The Russian
When the storm was over and the late summer sun came out for a brief half
hour before settling down for the night, there was hardly a hint of rain
left. The sandy ground absorbed the water almost as quickly as it fell,
leaving only tiny pock-marks behind.
The girls opened doors and windows to capture the cool air, and Arden let
the porch awnings down and jumped back just in time to escape a small
cascade as the rain water tumbled free of the canvas pocket.
Then Arden and Sim, Terry and her mother sat on the comfortably screened
porch and watched night fold her dark-blue wings over everything.
“Funniest thing the way that ‘Tess-of-the-Storm-Country’ creature peeked
in at the window and then ran away,” Terry observed dreamily. “Who could
she have been?”
“I suppose she saw Dimitri Uzlov coming up the path and was frightened.
That dog of his certainly looked like nothing human,” Sim replied.
“A case of ‘see what the storm blew in,’” Arden chuckled. “But don’t you
think he’s fascinating? I love his accent.”
Terry’s mother gave a little laugh.
“You youngsters always find something romantic in the most everyday
occurrences, don’t you? But you mustn’t bother Mr. Uzlov. He seems a
serious young man, and he hinted, quite charmingly, that he would rather
be alone. Well—” she smothered a little yawn—“I’m going to bed. It must
be half-past ten. Good-night, girls.”
“Oh—Mother—” Terry drawled—“as if we’d bother him.”
That was one of the nicest things about Terry’s mother. She never
intruded, and any advice she gave was always offered in a way that they
could not possibly object to. But this evening her well-meant plan of
leaving them alone to talk was not needed, for they soon followed her
into the house, and after talking a while in sleepy monosyllables,
without much ceremony fell asleep in comfortable beds.
The next morning brought a blue-and-gold day with a stiff northwest wind
kicking up whitecaps on Bottle Bay. “Buckingham Palace” stood on a little
neck of land, with the ocean on one side and the bay on the other.
“Let’s take the rowboat and go down the bay a bit,” Terry suggested.
“It’s too cold for bathing.”
“We could take a look at the houseboat without disturbing the hermit,”
Arden remarked. “Maybe——”
“Exactly what I had in mind,” Terry said. “You’re positively uncanny,
Arden, the way you read people’s minds. We don’t need to mention it to
Mother, though.”
It was after breakfast, and the girls were sitting on the bottom step of
the porch, idly watching tiny ants rebuild their houses that had been
washed away in the storm.
“Let me row, Terry, will you?” Sim asked. “I’m going to start in training
this very day, and when we go back to Cedar Ridge in the fall I’ll be the
champion swimmer of the college,” she bragged.
“You can row, all right, I’ve no desire to raise blisters on my
lily-white palms,” Terry answered her, and going to the door of the house
she called: “Mother, we’re going for a little row in the bay. The girls
want to take a look around. Yes, we’ll be careful. ’Bye!”
On the bay side an old though seaworthy rowboat was moored, covered with
a canvas which had kept out the rain. They quickly pulled off the cover,
and Terry took the oars from their place. With a few uncertain pushes,
they finally made one strong enough to get started.
They were wearing shorts with sneakers, and bright handkerchiefs knotted
at their throats; no hats, but Sim had tied a ribbon like Alice in
Wonderland around her head to keep her short curls in place. It was
becoming, too, and perhaps Sim knew that.
“Now let’s see how good you are, Sim,” Terry suggested. “Hail the
champion——”
“I’m not good at all, but I will be. Arden, you get in the
what-do-you-call it—stern—the back, and, Terry, you sit there, too, then
you can watch me and tell where we’re going.” Sim found a place to brace
her heels and grasping the oars began to back water until they could
turn.
“Don’t just row down there and bump into the houseboat. Pretend we’re
going some place else,” Arden suggested. “We don’t want to appear so
curious.”
“It won’t make much difference; the wind is taking us there, anyway.
Oh—ouch!” Sim exclaimed. “I caught my fingers between the oars.” She
shook her hands quickly to “throw off” the pain.
“Well, don’t let the oar go, silly!” Terry cautioned quickly. “Oh, Sim,
you lovely chump, there it goes!”
The oar, as though pulled by the water, slipped out of the oarlock and
floated away entirely unconcerned.
“Here, give me the other one, I’ll paddle,” Terry cried, reaching for the
one faithful remaining oar.
Sim tried to hand it to her and in so doing gave Arden a little bump on
the head.
“Oh, Sim, you’re hitting me,” Arden squealed.
“Sorry!” grunted Sim.
“Fine bunch of sailors you are. You can’t paddle against this wind. Look
where we’re going!” Arden was indicating the shore line. The houseboat
was only a few hundred feet away now, in a little cove, down the bay from
Terry’s house, the distance being about a half mile.
“We’re going right toward it. What’ll we do?” Sim wailed. “We’ll hit it
in a minute!”
“Oh, hush, Sim! We can’t help it. Stick out the oar, Terry, so we don’t
bump too hard,” Arden ordered.
Terry tried her best, but the oar slipped to one side, and the boat
rammed the houseboat with a little bump that, to the girls, sounded like
a crash.
Instantly there was a ferocious barking, and the girls could hear a call:
“Tania! Tania!” and then a rush of words uttered in a soothing tone.
They sat quite still, an embarrassed little group, while their lazy old
craft hugged the side of the houseboat.
“Sim Westover,” Arden hissed, “I could cheerfully duck you, clothes and
all. What will the man think?”
“But, Arden——” began Sim, and then stopped as she heard footsteps on the
upper deck of the boat near them.
Dimitri Uzlov had come on deck and was gazing down at them silently. They
looked back, uncertain how to explain their presence. Arden spoke:
“We’re sorry to have disturbed you, but we lost an oar and the boat
drifted over here.”
“I let it slip,” Sim added a little nervously. “I’m not very good at
rowing, I’m afraid.” She smiled up at him apologetically.
He still looked down at them, saying nothing, half amused and half angry,
apparently.
“If you could lend us an oar we could row over and get ours,” Terry
suggested. “We’d bring yours right back.”
Suddenly the young man burst out laughing, and they all felt better, so
much better that they joined in the laugh themselves.
“You are char-r-rming,” he chuckled. “Of course you may take my oar; I
will get it for you,” and he disappeared from sight as if he had dropped
down a hatchway.
“See!” Arden whispered gleefully. “Isn’t he nice?”
Then they heard him call: “Can you push down to this end of my castle? My
rowboat is moored here.”
Terry poled the boat in the shallow water, for the houseboat was tied up
at the shore, to the place Dimitri indicated.
There was a boat similar to theirs fast to the larger craft. Dimitri
handed Terry the oar, smiling.
“Do you think you can recover your own?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, easily,” replied Terry. “I’ll row this time.”
Sim climbed to the stern a little humbly and sat panting while Terry,
with long strokes, pulled toward the deeper water where their oar was
bobbing about in the sunlight.
“Grab it, Sim,” she called when they reached it, “and don’t murder anyone
with it!”
Sim grabbed and recovered the dripping wooden shaft successfully and also
gratefully.
“Now we’ll take his back,” Terry went on, and turned their craft toward
the houseboat.
Tania once more barkingly announced their arrival, and Dimitri appeared
at the signal.
“Will you come on board and rest for a minute?” he invited hospitably.
“It was unfortunate that you lost your oar.”
“I don’t know whether we ought——” began Terry but Arden, seeing his
smiling face take on an embarrassed look, interrupted with:
“We’d love to, for just a second. I’ve never been on a houseboat.”
Terry tied their boat up near his, and the three girls went around to the
stern of the houseboat over a little boardwalk and up the rickety stairs
to the deck of the floating old craft.
There they hesitated. Tania was keeping up a barrage of barking, showing
her fangs and growling at intervals.
“Please, if you will come with me,” Dimitri said. “I will impress on her
that you are my friends.”
They followed him guardedly. “Tania, come here,” he ordered sternly. The
big white-and-tan dog stood like a statue. “Come here!” her master
repeated. Tania walked toward him with queenly dignity.
Dimitri then put his hand on Arden’s arm. “These are my friends,” he
said; and then to the girls: “I will tell her that in Russian, and she
will be sure to understand. Then if you will each pat her head, you will
be fast friends.” He smiled enthusiastically.
The little ceremony of introduction was carried out, and Tania ceased her
worried barking. The dog put a dainty paw on Arden’s white shorts as if
to reassure them all most completely.
“Such a lovely dog,” murmured Sim.
“And intelligent, too,” added Terry.
“I will have pleasure in showing you my little floating home here, if you
would like to see it,” said Mr. Uzlov, smiling his invitation. “It is the
first time I have ever lived on a houseboat. They are rather strange
creatures, is it not so?” Again he smiled.
“This one is very old,” Terry said. “I don’t know how many years it has
been here. It belongs to Mr. Reilly, the town chief of police. This is
the first time it’s been rented in I don’t know how long. I think you
hadn’t better try to move it either by sail or an outboard motor,” she
warned with a laugh. “I fancy it would leak like a sieve.”
“Doubtless,” he agreed, also laughing. “But I shall be safe enough on my
boat. I don’t intend to move her, and probably she rests on the muddy
bottom of this bay and marshy land.”
The houseboat was not large. It consisted of a sort of large shed, with
windows, doors, and a flat roof perched on what had once been a scow.
There was a narrow space running all around the house part, between it
and a low rail. There was a small float at one end to which a rowboat was
made fast. From the float a cleated plank gave access to the lower deck
of the boat, if a deck it could be called. There was also a short flight
of rather rickety steps at the stern by which the girls had come aboard.
The houseboat had once been painted green, but little of the original
color remained.
“Will you follow me?” Dimitri Uzlov requested, opening a sagging door
which led into the rear part of the houseboat. “This is where I do my
work.”
The girls saw that the interior of the craft consisted of really but one
large room, divided by heavy hanging curtains into two apartments. The
one they had entered did the double duty of a sleeping and working space,
for there was a cot in one corner. On a table gleamed a bright brass
samovar with some dishes about it. There was an easel and on a chair near
it brushes in pots, tubes of paint, and a much-smeared palette. The
curtained-off part was the kitchen.
“I am finishing a marine for a client,” the artist said, indicating the
half-finished canvas on the easel.
Arden and her chums noticed several canvases stacked together near one
wall, and standing beside a window was another easel with a picture on
it. But what the subject of this picture was could not be seen, for it
was covered with a sheet.
“Oh, how lovely it is here!” Arden exclaimed. “To have a place all your
own to do just as you please in and no need to worry about neighbors
looking in your windows!”
“At least I am sufficiently isolated here,” the Russian agreed. “The
houseboat is hard to come at. I always loved marshlands. That is one
reason I was attracted to this boat, old and shabby as it is.”
“It’s wonderful, I think,” murmured Sim.
“But a little lonesome,” suggested Terry.
“I came here for lonesomeness—as one reason,” Mr. Uzlov said.
Arden glanced at the exposed picture showing a stormy ocean with sea
gulls fighting the wind. Dimitri smiled understanding as she said:
“It is lovely!”
The artist seemed to be losing some of his reluctance.
Arden walked over toward the other painting—the one covered with a sheet.
She wondered what it could be.
“What is this?” she asked, extending a hand as though to lift the
covering. “Is it your masterpiece?”
Instantly the young man’s face clouded.
“Please—that—do not touch it—please! It is—unfinished. I cannot show it
to you. I am sorry!”
His first words had been hurried—stiff—exclamatory. The girls at once
sensed a change in his manner. But his last word had been almost
pleading. Even then it seemed as if his friendliness, which had been so
pronounced on the arrival of his visitors, was now as covered as was the
picture.
Arden drew back as if hurt.
“I didn’t mean to be curious,” she faltered. “I’m sorry!” Even her words
sounded empty of meaning.
Another change came over the face of Dimitri Uzlov.
“You will be so good as to pardon me for my seeming ill haste,” he
murmured. “But that picture—no—it must not be seen—yet.”
Matters were becoming a little strained and awkward, but Terry went into
the breach cleverly by saying:
“We had better be going. It must be nearly lunch time. Mother will be
expecting us. Thank you for your help, Mr. Uzlov, and for letting us see
your houseboat.”
He did not try to stop them, nor did he express regret at their sudden
departure, but simply said good-bye and then watched them pull away in
the waiting rowboat.
“Queerest person I ever met,” Terry began. “One minute all sunshine and
gladness, and the next, all worked up because Arden asked about his old
picture.”
“I wouldn’t have touched it, anyway,” Arden replied. “I was just trying
to show a little interest. My goodness! Who would want to live in such a
messy place? No one but the sort they call—artists!”
“I wonder what the hidden picture was?” Sim asked curiously. “Perhaps
he’s a spy, making maps of the coast and inlet.”
“Now who said they refused to get mixed up in another mystery?” Terry
jeered. “Well, let’s go home, I’m hungry.”
“So am I, but I would like to know what was on that easel,” Sim remarked
as Terry pulled with strong strokes back to “Buckingham Palace.”