Again it was springtime--the spring of 1894. Two years had gone by
since that April night when Piers Otway suffered things unspeakable in
flesh and spirit, thinking that for him the heavens had no more
radiance, life no morrow. The memory was faint; he found it hard to
imagine that the loss of a woman he did not love could so have
afflicted him. Olga Hannaford--Mrs. Florio--was matter for a smile; he
hoped that he might some day meet her again, and take her hand with the
old friendliness, and wish her well.
He had spent the winter in St. Petersburg, and was making arrangements
for a visit to England, when one morning there came to him a letter
which made his eyes sparkle and his heart beat high with joy. In the
afternoon, having given more than wonted care to his dress, he set
forth from the lodging he occupied at the lower end of the Nevski
Prospect, and walked to the Hotel de France, near the Winter Palace,
where he inquired for Mrs. Borisoff. After a little delay, he was
conducted to a private sitting-room, where again he waited. On a table
lay two periodicals, at which he glanced, recognising with a smile
recent numbers of the _Nineteenth Century_ and the _Vyestnik Evropy_.
There entered a lady with a bright English face, a lady in the years
between youth and middle age, frank, gracious, her look of interest
speaking a compliment which Otway found more than agreeable.
"I have kept you waiting," she said, in a tone that dispensed with
formalities, "because I was on the point of going out when they brought
your card----"
"Oh, I am sorry----"
"But I am not. Instead of twaddle and boredom round somebody or other's
samovar, I am going to have honest talk under the chaperonage of an
English teapot--my own teapot, which I carry everywhere. But don't be
afraid; I shall not give you English tea. What a shame that I have been
here for two months without our meeting! I have talked about
you--wanted to know you. Look!"
She pointed to the periodicals which Piers had already noticed.
"No," she went on, checking him as he was about to sit down, "_that_ is
your chair. If you sat on the other, you would be polite and grave
and--like everybody else; I know the influence of chairs. That is the
chair my husband selects when he wishes to make me understand some
point of etiquette. Miss Derwent warned you, no doubt, of my
shortcomings in etiquette?"
"All she said to me," replied Piers, laughing, "was that you are very
much her friend."
"Well, that is true, I hope. Tell me, please; is the article in the
_Vyestnik_ your own Russian?"
"Not entirely. I have a friend named Korolevitch, who went through it
for me."
"Korolevitch? I seem to know that name. Is he, by chance, connected
with some religious movement, some heresy?"
"I was going to say I am sorry he is; yet I can't be sorry for what
honours the man. He has joined the Dukhobortsi; has sold his large
estate, and is devoting all the money to their cause. I'm afraid he'll
go to some new-world colony, and I shall see little of him henceforth.
A great loss to me."
Mrs. Borisoff kept her eyes upon him as he spoke, seeming to reflect
rather than to listen.
"I ought to tell you," she said, "that I don't know Russian.
Irene--Miss Derwent almost shamed me into working at it; but I am so
lazy--ah, so lazy! you are aware, of course, that Miss Derwent has
learnt it?"
"Has learnt Russian?" exclaimed Piers. "I didn't know--I had no
idea----"
"Wonderful girl! I suppose she thinks it a trifle."
"It's so long," said Otway, "since I had any news of Miss Derwent. I
can hardly consider myself one of her friends--at least, I shouldn't
have ventured to do so until this morning, when I was surprised and
delighted to have a letter from her about that _Nineteenth Century_
article, sent through the publishers. She spoke of you, and asked me to
call--saying she had written an introduction of me by the same post."
Mrs. Borisoff smiled oddly.
"Oh yes; it came. She didn't speak of the _Vyestnik_?"
"No."
"Yet she has read it--I happen to know. I'm sorry I can't. Tell me
about it, will you?"
The Russian article was called "New Womanhood in England." It began
with a good-tempered notice of certain novels then popular, and passed
on to speculations regarding the new ideals of life set before English
women. Piers spoke of it as a mere bit of apprentice work, meant rather
to amuse than as a serious essay.
"At all events, it's a success," said his listener. "One hears of it in
every drawing-room. Wonderful thing--you don't sneer at women. I'm told
you are almost on our side--if not quite. I've heard a passage read
into French--the woman of the twentieth century. I rather liked it."
"Not altogether?" said Otway, with humorous diffidence.
"Oh! A woman never quite likes an ideal of womanhood which doesn't
quite fit her notion of herself. But let us speak of the other thing,
in the _Nineteenth Century_--'The Pilgrimage to Kief.' For life,
colour, sympathy, I think it altogether wonderful. I have heard
Russians say that they couldn't have believed a foreigner had written
it."
"That's the best praise of all."
"You mean to go on with this kind of thing? You might become a sort of
interpreter of the two nations to each other. An original idea. The
everyday thing is to exasperate Briton against Russ, and Russ against
Briton, with every sort of cheap joke and stale falsehood. All the same
Mr. Otway, I'm bound to confess to you that I don't like Russia."
"No more do I," returned Piers, in an undertone. "But that only means,
I don't like the worst features of the Middle ages. The
Russian-speaking cosmopolitan whom you and I know isn't Russia; he
belongs to the Western Europe of to-day, his country represents Western
Europe of some centuries ago. Not strictly that, of course; we must
allow for race; but it's how one has to think of Russia."
Again Mrs. Borisoff scrutinised him as he spoke, averting her eyes at
length with an absent smile.
"Here comes my tutelary teapot," she said, as a pretty maid-servant
entered with a tray. "A phrase I got from Irene, by the bye--from Miss
Derwent, who laughs at my carrying the thing about in my luggage. She
has clever little phrases of that sort, as you know."
"Yes," fell from Piers, dreamily. "But it's so long since I heard her
talk."
When he had received his cup of tea, and sipped from it, he asked with
a serious look:
"Will you tell me about her?"
"Of course I will. But you must first tell me about yourself. You were
in business in London, I believe?"
"For about a year. Then I found myself with enough to live upon, and
came back to Russia. I had lived at Odessa----"
"You may presuppose a knowledge of what came before," interrupted Mrs.
Borisoff, with a friendly nod.
"I lived for several months with Korolevitch, on his estate near
Poltava. We used to talk--heavens! how we talked! Sometimes eight hours
at a stretch. I learnt a great deal. Then I wandered up and down
Russia, still learning."
"Writing, too?"
"The time hadn't come for writing. Korolevitch gave me no end of useful
introductions. I've had great luck on my travels."
"Pray, when did you make your studies of English women?"
Piers tried to laugh; declared he did not know.
"I shouldn't wonder if you generalise from one or two?" said his
hostess, letting her eyelids droop as she observed him lazily. "Do you
know Russian women as well?"
By begging for another cup of tea, and adding a remark on some other
subject, Piers evaded this question.
"And what are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Borisoff "Stay here, and
write more articles?"
"I'm going to England in a few days for the summer."
"That's what I think I shall do. But I don't know what part to go to.
Advise me, can you? Seaside--no; I don't like the seaside. Do you
notice how people--our kind of people, I mean--are losing their taste
for it in England? It's partly, I suppose, because of the excursion
train. One doesn't grudge the crowd its excursion train, but it's so
much nicer to imagine their blessedness than to see it. Or are you for
the other point of view?"
Otway gave an expressive look.
"That's right. Oh, the sham philanthropic talk that goes on in England!
How it relieves one to say flatly that one does _not_ love the
multitude!--No seaside, then. Lakes--no; Wales--no; Highlands--no.
Isn't there some part of England one would like if one discovered it?"
"Do you want solitude?" asked Piers, becoming more interested.
"Solitude? H'm!" She handed a box of cigarettes, and herself took one.
"Yes, solitude. I shall try to get Miss Derwent to come for a time. New
Forest--no, Please, please, do suggest! I'm nervous; your silence
teases me."
"Do you know the Yorkshire dales?" asked Otway, watching her as she
watched a nice little ring of white smoke from the end of her cigarette.
"No! That's an idea. It's your own country, isn't it?"
"But--how do you know that?"
"Dreamt it."
"I wasn't born there, but lived there as a child, and later a little.
You might do worse than the dales, if you like that kind of country.
Wensleydale, for instance. There's an old Castle, and a very
interesting one, part of it habitable, where you can get quarters."
"A Castle? Superb!"
"Where Queen Mary was imprisoned for a time, till she made an
escape----"
"Magnificent! Can I have the whole Castle to myself?"
"The furnished part of it, unless someone else has got it already for
this summer. There's a family, the caretakers, always in possession--if
things are still as they used to be."
"Write for me at once, will you? Write immediately! There is paper on
the desk."
Piers obeyed. Whilst he sat penning the letter, Mrs. Borisoff lighted a
second cigarette, her face touched with a roguish smile. She studied
Otway's profile for a moment; became grave; fell into a mood of
abstraction, which shadowed her features with weariness and melancholy.
Turning suddenly to put a question, Piers saw the change in her look,
and was so surprised that he forgot what he was going to say.
"Finished?" she asked, moving nervously in her chair.
When the letter was written, Mrs. Borisoff resumed talk in the same
tone as before.
"You have heard of Dr. Derwent's discoveries about diphtheria?-- That's
the kind of thing one envies, don't you think? After all, what can we
poor creatures do in this world, but try to ease each other's pain? The
man who succeeds in _that_ is the man I honour."
"I too," said Piers. "But he is lost sight of, nowadays, in comparison
with the man who invents a new gun or a new bullet."
"Yes--the beasts!" exclaimed Mrs. Borisoff, with a laugh. "What a
world! I'm always glad I have no children. But you wanted to speak, not
about Dr. Derwent, but Dr. Derwent's daughter."
Piers bent forward, resting his chin on his hand.
"Tell me about her--will you?"
"There's not much to tell. You knew about the broken-off marriage?"
"I knew it _was_ broken off."
"Why, that's all anyone knows, except the two persons concerned. It
isn't our business. The world talks far too much about such
things--don't you think? when we are civilised, there'll be no such
things as public weddings, and talk about anyone's domestic concerns
will be the grossest impertinence. That's an _obiter dictum_. I was
going to say that Irene lives with her father down in Kent. They left
Bryanston Square half a year after the affair. They wander about the
Continent together, now and then. I like that chumming of father and
daughter; it speaks well for both."
"When did you see her last?"
"About Christmas. We went to a concert together. That's one of the
things Irene is going in for--music. When I first knew her, she didn't
seem to care much about it, though she played fairly well."
"I never heard her play," fell from Piers in an undertone.
"No; she only did to please her father now and then. It's a mental and
moral advance, her new love of music. I notice that she talks much less
about science, much more about the things one really likes--I speak for
myself. Well, it's just possible I have had a little influence there. I
confess my inability to chat about either physic or physics. It's weak,
of course, but I have no place in your new world of women."
"You mistake, I think," said Piers. "That ideal has nothing to do with
any particular study. It supposes intelligence, that's all."
"So much the better. You must write about it in English; then we'll
debate. By the bye, if I go to your Castle, you must come down to show
me the country."
"I should like to."
"Oh, that's part of the plan. If we don't get the Castle, you must find
some other place for me. I leave it in your hands--with an apology for
my impudence."
After a pause, during which each of them mused smiling, they began to
talk of their departure for England. Otway would go direct in a few
days' time; Mrs. Borisoff had to travel a long way round, first of all
accompanying her husband to the Crimea, on a visit to relatives. She
mentioned her London hotel, and an approximate date when she might be
heard of there.
"Get the Castle if you possibly can," were her words as they parted. "I
have set my heart on the Castle."
"So have I," said Piers, avoiding her look.
And Mrs. Borisoff laughed.