CHAPTER L
ENGLAND ONCE MORE
I started up at that.
“Fraulein Pendennis!” I gasped. “You know her?”
“I should do so, after nursing her through such an illness, – and so short a time since!”
“But, – when did you nurse her, – where?”
“Why, here; not in this room, but in the hotel. It is three – no, nearer four months since; she also was taken ill on her way from Russia. There is a strange coincidence! But hers was a much more severe illness. We did not think she could possibly recover; and for weeks we feared for her brain. She had suffered some great shock; though the Herr, her father, would not say what it was – ”
She looked at me interrogatively; but I had no mind to satisfy her curiosity, though I guessed at once what the “shock” must have been, and that Anne had broken down after the strain of that night in the forest near Petersburg and all that had gone before it. She had never referred to this illness; that was so like her. Anything that concerned herself, personally, she always regarded as insignificant, but I thought now that it had a good deal to do with her worn appearance.
“And Herr Pendennis, where is he?” I demanded next.
“I do not know; they left together, when the Fraulein was at last able to travel. Ah, but they are devoted to each other, those two! It is beautiful to see such affection in these days when young people so often seem to despise their parents.”
It was strange, very strange. The more I tried to puzzle things out, the more hopeless the tangle appeared. Why had Pendennis allowed her to return alone to Russia, especially after she had come through such a severe illness? Of course he might be attached to some other branch of the League, but it seemed unlikely that he would allow himself to be separated from her, when he must have known that she would be surrounded by greater perils than ever. I decided that I could say nothing to this garrulous woman – kindly though she was – or to any other stranger. I dreaded the time when I would have to tell Mary something at least of the truth; though even to her I would never reveal the whole of it.
The manager came to my room presently, bringing my money and papers, and the miniature, which he had taken charge of; lucky it was for me that I had fallen into honest hands when I reached Berlin!
He addressed me as “Herr Gould” of course, and was full of curiosity to know how I got through, and if things were as bad in Warsaw as the newspapers reported. Berlin was full of Russian refugees; but he had not met one from Warsaw.
“They say the Governor will issue no passports permitting Poles to leave the city,” he said. “But you are an American, which makes all the difference.”
“I guess so,” I responded, wondering how Loris had managed to obtain that passport, and if it would have served to get me through if I had started from the city instead of making that long détour to Kutno.
I assured my host that the state of affairs in the city of terror I had left was indescribable, and I’d rather not discuss it. He seemed quite disappointed, and with a queer flash of memory I recalled how the little chattering woman – I forget her name – had been just as disappointed when I didn’t give details about Cassavetti’s murder on that Sunday evening in Mary’s garden. There are a lot of people in this world who have an insatiable appetite for horrors, – when they can get them at second-hand.
“They say it’s like the days of the terror in the ‘sixties’ over again, – tortures and shootings and knoutings; and that the Cossacks stripped a woman and knouted her to death one day last week; did you hear of that?”
“I tell you I don’t mean to speak of anything that I’ve seen or heard!” I said, feeling that I wanted to kick him. He apologized profusely, and then made me wince again by referring to the miniature, with more apologies for looking at it, when he thought it necessary to take possession of it.
“But we know the so-amiable Fraulein and Herr Pendennis so well; they have often stayed here,” he explained. “And it is such a marvellous likeness; painted quite recently too, since the illness from which the Fraulein has so happily recovered!”
I muttered something vague, and managed to get rid of him on the plea that I felt too bad to talk any more, which drew fresh apologies; but when he had gone I examined the miniature more closely than I’d had an opportunity of doing since Loris gave it me.
It was not recently painted, I was quite sure of that, and yet it certainly did show her as I had known her during these last few weeks, before death printed that terrible change on her face, – and not as she was in London. But that must be my imagination; the artist had caught her expression at a moment when she was grave and sad; no, not exactly sad, for the lips and eyes were smiling, – a faint, wistful, inscrutable smile like the smile of the Sphinx, as it gazes across the desert – across the world, into space, and eternity.
As I gazed on the brave sweet face, the sordid misery that had enveloped my soul ever since that awful moment when I saw her dead body borne past, in the square, was lifted; and I knew that the last poignant agony was the end of a long path of thorns that she had trodden unflinchingly, with royal courage and endurance for weary months and years; that she was at peace, purified by her love, by her suffering, from all taint of earth.
“Dumb lies the world; the wild-yelling world with all its madness is behind thee!”
I started for England next evening, and travelled right through. I sent one wire to Jim from Berlin and another from Flushing, – where I found a reply from him waiting me. “All well, meeting you.”
That “all well” reassured me, for now that I had leisure to think, my conscience told me how badly I’d treated him and Mary. It’s true that before I started from London with Mishka I wrote saying that I was off on secret service and they must not expect to hear from me for a time, but I should be all right. That was to smooth Mary down, for I knew what she was, – dear little soul, – and I didn’t want her to be fretting about me. If she once got any notion of my real destination, she’d have fretted herself into a fever. But if she hadn’t guessed at the truth, I might be able to evade telling her anything at all; perhaps I might pitch a yarn about having been to Tibet, or Korea, for she would certainly want to know something of the reason for my changed appearance. I scarcely recognized myself when I looked at my reflection in the bedroom mirror at Berlin. A haggard, unkempt ruffian, gray-haired, and with hollow eyes staring out of a white face, disfigured by a half-healed cut across the forehead. I certainly was a miserable looking object, even when I’d had my hair cut and my beard shaved, since I no longer needed it as a disguise. Mary had always disliked that beard, but I doubted if she’d know me, even without it.
I landed at Queensboro’ on a typical English November afternoon; raw and dark, with a drizzle falling that threatened every moment to thicken into a regular fog. There were very few passengers, and I thought at first I was going to have the compartment to myself; but, at the last moment, a man got in whom I recognized at once as Lord Southbourne. I hadn’t seen him on the boat; doubtless he’d secured a private stateroom. He just glanced at me casually, – I had my fur cap well pulled down, – settled himself in his corner, and started reading a London paper, – one of his own among them. He’d brought a sheaf of them in with him; though I’d contented myself with The Courier. It was pleasant to see the familiar rag once more. I hadn’t set eyes on a copy since I left England.
I didn’t speak to Southbourne, though; I don’t quite know why, except that I felt like a kind of Rip van Winkle, though I’d only been away a little more than a couple of months. And somehow I dreaded that lazy but penetrating stare of his, and the questions he would certainly fire off at me. So I lay low and said nothing; keeping the paper well before my face, till we stopped at Herne Hill for tickets to be taken. As the train started again, he threw down his paper, and moved opposite me, and held out his hand.
“Hello, Wynn!” he drawled. “Is it you or your ghost? Didn’t you know me? Or do you mean to cut me? Why, man alive, what’s wrong?” he added, with a quick change of tone. I’d only heard him speak like that once before, – in the magistrate’s room at the police court, after the murder charge was dismissed.
“Nothing; except that we’ve had a beastly crossing,” I answered, with a poor attempt at jauntiness.
“Where have you come from, – Russia?” he demanded.
I nodded.
“H’m! So you went back, after all. I thought as much! Who’s had your copy?”
“I’ve sent none; I went on private business,” I protested hotly. It angered me that he should think me capable of going back on him.
“I oughtn’t to have said that; I apologize,” he said stiffly, still staring at me intently. “But – what on earth have you been up to? More prison experiences? Well, keep your own counsel, of course. I’ve kept it for you, – as far as I knew it. Mrs. Cayley believes I’ve sent you off to the ends of the earth; and I’ve been mendaciously assuring her that you’re all right, – though Miss Pendennis has had her doubts, and nearly bowled me out, once or twice.”
“Miss —who?” I shouted.
“Miss Pendennis, of course. Didn’t you know she was staying with your cousin again? A queer coincidence about that portrait! Hello, here we are at Victoria. And there’s Cayley!”
CHAPTER LI
THE REAL ANNE
“It’s incredible!” I exclaimed.
“Well, it’s true, anyhow!” Jim asserted. “And I don’t see myself where the incredibility comes in.”
“You say that Mr. Pendennis wrote from Berlin not a week after I left England, and that he and Anne —Anne– are at this moment staying with you in Chelsea? When I’ve been constantly with her, – saw her murdered in the streets of Warsaw!”
“That must have been the other woman, – the woman of the portrait, whoever she may be. No one seems to know, not even Pendennis. We’ve discussed it several times, – not before Anne. We don’t think it wise to remind her of that Russian episode; it upsets her too much; for she’s not at all the thing even yet, poor girl.”
He seemed quite to have changed his mental attitude towards Anne, and spoke of her as kindly as if she had been Mary’s sister.
“It’s another case of mistaken identity based on an extraordinary likeness,” he continued. “There have been many such, – more in fact than in fiction. Look at the Bancrofts and their ‘doubles,’ for instance, a pair of them, husband and wife, who passed themselves off as Sir Squire and Lady Bancroft innumerable times a few years back, and were never discovered. And yet, though it mightn’t be difficult for a clever impersonator to make up like Bancroft, it seems incredible that he could find a woman who could pose successfully as the incomparable Marie Wilton. You should have seen her in her prime, my boy – the most fascinating little creature imaginable, and the plainest, if you only looked at her features! It must have been a jolly sight harder to represent her, than if she’d been a merely beautiful woman, like Anne. She’s an uncommon type here in England, but not on the Continent. I don’t suppose it would be difficult to find half a dozen who would answer to the same description, – if one only knew where to look for ’em.”
“It wasn’t the resemblance of a type, – eyes and hair and that sort of thing,” – I said slowly; “the voice, the manner, the soul; why —she– knew me, recognized me even with my beard – spoke of Mary – ”
“She must have been an astonishingly clever woman, poor soul! And one who knew a lot more about Anne than Anne and her father know of her. Well, you’d soon be able to exchange notes with Pendennis himself, and perhaps you’ll hit on a solution of the mystery between you. What’s that?”
I had pulled out the miniature and now handed it to him. He examined it intently under the bright light of the little acetylene lamp inside the brougham.
“This is another portrait of her? You’re right, – there’s a marvellous likeness. I’d have sworn it was Anne, though the hair is different now. It was cut short in her illness, – Anne’s illness, I mean, of course, – and now it’s a regular touzle of curls. Here, put it up. I wouldn’t say anything about it to Anne, if I were you, – not at present.”
The carriage stopped, and as I stumbled out and along the flagged way, the front door was flung open, and in a blaze of light I saw Mary, and, a little behind her, – Anne herself.
I’m afraid I was very rude to Mary in that first confused moment of meetings and greetings. I think I gave her a perfunctory kiss in passing, but it was Anne on whom my eyes were fixed, – Anne who – wonder of wonders – was in my arms the next moment. What did it matter to us that there were others standing around? She was alive, and she loved me as I loved her; I read that in her eyes as they met mine; and nothing else in the world was of any consequence.
“You went back to Russia in search of me! I was quite sure of it in my mind, though Mary declared you were off on another special correspondent affair for Lord Southbourne, and he said the same; he’s rather a nice man, isn’t he, and Lady Southbourne’s a dear! But I knew somehow he wasn’t speaking the truth. And you’ve been in the wars, you poor boy! Why, your hair is as gray as father’s; and how did you get that wound on your forehead?”
“I’ve had some lively times one way and another, dear; but never mind about that now,” I said. We were sitting together by the fire in the drawing-room, after dinner, alone, – for Mary had effaced herself like the considerate little woman she is; probably she had joined Jim and Pendennis in the smoking-room, that was also Jim’s sanctum.
“Tell me about yourself. How did you get to Petersburg? It was you?”
“Yes; but I can’t remember even now how I got there,” she answered, frowning at the fire, and biting her underlip. A queer thrill ran through me as I watched her; she was so like that other.
“I got into the train at Calais, and I suppose I fell asleep; I was very tired after the dinner at the Cecil and Mrs. Sutherland’s party. There were two other people in the same carriage, – a man and a woman. That’s the last thing I can recollect clearly until I found myself again in a railway carriage. I’ve a confused notion of being on board ship in between; but it was all like a dream, until I suddenly saw you, and called out to you; I was in an open carriage then, driving through a strange city that I know now was Petersburg. I was taken to a house where several horrid men – quite superior sort of men in a way, but they seemed as if they hated me, and I couldn’t think why – asked me a lot of questions. At first they spoke in a language I didn’t understand at all, but afterwards in French; and then I found they wanted to know about that Mr. Cassavetti; they called him by another name, too – ”
“Selinski,” I said.
“Yes, that was it; though I haven’t been able to remember it. They wouldn’t believe me when I said I’d only met him quite casually at dinner, the night before I was kidnapped, – for I really was kidnapped, Maurice – and that I knew nothing whatever about him. They kept me in a dark cell for hours, till I was half-crazy with anger and terror; and then they brought me out, and I saw you, and father; and the next thing I knew I was in bed in an hotel we’ve often stayed at, in Berlin. Father tries to persuade me that I imagined the whole thing; but I didn’t; now did I, Maurice? And what does it all mean?”
“It was all a mistake. You were taken for some one else; some one whom you resemble very closely.”
“That’s just what I thought; though father won’t believe it; or he pretends he won’t; but I am sure he knows something that he will not tell me. But there’s another thing, – that dreadful man Cassavetti. Perhaps I oughtn’t to call him that, as he’s dead; I only heard about the murder a little while ago, and then almost by accident. Maud Vereker told me; do you know her?”
“That frivolous little chatterbox; yes, I’ve met her, though I’d forgotten her name.”
“She told me all about it one day. Mary and Jim had never said a word; they seemed to be in a conspiracy of silence! But when I heard it I was terribly upset. Think of any one suspecting you of murdering him, Maurice, – just because he lived on the floor above you, and you happened to find him. You poor boy, what dreadful troubles you have been through!”
There was an interlude here; we had a good many such interludes, but even when my arm was round her, when my lips pressed hers, I could scarcely realize that I was awake and sane.
“It was just as well they did suspect me, darling,” I said after a while, “or I most certainly shouldn’t have been here now.”
She nestled closer to me, with a little sob.
“Oh, Maurice, Maurice! I can’t believe that you’re safe here again, after all! And I feel that I was to blame for it all – ”
“You? Why, how’s that, sweetheart?”
“Because I flirted with that Cassavetti – at the dinner, don’t you remember? That seemed to be the beginning of everything! I was so cross with you, and he – he puzzled and interested me, though I felt frightened just at the last when I gave him that flower. Maurice, did he take me for the other girl? And was there any meaning attached to the flower?”
“Yes, the flower was a symbol; it meant a great deal, – among other things the fact that you gave it to him made him quite sure you were – the person he mistook you for. You are marvellously like her – ”
“Then you – you have met her also? Who is she? Where is she?”
“She is dead; and I don’t know for certain who she was; until Jim met me to-night I believed that she was – you!”
“Were we so like as that?” she breathed. “Why, she might have been my sister, but I never had one; my mother died when I was born, you know! Tell me about her, Maurice.”
“I can’t, dear; except that she was as brave as she was beautiful; and her life was one long tragedy. But I’ll show you her portrait.”
She gave a little cry of astonishment as I handed her the miniature; the diamond setting flashed under the softly shaded electric light.
“Oh, how lovely! But – why, she’s far more beautiful than I am, or ever shall be! Did she give you this, Maurice?”
There was a queer note in her voice as she put the question; it sounded almost like a touch of jealousy.
“No; her husband gave it to me, – after she died,” I said sadly.
“Her husband! She was married, then. Who was he?”
“A man worthy of her; but I’d rather not talk about them, – not just at present; it’s too painful.”
“Oh, Maurice, I’m so sorry,” she murmured in swift penitence; and to my great relief she questioned me no more for that evening.
But I told the whole story, so far as I knew it, to Pendennis and Jim, after the rest of the household had gone to bed; and we sat till the small hours, comparing notes and discussing the whole matter, which still presented many perplexing points.
I omitted nothing; I said how I had seen Anne – as I believed then and until this day – in that boat on the Thames; how I had suspected, – felt certain, – that she had been to Cassavetti’s rooms that night, and was cognizant of his murder; what I had learned from Mr. Treherne, down in Cornwall, and everything of importance that had happened since.
Jim punctuated the story with exclamations and comments, but Anthony Pendennis listened almost in silence, though when I came to the part about the mad woman from Siberia, who had died at the hunting-lodge, and who was spoken of as the Countess Vassilitzi, he started, and made a queer sound, like a groan, though he signed to me to continue. I was glad afterwards that I hadn’t described what she looked like. He was a grave, stern man, wonderfully self-possessed.
“It is a strange story,” he said, when I had finished. “A mysterious one.”
“Do you hold the key to the mystery?” I asked him pointblank.
“No, though I can shed a little light on it; a very little, and I fear even that will only make the rest more obscure. But it is only right that I should give you confidence for confidence, Mr. Wynn; since you have suffered so much through your love for my daughter, – and through the machinations of this unhappy woman who certainly impersonated her, – for her own purposes.”
I winced at that. Although I knew now that “the unhappy woman” was not she whom I loved, it hurt me to hear her spoken of in that stern, condemnatory way; but I let it pass. I wanted to hear his version.