The Ghost, Arnold Bennett [top 5 books to read txt] 📗

Sullivan nor Emmeline was immediately visible. The moving picture was at once attractive and repellent to me. It became instantly apparent that the majority of the men and women there had but a single interest in life, that of centring attention upon themselves; and their various methods of reaching this desirable end were curious and wonderful in the extreme. For all practical purposes, they were still on the boards which they had left but an hour or two before. It seemed as if they regarded the very orchestra in the light of a specially contrived accompaniment to their several actions and movements. As they glanced carelessly at me, I felt that they held me as a foreigner, as one outside that incredible little world of theirs which they call "the profession." And so I felt crushed, with a faint resemblance to a worm. You see, I was young.

I walked through towards the main salon, and in the doorway between the two rooms I met a girl of striking appearance, who was followed by two others. I knew her face well, having seen it often in photograph shops; it was the face of Marie Deschamps, the popular divette of the Diana Theatre, the leading lady of Sullivan's long-lived musical comedy, "My Queen." I needed no second glance to convince me that Miss Deschamps was a very important personage indeed, and, further, that a large proportion of her salary of seventy-five pounds a week was expended in the suits and trappings of triumph. If her dress did not prove that she was on the topmost bough of the tree, then nothing could. Though that night is still recent history, times have changed. Divettes could do more with three hundred a month then than they can with eight hundred now.

As we passed she examined me with a curiosity whose charm was its frankness. Of course, she put me out of countenance, particularly when she put her hand on my sleeve. Divettes have the right to do these things.

"I know who you are," she said, laughing and showing her teeth. "You are dear old Sully's cousin; he pointed you out to me the other night when you were at the Diana. Now, don't say you aren't, or I shall look such a fool; and for goodness' sake don't say you don't know me—because everyone knows me, and if they don't they ought to."

I was swept away by the exuberance of her attack, and, blushing violently, I took the small hand which she offered, and assured her that I was in fact Sullivan Smith's cousin, and her sincere admirer.

"That's all right," she said, raising her superb shoulders after a special manner of her own. "Now you shall take me to Sullivan, and he shall introduce us. Any friend of dear old Sully's is a friend of mine. How do you like my new song?"

"What new song?" I inquired incautiously.

"Why, 'Who milked the cow?' of course."

I endeavored to give her to understand that it had made an indelible impression on me; and with such like converse we went in search of Sullivan, while everyone turned to observe the unknown shy young man who was escorting Marie Deschamps.

"Here he is," my companion said at length, as we neared the orchestra, "listening to the band. He should have a band, the little dear! Sullivan, introduce me to your cousin."

"Charmed—delighted." And Sullivan beamed with pleasure. "Ah, my young friend," he went on to me, "you know your way about fairly well. But there! medical students—they're all alike. Well, what do you think of the show?"

"Hasn't he done it awfully well, Mr. Foster?" said Miss Deschamps.

I said that I should rather think he had.

"Look here," said Sullivan, becoming grave and dropping his voice, "there are four hundred invitations, and it'll cost me seven hundred and fifty pounds. But it pays. You know that, don't you, Marie? Look at the advertisement! And I've got a lot of newspaper chaps here. It'll be in every paper to-morrow. I reckon I've done this thing on the right lines. It's only a reception, of course, but let me tell you I've seen after the refreshments—not snacks—refreshments, mind you! And there's a smoke-room for the boys, and the wife's got a spiritualism-room, and there's the show in this room. Some jolly good people here, too—not all chorus girls and walking gents. Are they, Marie?"

"You bet not," the lady replied.

"Rosetta Rosa's coming, and she won't go quite everywhere—not quite! By the way, it's about time she did come." He looked at his watch.

"Ah, Mr. Foster," the divette said, "you must tell me all about that business. I'm told you were there, and that there was a terrible scene."

"What business?" I inquired.

"At the Opera the other night, when Alresca broke his thigh. Didn't you go behind and save his life?"

"I didn't precisely save his life, but I attended to him."

"They say he is secretly married to Rosa. Is that so?"

"I really can't say, but I think not."

"What did she say to him when she went into his dressing-room? I know all about it, because one of our girls has a sister who's in the Opera chorus, and her sister saw Rosa go in. I do want to know what she said, and what he said."

An impulse seized me to invent a harmless little tale for the diversion of Marie Deschamps. I was astonished at my own enterprise. I perceived that I was getting accustomed to the society of greatness.

"Really?" she exclaimed, when I had finished.

"I assure you."

"He's teasing," Sullivan said.

"Mr. Foster wouldn't do such a thing," she observed, drawing herself up, and I bowed.

A man with an eye-glass came and began to talk confidently in Sullivan's ear, and Sullivan had to leave us.

"See you later," he smiled. "Keep him out of mischief, Marie. And I say, Carl, the wife said I was to tell you particularly to go into her crystal-gazing room. Don't forget."

"I'll go, too," Miss Deschamps said. "You may take me there now, if you please. And then I must go down to where the champagne is flowing. But not with you, not with you, Mr. Foster. There are other gentlemen here very anxious for the post. Now come along."

We made our way out of the stir and noise of the grand salon, Marie Deschamps leaning on my arm in the most friendly and confiding way in the world, and presently we found ourselves in a much smaller apartment crowded with whispering seekers after knowledge of the future. This room was dimly lighted from the ceiling by a single electric light, whose shade was a queer red Japanese lantern. At the other end of it were double curtains. These opened just as we entered, and Emmeline appeared, leading by the hand a man who was laughing nervously.

"Your fortune, ladies and gentlemen, your fortune!" she cried pleasantly. Then she recognized me, and her manner changed, or I fancied that it did.

"Ah, Carl, so you've arrived!" she exclaimed, coming forward and ignoring all her visitors except Marie and myself.

"Yes, Emmeline, dear," said Marie, "we've come. And, please, I want to see something in the crystal. How do you do it?"

Emmeline glanced around.

"Sullivan said my crystal-gazing would be a failure," she smiled. "But it isn't, is it? I came in here as soon as I had done receiving, and I've already had I don't know how many clients. I sha'n't be able to stop long, you know. The fact is, Sullivan doesn't like me being here at all. He thinks it not right of the hostess...."

"But it's perfectly charming of you!" some one put in.

"Perfectly delicious!" said Marie.

"Now, who shall I take first?" Emmeline asked, puzzled.

"Oh, me, of course!" Marie Deschamps replied without a hesitation or a doubt, though she and I had come in last. And the others acquiesced, because Marie was on the topmost bough of all.

"Come along, then," said Emmeline, relieved.

I made as if to follow them.

"No, Mr. Foster," said Marie. "You just stay here, and don't listen."

The two women disappeared behind the portière, and a faint giggle, soon suppressed, came through the portière from Marie.

I obeyed her orders, but as I had not the advantage of knowing a single person in that outer room, I took myself off for a stroll, in the hope of encountering Rosetta Rosa. Yes, certainly in the hope of encountering Rosetta Rosa! But in none of the thronged chambers did I discover her.

When I came back, the waiting-room for prospective crystal-gazers was empty, and Emmeline herself was just leaving it.

"What!" I exclaimed. "All over?"

"Yes," she said; "Sullivan has sent for me. You see, of course, one has to mingle with one's guests. Only they're really Sullivan's guests."

"And what about me?" I said. "Am I not going to have a look into the crystal?"

I had, as a matter of fact, not the slightest interest in her crystal at that instant. I regarded the crystal as a harmless distraction of hers, and I was being simply jocular when I made that remark. Emmeline, however, took it seriously. As her face had changed when she first saw me in the box at the Opera, and again to-night when she met me and Marie Deschamps on my arm, so once more it changed now.

"Do you really want to?" she questioned me, in her thrilling voice.

My soul said: "It's all rubbish—but suppose there is something in it, after all?"

And I said aloud:

"Yes."

"Come, then."

We passed through the room with the red Japanese lantern, and lo! the next room was perfectly dark save for an oval of white light which fell slantingly on a black marble table. The effect was rather disconcerting at first; but the explanation was entirely simple. The light came from an electric table-lamp (with a black cardboard shade arranged at an angle) which stood on the table. As my eyes grew accustomed to the obscurity I discovered two chairs.

"Sit down," said Emmeline.

And she and I each took one of the chairs, at opposite sides of the table.

Emmeline was magnificently attired. As I looked at her in the dimness across the table, she drummed her fingers on the marble, and then she bent her face to glance within the shade of the lamp, and for a second her long and heavy, yet handsome, features were displayed to the minutest part in the blinding ray of the lamp, and the next second they were in obscurity again. It was uncanny. I was impressed; and all the superstition which, like a snake, lies hidden in the heart of every man, stirred vaguely and raised its head.

"Carl—" Emmeline began, and paused.

The woman indubitably did affect me strangely. Hers was a lonely soul, an unusual mixture of the absolutely conventional and of something quite else—something bizarre, disturbing, and inexplicable. I was conscious of a feeling of sympathy for her.

"Well?" I murmured.

"Do you believe in the supernatural?"

"I neither believe nor disbelieve," I replied, "for I have never met with anything that might be a manifestation of it. But I may say that I am not a hard and fast materialist." And I added: "Do you believe in it?"

"Of course," she snapped.

"Then, if you really believe, if it's so serious to you, why do you make a show of it for triflers?".

"Ah!" she breathed. "Some of them do make me angry. They like to play at having dealings with the supernatural. But I thought the crystal would be such a good thing for Sullivan's reception. It is very important to Sullivan that this should be a great success—our first large public reception, you know. Sullivan says we must advertise ourselves."

The explanation of her motives was given so naïvely, so simply and unaffectedly, that it was impossible to take exception to it.

"Where's the crystal?" I inquired.

"It is here," she said, and she rolled a glass ball with