CHAPTER IX.SOPHIE AS GUIDE.
We had been in St. Petersburg nearly a week, and during that time Jack and Katy had seen a great deal under the guidance of Sophie, who, true to her promise, came to us the day after our arrival and offered to take us wherever we wished to go. I had thought I knew St. Petersburg well, but with its dress of snow and ice, and the thermometer twenty below zero, it seemed to me a new city, and I was glad of her escort. I had, however, taken the precaution to ask the landlord confidentially if he knew the Scholaskies.
“Oh, yes,” he answered. “Madame Scholaskie is well known. Her husband died in Siberia,” and he gave his shoulders a shrug. “They are fine people; once among the first—that is, the medium first. I hear Mademoiselle Sophie is home for a little visit. Splendid-looking girl!”
After this I felt quite at ease when Sophie took the young people out sight-seeing, while I stayed at home by the fire, for I was cold in the open air and glad to keep out of it. St. Petersburg was not much like whatit had been in summer when sometimes scarcely a person was to be seen on its long, wide streets. Now these same streets buzzed with life, and no one seemed to mind the cold any more than they had the heat. The czar was at the palace, and the Nevsky and Court Quay were full of gay equipages, driving at a headlong pace. The tinkle of the bells filled the frosty air with a kind of monotonous music not altogether unpleasing. The Neva, which in winter is the great highway of the city, was frozen solid, and although the Blessing of the Waters had not yet taken place, it was crowded with the best and worst people in town. There were spaces for skating, race courses for sledges and artificial hills down which bold persons could guide their sledges alone to the imminent peril of their lives. And all this Katy and Jack saw, and much more, and came home crammed with knowledge and unloaded it to me—for I was supposed to know nothing whatever of all they told me. Jack had commenced keeping a journal in which, boylike, he jotted down incidents as they came to his mind, without much attention to order. This he frequently gave me to read when I was shut in by the cold, saying it would amuse me, and it did. This is how he began:
“St. Pe——, Russia!” he began. “Most thunderingcold day you ever knew, and they are all just like it. Wednesday Sophie came for us at eleven o’clock. That’s early here. The sun doesn’t get up till nine. Nobody gets up. The gold ball on St. Isaac’s is over three hundred feet from the ground. It’s an all-fired big building; built on piles driven into the mud. Had to bring a whole forest of ’em from the country. All the houses are on wooden legs, and sometimes the legs give out; then they tip.
“Saw the emperor to-day. Not much to see more than any man. Didn’t look as if he enjoyed his drive. I believe he was all the time thinking there might be a bomb somewhere. I wouldn’t be emperor of Russia. No, sir! I’d rather be Jack Barton, from Washington, D. C., U. S. A. Yes, sir! They say he has six hundred rooms at his palace in Gatschina and only lives in six for fear of being killed. Poor emperor! I don’t wonder he looks sorry and scared. Has to have two hundred cooks to prepare a meal, they say. What a lot he must eat! and at Tzarsko Selo he has six hundred men to work his farm. Must take something to pay ’em! I tell you the Nevsky is a case! and the Neva is bigger, and Sophie is about as big as both of ’em! She knows the city, root and branch, and the people, too, and they know her, butsometimes she acts queer, as if in a hurry to get away from them. I saw a gendarme looking at her pretty sharp, and told her so. She laughed and said: ‘Let him look!’ Well, she is something to look at; she is so tall and big. I like her, and so does Katy, and she likes Katy, and once or twice, all on a sudden, she has hugged Katy as if she wished to eat her, and Katy is awful pretty in her scarlet hood with the ermine trimming. People look at her hard. Men, too, and then Sophie gets angry and hurries us along.
“Chance is not at home. Sophie found that out for me. He is in Moscow with his master. I hope he will come pretty soon. To-morrow we are going to drive, Sophie and auntie, Katy and I. Auntie don’t go out much; just sits by the fire and mopes. She isn’t half as up and coming as she used to be. I wonder what ails her!”
The day after Jack made his last entry we took the drive in a smart turnout, for we were Sophie’s guests for the time and she did nothing small. All along the crowded Nevsky we went until we came to the street where I had my encounter with Carl.
“Would you mind driving down that way a little?” I asked.
Sophie looked her surprise, but was too well-bred to refuse or ask why I wished to go into so unfashionable a quarter.
“I knew an old lady who lived in that house,” I said, pointing to the door where Ursula had sat when Carl made his attack on me.
It was closed now, with no sign of life about it, and the untrodden snow was piled high against it.
“No one lives here. She is in Siberia still. We may as well go back,” I said.
At the mention of Siberia Sophie became excited at once, asking who Ursula was and how I came to know her. I told her all I cared to, keeping back as much as possible the part M. Seguin and Chance had played in the matter. Evidently she did not care to hear of them, but as we were coming near the house on our return, I asked if she knew Madame Seguin.
“Only by reputation,” she answered. “They say she is very aristocratic—sees few people, but sits in her great house nursing her pride in what she used to be before they lost so much property when the serfs were emancipated. We lost, too, but we kept up a brave, cheerful heart till father was arrested. There is Madame Seguin now, just returning from her drive,” she continued,nodding toward a handsome sledge drawn by two spirited horses, with a coachman in livery.
The lady in the sledge was wrapped in the richest of furs and sat up as erect as a young girl. Only her eyes were visible, and they were beady and black and not at all like what I could see of Michel’s eyes. She did not glance toward us, but held her head high as we passed each other.
“They say she does not like her son’s occupation,” Sophie said. “Not that she is unwilling to have people arrested, but she wants some one to do it besides her son. No one knows why he took it up. There was no need of it, as they have money enough, I am told, outside their losses.”
Somehow I did not like to hear Sophie talk of Michel or his family, and was glad when she changed the conversation by saying, as we approached a large building:
“This was once our house, where we lived until father was sent away and grandfather died. We were very happy there.”
At her command the coachman was driving slowly, that we might have a better look at her old home. It was larger and more pretentious than the Seguins’, and I could understand what Sophie’s feeling were as she looked atit and knew it had gone from her forever. Withdrawing her hand from her muff I saw Katy put it into Sophie’s, and knew the two hands had met in a warm clasp of sympathy.
After a moment she added with a laugh:
“I believe you Americans have a saying, ‘It is of no use to cry over spilled milk,’ and I don’t cry now, though I did at first till I was nearly blind. Mother never cried; she couldn’t, and that made it harder for her. By the way, I had nearly forgotten my message from her. She sends her compliments to you and hopes you will waive the ceremony of her calling, as she seldom goes out, but she will be very glad if you will take supper with us to-morrow night at six o’clock. We have given up ceremonious dinners since we lived in apartments, and have, instead, the old-fashioned supper, with one servant to wait upon us. You will come?”
“Of course we will!” Jack spoke up, promptly, while I hesitated a little, not knowing whether to accept or not.
“Yes, we’ll go,” Katy said, nestling closer to Sophie, between whom and herself a warm friendship had risen.
Sophie’s magnetism had conquered Katy’s shyness, and they were fast friends, and when she said “We’ll go,” I assented, after asking if we were to meet any strangers.
“You will meet no one but my mother, who is very anxious to see you,” Sophie replied, and, with that, we bade her good-by at the door of the hotel.
That night Jack wrote in his journal:
“Had a drive with Sophie in a dandy turnout. Everybody was out, and everybody looked at us, especially at Sophie.
“I tell you what, that girl is a brick! And what a lot of people she bowed to on the Nevsky, and down in that street where we went hunting for Ursula. Everybody seemed to know her. I’ll bet she’s a real nihilist, and has a whole crowd of followers. I’m glad that gendarme is not at home. He might be nabbing her. We are going there to-morrow night to supper. Auntie does not act as if she wanted to go; says she feels as if something was going to happen. What rot! I’m afraid she’s getting old and nervous. I wish something would happen.”