The Red Symbol Part 48

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 pa.s.sing, 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 s.h.i.+p 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. Ca.s.savetti; 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 Ca.s.savetti.

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 Ca.s.savetti--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 Ca.s.savetti'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 Va.s.silitzi, 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 pa.s.s. I wanted to hear his version.

CHAPTER LII

THE WHOLE TRUTH

"She must have been one of the Va.s.silitzis, 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 'Va.s.silitzi 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 G.o.d--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 Stepan, 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."