A LEGACY OF LOVE.
As I approached the broad deep doorway of my house I saw a tall man
muffled up, standing half concealed in the shadow of one of the pillars.
"Who are you, and what are you doing there?" I asked peremptorily,
stopping and looking at him.
"What should I be doing, but waiting for Lieutenant Petrovitch?"
answered the fellow, stepping forward.
"Well, I am Lieutenant Petrovitch. What do you want?"
"You are not the lieutenant."
"Then you are not looking for Lieutenant Petrovitch," I returned, as I
opened my door. "Be off with you." I spoke firmly, but his reply had
rather disconcerted me.
Instead of going he advanced toward me when he saw me open the door,
and shot a glance of surprise at me.
"I beg you honour's pardon. I didn't recognise you; and when you
pretended not to know me, I thought it was someone else. You've
disguised yourself by that change in your face, sir."
There was a mixture of servility and impudence in the man's manner
which galled me. He spoke like a fawning sponger: and yet with just
such a suggestion of threat and familiarity in his manner as might come
from a low associate in some dirty work which he thought gave him a
hold over me.
"What is it you want?" I spoke as sternly as before; and the fellow
cringed and bowed as he answered with the same suggestion of familiar
insolence.
"What have I waited here five hours for but to speak to your lordship
privately--waited, as I always do, patiently. It's safer inside,
lieutenant."
"Come in, then." It was clearly best for me to know all he had to say.
As soon as we were inside and I had turned up the lights I placed him
close to the biggest of them; and a more villainous, hangdog looking
rascal I never wish to see. A redhaired, dirty, cunning, drinking Jew
of the lowest class; with lies and treachery and deceit written on
every feature and gesture. The only thing truthful about him was the
evidence of character stamped on his self-convicting appearance.
"I wonder what you are to me," I thought as I scanned him closely, his
flinty shifting eyes darting everywhere to escape my gaze.
"Well, what do you want? I'm about sick of you." A quick lifting of
the head and eyebrows let a questioning glance of mingled malice, hate,
and menace dart up into my face.
"Lieutenant, your child is starving and his mother also; and I, her
father, am tired of working my fingers to the bone to maintain them
both."
"What are you working at now?" I asked with a sneer. I spoke in this
way to hide my unpleasant surprise at the unsavoury news that lay
behind his words. The more I looked at him the more was I impressed
with a conviction of his rascality: but the fact that he was a
scoundrel did not at all exclude the possibility that some ugly episode
concerning me lay behind. On the contrary it increased the probability.
"I've not come to talk about my work, but to get money," said my
visitor in a surly tone. "And money I must have."
"Blackmail," was my instant conclusion: and my line of conduct was as
promptly taken. There is but one way to take with blackmailers--crush
them.
"Did you understand what I said just now? I am sick of you and your
ways, and I have done with you."
The man shifted about uneasily and nervously without replying at once,
and then in a sly, muttering tone, and with an indescribable suggestion
of menace said:--
"There are some ugly stories afloat, Lieutenant."
"Yes: and in Russia, those who tell them smell the atmosphere of a gaol
as often as those against whom they are told. A word from me and you
know where you will be within half a dozen hours." This was a safe
shot with such a rascal.
"But you'll never speak that word," he said sullenly. "We've talked
all this over before. You can't shake me off. I know too much."
Obviously my former self had handled this man badly: probably through
weakness: and had allowed him to get an ugly hold. He was presuming on
this now.
I took two rapid turns up and down the room in thought. Then I made a
decision. Taking ink and paper I sat down to the table and wrote,
repeating the words aloud:--
"To the Chief of Police.--The Bearer of this----"
"How do you spell your rascally name?" I cried, interrupting the
writing and looking across at him.
"You know. You've written it often enough to Anna."
Good. I had got the daughter's name at any rate.
"Yes, but this is for the police, and must be accurate." The start he
gave was an unmistakable start of fear.
"Everyone knows how to spell Peter, I suppose. And you ought to know
how to spell Prashil, seeing your own child has to bear the name."
"The Bearer of this, Peter Prashil, declares that he has some
information to give to you which incriminates me. Take his statement
in writing and have it investigated. Hold him prisoner, meanwhile, for
he has been attempting to blackmail me. You, or your agents will know
him well.
Signed, ALEXIS PETROVITCH.
Lieutenant, Moscow Infantry Regiment."
"Now," I cried, rising, giving him the paper, and throwing open the
door. "Take that paper and go straight to the Police. Tell them all
you know. Or if you like it better stand to-morrow at midday in the
Square of the Cathedral and shout it out with all your lungs for the
whole of Moscow to hear. Or get it inserted in every newspaper in the
city. Go!" and I pointed the way and stared at him sternly and angrily.
"I don't want to harm you."
"Go!" I said. "Or I'll wake my servant and have the police brought
here."
For a minute he tried to return my look, and fumbled with the paper
irresolutely.
"Go!" I repeated, staring at him as intently as before.
He stood another minute scowling at me from under his ragged red brows
and then seemed to concentrate the fury of a hundred curses into one
tremendous oath, which he snarled out with baffled rage, as he tore the
paper into pieces and threw them down on the table.
"You know I can't go to the police, damn you," he cried.
I had beaten him. I had convinced him of my earnestness. I shut the
door then and sitting down again, said calmly:--
"Now you understand me a little better than ever before; and we will
have the last conversation that will ever pass between us. Tell me
plainly and clearly what you want. Quick."
"Justice for my daughter."
"What else?"
"The money you've always promised me for my services," with a pause
before the last word.
"What services?"
"You know."
"Answer. Don't dare to speak like that," I cried sternly.
"For holding my tongue--about Anna--and--the child. I want my share,
don't I?" he answered sullenly, scowling at me. "Is a father to be
robbed of a child and then cheated?" He asked this with a burst of
anger as if, vile as he was, he was compelled to stifle his sense of
shame with a rush of rage.
"Hush-money, eh? And payment for your daughter's shame. Well, what
else?" I threw into my manner all the contempt I could.
"My help in other things--with others." He uttered the sentence with a
leer of suggestion that sent my blood to boiling point; and he followed
it up with a recital of mean and despicable tricks of vice and foul
dissipation until in sheer disgust I was compelled to stop him.
What more the man might have had to say I knew not; but I had heard
enough. It was clear that I was indeed a bitter blackguard, and that
for my purposes I had made use of this scoundrel, who had apparently
begun by selling me his own daughter. It was clear also that all this
must end and some sort of arrangement be made.
At the same time I knew enough of Russian society to be perfectly well
aware that not one of the acts which this man had suggested would count
for either crime or wrong against me. One was expected to keep the
seamy side of one's life decorously out of sight; but if that were
done, a few "slips" of the kind were taken as a matter of course.
Personally, I hold old-fashioned notions on these things, and it was
infinitely painful to me that I should be held guilty of such
blackguardism. I would at least do what justice I could.
"I have been thinking much about these things lately," I said, after a
pause. "And I have come to a decision. I shall make provision for
you..."
"Your honour was always generosity itself," said the fellow squirming
instantly.
"On condition that you leave Moscow. You will go to Kursk; and there
ten roubles will be paid to you weekly for a year; by which time if you
haven't drunk yourself to death, you will have found the means to earn
your living."
"And Anna?"
"Your daughter will call to-morrow afternoon on my sister----"
"Your sister?" cried the man in the deepest astonishment.
"My sister," I repeated, "at this address"--I wrote it down--"and the
course to be taken will depend on what is then decided. You understand
that the whole story will be sifted, so she must be careful to tell the
truth.
"The discreet truth, your honour?" he asked with another leer.
"No, the whole truth, without a single lie of yours. Mind, one lie by
either of you, and not a kopeck shall you have."
With that I sent him about his business. I resolved to have the whole
story investigated; and it occurred to me that it would be a good test
of my sister's womanliness to let her deal with the case. I reflected
too that it would do her no harm to know a little of the undercurrent
of her brother's life.
That done, I turned into bed after as full a day as I had ever lived,
and slept well.
Reflection led me to approve the plan of sending the old Jew's daughter
to Olga; and after breakfast the next morning I wrote a little note to
prepare her for the visit.
"This afternoon," I wrote, "you will have a visit from a girl whose
name is Anna Prashil, and she will tell you something about your
brother's history which I think your woman's wit will let you deal with
better than I can. We will have the story sifted, but you can do two
things in the matter better than I--judge whether the girl is an
impostor; and if not, what is the best thing to do for her. I will see
you afterwards."
I sat smoking and thinking over this business when my servant, Borlas,
announced that a lady wished to see me; and ushered in a tall woman
closely veiled.
I was prepared now for anything that could happen.
I rose and bowed to her; but she stood without a word until Borlas had
gone out.
"Don't pretend that you don't know me," she said, in a voice naturally
sweet and full and musical, but now resonant with agitation and anger.
It was a very awkward position. Obviously I ought to know her, so I
thought it best to speak as if I did.
"I make no attempt at pretence with you," I said, equivocally. "But
aren't you going to sit down?"
"No attempt at pretence? What was your conduct last night if not
pretence--maddening, infamous, insulting pretence?"
I knew her now. It was the handsome angry woman whose signals at the
ball I had ignored--Paula Tueski. She had probably come to upbraid me
for my coldness and neglect. "Hell holds no fury like a woman
scorned," thought I; and this was a woman with a very generous capacity
for rage. If she recognised me....
"Won't you take off that thick veil, which prevents my seeing your very
angry eyes. You know I always admire you in a passion, Paula." I did
not know how I ought to address her so I made the plunge with her
Christian name.
"Why dared you insult me by not speaking to me at the ball last night?
Why dared you break your word? You pledged me your honour"--this with
quite glorious scorn--"that you would introduce your impudent chit of a
sister to me at the ball. And instead, my God, that I am alive to say
it!--you dared to sit with her laughing, and jibing and flouting at me.
Pretending--you, you of all men on this earth--that you did not know
me! Do you think I will endure that? Do you think----" Here rage
choked her speech, and she ended in incoherency, half laugh, half sob,
and all hysterical.
I was sorry she stopped at that point. The more she told me the easier
would be my choice of policy. From what she said I gathered this was
another of the pledges made under the fear of Devinsky's sword.
"You know perfectly well that Olga is exceedingly difficult to coerce--
"Bah! Don't talk to me of difficulties. You would be frightened by a
fool's bladder and call it difficulties. I suppose you shaved your
beard and moustache because they were difficulties, eh? Difficulties,
perhaps, in the way of getting out of Moscow unrecognised on the eve of
a fight? You know what I mean, eh?"
For a moment I half thought she, or the police agents of her husband
might have guessed the truth, and this made me hesitate in my reply.
"Did you think I was afraid to kill Major Devinsky, or ashamed to let
it be known that I am the best swordsman in the regiment?"
"Why have you never told me that?" she cried with feminine
inconsequence. "I don't understand you, Alexis. You want me one day
to get this man assassinated because you say you know he can run you
through the body just as he pleases, and you promise me the friendship
of your sister if I will do it; and yet the very next, you go out and
meet him and he has not a chance with you. But why did you do it? I
have heard of it all. Did you want to try me?"
I thanked her mentally for that cue.
"At all events two things are clear now," I said. "I did not want to
get out of Moscow for fear of Devinsky, and you would not do that which
I told you could alone save my life. You did not think my life worth
saving." I spoke very coldly and deliberately.
"So that is it?" she cried, with a quick return of her rage. "You
insult me before all Moscow because I will not be a murderess--your
hired assassin."
It was an excellent situation. If I had devised it myself, I could not
have arranged it more deftly, I thought.
I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing; but the silence and the
gesture were more expressive than many words.
My visitor tore off the veil she had worn till now, and throwing
herself into a chair looked at me as though trying to read my innermost
thoughts: while I was trying to read hers and was more than half
suspicious that she might see enough to let her jump at the truth.
But a rapid reflection shewed me I should be wise to use the means she
herself had supplied, as an excuse for the change in me toward her. It
was dangerous, of course, to set at defiance a woman of her manifest
force of character and in her position; but in attempting to continue
even an innocent intrigue with her there was equal danger.
She remained silent a long time, considering as it seemed to me, how
she should prevent my breaking away from her. She was a clever woman,
and now that the first outburst of emotion was over, she abandoned all
hysterical display and resolved, as her words soon proved, to appeal to
my fears rather than to any old love.
She laughed very softly and musically when she spoke next.
"So you think you can do as you will with me, Alexis?"
"On the contrary," I replied, quite as gently and with an answering
smile. "I have no wish to have anything at all to do with you."
"Yet you loved me once," she murmured, the involuntary closing of her
eyelids being the only sign of the pain my brutal words caused.
"The sweetest things in life are the memories of the past, Paula. If
you really loved me as you said, it will be something for you to
remember that while you prized my life, you held my love."
"A man would starve on the memory of yesterday's dinner."
"True; or hope that somebody else will give him even a more satisfying
meal."
"You could always turn a woman's phrases, Alexis."
"And you a man's head, Paula."
"Bah! I have not come here to cap phrases."
"Yet there can be little else than phrases between us for the future.
You have shewn me what store you set on my life."
"Did you think I could love you if you were such a coward that you
dared not fight a duel?"
"You thought I dared not when you refused to help me."
"You said you dared not. But do you think I believed you? Could I
believe so meanly of the man I loved?"
"You discussed the matter as if you believed it," said I; making a leap
in the dark and blundering badly.
"Discussed it? What do you mean? With whom? Do you think I am mad?
I sat down at once and answered your mad letter in the only way it
could be answered."
Great Heavens! I had apparently been fool enough in my desperate
cowardice to actually write the proposal. The letter itself, if she
dared to use it, spelt certain ruin.
"Well, you answered the test your own way, and...." I shrugged my
shoulders as a suggestive end to the sentence.
She paused a moment looking thoughtfully at me. Then knitting her
brows, she asked:
"What is the real meaning of this change, Alexis? Do try for once to
be frank. You have always half a dozen secret meanings. You have
boasted of this in regard to others--perhaps because you were afraid to
do anything else."
"Are you a judge of my fears? I think I have already shewn you that
that which I led you to believe frightened me most had in reality no
terrors at all for me."
"One thing I know you are afraid of--to break with me." This came with
a flash of impetuous anger, bursting out in spite of her efforts at
self-restraint.
I smiled.
"We shall see. I have not broken with you. It is you who have broken
with me. How often have you not sworn to me," I cried passionately,
making another shot--"that there was nothing upon this earth that you
would not do if I only asked you? What value should I now set on a
broken love-vow?"
"Had I thought you were even in danger, I would have dared even that,
Alexis, dangerous and desperate as you know such a hazard must be."
She spoke now with a depth of tone that was eloquent of feeling. "What
I told you is true--and you know it. There is nothing I will not do
for you. Bid me do it now to shew you my earnestness. Shall I leave
my husband?--I will do it. Shall I tell the world of Moscow the tale
of my love?--I will do it. Nay, bid me strip myself and walk naked
through the streets of the city, calling on your name and proclaiming
my love--and I will do it with a smile, glorying in my shame because it
brings you to me and me to you--never to part again."
This flood of passion spoken with such earnestness as I had never heard
from the lips of woman before was almost more than I could endure to
hear without telling the truth to her. It abashed me, and the story of
the deception I was practising on her rose to my lips: but before I
could speak she had resumed, and her wonderful voice had a power such
as I cannot describe. It seemed to compel sympathy; and as it became
the vehicle for every varying phase of feeling it almost raised an echo
of feeling in me.
"You don't know the fire you have kindled; you don't dream of its
volcanic fierceness. I do not think I myself knew it until last night
when you turned from me in silence and coldness, as though, my God! as
though your lips had never rested on mine, or mine on yours, in pledge
of delirious passion. Ah me! You cannot act like this, Alexis. It
was you who warmed into life the love that burns in me, and it is not
yours to quench. You must not, cannot, aye--and dare not do it. You
know this. Come, say that all this is just your pique, your temper,
your whim, your test, your anything; and that all is still between us
as it must always be--always, Alexis, always."
If I had been the man she thought I was, I cannot but believe she would
have prevailed with me. The seductiveness of her manner, her absolute
self abandonment, and the plain and unmistakable proof of her love,
were enough to touch any man placed as he would have been.
But I had nothing to prompt my kinder impulses. She was only a
stranger: infinitely beautiful, passionate, and melting: but yet
nothing more than a stranger. And I had no answering passion to be
fired by her glances, her pleas, and her love. She was a hindrance to
me; and I was only conscious that I was in a way compelled to act the
part of a cad in listening to her and cheating her. And I could only
remain silent.
She read my silence for obstinacy, and then began to shew the nature of
the power she held over me. I was glad of this; as it seemed to give
me a sort of justification for my action. It was an attack; and I had
to defend myself.
"You do not answer me. You are cold, moody, silent--and yet not
unmoved. I wonder of what you are thinking. Yet there can be but one
burden of your thoughts. You are mine, Alexis, mine; always, till
death--as you have sworn often enough. And after your bravery I love
you more than ever. I love a brave man, Alexis. Every brave man. I
would give them the kiss of honour. And that you are the bravest of
them all is to me the sweetest of knowledge. Yesterday, when I heard
how you had humbled that bully, I could do naught but thrill with pride
every time I thought of it. It was my Alexis who had done it. Won't
you kiss me once as I kissed you a thousand times in thought yesterday?
No? Well, you will before I go. And then I began to think how glad I
was that I had made it impossible for you ever to think of giving me
up. I know you are brave;--but even the bravest men shudder at the
whisper of Siberia."
She paused to give this time to work its effect.
"I wonder how other women love; whether, like me, they think it fair to
weave a net round the man they love, strong enough to hold the
strongest, wide enough to reach to the Poles, and yet fine enough to be
unseen?" She laughed. "I have done this with you, sweetheart. You
know how often you have asked me for information and I have got it for
you--you have wanted it for the Nihilists. Knowing this I have given
it and--you have used it. Once or twice you have told them what was
not true, and now you are suspected and in some danger of your life.
But you are guarded also and watched. Two days ago you were at the
railway station in private clothes and with your dear face shaven; you
were trying to leave Moscow. But you probably saw the uselessness of
the attempt and gave it up. Had you really tried, you would have been
stopped. Do you think you can hope to escape from me? Do you think
you can break through the net-work of the most wonderful police system
the world ever knew? Psh! Do not dream of it. Moscow is a fine,
large, splendid city. But Moscow is also a prison; and the man who
would seek to break out of it, but dashes his breast against the drawn
sword of implacable authority."
"You have a pleasant humour, and a light touch in your methods of
wooing," said I, bitterly. She had made a great impression on me.
"The wooing is complete, Alexis. It was your work. I do but guard
against being deceived. Escape from Moscow being hopeless for you, you
have only to remember that a word from me in my husband's ear will open
for you the dumb horrid mouth of a Russian dungeon which will either
close on you for ever, or let you out branded, disgraced, and manacled
to start on the long hopeless march to Siberia."
I had rather admired the woman before; now I began to hate her. I
could not fail to see the truth behind her words; and a flash of
inspiration shewed me now that the safest course I could take was to
shake off the character I had so lightly assumed. But her next words
bared the impossibility of that.
"Do you think now it is safe to break away from me? But that is not
all. There is another consideration. You have drawn your sister into
these Nihilist snares. You know how she is compromised. I know it
too. There are more dungeons than one in Russia. If you were in one,
I would see to it that she, who has scorned and flouted and insulted
me, was in another; with her chance also of a jaunt across the plains."
The flippancy of this last phrase was a measure of her hate.
The thought of the poor girl's danger beat me. What this woman said
was all true--damnably, horribly, sickeningly true.
"Have you planned all this?" I asked, when I could bring myself to
speak calmly.
"No, no, Heaven forbid. I had not a thought of it in all my heart; not
a thought, save of love and a desire to shield you from any real danger
that threatened you, till,"--and her voice changed
suddenly--"yesterday, when you loosed all the torrents that can flow
from a jealous woman's heart. I am a woman; but I am a Russian."
She was lying now, for she was contradicting what she had said just
before.
"My sister's fate is nothing to me," I said, callously. "She has made
her bed, let her lie on it. But as for myself"--I had but one possible
to seem to yield--"I care nothing. I am not the coward you once
thought me, and my meeting with Devinsky shews you that clearly enough.
But I doubted your love when I found you did not answer to the test I
made."
"You do not doubt it now. I am here at the risk of my life; at the
risk of both our lives," she said, her eyes aflame with feeling as she
hung on my deliberately spoken words.
"This morning has been a further test, and I should not be a sane man
if I doubted you now, or ever again."
"Then kiss me, Alexis."
She sprang from her chair and threw herself into my arms, loading me
with wild tempestuous caresses, like a woman distraught with passion.
I hated myself even while I endured it; and nothing would have made me
play so loathesome and repugnant a part but the thought that Olga's
safety demanded it.
She was still clinging about me, calling me by my name, caressing me,
upbraiding me for my coldness, and chiding me for having put her to
such a test, when a loud knock at the door of the room disturbed us
both.
It was my discreet servant Borlas; the loudness of his knock being the
measure of his discretion.
He said that my sister was waiting to see me.