There be twin crowns, whose kingly dower
Forbids to fail or swerve,
Borne by twin angels, Love and Power,
And writ thereon, “I serve.”
“Ah, yes, Princess, I pity you with all my heart! Imagine hiding
your charm, your beauty, in a prison like Tverna--excuse me,
Basil-Vassilièvitch--but you know that Tverna, magnificent though it
be, _is_ a prison nine months out of the year ... a grand prison, I
admit, but still a jail--a place to distract one with its
loneliness.”
Countess Chouróff, sitting bolt upright in her chair of state, was
heading her hospitable table in a dazzling haze of jewels that
outlined her meager person at every edge.
“She reminds me of a wire sign illuminated by electricity,” thought
Basil, who sat on her right hand.
“You are very severe, Vassilissa-Andrièvna, very severe indeed, to
my birthplace!” he said, smiling.
“Severe! Hear this miscreant talk!” she appealed to the company,
nodding a tiaraed coiffure until the gigantic diamonds and emeralds
spiking it in every direction flashed again. “But men are like that
... they do not understand our tenderer natures. My poor husband was
identically the same--God rest his soul!” She crossed herself
scrupulously with a bony yellow hand loaded with enormous gems. “Duty
was his eternal rallying-cry--bless him! It was our duty to vegetate
in the wilds at his side until it became imperative for our daughters
to be presented, and then the grumbles, the lamentations that
ensued! Dear! Dear! One would have sworn he was on his way to be
crucified. I assure you, Princess, that if you yield at the beginning
to marital tyranny you will never again be able to call your soul
your own.”
Laurence, in all the panoply of a great mondaine at a feast given in
her honor, was somehow or other entirely out of it. This was
something never dreamt of before: a dinner at one of the most ancient
houses of a far-off Russian province, carried out with the pompous
ceremonial and curious discomforts of past days, in a banqueting-hall
spacious enough to shelter an army and evidently open to all the
winds of heaven. It was raining heavily outside, with no promise of
better things to come, and from her place she could see files of
servants in full livery running to and fro from the kitchen--built
_à la mode d’il-y-a longtemps_, in the middle of the inner
court--bearing covered silver dishes, all adrip with the diluvian
downpour. The majordomo, stiff as a ramrod, advanced as far as the
edge of the glass marquise every five minutes or so, to convey his
orders in a withering autocratic voice which grew sweet as honey the
minute he re-entered the banqueting-hall, and the four butlers in
attendance marched and countermarched with the omnipresent lacqueys,
all attired in the Chouróff scarlet and gold, like captains heading
small detachments of troops. What manner of country was this?
Another surprising anachronism--at least so it appeared to her--was
the fact that albeit this was an occasion when, to use the French
simile, the little dishes had been rammed into the big ones (_les
petits plats dans les grands_), yet the feudal custom of “guests
below the salt” was strictly adhered to. Indeed, the implacable
etiquette of the House of Chouróff separated the festive board into
two exact parts, one reserved for ceremoniously invited gentlemen and
ladies, the other for the poor relatives, the hangers-on, and the
household proper--comprising tutors, governesses, the Polish
land-steward, a host of lady companions, another of penniless noble
damsels awaiting the Countess’s good pleasure to obtain a small
“dot” from her generosity, the almoner, the medical officer of the
district, and other functionaries of similar importance.
“What an idea!” Laurence reflected. “What extravagant barbarism and
outlandishness! How they would laugh at home if they saw this.” Laugh
she did not, however. She was impressed, in spite of her silent
disapproval, and a little frightened, too. This masterful woman in
claret-hued velvet, who led her people with something like a
field-marshal’s bâton, and managed, however, to inspire them with
a curious mixture of passionate devotion and abject terror, remained
a mysterious and awesome power to her. Also Countess Chouróff was by
no means dazzled by her, Laurence’s, high rank and fortune, for she
was absurdly wealthy herself, and a very great lady, notwithstanding
her oddities and extravagances of speech; a personage of weight and
power in the land such as Laurence could never hope to be, and one
with whom the new-comer could not, as she had done with almost
everybody elsewhere, pose and posture, which, of course, vexed the
bride not a little.
“You can never realize,” Madame Chouróff was saying now, “what a
trip to Petersburg meant then, Princess! Oh, it was a voyage indeed!
We looked like a veritable Noah’s ark procession, let me tell you,
setting off from here after the snow began to bear. _Berlines_ swung
on runners, and _kibitkas_ and _fourgons_--preceded by couriers on
horseback or in light wagons--_tèlégas_--and what not? A noise, a
clamor, when getting under way, of which you can have no conception!
Of course we had to carry with us half of the _batterie de
cuisine_--how else would we have fared on the road?--and the _chef_
with his scullions, his silver saucepans! How he would swear over
the portable stoves to be used _en route_, at the miserable
post-houses!” She laughed heartily, creating thereby a veritable
pyrotechnic commotion with her jewels.
“I remember once when we were snowed in, stuck fast between two
stations--post-stations, you understand--flakes as big as swans’
wings falling, falling, falling in a dense curtain. Four of my
children were almost infants then, eight and nine years old, I think.
Let me see, was it the twins?... I can’t remember; perhaps Zina and
Dimitri, Nikola and Sônitzkà; it does not matter, however. Anyhow,
they were asleep in their father’s traveling-carriage, at full
length, so that he had to get out and join me and the girls--four of
them, mind you--that made six of us pressed together like sardines,
eating on our laps from the provision-baskets, and swallowing red-hot
tea brewed by the chief of our kitchens beneath a lean-to of pine
branches in the very throat of the tempest. Behind the _berline_ the
maid’s rumble was getting full of snow. It was droll! You must
understand the _berline_ was honeycombed with drawers and
receptacles, and there were supplementary sacks of leather attached
everywhere. As to my ‘sleeper,’ it did not boast so many
appendages and _cachettes_; it was much lighter, and lined with--what
do you think?--with rose-colored satin--a conceit of my poor husband.
It had served us on our honeymoon. And that night he was in a vile
humor, thanks to the fact that for the first time in his existence he
had been deprived of his indispensable _rastigaï_--marrow-filled
_patés_--since you do not know Russian, Princess. Oh, but we had
ices!... Don’t laugh, Basil-Vassilièvitch! That cook was a pearl,
and with the aid of essences of various fruits and powdered nuts, of
which he always took a quantity along, he manufactured a sort of
Nesselrode in little moulds. Delicious they were, too, but they did
not appease my poor husband’s wrath concerning those _rastigaï_.
He told the butler some impatient things when he brought the
Nesselrode shapes on a frozen tray, and repented afterward, for he
was consummately golden-hearted. I recall that he gave him ten
_rubles_--gold--the next morning. We left the _berline_ to the girls
after that, and took refuge, he and I, in my ‘sleeper.’ He became
quite too amiable then, poor fellow, also he was very handsome, an
all-conquering mustache--a leg!--men wore knee-breeches still--but I
was adamant. I had to punish him for his previous evil mood, and so I
threatened to send him to sleep in the cook’s shelter. Ah, the days
of our youth ... how often we regret them!”
Laurence’s amazement knew no bounds when she heard the bursts of
laughter that followed at her end of the table--echoed _pianissimo_
by those below the salt. All this was hardly decent, she thought, for
she had a singular fund of prudishness concealed far down below many
other more agreeable defects. This old woman, with her angular
shoulders, her corded neck and parchmented skin, seemed to her own
youth positively odious as she sat enthroned there, flying her arms
and bewailing her lost opportunities. She wondered at Basil, who
seemed quite touched, and patted almost filially one of the flat
wrists, crowded to the elbow with _porte-bonheurs_, that reposed for
a fleeting second on the cloth beside him. To Laurence the deeps of
those wonderful sapphire eyes that had been always the Countess’s
sole but very potent beauty, and were still so infinitely expressive
and youthful, said nothing at all, although they were just now not
quite free from a certain telltale moisture. “An old absurdity,” she
called the great lady in her own mind, and, like the Nesselrode tray
of the defunct Count, she froze up through and through, becoming with
every new experience more hostile to the foreign atmosphere
surrounding her.
The farther she penetrated into the heart of Russia the less she
comprehended or liked her new country. Indeed, slowly but surely a
sort of abhorrence for everything pertaining to it was rising within
her; and her hard face and unsympathetic expression made one young
officer on leave murmur to another young officer on leave, who sat
beside him at table that night: “I say, Voïnóff, Palitzin’s
efforts to marry a foreigner are all in vain. He’s caught a Tartar,
after all!”
The other, whose uniform glittered like sunshine, and whose name was
the vernacular for “Warrior,” was blessed with one of those meek
faces that are greatly confirmed in that expression by sleek,
butter-hued hair rigidly parted all the way down the middle, as was
his. Also he had a habit of blushing all over his scalp, which made
him resemble for minutes at a time what the Italians frivolously call
_un piccolo porcellino_. He indulged in one of these manifestations
at his comrade’s words, adding thereto a smothered squeal of
delight, which completed the likeness very neatly.
“I catch you laughing at me, Yégor-Alexandréitch!” Countess
Chouróff called out to him. “You think my little stories are not
befitting this noble assemblage!”
“It ... it is Zakbarièf!” choked the youth, getting pinker and
pinker under his pale, silky thatch. “He is so funny!”
Zakbarièf tried to protest, but vainly, for Madame Chouróff had
already launched herself into another anecdote, and he relapsed into
silence, bestowing dagger-like looks upon his grinning brother-at-arms.
Dessert was approaching, heralded by turreted confections, reminding
one involuntarily of the glorious ice palace that every winter is
built on the Neva; by pyramids of sweet cakes and transparent
edifices of jelly which it took two men to carry. According to
Russian fashion, the fruit and bonbons and minor toothsomenesses had
had their place on the cloth from the beginning of dinner, cincturing
with their appetizing battalions the masses of flowers and feathery
foliage forming the center and wings of that opulent display.
Lucullus dining with Lucullus could have devised nothing more truly
complete.
“You are bored, madame? You think our _agapes_ too ostentatious?” The
question was asked by Laurence’s left-hand neighbor, whom it must
be admitted she, in her fault-finding and sulky mood, had absolutely
neglected, as she had also her right-hand one, who, by the way, was a
corpulent Chouróff, more interested in his plate than in pretty
women. To be sure, when the general presentations had been gone
through she had not heard either name, and, as if perversely
inclined, the little dinner-cards inscribed with them had lain prone
on their faces between her cover and theirs. Yet the speaker was not
a man to be easily overlooked. Tall, slender, without being in the
least thin, he had the most interesting face imaginable: a delicately
aquiline face, barred by a long, slender mustache inclining to a
light frost of grayness, which was repeated in his thick, short-cut
hair. Deep under well-marked brows were what could well have been
called, after the fashion of lady-novelists, “eagle’s eyes,” so
penetrating were they, and he wore his dress-coat like a hauberk--a
soldier every inch of him, if out of uniform--a Grand Seigneur of
olden times in modern mufti.
“Not precisely bored,” drawled Laurence, turning languidly toward
him. “But a little surprised at what I see. Surely, monsieur, you are
not a Russian?”
“I am not, madame, and sometimes I regret it, for they are a great
people over here.”
“Think so?”
“Yes, madame, I do, from the bottom of my heart, else I would not
have married my wife.”
The taunt did not pierce Laurence’s thick vanity and self-righteousness.
“You are wedded to a Russian?” she asked _du bout des lèvres_.
“I am afraid you did not catch my name a while ago, madame. As a
matter of fact, I have the honor of being closely related to you--by
marriage. I am Salvières.”
“_The_ Duke!” Laurence exclaimed, with sudden attention, and with the
same animation she had displayed when the “Gamin” had mentioned
Salvières to her at Plenhöel; for he was a very great personage
indeed, even to Laurence’s colossal ignorance of the intimate
lining of affairs, both social and diplomatic.
He smiled amusedly. “_The_ Duke!” he said. “Why, yes, I suppose I can
call myself one of the unfortunates so hampered, although why you
flatteringly emphasized the article I can’t imagine. A greater
distinction is mine, as being now your brother-in-law, very much at
your service, _belle petite madame_!”
“But where is your wife?”
“Alas! at home, where an incredible variety of occupations detains
her.”
“What do you call ‘at home’ when you are here?” she asked.
“Madame de Salvières has pretty nearly as many estates as Basil.”
Salvières laughed. He had a charming laugh, disclosing beautifully
regular teeth. “My dear wife’s castle of Palitzinovna--a
prolongation of Tverna, so to speak. We are very fond of it.”
“How can you, the owner of Salvières, bear to abide in Russia?”
Laurence insisted, with deplorable bad taste.
“Decidedly you do not like the White Empire!” he said. “May I be
allowed to give you a small paternal hint, which is, do not let Basil
notice this too much, or Tatiana, either. She is quick as a flash of
lightning, is my blonde beloved, and would resent such heresy, even
more than her brother would.”
“Heresy! I cannot believe that you mean what you say. I hate Russia,
and I don’t mind who knows it, Monsieur de Salvières.”
“My name, dear madame, to family and friends is Jean--one of Biblical
simplicity and easy to remember. May I venture to hope that you will
in future deign to use it? Moreover, my character, undistinguished
though it be by any startling virtues, is simple also, and I always
mean what I say, even if I do not always consider it a duty to say
_all_ I mean. That is why I spoke of heresy just now. Your new
country is delightful, as you will speedily find out for yourself.”
“You really like Russia, then?” she questioned, helping herself
mechanically to peach-ice. “Yes, Cyprus,” she said to the footman
behind her.
“I do, very, very much; and so will you when you know it better, I
assure you. It is an attaching land, peopled by splendid races, one
and all; a place of great deeds, of courageous lives, of extraordinary
intellects, talents, and more than talents--achievements. The
_mujiks_, I think, are unique in their brave placidity; but they are
fighters, too, and mighty good ones, when occasion requires. Look at
what Skobèléff could do with them! The nobles are by no means the
profligate gamblers and feather-brained spendthrifts they are often
supposed to be, but large-hearted gentlemen, devoted to their very
arduous duties; and as to the women, rich or poor, patrician,
peasant, or bourgeois--you must pardon me if I find it difficult to
find words adequate to translate my opinion of them, for they are
more than women; companions in the true sense of the word, comrades,
counselors--and precious ones at that!”
“This is sheer enthusiasm! How long have you felt all this? Since
your marriage?”
Salvières smiled. “No,” he said, softly, “ever since as a lad I came
to visit Basil’s grandmother at Tverna--years ago. She was the most
exquisite creature one could imagine. Lovely, clever, able, wise,
sweet as a flower, and so comprehending, so full of mercy and
charity; the courage and spirit of a knight--perfection! Indeed, her
personal magnetism and charm were so great that every man who
approached her fell in love with her. And how gracefully she used to
transform them into lifelong friends! Physically she was a wonder:
little hands and feet that were a sculptor’s dream, an oval face
lighted by violet eyes--yes, violet as the petals of deep larkspur; a
mass of undulating hair--white as nacre at thirty, and almost as
iridescent, it was so bright--and a poise, a _maintien_. I could
become lyrical when I think of that exquisite woman, whom no one has
ever quite resembled, excepting, perhaps, Marguerite de Plenhöel.
Strangely enough, later on the ‘Gamin’ will assuredly be a second
Véra Petrovna Chemensky. Qualities, manners, virtues, and talents
are the same already, and even as she is now she always reminds me
strongly of her.”
Laurence was looking wide-eyed at him. Was Marguerite de Plenhöel
going to pursue her even here? Extremely vexed, she curtly retorted:
“You are lyrical enough, I assure you, to suit any taste, even the
famous ‘Gamin’s’!”
Salvières twirled the ends of his mustache with a familiar gesture.
He felt annoyed, not only on account of the slighting reference to
Marguerite, not only because he was not accustomed to be spoken to in
that peevish manner, but because he was becoming aware of a decided
sense of disquiet concerning Basil’s future happiness--Basil, who
was as near and dear to him as if he had been his blood brother. Jean
de Salvières had not expected to find in the twenty-year-old bride
of his brother-in-law--who had been described to him as a well-born
beauty--so pert and altogether uninhabitable a nature. Beautiful she
certainly was--of that there could not be the faintest doubt--but her
self-assertion, her cutting way of saying things, and her lack of
punctilio, did not impress him as befitting so young a woman, and
once again he tugged impatiently at his mustache. He was too frank to
attempt playing her at the end of a line with the cunning and
_savoir-faire_ of an angler (although this would have been easy
enough to him) in order to pry more deeply into her character.
Moreover, she repelled him. If he liked a person he showed it at
once; if he disliked one, he made a point of having nothing more to
do with him or with her; but here was a problem not soluble by either
plan; for he could neither ignore her nor cast her aside, owing to
many reasons, chief among which was the dawning conviction that in
Basil’s interest it would be well if he followed up Laurence a
little, helped her if he could, advised her, certainly.
He and his wife had been in India on a pleasure trip at the time of
the marriage, and his surprise at what he now discovered was painful.
“The _famous_ ‘Gamin’!” he said, speculatively. “Why famous? Has
that dear little thing rendered herself guilty of any more heroic
deeds since I last had the happiness of seeing her?”
“Heroic deeds? I was not aware she dealt in that sort of thing!” said
Laurence, who for so lofty a soul was now within measurable distance
of snappishness, and she looked at Salvières with a severity
indicative of an intention to keep him strictly in his place. Yet had
she taken the trouble to do so, she might have realized that she sat
in the presence of that rare and indefinable creation--a strong man,
whom no feminine trickery could find at any moment off his guard.
“I beg your pardon,” he quietly replied. “She frequently, on the
contrary, deals in such things. Only a few months ago she jumped into
the sea from a high rock--a very high rock, understand--to save from
drowning a silly gawk of a ship’s boy. Half a gale was blowing at
the time, and it was something more than a man’s ordinary risk for
her to take.”
Laurence’s eyelids fluttered, but she did not actually raise her
eyes to the uncomfortable neighbor whose simple directness of speech
found no favor in her sight.
“Really!” she remarked. “I never heard of it!”
“It is your loss then, madame, and I am glad to have been so
fortunate as to repair this lack of knowledge on your part.”
She made a grimace expressive of real annoyance. “I am not much of a
gossip,” she shrugged, “and therefore never greatly given to listen
to it.”
“That being the case,” retorted Salvières, “we may remain hopeful
that this will go no further. Good actions are best left out of
general conversation, excepting in such particular cases as this one.
They are so seldom credited.” [“Why in the world does she hate the
‘Gamin’?” he was asking himself. “What has the poor child done to
her?”]
“You seem very fond of Marguerite de Plenhöel?” Laurence remarked.
“Everybody I know appears to have some weakness or other for her, and
yet she is really nothing extraordinary!”
“Perhaps that might explain it,” he said. “You see, she is simplicity
itself, without pose of any sort, but also very bright and clever;
also she is gay and brave--Heaven help her!”
“If she is all that, why should Heaven need to interfere?”
Salvières was again thoughtfully twisting his mustache, Decidedly
this new relative of his was not improving on better acquaintance.
Unhappy Basil! When the scales--thick as window-shutters he was
forced to believe--fell from his eyes, what would he do?
“Heaven,” he said, slowly, “must always interfere with its own,
although God forbid that I should attempt to explain to you the ways
of Providence.”
“You evidently consider Marguerite an angel, then?” Laurence queried,
in an odd voice.
“Oh, by no means! She has faults, great faults, not the least of them
being her over-confidence in others.”
“You know her very well, I suppose?”
“As well as one knows a creature one has carried about in one’s
arms before it could walk,” he acquiesced.
“As long as that? I heard that you were personally related to her,
but not very closely.”
“She is my niece, _à la mode de Bretagne par alliance_,” he
explained.
“Oh, that accounts for your enthusiasm, I suppose,” Laurence
proposed, with a pale smile. “One is apt to be more or less proud of
what belongs to one, whether _par alliance_ or otherwise.”
“Not always!” he vigorously rejoined. “Ah! _Sapristi!_ Not always, I
assure you! (Can she be stupid into the bargain?” he mused. “That
would be a superfetation of calamities!”) And as Countess Chouróff
was rising, he pushed back his chair and drew Laurence’s out of the
way of her train, while she moved at his side with that subtle rustle
of superfine silken linings that conveys even to the dullest
masculine mind an especial care for dress and the wisdom of dealing
with a great _couturier_.
In any other case, Salvières could in all probability have dismissed
from his mind the thoroughly disagreeable quarter of an hour he had
just passed, but this was impossible for him to do. His keen eyes
unrolled before him a long and dark array of eminently unpleasant
possibilities, not concerning him or his wife, precisely, and yet
liable to make things a bit dreary for both of them.
“How do you like her?”
The question took him by surprise as he was escaping from the
concert-room, to which the Countess’s guests were being marshaled,
and, turning quickly, he found his brother-in-law at his elbow.
“Like whom?” he demanded, eager to gain time.
“Why, my wife, of course!” Basil answered. “I saw you chatting
nineteen to the dozen with her, until the end of the Pantagruelian
feast Madame Chouróff euphemistically calls a simple little dinner.”
“She is remarkably beautiful,” Salvières sincerely approved.
“Indeed, I find that the portraits you sent us were far from doing
her justice.”
Curiously enough, this time Basil did not flush with gratification,
as when Régis de Plenhöel had been the appraiser; instead, an
almost worried expression overcast his features.
“Come here, Jean!” he said, drawing Salvières into the billiard-room,
which was entirely unoccupied at the moment, and both men seated
themselves upon a broad, mellow divan far away from the central
hanging-lamps.
“I don’t wish,” Basil said at once, “simply to know how you like
Laurence’s looks--that is not necessary. I am anxious--very anxious
to hear what else you have to say about her. Between you and me there
has always existed a sympathy and a comprehension greater than
ordinary _camaraderie_, and that is why I don’t scruple to question
you as I do. What do you think of Laurence, and what do you think
Tatiana will think of her--which,” he concluded, “makes many
‘thinks’ in one request.”
“Plain speaking and clear understanding. An exchange without robbery!
Eh?”
“Exactly!”
“Humm ... m! I wonder if in this all-blessed corner I could venture
to light my pipe?” And Salvières peeped cautiously round the open
panel of the door. “There’s nobody about, as far as I can see,” he
laughed, “and you know that I do not consider digestion perfect
without a few whiffs of my trusty briar.” He was watching Basil
covertly as he spoke, and was somewhat relieved to see the strained
expression of his eyes relax a little.
“I know. You’re lucky that Tatiana does not object to such a
pernicious habit,” he interposed; “but there is nothing to
‘oxidize’ here, fortunately.”
“Your sister,” the Duke averred, “is too fine a woman to object to
anything I fancy. She’s true blue, like all the Palitzins. But
what’s that you were saying about oxidizing?”
“Nothing! Nothing! I was thinking of something else,” Basil hastily
rejoined, repressing his untimely flash of memory, as he continually
repressed similar ones. “Light your pipe first, and answer my
question as soon as you have satisfied your brutal instincts,” he
concluded, with a praiseworthy effort at banter.
“Your question? Oh! Yes, of course!” dallied Salvières. “Well, it is
not possible for me to give you a very complete opinion after ten
minutes’ conversation with a lovely woman, my dear Basil. It is too
large an order for yours truly.”
He gave a wave of the hand descriptive of intricate complexities _ad
infinitum_, and, deliberately leaning back on the luxurious cushions
of the divan, began to puff at his trusty briar.
“Nevertheless,” Basil said, frowning, “if you had something agreeable
to say, you wouldn’t need half a dozen personal interviews to do
so. It is first impressions that count.”
“Not a bit of it!” Salvières contradicted. “Were you to ask my
opinion of a passer-by--Lord, I hope there _is_ nobody around”--he
interrupted himself, glancing at his pipe with mock apprehension--“I
would satisfy your curiosity at once; but when it comes to passing
judgment upon so considerable a personage as the Princess Basil
Palitzin, my sister-in-law and your wife, words become momentous;
although this does not exclude my assuring you that I found her
interesting beyond all expression!”
Basil, who was smoking a cigarette--a dainty Russian affair all white
and gold, and long, hard mouthpiece--brusquely threw it into an
ash-tray.
“I am glad you found her interesting,” he put in, with averted eyes,
“but there are a good many ways of being interesting. Why don’t you
speak out? Surely it is natural for me to ask you how you like my
wife!”
Salvières sat suddenly up, drew his long legs under him tailor
fashion, and stared at his friend and brother, rocking softly
backward and forward as he did so.
“My dear boy,” he said at last, “of course it is natural, but I
cannot understand why you seem so worried about my opinion. I have
just told you that I find your wife both surpassingly beautiful and
extremely interesting. What more can I say _à première vue_?”
Basil took a fresh cigarette, lighted it from the still burning stump
on the tray, and gazed for a moment at the ends of his pumps, as
though noticing something amiss with those irreproachable articles of
footwear.
“Do you think,” he suddenly asked, with apparent irrelevance, “that
perhaps I did a foolish, an unwise, or even a cruel thing in
separating her from her friends, her country, her pleasures, and in
bringing her to live at Tverna?”
“A woman shall forsake her family, her land, and her own
surroundings, to cleave to her husband, quoth Holy Scripture!”
Salvières pronounced, severely.
“It does nothing of the kind! It is the other way about. It is the
husband who is particularly mentioned,” Basil contradicted, unable to
repress a smile.
“Oh! It works both ways undoubtedly! Behold me, who spend neatly the
half of every year over here. Besides, not being me, or an Irishman,
I presume it isn’t your intention to become an absentee landlord?”
“No, naturally not, but I do not think Laurence likes Russia. She
does not complain, you understand, but I cannot help noticing--”
“I believe you, my boy,” commented Salvières, inwardly. And then as
the pause threatened to draw to an embarrassing length, he quietly
remarked: “She’ll get used to the change after a while, never fear.
Women are eminently adaptable, and, given the merely nominal duties
she will encounter, and the enormous advantages that will
counterbalance these, you ought not to worry yourself about the
result!”
“But that is just the devil of it!” Basil exclaimed. “She does not
understand those duties you are pleased to call nominal, but are as a
matter of fact very serious. She’s afraid--I honestly believe--of
the people! You see, she has heard all her life in England that we
Russians are a bloodthirsty, violent race, capable of any evil; so
what will you? Poor child, the isolation, perhaps even the
‘grandeur’ of her new position, are weighing upon her!”
“Nonsense! Who’s afraid?” Salvières said, with some irritation.
“She, the daughter of a line of sailors and soldiers, the
granddaughter of that old fire-eater, Admiral Seton, the ‘Orror of
the Horient--as they nicknamed him at Alexandria! Bah! Try and make
some one else believe that!”
“Physically afraid, of course not! Morally afraid, yes!” asserted
Basil, straightening himself. “We are having some little trouble over
at Tverna just now, as you know; a mere trifle not worthy of serious
consideration; but, strangely enough, it makes her nervous. She has
not caught on since our arrival there. Imagine, she considered it
quite improper when old General Hiltròw knelt on the threshold of
the drawing-room and kissed her hands in greeting, awaiting the kiss
on the brow that is customary here, though I had warned her of all
these things. The people all and sundry were ready enough to
prostrate themselves at her feet, but”--he hesitated, cleared his
throat, and glanced appealingly at his relative--“but,” he continued,
seeing Salvières raise his shoulders ever so slightly, “but she drew
away from them--no, I don’t quite mean that--rather she showed
her--her indifference--a little too plainly. For instance, she takes
no interest in the sick, the ailing, the unhappy; she never sets foot
in an _isba_; she has handed over the key of the pharmacy to the
housekeeper, a thing never heard of in mother’s time; and when the
land-steward or the _staròstá_ come in quest of remedies,
delicacies, or any of the many comforts we always provide, she sends
them word that she does not know what they want--which is true
enough, of course--and that they must not bother her.”
“You should teach her to do better!” Salvières hazarded.
“But--my dear fellow,” Basil began, “I am not inclined to make her
life here a misery.”
“Then don’t complain,” was the cool rejoinder. “Let her have her
head; bid her amuse herself in her own way, encourage her to see and
receive people of her own choice, and thereby obtain peace--that most
desirable of possessions!”
“It is not everybody’s privilege, after all, to know by instinct
how to treat the lower classes,” Basil said, irritably, “or to
become popular, and to find the secret of assuring a number of
unprepossessing and almost total strangers that one remembers them
individually and perfectly!”
“Yet that is just what we must do, if we seek popularity. Besides
which popularity means--plus a cruel strain on the digestive
organs--a deep pocket--which your wife fortunately has--and the
patience of an archangel--although Archangel Michael does not give
the impression of extreme longanimity. Neither does your wife, if I
judge her aright.”
“There’s no earthly use in joking, Jean! Try and help me, rather,
for, to tell you the truth, I’m a little at a loss what to do. If I
yield to her unspoken wishes, and take her away, it means utter ruin
to all my plans, my projects, and also to the welfare of my people.
And if I do not yield--”
“Don’t yield on that point, Basil!” Salvières quickly interrupted.
“Don’t take her away. It won’t do. No, certainly not; it won’t
do, for her, for you, or for them.”
“I know; I feel just as you do about it, but what then?”
Salvières gave a sharp sigh, then he laughed; but his laugh was not
easy, and at last he spread out both arms in a gesture almost of
discouragement.
“You are letting yourself be driven into an _impasse_, my dear
Basil,” he said, gravely. “A very dangerous proceeding. You ask me to
help you. You know that I’m only too ready to do so. But how the
deuce am I to get about it? Let me see. How long have you been at
Tverna now?”
“A little over two months.”
“That all! Well, you surely did not expect a _mondaine_ like your
wife to get accustomed to your citadel in so short a time. Still,
what do you say to Tatiana and myself coming to stay for a couple of
weeks or so with you? Tatiana is the most capable manager ever
created for the joy of this world, and her advice might work wonders.
She is to the manner born, and I think she wouldn’t mind teaching
your beautiful Laurence how to go about it on an estate as large and
difficult to rule as a whole province.”
Basil turned upon Salvières a pair of rather hopeless eyes.
“Do you think they would go well in double harness, those two?” he
asked, diffidently. “Besides, Laurence is a little impatient of
advice.”
Salvières reflected before replying. “I dare say! And whether she
would get along with Tatiana--that’s the question!” He knocked the
ashes out of his cold pipe, and thoughtfully replaced this object of
his affections in its chamois-lined _étui_. “I bought this
delightful article on the Jarozolimskà in Warsaw,” he casually
remarked, “where it is claimed that the shops are better than in
Paris. Lord! Moreover, the man who sold it to me said, with a
lugubrious grin on his foolish Teutonic face, that this was the
finest pipe ever made; and he was right, curiously enough, for I
never had a better one. However, to return to our muttons, or rather
to our lambkins: I’m afraid, Basil, that perhaps you are by way of
building molehills into very tall mountains. You would scarcely have
enjoyed a strong-minded, assertive wife--a leader at home and afield,
violently interested in politics of every caliber, a platform orator,
bowing from the waist up to admiring multitudes--_i. e._, the sort
that so many unfortunate husbands are trying to get used to
nowadays.”
Basil could not restrain a laugh. “My dear fellow,” he said, “I do
not ask so much. You know very well that I consider men who help
women to make fools of themselves unmanly crawlers. But between that
and complete indifference to the masses--since you force me to adopt
that jargon--there is a yawning gulf.”
“I dare say,” Salvières was beginning, when Countess Chouróff’s
deep bass made itself heard at the door, and that lady, followed by
four yards of purple-velvet draperies, advanced into the room and
faced the two absconders.
“I have lived for years,” she exclaimed, “under the impression that I
saw in you gentlemen an overworked Russian proprietor and a French
Seigneur, overworked also, but in wifely interests. I apologize for
my mistake; you are merely a couple of idlers, confirmed in that same
lamentable sloth that enables men of the south to do nothing, very
gracefully, for long hours at a time.”
“What procures us this withering indictment?” Salvières protested,
laughing. “Remember, dear lady, that it is months--months since the
rights of brotherhood have been exercised between Basil and myself!
Would you proscribe them beneath your hospitable roof?”
“And what about the rights of my guests to the companionship of the
two most important and--let me add--the two most agreeable
personalities beneath the roof you invoke?” she replied, with spirit.
“Give me your arm, Salvières; and as to you, Basil-Vassilièvitch,
seek the protection of your own wife from the ides of my wrath. She
is looking for you, anyhow,” she concluded, returning to a simpler
form of address.
“Salvières,” she ruefully whispered in the ducal ear almost on a
level with her mouth--for she was a remarkably tall woman--“that
young and strangely disquieting couple need watching, or we will see
them upset by the roadside.”
Salvières started a little and stared surprisedly at her.
“What makes you think that?” he asked, irritably, for his nerves were
beginning to be jangled.
“Intuition, assisted by clear sight and miles of experience,” she
said, gravely. “That sweet girl in there,” and she pointed to the
buzzing drawing-room--which she often playfully alluded to as the
_sala-del-trono_, because it was only thrown open on solemn
occasions--“has been purposely created to cause the downfall of great
and good men. Remember what I say. Some day, perhaps not so very
distant, you’ll find that I’m no idle prophet.”