Love Eternal: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

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 /d�jeuner/. 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 tr�s 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 /d�jeuner/."

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 Fran�ais/,
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 cur� 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 m�re/, 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.

"/Anglic�/ 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.

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