My engagement there has been made many months ago. But even if it were not so, dear child, our ways through life must always lie far apart. If the necessity for it had not existed, I should not have left you to the care of--of even Mr. Greatson. To be your guardian, Isobel, would not be seemly. That you will better understand--to-morrow." "Indeed!" she protested, "I would sooner hear it now from your own lips--if, indeed, it must be so!" He shook his head very slowly, but with a decision more finite than the most emphatic negation which words could have framed. "I must go away, Isobel," he said, "and you and I must remain apart. I will only ask you to remember me by this. I am the man your mother loved. Nothing else in my life is worth considering--but that. I am one of those with whom fate has dealt a little hardly. I am as weary of my work as I am of life itself. I go on because it was her wish. But I cannot forget. The past remains--a blazing page of light. The present is a very empty and a very cold place. My days here are a sort of aftermath. My life ended with hers. To-night, for one moment--I want you to take her place." Isobel looked at him eagerly. "Tell me how," she begged. "Tell me what to do!" "It may sound very foolish," he said, with a faint smile, "but I have a fancy, and I am sure that you will do as I ask. I want you to sit where she sat night after night. You will find some flowers in her chair. Keep them. They were the ones she preferred." There was an imperative knocking at the door. Feurgeres caught up his plumed hat and sword. "I am ready," he said quietly. "Mr. Greatson, my servant will take you to the box, which I beg that you and Isobel will occupy for the rest of the evening. It is a harmless whim of mine, and I trust that it will not inconvenience you." With scarcely another word he left us, and a moment later we heard the roar of applause which greeted his appearance on the stage. Isobel's eyes kindled, and she moved restlessly towards the door. "I do hope," she said, "that someone will come for us soon. I want to hear every word. I hate to miss any of it." The dark-visaged servant stood upon the threshold. "I have orders from Monsieur Feurgeres," he announced respectfully, "to conduct you to his box. If Mademoiselle will permit!" We followed him on tiptoe to the front of the house. He unlocked the door of the left-hand stage box with a key which he took from his pocket. "Monsieur will permit me to remark," he whispered, "that this is the first time since I have been in the service of Monsieur Feurgeres that anyone has occupied his private box. I trust that Mademoiselle will be comfortable." Then the door closed behind him, and we were left to ourselves. _ |
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