CHAPTER XIIHonor and old ideals, I fearAre with the snows of yester-year,Or like old houses—straitly mewedIn some sequestered solitude.
Honor and old ideals, I fearAre with the snows of yester-year,Or like old houses—straitly mewedIn some sequestered solitude.
Honor and old ideals, I fearAre with the snows of yester-year,Or like old houses—straitly mewedIn some sequestered solitude.
A Russian forest is assuredly one of the most impressive of all sights, especially in winter when the world has put on its ermine mantle. Soundless in its depths as the deeps of the sea—hushed in its silence like the great Sahara—save when an overloaded branch succumbs to its weight of snow and breaks with the dry crack of a gun, it seems utterly untenanted by beast or bird. The latter always congregate on the fringes of the villages, where grain is always to be found, owing to the gracious custom which causes every inhabitant at harvest-time to hang a sheaf beneath the eaves; while the bears have withdrawn into the comfortable quarters they have prudently arranged for themselves at the first serious hint of real cold. Wolves there are, on the prowl in the sly, shambling fashion which is peculiarly their own, but after sundown only—at least until emboldened by starvation. Now and then a ptarmigan, as white as the bitter season itself, flits heavily above the underlying thicket, though his appearance is as rare almost as when a capercailzie (kurópatkà) starts up to break the stillness with a tumult of wings and a sifting of powdery snow.
In the “wealthy” forests belonging to great territorial nobles, broad paths—or narrow roads—are cut and numbered,like thealléesof some colossal park, and there, sleighs as also saddle-horses, become the easy means of pleasure to the owners or their guests. For there are few sensations more exhilarating and buoyant than to gallop upon those clear, smooth avenues between the serried trunks of trees, upbearing like the pillars of some Gothic cathedral the roof of a silent world.
Such a forest was that skirting the estate of the Duchesse de Salvières,néePalitzin, and in the dark before a bitter November dawn—bitter even for that glacial region—this charming person herself, masked to the eyes in fur, was driving her tröika furiously in the direction of Tverna. To drive a tröika, whether on earth or on snow, is an accomplishment seldom acquired by women, but Tatiana-Vassilièvna de Salvières—who never lost an occasion of declaring that she wasnota woman—knew the art as thoroughly as the foremostyèmshikin Muscovy.
Her above-mentioned pretensions were, fortunately, not borne out by any stigma of masculinity, either physical or mental—unless one could class in the latter category a fixity of purpose, a calm courage, and an inexhaustible fund of dogged endurance; which qualities, either singly or in combination, are wholly foreign to the feminine nature. Extremely lovely still, with her graceful oval face lighted by deep dark-gray eyes, and framed in warm-chestnut hair threaded already with narrow ribbons of clear silver, her short, authoritative nose, her firm, well-arched mouth and obstinate little chin, deft by a characteristicfossette, she was what the French graphically callfaite au tour(made on a turner’s lathe). She was not tall, but admirably proportioned: slim-waisted, full-hipped, and square-shouldered, and her hands, extraordinarily small, but yet in no way resembling the useless, tapering, monkey-like variety so dear to flashy novelists under the appellation ofmains de Duchesse, were shaped on an especially artistic model, which showed both characterand strength. Her feet followed suit, amusingly high-arched, eminently aristocratic, and yet capable of being stood upon with supple energy, under any and every circumstance, and from her whole being there emanated a vigor, a self-reliance, and asavoir-fairealtogether uncommon in these slouchy, spineless, neurasthenic days.
Such was the sister-in-law given by a far-seeing Providence to Laurence Seton, Princess Basil Palitzin, and lucky it was for her that this was so, for, to put it mildly, that fair daughter of Albion was just then seriously dismayed by a certain hornet’s nest that she had wilfully broken open.
After her unwilling and ungracious return from “abroad,” as she distinguished between Russia and other more fortunate European countries, Laurence had consented, not without painfully apparent reluctance, to reintegrate the Castle of Tverna during the hunting and shooting season. Great parties of guests had then filled the place and made life endurable to her for the time being; but when these had departed and she had succeeded in making her husband promise to take her to Petersburg for the winter, a sudden call to the bedside of an aunt who was also his godmother—a relationship very seriously considered in Russia—had forced him to leave in haste just as the first heavy snow was beginning to fall. He had not done so without many qualms of anxiety; for not only did he by now fully realize the unpopularity of his wife on his estates, but also the fact that the peasants’ restlessness was slowly increasing, owing to the scantiness of the last harvest. Every precaution had been taken by him, however, to protect Laurence from any sort of annoyance during an absence that might be prolonged if he found his aged relative in danger; but notwithstanding this he had left Tverna with a heavy heart and an anxious mind.
Alone, or practically so, in the grim old cradle of her husband’s race—for her maternal instincts had remained utterly undeveloped, and her little son’s absence was always preferred by her to his company—Laurence found time hanging wearily on her hands. From morning till night, dressed with the costliness and splendor she was so fond of, she paced about the long enfilades of salons and galleries between which all the doors remained wide open, Russian fashion, bemoaning her unlucky fate. Now and again she paused before one or another of the interminable lines of windows fronting upon thesteppe—the rooms were kept so warm that there was no rime on the glass—and could have shrieked aloud at the awful immensity stretched out beneath her. To this peculiar mind the prospect held no beauty, no grandeur even, though it possessed both in a great and marked measure. The Castle itself, built as it were from the rock whereon it stands, is gray as its gray escarpments, abrupt and uncompromising—a fortress armedcap-à-pie, impregnable to assault from three sides. At its back rises the mountainous ridge punctuated by the “Tverna rock”—as it is designated—which quickly broadens into an upland, miles and miles wide, dense with forest that, after a fashion, shelters the vast sweep of the rearward walls.
Basil had already been gone two weeks, and little by little Laurence’s exasperation had been growing to unbearable proportions, when one afternoon, as she, according to her custom, was trailing her fur-bordered velvets up and down the first floor, Garrassime presented himself before her—hands crossed upon breast, and head bowed, as is the rule of inferiors toward their masters there.
“What do you want?” Laurence threw at him over her shoulder, not deigning to pause for the fraction of a second in her caged-tigress walk.
“Thestaròstá, Your Highness, waits below, and would crave the boon of a short audience.”
Laurence turned irritably and came toward Garrassime.
“Indeed! Then let him know that I have no time to waste upon such as he!” she said, contemptuously.
Garrassime recoiled as if he had been struck, and, instinctively retreating to the nearest wall, put as great a distance between himself and his mistress as space would allow.
“Well, why don’t you go?” she demanded, stamping her narrow foot, “instead of looking at me like a distressed owl. D’you hear?”
“I will go—Highness—I will go—but thestaròstáreports two cases of typhus in the village—at least he thinks it is typhus, and he prays a doctor may be sent for, and disinfectants, and—”
“Typhus!” Laurence cried, falling back in her turn. “And you dare to approach me after speaking to that infected man! Go away! Go away! This instant!”
But Garrassime did not move. For once, on the contrary, he straightened himself to his full and enormous height, as if no longer in presence of a loftier personality, and when he spoke it was in altered accents.
“There is no risk, no danger!” he said, as he would have done to reassure a fretful child. “He, thestaròstá, has not been near the houses where there is sickness—but there will be worse erelong if one does not act promptly. Had there been risk of contagion I would not have gone near him, for Prince Piotr’s sake—indeed, Your Highness, not for mine, but for Prince Piotr’s.”
“How do you know whether there is risk or not?” Laurence exclaimed, violently drawing her skirts around her. “Send for twenty doctors, if you like. What do I care! I am going. I’ll leave here to-day. Give orders for instant departure. Prince Piotr and his household can come away, too. But go, go at once, and see to it!”
She was clutching distractedly at the back of a chair, and her fingers fidgeted restlessly upon it. Garrassimewas gazing at her in absolute consternation. What was he to do in so unexpected a dilemma—so unheard-of a situation! And this was his beloved master’s wife—the Princess—the mother of the Boy-Heir of his—Garrassime’s—adoration!
“Your Highness does not know,” he said, without moving from his place, “that the doctor is far away. He has twenty thousandsoulsto look after, and will not move without peremptory orders from theZèmtsvo, or from Your Highness, since his Excellency our Prince is not here.”
“And if it gets worse?” Laurence asked, shivering like a leaf. “If there is more of that plague coming? If—”
“Bòg dâl y Bòg vzial,” Garrassime gravely replied (God gave and God took!). “That is all we will say then, Highness. It is for you, Illustrious, however, to prevent its happening—if it can yet be done!”
“The land-steward and the intendant must look to it all!” Laurence cried, tripping over her words. “You are here to take care of me—of Prince Piotr. You must not have anything to do with this ghastly affair!”
Garrassime, hiding his indignation, advanced nearer to her unreproved; she was too frightened now to notice it. “The people,” he pronounced, with slow respect, “would long since have starved, or died of many sicknesses, had our lords not taken care of them. The taxes are heavy, Your Highness. We of the villages were happier a thousand times as serfs—before the Little White Father of other days—peace be to his soul—gave them their liberty.” Here Garrassime bowed three times, crossing himself devoutly, and Laurence, held by something she could not have explained, stood still, watching him. “There is nothing left,” the gray-haired servitor ventured on, “but to help them in every way, and that is what the Prince, Your Highness’s Illustrious Consort, has always done, as his noble father did before him. By their holyforethought cholera has already been almost frightened away, and the people no longer starve. But there are other evils, Highness—and we—that is, they thought—that in the absence of our beloved master, Your Highness might consider—the welfare of—his—people, Highness—that you might wish to do for them what he does.”
She gave a short toss of the head. There was an expression of extreme disgust in her whole attitude that did not escape him, and perhaps emboldened him to go yet further.
“Your Highness cannot leave them now,” he said, almost sternly. “Not while His Excellency is away, while they are so hard pressed already. His Excellency’s forefathers through many, many generations have aided and saved the forefathers of these in pain and trouble. Remember that, Highness.”
“Cannot leave!” cried Laurence. “Cannot leave! Is there somebody here or anywhere with enough effrontery to callmeto order?”
Garrassime glanced at her flashing eyes, at her white, furious face, and suddenly he dropped to his knees before her, in a dumb attitude of passionate entreaty, his hands clasped and upstretched to her. At last he spoke: “You are our Lady, our hereditary Providence, our all-powerful Mistress!” he said, almost as pale as she. “Have mercy upon them—upon yourself also—Highness. Do not show the people that you do not care—that you really are a stranger to them. They are a strange sort here, Highness. You do not know—you do not know!”
Tears of anguish were in the eyes of the giant as he knelt there at her feet, almost on the sumptuous folds of her gown. His inheritance and training admitted of no other belief than that those living on the land were born to look up to their Princes and Princesses, and that these latter had been put into the world for few other purposes than to help the peasants—no longer serfs, and thereforeno longer valuable property—as long as they needed help. It was a simple and direct creed, encouraged by Basil, easily assimilated and followed, and in his heart Garrassime prayed passionately that she might not close her eyes and ears to his entreaties; that God would not allow her to harden her heart.
Trembling with fright, Laurence once more stepped back. Her hatred of Russia and everything Russian was so intense for the moment that it obliterated the feeling of satisfied vanity which at times had come to her when she saw her husband’s vassals—hers also by marriage if she had so willed it—grovel at her feet. A half-crazed desire to fly for safety deadened all other sensations, and her voice was dry and hoarse as she again ordered Garrassime to leave her presence, to hurry—only hurry—preparations for her departure.
Slowly the devoted man rose to his feet, and for an instant their eyes met like two blades naked for combat; then the servant lowered his gaze and, forcing himself to humility, bowed profoundly.
“I must obey,” he said, sorrowfully. “But Your Highness assuredly does not comprehend the evil that will be done—the anger of His Excellency, nor what the people are capable of if the sickness spreads, and stricken by panic, they feel themselves forsaken. We of the Castle cannot restrain them. They will break. I, Garrassime, know them well—although I am not of them. They will become uncontrollable—unrestrainable. I implore Your Highness not to decide anything in haste. God knows what they might be exasperated into doing—perhaps prevent Your Highness from leaving the place, and”—he added, desperately—“if Your Highness goes, they will feel—and justly so—that there is great danger: that they are lost.”
“But this is intolerable—unthinkable! Am I a prisoner here in my own Castle—prisoner of that mob of diseased brutes?”
She glanced affrightedly around her at the ancient tapestries shadowing the thick walls with uncouth figures, at the grim effigies in knightly mail that with their tall lances so helplessly guarded the great room, and finally at the row of unshuttered windows slowly darkening to the night, and through which she saw a swift gleam of powdered snow, a mere haze of sifting atoms fine as dust, but which she knew might precede atourmente.
“Ah, God!” she cried. “Is there no help for me? No one who can come and release me from this torture?”
Garrassime was staring—staring—staring at her in her now disheveled beauty, his lips slowly curling back from his sharp white teeth.
“The Duchess!” Laurence suddenly shrieked. “She is at Palitzinovna. Send for the Duchesse de Salvières. She will know how to deal with this. She may still come in time. Surely she will not refuse to come! You don’t think she will refuse, Garrassime?”
“No, she will not refuse to come,” Garrassime assured her in a deep, extra-guttural voice. “But will it be well, Excellency, if it be found out afterward that Your Highness cannot manage her own people; that only our own born Princess, one of our House, can do this easy deed?”
“Easy deed?” exclaimed Laurence. “Easy deed? Besides, what does it matter to me? I will have nothing to do with the people, I tell you! What do you think I care about what these savages think or don’t think? The Duchess may do so, but the Duchess belongs here, not I! Let her come, and I will go. I have had enough—enough of this awful country and its awful ways. Send for her. Tell the women to pack up my things at once. Prepare Prince Piotr. We go, I tell you—we go—at once!”
“No!”
At the sudden cry both Laurence and Garrassime turnedwith one impulse to face the gallant little figure in Russian-green velvet bounding in from the next salon.
“No!” again repeated the childish voice. “I have heard! I was looking for Garrassime. I will not go and leave the sick people alone. Papa is away, and nowIam the Prince!”
The boy’s dark eyes were glowing, and with his little flushed face thrust excitedly forward, his baby speech suddenly clear and masterful, in spite of his short five years of life, he looked every inch what he claimed to be—the master in his father’s absence.
A silent laugh swept over Garrassime’s severe features, but he said nothing.
“You wretched child!” shrieked Laurence, sweeping forward as she spoke. “Carry him to his room, Garrassime, this instant. Well, thisisthe climax!”
“Don’t you touch me, Garrassime—and, mother, you keep off.” Two small fists shot out in defense, and, quivering all over, Piotr stood his ground.
With a choking gasp Laurence paused. This was the last straw for nerves wire-drawn with boredom, and now frayed out by fear. “Do what you like with him, Garrassime, but send immediately for the Duchess,” she cried, and, gathering her long train under her arm, she fled before the unspoken contempt of the servant, the hatred in her son’s eyes—fled by the nearest door, running straight before her, and as fast as she could.
Only after traversing several corridors did she begin to notice the unfamiliarity of her surroundings, and realize that her headlong rush had carried her far beyond the state apartments into regions where she had never as yet penetrated—the oldest part of the Castle, disused now for many years—a gloomy labyrinth of intersecting passages, of dark rooms furnished in the austere fashion of many generations before; somber salons and antechambers and galleries where faded brocade draperiesshivered and rippled in ghostly cross-currents of icy wind. She was breathing short, her feet tripped again and again on wrinkled carpets and rugs, but she never stopped, for nervous panic such as she had never known was clutching her by the throat, and it was from sheer exhaustion rather than from any purposeful intent that she suddenly broke her flight and leaned panting against a wall.
Where was she? The early winter afternoon was drawing to a close, and every object around her was beginning to be shrouded by the snow-footed twilight stealing in from without. Great chests bound with bands of tarnished steel lined the vast oval chamber where she stood; ancient oaken benches, worm-eaten and scarred with age, were stiffly ranged along the four gaunt sides of a ponderous table; the windows were uncurtained, excepting by rigid lambrequins covering only the upper portion of them as they might have a catafalque.
Laurence shudderingly took in all this, and her teeth began to chatter, not from cold only—though it was intensely cold there, where the benefits of hot-water pipes, or even of stoves or open fires, were non-existent—but from fear and apprehension carried to their highest degree.
“The muniment-room,” she whispered to herself. Basil had spoken of it once, but she had never come there, so incurious was she about the past of a race she cared nothing for, excepting in so far as it concerned her own present High-Mightiness and colossal wealth.
Twice she tried to steady her trembling limbs—she knew she must go back to her own apartments before she fainted—twice she failed, clutching convulsively at the top of the nearest chest for support, and it was only after five minutes of strained effort that she succeeded in dragging herself away, step by shaking step. What she had at first taken for a niche in the wall opened before her like a crafty eye, revealing a winding stair in the thickness of the masonry, dusty, gloom-filled, and spider-webbed.Had she unconsciously climbed to an upper floor, she questioned herself, or was she still on a level with her own rooms? She did not know, nor had she any means of finding out, especially in her present state of semi-collapse, so she fearfully recrossed the muniment-room and glanced down a straight, narrow gallery which she could not recall having traversed. Night was creeping on so rapidly now that once more terror shook her, and sooner than try that way she summoned her remaining strength, and, going back once more, after a moment’s hesitation whether to follow the gut-like spiral up or down, she commenced to descend the narrow steps. It must be in a tower, she hazily realized, since there it was a trifle lighter, owing to the thickly glazedmeurtrières, which reappeared at each successive winding of the interminable flight. Would she ever reach the bottom? Mechanically she began to count them one by one, lost the sequence, and at length found herself stranded in a square hall that smelled of mould and ancient damp. A faint gray light showed beyond an arched doorway on the other side, and toward this she walked, dragging her mauve velvets in the sodden grime, for even the weight of her train had grown to be too much for her. Another minute or so and she was in a high-vaulted passage, opening far down an endless perspective of groinings like some queer souterrain upon a clearer place—a lamp-lit place, evidently—some sort of still-room or cellar, she thought, for presently she could see great casks and chests along its rough stonework. This she negotiated, steering for another opening exactly opposite, but before she quite reached that she heard voices from beyond a nail-studded door that stood ajar on her right—angry Russian voices raised in execration or denunciation—she knew not which, for she had never been able to learn Russian well enough to follow a rapid conversation, nor had she tried very strenuously to do so, but in her over-excited conditionthe whistling syllables became, curiously enough, almost plain to her.
“She? Help us?” the raucous,vòdka-soaked accents were saying. “This stranger from among strangers! Bah! You don’t believe it, do you? Did she ever do any of us a kindness, or throw us a look, even? We are not as good as dogs to her. But wait, she’ll find us to be wolves, too, on occasion. Have patience, little fathers; our turn will come soon now; and were it not for the Boy—for Basil-Vassilièvitch, too, who cares for us in his way—when she lets him—we’d show her what we can do! Let her not tempt us too far, however—or we’ll make her dance in the moonlight!” There was a chorus of coarse laughter, and then a short silence.
Making herself exceeding small, Laurence flattened herself against the spring of the huge stone arch behind her. Who could that be who had just spoken words of sedition within Tverna Castle? Who were they who had threatened her—and what—what was that about “dancing in the moonlight?” Her servants, thestaròstá,mujiks, perhaps? Who could it have been? she asked herself. She felt that in another second she would ask aloud, and then cry out for help; and yet she knew instinctively that no sound could pass her throat, her parched lips. Suppose the speakers were to come out and see her there—she, the abhorred one? Would they tear her to pieces? She scarcely doubted it, and as noiselessly as she could she slipped into a near-by recess, trying still further to conceal herself. Encountering wood instead of stone, her hand groped feverishly for some means of escape—and, yes, was luck going to be with her at last?—her shaking fingers found a polished knob which yielded at her touch. A slight creak that brought the goose-flesh all over her for fear it should be heard, and the panel of a door receded, showing a lighted staircase, clean and garnished for constant use, as every inch of it denoted.
With a wild heart-beat she slid the panel to as quietly as she could, and ran with reviving energy up and up and higher up, until after a little she cleared the last steps and found herself face to face with another door. This she had no difficulty in opening, pushed aside a thick curtain, and there was the state-hall with its two huge fireplaces, its fur rugs and broad divans, its panoplies of arms, and tall candelabras shedding their mellow radiance over multitudinous and exquisite luxuries. At the farther end rose grandly the double flight leading to the private apartments, and up this too she raced as if hotly pursued, although all was silence and peace and delicious warmth, from the heaped-up logs burning rosily on the twin hearths to the broad bowls of violets and narcissi, roses and gardenias, filling the air with their delicate fragrance.
The same impulse of unquenchable terror drove her to close and double-lock all the entrances of her own rooms before letting herself fall in a heap upon the white-bear rug of her boudoir, and there she lay motionless, save for a persistent tremor which ran up and down her slim body in spasmodic waves.
After a time—it might have been an hour, more or less—there was a soft tap at the door opening upon the main gallery; but she did not stir, and the knock was repeated louder, and then still more loudly.
“Who is there?” Laurence asked, raising herself on one elbow.
“Célèste, Madame la Princesse!” fluted the mincing voice of her French maid, one eye to the keyhole and both ears keenly on the alert. “It is past the hour for Madame la Princesse to dress for the dinner.”
“Don’t bother me!” Laurence called, tremulously. “Allez vous en, Célèste.I’ll ring when I want you.”
The pointed heels of thecaméristebeat a gay little tattoo on the inlaid floor of the corridor as she retreated, and again there was silence. Laurence settled downagain in the fur, her head cushioned on the stuffed bear’s head, her brain slowly awakening to the fact that she must at any cost make good her escape before her sister-in-law arrived, for assuredly the Duchess would force her to remain at her post until Basil came back. Time was not lacking. The distance was great between Tverna and Palitzinovna, and even with fast horses it would take hours to accomplish the trip, especially in view of the severity of the weather; but still, had she not been so cramped and sore from her recent and unaccustomed exertions, she would have begun instantly to make preparations, although as yet she had not the faintest idea how, unaided, she could get away. This was absolutely the end of Russia for her! Nothing that Tatiana or even Basil could do or say would alter that resolve. He could stay there if he wished, or follow her if he chose. She would leave Piotr in his aunt’s care, and Basil was welcome to keep his son, should he prefer remaining in his own land.She did not care.No, the worst of it all was that she really did not care a jot for either of them, and presently her fast-awakening imagination began to call forth pictures of a life of unbounded pleasure and luxury for herself in Paris and the Rivièra. Long days ofdolce far niente, long nights of amusement, suffused with incessant adulation, compliment, praise and appreciation of her charms, her wealth, her beauty! The image of Neville Moray gradually detached itself from this enticing background, and with a little gasp of surprise she saw before her new possibilities of delightful companionship, such as her present existence did not easily afford. Paris, Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes, Cap Martin, yachting trips to Algiers or Alexandria, a month or so at Trouville or Deauville, the races, thepetits chevaux, a box at the opera, probably sojourns in Rome during the season, and certainly brilliant appearances in May-decked London, or on the Solent later on, when Royal and Imperial visitorsdisplayed their pennants there. All this made up a kaleidoscopical jumble which whirled in her brain until she almost forgot what she considered her pressing and imminent personal danger. Another tap at the door, however, roused her to reality, and, sitting bolt upright, she listened.
“Excellency!” Garrassime was whispering through the keyhole. “Excellency, I implore Your Highness to let me in!”
“Old beast!” muttered Laurence, furiously, and gave no answer.
The pleading voice rose from a mere discreet murmur to a louder, yet always subdued, entreaty, and at last, remembering that she had better find out if her message had been sent; Laurence rose to her feet, and, noiselessly crossing to the door, pulled it brutally open without the least warning. Garrassime, the imperturbable, had been, so to speak, shaken out of his usual calm by Laurence’s variegated doings that day, and no wonder, so that when brusquely confronted by the white-faced, wild-eyed,décoifféewoman, who had hitherto only appeared to him perched upon her faultless elegance, he fell back with some abruptness.
“Ah, the poor lamb!” he thought in his Russian way; “if she only would be good and let us love and respect her!” Fortunately for him, she was no mind-reader, and the pity in his eyes escaped her somewhat muddled powers of observation, for when she spoke it was with a hint of civility she had never deigned to grant him.
“Did you manage to send a rider to my sister-in-law, Garrassime?” she asked, swaying a little as she held on by one hand to the door-jamb, for she was far from steady yet.
Garrassime eyed her apprehensively. She did look bad, poor lady—and this was a difficult position and a rough place, after all was said and done, for such as she.
“Yes, Highness,” he said in a humble voice. “Platon went with the message nigh three hours since.”
Laurence heaved such a sigh of relief that she actually tottered on her tired feet, and, greatly alarmed, Garrassime picked her up like a baby and, crossing the room in two strides, had laid her down on a lounge before she knew what was happening. Dazed still, but absolutely indignant, she tried to struggle up, but an enormous hand—light as a feather—held her tenderly back, while to her outraged feelings Garrassime’s deep voice, coaxing as if he were talking to little Piotr, uttered the following astounding and unpardonable words in impulsive Russian, “My daughter, my little dove, be quiet and let your old servant take care of you now, my pretty lamb!”
“That’s what comes of Basil’s impossible leniency toward his people! Impertinence! Familiarity! Indecent meddlesomeness! Ah! This unbearable pretense of belonging to the family!” thought Laurence, crimson with fury; and she wrathfully twisted out of his gentle grasp and sat up, frowning and haughty, on the edge of the lounge.
“Go! And send me Célèste before I do you a mischief, you insolent dog!” she cried, pointing to the door with a rigidly extended finger and the mien of an opera-bouffe queen dismissing a slave.
Completely stupefied, Garrassime stared at her, scarcely understanding what she was saying. How could his solicitude have offended her? He raised his eyes in involuntary protest; then he backed out of “The Presence,” pausing on the threshold merely long enough to make a very low and final obeisance, and was gone.
A few minutes later Célèste came tripping in, her pert face alight with curiosity; but when she caught sight of her lady she uttered a little shriek of distress thin and as piercing as a penny whistle.
“Butmon Dieu! What has Madame la Princesse doneto herself!” she cried, her large dark eyes widened to their uttermost extent.
Laurence rose impatiently, marched to the door, which she double-locked, and returned to the fire-corner, suddenly quite cool and collected.
“I have had a terrible fright, Célèste,” she said. “This is a dreadful place; not fit for me to live in!”
“Ah, Madame la Princesse may well say so!” the maid affirmed, hands and eyes uplifted in dramatic acquiescence. “Ah, but a place! A place of devils and devilries!” she continued, volubly; for though Laurence so angrily resented familiarity from her inferiors, to her maid and quasi-confidante of secrets perhaps weightier than those of the toilet, she was decidedly “uncorseted,” both physically and morally. “We shall all perish if Monsieur le Prince keeps us incarcerated here much longer. And those peasants, so ferocious, so savage! Not that some of them are not good-looking enough; the grooms, too. Madame la Princesse has not perhaps noticed the grooms?”
Laurence laughed and shrugged her shoulders, but without any indignation whatsoever. This merry daughter of Provence amused her even at this critical moment. Moreover, during the last few minutes a sudden plan had formed in her head: a plan for the execution of which Célèste might be a most useful and powerful aid.
“Don’t you think, Célèste,” she began, a trifle hesitatingly—“don’t you think that we might escape from here, you and I alone, without anybody being the wiser?”
Célèste drew in her breath sensationally, and then let it out again between her rather pointed white teeth, in sincere compliment to a harmonious steam-valve. It was her usual method of expressing surprise, admiration, fear, joy, and what not else? There may be worse ones.
“Decamp!—vanish!” she cried, joyfully. “What a magnificent idea! But”—and she paused, one dimpled hand to her lips—“how can we do it, Madame la Princesse?The château is guarded like acaserne, and it’s all rock, with walls that thick”—here she illustrated the thickness of those walls by a flight of both arms inimitably comprehensive and spaceful.
“You were speaking of the grooms, whomyoudecidedly have noticed,” interrupted Laurence. “Tell me frankly, have you got any special friend among them?”
Célèste immediately fell into an attitude of unconvincing coyness; her whole diminutive person emanated a righteousness not to be trifled with, but the tip of herretroussénose moved quaintly, like that of a rabbit scenting clover-laden breezes—the devil was losing nothing—and Laurence, who knew her handmaiden by heart, waited silently.
“Madame la Princesse must be pleased to joke!” the girl began, with much underlying archness. “A special friend—anamoureux? Is that what Madame la Princesse means?”
“Yes, if you like, an admirer.”
“No! no! Madame la Princesse—excepting of course that great lout of a Fidèlka, who makes a fool of himself whenever he gets the chance, and chooses to look at one with his big goggle eyes. These Russians—Madame la Princesse knows well how they are when they see a petticoat above a tight-drawn stocking—more especially a silk stocking....” And the bright eyes glanced modestly down at the trim ankle and charmingly slippered foot peeping from the hem of her well-fitting dark-cloth skirt.
“Fidèlka! A reassuring name for you. Faithful! Can anything speak more highly for him? Well, Célèste, do you believe that you could persuade your goggle-eyed pet to smuggle a sleigh out of the stables at sunrise to-morrow, and to drive us to the next post-station? Nobody would dare to pursue me, I am sure of that!”
“But why does not Madame la Princesse order asleigh? Madame la Princesse is the lady of the house; her orders are to be obeyed.”
“You don’t understand, my poor Célèste,” Laurence said, with dawning annoyance. “The peasants have got an idea about my being created to look after them—when they are sick.” And with what she deemed a flash of genius she hastily added, “Think of it, there’s typhus in the village now; typhus, Célèste!”
Strange to state, however, Célèste did not pretend to faint. She was an extraordinarily vain and feather-brained girl, but no coward, and she merely nodded her tiny lace cap.
“Typhus! Oh yes! Old Garrassime said something of that to me a while ago, but that’s nothing. One must have sickness about sometimes, and that would not frighten Madame la Princesse, of course. As to the peasants, these boors, they really mean no harm; they grumble and curse and swear when they’re drunk—and they’re mostly drunk; they’re like our ‘Reds’ at home, all brandy and silliness! If I were Madame la Princesse I’d go out with a fat dog-whip and slash them till they’re satisfied, that’s the only way with suchcanaille. But it’s the silence here, and the snow, and theennuiI don’t like. I love shops and noise and electric lamps on both sides of the street, and—”
“O-o-o-o-h! Never mind what you love. Can you or can you not induce that Fidèlka of yours to take us away?” Laurence exclaimed, peevishly; and Célèste, who felt vexed at the interruption, drew back, pouting.
“How can I tell, Madame la Princesse? And then there’s Monsieur le Prince to consider; he’ll make a fine fuss when he comes back and doesn’t find us.”
“I don’t suppose he will mind not findingyou!” Laurence said, witheringly and quite tactlessly. “So you needn’t bother about that part of it.”
This was going from bad to worse. Célèste’s superciliouseyebrows became ominous, and Laurence quailed. She needed Célèste badly.
“Oh, don’t be foolish! I’m only joking!” she prudently remarked, retreating from an untenable position with as much grace as she could muster. “See, it’s getting late already,” and she pointed to a little traveling-clock on the jewel-table that was nervously hurrying over the minute marks. “Why don’t you go and try at once,ma petite?”
Somewhat mollified, Célèste smoothed her eyebrows with a delicate touch. “Eight o’clock,” she consented, “and Madame la Princesse has had nothing to eat since tea; also Madame la Princesse looks frightful in that bedraggled tea-gown.”
“Never mind the gown. Tell me, Célèste, can you slip out to the stables? The men must just have had their supper. You’d find that Fidèlka, perhaps!”
The girl did not move. She had a habit of instantly repaying any small roughness meted out to her by the lady she served without love. She rather fancied seeing her on a silver gridiron, and the clock was still racing to the accompaniment of a wee musical tick, very enervating to hear.
Laurence was beaten! She would not beg, she could not order after the recent laxity of her talk, and quickly she unfastened a circlet of large turquoises from her slender wrist. “Catch!” she cried, with assumed gaiety, tossing the trinket to the girl.
Dexterously Célèste caught it in mid-air, and looked at it thoughtfully.
“Madame la Princesse is going to undress?” she asked, demurely.
“Why—no! It’s for you!” responded the inwardly boiling Laurence.
“A bribe!” Célèste’s voice was flute-like. “Madame la Princesse is too good. I do not deserve it!”
“But you do, Célèste—I mean a small present—sinceyou’re going to help me, you and your handsome admirer. No, don’t put it away; keep it. I’m sure it will look well on your arm.”
“So do I, Madame la Princesse,” Célèste admitted, carelessly dropping the jewel in the transparent pocket of her absurd lace apronlet. “If Madame la Princesse insists, I must naturally accept it. And now I will try to sneak out with a shawl over my head like the peasant women here; but it’s only to please Madame la Princesse, because that Fidèlka may not be alone, and, of course, I can’t compromise myself before the other men.”
“Here, put on my hooded fur cloak!” Laurence exclaimed, rising as though to fetch it herself—she was apparently willing to drain the cup to its bitterest dregs.
“Madame n’y pense pas!” remonstrated Célèste. “I’ll be back in a moment, and Madame la Princesse must lock the door behind me, for fear the second or third or fourth maid should happen round.En voilà des arias!” she concluded, with a funny twist of the shoulders as she left the room.
As soon as she was gone Laurence got up, went into her bedroom, and, taking a diminutive bunch of keys from her pocket, shifted thearras, disclosing a narrow steel panel, which after some incantation of an arithmetical nature she got open. Behind a second fire-proof door,écrinuponécrinstood revealed, and these she precipitately opened. From a side-shelf of metal she brought forth a broad, flat reindeer-leather bag, hanging from a practically unbreakable belt, and hurriedly thrust into its many snug compartments the greater part of the jewel-safe’s contents. Emeralds, rubies, pearls, sapphires, but especially diamonds—strings and rivers and clusters of diamonds—sparkled through her busy fingers and disappeared. Then she plunged her hand farther into the recess, and, drawing out a thick packet of large bank-notes, stowed them away by themselves in a separate pocket.One move more, and with a click a secret drawer flew open. From this Laurence snatched a square linen-lined envelope full of letters, pressed it almost mechanically to her lips, and, slipping it beneath the notes, pulled up her skirt, fastened the belt tightly around her slender waist, and, having put everything in order, returned to the boudoir.
She was just in time to hear Célèste’s tap, and opened instantly.
“Well?” she asked.
“Bien!Madame la Princesse!Très-bien!Fidèlka was lounging in the saddle-room—and for a consideration he’ll do it!”
“How much?” demanded Laurence, unconsciously touching the leather bag beneath her crumpled velvets. “What have you paid? How much?” she repeated.
Célèste, who stood behind Laurence, busily unclasping the hooks of her tea-gown, laughed a mischievous laugh.
“A great deal—a great—great deal!”
“But how much?” repeated Laurence, vainly trying to look over her shoulder at the little maid.
“Madame la Princesse needn’t worry,” the latter gurgled, “nor does Madame la Princesse owe me anything.”
“Why?”
“Because I paid from my own private treasury.”
The soft dress had just fallen to the ground in a crushed circle about Laurence’s feet, and Célèste’s face, as she bent down for it, was pink as a June rose.
“Kisses!” exclaimed Laurence. “Only kisses?”
“But that’s a great deal. Though I would have given even more to serve Madame la Princesse.” And gathering fur and velvet into her arms, Célèste rushed into the adjoining bath-room, where a moment later she was noisily turning on both taps.