Chapter XIV

Gerald, after all, derived small satisfaction from his visit on the following day. He found his destination easily,--a small, detached house in a retired back street, with a bell at the front gate and spiked railings. He was admitted without undue delay by an ordinary-looking parlour maid and conducted into a small sitting room. After waiting a minute or two, the door was opened and Madame de Ponière entered.

“You have come to see my niece, Lord Dombey?” she enquired, after a word of conventional greeting.

“Is it very surprising that I should come?” Gerald rejoined, a little bitterly.

“Perhaps not from your point of view,” was the equable reply. “My niece has, in fact, been anticipating your visit.”

“It would have been kinder of her,” Gerald ventured, “if she had let me know her whereabouts. I have been in the hospital and afterwards in a nursing home for some time.”

“My niece had other matters to consider,” Madame de Ponière declared drily. “She is living in the utmost retirement, through force of circumstances.”

“Can I see her now?” Gerald asked bluntly.

“She will grant you an audience,” Madame de Ponière replied. “I have her permission to disclose her whereabouts, on one condition.”

“She is not here, then?” Gerald exclaimed.

“She is not here.”

“But she was here yesterday.”

“She was forced to come to London on a certain matter,” her aunt explained. “She left at nightfall. If you wish to make the journey, you can go and see her.”

“Where is she?” Gerald asked.

“I shall require,” Madame de Ponière said, “your word of honour that you will not divulge her whereabouts to any living person.”

“I think that the dangers you conjure up are entirely imaginary,” Gerald remarked, a little impatiently, “but I will give you that promise.”

“My niece is to be found at Duvenny Castle in Scotland,” Madame de Ponière announced. “It is a somewhat inaccessible place. Particulars of how to reach it are here.”

She handed him a slip of paper.

“In Scotland?” Gerald repeated, a little wearily. “But she was here yesterday.”

“She left at night,” Madame de Ponière reminded him.

Gerald folded the slip of paper and put it in his pocket.

“Very well,” he said, “I will go to Scotland.”

Madame de Ponière looked at him through her lorgnettes for a moment thoughtfully.

“You have been ill,” she remarked.

“I have been ill,” he assented.

Madame de Ponière lowered her lorgnettes and closed them with a little snap.

“If I thought that you would accept it,” she said, “I would give you a word of advice.”

“I can at least hear it,” he suggested.

“Go back to the manner of life you were living before you met Pauline--and forget her. Your visit to Scotland will be of no service to you. It will only end in disappointment.”

Gerald shook his head.

“That,” he said obstinately, “I must discover for myself.”

Gerald, following in the main the directions on the slip of paper given him by Madame de Ponière, reached his destination on the afternoon of the third day. He was in the car which he had hired at the last town on the railway route, a town which seemed to him, unacquainted with this corner of Scotland, almost an outpost of civilisation. After miles of moorland, unbroken except for huge boulders, the way had led around a range of smaller mountains until he had suddenly encountered, when he had been least expecting it, the tang of the sea. Many hundreds of feet below, he saw at last his destination, a dwelling of stone as ancient and rudely fashioned, it seemed, as the massed-up boulders on every side. The road by which it was approached was precipitous, in places almost impassable. The last quarter of a mile was along a narrow bank, unprotected on either side, with the spray from the waves leaping up into his face. The road ended in a circular sweep, surrounded by a high wall. In front of him was a massive gate, closed and barred. The porter who appeared in answer to the bell kept him waiting while he communicated with the house. Finally the gates were pushed open and the car allowed to proceed up a steep, stone-paved ascent to a courtyard also flagged with stones and also surrounded by a high wall. In front was another massive door, which, however, already stood open. Two men servants, both foreigners, awaited his arrival. One attended to the closing of the door and remained with the chauffeur; the other silently beckoned Gerald to follow him across the stone floor of the bare, circular hall into a room at the further end. He stood aside to let Gerald precede him.

“The gentleman will please be seated,” he said.

Gerald found himself alone in an apartment not unduly large but exceedingly lofty. It was simply but magnificently furnished, but only a single rug lay upon the floor. The windows looked sheer over the sea, and the thunder of the waves against the jagged rocks seemed almost at his feet. The windows themselves were narrow--the windows of a fortress--and the depth of the window seat showed the thickness of the walls. Gerald had little time to take note of these things, however. Within a moment or two of his being left alone, the door opened and Pauline entered.

Speech of any sort, it seemed to Gerald, must be pitifully inadequate. He stood looking at her, wondering if anything in her expression would give him the clue to her mysterious behaviour. She came towards him, however, as composed and unresponsive as ever. There was nothing whatever in her manner to indicate the fact that she was greeting the man who had risked his life in a mad enterprise for her sake.

“You have had a long journey, Lord Dombey,” she said.

He bowed over the hand which she had extended to him.

“A long journey, indeed,” he assented, “a journey down into hell and back.”

“Sit down,” she invited, “and I will give you the explanation I owe you.”

“Thank you,” he answered, “I do not feel at home in this house. Let me remain standing until after you have told me what it all means. I have done your bidding. I have come to beg for my reward.”

Her eyes looked at him coldly.

“I promised no reward,” she reminded him.

“Not in words,” he admitted, “yet you know what I desire.”

“What you desire is absurd,” she declared. “That is what I wish to explain. You have discovered, perhaps, who I am.”

“I learned who your brother was.”

“My brother!” she smiled. “Well,” she went on, “listen. I am the Grand Duchess Pauline of Russia, Princess and hereditary ruler of the Caspian Provinces, and nearest in kin amongst living women to Nicholas, who was murdered by the people. The man whom you rescued is Paul, Grand Duke of Volostok, hereditary ruler of seventeen provinces, and nearest in the male line to the Crown of Russia. He is my cousin.”

“Your cousin?” Gerald exclaimed.

“And my husband,” she answered calmly.

Gerald was extraordinarily cool. The situation began slowly to shape itself in his mind.

“It has been the province of royalty,” Pauline continued, “to make use of their courtiers, without explanation, in whatever way may seem good to them. I have made use of you. I did not seek your acquaintance or your friendship. I have made you no promises. I have kept you much farther away even from hope than would many of my illustrious ancestresses. Yet, in these days, you will probably think that you have been ill-treated. I cannot help it. I and others of my race have been ill and mercilessly treated. Yours has been a small wrong. I made use of you and your devotion to free my cousin, to whom I was affianced. So far as my thanks can satisfy you, I tender them.”

“You are very gracious,” Gerald acknowledged, forgetting all his weariness and holding himself like a man. “May I ask, were you married to the Grand Duke when I fetched him from his prison?”

“I was not,” Pauline assured him. “I was married a month after his return to England, with the consent and the approbation of my relatives here. Paul and I have but one hope and one desire--to live until the time when the people of Russia return to their allegiance, and to reëstablish the Romanoff dynasty in Russia, either through ourselves or our children. For that reason we are living here with an unseen guard provided by the English Government. When you first met us, we lived in seclusion because already four times my life had been attempted. There are still men pledged to destroy us root and branch. Here they will not succeed. We are surrounded by faithful guards, and our lives are consecrate. Not until the children live and flourish who shall carry on our name, will I or my husband take the slightest risk. The world may see something of us later. For the present we have only one thought.”

Gerald stood amongst the wreck of his dreams. He seemed to be listening to the thunder of the sea, to be watching the queer-shaped shaft of sunlight which stretched across the floor. He found speech almost impossible. The silence lasted so long, however, that he was compelled to break it.

“Your Highness’ explanation is complete?” he asked.

“It is complete,” she replied. “You will understand that your--shall I call it admiration?--was, in a sense, an offence to me. In Monte Carlo I will admit that through sheer weariness I was perhaps a little indiscreet. The situation then seemed hopeless.”

“I understand,” Gerald murmured.

“The Grand Duke, my husband, will wish to offer you some hospitality,” she said, touching a bell.

“It is quite unnecessary,” Gerald replied.

“Be so good as to await his coming,” she enjoined.

Prince Paul entered the room a moment or two later, a touch of sunburn on his cheeks, erect and handsome, a very different person from the broken prisoner of a few months ago. He advanced towards Gerald with outstretched hand.

“It gives me great pleasure,” he said, “to welcome you in my very bad English to our home. You see, I reached England safely.”

“I was glad to hear of it,” Gerald remarked.

“Some day you must tell me your own adventures,” the young man continued. “Perhaps you will give us the pleasure of your company to dinner to-night?”

Gerald shook his head.

“I have promised the owner of the car which I hired,” he said, “to return it to him to-night. I must, in fact, be leaving at once.”

A servant entered with a tray bearing wine and whisky. Paul served his guest himself.

“They tell me that this is the most hospitable country of the world,” he observed. “Even in Russia we should not let you depart without a toast. You will wish us those things for which Her Highness and I live.”

Gerald bowed and raised his glass to his lips.

“I shall drink to you and to your country,” he said, “and to the good of both.”

He set down his glass empty. Pauline smiled her good-by, but they handed him over to the care of servants with the air of royalty.--Gerald drove through the opened gates, heard the bars grind behind him, and, looking around for a last view, was dimly conscious of men who watched. Years afterwards, this strange visit, with all its trifling events, assumed its proper proportions in his mind. That night, however, he drove over the moors and around the mountains absolutely without any direct emotions. It was impossible to believe that his visit had not been the phantasy of an afternoon’s slumber.