"THE WILDERNESS," WIMBLEDON COMMON
The little estate on Wimbledon Common, which had been in Professor
Marmion's family for three generations, was called "The Wilderness." The
house was of distinctly composite structure. Tradition said that it had
been a royal hunting lodge in the days when Barnes and Putney and
Wimbledon were tiny hamlets and the Thames flowed silver-clear through a
vast, wild region of forest and gorse and heather, and the ancestors of
the deer in Richmond Park browsed in the shade of ancient oaks and elms
and beeches, and antler-crowned monarchs sent their hoarse challenges
bellowing across the open spaces which separated their jealously guarded
domains.
Generation by generation it had grown with the wealth and importance of
its owners, as befits a house that is really a home and not merely a
place to live in, until it had become a quaint medley of various styles
of architecture from the Elizabethan to the later Georgian. Thus it had
come to possess a charm that was all its own, a charm that can never
belong to a house that has only been built, and has not grown. Its
interior was an embodiment in stone and oak and plaster of cosy comfort
and dignified repose, and, though it contained every "modern
improvement," all was in such perfect taste and harmony that even the
electric light might have been installed in the days of the first James.
The Professor inhabited the northern wing, reputed to have been the
original lodge in which kings and queens and great soldiers and
statesmen had held revel after the chase, and tradition had endowed it
with a quite authentic ghost: which was that of a fair maiden who had
been decoyed thither to become the victim of royal passion, and who,
strangely enough, poisoned herself in her despair, instead of getting
herself made a duchess and founding the honours of a noble family on her
own dishonour.
Although, as I have said, quite authentic, for the Professor had seen
her so often that he had come to regard her with respectful friendship,
the Lady Alicia was not quite an orthodox ghost. She did not come at
midnight and wail in distressing fashion over the scene of her sad and
shameful death. She seemed to come when and where she listed, whether in
the glimpses of the moon or the full sunlight of mid-day. She never
passed beyond the limits of the old lodge, and never broke the silence
of her coming and goings. None of the present inhabitants of "The
Wilderness" had seen her save the Professor, but Nitocris had often
shivered with a sudden chill when she chanced to be in her invisible
presence, and at such times she would often say to her father:
"There is something cold in the room, Dad. I suppose your friend the
Lady Alicia is paying you a visit. I _do_ wish she would allow me to
make her acquaintance."
And to this he would sometimes reply with perfect gravity:
"Yes, she has just come in: she is standing by the window yonder." And
this had happened so often that Nitocris, like her father, had come to
regard the wraith, or astral body, as the Professor deemed it, of the
unhappy lady almost as a member of the family. Of course, after he had
passed the border into the realm of N4, Franklin Marmion speedily came
to look upon her visits as the merest commonplaces.
But as the unhappy Lady Alicia will have no part to play in the action
of this narrative, her little story must be accepted as a perhaps
excusable digression.
There were about four acres of comfortably wooded land about the house,
of which nearly an acre had formed the pleasaunce of the old lodge. This
was now a beautifully-kept modern garden, with a broad, gently-sloping
lawn, whose turf had been growing more and more velvety year by year for
over three centuries, and divided from it by a low box-hedge was
another, levelled up and devoted to tennis and new-style croquet. The
Old Lawn, as it was called, sloped away from a broad verandah which ran
the whole length of the central wing and formed the approach to the big
drawing-room and dining-room, and a cosy breakfast-room of early
Georgian style, and these, with her study and "snuggery" and bedroom on
the next floor, formed the peculiar domain of Miss Nitocris.
She and the Professor were just sitting down to an early breakfast on
the morning of the garden-party, which had been arranged for the day but
one after the arrival of the Huysmans, when the post came in. There were
a good many letters for both, for each had many interests in life. The
Professor only ran his eye over the envelopes and then put the bundle
aside for consideration in the solitude of his own den. Nitocris did the
same, picked one out and left the others for similar treatment after she
had interviewed the cook about lunch and refreshments for the afternoon,
and the butler on the subject of cooling drinks, for it promised to be a
perfect English day in June--which is, of course, the most delicious day
that you may find under any skies between the Poles.
She opened the one she had selected and skimmed its contents. Then her
eyelids lifted, and she said:
"Oh!"
"What is the matter, Niti?" asked her father, looking up from his
cutlet. "Nothing gone wrong with your arrangements, I hope."
"Oh dear, no," she replied, with something like exultation in her voice,
"quite the reverse, Dad. This is from Brenda, and Brenda is an angel
disguised in petticoats and picture hats. Listen."
Then she began to read:
"MY DEAREST NITI,--I am going to take what I'm afraid
English people would think a great liberty. The trouble is this:
When the Professor (mine, I mean) was making his tour of the
Russian Universities two years ago, he received a great deal of
courtesy and help from no less a person than the celebrated Prince
Oscar Oscarovitch--the modern Skobeleff, you know--who was very
interested in Poppa's work, and took a lot of trouble to smooth
things out for him. Well, the Prince, as of course you know, is in
London now. He called yesterday, and when I mentioned your party,
he said he was very sorry he had not the honour of your father's
acquaintance as well as mine. The grammar's a bit wrong there, but
you know what I mean. That, of course, meant that he wants to come;
and, to be candid, I should like to bring him, for even an American
girl here doesn't always get a Prince, and a famous man as well, to
take around, so, as the time is so short, may we include him in our
party? If you have forgiven me and are going to say 'yes,' I must
tell you that the Prince would like to compensate for his
intrusion--that's the way he puts it--by helping entertain your
guests. It seems that he has met with a man who can work miracles,
an Egyptian----"
At this point Professor Marmion looked up again suddenly with an almost
imperceptible start, and, for the first time, took an interest in Miss
Huysman's letter.
"----named Phadrig. The Prince assures me that he is not a
conjurer in the professional sense, and would be deeply insulted
to be called one; also that no amount of money would induce him to
give a display of his powers just _for_ money. He will come to-day,
if you like, and do wonderful things, which, from what the Prince
says, will astonish and perhaps frighten us a bit, but only because
the Prince once saved his life and got him out of a very bad place
he had got into with a Turkish Pascha. Now, that is my little
story. Please 'phone me as soon as you can so that I can let the
Prince know. It will be just too sweet of you and the Professor to
say 'yes.'
--Your devoted chum, BRENDA."
"Well, Dad," she asked, as she put the letter down, "what do you say?"
"Just what you want to say, my dear Niti," he replied, carefully
spreading some marmalade on a triangle of toast "Personally, I must
confess that I should rather like to see some of this so-called
magician's alleged magic. I know that some of these fellows are
extraordinarily clever, and I have no doubt that he will show us
something interesting, if you care to see it."
"Then that settles it," said Nitocris, rising; "I will go and ring up
the Savoy at once. Perhaps the Egyptian gentleman might be able to help
you with that Forty-Seventh Proposition problem of Professor Hartley's."
"Perhaps," answered Franklin Marmion drily, and went on with his
breakfast.