The Lamp of Fate Part 19

A faint smile curved the lips above the small golden beard.

"Then it must be true. Undoubtedly I played wrong notes, miladi."

"Very careless of you, I'm sure." Under the garish light of a neighbouring street-lamp her keen old eyes met his significantly.

"Or--very imprudent, Davilof. You need the tact of the whole Diplomatic Service to deal with Magda. And you ought to know it."

"True, miladi. But I was not designed for diplomacy, and a man can only use the weapons heaven has given him."

"I wouldn't have suggested heaven as invariably the source of your inspirations," retorted Lady Arabella. And hopped into the car.

They arrived at the Imperial Theatre to find Mrs. Grey already seated in Lady Arabella's box. Someone else was there, too--old Virginie, with her withered-apple cheeks and bright brown, bird-like eyes, still active and erect and very little altered from the Virginie of ten years before.

Just as she had devoted herself to Diane, so now she devoted herself to Diane's daughter, and no first performance of a new dance of the Wielitzska's took place without Virginie's presence somewhere in the house. To-night, Lady Arabella had invited her into her box and Virginie was a quivering bundle of excitement. She rose from her seat at the back of the box as the newcomers entered.

"Sit down, Virginie." Lady Arabella nodded kindly to the Frenchwoman.

"And pull your chair forward. You'll see nothing back there, and there is plenty of room for us all."

"_Merci, madame. Madame est bien gentille._" Virginie's voice was fervent with ecstatic grat.i.tude as she resumed her seat and waited expectantly for Magda's appearance.

Other dances, performed princ.i.p.ally by lesser lights of the company and affording only a briefly tantalising glimpse of Magda herself, preceded the chief event of the evening. But at last the next item on the programme read as _The Swan-Maiden (adapted from an Old Legend)_, and a tremour of excitement, a sudden hush of eager antic.i.p.ation, rippled through the audience like wind over gra.s.s.

Slowly the heavy silken curtains drew to either side of the stage, revealing a sunlit glade. In the background glimmered the still waters of a lake, while at the foot of a tree, in an att.i.tude of tranquil repose, lay the Swan-Maiden--Magda. One white, naked arm was curved behind her head, pillowing it, the other lay lightly across her body, palm upward, with the rosy-tipped fingers curled inwards a little, like a sleeping child's. She looked infinitely young as she lay there, her slender, pliant limbs relaxed in untroubled slumber.

Lady Arabella, with Quarrington sitting next to her in the box, heard the quick intake of his breath as he leaned suddenly forward.

"Yes, it has quite a familiar look," she observed. "Reminds me of your 'Repose of t.i.tania.'"

His eyes flickered inquiringly over her face, but it was evident that hers had been merely a chance remark. The old lady had obviously no idea as to who it was who had posed for the t.i.tania of the picture. That was one of the "slices of fact" which Magda had omitted to hand out when recounting her adventure in the fog to her G.o.dmother. Quarrington leaned back in his chair satisfied.

"It's not unlike," he agreed carelessly.

Then the entrance of Vladimir Ravinski, the lovelorn youth of the legend, riveted his attention on the stage.

The dance which followed was exquisite. The Russian was a beautiful youth, like a sun-G.o.d with his flying yellow locks and glorious symmetry of body, and the _pas de deux_ between him and Magda was a thing to marvel at--sweeping through the whole gamut of love's emotion, from the first shy, delicate hesitancy of worshipping boy and girl to the rapturous abandon of mated lovers.

Then across the vibrant, pulsating scene fell the deadly shadow of the witch Ritmagar. The stage darkened, the violins in the orchestra skirled eerily in chromatic showers of notes, and the hunched figure of Ritmagar approaching menaced the lovers. A wild dance followed, the lovers now kneeling and beseeching the evil fairy to have pity on them, now rushing despairingly into each other's arms, while the witch's own dancing held all of threat and malevolence that superb artistry could infuse into it.

The tale unfolded itself with the inevitableness of preordained catastrophe.

Ritmagar declines to be appeased. She raises her claw-like hand, pointing a crooked finger at the lovers, and with a clash of brazen sound and the dull thrumming of drums the whole scene dissolves into absolute darkness. When the darkness lifts once more, the stage is empty save for a pure white swan which sails slowly down the lake and disappears. . . . Followed a solo dance by Ravinski in which he gave full vent to the anguish of the bereft lover, while now and again the swan swam statelily by him. At length the witch appeared once more and, yielding to his impa.s.sioned entreaties, declared that the Swan-Maiden might rea.s.sume her human form during the hour preceding sunset, and Magda--the Swan-Maiden released from enchantment for the time being--came running in on the stage.

This love-duet was resumed and presently, when the lovers had made their exit, Ritmagar was seen gleefully watching while the red sun dropped slowly down the sky, sinking at last below the rim of the lake.

Then a low rumble of drums muttered as she stole from the stage, the personification of vindictive triumph, and all at once the great concourse of people in the auditorium seemed to strain forward, conscious that the climax of the evening, the wonderful solo dance by the Wielitzska, was about to begin.

The moon rose on the left, and Magda, a slim white figure in her dress which cleverly suggested the plumage of a swan, floated on to the stage with that exquisite, ethereal lightness of movement which only toe-dancing--and toe-dancing of the most perfectly finished quality--seems able to convey. It was as though her feet were not touching the solid earth at all. The feather-light drifting of blown petals; the swaying grace of a swan as it glides along the surface of the water; the quivering, spirit-like flight of a b.u.t.terfly--it seemed as though all these had been caught and blended together by the dancer.

The heavier instruments of the orchestra were silenced, but the rippling music of the strings wove and interwove a dreaming melody, unutterably sweet and appealing, as the Swan-Maiden, bathed in pallid moonlight, besought the invisible Ritmagar for mercy, praying that she might not die even though the sun had set. . . . But there comes no answer to her prayers. A sombre note of stern denial sounds in the music, and the Swan-Maiden yields to utter despair, drooping slowly to earth. Just as Death himself claims her, her lover, demented with anguish, comes rushing to her side, and turning towards him as she lies dying upon the ground, she yields to his embrace with a last gesture of pa.s.sionate surrender.

Slowly the heavy curtains swung together, hiding the limp, lifeless body of the Swan-Maiden and the despairing figure of her lover as he knelt beside her, and after a breathless pause, the great audience, carried away by the tragic drama of the dance, its pa.s.sion and its pathos, broke into a thunder of applause that rolled and reverberated through the theatre.

Again and again Magda and her partner were called before the curtain, the former laden with the sheafs of flowers which had been handed up on to the stage. But the audience refused to be satisfied until at last Magda appeared alone, standing very white and slender under the blaze of lights, a faint suggestion of fatigue in the poise of her lissome figure.

Instantly the applause broke out anew--thunderous, overwhelming. Magda smiled, then held out her arms in a little disarming gesture of appeal, touching in its absolute simplicity. It was as though she said: "Dear people, I love you all for being so pleased, but I'm very, very tired.

Please, won't you let me go?"

So they let her go, with one final round of cheers and clapping, and then, as the curtains fell together once more and the orchestra slid un.o.btrusively into the _entr'acte_ music, a buzz of conversation arose.

Michael Quarrington turned and spoke to Davilof as they stood together.

"This will be my last memory of England for some time to come.

Mademoiselle Wielitzska is very wonderful. As much actress as dancer--and both rather superlatively."

There was an odd note in Quarrington's voice, as if he were forcibly repressing some less measured form of words.

Davilof glanced at him sharply.

"You think so?" he said curtly.

The musician's hazel eyes were burning feverishly. One hand was clenched on the back of the chair from which he had just risen; the other hung at his side, the fingers opening and shutting nervously.

Quarrington smiled.

"Don't you?"

The eyes of the two men met, and Michael became suddenly conscious that the other was struggling in the grip of some strong emotion. He could even sense its atmosphere of antagonism towards himself.

"I think"--Davilof spoke with slow intensity--"I think she's a soulless piece of devil's mechanism." And turning abruptly, he swung out of the box, slamming the door behind him.

Quarrington frowned. With his keen perceptions it was not difficult for him to divine what lay at the back of Davilof's bitter criticism. The man was in love--hopelessly in love with the Wielitzska. Probably she had turned him down, as she had turned down better men than he, but he had been unable to resist the bitter-sweet temptation of watching her dance, and throughout the evening had almost certainly been suffering the torments of the d.a.m.ned.

The artist smiled a little grimly to himself, remembering the many evenings he, too, had spent at the Imperial Theatre, drawn thither by the magnetism of a white, slender woman with night-black hair, whose long, dark eyes haunted him perpetually, even coming between him and his work.

And then, just as he had made up his mind to go away, first to Paris and afterwards to Spain or perhaps even further afield, and thus set as many miles of sea and land as he could betwixt himself and the "kind of woman he had no place for," fate had played him a trick and sent her out of the obscurity of the fog-ridden street straight to his very hearth and home, so that the fragrance and sweetness and charm of her must needs linger there to torment him.

He thought he could make a pretty accurate guess at the state of Davilof's feelings, and was ironically conscious of a sense of fellowship with him.

Lady Arabella's sharp voice cut across his reflections.

"I don't care for this next thing," she said, flicking at her programme.

"Mrs. Grey and I are going round to see Magda. Will you come with us?"

Quarrington had every intention of politely excusing himself. Instead of which he found himself replying:

"With pleasure--if Mademoiselle Wielitzska won't think I'm intruding."

Lady Arabella chuckled.