Arrived at her hotel, Diana gave notice that she was leaving that
afternoon. Then she packed up her one portmanteau and sent it by a
porter to the station, with instructions to deposit it in the “Salle
des Bagages,” to await her there. He carried out this order, and
brought the printed number entitling her to claim her belongings at her
convenience.
“Madame is perhaps going to Vevy or to Montreux?” he suggested,
cheerfully. “The journey is pleasanter by boat than by the train.”
“No doubt!--yes, of course!--I am quite sure it is!” murmured the
astute Diana with an abstracted smile, giving him a much larger “tip”
than he expected, which caused him to snatch off his cap and stand with
uncovered head, as in the presence of a queen. “But I have not made up
my mind where I shall go first. Perhaps to Martigny--perhaps only to
Lausanne. I am travelling for my own amusement.”
_“Ah, oui! Je comprends! Bonne chance, Madame!_” and the porter backed
reverently away from the wonderful English lady who had given him
five francs, when he had only hoped for one,--and left her to her own
devices. Thereupon she went to her room, locked the door, and wrote the
following letter to Sophy Lansing:
“Dearest Sophy,
“Please find enclosed, as business people say, an English bank-note
for a hundred pounds, which I think clears me of my debt to you in
the way of money, though not of gratitude. By my ‘paying up’ so
soon, you will judge that I have ‘fallen on my feet’--and that I have
accepted ‘service’ under Dr. Dimitrius. What is more, and what will
please you most, is that I am entirely satisfied with my situation,
and am likely to be better off and happier than I have been for many
years. The Doctor does not appear to be at all an ‘eccentric,’--he is
evidently a _bona-fide_ scientist, engaged, as he tells me, in working
out difficult problems of chemistry, in which I hope and believe I may
be of some use to him by attending to smaller matters of detail only;
he has a most beautiful place on the outskirts of Geneva, in which I
have been allotted a charming suite of rooms with the loveliest view
of the Alps from the windows,--and last, by no means least, he has a
perfectly delightful mother, a sweet old lady with snow-white hair and
the ‘grand manner,’ who has captivated both my heart and imagination
at once. So you may realise how fortunate I am! Everything is signed
and settled; and there is only one stipulation Dr. Dimitrius makes,
and this is, that while I am working with him, I may neither write
nor receive letters. Now I have no one I really care to write to
except you; moreover, it is impossible for me to write to anyone, as
I am supposed to be dead! So it all fits in very well as it should.
You, of course, know nothing about me, save that I was unfortunately
drowned!--and when you see ‘Pa’ and ‘Ma’ clothed in their parental
mourning, you will, I hope, manage to shed a few friendly tears with
them over my sudden departure from this world. (N.B. A scrap of
freshly cut onion secreted in your handkerchief would do the trick!)
I confess I should have liked to know your impression of my bereaved
parents when you see them for the first time since my ‘death!’--but
I must wait. Meanwhile, you can be quite easy in your mind about
me, for I consider myself most fortunate. I have a splendid
salary--a thousand a year!--just think of it!--a thousand Pounds,
not Francs!--and a perfectly enchanting home, with every comfort and
luxury. I am indeed ‘dead’ as the poor solitary woman who devoted her
soul to the service of ‘Pa’ and ‘Ma’; a new Diana May has sprung from
the ashes of the old spinster!--it is exactly as if I had really died
and been born again! All the world seems new; I breathe the air of a
delicious and intelligent freedom such as I have never known. I shall
think of you very often, you bright, kind, clever little Sophy!--and
if I get the chance, I will now and then send you a few flowers,--or
a book,--merely as a hint to you that all is well. But, in any case,
whether you receive such a hint or not, have no misgivings or fears
in regard to me;--for years I haven’t been so happy or so well off
as I am now. I’m more than thankful that my lonely hours of study
have not been entirely wasted, and that what I have learned may
prove of some use at last. Now, dear Sophy, _au revoir_! Your good
wishes for me are being fulfilled; my ‘poor brain so long atrophied
by domestic considerations of Pa and Ma,’ as you put it, is actually
expanding!--and who knows?--your prophecy may come true--Cinderella
may yet go to the Prince’s Ball! If I have cause to resign my present
post, I will write to you at once; but not till then. This you will
understand. I have registered this letter so that really there is
no need for you to acknowledge its receipt,--the post-office may be
relied upon to deliver it to you safely. And I think it is perhaps
best you should not write.
“Much love and grateful thanks for all your help and kindness to
“Your ‘departed’ friend,
“Diana May.”
This letter, with its bank-note enclosure, she sealed; and then, taking
a leisurely walk along the Rue du Mont Blanc to the General Post
Office, she patiently filled in the various formal items for the act of
registration which the Swiss postal officials make so overwhelmingly
tiresome and important, and finally got her packet safely despatched.
This done, she felt as if the last link binding her to her former life
was severed. Gone was “Pa”; gone was “Ma!”--gone were the few faded
sentiments she had half unconsciously cherished concerning the man she
had once loved and who had heartlessly “jilted” her,--gone, too, were
a number of sad and solitary years,--gone, as if they had been a few
unimportant numerals wiped off a slate,--and theirs was the strangest
“going” of all. For she had lived through those years,--most surely
she had lived through them,--yet now it did not seem as if they had
ever been part of her existence. They had suddenly become a blank. They
counted for nothing except the recollection of long hours of study.
Something new and vital touched her inner consciousness,--a happiness,
a lightness, a fresh breathing-in of strength and self-reliance. From
the Rue du Mont Blanc she walked to the Pont, and stood there, gazing
for some time at the ravishing view that bridge affords of the lake
and mountains. The sun shone warmly with that mellow golden light
peculiar to early autumn, and the water was blue as a perfect sapphire,
flecked by tiny occasional ripples of silver, like sudden flashing
reflections of sunbeams in a mirror; one or two pleasure-boats with
picturesque “lateen” sails looked like great sea-birds slowly skimming
along on one uplifted wing. The scene was indescribably lovely, and a
keen throb of pure joy pulsated through her whole being, moving her to
devout thankfulness for simply being alive, and able to comprehend such
beauty.
“If I had been really and truly drowned I think it would have been a
pity!” she thought, whimsically. “Not on account of any grief it might
have caused--for I have no one to grieve for me,--but solely on my own
part, for I should have been senseless, sightless, and tucked away
in the earth, instead of being here in the blessed sunshine! No!--I
shouldn’t have been tucked away in the earth, unless they had found
my body and had a first-class funeral with Ma’s usual wreath lying on
the coffin,--I should have been dashed about in the sea, and eaten by
the fishes. Not half so pleasant as standing on the Pont du Mont Blanc
and looking at the snowy line of the Alps! When people commit suicide
they don’t _think_, poor souls!--they don’t realise that there’s more
happiness to be got out of the daily sunshine than either money, food,
houses, or friends can ever give! And one can live on very little, if
one tries.” Here she laughed. “Though I shall have no chance to try!
A thousand a year for a single woman, with a lovely home and ‘board’
thrown in, does not imply much effort in managing to keep body and
soul together! Of course my work may be both puzzling and strenuous--I
wonder what it will really be?”
And she started again on her old crusade of “wonder.” Yet she did
not find anything particular to wonder at in the appearance, manner,
or conversation of Dr. Dimitrius. She had always “wondered” at
stupidity,--but never at intelligence. Dimitrius spoke intelligently
and looked intelligent; he did not “pose” as a wizard or a seer, or
a prophet. And she felt sure that his mother would not limit her
conversation to the various items of domestic business; she could not
fancy her as becoming excited over a recipe for jam, or the pattern
for a blouse. This variety of subjects were the conversational
stock-in-trade of English suburban misses and matrons whose talk
on all occasions is little more than a luke-warm trickle of words
which mean nothing. There would be some intellectual stimulus in the
Dimitrius household,--of that she felt convinced. But in what branch of
scientific research, or what problem of chemistry her services would be
required, she could not, with all her capacity for wondering, form any
idea.
She walked leisurely back to the hotel, looking at the shops on
her way,--at the little carved wooden bears carrying pin-cushions,
pen-trays and pipe-racks,--at the innumerable clocks, with chimes
and without,--at the “souvenirs” of pressed and mounted _edelweiss_,
inscribed with tender mottoes suitable for lovers to send to one
another in absence,--and before one window full of these she paused,
smiling.
“What nonsense it all is!” she said to herself. “I used to keep the
faded petals of any little flower I chanced to see in _his_ buttonhole,
and put them away in envelopes marked with his initials and the
date!--what a fool I was!--as great a fool as that sublime donkey,
Juliette Drouet, who raved over her ‘little man’, Victor Hugo! And the
silly girls who send this _edelweiss_ from Switzerland to the men they
are in love with, ought just to see what those men do with it! _That_
would cure them! Like the Professor who totalled up his butcher’s bill
on the back of one of Charlotte Bronté’s fervent letters, nine out of
ten of them are likely to use it as a ‘wedge’ to keep a window or door
from rattling!”
Amused with her thoughts, she went on, reached her hotel and had
luncheon, after which she paid her bill. “Madame is leaving us?” said
the cheery _dame du comptoir_, speaking very voluble French. “Alas, we
are sorry her stay is so short! Madame goes on to Montreux, no doubt?”
“Madame” smiled at the amiable woman’s friendly inquisitiveness.
“No,” she answered.--“And yet--perhaps--yes! I am taking a long holiday
and hope to see all the prettiest places in Switzerland!”
“Ah, there is much that is grand--beautiful!” declared the
proprietress. “You will occupy much time! You will perhaps return here
again?”
“Oh, yes! That is very likely!” replied Diana, with a flagrant
assumption of candour. “I have been very comfortable here.”
“Madame is too good to say so! We are charmed! The luggage has gone to
the station? Yes? That is well! _Au revoir_, Madame!”
And with many gracious nods and smiles and repeated _au revoirs_, Diana
escaped at last, and went towards the station, solely for the benefit
of the hotel people, servants included, who stood at the doorway
watching her departure. But once out of their sight she turned rapidly
down a side street which she had taken note of in the morning, and soon
found her way to the close little alley under trees with the steps
which led to the border of the lake, but which was barred to strangers
and interlopers by an iron gate through which she had already passed,
and of which she had the key. There was no difficulty in unlocking it
and locking it again behind her, and she drew a long breath of relief
and satisfaction when she found herself once more in the grounds of the
Château Fragonard.
“There!” she said half aloud--“I have shut away the old world!--welcome
to the new! I’m ready for anything now--life or death!--anything but
the old jog-trot, loveless days of monotonous commonplace,--there
will be something different here. Loveless I shall always be--but I’m
beginning to think there’s another way of happiness than love!--though
old Thomas à Kempis says: ‘Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more
pleasant, nothing fuller and better in Heaven and earth’; but he meant
the love of God, not the love of man.”
She grew serious and absorbed in thought, yet not so entirely
abstracted as to be unconscious of the beauty of the gardens through
which she was walking,--the well-kept lawns, the beds and borders of
flowers,--the graceful pergolas of climbing roses, and the shady paths
which went winding in and out through shrubberies and under trees,
here and there affording glimpses of the lake, glittering as with
silver and blue. Presently at a turn in one of these paths she had a
view of the front of the Château Fragonard, with its fountains in full
play on either side, and was enchanted with the classic purity of its
architectural design, which seemed evidently copied from some old-world
model of an Athenian palace.
“I don’t think it’s possible to see anything lovelier!” she said to
herself. “And what luck it is for me to live here! Who could have
guessed it! It’s like a dream of fairyland!”
She gathered a rose hanging temptingly within reach, and fastened it in
her bodice.
“Let me see!” she went on, thinking--“It’s just a week since I was
‘drowned’ in Devon! Such a little while!--why Ma hasn’t had time yet
to get her mourning properly fitted! And Pa! I wonder how he really
‘carries’ himself, as they say, under his affliction! I think it will
be a case of ‘bearing up wonderfully,’ for both of them. One week!--and
my little boat of life, tied so long by a worn rope to a weedy shore,
has broken adrift and floated away by itself to a veritable paradise
of new experience. But,--am I counting too much on my good fortune, I
wonder? Perhaps there will be some crushing drawback,--some terrorizing
influence--who knows! And yet--I think not. Anyhow, I have signed,
sealed, and delivered myself over to my chosen destiny;--it is wiser
to hope for the best than imagine the worst.”
Arrived at the hall door of the Château she found it open, and passed
in unquestioned, as an admitted member of the household. She saw a
neat maid busying herself with the arrangement of some flowers, and of
her she asked the way to her rooms. The girl at once preceded her up
the wide staircase and showed her the passage leading to the beautiful
suite of apartments she had seen in the morning, remarking:
“Madame will be quite private here,--this passage is shut off from the
rest of the house, and is an entry to these rooms only, and if Madame
wants any service she will ring and I will come. My name is Rose.”
“Thank you, Rose!” and Diana smiled at her, feeling a sense of relief
to know that she could have the attention of a simple ordinary domestic
such as this pleasant-looking little French _femme-de-chambre_,--for
somehow she had connected the dumb negro who had at first admitted her
to the Château with a whole imagined retinue of mysterious persons,
sworn to silence in the service of Dimitrius. “I will not trouble you
more than I can help--hark!--what is that noise?”
A low, organ-like sound as of persistent thudding and humming echoed
around her,--it suggested suppressed thunder. The girl Rose looked
quite unconcerned.
“Oh, that is the machine in the Doctor’s laboratory,” she said. “But it
does not often make any noise. We do not know quite what it is,--we are
not permitted to see!” She smiled, and added: “But Madame will not long
be disturbed--it will soon cease.”
And indeed the thunderous hum died slowly away as she spoke, leaving a
curious sense of emptiness on the air. Diana still listened, vaguely
fascinated,--but the silence remained unbroken. Rose nodded brightly,
in pleased affirmation of her own words, and left the room, closing the
door behind her.
Alone, Diana went to the window and looked out. What a glorious
landscape was spread before her!--what a panorama of the Divine
handiwork in Nature! Tears sprang to her eyes--tears, not of sorrow,
but of joy.
“I hope I am grateful enough!” she thought. “For now I have every
reason to be grateful. I tried hard to feel grateful for all my
blessings at home,--yet somehow I couldn’t be!--there seemed no way out
of the daily monotony--no hope anywhere!--but now--now, with all this
unexpected good luck I could sing ‘Praise God from whom all blessings
flow!’ with more fervour than any Salvationist!”
She went into the cosy bedroom which adjoined her _salon_ to see if
she looked neat and well-arranged enough in her dress to go down to
tea,--there was a long mirror there, and in it she surveyed herself
critically. Certainly that navy “model” gown suited her slim figure
to perfection--“And,” she said to herself, “if people only looked at
my hair and my too, too scraggy shape, they might almost take me for
‘young!’ But woe’s me!”--and she touched the corners of her eyes with
the tips of her fingers--“here are the wicked crow’s-feet!--_they_
won’t go!--and the ‘lines from nose to chin’ which the beauty
specialists offer to eradicate and can’t,--the ugly ruts made by Time’s
unkind plough and my own too sorrowful habit of thought,--_they_ won’t
go, either! However, here it doesn’t matter,--the Doctor wanted ‘a
woman of mature years’--and he’s got her!” She smiled cheerfully at
herself in the mirror which reflected a shape that was graceful in its
outline if somewhat too thin--“distinctly willowy” as she said--and
then she began thinking about clothes, like any other feminine
creature. She was glad Sophy had made her buy two charming tea-gowns,
and one very dainty evening party frock; and she was now anxious to
give the “number” of the luggage she had left at the Salle des Bagages
to Dr. Dimitrius, so that it might be sent for without delay. Meanwhile
she looked at all the elegancies of her rooms, and noted the comfort
and convenience with which everything was arranged. One novelty
attracted and pleased her,--this was a small round dial, put up against
the wall, and marked with the hours at which meals were served. A
silver arrow, seemingly moved by interior clockwork, just now pointed
to “Tea, five o’clock,” and while she was yet looking at it, a musical
little bell rang very persistently behind the dial for about a minute,
and then ceased.
“Tea-time, of course!” she said, and glancing at her watch she saw it
was just five o’clock. “What a capital invention! One of these in each
room saves all the ugly gong-beating and bell-ringing which is common
in most houses; I had better go.”
She went at once, running down the broad staircase with light feet as
buoyantly as a girl, and remembering her way easily to the room where
she had breakfasted in the morning. Madame Dimitrius was there alone,
knitting placidly, and looking the very picture of contentment. She
smiled a welcome as Diana entered.
“So you have come back to us!” she said. “I am very glad! One lady who
answered my son’s advertisement, went to see after her luggage in the
same manner as you were told to do--and--ran away!”
“Ran away!” echoed Diana. “What for?”
The old lady laughed.
“Oh, I think she got afraid at the last moment! Something my son said,
or _looked_, scared her! But he was not surprised,--he has always given
every applicant a chance to run away!”
“Not me!” said Diana, merrily. “For he made me sign an agreement, and
gave me some of my salary in advance--he would hardly expect me to run
away with his money?”
“Why not?” and Dimitrius himself entered the room. “Why not, Miss May?
Many a woman and many a man has been known to make short work with an
agreement,--what is it but ‘a scrap of paper’? And there are any number
of Humans who would judge it ‘clever’ to run off with money confidingly
entrusted to them!”
“You are cynical,” said Diana. “And I don’t think you mean what
you say. You know very well that honour stands first with every
right-thinking man or woman.”
“Right-thinking! Oh, yes!--I grant you that,”--and he drew a chair
up to the tea-table where his mother had just seated herself. “But
‘right-thinking’ is a compound word big enough to cover a whole world
of ethics and morals. If ‘right-thinking’ were the rule instead of the
exception, we should have a real Civilisation instead of a Sham!”
Diana looked at him more critically and attentively than she had yet
done. His personality was undeniably attractive,--some people would
have considered him handsome. He had wonderful eyes,--they were his
most striking feature--dark, deep, and sparkling with a curiously
brilliant intensity. He had spoken of his Russian nationality,
but there was nothing of the Kalmuck about him,--much more of the
picturesque Jew or Arab. An indefinable grace distinguished his
movements, unlike the ordinary type of lumbersome man, who, without
military or other training, never seems to know what to do with
his hands or his feet. He noticed Diana’s intent study of him, and
smiled--a charming smile, indulgent and kindly.
“I mystify you a little already!” he said. “Yes, I am sure I do!--but
there are so many surprises in store for you that I think you had
better not begin putting the pieces of the puzzle together till they
are all out of the box! Never mind what I seem to you, or what I
may turn out to be,--enjoy for the present the simple safety of the
Commonplace; there’s nothing so balancing to the mind as a quiet
contemplation of the tea-table! By the way, did you arrange about your
luggage as I told you?”
Diana nodded a cheerful assent.
“Here’s the number,” she said. “And if you are going to send for it,
would you do so quite soon? I want to change my dress for dinner.”
Dimitrius laughed as he took the number from her hand.
“Of course you do!” he said. “Even ‘a woman of mature years’ is never
above looking her best! Armed with this precious slip of paper, I will
send for your belongings at once----”
“It’s only a portmanteau,” put in Diana, meekly. “Not a Saratoga trunk.”
He gave her an amused look.
“Didn’t you bring any Paris ‘confections’?”
“I didn’t wait in Paris,” she replied. “I came straight on.”
“A long journey!” said Madame Dimitrius.
“Yes. But I was anxious to get here as soon as I could.”
“In haste to rush upon destiny!” observed Dimitrius, rising from the
tea-table. “Well! Perhaps it is better than waiting for destiny to rush
upon _you_! I will send for your luggage--it will be here in half an
hour. Meanwhile, when you have quite finished your tea, will you join
me in the laboratory?”
He left the room. Madame Dimitrius laid down her knitting needles and
looked wistfully at Diana.
“I hope you will not be afraid of my son,” she said, “or offended
at anything he may say. His brain is always working--always seeking
to penetrate some new mystery,--and sometimes--from sheer physical
fatigue--he may seem brusque,--but his nature is noble----”
She paused, with a slight trembling of the lip and sudden moisture in
her kind blue eyes.
Impulsively, Diana took her thin delicate old hand and kissed it.
“Please don’t worry!” she said. “I am not easily offended, and I
certainly shall not be afraid! I like your son very much, and I think
we shall get on splendidly together--I do, indeed! I’m simply burning
with impatience to be at work for him! Be quite satisfied that I shall
do my best! I’m off to the laboratory now.”
She went with a swift, eager step, and on reaching the outer hall was
unexpectedly confronted by the dumb negro who had at first admitted
her to the Château. He made her a sign to follow him, and she obeyed.
Down a long, winding, rather dark passage they went till their further
progress was stopped by a huge door made of some iridescent metal which
glowed as with interior fire. It was so enormously thick, and wide and
lofty, and clamped with such weighty bars and mysteriously designed
fastenings, that it might have been the door imagined by Dante when
he wrote: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.” Diana felt her heart
beating a little more quickly, but she kept a good grip on her nerves,
and looked questioningly at her guide. His dark face gave no sign in
response; he merely laid one hand on the centre panel of the door with
a light pressure.
“Come in!” said the voice of Dimitrius. “Don’t hesitate!”
At that moment the whole door lifted itself as it were from a deep
socket in the ground and swung upwards like the portcullis of an
ancient bridge, only without any noise, disclosing a vast circular
space covered in by a dome of glass, or some substance clearer than
glass, through which the afternoon glory of the September sunshine
blazed with an almost blinding intensity. Immediately under the
dome, and in the exact centre of the circular floor, was a wonderful
looking piece of mechanism, a great wheel which swept round and round
incessantly and rapidly, casting from its rim millions and millions of
sparks of light or fire.
“Come in!” again called Dimitrius. “Why do you stand waiting there?”
Diana looked back for a second,--the great metal door had closed
behind her,--the negro attendant had disappeared,--she was shut within
this great weird chamber with Dimitrius and that whirling Wheel! A
sudden giddiness overcame her--she stretched out her hands blindly for
support--they were instantly caught in a firm, kind grasp.
“Keep steady! That’s right!” This, as she rallied her forces and tried
to look up. “It’s not easy to watch any sort of Spherical Motion
without wanting to go with it among ‘the dancing stars!’ There! Better?”
“Indeed, yes! I’m so sorry and ashamed!” she said. “Such a stupid
weakness! But I have never seen anything like it----”
“No, I’m sure you have not!” And Dimitrius released her hands and stood
beside her. “To give you greater relief, I would stop the Wheel if I
could--but I cannot!”
“You cannot?”
“No. Not till the daylight goes. Then it will gradually cease
revolving of itself. It is only a very inadequate man-made exposition
of one of the Divine mysteries of creation,--the force of Light
which generates Motion, and from Motion, Life. Moses touched the
central pivot of truth in his Book of Genesis when he wrote: ‘The
earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of
the deep.... And God said, Let there be Light. And there was Light.’
From that ‘Light,’ the effulgence of God’s own Actual Presence and
Intelligence, came the Movement which dispelled ‘darkness.’ Movement,
once begun, shaped all that which before was ‘without form’ and
filled all that had been ‘void.’ Light is the positive exhalation and
pulsation of the Divine Existence--the Active Personality of an Eternal
God;--Light, which enters the soul and builds the body of every living
organism,--therefore Light is Life.”