Lucy Harding E-Book

Mary Jane Holmes

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 280

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In the summer of 189– I was one of a party of tourists who were going to St. Petersburg. There were eight of us, all women, strong, fearless and self-reliant, and all natives of Massachusetts. Two were from Boston, three from its suburbs, and three, including myself, from Ridgefield, a pretty little inland town among the Worcester hills. We had a guide, of course, Henri Smeltz, a German, and if his credentials, which I now think he wrote himself, were to be believed, he was fully competent to take charge of eight women with opinions of their own and as much knowledge of the country they were to visit as he had. It had been the dream of my life to see the water-soaked city, and when the opportunity came I accepted it eagerly, with, however, some dread of the fatigue of the long journey and the annoyances I might meet in the capital of the czar.

Leseprobe

LUCY HARDINGA ROMANCE OF RUSSIA

BY

MARY J. HOLMES

LUCY HARDING A ROMANCE OF RUSSIA

CHAPTER I. NICOL PATOFF.

CHAPTER II. THE GENDARME.

CHAPTER III. THE DOG CHANCE.

CHAPTER IV. NICOL’S HOUSE.

CHAPTER V. THE HIGHWAYMAN.

CHAPTER VIII. SOPHIE SCHOLASKIE.

CHAPTER IX. SOPHIE AS GUIDE.

CHAPTER X. ONE EVENING.

CHAPTER XI. A RUSSIAN FETE.

CHAPTER XVI. MADAME’S DEATH.

CHAPTER XX. MRS. SCHOLASKIE.

LUCY HARDING.

CHAPTER I.NICOL PATOFF.

In the summer of 189– I was one of a party of tourists who were going to St. Petersburg. There were eight of us, all women, strong, fearless and self-reliant, and all natives of Massachusetts. Two were from Boston, three from its suburbs, and three, including myself, from Ridgefield, a pretty little inland town among the Worcester hills. We had a guide, of course, Henri Smeltz, a German, and if his credentials, which I now think he wrote himself, were to be believed, he was fully competent to take charge of eight women with opinions of their own and as much knowledge of the country they were to visit as he had. It had been the dream of my life to see the water-soaked city, and when the opportunity came I accepted it eagerly, with, however, some dread of the fatigue of the long journey and the annoyances I might meet in the capital of the czar. I was not a good sailor and I had a great dislike for train travel, and by the time we had crossed the Atlantic and the Continent and were on the Gulf of Finland, I was in a rather limp and collapsed condition. But I rallied as the bright July day wore on, and when the Russian officers came on board I was quite myself and felt able to cope with them all if necessary. I had nothing to fear. I was an American citizen and wore the colors of my country in a knot of ribbon on my dress. My passport was all right, so far as I knew. But better than this was the fact that I could speak Russian with a tolerable degree of accuracy. I was fond of languages, and during my school days had mastered German and French to the extent of reading and writing them fluently. My teacher was Nicol Patoff from St. Petersburg, who, outside of his school hours, had a class in Russian which I joined, and astonished both Nicol and myself by the readiness with which I acquired the difficult language which the most of my companions gave up in despair after a few weeks’ trial and in spite of the entreaties of Nicol, who assured them that with a little patience what seemed so hard would be very easy.

He was a tall, handsome young man, with large, dark eyes which seemed always on the alert, as if watching for or expecting something which might come at any moment. All we knew of him was that he was from St. Petersburg. That his father, who was dead, had once been wealthy, in fact had belonged to the minor nobility, but had lost most of his money, and this necessitated his son’s earning his own living, which he could do better in America than elsewhere. This was the story he told, and although he brought no credentials and only asked to be employed on trial, his frank, pleasing manners and magnetic personality won him favor at once, and for two years he discharged his duties as teacher of languages in the Ridgefield Academy to the entire satisfaction of his employers. Many conjectured that he was a nihilist, but there was about him a quiet reserve which kept people from questioning him on the subject, and it was never mentioned to him but once. Then a young girl asked him laughingly if he had ever known a nihilist intimately.

“But, of course, you haven’t,” she added. “I suppose they only belong to the lower classes. You might see them without knowing them well.”

For a moment the hot blood surged into Patoff’s face, then left it deadly pale as he replied: “I have seen and known hundreds of them. They belong to all classes, high and low, rich and poor—more to the rich, perhaps, than the very poor. They are as thick as those raindrops,” and he pointed to a window, against which a heavy shower was beating. “There is much to be said on both sides,” he continued, after a few moments. “You are subjected to tyranny and surveillance, whichever party you belong to. It is a case of Scylla and Charybdis. Of the two it is better to be with the government than to be hounded and watched wherever you go and suspected of crimes you never thought of committing. A nihilist is not safe anywhere. His best friend may betray him, and then the gendarmes, the police. You have no idea how sharp they are when once they are on your track.”

This was a great deal for him to say, and he seemed to think so, for he stopped suddenly and, changing the conversation, began to speak to me in German and to correct my pronunciation as he had never done before.

During the next few weeks he received several letters from Russia, and grew so abstracted in his manner that once when hearing our lesson in Russian he began to talk to us in French, then in German, and finally lapsed into English, saying with a start: “I beg your pardon. My thoughts were very far away.”

“Where?” the girl asked who had questioned him on nihilism.

He looked at her a moment with a peculiar expression in his eyes, and then replied: “In Russia, my home, where I am going at the end of this quarter.”

We were all sorry to lose him, and no one more so than I, although I said the least. There was something in his eyes when they rested upon me and in his voice when he spoke to me which told me I was his favorite pupil, but if he cared particularly for me he never showed it until the day before he left town, when he called to say good-by. I had been giving my hair a bath and was brushing and drying it in the hot sun when he came up the walk. I disliked my hair and always had. It was very heavy and long and soft and wavy, and I had the fair complexion which usually goes with its color; but it was red, not chestnut or auburn, but a decided red, which I hated, and fancied others must do the same, and when I saw Nicol coming up the walk I shrank back in my seat under the maple tree, hoping he would not see me. But he did; and came at once to me, laughing as I tried to gather up into a knot my heavy hair, which, being still damp, would not stay where I put it. I know he said something about Godiva, then checked himself with “I beg your pardon,” as he saw the color rising in my face; and, lifting up a lock which had fallen down, he said: “I wish you would give me a bit of this as a souvenir.”

“Are you crazy,” I asked, “to want a lock of my hair? Why, it is red!”

“I know that,” he said; “but it is beautiful, nevertheless, especially in the sunlight. I like red. Can I have a bit?”

He took from his vest pocket a small pair of scissors, and handed them to me. I was too confused for a moment to speak. No one before had praised my hair. I had made faces at it in the glass. My brother, who was a few years older than myself, called me Carrots and Red-top, and, when in a very teasing mood, pretended to light a match on it. And Nicol called it beautiful, and wanted a lock of it as a souvenir. My first impulse was to give him the whole, if I could, and be rid of it; but, as I gathered the shining mass in my hand, and saw how the sunlight made it brighten and glisten, I began to have a certain feeling of pride in it, it was so long and thick and glossy, and curled around my fingers like a living thing.

“Yes, you can have some of the old, red stuff, if you want it,” I said, laughingly; and, taking his scissors, I cut a tress where it could not be missed and handed it to him.

He was my teacher, my friend; he was going away, and I felt I scarcely knew how toward him, as, with my hair still down my back—for it was not yet dry, sat beside him, while he talked of Russia, and the difference between life there and in America, appearing all the while as if there was something he wished to say, but could not, or dared not.

“Domestic life there is not what it is here. You would not like it,” he said.

“I know I shouldn’t,” I answered, quickly, and he went on: “But it is home to me. My people are well born, and I must cast my lot with them, whether for good or bad.”

“I hope not for bad,” I said, with a little lump in my throat.

“That depends upon the standpoint from which you look,” he replied. “If I join the nihilists, and you sympathize with them, you will think I go for good. If I side with the government, and help hunt the nihilists down, and your sympathies are there, you will say I go for good.”

“Never!” I answered, hotly, stamping my foot upon the ground. “Nihilism may be wrong, but I detest the government, with its iron heel upon the poor people, and in a way upon your czar, who is kept more in ignorance of what is taking place than I am. You are all slaves, every one of you, from the czar in his palace to the poor serf in his mud house on the barren plain. I wish I could give your grand dukes a piece of my mind!”

Nicol laughed at my heat, and answered: “You didn’t have that red hair given you for nothing, did you? I wish you might give them a piece of your mind, but am afraid it would do no good. Russia is pretty firm in her opinion of herself. I wish she was different. I have learned many things in your country which I shall not forget. My life has been very pleasant here, and my thoughts will often travel back to Ridgefield, and the freedom such as we Russians do not know.”

“Why not stay, then?” I asked, the lump in my throat growing larger, and making my voice a kind of croak.

“That is impossible,” he replied. “Russia may be bad, but I can no more stay away from it than the bird can stay away from the nest where its young are clamoring for the food it is to bring them.”

“You have friends to whom you are going!” I said; and he replied: “Friends? Yes; thick as the leaves on the trees in summer, and they are waiting for me. I am going into danger or honor. I have not quite made my choice.”

“You are not a nihilist?” I exclaimed, starting to my feet, as if to get away from him.

With a low, musical laugh, habitual to him when he laughed at all, which was seldom, he put up his hand and drew me back upon the seat.

“I thought you sympathized with the nihilists?” he said.

“I do,” I answered; “but it is hard to associate you with one. I think of them as a kind of desperadoes, made so by oppression.”

“There you are mistaken,” he replied. “I told you once that the nihilists are found with the rich as often as with the poor. Some time you may, perhaps, read of a gang of people starting for Siberia, and I may be with them. If not, there will be others in it just as heartbroken at leaving their homes as I should be. Pray for them, but do not be troubled for me. I shall escape. I was not born to be a slave, a prisoner, and there is not power enough in all Siberia to keep me, if I choose not to stay.”

He stood up, tall and straight, and his eyes flashed with a fire I had never seen in them before. After a moment he resumed his seat, and continued: “There is no doubt that Russia is hovering on the crater of a volcano, which may, at any moment, burst out like Vesuvius. But St. Petersburg is a right jolly place, after all, and it is my home. I hope you will go there some day. Your knowledge of the language will make it easy for you, and you will not find us a bad lot, or know a nihilist from a partisan of the government. They are all mixed in together. If you go, I may or may not be there, but find No. — Nevsky Prospect. It was once my home, where we kept forty servants, falling over each other and doing less work than half a dozen do in America. It is part of the system. Here is my card. Good-by, and God bless you!”

He passed his hand caressingly over my hair, and, stooping, kissed me on my forehead. Then he left me, and I put my head upon the back of the seat, and cried, with a feeling that something had gone out of my life which had made it very pleasant.

For a long time I expected to hear from him, but no word had ever come, and years had gone by, and I was a woman of nearly thirty-five, with my schooldays behind me, but with a vivid remembrance of that part of them when Nicol was my teacher. His card was all I had left of the handsome young Russian who had stirred my girlish heart as no other man had ever done. I had never forgotten what he said to me of the gang bound for Siberia, asking me to pray for them, and, in imagination, I had often seen that gang, and he was always in it, and when I prayed I am afraid it was for him—for Nicol alone. And now I was going to his country, and might possibly meet him, if he was there. He would be older, and probably married. But that did not matter. The pain in my heart and the lump in my throat when he bade me good-by were gone. That chapter was closed, but I was thinking of it, and of him, when I had my first meeting with a Russian gendarme.

CHAPTER II.THE GENDARME.

I had pictured them as old, or middle-aged, with gray or white hair, hard faces and fierce eyes, which could look through one and see if there was anything concealed. But the tall man, who bowed so deferentially, and hesitated a little before speaking, as if he thought I would not understand, was quite different. He was neither very old nor grizzled, although his heavy beard, which covered the most of his face, was streaked with gray. I could not judge well with regard to his eyes, as the lids were partially closed, the result of some chronic trouble with them, I afterward learned. I knew they were looking at me sharply—so sharply, indeed, that I felt my face growing red with resentment, and, as he continued to scrutinize me, coming close to do so, all my dread of him and his craft vanished, and, with a proud turn of my head, I said: “Why do you stare at me as if you thought me a smuggler, or a nihilist? I am neither.”

Instantly there came upon all I could see of his face for the heavy beard and into all I could see of eyes for the drooping lids a smile, which made my brain whirl, and for a moment I asked myself if theosophy were not true, after all, and I had lived another life somewhere, and been in the position in which I now found myself, face to face with a gendarme, who, as the smile disappeared under his heavy mustache, said: “Madame speaks Russian well.”

“Thanks!” I replied. “I ought to, with so good a teacher as I had in Nicol Patoff.”

I don’t know what spirit possessed me to mention Nicol’s name. I had never rid myself of an impression that he would rather I should not speak of him to strangers, and I had blurted it out to this gendarme, who started visibly, and repeated: “Nicol Patoff! Do you know him? Where is he?” he asked, and, with every sense alert lest my old teacher’s safety was in danger, I answered: “The last time I saw him he was in America.”

“In America. Yes; but what do you know of him now? Where is he?” was his next question.

“I know nothing of him, except what is good, and, if I did, I should keep it to myself, if the telling it would harm him. He was my teacher and friend, and a gentleman,” I said, rather hotly.

I did not know what right he had to be asking me about Nicol Patoff, and was very angry as I confronted the gendarme, who, I fancied, was laughing at me.

“You don’t know where he is now?” he continued, in good English, and, to my look of surprise, continued: “You see, I can speak your language, though not as well as you speak mine. Nicol Patoff must have been a good teacher, and you an apt scholar.”

I did not reply, but, with a formal bow, left him and joined my companions, who were curious to know what I had been saying to the gendarme. But I was noncommittal, and gave some evasive answer, as I watched him in the distance, with his staff, of which he seemed to be the head. Standing near the purser, later on, I said to him, rather indifferently: “Who is that officer with the queer eyelids? He carries himself as if he owned the ship and all the passengers.”

Glancing stealthily around, as if to make sure no one was listening—a habit I noticed in many of the Russians—he spoke very low, and said: “That! Oh, that is Michel Seguin, one of the very highest of the police. The suspects dread him as they would the plague. He’s a regular sleuthhound, and can detect a criminal and unearth a plot when everyone else has failed. I don’t know why he was sent here to-day, unless they had heard there was a suspect on board. You can’t escape Michel Seguin, when once he is on your track.”

He looked hard at me, as if he thought I might be the suspect Michel Seguin was sent to arrest. He had certainly talked with me longer than with anyone else, and I had been rather saucy to him. But I was not afraid of him, and had a feeling of quiet and safety just because I had talked with him. We were through with the police for the present, and were free to look upon the frowning fort of Cronstadt, bristling with guns and threatening destruction to any enemy’s vessel which might venture near it.

From Cronstadt we could see in the distance the golden dome of St. Isaac’s towering against the sky, and around it the turrets and spires and roofs of the city I had come so far to see, and where I was destined to meet with so many adventures. The sail up the Neva to the wharf was soon accomplished, and we were in the whirl and hubbub of a great town, where Henri, our guide, nearly lost his wits in the confusion, and finally left the ordering of affairs to me, as I could speak the language so much better than he. Most of our party chose to take a large conveyance from the station to our hotel, but I preferred a drosky, as I had heard so much of them from Nicol Patoff, and wished to try one. Half a dozen were ready for me in a moment, and, after my choice was made, I said to the coachman, who looked like a small haystack, or rather like a feather bed with a rope tied around its center: “Don’t drive fast. I shall fall out.”

He nodded that he understood me, gathered up his reins, which looked like two narrow strips of leather, shook them at his horse, and we were off like the wind, jolting over the cobblestone pavement, now in one rut and now in another, while I tried in vain to find something to hold to. There was nothing; neither side nor back was of any use. To clutch the padded garment of the driver was impossible. It was like holding so much cotton wool in my hands. There was no alternative but to pound him with my fists, which I did, in imminent danger of being thrown from the drosky. At last the point of my umbrella reached him, and, slacking his speed, he asked: “What will little madame have?”

“Drive slower,” I said. “You have nearly broken every bone in my body, and I have nothing to hold to.”

“Very well,” he replied, and started again, faster than before, it seemed to me, as I swayed from side to side.

A breeze had blown up from the Neva, and this, added to the motion of the drosky, took my hat from my head and carried it along, with little swirls of dust and dirt, until it was some distance in front of us. The blows I dealt that padded figure in front were fast and furious, but of no avail. Nothing availed, not even my umbrella, till I sprang to my feet and clutched him around his neck, as if about to garrote him. Stopping his horse with a suddenness which drew the beast upon his haunches, he gasped: “In Heaven’s name, what will little madame have now?”

“I’ll have my hat!” I cried, pointing to my crumpled headgear, which some little girls had picked up and were examining, one of them trying it on and turning her head airily.

I think the driver swore, but am not sure.

“Madame shall have her hat,” he said, and was about to plunge on, when I stopped him again, by saying: “Let me out. I will walk the rest of the way. We are almost there,” and I pointed to what I was sure was our hotel, for I had studied St. Petersburg so carefully before coming that it seemed to me I knew every street and alley and public building.

“As the little madame likes,” was his polite rejoinder, followed by a call to the girl who was still sporting my hat, to the evident admiration of her companions.

“Drop it, or it will be the worse for you!” he cried, with a flourish of his whip. “It is madame’s.”

But I did not need his interference, for, as I came up to the girl, breathless and panting, a tall gendarme crossed from the other side of the street, and at sight of him the children fled in haste, leaving my hat behind them. Picking it up and brushing some particles of dust from it, and straightening the crushed flower with a deftness I hardly expected in a man, he handed it to me, and said: “You will not wear it again, after it has been on her head,” and he motioned toward the girl, who, with her two companions, was scampering away as fast as her little, bare legs and feet could carry her. I had another hat in my trunk, and, remembering what I had heard of the condition of Russian heads, answered, emphatically: “Never! She can have it. Here, girl, come back!” I screamed to the child just disappearing in the distance.

I doubt if my call would have reached her if the gendarme had not sent after her a short, shrill, peremptory whistle, which brought her to a standstill as quickly as if she had been shot. Turning round, she saw me beckoning to her, and holding at arm’s length my hat, as if there was contagion in it. In a few moments she had it, or, rather, the three had it, pulling and fighting over it, until the last I saw of it one little girl was dangling a long ribbon, a second appropriating the bunch of forget-me-nots, while the eldest was wearing the poor, shorn thing as proudly as if it were a great acquisition.

I had scarcely realized till then, in my excitement, that the gendarme who had come to my aid was the one who on the boat had questioned me of Nicol Patoff. Would he ask me about him again, I wondered, and was relieved that he did not even act as if we had met before. Glancing at my hair, which I was beginning to rearrange, he said: “Madame must go bareheaded.”

“Only from here to the hotel. I have another hat,” I answered, thinking of the day Nicol Patoff had found me drying my hair, and complimented its beauty.

It was darker now, with a wonderful sheen upon it in the sunlight, and I could not help feeling that the man was admiring it through his half-closed eyes, and scanning me very closely. He had certainly been going in the opposite direction when I first saw him across the street, but he turned now and went with me to the hotel, where my friends gathered round me, asking what had happened, and why I had come on foot and without my hat. While I was explaining to them, the gendarme was speaking to the clerk about me, I was sure, as he glanced toward me, and nodded that he understood. Then, with a bow in my direction, which included those of my party standing near me, the gendarme walked away.

I had learned by this time that our German conductor, Henri, was of very little use, except to smoke and take a glass of beer when he could get it, and, if I wanted a thing done, I must do it myself. I could speak Russian much better than he could, and, as I wished to ask some questions, and was particular about my room, I went to the desk to register. After I had written my name, “Miss Lucy Harding, Ridgefield, Massachusetts, U. S. A.,” the clerk called a young boy, whom he designated “Boots,” and bade him show Miss Garding and her friend, who was to room with her, to a certain number. If there is in the English alphabet one letter which puzzles a Russian more than another, it is the letter “H,” and he usually ends by putting “G” in its place. Consequently, I became Miss or Madame Garding, developing, finally, into a Garden, and remaining so during my stay in St. Petersburg. From what we had heard of Russian hotels, we were not prepared for palatial apartments, and I was surprised at the large, airy corner room into which I was ushered. Turning to Boots, I asked if there was not some mistake. Was he sure this room was intended for us, and if it were not the best in the house?

When he found I could speak his language, Boots became communicative and familiar, although, evidently, he had no intention to be pert. It was one of the best rooms, he said, and tourists did not often get it, as it was reserved for Russian gentry when they came to town from the country.

“I heard Monsieur Seguin ask the clerk to do his best by you. I guess he thinks you are some great lady at home.”

Just then there was a hurried call for Boots, and he left me wondering what possible interest Michel Seguin could have in me. I had been rude to him on the boat, and had not shown myself very friendly since. Probably any special attention he might pay me was prompted by a wish to learn something of Nicol Patoff. But forewarned was forearmed, and Nicol, who undoubtedly was under some ban and in hiding, was safe so far as I was concerned.

“I’ll take the good the gods provide,” I thought, as I unpacked my trunk in my spacious, airy room, and then went down to dinner, where I found several tourists, all eagerly discussing what they had seen and what they expected to see.

CHAPTER III.THE DOG CHANCE.

As the sun was not down—for we were in the midst of the long, northern days, when darkness and daylight almost kiss each other in a parting embrace—I suggested that we take a little stroll and look at St. Isaac’s and other points of interest. As we were leaving the hotel, we met the gendarme, Michel, who, I found, came often to the hotel, inquiring after passports and any newcomers, or those who had changed their quarters. A civil bow was all I awarded him, as I hurried outside, where I found my friends crowded around a huge mastiff, sitting upon his haunches, as if waiting for some one—his master, probably. He was of a species which, in America, we call a Russian collie, and esteem for their fidelity and gentleness. He was the handsomest dog I had ever seen, with his fine, intelligent face, and long, silky mane, and, as I was fond of animals of all kinds, I stooped to caress him, while he beat his bushy tail in token of appreciation and good will.

“You are a beauty,” I said. “I wonder whose dog you are, and what is your name?”

“Chance, and he belongs to me,” came in quick response, which made the dog start up, while I turned to meet the drooping eyes of the gendarme fixed on me with a quizzical expression.

“Chance,” I repeated, still keeping my hand buried in the soft wool of the animal, who was stamping his feet and shaking his head, as if ready for action of some kind, if he only knew what it was. “Chance,” I said, again. “It is a strange name for a Russian dog. I had a little poodle, years ago, which I called Chance. I’ve never heard the name since.”

“No, it is not common; and it came to him from a friend,” the man replied. “He is a noble fellow. His grandmother was from the royal kennels, so, you see, he has kingly blood in him. I was offered a thousand dollars for him by one of your countrymen, and would not take it. He is young, but is already my factotum on whom I depend.”

“Do you mean he is like a bloodhound, whom you put on the track of the poor wretches you are hired to run down?” I asked, thinking of Nicol Patoff, and recoiling from the dog, who put up his big paw, as if to shake my hand, and thus conciliate me.

The gendarme laughed, and replied: “I have little need of a dog, except in case of murder. If the czar were killed, for instance, and the assassin were hiding, I might call in Chance’s help; and he would find him, too, if he had ever seen him before, or anything belonging to him. You are not afraid of him?”

“No,” I answered, and, before I could say more, the officer continued, to the dog: “Salute the lady!”

In an instant two great paws were on my shoulders, and Chance was looking into my face, with an expression so human that I began to feel cold and sick, and tried to free myself from him, and in my effort dropped my handkerchief.

“Down, Chance! That will do,” his master said, and then to us: “He will know you now wherever he meets you, especially after I have shown him this.”

He had picked up my handkerchief, a soiled and torn one, I saw, with a pang, and, handing it to the dog, bade him give it to Miss Harding. He mastered the “H,” and I was not a “Garden” to him. Obediently, Chance brought it to me, shaking his head and holding it a while in his teeth, as if loath to let it go.

“It is all right,” the gendarme said, taking it from the dog, but not returning it to me. “Chance has looked on your face,” he continued, “and smelled an article of your wardrobe. I could track you now to Siberia, if necessary, if I had this handkerchief to show him.”