The Red Symbol

I didn’t speak to Southbourne, though; I don’t quite know why, except that I felt like a kind of Rip van Winkle, though I’d only been away a little more than a couple of months. And somehow I dreaded that lazy but penetrating stare of his, and the questions he would certainly fire off at me. So I lay low and said nothing; keeping the paper well before my face, till we stopped at Herne Hill for tickets to be taken. As the train started again, he threw down his paper, and moved opposite me, and held out his hand.

“Hello, Wynn!” he drawled. “Is it you or your ghost? Didn’t you know me? Or do you mean to cut me? Why, man alive, what’s wrong?” he added, with a quick change of tone. I’d only heard him speak like that once before, – in the magistrate’s room at the police court, after the murder charge was dismissed.

“Nothing; except that we’ve had a beastly crossing,” I answered, with a poor attempt at jauntiness.

“Where have you come from, – Russia?” he demanded.

I nodded.

“H’m! So you went back, after all. I thought as much! Who’s had your copy?”

“I’ve sent none; I went on private business,” I protested hotly. It angered me that he should think me capable of going back on him.

“I oughtn’t to have said that; I apologize,” he said stiffly, still staring at me intently. “But – what on earth have you been up to? More prison experiences? Well, keep your own counsel, of course. I’ve kept it for you, – as far as I knew it. Mrs. Cayley believes I’ve sent you off to the ends of the earth; and I’ve been mendaciously assuring her that you’re all right, – though Miss Pendennis has had her doubts, and nearly bowled me out, once or twice.”

“Miss —who?” I shouted.

“Miss Pendennis, of course. Didn’t you know she was staying with your cousin again? A queer coincidence about that portrait! Hello, here we are at Victoria. And there’s Cayley!”

CHAPTER LI

THE REAL ANNE

“It’s incredible!” I exclaimed.

“Well, it’s true, anyhow!” Jim asserted. “And I don’t see myself where the incredibility comes in.”

“You say that Mr. Pendennis wrote from Berlin not a week after I left England, and that he and Anne —Anne– are at this moment staying with you in Chelsea? When I’ve been constantly with her, – saw her murdered in the streets of Warsaw!”

“That must have been the other woman, – the woman of the portrait, whoever she may be. No one seems to know, not even Pendennis. We’ve discussed it several times, – not before Anne. We don’t think it wise to remind her of that Russian episode; it upsets her too much; for she’s not at all the thing even yet, poor girl.”

He seemed quite to have changed his mental attitude towards Anne, and spoke of her as kindly as if she had been Mary’s sister.

“It’s another case of mistaken identity based on an extraordinary likeness,” he continued. “There have been many such, – more in fact than in fiction. Look at the Bancrofts and their ‘doubles,’ for instance, a pair of them, husband and wife, who passed themselves off as Sir Squire and Lady Bancroft innumerable times a few years back, and were never discovered. And yet, though it mightn’t be difficult for a clever impersonator to make up like Bancroft, it seems incredible that he could find a woman who could pose successfully as the incomparable Marie Wilton. You should have seen her in her prime, my boy – the most fascinating little creature imaginable, and the plainest, if you only looked at her features! It must have been a jolly sight harder to represent her, than if she’d been a merely beautiful woman, like Anne. She’s an uncommon type here in England, but not on the Continent. I don’t suppose it would be difficult to find half a dozen who would answer to the same description, – if one only knew where to look for ’em.”

“It wasn’t the resemblance of a type, – eyes and hair and that sort of thing,” – I said slowly; “the voice, the manner, the soul; why —she– knew me, recognized me even with my beard – spoke of Mary – ”

“She must have been an astonishingly clever woman, poor soul! And one who knew a lot more about Anne than Anne and her father know of her. Well, you’d soon be able to exchange notes with Pendennis himself, and perhaps you’ll hit on a solution of the mystery between you. What’s that?”

I had pulled out the miniature and now handed it to him. He examined it intently under the bright light of the little acetylene lamp inside the brougham.

“This is another portrait of her? You’re right, – there’s a marvellous likeness. I’d have sworn it was Anne, though the hair is different now. It was cut short in her illness, – Anne’s illness, I mean, of course, – and now it’s a regular touzle of curls. Here, put it up. I wouldn’t say anything about it to Anne, if I were you, – not at present.”

The carriage stopped, and as I stumbled out and along the flagged way, the front door was flung open, and in a blaze of light I saw Mary, and, a little behind her, – Anne herself.

I’m afraid I was very rude to Mary in that first confused moment of meetings and greetings. I think I gave her a perfunctory kiss in passing, but it was Anne on whom my eyes were fixed, – Anne who – wonder of wonders – was in my arms the next moment. What did it matter to us that there were others standing around? She was alive, and she loved me as I loved her; I read that in her eyes as they met mine; and nothing else in the world was of any consequence.

“You went back to Russia in search of me! I was quite sure of it in my mind, though Mary declared you were off on another special correspondent affair for Lord Southbourne, and he said the same; he’s rather a nice man, isn’t he, and Lady Southbourne’s a dear! But I knew somehow he wasn’t speaking the truth. And you’ve been in the wars, you poor boy! Why, your hair is as gray as father’s; and how did you get that wound on your forehead?”

“I’ve had some lively times one way and another, dear; but never mind about that now,” I said. We were sitting together by the fire in the drawing-room, after dinner, alone, – for Mary had effaced herself like the considerate little woman she is; probably she had joined Jim and Pendennis in the smoking-room, that was also Jim’s sanctum.

“Tell me about yourself. How did you get to Petersburg? It was you?”

“Yes; but I can’t remember even now how I got there,” she answered, frowning at the fire, and biting her underlip. A queer thrill ran through me as I watched her; she was so like that other.

“I got into the train at Calais, and I suppose I fell asleep; I was very tired after the dinner at the Cecil and Mrs. Sutherland’s party. There were two other people in the same carriage, – a man and a woman. That’s the last thing I can recollect clearly until I found myself again in a railway carriage. I’ve a confused notion of being on board ship in between; but it was all like a dream, until I suddenly saw you, and called out to you; I was in an open carriage then, driving through a strange city that I know now was Petersburg. I was taken to a house where several horrid men – quite superior sort of men in a way, but they seemed as if they hated me, and I couldn’t think why – asked me a lot of questions. At first they spoke in a language I didn’t understand at all, but afterwards in French; and then I found they wanted to know about that Mr. Cassavetti; they called him by another name, too – ”

“Selinski,” I said.

“Yes, that was it; though I haven’t been able to remember it. They wouldn’t believe me when I said I’d only met him quite casually at dinner, the night before I was kidnapped, – for I really was kidnapped, Maurice – and that I knew nothing whatever about him. They kept me in a dark cell for hours, till I was half-crazy with anger and terror; and then they brought me out, and I saw you, and father; and the next thing I knew I was in bed in an hotel we’ve often stayed at, in Berlin. Father tries to persuade me that I imagined the whole thing; but I didn’t; now did I, Maurice? And what does it all mean?”

“It was all a mistake. You were taken for some one else; some one whom you resemble very closely.”

“That’s just what I thought; though father won’t believe it; or he pretends he won’t; but I am sure he knows something that he will not tell me. But there’s another thing, – that dreadful man Cassavetti. Perhaps I oughtn’t to call him that, as he’s dead; I only heard about the murder a little while ago, and then almost by accident. Maud Vereker told me; do you know her?”

“That frivolous little chatterbox; yes, I’ve met her, though I’d forgotten her name.”

“She told me all about it one day. Mary and Jim had never said a word; they seemed to be in a conspiracy of silence! But when I heard it I was terribly upset. Think of any one suspecting you of murdering him, Maurice, – just because he lived on the floor above you, and you happened to find him. You poor boy, what dreadful troubles you have been through!”

There was an interlude here; we had a good many such interludes, but even when my arm was round her, when my lips pressed hers, I could scarcely realize that I was awake and sane.

“It was just as well they did suspect me, darling,” I said after a while, “or I most certainly shouldn’t have been here now.”

She nestled closer to me, with a little sob.

“Oh, Maurice, Maurice! I can’t believe that you’re safe here again, after all! And I feel that I was to blame for it all – ”

“You? Why, how’s that, sweetheart?”

“Because I flirted with that Cassavetti – at the dinner, don’t you remember? That seemed to be the beginning of everything! I was so cross with you, and he – he puzzled and interested me, though I felt frightened just at the last when I gave him that flower. Maurice, did he take me for the other girl? And was there any meaning attached to the flower?”

“Yes, the flower was a symbol; it meant a great deal, – among other things the fact that you gave it to him made him quite sure you were – the person he mistook you for. You are marvellously like her – ”

“Then you – you have met her also? Who is she? Where is she?”

“She is dead; and I don’t know for certain who she was; until Jim met me to-night I believed that she was – you!”

“Were we so like as that?” she breathed. “Why, she might have been my sister, but I never had one; my mother died when I was born, you know! Tell me about her, Maurice.”

“I can’t, dear; except that she was as brave as she was beautiful; and her life was one long tragedy. But I’ll show you her portrait.”

She gave a little cry of astonishment as I handed her the miniature; the diamond setting flashed under the softly shaded electric light.

“Oh, how lovely! But – why, she’s far more beautiful than I am, or ever shall be! Did she give you this, Maurice?”

There was a queer note in her voice as she put the question; it sounded almost like a touch of jealousy.

“No; her husband gave it to me, – after she died,” I said sadly.

“Her husband! She was married, then. Who was he?”

“A man worthy of her; but I’d rather not talk about them, – not just at present; it’s too painful.”

“Oh, Maurice, I’m so sorry,” she murmured in swift penitence; and to my great relief she questioned me no more for that evening.

But I told the whole story, so far as I knew it, to Pendennis and Jim, after the rest of the household had gone to bed; and we sat till the small hours, comparing notes and discussing the whole matter, which still presented many perplexing points.

I omitted nothing; I said how I had seen Anne – as I believed then and until this day – in that boat on the Thames; how I had suspected, – felt certain, – that she had been to Cassavetti’s rooms that night, and was cognizant of his murder; what I had learned from Mr. Treherne, down in Cornwall, and everything of importance that had happened since.

Jim punctuated the story with exclamations and comments, but Anthony Pendennis listened almost in silence, though when I came to the part about the mad woman from Siberia, who had died at the hunting-lodge, and who was spoken of as the Countess Vassilitzi, he started, and made a queer sound, like a groan, though he signed to me to continue. I was glad afterwards that I hadn’t described what she looked like. He was a grave, stern man, wonderfully self-possessed.

“It is a strange story,” he said, when I had finished. “A mysterious one.”

“Do you hold the key to the mystery?” I asked him pointblank.

“No, though I can shed a little light on it; a very little, and I fear even that will only make the rest more obscure. But it is only right that I should give you confidence for confidence, Mr. Wynn; since you have suffered so much through your love for my daughter, – and through the machinations of this unhappy woman who certainly impersonated her, – for her own purposes.”

I winced at that. Although I knew now that “the unhappy woman” was not she whom I loved, it hurt me to hear her spoken of in that stern, condemnatory way; but I let it pass. I wanted to hear his version.

CHAPTER LII

THE WHOLE TRUTH

“She must have been one of the Vassilitzis, and therefore Anne’s near kinswoman,” Pendennis said slowly. “You say she was often spoken of as Anna Petrovna? That explains nothing, for Petrovna is of course a very common family name in Russia. ‘The daughter of Peter’ it really means, and it is often used as a familiar form of address, just as in Scotland a married woman is often spoken of by her friends by her maiden name. My wife was called Anna Petrovna. But you say this unhappy woman’s name was given as ‘Vassilitzi Pendennis’? That I cannot understand! It is impossible that she could be my daughter; that the mad lady from Siberia could have been my wife, – and yet – my God – if that should be true, after all!

“They did send me word, and I believed it at the moment, though later I thought it was a trick to get me – and Anne – into their power, – part of a long-delayed scheme of revenge.”

His face was white as death, with little beads of sweat on the forehead, and his hands shook slightly; though he showed no other signs of emotion.

“Treherne told you the truth about my marriage, Mr. Wynn,” he continued, raising his voice a little, and looking at me with stern, troubled eyes. “Until you spoke of him I had almost forgotten his existence! But he did not know quite everything. The one point on which I and my dear wife were at variance was her connection with this fatal League. Yes, it was in existence then; and I was – I suppose I still am, in a way – a member of it; though I only became one in order that I might protect my wife as far as possible. After she died and I was banished from Russia, I severed myself from it for many years, until a few months ago, when I received a communication to the effect that my wife was still alive; that she had been released and restored to her relatives, – to her brother Stepán, I supposed. He had always hated me, but he loved her well, though he managed to make his escape at the time she was taken.”

“But Stepán Vassilitzi is a young man, – younger than I am,” I interrupted.

“He is the son; the father died some years back, though I only learned that after I returned to Russia. I started at once; that was how you missed me when you came to Berlin. I sent first to the old château near Warsaw, which had been the principal residence of the Vassilitzis. But I found it in possession of strangers; it had been confiscated in ’81, and nothing was known of the old family beyond the name. I wasted several days in futile inquiries and then went on to Petersburg, where I got in communication with some of the League. I had to execute the utmost caution, as you will understand, but I found out that a meeting was to be held at a place I knew of old, – the ruined chapel, – and that Anna Petrovna was to be there, – my wife, as I supposed.

“The rest of that episode you know. The moment I saw Anne brought out I realized, or thought I did, for I am not so sure now, that it was a trap. That big, rough-looking man who carried Anne off – ”

“He was the Grand Duke Loris.”

“So I guessed when you spoke of him just now; and at the time I knew, of course, that he was not what he appeared, for he didn’t act up to his disguise.”

“He did when it was necessary!” I said emphatically, remembering how he had slanged the hotel servant that evening at Petersburg.

“Well, he said enough to convince me that I was right, though why he should trouble himself on our behalf I couldn’t imagine.

“We hadn’t gone far when we heard firing, and halted to listen. We held a hurried consultation, and I told him briefly who we were. He seemed utterly astounded; and now I understand why, – he evidently had thought Anne was that other. He decided that we should be safer if we remained in the woods till all was quiet, and then make our way to Petersburg and claim protection at the English Embassy.

“We went on again; Anne was still insensible, and he insisted on carrying her, – till we came to a charcoal burner’s hut. He told us to stay there till a messenger came who would guide us to the road, where a carriage would be in waiting to take us to Petersburg.

“He left us then, and I have never seen him since. But he kept his word, though it was nearly a week before the messenger came, – a big, surly man, very lame, as the result of a recent accident, I think.”

“Mishka!” I exclaimed.

“He would not tell his name, and said very little one way or the other, but he took us to the carriage, and we reached the city without hindrance. Anne was in a dazed condition the whole time, – partly, no doubt, as a result of the drugs which those scoundrels who kidnapped her and brought her to Russia had administered. She knew me, but everything else was almost a blank to her, as it still is. She has only a faint recollection of the whole affair.

“I secured a passport for her and we started at once, though she wasn’t fit to travel, and the journey nearly killed her. We ought to have stopped as soon as we were over the frontier, but I wanted to get as far away from Russia as possible. She just held out till we got to Berlin, and then broke down altogether – my poor child!

“I ought to have written to Mrs. Cayley, I know; but I never gave a thought to it till Anne began to recover – ”

“That’s all right; Mary understood, and she’s forgiven the omission long ago,” Jim interposed. “But, I say, Pendennis, I was right, after all! I always stuck out that it was a case of mistaken identity, though you wouldn’t believe me!”

Pendennis nodded.

“The woman from Siberia – what was she like?” he demanded, turning again to me.

“I can’t say. I only saw her from a distance, and for a minute or so,” I answered evasively. “She was tall and white-haired.”

I was certain in my own mind that she was his wife, for I’d heard the words she called out, – his name, “An-thony,” not the French “Antoine,” but as a foreigner would pronounce the English word, – but I should only add to his distress if I told him that.

“Well, it remains a mystery; and one that I suppose we shall never unravel,” he said heavily, at last.

But it was unravelled for us, and that before many weeks had passed.

One dark afternoon just before Christmas I dropped in for a few minutes, as I generally contrived to do before going down to the office; for I was on the Courier again temporarily.

Anne and her father were still the Cayleys’ guests; for Mary wouldn’t hear of their going to an hotel, and they had only just found a flat near at hand to suit them. Having at last returned to England, Anthony Pendennis had decided to remain. He’d had enough, at last, of wandering around the Continent!

Mary had other callers in the drawing-room, so I turned into Jim’s study, where Anne joined me in a minute or so, – Anne, who, in a few short months, would be my wife.

The front-door bell rang, and voices sounded in the lobby; but though I heard, I didn’t heed them, until Anne held up her hand.

“Hush! Who is Marshall talking to?”

The prim maid was speaking in an unusually loud voice; shouting, in fact, as English folk always do when they’re addressing a foreigner, – as if that would make them more intelligible.

A moment later she came in, looking flustered, and closed the door.

“There’s a foreign man outside, sir, and I think he’s asking for you; but I can’t make out half he says, – not even his name, though it sounds like Miskyploff!”

“Mishka!” I shouted, making for the door.

Mishka it was, grim, gaunt, and travel-stained; and as he gripped my hands I knew, without a word spoken, that Loris was dead.

I led him in, and he started slightly when he saw Anne, who stared at him with a queer expression of half-recognition. She knew who he was, for I had told her a good deal about him; though we had all agreed it was quite unnecessary that she should know the whole story of my experiences in Russia; there were a lot of details I’d never given even to her father and Jim.

She recovered herself almost instantly, and held out her hand to him with a gracious smile, saying in German:

“Welcome to England, Herr Pavloff! I have heard much of you, and have much to thank you for.”

He bowed clumsily over the hand, with the deference due to a princess, and watched her as she passed out of the room, his rugged face strangely softened.

“So, she is safe, after all,” he said when the door was closed. “We all hoped so, but we did not know; that is one reason why you were never told. For if she were dead what need to tell you; and also – but I will come to that later. There is a marvellous resemblance; but it is often so with twins.”

“Twins!” I ejaculated; and yet I think I’d known it, at the back of my mind, ever since the night of my return to England; only Pendennis had spoken so decidedly about his only child. “Why, Herr Pendennis himself doesn’t know that!”

“No, it was kept from him, – from the first. It is all old history now, though I learned it within these last few months, chiefly from Natalya. It was her doing, – hers, and the old Count’s, Stepán’s father. The old Count had always resented the marriage; he hated Herr Pendennis, his brother-in-law, as much as he loved his sister. Herr Pendennis was away in England when the children were born; and that increased the Count’s bitterness against him. He thought he should have hastened back, – as without doubt he should have done! It was but a few days later that the young mother was arrested, and, ill as she was, they took her away to prison in a litter. The Count got timely warning, and made his escape. It was impossible for his sister to accompany him; also he did not believe they would arrest her, in her condition, and as she was the wife of an Englishman. He should have known that Russians are without pity or mercy!”

“But the child! He could not take a week-old baby with him, if he had to fly for his life.”

“No, Natalya did that. She escaped to the Ghetto and took the baby with her, – and young Stepán, who was then a lad of six years. There was great confusion at the château, and the few who knew that two children were born doubtless believed one had died.

“For the rest, Natalya remained in the Ghetto for some three years, and then rejoined the Count at the old house near Ziscky, – the hunting lodge. It was all he had left; though he had patched up a peace with the Government. He had friends at Court in those days.

“You know what the child became. He trained her deliberately to that end as long as he lived; taught her also that her father deserted her and her mother in the hour of need, – left them to their fate. It was a cruel revenge to take.”

“It was!” I said emphatically. “But when did she learn she had a sister?”

“That I do not know. I think it was not long before she came to England last; she had often been here before, for brief visits only. She came on the yacht then, with my master; it was their honeymoon, and we had been cruising for some weeks, – the only peaceful time she had ever had in her life. He wished her never to return to Russia; to go with him to South America, or live in England. But she would not; she loved him, yes, but she loved the Cause more; it was her very life, her soul!

“The yacht lay off Greenwich for the night; she meant to land next day, and come up to see Selinski. She had never happened to meet him, though he was one of the Five.”

“Selinski! Cassavetti! Mishka, it was not she who murdered him!”