Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  John was delighted to see me, and was more like his old self than when I had last seen him. Mrs. Carvel’s gentle temper was not ruffled by the confusion of landing, and she greeted me as ever, with her sweet smile and air of sympathetic inquiry. Chrysophrasia held out her hand, a very forlorn hope of anatomy cased in flabby kid. She also smiled, as one may fancy that a mosquito smiles in the dark when it settles upon the nose of some happy sleeper. I am sure that mosquitoes have green eyes, exactly of the hue of Chrysophrasia’s.

  “So deliciously barbarous, is it not, Mr. Griggs?” she murmured, subduing the creaking of her thin voice.

  “Dear Mr. Griggs, I am so awfully glad to see you again,” said Hermione with genuine pleasure, as she laid her little hand in mine.

  It seemed to me that Hermione was taller and thinner than she had been in the winter. But there was something womanly in her lovely face, as she looked at me, which I had not seen before. Her soft blue eyes were more shaded, — not more sad, but less carelessly happy than they used to be, — and the delicate color was fainter in her transparent skin. There was an indescribable look of gravity about her, something which made me think that she was very much in earnest with her life.

  “Paul is at the hotel,” I said, rather loudly, when the first meeting was over. “He has made everything comfortable for you up there. The kaváss will see to your things. Let us go ashore at once, out of all this din.”

  We left the steamer, and landed where the carriages were waiting. John talked all the time, recounting the incidents of the journey, the annoyance they had had in crossing the Danube at Rustchuk, the rough night in the Black Sea, the delight of watching the shores of the Bosphorus in the morning. When we landed, Chrysophrasia turned suddenly round and surveyed the scene.

  “We are not in Constantinople at all,” she said, in a tone of bitter disappointment.

  “No,” said Macaulay; “nobody lives in Stamboul. This is Galata, and we are going up to Pera, which is the European town, formerly occupied by the Genoese, who built that remarkable tower you may have observed from the harbor. The place was formerly fortified, and the tower has now been applied to the use of the fire brigade. Much interest is attached” ——

  How long Macaulay would have continued his lecture on Galata Tower is uncertain. Chrysophrasia interrupted him in disgust.

  “A fire brigade!” she exclaimed. “We might as well be in America at once. Really, John, this is a terrible disappointment. A fire brigade! Do not tell me that the people here understand the steam-engine, — pray do not! All the delicacy of my illusions is vanishing like a dream!”

  Chrysophrasia sometimes reminds me of a certain imperial sportsman who once shot an eagle in the Tyrol.

  “An eagle!” he cried contemptuously, when told what it was. “Gentlemen, do not trifle with me, — an eagle always has two heads. This must be some other bird.”

  In due time we reached the hotel. Paul was standing in the doorway, and came forward to help the ladies as they descended from the carriage, greeting them one by one. When his mother got out, he respectfully kissed her hand. To the surprise of most of us, Madame Patoff threw her arms round his neck, and embraced him with considerable emotion.

  “Dear, dear Paul, — my dear son!” she cried. “What a happy meeting!”

  Paul was evidently very much astonished, but I will do him the credit to say that he seemed moved as he kissed his mother on both cheeks, for his face was pale and he appeared to tremble a little.

  The travelers were conducted to their rooms by Macaulay, and I saw no more of them. But John insisted that I should dine with them in the evening. In the mean while I went home, and found Gregorios reading, as usual when he was not on duty at Yildiz-Kiöshk, — the “Star-Palace,” where the Sultan resides.

  “Have you deposited your friends in a place of safety?” he asked, looking up from his book. “Have they all come, — even the old maid with the green eyes, and the mad lady whom Patoff is so unfortunate as to call his mother?”

  “All,” I answered. “They are real English people, and my old friend John Carvel is the patriarch of the establishment. There are maid-servants and men-servants, and more boxes than any house in Pera will hold. The old lady seems perfectly sane again.”

  “Then she will probably die,” said Gregorios, reassuringly. “Crazy people almost always have a lucid interval before death.”

  “You take a cheerful view,” I observed.

  “Fate would confer a great benefit on Patoff by removing his mother from this valley of tears,” returned my friend. “Besides, as our proverb says, mad people are the only happy people. Madame Patoff, in passing from insanity to sanity, has therefore fallen from happiness to unhappiness.”

  “If all your proverbs were true, the world would be a strange place.”

  “I will not discuss the inexhaustible subject of the truth of proverbs,” answered Balsamides. “I only doubt whether Madame Patoff will be happy now that she is sane, and whether the uncertainty of the issue of our search may not drive her mad again. She will probably spoil everything by chattering at all the embassies. By the by, since we are on the subject of death, lunacy, and other similar annoyances, I may as well tell you that Laleli is very ill, and it is not expected that she can live. I heard it this morning on very good authority.”

  “That is rather startling,” I said.

  “Very. Dying people sometimes make confessions of their crimes, but to hear the confession you must be there when they are about to give up the ghost.”

  “That is impossible in this case, unless you can get into the harem as a doctor.”

  “Who knows? We must make a desperate attempt of some kind. Leave it to me, and do not be surprised if I do not appear for a day or two. I have made up my mind to strike a blow. You are too evidently a Frank to be of any use. I wish you were a Turk, Griggs. You have such an enviably sober appearance. You speak Turkish just well enough to make me wish you would never betray yourself by little slips in the verbs and mistakes in using Arabic words. Only educated Osmanlis can detect those errors: just now they are the very people we want to deceive.”

  “I can pass for anything else here without being found out,” I answered. “I can pass for a Persian when there are no Persians about, or for a Panjabí Mussulman, if necessary.”

  “That is an idea. You might be an Indian Hadji. I will think of it.”

  “What in the world do you intend to do?” I asked, suspecting my friend of some rash or violent project.

  “A very sly trick,” he replied, with his usual sarcastic smile. “There need not necessarily be any violence about it, unless we find Alexander alive, in which case you and I must manage to get him out of the house.”

  “Tell me your plan,” I said. “Let me hear what it is like.”

  “No; I will tell you to-night, when I know whether it is possible or not. You are going to dine with your friends? Yes; very well, when you have finished, come here, and we will see what can be done. We must only pray that the iniquitous old woman may live till morning.”

  It was clear that Gregorios was not ready, and that nothing would induce him to speak what was in his mind. I showed no further curiosity, and at the appointed time I left the house to go and dine with the Carvels.

  “Say nothing to Patoff,” said Balsamides, as I went out.

  I found the Carvels assembled in their sitting-room, and we went to dinner. I could not help looking from time to time at Paul’s mother, who surprised me by her fluent conversation and perfect self-possession. With the exception that she was present and that Professor Cutter was absent, the dinner was very much like the meals at Carvel Place. I noticed that Paul was placed between Mrs. Carvel and his mother, while Hermione was on the opposite side of the table. But their eyes met constantly, and there was evidently a perfect understanding between them. Paul looked once more as I had seen him when he was talking to Hermione in England, and the coldness I so much disliked had temporarily disappeared from his
face. I did not know what had occurred during the afternoon, since I had left the hotel, and it was not until later that I learned some of the details of the meeting.

  When the members of the party retired to their rooms, on arriving at Missiri’s, Macaulay had gone off with his father, and Paul had been left alone for a few minutes in the sitting-room. When all was quiet, Hermione opened her door softly and looked in. Paul was standing by the chimney-piece, contemplating the smouldering logs with the interest of a man who has nothing to do. He raised his head suddenly, and saw that Hermione had entered the room and was standing near him. She had taken off her traveling-hat, and her golden hair was in some disorder, but the tangled coils and waves of it only showed more perfectly how beautiful she was. She came forward, and he, too, left his place. She took his hands rather timidly in hers.

  “Paul — I never meant that you should go!” she exclaimed, while the tears stood in her eyes. “Why did you take me so literally at my word?”

  “It was better, darling,” said he, drawing her nearer to him. “You were quite right. I could not bear the idea of any one being free to speak to me as your aunt did; but I was very unhappy. How could I know that you were coming here so soon?”

  “I did not know,” she said simply. “But I was very unhappy, too, and the days seemed so long. I could worship my brother for bringing it about.”

  “So could I,” answered Paul, rather absently. He was looking down into her eyes that met his so trustfully. “Do you really and truly believe in me, Hermione?” he asked.

  “Indeed I do; I always did!” she cried passionately. Then he kissed her very tenderly, and held her in his arms.

  “Thank you, — thank you, my darling,” he murmured in her ear.

  Presently they stood by the chimney-piece, still holding each other’s hands.

  “I must speak to your father,” he said. “You know his way. He wrote all about it to Griggs, telling him to show me the letter.”

  “I could not keep the secret to myself any longer,” she answered. “And I knew that papa loved me and liked you.”

  “Yes, dear, you were quite right,” said Paul. “But I did not mean to tell him, after what happened that evening, until I had found my brother. Do you know? I have almost found him. I hope to reach the end in a day or two.”

  “Oh, Paul! that is splendid!” cried Hermione. “I knew you would. You must tell me all about it.”

  There was a sound of footsteps in one of the rooms. Hermione slipped quickly away, and throwing a kiss towards Paul with her fingers, disappeared through the door by which she had entered, leaving him once more alone. The moments of their meeting had been few and short, but they had more than sufficed to show that these two loved each other as much as ever. Some time afterwards Paul had been alone with his mother for half an hour and had frankly asked her whether she was able to hear him speak of Alexander or not. Her face twitched nervously, but she answered calmly enough that she wished to hear all he had to tell. But when he had finished she shook her head sadly.

  “You may find out how he died, but you will never find him,” she said. Then, with a sudden energy which startled Paul, she gazed straight into his eyes. “You know that you cannot,” she added, almost savagely.

  “I do not know, mother,” he answered, calmly. “I still have hope.”

  Madame Patoff looked down, and seemed to regain her self-control almost immediately. The long habit of concealing her feelings, which she had acquired when deceiving Professor Cutter, stood her in good stead, and she had not forgotten what she had studied so carefully. But Paul had seen the angry glance of her eyes, and the excited tone of her voice still rang in his ears. He guessed that, although she had come to Constantinople with the full intention of forgetting the accusations she had once uttered, the mere sight of him was enough to bring back all her virulent hatred. She still believed that he had killed his brother. That was clear from her words, and from the tone in which they were spoken. Whether the thought was a delusion, or whether she sanely believed Paul to be a murderer, made little difference. Her mind was evidently still under the influence of the idea. But Paul determined that he would hold his peace, and it was not until later, when all necessity for concealment was removed, that I learned what had passed. Paul believed that in a few days he should certainly solve the mystery of Alexander’s disappearance, and thus effectually root out his mother’s suspicions.

  All this had occurred before dinner, and without my knowledge. Madame Patoff seemed determined to be agreeable and to make everything go smoothly. Even Chrysophrasia relaxed a little, as we talked of the city and of what the party must see.

  “I am afraid,” said I, “that you do not find all this as Oriental as you expected, Miss Dabstreak.”

  “Ah, no!” she sighed. “If by ‘this’ you mean the hotel, it is European, and unpleasantly so at that.”

  “I think it is a very good hotel; and this rice — what do you call it? — is very good, too,” said John Carvel, who was tasting pilaff for the first time.

  “Your carnal love of food always shocks me, John,” murmured Chrysophrasia. “But I dare say there is a good deal that is Oriental on the other side. There, I am sure, we should be sitting on very precious carpets, and eating sweetmeats with golden spoons, while some fair young Circassian slave sang wild melodies and played upon a rare old inlaid lute.”

  “Yes,” I answered. “I have dined with Turks in Stamboul.”

  “Oh, do describe it!” exclaimed Miss Dabstreak.

  “We squatted on the floor around a tiny table, and we devoured ragouts of mutton and onions with our fingers,” I said.

  “How very disgusting!” Miss Dabstreak made an unæsthetic grimace, and looked at me with profound contempt.

  “But I suppose they eat other things, Griggs?” asked John, laughing.

  “Yes. But mutton and onions and pilaff are the staple of their consumption. They eat jams of all sorts. Sometimes soup is brought in in a huge bowl, and put down in the middle of the table. Then each one dips in his spoon in the order of precedence, and eats as much as he can. They will give you a dozen courses in half an hour, and they never speak at their meals if they can help it.”

  “Pigs!” exclaimed Chrysophrasia, whose delicacy did not always assert itself in her selection of epithets.

  “No; I assure you,” I objected, “they are nothing of the kind. They consider it cleaner to eat with their fingers, which they can wash themselves, than with forks, which are washed in a common bath of soapsuds by the grimy hands of a scullery maid. It is not so unreasonable.”

  “You have such a terrible way of putting things, Mr. Griggs!” exclaimed Mrs. Carvel in a tone of gentle protest. “But I dare say,” she added, as though fearing lest her mild rebuke should have hurt my feelings,— “I dare say you are quite right.”

  “To tell the truth,” I answered, “I am rather fond of the Turks.”

  “I have always noticed,” remarked Madame Patoff, “that you Americans generally admire people who live under a despotic government. Americans all like Russia and Russians.”

  “Our government is not quite despotic,” observed Paul, who felt bound to defend his country. “We have laws, and the laws are respected. The Czar would not think of acting against the established law, even though in theory he might.”

  “The Turks must have laws, too,” objected Madame Patoff.

  “I don’t know,” said Chrysophrasia. “I already feel a delicious sensation, as though I might be strangled with a bow-string at any moment and dropped into the Bosphorus.”

  John Carvel looked very grave. Perhaps he was offering up a silent prayer to the end that such a consummation might soon be reached; but more probably he considered the topic of sudden death by violence as one to be avoided. Macaulay Carvel came to the rescue.

  “The Turks have laws,” he said, fluently. “All their law is founded upon the Koran, and they are most ingenious in making the Koran answer the purpose of our more learned
and therefore more efficacious codes. The Supreme Court really exists in the person of the Sheik ul Islam, who may be called the High Pontiff, a sort of Pontifex Maximus with judicial powers. All important cases are ultimately referred to him, and as most of these important cases are connected with the Vakuf, the real estate held by the mosques, like our glebe lands at home, it follows that the Sheik ul Islam generally decides in favor of his own class, who are the Ulema, or priests. The consequences of this mode of administering the laws are very” ——

  “Capital!” exclaimed John Carvel. “Where on earth did you learn all that, my boy?”

  “I began to coach the East when I saw there was a chance of my coming here,” answered Macaulay, much pleased at his father’s acknowledgment of his learning. It struck me that the young man had got his information out of some rather antiquated book, in which no mention was made of the present division of the civil and criminal courts under the Ministry of Justice, and of the ecclesiastical courts under the Sheik ul Islam. But I held my peace, being grateful to Macaulay for delivering his lecture at the right moment. Mrs. Carvel looked with undisguised admiration at her son, and even Hermione smiled and felt proud of her brother.

  “Wonderful, this modern education, is it not?” said John Carvel, turning to me.

  “Amazing,” I replied.