CHAPTER XIX.NICOL PATOFF.
I had half hoped Nicol might be with Michel, but he was alone, and came eagerly forward to meet us, seeing to our tickets and passports and comfort generally, and taking particular care of the supposed Alex, at whom the officials looked suspiciously.
“Madame’s maid,” he explained, and then they looked more surprised, as if questioning my taste; but my “serving woman” was not molested, and my heart beat more freely when at last the train moved off, and we were leaving St Petersburg. Altogether, it was a big farce, and a risky one, for the police were eagle-eyed, and I was glad when we crossed the frontier and were on German soil. With Mrs. Whitney present, I could not question Michel of Nicol until we stood for a moment alone on the platform; then I said to him: “What of Nicol? Where is he? I hoped I might see him.”
“Wait till we get to Paris, and you shall hear the whole story. Be content to know that he is safe and well,” he replied.
After this there was nothing to do but wait until Paris was reached, where I went to the Bellevue, after depositing Ivan with his sister, where he was to stay until we decided in what guise he was to cross the ocean, as he was resolved to go with us, if he went as steerage. The second evening after our arrival Mrs. Whitney, who retired early, had gone to her room, when Michel, who was stopping at the Grand, was announced. He had seen a famous oculist, and been assured there was help for his eyes, and was very cheerful and happy.
“I have seen Ivan, too,” he said, “and he has come out quite a swell from his tailor’s hands. He couldn’t wait to throw off that disguise, which had made him feel so humiliated. I assure you, there is no danger,” he continued, as he saw the pallor on my face.
“Ivan!” I exclaimed. “How did you know it was he?”
“I knew it all the time!” and he laughed immoderately. “The Scholaskies have given the police a world of trouble, especially Ivan, who, I believe, could deceive his own mother. As Sophie, he was magnificent; but I knew it was Ivan that night I came and found you there. I was sure of it, but I could not arrest him in your presence. I think that boy would have torn my eyes out, and youwould never have forgiven me, so I left it for Paul Strigoff, and tried, even then, to prevent it, for that night, at least. You remember the note I sent you, asking you not to go on the ice?”
I bowed, and he went on: “I wished to spare you, if possible, but failed. Ivan was arrested and sent to Siberia, and escaped, no one knows how but himself. As old Alex, he passed a year in St. Petersburg, and no one suspected him until I got a clew, no matter how, and went to Mrs. Browne’s. The moment I saw him I guessed I had my man, and, the more I saw of him, the more certain I became. But I would not arrest him before you. I would wait, I said, and, when I heard he was going to America, I made up my mind to let the poor fellow go, and I kept Paul Strigoff from the scent, and I’ve got him across the frontier and into Paris, where he is safe. You should have seen his face when he first saw me at his sister’s, and a few minutes after. when I told him the truth. I think he would have gone on his knees to me, if I had let him. As it was, he cried. It is dreadful to see a strong man cry, and he is a manly fellow, and has endured so much, that the reaction brought the tears in showers, while his sister kept company with him. He will come and see you to-morrownight. Don’t cry. I have seen tears enough,” he continued, as I began to sob hysterically.
“Let me cry!” I said. “You have been so kind to me, since the first time I saw you, that I cannot help it; but there is one favor more I must ask. What of Nicol?”
He did not speak for a minute; then, taking my hand in his, he said, very low: “Lucy! Lucy!”
I nearly fainted, in my surprise. The name, and the voice in which it was spoken, carried me back to a time when Nicol had said “Lucy” just as this man said it. Incident after incident crowded upon me, until the chain was complete, and I said: “You are Nicol Patoff!”
“Of course. Who should I be?” he answered, laughingly. “I am the so-called Nicol Patoff, once your teacher and always your lover.”
“Oh, what is it? How is it?” I asked, looking to see if I could recognize any likeness to Nicol. I should have known his eyes, but they were half closed, and his beard covered so much of his face that he was nearly as well disguised as Ivan had been as Alex.
“It is a long story, but I will make it as brief as possible,” he said, still holding my hand. “The Patoffs once lived in our house, and they had a son, Nicol, a friend of mine, through whom I imbibed nihilistic sympathies. Iattended their meetings. I became convinced that they were right in many respects, but did not join them, thanks to my mother, who heard of my intention, and kept me locked up till my zeal abated somewhat. The Patoffs went to Constantinople, where Nicol died, and I became a little tired of the nihilist tyranny—and it is a terrible tyranny.
“I was suspected of being in a plot of which I never heard. But it made no difference. I was a suspect, and I conceived the idea of going to America until the storm blew over. Why I took Nicol’s name I hardly know, unless it was to escape being followed, if the officials got on my track. I think they were more severe then than they are now. Nicol was still alive, but dying from consumption. I wrote him I was going to take his name, and why, and he replied, ‘All right. Use me any way you like. I shall soon be gone.’
“The next day he died, and I started for America, and finally drifted to Ridgefield, and turned teacher of languages—the only thing for which I was fitted. You were my favorite pupil from the first, and I came to love you as men like me love but once. I could not tell you of my love. You were too young, and that cloud of nihilism was over me. You have seen my mother, but you do notknow half how strong a character she was. She had influence, and finally arranged that, if I renounced my connection entirely with the nihilists, I could return in safety. I did so, but carried a thought of you with me always.
“I am a restless character. If I could not be a nihilist—and I confess to you that my sympathy has, in a way, always been on that side—I would be a gendarme, and that would insure me against suspicion of any kind, and after my return I was looked at askance by my old friends who had known of my principles before I left the country. As a gendarme I was safe, but always felt myself a coward and hypocrite.
“My mother was furious, and was never reconciled to my position. But I know I have done some good to the poor, cowering wretches who have been arrested and sent to Siberia, where, if I had kept on my way, I might have gone.
“I could not marry while my mother lived. She would have made both myself and my wife unhappy. So I gave up thoughts of matrimony, but not thoughts of you.
“Years passed on, and I stood high in my calling as a detective. The day you came on the boat the authoritieswere expecting a famous anarchist, and I was sent to arrest him. He was not there, but you were, and I knew you in a moment, although you could not recognize me.
“When you confronted me with Nicol Patoff, my heart gave a bound, for I had not heard the name in years, and no one except my mother knew I had ever taken that name. I could not explain to you on the boat, and a sudden temptation came over me to mystify you, as I did, without dreaming you would take matters with so high a hand. I would explain later, I thought, but I began to enjoy the mystery, and I liked to hear what you had to say of Nicol Patoff, and your eager defense when you thought him in danger.”
“But you deceived me shamefully!” I said, indignantly; and he replied: “I know I did, and felt like a monster and liar, and still I never really lied but once, and then to save you, I told that Massachusetts friend of yours, whose tongue was like a mill wheel, that the lock of hair I had was black instead of red. You remember it?”
I bowed, and he went on: “I have no good excuse which you can fully understand. Several times I was on the point of declaring myself, but you always upset my plans. You told me you did not love Nicol, and that youcould never live with him, or anyone else, in his house, or in Russia. If you did not care for him enough to live with him, I had no reason to think you would care for me.
“And, then, my mother was an obstacle in the way. She would never have received you, or treated you well. She disliked Americans on general principles. But she is dead, and I am free, so far as she is concerned. Providence has thrown you in my way three times. I believe there is luck in the third time, and I ask you now to be my wife.”
At first I could not speak. I did not like the thought of having been deceived so long, and of having expended so much sympathy on something which did not exist, and I said so, pretty hotly. He laughed, and, laying his hand on my head, said: “Your hair hasn’t lost all its red yet, has it?”
“No, and never will, where deceit is concerned. It was a wicked, foolish farce, and I don’t like it,” I said.
“Neither do I,” he answered, with his hand still on my hair. “It was unworthy of me, but I rather enjoyed it, after all, for I liked to hear you talk of Nicol, knowing I was he. And now, can you forgive the past, and think of me as you used to do? I will try to make youvery happy—not in Russia,” he said, quickly, as he saw me about to speak. “Whether you marry me or not, I shall leave the country and go to America. Many predict trouble for Russia in the future. There is unrest everywhere, and treachery. You don’t know whom to trust. Every servant of mine is a nihilist, and Zaidee the worst of all. But mother never suspected it. If she had, she would have flayed them alive, if she could. I am tired of it, and shall go to a free country, where, as Carl Zimosky once said, one can sneeze without being made to tell why he did so. And, if I come to Ridgefield some day, will you be my wife?”
Every word he said was telling upon me, for there was a wonderful magnetism about him, and I felt much as I did when he came to me under the maple tree to say good-by. That was years ago, when I was young, and it seemed ridiculous that people of our age should be making love, and I said so.
“Why not?” he answered. “I am fifty, and you are forty, and look thirty. You see, I have kept your age, and I know no reason why middle-aged people should not be in love as well as young ones, especially when the germs have been maturing for years, as mine have for you. Can I come to Ridgefield? Will you be my wife?”
He was very persistent, and repeated his question till I answered: “You can come to Ridgefield, and I will think of it, and, like Zaidee, see if it will do.”
“Then you are mine,” he said, kissing my hands passionately. “I’ll not kiss your face,” he added, “till some of my beard is off, and I am more like the Nicol you knew.”
It was late when he left, and two or three times he turned back from the door to kiss my hands and say good-night.
The next evening the cards of Mr. and Miss Scholaskie were brought to me, and, after a few moments, a young man, faultlessly attired, was offering me his hand and asking if I knew him. I should never have recognized him as the girl I had seen arrested, or the old woman who had cleaned my hearth and dusted my chairs. He was in high spirits, and said he shouted aloud when he dropped off Alex’s disguise and felt he was a man again.
“Free, free,” he kept repeating, until I asked if there were no danger of his being inquired for.
Then, for a moment, a shadow darkened his face; but he soon brightened, and replied: “I think not, and sodoes Seguin. He is a brick, as you Americans say. He is going to America later on, he said.”
I felt my cheeks burn, and wondered if he knew what had passed between Michel and myself. If he did, he gave no sign, but asked how soon we expected to sail, and if it was from Havre. I told him, and he continued: “I shall secure my passage to-morrow. Then I shall run over to London to say good-by to my grandmother. You have seen the old lady, and can judge the time I’ll have with her. She will dislike my going to America to become a citizen nearly as much as she disliked my being a nihilist.Mais n’importe.I am going, just the same.”
I did not see him again until his passage was taken and he had been to see his grandmother.
“Pretty fine old lady, after all,” he said, in speaking of her. “Her bark is worse than her bite. She called me a fool several times, and said it was the Scholaskie blood that ailed me, and that, if I went to America, the first she would hear, I would be leading an anarchist mob in Chicago, and get shot—and serve me right, too! When I was ready to leave, she cried a little, and told me I was not to mind all she had said, and asked how much money I had. I told her, and she declared none of her kin should ever go to America with so little, and, goingto her desk, she wrote a check for a thousand pounds! Think of it! ‘Alex’ with a thousand pounds! I hugged the old lady, who pushed me off, and said: ‘No slobbering over me. I’m not made that way.’ Then, as I stood in the hall she took both my hands and said: ‘Ivan, you are a bad boy, and your father was bad before you, or you and he might be living in your old home on the Nevsky, instead of one dead in Siberia, the other an escaped prisoner going to America—after a girl, I know,’ she continued. ‘I’ve seen her—a pretty little thing, but an American. If you marry to suit me I shall give your wife my diamonds, and they are worth something, let me tell you. Pin, earrings, pendant and all these.’ She held up her hands and I counted six rings. I made her let me kiss her and told her I should probably marry to suit myself if I could. Then I left, but she stood in the doorway and watched me till I turned a street corner. What do you think of that for a grandmother?”
He was wild with delight over his thousand pounds, and full of speculation as to what he should do with it when he reached New York.
One week from that day we sailed from Havre, and Ivan was with us, happy as a schoolboy on a vacation. The horrors of Siberia, the hiding and dodging and masquerading—oldAlex with her humpback and gray hair, and the many other disguises he had assumed on his escape from Siberia were behind him. Before him was a free country, and a pair of blue eyes was beckoning him across the water. Michel went with us to Havre. I had only seen him three times since our first interview, and then some one was always present. He seemed nearly as happy as Ivan. There was hope for his eyes, and he was sure of me, he said, when we stood on the ship together for a few minutes a little apart from the crowd and with our backs to it.
“Don’t be too sure. I have not promised,” I said, while he laughed, and when the call came for “All ashore who are going ashore,” he stooped and kissed me, saying: “Beard or no beard, this once; yes, twice,” and I felt his lips on both my cheeks.
“God bless you,” he said, and hurried away, while I watched him with a sense of loneliness I could not repress.
He was one to lean upon and trust to the death, and I missed him so much. Ivan was very kind, but he was young and full of his freedom and Katy, of whom he talked very freely.
Except for his face and smile he did not seem likethe Sophie I had known. He was a man, with a man’s ways and voice and manners and talk, and I could scarcely make him seem real. What would Katy think of him? I had told him of the letters she wrote and which he never answered. There was a great joy in his eyes as he exclaimed: “She did write, then? I am so glad. I looked for it days and days, or mother did. It must have come after mother died and I was on my way to St. Petersburg, skulking like a dog in the daytime and moving on at night. I tell you I could write a book of my adventures, and perhaps I shall.”
I had written to Katy of Alex’s transformation and telling her that Ivan was in Paris, but not that he was coming with us. I wished to surprise her. With Jack she came to meet us and looked wonderingly at the young man helping Mrs. Whitney and myself off the ship and carrying our bags and wraps. Evidently she did not know him, but Jack did, and with a bound he was at Ivan’s side, exclaiming “Sophie, Alex, Ivan!Which are you now? The biggest joke I ever heard of! Auntie’s waiting maid! Hello, Katy! Where are you? This is Ivan, his own self, in coat and trousers, instead of dresses.”
This broke the ice, but Katy was rather stiff as shewent forward to meet him, and she remained so during our drive to the hotel and the lunch we had there. But when she and Jack were ready to leave for their train she gave him a smile which atoned for all her coldness, and said: “Father will be glad to see you in Washington whenever you choose to come.”
“Father! Thunder, Katy! Why don’t you sayweshall be glad? You know we shall,” Jack exclaimed.
“We, then,” Katy answered, with a second smile which took Ivan with them across the ferry to their train, and we did not see him again, as before his return we had left for Ridgefield.