From morn till eve on “Show Sunday,” Campden Hill is always blocked by the carriages of the curious, and studios are besieged by fashionable crowds, whose chatter and laughter mingles pleasantly with the clinking of tea-cups. On this occasion, as on previous ones, I assisted Dick to receive his visitors, but unfortunately Ethel had been taken suddenly unwell, and could not attend.
My anticipations proved correct. “Circe” was voted an unqualified success. The opinions of critics who dropped in were unanimous that it was the artist’s masterpiece, and that the expression and general conception were marvellous – a verdict endorsed by gushing society women, bored club men, and the inane jeunesse dorée.
A scrap of conversation I overheard in the course of the afternoon, however, caused me to ponder.
An elderly man, evidently a foreigner, wearing the violet ribbon of the French Academy in his buttonhole, was standing with a young girl in the crowd around the easel.
“Why, look, papa! That face!” the girl cried, when her eyes fell upon the canvas. “It is her portrait! Surely the Signore cannot know!”
“Dio!” exclaimed the old man, evidently recognising the features. “The picture is indeed magnificent; but to think that she should allow herself to appear in that character! Come away, Zélie; let us go.”
I heard no more, for they turned and left. Having acted as eavesdropper, I could hardly question them. Nevertheless, I was sorely puzzled.
“Look! Read that!”
In surprise I glanced up from my work of romance-weaving on the following morning, and saw Dick, pale and agitated, standing at my elbow.
The letter he placed before me was in a woman’s hand, and emitted the faintest breath of violets. A glance was sufficient to recognise that the sprawly writing was Ethel’s.
Taking it up, I eagerly read the following lines it contained: —
“Dear Dick, —I regret to tell you that circumstances preclude me from ever meeting you again. I am going far away, where you cannot find me. It was foolish for us to have loved, therefore forget me. That you may meet some one far worthier than myself, and that ‘Circe’ may bring you fame and fortune, is the most sincere hope of your models.
“Ethel.”
“I warned you against your infatuation, old fellow,” I said seriously.
“But I couldn’t help it. I – I loved her,” he answered in a hoarse, trembling voice.
“Forget her,” I argued. “She is worthless and vain; why make yourself miserable?”
“Ah, you are right!” he said, as if suddenly impressed by the force of my arguments, while his face assumed a hard, determined expression. “She is Circe indeed, and she had her foot upon my neck. But it is all over,” he added bitterly. “I shall think no more of her.”
Then he wished me an abrupt farewell, and left, apparently in order to conceal his emotion.
That evening I called at Dick’s house, but was informed by his housekeeper that he had packed his bag and departed, stating that he would not return for at least a month, perhaps longer. When I entered the studio, gloomy in the twilight, I was astonished to find that the “Circe” had been removed from the easel, and that it was standing in a corner with its face to the wall.
Something prompted me to turn it, and when I did so, I discovered to my dismay that in his frenzy of mad despair he had taken a brushful of black paint and drawn it across the face, making a great, ugly, disfiguring daub over the forehead and eyebrows, utterly ruining the features, and producing a curiously forbidding effect.
The colour was not dry, therefore I was enabled to remove the greater portion of it with a silk handkerchief, but I saw with regret that the tints of the forehead had been irretrievably ruined, rendering the picture valueless.
The days went by. The limit for sending in to the Academy was approaching; but Dick did not write, and I could only wonder vaguely where he was wandering. It was a great pity, I thought, that such a fine work should not be exhibited. Yet the wilful obliteration had utterly spoiled it.
While sitting in his studio musing one day, it suddenly occurred to me that if the flaw upon the forehead could be hidden, it might, after all, be sent for the inspection of the hanging committee.
Taking it up, I examined it minutely in the light. The idea of placing a half-mask upon the face suggested itself, and without delay I proceeded to carry it into effect. The little skill with the brush that I possess enabled me to paint in the half-lights upon the black silk, and the laughing eyes being fortunately intact, I allowed them to peer through the apertures.
The effect produced was startling, and none could have been more astonished at the result of my daubing than myself. The mask seemed to increase the reckless diablerie of its wearer, and enhance the fairness of the complexion, while it added an air of mystery not at all unpleasing to the eye.
A few days later, I dispatched it to the Academy, and waited patiently for the opening day, when I experienced the mingled surprise and satisfaction of seeing it hung “upon the line.”
The “Masked Circe” was pronounced one of the pictures of the year. Thousands admired it. The papers were full of laudatory notices; but the man who painted it, unaware of the fame he had suddenly achieved, was hiding his sorrow somewhere in the Vosges. A stray copy of an English newspaper containing a notice of his work, which Dick picked up in a hotel, however, caused him to return.
He burst into my room unceremoniously one morning, still attired in his travelling ulster. I saw that he was haggard-eyed and wild-looking. From his conversation, I knew that time had not healed the wound in his heart.
“I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently, old chap, for touching up my daub. It seems that the public admire her as much as I have done. I – I shall find her some day; then she will return to me.”
“Still thinking of her?” I observed reproachfully.
“Yes; always, always,” he replied, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I – I cannot forget.”
Dick’s popularity steadily increased; lucrative commissions poured in upon him, and he settled down to such hard, methodical work, that I began to think he had forgotten the woman who had enmeshed him.
With beaming face he came to me one summer’s morning and announced that, although the committee of the Chantrey Bequest had offered to purchase the “Masked Circe,” he had just received a letter from the Count di Sestri, the well-known Anglo-Italian millionaire and art patron, saying that he desired to buy it, and asking him to go down to Oxted Park, his seat in Surrey, to arrange the price.
“I am going to-day,” he said. “You masked her, and it is only fair that you should have a word in the bargain. You must come too.”
At first I hesitated, but at length acquiesced.
That evening the Count received us in the library of his country mansion, and congratulated Dick warmly upon his masterpiece. It was evident that he meant to secure it at any cost, therefore the price was soon arranged; and before we had been there half an hour, my companion had a cheque for four figures in his pocket.
We were about to make our adieux, but the Count would not hear of it.
“Dinner will be ready almost immediately,” he said. “You must stay. We are quite en famille, you know. Only my wife and I.”
A few moments later the door opened, and there was the rustle of a silken train.
“Ah, here’s the Countess!” exclaimed the millionaire, stepping forward to introduce us.
We turned, and saw a pale, beautiful woman, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.
“Ethel! You?” we both cried in amazement.
“Dick!” she gasped. “You – you have found me!”
She reeled backwards, and before we could save her, fell senseless to the floor.
A few words of excuse and explanation, and we left the Count, who, kneeling beside his wife and endeavouring to resuscitate her, was completely mystified at the strange recognition. Dick, almost beside himself with grief at discovering his idol already married, returned at once to London, while I remained at an inn at Oxted in order to glean some further information.
Inquiries showed that the Count had met her while travelling in America, and had married her. Since that time they had apparently lived happily, and not a breath of scandal had besmirched her fair name. The reason she always refused us her address was now clear; and it was evident that, while in residence at her London house in Park Lane, she had been in the habit of paying us visits unknown to her husband, assuming the character of an unmarried and flighty Bohemienne.
On the following day I called at the Park to inquire after the Countess’s health.
The footman looked pale and grave when I asked after her ladyship.
“I much regret to inform you, sir, that my mistress is dead,” he said.
“Dead?” I cried. “Impossible!”
“Yes, sir. Her maid discovered her in her boudoir late last night, and found that she had taken an overdose of morphia. We sent for the doctor, but before his arrival life was extinct. The Count is insane with grief, more especially because the maid discovered that her ladyship had left a letter to some man she calls Dick, telling him that she loved him, and could live no longer.”
Dick rarely smiles, and is invariably gloomy and sad, poor fellow. The Count, ignorant of the truth, has hung his latest purchase in the private gallery of his great palace in Rome, little dreaming that the “Masked Circe” is actually the picture of his dead wife.
Chapter Four.
The Man with the Fatal Finger
Three years ago, while I was writing a novel which deals with Nihilism, and which brought the heavy hand of the Press Bureau at Petersburg upon me, I contrived, in order to sketch my characters from life, to obtain an introduction to the little colony of Russian revolutionists which exists in secret in a northwestern suburb of London. I eventually won their confidence, and ingratiated myself with them by advocating Russian freedom in a series of articles in a certain London journal, which had the effect of enlisting public sympathy with the exiles in such a manner, that the editor received a number of donations, which he handed to me, while I in turn conveyed the money to my friend, Paul Grigorovitch, the head of the branch of the Narodnoe Pravo.
I was sitting at home, reading and smoking, in a very lazy mood, one winter’s evening, when the servant girl entered and handed me a soiled, crumpled letter, which, she said, had been left by a strange-looking foreign woman. This did not surprise me, for I sometimes received mysterious unsigned notes from my friends the refugees when they desired to see me. The exiles are continually under the observation of the “Okhrannoë Otdelenië,” or Secret Police attached to the Russian Embassy, hence the cautiousness of their movements.
I tore the envelope open and read its contents.
The words, written in a fine educated hand, – evidently a woman’s, – were: “Come to Springfield Lodge, St. Margaret’s Road, Regent’s Park, to-night at nine. Important.”
I confess the communication puzzled me, for I knew no one living at the address, and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Nevertheless, I resolved to obey the summons.
With some little difficulty I found the house. It stood back from the road, concealed behind a high wall. The thoroughfare was very quiet and eminently respectable. Each house stood in its own grounds, and had an air of wealth and prosperity about it, while the bare black branches of the great trees on either side of the road met overhead, forming a long avenue.
I gave the summons used at Grigorovitch’s, namely, four distinct tugs at the bell; and presently the heavy door was opened by a Russian maid-servant.
“Who are you?” she demanded in broken English.
I told her my name, and showed her the note I had received.
“Harosho! Step this way, sir, if you please,” she exclaimed, when she had examined the letter by the feeble light shed by a neighbouring street lamp. Then she closed the door and walked before me through a well-kept garden up to the house. Entering, she conducted me to a small and rather well-furnished apartment, the French windows of which opened out upon a spacious tennis-lawn. Around the walls were hung several choice paintings, and I noticed that upon the table lay a number of pamphlets similar to those which the organisation were secretly circulating throughout the Empire of the Tzar.
In a few moments the door opened, and a very pretty young Russian lady of about twenty-three years of age came forward to meet me.
“Good-evening,” she said, smiling. “My father will be here in a few minutes. You will not object to wait, will you?”
I assured her I was in no hurry, whereupon she begged me to be seated, at the same time producing a large box of cigarettes, offering me one, and, in accordance with Russian etiquette, taking one herself.
She struck a vesta and lit hers quite naturally. Then, as she seated herself upon a low chair, I recognised that she was very handsome, and that every lineament and feature was perfect. Her countenance had an expression of charming ingenuousness and blushing candour, while her dark brilliant eyes had an intense and bewitching glance. In her brown hair was a handsome crescent of diamonds, and her evening dress of soft black net disclosed her white chest and arms.
“Were you surprised at my curt note?” she asked suddenly, blowing a cloud of smoke from her pursed-up lips.
“Well, to tell the truth, I was,” I admitted. “You see, we are strangers.”
“Ah, I forgot! I suppose I ought to introduce myself,” she said, laughing. “I’m Prascovie Souvaroff. I know your name, and have heard how you assisted our cause.”
After I had acknowledged the compliment, we commenced a commonplace conversation, which was interrupted by the entrance of a tall, elderly man, whose thin face, sunken cheeks, and deeply furrowed brow were indicative of heavy toil or long imprisonment.
Prascovie rose quickly and introduced him.
“Ivan Souvaroff, my father,” she exclaimed, and when we had exchanged greetings, she said, “Now I’ll go, because you want to talk. When you have finished your conversation, ring the bell, and I will return and bore you.” And, laughing gaily, she tripped out of the room.
Souvaroff took a cigarette, lit it, and, seating himself thoughtfully, looked into my face and said —
“I have to thank you for coming here to-night, sir; but the matter about which I desired to see you is one of urgency. I have heard from Grigorovitch and others how you have assisted us in London and in Petersburg, and I thought it probable you would render me a small personal service.”
“If it is in my power, I shall be most happy,” I replied.
“It is quite easy if you will only do it; it is merely to insert a paragraph in the papers as news. I have it here, ready written.” Then, taking a slip of paper from his pocket, he read the following announcement: “Prascovie, only daughter of Ivan Souvaroff, who escaped from Siberia after five years at the mines, died in London yesterday.”
“Died?” I repeated, in surprise. “What do you mean? Your daughter was here, alive and well, a few moments ago!”
“I’m aware of that,” he replied, smiling mysteriously. “You are not one of Us, otherwise I could tell you the reason.”
“Does she know?”
“No, no,” he exclaimed quickly. “Don’t tell her. Promise to keep the matter strictly secret. If you publish the paragraph, I will see she does not get hold of a copy of the paper.”
“Very well,” I said; “I’ll do as you wish.”
It was a puzzling paragraph, but I had already ceased to be astonished at any action on the part of these men, for the more I thought over their secrets, the more complicated they always appeared.
As he handed me the piece of paper, with an expression of earnest thanks, I noticed that he wore a glove upon his right hand, and commented mentally that it was a rather unusual custom to wear one glove while in the house.
A few moments after he had rung the bell, Prascovie returned, followed by the servant, bearing a steaming samovar.
“You’ve not been very long over your business,” she remarked, glancing at me with a smile. “Now it’s all over, let’s talk.”
I was nothing loth to do this, and she and I resumed our chat. Then Souvaroff related the story of his imprisonment, his transportation to Siberia, his work in the Kara silver mines, and his subsequent escape and journey to England, where he had been joined by his daughter. Some English people thought, said he, that Russia was not prepared for the freedom the Narodnoe Pravo would like to see it possess; but he assured me that the time for autocracy was past, that the Tzar’s Empire had outgrown the period of benevolent despotism, and that the Russian people were quite capable of governing themselves. When he had described some of the exciting adventures connected with his escape, Prascovie, who had handed me some tea and lemon, seated herself at the piano and sang an old Russian love-song in a sweet contralto, full of harmony and tenderness.
In the meantime, her father had left us, and when she had finished, she turned upon the music-stool, and with few forewords inquired the nature of Souvaroff’s business with me. Of course, I was compelled to refuse to satisfy her curiosity, and at my request she returned to the instrument and commenced another song. As she sang the second verse, there mingled with the music sounds of loud talking, boisterous laughter, and greetings in Russian, which proceeded from the hall. Evidently some one had arrived, and was being welcomed by my host.
Prascovie heard it, and ceased playing.
For a moment she sat in an attentive attitude. I noticed her face wore an expression of intense anxiety and that the colour had fled from her cheeks.
A few moments later I distinguished the voice of the servant answering her master, and after some further conversation a man exclaimed —
“Dobroi notsche, Souvaroff.” (“Good-night.”)
To this the man addressed replied in a cheery tone, the front door slammed, and my host returned into the room.
As he entered, he uttered some words in Polish patois to his daughter. It must have been some announcement of a startling character, for, uttering an ejaculation of alarm, she reeled and almost fell.
In a moment, however, she had recovered herself, and sank into an armchair in a grave, dejected attitude. All the light had left her face, and with her chin resting upon her breast she gazed down in thoughtful silence upon the rosettes on her little morocco slippers.
Souvaroff appeared to have aged ten years since he left the room half an hour before, and although I endeavoured to resume our conversation, he only replied in monosyllables.
I marvelled at this sudden change. Even if an unwelcome visitor had called, I could see no reason why such a strange effect should be produced.
I remained to supper, after which Prascovie threw a shawl about her shoulders and walked with me to the gate. I expressed a desire to call again and spend another evening in listening to the passionate Caucausian songs, but she appeared strangely indifferent. She merely wished me “Prostchai” very formally, and when we shook hands, she drew back, and I fancied she shuddered.
Then I turned away, and the gate was locked behind me.
Slowly I walked along the deserted road, absorbed in thought. The night was bright and frosty, and there was no sound save the echo of my own footsteps. I had been strolling along for perhaps five minutes, when suddenly I saw some object lying across the pavement. The thoroughfare was very inadequately lit; indeed, so dark was it that I was unable to distinguish the nature of the obstacle.
Bending down, I passed my hands rapidly over it. I found it was a man.
He was evidently drunk, therefore I resorted to the expedient of giving him a gentle but firm kick in the ribs, at the same time urging him to wake up. This, however, had no effect; therefore, after repeated efforts to rouse him, I struck a vesta and held it close to his head.
The moment I saw the yellow pallor of the face and look of unutterable horror in the glazing eyes, I knew the truth. He was dead!
His age was not more than thirty-five. He had grey eyes, fair hair and beard, and from his dress I judged that he belonged to the upper class. The heavy overcoat he wore was unbuttoned, and a silk muffler was wrapped lightly around his throat.
A glance sufficed to ascertain that he was beyond human aid, and after a moment’s hesitation, I started off in search of a constable.
I was not long in finding one, and we returned to where the body lay. Other assistance was quickly forthcoming, and, a doctor residing in the neighbourhood having made an examination and pronounced life extinct, the remains were conveyed to the mortuary. Owing to the lateness of the hour and the quietness of the neighbourhood, there was no crowd of curious onlookers, nor was there anything to create horror, for no marks of violence could be discovered on the body.
At the inquest duly held I attended and gave evidence. The medical testimony went to show that the unknown man had died suddenly owing to an affection of the heart, and the jury returned a verdict of “death from natural causes.” Nothing was discovered in the pockets which could lead to the unfortunate man’s identification, and although his description was circulated by the police, the body was buried three days later in a nameless grave.
I had published the strange obituary notice Souvaroff had given me, and on the day of the inquest I again called at Springfield Lodge. Only Prascovie and the servant were at home. I had a pleasant tête-à-tête with the fair Russian, and as we sat together, I commenced to relate my discovery on the night of my previous visit.
“Ah,” she exclaimed, interrupting me, “you need not tell me! I – I saw from the newspapers that you had found him. The inquest was held to-day. I’m so anxious to know the verdict.”
I told her, and an exclamation of relief involuntarily escaped her. This did not strike me as peculiar at the time, but I recollected the incident afterwards, and was much puzzled at its significance.
“Do they know his name?” she asked eagerly.
“No. There was nothing to serve as a clue to his identity.”
“Poor fellow!” she sighed sympathetically. “I wonder who he was.”
Then our conversation turned upon other topics. We smoked several cigarettes, and, after remaining an hour, I bade her adieu and departed, half bewitched by her grace and beauty.
When, however, I called a week later and gave the usual four tugs at the bell, my summons remained unanswered. A dozen times I repeated it, but with the same effect, until a postman who chanced to pass informed me that the occupants had gone away suddenly five days before and left no address.
Surprised at this hurried departure, I walked to the house of Grigorovitch, about half a mile distant, and told him of my friends and their flight.
“Well,” he said, with a smile, when I had told him their name, and explained the various circumstances, “I shrewdly suspect you’ve been tricked. I know no one by the name of Souvaroff. He is certainly not one of Us, and it is equally certain that he got you to insert that extraordinary paragraph by a very neat ruse.”
And he laughed heartily, enjoying a joke that I confess I was unable to appreciate.
Eight months passed, during which the strange incident gradually faded from my mind.
The increased number of persons who were being sent from all parts of Russia to Siberia without trial had become a subject of much comment in England. Horrifying reports anent the state of the étapes, and the shocking brutality and inhuman treatment to which the oft-times innocent convicts were subjected, were continually reaching London from various sources, and public feeling against Russian autocracy had risen to fever heat.
Hence it was that one day when I entered my office I received instructions to proceed without delay to Siberia, in order to inspect the general condition of the prisoners and ascertain the truth of the harrowing details. The prospect of this mission delighted me, for not only was it certain to be fraught with a good deal of exciting adventure, but it would also enable me to complete the novel, already half written, and which I had been compelled to put aside owing to lack of information regarding life in the Asiatic penal settlements.
That evening, after calling upon Grigorovitch and informing him of my projected journey, I returned home, and sat at my writing-table far into the night, finishing some work upon which I had been engaged. The whole of the following day I spent in packing my traps, and otherwise preparing for a long absence. In the evening, while I was busy writing some letters, the servant announced that a young lady, who refused her name, desired to see me. I was not particularly clean, and I confess that just then I was too much engaged in making arrangements for my departure to think of anything else. However, my curiosity got the better of me, and I told her to admit the stranger.
“You?” I cried, when a moment later Prascovie Souvaroff entered.
“Yes. Why not?” she asked, laughing, and offering me her hand.
What could I say? I stammered out a greeting, invited her to be seated, and began to question her regarding her sudden disappearance.
To my questions she replied —
“It was imperative. You English know nothing of the persecution which follows those who flee from the wrath of the White Tzar. We were compelled to leave hurriedly, and as the Secret Police were watching both you and me it was unsafe for us to meet. To-night I have risked coming to you for a most important purpose,” she added, looking up into my face earnestly.
“Oh! What’s that?” I asked.
“I want you to take me to Siberia.”
“To Siberia? You?” I repeated in astonishment.
“Yes. I hear you are going. Any news affecting us travels rapidly. I – I have an intense desire to see what the country beyond the Urals is like.”
“Who told you I was going?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” she replied. “All I ask is that I may be allowed to accompany you. I have here sufficient money to defray the cost of my journey;” and she drew from the breast of her dress a large packet of Russian bank-notes.
I shook my head, replying that Siberia was no place for a delicately-reared woman, and pointed out the uninviting prospect of a winter journey of five thousand miles in a sleigh. “Besides,” I added, “your connection with the Terrorists would render it unsafe for you to return to Russia; and, again, there are les convenances to be studied.”
“Do you think that I, a Russian, am afraid of a cold sleigh journey?” she asked earnestly, after a few moments’ silence. “Scarcely! Of course, I should not travel in this dress, but would assume the disguise of a Russian lad, in order to act as your servant and interpreter. As for les convenances” – and, shrugging her shoulders, she pulled a little grimace, and added, “Bah! we are not lovers!”
I asked for news of her father, but she informed me that he was in Zurich. She refused to give me her address, and all argument was useless. The point she urged, that she would be companion and interpreter combined, impressed me, and ere I had finally promised, she had given me instructions that I should, in applying for my passport from the Russian Embassy, also make application for one for “Ivan Ivanovitch, servant.”
Four evenings later, I was on the platform at Charing Cross Station, watching my big iron-bound trunks being stowed away into the Continental express, and chatting to two old Fleet Street friends, who had come to see the last of me, when a rather short young man, enveloped in a long, heavy ulster, approached, and, touching his cap respectfully, said —
“Good-evening, sir. I hope I’m not late.”
“No, plenty of time,” I said indifferently, although I had a difficult task to keep my countenance. Turning to my friends, I explained, “That’s my interpreter, Ivanovitch.” Meanwhile, the object of our attention had walked across to the van to see his own trunk placed with mine.
Five minutes afterwards, when we were in the carriage together, gliding out over the bridge that spans the Thames, I burst into a hearty laugh as I, for the first time, regarded her critically. Her disguise was so complete that, for the moment when she had greeted me, I had been deceived. Laughing at her successful make-up, she removed her round fur cap, and showed how she had contrived, by cutting her hair shorter, to make it appear like a man’s. Underneath her overcoat she wore a suit of thick, rough tweed, and with great gusto she related how she had filled up her large boots with wool.
She produced the inevitable cigarettes, and we spent the two hours between London and Queenborough in smoking and chatting.
To describe in detail our long railway journey across Europe by way of Berlin and Moscow would occupy too much space. Suffice it to say that I travelled through Holy Russia with a passport which bore the visé of the Minister of the Interior at Petersburg, and which ensured myself and my “servant” civility and attention on the part of police officials.
At length we passed through the Urals and alighted at Ekaterinbourg, where the railway at that time ended. A fortnight after leaving London, I purchased a sleigh, hired three Government horses, and Prascovie and I, in the great fur coats, skin gloves, and sheepskin boots we had bought, took our seats; the baggage and provisions having been packed in the bottom of the conveyance, and covered with a layer of straw. Then our driver shouted to the little knot of persons who had assembled before the post-station, whipped up the three shaggy horses, and away we started on the first stage of our long, dreary drive across Siberia. Over the snow the horses galloped noiselessly, and the bells on the wooden arch over their heads tinkled merrily as we moved swiftly along through the sharp, frosty air.
Soon we were out upon the Great Post Road, and as far as the eye could see, there was no other object visible on the broad, snow-covered plain but the long straight line of black telegraph poles and striped verst-posts that marked our route.