Bewitched (Bantam Series No. 16) (9 page)

“It is because what I found in Russia was so unique, so unforgettable,” Sir Algernon replied, “that I really believe that it altered my life.”

He paused for effect and went on:

“I have ever since cultivated the Arts, but I can never surpass or even equal the magnificent treasures to be found in your Palaces, in the homes of your Princes.”

“You make me envious, Gibbon,” the Marquis remarked.

“It is true,” Sir Algernon said.

He then went into a long discourse about the pictures he had seen in Moscow and the wonderful collections of Objets d’Art to be found in the Palaces of St. Petersburg.

He appealed to Saviya for confirmation of all he contended, and was delighted when she flattered him for being so discerning and knowledgeable on such matters.

When finally Bush came to say that the rein had been repaired and the carriage was now ready to convey her Highness to London, the Princess rose with a murmur of regret.

“You have been so kind!” she said to the Marquis. “What appeared at first to be a disaster has been changed into a delight!”

“I hope you will allow me to call on you as soon as I return to London,” the Marquis replied.

“My husband and I will be delighted,” the Princess answered, “and I know he will want to add his thanks to mine for your hospitality.”

“We shall meet in the very near future,” Sir Algernon said as she held out her hand to him. “The Russian Ambassador and his wife, Princess Lieven, are great friends of mine, and you must permit me to give a dinner-party in your honour as soon as you have had time to settle down.”

“You are more than kind,” the Princess said softly, and held out her hand to Captain Collington.

The Marquis escorted the Princess from the room and out into the Hall.

“You were magnificent!” he whispered, as soon as the door shut behind them. “How long do you want before I take Sir Algernon onto the terrace?”

“A quarter of an hour,” she whispered.

Then the Marquis left her and went back into the Salon.

“What a beautiful woman!” Sir Algernon was exclaiming as he entered, “but then the Russians when they are young are unbelievably lovely. I am telling you the truth when I say there are no more beautiful women in the world than those of noble blood.”

“I was interested in what you were saying about the Gypsies,” Charles Collington remarked casually. “I have always thought of Gypsies as poor, ragged creatures wandering barefoot along the roads and sleeping under hedgerows or in tattered tents.”

“Russian Gypsies are different,” Sir Algernon replied. “Some of them are, of course, under the protection of the Grand Dukes and Princes.”

“I always understood that Gypsies are very moral,” the Marquis protested.

“They are never promiscuous,” Sir Algernon replied. “My friend, Prince Paul explained to me that no real Gypsy ever becomes a prostitute. If they accept the protection of a Nobleman the liaison lasts for many years. The women in fact look on it as much the same as a marriage.”

“And yet, you say some important Russians actually do marry Gypsies?” Charles Collington questioned incredulously.

“Many famous Gypsy singers and ballerinas have become Princesses,” Sir Algernon answered. “He told me that it is not the aristocracy that objects to such a mésalliance but the Gypsies themselves who disapprove. They are a strange people who have no wish to intermix with other races.”

The Marquis made sure that his guests’ glasses were well-filled and then said:

“As it is a warm night, in fact surprisingly warm for the time of the year, I want you to come out onto the terrace. I have something to show you, Gibbon, which I think you will find unusual and very interesting.”

“My visit to you has already been full of surprises” Sir Algernon replied. “I am therefore quite prepared for another.”

The gentlemen walked out through the long French-windows which opened onto a flagged terrace. In the centre of it there was a flight of stone steps leading down to the lawn.

At the top of those were three arm-chairs.

The Marquis invited Sir Algernon to sit down in the centre while he and Charles Collington took a chair on either side of him.

The garden was quiet and mysterious under a star-strewn sky with a full moon just climbing up the Heavens.

In front of them the green lawn swept away to where there was a small Grecian Temple which had been brought to England by the Marquis’s grand-father at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

It gleamed pearly white in the moonlight flanked by the darkness of the shrubs and trees.

Then as they waited, and the Marquis knew that Sir Algernon was anticipating the next surprise, there came the faint, sweet sound of violins from the direction of the Temple.

At first indistinct in the distance, they could now see more clearly coming towards them a number of musicians, playing as they moved a music which seemed compelling and to have a strange, stimulating note which made the pulses begin to beat quicker.

There were not only violins, which Saviya had told the Marquis they called
bas alja
—the king of instruments—there were also the notes of the violas, the cymbals and the sitar.

They drew nearer until they were just on the edge of the lawn, and then they divided so that as a background there was the white perfection of the Greek Temple.

The music intensified, and suddenly a dancer appeared. She seemed to emerge through the music and be a part of it.

The Marquis had expected Saviya to be a remarkable dancer, but it was difficult to put into words the sheer beauty of her movements.

She was dressed in Gypsy clothes, not those she habitually wore, but those which he knew instinctively belonged to the theatre-white, embroidered with vivid colours, the sleeves of her muslin blouse puffed out almost like wings from her shoulders.

Her skirt flew out from her tiny waist and the Marquis knew it was not one skirt but seven which frothed, rustled and shimmered with every movement she made.

There were jewels around her neck which glittered in the moonlight, and on her head there was a wreath of flowers with trailing ribbons of every hue flying out behind her.

It seemed almost impossible that her feet touched the ground as she flew like a butterfly over the green grass.

Then from behind the musicians there came men and women carrying torches, which lit the garden with a strange, pagan light.

Now the music changed. It was no longer soft and entrancing but wild yet sweet; violent and yet tender; and while Saviya accelerated the speed of her movements, the Gypsies with the torches began to sing.

There was a bewildering beauty in the melody of their voices and a charm in their words, even though those listening could not understand them.

Sometimes the tone was delicate and liquid like the sound of silver bells, at other times it was a wild, invigorating and exciting tone which seemed to draw the heart of those who listened from their bodies and make them one with the music itself.

Quicker and quicker the sound rose; quicker and quicker Saviya danced. She leapt until she almost seemed to hang motionless in the air and she twirled until she no longer seemed human.

Yet everything she did had such an unbelievable grace, so much beauty, so much haunting loveliness, that she became the embodiment of a dream.

Quicker and quicker, louder and louder the music, the dancing, until it aroused an elation that was a part not only of the body but of the very soul.

Then when it seemed that no human being could hold such intensity any longer, slowly the violence of the music was replaced by a soft rippling melody as of a quiet sea after a storm.

First the flaming torches moved away towards the Temple, then the musicians, and finally Saviya herself, dancing like a bewitching will-o’-the-wisp only half-seen in the shadow of the retreating singers—until as the music faded into the distance she stood for a moment silhouetted against the pillars of the Temple, her slight figure hardly human in its grace.

As the last lingering note of the violins died away, she too disappeared.

For a moment there was complete and absolute silence. Then Sir Algernon jumped to his feet clapping and cheering.

“Bravo! Unbelievable! Exquisite! Tremendous!” he exclaimed.

Almost as if he moved in a dream the Marquis, too, rose to applaud, but he felt somehow as if his voice was constricted in his throat.

It had been, although he hardly dared admit it to himself, an emotional experience which he had never encountered before.

Because it was difficult to find words to express what they had all felt, they moved back into the Salon almost as if the silent beauty of the night was too poignant for the commonplaces of conversation.

A little later Saviya came in.

She was still wearing the beautiful embroidered Russian dress in which she had danced and, as she entered the Salon, the Marquis crossed the room towards her and taking her hand lifted it to his lips.

“I expected you to be good,” he said quietly, “but I have no words to tell you how superlative you were in every way.”

She smiled at him without replying and accepted the congratulations of Sir Algernon and Charles Collington.

“You realise now,” the latter said to Sir Algernon, “that you owe us a thousand guineas.”

“It is a price I will pay willingly just to see this lovely lady dance,” Sir Algernon said. “May I know her real name?”

“It is Saviya,” the Marquis answered, “and she is, as you have guessed, a Gypsy. But her mother is a Russian and a dancer.”

“Tonight you recaptured for me my lost youth!” Sir Algernon said.

He smiled and added to the Marquis:

“Now you understand why, when I was talking to you after dinner, I sounded perhaps exaggeratedly enthusiastic, but even so I was under-estimating, as you must admit, the brilliance not only of the Russian singers but their dancers.”

Then he asked with a note of curiosity in his voice:

“You must explain to me, Ruckley, where you found this fascinating creature. How does it happen that she is here in England?”

“An introduction was thrust upon me,” the Marquis smiled.

He explained how he had run Saviya down with his Phaeton.

“If it had not happened,” he finished, “I should have had no idea that the Gypsies were encamped on my land. It was not until tonight that I had even seen a sign of them.”

“They are a secret people,” Sir Algernon said, and turning to Saviya he asked, “Are you all right after your accident? You might easily have broken your leg, and that would have been a tragedy beyond words.”

“I was fortunate it was no worse,” Saviya answered. “All that is left now is a small scar on my forehead and the few marks on my arm.”

“It still looks rather bruised,” Charles Collington said, looking down at her arm as he came and stood beside her.

She laughed.

“That is the wrong arm.”

“But you do have a bruise there,” he persisted.

“No,” she replied. “That is a birth-mark, and it is a sign much respected by my tribe.”

“Why?” Charles Collington enquired.

“Because,” she replied, “it is the head of a hawk. A hawk has very sharp eyes, and this indicates that I am in fact a ‘Seer’.”

“Yes, you are right,” Charles Collington said, “the mark does look like a hawk’s head—can you see it does, Ruckley?”

It was a birth-mark about the size of a florin and Sir Algernon looked at it. But the Marquis went to fetch Saviya a glass of wine from the side-table.

“You must be both tired and thirsty after that incredible performance,” he said as he handed it to her.

“I seldom feel tired when I am dancing,” she answered. “What was much more frightening was playing the part of a Lady of Quality.”

“Which you did as to the manor born,” Charles Collington said. “Do you not agree, Gibbon?”

“Of course I agree! It was faultless,” Sir Algernon answered. “I am only so disappointed that I shall not be able to give you dinner in London next week.”

“I must say, Gibbon, you are taking the loss of a thousand guineas like a sportsman,” Charles Collington said irrepressibly. “I almost feel embarrassed at winning the money.”

They all laughed at this. Then the Marquis raising his glass said: “I want to drink to Saviya. There is no-one who has surprised us more with her amazing talents, or who could have been more modest about them. She told me she was a dancer, but not for one moment did I expect a performance such as the one we have just witnessed.”

“What I cannot understand,” Sir Algernon said, “is why you are here; why do you not stay in St. Petersburg where your talents would be appreciated?”

“My father, like all Gypsies, has a wanderlust,” Saviya answered. “After a little while—however comfortable we may be, however happy—he wants to move on. We wandered all over Russia from the North to the very South, then he had a yearning to see England again.”

“He has been here before?” the Marquis asked.