“SPLENDIDE MENDAX.”
It seemed to Zoe that, save for the fact that Maurice’s place of
confinement was called a dungeon and hers a cell, the change in the
state of affairs pressed rather more hardly on her than on him. Her
new room was very small, very dirty, absolutely devoid of furniture,
and almost destitute of light, a small grated aperture just under the
ceiling offering the only approach to a window. Moreover, Maurice had
the friendly Papa Athanasios to look after him, while the old woman
who acted as Zoe’s gaoler seemed positively to gloat over her
humiliation. This attitude was in itself a challenge, and before Zoe
had been in her new quarters half an hour she had bullied old Marigo
into providing a broom and fetching her rug and other possessions from
the room she had occupied with Eirene. The cell looked much less
hopeless when a certain amount of the dust of ages had been removed,
the rug spread on the stone divan, and Zoe’s few clothes neatly rolled
up as cushions. In the homely work of tidying up, moreover, she wore
off some of her indignation against Eirene, and was able to turn her
mind to other subjects. Her words to Maurice had not been idle, or
designed merely to console him. The idea for a story had come into her
mind, and was working itself out all the more vividly for her removal
during the past month from her usual surroundings and pursuits. It was
going to be splendid, she felt, with the curious leaping of heart
which the self-development of a new theme always caused in her. If
only she had her note-books at hand! But since they were not to be
had, she must work more carefully than usual, more by rule and line,
so as to be able to reproduce the story from memory when she regained
her freedom. The whitewashed walls of her cell offered a ready-made
tablet for memoranda, and a rusty nail she had discovered in the
course of her sweepings would serve as a stylus. In marked contrast
with the excitement of the morning, she passed a quiet and perfectly
happy afternoon absorbed in blocking out her chapters, raising
horrible suspicions in the mind of her gaoler, who could only imagine
that the mysterious signs on the wall were some kind of sorcery
directed against the welfare of the monastery.
The next morning Zoe was at work again as soon as she had put her room
tidy, and it was with unconcealed impatience that she found herself
summoned by old Marigo to follow her. “Come, O girl, quickly!” she
could understand this, at any rate, though neither now nor at any
other time could she extract any rational information from the
wardress, as Maurice called her. Following her down the steep
time-worn stairs, she found Eirene, escorted by M. Kirileff, awaiting
her in the courtyard, and she was not too much engrossed with her
story to derive some pleasure from noticing that Eirene looked pale
and ill at ease. It was M. Kirileff who spoke, after receiving an
imperious gesture.
“Her Royal Highness is anxious even now to save you from the penalty
due to your brother’s obstinacy,” he said. “If you choose to sign the
confession I have drawn out, you will be permitted to attend her to
Therma, and she will graciously see that you are sent home from
there.”
“Thank you, I prefer to be here,” returned Zoe briskly. “You don’t
know what a kindness you are doing me by keeping me where there are no
visitors. I have not had an idle moment yet, and my time is fully
occupied far ahead.”
M. Kirileff looked unaffectedly astonished, and Eirene interposed, in
the languid tones of one weary of the subject.
“I regard you with compassion,” she said, “for I know that your facile
imagination can make the wildest dreams appear realities to you. Your
brother I cannot trust myself to see, for he has not the same excuse.
If it was you who suggested the imposture, and induced him to
acquiesce in it, I can only advise you to undo the harm you have done
in leading astray an otherwise worthy young man. The good Father
Athanasios will convey to him any message from you advising him to
submit, but no others.”
“I’m sorry you took the trouble to make such an arrangement, for it
won’t be wanted,” said Zoe. “And when you have had time to think
things over, and realise what you have done, I shall be sorry for you,
Eirene.”
“There is no use in prolonging this discussion, I think,” said Eirene
to M. Kirileff. “We are not likely to meet again,” she added, over her
shoulder, to Zoe, “but should you return to a better mind, I shall
have pleasure in extending my patronage to you.”
Zoe returned to her cell fuming, and it was some time before she was
sufficiently calm to resume her work, while Eirene turned away to
begin her journey to Therma in M. Kirileff’s company. He had horses,
servants and tents awaiting him below the rock, and a girl from the
village had been impressed to wait upon her. She was treated with the
utmost deference; her tent was pitched apart from the rest; her
pleasure was consulted as to the hours of halting or starting again;
but she was kept perpetually under surveillance. In her tent her maid
watched her; if she wandered outside it, two _cavasses_ kept her
faithfully in sight; on the march M. Kirileff, riding beside her, at
precisely the right distance to the rear, divided his attention
between her face and the track. He had a way of leading the
conversation round to Maurice and Zoe, or to her experiences in the
brigands’ camp, but her replies baffled him. They told so little that
he could draw no conclusions, and they expressed still less. It was
with a mixture of resentment and relief that he handed her over at
last to the care of Madame Ladoguin, and gave his final instructions
to that lady in private.
“I hope you may have better success with our charming Princess than I
have had,” he said. “I no longer wonder that she was able to plan and
effect her escape from Scythia as she did.”
“Well, you could hardly expect her, after her late experiences, to
confide in so youthful and _débonnaire_ a person as yourself, could
you?” smiled his hostess. “But with a woman, and one who has seen
something of her world, it may be different.”
“If there is any one in the world who can win her confidence, it is
Chariclea Feodorovna,” said M. Kirileff, with every appearance of
fervent conviction; “and I only trust she may.”
“Why?” the quick note of alarm in the lady’s voice showed that she
scented danger. “You don’t imagine that she has any sympathy with the
impostor?”
“None whatever--at present; but with a woman one always fears a change
of mind. There is something most wearisomely convincing about the
youth Smith. A man of any other nation, convicted of base treachery in
the presence of a lady whose good opinion he must surely prize, would
have protested, entreated, asseverated his innocence. But this stolid
Englishman does not even give himself the trouble to offer a
statement. He contents himself with asserting that he is in the right,
in a tone which implies that it signifies nothing whether she believes
it or not, and proceeds to drive her to frenzy by insisting on his
pretensions. There is something impressive in this brutal simplicity.”
“Quite so,” said Mme. Ladoguin. “And you think it impressed her, or
will yet succeed in doing so?”
“I am trusting to your influence that it may not. I will own that I
have had moments of alarm. I imagined that I distinguished on her face
a look resembling relief when I first revealed to her the nature of
the deception. But it passed quickly when I pointed out its sordid
motive, and the _bourgeois_ origin of the plotters. A peasant would
have been infinitely more welcome as a rival than a respectable youth
of the middle class.”
“But I had the idea that these Teffanys--these Smiths, I should
say--belonged to the _petite noblesse_, what the English call
‘gentry,’” said Mme. Ladoguin. M. Kirileff smiled meaningly.
“That is an idea I must beg you to banish from your mind. For the
purposes of conversation with the Princess, they are of a superior
order of agriculturists. I brought the thing home to her when I
pointed out that she would have been offered a marriage with young
Smith as the price of her life had she fallen into the hands of
Panagiotis.”
“You have prepared the ground well, Boris Constantinovitch. She
exhibited disgust?”
“More than disgust--agony. And thereupon the innocent Monsieur Smith
spoils the effect by demanding with fury what I have been saying to
make her unhappy!”
“Ah, these unrehearsed effects--how they ruin our best scenes! But the
young man is certainly impossible. I suppose”--with sudden
keenness--“it has not struck you to hint to the young lady that in
case of any further escapades on her part, Scythia might be driven to
abandon her claim, and take up that of this pretender instead? That
would make it easier to manage her.”
“You terrify me!” cried M. Kirileff, with genuine alarm. “Is it
possible you do not see that our only hold over her is to maintain her
in the assurance that hers is the only claim worth considering? The
merest suggestion that the youth might conceivably have right on his
side would ruin everything. Down would go the barrier of disgust I
have erected with so much pains, she would see herself as the usurper
instead of him, and even if we continued to support her, the moral
support of her own whole-hearted confidence in her rights would be
gone.”
“I see,” said Mme. Ladoguin slowly. “Well, frankly, if that is the
case, I wonder at your bringing her here. I will keep a careful watch
over her, of course; but in a place like this there are endless
opportunities for mischief. Panagiotis is always at hand, and that
Captain Wylie is a perfect terror. Since he was tricked into paying
the ransom without rescuing his friends, he has given the city no
peace. The consular body are just as tired of him as the authorities
are, and he is bringing the Ambassadors at Czarigrad into the matter.
He is certain to insist on seeing the Princess when he finds out she
is here, to try and discover from her where the Smiths are, and he may
persuade her of the truth of their claims.”
“He must not see her,” was the prompt reply. “Do you think I should
have entrusted her to your care if I had not had full confidence in
you? You must manage--somehow--anyhow--to keep them apart. A word to
the doctor will ensure a certain amount of quiet and retirement for
the Princess--she sees only your very intimate friends, and no
foreigners, you perceive? Your brother will keep you informed of
Captain Wylie’s movements, and when he is in the city you will go to
no place where you would be likely to meet him, and you will take care
that the direction of your drives does not leak out through the
servants. He will scarcely force his way into the Consulate, or if he
did, I have no doubt your husband would repel force with force, and
public opinion would justify him. If he should obtain an entrance by
any stratagem, I can trust you to deal with him.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid of that. It is the scandal, the unpleasantness.
The man is so atrociously persistent.”
“I understand. I don’t mind telling you that I dislike this delay in
Therma as much as you can. But what is to be done? It is all very well
to give out that the Princess went on pilgrimage, but every one in the
Court circle knows the real state of the case, and she cannot be
received as if nothing had happened. Their Imperial Majesties are
deeply incensed. I shall represent as strongly as I can the expediency
of bringing her back quickly, and you must prevail upon her to write a
letter of penitence and submission, which will help matters on. Short
of a convent--and I should not care to trust her in one outside
Scythia--she is safer with you than she could be anywhere else.”
“I suppose a letter signed by her would not be sufficient?”
M. Kirileff shook his head. “It would appear too casual. No, the
writing must be her own throughout. But I hope much from your
persuasions. You will keep constantly before her, of course, the peril
and disgrace from which she has been rescued, and point out that her
only hope for the future lies in a return to Court favour. One warning
I must give you. Don’t attempt to represent the young man Smith as a
plotter, or as intending anything but the most honourable and
_bourgeois_ of marriages. One glance at his face shows you that he is
absolutely incapable of the slightest approach to art or _finesse_ of
any kind. Remember that he is a mere tool in the hands of the
remorseless Panagiotis, who spares no one who comes in the way of his
schemes.”
“I will remember,” laughed the lady. “It is a comfort that you think
the Princess is willing to be persuaded.”
“I do, but I think she needs to be kept in the same mind. I saw signs
of wavering myself, on the morning we left Hadgi-Antoniou, when she
expressed a wish to see Smith’s sister in private. I pointed out that
the girl--who is endowed with more vivacity than her brother--might
very probably, in her rage at the discovery of their plot, attempt
some violence, and she agreed at once that I had better be present.
That is the sort of assistance I hope for from you--an unobtrusive
influence constantly exerted, both to protect her from intrusion and
to turn her thoughts in the right direction.”
This conference put Eirene’s two guardians into a state of the highest
mutual appreciation, and M. Kirileff went on his way to Scythia with
an easy mind, leaving his confederate to make Eirene’s life a burden
to her. The next few weeks were the most absolutely miserable the girl
had ever experienced, for she knew exactly what Maurice and Zoe must
think of her, and she had no means of fulfilling the task she had set
herself. The realisation of the part she must play had come to her in
a flash as she sat beside the Hegoumenos on the divan, and listened to
the measured periods of M. Kirileff. Her first feeling had been
something more than the relief he had read in her face--positive
triumph. She had been right, after all, when she suspected Maurice of
being a prince in disguise. But even as the thought crossed her mind,
she read in the Scythian’s expression that she had betrayed herself,
and she saw her course clear before her. To remain at Hadgi-Antoniou,
throwing in her lot with that of Maurice and Zoe, would do no good.
The monastery which had guarded the faith for centuries could guard
secrets as well. The prisoners might remain in a living death,
unsuspected by the outside world, while it would be announced to
Europe that they had met their fate at the hands of the brigands. The
Embassies would demand an indemnity and the punishment of the
murderers, and Scythia would supply the Roumi Government with the
necessary money, while the crime would be added to the record of the
next few criminals who had not the wherewithal to grease the palms of
justice. Even Wylie would be deceived by a circumstantial story,
perhaps by the production of relics of his friends, and would return
sorrowfully to India, taking away their last hope. Eirene saw it all,
even while she called up the look of resentment and disgust which had
assured M. Kirileff of the success of his rearrangement of facts. She
must efface from his mind the memory of her momentary slip, she must
deceive even Maurice and Zoe, lest he should see in their faces that
he was being played with. She must return to civilisation, and in some
way communicate with Wylie, and that she might do this, she must throw
dust in the eyes of friend and foe alike.
It was a curious feature of her state of mind that the momentous news
which she had heard from M. Kirileff scarcely occurred to her, except
as a cogent reason why Maurice and Zoe would not be allowed to go free
save as discredited and self-confessed impostors. She did not ask
herself what its effect might be on her own future, for the exigencies
of the present occupied all her thoughts. The magnitude of her task
kept her sleepless during her last night at the monastery, and led her
to the desperate attempt, which M. Kirileff had frustrated, to secure
Zoe as a confederate. It would be so much easier to communicate with
Wylie, or with some British representative, if there were two to watch
for opportunities instead of one, that she conceived the idea of
inducing Zoe to make an apparent submission and accompany her. The
envoy’s watchfulness had not only destroyed this hope, but had obliged
her to deepen the bitterness with which Zoe must regard her, and she
entered on the journey with feelings almost of despair. Without
protest she acquiesced in M. Kirileff’s suggestion that it should be
announced that her Royal Highness had returned from a pilgrimage to
the shrine of Hadgi-Antoniou, and was resting at Therma after the
hardships she had undergone, while the friends who had shared with her
the experience of being captured by brigands were making a more
extended tour among the rock monasteries near the Morean frontier. The
announcement would, at any rate, give Wylie some idea of the
whereabouts of his friends, and surely, surely, it must lead him to
insist on seeing her, and learning from her the true state of the
case.
But in this forecast Eirene had reckoned without Chariclea Feodorovna,
and the very capable staff of assistants she had gathered round her.
The Princess was received with the tenderest affection and respect,
and promptly bound hand and foot with bonds too imperceptible to
resent, too strong to break. The doctor who was called in to prescribe
for her shattered nerves ordered quiet and retirement, with a very
little society of a cheerful and familiar kind. What could be more in
accordance with the prescription than to limit Eirene’s visitors to
selected members of the Scythian colony and a few favoured
representatives of those other Powers which were in sympathy with
Scythian aims? At the same time, Madame Ladoguin, whose own appearance
was a testimony to her skill, took in hand the restoration of her
guest’s complexion, which had suffered from a month’s exposure to all
kinds of weather, without the protection of hat or veil. It was clear
that Eirene could not appear at the Scythian Court--whither she was so
soon to return--with a brown face and red hands, and her adviser acted
the beneficent tyrant to the life, forbidding her to go out on days
when a particular wind--or any wind--was blowing, and applying healing
balms which required, in order to produce their full effect, that the
patient should spend a day in bed. Resistance was useless, and Eirene
acquiesced helplessly for fear of arousing suspicion, but in one thing
she would not yield. All Madame Ladoguin’s persuasions and
encouragements could not induce her to write the desired letter of
penitence to the Scythian Court. To such expedients was she driven
that she would spend whole mornings in writing out drafts of the
letter and making beginnings, which were all torn up. “I will not
leave Therma until I have done something to help Maurice and Zoe,” she
said to herself. “After that, it doesn’t signify what happens to me. I
suppose I must go back to Pavelsburg, but I won’t write what isn’t
true to make them treat me better. Maurice wouldn’t, and I won’t.”
All this time Wylie made no sign. As soon as she reached Therma,
Eirene had asked her hostess about him, saying frankly that she wished
to thank him for his efforts in procuring her ransom; but she was told
that he had returned to India, satisfied that his friends were safe.
She did not believe this, but she thought it very probable that he
wished it to be believed, in order that he might have more freedom to
act, and in her drives she looked narrowly among the crowd of many
nationalities that thronged the streets for the tell-tale eyes which
no disguise could hide. But she never saw them. Once or twice she
ventured casually to inquire of Madame Ladoguin’s guests if they knew
anything of Captain Wylie, and was always assured, with a look of
astonishment, that he had made himself only too well known in the city
while he remained there, but that he had now, happily, left it. Still,
this did not necessarily prove that he had not returned to it, and
Eirene began to wonder whether she could not write to him, as he
seemed so strangely slow in seeking her. She did not know his address,
but the British Consul-General would certainly forward a letter. Would
it be best to send it by post or by one of the servants? So far as she
knew, she was free to correspond with any one she would, and it was
merely the feeling that she had very careful and subtle adversaries to
deal with that made her hesitate. She could not afford unsuccessful
experiments. If it was discovered that she was attempting to
communicate with Wylie, the fact would give the lie to the attitude
she had so resolutely maintained, and even if it were only discovered
that she had written to him, it would enable the Ladoguins to
anticipate any step he might take.
Curiously enough, the danger attending both the means of communication
she had contemplated was made clear to her on the same day. She was
well supplied with money, and had been occupied in the very necessary
task of getting some new clothes. One of her orders had been sent to a
British firm in Vindobona. It was written in Eirene’s name by Madame
Ladoguin, who acted as a kind of unofficial lady-in-waiting, but it
chanced that she was called out of the room before it was finished,
and Eirene addressed and fastened the envelope in a hurry, in order to
catch the post. The answer arrived in due time, but the tradesman
begged to know whether there had been more than one enclosure, as the
letter had been skilfully unclosed and refastened before it reached
him. The incident spoke volumes as to the safety of letters confided
to the Consulate post-bag, and Eirene realised that, though she had
not discovered it, she was under as strict surveillance as that which
had proved so irksome on the journey. Was it safe to attempt to bribe
the servants, she wondered? They all seemed anxious to oblige--even,
so it struck her, to be bribed--especially Madame Ladoguin’s French
maid, whose services she shared. Were they also spies, eager to tempt
her to employ them, that they might carry a report to their mistress?
An impulse, for which she could not account, prompted her to look at
the money with which she had been furnished. It was all in gold, and
every coin was marked with a tiny scratch in exactly the same place.
Eirene gave up the idea of bribing the servants.
One attempt she did actually make, which might have ended more
disastrously than it did. She was driving with Madame Ladoguin, and
the latter had stopped the carriage at a shop in order to leave a
message. Before the _cavass_ had time to return, she caught sight of a
lady advancing towards the carriage.
“Pardon, dearest Princess!” she said, stepping out hastily, “but that
is the Pannonian Consul-General’s wife, who has not been presented to
you. I won’t inflict her on you, if you will permit me to go to her,
for she is a sad bore.”
Not guessing that the lady in question was really the wife of the
British Consul-General, and one of the persons in all Therma whom
Madame Ladoguin least wished her to meet, Eirene looked round for some
means of utilising this opportunity. The programme of a concert which
was to take place for some charity lay on the seat opposite her, and
she snatched it up and wrote on it in pencil:--
“The Princess Eirene Féofan will be glad to receive Captain Wylie at
any time convenient to him. Let him see that his name is taken to her
direct.”
She folded the paper, addressed it to the care of the British
Consul-General, and beckoned to a beggar whom the absence of the
_cavass_ had tempted to draw near the carriage. In her hand she held a
gold piece.
“For Sir Frank Francis, at the Consulate of Great Britain,” she
whispered in French. “This is for you, if you will take it to him.”
He looked up at her with greedy, uncomprehending eyes, and she waved
him hastily away as Madame Ladoguin turned round. “The British
Consul-General!” she repeated, in an agony, and saw that he understood
her; but he shambled away down an alley in the opposite direction to
that in which the British Consulate lay. Eirene never heard anything
more of him or her message, but she realised gradually that she ought
to be thankful she had lighted on a rogue too unsophisticated to
double his gains by carrying it to the Scythian instead of the British
Consul-General.