Love Me Forever Read online

  “In which case we shall have to brazen it out,” Isabella said.

  He liked her courage as she turned away from him, saying aloud,

  “Thank you, dear cousin, for reclasping my bracelet. I should be grieved to lose it.”

  “If you do, the Comte can make you some more,” the Prince de Condé exclaimed.

  “If that were so, I should be more interested in him,” Isabella retorted, “but it appears the diamonds he makes are all presented to the Cardinal. ‘To them that hath shall be given’.”

  There was a good deal of laughter at this, which enabled the Duke to approach Amé.

  To his surprise she was looking quite calm. The worried look that he had seen in her eyes earlier on had disappeared and instead there was a shining radiance about her as though, guarded with some invisible armour, she went forth to do battle.

  “Don’t worry unnecessarily,” the Duke said quietly. “I believe the fellow to be a charlatan.”

  “From all accounts he is worse than that,” Amé replied, “but I am not afraid. They have been talking about him here in a manner that makes me sure that he is wicked and evil, in which case he will not be able to touch me, I am sure of that.”

  The Duke looked at her in surprise, but there was no chance of saying more. It was announced that the coaches were at the door and the ladies and gentlemen wrapped themselves in their cloaks.

  It was only a short drive to the Cardinal’s Palace. The Duke found himself wishing that the coaches would break down, lose their way or that anything might happen that would delay their arrival.

  Unfortunately none of them travelled in their own carriages, but the party divided up and the Duke found himself following his hostess and another lady into the Cardinal’s coach.

  Isabella and Amé were escorted by two young gallants to the Duke’s blue and silver carriage.

  The Cardinal’s Palace was one of the most magnificent in all Paris. The style in which he lived had been the talk of the City for so long that it had ceased to be a novelty. Even the writers of lampoons had grown tired of showing him with a long row of liveried manservants behind him and gold plate piled at his feet.

  The Palais Rohan had indeed easily eclipsed the splendour of Versailles. The treasures with which its walls were hung, the beauty of its marble halls and arched doorways and its great crystal and gold staircase, made Amé, for the moment awestruck, stand staring around her so obviously amazed that she attracted the Cardinal’s attention.

  “Your Ward is, I think, admiring my house,” His Eminence said to the Duke. “Another time, when we have more leisure, you must bring her here so that I can show her the pictures and some of the other treasures I have acquired. My collection of jade is, I believe, unique. The same applies to my Armoury, which has been sought for and purchased in all parts of the world.”

  “Your Eminence is most gracious,” the Duke said formally.

  “Now we have other things to attend to,” the Cardinal cried with a sudden light of impatience in his eyes. “We must go to the top of the house where I have had a special room fitted up for the Comte. He should, my Major Domo assures me, be here very shortly.”

  The Cardinal made a move towards the staircase and obediently the little crowd followed behind him.

  “I offered the Comte any room in The Palace as a shrine for his powers,” the Cardinal explained, “but he chose what I call the attics for the simple reason that they are nearest the stars.”

  If indeed they were attics, they were certainly very palatial ones, the Duke thought as they reached the top of the stairs. A long room, narrow and with an arched ceiling, was richly carpeted.

  There was a table covered by a white cloth at one end and at either side of it, two huge candles. There was a heavy, pungent exotic fragrance in the air and with it an airlessness that made the Duke long to open wide a window to let in the night air. But the windows were sealed by heavy hangings of purple velvet.

  They had been in the room for only a few moments when a voice from the doorway announced,

  “His Excellency, Comte Cagliostro,” and the man they were expecting came in. There was no doubt that his remarkable appearance had for many years enhanced his reputation as a miracle-worker.

  He wore a coat of green wool embroidered with gold and his hair was gathered up in a gold net with the ends sticking through a mesh. There were rubies and diamonds on his fingers and hanging in a flamboyant, glittering array from his fob chain.

  Of medium height with an olive complexion, wide nostrils, a short thick neck and piercing prominent eyes, Cagliostro was in reality Josef Balsamo, son of a converted Sicilian Jew.

  He had been born in Palermo and then educated in a Monastery, where he had learned a certain amount of chemistry. He had travelled in Egypt and it was there he was said to have been initiated into the secret wisdom of the Great Pyramids.

  He was by no means obsequious or humble to the Cardinal or to anyone else.

  “I was very busy, when Your Eminence’s message was brought to me, on an experiment that may prove of inestimable benefit to mankind as a whole,” he said, “but then I imagined that the urgency of your call meant a matter of life or death, so I came at once.”

  “I am sorry if we have interrupted you, Comte,” the Cardinal apologised. “As it happened, I wanted you to meet these friends of mine and show them a little of your amazing powers. I have been telling them how truly wonderful you are, but they need more proof than my glowing words can convey to them.”

  “Proof! Proof!” the Comte muttered, “that is always what people ask. How little faith there is to be found in this dark world.”

  “That is true enough,” the Cardinal agreed, “but you bring light into the darkness, Comte, that is what we ask you for now, a light.”

  “What would you have me do?” the Comte enquired, glancing at the assembled company in an arrogant autocratic manner, which made the Duke long to kick him.

  “We only ask you to show us some of your Divine secrets,” the Cardinal replied. “And we have questions to ask you.”

  “Very well,” the Comte said in the weary tone of one who must force himself to the service of others, “but if you wish me to answer questions about the future or of things hidden even from yourselves, then I must have a pupille, a pure and innocent child, to assist me.”

  “There is my housekeeper’s little girl,” the Cardinal then suggested, “Would she do? She sat for you once before, if you remember.”

  “Yes, yes,” the Comte replied, “have her fetched.”

  The Cardinal spoke to the footman and he hurried from the room.

  The chairs were arranged in a semi-circle drawn on the floor and everyone sat down quietly, their faces turned towards the white cloth-covered table flanked by its huge candles.

  In front of this the Comte placed a small gilt chair ornamented with many strange devices. Round it he drew a circle and on the table he placed a sheet of white paper covered with cabalistic formulae.

  Withdrawing for a few minutes behind a curtain, he next reappeared wearing a robe of black silk on which hieroglyphics were embroidered in red. His head was covered with an Arab turban of gold cloth ornamented with jewels, a chain of huge emeralds round his neck was hung with scarabs and symbols in all colours and a sword with a handle shaped like a cross was suspended from a belt of red silk.

  As the Comte reached the table, the child was brought into the room. She was about eight or nine years old and had obviously been awakened from sleep for she was wearing only her nightgown and her feet were bare.

  As the Comte drew her by the hand towards the chair, she went with him willingly enough and let him lift her onto it. He spoke to her in a low voice, then rubbed on her head and on the palms of her hands some magical oil that he took from a golden crystal bottle.

  The child stared at her palms after they had been anointed, seemed to go pale and her eyelids drooped wearily. The Comte then began a strange and unintelligible chant, which came
piercing through the silence.

  “Helion!”

  “Melion!”

  “Tetragrammaton!”

  These three sounds recurred continuously amongst other Hebraic and Arab names.

  The magician poured them out with a vehemence that was frightening. As he spoke, he drew his sword, waved it over the child’s head, drew emblems in the air and around the circle where he stood.

  In the light of the candles he seemed to assume almost gigantic proportions in contrast to the child whose head was sinking lower and lower until she appeared to be asleep.

  Then the incantations stopped and the Comte began to ask questions.

  “Tell me,” he asked, “what do you see?”

  There was no answer and angrily he shouted,

  “Speak! Tell me what you see.”

  “I see a dark man – a great Nobleman – he is there.” She pointed across the room at the Duc de Courland.

  “He has chains on his hands and legs – ” the child went on, “and round his neck – and at each step they make a frightening sound.”

  “That is true enough,” the old Duke muttered. “My rheumatism has been giving me pain these past six months.”

  “What else do you see?” the Comte enquired.

  The child now pointed towards one of the ladies in the circle. She told her that she was unhappy and that someone she loved was far away.

  “It is true, it is true,” the lady exclaimed. “And will he be coming back to me?”

  The child seemed to quiver in her chair.

  “He is sad, very sad,” she answered. “He calls your name, but – there is no answer.”

  The woman she had been speaking to gave a little sob.

  “Look again,” she pleaded, “look again. Are you certain that he will not be coming home soon?”

  “There is something stopping him,” the child replied. “I don’t know what it is – but it will stop him. Yes, it will stop him.”

  The lady gave a little cry and covered her face with her hands.

  “Her husband is on an expedition to South America,” a man sitting next to the Duke whispered. “It is doubtful if he will ever return.”

  It seemed to the Duke that the room was growing darker and the atmosphere heavier. The child seemed to sink lower in the chair and again Comte Cagliostro took the sword and waved it around the circle, repeating again the incantations that he had said at the beginning.

  Now, as the sword flashed and turned, it seemed as though the Comte and the child were not alone at the far end of the room. The darkness and the shadows behind them seemed to be filled with living things.

  There were faces, a huge transparent body, a wing and a hand.

  It was then the Duke realised they were being mesmerised. Quickly, because he had had some experience of such things he began to use his own will to prevent it being subdued and hypnotised into subjection.

  One of his friends, who had travelled all over the world, had talked to him once of the perils and dangers that a traveller might encounter in India and Tibet.

  “Hypnotism is used a great deal,” he told the Duke.

  “And can you arm yourself against it?”

  His friend had nodded.

  There is only one formula that is of the slightest use. When someone attempts to hypnotise you, you must concentrate fiercely with all your will on something else. Only in such a way can you avoid the power of these experts and, believe me, they are very clever.”

  The Duke, remembering this and seeing the images growing before his very eyes, images that he knew to be false and yet for the moment were there, took refuge in the first formula he thought of, concentrating fiercely with all his might, upon the saying of the multiplication tables.

  ‘Twice two are four, twice four are eight,’ he repeated to himself and realised that the strange shadows were clearing.

  Now he saw nothing but the Comte waving his sword, beads of sweat upon his forehead, his thick lips contorted by the strange words he spewed forth.

  ‘Three twos are six, three threes are nine, three fours are twelve.’

  A woman on the other side of the room gave a cry.

  “I see an angel, an angel in all its power and glory.”

  “The Devil is here,” a man muttered, “the Devil who has haunted my dreams in the past.”

  ‘Four fours are sixteen, four fives are twenty.’

  The shadows were only shadows, the room seemed lighter than it had a few seconds ago. The Duke looked towards Amé. Her lips were moving and her eyes still had that strange look of radiance that he had noted in the Princesse’s Reception room.

  He knew then that she too had a magic formula stronger than that of the magician.

  He could see her lips moving and now, as the Comte’s voice died away, he could hear her soft whisper as she repeated the prayers that had been handed down by the Church from century to century to comfort and sustain the Faithful.

  “Hail, Mary, full of grace – ” the Duke could just catch the words as he heard the Comte shout,

  “The forces eternal are with us, the Messengers of the great Jehovah are here. The Seven Angelic Princes are listening. What would you have me ask of them?”

  It was then the Cardinal, his eyes wide and staring, the pupils black and dilated, said,

  “I would ask you to tell me the whereabouts of a girl I seek, a novice called Amé, who has escaped from the Convent de la Croix at St. Benis.”

  “Speak!” the Comte thundered. “Where is this girl?”

  The child in the chair groaned.

  “Where is she?” the Comte repeated.

  The child groaned again and then in a low, almost broken voice, she said,

  “I cannot see – there is a wall – a great wall.”

  “Yes, yes,” the Cardinal repeated. “A wall, that is right.”

  “There is an angel behind the child,” a woman then shrieked hysterically. “I can see him, but his face is hidden.”

  “There is a giant in the shadows,” someone else sobbed. “He frightens me.”

  “Silence!” the Comte commanded. “Go on, child.”

  “I can see a wall – ” the child faltered.

  “And the girl? “the Cardinal enquired.

  “She is climbing over the wall – I can see her – climbing over it from a tree.”

  There was silence.

  The Duke could still catch the soft whisper of Amé’s prayers.

  “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus – ”

  “Speak! Tell us!” the Comte screamed.

  “I can see no more,” the child protested. “There is a light – light between me and the wall – a light that comes from the sky and I am blind.”

  “You shall see. I command you to look. Those who are listening wish to know not only the past but the future, so tell us what is hidden from all those who do not understand the glories of which I am the Chief Priest. I command you in the name of the Seven Angelic Princes.”

  The child only groaned the more and now the Cardinal cried out,

  “Speak! Speak!”

  There was something in the urgency of his voice that seemed to communicate itself to other people in the room. They too called out,

  “Speak,”

  The child only groaned and hid her face.

  There were great beads of sweat standing on the Comte’s brow.

  “So I will make you speak!” he shouted angrily. “You cannot keep these things from me, I to whom all secrets of the universe are known.”

  It was then as he shouted that Amé rose suddenly to her feet.

  Before the Duke realised that she was moving, before he could put out a hand to stop her, she had moved from his side and walked through the semi-circle of assembled guests to where the Comte was standing with a naked sword before the hypnotised child.

  The Comte stared at her in horror.

  With an unearthly bloodcurdling shriek he then cried,

  “Wretch, what are you
doing? Sit down, don’t move, in the name of Heaven, or you will die.”

  But Amé remained unmoved. With a voice as clear and as stern as if she was an angel herself, she said,

  “I command you in the name of God to stop this wickedness. You are very evil! You are bad! What you are doing is conjuring up devils for the bemusement and bewilderment of these poor fools who listen to you. You will injure this child, you will pervert her soul and force her down into the same hell to which you belong yourself. In the name of Jesus and of His Holy Mother, I command you to cease your wickedness and let those who are here depart in peace.”

  Her voice and her words appeared to break the spell of those who were listening. Their visions cleared, they saw the Comte standing alone behind the child. They no longer saw the angels and demons. The giants and the devils vanished and there was only a fantastic and peculiar-looking man in an Arab turban, speechless in front of a young girl aflame with anger that had its roots in righteousness.

  The guests stared and blinked their eyes and they wondered what had happened and just what they had been witnessing.

  Then, as the Comte did not speak, the Cardinal rose to his feet.

  “How dare you?” he shouted angrily. “How dare you speak to the Comte in such a manner! How dare you interrupt this seance?”

  Slowly Amé took her eyes from the Comte and turned her face towards the Cardinal. For a moment they looked at each other, the Prince of the Church and a girl not yet eighteen.

  Then quietly Amé spoke,

  “You too, Monsignor, have been lending yourself to evil and to wickedness,” she said. “You, as a Father of souls, to whom ordinary people look for guidance, should know better than to believe in all this trickery. The raising of spirits, is, as you know, forbidden by the Church and yet you have connived at it. You have let this man hoodwink and deceive you, as doubtless he has deceived many people. But it is to you, Your Eminence, we turn to determine right from wrong, the ways of God from the ways of the Devil and in this you have failed those who trusted you and also God who has called you to your great Office.”

  The Cardinal seemed to stand stupefied and, as he did not move, Amé genuflected and kissed his ring – the diamond ring, which he had boasted had been made for him by his friend Cagliostro from a crucible.