THE CHÂTEAU PAULOFF.
When Jack next opened his eyes with consciousness upon the world he
found he was lying on a soft bed in a sumptuously furnished apartment.
The room was dimly lighted by a handsome lamp, and the cheery flickering
of a large fire cast fantastic shadows upon the massive polished
furniture.
Jack was conscious of a curious inability to move, of a sense of languor
not altogether unpleasant. He seemed to have been asleep a long time,
and to have been troubled with dreams--dreams of the cholera camp at
Varna, of the death-ride in the North Valley, of the struggle in the fog
at Inkermann, of Linham and Will and Pearson, of his mother and sisters.
Strange people seemed to flit about in his dreams: the count, a
white-haired old gentleman, a stately lady, and a young girl who looked
at him always with anxious eyes. The room, too, seemed familiar, though
what it all meant Jack could not tell.
Presently he fancied he was still lying on the cold, wet ground at Old
Fort, then in the caves of Inkermann; then he ceased to think, lamplight
and firelight grew dimmer and dimmer, and at last vanished altogether.
Next it was broad daylight, with a wintry sun shining through the
curtains, and Jack awoke to realise that he really was in bed in a
strange place, and that he felt as weak as a baby. He tried to sit up
and get out of bed; but, utterly unable to do so, he fell back with a
deep groan. Then there sounded a rustle of garments, and a stout,
kind-faced woman, dressed like a nun, wearing a crucifix on her bosom
and beads round her waist, got up from a chair by the bedside, uttered
kind, soothing words in a tongue Jack guessed was Russian, smoothed his
pillows, and gently laid him back upon them.
Then Jack remembered more--he had been taken prisoner by Cossacks. Count
Pauloff had found him and taken him to the prison at Sebastopol. Well,
Russian prisons were splendid places thought Jack, looking round him,
and their attendants were more than kind.
Then some warm milk, flavoured with something very nice, was given him;
the good nun gently bathed his face and hands, and Jack wanted to talk.
He tried his kind nurse with French and English; but she only smiled
gently and shook her head. And so Jack lay quietly thinking until he
happened to catch sight of his own hand and arm. Heavens! it was only
skin and bone; in one day he seemed to have turned into a skeleton!
This gave him fresh food for thought, and his mystification was growing
deeper when his nurse murmured something, among which Jack thought he
caught the name Irma, when a soft footstep approached the bed and a
young girl of exceeding beauty, gladness beaming from her eyes, took
Jack’s hand, saying softly in French, ‘Good-morning, monsieur, welcome
back to life! It has been a hard struggle, but you have conquered.’
The features of the young girl did not seem altogether strange, though
Jack could not for the moment recollect where he had seen them before.
Something of his uncertainty must have showed in his face, for the girl
continued, ‘You are wondering where you are, how you got here, and who I
am?’
‘I confess, mademoiselle, I am puzzled. At first I thought I was in the
prison at Sebastopol; but’---- and Jack looked round him.
The girl laughed gaily. ‘You think more of where you are than of
anything else,’ she said. ‘Well, you are in the house of Count Pauloff;
he brought you here from Sebastopol.’
‘Ha! now I know who you are. You must be the count’s sister; you are so
much alike, yet so much more handsome’---- Then Jack checked himself and
blushed; but Irma, for such was her name, seemed by no means displeased.
‘I am the count’s sister,’ she said.
‘I saw you at the Alma.’
‘Ah that dreadful day, when poor Alexis was wounded and would have been
slain but for you!’ and Irma covered her face with her hands as though
to shut out some disagreeable vision.
‘The count told me yesterday’---- began Jack.
‘Yesterday?’ interrogated Irma with a smile.
‘I mean, as we rode into Sebastopol from the picket who captured me.’
Irma opened her eyes very wide; then they suddenly dimmed, as though
with tears.
‘Alas! monsieur,’ she said, ‘that is two weeks ago to-morrow.’
Jack looked and felt horrified. ‘And I have been here all that time?’ he
said.
Irma nodded her head.
Jack looked at his thin arms. ‘That accounts for these then,’ he said,
and sank back wearily.
‘Monsieur,’ said Irma, ‘you have been very, very ill; we long despaired
of saving your life. We have watched you day and night. You have been
delirious all the time, and talking, oh, so much! till our hearts ached
for you. We could not understand one word you said; but we thought you
called always for mother--mother.’ She pronounced it ‘mauzher.’ ‘Tell
me, who is “mauzher”?’
Jack smiled and explained that it must have been his mother he raved of.
Irma smiled, and said artlessly, ‘Ah, I am glad! After some days the
doctor said you would live; but you had to be kept very quiet, and now
here you are. The fever has left you, and all you have to do is to get
strong again.’
Jack thought for some time, then he said, ‘How did I get here?’
‘You fainted right away in the hospital in Sebastopol, and then grew
delirious. The doctors there said you must die; but Alexis had you
wrapped in blankets, and, borrowing a carriage, drove you here, and--we
have nursed you.’
‘How can I ever repay you?’
‘Hush, do we not owe to you the life of Alexis?’
The nurse then came forward and spoke gently to Irma, who smilingly said
to Jack, ‘Sister Katrin says I must not talk to you any more now; but I
shall come back presently. I sit some hours by your bedside every day.’
And later on she came back with her mother, the countess, a tall,
stately, white-haired lady. In the evening came the young Count Alexis,
who was overjoyed that Jack was at last on the highroad to recovery.
‘Where are we now?’ asked Jack presently.
‘In my house,’ smiled the count.
‘But where is that?’
‘Near Teberti, on the Katcha, fifteen miles from Sebastopol.’
Having once turned the corner, Jack began rapidly to improve, and in a
week was able to sit up for an hour or two, wrapped in a costly
dressing-gown and wearing slippers of the count’s.
What on earth he was going to do for clothes puzzled him, for it would
be impossible for him to wear the mud-and-blood-stained rags he had been
captured in.
‘Perhaps they will send me off to Sebastopol,’ he thought; ‘then it will
not matter.’
But Count Pauloff had no idea of sending Jack to Sebastopol; and a day
or two later he settled the clothes question in a very simple manner.
‘I’ve got my uniform as a cadet at the Military College,’ he said; ‘it
will just about fit you.’ And he went away, presently returning with a
handsome dark-green uniform trimmed with silver lace, with cap, boots,
belts, all complete; and when Jack was dressed he looked a handsome
figure in the Russian uniform.
‘If I only had my hair cut!’ he said with a laugh.
‘That we will soon settle;’ and, touching the bell, the count bade the
servant request his valet to attend.
That obsequious gentleman was a Frenchman, and on his appearance the
count bade him cut Jack’s hair.
He insisted then on taking Jack to the drawing-room, where he was
received by the countess and Irma with the utmost cordiality and quite
on terms of equality.
That evening was the beginning of several happy weeks for Jack, who felt
himself growing daily stronger.
Waited on hand, foot, and finger, treated as a dear friend or relative
by the count’s family, and living on the choicest fare, who could fail
to be happy, especially after the experiences Jack had passed through
during the last twelve months?
It became apparent at once to Jack that the countess idolised her
daughter, and that all the servants did the same. Irma was a self-willed
and imperious young lady, and governed everybody except the count, who,
however, seldom thwarted any wish of hers, for brother and sister were
devotedly attached to one another.
Now Irma and Jack spent the greater part of every day in each other’s
society, and it would have been evident to any one less modest than was
Jack that the young Russian lady had a warm regard for the English
soldier.
As they wandered about the summer mansion of the Pauloffs, where the
family stayed on so as to be near Alexis, by adroit questioning Irma got
from Jack the whole of his history; not that Jack wanted much coaxing,
as it proved a convenient topic on which to talk.
The mansion had very extensive grounds, which were surrounded by a high
wall in which were several gates, one opening out into the forest, which
on one side came right down to the walls. In this forest, Irma and Jack
had many a gallop on horseback, an exercise in which, on one or two
occasions when he was able to snatch a day’s leave, they were joined by
the count. Always, however, whether he accompanied them or not, a sort
of retainer of the family, a head servant named Sergius, rode behind
them.
Sergius was devoted to his young master and to Irma. For Jack he seemed
to have a genuine regard; but, like the true Russian domestic, he never
betrayed his feelings either one way or the other. It was a noticeable
fact, though, that whenever he rode abroad with Jack he carried both
sword and pistols, not that Jack, despite his longing to be again with
his comrades in the field, ever thought of repaying the kindness he had
received from the Pauloffs by trying to escape from their custody.
In the evenings they had cards or music, and Jack, being a very fair
performer on the pianoforte, played duets with Irma or sang some of the
songs which had been popular in England before the war. Then there were
lessons from Irma in Russian and lessons from Jack in English, so that
time passed like a dream.
But Jack knew the life of idleness and luxury he was leading would unfit
him for those duties which he would have to perform when he got back to
the regiment; and, spite of the terrible sufferings which he heard the
others were undergoing, he wished he were back again among them, sharing
the danger and the glory. Once or twice he had led up to this subject
with Count Pauloff; but the latter had always adroitly turned the
conversation.
A few days after his last attempt, a dinner-party was given at the
château, and the young count brought several officers from Sebastopol.
Among others was a Hussar in a magnificent crimson uniform, having a
dark-green pelisse richly laced with gold. The count, in introducing
Jack, alluded to him as ‘My cousin, Colonel Vladimir Sominoff.’
Jack immediately recognised him as the Hussar who had been with Kirchoff
on the night he had been captured; but Sominoff, hardly giving Jack a
glance, just nodded slightly and passed him by. Jack was relieved to
think he had not been recognised; but presently he heard Count Pauloff
relating how Jack had saved his life at the Alma, how later he had been
captured by Kirchoff, and how the count had rescued him.
Then Colonel Sominoff favoured Jack with a long, cold stare.
During the evening Sominoff paid Irma very great attention. She,
however, received his advances with great coolness. The handsome Hussar
stroked his moustache and pretended not to notice this treatment; but
there was a look in his eye that Jack did not like, and later on in the
evening, when Irma seated herself on a divan in one corner of the room
with him, and told him who all the people were, he glanced up to see
Colonel Sominoff regarding him with a look that quite made him start.
Seeing Colonel Sominoff glaring at Jack, Irma said, ‘Oh, that’s my
cousin Vladimir; he pesters me to death with his odious attentions, but
I hate him. Alexis says he is careful to keep as far from danger as he
can, which means he is a coward, and I am sure he is a bully as well, in
spite of his cat-like manners.’
After that Colonel Vladimir Sominoff was a frequent visitor at the
château, and he kept by Irma’s side all the while he was in the house.
Jack he simply ignored, never addressing a word to him, and treating him
as if he did not exist. Sometimes the count came with the colonel, but
more often the latter came alone.
On one occasion the colonel and the count came to spend a few days at
the mansion, and Jack determined to keep in the apartments which he
occupied. This, however, Irma did not let him do.
‘Why do you shut yourself up here?’ she cried with a little stamp of her
foot, while her dark eyes shone angrily.
‘I--I do not wish to intrude,’ said Jack rather lamely.
‘Intrude, intrude! who has dared say you intrude?’ she cried fiercely.
‘If any of the servants’---- and her eyes blazed ominously.
‘No one has said a word,’ interrupted Jack hastily; ‘but your brother
and your cousin are here. You are quite a little family circle,
and--and’----
‘And what? Have we neglected you? Have we slighted you?’
‘No, a thousand times no,’ said Jack; ‘but can you not understand? You
are of the aristocracy. I am a plain English soldier; I cannot mix on an
equality with you, and it is better that I should not. This life is
unfitting me for my career. I shall never forget your kindness; but the
longer I remain here the harder I shall find it when I go. At any moment
I may be taken off to prison’----
‘You won’t,’ cried Irma. ‘Alexis has promised me that you shall not be
taken from here if he can help it; and he can help it--he shall. He is a
friend of Prince Mentschikoff.’
‘Then I must return to my duty, and before long I hope.’
At this point Irma burst into a flood of tears. ‘You are unkind; you are
ungrateful!’ she sobbed. ‘We have done all we could for you, and you
repay us by saying you hope you will soon go.’
Irma’s tears were more than Jack could bear. He felt he was making a
muddle of things. Ungrateful! Why, if he lived a hundred years he would
never forget their kindness!
He stepped to the angry girl and laid one hand on her arm.
‘Countess,’[7] he said, ‘you do not understand. It is duty calls me, not
inclination. I am a soldier and’----
The door was suddenly flung violently open, and Vladimir Sominoff rushed
in. ‘So, dog, scum!’ he hissed, ‘you dare to lay finger on a daughter of
the house of Pauloff;’ and he struck at Jack.
Irma, however, threw herself in front of him. ‘Touch him if you dare!’
she cried, her eyes blazing like those of a tigress.
Sominoff choked back his rage and gave vent to a mocking laugh. ‘Stand
aside,’ he said, seizing her by the wrist, ‘the countess shall talk to
you. I will settle with this clod.’
‘Coward, you hurt me!’ she cried in cutting tones; ‘but it is only what
one might expect from a man who would leave a helpless prisoner to be
frozen to death on a winter’s night.’
This allusion to Jack maddened Sominoff. He must have squeezed her
wrist, for she screamed out. Next moment, however, the gaudily
uniformed Hussar was sprawling on the floor, dashed there by a blow from
Jack’s fist.
With a hoarse cry he leapt to his feet, and tearing his sword from the
scabbard rushed on Jack. The latter snatched up a chair and stood facing
the infuriated Russian.
‘Leave us, countess,’ Jack said; ‘I think I can give this feather-bed
dandy a lesson in swordsmanship that will lower his pride.’