A CHARMING TÊTE-À-TÊTE
As Pauline was about to leave the entrance-hall, the double doors leading
from the street suddenly opened, and in walked her father, the Citoyen
Henrion, Ambassador of the Republic.
He was a man close upon his sixtieth year, with silver hair and a
dignified presence. His countenance expressed mildness and amiability,
rather than force of character or diplomatic subtlety; in truth, his
appointment was due more to his polished manners than to anything else.
The _parvenu_ ambassadors of the Republic had often, from lack of dignity
and ignorance of etiquette, excited the sneers and laughter of foreign
courts. The Marquis de Vaucluse was sent to St. Petersburg to show
that the race of gentlemen was not extinct in France, and that the new
government could count among its sons men distinguished both by birth
and manners. He conscientiously strove to do his duty to the Republic,
and when reproached for relinquishing the traditions of his order, he
was wont to say, “I serve France, not Napoleon: a nation, and not a
government.”
There was at this moment a cloud on his brow, and Pauline perceived its
cause in the shape of Lieutenant Voronetz, who, with a very lugubrious
face, followed hard upon the heels of the Ambassador.
“This may be fun to you, Baroness,” he remarked, “but it means death to
me.”
“And, naturally, you don’t want to die,” answered Pauline. “But, then,
neither does Lord Courtenay.”
“So the story this lieutenant tells me is true?” said the Ambassador,
looking in perplexity from one to the other.
“Quite true, _mon père_.”
“Where is the man?” said the Marquis, casting a look around.
“Probably at this moment admiring the Gobelins in the Porphyry Suite,
where he must abide till this storm be blown over.”
“You have lodged him in the suite kept only for our illustrious visitors!”
“Well, he’s an illustrious visitor. Comes of one of the oldest families
in Europe. Counts the Greek emperors among his ancestors. Can Napoleon
say as much?”
“He must be surrendered to Lieutenant Voronetz.”
“He shall _not_ be surrendered,” said Pauline firmly.
The Marquis grew uneasy. When his daughter assumed that look and that
tone, he knew full well that she would have her way in spite of him. Has
he been the only man to be ruled by his daughter?
“Why did you do this thing?” he asked, smiting his gloves together in a
helpless fashion.
“To teach a tyrant that liberty is not yet dead in St. Petersburg.”
The Marquis gave her a glance intended as a caution not to speak too
freely in the presence of the Czar’s lieutenant. Then, after a moment’s
pause, he drew her aside out of the hearing of Voronetz.
“Of course, _matiushka_,” he said, using the endearing term which the
foreigner in Russia soon learns to apply indiscriminately to all women,
“of course, little mother, we know, between ourselves, that this kneeling
to the Czar is a degrading piece of servility, and I can quite sympathise
with Lord Courtenay in his attitude. But your action, Pauline, has put
us all in the wrong. If you desired him to be set free it should have
been done in proper form. A joint note from the ambassadors would have
procured his release. As matters now stand, Paul will be justified in
demanding Lord Courtenay’s surrender. The meekest ruler in the world
cannot submit to have his authority flouted as you have flouted it. _Nom
de Dieu!_ Pauline, what were you thinking of?”
“Not of the niceties of diplomatic observance, you may be sure. But do
not look so troubled, _mon père_. The Czarovitch shall get us out of our
difficulty. Go and lay the matter before him. Ask him to persuade his
father to pardon the Englishman. He is sure to succeed. You know how
Paul—it’s his only good point—respects the judgment of Alexander. ‘I
must consult the Grand Duke,’ he says, when in a state of doubt. ‘He has
a fine sense of justice.’ Go at once, before Paul has had time to learn
that his prisoner has been rescued. The work of persuading him will be
easier then.”
“Alexander certainly _could_ effect this for us,” said the Marquis
musingly. “The question is, will he?”
“He will, if you say that it is the wish of Pauline.”
The Ambassador gave her a sharp, penetrating look, as if he would fain
learn the reason for this belief of hers.
“Was he not present at our ball here last week?” remarked Pauline,
answering her father’s unspoken question. “He danced with me four times,
and was extremely gracious; nay, did he not say if ever I should have a
grievance that he could set right, I was not to hesitate to apply to him?
_Mon père_, we’ll make him redeem that promise. Tell him that Pauline
de Vaucluse is a prisoner in her father’s Embassy, unable to stir out,
because she has made herself amenable to arrest by thwarting the Czar’s
will. He’ll soon set matters right, and you’ll return with a free pardon
both for Lord Courtenay and your mischievous daughter. But first you’ll
see our visitor?”
Her father assented, and bidding the lackeys supply Voronetz with wine he
requested the lieutenant to await his return.
Then, with old-fashioned courtesy, he offered his arm and conducted his
daughter to the daintily-furnished chamber that served as her boudoir.
“Now, remember,” cautioned Pauline, “that Lord Courtenay will require
delicate handling, for he is patriotically proud and quick to take fire.
If he should come to believe that his presence here, though personally
agreeable to us, is from a political point of view embarrassing, he’ll
make his _congé_ at once. As soon as he learned that this was the French
Embassy, he was for walking out again, his honour forbidding him to take
refuge here. He required some persuading to remain. So, _mon père_, be
careful.”
“Now, Heaven forbid,” said the Marquis, “that I should say aught to
embarrass him.”
And the Ambassador was as good as his word, for upon Wilfrid’s entering,
he greeted him in a manner so courteous and affable that Wilfrid was at
once placed at his ease. Pauline looked at her visitor with a smile that
plainly said, “Did I not say my father would take your part?”
“Monsieur l’Ambassadeur,” said Wilfrid, “our respective countries being
at war, my position beneath the roof of the French Embassy is certainly a
singular one.”
“And for me a happy one,” replied the Marquis, with a bow. “Still,
whatever the situation, it is not of your creating, but of Pauline’s. You
are her guest and mine; and here you must remain till we have persuaded
the Czar to see matters in another light.”
After a few more words of gracious import, De Vaucluse, taking Voronetz
with him, went off on his conciliatory errand, leaving his daughter to
entertain the stranger.
And a charming entertainer she made, quite fascinating Wilfrid with the
vivacity and intelligence of her conversational powers. Part of the time
was spent in showing her guest the various objects of interest contained
in her boudoir, among them being a piece of silk embroidery wrought by
her own hand and set as a picture in a silver frame. It represented a
castle, quaint, yet pretty.
“Castle Runö,” explained Pauline. “Built upon one of the islands of the
Neva by Peter the Great, to satisfy a fancy of his wife, Catharine. I
hope to have the honour of entertaining you there some day, for castle
and island are both mine, my very own, inherited from my Russian mother.
Its possession carries with it a title that makes me a baroness in my own
right.”
“Then you are half a Russian?” smiled Wilfrid.
Though by her own showing this must be so, the Baroness nevertheless
seemed to resent the idea.
“No, indeed, I am wholly French, as I can soon prove. Vera, come here a
moment,” she said, addressing her maid.
The girl came forward, and at her mistress’s request knelt upon the
hearth.
“Vera is a pure Muscovite,” said the Baroness. “Now, look at her ear,”
she continued, touching it caressingly. “You see it? Look at mine, and
tell me the difference.”
“Her ear has no lobe,” remarked Wilfrid, in some surprise.
“True. Have you not noticed the like before?” asked Pauline. “No? O,
unobservant man! Well, after this take due note, and you will find that
every true-born Russ is without a lobe to his ear.”
Wilfrid wondered whether his grand duchess was distinguished by this
peculiarity. He hoped not, for Pauline’s pearly little shell of an ear
was prettier than Vera’s.
“I suppose,” he observed, “that all the members of the Imperial Family
bear this Muscovite mark?”
“Not so, for the dynasty has scarcely a drop of true Russian blood, and
is rather proud of the fact. ‘I am a German, not a Russian,’ said the
Czar Ivan; and so have all his descendants said.”
Pauline hitherto had been bright and lively, but all her brightness and
liveliness went in a moment when she saw Wilfrid open a small album that
lay upon the table.
“You may look,” she said, with a heavy sigh, for Wilfrid, on seeing the
nature of its contents, had closed the book.
“Indeed, I would rather that you read it.”
Wilfrid opened the album again, and found it to contain melancholy
souvenirs of the Reign of Terror in the shape of private letters written
by some of Pauline’s friends, who had fallen victims to the guillotine;
written, many of them, on the very eve of execution. Their style, direct
from the heart, as was natural with persons at the point of death, gave
to these letters a pathos that would have touched the heart of the least
emotional.
“Those letters are dear to me,” said Pauline. “They are the fuel that
keeps the fire of my patriotism burning. Every day I read them, in order
to prevent me from ever loving the Republic, that Republic that put my
friends to death.”
With somewhat melancholy feelings, Wilfrid closed the album, admiring, as
he did so, the creamy white of the binding.
“Is this the famous Torjek leather,” he asked, passing his forefinger
over its smooth surface.
Pauline’s answer took a singular shape. She bent forward, and laying hold
of Wilfrid’s hand lifted it and drew the finger that had touched the book
slowly down her cheek, accompanying her action with a weird smile.
“Is not the touch the same?” she asked; and, without giving him time to
answer, she continued, “You have heard of the Princess Lamballe?”
“Good heavens! Do you mean that——?”
“Did you ever see her at the Tuileries in the days of the old _régime_?”
“No, but——”
“Well, from to-day you can say that you have had the honour of touching
her skin!”
Knowing that among the eccentricities of horror produced by the French
Revolution human tanneries had a place, Wilfrid had no need to ask more
with that binding, white and lustrous, staring him in the face.
“There is all that is left of the Princess Lamballe,” said Pauline, her
eyes set with a stony grief, a grief too deep for tears. “We were brought
up from girlhood together. She was my dearest friend. She was young; she
was beautiful; she was good. And you know her end? Taken to the prison of
La Force, her only crime being that she was a friend of the Queen’s, she
was flung forth from the prison-gate into the hands of a howling mob. And
then.... My God! it will not bear thinking of.... Pieces of the body put
on the end of pikes were paraded through the streets.... Some found their
way to the tanyard....”
Overcome by the recollection, she was silent for a few moments, and when
she spoke again it was in a mood fierce and dark.
“Do you wonder now why I hate the Republic? Let my father serve it, if he
will. For my part, I work for its downfall.”
It was clear to Wilfrid from this, as well as from previous remarks
made by her, that the one passionate aim of Pauline’s life was the
subversion of the Republic and the restoration of the Bourbons, an aim
laudable enough in itself, were she any other than she was, but scarcely
compatible with her position as the daughter of the Ambassador of the
French Republic.
“To work for its downfall,” she repeated. “And I shall succeed,” she
continued, with a smile as of coming triumph. “Mark me,” she added,
“smile, doubt, call it vaunting, if you will, but when the secret
history of to-day comes to be written, it will be found that I, Pauline
de Vaucluse, Baroness of Runö, have been the chief cause of Bonaparte’s
downfall.”
But when Wilfrid asked in what way she intended to accomplish this, he
was met by a tantalising shake of her head.
However strange her words, there was in her manner something which led
him to believe that they were no mere boast. Still, great as was his
desire to witness the fulfilment of them, he did not like to see a
daughter working in opposition to her father, especially if—he trusted he
was not wronging her by the supposition—she should be availing herself of
the political secrets acquired by her residence in the Embassy.
However, being as yet not sufficiently advanced in her friendship, he
refrained from taking upon himself the office of Mentor.
At a sign from the Baroness, her maid, Vera, withdrew, returning with a
bright samovar or tea-urn.
“Do you take sugar?” asked Pauline, who seemed to have recovered from the
gloom occasioned by her reminiscences. “Yes? I fear I can offer you none
but Barth’s.”
“And who is Barth?”
“A man who is making his fortune out of beetroot. We have to rely upon
him ever since Paul forbade the import of your colonial sugar.”
“It seems to me,” grumbled Wilfrid, “that this Paul lays his despotic
finger upon every department of life.”
“Too true. And he treats his own family no more indulgently than he
treats the public. He has kept his daughters under restraint for a week
upon a diet of bread and water merely for yawning at church. And in the
Greek Church, you must know, one has to stand, and not sit; and the
service usually lasts three hours.”
“Who would be a grand duchess?” smiled Wilfrid.
“Times will be different when little Sasha comes to the throne.”
“And who is little Sasha?” asked Wilfrid absently.
“The Czarovitch, to be sure—Alexander.”
“Of course—called little because he is like his father in stature?”
This remark drew a laugh from the Baroness and a smile from her maid.
“‘Little’ is a term of endearment. He stands six feet two inches high in
his boots.”
“My height exactly,” remarked Wilfrid.
Pauline paused with her cup half-way to her lips, and looked doubtfully
at Wilfrid.
“I don’t think that you are _quite_ as tall as Alexander.”
“Six feet two in my boots,” asseverated Wilfrid.
Pauline drank her tea thoughtfully. Presently she said:—
“You’ll think me silly, but I am quite curious to know which is the
taller, you or Alexander.”
“How shall we settle this weighty matter?”
“Easily enough. Alexander’s exact height is to be seen on the panel
behind that curtain. He called at the Embassy last week, and, _mon père_
being out, it fell to me to entertain his Imperial Highness. He had tea
here, just as you and I are having it now, and, if you’ll believe it, the
conversation took a similar turn to ours—that is to say, we talked of his
stature. I was actually so daring as to doubt the word of a Czarovitch,
so just to convince me, he laughingly stood against yonder wall, like
a recruit about to be measured, while I, with a piece of black crayon,
marked his height upon a panel, and found it to be, as I have said, six
feet two inches. See!” Walking to the place indicated, Pauline drew
aside the tapestry, revealing upon the white panel behind a short black
horizontal line, and something more as well that she had not mentioned,
for the line rested upon the life-size silhouette of a human profile,
drawn with black crayon, presumably the profile of Alexander.
“Now, if you want to measure yourself with little Sasha—?” said Pauline.
So, to please her, Wilfrid stood with his back against the panel, and
Pauline saw that the crown of his head was on a level with the charcoal
line, showing that his stature differed little, if at all, from that of
the Czarovitch.
“And this, I presume, is his profile,” said Wilfrid, falling back to
obtain a better view. “Drawn by—?”
“Your humble servant. As Alexander stood there, he said, ‘I wonder you
don’t draw my profile also!’ ‘Why, so I will,’ was my reply, and placing
a lamp on this column here, I made him stand in such a position that his
side-face was silhouetted upon the panel, and—there you have it! Now,
Lord Courtenay, you are an artist, that is to say, one who has, or ought
to have, a keen eye for beauty. Don’t you think that Alexander’s profile
is perfect?”
Wilfrid ventured to dissent, though with some diffidence, because it was
clear that his fair hostess regarded it as an ideal head.
“Well, Sir Critic, what are the faulty points?”
“To meet the requirements of my ideal of beauty—and mine, of course, may
be a wrong ideal—the line of the forehead should be brought slightly
nearer to the perpendicular. The nose would be perfect but for this
slight depression near the bridge, and the chin, in my opinion, recedes a
little more than it ought.”
“And your opinion of his character, so far as it can be deduced from this
silhouette?”
“An amiable and intellectual youth, disposed to do good, but likely to
fail for want of a strong will. Of course,” laughed Wilfrid, “this
opinion of mine is open to correction. One should see the whole face with
its expression, before passing judgment.”
Pauline’s pout showed that she was not altogether pleased with Wilfrid’s
views.
“Shall I criticise the critic?” she said, and calling upon Vera to place
the lamp exactly where it had been during her sketching of Alexander,
she adjusted Wilfrid’s position, little by little, till at last his
profile—brow, nose, lip, chin—became coincident as far as was possible,
with Alexander’s.
“That’s it; now don’t move,” she said. “Let us see how much difference
there is, and whom the difference favours.”
Taking up a piece of black crayon, she outlined Wilfrid’s profile upon
that of Alexander’s, with a result as surprising to Wilfrid as to herself.
The defects, or assumed defects, that he had pointed out in Alexander’s
profile were remedied in his own. The line of the forehead had become
vertical, imparting a more intellectual character to the face; the
depression of the nose had vanished, and the chin had taken a firmer
touch.
Though Wilfrid tried not to be conceited, his own judgment told him that
the second profile was preferable to the first, and so thought Pauline.
“H’m, an improvement, certainly,” she said, holding her head upon one
side and surveying her handiwork. “So I am to read your character thus,”
she added quizzically. “Amiable and intellectual, herein running parallel
with Alexander, but differing from Alexander in having a strong will. I
trust that in Alexander’s case you are in error, for ’twill be a pity if
weakness of will should prevent him from carrying out the good reforms he
has in mind.”
They returned to their chairs and to their tea.
“Since you know the Czarovitch so well,” said Wilfrid, “I presume you
know also his _aide-de-camp_, Prince Ouvaroff?”
“Do _you_ know him?” she asked.
“Serge and I are friends of several years’ standing,” replied Wilfrid,
very much doubting, however, whether the term “friends” was any longer
applicable to the relationship between himself and Ouvaroff.
Pauline’s face assumed a somewhat whimsical expression. “Poor Ouvaroff!”
“Why that sigh?” smiled Wilfrid.
“Lovers may come, and lovers may go, but Ouvaroff remains faithful for
ever.”
This to Wilfrid was a most surprising piece of news.
“When last we met the Prince spoke of a nameless lady who for some years
past had been saying him nay. Can it be that——”
“He will not take my ‘No.’”
Her words showed Wilfrid that he had been holding a wrong opinion.
Pauline, and not the nameless duchess, was Ouvaroff’s inamorata. So far,
good! There was no rivalry in love between them. But why, then, was the
Prince daily practising swordsmanship? Was the object of his resentment
some other Englishman, and not Wilfrid at all? And what had he meant by
saying he had recently discovered that it was death to court the lady of
his choice, language identical with that used by Baranoff when speaking
of the “Princess”? Were there, then, at St. Petersburg two ladies whom it
was death to court? Now, though it might very well be that peril would
befall the unauthorised suitor who should venture to make love to the
grand-daughter of Ivan VI., yet why an _aide-de-camp_ of the Czarovitch
should not pay his addresses to an ambassador’s daughter without having
the fear of death before his eyes was a question that set Wilfrid
thinking.
It may seem strange that Wilfrid, being now _tête-à-tête_ with one who
knew Ouvaroff intimately, did not ask whether she was acquainted with the
lady to whom the Prince had acted as escort, but the truth was, Pauline
had so fascinating and seductive a manner that Wilfrid hesitated to touch
upon this theme lest she should draw from him an account of the nocturnal
incident at the inn of the Silver Birch, a disclosure which would have
been a breaking of his word to the Princess. Upon that matter, therefore,
he determined to keep a silent tongue.
“Another cup of tea, Lord Courtenay?” said Pauline, breaking in upon his
reverie. “No? You really have finished? Well then——”
Taking the porcelain cup used by Wilfrid, she held it for a moment above
the tiled hearth, and then let it fall. It was shivered to pieces.
Wilfrid wondered in what light he was to take this action.
“It means,” said Pauline, responsive to his thoughts, “that no one else
shall ever drink from that cup. ’Tis a Muscovite way of honouring a
guest. You see, I _am_ half a Russian, after all. With our grand boyars
it is often the practice after a feast to cast all the plate out at the
windows upon the heads of the expectant crowd below, it being thought
undignified to make use of the same dishes a second time. Paul has done
his best by ukase to abolish this custom, chiefly with a view to the
saving of his own plate.”
Wilfrid acknowledged the high honour conferred upon him, adding—
“This must be a somewhat expensive habit on your part?”
“Not so, my lord,” replied Pauline with a charming curtsey. “It is not
_every_ guest I treat in this way.”