The Red Symbol

Mr. Treherne welcomed me genially.

“You won’t find the fire too much? There are very few nights in our West Country, here by the sea at any rate, when a fire isn’t a comfort after sunset; a companion, too, for a lonely man, eh? It’s very good of you to come round to-night, Mr. Wynn. I have very few visitors, as you may imagine. And so you have met my old friend, Anthony Pendennis?”

I was thankful of the opening he afforded me, and answered promptly.

“Yes; but only once, and in an extraordinary way. I’ll tell you all about it, Mr. Treherne; and in return I ask you to give me every bit of information you may possess about him. I shall respect your confidence, as, I am sure, you will respect mine.”

“Most certainly I shall do that, Mr. Wynn,” he said with quiet emphasis, and forthwith I plunged into my story, refraining only from any allusion to Anne’s connection with Cassavetti’s murder. That, I was determined, I would never mention to any living soul; determined also to deny it pointblank if any one should suggest it to me.

He listened with absorbed interest, and without any comment; only interposing a question now and then.

“It is astounding!” he said gravely at last. “And so that poor child has been drawn into the whirlpool of Russian politics, as her mother was before her, – to perish as she did!”

“Her mother?” I asked.

“Yes, did she – Anne Pendennis – never tell you, or your cousin, her mother’s history?”

“Never. I doubt if she knew it herself. She cannot remember her mother at all; only an old nurse who died some years ago. Do you know her mother’s history, sir?”

“Partly; I’ll tell you all I do know, Mr. Wynn, – confidence for confidence, as you said just now. She was a Polish lady, – the Countess Anna Vassilitzi; I think that was the name, though after her marriage she dropped her title, and was known here in England merely as Mrs. Anthony Pendennis. Her father and brother were Polish noblemen, who, like so many others of their race and rank, had been ruined by Russian aggression; but I believe that, at the time when Anthony met and fell in love with her, – not long before the assassination of the Tzar Alexander the Second, – the brother and sister at least were in considerable favor at the Russian Court; though whether they used their position there for the purpose of furthering the political intrigues in which, as transpired later, they were both involved, I really cannot say. I fear it is very probable.

“I remember well the distress of Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis, – Anthony’s parents, – when he wrote and announced his engagement to the young countess. He was their only child, and they had all the old-fashioned English prejudice against ‘foreigners’ of every description. Still they did not withhold their consent; it would have been useless to do so, for Anthony was of age, and had ample means of his own. He did not bring his wife home, however, after their marriage; they remained in Russia for nearly a year, but at last, soon after the murder of the Tzar, they came to England, – to Pencarrow.

“They did not stay many weeks; but during that period I saw a good deal of them. Anthony and I had always been good friends, though he was several years my junior, and we were of entirely different temperaments; his was, and is, I have no doubt, a restless, romantic disposition. His people ought to have made a soldier or sailor of him, instead of expecting him to settle down to the humdrum life of a country gentleman! While as for his wife – ”

He paused and stared hard at the ruddy glow of the firelight, as if he could see something pictured therein, something that brought a strange wistfulness to his fine old face.

“She was the loveliest and most charming woman I’ve ever seen!” he resumed emphatically. “As witty as she was beautiful; a gracious wit, – not the wit that wounds, no, no! ‘A perfect woman nobly planned’ – that was Anna Pendennis; to see her, to know her, was to love her! Did I say just now that she misused her influence at the Russian Court in the attempt to further what she believed to be a right and holy cause – the cause of freedom for an oppressed people? God forgive me if I did! At least she had no share in the diabolical plot that succeeded all too well, – the assassination of the only broad-minded and humane autocrat Russia has ever known. I’m a man of peace, sir, but I’d horsewhip any man who dared to say to my face that Anna Pendennis was a woman who lent herself to that devilry, or any other of the kind – yes, I’d do that even now, after the lapse of twenty-five years!”

“I know,” I said huskily. “That’s just how I feel about Anne. She must be very like her mother!”

CHAPTER XXX

A BYGONE TRAGEDY

He sat so long silent after that outburst that I feared he might not be willing to tell me any more of what I was painfully eager to hear.

“Did she – the Countess Anna – die here, sir?” I asked at last.

He roused himself with a start.

“I beg your pardon; I had almost forgotten you were there,” he said apologetically. “Die here? No; better, far better for her if she had! Still, she was not happy here. The old people did not like her; did not try to like her; though I don’t know how they could have held out against her, for she did her best to conciliate them, to conform to their narrow ways, – except to the extent of coming to church with them. She was a devout Roman Catholic, and she explained to me once how the tenacity with which the Polish gentry held to their religious views was one more cause of offence against them in the eyes of the Russian bureaucracy and episcopacy. I don’t think Mrs. Pendennis – Anthony’s mother – ever forgave me for the view I took of this matter; she threatened to write to the bishop. She was a masterful old lady – and I believe she would have done it, too, if Anthony and his wife had remained in the neighborhood. But the friction became unbearable, and he took her away. I never saw her again; never again!

“They went to London for a time; and from there they both wrote to me. We corresponded frequently, and they invited me to go and stay with them, but I never went. Then – it was in the autumn of ’83 – they returned to Russia, and the letters were less frequent. They were nearly always from Anna; Anthony was never a good correspondent! I do not know even now whether he wrote to his parents, or they to him.

“I had had no news from Russia for some months, when Mr. Pendennis died suddenly; he had been ailing for a long time, but the end came quite unexpectedly. Anthony was telegraphed for and came as quickly as possible. I saw very little of him during his stay, a few days only, during which he had to get through a great amount of business; but I learned that his wife was in a delicate state of health, and he was desperately anxious about her. I fear he got very little sympathy from his mother, whose aversion for her daughter-in-law had increased, if that were possible, during their separation. Poor woman! Her rancour brought its own punishment! She and her son parted in anger, never to meet again. She only heard from him once, – about a month after he left, to return to Russia; and then he wrote briefly, brutally in a way, though I know he was half mad at the time.

“‘My wife is dead, though not in childbirth. If I had been with her, I could have saved her,’ he wrote. ‘You wished her dead, and now your wish is granted; but I also am dead to you. I shall never return to England; I shall never bring my child home to the house where her mother was an alien.’

“He has kept his word, as you know. He did not write to me at all; and it was years before I heard what had happened during his absence, and on his return. When he reached the frontier he was arrested and detained in prison for several days. Then, on consideration of the fact that he was a British subject – ”

“That doesn’t weigh for much in Russia to-day,” I interpolated.

“It did then. He was informed that his wife had been arrested as an accomplice in a Nihilist plot; that she had been condemned to transportation to Siberia, but had died before the sentence could be executed. Also that her infant, born a few days before her arrest, had been deported, with its nurse, and was probably awaiting him at Konigsberg. Finally he himself was conducted to the frontier again, and expelled from ‘Holy Russia.’ The one bit of comfort was the child, whom he found safe and sound under the care of the nurse, a German who had taken refuge with her kinsfolk in Konigsberg, and who confirmed the terrible story.

“I heard all this about ten years ago,” Treherne continued, “when by the purest chance I met Pendennis in Switzerland. I was weather-bound by a premature snowstorm for a couple of days, and among my fellow sufferers at the little hostelry were Anthony and his daughter.”

“Anne herself! What was she like?” I asked eagerly.

“A beautiful girl, – the image of her dead mother,” he answered slowly. “Or what her mother must have been at that age. She was then about – let me see – twelve or thirteen, but she seemed older; not what we call a precocious child, but womanly beyond her years, and devoted to her father, as he to her. I took him to task; tried to persuade him to come back to England, – to his own home, – if only for his daughter’s sake. But he would not listen to me.

“‘Anne shall be brought up as a citizeness of the world,’ he declared. ‘She shall never be subjected to the limitations of life in England.’

“I must say they seemed happy enough together!” he added with a sigh.

“Well, that is all I have to tell you, Mr. Wynn. From that day to this I have neither seen nor heard aught of Anthony Pendennis and his daughter; but I fear there is no doubt that he has allowed her – possibly even encouraged her – to become involved with some of these terrible secret societies, that do no good, but incalculable harm. Perhaps he may have inspired her with an insane idea of avenging her mother; and now she has shared her mother’s fate!”

“I will not believe that till I have proof positive,” I said slowly.

“But how can you get such proof?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet; but I’m going to seek it – to seek her!”

“You will return to Russia?”

“Why, yes; I meant to do that all along; whatever you might have told me would have made no difference to that determination!”

“But, my dear young man, you will be simply throwing your life away!” he remonstrated.

“I think not, and it’s not very valuable, anyway. I thank you for your story, sir; it helps me to understand things a bit, – Anne’s motive, and her father’s; and it gives me a little hope that they may have escaped, for the time, anyhow. He evidently knew the neighborhood well, or he couldn’t have turned up at that meeting; and if once he could get her safely back to Petersburg, he could claim protection for them both at the Embassy, though – ”

“If he had been able to do that, surely he or she would have communicated with your cousin, Mrs. Cayley?” he asked, speaking the thought that was in my own mind.

“That’s so; still there’s no use in conjecturing. You’ll not let my cousin get even a hint of what I’ve told you, Mr. Treherne? If she finds out that Pencarrow belongs to Mr. Pendennis, she’ll surely cross-question you about him, and Mary’s so sharp that she’ll see at once you’re concealing something from her, if you’re not very discreet.”

“Thanks for the warning. I promise you that I’ll be very discreet, Mr. Wynn,” he assured me. “Dear me – dear me, it seems incredible that such things should be!”

It did seem incredible, there in that peaceful old-world room, with never a sound to break the silence but the lazy murmur of the waves, far below; heard faintly but distinctly, – a weird, monotonous, never ceasing undersong.

We parted cordially; he came right out to the porch, and I was afraid he might offer to walk some of the way with me. I wanted to be alone to try and fix things up in my mind; for though the history of Anne’s parentage gave me a clue to her motives, there was much that still perplexed me.

Why had she always told Mary that she knew nothing of Russia, – had never been there? Well, doubtless that was partly for Mary’s own sake, to spare her anxiety, and partly because of the vital necessity for secrecy; but a mere evasion would have served as well as the direct assertion, – I hated to call it a lie even in my own mind! And why, oh why had she not trusted me, let me serve her; for she knew, she must have known – that I asked for nothing better than that!

But I could come to no conclusion whatever as I leaned against the churchyard wall, gazing out over the sea, dark and mysterious save where the moonlight made a silver track across the calm surface. As well try to fathom the secret of the sea as the mystery that enshrouded Anne Pendennis!

On one point only I was more resolved than ever, – to return to Russia at the earliest possible moment.

CHAPTER XXXI

MISHKA TURNS UP

“You must have found Cornish history very fascinating, Maurice,” Mary declared at breakfast-time next morning. “Jim says it was nearly twelve when you got back. You bad boy to keep such late hours, after you’ve been so ill, too!”

“I’m all right again now,” I protested. “And the vicar certainly is a very interesting companion.”

There were a couple of letters, one from the Courier office, and another from Harding, Lord Southbourne’s private secretary, and both important in their way.

Harding wrote that Southbourne would be in town at the end of the week, en route for Scotland, and wished to see me if I were fit for service. “A soft job this time, a trip to the States, so you’ll be able to combine business with pleasure.”

Under any other circumstances I could have done with a run home; but even while I read the letter I decided that Southbourne would have to entrust the matter – whatever it might be – to some one else.

I opened the second letter, a typed note, signed by Fenning the news editor, enclosing one of the printed slips on which chance callers have to write their name and business. I glanced at that first, and found it filled in with an almost indecipherable scrawl. I made out the name and address right enough as “M. Pavloff, Charing Cross Hotel,” and puzzled over a line in German, which I at length translated as “bearing a message from Johann.” Now who on earth were Pavloff and Johann?

“Dear Wynn,” the note ran:

“One of your Russian friends called here to-night, and wanted your address, which of course was not given. I saw him – a big surly-looking man, who speaks German fairly well, but would not state his business – so I promised to send enclosed on to you.

“Hope you’re pulling round all right!

“Yours sincerely,“Walter Fenning.”

A big surly-looking man. Could it be Mishka? I scarcely dared hope it was, remembering how and where I parted from him; but that underlined “Johann” might – must mean “Ivan,” otherwise the Grand Duke Loris. To give the German rendering of the name was just like Mishka, who was the very embodiment of caution and taciturnity.

“Well, I’ve got my marching orders,” I announced. “I’ll have to go back to London to-day, Mary, to meet Southbourne. Where’s the time-table?”

Mary objected, of course, on the score that I was not yet strong enough for work, and I reassured her.

“Nonsense, dear; I’m all right, and I’ve been idle too long.”

“Idle! When you’ve turned out that Russian series.”

“A month ago, and I haven’t done a stroke since.”

“But is this anything special?” she urged. “Lord Southbourne is not sending you abroad again, – to Russia?”

“No fear of that, little woman; and if he did they would stop me at the frontier, so don’t worry. Harding mentioned the States in his note.”

“Oh, that would be lovely!” she assented, quite reassured. I was thankful that she and Jim were settled down in this out-of-the-way place for the next few weeks, any way. It would be easy to keep them in ignorance of my movements, and, once away, they wouldn’t expect to hear much of me. In my private capacity I was a proverbially remiss correspondent.

They both came with me the seven-mile drive to the station; and even Jim, to my relief, didn’t seem to have the least suspicion that my hurried departure was occasioned by any other reason than that I had given.

Anne’s name had never been mentioned between him and myself since my release. Perhaps he imagined I was forgetting her, though Mary knew better.

I sent a wire from Exeter to “M. Pavloff,” and when I arrived at Waterloo, about half-past ten at night, I drove straight to the Charing Cross Hotel, secured a room there, and asked for Herr Pavloff.

I was taken up to a private sitting-room, and there, right enough, was Mishka himself. In his way he was as remarkable a man as his master; as imperturbable, and as much at home in a London hotel, as in the café near the Ismailskaia Prospekt in Petersburg.

He greeted me with a warmth that I felt to be flattering from one of his temperament. In many ways he was a typical Russian, almost servile, in his surly fashion, towards those whom he conceived to be immeasurably his superiors in rank; more or less truculent towards every one else; and, as a rule, suspicious of every one, high or low, with whom he came in contact, save his master, and, I really believe, myself.

At an early stage in our acquaintanceship he had abandoned the air of sulky deference which he had shown when we first met on the car returning to Dunaburg after the accident, and had treated me more or less en camarade, though in a kind of paternal manner; and yet I doubt if he was my senior in years. He was a man of considerable education, too, though he was usually careful to conceal the fact. To this day I do not know the exact position he held in his master’s service. It may perhaps be described as that of confidential henchman, – a mediæval definition, but in Russia one is continually taken back to the Middle Ages. One thing, at least, was indubitable, – his utter devotion to his master.

“So, the little man kept his word, and sent for you. That is well. And you have come promptly; that also is well. It is what you would do,” he said, eying me quite affectionately. “We did not expect to meet again, – and in England, hein?”

“That we didn’t!” I rejoined. “Say, Mishka, how did you get clear; and how did you know where to find me?”

“One thing at a time. First, I have brought you a letter. Read it.”

With exasperating deliberation he fetched out a bulky pocket-book, and extracted therefrom a packet, which proved to be a thick cream envelope, carefully protected from soilure by an outer wrapping of paper.

Within was a letter written in French, and in a curiously fine, precise caligraphy. It was dated August 10th, from the Castle of Zostrov, and it conveyed merely an invitation to visit the writer, and the assurance that the bearer would give me all necessary information.

“I can offer you very little in the way of entertainment, unless you happen to be a sportsman, which I think is probable. There is game in abundance, from bear downwards,” was the last sentence.

It was a most discreet communication, signed merely with the initial “L.”

“Read it,” I said, handing it to Mishka. He glanced through it, nodded, and handed it back. He knew its contents before, doubtless; but still I gathered that he could read French as well as German.

“Well, are you coming?” he asked.

“Why, certainly; but what about the information his Highness mentions?”

He put up his hand with a swift, warning gesture, and glanced towards the door, muttering:

“There is no need of names or titles.”

“Or of precautions here!” I rejoined impatiently. “Remember, we are in England, man!”

“True, I forgot; but still, caution is always best. About this information. What do you wish to know?”

“Why, everything, man; everything! How did you escape? What is – he – doing at this place; have you news of her? That first, and above all!”

“That I cannot give, for I have it not. I think he knows somewhat, and if that is so he himself will tell you. But I have heard nothing – nothing! For the rest, I crawled further into the forest, and lay quiet there. I heard enough through the night to know somewhat at least that was befalling, but I kept still. What could I have done to aid? And later, I made my way to a place of safety; and thence, in due time, to Zostrov, where I joined my master. It is one of his estates, and he is banished there, for how long? Who can say? Till those about the Tzar alter their minds, or till he himself sees reason to go elsewhere! They dare do nothing more to him, openly, for he is a prince of the blood, when all is said, and the Tzar loves him; so does the Tzarina (God guard her), though indeed that counts for little! It is not much, this banishment, – to him at least. It might have been worse. And he is content, for the present. He finds much work ready to his hand. We get news, too; much more news than some imagine, – the censor among them. We heard of your deliverance almost as soon as it was accomplished, and, later, of your – what do you call it?”

“Acquittal?” I suggested.

“That would be the word; you were proved innocent.”

“Not exactly; there was not sufficient evidence of my guilt and so I was discharged,” I answered; and as I spoke I remembered that, even now, I was liable to be rearrested on that same charge, since I had not been tried and acquitted by a jury.

“We know, of course,” he continued, “that you did not murder that swine Selinski.”

“How do you know that?” I demanded.

“That I may not tell you, but this I may: if you had been condemned, well – ”

He blew a big cloud of smoke from his cigar, a cloud that obscured his face, and out of it he spoke enigmatically:

“Rest assured you will never be hung for the murder of Vladimir Selinski, although twenty English juries might pronounce you guilty! But enough of that. The question is will you return with me, or will you not? He has need of you; or thinks he has, which is the same thing; and I can smooth the way. There will be risks.”

“I know all about that,” I interrupted impatiently. “And I shall go with you, of course!”

“Of course,” he acquiesced phlegmatically. But, as he spoke, he held out his big blunt hand; and I gripped it hard.

CHAPTER XXXII

BACK TO RUSSIA ONCE MORE

Two days later I saw Lord Southbourne, and resigned my position as a member of his staff. I felt myself mean in one way, when I thought of how he had backed me right through that murder business, – and before it, when he set Freeman on my track.

He showed neither surprise nor annoyance; in fact he seemed, if anything, more nonchalant than usual.

“Well, of course you know your own affairs best. I haven’t any use for men who cultivate interests outside their work; and you’ve done the straight thing in resigning now that you ‘here a duty divided do perceive,’ as I heard a man say the other day.”

“Von Eckhardt!” I exclaimed.

“Guessed it first time,” he drawled. “Could any one else in this world garble quotations so horribly? If he would only give ’em in German they would be more endurable, but he insists on exhibiting his English. By the way, he has relinquished his vendetta.”

“That on Carson’s account?”

“Yes, he believes the murderer, or murderers, must have been wiped out in that affair where you came to grief so signally. He had heard about it before he saw your stuff, though no official account was allowed to get through; and he gave me some rather interesting information, quite gratuitously.”

“Does it concern me, or – any one I know?” I asked, steadying my voice with an effort.

“Well, not precisely; since you only know the lady by repute, and by her portrait.”

I remembered that Von Eckhardt was the one person besides myself who was aware of Anne’s identity, which I had betrayed to him in that one unguarded moment at Berlin, for which I had reproached myself ever since. True, before I parted from him, I had exacted a promise that he would never reveal the fact that he knew her English name; never mention it to any one. But he was an erratic and forgetful individual; he might have let the truth out to Southbourne, but the latter’s face, as I watched it, revealed nothing.

“Oh, that mysterious and interesting individual,” I said indifferently. “Do you mind telling what he said about her?”