Gone by Nightfall

by Dee Garretson

  “I’ll check on him,” I said. If Miles was asleep, I decided I’d let him sleep for a few hours before I woke him up to tell him what had happened. He and Hap couldn’t leave in the middle of the night anyway. We’d have to get some money and papers and all sorts of things.

  “May I speak to you for a moment first?” Dmitri asked me. He was back to his formal voice.

  “Yes.” I was aware that Osip was watching us and I felt awkward for some reason. “We could go in the sitting room, I suppose.”

  Dmitri followed me in and shut the door.

  “I’m sorry about your great-uncle,” I said as I sat down on the sofa closest to the fire. I found it odd to think of Dmitri as a count.

  Dmitri took off his coat and sat down next to me, sighing with what must have been relief at getting the pressure off his leg. “Thank you. It wasn’t unexpected. He’d been ill a long time. I’m surprised the baron knew. I only received the news this morning.”

  “If the baron checks out the cabaret, will they tell him you were there with a girl?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. I felt a twinge of something—not jealousy, of course, but something.

  “She didn’t have red hair, though.” He made a motion like he was going to touch mine, but then drew his hand away as if it had been burned.

  I didn’t want to move. I didn’t think he did either.

  He sighed again and shifted away from me a little. “I was with a whole group of people,” he said. “None of the staff will remember everyone. There were several girls there.”

  So maybe that meant he wasn’t with the girl; she was just part of the group.

  There were more questions I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t think of the right way to ask them. Then I remembered what he’d said outside. “You mentioned that my stepfather wasn’t feeling well. Did you see him today? What’s wrong with him?”

  “The boys wanted to show him their new experiments with the glasses, and he watched them but seemed a bit unsteady. Archer insisted he rest. It wasn’t anything serious. I said that so the baron would go away. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “It’s all right. I do worry about him. What did you want to talk about?”

  “I thought … I thought…” He paused. It was odd to hear him hesitating. “I thought you and the baron … Like I said, he’s a very dangerous man. I’m relieved to know you don’t like him.”

  “Like him? I loathe him! Why would you think I liked him?”

  “I saw you at the grand duke’s party and you were sitting very close to him, and then the way you smiled at him when he came to the house…” He searched my face as if he wasn’t sure I was telling the truth. “And then … well, never mind.”

  “I was only pretending because I didn’t want him to know I was scared.” So Dmitri had noticed me smiling at the baron? I felt a little twinge of warmth inside me.

  Dmitri leaned closer to me. I realized I was holding my breath. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “But I want you to know, Charlotte Danielovna, you can trust me. I promise.”

  I liked the way he said my name, the Russian way. It sounded so much nicer coming from his lips.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  Dmitri made that same motion again, as if he was going to touch my hair, but again he drew his hand away and got to his feet, grasping his cane tightly. “Good night,” he said.

  “Wait.” I had just remembered something. “Why did the baron say he was surprised he hadn’t heard from you?”

  Dmitri didn’t speak for such a long time that I felt a little twinge of unease, suddenly afraid of what he was going to say. He sat back down, looking at his cane as if it held the answer. “I haven’t found the right time to tell you the real reason I’m here.”

  I couldn’t speak. I knew he was going to tell me what I’d feared from the beginning.

  When he looked up at me, his expression was so serious that dread filled me, and I wished I hadn’t asked.

  “You need to know,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. The baron wants me to report to him about your household. He has this ludicrous idea that you are involved with revolutionaries, so he asked me to take the tutoring position to see if I could find out anything. Or at least that’s what he told me. I thought he wanted me to spy on you because he was afraid you were seeing another man and he wanted you for himself. There are all kinds of rumors about the man, and it seemed like something he would do.”

  I felt like someone had tried to knock me to the floor. “You’ve been spying on us!” I knew my voice would carry out to the hall, but I didn’t care. I jumped up, wanting to get away from him. I’d finally thought I could trust him, but now I knew I couldn’t trust anyone. First Raisa and then Dmitri. “You acted as if you liked me! You acted as if you cared!”

  Dmitri got to his feet. “Charlotte, listen to me. I do care. I do like you. I only agreed to come here because I didn’t want the baron to find someone else who might say anything about you just to please him.”

  “Why would you care about that? You didn’t even know us.” My head was spinning. I didn’t care if he answered my question. I just wanted to get away from him. I moved toward the door.

  “I knew Pavel,” he said.

  I stopped and turned back, not sure I’d really heard him say those words.

  “Pavel.” I managed the one word but couldn’t get any more out.

  “Yes. Pavel was a good friend. From what he said about you and your family, I knew that the baron’s interest in you would be dangerous, whatever his reason.” Dmitri clenched the cane and swayed a little. “It was the least I could do for a friend. I’m sorry I came into your house under a false pretext, but I thought it was something I had to do. I know you must be furious. I’ll pack my things and leave tomorrow.”

  “No, don’t go.” I needed time to think, and I realized I couldn’t imagine the thought of the house without Dmitri. “You haven’t reported anything to the baron?”

  “No. I was planning to see him tomorrow to tell him he’s on the wrong track. Something he said about your mother made me think there is a personal aspect to his dislike of your family, but I have no idea what that is.”

  I didn’t either, though if the baron had wanted some relationship with my mother and she’d turned him down, the baron was the kind of man who would feel so affronted he’d assume the worst of her. She’d laughed about such men, and there had been many.

  Pavel. I didn’t want to speak about Pavel, not right then, but I had to ask one question. “Were you … were you with Pavel when he died? I never heard anything except that he’d been killed.”

  “No. I was sent with a team to look at a bridge we were trying to repair. The attack on Pavel’s group came out of nowhere. It was all over very fast. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” I managed to whisper. No matter how good I’d become at pushing thoughts of Pavel away, I still couldn’t keep away visions of how much pain he might have suffered. It haunted me.

  I don’t know why, but everything spilled out of me then, everything about Miles and the flyers and the raid on the apartment.

  Dmitri was so quiet when I finished, I was afraid I’d been wrong to tell him. He’d said he’d agreed to take the tutoring job to prove the baron wrong, and I’d just proved that someone in our family was actually acting against the czar.

  Dmitri sighed. “I suspected something like that. Miles is in very serious danger now. If the baron comes here to arrest him, nothing I say will make a difference. We need to get Miles out of Petrograd.”

  Hearing those words made me want to fling my arms around Dmitri. He really was on our side. “I know. I was already planning on sending Miles and Hap to the United States, but we’ll just have to move their departure up. I need to work out the details.”

  “Yes, details.” Dmitri tapped his cane up and down on the floor. “They’ll need to get permission to travel, and if Miles’s name is on a list of suspected agitators, he won�
��t get the approval,” he said. “That’s a problem.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Dmitri was right. Everyone in Russia held an internal passport, and a person had to get permission from the police to travel from one city to another. The policy had been put in place a long time ago to prevent people from leaving town without paying their debts, and it made travel much more difficult. The police didn’t bother checking the peasants’ movements in their carts and sleighs, but anyone who looked like they could afford the fee for the stamp was at risk if they traveled without it, especially by train.

  “They’ll have to try to get permission,” I said. “If they go right away in the morning, the police stations won’t have updated lists, will they? It has to take hours or even days to distribute those.”

  “Maybe. At least get Hap to go into the station first,” Dmitri suggested. “If the last name of Mason is on a list, they’ll double-check his first name, and that way he’ll know if it’s safe for Miles to try to get the stamp.”

  “Yes! That’s a good idea.” If it was safe, Hap could make up some story about his brother being late and then go outside and get Miles. “They can go to the train station right after that. I’ll wake them up early in the morning and tell them the plan,” I said, a yawn nearly swallowing my words. I felt like I hadn’t slept for days.

  “I’ll go see the baron early tomorrow morning,” Dmitri said. “If he knows about Miles, he’s likely to tell me.”

  Dmitri’s face had gone very pale, and I could see he was exhausted too. He gave a weak smile. “At least now I can stop pretending I’m actually teaching Hap and Miles anything. People who told me your brothers were incorrigible had no idea exactly what that meant.”

  “You’ve taught them how to drop glasses without breaking them,” I said, wanting to draw out a few more moments. We couldn’t do anything about Miles until morning, and I didn’t know when I’d get the chance to have time alone with Dmitri again. “That has to count for something.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” Dmitri leaned back against the wall as if he wasn’t in any hurry either. “I’ll cherish that accomplishment. And they’ve taught me some card tricks, which I suppose may be useful someday. I may regret that I turned down the opportunity to learn how to saw a person in half.” He shook his head. “You have quite a family, Charlotte Danielovna. And I mean that in a good way. Tell me one thing: Do you really know how to juggle while riding a horse and a unicycle? Pavel never mentioned that little detail about you.”

  I could feel the heat rising in my face. “I can, or at least I used to be able to. It’s not something I’ve practiced for a long time.”

  He smiled. “Actually, there is a second thing I want to know. Why did you want to run away and join the circus? I can’t imagine you ever wanting to leave your family.”

  I couldn’t believe he remembered what Stepan had said when I introduced him to the boys. “I didn’t want to leave them. Stepan doesn’t have the story right. It was all before we even came to Russia and met him. I wanted my mother, Hap, and Miles to run away with me. Her second husband was awful and I hated him. We’d been to see a circus in Paris and I was obsessed with it, the sparkly costumes and the horses and everything. Running away to join it seemed the perfect solution.” I realized how much I was babbling and forced myself to stop talking. “I’m sorry. That was a long answer to your question. It was all very silly.” I couldn’t help myself. I yawned again.

  “You’re tired,” he said. “And I really have to say good night before I fall down right here and sleep, which would ruin Archer’s good opinion of me.”

  “Good night.” I tried to drag my gaze away from his face, from his eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d ever confused him for Pavel. A twinge of guilt or regret or something made me finally look away. I felt my face flush. Did Dmitri think I’d acted as if I’d forgotten Pavel? I wanted to explain to him how it had been, how I’d cried for a boy I hadn’t really known.

  “Good night,” he said.

  The moment was gone. Maybe it was for the best. Only days earlier I’d told myself I didn’t want to get close to another boy. I didn’t want that hurt again.

  We didn’t speak again as we went upstairs, not wanting to wake anyone up. I went into Miles’s room to find him asleep on top of the covers and still dressed. His breathing sounded almost normal. I took an extra blanket out of the chest at the end of his bed and covered him up.

  I tried to think what to do next. Telling Papa had to be at the top of the list. I went to his room and knocked on the door. When he didn’t answer, I knocked again, surprised he hadn’t heard the first knock because he was such a light sleeper. I opened the door to look in.

  He wasn’t there, and his bed hadn’t been slept in. I looked all around the room as if he’d be somewhere standing about, but of course he wasn’t. I ran back downstairs to see Osip dozing in the room by the door, which meant someone in the family was still out; otherwise the footman would be asleep in his own room. Osip had to be waiting for Papa, though I had no idea where my stepfather would be at such a late hour. I went back to the sitting room, intending to stay awake until he came home.

  I sat down by the fire and didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until the next morning, when I woke up with an aching head and a throat so dry it was painful. I drank some cold tea from the samovar. I knew I had to move, to make up for the time I’d wasted sleeping. When I went to find Papa, Osip told me he’d come home late but had already left again.

  I wanted to stamp my foot, angry at myself that I’d slept through his coming and going. “Do you know where he went?”

  “No. He seemed like he was going somewhere important, you might say, because he was in a serious mood. He didn’t joke with me like he usually does.” Osip’s eyes flickered over me, and I’m sure he noticed I hadn’t combed my hair and that I was still wearing the clothes I’d had on the day before. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s complicated. If anyone comes to the door asking for Miles, would you say he’s not here? It’s important. If the baron comes here, say … say … I don’t know what you should say.” I felt tears welling up. All of a sudden, it was too much.

  Osip patted my arm and smiled. “Don’t worry, little sister. I will say you’ve all taken ill with some horrible disease the doctor can’t diagnose and the baron should come in to make sure I’m telling the truth, even though the doctor also said everyone who comes into contact with you might die. And then I will get very close to him and cough in his face. Is that good enough?”

  Osip had been around my brothers too long. “I don’t know what we’d do without you,” I said. “Thank you. That would be perfect. If my stepfather comes back, tell him I need to see him right away. It’s urgent.”

  I found Hap and Miles eating breakfast. Miles looked so calm I wanted to shriek at him like a banshee for acting as if he’d never even thought of going out to more meetings with revolutionaries. When I told him what had happened at number 28 after he’d left, he finally seemed to understand the danger he was in.

  “What do I do?” he asked, his face ashen.

  “You and Hap need to leave the country as soon as we can get everything organized. I’m going to the bank this morning to get you some money. You can go to Grandmother’s house in Philadelphia and then … and then…” I hadn’t thought beyond that. I couldn’t picture them in the United States. I felt my eyes starting to water. I was not going to cry.

  Miles didn’t say a word as he got up and went to the window.

  Hap continued to eat, nodding his head. “I won’t mind visiting the United States.” He stuffed a large piece of bread in his mouth.

  The sight of him sitting there so unconcerned that his entire life was about to be upended should have annoyed me, but instead it made me feel better. They’d be all right. Hap would be there. His easygoing nature would help on a long, difficult trip.

  Miles turned back to face me. “Hap doesn’t need to go with me. I’ll be fin
e by myself. I don’t need a nursemaid.”

  Once again I stopped myself from shrieking at him, this time by actually biting my lip. “We don’t have time to argue about this. It’s not that you need a nursemaid. If someone comes looking for you, we can say both of you have gone because you’re going to school in the United States. It will be more believable that you are both traveling.”

  That argument worked. Miles sat back down and rubbed his face with his hands, his expression grim. He seemed years older, and I realized what he was thinking. I knew he loved Russia as much as I did, and I’d just told him he had to leave as soon as he could.

  I sat down beside him and put my hand over his, intending to say he wouldn’t be gone forever, but he looked over at me and gave a slight shake of his head. “Let’s talk about details,” he said.

  I knew how he felt. I’d play along. “The first problem is the passports,” I said. I explained about Dmitri’s ideas on the passport approvals. “I told Dmitri everything. And we can trust him.”

  “What about Peet?” Miles asked.

  I’d forgotten about Peet. He’d be in as much danger as Miles. I closed my eyes. It was always one more thing. I could feel the tears trying to spill out again.

  “Lottie? Are you all right?” Hap asked.

  I don’t know why, but I thought of our mother. I could hear her voice after she’d found me crying at my father’s funeral. We’ll be sad, but we’ll always go on. You’re strong like me. Bad things happen that you can’t control, but we strong ones face up to them and keep going.

  I knew I had no choice. I had to be all right. I had to keep going. I could take care of one more thing.

  I opened my eyes. “Hap, you have to go see the Tamms. I don’t have time. I’ll write a note—no, I shouldn’t put something in writing. Tell them the situation is bad and Peet needs to get away too. They can send him to Estonia. I know they still have family there. They’ll have heard about the raid on the apartment by now, and if Peet hasn’t told them he was there, you tell them. And then come home and pack, but don’t pack much. We can send most of your things later.”