Chapter XXII: Prisoner of Love

On the morning of the fifteenth day after the flight from Kronstadt, Paul sat at the open window of his apartment in the Strand. The bells of St. Martin’s at Charing Cross had just chimed half-past nine; the streets below his window were alive with the hum of voices and the echo of steps. He had visited London once or twice in his days of tutelage; but this spectacle of massed humanity, of countless men surging towards the East in quest of the daily wage, was new and wonderful to him as when first he beheld it. That vast multitude, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, what tragedies and comedies of life it played every day! All the notes of the social scale seemed written upon that human score. Spruce stockbrokers lolled in hansom cabs on their way to ’Change; sleek barristers thrust themselves through the press as though the briefs they had waited for these long years lay to-day upon their tables; clerks from the suburbs passed with slow step or fast, as the office hours dictated; smart girls carried themselves proudly, buoyed up with consciousness of sex and environment; ’buses lumbered by with a harvest of human grain heaped upon their roofs; only the clergy dallied before the shop-windows or sauntered contentedly in the sunlight.

Paul had heard of London as an abode of gloom, a city without a sky, a mighty capital of fog and mists. This morning of a glorious spring gave the lie to the reproach. Notwithstanding that April had many days still to run, the sun shone warmingly: the air was fresh and sweet as though blowing upon the city from a perfumed garden. And to the sweetness of morning was added the comfort of the English rooms he had engaged for himself and his “sister” Marian. It had been a solemn compact between them that she should not communicate with her English friends, should not even see them, until that future they loved to speak of was something more than the dream of lovers. And she had respected the understanding as though it were a law to her.

“I owe my life to you,” she had said; “I will see no one, speak to no one, until you wish it. But I must write to Dick.”

“And tell them that you are in England!” he exclaimed, a little anxiously. “If you write, they will come here; they will ask you for your secrets. I know that you will tell them nothing; but I do not wish you to see them; I do not wish to meet the man who tempted you.”

“I will not see him, Paul, dearest; God knows, if you asked me, I would never see him again.”

She had begun to understand her lover wholly at this time; to understand him with that intimate appreciation of moods which nothing but the magnetism of one mind for another can make clear. Great as was his love for her, the thought that she carried in her clever head those secrets, of which he had been the guardian, haunted him now that she was in England, a free agent beyond the reach of the Russian. A soldier’s creed of honour was ever upon his lips. “I will not betray my country,” he said always. He knew that marriage would seal her lips for ever. But until they stood before the altar together he must rely absolutely upon her promise. What their future was to be, he scarce dared to think. The son of a Russian noble, he knew not how to serve. A stranger in a strange country, what miracle should give him livelihood? If he married at once, it would be to cast himself blindly upon the sea of life, trusting that some wind of destiny would carry him to a friendly shore. A great sympathy for her prevailed even above his passionate longing to call her wife.

“We are two children drifting,” he said. “God alone knows where the journey will carry us; but we will be together always. You wish it, Marian?”

She put her arms about his neck.

“We shall not drift while I have a home in your heart,” she said.

That was upon the day after they had arrived in London. They had gravitated toward the city; drawn there by no impulse that was defined, but only by the hope that London would befriend them. Much as Marian desired to see her child-brother again; yearn as she might for the lanes and villages of Devonshire, she did not speak of these desires to her lover. Had he asked her, she would have gone with him, on the day of their arrival, straight to some church, and there have given herself to him for ever. She welcomed the remembrance that it was hers now to play the strong part. She would help him and compel him to forget. For her sake he had cut himself off from friends and fortune. His courage, which had saved her at Kronstadt, here moved her to pity. A child lost in a maze of streets could not have been more helpless than the man she loved, cast out by fortune to this city of exile. She began to plan that she might work for him, might build the home of her promise. The desperate task did not affright her.

“If I had my health, if I could have the child near me, it would be easy,” she thought. “These are the days when a clever woman earns a living for herself in London, and I have brains.”

The ambition was well enough, but the execution lagged. They had come from Stockholm straight to this apartment by Charing Cross, and there, passing as brother and sister--no difficult achievement, since Paul spoke English fluently--they waited for the light. She obeyed his wish that her arrival should be kept a stern secret. Of her few friends in London, none knew that she had left Kronstadt. She did not write to the child; she never left her rooms. Paul, in his turn, remembered that one who had been a comrade of his student days, Feodor Talvi of Novgorod, was now at the Russian Embassy in Chesham Square. He wrote to him, and to his kinsman Prince Tolma, telling them of his condition and of his purpose. “I am no traitor to Russia,” he wrote. “I am here to keep her secrets, not to betray them.”

The letters were despatched, but many days passed and no answer was returned. On the fifteenth day, when Paul sat at his window waiting for Marian to come down to breakfast, he began to tell himself that his friends would be friends to him no more. He had thought his kinsman, Tolma, to be a man of broad mind and generous impulses, one who had lost a Russian’s creed in the teaching of many cities. But the earnest appeal he had despatched to Paris remained unanswered. He said that the Prince was not in the city; he was at Monaco, or cruising in his yacht. Paul would not believe that one who had loved him as a son would desert him in this hour of misfortune. He shrank from the truth, and would not reckon with it.

Marian entered the sitting-room while he was still musing at the window. She crossed it with girlish step, and bent down quickly to kiss his cheek. Regardless of time or place, he sprang up and took her in his arms.

“Dear little one!” he said, “you bring me back to earth again. And you have roses on your cheeks to-day. There is no doctor like one’s own country. You have slept, Marian?”

She would not tell him of her night of waking; nor had he eyes to see that the flush upon her cheeks was a flush of weakness.

“I sleep always,” she answered, with a little laugh; “you must not worry about that.”

He pushed her back from him, still holding her hands.

“Oh,” he said, “and that is our new dress! Am I not a good modiste, little one? Is it not splendid? I shall open a shop here, and you will make my fortune.”

She kissed his hands, and turned to the breakfast-table.

“I shall send you to buy my dresses when we are married,” she exclaimed. “You won’t mind them laughing----”

“I mind? Sapristi! Did I mind yesterday when I bought the ‘triumph,’ and twelve young ladies fitted it on for me, and the boutiquier himself carried it to the cab? Nom de Dieu! it was a procession, and I was the flag. You must lose your clothes again, and get another cold, Marian. It will amuse me to buy your dresses.”

He had shopped for her on the previous day; for she carried no dresses from Russia, and Stockholm had furnished her with a poor wardrobe. Her promise not to go abroad in the streets of London she kept faithfully, as much from will as from weakness. The chill and horror of her night at the island of the Holy Well had eaten into her little store of strength. She feared that some dangerous illness would overtake her, and that he would be alone to wage the unequal fight.

“You have letters, dear?” she asked him, while she poured out his tea and busied herself with his breakfast.

He shook his head a little sadly.

“Feodor Talvi cannot be in London; I shall hear from him the day he arrives. We were as brothers; he must listen to me at least. As for Tolma, it will be sooner or later. He is not a man of this city or of that. He makes the world his home, and wherever the sun shines, there is his fireside. But I know that he will help me when my letter reaches him. He cares nothing for other people’s stories. He has called me his son since I was twelve years old. I wrote to him as to a father. While we wait for their help, we have two hundred pounds--your English pounds--to spend. When we have spent those, there is the _Esmeralda_ to sell. I shall order her to the Island of Wight, where all your yachting people go, and she will bring us twenty thousand roubles at the least. They will give us time to think and to plan. I have thought a little already, and the way seems clearer to me. After all, a strong man does not starve when he is willing to work. I can teach the Russian language if the worst comes, and box the ears of little boys who will not learn.”

He laughed merrily at the idea, and passed his cup for tea. She would not tell him that she could not share his hopes; her face wore a bright smile when she lifted it to look at him.

“You are making a home of England already,” she said; “I am happy to think it is so. It will all come right by-and-bye, when I am strong and can work again. You must not forget me when you speak of your plans. I could not be an idle woman; I should go mad.”

“You shall be the mistress of my house,” he answered, with a touch of the old pride. “I am the heir of Tolma, and I shall know how to find a home for you.”

“Yes, but while we wait, dear--there is no dishonour here in England because a woman works. You were not born for the things you speak of; you do not know the difficulties. It is I who have learnt how to face the world and not to fear what people call independence. Your friends may write to you, or they may not. But it will help us both if there are no drones in the hive. You will be happy because I am happy, and I shall come to forgive myself then.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” he said tenderly. “God knows, it is happiness enough to hear your voice all day, and to tell myself that I shall kiss you when the morning comes. By-and-bye I shall not wait for the morning--that will be when the priest has spoken. You understand, little one?”

They had risen from the table and stood together in the shadow. He drew her to him winningly and kissed her white face again and again.

“I understand, dearest--a little,” she said, with a new flush upon her cheeks.

“A little--is it not more than that? You still ask yourself questions as you did at Kronstadt.”

“Certainly, I ask myself questions--but not the questions of carnival.”

“You want to run away again?”

“Oh, yes--when I am strong enough.”

He looked into her eyes questioningly. The love of jest was written there.

“Arrivons!” he said; “where would you run to, here in London?”

“To the church,” she whispered, and so hid her head upon his shoulder.

A knock upon the door of the room put them apart. She turned to the glass to straighten her hair while he tore open a telegram, which the slut of the house delivered triumphantly, as though she carried letters of gold.

“For the gentleming,” she said, with great satisfaction, “and he’s a-waiting.”

Marian looked over Paul’s shoulder to read the message.

“Is it from your friends, dearest?” she asked anxiously.

“It is from Feodor Talvi,” he answered, while the hand which offered her the paper shook with pleasure and excitement. “I am to go to him at once. I told you that we were as brothers; read that, and write the answer for me. I will see him to-day--now. There are no more troubles, thank God!”

He began to search about for his hat and gloves; he did not see the shadow of doubt which flitted upon her face. When the message was written, she gave him instructions for his momentous journey to South Audley Street, where the house of Talvi was.

“You must take a cab, and it must wait for you,” she said determinedly; “I have a good mind to pin a card inside the flap of your coat--or you will forget where we live. Do not let him keep you long, dearest.”

“He shall not keep me an hour; he shall come here to be presented. We will all go to the great hotel to dine together. I told you that my friends would not desert me.”

He babbled on incessantly while she picked threads from his new frock-coat and pinned in his buttonhole a spray of the lilies he had bought for her. When they had said good-bye for the tenth time, she watched him from the window, a manly figure, broad and confident, in the throng below. Many turned to look at one who carried himself with such a fine air; but he saw nothing save the white face at the window--the face for which he had dared all and had brought himself to this land of exile.

“She shall be my wife before the week has run,” he said to himself as he went. “I forget the rest when she is near me!”

* * * * *

The hour of his promise passed swiftly, and found Marian still waiting for the sound of his steps upon the stair. A second hour was numbered, and a third. She began to count the minutes; she took her stand at last by the open window and scanned the faces of all who came eastward. But his face was not among them. When six o’clock struck, and the throngs were hurrying home again, and Paul did not return, there came to her suddenly the thought that some peril had overtaken him. That the hand of the Russian is everywhere active had long been known to her. She began to blame herself that she had permitted him to leave her. Since that night of nameless horror upon the sea, her shattered nerves were quick to bring foreboding upon her.

“O my God!” she said at last; “if they have trapped him here in London!”

Dusk succeeded to the sunshine of the day; night loomed over the city; but Marian continued to watch at her window, and to pray God that no ill had befallen the man she loved.