The Dark Star

So he neglected to reply – waited a little too long. Because, while her childish letter still remained unanswered, came a note from the Princess Mistchenka, enclosing a tremulous line from Rue:

Mon cherJames:

Doubtless you have already heard of the sad death of Ruhannah’s parents – within a few hours of each other – both stricken with pneumonia within the same week. The local minister cabled her as Mrs. Brandes in my care. Then he wrote to the child; the letter has just arrived.

My poor little protégée is prostrated – talks wildly of going back at once. But to what purpose now, mon ami? Her loved ones will have been in their graves for days before Ruhannah could arrive.

No; I shall keep her here. She is young; she shall be kept busy every instant of the day. That is the only antidote for grief; youth and time its only cure.

Please write to the Baptist minister at Gayfield, James, and find out what is to be done; and have it done. Judge Gary, at Orangeville, had charge of the Reverend Mr. Carew’s affairs. Let him send the necessary papers to Ruhannah here. I enclose a paper which she has executed, conferring power of attorney. If a guardian is to be appointed, I shall take steps to qualify through the good offices of Lejeune Brothers, the international lawyers whom I have put into communication with Judge Gary through the New York representatives of the firm.

There are bound to be complications, I fear, in regard to this mock marriage of hers. I have consulted my attorneys here and they are not very certain that the ceremony was not genuine enough to require further legal steps to free her entirely. A suit for annulment is possible.

Please have the house at Brookhollow locked up and keep the keys in your possession for the present. Judge Gary will have the keys sent to you.

James, dear, I am very deeply indebted to you for giving to me my little friend, Ruhannah Carew. Now, I wish to make her entirely mine by law until the inevitable day arrives when some man shall take her from me.

Write to her, James; don’t be selfish.

Yours always,Naïa.

The line enclosed from Ruhannah touched him deeply:

I cannot speak of it yet. Please, when you go to Brookhollow, have flowers planted. You know where our plot is. Have it made pretty for them.

Rue.

He wrote at once exactly the sort of letter that an impulsive, warm-hearted young man might take time to write to a bereaved friend. He was genuinely grieved and sorry for her, but he was glad when his letter was finished and mailed, and he could turn his thoughts into other and gayer channels.

To this letter she replied, thanking him for what he had written and for what he had done to make the plot in the local cemetery “pretty.”

She asked him to keep the keys to the house in Brookhollow. Then followed a simple report of her quiet and studious daily life in the home of the Princess Mistchenka; of her progress in her studies; of her hopes that in due time she might become sufficiently educated to take care of herself.

It was a slightly dull, laboured, almost emotionless letter. Always willing to shirk correspondence, he persuaded himself that the letter called for no immediate answer. After all, it was not to be expected that a very young girl whom a man had met only twice in his life could hold his interest very long, when absent. However, he meant to write her again; thought of doing so several times during the next twelve months.

It was a year before another letter came from her. And, reading it, he was a little surprised to discover how rapidly immaturity can mature under the shock of circumstances and exotic conditions which tend toward forced growth.

Mon cher ami:

I was silly enough to hope you might write to me. But I suppose you have far more interesting and important matters to occupy you.

Still, don’t you sometimes remember the girl you drove home with in a sleigh one winter night, ages ago? Don’t you sometimes think of the girl who came creeping upstairs, half dead, to your studio door? And don’t you sometimes wonder what has become of her?

Why is it that a girl is always more loyal to past memories than a man ever is? Don’t answer that it is because she has less to occupy her than a man has. You have no idea how busy I have been during this long year in which you have forgotten me.

Among other things I have been busy growing. I am taller by two inches than when last I saw you. Please be impressed by my five feet eight inches.

Also, I am happy. The greatest happiness in the world is to have the opportunity to learn about that same world.

I am happy because I now have that opportunity. During these many months since I wrote to you I have learned a little French; I read some, write some, understand pretty well, and speak a little. What a pleasure, mon ami!

Piano and vocal music, too, occupy me; I love both, and I am told encouraging things. But best and most delightful of all I am learning to draw and compose and paint from life in the Académie Julian! Think of it! It is difficult, it is absorbing, it requires energy, persistence, self-denial; but it is fascinating, satisfying, glorious.

Also, it is very trying, mon ami; and I descend into depths of despair and I presently soar up out of those depressing depths into intoxicating altitudes of aspiration and self-confidence.

You yourself know how it is, of course. At the criticism today I was lifted to the seventh heaven. “Pas mal,” he said; “continuez, mademoiselle.” Which is wonderful for him. Also my weekly sketch was chosen from among all the others, and I was given number one. That means my choice of tabourets on Monday morning, voyez vous? So do you wonder that I came home with Suzanne, walking on air, and that as soon as déjeuner was finished I flew in here to write to you about it?

Suzanne is our maid – the maid of Princess Naïa, of course – who walks to and from school with me. I didn’t wish her to follow me about at first, but the Princess insisted, and I’m resigned to it now.

The Princess Mistchenka is such a darling! I owe her more than I owe anybody except mother and father. She simply took me as I was, a young, stupid, ignorant, awkward country girl with no experience, no savoir-faire, no clothes, and even no knowledge of how to wear them; and she is trying to make out of me a fairly intelligent and presentable human being who will not offend her by gaucheries when with her, and who will not disgrace her when in the circle of her friends.

Oh, of course I still make a faux pas now and then, mon ami; there are dreadful pitfalls in the French language into which I have fallen more than once. And at times I have almost died of mortification. But everybody is so amiable and patient, so polite, so gay about my mistakes. I am beginning to love the French. And I am learning so much! I had no idea what a capacity I had for learning things. But then, with Princess Naïa, and with my kind and patient teachers and my golden opportunities, even a very stupid girl must learn something. And I am not really very stupid; I’ve discovered that. On the contrary, I really seem to learn quite rapidly; and all that annoys me is that there is so much to learn and the days are not long enough, so anxious am I, so ambitious, so determined to get out of this wonderful opportunity everything I possibly can extract.

I have lived in these few months more years than my own age adds up! I am growing old and wise very fast. Please hasten to write to me before I have grown so old that you would not recognize me if you met me.

Your friend,Ruhannah.

The letter flattered him. He was rather glad he had once kissed the girl who could write such a letter.

He happened to be engaged, at that time, in drawing several illustrations for a paper called the Midweek Magazine. There was a heroine, of course, in the story he was illustrating. And, from memory, and in spite of the model posing for him, he made the face like the face of Ruhannah Carew.

But the days passed, and he did not reply to her letter. Then there came still another letter from her:

Why don’t you write me just one line? Have you really forgotten me? You’d like me if you knew me now, I think. I am really quite grown up. And I am so happy!

The Princess is simply adorable. Always we are busy, Princess Naïa and I; and now, since I have laid aside mourning, we go to concerts; we go to plays; we have been six times to the opera, and as many more to the Théâtre Français; we have been to the Louvre and the Luxembourg many times; to St. Cloud, Versailles, Fontainebleau.

Always, when my studies are over, we do something interesting; and I am beginning to know Paris, and to care for it with real affection; to feel secure and happy and at home in this dear, glittering, silvery-grey city – full of naked trees and bridges and palaces. And, sometimes when I feel homesick, and lonely, and when Brookhollow seems very, very far away, it troubles me a little to find that I am not nearly so homesick as I think I ought to be. But I think it must be like seasickness; it is too frightful to last.

The Princess Mistchenka has nursed me through the worst. All I can say is that she is very wonderful.

On her day, which is Thursday, her pretty salon is thronged. At first I was too shy and embarrassed to be anything but frightened and self-conscious and very miserable when I sat beside her on her Thursdays. Besides, I was in mourning and did not appear on formal occasions.

Now it is different; I take my place beside her; I am not self-conscious; I am interested; I find pleasure in knowing people who are so courteous, so considerate, so gay and entertaining.

Everybody is agreeable and gay, and I am sorry that I miss so much that is witty in what is said; but I am learning French very rapidly.

The men are polite to me! At first I was so gauche, so stupid and provincial, that I could not bear to have anybody kiss my hand and pay me compliments. I’ve made a lot of other mistakes, too, but I never make the same mistake twice.

So many interesting men come to our Thursdays; and some women. I prefer the men, I think. There is one old French General who is a dear; and there are young officers, too; and yesterday two cabinet ministers and several people from the British and Russian embassies. And the Turkish Chargé, whom I dislike.

The women seem to be agreeable, and they all are most beautifully gowned. Some have titles. But all seem to be a little too much made up. I don’t know any of them except formally. But I feel that I know some of the men better – especially the old General and a young military attaché of the Russian Embassy, whom everybody likes and pets, and whom everybody calls Prince Erlik – such a handsome boy! And his real name is Alak, and I think he is very much in love with Princess Naïa.

Now, something very odd has happened which I wish to tell you about. My father, as you know, was missionary in the Vilayet of Trebizond many years ago. While there he came into possession of a curious sea chest belonging to a German named Conrad Wilner, who was killed in a riot near Gallipoli.

In this chest were, and still are, two very interesting things – an old bronze Chinese figure which I used to play with when I was a child. It was called the Yellow Devil; and a native Chinese missionary once read for us the inscription on the figure which identified it as a Mongol demon called Erlik, the Prince of Darkness.

The other object of interest in the box was the manuscript diary kept by this Herr Wilner to within a few moments of his death. This I have often heard read aloud by my father, but I forget much of it now, and I never understood it all, because I was too young. Now, here is the curious thing about it all. The first time you spoke to me of the Princess Naïa Mistchenka, I had a hazy idea that her name seemed familiar to me. And ever since I have known her, now and then I found myself trying to recollect where I had heard that name, even before I heard it from you.

Suddenly, one evening about a week ago, it came to me that I had heard both the names, Naïa and Mistchenka, when I was a child. Also the name Erlik. The two former names occur in Herr Wilner’s diary; the latter I heard from the Chinese missionary years ago; and that is why they seemed so familiar to me.

It is so long since I have read the diary that I can’t remember the story in which the names Naïa and Mistchenka are concerned. As I recollect, it was a tragic story that used to thrill me.

At any rate, I didn’t speak of this to Princess Naïa; but about a week ago there were a few people dining here with us – among others an old Turkish Admiral, Murad Pasha, who took me out. And as soon as I heard his name I thought of that diary; and I am sure it was mentioned in it.

Anyway, he happened to speak of Trebizond; and, naturally, I said that my father had been a missionary there many years ago.

As this seemed to interest him, and because he questioned me, I told him my father’s name and all that I knew in regard to his career as a missionary in the Trebizond district. And, somehow – I don’t exactly recollect how it came about – I spoke of Herr Wilner, and his death at Gallipoli, and how his effects came into my father’s possession.

And because the old, sleepy-eyed Admiral seemed so interested and amused, I told him about Herr Wilner’s box and his diary and the plans and maps and photographs with which I used to play as a little child.

After dinner, Princess Naïa asked me what it was I had been telling Murad Pasha to wake him up so completely and to keep him so amused. So I merely said that I had been telling the Admiral about my childhood in Brookhollow.

Naturally neither she nor I thought about the incident any further. Murad did not come again; but a few days later the Turkish Chargé d’Affaires was present at a very large dinner given by Princess Naïa.

And two curious conversations occurred at that dinner:

The Turkish Chargé suddenly turned to me and asked me in English whether I were not the daughter of the Reverend Wilbour Carew who once was in charge of the American Mission near Trebizond. I was so surprised at the question; but I answered yes, remembering that Murad must have mentioned me to him.

He continued to ask me about my father, and spoke of his efforts to establish a girls’ school, first at Brusa, then at Tchardak, and finally near Gallipoli. I told him I had often heard my father speak of these matters with my mother, but that I was too young to remember anything about my own life in Turkey.

All the while we were conversing, I noticed that the Princess kept looking across the table at us as though some chance word had attracted her attention.

After dinner, when the gentlemen had retired to the smoking room, the Princess took me aside and made me repeat everything that Ahmed Mirka had asked me.

I told her. She said that the Turkish Chargé was an old busybody, always sniffing about for all sorts of information; that it was safer to be reticent and let him do the talking; and that almost every scrap of conversation with him was mentally noted and later transcribed for the edification of the Turkish Secret Service.

I thought this very humorous; but going into the little salon where the piano was and where the music was kept, while I was looking for an old song by Messager, from “La Basoche,” called “Je suis aimé de la plus belle – ” Ahmed Mirka’s handsome attaché, Colonel Izzet Bey, came up to where I was rummaging in the music cabinet.

He talked nonsense in French and in English for a while, but somehow the conversation led again toward my father and the girls’ school at Gallipoli which had been attacked and burned by a mob during the first month after it had been opened, and where the German, Herr Wilner, had been killed.

“Monsieur, your reverend father, must surely have told you stories about the destruction of the Gallipoli school, mademoiselle,” he insisted.

“Yes. It happened a year before the mission at Trebizond was destroyed by the Turks.” I said maliciously.

“So I have heard. What a pity! Our Osmanli – our peasantry are so stupid! And it was such a fine school. A German engineer was killed there, I believe.”

“Yes, my father said so.”

“A certain Herr Conrad Wilner, was it not?”

“Yes. How did you hear of him, Colonel Izzet?”

“It was known in Stamboul. He perished by mistake, I believe – at Gallipoli.”

“Yes; my father said that Herr Wilner was the only man hurt. He went out all alone into the mob and began to cut them with his riding whip. My father tried to save him, but they killed Herr Wilner with stones.”

“Exactly.” He spread his beautifully jewelled hands deprecatingly and seemed greatly grieved.

“And Herr Wilner’s – property?” he inquired. “Did you ever hear what became of it?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “My father took charge of it.”

“Oh! It was supposed at the time that all of Herr Wilner’s personal property was destroyed when the school and compound burned. Do you happen to know just what was saved, mademoiselle?”

Of course I immediately thought of the bronze demon, the box of instruments, and the photographs and papers at home with which I used to play as a child. I remembered my father had said that these things were taken on board the Oneida when he, my mother, and I were rescued by marines and sailors from our guard vessel which came through the Bosporus to the Black Sea, and which escorted us to the Oneida. And I was just going to tell this to Izzet Bey when I also remembered what the Princess had just told me about giving any information to Ahmed Pasha. So I merely opened my eyes very innocently and gazed at Colonel Izzet and shook my head as though I did not understand his question.

The next instant the Princess came in to see what I was about so long, and she looked at Izzet Bey with a funny sort of smile, as though she had surprised him in mischief and was not angry, only amused. And when Colonel Izzet bowed, I saw how red his face had grown – as red as his fez.

The Princess laughed and said in French: “That is the difference between professional and amateur – between Nizam and Redif – between Ahmed Pasha and our esteemed but very youthful attaché – who has much yet to learn about that endless war called Peace!”

I didn’t know what she meant, but Izzet Bey turned a bright scarlet, bowed again, and returned to the smoking room.

And that night, while Suzanne was unhooking me, Princess Naïa came into my bedroom and asked me some questions, and I told her about the box of instruments and the diary, and the slippery linen papers covered with drawings and German writing, with which I used to play.

She said never to mention them to anybody, and that I should never permit anybody to examine those military papers, because it might be harmful to America.

How odd and how thrilling! I am most curious to know what all this means. It seems like an exciting story just beginning, and I wonder what such a girl as I has to do with secrets which concern the Turkish Chargé in Paris.

Don’t you think it promises to be romantic? Do you suppose it has anything to do with spies and diplomacy and kings and thrones, and terrible military secrets? One hears a great deal about the embassies here being hotbeds of political intrigue. And of course France is always thinking of Alsace and Lorraine, and there is an ever-present danger of war in Europe.

Mr. Neeland, it thrills me to pretend to myself that I am actually living in the plot of a romance full of mystery and diplomacy and dangerous possibilities. I hope something will develop, as something always does in novels.

And alas, my imagination, which always has been vivid, needed almost nothing to blaze into flame. It is on fire now; I dream of courts and armies, and ambassadors, and spies; I construct stories in which I am the heroine always – sometimes the interesting and temporary victim of wicked plots; sometimes the all-powerful, dauntless, and adroit champion of honour and righteousness against treachery and evil!

Did you ever suppose that I still could remain such a very little girl? But I fear that I shall never outgrow my imagination. And it needs almost nothing to set me dreaming out stories or drawing pictures of castles and princes and swans and fairies. And even this letter seems a part of some breathlessly interesting plot which I am not only creating but actually a living part of and destined to act in.

Do you want a part in it? Shall I include you? Rather late to ask your permission, for I have already included you. And, somehow, I think the Yellow Devil ought to be included, too.

Please write to me, just once. But don’t speak of the papers which father had, and don’t mention Herr Conrad Wilner’s box if you write. The Princess says your letter might be stolen.

I am very happy. It is rather cold tonight, and presently Suzanne will unhook me and I shall put on such a pretty negligée, and then curl up in bed, turn on my reading light with the pink shade, and continue to read the new novel recommended to me by Princess Naïa, called “Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard.” It is a perfectly darling story, and Anatole France, who wrote it, must be a darling, too. The Princess knows him and promises that he shall dine with us some day. I expect to fall in love with him immediately.

Good night, dear Mr. Neeland. I hope you will write to me.

Your little Gayfield friend grown up,Ruhannah Carew.

This letter he finally did answer, not voluminously, but with all cordiality. And, in a few days, forgot about it and about the girl to whom it was written. And there was nothing more from her until early summer.

Then came the last of her letters – an entirely mature missive, firm in writing, decisive, concise, self-possessed, eloquent with an indefinite something which betrayed a calmly ordered mind already being moulded by discipline mondaine:

My dear Mr. Neeland:

I had your very kind and charming letter in reply to mine written last January. My neglect to answer it, during all these months, involves me in explanations which, if you like, are perhaps due you. But if you require them at all, I had rather surrender them to you personally when we meet.

Possibly that encounter, so happily anticipated on my part, may occur sooner than you believe likely. I permit myself to hope so. The note which I enclose to you from the lady whom I love very dearly should explain why I venture to entertain a hope that you and I are to see each other again in the near future.

As you were kind enough to inquire about myself and what you describe so flatteringly as my “amazing progress in artistic and worldly wisdom,” I venture to reply to your questions in order:

They seem to be pleased with me at the school. I have a life-drawing “on the wall,” a composition sketch, and a “concours” study in oil. That I have not burst to atoms with pride is a miracle inexplicable.

I have been told that my progress at the piano is fair. But I am very certain I shall do no more with vocal and instrumental music than to play and sing acceptably for such kind and uncritical friends as do not demand much of an amateur. Without any unusual gifts, with a rather sensitive ear, and with a very slightly cultivated and perfectly childish voice – please do not expect anything from me to please you.

In French I am already becoming fluent. You see, except for certain lessons in it, I have scarcely heard a word of English since I came here; the Princess will not use it to me nor permit its use by me. And therefore, my ear being a musical one and rather accurate, I find – now that I look back upon my abysmal ignorance – a very decided progress.

Also let me admit to you – and I have already done so, I see – that, since I have been here, I have had daily lessons in English with a cultivated English woman; and in consequence I have been learning to enlarge a very meagre vocabulary, and have begun to appreciate possibilities in my own language of which I never dreamed.

About my personal appearance – as long as you ask me – I think perhaps that, were I less thin, I might be rather pretty. Dress makes such a vast difference in a plain girl. Also, intelligent care of one’s person improves mediocrity. Of course everybody says such gracious things to a girl over here that it would not do to accept any pretty compliment very literally. But I really believe that you might think me rather nice to look at.