MADAME RIENNES
About 11 o’clock on the day following this conversation, Godfrey found
himself standing on the platform in the big station of Lucerne.
“How are you going to get to Kleindorf?” Miss Ogilvy asked of him.
“It’s five miles away by the road. I think you had better come to
my house and have some _déjeuner_. Afterwards I will send you there
in the carriage.”
As she spoke a tall gaunt man in ultra-clerical attire, with a very
large hooked nose and wearing a pair of blue spectacles, came shuffling
towards them.
“Madame is Engleesh?” he said, peering at her through the blue
glasses. “Oh! it is easy to know it, though I am so blind. Has Madame
by chance seen a leetle, leetle Engleesh boy, who should arrive out of
this train? I look everywhere and I cannot find him, and the
conducteur, he says he not there. No leetle boy in the second class.
His name it is Godfrey, the son of an English pasteur, a man who fear
God in the right way.”
There was something so absurd in the old gentleman’s appearance and
method of address, that Miss Ogilvy, who had a sense of humour, was
obliged to turn away to hide her mirth. Recovering, she answered:
“I think this is your little boy, Monsieur le Pasteur,” and she
indicated the tall and handsome Godfrey, who stood gazing at his future
instructor open-mouthed. Whoever he had met in his visions, the Pasteur
Boiset was not one of them. Never, asleep or waking, had he seen anyone
in the least like him.
The clergyman peered at Godfrey, studying him from head to foot.
“Mon Dieu!” he exclaimed, “I understood he was quite, quite
leetle, not a big young man who will eat much and want many things.
Well, he will be _bon compagnon_ for Juliette, and Madame too, she like
the big better than the leetle. _Il est beau et il a l’air
intelligent, n’est ce pas, Madame?_” he added confidentially.
“_Bien beau et très intelligent_,” she replied,
observing that Godfrey was engaged in retrieving his overcoat which he
had left in the carriage. Then she explained that she had become
friendly with this young gentleman, and hoped that he would be allowed
to visit her whenever he wished. Also she gave her name and address.
“Oh! yes, Mademoiselle Ogilvee, the rich English lady who live in the
fine house. I have heard of her. _Mais voyons!_ Mademoiselle is not
Catholic, is she, for I promise to protect this lad from that red
wolf?”
“No, Monsieur, fear nothing. Whatever I am, I am not Catholic,”
(though, perhaps, if you knew all, you would think me something much
more dangerous, she added to herself.)
Then they said goodbye.
“I say, Miss Ogilvy,” exclaimed Godfrey, blushing,
“you’ve been awfully kind to me. If it hadn’t been for you I
should have missed that train and never heard the last of it. Also, I
should have had to go hungry from London here, since I promised my
father not to buy anything on the journey, and you know I forgot the
basket.” (By the way, being addressed, it arrived three days
afterwards, a mass of corruption, with six francs to pay on it, and
many papers to be signed.)
“Not at all, Godfrey, it was delightful to have you as a
companion—and a friend,” she added meaningly. “You will come
and see me, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course, if I can. But meanwhile, please wait a minute,”
and he pulled out his purse.
“What on earth are you going to do, Godfrey? I don’t want your
card.”
“Card! I haven’t got a card. I am going to make you a
present.”
“Make me a present?” gasped Miss Ogilvy, a vague vision of
half-crowns flashing before her mind.
“Yes, it is rather a curious thing. It was found round the neck-bone
of an old knight, whose remains they threw out of the Abbey Church when
they put in the heating apparatus. I saw it there, and the sexton gave
it to me when he discovered that it was only stone. You will see it has
a hole in it, so he must have worn it as an ornament. The grave he lay
in was that of a Crusader, for the legs are crossed upon his brass,
although his name has gone. Oh! here it is,” and he produced an
oblong piece of black graphite or some such stone, covered with
mystical engravings.
She seized the object, and examined it eagerly.
“Why, it is a talisman,” she said, “Gnostic, I should think,
for there is the cock upon it, and a lot that I can’t read, probably a
magic formula. No doubt the old Crusader got it in the East, perhaps as
a gift from some Saracen in whose family it had descended. Oh! my dear
boy, I do thank you. You could not have made me a present that I should
value more.”
“I am so glad,” said Godfrey.
“Yes, but I am ashamed to take it from you. Well, I’ll leave it
back to you one day.”
“Leave it back! Then you must die before me, and why should you do
that? You are quite young.”
“Because I shall,” she answered with a sad little smile. “I
look stronger than I am. Meanwhile you will come and tell me all about
this talisman.”
“I have told you all I know, Miss Ogilvy.”
“Do you think so? I don’t. But look, your old pasteur is calling
that the diligence is coming. Good-bye. I’ll send the carriage for you
next Sunday in time for _déjeuner_.”
A few minutes later Godfrey found himself packed in a rumbling old
diligence amidst a number of peasant women with baskets. Also there was
a Roman Catholic priest who sat opposite to the Pasteur. For a while
these two eyed each other with evident animosity, just like a pair of
rival dogs, Godfrey thought to himself.
At the outskirts of the town they passed a shrine, in which was the
image of some saint. The priest crossed himself and bowed so low that
he struck the knee of the Pasteur, who remonstrated in an elaborate and
sarcastic fashion. Then the fight began, and those two holy men
belaboured each other, with words, not fists, for the rest of the
journey. Godfrey’s French was sadly to seek, still before it was
done, he did wonder whether all their language was strictly Christian,
for such words as _Sapristi_, and _Nom de Dieu_, accompanied by
snapping of the fingers, and angry stares, struck him as showing a
contentious and even a hostile spirit. Moreover, that was not the end of
it, since of the occupants of the diligence, about one half seemed to
belong to the party of the priest, and the other half to the party of
the Pasteur.
By degrees all of these were drawn into the conflict. They shouted and
screamed at each other, they waved their arms, and incidentally their
baskets, one of which struck Godfrey on the nose, and indeed nearly
came to actual fisticuffs.
Apparently the driver was accustomed to such scenes, for after a glance
through his little window he took no further notice. So it went on
until at last he pulled up and shouted:
“_Voyageurs pour Kleindorf, descendez. Vite, s’il vous
plait._”
“Here we do get down, young Monsieur,” said the Pasteur, suddenly
relapsing into a kind of unnatural calm. Indeed, at the door he turned
and bowed politely to his adversary, wishing him _bon voyage_, to which
the priest replied with a solemn benediction in the most Catholic form.
“He is not bad of heart, that priest,” said the Pasteur, as he led
the way to the gate of a little shrubbery, “but he do try to steal my
sheep, and I protect them from him, the blood-toothed wolf. Jean,
Jean!”
A brawny Swiss appeared and seized the baggage. Then they advanced
across the belt of shrubbery to a lawn, through which ran a path. Lo!
in the centre of that lawn grew such a fruit-tree, covered with large
cherries or small plums, as Godfrey had described to Miss Ogilvy, and
beyond it stood the long white house, old, and big, and peaceful
looking. What he had not described, because of them his subliminal
sense had given him no inkling, were the two ladies, who sat expectant
on the verandah, that commanded a beautiful view of the lake and the
mountains beyond.
By a kind of instinct distilled from his experience of clergymen’s
belongings, Godfrey had expected to see a dowdy female, with a red, fat
face, and watery eyes, perhaps wearing an apron and a black dress
hooked awry, accompanied by a snub-nosed little girl with straight
hair, and a cold in the head. In place of these he saw a
fashionably-dressed, Parisian-looking lady, who still seemed quite
young, very pleasant to behold, with her dark eyes and graceful
movements, and a girl, apparently about his own age, who was equally
attractive.
She was brown-eyed, with a quick, mobile face, and a lithe and shapely,
if as yet somewhat unformed figure. The long thick plait in which her
chestnut hair was arranged could not hide its plenitude and beauty,
while the smallness of her hands and feet showed breeding, as did her
manners and presence. The observant Godfrey, at his first sight of
Juliette, for such was her name, marvelled how it was possible that she
should be the daughter of that plain and ungainly old pasteur. On this
point it is enough to say that others had experienced the same wonder,
and remained with their curiosity unsatisfied. But then he might as
well have inquired how he, Godfrey, came to be his father’s son,
since in the whole universe no two creatures could have been more
diverse.
Monsieur Boiset waddled forward, with a gait like to that of a
superannuated duck, followed at some distance by Godfrey and the
stalwart Jean with the luggage.
“My dears,” he called out in his high voice, “I have found
our new little friend; the train brought him safely. Here he is.”
Madame and Juliette looked about them.
“I see him not,” said Madame.
“Where is he?” asked Juliette, in a pleasant girlish voice.
“Still at the gate? And say then, my father,” this in low tones
meant not to be overheard, “who is this monsieur?”
“He is the little boy,” exclaimed the Pasteur, chuckling at his
joke, “but you see he has grown in the train.”
“_Mon Dieu!_” exclaimed Madame, “I wonder if his bed
will be long enough?”
“It is very amusing,” remarked Juliette.
Then they both descended from the verandah, to greet him with foreign
cordiality which, as they spoke rapidly in French, was somewhat lost on
Godfrey. Recognizing their kind intentions, however, he took off his hat
and bowed to each in turn, remarking as he did so:
“_Bonjour, oui. Oui, bonjour_,” the only words in the Gallic
tongue that occurred to him at the moment.
“I speek Engleesh,” said Juliette, with solemn grandeur.
“I’m jolly glad to hear it,” replied Godfrey, “and I
_parle Français_, or soon shall, I hope.”
Such was Godfrey’s introduction to his new home at Kleindorf, where
very soon he was happy enough. Notwithstanding his strange appearance
and his awkwardness, Monsieur Boiset proved himself to be what is
called “a dear old gentleman”; moreover, really learned, and this
in sundry different directions. Thus, he was an excellent astronomer,
and the possessor of a first-rate telescope, mounted in a little
observatory, on a rocky peak of ground which rose up a hundred feet or
more in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, that itself stood
high. This instrument, which its owner had acquired secondhand at some
sale, of course was not of the largest size. Still, it was powerful
enough for all ordinary observations, and to show many hundreds of the
heavenly bodies that are invisible to the naked eye, even in the clear
air of Switzerland.
To Godfrey, who had, it will be remembered, a strong liking for
astronomy, it was a source of constant delight. What is more, it
provided a link of common interest that soon ripened into friendship
between himself and his odd old tutor, who had been obliged hitherto to
pursue his astral researches in solitude, since to Madame and to
Juliette these did not appeal. Night by night, especially after the
winter snows began to fall, they would sit by the stove in the little
observatory, gazing at the stars, making calculations, in which,
notwithstanding his dislike of mathematics, Godfrey soon became expert,
and setting down the results of what they learned.
In was in course of these studies that the whole wonder of the universe
came home to him for the first time. He looked upon the marvel of the
heavens, the mighty procession of the planets, the rising and setting
of the vast suns that burn beyond them in the depths of space, weighing
their bulk and measuring their differences, and trembled with mingled
joy and awe. Were these the heritage of man? Would he ever visit them
in some unknown state and age? Or must they remain eternally far and
alien? This is what he longed to learn, and to him astronomy was a
gateway to knowledge, if only he could discover how to pass the gate.
Godfrey had not the true scientific spirit, or a yearning for
information, even about the stars, for its own sake. He wanted to
ascertain how these affected _him_ and the human race of which he was a
member. In short, he sought an answer to the old question: Are we
merely the spawn of our little earth, destined to perish, as the earth
itself must do one day, or, through whatever changes we must pass, are
we as immortal as the universe and the Might that made it, whatever
that may be? That was his problem, the same which perplexes every high
and thinking soul, and at this impressionable period of his life it
scarcely ever left him. There he would sit with brooding eyes and bent
brow seeking the answer, but as yet finding none.
Once Juliette discovered him thus, having come to the observatory to
tell him that his dinner had been waiting for half an hour, and for a
while watched him unnoted with the little shaded lamp shining on his
face. Instantly, in her quick fashion, she christened him, _Hibou_, and
_Hibou_ or Owl, became his nickname in that establishment. Indeed, with
his dark eyes and strongly marked features, wrapped in a contemplative
calm such as the study of the stars engenders, in that gloom he did
look something like an owl, however different may have been his
appearance on other occasions.
“What are you thinking of, Monsieur Godfrey?” she asked.
He came back to earth with a start.
“The stars and Man,” he answered, colouring.
“_Mon Dieu!_” she exclaimed, “I think man is enough to
study without the stars, which we shall never visit.”
“How do you know that, Mademoiselle?”
“I know it because we are here and they are there, far, far away. Also
we die and they go on for ever.”
“What is space, and what are death and time?” queried Godfrey, with
solemnity.
“_Mon Dieu!_” said Juliette again. “Come to dinner, the
chicken it grows cold,” but to herself she added, “He is an odd
bird, this English _hibou_, but attractive—when he is not so
grave.”
Meanwhile Godfrey continued to ponder his mighty problem. When he had
mastered enough French in which Madame and Juliette proved efficient
instructors, he propounded it to the old Pasteur, who clapped his hand
upon a Bible, and said:
“_There_ is the answer, young friend.”
“I know,” replied Godfrey, “but it does not quite satisfy; I
feel that I must find that answer for myself.”
Monsieur Boiset removed his blue spectacles and looked at him.
“Such searches are dangerous,” he said. “Believe me, Godfrey,
it is better to accept.”
“Then why do you find fault with the Roman Catholics, Monsieur?”
The question was like a match applied to a haystack. At once the Pasteur
took fire:
“Because they accept error, not truth,” he began. “What
foundation have they for much of their belief? It is not here,” and
again he slapped the Bible.
Then followed a long tirade, for the one thing this good and tolerant
old man could not endure was the Roman Catholic branch of the Christian
Faith.
Godfrey listened with patience, till at last the Pasteur, having burnt
himself out, asked him if he were not convinced.
“I do not know,” he replied. “These quarrels of the Churches
and of the different faiths puzzle and tire me. I, too, Monsieur,
believe in God and a future life, but I do not think it matters much by
what road one travels to them, I mean so long as it is a road.”
The Pasteur looked at him alarmed, and exclaimed:
“Surely you will not be a fish caught in the net which already I have
observed that cunning and plausible curé trying to throw about you! Oh!
what then should I answer to your father?”
“Do not be frightened, Monsieur. I shall never become a Roman
Catholic. But all the same I think the Roman Catholics very good
people, and that their faith is as well as another, at any rate for
those who believe it.”
Then he made an excuse to slip away, leaving the Pasteur puzzled.
“He is wrong,” he said to himself, “most wrong, but all the
same, let it be admitted that the boy has a big mind, and
intelligent—yes, intelligent.”
It is certain that those who search with sufficient earnestness end in
finding something, though the discovered path may run in the wrong
direction, or prove impassable, or wind through caverns, or along the
edge of precipices, down which sooner or later the traveller falls, or
lead at length to some _cul-de-sac_. The axiom was not varied in
Godfrey’s case, and the path he found was named—Miss Ogilvy.
On the first Sunday after his arrival at Kleindorf a fine carriage and
pair drew up at the shrubbery gate, just as the family were returning
from the morning service in the little church where the Pasteur
ministered. Madame sighed when she saw it, for she would have loved
dearly to possess such an equipage, as indeed, she had done at one
period in her career, before an obscure series of circumstances led to
her strange union with Monsieur Boiset.
“What beautiful horses,” exclaimed Juliette, her hazel eyes
sparkling. “Oh! that tenth Commandment, who can keep it? And why
should some people have fine horses and others not even a pony? _Ma
mère_, why were you not able to keep that carriage of which you have
spoken to me so often?”
Madame bit her lip, and with a whispered “hold your tongue,”
plunged into conversation about Miss Ogilvy. Then Godfrey entered the
carriage and was whirled away in style, looking like the prince in a
fairy book, as Juliette remarked, while the Pasteur tried to explain to
her how much happier she was without the temptation of such earthly
vanities.
Miss Ogilvy’s house was a beautiful dwelling of its sort, standing in
gardens of its own that ran down to the lake, and commanding fine views
of all the glorious scenery which surrounds Lucerne. The rooms were
large and lofty, with parquet floors, and in some of them were really
good pictures that their owner had inherited, also collections of
beautiful old French furniture. In short, it was a stately and refined
abode, such as is sometimes to be found abroad in the possession of
Americans or English people of wealth, who for their health’s sake or
other reasons, make their homes upon the Continent.
On hearing the carriage arrive, Miss Ogilvy, who was dressed in a
simple, but charming grey gown and, as Godfrey noticed at once, wore
round her neck the old Gnostic talisman which he had given her, came
from a saloon to meet him in the large, square hall.
“I _am_ glad to see you, Godfrey,” she said in her soft,
cultivated voice.
“So am I, Miss Ogilvy,” he answered, with heartiness, “I mean
to see you. But,” he added, studying her, “you do not look very
well.”
She smiled rather pathetically, and said in a quick voice:
“No, I took a cold on that journey. You see I am rather an invalid,
which is why I live here—while I do live—what they call
_poitrinaire_.”
Godfrey shook his head, the word was beyond him.
“_Anglicé_ consumptive,” she explained. “There
are lots of us in Switzerland, you know, and on the whole, we are a
merry set. It is characteristic of our complaint. But never mind about
me. There are two or three people here. I daresay you will think them
odd, but they are clever in their way, and you ought to have something
in common. Come in.”
He followed her into the beautiful cool saloon, with its large, double
French windows designed to keep out the bitter winds of winter, but
opened now upon the brilliant garden. Never before had he been in so
lovely a room, that is of a modern house, and it impressed him with
sensations that at the moment he did not try to analyse. All he knew
was that they were mingled with some spiritual quality, such as once or
twice he had felt in ancient churches, something which suggested both
the Past and the Future, and a brooding influence that he could not
define. Yet the place was all light and charm, gay with flowers and
landscape pictures, in short, lacking any sombre note.
Gathered at its far end where the bow window overlooked the sparkling
lake, were three or four people, all elderly. Instantly one of these
riveted his attention. She was stout, having her grey hair drawn back
from a massive forehead, beneath which shone piercing black eyes. Her
rather ungainly figure was clothed in what he thought an ugly green
dress, and she wore a necklet of emeralds in an old-fashioned setting,
which he also thought ugly but striking. From the moment that he
entered the doorway at the far end of that long saloon, he felt those
black eyes fixed upon him, and was painfully aware of their owner’s
presence, so much so, that in a whisper, he asked her name of Miss
Ogilvy.
“Oh!” she answered, “that is Madame Riennes, the noted
mesmerist and medium.”
“Indeed,” said Godfrey in a vague voice, for he did not quite
understand what was meant by this description.
Also there was a thin, elderly American gentleman to whom Godfrey was
introduced, named Colonel Josiah Smith, and a big, blond Dane, who
talked English with a German accent, called Professor Petersen. All of
these studied Godfrey with the most unusual interest as, overwhelmed
with shyness, he was led by Miss Ogilvy to make their acquaintance. He
felt that their demeanour portended he knew not what, more at any rate
than hope of deriving pleasure from his society; in fact, that they
expected to get something out of him. Suddenly he recollected a picture
that once he had seen in a pious work which he was given to read on
Sundays. It represented a missionary being led by the hand by a smiling
woman into the presence of some savages in a South Sea island, who were
about to cook and eat him.
In the picture a large pot was already boiling over a fire in the
background. Instinctively Godfrey looked for the pot, but saw none,
except one of the flowers which stood on a little table in a recess,
and round it half a dozen chairs, one of them large, with arms. Had he
but known it, that chair was the pot.
No sooner had he made his somewhat awkward bow than luncheon was
announced, and they all went into another large and beautiful room,
where they were served with a perfect meal. The conversation at table
was general, and in English, but presently it drifted into a debate
which Godfrey did not understand, on the increase of spirituality among
the “initiated” of the earth.
Colonel Josiah Smith, who appeared to associate with remarkable persons
whom he called “Masters,” who dwelt in the remote places of the
world, alleged that such increase was great, which Professor Petersen,
who dwelt much among German intellectuals, denied. It appeared that
these “intellectuals” were busy in turning their backs on every
form of spirituality.
“Ah!” said Miss Ogilvy, with a sigh, “they seek the company
of their kindred ‘Elementals,’ although they do not know it, and
soon those Elementals will have the mastery of them and break them to
pieces, as the lions did the maligners of Daniel.”
In after years Godfrey always remembered this as a very remarkable
prophecy, but at the time, not knowing what an Elemental might be, he
only marvelled.
At length Madame Riennes, who, it seemed, was half French and half
Russian, intervened in a slow, heavy voice:
“What does it matter, friends of my soul?” she asked. Then having
paused to drink off a full glass of sparkling Moselle, she went on:
“Soon we shall be where the spirituality, or otherwise, of this
little world matters nothing to us. Who will be the first to learn the
truths, I wonder?” and she stared in turn at the faces of every one
of them, a process which seemed to cause general alarm, bearing, as it
did, a strong resemblance to the smelling-out of savage witch-doctors.
Indeed, they all began to talk of this or that at hazard, but she was
not to be put off by such interruptions. Having investigated Godfrey
till he felt cold down the back, Madame turned her searchlight eyes
upon Miss Ogilvy, who shrank beneath them. Then of a sudden she
exclaimed with a kind of convulsive shudder:
“The Power possesses and guides me. It tells me that _you_ will be
the first, Sister Helen. I see you among the immortal Lilies with the
Wine of Life flowing through your veins.”
On receipt of this information the Wine of Life seemed to cease to flow
in poor Miss Ogilvy’s face. At any rate, she went deadly pale and
rested her hand upon Godfrey’s shoulder as if she were about to
faint. Recovering a little, she murmured to herself:
“I thought it! Well, what does it matter though the gulf is great and
terrible?”
Then with an effort she rose and suggested that they should return to
the drawing-room.
They did so, and were served with Turkish coffee and cigarettes, which
Madame Riennes smoked one after the other very rapidly. Presently Miss
Ogilvy rang the bell, and when the butler appeared to remove the cups,
whispered something in French, at which he bowed and departed.
Godfrey thought he heard him lock the door behind him, but was not sure.