The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars

by Maurice DeKobra

  “Gerard!” she whispered. “I shall be his wife in a week. Let us have revenge on cruel destiny. Let us forget all resolutions, all conventional ties for one night. We have a right to defy the fate which will soon crush me beneath its stifling weight. I love you because you have never loved me nor expressed any desire for me. You have invariably behaved like the most perfect of gentlemen. You have risked your life to make mine more livable. For the first time then, and with all my heart, I offer myself to a man who is my equal, and I am proud to be under obligations to him, and I stretch out my arms to him with no other arrière-pensée than that of being totally happy.”

  She drew back a step, her eyes shining with exaltation, her déshabillé slightly open showing a silken thistle embroidered over her left breast.… The Scotch thistle—the emblem of her country. She looked at me, trembling, an ethereal spirit possessed by the demon of midnight. The lightning flashed. The wind blew savagely through the room. The entire boudoir rustled as though being shaken roughly by some invisible giant.… Suddenly her bravery left her. She hid her face in her hands.

  Two sudden knocks on the boudoir door startled us. We heard Juliette’s voice:

  “Milady is wanted on the ’phone.”

  Lady Diana, scarcely awake to realities, draped her déshabillé over her rumpled chemise. She asked with obvious ill-humor, “Who is it? Good heavens, to disturb me at such an hour!”

  “London is calling, Milady. It’s most urgent.”

  Lady Diana completely regained her dignity and left the room. I remained alone in the boudoir. Drops of rain were beginning to pitter-patter on the terrace. The wind had dropped. The moon had disappeared behind the clouds. Everything was pitch-black outside. It was as though some playful giant had spilled a bottle of ink on the vast engraving we had so admired. I waited five minutes—ten minutes. I was surprised at the length of the telephonic conversation and was about to go downstairs when hurried footsteps resounded in the hall. Juliette appeared, thoroughly alarmed, and called:

  “Monsieur! Monsieur! Come quickly!”

  I hurried after her. She led me into a little rose-colored parlor, on the ground floor, illumined only by a cup-shaped light, hanging from the ceiling. Lying on the carpet, beside the overturned telephone, lay Lady Diana, like someone dead.

  And the rain beat, regularly, monotonously, against the wooden shutters.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  RESOLUTIONS MAY BE BROKEN

  I PUT MY EAR TO HER HEART. IT WAS BEATING FEEBLY. My fears were relieved. I turned to Juliette:

  “Lady Wynham has only fainted. Get some brandy.”

  I set about reviving her. Little by little she regained consciousness and put her arms around my neck, like a frightened child. She was weeping. Juliette brought the brandy. It took immediate effect.

  Diana stood up and murmured, “Gerard, let’s go back to my room. Help me, will you, please?”

  I lifted her in my arms and carried her to her bed where Juliette and I settled her comfortably. When the maid had gone, I questioned Lady Diana. She propped herself up against the pillows, and completely recovering her composure, said definitively:

  “Gerard, I am ruined.”

  “Oh!”

  “I am going to repeat to you word for word what Sir Eric Blushmore said over the ’phone.… ‘Is this Lady Diana Wynham? Good evening, my dear friend. This is Sir Eric Blushmore.… I beg your pardon for disturbing you at this inopportune hour but the director of Russian affairs at the Foreign Office has just communicated some distressing news. He has been officially informed that the economic council of the Soviets has annulled the Telav concession. Those Communists are impossible, really. My friend promised me that his Majesty’s Government will protest to the U. S. S. R. against such a breach of international law, but he also told me quite frankly that the Soviets would pay no attention whatsoever to our protests, and that it will be difficult to make them even take notice of a sealed signature.’ … I asked Sir Eric whether he knew any explanation of this sudden turn of events and he replied, ‘All I know is that it is due to some occult influence which is working against us. Then again, it may be the result of a change of economic political heads in Moscow.’ … And there, Gerard dear, you have the sum and substance of the conversation which caused me to faint. I apologize for an act which was anything but worthy of me and yet I really believe that it was my death sentence which Sir Eric imparted over the wire tonight.”

  I tried to reason with her. Lady Diana only dug her head deep into the lace of the pillow-slip.

  “No, Gerard. Stupid consolations are useless. There is no point in condoling with me on the ruins of my castle in Spain. I’ve already told you that if this deal fell through, I would surrender. And I confirm the statement. I throw aside my weapons and renounce the combat. Leave me alone in my misery and thank you for your brotherly assistance.”

  I hesitated. She smiled sadly.

  “Have no fear.… You won’t find me dead tomorrow morning. I am going to give myself twenty-four hours in which to decide upon a death worthy of me. Tonight, I shall dream of firearms, daggers, and poisons. I shall make a mental comparison of the attributes of suffocation, drowning, and a fall through space. But I guarantee that I shall have made my choice tomorrow at midnight.”

  “Diana!” I was sincerely worried by her tone.

  She added, “You see, do you, that my resolution is serious? Do I act like an hysterical person? Do I talk like someone who has lost consciousness of people and things? I can see you perfectly clearly, Gerard—Goodnight.”

  Utterly worn out, I had finally dozed off after five sleepless hours when Juliette came in with my breakfast. I immediately inquired for her mistress.

  “Milady wrote all night long, seated at her desk,” she replied; “you can still smell sealing-wax in her room. I went in, a quarter of an hour ago, but she was asleep. I shall wait until she rings for me.”

  I ate automatically. My window was open. The flowers on the terrace were tendering their dripping petals to the morning sun. The lake scintillated like a huge diamond. A gardener, at the foot of the wall, manipulated his scythe to the rhythm of one of Harry Lauder’s popular songs. Nature, after the nocturnal deluge, was proudly demonstrating its contentment with life, beneath the cerulean blanket of a spotless sky.

  And this joy of living, of which I, too, felt the contagion, seemed to me a blasphemy in this castle which harbored a woman condemned to a premature and unnatural death. I felt like running out on to the terrace, gamboling in the fields with the two Irish terriers which were barking lustily, and jumping into a boat to explore the shadowy shores of the lake. I wanted to live while, in a room nearby, a woman who was very dear to me, wanted to die. I wanted to fill my lungs with the invigorating morning air while Lady Diana inhaled the stale odor of wax which had served to seal fatal envelopes.

  By eleven o’clock I was dressed. Juliette informed me that her mistress was still asleep. I went downstairs; I walked across the park and, in the propitious solitude, I prepared the text of the plea which I intended to make to Lady Diana. I had the entire afternoon before me. That would suffice to comfort her, to prove to her that, after all, things were not so bad and that with a little patience and perseverance, she could extricate herself from her difficulties.

  At two o’clock we were sitting at the luncheon table. As she seemed to be more or less composed, I avoided mention of the events of the night before. While we were having dessert, she suddenly remarked:

  “Now it’s easy enough to understand Varichkine’s disappearance, isn’t it. He was warned of what was going to happen and went to London to see if he couldn’t prevent the catastrophe.”

  “It looks that way.”

  “And having failed, he doesn’t dare to telegraph me.”

  Still trying to be optimistic I made no reply.

  She declared, “No chloroform before the operation, Gerard! I don’t need to be anesthetized. I’ve been thinking all night long. I have caref
ully weighed the charm of living well and the humiliation of merely existing. My resolution is made.”

  “Diana, you must be mad. People don’t kill themselves because they have only twenty-five thousand dollars a year! For love, yes, sometimes and even that is pointless!”

  “How wrong you are, Gerard! A rich man is capable of killing himself for love, and a poor woman, because she has nothing for which to live.… What possible interest does life hold for me at the present moment? Should I prostitute myself to regain a few spangles from the robe of my past splendor? No! My life was beautiful. My death will be equally beautiful. Your sincere affection is the only ray of light on my already half-open tomb and, if I needed consolation, I should have an abundance of it in the knowledge that you, my true friend, you who have never been my lover, had stood by me to the very end.”

  The afternoon passed. I grew more and more anxious as the hours sped by. The radiant beauty of this June day seemed to me to be an offense to the shadow of death which lurked about the castle. I paced up and down the terrace, anticipating every minute the arrival of some horror-stricken servant.

  At five o’clock, I took tea with Lady Diana. She was wearing a little embroidered suit and sport shoes. All her jewels had been returned to their silken beds in a big leather box. I could not accuse her of enacting a theatrical romance, nor of emphatically planning the finish of a splenetic “star.”

  I had given up preaching to her. She seemed so far from any tragic thought. I found her once again as I had known her formerly in London—vivacious and almost gay; fantastic and composed; a brain furnished with contrasts and decorated with paradoxes, arranged by the caprice of an Omnipotent Decorator.

  Never, unless in my cell at Nikolaïa, had I endured more grievous moments. I felt that it would be ill-advised to revert again to the subject of death, and I prayed that she would change her mind before night. How many women play with the specter of suicide one evening only to retreat gracefully at the crucial moment? After all, Lady Diana was a woman!

  For a few minutes at a time, I was able to dispel my anxiety. But, inevitably, it would return more poignant than before. I knew that the daughter of the Duke of Inverness did not possess one of those souls made in series in the factory where the Creator standardizes human passions. Tortured by doubt, I was about to try to alleviate her morbid thoughts for the last time when we both heard the roar of an automobile.

  “A visit? At this hour? I don’t expect anyone,” said Lady Diana.

  “Perhaps it’s your chauffeur.”

  “No, my motor is in the garage.”

  We could see a figure at the end of the driveway. I made a motion of surprise.

  Lady Diana, whose sight was not so keen, asked, “Who is it?”

  “Varichkine!”

  I had recognized the Russian, who was walking rapidly toward us. Lady Diana’s face paled slightly. I understood her emotion. Could Varichkine’s return be the harbinger of good news? Had he succeeded in revoking the decision of the Soviets? Was this, then, to be the resurrection of all the hopes, the sunshine which follows the rain?

  I hastened to question our visitor. “Well, my friend, what news?”

  Varichkine kissed Lady Diana’s hand. Then, without preamble, he said:

  “Sir Eric told you everything, didn’t he, dearest? I have done my best to get the brutes to change their minds again. But it’s no use. I know you’re going to say, ‘Well, then what are you doing here?’ My answer is that I have come as an honest man to protect the woman whom I have exposed to grave danger. Because I’ve come all the way from Glasgow by automobile to forestall the peril which menaces you.”

  “What peril?” asked Lady Diana without the slightest evidence of emotion.

  “Irina Mouravieff is in Scotland. One of my friends in the anti-Soviet spy service in London was good enough to warn me. She was seen in Stockholm and again in Kristiansound from where she embarked for Leith.”

  “For Leith, the port of Edinburgh?” I cried out.

  “Yes. She was seen in Edinburgh. There she got into communication with our S. R. in London. Her presence in Scotland can have but one significance—to obtain from you a definite and final explanation. But I know too well the only sort of explanation one can have with Irina Mouravieff and that is why I’m here. Diana, as long as I am alive, she shall not harm you. That is what I’ve been trying to say. In spite of all my efforts I have failed to restore your concession. Consequently, I release you from your promise of marriage. But I, I am not through where you are concerned. It is my fault, and mine alone, that a dangerous adversary is planning to attack you. I shall stay by your side.”

  Lady Diana expressed her gratitude. “Thank you, Varichkine. Your conduct touches me, for it does you great honor. But Gerard will tell you what I have resolved to do. You will then understand that I am totally indifferent to Mouravieff’s intentions.”

  Lady Diana having expressed a desire to be left alone on the terrace, Varichkine and I strolled down toward the lake. We were scarcely out of hearing when the Russian seized my arm and asked:

  “What has she resolved to do?”

  I replied laconically, “Suicide.”

  Varichkine stopped short under the trees which were softly whispering in the evening breeze. “Suicide? Does Diana really want to die?”

  I told him everything that had happened at the castle.

  He said, “My dear fellow, my grief is intense because I love Diana. I have failed in my attempt to restore her fortune and I consequently have no right to ask her to respond to the sentiment which she inspires in me. Nevertheless, I love her and everything which concerns her concerns me likewise.”

  “I know that, Varichkine. And for just that reason we mustn’t leave her alone for a single minute if we can help it. We must do the impossible to prevent this frightful thing.”

  “Ah, how happy I would be if we could dissuade her. But I’m afraid.… You know her character as well as I do.”

  Varichkine uttered a cry of sincere distress.

  “Séliman! If she dies, I shall carry that crime on my conscience and I shall be inconsolable.… I know what you are thinking. My Communist conscience is weighted down with crimes—admittedly. But those have been political crimes. One can kill or have someone killed for an ulterior motive. But one shouldn’t allow a beautiful woman to die for the sake of a little money. No! Never!”

  Our heated conversation had brought us to the edge of the lake, reddened by the reflection of the setting sun. That idyllic and charming bank had perhaps never heard the echo of such serious words. As we walked, Varichkine became more and more exalted. He discussed life and death with a sensibility strange in a barbarian, who but a few weeks before had shown his sadistic proclivities at the Walhalla in Berlin.

  I suddenly stopped before a huge bowlder and looked back at Glensloy.

  “Varichkine, we are getting too far away.”

  He turned around. “You are right,” he said, “we have left her too long with her morbid thoughts as it is.”

  We quickened our pace and regained the corner of the terrace where Lady Diana and I had taken tea. She was no longer there.

  “Do you suppose she has already returned to the castle?” Varichkine asked anxiously.

  “I hope so.”

  I pointed to the lighted windows of the library.

  “She is there,” I said relieved.

  “Let’s hurry. We won’t leave her again. She is mentally ill and should be watched.”

  Varichkine started off with great strides. We rushed up the steps, flanked with stone lions, their heads a trifle weather-beaten, their manes encrusted with moss. Varichkine opened the library door. We entered. And we stood rooted in our tracks.

  Lady Diana and Irina Mouravieff were standing face to face.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ETERNITY EXPLAINS EVERYTHING

  THE PICTURE WILL REMAIN FOREVER ENGRAVED upon my memory. Irina Mouravieff in front of the middle window. A tra
veling suit and a felt hat; her hands in the pockets of her double-breasted coat. Lady Diana, indifferent, haughty, before the great fireplace on which were carved the arms of the Duke of Inverness. Two tigresses facing one another. The daughter of the Mongols against the daughter of the Celts. Two races. Two worlds.

  Above all, two women.

  Varichkine and I amounted to a pair of figureheads. Neither one of us dared to move.

  Lady Diana was the first to speak. “Varichkine, your premonitions were correct. Madam Mouravieff has presumed to come to my own home to demand an explanation. My butler announced her a few minutes ago. I told him to have her wait here. I have just come in. I was about to ask the cause of all this excitement when you arrived.”

  While I approached Lady Diana, Varichkine went to Irina’s side. But she, without a word, walked to the door which we had just opened; closed it deliberately, locked it, and put the key in her pocket. This was too much for Lady Diana, who cried:

  “Madam, since you seem to consider this as a conquered territory, I shall be obliged to have you shown out. We are not yet accustomed to the Soviet régime in the United Kingdom and my Glensloy castle has not yet been nationalized.”

  She reached out to ring the bell when Irina drew a revolver from her pocket and said:

  “Don’t ring! If you do, I fire!”

  Varichkine and I wanted to intervene. Irina pointed to the barrel of her gun and went on:

  “The same thing applies to you, gentlemen. We are here to speak without witnesses because what Lady Wynham and I have to discuss concerns no one. As you say, Lady Wynham, I have crossed Europe to demand an explanation of your conduct. It is within my rights to do so. I don’t think you will contest the fact that you stole my lover, that you seduced him to buy his complicity—that is to say, to get him to betray his Russian comrades, and that you promised to marry him if he succeeded in his undertaking. He has failed to carry out that beautiful program. Had I not intervened, you would have enriched yourself at the expense of our Georgian proletarians and would be recommencing, thanks to Russian oil, that vicious life of luxury which causes half the misery in the world.… Let me tell you that, to begin with, having allowed you to assure yourself of certain success, my first revenge was to convince my friends in Moscow of the mistake they were making. I am delighted that I was able to accomplish that because, Lady Wynham, it would have annoyed me more than I can say to have gratified, even indirectly, all your wishes, by providing you with the superfluous money which you seem to require in order to live. Having done that act of justice, I decided to interview you merely to let you know that when you took Leonid Vladimirovitch Varichkine away from me, you not only broke my heart, but you robbed me of every interest I have in life.”