A Romance of Two Worlds by Marie Corelli (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📕

I was enthusiastic in my admiration of the song and of the splendid voice which had given it utterance, and the Prince seemed almost grateful for the praise accorded him both by Heliobas and myself.

The page entered to announce that “the carriage was waiting for mademoiselle,” and I prepared to leave. Zara kissed me affectionately, and whispering, “Come early tomorrow,” made a graceful salute to Prince Ivan, and left the room immediately.

Heliobas then offered me his arm to take me to the carriage. Prince Ivan accompanied us. As the hall door opened in its usual noiseless manner, I perceived an elegant light brougham drawn by a pair of black horses, who were giving the coachman a great deal of trouble by the fretting and spirited manner in which they pawed the stones and pranced. Before descending the steps I shook hands with Heliobas, and thanked him for the pleasant evening I had passed.

“We will try to make all your time with us pass as pleasantly,” he returned. “Good-night! What, Ivan,” as he perceived the Prince attiring himself in his great-coat and hat, “are you also going?”

“Yes, I am off,” he replied, with a kind of forced gaiety; “I am bad company for anyone to-night, and I won’t inflict myself upon you, Casimir. Au revoir! I will put mademoiselle into the carriage if she will permit me.”

We went down the steps together, Heliobas watching us from the open door. As the Prince assisted me into the brougham, he whispered:

“Are you one of them!”

I looked at him in bewilderment.

“One of them!” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind,” he muttered impatiently, as he made a pretence of covering me with the fur rugs inside the carriage: “if you are not now, you will be, or Zara would not have kissed you. If you ever have the chance ask her to think of me at my best. Good-night.”

I was touched and a little sorry for him. I held out my hand in silence. He pressed it hard, and calling to the coachman, “36, Avenue du Midi,” stood on the pavement bareheaded, looking singularly pale and grave in the starlight, as the carriage rolled swiftly away, and the door of the Hotel Mars closed.

CHAPTER VIII.

A SYMPHONY IN THE AIR.

Within a very short time I became a temporary resident in the house of Heliobas, and felt myself to be perfectly at home there. I had explained to Madame Denise the cause of my leaving her comfortable Pension, and she had fully approved of my being under a physician’s personal care in order to ensure rapid recovery; but when she heard the name of that physician, which I gave (in accordance with Zara’s instructions) as Dr. Casimir, she held up her fat hands in dismay.

“Oh, mademoiselle,” she exclaimed, “have you not dread of that terrible man? Is it not he that is reported to be a cruel mesmerist who sacrifices everybody—yes, even his own sister, to his medical experiments? Ah, mon Dieu! it makes me to shudder!”

And she shuddered directly, as a proof of her veracity. I was amused. I saw in her an example of the common multitude, who are more ready to believe in vulgar spirit-rapping and mesmerism than to accept an established scientific fact.

“Do you know Dr. Casimir and his sister?” I asked her.

“I have seen them, mademoiselle; perhaps once—twice—three times! It is true madame is lovely as an angel; but they say”—here she lowered her voice mysteriously—“that she is wedded to a devil! It is true, mademoiselle—all people say so. And Suzanne Michot—a very respectable young person, mademoiselle, from Auteuil—she was employed at one time as under-housemaid at Dr. Casimir’s, and she had things to say—ah, to make the blood like ice!”

“What did she say?” I asked with a half smile.

“Well,” and Madame Denise came close to me and looked confidential, “Suzanne—I assure you a most respectable girl—said that one evening she was crossing the passage near Madame Casimir’s boudoir, and she saw a light like fire coming through the curtains of the portiere. And she stopped to listen, and she heard a strange music like the sound of harps. She ventured to go nearer—Suzanne is a brave girl, mademoiselle, and most virtuous—and to raise the curtain the smallest portion just to permit the glance of an eye. And—imagine what she saw’”

“Well!” I exclaimed impatiently. “WHAT did she see?”

“Ah, mademoiselle, you will not believe me—but Suzanne Michot has respectable parents, and would not tell a lie—well, Suzanne saw her mistress, Madame Casimir, standing up near her couch with both arms extended as to embrace the air. Round her there was—believe it or not, mademoiselle, as you please—a ring of light like a red fire, which seemed to grow larger and redder always. All suddenly, madame grew pale and more pale, and then fell on her couch as one dead, and all the red fire went out. Suzanne had fear, and she tried to call out—but now see what happened to Suzanne! She was PUSHED from the spot, mademoiselle, pushed along as though by some strong personage; yet she saw no one till she reached her own door, and in her room she fainted from alarm. The very next morning Dr. Casimir dismissed her, with her full wages and a handsome present besides; but he LOOKED at her, Suzanne said, in a manner to make her tremble from head to foot. Now, mademoiselle, judge yourself whether it is fit for one who is suffering with nerves to go to so strange a house!”

I laughed. Her story had not the least effect upon me. In fact, I made up my mind that the so respectable and virtuous Suzanne Michot had been drinking some of her master’s wine. I said:

“Your words only make me more desirous to go, Madame Denise. Besides, Dr. Casimir has already done me a great deal of good. You must have heard things of him that are not altogether bad, surely?”

The little woman reflected seriously, and then said, as with some reluctance:

“It is certainly true, mademoiselle, that in the quarter of the poor he is much beloved. Jean Duclos—he is a chiffonnier—had his one child dying of typhoid fever, and he was watching it struggling for breath; it was at the point to die. Monsieur le Comte Casimir, or Dr. Casimir—for he is called both—came in all suddenly, and in half an hour had saved the little one’s life. I do not deny that he may have some good in him, and that he understands medicine; but there is something wrong—” And Madame Denise shook her head forlornly a great number of times.

None of her statements deterred me from my intention, and I was delighted when I found myself fairly installed at the Hotel Mars. Zara gave me a beautiful room next to her own; she had taken pains to fit it up herself with everything that was in accordance with my particular tastes, such as a choice selection of books; music, including many of the fascinating scores of Schubert and Wagner; writing materials; and a pretty, full-toned pianette. My window looked out on a small courtyard, which had been covered over with glass and transformed into a conservatory. I could enter it by going down a few steps, and could have the satisfaction of gathering roses and lilies of the valley, while outside the east wind blew and the cold snowflakes fell over Paris. I wrote to Mrs. Everard from my retreat, and I also informed the Challoners where they could find me if they wanted me. These duties done, I gave myself up to enjoyment. Zara and I became inseparables; we worked together, read together, and together every morning gave those finishing-touches to the ordering and arrangement of the household which are essentially feminine, and which not the wisest philosopher in all the world has been, or ever will be, able to accomplish successfully. We grew to love each other dearly, with that ungrudging, sympathizing, confiding friendship that is very rarely found between two women. In the meantime my cure went on rapidly. Every night on retiring to rest Heliobas prepared a medicinal dose for me, of the qualities of which I was absolutely ignorant, but which I took trustingly from his hand. Every morning a different little phial of liquid was placed in the bathroom for me to empty into the water of my daily bath, and every hour I grew better, brighter, and stronger. The natural vivacity of my temperament returned to me; I suffered no pain, no anxiety, no depression, and I slept as soundly as a child, unvisited by a single dream. The mere fact of my being alive became a joy to me; I felt grateful for everything—for my eyesight, my speech, my hearing, my touch—because all my senses seemed to be sharpened and invigorated and braced up to the keenest delight. This happy condition of my system did not come suddenly—sudden cures mean sudden relapses; it was a gradual, steady, ever-increasing, reliable recovery.

I found the society of Heliobas and his sister very fascinating. Their conversation was both thoughtful and brilliant, their manners were evenly gracious and kindly, and the life they led was a model of perfect household peace and harmony. There was never a fuss about anything: the domestic arrangements seemed to work on smoothly oiled wheels; the different repasts were served with quiet elegance and regularity; the servants were few, but admirably trained; and we all lived in an absolutely calm atmosphere, unruffled by so much as a breath of worry. Nothing of a mysterious nature went on, as far as I could see.

Heliobas passed the greater part of the day in his study—a small, plainly furnished room, the facsimile of the one I had beheld him in when I had dreamed those three dreams at Cannes. Whether he received many or few patients there I could not tell; but that some applied to him for advice I knew, as I often met strangers crossing the hall on their way in and out. He always joined us at dinner, and was invariably cheerful, generally entertaining us with lively converse and sparkling narrative, though now and then the thoughtful tendency of his mind predominated, and gave a serious tone to his remarks.

Zara was uniformly bright and even in her temperament. She was my very ideal of the Greek Psyche, radiant yet calm, pensive yet mirthful. She was full of beautiful ideas and poetical fancies, and so thoroughly untouched by the world and its aims, that she seemed to me just to poise on the earth like a delicate butterfly on a flower; and I should have been scarcely surprised had I seen her unfold a pair of shining wings and fly away to some other region. Yet in spite of this spirituelle nature, she was physically stronger and more robust than any other woman I ever saw. She was gay and active; she was never tired, never ailing, and she enjoyed life with a keen zest such as is unknown to the tired multitudes who toil on hopelessly and wearily, wondering, as they work, why they were born. Zara evidently had no doubts or speculations of this kind; she drank in every minute of her existence as if it were a drop of honey-dew prepared specially for her palate. I never could believe that her age was what she had declared it to be. She seemed to look younger every day; sometimes her eyes had that limpid, lustrous innocence that is seen in the eyes of a very little child; and, again, they would change and glow with the earnest and lofty thought of one who had lived through years of study, research, and discovery. For the first few days of my visit she