Part 10

“But the more she felt it, the more she seemed to expand.... Grief runs to fat, I do believe,” said the Duchess. “Of course, Poppa’s allowance to Momma being liber’l—even for a Corn King—she had unlimited funds at her disposal. To begin with, she rented a medical specialist.”

“Who dieted her?”

“My dear, for a woman accustomed to French cookery, and with the national predilection for cookies and candy, it must have been——”

“Torture!”

“One gluten biscuit and the eye of a mutton cutlet for dinner. Think of it! Beef-juice and dry toast for breakfast, ditto for supper. And she used to skip—a woman of that size, too—for hours! And her trainers came every morning at five o’clock, and they’d make her just put on a sweater and take her between them for a sharp trot round Central Park, just as if she’d been a gentleman jockey sworn to ride at so many stone for a Plate. And the number of stone Momma got off——”

“She _got_ them off?”

“I guess she got them off,” said the Duchess. “Poppa talked of having an elegant tombstone set up in Central Park to commemorate the greater portion of a wife buried there! then he gave up the notion. And then Momma made handsome presents to her specialist and her trainers, and contracted with the cleverest operator in N’York to make a face.”

“To make a face?” repeated Lady Sidonia.

“To make a face for Momma that matched her youthful figure,” said the Duchess composedly. “My! the time that man took in creating a surface to work on! She slept for a fortnight with her countenance covered with slices of raw veal.”

“Horrible!” shuddered the listener.

“And the massaging and steaming that went on!”

“I can imagine!”

“The foundations being properly laid——” continued the Duchess, lighting another cigarette.

Lady Sidonia went into a little uncontrollable shriek of laughter. “As though ... she had been a house!... Ha, ha, ha!”

“My dear,” returned the Duchess, shaking her beautiful head, “the terms employed in the contract were precisely those I have quoted.... The specialist laid the foundations, and carried the contract out. Momma’s appearance delighted everyone, except Poppa, who has old-fashioned notions, and complained of feeling shy in the presence of a stranger. Fortunately their Silver Wedding eventuated just then, and his conscience—Poppa’s conscience is, for a corn speculator’s, wonderfully sensitive—ceased to annoy him.”

“And your mother?”

“Momma wore her new face for six months with the greatest satisfaction,” said the Duchess. “Of course, she had to lay up for repairs pretty often, but the specialist was there to carry them out. Unluckily, he contracted a severe chill in the N’York winter season and died. His wife put his tools and enamels and things in his coffin. She said she knew business would be brisk when he got up again, and she didn’t wish any other speculator to chip in before him.” The Duchess sighed. “Then came Momma’s great trouble.”

“There was no other operator to—take up the—the contract?” hinted Lady Sidonia.

“There were dozens,” said the Duchess, “and Momma tried them all. My dear, you may surmise what she looked like.”

“A heterogeneous mingling of styles.”

“It was impossible to conjecture,” said the Duchess confidentially, “to what period the original structure belonged. By day Momma resorted to a hat and voile.”

“Even in the house?”

“Even in the house. By night—well, I guess you’ve noticed that a human work of art, illuminated by electric light, isn’t seen under the most favorable conditions.”

“There is a pitiless accuracy!”

“An unmerciful candor about its revelations. After one unusually brilliant reception, Momma retired from society and took to spiritualism. She persevered until she had materialized that demised face-specialist, and extracted some definite raps in the way of advice.”

“And what did he advise?”

“He suggested, through the medium, that Momma should apply to the Milwaukee Mentalists.”

“A Society of Faith Healers?”

“‘Occult Operatists,’ they call themselves on the prospectuses. As for the cult of the Society,” said the Duchess pensively, “one might call it a mayonnaise of Freemasonry, Theosophy, Hypnotism, Humbug, and Hoodoo. But the humbug, like salad oil in the mayonnaise, was the chief ingredient.” The Duchess stopped to draw breath.

“And into this vortex Mrs. Van Wacken was drawn?” sighed Lady Sidonia.

“Sucked down and swallowed,” said the Duchess, who had been Miss Van Wacken. “They undertook to make Momma right over again, brand new, by prayer and faith and—a mentally electrified bath. For which treatment Momma was to pay ten thousand down.”

“Pounds!” shrieked the horrified Lady Sidonia.

“Dollars,” corrected the Duchess.

“In advance?” cried the listener.

“In advance, after a demonstration had been given which was practically to satisfy Momma that the Milwaukee Mentalists were square,” said the Duchess. “My word! when I remember how they bluffed that poor darling—I should want to laugh, if I didn’t cry.” She dried another tear.

“Do go on!” entreated her friend.

“The High Priestess of the Community was a woman,” went on the Duchess, “just as cool and ca’am and cunning as they make ’em.”

“I guessed as much,” said Lady Sidonia.

“It takes a woman to know and work on another woman’s weak points,” rejoined the Duchess. “The High Priestess pretended to be in communication with a spirit. ‘The Mystikos,’ they called him, and he resided, when he was at home, in a crystal ball; but bullion was the real totem of the tribe. Well—but it’s getting late——”

“I shall not sleep a _wink_ until I have heard the _whole story_,” said Lady Sidonia.

“And Cull and your husband are comparing notes about their wives in the smoking-room,” said the Duchess.

“Well, the Theologa——”

“The—the—what?”

“The Theologa—that was the professional title of the High Priestess—whose or’nary name was Mrs. Gideon J. Swale,” her Grace went on, “talked a great deal to Momma, and made some passes over her, and got the poor dear completely under her thumb. Momma wasn’t the only victim, you must know. There were four other ladies, all wealthy, and each one, like Momma, the leader of a fashionable society set——”

“And—no longer young?”

“And past their first bloom,” amended the Duchess. “And each of ’em had agreed to plank down the same sum in cold dollars.”

“Fifty thousand in all,” said Lady Sidonia with a sigh. She could have done so much with fifty thousand dollars, even though American money was such beastly stuff. “Worth——”

“Worth riskin’ a term in a N’York State prison for—I guess so!” said the Duchess. “Well, Momma and the other ladies signed on to the terms, and went through a cer’mony of purification—which included learnin’ a kind of catechism used in admittin’ a new member into the Occult Operatists’ Community—an’ several hymns. That was to make them worthy to receive the Revelation from the Mystikos, I guess. At least, the Theologa——”

“Mrs. Gideon J. Swale?”

“The same. The Theologa said so. In a week or so—durin’ which period they lived at the house of the Community—chiefly on nuts an’ spring-water——”

“For which entertainment they paid——” Lady Sidonia hinted.

“Delmonico rates!” said the Duchess. “Well, it was settled that the Demonstration was to come off, with the Mystikos’ consent.”

“What sort of——”

“Demonstration? Cur’us,” said the Duchess, “and inter_est_ing. There was a woman—a Mrs. Gower, English by birth, Amurrican naturalized—who was to be the Subject. She was a widow—her husband having met his death in an explosion at an oil-gas producin’ factory. Stoker to the gas-generator he was, and his wife had brought him his dinner—fried steak in a tin pail—when the hull kitboodle blew up. Husband was killed—wife was saved, though so scarred and disfigured about the face as to be changed from a pretty woman into a plain one.”

“And she—this scarred, disfigured woman—was to be made pretty again by the Occult Operatists?” hazarded Lady Sidonia.

“Guessed it first time,” nodded the Duchess. “The cer’mony took place in a temple belonging to the Community, all painted over red and yellow triangles and things like T-squares. At the upper end was an altar, raised on three steps, and on this was the ground glass ball in which the Mystikos lived when he wasn’t somewhere else, and an electric light was fixed over it, so that it just dazzled your eyes to look at. Below the altar was a seat for the Theologa, and, you bet, Mrs. Gideon J. Swale came out strong in the costume line. Momma was reminded of Titiens in _Norma_, she said.”

“I want to hear about the Demonstration,” pleaded Lady Sidonia plaintively.

“My! you’re in a hurry,” said the Duchess. “But it was to be brought off in a bath—if you must know!”

“A _bath_?”

“A bath that was full of water and boiled herbs, and had been properly incanted over by the Theologa,” explained the Duchess. “There were incense-burners all round, and not far off a kind of tent of white linen, all over red triangles and T’s. And the five candidates for renovation—I mean Momma and the other ladies—sat on a form, in bloomers, each with a little purse-bag containing bills for ten thousand dollars, and her heart full of hope and joy.”

“_Oh!_ go on,” cried Lady Sidonia.

“The temple was circular, something like the Mormon Tabernacle at Salt Lake City,” said the Duchess, “and the Occult Operatives—a round hundred of ’em—occupied the forms, to assist with the prayers and hymn-singin’. Of course, the proceedings began with a hymn sung in several different keys. I surmise the effect was impressive.”

Lady Sidonia elevated her eyebrows.

“Momma said it was wailful, and made her feel as though live clams were crawling up and down her back. But then the bloomers may account for that,” said the Duchess, “and I guess the temple registers were out of order. Then—the lights were suddenly turned out!”

“O-oh!” shivered Lady Sidonia.

“Except the electric stars over the Mystikos’ crystal ball,” went on the Duchess, “so that all the light in the temple seemed to come from the altar. Momma said that made her feel those crawling clams worse than ever.”

“Could one see plainly what was going on?” asked Lady Sidonia.

“It was a religious kind of dimness,” said the Duchess, “but most everything showed plainly. For instance, when the hideous woman who was to be the Subject of the Demonstration came out of the linen tent in a suit of bloomers like Momma’s and the others, she appeared to be plain enough. Do you keep a cat, dear?” whispered the Duchess.

“Why? No!” said Lady Sidonia.

“I thought I heard a scratching at the door,” explained the Duchess, with her mouth close to Lady Sidonia’s ear. “Don’t open it.... I’d rather—— Where was I?”

“The Subject was in bloomers,” said Lady Sidonia.

“Oh, well! Momma and the other ladies were asked to look at her earnestly, to fix her features in their minds, so that they couldn’t but recognize her again if they saw her. She was a slight woman, Momma said, about thirty-five, and but for her scarred face would have been pretty, with her pale complexion, brown wavy hair, and large gray eyes with black lashes.... She had one peculiarity about the left hand, which no one who ever saw it could forget. What are you listening for?”

“_I_ hear something at the door,” faltered Lady Sidonia in a nervous undertone.

“Fancy. You don’t keep a cat. Well, the Subject went up to the altar and knelt, and the Theologa—Mrs. Gideon J. Swale—invoked the Mystikos in a solemn kind of conjuration, and the crystal ball on the altar began to hop up and down.”

“No!”

“Fact! Then it rose right off the altar and hung suspended in the air, and the hymn broke out worse than ever, and the Theologa led the Subject down the altar steps and put her into the bath.”

“Well?” gasped Lady Sidonia.

“The Theologa threw incense on the burners round the bath, and perfect clouds rose up all round it, completely hiding the Subject,” explained the Duchess.

“Then she——”

“She began to scream.”

“To scream?”

“As if she was in absolute agony; and Momma and the four other ladies nearly fainted off their form, they were so perfectly terrified.”

“And—what happened?”

“There was a scream more piercing than any of the others.”

“Oh!”

“The clouds of incense became so thick that you couldn’t see your hand.”

“And——”

“The Occult Operatives sang more loudly and less in tune than ever, and the crystal ball kept on jumping up and down. Then the clouds of smoke cleared away, and the lights went up, and——” The Duchess paused provokingly.

“Go on, go on!”

“And the Subject got out of the bath.... And she had been ugly and scarred when she went in, but now she was young and pretty!”

“Impossible!”

“It was the same woman to all appearances, but changed—wonderfully changed. The same pretty brown hair, the same eyes, gray, with long curly black lashes, and the same strange malformation of one finger of the left hand. But no cicatrices, none of the seams and marks that made the other frightful.”

“The other!”

“Did I say the other?”

“Certainly!”

“Then I guess I let the cat out of the bag.”

“Ah, I begin to understand!”

“I thought you’d tumble.”

“There were two women—exactly alike!”

“No, goosey! One woman younger than the other, and looking exactly like her, as _she_ looked before the injury to her face.”

“Sisters?”

“No. Mother and daughter.”

“And the change in the bath?”

“Managed with a false bottom and trap exit. The sort of trick one sees exposed at the Egyptian Hall.”

“And the daughter took the mother’s place?”

“Under cover of the incense—and the singing. The tent held _two_, you understand.”

“But Mrs. Van Wacken?”

“Momma and the other ladies—once the thing had been proved genuine—were only too anxious to plank down their money and hop into the wonderful bath. So they went up to the Theologa, and she blessed them and laid the five money-bags on the altar, and then——”

“Then——”

“Then all the lights went out,” said the Duchess, “and there was a kind of stampede, and Momma and the four other ladies found themselves alone in the temple. The Theologa and the Subject and the hundred members of the Community who’d sat round on the seats and helped with the hymns were gone—and the dollar bags had vanished. The doors of the temple were locked, and Momma and the four other victims had to stop there until the morning. An express man heard their cries for help, broke in the door, and took them to an hotel in his wagon. Dear, I’m going to toddle to by-by!”

“It was an awful—awful swindle,” said Lady Sidonia, as she and the Duchess kissed good-night.

“And the exposure!” The Duchess shrugged her shoulders. “Momma and the other ladies wanted it hushed, but the police went into the matter.”

“Were the swindlers arrested?”

“The Theologa was caught at Amsterdam, and extradited. The Community got off. Nobody could prove any of them had had any of the money. I guess,” said the Duchess, yawning, “Mrs. Gideon J. Swale knows where it is. But she’s in prison, now, dear. And I hope she likes it. As for the woman and her daughter, whose likenesses to each other had been made use of by Mrs. Gideon—they’re still at large. Good-night.”

“Do tell me,” pressed Lady Sidonia. “That peculiarity of one finger of the left hand possessed by both mother and daughter—what was it?”

“It was,” said the Duchess, “a double nail.”

“_How_ odd!” said Lady Sidonia. “My maid has the same queer deformity, and it is the only thing I don’t like about her.... She hates to have it noticed.”

“I guess she does,” said the Duchess.

“Look at her hand to-morrow,” said Lady Sidonia. “It’s awfully queer. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” said the Duchess. “But she won’t be here to-morrow!”

Lady Sidonia’s eyes opened to their widest extent. “Won’t—_be here_?”

“No. She is the girl who got out of the bath!”

“Good heavens!” cried Lady Sidonia. “How do you——Are you——”

“I had been shown her photograph by the police—recognized her the moment I saw her,” said the Duchess. “I’m not mistaken any, you may be sure. But you needn’t trouble about her. She’s gone!”

“Gone!”

“She was listening at the door, and heard the whole story. When _you_ spoke about the cat, she made tracks. She’s clear of this house by now, you may bet your back teeth. Don’t worry about her,” said the Duchess. “I’ll send my own maid to you in the morning. Good-night!”

THE BREAKING PLACE

_Being a letter from Miss Tossie Trilbina, of No. 000, Giddingham Mansions, W., to the Editor of “The Keyhole,” an illustrated Weekly Journal of Caterings for the Curious._

DEAR SIR,

Since reserve and reticence can be carried too far by a lady, I drop the present line of explanation, the newspapers having took so kind a interest in the differences between me and Lord Wretchingham. And if poets ask what’s in a name, the experience of me and many another young lady whose talent for the Stage, developed by application and go-aheadness, not to say good luck—for that there is such a thing must be plain to the stubbornest person—has made her friends from the Orchestra—(you’d never guess how the Second Violin can queer you in an accomp. if you hadn’t experienced it!)—to the highest row in the Threepenny Gallery at The Druids, or the shilling one at The Troc.—would answer, _more than people think for_!

My poor dear mother, who has been pretty nearly crazy about the affair, in that shrinking from publicity which is natural to a lady, told the young gentleman from _The Keyhole_, who dropped in on her at her little place at Brixton, to fish and find out for himself why the marriage-engagement between her daughter and his lordship should have been broken off on the very verge of the altar.

Of course, I don’t assume his lordship’s proposal wasn’t a compliment to a young lady in the Profession; but lordly roofs and music halls may cover vice or shelter virtue, as one of the serio characters so beautifully said in the autumn show at dear old Drury Lane, the name of which has slipped me. And I don’t pretend that my deepest and holiest feelings were not wrenched a bit by me having to say in two words, after mutual vows and presents of the solemnest kind had been exchanged between me and Lord Wretchingham: “All is over between you and me for ever, Hildebrand; and if you possess the mind as well as the manners and appearance of a gentleman, you will not force me to give you the definite chuck.”

He went on awfully, grinding the heels of his boots into a brand-new Wilton carpet, and telling me over and over that I had no heart and never loved him, concerning which I prefer to keep myself to myself. There are those that make as much noise when things go wrong with ’em as a one-and-fourpenny sparking-plug, and there are others that keep theirselves to theirselves and suffer in silence, of which I hope I am one. Even supposing my ancestry did not toddle over with Edward the Conkeror, which they may, for all I know.

It was on the very first night of the production of _The Pop-in-Taw Girl_, by the Trust or Bust Theatrical Syndicate, at the Hiram P. Goff Theatre, W., that Lord Wretchingham caught my eye. Musical Comedy is my strongest weakness, for though a principal boy’s part, with heaps of changes, and electro-calcium with chromatic glasses for every song and dance touches the spot, pantomime is not so refined. Perhaps you may recall the record hits I made in “Freddy’s Flannel Waistcoat Wilted in the Wash,” and “Lay Your Head on My Shoulder, Dear.” Not that it’s my habit to refer to my successes, but the street organs alone will rub it in when you happen to be the idol of the hour.

He sat with his mouth wide open—of course, I refer to Lord Wretchingham—all the time yours truly was on the stage, and I will say no gentleman could have a more delicate regard for a young lady’s feelings than his lordship did in sending a perfect haystack of the most expensive hothouse flowers addressed to Miss Tossie Trilbina, with a diamond and turquoise muff-chain twined round the moss handle of the basket, and not a speck of address on the card for my poor dear mother to return the jewelry to, her being over and above particular, I have often thought, in discouraging attentions that only sprang from gentlemen’s appreciation of the performance, and masked nothing the smallest objections could be taken to.

She quite warmed to Lord Wretchingham, I will say, when him being respectfully presented by the Syndicate, and me being recommended fresh country air by the doctors when suffering from tonsils in the throat, his lordship placed his motor-car at my disposal. With poor dear mother invariably in the glass compartment behind, the tongue of scandal could not possibly find a handle, and her astonishment when she discovered that Hildebrand regarded me with a warmer feeling than that of mere admiration gave her quite a turn.

We were formally engaged—me and Lord Wretchingham. We kept the thing so dark I cannot think how the newspapers managed to get hold of it. But a public favorite must pay the price of popularity in having her private affairs discussed by the crowd. My poor dear mother felt it, but there! what can you do? With interviewers calling same time as the milk, and Press snap-shotters lurking behind the laurel bushes in the front garden, is it to be wondered at that Hildebrand’s family were apprised of our betrothal not only by pars., but by the publication of our photographs, taken hand-in-hand on my poor dear mother’s doorstep, with a vine climbing up behind us, Hildebrand’s motor car, an 18.26 h. p. “Gadabout,” at the bottom of the doorsteps, with the French _chofore parley-vousing_ away a good one to the three Japanese pugs, and poor dear mother, looking a perfect lady, at her fancy-work, in the front parlor window. How the negative was obtained, and how it found its way into all the Illustrated Papers, and particularly how it got upon the postcards, I don’t pretend to guess. It’s one of those regular mysteries you come across in real life.

Hildebrand, or, possibly, as all is over, I should say Lord Wretchingham’s family, went into perfect fits when the news of our betrothal leaked out. The Earl of Blandish, his father, raged like a mad bull; and the Countess, his mother, implored him on her knees to break the engagement.

“Oh,” she said, with the tears in her eyes, “my own boy,” she said, “do not, I beg of you,” she said—for, of course, I got it all out of Hildebrand afterwards—“show yourself to be of so weak and unoriginal a cast of mind as to follow the example of the countless other young men of rank and property,” she said, “who have contracted unequal and unhappy unions with young women on the boards,” she said—and like her classy cheek! Upon which Lord Wretchingham calmly up and told her that his word was his bond, and that I had got both; my poor dear mother having insisted from the beginning that things should be set down in black and white, which the spelling of irrevokable almost proved a barrier the poor dear could not tackle, his education having been neglected at Eton to that extent.