The Red Symbol

by John Ironside

  CHAPTER XLVIII

  THE GRAND DUCHESS PASSES

  I've heard it said that sick or wounded people always die if they haveno wish to live, but that's not true. I wanted to die as badly as anyone ever did, but yet I lived. I suppose I must have a lot ofrecuperative energy; anyhow, next time I woke up I felt pretty much asusual, except for the dull throb of the wound across my forehead, whichsome one had scientifically strapped up. My physical pain counted asnothing compared with the agony of shame and grief I suffered in mysoul, as, bit by bit, I recollected all that had happened. I had failedin my trust, failed utterly. I was left to guard her; I ought to haveforbidden--prevented--her going out into the street at all; and, whenthe worst came, I ought to have died with her.

  I tried to say something of this to Loris when I was face to face withhim once more, in the room where Anne and I had been working when thatill-omened woman, Marie Levinska, interrupted us; but he stopped me withan imperative gesture.

  "Do not reproach yourself, my friend. All that one man could do, youdid. I know that well, and I thank you. One last service you shall do,if you are fit for it. You shall ride with us to-night when we take heraway. Mishka has told you of the arrangements? That is well. If we getthrough, you will not return here; that is why I have sent for you now."

  "Not return?" I repeated.

  "No," he answered quietly but decisively. "Once before I begged you toleave us, now I command you to do so; not because I do not value you,but because--she--would have wished it. Wait, hear me out! You have donenoble service in a cause that can mean nothing to you, except--"

  "Except that it is a cause that the lady I served lived,--and died--for,sir," I interrupted.

  More than once before I had spoken of her to him as the woman we bothloved; but now the other words seemed fittest; for not half an hour backI had learned the truth, that, I think, I had known all along,--that shewho lay in her coffin in the great drawing-room yonder was, if herrights had been acknowledged, the Grand Duchess Loris of Russia. It wasVassilitzi who told me.

  "They were married months ago, in Paris,--before she went to England,"he had said, and for a moment a bitter wave of memory swept over me,though I fought against it. Hadn't I decided long since that the queencould do no wrong, and therefore the deception she had practised countedfor nothing? All that really mattered was that I loved her in spite ofall; asked nothing more than to be allowed to serve her.

  "You served her under a delusion," he rejoined with stern sadness. "Andnow it is no longer possible for you to serve her even so. I cannotdiscuss the matter with you; I cannot explain it,--I would not if Icould. Only this I repeat. I request--command you, to make your way outof this country as soon as possible, and rejoin your friends in England,or America,--where you will. It may mean more to you than you dare hopeor imagine. You will have some difficulty probably, though some of thetrains are running again now. I think your safest plan will be to rideto Kutno--or if necessary even to Alexandrovo. Here is a passport,permitting you to leave Russia; it is made out in the name you assumedwhen you returned as 'William Pennington Gould,' and is quite in order.And I must ask you, for the sake of our friendship, to accept these"--hetook a roll of notes out of the drawer of the writing-table--"and, as amemento,--this. It is the only decoration I am able to confer on a mostchivalrous gentleman."

  He held out a little case, open, and I took it with an unsteady hand. Itcontained a miniature of Anne, set in a rim of diamonds. I looked atit,--and at him,--but I could not speak; my heart was too full.

  "There is no need of words, my friend; we understand each other well,you and I," he continued, rising and placing his hands on my shoulders."You will do as I wish,--as I entreat--insist--?"

  "I would rather remain with you!" I urged. "And fight on, for thecause--"

  He shook his head.

  "It is a lost cause; or at least it will never be won by us. Themanifesto, the charter of peace! What is it? A dead letter. Nicholasissued it indeed, but his Ministers ignore it, and therefore he ishelpless, his charter futile and the reign of terror continues,--willcontinue. Therefore I bid you go, and you must obey. So this is ourparting, for though we shall meet, we shall be alone together no more.Therefore, God be with you, my friend!"

  When next I saw him he stood with drawn sword, stern and stately,foremost among the guard of honor round the catafalque in the greatdrawing-room, where all that remained of the woman we both loved lay instate, ere it fared forth on its last journey.

  The old house was full of subdued sounds, for as soon as darkness fell,by ones and twos, men and women were silently admitted and passed assilently up the staircase to pay their last homage to their martyr.

  Nearly all of them had flowers in their hands,--red flowers,--sometimesonly a single spray, but always those fatal geranium blossoms that werethe symbol of the League. They laid them on the white pall, or scatteredthem on the folds that swept the ground, till the coffin seemed raisedabove a sea of blood.

  Every detail of that scene is photographed on my memory. The great room,hung with black draperies and brilliantly lighted by a multitude of tallwax candles; the air heavy with incense and the musky odor of theflowers; the two priests in gorgeous vestments who knelt on either side,near the head of the coffin, softly intoning the prayers for the dead;the black-robed nuns who knelt at the foot, silent save for the click oftheir rosaries; and the ghostly procession of men and women, many ofthem wounded, all haggard and wan, that passed by, and paused to gaze onthe face that lay framed, as it were, beneath a panel of glass in thecoffin-lid, from which the pall was drawn back. Many of them, men aswell as women, were weeping passionately; some pressed their lips to theglass; others raised their clenched hands as if to register a vow ofvengeance; a few,--a very few,--knelt in prayer for a brief moment erethey passed on.

  I stood at my post, as one of the guard, and watched it all in a queer,impersonal sort of way, as if my soul was somehow outside my body.

  Although I stood some distance away, the quiet face under the glassseemed ever before my eyes; for I had looked on it before this solemnceremonial began. How fair it was,--and yet how strange; though it wasunmarred, unless there was a wound hidden under the strip of whiteribbon bound across the forehead and almost concealed by the softlywaving chestnut hair. But even the peace of death had not been able tobanish the expression of anguish imprinted on the lovely features. Abovethe closed eyelids, with their long, dark lashes, the brows werecontracted in a frown, and the mouth was altered, the white teethexposed, set firmly in the lower lip. Still she was beautiful, but withthe beauty of a Medusa. I could not think of that face as the one I hadknown and loved; it filled me with pity and horror and indignation,indeed; but--it was the face of a stranger.

  Why had I not been content to remember her as I had known her in life!She seemed so immeasurably removed from me now; and that not merelybecause I could no longer think of her as Anne Pendennis,--only as "TheGrand Duchess Anna Catharine Petrovna, daughter of the Countess AnnaVassilitzi-Pendennis, and wife of Loris Nicolai Alexis, Grand Duke ofRussia," as the French inscription on the coffin-plate ran,--but alsobecause the mystery that had surrounded her in life seemed moreimpenetrable than ever now that she was dead.

  Where was her father, to whom she had seemed so devotedly attached whenI first knew her? Even supposing he was dead, why was he ignored in thatinscription, save for the mere mention of his surname, the onlyindication of her mixed parentage. She had never spoken of him sincethat day at the hunting-lodge when she had said I must ask nothingconcerning him. I had obeyed her in that, as in all else, and had evenrefrained from questioning Vassilitzi or any other who might have beenable to tell me anything about Anthony Pendennis. Besides, there hadbeen no time for queries or conjectures during all the feverishexcitement of these days in Warsaw. But now, in this brief and solemninterlude, all the old problems recurred to my mind, as I stood on guardin the death-chamber; and I knew that I could never hope to solve them.

  The ceremony was o
ver at last. As in a dream I followed the others, and,at a low-spoken word of command, filed past the catafalque, with a lastmilitary salute, though I was no longer in uniform, for Mishka hadbrought me a suit of civilian clothes.

  In the same dazed way I found myself later riding near the head of theprocession that passed through the dark silent streets, and out into theopen country. I didn't even feel any curiosity or astonishment that astrong escort of regular cavalry--lancers--accompanied us, or when Irecognized the officer in command as young Mirakoff, whom I had lastseen on the morning when I was on my way to prison in Petersburg. Hedidn't see me,--probably he wouldn't have known me if he had,--and tothis day I don't know how he and his men came to be there, or how thewhole thing was arranged. Anyhow, none molested us; and slowly, throughthe sleeping city, and along the open road, the cortege passed,ghostlike, in the dead of night. The air was piercingly cold, but thesky was clear, like a canopy of velvet spangled with great stars.

  Mishka rode beside me, and at last, when we seemed to have been ridingfor an eternity, he laid his hand on my rein, and whispered hoarsely,"Now."

  Almost without a sound we left the ranks, turned up a cross-road, and,wheeling our horses at a few paces distant, waited for the others to goby; more unreal, more dreamlike than ever. Save for the steady tramp ofthe horses' feet, the subdued jingle of the harness and accoutrements,they might have been a company of phantoms. I saw the gleam of the whitepall above the black bulk of the open hearse,--watched it disappear inthe darkness, and knew that the Grand Duchess had passed out of my lifeforever.

  Still I sat, bareheaded, until the last faint sounds had died away, andthe silence about us was only broken by the night whisper of the bareboughs above us.

  "Come; for we have yet far to go," Mishka said aloud, and started downthe cross-road at a quick trot.