Denzil Ardayre could not get any more leave for a considerable time and
remained quartered in the North, where he played cricket and polo to his
heart's content, but the head of the family and his charming wife went
through the feverish season of 1914 in the town house in Brook Street.
Ardayre was too far away for week-end parties, but they had several
successful London dinners, and Amaryllis was becoming quite a capable
hostess, and was much admired in the world.
Very fine of instinct and apprehension at all times she was developing by
contact with intelligent people--for John had taken care that she only
mixed with the most select of his friends. The de la Paule family had
been more than appreciative of her and had guided her and supervised her
visiting list with care.
Everything was too much of a rush for her to think and analyse things,
and if she had been asked whether she was happy, she would have thought
that she was replying with honesty when she affirmed that she was. John
was not happy and knew it, but none of his emotions ever betrayed
themselves, and the mask of his stolid content never changed.
They had gone on with their matter-of-fact relations, and when they
returned to London after a week at Ardayre, all had been much easier,
because they were seldom alone--and at last Amaryllis had grown to accept
the situation, and try not to speculate about it. She danced every night
at balls and continued the usual round, but often at the Opéra, or the
Russian ballet, or driving back through the park in the dawn, some wild
longing for romance would stir in her, and she would nestle close to
John. And John would perhaps kiss her quietly and speak of ordinary
things. He went everywhere with her though, and never failed in the
kindest consideration. He seldom danced himself, and therefore must often
have been weary, but no suggestion of this ever reached Amaryllis.
"What does he talk to his friends about, I wonder?" she asked herself,
watching him from across a room, in a great house after dinner one night.
John was seated beside the American Lady Avonwier, a brilliant person who
did not allow herself to be bored. He appeared calm as usual, and there
they sat until it was time to go on to a ball.
Everything he said was so sensible, so well informed--perhaps that was a
nice change for people--and then he was very good-looking and--but oh!
what was it--what was it which made it all so disappointing and tame!
A week after they had come up to Brook Street, the Boleskis arrived at
the Mount Lennard House which they had taken in Grosvenor Square, armed
with every kind of introduction, and Harietta immediately began to dazzle
the world.
Her dresses and jewels defied all rivalry; they were in a class alone,
and she was frank and stupid and gracious--and fitted in exactly with
the spirit of the time.
She restrained her movements in dancing to suit the less advanced English
taste; she gave to every charity and organized entertainments of a
fantastic extravagance which whetted the appetite of society, grown jaded
with all the old ways. The men of all ages flocked round her, and she
played with them all--ambassadors, politicians, guardsmen, all drawn by
her own potent charm, and she disarmed criticism by her stupidity and
good nature, and the lavish amusements she provided for every one--while
the chef they had brought over with them from Paris would have insured
any hostess's success!
Harietta had never been so happy in all the thirty-six years of her life.
This was her hour of triumph. She was here in a country which spoke her
own language--for her French was deplorably bad--she had an unquestioned
position, and all would have been without flaw but for this tiresome
information she was forced to collect.
Verisschenzko had been detained in Paris. The events of the twenty-eighth
of June at Serajevo were of deep moment to him, and it was not until the
second week in July that he arrived at the Ritz, full of profound
preoccupation.
Amaryllis had been to Harietta's dinners and dances, and now the Boleskis
had been asked down to Ardayre in return for the three days at the end of
the month, when the coming of age of the young Marquis of Bridgeborough
would give occasion for great rejoicings, and Amaryllis herself would
give a ball.
"You cannot ask people down to North Somerset in these days just for the
pleasure of seeing you, my dear child," Lady de la Paule had said to her
nephew's wife. "Each season it gets worse; one is flattered if one's
friends answer an invitation to dinner even, or remain for half an hour
when it is done. I do not know what things are coming to, etiquette of
all sorts went long ago--now manners, and even decency have gone. We are
rapidly becoming savages, openly seizing whatever good thing is offered
to us no matter from whom, and then throwing it aside the instant we
catch sight of something new. But one must always go with the tide unless
one is strong enough to stem it, and frankly _I_ am not. Now
Bridgeborough's coming of age will make a nice excuse for you to have a
party at Ardayre. How many people can you put up? Thirty guests and their
servants at least, and seven or eight more if you use the agent's house."
So thus it had been arranged, and John expressed his pleasure that his
sweet Amaryllis should show what a hostess she could be.
None but the most interesting people were invited, and the party promised
to be the greatest success.
Two or three days before they were to go down, Amaryllis coming in late
in the afternoon, found Verisschenzko's card.
"Oh! John!" she cried delightedly, "that very thrilling Russian whom we
met in Paris has called. You remember he wrote to me some time ago and
said he would let us know when he arrived. Oh! would not it be nice to
have him at our party--let us telephone to him now!"
Verisschenzko answered the call himself, he had just come in; he
expressed himself as enchanted at the thought of seeing her--and
yes--with pleasure he would come down to Ardayre for the ball.
"We shall meet to-night, perhaps, at Carlton House Terrace at the German
Embassy," he said, "and then we can settle everything."
Amaryllis wondered why she felt rather excited as she walked up the
stairs--she had often thought of Verisschenzko, and hoped he would come
to England. He was vivid and living and would help her to balance
herself. She had thought while she dressed that her life had been one
stupid rush with no end, since that night when they had talked of
serious things at the Montivacchini hôtel. She had need of the counsel
he had promised to give her, for this heedless racket was not adding
lustre to her soul.
Verisschenzko seemed to find her very soon--he was not one of those
persons who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing
when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign
fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he
had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in his
advance towards this goal.
He looked at her critically for an instant when they were seated in the
soft gloom.
"You are changed, Madame. Half the soul is awake now, but the other half
has gone further to sleep."
"--Yes, I felt you would say that--I do not like myself," and she sighed.
"Tell me about it."
"I seem to be drifting down such a useless stream--and it is all so mad
and aimless, and yet it is fun. But every one is tired and restless and
nobody cares for anything real--I am afraid I am not strong enough to
stand aside from it though, and I wonder sometimes what I shall become."
Verisschenzko looked at her earnestly--he was silent for some seconds.
"Fate may alter the atmosphere. There are things hovering, I fear, of
which you do not dream, little protected English bride. Perhaps it is
good that you live while you can."
"What things?"
"Sorrows for the world. But tell me, have you seen Harietta Boleski in
her London rôle?"
"Yes--she is the greatest success--every one goes to her parties; she is
coming to mine at Ardayre."
Verisschenzko raised his eyebrows, and nothing could have been more
sardonically whimsical than his smile.
"I saw Stanislass this morning--he is almost _gaga_ now--a mere
cypher--she has destroyed his body, as well as his soul."
"They are both coming on the twenty-third."
"It will be an interesting visit I do not doubt--and I shall see the
Family house!"
"I hope you will like it--I shall love to show it to you, and the
pictures. It means so much to John."
"Have you met your cousin Denzil yet?".
Verisschenzko was studying her face; it had gained something, it was
a little finer--but it had lost something too, and there was a shadow
in her eyes.
"Denzil Ardayre? No--What made you mention him now?"
"I shall be curious as to what you think of him, he is so like--your
husband, you know."
The subject did not interest Amaryllis; she wanted to hear more of the
Russian's unusual views.
"You know London well, do you not?" she asked.
"Yes--I often came up from Oxford when I was there, and I have revisited
it since. It is a sane place generally, but this year it would seem to be
almost as _déséquilibré_ as the rest of the world."
"You give me an uneasy feeling, as though you knew that something
dreadful was going to happen. What is it? Tell me."
"One can only speculate how soon a cauldron will boil over, one cannot
be certain in what direction the liquid will fly. The whole world seems
feverish; the spirit of progress has awakened after hundreds of years of
sleep, and is disturbing everything. In all boilings the scum rises to
the top; we are at the period when this has occurred--we can but
wait--and watch."
"If we had a new religion?"
"It will come presently, the reign of mystical make-believe is past."
"But surely it is mysticism and idealism which make ordinary
things divine!"
"Certainly when they are emplanted upon a true basis. I said
'make-believe'--that is what kills all good things--make-believe. Most
of the present-day leaders are throwing dust in their followers' eyes--or
their own. Priests and politicians, lawyers and financiers--all of them
are afraid of the truth. Every one lives in a stupid atmosphere of
self-deception. The religion of the future will teach each individual to
be true to himself, and when that is accomplished the sixth root race
will be born. Look at that man over there talking to a woman with haggard
eyes--can you see them in the gloom? They have all the ugly entities
around them, the spirits of morphine and nicotine--drawing misfortune and
bodily decay. Every force has to have its congenial atmosphere, or it
cannot exist; fishes cannot breathe on land."
Amaryllis looked at the pair; they were well-known people, the man
celebrated in the literary and artistic section of the world of
fashion--the woman of high rank and of refined intelligence.
Verisschenzko looked also. "I do not know either of their names," he
said, "I am simply judging by the obvious deductions to be made by their
appearances to any one who has developed intuition."
"How I wish I could learn to have that!"
"Read Voltaire's 'Zadig.' Deductive methods are shown in it useful to
begin upon--observe everything about people, and then having seen
results, work back to causes, and then realise that all material things
are the physical expression of an etheric force, and as we can control
the material, we need thus only attract what etheric waves we desire."
Amaryllis looked again at the pair--both were smoking idly, and she
remembered having heard that they both "took drugs." It was a phrase
which had meant nothing to her until now.
"You mean that because they smoke all the time, and it is said they take
morphine _piqûres_, that they are not only hurting their bodies, but
drawing spiritual ills as well."
"Obviously. They have surrounded themselves with the drab demagnetising
current which envelops the body when human beings give up their wills. It
would be very difficult for anything good to pierce through such
ambience. Have you ever remarked the strange ends of all people who take
drugs? They seldom die natural, ordinary deaths. The evil entities which
they have drawn round them by their own weakness, destroy them at last."
"I do not like the idea that there are these 'entities,' as you call
them, all around us."
"There are not, they cannot come near us unless we allow them--have I not
told you that the atmosphere must be congenial? Our own wills can create
an armour through which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness
and drifting which are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable
for the vampires beyond to exist on."
"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
yet repelled.
"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
coloured lights."
"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
bring something bad?"
"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
you make me feel that I want to be good."
His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
apart from earthly things."
Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
conventional air.
Verisschenzko laughed.
"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
Amaryllis felt a number of things.
"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You
represent an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You
must fulfil this rôle. I represent a leader of certain thought in my
country. My soul is given to this--I must only indulge in through
which nothing demagnetising can pass. It is weakness and drifting which
are inexorably punished; they draw currents suitable for the vampires
beyond to exist on."
"All this does sound so weird to me." Amaryllis was interested and
yet repelled.
"Have you ever thought about Marconigrams and their etheric waves?
No--not often. People just accept such things as facts as soon as they
become commercial commodities--and only a few begin to speculate upon
what such discoveries suggest, and the other possibilities which they
could lead to. Nothing is supernatural; it is only that we are so
ignorant. Some day I will take you to my laboratory in my home in
Russia and show you the result of my experiments with vibrations and
coloured lights."
"I should love that--but just now you troubled me--you seemed to include
smoking in the things which brought evil--I smoke sometimes."
"So do I--will you have a Russian cigarette?"
He took out his case and offered her one, which she accepted. "Will it
bring something bad?"
"Not more than a glass of wine," and he opened his lighter and bent
nearer to her. "One glass of wine might be good for you, but twenty would
make you very drunk and me very quarrelsome!"
They laughed softly and lit their cigarettes.
"I feel when I am with you that I am enveloped in some strong essence,"
and Amaryllis lay back with a satisfied sigh--"as though I were uplifted
and awakened--it is very curious because you have such a wicked face, but
you make me feel that I want to be good."
His queer, husky voice took on a new note.
"We have met of course in a former life--then probably I tempted you to
break all vows--it was my fault. So in this life you are to tempt me--it
may be--but my will has developed--I mean to resist. I want to place you
as my joy of the spirit this time--something which is pure and beautiful
apart from earthly things."
Into Amaryllis' mind there flashed the thought that if she saw him often,
her emotions for him might not keep at that high level! Her eyes perhaps
expressed this doubt, for Verisschenzko bent nearer.
"Another must fulfil that which must be denied to me. You are too young
to remain free from emotion. Hold yourself until the right time comes."
Amaryllis wondered why he should speak as though it were an understood
thing that she could feel no emotion for John. She resented this.
"I have my husband," she answered with dignity and a sweetly
conventional air.
Verisschenzko laughed.
"You are delicious when you say things like that--loyal, and English, and
proud. But listen, child--it is waste of time to have any dissimulation
with me, we finished all those things when we were lovers in our other
life. Now we must be frank and learn of each other. Shall it not be so?"
Amaryllis felt a number of things.
"Yes, you are right, we will always speak the truth."
"You see," he went on, "if you represent anything you must never injure
it; you must destroy yourself if necessary in its service. You represent
an ideal, the ideal of the perfect wife of the Ardayres. You must fulfil
this rôle. I represent a leader of certain thought in my country. My soul
is given to this--I must only indulge in that over which I am master.
Indulgences are our recompenses, our rights, when we have obtained
dominion and they have become our slaves; to be enjoyed only when, and
for so long as, our wills permit. When you say a thing is _'plus fort que
vous'_--then you had better throw up the sponge--you have lost the fight,
and your indulgence will scourge you with a scorpion whip."
"You say this, and yet you are so far from being an ascetic!"
"As far as possible, I hope! They are self-acknowledged failures; they
dare not permit themselves the smallest indulgence, they are weaklings
afraid to enter the arena at all. To me they are at a stage further back
than the sensualists--what are they accomplishing? They have withered
nature, they are things of nought! A man or woman should realise what
plane he or she is living on, and try to live to the highest of the best
of the physical, mental and moral life on that plane, but not try to
alter all its workings, and live as though in a different sphere
altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal
presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which,
should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will
end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority."
"You reason in this in the same way that you did about the smoking."
"Naturally--that is the only form of sensible reasoning. You must keep
your judgment perfectly balanced and never let it be obscured by
prejudice, tradition, custom, or anything but the actual common-sense
view of the case."
"I think we English like that better than any other quality in
people--common sense."
Verisschenzko looked away from her to a new stream of guests who had come
out on the terrace--a splendid-looking group of tall young men and
exquisite women.
"With all your faults you are a great nation, because although these
latter years seem often to have destroyed the sense of duty in the
individual in regard to his own life, the ingrained sense of it had
become a habit and the habit still continues in regard to the
community--you are not likely to have upheavals of great magnitude here.
Now all other countries are moved by different spirits, some by
patriotism and gallantry like the French, some by superstition and
ignorance worked on by mystic religion, as in my country--some by
ruthless materialism like Germany; but that dull, solid sense of duty is
purely English--and it is really a glorious thing."
Amaryllis thought how John represented it exactly!
"I feel that I want to do my duty," she said softly, "but..."
"Continue to feel that and Fate will show you the way. Now I must take
you back to your husband whom I see in the distance there--he is with
Harietta Boleski. I wonder what he thinks of her?"
"I have asked him! He says that she is so obvious as to be innocuous, and
that he likes her clothes!"
Verisschenzko did not answer, and Amaryllis wondered if he agreed
with John!
They had to pass along a corridor to reach the staircase, upon the
landing of which they had seen Sir John and Madame Boleski leaning over
the balustrade, and when they got there they had moved on out of sight,
so Verisschenzko, bowing, left Amaryllis with Lady de la Paule.
As he retraced his steps later on he saw Sir John Ardayre in earnest
conversation with Lemon Bridges, the fashionable rising surgeon of the
day. They stood in an alcove, and Verisschenzko's alert intelligence was
struck by the expression on John Ardayre's face--it was so sad and
resigned, as a brave man's who has received death sentence. And as he
passed close to them he heard these words from John: "It is quite
hopeless then--I feared so--"
He stopped his descent for a moment and looked again--and then a
sudden illumination came into his yellow-green eyes, and he went on
down the stairs.
"There is tragedy here--and how will it affect the Lady of my soul?"
He walked out of the House and into Pall Mall, and there by the Rag met
Denzil Ardayre!
"We seem doomed to have unexpected meetings!" cried that young man
delightedly. "Here I am only up for one night on regimental business, and
I run into you!"
They walked on together, and Denzil went into the Ritz with
Verisschenzko and they smoked in his sitting-room. They talked of many
things for a long time--of the unrest in Europe and the clouds in the
Southeast--of Denzil's political aims--of things in general--and at last
Verisschenzko said:
"I have just left your cousin and his wife at the German Embassy; they
have now gone on to a ball. He makes an indulgent husband--I suppose the
affair is going well?"
"Very well between them, I believe. That sickening cad Ferdinand is
circulating rumours--that they can never have any children--but they are
for his own ends. I must arrange to meet them when I come up next time--I
hear that the family are enchanted with Amaryllis--"
"She is a thing of flesh and blood and flame--I could love her wildly did
I think it were wise."
Denzil glanced sharply at his friend. He had not often known him to
hesitate when attracted by a woman--
"What aspect does the unwisdom take?"
"Certain absorption--I have other and terribly important things to do.
The husband is most worthy--one wonders what the next few years will
bring. Their temperaments must be as the poles.
"No one seems to think of temperament when he marries, or heredity, or
anything, but just desire for the woman--or her money--or something
quite outside the actual fact." Denzil lit another cigarette. "Marriage
appears a perfect terror to me--how could one know one was going to
continue to feel emotion towards some one who might prove to be the most
awful physical or mental disappointment on intimate acquaintance? I
believe _affaires de convenance_ selected with thought-out reasoning are
the best."
Verisschenzko shrugged his shoulders.
"That is not necessary. If the brain is disciplined, it is in a condition
to use its judgment, even when in love, and ought therefore to be able to
resist the desire to mate if the woman's character or tendencies are
unsuitable, but most men's brains are only disciplined in regard to
mental things, and have no real control over their physical desires. I
have been this morning with Stanislass Boleski--there is a case and a
warning. Stanislass was a strong man with a splendid brain and immense
ambition, but no dominion over his senses, so that Succubus has
completely annihilated all force in him. He should have strangled her
after the first _etreinte_ as I should have done, had I felt that she
could ever have any power over me!"
Denzil smiled--Stépan was such a mixture of tenderness and
complete savagery.
"I always thought the Russian character was the most headstrong and
undisciplined in the world, and took what it desired regardless of costs.
But you belie it, old boy!"
"I early said to myself on looking at my countrymen--and especially my
countrywomen--these people are half genius, half fool; they have all
the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters
to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced
and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he
not attain!"
"And you have attained."
"I am on the road, but did not affairs of vital importance occupy me at
the moment I might be capable of ancient excess!"
"It is as well for the head of the Ardayre family that you are occupied
then!" and Denzil smiled, and then he said, his thoughts drifting back to
what interested him most:
"You think Europe will be blazing soon, Stépan? I have wondered myself in
the last month if this hectic peace could continue."
"It cannot. I am here upon business with great issues, but I must not
speak of facts, and what I say now is not from my knowledge of current
events, but from my study of etheric currents which the thoughts and
actions of over-civilised generations have engendered. You do not cram a
shell with high explosives and leave it among matches with impunity."
The two men looked at one another significantly, and then Denzil said:
"I think I will not retire from the old regiment yet--I shall wait
another year."
"Yes--I would if I were you."
They smoked silently for a moment--Verisschenzko's Calmuck face fixed and
inscrutable and Denzil's debonnaire English one usually grave.
"Some one told me that your friend, Madame Boleski, was having a
tremendous success in London. I wish I could have got leave, I should
like to have seen the whole thing."
"Harietta is enjoying her luck-moment; she is in her zenith. She has
baffled me as to where she receives her information from--she is capable
of betraying both sides to gain some material, and possibly trivial, end.
She is worth studying if you do come up, for she is unique. Most
criminals have some stable point in immorality; Harietta is troubled by
nothing fixed, no law of God or man means anything to her, she is only
ruled by her sense of self-preservation. Her career is picturesque."
"Had she ever any children?"
Verisschenzko crossed himself.
"Heaven forbid! Think of watching Harietta's instincts coming out in a
child! Poor Stanislass is at least saved that!"
"What a terrible thought that would be to one! But no man thinks of such
things in selecting a wife!"
"You will not marry yet--no?"
"Certainly not, there is no necessity that I should. Marriage is only an
obligation for the heads of families, not for the younger branches."
"But if Sir John Ardayre has no son, you are--in blood--the next
direct heir."
"And Ferdinand is the next direct heir-in-law--that makes one sick--"
Verisschenzko poured his friend out a whisky and soda and said smiling:
"Then let us drink once more to the Ardayre son!"