The Mystery of a Turkish Bath.

by E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita).

Under the pseudonym "Rita" E M Gollan wrote some seventy novels of which this is one. It is a rather penetrating book about the supernatural. It starts off with a somewhat unusual situation, at least in literature, with a group of ladies in the turkish bath of a large and luxurious hotel by the sea, in England, the sort of hotel to which people go to be cured of illnesses, on the recommendation of their doctors. It is some time in the late nineteenth century.

An extraordinarily beautiful woman appears one day in the turkish bath, and the women already in there are quite fascinated by her. But there is another guest in the hotel, a Colonel Estcourt, who, it turns out had known this woman since childhood. Indeed it had been expected that they would one day wed, but instead she had gone off and married an elderly, but fabulously wealthy, Russian prince.

Various demonstrations of her occult powers make the guests, both men and women, realise that the beautiful Princess is someone with very special gifts, which one or two of them would like to learn more about.

But in the very process of the ensuing teach-in, more things happen than had been bargained for, and both the Colonel and the Princess end up lifeless. The Mystery deepens.

If you like this sort of thing it is a very good novel, but if you are not happy to read about the occult, you should leave it severely alone.

THE MYSTERY OF A TURKISH BATH, BY RITA.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE FIRST ROOM.

"I take them for rheumatic gout," said a slight, dark-haired woman to her neighbour, as she leant back in a low lounging-chair, and sipped some water an attendant had just brought her. "You would not suppose I suffered from such a complaint, would you?"--and she held up a small arched foot, with a scarcely perceptible swelling in the larger joint.

She laughed somewhat affectedly, and the neighbour, who was fat and coa.r.s.e, and had decided gouty symptoms herself, looked at her with something of the contempt an invalid elephant might be supposed to bestow on a buzzing fly.

"You made that remark the last time you were here," she said; "and I told you, if you suffered from a suppressed form of the disease, it would be all the worse for you. Much better for it to come out--my doctor says."

There was no doubt about the disease having "come out" in the person of the speaker. It had "come out" in her face, which was brilliantly rubicund; in her hands, and ankles and feet, which were a distressful spectacle of "k.n.o.bs" and "b.u.mps" of an exaggerated phrenological type-- perhaps also in her temper, which was fierce and fiery as her complexion, as most of the frequenters of the Baths knew, and the attendants also, to their cost.

The small, dark lady, with the arched feet, lapsed into sulky silence, and let her eyes wander over the room to see if anyone she knew was there.

The Baths were of an extensive and sumptuous description--fitted up with almost oriental luxury and comfort, and attached to a monster hotel, built by an enterprising Company of speculators, at an English winter resort, in Hampshire.

The Company had proudly hoped that lavish expenditure, a beautiful situation, and the disinterested recommendation of fashionable physicians, would induce English people to discover that there were spots and places in their own land as healthy and convenient as Auvergne, or Wiesbaden, or the Riviera. But though the coast views were fine, and the scenery picturesque, and the monster hotel itself stood on a commanding eminence, surrounded by darkly-beautiful pine woods, and was fitted up with every luxury of modern civilisation, including every specimen of Bath that human ingenuity had devised, the Company looked blankly at the returns on their balance-sheet, and one or two Directors murmured audible complaints at special Board meetings, against the fashionable physicians who had not acted up to their promises, or proved deserving of the substantial bonus which had been more than hinted at, as a reward for recommended patients.

On this December morning, some half-dozen ladies, of various ages and stability of person, and all suffering, in a greater or less degree, from various fashionable complaints--such as neuralgia, indigestion, rheumatism, or its aristocratic cousin, rheumatic-gout--were in Room Number One of the Turkish Bath.

The female form is generally supposed to be "divine," and poets and painters have, from time immemorial, rhapsodised over "beauty unadorned." It is probable that such poets and painters have never been gratified by such a vision of feminine charms as Room Number One presented.

Light and airy garments were, certainly, to be seen, but not--forms. It was, of course, a question of taste, as to whether the fat women, or the thin women, looked the worst--probably the former, if one might judge by the two samples of the lady who had arched feet, and the lady who had _not_.

Both were staying at the hotel, and were respectively named--Mrs Masterman, and Mrs Ray Jefferson. Mrs Masterman was a widow. Mrs Ray Jefferson had a husband. He was an American, blessed with many dollars, ama.s.sed on the strength of an "Invention." When Mr Jefferson spoke of the Invention, people usually supposed it to be of a mechanical nature. As they became more familiar with him, they learnt that it was something "Chemical." No one quite knew what, but it became a.s.sociated in their minds with "vats" and "boilers," and large works somewhere "down Boston way." There could be no doubt of the excellence of the Invention, because Mr Ray Jefferson said it was known, and used all over Europe, and its success was backed by dollars to an apparently unlimited extent. The Inventor and his wife had sumptuous rooms, but they were not averse to mixing with their "fellow-man," or rather "woman,"--for Mrs Jefferson rejoiced in the possession of certain Parisian _toilettes_, and was not selfish enough to keep them only for the eyes of her lord and master.

She was grudgingly but universally acknowledged to be the best-dressed woman in the hotel--except, of course, when she was in the Turkish Baths, which unfortunately reduced its frequenters to one level of apparelling, a garment which made up in simplicity for any lack of elegance.

The shape was always the same--viz., short in the skirt, low in the neck, and bare as to sleeves. The material was generally pink cotton, or white with a red border.

Mrs Jefferson was quite American enough to have "notions" on dress, more or less original and extravagant. Finding her companion was unusually silent this morning, she gave up her thoughts to the devising of a special toilet for the Bath.

These garments were so hideous, she told herself, that it was no wonder people looked such guys in them. Still there was no reason why she should not have something _chic_ and novel for herself--something which should arouse the envy of, and make the wearer appear quite different to, the other women.

The choice of style was easy enough--something Grecian and artistic--but the material discomposed her. It was hardly possible to have a bath of this description without one's garment getting into a moist and clinging condition--leaving alone the after processes of shampooing, _douche_, and plunge. So silk, or satin, or woollen material was out of the question, and cotton was common, not to say vulgar.

She knitted her brows with a vigour demanded by so absorbing a subject: the white head-cloth fell off, and she felt that her fringe was all out of curl and lay straight on her forehead in most unbecoming fashion.

That also would have to be considered in the question of costume--a head-dress which should combine use and ornament. The idea of having only a wet, white rag on one's head! No wonder people looked "objects!"

Perhaps it would be better to coil the hair about the brow and have no fringe, or at least only a few loose locks that would look equally well, straight or curled.

As Mrs Ray Jefferson was taking all this trouble about her personal appearance, when that appearance would only gratify the sight of a few members of her own s.e.x who were generally too much taken up with their own ailments or complaints to care what their fellow-sufferers looked like, it shows the fallacy of a popular superst.i.tion that women only care to dress for men. Believe me, no--they dress for critics, the critics of their own s.e.x, who with one contemptuous glance can sweep a _toilette_ into insignificance, and make its wearer miserable, or, by some envious approbation, are reluctantly compelled to bestow on it the seal of success.

Is it for men, think you, that those delicate _nuances_ and tints and shades are harmonised and put together? Such a conceit is only pardonable in a set of beings who possess not the delicate faculty of "detail," and who, with a limited knowledge of even cardinal colours, describe the graces and beauties of a _toilette_ by saying the wearer had on something white, or something black, or something red, but "it suited her down to the ground." A few misguided individuals have even been known to take refuge in the remark (made historic now by comic papers) that "they never look _under_ the table," when asked what certain ladies had on. But this is trifling, and only applicable to dinner parties.

Mrs Ray Jefferson's thoughts had not prevented her from taking stock of the other inmates of the room. One or two were lying on couches, but most of them seemed to prefer the low comfortable chairs, that were like rocking-chairs without the rockers.

No one spoke. They looked solemn and suffering, and appeared intent merely on the symptoms of distilled moisture on the visible portion of their persons.

"I think," said Mrs Jefferson, "I shall go into the second room. I can stand some more heat."

She made the remark, abstractedly, in the direction of her neighbour, who only looked at her in a bored and ill-tempered fashion, as befitted one who had gout without arched feet to display as compensation.

"You and I are the only hotel people here," went on Mrs Jefferson, as she took up the gla.s.s of water and the head-cloth preparatory to moving away. Then she laughed again as she looked at her companion's flushed countenance and generally distressed appearance. "What a comfort," she said, "that we won't look quite such objects at dinner-time! I always find a bath improves my complexion, don't you?"

Mrs Markham gave an impatient grunt. "As if it mattered what one looks like in a bath!" she said. "Do you Americans live in public all your lives? You seem to be always thinking of your clothes, or your looks!"

Mrs Jefferson opened her lips to reply with suitable indignation, but the words were cut short by a gasp of astonishment, and lost themselves in one wondering, long-drawn monosyllable--"My--!"

The gouty sufferer also looked up, and in the direction of the doorway, and though she said nothing, her eyes expressed as much surprise as was compatible with a sluggish temperament, and a disposition to cavil at most things and persons that were presented to her notice.

The object on which the two pairs of feminine eyes rested was only the figure of a woman standing between the thick oriental curtains that part.i.tioned off the dressing from the shampooing and douche rooms.

A woman--but a woman so beautiful that she held even her own s.e.x dumb with admiration. She was tall, but not too tall for perfect grace; and slender, but with the slenderness of some young pictured G.o.ddess. She was dark, too, but with a pale clear skin that was more lovely than any dead blonde whiteness; and to crown her charms, she had long rippling hair of jet black hue that was parted from her brow and fell like a veil to her delicate arched feet, and through which the serious, darkly-- glowing eyes looked straight at the wondering faces before her.

The pause she made before entering was brief, but not so brief that every eye there had not scanned enviously and wonderingly her perfect beauty--from the clear-cut, exquisite face and bare, beautifully--shaped arms, to the graceful ankles, gleaming white as sculptured marble through the veiling hair.

Mrs Jefferson first recovered speech.

"Who is she?" she whispered eagerly. "Not at our hotel I think. Looks like a walking advertis.e.m.e.nt of a new hair restorer. She'd be a fortune to them if she'd have her photograph taken so!"

The newcomer meanwhile advanced and took one of the chairs near Mrs Jefferson. That lady suffered strongly from the curiosity that is characteristic of her admirable nation. She re-seated herself for the purpose of studying the strange vision, and, not being in the least degree afflicted with English reticence, she set the ball of conversation going by an immediate remark:

"Had any of these baths before?"

The person addressed looked at her with grave and serious eyes.

"No," she said; and her voice was singularly clear and sweet, but with something foreign in the slow accentuation of words. "I only arrived at this hotel last night."

"Oh!" said Mrs Jefferson, "is that so? I thought I hadn't seen you before. Come for your health?"

"Yes," said the stranger, accepting a gla.s.s of water from the attendant, who had just come forward.