Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  ‘My daughter tells me you are staying in this hotel,’ he began; and as Litvinoff, taking this as an introduction, bowed low to her, with his eyes on the ground, she hoped he did not notice the sudden flush that swept over her face. But he did; there was, in fact, very little that went on within a dozen yards of him that Count Litvinoff did not notice.

  ‘How strange that you should have been on the spot last night, and how fortunate.’

  ‘It was fortunate for me, since it has procured for me this pleasure. May I hope that you are not any the worse for the shock?’

  ‘No, I’m not; but I’m afraid you are; do sit down.

  As Litvinoff and her father went on talking, Clare, who had not yet spoken a word, could not help thinking that this gentleman with the foreign name was somehow very different from any man she had hitherto met, not even excepting those fine specimens of young English manhood, the Ferriers. There was about him that air of worldliness which is so attractive to young people. ‘ He looks as if he had a history,’ she said to herself, with conviction; a remark which did credit to her powers of observation. She liked his voice and his way of speaking, for though his English was perfect, he spoke it with a precision not usual to Englishmen.

  ‘Will you have tea or coffee?’ asked Clare presently, busying herself with the cups and saucers that had been brought in.

  ‘Mr Litvinoff will have coffee, of course, my dear; young men don’t like tea nowadays.’

  ‘I can’t claim to be very young,’ said the other, smiling, ‘but I do like tea.’

  ‘Ah! you would just please my wife; she says that a liking for tea in a young man is a sign of a good moral disposition.’

  ‘I’m afraid in my case it’s national instinct, not moral beauty.’

  ‘National!’ repeated Mr Stanley, ‘national! Why, God bless my soul, you aren’t Chinese, are you?’

  The guest threw his head back and laughed unaffectedly; and Clare smiled behind the tea-tray.

  ‘Oh, no; I’m only a Russian.’

  ‘Oh, ah,’ said Mr Stanley, in a rather disappointed tone. For the moment he had been quite pleased at the thought that here was actually a Chinese who could talk excellent English, and whose garments were not exactly the same, to the uninitiated, as those of his wife and mother.

  ‘You speak English uncommonly well,’ he went on.

  ‘Well, I’ve been in England some years now,’ he said, with a rather sad smile, which confirmed Clare in that fancy about his history. ‘A turn for languages is like the taste for tea, one of our national characteristics. I suppose the ordinary tongue finds such a difficulty in twisting itself round Russian, that if it can do that it can do anything. Allow me!’ springing forward to hand Mr Stanley his cup of coffee.

  ‘My daughter always sings to me while I’m having my coffee,’ said Mr Stanley, suppressing the fact that under these circumstances he generally went to sleep, and feeling a mistaken confidence, as slaves of habit always do, that his ordinary custom could be set at nought on the present occasion.

  ‘I hope Miss Stanley will not deny me the privilege of sharing your pleasure,’ said Litvinoff, rising and making for the piano. Clare followed him.

  ‘What shall I sing, papa,’ she said.

  ‘Whatever you like, my dear. “The Ash Grove.”’

  Clare sang it. Her voice was not particularly powerful, but she made the most of it, such as it was, and sang with enough expression to make it pleasant to listen to her. After ‘The Ash Grove’ came one or two plaintive Scotch airs, and before she was well through ‘Bonnie Doon,’ the accompaniment of her father’s heavy breathing made her aware that her audience was reduced by one-half. The most appreciative half remained, and, when the last notes of the regretful melody had died out, preferred a request for Schubert’s ‘Wanderer.’ This happened to be her favourite song, and she sang it con amore.

  ‘It always seems to me,’ he said when she had finished, ‘that that music carries in it all the longing that makes the hearts of exiles heavy.’

  Clare looked up at him brightly. ‘Oh, but their hearts ought not to be heavy, you know,’ she said. ‘The Revolution is of no country — I thought banishment from one country ought merely to mean work in another for an exile for freedom. Surely there is a fight to be fought here in England, for instance, too. I don’t know much about it; I’ve scarcely seen anything, but it seems to me there is much to be put straight here — many wrongs to be redressed, much misery to be swept away.’

  The Count’s bold eyes fixed themselves on her with a new interest in them.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he returned with a little backward wave of his hand. ‘Exiles here do what they can, I think; but the wronged and miserable will not have long to wait, if there are many Miss Stanleys to champion their cause. Still it does make one’s heart heavy to know that horrors unspeakable, worse than anything here, take place daily in one’s own country, which one is powerless to prevent. One feels helpless, shut out. Ah, heaven! death itself is less hard to bear.’

  ‘You speak as if you had felt it all yourself,’ said Clare, a little surprised at the earnestness of his tone.

  ‘I did not mean to speak otherwise than generally. I believe in England it is considered “bad form” to show feeling of any sort — and you English hate sentiment, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think we hate sincere feeling of any kind; but forgive me for asking — are you really an exile?’

  Count Litvinoff bowed. ‘I have that misfortune — or that honour, as, in spite of all, I suppose it is. But won’t you sing something else?’ he added, with a complete change of manner, which made any return on her part to the subject of his exile impossible.

  ‘I really think I’ve done my duty to-night,’ she answered, rising. ‘Don’t you sing?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes. Music is a consolation. And one is driven to make music for oneself when one lives a very lonely life.’

  ‘Won’t you make music for us?’ she asked, ignoring the fact that her father was still snoring with vigour.

  ‘Yes, if you wish it.’

  He took her place at the piano, and, in a low voice, sang a Hungarian air, wild and melancholy, with a despairing minor refrain.

  While her thanks were being spoken his fingers strayed over the keys, and, almost insensibly as it seemed, fell into a few chords that suggested the air of the Marseillaise.

  ‘Oh, do sing that! I’ve never heard anyone but a schoolgirl attempt it, and I long so to hear it really sung. I think it’s glorious.’

  Without a word he obeyed her, and launched into the famous battle song of Liberty. His singing of the other song had been a whisper, but in this he gave his voice full play, and sang it with a fire, a fervour, a splendid earnestness and enthusiasm, that made the air vibrate, and thrilled Clare through and through with an utterly new emotion.

  She understood now how this song had been able to stir men to such deeds as she had read of — had nerved ragged, half-starved, untrained battalions to scatter like chaff the veteran armies of Europe. She understood it all as she listened to the mingled pathos, defiance, confidence of victory, vengeance and passionate patriotism, which Rouget de Lisle alone of all men has been able to concentrate and to embody in one immortal song, in every note of which breathes the very soul of Liberty.

  As the last note was struck and Litvinoff turned round from the piano, he almost smiled at the contrasts in the picture before him — a girl leaning forward, her face lighted up with sympathetic fire, and her eyes glowing with sympathetic enthusiasm, and an old gentleman standing on the hearthrug very red in the face, very wide awake, and unutterably astonished. The girl was certainly very lovely, and if the exile thought so, as he glanced somewhat deprecatingly at the old gentleman, who shall blame him?

  ‘How splendid!’ said Clare.

  ‘Very fine, very fine,’ said her father; ‘but — er — for the moment I didn’t know where I was.’

  This reduced the situation to the absurd — and they a
ll laughed.

  ‘I hope I haven’t brought down the suspicions of the waiters upon you, Mr Stanley, by my boisterous singing; but it’s almost impossible to sing that song as one would sing a ballad. I evidently have alarmed someone,’ he added, as a tap at the door punctuated his remark.

  But the waiter, whatever his feelings may have been, gave them no expression. He merely announced —

  ‘Mr Roland Ferrier,’ and disappeared.

  ‘I’m very glad to see you, my dear boy,’ said Mr Stanley, as Roland came forward; ‘though it’s about the last thing I expected. Mr Litvinoff — Mr Ferrier.’

  Both bowed. Roland did not look particularly delighted.

  ‘We’ve come to London on business,’ said he.

  ‘We? Then where is your brother?’ questioned Clare.

  ‘Well,’ said Roland, ‘it is rather absurd, but I can’t tell you where he is; he’s lost, stolen, or strayed. We came up together, dined together, and started to come here together. We were walking through a not particularly choice neighbourhood between here and St Pancras, when I suddenly missed him. I waited and looked about for something like a quarter of an hour, but as it wasn’t the sort of street where men are garrotted, and as he’s about able to take care of himself, I thought I’d better come on. I expect he’ll be here presently.’

  But the evening wore on, and no Richard Ferrier appeared. Clare felt a little annoyed — and Roland more than a little surprised. Perhaps, in spite of his sang froid, he was a trifle anxious when at eleven o’clock Litvinoff and he rose to go, and still his brother had not come.

  CHAPTER V. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

  AS a rule, it was not an easy matter to turn Richard Ferrier from any purpose of his, and when his purpose was that of visiting Miss Stanley and at the same time of putting a stop to any chance of a tête-à-tête between his divinity and his brother, no ordinary red herring would have drawn him off the track.

  As he walked through the streets with Roland all his thoughts were with the girl he was going to see — all his longing was to hasten as much as might be the moment of their meeting. In his mind just then she was the only woman in the world; and yet it was a woman’s face in the crowd that made him start so suddenly — a woman’s figure that he turned to follow with so immediate a decision as to give his brother no time to notice his going until he had gone.

  The street was one of those long, straight, melancholy streets, the deadly monotony and general seediness of which no amount of traffic can relieve — which bear the same relation to Regent Street and Oxford Street as the seamy side of a stage court suit does to the glitter and gaudiness that charm the pit, and stir the aesthetic emotions of the gallery. There are always plenty of people moving about in these streets whom one never sees anywhere else — and you may pass up and down them a dozen times a day without meeting anyone whose dress does not bear tokens, more or less pronounced, of a hand-to-hand struggle with hard-upness. It is a peculiarity of this struggle that in it those who struggle hardest appear to get least, or at any rate those who get least have to struggle hardest. This Society recognises with unconscious candour — and when it sees a man or woman shabbily dressed and with dirty hands, it at once decides that he or she must belong to the ‘working’ classes; thus naïvely accepting the fact that those whose work produces the wealth are not usually those who secure it.

  The face which had attracted Dick’s notice was as careworn as any other in that crowd — the figure as shabbily clad as the majority. But the young man turned and followed with an interest independent of fair features or becoming raiment — an interest which had its rise in a determination to solve a problem, or at any rate to silence a doubt.

  Yet it was a young woman he was following — more than that, a pretty young women; and the very evident fact that this handsome, well-dressed young man was openly following this shabby girl with a parcel inspired some of the loafers whom they passed to the utterance of comments, the simple directness of which would perhaps not have pleased the young man had he heard them. He heard nothing. He was too intent on keeping her in sight. Presently she passed into a quieter street, and Dick at once ranged alongside of her, and, raising his hat said, ‘Why, Alice, have you forgotten old friends already?’

  The girl turned a very white face towards him.

  ‘Oh, Mr Richard! I never thought I should see you again, of all people.’

  ‘Why, everybody is sure to meet everyone else sooner or later. How far are you going? Let me carry your parcel.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s not heavy,’ she said; but she let him take the brown-paper burden all the same.

  ‘Not heavy!’ he returned. ‘It’s too heavy for you.’

  ‘I’m used to it,’ she answered, with a little sigh.

  ‘So much the worse. I’m awfully glad I’ve met you, my dear girl. Why did you leave us like that? What have you been doing with yourself?’

  ‘Oh, Mr Richard, what does it matter now? And don’t stand there holding that parcel, but say good-bye, and let me go home.’

  ‘And where is home?’

  ‘Not a long way off.’

  ‘Well, I’ll walk with you. Come along.’

  They walked side by side silently for some yards. Then he said, —

  1 Alice, I want you to tell me truly how it was you left home.’

  A burning blush swept over her face, from forehead to throat, and that was the only answer she gave him.

  ‘Come, tell me,’ he persisted.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ she asked in a low voice, looking straight before her.

  ‘Perhaps I can.’

  ‘Perhaps? Of course you can. Why do girls ever leave good homes, and come to such a home as mine is now?’

  ‘Then he has left you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, hurriedly; ‘no, no, I’ve left him. But I can’t talk about it to you.’

  ‘Why not to me, if you can to anyone?’ he asked.

  ‘Because — because — Don’t ask me anything else;’ and she burst into tears.

  ‘There, there,’ he said, ‘don’t cry, for heaven’s sake. I didn’t mean to worry you; but you will tell me all about it by-and-by, won’t you? What are you doing now?’

  ‘Working.’

  ‘What sort of work? Come, don’t cry, Alice. I hate to think I have been adding to your distress.’

  She dried her eyes obediently, and answered:

  ‘I do tailoring work. It seems to be the only thing I’m good for.’

  ‘That’s paid very badly, isn’t it?’ he asked, some vague reminiscences of “Alton Locke” prompting the question.

  ‘Oh, I manage to get along pretty well,’ she replied, with an effort at a smile, which was more pathetic in Dick’s eyes than her tears had been. He thought gloomily of the time, not so very long ago either, when her face had been the brightest as well as the fairest in Thornsett village, and his heart was sore with indignant protest against him who had so changed her face, her life, her surroundings. He looked at her tired thin face, still so pretty, in spite of the grief that had aged and the want that had pinched it, and found it hard to believe that this was indeed the Alice with whom he had raced through the pastures at Firth Vale — the Alice who had taken the place in his boyish heart of a very dear little sister. Ah, if she had only been his sister really, then their friendship would not have grown less and less during his school and college days, and his protection would have saved her, perhaps, from this. These foster-relationships are uncomfortable things. They inflict the sufferings of a real blood tie, and give none of the rights which might mitigate or avert such suffering.

  ‘How’s mother and father?’ she said, breaking in among his sad thoughts.

  ‘They were well when I saw them, but I’ve not seen them lately. We’ve been in great trouble.’

  ‘Yes. I saw in the papers. I was so sorry.’

  ‘Then you read the papers?’

  ‘I always try to see a weekly paper,’ she said a little confusedly. ‘Then
you don’t know how they are at home?’

  ‘I only know they’re grieving after you still.’

  ‘They know I’m not dead. I let them know that, and I should think that’s all they care to know.’

  You know better than that. My dear child, why not go home to them? I believe the misery you have cost them — forgive me for saying it — will shorten their lives unless you do go back.’

  ‘Go back? No! I’ve sowed and I must reap. I must go through with it. I live just down here. Good-night.’

  It did not look a very inviting residence — a narrow street, leading into a court which was too dark and too distant to be seen into from the corner where she had stopped.

  ‘I sha’n’t say good-night till you say when I shall see you again.’

  ‘What’s the use? It only makes me more miserable to see you, though I can’t help being glad I have seen you this once.’

  ‘But I must try to do something for you. I think I’ve some sort of right to help you, Alice.’

  ‘But I’ve no right to be helped by you. Besides, I really don’t need help. I have all I want. I’d much better not see you again.’

  ‘Well, I mean to see you again, anyway. I shall be in London for some time. When shall I see you?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ he said, authoritatively. ‘You must promise to write, at any rate, or I shall come down here and wait from eight to eleven every evening till I see you.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll write, then. Good-bye!’

  ‘But how can you write? You don’t know my address. Here’s my card;’ and he scribbled the address in pencil. ‘ It’s a promise, Alice. You’ll write and you’ll see me again?’

  ‘Yes, yes; good-bye;’ and she turned to leave him.

  ‘Why, you’re forgetting your parcel.’

  ‘So I am. Thank you!’ As she took it from him, he said suddenly, watching her keenly the while, —

  ‘Roland is in town now. Shall I bring him to see you?’