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The Master Mummer, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book 3 - Chapter 3 |
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_ BOOK III CHAPTER III Feurgeres looked at me in surprise. "What have you been doing to yourself?" he exclaimed. "Is the fresh air so wonderful a tonic, or have you been asleep and dreaming of Paradise?" I laughed. "The sea air was well enough," I answered, "but I have been having a most interesting conversation." "With whom?" he asked. "The Princess Adelaide!" He drew a little closer to me. "You are serious?" "Undoubtedly. Listen!" Then I told him of my conversation with Isobel's cousin, excepting the last episode. His gratification was scarcely equal to mine. He was a little thoughtful for some time afterwards. I am sure he felt that I had been indiscreet. "The Princess Adelaide," I said, "will not betray us. I am sure of that. She will tell her mother nothing." "These Waldenburgs," he answered gravely, "are a crafty race. It is in their blood. They cannot help it." "Isobel is a Waldenburg," I reminded him. "She is her mother's daughter," he said. "There is always one alien temperament in a family." "In this case," I declared, "two!" He shrugged his shoulders. "We shall soon know," he said, "whether this young lady is honest or not. A man will meet us at Paris with an exact record of the doings of the Archduchess and her party. We shall know then where Isobel is. If the address is the same as that given you by the Princess Adelaide, I will believe in her." "But not till then?" I remarked, smiling. "Not till then!" he assented. Before we left Calais, Feurgeres sent more telegrams, and for an hour afterwards he sat opposite to me with wide-open eyes, seeing nothing, as was very evident, save the images created by his own thoughts. As we reached Amiens, however, he spoke to me. "You had better try and get some sleep," he said. "You may have little time for rest in Paris." "And you?" I asked. "It is another matter," he answered. "I am accustomed to sleeping very little; and besides, it is probable that this affair may become one which it will be necessary for you to follow up alone. The sight of me, or the mention of my name, is like poison to all the Waldenburgs. They would only be the more bitter and hard to deal with if they knew that I, too, had joined in the chase. I hope to be able to do my share secretly." I followed his suggestion, and slept more or less fitfully all the way to Paris. I was awakened to find that the train had come to a standstill. We were already in the station, and as I hastily collected my belongings I saw that Feurgeres had left me, and was standing on the platform talking earnestly to a pale, dark young Frenchman, sombrely dressed and of insignificant appearance. I joined him just as his companion departed. He turned towards me with a peculiar smile. "My apologies to the Princess," he said. "The address is correct. They have gone to a suite of rooms belonging to the Baron von Leibingen." "They are there still, then?" I exclaimed. "They are there still," Feurgeres assented, "and they show no immediate signs of moving on. They are apparently waiting for someone--perhaps for the Princess Adelaide. Inside the house and out they are being closely watched, and directly their plans are made I shall know of them." I looked, as I felt, a little surprised. Feurgeres smiled. "I am at home here," he said, "and I have friends. Come! My own apartments are scarcely a stone's-throw away from the Rue Henriette. Estere will see our things safely through the Customs." We drove through the cold grey twilight to the Rue de St. Antoine, where Feurgeres' apartments were. To my surprise servants were at hand expecting us, and I was shown at once into a suite of rooms, in one of which was a great marble bath all ready for use. Some coffee and a change of clothes were brought me. All my wants seemed to have been anticipated and provided for. I had always imagined Feurgeres to be a man of very simple and homely tastes, but there were no traces of it in his home. He showed me some of the rooms while we waited for breakfast, rooms handsomely furnished and decorated, full of art treasures and curios of many sorts collected from many countries. But, in a sense, it was like a dead house. One felt that it might be a dwelling of ghosts. There were nowhere any signs of the rooms being used, the habitable air was absent. Everything was in perfect order. There was no dust, none of the chilliness of disuse. Yet one seemed to feel everywhere the sadness of places which exist only for their history. One door only remained closed, and that Feurgeres unlocked with a little key which hung from his chain. But he did not invite me to enter. "You will excuse me for a few moments," he said. "My housekeeper will show you into the breakfast-room. Please do not wait for me." An old lady, very primly dressed in black, and wearing a curious cap with long white strings, bustled me away. As Feurgeres opened the door of the room, in front of which we had been standing, the air seemed instantly sweet with the perfume of flowers. The old lady sighed as she poured me out some coffee. I am ashamed to say that I felt, and doubtless I looked, curious. "Would it not be as well for me to wait for Monsieur Feurgeres?" I asked. "He will not be very long, I suppose?" The old lady shook her head sadly. "Ah! but one cannot say!" she answered. "Monsieur had better begin his breakfast." "Your master has perhaps someone waiting to see him?" I remarked. Madame Tobain--she told me her name--shook her head once more. She spoke softly, almost as though she were speaking of something sacred. "Monsieur did not know, perhaps--it was the chamber of Madame. Always Monsieur spends several hours a day there when he is in Paris, and always after he has performed at the theatre he returns immediately to sit there. No one else is allowed to enter; only I, when Monsieur is away, am permitted once a day to fill it with fresh flowers--flowers always the most expensive and rare. Ah, such devotion, and for the dead, too! One finds it seldom, indeed! It is the great artists only who can feel like that!" She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, dropped me a curtsey, and withdrew. Feurgeres came in presently, and I avoided looking at him for the first few minutes. To tell the truth, there was a lump in my own throat. When he spoke, however, his tone was as usual. "I shall ask you," he said, "to stay indoors, but to be prepared to start away at a moment's notice. I am going to make a few enquiries myself." His voice drew my eyes to his face, and I was astonished at his appearance. The skin seemed tightly drawn about his cheeks, and he was very white. As though in contradiction to his ill-looks, however, his eyes were unusually brilliant and clear, and his manner almost buoyant. "Forgive me, Monsieur Feurgeres," I said, "but it seems to me that you had better rest for a while. You have been travelling longer than I have, and you are tired." He smiled at me almost gaily. "On the contrary," he declared, "I never felt more vigorous. I----" He stopped short, and walked the length of the room. When he returned he was very grave, but the smile was still upon his lips. He laid his hand almost affectionately upon my shoulder. "My dear friend," he said softly, "I think that you are the only one to whom I have felt it possible to speak of the things which lie so near my heart. For I think that you, too, are one of those who know, and who must know, what it is to suffer. We who carry the iron in our hearts, you know, are sometimes drawn together. The things which we may hide from the world we cannot hide from one another. Only for you there is hope, for me there has been the wonderful past. People have pitied me often, my friend, for what they have called my lonely life. They little know! I am not a sentimentalist. I speak of real things. Isobel, my wife, died to the world and was buried. To me she lives always. Just now--I have been with her. She sat in her old chair, and her eyes smiled again their marvellous welcome to me. Only--and this is why I speak to you of these things--there was a difference." He was silent for a few minutes. When he continued, his voice was a little softer but no less firm. "Dear friend," he said, "I will be honest. When Isobel was taken from me I had days and hours of hideous agony. But it was the craving for her body only, the touch of her lips, the caress of her hands, the sound of her voice. Her spirit has been with me always. At first, perhaps, her coming was faint and indefinable, but with every day I realized her more fully. I called her, and she sat in her box and watched me play, and kissed her roses to me. I close the door upon the world and call her back to her room, call her into my arms, whisper the old words, call her those names which she loves best--and she is there, and all my burden of sorrow falls away. My friend, a great love can do this! A great, pure love can mock even at the grave." I clasped his hand in mine. "I think," I said, "that I will never pity you again. You have triumphed even over Fate--even over those terrible, relentless laws which sometimes make a ghastly nightmare of life even to the happiest of us. You have turned sorrow into joy. It is a great deed. You have made my own suffering seem almost a vulgar thing." "Ah, no!" he said, "for you, too, there is hope. You, too, know that we need never be the idle, resistless slaves of Fate--like those others. Will and faith and purity can kindle a magic flame to lighten the darkness of the greatest sorrow. I speak to you of these things--now--because I think that the end is near." He suddenly sank into a chair. I looked at him in alarm, but his face was radiant. There was no sign of any illness there. "You are young, Arnold Greatson," he said. "They tell me that you will be famous. Yet you are not one of those to turn your face to the wall because the greatest gift of life is withheld from you. That is why I have lifted the curtain of my own days. I know you, and I know that you will triumph. It is a world of compensations after all for those who have the wit to understand." I think that he had more to say to me, but we were interrupted. There was a knock at the door, and the man entered whom I had seen talking with Feurgeres upon the platform of the railway station. Feurgeres rose at once, calm and prepared. They talked for a while so rapidly that I could not follow them. Then he turned to me. "They are preparing for a move," he announced. "They are going south as though for Marseilles and Illghera, but they insist upon a special train. They have declined a saloon attached to the train de luxe, and Monsieur Estere here has doubts as to their real destination. Wait here until I return. Be prepared for a journey." * * * * * They left me alone. I lit a cigarette and settled down to read. In less than half an hour, however, I was disturbed. There was a knock at the door, and Madame Tobain entered. "There is a lady here, sir, who desires to see Monsieur!" she announced. A fair, slight woman in a long travelling cloak brushed past her. She raised her veil, and I started at once to my feet. It was Lady Delahaye. _ |
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