Part 15

Now, while all the good Christians, philanthropists, nobly honest agnostics, angelic virgins who had been presented, dignified and ferocious matrons, clergymen, positivists, and other seekers after truth, were--as a nasty, cynical journalist who was present, remarked--‘ravening and battening on their garbage,’ which meant repeating what they had read in the society papers, or preparing what would soon appear in them, Flaxius had withdrawn to a quiet corner and an easy sofa, where he was joined by Miss Jesabelle Rockhard, a lady of whom all her friends said: ‘It certainly cannot be denied that she is good-looking’; others limiting this praise to ‘_distinguée_,’ while some reduced it to ‘striking,’ which she certainly was, being a hard hitter in conversation, and not above fibbing when it came to a scratch. That she was ‘highly intelligent’ and an _esprit fort_, gifted with the unscrupulousness which she herself graced with the name of Will, was manifested at a glance, and impressively set forth by the first utterance of her voice to any reader of the human heart.

She was between afternoon and twilight as regarded age, and of very limited means; facts which she stated with the utmost candour to everybody. Nor was she devoid of a certain intuition or clairvoyance as regarded ability in others, as she had creditably shown by divining that Flaxius was a character. She determined that she would draw him out to the last hair, and completely ascertain all there was in him. In forming this resolution she had, as the Americans express it, unconsciously, ‘taken out a mighty big contract,’ which was the further impeded by the fact that the party of the other part knew exactly how much stock she held, and what was her capital, while she--poor little soul--knew nothing at all as to the resources of the adversary.

But she came up to the assault gallantly. There was something in her very smile with its pinch in the lips, and in the ring of her keen voice, which seemed to say: ‘I’m arch and airy, with the gay, sarcastic tone of society; you must accept all my stings with a delighted air--and you’ll be in bad form if you don’t. Beware! beware!’

‘Ah, Mr. Flaxius, just as one would expect--withdrawn from the gossiping, frivolous crowd. You set up to be intellectual, I believe.’

There are certain very common and very silly speeches of this kind current, which tease sensible people, because they are hard to answer. So true is it that a fool can roll a stone into a well which fifty wise men cannot get out. But Flaxius replied with divine suavity:

‘If being out of the swim is a sign of setting up to be intellectual, then, I suppose, as you are here, that you also advance the same claim, and would fain remind me of it.’ Here the smile was beautifully genial, as if to say: ‘’Tis all my fun.’

‘Confound his cheeky impudence!’ thought Miss Jesabelle. And she promptly countered.

‘So you _do_ set up to be intellectual, then? Oh, you needn’t deny it--you’ve admitted it.’

‘True,’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘and I have heard from other people the same of you. And yet I am not sure,’ he added, in so dreamy, meditative a manner, that he seemed to be thinking of anything except Miss Rockhard, ‘that ’tis not better to be able to set oneself up independently--though ever so little--than to have to rely on others to do it for us!’

And looking at Miss Jesabelle with a smile that was child-like and bland, he added:

‘Ask me some more of those hard questions, please!’

‘I really believe,’ answered the lady with some acerbity (‘Aha!’ thought Flaxius, ‘the first blood drawn!’)--‘that you must have belonged to the Disagreeable Club, whose members make a practice of irritating and retorting, like cabmen.’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘if I had not, I should have been indeed ill-qualified for conversation with an advanced young lady of the _fin de siècle_. How often she reminds me of a Spanish fairy-tale. May I tell it?’ he asked, like a little boy.

‘Oh, certainly, if it amuses you,’ replied the young lady in a tone half-contemptuously vexed, yet half interested in this extraordinary stranger.

‘Once upon a time,’ said Flaxius, ‘there were three brothers, and the two elder were a pair of awful blackguards.’

‘Truly, it begins beautifully!’ remarked Miss Rockhard scornfully.

‘Doesn’t it?’ quoth Flaxius gleefully. ‘And it’s nothing to what’s a-coming. Well, there was a king of the country, and he had a beautiful daughter--at least she was _distinguée_, or what you might call _stunning_, for she was awful at being disagreeable, and could shut up any man in chaff, or worse--not to draw it too fine. And if anybody dared to answer her--oh, then she became angry!

‘Now the king, finding that his daughter kept his court all the time in an uproar, issued a proclamation, saying that whoever could beat the princess in abuse should have her to wife, and welcome. Then the two elder brothers rejoiced, each being sure that he would win the prize. But the younger, who was a sort of Saint Johnny, with no great gift of the gab, went and sat sorrowfully in the woods, weeping to think he had no chance to win the princess, and wishing he had passed his boyhood in playing chuck-farthing, and hanging about the docks with other little guttersnipes, and had not wasted it in going to school and church and penny-readings.

‘And while he sat there weeping, and eating a great slice of water-melon, mingling his tears with the seeds, there came by an Irish fairy of his acquaintance.

‘“An’ what is it yees wape-in an’ bodderin’ about, _alanna_?” she asked kindly.

‘Then the youth told her his trouble, and how he would like to win the princess, but wanted that _copia verborum_, or elegant “fluency of sass,” as it is called in America, which was necessary to secure it.

‘“Och, _monoma diaoul!_ and tear and agers!” exclaimed the fairy, “sure, if it’s nothin’ but blay-gairdin’ is naded, it’s mesilf that’ll tache ye how to bate thim all intoirely. Pattherin’ an’ cantin’ is it! and me here that blissed the great Daniel O’Connell in his cradle, an’ gave him the illigant spache that shut up all the sass in Parliamint.

‘“Great O’Connell, the Libherather, An’ salvathor of Oireland’s oisle!

‘“Whoop! _Fa-na-ballah_, and Erin-go-braugh!” cried the fairy as she danced in a ring, brandishing her broom. “And now, ye divil, sit down till I give yees a lisson in polite litherature.”

‘I forbear for certain reasons to give you the conversation which occurred between the princess and the two brothers, in which they were utterly silenced. Then, turning to the youngest, she exclaimed scornfully:

‘“And I suppose you, with your white egg-fruit face of an idiotic scallawag, set up for being intellectual--intellectual enough to smash _me_--that is, if you know what the word means, you Number Three Mackerel with the head gone!”

‘“It is just like your ante-penultimate superfluitancy to mundivagate anent my candicancy,’ replied the youth indignantly. ‘Thou tramontarian tomboy-trollope and trull-cat, thou quadruplicate quean, mopsy minx, and metaphrastic harridame--reintegrated in thy deligration even to conquassentiality--thou mere projectile of an eolipile--nay, I go so far as to call thee a true ultimatum of the fourth effusion--dug up by a divarication of conduplicated metatarsity--thou art all this as thy conscience deterrates ... yea and thou art moreover addicted to _lipothymy_ and all such enormities and vices!”

‘Thereupon the princess gave it to him back, with all that there is in Grose’s _Slang Dictionary_, and Romany to boot--which was pretty bad; but when he retorted with a passage from Browning’s _Sordello_, she gave it up, and fell into a fit of rage, foaming at the mouth. And having recovered, she married him, and they lived like the devil ever after.’

Now Flaxius had the gift of voice, and with it that of the story-teller, to the degree of well-nigh transcending language itself; for one could read the full meaning of every word in his intonation, and eyes and gestures; these latter were never extravagant, but strangely significant, as they well might be, since he knew as only the priests of old knew the wonderful Sign Language which men have found of late years on every Etruscan vase--much of which is still found even among the peasant-children of Italy. And as a small group of guests had gathered round to hear the legend, there were roars of final laughter, in which Miss Jesabelle herself joined with a good-will, for she had begun to realise that there was a lion in this man, and as the story had been told for _her_, she shrewdly made the very best of it.

‘You tell a fairy-tale so well,’ she said to Flaxius, when they were again together, and no one near, ‘as to make one regret that there are no more fairies or magic, or rather that such fancies never were.’

‘And if there were,’ replied the sage, ‘you and the world would still necessarily remain in ignorance of them.’

‘Permit me,’ replied Miss Rockhard, ‘to differ with you. I _presume_,’ she added, with a slightly sarcastic expression, ‘that I am _quite_ as likely as you are to be acquainted, or possibly familiar, with all that has been investigated by science--the London Library and British Museum being open to all--and I can assure you that despite Madame Blavatsky and Mr. Sinnett and Colonel Olcott--very nice men they are--not the slightest scientific proof of the existence of fairies or magic has ever been detected.’

‘Very true,’ rejoined Flaxius imperturbably. ‘I did not say that they existed. I only assert that, from the very nature of things, if they do, they _must_ be concealed from man as he now is. The more indubitable proof of such occult matters would bring about a premature confusion in humanity which would have disastrous results.’

‘_I_ presume _not_, in certain minds at least,’ said Miss Rockhard, with an expression which denoted that she considered herself to be one of this favoured few. ‘How can you explain however,’ she added, ‘that few, if any, know the mysteries?’

‘Simply because there are so few people living who can keep a secret or hold their tongues. The one great or tremendous task of the ancient priesthoods, as of the modern Jesuits, was not to get great ideas, but to train men to keep quiet, and not to tell tales out of school.’

‘There again you are _quite_ wrong,’ remarked the lady. ‘If mere firm reticence would attract revelation, _I_, certainly, would be among the favoured. On that subject you need not speak further, for it simply does not admit discussion. I have kept,’ she added, ‘in my time a secret of vast importance, on which the fate of a great family depended, for many months, till it all blew over.’

‘And then,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘came the great blow-up in consequence of her blowing, or letting it out. I remember it all. Truly she deserves a lesson for all this. Do you know,’ he added amiably, ‘I think, Miss Rockhard, that this matter may possibly be tested. There is an ugly little old story about certain nuns who wanted a Pope to make female confessors, and he promised to do so if they would keep a box unopened for a day. They all swore on their salvation to do so; but the Pope was hardly out of the convent before they all ran to the box and lifted the lid, when out flew a bird, which vanished through the window.’

‘If you think that a silly and slanderous old tale, which is only disgraceful to one who tells it, is an _argument_,’ said the lady, ‘I have no more to say.’

‘But I have this to suggest,’ replied Flaxius. ‘I have heard--for I do not assert it--that there is even now in London a person who is endowed with such strangely supernatural gifts that she may be ranked with the witches or fairies.’

‘At a guinea a visit, I presume,’ remarked Miss Rockhard with her sarcastic smile more fully developed than ever. ‘_Merci_, my means do not permit of such expensive researches into occult philosophy.’

‘Ah, that is the most remarkable part of it all,’ replied Flaxius. ‘She takes nothing; nay, she invariably makes very valuable gifts; but on the strictest conditions of secrecy--and she is to the last degree exacting in this respect--as also that those whom she favours shall be gifted with superior intellects--not led by mere curiosity.’

‘And you expect me to believe this?’

‘Certainly not. I never said a word as to belief. I only say that _I_ believe you will incur no kind of risk or cost if you seek her.’

‘And you will obtain access for me to your witch?’

‘She is not _my_ witch, and I have no desire whatever to send you to her. I only say that if you will promise on your honour to observe sacred secrecy even as to knowing of her existence, I will give you her address.’

‘Very well, I swear!’

‘She lives in Devonshire Street, near Regent’s Park. There is her card. But I give you every warning. What you seek will require great truth, secrecy, and self-command. And remember’--here the face of Flaxius assumed an expression which Miss Rockhard had not seen before, and under which she for an instant quailed, it was so marvellously strange and dignified, as if he had forgotten himself into grandeur--‘remember that if you succeed, I shall expect no thanks, and if you fail, yours alone is the responsibility.’

‘Oh, I accept it,’ replied Miss Rockhard, recovering her flippancy. ‘Thanks awfully. I accept the _entire_ responsibility. What fun!’

And so with all her grace and vanity she swept away.

* * * * *

At four o’clock on the following afternoon--or ‘morning,’ as it is called by those who probably look for midnight at fourteen o’clock--Miss Rockhard found herself in Devonshire Street, seeking the dwelling of the witch-fairy. And it was very naturally with an intensely sarcastic smile that she finally discovered on a door a small silver plate bearing the words:

MISS ALBAN,

DRESSMAKER.

‘I might have expected it would be some humbug of the kind!’ thought the fair Jesabelle. ‘I wonder whether the fairy drops her h’s. But let us enter all the same into this Egyptian Hall and take a miracle or two.’

She rang, and was admitted by a very pretty maid to a hall which was somewhat singularly, but most artistically, decorated with antique objects, the real meaning of which was, however, hardly apparent; and was then conducted up a broad old staircase to a large _salon_, in which the visitor detected a most extraordinary and original taste, as regards furniture, without the least obtrusive sign of expenditure or cost. There was not a thing in the room which looked as if it had been the ‘gem’ of a bric-a-brac shop, or worthy a place in the great Rothschild pawnbroker collection of Frankfort, or bought at a Demiduffer sale, and many of the antiques would not have been valued at twopence by the Jew; but even Miss Rockhard, albeit her archæology was of the slenderest, save on Chippendale, lace, Japaneseries, Chineseries, crockeries, glass, Sèvres, and rococery in general, or trash in particular, could not help admitting that there was a hidden depth of knowledge and artistic taste in what she saw, which had nothing in common with bargains, fashion or the shop.

Suddenly looking up, Miss Rockhard saw before her a lady who, though beautiful, was not to be lightly described as ‘a beauty,’ considering the usual vulgar associations with the word. There was a depth of expression and moral truth, allied to strength of character, in her face which would have shamed into oblivion the charm of a Helen, who was (according to Flaxius) only a professional beauty of the popular kind after all. ‘And such,’ adds Flaxius, ‘I have invariably found all fashionable belles of the season (“whom every one is talking about”) to be.’

‘I am Miss Alban,’ said the lady to the visitor, ‘and I shall be pleased to aid you in the object of your call. You desire indubitable proof of the existence of supernatural or magical influences or beings, and I can supply it.’

‘You are, ahem! I believe, a--dressmaker,’ said Miss Rockhard, with considerable sarcasm. For she felt with every word and glance that Miss Alban was immeasurably her superior in exactly that in which she would have liked to be great herself: or in calm self-possession, penetration, and the terrible art of influencing others, and being invulnerable. Therefore it was with something like suppressed exasperation, wrapped up in a smile, that she exclaimed: ‘A dressmaker!’

‘I appear to every one,’ replied Miss Alban, looking the other clearly in the eyes, ‘as the ideal ministrant of what they most desire in life. What _you_ prize above everything is simply to appear well before everybody, be it in good looks or clothes as regards the body, and accomplishments and setting people down and “besting” them as regards the mind, which all amounts to mere show or dress, and therefore I appear to you as a _modiste_.’

‘I confess,’ declared Miss Rockhard, who had always, with all her failings, a substratum of frank courage as regarded her poverty and unavoidable defects, being therein no snob, ‘that as I have only one decent evening-dress in the world, and am getting to the end of my twenties, or to a time when dress becomes more needful, and as I live for society, I _do_ regard externals with love and envy. But as for the proof of enchantment----’

‘I promise,’ replied Miss Alban, ‘to fully and perfectly convince and satisfy you before you leave this room, that there is such a thing as magic, by which I mean simply to show you something absolutely inexplicable by _your_ knowledge of science.’

‘I ask no more than _that_ as regards your sorcery,’ said Miss Rockhard with a complacent smile.

‘While as to dress, I promise that you shall be at no expense, and for life, the best dressed woman in London, or even in New York or Paris. But on one condition.’

‘I know--absolute secrecy. That for me is a mere trifle.’

‘It is no “mere trifle,” as you will find, but, especially for you, a terribly difficult and onerous task. For know that the secrecy must be without speck or flaw. You are not to say that you have _heard_ of fairy dressmakers or jest with people who ask you whence you had your garments, in such a way as to cause surmises as to the truth; and if you fail you must not say, “_I thought_ this or that,” as people of weak minds always do. There is to be no allowance for thought, or prevarication, or independence, or misfortune or excuses. If you can persevere in merely keeping a secret to your own advantage, I promise you that dress shall not be the limit of my favours, and you shall lead a long and happy and highly-honoured life. But if you fail, that is, if by the _least_ inadvertency, or even accident, you betray the secret, you will incur a terrible disgrace, and a suffering and humiliated life. Consider well, and do not let your vanity lead you to ruin.’

‘I think,’ said Miss Rockhard, with the same old contemptuous smile, ‘that we may proceed to the proof. As I happen to know my own mind a little better than you probably do, I am better aware of my capacity for secrecy. I accept your conditions.’

‘The proof is very easy,’ replied Miss Alban, taking from a drawer in a cabinet what seemed to be a large walnut. ‘Did you ever hear of the famous wardrobe walnuts of the witch tree of Benevento? Legend says that a prince once filled a palace with the splendid garments in cloth of gold, ermine, velvet and pearls, which he drew from this one nut.[10] Now, are you ready?’

‘Certainly,’ replied the visitor.

‘And should I perform this miracle, you will, unconditionally once and for all accept it on your honour as a proof of magic power? If not, we will try something else.’

‘No,’ answered Jesabelle, who was thinking more of being beautifully attired than of all the miracles or oaths ever heard of. ‘The dress will be proof enough in all conscience.’

As she spoke, her outer garment fell off, and she stepped out of it, while Miss Alban, opening the walnut, drew from it what seemed at first to be a mere cobweb, which she shook and shook out into greater fulness, till she placed it on Miss Jesabelle who, to do her justice, had really a fine little figure, just made to be very well dressed, with the one drawback of large feet and hands.

‘Now tell me,’ said the dressmaker, ‘what colour or material or style would you prefer?’

‘Nothing extravagant as regards expense,’ replied Miss Rockhard, ‘no cloth of gold or pearl-embroideries or anything to make people wonder where the money came from, when all the world knows how poor I am. Grey silk will do; but as elegant, original, and beautiful in fit and fold as a robe can be.’

‘_C’est fait_,’ said Miss Alban. ‘Rise and look into yonder glass!’

Then Miss Rockhard looked and could hardly believe her own eyes, such a vision of beauty was before her. For, as has been already intimated, she was really very ‘good-looking,’ with a fine figure, both being of the kind which are incredibly improved by tasteful dress, so that she came out (like fireworks) in a grand ball, or at a fête, when fortune favoured her.

But never before, under the most benign influence of a grand cheque from her benevolent aunt, had she bloomed out like this. It was more than a fit, more than modelling to the form, more than artistic folds after any painting, for there was in the fluent grace and easy elegance of that skirt and bust an æsthetic apocalypse. ‘Which is,’ pencils Flaxius, ‘a big word for a man, but not too much, under the circumstances, for a woman.’

Even the fairy smiled, being feminine, at the success, and said:

‘There is still a trifle or two wanting.’ She took from the drawer a wisp of straw, a coarse cord, or circle of clothes-line, and a simply _horrid_ brooch of brass and glass, or of agate, which seemed, from afar off, to have been bought in a common toy shop in the Burlington Arcade, or under the cliff in Brighton, for threepence. She fastened the wisp of straw round the wrist of Jesabelle, and lo! it became a massy bracelet of gold in old Etruscan style, which would have maddened Castellani, and sent a whole ball-room into convulsions of envy. The brooch turned to a brilliant bouquet of diamonds, while the rope, with eccentric, yet pretty, taste, remained exactly as it was, but in pure gold, and, being tied in a bow-knot with folding ends, formed a very original and elegant head-dress.