CHAPTER XVIII
I LEAVE MY MASTER
It was early in the summer of last year when Sir Nicolas Steele and I took different roads in life. They tell me that he has now settled down in a little village near Pau; but from him I hear nothing. It may be that my company would trouble him in these days; it may be that he would be very glad to see me if I knocked on his door. Those are questions I don't care to ask myself. Marriage changes a man, they say. Possibly it has changed him.
It was the summer of the year when I left him; and the early autumn brought me to America. I knew that there was breathing room across the water; and once I had done with Nicky Steele, I did not lose much time in putting the sea between me and those who troubled themselves with my concerns. And that's a step I have never regretted. There's room for every man in the States, so long as he carries a decent head on his shoulders and a bit of brass in his pocket. They don't ask you there if you came by your own honestly. Character is a cheap article, and reputation is put by in museums.
I sailed for America, and it was there that I wrote these papers. They won't hurt Sir Nicolas Steele—and if they do, that's his business. Mine is to make the money while I can; but as for what the law can do to me, I don't care a snap of the fingers. So far as that goes, I doubt if there's much in our past that any judge could spout upon. All said and done, it's easy to be a rogue by Act of Parliament. If Nicky and I got our dues, we should have a statue all to ourselves on St. Stephen's Green, and our portraits would be hung in the Kerry town hall. But this is a short-sighted world, and it knows nothing of its greatest men.
It is a year ago since I left my master, and many things have happened since then—though none of them so odd as the events which led up to that parting. We had returned to Paris quietly enough after our fool's errand to Brittany, and there was no thought in our heads of any thing but a slow season and an unprofitable summer. Such of our friends as had been useful had gone their ways, some to Lon- don, some to America. There was no pigeon to pluck that I knew of; no Yankee who would buy diamonds. Sir Nicolas had little to do but drive and play with the old impecunious lot; and right well lie did it.
"While the money's left, be hanged to the care!" he would say; and for the matter of that, all the lifebelts in France couldn't have saved that same dull care when he set out to drown her. Time and again I told him that if nothing was to be done in Paris, we might find work enough in Madrid or in Berlin. He wouldn't so much as listen to me.
"Is it a bagman I am?" he asked one day when I was harping on the old string again. "Must I be running round the country seeing who'll buy me wares? Indeed, and I'll stop where I am "
"Until the money is spent, sir," I hinted.
"A curse upon the money!" said he. "It's nothing but the money you think of the week through. Am I a pauper, then? And who's to put gold in me purse in Germany? Bedad! I'd as soon spend a week in the Mazas as in that same country. There was no gentleman ever came out of Germany—no, nor honest liquor either. I'd be dead in a week of their beef."
I did not answer him, for he never was a man you could persuade when he was in one of his tempers. He dined that night at the Hôtel Scribe with Jack Ames and his lot; and it was not until one o'clock in the morning that I saw him again. He was pretty well warmed up with the drink then, and directly he set eyes on me, he called out at the top of his lungs;
"Hildebrand, it's yourself I want and no other; fetch me the whiskey, and don't ye sing hymns on the way."
I got him the drink, and when he had pulled out a great handful of cigars and dropped half of them on the pavement, he burst out with his news.
"Man," said he, "it's fine intelligence I have for ye. We're to be in St. Petersburg in three days!"
"Be where, sir?" I gasped, for I made sure that he was joking.
"In St. Petersburg, and nowhere else," replied he, holding the match about a foot away from his cigar—"in St. Petersburg, I'm telling ye. I've a fancy to see the Russians, and there's one of Jack Ames' lot that will take us through. It's an officer of the' Guards he is, and ye'll not forget to pack me yeomanry clothes, though the Queen—God bless her!— has dispensed with my services."
"Then it's certain that you are going, sir?" said I.
"As certain as the moon is round," cried he, "which is a geographical fact, Hildebrand."
What more he would have said I don't know, for he broke off sudden and went to bed,—which was the best place for him,—singing and swaggering like a trooper of the line. I thought at the time that he was telling me some whim of his cups; but when the morning came, he had still head enough to repeat the story and to remember that he had mentioned it.
"You'll not be forgetting that we leave by the Berlin mail to-night," said he. "It's all fixed up that we spend a fortnight in St. Petersburg as the guest of Count Uspensky. I've a wish to see the city, and the arrangement suits me finely. He's a big man there, and has big friends; and he's to have the charge of us. There would be more surprising things than that we should make money there. Ye'll not omit the uniform. It's a poor figure I'd cut in civilian clothes, don't you think?"
I heard him out and then dressed him. You may be sure that I was pleased enough, since Paris was just stagnation then, and it was queer if something did not turn up in a new city and among new people. Little did I think, however, that this was the last journey Sir Nicolas Steele and I were to make together. Yet so it proved, as this story will tell you.
We arrived in St. Petersburg on a Wednesday morning, and by the following Saturday night I had learned enough Russian to bawl "Hisworshik" to a cabman and to get a glass of beer at a bar. The man whose guests we were took us to the Hôtel Klee; but I soon found that we were not to stop long in the city, he being about to set out for the house of one of his kinswomen, whose place was ten miles from Novgorod. And here let me say that Count Fédor Uspensky was never a friend to me, though I stood by him to the end of it. He was a cur right through; a swaggering, bullying, loud-mouthed swashbuckler that set my right arm itching every time he came near me. How it was that he made a friend of Nicolas Steele the Lord only knows. Yet friends they were from the first; and I don't think my master ever did so much for any man as he did for this little Russian captain, who was his host in St. Petersburg. It was a sight to see these two, just as different as chalk from cheese, walking arm- in-arm down the Nevski Prospekt, or ogling the women in Isaac's cathedral. Perhaps it was that each thought he would do the other; perhaps they fell together out of that odd sympathy which men who have known ups and downs show for each other. Any way, they were as thick as thieves; and little it was I saw of them during the five days we spent in the city.
This didn't matter to me, you may be sure. If ever there was a town to let a man play the fine gentleman, that town is St. Petersburg. The very breadth of the streets, the miles of palaces, the over-stocked shops, put a sense of gentility into you. Turn where you will, there are uniforms and pretty women to see. The whole city loves to kowtow to its great folks; even a gentleman's gentleman can find plenty to touch their hats to him and call him excellency. I lived like a fighting-cock the whole time I was there; and when the day came for us to move into the country, there was no man less pleased than I was. Nor did I understand, until Sir Nicolas told me, why we should move at all.
"It's this way," said he, speaking at bedtime on the last night we were at the Hôtel Klée—"there's a cousin of the count's to be married, and we're to go to the wedding with him. Rich people they are, let me tell you, the widow and daughter of Field-marshal Pouzatòv that was. The girl carried on with my friend a couple of years ago, and he's fretting to see the last of her. It wouldn't be decent to stand against this whim. We'll just have a week in the country, and there will be the end of it. Ye'll take plenty of silver with us, for you can't look up to the sky in this cursed place without tossing a rouble to the angels."
He spoke light enough, but his talk would have been different if he had known the black thing we were to see at that very Novgorod, and the end of those three days in the country. He hadn't an inkling of it then, however, and I was no wiser, needless to tell. All I saw before us was a holiday in a Russian village; and while that was not much to look forward to, I remembered that a wedding might smarten things up a bit. "There'll be girls about," said I, "and plenty to eat and drink; and though the women here have got faces like frying-pans, I'll manage to put up with them for a day or two." And with this to keep my spirits up, I packed his bag again, and set off with him to Novgorod by the early morning train.
It was about half a day's journey from the city to Mme. Pouzatòv's place, and when we arrived at the station, there were two four-horse carriages—"chatevkas" they called them—waiting there to meet us. I saw at once, from the silver on the harness and the cut of the horses and men, that we'd come to a slap-up house; and by and by, when the count and Sir Nicolas had done bowing and scraping to the young lady who sat with another gentleman in the first carriage, I came to the conclusion that the people we were to stay with were the right sort. As for miss, she was the best imitation of a pretty girl I had seen in Russia; and though I never had an eye for dark-haired women myself, I could not help but be struck by Marya Pouzatòv. It was as good as a glass of wine any day to see her laugh. She had those speaking black eyes which would make the fortune of the plainest woman alive. And chatter—I believe she talked from the minute we came out of the station until she pulled up the steaming horses at her own door.
I have said that the drive, from the great Moscow railway to the house where the wedding was to be, might be reckoned at an hour. It wasn't a pretty drive, for the country was as flat as a carpet, and what trees I saw were pines in square-cut clumps. We passed a few ragged peasants on the dusty road, and met a priest going to market; but for right down loneliness and desolation send me to the Czar's dominions, and I'll never ask to see any thing worse. I was glad enough when the house came in sight at last—a long white building for all the world like three or four bungalows planked down together. There was an attempt at a bit of garden round about it, and what the people would have called a park beyond that; but it was not until you were inside the house that the means of the lady who kept it were displayed; and that they were first-class I never had a doubt. It was a mansion fit for an English nobleman; and many's the nobleman's place I've been into that wasn't a patch upon it. As for Sir Nicolas, he was beside himself from the start, and when I took him up his hot water for dinner, he could do nothing but talk about it.
"’Tis beautiful quarters we've found, entirely," said he, "and pretty people. I don't suppose ye've much to say about the money here. Faith, I'm beginning to wish I was the general myself. There's twenty thousand goes with the girl, the count tells me, and the reversion of the place. It's many qualities in a wife I could dispense with at a price like that."
"So she's to marry a general, sir?" asked I.
"No one else," said he, "but General Stolitzoff, that was against Osman Pacha before Plevna. A great man, with as many medals on his coat as I have buttons,"
"He wouldn't be young, sir?" I suggested.
"He would be fifty-five, I'm told, and young at that. It was her father's wish on his death-bed that she should have him; but she leads him the devil's own dance, from all I hear. Truth, she's a very sweet little woman—and then there's the money."
"Is the wedding soon, sir?" I asked.
"It's for to-day week, but we'll have a gay time between. They dance to-morrow when the general comes from Novgorod—lucky devil that he is!"
After this, one did not want to be very clever to learn how the land lay with him. I believe he was in love with Marya Pouzatòv from the start; and it's no wonder if he was. A daintier little thing never stepped out of a drawing-room than the girl I saw go in to dinner that night. It was as good as a play to watch him and the count running after her like lap-dogs, now one, now the other dancing attendance on her, and pluming himself that his was the winning hand. Her sweetheart, you must know, was still away at Novgorod, where his regiment was, and the other two did their best to console her. Not that she wanted much of that sort of thing, for a wickeder little flirt never lived, as Sir Nicolas Steele may have found out by this time. But they weren't behindhand in giving her the lead, as the Irishman would say; and the way the three of them went it was a thing to remember.
This, I must tell you, was on the first night of our arrival at Mme. Pouzatòv's house. They had put me in a good room in the servants' quarters, but I was out in the gardens all dinner-time, and little went on that I did not know about. Not that I found my company dull, for the place was chock-full of servants, and though I didn't understand a word of the lingo, I made myself at home like one o'clock. There's a power of language in the squeeze of a pretty woman's hand, and a kiss on a dark staircase is worth a mint of "parlez-vous" any day. I found myself all the better with the "frying-pans" for want of their chatter; and twenty-four hours hadn't passed before I was best man with the lot of them. Nevertheless, my chief business was to keep my eye on Nicky; and all the pretty housemaids in Russia would not have held me from that.
It was this last consideration which led me, on the night after our arrival, to offer my help to the others who were waiting and serving at the grand ball given to the general and the bridegroom that was to be. I had determined that I would see all that was to be seen; and when I had dressed Sir Nicolas, I found it useful to hang about the corridors and the entrance to the ballroom. In this way I had a good view of the old general himself when he arrived about eight o'clock—a fine, noble-looking old fellow, who carried his years like feathers, and had kindness and courage written all over his splendid face. I thought at the time that Miss Marya didn't exactly burst into tears when she saw him; and this I will say now, that she, and she alone, was responsible for all that happened that night, and afterward. She gave him the cold-shoulder from the start of it; she danced three times running with the count, and twice with Sir Nicolas. I don't believe she spoke five words to her intended from the time he arrived until the doors of the dining-room were thrown open for supper. You could see with half an eye that a storm was brewing, and burst it did with a vengeance not ten minutes after midnight had struck.
Up to this time the general had kept his temper like a man. In all that great ballroom, sparkling with lights, and jewels, and wonderful gowns and dazzling uniforms, there was no finer fellow than he. While swaggering Guards in snow-white tunics clustered round him, and Cossacks aired their splendid coats, and little whipper-snappers danced about all sprinkled over with gold and jewels, he was the man of the evening. Upright, a good six feet in his shoes, wearing a dark-green uniform that fitted his figure like a glove, there was always a kindly smile about his eyes, and a manliness in his bearing which did you good to see. Not once in that long evening did he betray himself by look or gesture. Even when the girl he was to marry passed him on another man's arm, and gave him one of her impudent nods, he merely bowed to her and went on smiling. Only when supper-time came did he push himself forward at all—and then it was to offer her his arm that he might take her into the dining-room.
Now, in the scene that followed, whether the girl acted as she did because she disliked the man, or whether it was pure devilry on her part, I have never been able to convince myself. All I can say is that when the general stepped up to Marya and offered her his arm, she turned away from him to the count; and so the two men were face to face almost at the doorway where I stood.
I write that they were face to face, the old man still smiling, the young one hot with anger and with excitement. But it was the count who spoke first, and in French, as all the folks in the ballroom did that night.
"I am sorry, general," said he, bowing with a sneering politeness which made you mad to see, "but mademoiselle is pledged to me for supper."
"Indeed," said the other, "and by what right, monsieur?"
"Oh, that is a question I should not discuss here!"
"Nor I," replied the general, speaking low and bending down toward him. In the same moment I saw the old fellow flick the count on the right cheek with his glove. Five minutes later his carriage was taking him back to Novgorod.