John Ironside

“ Yes, Russia was a hell upon earth; and Petersburg was the centre and epitome of it, I said in my soul, as I loitered on one of the bridges that afternoon, and looked on the swift flowing river, on the splendid buildings, gleaming white, as the gilded cupolas and spires of the churches gleamed fire red, under the brilliant sunshine. A fair city outwardly, a whited sepulchre raised over a charnel-house. A city of terror, wherein every man is an Ishmael, knowing—or suspecting—that every other man’s hand is against him. ”

“ I said as steadily as I could. “She will always be the one woman in the world for me, Mary, even if I never see or hear of her again. But I’m not going to encourage you in all this futile worry, nor is Jim. He’s not unsympathetic, really, but he knows how bad it is for you, as you ought to know, too. Anne’s your friend, and you love her dearly—but—remember, you’re Jim’s wife, and more precious to him than all the world.” ”

“ I felt strangely elated, happier than I had done for many a long day; although I knew that the worst, or almost the worst, had come to pass, and that Anne was here, in the power of her enemies. But we were going to save her,—we would save her. “A forlorn hope” even Loris Solovieff had called it. Nothing of the kind. Could anything that such a man as he attempted be a forlorn hope; and together, working loyally side by side, what could we not dare, and accomplish? ”

“ I do not know where she is, but she has been seen at Ostend with—the Russian Grand Duke Loris.”
I hated saying those last words; but I had to say them, for, though I knew Anne Pendennis was lost to me, I felt a deadly jealousy of this Russian, to whom, or with whom she had fled; and I meant to find out all that Von Eckhardt might know about him, and his connection with her.
“The Grand Duke Loris!” he repeated. “She was with him, openly? Does she think him strong enough to protect her? Or does she mean to die with him? For he is doomed also. She must know that!” ”

“ I answered, with a military salute.
Pavloff, still on foot, came forward and stood beside her, speaking in a low growl; he was an elder edition of his son Mishka.
She listened, looking down at him gravely and kindly. I could not take my eyes from her face, so dear and familiar, and yet in one way so changed. I guessed wherein the change lay. When I had known her before she had only been playing a part, posing as a lovely, light-hearted, capriciously coquettish girl, without a real care in the world. ”

“ You very bad boy. We expected you to tea,” said Mary, as I came down the steps of the little piazza outside the drawing-room windows. “You don’t mean to tell me you’ve been packing all this time? Why, goodness, Maurice; you look worse than you did this morning! You haven’t been committing a murder, have you?”
“No, but I’ve been discovering one,” I said lamely, as I dropped into a wicker chair.
“A murder! How thrilling. Do tell us all about it,” cried a pretty, kittenish little woman whose name I did not know. Strange how some women have an absolutely ghoulish taste for horrors! ”

“ Now she stood before me as I had first known her,—a radiant, queenly vision; a girl whose laughing eyes showed never a care in the world, or a thought beyond the passing moment. Her hands were full of flowers, red flowers, red as blood. Why, it was blood; it was staining her fingers, dripping from them! Yet the man didn’t see it; that man with the dark eager face, who was standing beside her, who took a spray of the flowers from her hand. What a fool this Cassavetti is not to know that she is “La Mort!” ”

“ During these wonderful weeks I had been spellbound, as it were, by Anne’s beauty, her charm. When I was with her I could think only of her; and in the intervals,—well, I still thought of her, and was dejected or elated as she had been cruel or kind. To me her many caprices had seemed but the outcome of her youthful light-heartedness; of a certain naïve coquetry, that rendered her all the more dear and desirable; “a rosebud set about with little wilful thorns;” a girl who would not be easily wooed and won, and, therefore, a girl well worth winning. ”

“ I felt angry with the Levinska woman for her taunt. She, and such as she, who were like so many undisciplined children, and whose ideas of revolution were practically limited to acts of violence committed in defiance or reprisal, could not even begin to understand the ideals not merely held, but maintained, by Anne and Loris, and the few others who, with them, knew that permanent good could never be accomplished by evil means. ”

“ My wife was called Anna Petrovna. But you say this unhappy woman’s name was given as ‘Vassilitzi Pendennis’? That I cannot understand! It is impossible that she could be my daughter; that the mad lady from Siberia could have been my wife,—and yet—my God—if that should be true, after all!
“They did send me word, and I believed it at the moment, though later I thought it was a trick to get me—and Anne—into their power,—part of a long-delayed scheme of revenge.” ”

“ Mishka rode beside me, and at last, when we seemed to have been riding for an eternity, he laid his hand on my rein, and whispered hoarsely, “Now.”
Almost without a sound we left the ranks, turned up a cross-road, and, wheeling our horses at a few paces distant, waited for the others to go by; more unreal, more dreamlike than ever. Save for the steady tramp of the horses’ feet, the subdued jingle of the harness and accoutrements, they might have been a company of phantoms. ”

“ Mishka despised the cigarette which, to every other Russian I have met, seems as necessary to life as the air he breathes; and when he hadn’t a cigar fell back on a distinctly malodorous briar.
“Why in thunder shouldn’t I talk to her?” I demanded. “She’s the only creature I’ve heard laugh since I got back into Holy Russia; it cheers one up a bit, even to look at her!”
“You are a fool,” was his complimentary retort. “And she is another—like all women—or she would know these are no days for laughter. ”

“ Anne called after her. “You do no good by that, and may do much harm.”
“Have no fear for me, little nun,” she retorted gaily, over her shoulder. “I can take care of myself.”
“She sees only,—cares only for the excitement, the poor Marie!” I heard Anne murmur with a sigh, as she crossed to the window and watched her friend’s retreating figure; a jaunty audacious little figure it was!
There was a clatter and jingle below, and three or four Cossacks cantered along. One of them called out something to Madame Levinska, and she turned and shrilled back an answer, her black eyes flashing. ”

“ I remembered what Von Eckhardt had told me,—that the police had been on Anne’s track for these three years past. If the peril in which she was now placed was from the revolutionists, as it must be, I could not help her by betraying her to the police.
“You say she was English or American? Why do you say so?”
“Because she called out in English: ‘Help! Save me!’ I heard the words distinctly, and started to run after the droshky. Wouldn’t you have done the same in my place? I guess you’re just the sort of man who’d be first to help beauty in distress!” ”

“ Anne was the centre of a merry group, and was now in her wittiest and most gracious mood. Cassavetti remained with us, speaking seldom, though he could be a brilliant conversationalist when he liked. He listened to Anne’s every word, watched every gesture, unobtrusively, but with a curious intentness.
Soon after ten, people began to leave, some who lived at a distance, others who would finish the evening elsewhere. Anne was going on to a birthday supper at Mrs. Dennis Sutherland’s house in Kensington, to which many theatrical friends had been bidden. ”

“ I want you to know that; though I am no more to her than—than the man who waits on her at dinner, or who opens a cab door for her and gets a smile and a coin for his service!”
It was a childish outburst, perhaps, but it moved Loris Solovieff to a queer response.
“I understand,” he said softly in French.
He spoke English admirably, but in emotional moments he lapsed into the language that is more familiar than their mother-tongue to all Russians of his rank.
“It is so with us all. She loves Russia,—our poor Russia, agonizing in the throes of a new birth; while we—we love her, the woman. ”

“ There were comparatively few people abroad, and they were work-people on their way to business, and vendors setting out their wares on the stalls that line the wide street on either side.
Suddenly a droshky dashed past, at a pace that appeared even swifter than the breakneck rate at which the Russian droshky driver loves to urge his horses along. It was evidently a private one, drawn by three horses abreast, and I glanced at it idly, as it clattered along with the noise of a fire-engine. Just as it was passing me one of the horses slipped on the cobblestones, and came down with a crash. ”

“ He had followed us in from the garden. “You go back to your guests, little woman, and make ’em talk about anything in the world except this murder affair. Try frocks and frills; when Amy Vereker starts on them there’s no stopping her; and if they won’t serve, try palmistry and spooks and all that rubbish. Leave Maurice to me. He’s faint with hunger, and inclined to make an ass of himself even more than usual! Off with you!”
Mary made a queer little sound, that was half a sob, half a laugh.
“All right; I’ll obey orders for once, you dear, wise old Jim. Make him come back to-night, though.” ”

“ An ordinary Russian officer,—even one of high rank, as this man’s uniform showed him to be,—would certainly have bad-worded me for my clumsiness, and probably have chosen to regard it as a deliberate insult. Your Russian as a rule wastes no courtesy on members of his own sex, while his vaunted politeness to women is of a nature that we Americans consider nothing less than rank impertinence; and is so superficial, that at the least thing it will give place to the sheer brutality that is characteristic of nearly every Russian in uniform. ”

“ I have brought you water; wash and dress. Remember you are no longer a disreputable revolutionist, but a respectable American citizen, and we must make you look a little more like one.”
There was something queer in his manner. Gruff as ever, he yet spoke to me, treated me, almost as if I were a child who had to be heartened up, as well as taken care of. But I didn’t resent it. I knew it was his way of showing affection; and it touched me keenly. We had learned to understand each other well, and no man ever had a stancher comrade than I had in Mishka Pavloff. ”

“ Why should we all perish?”
I was carried back in the rush, and found myself breathless, back against a wall. Three figures cleared themselves from the ruck, and I fought my way to them.
“Well done, Mishka,—for it was thou!” exclaimed Loris. “How was it done?”
“Pouf, it was but a toy,” grunted Mishka. “I brought it in my pocket,—on chance; such things are useful at times. If it had been a real bomb, we should all have entered Heaven—or hell—together.”
“Get to the steps; they are coming back,” cried Loris. ”

“ So that was the name,—Count Solovieff. Where had I heard it before? I remembered instantly.
“You mean the Grand Duke Loris?” I asked deliberately.
His dark eyes twinkled through their glasses.
“Eh bien, it is the same thing. He is travelling incognito, you understand, though he can scarcely expect to pass unrecognized, hein? He is a very headstrong young man, Count Solovieff, and he has some miraculous escapes! But he is brave as a lion; he will never acknowledge that there is danger. Now you will sleep again till we reach Dunaburg. Mishka will be near you if you need him.” ”

“ Yet it is through him that she has fallen under suspicion; for the League will not believe that he is sincere; they will trust no aristocrat.”
He babbled on, but I scarcely heeded him. I was beginning to pierce the veil of mystery, or I thought I was; and I no longer condemned Anne Pendennis, as, in my heart, I had condemned her, only an hour back. The web of intrigue and deceit that enshrouded her was not of her spinning; it was fashioned on the tragic loom of Fate.
She loved this Loris, and he loved her? So be it! ”

“ Anne organized a band of women as amateur nurses, with Natalya at the head of them, in our house, while others were on duty elsewhere. This quarter, as I found, was a stronghold of the League; and many houses were, like ours, turned into temporary hospitals. But I gathered that comparatively few of Anne’s most influential colleagues were in sympathy with her efforts to mitigate the horrors that surrounded us. In that way, we, her own chosen band, worked almost alone. Most of the revolutionists were as callous, as brutal, as the Cossacks themselves,—women as well as men. ”

“ Anne appealed to me in the same light tone, but our eyes met in a significant glance, and I knew that she had understood my warning, perhaps far better than I did myself; for after all I had been guided by instinct rather than knowledge when I uttered it.
“I have told him that I have never been in Russia,” she continued, “and he is rude enough to disbelieve a lady!”
“I protest—and apologize also,” asserted Cassavetti, “though you are smoking a Russian cigarette.”
“As two-thirds of the women here are doing. The others are non-smoking frumps,” she laughed. ”