The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack - Mark Hodder [72]
"The-the-ar-ar-art of-?" The man swallowed with an audible gulp.
The door opened and a woman swept into the room. She was tall, enor mously fat, and wore the most voluminous dress Burton had ever seen. She reminded him of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's megalithic transatlantic liner, the SS Titan.
"Thank God!" exclaimed the thin man. "I mean, I say, you've finished, my little lamb!"
"Yes," she said, in a booming voice, her double chins wobbling. "We must go home at once, Reginald. There are things we must discuss!"
He stood, and Burton was sure he could see the man's knees knocking together.
"Th-things, Lammykins?"
"Things, Reginald!"
She pushed aside the curtain and squeezed her bulk into the corridor. Her husband followed, casting a last glance at Swinburne, who winked and said in a stage whisper: "The Kama Sutra!"
He chuckled as the man dived after his wife.
Another woman stepped from the doorway. She was of indeterminate age-either elderly but very well preserved or young and terribly worn, Burton couldn't decide which. Her hair was chestnut brown, shot through with grey, and hung freely to the small of her back, defying the conservative styles of the day; her face was angular and might once have been beautiful; certainly, her large, dark, slightly slanted eyes still were. The lips, though, were thin and framed by deep lines. She wore a black dress with a creamcoloured shawl. Her hands were bare, the nails bitten and unpainted.
"You wish an insight into the future?" she asked, in a musical, slightly accented voice, looking from one man to the other.
Burton stood. "I do. My friend will wait."
She nodded and stepped aside so that he might pass through to the room beyond. It was small, sparsely furnished, and dominated by a tall blue curtain, the same one he'd seen from the outside. A dim lamp hung low over a round table. Shelves lined the walls and were packed with trinkets and baubles of an esoteric nature.
The Countess Sabina closed the door and moved to a chair. She and Burton sat, facing each other across the table.
She considered him.
In the ill-lit chamber, with the flickering light shining from directly above, Burton's eyes were shadowy sockets and the deep scar on his left cheek stood out vividly.
"Your face will be known for long," the countess blurted.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm sorry. Sometimes I don't know why I say what I say. It is an aspect of my gift-of my powers. It is for you to decide the meaning. Give me your hand. The right."
He held out his hand, palm upward. She took hold of it and bent close, tracing its lines with a finger.
"Small hands," she muttered, almost inaudibly. "This-hmm-such restlessness. No roots. You have seen much. Truly seen." She looked up at him. "You are of the People, sir. I am certain of that."
"You mean the gypsy race? It's true that I bear the name Burton."
"Ah! One of the great families. Your other hand please, Mr. Burton."
He held out his left hand. She took it, without releasing the right, and examined it closely.
"What! So strange!" she whispered, almost as if addressing herself. "This cannot be. Separate roads to tread; separate destinations at which to settle; one of small glories that will become great long after he has passed; another of great victories won in secrecy and never revealed. This cannot be, for both paths are trodden! Both paths! How is this possible?"
Burton felt his flesh crawling.
The woman's hands gripped his own tightly. She started swaying back and forth slightly and a low moan escaped her.
He'd seen this sort of thing before, in India and Arabia, and watched fascinated as she slipped into a trance.
"I will speak, Captain," she muttered.
He started. How did she know his rank?
"I will speak. I will speak. I will speak of-of-of a time that is not a time. Of a time that could be. No! Wait. I do not understand. Of a time that should be? Should? Should? What is this I see? What?"
She fell silent and rocked backward, forward, backward, forward.
"For you, the wrong path is the right path!" she suddenly