Chapter XXIV: Toward the Light

Marian awoke from a troubled sleep when the clock of St. Martin’s Church was striking a quarter past four of the morning. She had not meant to sleep at all, but weakness prevailed above her misery, and for an hour she was carried in her dreams back to Alexander and to the nameless horror of her cell below the sea.

When she awoke she was still sitting in her low chair by the window, but the cold of dawn had stiffened her limbs, and the burden of the night and its weariness lay heavy upon her heart. Nor could she bring her mind at the first to remember why she was not in her bed, or how it came to be that she looked down upon the silent streets at such an hour. When memory helped her, it was swift and terrible. She rose to her feet and opened the door of their little sitting-room. Had Paul come back to her? she asked herself. Why did he wait? What new ill had overtaken him? God, if he should be dead!

A tortured, helpless woman, worn with suffering and doubt, she crept along the darkened passage until she stood at his bedroom door. It was wide open. She could see the bed, but no one had slept in it. Scattered here and there were the few things he had purchased since they had been in London--a pair of slippers, a little dressing-case, a writing-desk. A bunch of violets he had worn when shopping for her two days ago stood on his washhand-stand. She took it up and kissed the faded flowers; she knelt at his bedside and prayed, a woman’s prayer, that the day might bring him back to her.

It was strange, at this time, how her sense of dependence upon the man was magnified and made real to her. A year ago the truth that she stood alone in the world would have been a matter of indifference to her. But that day had passed. While she had no exaggerated notions of Paul’s cleverness, while she knew him, heart and mind, he remained the idol of her dreams and of her love. She had trembled when he held her in his arms. Her first waking thought had been for him; she had won sleep often with his name upon her lips. The past years of loneliness, of struggle, of poverty, seemed removed by ages from her present life. If there had come to her sometimes the reflection that this whirl of events was unreal and false, that she was deceiving herself, that the reckoning must be paid, she brushed the thought aside. She was a woman, and she had learned to love.

The house was quiet with the stillness of the hour before the dawn. Without, the steely gray light fell upon shuttered windows and silent streets. Even great London nodded. Her gaudy ornament of gold and garish painting had become subdued and shabby; immense buildings loomed up as though the sun had shaped them from the mists. Save for the passing carts, or the rumble of a wagon on its way to market, or the fleeting figure of some ragged and homeless creature awake once more to the hopeless life of thousands, she might have looked down upon a city of the dead. Those who had passed and repassed while the sun shone--whither had they gone to sleep? What change of fortune had they known since yesterday? Who among them would rejoice with the day? How many would know the day no more? The very emptiness of the city awed her. She was afraid of the stillness. Not one in all those millions would stand at her side to help her. She remembered the child, and thought of him sleeping in a house of sunshine and of flowers, but the remembrance was bitter, for her courage was broken. The old way of life was closed for ever. She would go hand in hand with little Dick, but there would be tears upon her face.

Seven o’clock struck, and the sun shone upon the city. People flocked to the great railway stations; cabs began to loiter by the pavements; she heard the scream of whistles and the cry of the newsboys. It was a relief to her, this surging of the stream of life. She began to reckon with herself as she had not reckoned since she left Kronstadt. If Paul did not return during the morning, she resolved that she would go to Scotland Yard and tell his story, in so far as it could be told without the surrender of her promise. A woman of clear and quick thought, she scouted the trivial suggestions which desire to deceive herself had prompted. Taking new courage of the morning, she refused to believe that her lover was dead or that an accident had overtaken him. An echo of the truth dinned in her ears. “It is the hand of his own countrymen,” she thought, “he has been lured from here by a trick.” And then she remembered that these things were not to be done in England. A glad pride in the might of her own country quickened her heart. “I will save him!” she said; “I will go to them and learn the whole story.”

Her course would have been easier if she had known Paul’s intentions when he left her. It was in her mind that he had gone to the Russian Embassy; she remembered that he spoke of South Audley Street, but could not recall the number of the house.

She said that she would get her breakfast and go afterwards to the Embassy in quest of news. If none was to be had there, it would be time to consult with the people at Scotland Yard. True, she had given Paul her word that she would not go out alone; but the promise was made for a set of circumstances other than these. His liberty, his very life, might depend upon her breaking that promise. A great desire to be up and away at once took possession of her. It was hers now to play the strong part. Nevertheless, the hope that she might hear his step on the stair before the clock struck again held her to the place.

“He has stayed at the Count’s house all night,” she argued childishly; “it was necessary, and he is among friends.”

At eight o’clock she dressed herself, wearing the pretty blouse that he had bought for her, and coiling up her wealth of brown hair picturesquely above her white face. She sighed often when she looked into the shabby glass, and asked herself how it came to be that a man had cast off country and friends for her sake. Very few in the world cared whether she lived or died. She did not wonder at that. Her life had been one long battle with circumstances; the smile her face had worn during the years of childhood was but the cloak which hid the scars of mental ill and oftentimes of defeat. Yet here was one to stand among the multitude and to say “Thou art the woman.” The mystery of love baffled her.

It was nine o’clock when she finished her cup of tea and found herself ready to go out. She had but a few shillings in her pocket; their little store of gold was locked in Paul’s trunk, yet she would not stop to reflect upon that new trouble which lack of money must bring to her presently. Glad in her way to escape the confinement of the stuffy room, rejoicing that her errand was for her lover’s sake, she descended the stairs with quick step. But at the street door she stood irresolute; and when she had looked about her an instant, she returned hastily to her room, and went to the window to watch.

A carriage drawn by a pair of magnificent grey horses was the secret of her irresolution. It stood before her house at the moment she would have begun her errand. She saw that the master of the carriage, a white-haired old man, slight and slim, but with the face of an aristocrat, was about to send the footman to her door. Instinct told her that here was one of Paul’s friends. When the footman waited in the street below, she had the impulse to run down, fearing that the carriage would be driven away before she could tell Paul’s friend what had happened. She was still wavering when the slut of the house entered the room, holding in her dirty fingers the card of Prince Tolma.

“It ain’t for you; it’s for the gentleming,” she said, wiping a smut from her forehead. “I told ’em as he’d gawn out to supper, and hadn’t come back yet.”

Marian brushed her aside and ran down the stairs with the step of a schoolgirl. Care for her own dignity was forgotten. She arrived in the street breathless and with flushed cheeks. It was in her mind that this stranger would save her lover.

“Paul is not here,” she said excitedly; “he left me yesterday to visit Count Talvi, and has not returned. I fear that something has happened. He would not leave me without a word. I am Marian Best, and I have heard your name so often. If I might speak to you for a little while----”

She stood panting and expectant, while the old man regarded her with wondering eyes. Apparently the spectacle pleased him, for, of a sudden, he grunted like an animal and called to the footman.

“John, I am going to get out.”

With great pomp and ceremony, after the unwrapping of rugs and laborious changes of posture, the Prince wormed himself from his seat.

“My dear,” he said apologetically, “you must give me your hand. I am an old man--and your English wines do not love me. Is it far to mount?--there are many stairs?”

Marian blushed.

“We are not rich,” she said diffidently; “we feared to go to an hotel----”

“Du tout, du tout,” said the Prince; “we must find another apartment for you. The sun up there will scorch that pretty face. Ma foi, we go to heaven itself!”

A friendly banister and the strong arm of the footman dragged the burden to the heights. Marian followed with a sense of relief such as she had scarce known in all her life. It was as though a strong hand had been thrust out to her from the shadows of the great city. The tone, the gesture, the kindly eyes of this old man, the easy air of command and authority--these won upon her confidence.

The Prince entered the shabby little room and waddled to an arm-chair. He sank in it with a pathetic sigh of gratitude. Drops of sweat stood upon his bald forehead. He mopped them up with a tremendous handkerchief; his breathing was stertorous and rapid.

“It is a vapour bath,” he exclaimed between his gasps; “you shall send for a shampooer, my dear. Or if you will not do that, you shall give me a little of the red wine I see upon the buffet there.”

A flask of Australian wine stood upon the sideboard. Marian half filled a tumbler, and diluted the wine with soda-water. She had not noticed the poverty of her surroundings before. The coming of the aristocrat, his spotless clothes, his grand air, showed them in all their nakedness.

“I am sorry,” she said, moving about with girlish activity; “I fear our stairs are dreadful. If it had not been that I knew you were Paul’s friend----”

“Tut, tut,” replied the Prince, taking the tumbler in his hand; “it is a recompense to see you in the room. There is no other ornament necessary, my dear--your eyes and the sunshine. If I were a young man, I would come here every day to see you. We do not count the rungs of the ladder which leads up to Paradise.”

He swelled with gallantry, remembering the days which had carried him, hungering for love, to many a garret of old Paris. When he had emptied his tumbler and put it down, he began to speak again, leaning forward heavily upon his gold-mounted cane and staring so hard at his little hostess that her cheeks flushed crimson.

“So you are Mademoiselle,” he said, nodding his head cunningly, “and you have brought my boy to England, and it is for you that he has forsaken his friends and turned his back upon his country. Well, my dear, I should begin by scolding you. I meant to scold you when I came here. But I am helpless, you see--so come and sit by me and we will talk a little while.”

He pointed to a little stool, and she obeyed him, sitting almost at his feet. Never in her life had she met one whom she would have trusted so implicitly. Her own father--long dead--the man of dusty books and monotoned sermons, had awakened in her but pity. The fine face of this noble Russian, his soft and winning voice, his kindly gesture, inspired her to ask herself what her own life would have been if such a man had brought her into the world.

“You are very kind to me,” she said simply; “it is a long time since I have found a friend. I think sometimes that I shall never find another. I cannot call Paul my friend; he is more than that. But then, he has left me here----”

Her cheeks reddened and she paused. Tolma patted her arm encouragingly.

“Do not be afraid to speak to me,” he said. “I know your story, but it comes prettily from these pretty lips. You do not call Paul your friend; he is more than that. Ma foi, I would disown him if he were not!”

“I love him,” she answered, taking courage of herself; “whatever he may do here, I could not blame him. He has given up everything for me--God knows how much I regret it if it is not for his good. Yet how can a woman answer such a question? How is she to read the depths of a man’s love? If you and his friends wish him to leave me, if you think it is in his interest to do so, I have no right to stand between you. It would be happiness to know that he is happy.”

Tolma moved restlessly in his chair. He had come to carry his heir from the trap into which he believed that he had fallen. He had come to convince Paul that the woman was a charlatan, an impostor, the tool of the English Government. When he hastened back from Paris, it had seemed to him that his mission was the easiest in the world. He flattered himself that no man knew women as he knew them. He thought that he would find his nephew with some notorious servant of the spies of Europe--a chorus-girl, the wife of a _chevalier d’industrie_ gone bankrupt, the partner of a baron snapping up unconsidered trifles. Ten words with her shattered that hypothesis. “She is an English lady--she is honest,” he said to himself; “we shall have trouble.”

“You are a pair of children,” he exclaimed, cutting Marian short in her protests; “it is all a play to you--the ships and the armies of Russia are your toys. And yet, like your elders, you can think of the money.”

She was silent at the rebuke.

“Yes,” he went on very seriously, “you can think of the money, children that you are. What you have done, mademoiselle, is a great crime toward my country. If I did not believe the story which Paul has told me, if I did not say that there are excuses which must suffice when a woman is the offender, nothing would keep me in this room even for an hour. But I am not like those others. I know men. I know women, vous savez. To me they are the pieces upon the board. I have seen so many put in the box; a few years more or less and destiny will have done with me. You are young, and your life is before you. I shall see that it is a pleasant life. You will live here in your England. Paul will go with me to be my companion in Paris. I like young faces; I am lonely in age. If it rested with me alone, I might make other promises for the future. But I must win a way for Paul to return to his country, and to return with honour. Do not think me harsh. I speak as the friend of you both. It cannot be otherwise: it is the only way.”

Marian sat very still and white and silent. She thought herself in that instant to be abandoned of God and man. And yet she did not turn from the sacrifice.

“It is for Paul,” she cried bitterly. “If there is no other way, let it be so, and God help us both!”

Tolma abhorred the spectacle of a woman distressed unless his were the hand to wipe away the tears. The fair, girlish figure at his side, so slight, so pitiful, created for him a boyhood to be lived again in an instant of thought. He drew Marian’s head upon his knee and stroked the curls through which the hardly checked tears glistened.

“My child,” he said gently, “if an old man could work a miracle, assuredly it should be worked to-day. But what would you? If we wish Paul’s name again to be known in Russia, shall not we make this sacrifice gladly? While he is with you--when he is your husband--they will say, ‘Ah, she loves him for what he is worth to her.’ They will declare that you have not all the maps you want to sell to your English Government, and that Paul will make them for you. By-and-bye you will laugh at him, and find another officer of artillery and another Kronstadt. That is what they will say.”

Marian smiled through her tears.

“Poor Paul,” she said; “if he had to live by making maps of Kronstadt, we should starve, Prince.”

Tolma looked at her searchingly.

“You do not think that he is clever?”

“Oh, yes, he is clever, but not in that way. He would laugh if he could hear you. I do not believe he sleeps at night for thinking that I should tell someone the things that I know. He came here at first to be quite sure that the memory he says I am cursed with should not do Kronstadt any harm. He feared that I would draw the maps.”

“The maps? But you have not got any maps; they were all burnt. He told me so.”

“He told you the truth; but you cannot burn the memory. I could draw Kronstadt now, this instant. I could place every fort and every gun. If I did not love Paul, my drawings would make me a rich woman, Prince.”

Tolma sat very still. He was debating quickly a hundred possibilities. The girl had struck every weapon from his hand. If her tale were true, she had struck every weapon from the hands of her enemies in London.

“It may be so,” he said, with the politest possible suggestion of doubt, “it may be so, my child; but who will believe a story like that?”

“I ask no one to believe it. Why should I? What have I to gain?”

She drew back from him, and, rising, went and stood by the window. The sun of morning flashed upon her white face and gave threads of gold to her tumbled hair. Tolma saw the child no more; a woman, self-reliant, proud, and beautiful, now answered him.

“What have I to gain?”

She repeated the question with just a _soupçon_ of mockery in her tone. She did not forget that she was in England. The strong arm of her own country stood between her and the Russian. The man on his part was ready to appreciate the drama of the moment and to act up to it.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, struggling to his feet and posing threateningly, “you have a husband to gain.”

“A husband! Oh, Prince, you jest.”

The woman of Kronstadt spoke--the woman who had been willing, before love weakened her hand, to strike a blow at the Russian in his very holy of holies.

“You jest, Prince,” she said again, with the air of a grand dame; “what is more, you do not believe me.”

Tolma answered her by banging the table with his cane.

“Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed, “I jest so little that if you will prove your story I will make you Paul’s wife to-morrow.”

It was her turn now to open her eyes in wonderment. But he continued without pause--

“Do you not see that they have taken him from you because they believe you want his secrets? Prove to them that the secrets are yours, not his, and they will move heaven and earth to shut your lips. A child would understand that. You are a free woman in your own country; who can prevent you speaking where you will? But the wife of Paul Zassulic--will she betray Russia! Ma foi, the boy’s eyes are better than ours now! He will cheat Bonzo yet and I shall be there to enjoy it. And he will be the husband of a clever woman, mademoiselle. Do not contradict me; I, Tolma, say it, and I am never wrong. You shall be my daughter. You shall live in Paris with me--when you have proved the story.”

Lack of breath alone put a curb upon his eloquence. Marian listened to him as she would have listened to one who spoke of miracles. It had been upon her lips to tell him of her promise to Paul, her promise to keep the secrets to the day of her death; but love working in her heart silenced her. She could not shatter the cup raised so unexpectedly to her lips.

“I will prove my story when and where you will,” she said with dignity. “Give me time to get pen and ink, and I will prove it now.”

Tolma raised his hand.

“Not here,” he said, with a gesture of an actor; “to-night, at the house of Count Feodor. My carriage shall fetch you. Fear nothing; you have the word of Tolma.”

He waddled down the stairs, calling loudly for “John.” Marian stood as one in a trance; but it was a trance of joy.