CHAPTER XXX
A BYGONE TRAGEDY
He sat so long silent after that outburst that I feared he might not bewilling to tell me any more of what I was painfully eager to hear.
"Did she--the Countess Anna--die here, sir?" I asked at last.
He roused himself with a start.
"I beg your pardon; I had almost forgotten you were there," he saidapologetically. "Die here? No; better, far better for her if she had!Still, she was not happy here. The old people did not like her; did nottry to like her; though I don't know how they could have held outagainst her, for she did her best to conciliate them, to conform totheir narrow ways,--except to the extent of coming to church with them.She was a devout Roman Catholic, and she explained to me once how thetenacity with which the Polish gentry held to their religious views wasone more cause of offence against them in the eyes of the Russianbureaucracy and episcopacy. I don't think Mrs. Pendennis--Anthony'smother--ever forgave me for the view I took of this matter; shethreatened to write to the bishop. She was a masterful old lady--and Ibelieve she would have done it, too, if Anthony and his wife hadremained in the neighborhood. But the friction became unbearable, andhe took her away. I never saw her again; never again!
"They went to London for a time; and from there they both wrote to me.We corresponded frequently, and they invited me to go and stay withthem, but I never went. Then--it was in the autumn of '83--they returnedto Russia, and the letters were less frequent. They were nearly alwaysfrom Anna; Anthony was never a good correspondent! I do not know evennow whether he wrote to his parents, or they to him.
"I had had no news from Russia for some months, when Mr. Pendennis diedsuddenly; he had been ailing for a long time, but the end came quiteunexpectedly. Anthony was telegraphed for and came as quickly aspossible. I saw very little of him during his stay, a few days only,during which he had to get through a great amount of business; but Ilearned that his wife was in a delicate state of health, and he wasdesperately anxious about her. I fear he got very little sympathy fromhis mother, whose aversion for her daughter-in-law had increased, ifthat were possible, during their separation. Poor woman! Her rancourbrought its own punishment! She and her son parted in anger, never tomeet again. She only heard from him once,--about a month after he left,to return to Russia; and then he wrote briefly, brutally in a way,though I know he was half mad at the time.
"'My wife is dead, though not in childbirth. If I had been with her, Icould have saved her,' he wrote. 'You wished her dead, and now yourwish is granted; but I also am dead to you. I shall never return toEngland; I shall never bring my child home to the house where her motherwas an alien.'
"He has kept his word, as you know. He did not write to me at all; andit was years before I heard what had happened during his absence, and onhis return. When he reached the frontier he was arrested and detained inprison for several days. Then, on consideration of the fact that he wasa British subject--"
"That doesn't weigh for much in Russia to-day," I interpolated.
"It did then. He was informed that his wife had been arrested as anaccomplice in a Nihilist plot; that she had been condemned totransportation to Siberia, but had died before the sentence could beexecuted. Also that her infant, born a few days before her arrest, hadbeen deported, with its nurse, and was probably awaiting him atKonigsberg. Finally he himself was conducted to the frontier again, andexpelled from 'Holy Russia.' The one bit of comfort was the child, whomhe found safe and sound under the care of the nurse, a German who hadtaken refuge with her kinsfolk in Konigsberg, and who confirmed theterrible story.
"I heard all this about ten years ago," Treherne continued, "when by thepurest chance I met Pendennis in Switzerland. I was weather-bound by apremature snowstorm for a couple of days, and among my fellow sufferersat the little hostelry were Anthony and his daughter."
"Anne herself! What was she like?" I asked eagerly.
"A beautiful girl,--the image of her dead mother," he answered slowly."Or what her mother must have been at that age. She was then about--letme see--twelve or thirteen, but she seemed older; not what we call aprecocious child, but womanly beyond her years, and devoted to herfather, as he to her. I took him to task; tried to persuade him to comeback to England,--to his own home,--if only for his daughter's sake. Buthe would not listen to me.
"'Anne shall be brought up as a citizeness of the world,' he declared.'She shall never be subjected to the limitations of life in England.'
"I must say they seemed happy enough together!" he added with a sigh.
"Well, that is all I have to tell you, Mr. Wynn. From that day to this Ihave neither seen nor heard aught of Anthony Pendennis and his daughter;but I fear there is no doubt that he has allowed her--possibly evenencouraged her--to become involved with some of these terrible secretsocieties, that do no good, but incalculable harm. Perhaps he may haveinspired her with an insane idea of avenging her mother; and now she hasshared her mother's fate!"
"I will not believe that till I have proof positive," I said slowly.
"But how can you get such proof?" he asked.
"I don't know yet; but I'm going to seek it--to seek her!"
"You will return to Russia?"
"Why, yes; I meant to do that all along; whatever you might have told mewould have made no difference to that determination!"
"But, my dear young man, you will be simply throwing your life away!" heremonstrated.
"I think not, and it's not very valuable, anyway. I thank you for yourstory, sir; it helps me to understand things a bit,--Anne's motive, andher father's; and it gives me a little hope that they may have escaped,for the time, anyhow. He evidently knew the neighborhood well, or hecouldn't have turned up at that meeting; and if once he could get hersafely back to Petersburg, he could claim protection for them both atthe Embassy, though--"
"If he had been able to do that, surely he or she would havecommunicated with your cousin, Mrs. Cayley?" he asked, speaking thethought that was in my own mind.
"That's so; still there's no use in conjecturing. You'll not let mycousin get even a hint of what I've told you, Mr. Treherne? If shefinds out that Pencarrow belongs to Mr. Pendennis, she'll surelycross-question you about him, and Mary's so sharp that she'll see atonce you're concealing something from her, if you're not very discreet."
"Thanks for the warning. I promise you that I'll be very discreet, Mr.Wynn," he assured me. "Dear me--dear me, it seems incredible that suchthings should be!"
It did seem incredible, there in that peaceful old-world room, withnever a sound to break the silence but the lazy murmur of the waves, farbelow; heard faintly but distinctly,--a weird, monotonous, never ceasingundersong.
We parted cordially; he came right out to the porch, and I was afraidhe might offer to walk some of the way with me. I wanted to be alone totry and fix things up in my mind; for though the history of Anne'sparentage gave me a clue to her motives, there was much that stillperplexed me.
Why had she always told Mary that she knew nothing of Russia,--had neverbeen there? Well, doubtless that was partly for Mary's own sake, tospare her anxiety, and partly because of the vital necessity forsecrecy; but a mere evasion would have served as well as the directassertion,--I hated to call it a lie even in my own mind! And why, ohwhy had she not trusted me, let me serve her; for she knew, she musthave known--that I asked for nothing better than that!
But I could come to no conclusion whatever as I leaned against thechurchyard wall, gazing out over the sea, dark and mysterious save wherethe moonlight made a silver track across the calm surface. As well tryto fathom the secret of the sea as the mystery that enshrouded AnnePendennis!
On one point only I was more resolved than ever,--to return to Russia atthe earliest possible moment.
The Red Symbol Page 32