Chapter XVIII: “splendide Mendax.”

It seemed to Zoe that, save for the fact that Maurice’s place of confinement was called a dungeon and hers a cell, the change in the state of affairs pressed rather more hardly on her than on him. Her new room was very small, very dirty, absolutely devoid of furniture, and almost destitute of light, a small grated aperture just under the ceiling offering the only approach to a window. Moreover, Maurice had the friendly Papa Athanasios to look after him, while the old woman who acted as Zoe’s gaoler seemed positively to gloat over her humiliation. This attitude was in itself a challenge, and before Zoe had been in her new quarters half an hour she had bullied old Marigo into providing a broom and fetching her rug and other possessions from the room she had occupied with Eirene. The cell looked much less hopeless when a certain amount of the dust of ages had been removed, the rug spread on the stone divan, and Zoe’s few clothes neatly rolled up as cushions. In the homely work of tidying up, moreover, she wore off some of her indignation against Eirene, and was able to turn her mind to other subjects. Her words to Maurice had not been idle, or designed merely to console him. The idea for a story had come into her mind, and was working itself out all the more vividly for her removal during the past month from her usual surroundings and pursuits. It was going to be splendid, she felt, with the curious leaping of heart which the self-development of a new theme always caused in her. If only she had her note-books at hand! But since they were not to be had, she must work more carefully than usual, more by rule and line, so as to be able to reproduce the story from memory when she regained her freedom. The whitewashed walls of her cell offered a ready-made tablet for memoranda, and a rusty nail she had discovered in the course of her sweepings would serve as a stylus. In marked contrast with the excitement of the morning, she passed a quiet and perfectly happy afternoon absorbed in blocking out her chapters, raising horrible suspicions in the mind of her gaoler, who could only imagine that the mysterious signs on the wall were some kind of sorcery directed against the welfare of the monastery.

The next morning Zoe was at work again as soon as she had put her room tidy, and it was with unconcealed impatience that she found herself summoned by old Marigo to follow her. “Come, O girl, quickly!” she could understand this, at any rate, though neither now nor at any other time could she extract any rational information from the wardress, as Maurice called her. Following her down the steep time-worn stairs, she found Eirene, escorted by M. Kirileff, awaiting her in the courtyard, and she was not too much engrossed with her story to derive some pleasure from noticing that Eirene looked pale and ill at ease. It was M. Kirileff who spoke, after receiving an imperious gesture.

“Her Royal Highness is anxious even now to save you from the penalty due to your brother’s obstinacy,” he said. “If you choose to sign the confession I have drawn out, you will be permitted to attend her to Therma, and she will graciously see that you are sent home from there.”

“Thank you, I prefer to be here,” returned Zoe briskly. “You don’t know what a kindness you are doing me by keeping me where there are no visitors. I have not had an idle moment yet, and my time is fully occupied far ahead.”

M. Kirileff looked unaffectedly astonished, and Eirene interposed, in the languid tones of one weary of the subject.

“I regard you with compassion,” she said, “for I know that your facile imagination can make the wildest dreams appear realities to you. Your brother I cannot trust myself to see, for he has not the same excuse. If it was you who suggested the imposture, and induced him to acquiesce in it, I can only advise you to undo the harm you have done in leading astray an otherwise worthy young man. The good Father Athanasios will convey to him any message from you advising him to submit, but no others.”

“I’m sorry you took the trouble to make such an arrangement, for it won’t be wanted,” said Zoe. “And when you have had time to think things over, and realise what you have done, I shall be sorry for you, Eirene.”

“There is no use in prolonging this discussion, I think,” said Eirene to M. Kirileff. “We are not likely to meet again,” she added, over her shoulder, to Zoe, “but should you return to a better mind, I shall have pleasure in extending my patronage to you.”

Zoe returned to her cell fuming, and it was some time before she was sufficiently calm to resume her work, while Eirene turned away to begin her journey to Therma in M. Kirileff’s company. He had horses, servants and tents awaiting him below the rock, and a girl from the village had been impressed to wait upon her. She was treated with the utmost deference; her tent was pitched apart from the rest; her pleasure was consulted as to the hours of halting or starting again; but she was kept perpetually under surveillance. In her tent her maid watched her; if she wandered outside it, two _cavasses_ kept her faithfully in sight; on the march M. Kirileff, riding beside her, at precisely the right distance to the rear, divided his attention between her face and the track. He had a way of leading the conversation round to Maurice and Zoe, or to her experiences in the brigands’ camp, but her replies baffled him. They told so little that he could draw no conclusions, and they expressed still less. It was with a mixture of resentment and relief that he handed her over at last to the care of Madame Ladoguin, and gave his final instructions to that lady in private.

“I hope you may have better success with our charming Princess than I have had,” he said. “I no longer wonder that she was able to plan and effect her escape from Scythia as she did.”

“Well, you could hardly expect her, after her late experiences, to confide in so youthful and _débonnaire_ a person as yourself, could you?” smiled his hostess. “But with a woman, and one who has seen something of her world, it may be different.”

“If there is any one in the world who can win her confidence, it is Chariclea Feodorovna,” said M. Kirileff, with every appearance of fervent conviction; “and I only trust she may.”

“Why?” the quick note of alarm in the lady’s voice showed that she scented danger. “You don’t imagine that she has any sympathy with the impostor?”

“None whatever--at present; but with a woman one always fears a change of mind. There is something most wearisomely convincing about the youth Smith. A man of any other nation, convicted of base treachery in the presence of a lady whose good opinion he must surely prize, would have protested, entreated, asseverated his innocence. But this stolid Englishman does not even give himself the trouble to offer a statement. He contents himself with asserting that he is in the right, in a tone which implies that it signifies nothing whether she believes it or not, and proceeds to drive her to frenzy by insisting on his pretensions. There is something impressive in this brutal simplicity.”

“Quite so,” said Mme. Ladoguin. “And you think it impressed her, or will yet succeed in doing so?”

“I am trusting to your influence that it may not. I will own that I have had moments of alarm. I imagined that I distinguished on her face a look resembling relief when I first revealed to her the nature of the deception. But it passed quickly when I pointed out its sordid motive, and the _bourgeois_ origin of the plotters. A peasant would have been infinitely more welcome as a rival than a respectable youth of the middle class.”

“But I had the idea that these Teffanys--these Smiths, I should say--belonged to the _petite noblesse_, what the English call ‘gentry,’” said Mme. Ladoguin. M. Kirileff smiled meaningly.

“That is an idea I must beg you to banish from your mind. For the purposes of conversation with the Princess, they are of a superior order of agriculturists. I brought the thing home to her when I pointed out that she would have been offered a marriage with young Smith as the price of her life had she fallen into the hands of Panagiotis.”

“You have prepared the ground well, Boris Constantinovitch. She exhibited disgust?”

“More than disgust--agony. And thereupon the innocent Monsieur Smith spoils the effect by demanding with fury what I have been saying to make her unhappy!”

“Ah, these unrehearsed effects--how they ruin our best scenes! But the young man is certainly impossible. I suppose”--with sudden keenness--“it has not struck you to hint to the young lady that in case of any further escapades on her part, Scythia might be driven to abandon her claim, and take up that of this pretender instead? That would make it easier to manage her.”

“You terrify me!” cried M. Kirileff, with genuine alarm. “Is it possible you do not see that our only hold over her is to maintain her in the assurance that hers is the only claim worth considering? The merest suggestion that the youth might conceivably have right on his side would ruin everything. Down would go the barrier of disgust I have erected with so much pains, she would see herself as the usurper instead of him, and even if we continued to support her, the moral support of her own whole-hearted confidence in her rights would be gone.”

“I see,” said Mme. Ladoguin slowly. “Well, frankly, if that is the case, I wonder at your bringing her here. I will keep a careful watch over her, of course; but in a place like this there are endless opportunities for mischief. Panagiotis is always at hand, and that Captain Wylie is a perfect terror. Since he was tricked into paying the ransom without rescuing his friends, he has given the city no peace. The consular body are just as tired of him as the authorities are, and he is bringing the Ambassadors at Czarigrad into the matter. He is certain to insist on seeing the Princess when he finds out she is here, to try and discover from her where the Smiths are, and he may persuade her of the truth of their claims.”

“He must not see her,” was the prompt reply. “Do you think I should have entrusted her to your care if I had not had full confidence in you? You must manage--somehow--anyhow--to keep them apart. A word to the doctor will ensure a certain amount of quiet and retirement for the Princess--she sees only your very intimate friends, and no foreigners, you perceive? Your brother will keep you informed of Captain Wylie’s movements, and when he is in the city you will go to no place where you would be likely to meet him, and you will take care that the direction of your drives does not leak out through the servants. He will scarcely force his way into the Consulate, or if he did, I have no doubt your husband would repel force with force, and public opinion would justify him. If he should obtain an entrance by any stratagem, I can trust you to deal with him.”

“Oh, I’m not afraid of that. It is the scandal, the unpleasantness. The man is so atrociously persistent.”

“I understand. I don’t mind telling you that I dislike this delay in Therma as much as you can. But what is to be done? It is all very well to give out that the Princess went on pilgrimage, but every one in the Court circle knows the real state of the case, and she cannot be received as if nothing had happened. Their Imperial Majesties are deeply incensed. I shall represent as strongly as I can the expediency of bringing her back quickly, and you must prevail upon her to write a letter of penitence and submission, which will help matters on. Short of a convent--and I should not care to trust her in one outside Scythia--she is safer with you than she could be anywhere else.”

“I suppose a letter signed by her would not be sufficient?”

M. Kirileff shook his head. “It would appear too casual. No, the writing must be her own throughout. But I hope much from your persuasions. You will keep constantly before her, of course, the peril and disgrace from which she has been rescued, and point out that her only hope for the future lies in a return to Court favour. One warning I must give you. Don’t attempt to represent the young man Smith as a plotter, or as intending anything but the most honourable and _bourgeois_ of marriages. One glance at his face shows you that he is absolutely incapable of the slightest approach to art or _finesse_ of any kind. Remember that he is a mere tool in the hands of the remorseless Panagiotis, who spares no one who comes in the way of his schemes.”

“I will remember,” laughed the lady. “It is a comfort that you think the Princess is willing to be persuaded.”

“I do, but I think she needs to be kept in the same mind. I saw signs of wavering myself, on the morning we left Hadgi-Antoniou, when she expressed a wish to see Smith’s sister in private. I pointed out that the girl--who is endowed with more vivacity than her brother--might very probably, in her rage at the discovery of their plot, attempt some violence, and she agreed at once that I had better be present. That is the sort of assistance I hope for from you--an unobtrusive influence constantly exerted, both to protect her from intrusion and to turn her thoughts in the right direction.”

This conference put Eirene’s two guardians into a state of the highest mutual appreciation, and M. Kirileff went on his way to Scythia with an easy mind, leaving his confederate to make Eirene’s life a burden to her. The next few weeks were the most absolutely miserable the girl had ever experienced, for she knew exactly what Maurice and Zoe must think of her, and she had no means of fulfilling the task she had set herself. The realisation of the part she must play had come to her in a flash as she sat beside the Hegoumenos on the divan, and listened to the measured periods of M. Kirileff. Her first feeling had been something more than the relief he had read in her face--positive triumph. She had been right, after all, when she suspected Maurice of being a prince in disguise. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she read in the Scythian’s expression that she had betrayed herself, and she saw her course clear before her. To remain at Hadgi-Antoniou, throwing in her lot with that of Maurice and Zoe, would do no good. The monastery which had guarded the faith for centuries could guard secrets as well. The prisoners might remain in a living death, unsuspected by the outside world, while it would be announced to Europe that they had met their fate at the hands of the brigands. The Embassies would demand an indemnity and the punishment of the murderers, and Scythia would supply the Roumi Government with the necessary money, while the crime would be added to the record of the next few criminals who had not the wherewithal to grease the palms of justice. Even Wylie would be deceived by a circumstantial story, perhaps by the production of relics of his friends, and would return sorrowfully to India, taking away their last hope. Eirene saw it all, even while she called up the look of resentment and disgust which had assured M. Kirileff of the success of his rearrangement of facts. She must efface from his mind the memory of her momentary slip, she must deceive even Maurice and Zoe, lest he should see in their faces that he was being played with. She must return to civilisation, and in some way communicate with Wylie, and that she might do this, she must throw dust in the eyes of friend and foe alike.

It was a curious feature of her state of mind that the momentous news which she had heard from M. Kirileff scarcely occurred to her, except as a cogent reason why Maurice and Zoe would not be allowed to go free save as discredited and self-confessed impostors. She did not ask herself what its effect might be on her own future, for the exigencies of the present occupied all her thoughts. The magnitude of her task kept her sleepless during her last night at the monastery, and led her to the desperate attempt, which M. Kirileff had frustrated, to secure Zoe as a confederate. It would be so much easier to communicate with Wylie, or with some British representative, if there were two to watch for opportunities instead of one, that she conceived the idea of inducing Zoe to make an apparent submission and accompany her. The envoy’s watchfulness had not only destroyed this hope, but had obliged her to deepen the bitterness with which Zoe must regard her, and she entered on the journey with feelings almost of despair. Without protest she acquiesced in M. Kirileff’s suggestion that it should be announced that her Royal Highness had returned from a pilgrimage to the shrine of Hadgi-Antoniou, and was resting at Therma after the hardships she had undergone, while the friends who had shared with her the experience of being captured by brigands were making a more extended tour among the rock monasteries near the Morean frontier. The announcement would, at any rate, give Wylie some idea of the whereabouts of his friends, and surely, surely, it must lead him to insist on seeing her, and learning from her the true state of the case.

But in this forecast Eirene had reckoned without Chariclea Feodorovna, and the very capable staff of assistants she had gathered round her. The Princess was received with the tenderest affection and respect, and promptly bound hand and foot with bonds too imperceptible to resent, too strong to break. The doctor who was called in to prescribe for her shattered nerves ordered quiet and retirement, with a very little society of a cheerful and familiar kind. What could be more in accordance with the prescription than to limit Eirene’s visitors to selected members of the Scythian colony and a few favoured representatives of those other Powers which were in sympathy with Scythian aims? At the same time, Madame Ladoguin, whose own appearance was a testimony to her skill, took in hand the restoration of her guest’s complexion, which had suffered from a month’s exposure to all kinds of weather, without the protection of hat or veil. It was clear that Eirene could not appear at the Scythian Court--whither she was so soon to return--with a brown face and red hands, and her adviser acted the beneficent tyrant to the life, forbidding her to go out on days when a particular wind--or any wind--was blowing, and applying healing balms which required, in order to produce their full effect, that the patient should spend a day in bed. Resistance was useless, and Eirene acquiesced helplessly for fear of arousing suspicion, but in one thing she would not yield. All Madame Ladoguin’s persuasions and encouragements could not induce her to write the desired letter of penitence to the Scythian Court. To such expedients was she driven that she would spend whole mornings in writing out drafts of the letter and making beginnings, which were all torn up. “I will not leave Therma until I have done something to help Maurice and Zoe,” she said to herself. “After that, it doesn’t signify what happens to me. I suppose I must go back to Pavelsburg, but I won’t write what isn’t true to make them treat me better. Maurice wouldn’t, and I won’t.”

All this time Wylie made no sign. As soon as she reached Therma, Eirene had asked her hostess about him, saying frankly that she wished to thank him for his efforts in procuring her ransom; but she was told that he had returned to India, satisfied that his friends were safe. She did not believe this, but she thought it very probable that he wished it to be believed, in order that he might have more freedom to act, and in her drives she looked narrowly among the crowd of many nationalities that thronged the streets for the tell-tale eyes which no disguise could hide. But she never saw them. Once or twice she ventured casually to inquire of Madame Ladoguin’s guests if they knew anything of Captain Wylie, and was always assured, with a look of astonishment, that he had made himself only too well known in the city while he remained there, but that he had now, happily, left it. Still, this did not necessarily prove that he had not returned to it, and Eirene began to wonder whether she could not write to him, as he seemed so strangely slow in seeking her. She did not know his address, but the British Consul-General would certainly forward a letter. Would it be best to send it by post or by one of the servants? So far as she knew, she was free to correspond with any one she would, and it was merely the feeling that she had very careful and subtle adversaries to deal with that made her hesitate. She could not afford unsuccessful experiments. If it was discovered that she was attempting to communicate with Wylie, the fact would give the lie to the attitude she had so resolutely maintained, and even if it were only discovered that she had written to him, it would enable the Ladoguins to anticipate any step he might take.

Curiously enough, the danger attending both the means of communication she had contemplated was made clear to her on the same day. She was well supplied with money, and had been occupied in the very necessary task of getting some new clothes. One of her orders had been sent to a British firm in Vindobona. It was written in Eirene’s name by Madame Ladoguin, who acted as a kind of unofficial lady-in-waiting, but it chanced that she was called out of the room before it was finished, and Eirene addressed and fastened the envelope in a hurry, in order to catch the post. The answer arrived in due time, but the tradesman begged to know whether there had been more than one enclosure, as the letter had been skilfully unclosed and refastened before it reached him. The incident spoke volumes as to the safety of letters confided to the Consulate post-bag, and Eirene realised that, though she had not discovered it, she was under as strict surveillance as that which had proved so irksome on the journey. Was it safe to attempt to bribe the servants, she wondered? They all seemed anxious to oblige--even, so it struck her, to be bribed--especially Madame Ladoguin’s French maid, whose services she shared. Were they also spies, eager to tempt her to employ them, that they might carry a report to their mistress? An impulse, for which she could not account, prompted her to look at the money with which she had been furnished. It was all in gold, and every coin was marked with a tiny scratch in exactly the same place. Eirene gave up the idea of bribing the servants.

One attempt she did actually make, which might have ended more disastrously than it did. She was driving with Madame Ladoguin, and the latter had stopped the carriage at a shop in order to leave a message. Before the _cavass_ had time to return, she caught sight of a lady advancing towards the carriage.

“Pardon, dearest Princess!” she said, stepping out hastily, “but that is the Pannonian Consul-General’s wife, who has not been presented to you. I won’t inflict her on you, if you will permit me to go to her, for she is a sad bore.”

Not guessing that the lady in question was really the wife of the British Consul-General, and one of the persons in all Therma whom Madame Ladoguin least wished her to meet, Eirene looked round for some means of utilising this opportunity. The programme of a concert which was to take place for some charity lay on the seat opposite her, and she snatched it up and wrote on it in pencil:--

“The Princess Eirene Féofan will be glad to receive Captain Wylie at any time convenient to him. Let him see that his name is taken to her direct.”

She folded the paper, addressed it to the care of the British Consul-General, and beckoned to a beggar whom the absence of the _cavass_ had tempted to draw near the carriage. In her hand she held a gold piece.

“For Sir Frank Francis, at the Consulate of Great Britain,” she whispered in French. “This is for you, if you will take it to him.”

He looked up at her with greedy, uncomprehending eyes, and she waved him hastily away as Madame Ladoguin turned round. “The British Consul-General!” she repeated, in an agony, and saw that he understood her; but he shambled away down an alley in the opposite direction to that in which the British Consulate lay. Eirene never heard anything more of him or her message, but she realised gradually that she ought to be thankful she had lighted on a rogue too unsophisticated to double his gains by carrying it to the Scythian instead of the British Consul-General.