The leader of Tibet was enough of a mystic to recognize a good omen when it rescued him! The British expeditionary force changed history that day.
"My husband promises an interesting evening," said Mrs. Younghusband, bringing her better half back to the present moment.
Blavatsky allowed herself a chuckle and released her prey. "How else can it be when I am here?" she summed up with her usual modesty.
But HPB was in an expansive mood and left her favorite topic to return to complimenting others. "Mrs. Younghusband, you are a most aesthetic young lady. It could not be otherwise with your fine breeding. Blood will tell."
Unable to tear herself away from the old lady's devil eyes, she blushed again and said, "Thank you, Countess."
HPB winked at her host. "You've told her about my background. All true mystics have aristocracy in their past even if their modern circumstances are reduced to that of a beggar." As an afterthought, she added, "Great generals are reincarnations of earlier generals."
Before anyone could say Alexander the Great, they were all saved by a knocking at the door. The butler, Robert Weber the Silent, was as quiet as God's breath. The new arrival followed his example. So it was as if Tri Rimpoche materialized in the waiting room-a special envoy from the Dalai Lama.
There was a twinkle in the man's eye as he took the general by the hand and said, "Sahib."
The general laughed. "My house is honored by your presence."
HPB shocked all present by speaking words never vouchsafed by her Secret Masters: "Thank you for coming such a long way."
He bowed. "I could not deny you, Madame. Are we all here?"
"Two more are expected," volunteered their hostess.
Tri Rimpoche's dark complexion seemed to draw in more of the shadows from the flickering candles than his companions. Perhaps he had an affinity with the flame.
Slowly he removed his green gloves and passed them to Weber. "I must say, HPB, you are looking remarkably well."
"Blame it on Tibetan barley," she replied. "I once had a premonition that I was to die in 1891 but my Master spoke to me and said I had a duty to live until 1910. So perhaps my life is the greatest proof of the supernatural I can offer."
"That, and your cigars," added Younghusband.
"How did you come to rely on such an unusual diet?" inquired the hostess.
"From Dorzhiev, a good Russian who loved Tibet. He died during the war, unfortunately."
"The war," echoed Mrs. Younghusband. "If we are going to discuss all that, it will be more agreeable with refreshments."
So saying, she ushered them past heavy curtains into the parlor proper. Suddenly she stopped, embarrassed. "Oh my, I forgot. Is it premature to show the preparations beforehand?"
Blavatsky waved away all objections. "No more so than to serve spirits before I commune with the spirit world! It's all right with me. I've reached the point where I am past the rigamarole. The Secret Masters of Tibet taught me to see through the illusion of our immediate surroundings. I could just as easily conduct a sйance out under the stars."
Soon everyone had a drink in hand except for HPB who availed herself of the opportunity to ignite another of her cigars. Apparently the spiritual vapors would not object to competition from more noxious mists.
Mrs. Younghusband counted herself fortunate that her husband did not have the bad habit of tormenting his spouse with particulars of his military campaigns. As her guests began to gnaw at strategy and tactics, she recalled the newspaper stories that first trumpeted his success. Her man had proven wiser than General Macdonald and saw the future more clearly than Curzon. At the crucial moment, he managed the alliance between His Majesty's government and Tibet that succeeded in pushing back General Wang Chhuk when the Chinese finally overreached.
The armchair diplomats went berserk right on schedule. Shifting Prime Minister Balfour was more difficult than allaying fears in St. Petersburg. Finally, Whitehall and the czarist government were so united in opposition to Chinese suzerainty over Tibet that it changed the nature of the Great Game.
For the lady of the house, the conversation in her parlor brought the past alive without benefit of sйance. She surprised herself by wishing that conversation would provide the only journey into the past this evening.
Any such hope evaporated as she heard HPB intone, "Mystical ties of the blood must transcend national borders if we are to build a future worthy of the past."
They were in for the long haul tonight.
The Tibetan was not to be outdone: "Madame opened my eyes to the truth that Aryan Civilization began in Tibet long ago, the beginning of the fifth root race. We must move beyond the narrow bounds of national thinking. There are great dangers in the future."
As if to prove that his fingers were on the pulse of someone's greater destiny, a tremendous pounding thudded through the house at that precise moment. There was so much noise that HPB dropped her cigar on the Persian rug. With a speed worthy of the finest lancers, Mrs. Younghusband retrieved the cigar and gave it back to the medium before anyone had the opportunity to choke.
Loud footsteps in the hallway suggested a cause other than a psychic disturbance within the house. Tri Rimpoche was pretty sure who had just arrived and couldn't help but feel superior regarding the silent manner of his own entrance. There was nothing adept about a thunderburst of noise announcing unsubtle men with crude plans.
Even the inner door sounded louder as Weber brought the guests into the drawing room and toward the curtains which finally parted to reveal the final two guests of the evening.
The butler made his announcement: "Guido von List and Sven Hedin." The German and the Swede had arrived.
Both were large men dressed incongruously in ill-fitting tweeds as though a parody of English gentlemen. Both had oversized beards but the German's white whiskers seemed to explode from his head in a tangle worthy of a drunkard's vision of Father Christmas.
Now the introductions took on a more formal, even solemn, tone. Hedin, the famous Swiss archeologist and adventurer, was an old friend of the general. But the German was a new addition.
HPB stated bluntly, "I've always wanted to meet you, Hedin." She shook hands with him in a masculine fashion. "Your Tibetan expedition discovered much of value."
"But not your hidden valley of Secret Masters," he added. Everyone laughed but Mrs. Younghusband, who had no idea what they were talking about.
The German could have been telepathic the way he suddenly picked up on the conversation they'd been having before his arrival. Without preamble he threw out, "Hedin's work is vital in establishing Tibet as a cradle of the Aryan race."
Madame Blavatsky turned her gaze on the author of DieReligionderArio-GermaneninihrerEsoterikundExoterik, recently published in Vienna.
"I am also familiar with your work," she said. "You build your thesis on the Hindu theory of racial purity and reincarnation."
List clicked his heels and bowed. Somewhere there was the sound of good English tweeds tearing. The man was too large for the suit. "I acknowledge a debt both to Theosophy and Darwinism, dear lady."
Turning to his host, he added, "We Germans take Darwin straight! In Darwin's home country, you English wrestle with Christian piety over whether or not evolution is true. We take survival of the fittest as our starting point and follow the logic to its ruthless conclusion."
"Oh, I don't know," said Younghusband, smiling over his brandy as he took a dislike to the German. "We British have our ruthless side. You should read the novels of Mr. H. G. Wells for a fuller exploration of the subject. Or consider what one of my officers said when he ordered a force of retreating Tibetans shot in the back by repeating rifles."