_MADAME’S DEATH._
The next day I went for a drive with Mrs. Whitney along the Court Quay
and the Nevsky Prospect, and past the Seguin house, which had an air of
being shut up. The old porter was, however, at his post, and in the
third story a window was open, and a bird cage standing in it, with a
bird straining his little throat with his song, while near him was a
vase of flowers.
“Somebody is home,” I thought. “Zaidee, probably, and that is her room.
If so, she will find me.”
Then I wondered if Chance was there, and, like a foolish young
schoolgirl, I called his name twice as we passed the house. There was an
answering roar from some quarter—a rush of feet and a tussle with the
porter, whose voice was very high, mingled with another, which I
recognized as Zaidee’s, and then, when we were some distance from the
house, the dog broke away and came rushing after us, with barks of
delight. He had recognized my voice, and was in hot pursuit. I knew it
would not do for him to overtake us, as I didn’t know what he might do
in his excitement, and Mrs. Whitney was afraid of dogs.
“Drive fast, and don’t let him overtake us,” I said to the coachman, who
had turned his head, and needed no second bidding to hurry, so that it
was now a race between the horse and the dog, and the horse beat, for it
seemed to dawn on Chance that he was doing a ridiculous thing, and he
began to slacken his speed, while Zaidee came running, bareheaded and
bare-armed, along the Nevsky till she reached the animal, and, seizing
him by the mane, led him back to the house.
I knew then that Zaidee would find us very soon; nor was I mistaken, for
that evening, as it began to grow dark, Mrs. Browne appeared at my door,
saying there was a young person who wished to see me.
“I think she is some lady’s maid, or upper servant,” she said. “I
thought she might have some message, and asked her, but she said no; she
came to see Miss Harding—that you were her friend. She is in the
kitchen. Will you see her there?”
“It’s Zaidee,” I said. “I’m sure it’s Zaidee. Bring her in here.”
“Here in your sitting room?” Mrs. Browne asked, with a look of surprise;
and I knew that, with her blue blood and the “e” at the end of her name,
she did not approve of what she probably attributed to American
democracy. “Well, if you say so,” she said, and in a moment Zaidee came
in, taller than when I last saw her, and improved in every way.
There was still a pleasant air about her, but there was also an air as
if she had lived with cultivated people, and profited by it. She was in
mourning for some friend, and my heart gave a great thump with fear of
what she might tell me. In her hand were the flowers I had seen, in a
window of the Seguin house.
“I brought these to you,” she said, putting them into a vase which stood
on a small table in the center of the room.
She was very quick and handy in what she did, and, I could understand
why Madame Seguin liked her so much. I was about to ask her some
questions, after thanking her for the flowers, when there came upon the
door the same pounding and scratching and whining I had heard twice
before.
“Chance!” I exclaimed. “He came with you. Let him in. I must see him!”
I thought Zaidee looked frightened, as she cast hurried glances around
the room.
“Chance! The wretch!” she said. “I didn’t know he followed me. I must
send him home.”
“No; let him in,” I insisted.
Mrs. Browne now appeared, armed with a cane and looking very scared.
“There’s a brute of a dog as big as a cow pounding at the door enough to
tear it down. Did you bring him? If so, send him home at once. I will
not have him here,” she said to Zaidee.
“But, Mrs. Browne,” I interposed, “he is an old friend of mine, and
harmless as a kitten. He has come to see me.”
The pounding and pawing was very loud by this time. Chance was in
earnest. He had heard my voice, and he meant to come in. Opening the
door just a crack, Mrs. Browne stood behind it, out of harm’s way,
while, with a bound, Chance was in the room, making the circuit of it
first, and with his bushy tail knocking over a chair and upsetting the
little table, which went down with a crash, taking with it the vase of
flowers, which rolled on the carpet, while the water followed in little
puddles.
Having paid his respects to the room, Chance turned to me, and, putting
both paws on my shoulders, looked me steadily in the face a moment, then
dropped his head on my neck, with a satisfied bark. Mrs. Browne was in
the midst of the débris, with her cane upraised to strike the dog; but,
when she saw him with his paws around my neck, her jaw dropped, and her
cane dropped with it.
“Well, if that don’t beat anything!” she said. “Ain’t you afraid of
him?”
“Afraid! No,” I answered, putting his paws from me, but keeping my hand
on his mane, as I thought I saw in him signs of another circuit around
the room.
“Where’s Alex? She must clear up this litter,” Mrs. Browne said, and
Zaidee answered, quickly: “Don’t call her, nor anyone. I can do it.”
But Mrs. Browne was bent upon having Alex, and went in quest of her,
while Zaidee stopped in her work of picking up the flowers and bits of
the vase and laid her hand very firmly on Chance’s collar. Why, I did
not then know. He was quiet enough with me, but Zaidee held him with a
strong grip until Mrs. Browne came back with another maid, whom she
ordered to wipe up the water and remove the table, a leg of which had
fallen out. I had a suspicion that it was just ready to fall, for it had
swayed a little when I placed it in the center of the room for the lamp,
which, fortunately, had not been put upon it.
“Alex has gone to bed, with a bad headache, and I told her to stay
there, poor thing,” Mrs. Browne said, and instantly Zaidee’s hand
relaxed its hold on Chance’s collar, and she seemed relieved as she
dropped into a chair.
“Whose brute is this?” Mrs. Browne inquired; and Zaidee replied:
“Monsieur Seguin’s. You’ve heard of the Seguins, on the Nevsky?”
Mrs. Browne shook her head. The Seguins were as strange to her as the
Scholaskies.
“Are they nihilists?” she asked, sharply; and I replied: “No, indeed!
Madame Seguin is as bitter against them as you are, and her son is a
gendarme.”
“Oh!” she said. “And he owns this beast? Seems to me I have heard of
him. He can track anybody, if he has once known them and smelled their
clothes or hands? He seems very fond of you.”
“Yes,” I answered; “I believe he’d do anything I told him to do, even
fly at you!”
“Oh, good Lord!” and she threw up both her hands, and, picking up her
cane, left, as I hoped she would, for I wished to be alone with Zaidee.
Mrs. Whitney, who was not strong, and very nervous, had gone to her room
at the first sound of Chance at the door, and so I had the girl to
myself as soon as the maid had wiped the floor and left the room, with a
look at Zaidee which made me think they were not strangers.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked, when we were alone.
“Alex told me. I met her last night,” was her answer.
“Do you know Alex?” I asked, in some surprise.
“Slightly,” replied Zaidee. “Everybody does who ever saw her once, she
looks so queer; but she is a good old woman. And then, you know, you
called Chance when you were opposite our house. I saw you, and we had a
great tussle with the dog—the porter and I—to keep him in. The porter
fell down, and swore so hard and I laughed so that Chance got away and
followed you. I did not mean to have him come with me to-night, and
didn’t know he had till I heard him at the door. He is hard to manage
when his master is away. He is in Moscow, and the house is like a tomb
without him.”
I was conscious of a feeling of happiness in knowing that Zaidee’s black
was not worn for Michel, and my next question was for Madame Seguin.
“Dead and buried,” was the response, while Zaidee tried to look sorry.
“Dead!” I repeated. “When did she die?”
“Last winter, at Monte Carlo. We went there early in November,” Zaidee
said, beginning her story, and surprising me with the good language she
used.
Madame had certainly taken a great deal of pains to teach her, and
Zaidee had been quick to learn.
“Madame was in her usual good spirits,” she said, “and in a hurry to get
to Monte Carlo. She played every night, in the same place, at the same
table, and lost at first; then she began to win, and played so high that
I was frightened, and tried to stop her.
“‘Let me be,’ she said. ‘My good angel is helping me,’ and I guess he
was, or something else, she had such luck, and won more than she had
ever done before. Then she began to lose, and, when I asked where the
good angel was now, she answered, ‘Gone to heaven, and the devil has
taken his place; but I’ll outwit him yet.’
“I believe the devil was there, for she lost every franc she had gained,
and I led her from the room a ruined woman. She was sick three days;
then she rallied, and, in spite of all I could say, she went back to the
Casino.
“She had grown so old in the few days; her face was like a corpse, and
she was bent over and sat huddled up, wrapped in furs like a mummy, and
said she was going to break the bank or die. It was awful to see her, so
white and trembly, her head shaking and her hands like claws as she put
down her money, small sums at first; then, as she won, more and more and
more, winning all the time, till people stopped to look at the old
Russian woman breaking the bank.
“I don’t know but she would have done it if she hadn’t got dizzy with
the awful big lot she made at her last venture. The croupier looked
surprised, as if he wondered how long he could hold out. But madame’s
time had come. She’d made her last play, and fell back against me, with
a cry, ‘Zaidee! Zaidee! I can’t breathe!’
“We got her into the open air, and up to the hotel and in bed, with
hot-water bags around her, for she was cold and stiff as a stone, and
clinched tight in her hand was some gold she was going to put on the
table when the spell took her. I pried it out, and she snarled at me
like a dog, and talked all night of breaking the bank. She was much
better the next day, and made me figure up how much she had made, and
she looked so queer, sitting up in bed, shaking all over, with her teeth
out and her nightcap on, chuckling when I told her the amount.
“‘You have been a good girl,’ she said to me. ‘You’ve helped me win many
times, when I would have put my pile somewhere else. I’m going to make
you a present, and then make my will.’
“She gave me—how much do you guess?”
“A hundred rubles?” I ventured, in reply.
“A hundred!” Zaidee exclaimed. “A thousand! And she counted it all out
and handed it to me. Then she said, ‘That is your _dot_ when you marry.’
Then she asked for pen and paper, and made her will. Everything here
belongs to her son. She’d nothing to will but the money she had won at
Monte Carlo, and this, after a few rubles to each of the servants, she
gave to monsieur, on condition that he did not marry _that woman_. ‘He
will know what woman,’ she said. ‘I’ve kept him from her a good while,’
If he married her, the money was to go to some charities.”
As Zaidee said “that woman,” she gave me a knowing look, and I felt a
chill run down my back, for I was sure I knew who was meant by “that
woman!” and that she had thrust out her hand to strike me from her
grave. She need not have worried, I thought. He does not want that
woman, and she does not want him.
“She was to have her will executed the next day,” Zaidee continued, “but
she grew worse that night, and raved about monsieur, and breaking the
bank, which she meant to do the next day, but just before morning she
died. The bank had broken her. I did not think it worth while for
monsieur to come all that distance for her, and I took her home alone. I
sewed my money into my petticoat, for fear of losing it. They put madame
in a lead coffin, and we started. I had always gone second-class in the
train as her maid, but, with a thousand rubles in my skirt, I could
afford something better. I came first-class, and she as baggage—and
liked it!
“They gave her a big funeral, with piles of flowers, and nobody cried
but Chance, who was shut up in his kennel, to keep him out of the way.
They gave the money to monsieur, and I handed him the will, which she
had given me to keep till it was signed and witnessed.
“I saw him read it, with a queer look on his face, and then he threw it
into the fire, and watched it burn to ashes. It was no good, of course,
anyway, and the money was his. I am quite sure he has given every ruble
of it in charity, and he seems like a different man. Everything is
different, house and all.”
“Who keeps it?” I asked.
“We all keep it,” said Zaidee; “but I do the most of the ordering. He
wished me to wear black, because his mother liked me so much, and he
gave me my clothes, and we get on fine, with no dread of anybody. I told
him about the money madame gave me, and he takes care of it, and sees to
the interest. I feel quite rich!”
“Do you ever hear from Carl?” I asked.
I saw a flush on her face, as she answered: “He wrote to me once. He is
on a farm, and doing well, and is respected, he says. He wants me to
write to him. Do you think it would do?”
I knew what she meant, and, contrasting the tall, well-dressed,
well-mannered girl with the young man whom I only remembered as trying
to snatch my bag from me, I didn’t know whether it would “do” or not.
“Do you care for him?” I asked; and she replied: “Not much. I used to
like him when I was a little girl, and he was always kind—ready to
divide his last crust. Many a time I have warned him when the police
were coming, and once I hid him from them, and _lied_. How I did lie for
him! We were both brought up in dirty mud puddles. Mine were dirtier
than his, but I think some of the mud has been rubbed off me; don’t
you?”
“Yes, a great deal,” I answered, thinking of the tangle-haired girl I
had first seen on the Nevsky, barefooted, and bare-legged. “You are
greatly improved,” I said; “and possibly Carl is the same. Write for him
to come to St. Petersburg. You can soon tell if it will ‘do.’”
She shook her head. “Carl mustn’t come here,” she said. “The old places
and friends might tempt him. He has a kind of itching at the end of his
fingers. I have thought I’d like a trip to Siberia, and see how the land
lies. I have money, you know.”
She spoke with the air of a millionaire, and I think her thousand rubles
made her feel like one.
“That is better,” I said; and, as I saw her making a move to go, I
detained her, and, speaking very low, said: “Zaidee, you know
everything. Have you ever heard of the Scholaskies since Ivan was sent
to Siberia?”
Zaidee’s face grew pale for a moment, and her eyes were unnaturally
bright, as she looked at me and then at the door opening into the hall.
It was shut, but under it was a wide crack, where it had shrunk,
admitting light from the hall, and across that bar of light it seemed to
me a shadow fell. Zaidee saw it, and, to my surprise, asked if I spoke
French.
“I picked up quite a little in Monte Carlo. It came easy. I speak it
some, and understand it better. If madame is willing, we will try that
language. Mrs. Browne does not understand it, and can listen all night.
It is like her, I know.”
She nodded toward the door, where the shadow had moved. Some one _was_
there, and I said: “I understand you. Go on.”
She spoke very low, and in very bad French, but I comprehended, and my
blood curdled as I listened.
“Madame Scholaskie had died within a few months after reaching Siberia,”
she said. “Sophie—the real Sophie—was with her when she died, and then
went back to Paris, leaving Ivan alone, and after a while he escaped,
and he is in the city, and has been over a year, and has cheated the
police every time, so they didn’t dream he was here till lately, when
they learned it somehow, and I believe that is why they have sent for M.
Seguin to come home. They have faith that he can find anybody. But he’ll
not find Ivan! No, _ma’am_!”
She spoke in a low whisper, with her head bent toward me, and a strange
light in her black eyes.
“Zaidee,” I said, “do you know where Ivan is?”
She did not answer me, only her eyes grew larger and brighter and more
defiant.
“Have you seen him?” was my next question.
“Yes, at some of our meetings; he speaks, and we believe all he says. He
has a wonderful way with him. You ought to hear him. He’d make you
believe your black gown was white. That’s why they are afraid of him and
want to get him again.”
“Zaidee,” I said, “what do they want—the nihilists, the agitators?”
“A different government,” she answered, promptly. “One more like yours,
and the English. One in which we have a voice. We have no wish to shed
blood, nor harm the czar—the weak, timid man, ruled by the grand dukes.
We want some rights to make us free and intelligent and educated, like
the poor in your country. Instead of that, we are almost as much slaves
as we were before the emancipation. You ought to see the poverty and
misery on the farms in the country. We are held down with an iron hand;
but it must open—it will open—and Russia be free!”
She was very eloquent, and showed the effect of the meetings she had
attended, and where Ivan probably charmed the people with his eloquence.
“Where do you meet?” I asked.
She was silent a moment. Then she laughed till the tears ran down her
cheeks.
“I must tell you,” she said. “It is too good to keep. Every one of
monsieur’s servants believes as I do, and we met once in madame’s
drawing room, when monsieur was in Moscow, and there was nothing to be
feared from him. I think it was too bad, and wonder madame did not
appear to us, she hated us so. The room was packed, and Ivan spoke, and
such a speech! But he advised us never to meet there again. We should
respect the dead, he said, and it was a wrong to Monsieur Seguin. I
think we are ashamed of it, but it seemed a big joke at the time. We
shut Chance in his kennel, so he wouldn’t see any of them, and recognize
them again, especially Ivan.”
“When was this?” I asked, with some sternness in my tone.
“Last night,” she answered, after a little hesitancy, and suddenly I
remembered how late old Alex was out.
“Was Alex there?” I asked. “Is she one of you?”
Zaidee’s face was a study for a moment; then she said:
“Yes, Alex was there—that queer-looking old woman! It makes me laugh to
think of her. But I have talked too much,” she continued. “Mrs. Browne
would not keep Alex an hour if she knew she sometimes came to our
meetings, but I can trust you; and now I must go.”
She put her hand on Chance, who had been sleeping at my feet, and went
noiselessly to the door, opening it so swiftly that Chance nearly fell
over good Mrs. Browne, who was in a crouching position, and had not time
to straighten.
“Oh, my conscience!” she exclaimed, picking herself up. “You here yet? I
was just coming to see if the ladies wanted anything before shutting up
the house.”
Zaidee said nothing, except “Good-night,” as she left the house, with
her hand on Chance’s collar, for he showed signs of not being very
happy, and growled a little at Mrs. Browne. I knew the woman had been
listening, and knew, too, that she could not have understood Zaidee’s
French, which was spoken very low and sometimes in a whisper. Ivan was
safe, so far as she was concerned.
“I hope that girl is not a plotter,” she said, as she brought me the
fresh water I asked for.
“She is in Monsieur Seguin’s employ, and he is a gendarme. That ought to
vouch for her,” I answered, feeling myself a plotter and hypocrite and
everything bad as I went to bed, but not to sleep.
Ivan escaped, and in the city, and making speeches in Madame Seguin’s
drawing room! It made my head whirl, and I wondered how it would end. He
would be captured, of course, and sent back, or to the fortress, or the
knout. I shuddered and grew sick as I thought of it. Where was he, and
what was there about this girl Zaidee that she should know so much and
be in the thick of everything, as she seemed to be?
I laughed to myself as I thought of a nihilist meeting in Madame
Seguin’s drawing room, but resolved to speak seriously to Zaidee on the
subject the next time I saw her. She was carrying matters with too high
a hand in her master’s house, and reminded me of the lines about putting
a beggar on horseback.
I could understand now, I thought, why Ivan had never answered Katy’s
letter. He had left Siberia, perhaps, before it reached there, or he had
been too busy taking care of himself to think of writing. He had escaped
detection for more than a year, and I began at last to have some faith
in Zaidee’s assurance that he would never be caught. I hoped not. I
could not think of him hiding here and there, with this cloud on his
young life, unless he escaped to America, and I was not quite sure
whether I wanted him there or not. I had never known him as a man. It
was Sophie—a handsome young girl, with a pleasing personality and
gracious address—who always came before me, and it was her voice that
was sounding in my ears when I at last fell into a troubled sleep just
as daylight was beginning to show in my room.