by Edith Nesbit
‘Of mine? I do not happen to possess a young woman, my good Toomey.’
‘I suppose you and me and my Mary Jane possesses about equal shares of her, then, for I saved her from keeping company with the dead cats and dogs, and you sent her to our place, and now my missus is let in for looking arter her.’
‘Come to the fire. I hope it’s nothing serious.’
‘I don’t rightly know. My missus told me I should be better out of the way, and I sent the doctor in as I came by.’
‘I am very sorry,’ said Petrovitch, ‘but I am sure poor Mrs Litvinoff could not be in better hands than those of your good, kind wife.’
It was noticeable that he never spoke of Alice save as Mrs Litvinoff.
‘You’ve a snug little place up here, sir,’ said Toomey, looking round him. ‘And do you really like reading — those sort of books, I mean,’ pointing to Hegel’s ‘Logic,’ which lay open on the table.
‘I like doing better than reading, but one must read much to be able to do little in the line of work I am on at present.’
‘Your line of work,’ said Toomey, glancing admiringly at his host, ‘ is a thing as I never can get to understand. How it’s done, I mean. Now, paving is straightforward. When you’ve got a paving-stone you know what it is you’ve got, and how far it’ll go, but words is such shifty things, and how you manage to make ’em fit into each other so as to make ’em mean what you mean is what gets over me.’
‘Perhaps I don’t always make them mean what I mean. Judging by the way people misunderstand what I say — ah! here is Hirsch,’ as the door opened, ‘and Pewtress too. How are you? Now we’re all here but Mr Vernon.’
‘He’s coining upstairs now,’ said Pewtress, the stone-mason with the intellectual forehead, who had been at Mrs Quaid’s at the last meeting of the Cleon.
Mr Hirsch seemed to be in more genial mood than he had been in any of those brief conversations which we hitherto had occasion to report. He had shaved himself — he even appeared to have combed his hair — and he shook hands with Toomey quite warmly and cordially.
The host had gone half-way down the stairs to meet his fourth guest — a lame boy, whose crutches made it not easy for him to mount to the height of Petrovitch’s nest. He now returned with him on his arm — and after a general introduction of him to the others they all sat down to tea.
Eustace Vernon was a lad of about eighteen, with a pale, highbred-looking face — a rather shy but pleasant manner. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Petrovitch, and since his first acquaintance with the Socialist had made a point of being present at all the meetings on social subjects that he could get to hear of, and could find time to attend. For even the wild enthusiasm of the revolutionary in his teens will not go the length of working a Buddhist miracle and enabling the youthful devotee to be at more than one meeting at the same time.
Petrovitch was amused and a little touched by the lad’s undisguised homage — and knowing himself to be responsible for the inflammation of the young man’s mind, felt bound to keep watch lest he should get into trouble before his newly-kindled fire had had time to burn itself down into steadiness.
As the meal went on it was noticeable that Vernon’s love of liberty was not inconsistent with a child-like devotion to strawberry jam.
Petrovitch might have kept a school of instruction for the benefit of those who are always making such desperate efforts to ‘annihilate class distinctions’ — efforts which usually take place on Saturday afternoons, and are mostly the dismallest of failures. Under his influence his four guests — born in different parts of the world, and drawn from different social grades — talked together with the ease of club acquaintances.
‘I had hoped,’ said Petrovitch by-and-by, ‘to have had a lady here to pour tea out for you, but fate has been unpropitious; Mrs Toomey was not able to come.’
‘I regret her,’ said Hirsch. ‘It always does me much pleasure to meet our good friend’s good wife.’
Toomey looked flattered, but a little uncomfortable under this tribute.
‘She would have liked to come,’ said he, trying to look straight at the other, but only succeeding in fixing one eye on the Austrian, while the other searched the depths of the jam pot with an obstinacy which made Vernon, who had the same in hand, simmer with warm awkwardness. ‘She would have liked to come, but the young woman as lodges with us — that Mrs Let-em-off — is ill, and the missus wouldn’t leave her.’
‘Ah, Mrs Litvinoff, it is you mean. I willed to ask you of her.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Vernon, glad to join in the conversation, as a means of getting away from Toomey’s eye. ‘Is that any relation of Count Litvinoff? I know him. Splendid fellow, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t think as she’s a blessed countess,’ said Toomey doubtfully, while Hirsch cast a significant glance of question at his host.
‘Oh,’ said Petrovitch, ‘there are more Litvinoffs than one. It is not an uncommon name. I myself know more than one family of that name.’
‘Of course you know the Count,’ said Vernon, turning to him. ‘What wonderful adventures he has had. He seems to be a man of splendid character. It must have cost him something to give up his social position and go in for the Revolution.’
‘So far as I know Michael Litvinoff, he has never done more than his clear duty.’
‘What does he do for the Revolution now?’ growled Hirsch.
‘Well, he does all that any one can do in England. There’s not much else to be done besides talking.’
Vernon ended with a sigh, as of one who yearned for the barricades.
‘Oh, yes; he’ll talk,’ said Hirsch discontentedly, and took a large bite of bread and butter.
‘You are quite right, Mr Vernon,’ said Petrovitch. ‘He talks, and talks well; and, as you say, there is here no other means of helping the cause. And where you have such freedom of speech as in England a man’s tongue is his best weapon, and ought, under existing circumstances, to be his only one.’
‘The great reforms,’ said Hirsch—’have they been carried by the tongue, or by the pike and the musket?’
‘In this England enough has been carried by the tongue to leave good hopes for the future,’ said Petrovitch.
‘I am glad to hear you express those opinions,’ said Pewtress, who spoke with some deliberation, and chose his words carefully. ‘I have noticed that most of the foreigners I have had the pleasure of meeting do not quite understand the condition of affairs here.’
‘Do not misunderstand me,’ said Petrovitch, rising from the table. ‘I consider force to be the last refuge of the oppressed and the wretched — only to be tried when everything else has failed — but then perfectly legitimate.’
‘Hear, hear,’ cried Vernon enthusiastically, as they all rose; ‘that’s more like yourself, Petrovitch! And as for Count Litvinoff, I can’t help admiring him, if it’s only for what he’s gone through.’
‘For that,’ said Hirsch, who seemed to have grown grumpier and grumpier ever since Litvinoff’s name had been introduced, ‘you, Petrovitch, have had adventures better to hear about than any of his. Did Mr Vernon ever hear how you escaped from Tieff?’
‘If Mr Vernon has, I have not,’ said Pewtress, as they gathered round the fire. ‘ If our kind host will tell us the story, I am sure we shall all follow it with a great deal of interest.’
‘I am quite willing to tell you about that little affair, but I fancy I’ve told it once or twice before,’ said Petrovitch, handing round a box of thick, short Russian cigarettes, to which his friends all helped themselves; ‘and there is no greater bore than the man who will always be telling of his own deeds and adventures.’
‘You, at any rate, never speak of yours,’ said Vernon, fixing his large eyes on Petrovitch; ‘do tell us, please.’
‘I assure you I was not refusing “pour me faire prier” and if we are all comfortable I will tell you with pleasure the little there is to tell. Toomey, you have no light.’<
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‘All right, sir,’ said Toomey, picking up a hot coal in his fingers and lighting his cigarette therefrom as his host began.
‘During the year or so that I was in the fortress of Petro-Paolovski I never encouraged the slightest hopes of escape, for in the first place I, for a long time, suffered from a bad gunshot wound, and, secondly, because it is known only too well among us that escape from Petro-Paolovski is impossible. When, for some unknown reason, the Government sent me to Tieff, my health was improved, and so were my chances of getting away, and from the moment I entered the prison doors I never lost an opportunity of making and maturing a plan Of escape. Escaping from a Russian prison is not quite such a desperate business for one of us as it would be for one of you, for you would be like a blind man in a strange house; but those of us who are judged to be the most likely subjects for arrest make it a rule to have the plan of every prison and fortress at our finger-tips.’
‘What a marvellous organisation yours is,’ said the stonemason, more as an excuse for escaping a moment from the martyrdom of the unaccustomed cigarette than by way of saying anything original.
‘Yes, the war is fairly well organised on both sides,’ Petrovitch replied; ‘but at present they have the big battalions.’
‘But your plans,’ struck in Vernon, impatient of the interruption.
‘Yes. Well, my knowledge of Tieff told me that there was one way, and one way only, of leaving it, and that was by the way I had come in — by the front gate, and to get to the front gate one had to cross the courtyard, and between my cell and the courtyard lay obstacles too many to be calculated and dangers too great to be faced.’
‘And you at once began to calculate them and to face them,’ cried Vernon admiringly.
‘Rather to elude them,’ Petrovitch went on, ignoring the boy’s compliment. ‘As I could not meet them in detail I thought it better to surmount them in “the lump,” as I think I have heard you call it in England. Now the thing that had given me most hope when I heard I was coming to Tieff was that I happened to know that the resident doctor of the prison was, not exactly one of us, but one who sympathised with us secretly — there are many such, who are unwilling to take an active part in the struggle, but who, short of that, help us in many ways — for instance, with money, and especially by hiding those of us who happen to be “wanted.” We call them the Ukrivatelli — the concealers.’
‘I hope there’s lots of them sort, sir,’ said Toomey, surreptitiously abandoning his cigarette in favour of the more familiar but slightly stronger smelling ‘cutty.’
‘But don’t they get theirselves into trouble?’
‘Yes, if they are found out,’ answered Petrovitch; ‘but they seldom are. They are a very large class, and are often men whose official rank or social position places them beyond suspicion. My wound still needed attention, and I soon managed to convey to the doctor a suggestion that daily exercise in a prison courtyard was a first-rate specific for gunshot wounds. He seemed to think so too, and before the end of the week I was told that I should have to walk every day for an hour in the only place where a walk of a dozen consecutive yards was possible — in the courtyard.’
‘It was no use getting into the courtyard unless I had some prospect of getting out of it, and straight into some perfectly safe refuge. This was a matter that took some weeks to arrange, and during that time I never turned my eyes to the gate. The doctor, though he was willing to help me, was not willing to risk his own safety by carrying too many letters, and a whole code of signals had to be arranged. Luck seldom favours the right side; but I think I was certainly lucky, for just when I began to take my daily exercise the right wing of the prison had to be repaired, and consequently the gates of the courtyard were open all day for the carts of building materials, etc., which had to come in and out. This must have seemed tolerably safe to the authorities, as I was the only prisoner who “took exercise,” and there were two sentries to whom was allotted the pleasing duty of watching me. They had a pretty easy time of it for these three weeks, for I used to crawl up and down the yard in a feeble and dejected sort of way, as though I had hardly the strength to put one foot before the other. I always leaned on a stick, and did my best to appear to be at my last gasp. I was well-nigh tired of waiting, so often my escape seemed almost close at hand, and then something happened, and all our plans had to be made over again. Innumerable ideas were suggested, but abandoned for one reason or another. At last it was definitely settled that at a certain signal I was to make for the gate and rush out — that a carriage was to be waiting just outside, and that one or two of our friends were to be there promiscuously, to give false information in judicious doses, as it might be called for. The gate was almost exactly in the middle of the courtyard, and the beat of sentry No. 1 was from the gate to the end of the yard and back, and that of sentry No. 2 from the other end of the yard to the gate and back — thus the face of one of them was always towards the gate. At length the day came when I might expect the signal — this was to be nothing more dramatic and startling than the smallest piece of paper that could well be seen — stuck on the shaft of one of the builder’s carts. Cart after cart went by, my hour was nearly up, and I began to feel pretty sure that either the signal was not to be given that morning, or else that it had been given and I had missed seeing it. This last alternative was becoming a maddening certainty, when yet another cart came crawling in, and on the shaft, luckily on the side to which my walk had now brought me, was lightly stuck a little piece of white paper. Once more luck was my friend, for the sentry on the same side of the gate as myself was marching from the gate, and between me and the one walking towards the gate was the cart. Had any one not in the secret been watching me from one of the prison, windows at that moment he would certainly have thought that I was the subject of a miraculous cure, for in what seemed to me about half-a-dozen bounds I was at the side of the cart, out of the gate, and in one of two carriages which were passing at the time.’
‘And what steps did the authorities take?’ asked Pewtress, in the perfectly unexcited and matter-of-fact tone of a School Board inspector.
‘Well,’ said Petrovitch, laughing a little, ‘I was not there at the time, but my friends told me that what followed was well worth seeing. A few seconds after my disappearance the two-sentries and the whole of the guard from the guard-room inside the prison came swarming into the street, and there was a most delightful hue-and-cry and clamour. About a hundred yards away to the right a carriage was making off at a mad pace, and after this went the whole posse; with the lieutenant of the guard at their head. They must have been immensely relieved when they saw it pull up opposite the house of a well-known and irreproachable doctor. When, panting and exultant, they surrounded the carriage, they found inside it a surprised and indignant gentleman, who had driven in hot haste to fetch Dr Seroff to his sick daughter, who had taken a turn for the worse.’
‘And were you under the seat, Mr Peter Hitch?’ inquired the interested Toomey.
‘Not exactly. I had been driven off in the other carriage, which went at a quiet trot, eminently suited to my delicate state of health.’
‘The gentleman who went for the doctor, I presume, was. “one of you”?’ put in Vernon.
‘He was of the Ukrivatelli,’ said Petrovitch, ‘and I am afraid he had a bad time of it for a day or two. He was promptly taken where I had come from, and I fear the young lady’s sick-room was invaded by a corporal’s guard, but our friend and his family were so evidently innocent that the authorities had nothing left but to put up with their loss, and to grin and bear it, as you say.’
‘But where did the other carriage take you?’
‘Into the next street, to the most orthodox house in the town, the residence of a district judge, whence after spending a week I made for the frontier with passport quite in order, a clean chin, a strong French accent, and very black eyebrows. So ends the story, which I am afraid hasn’t been a very exciting one.’
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�The quite truth of it is its interest,’ said Hirsch; ‘to Count Litvinoff must you go for pure excitement.’
‘You don’t seem to like this Count Let-em-off, Mr Hearse,’ said Toomey curiously; ‘I thought he was a rare good ‘un.’
‘You’re right, Toomey. He’s done us good service.’ This Petrovitch spoke with a certain emphasis, and with his eyes not on Toomey, but on Hirsch.
‘I don’t know whether it’s indiscreet to ask,’ said Vernon, ‘but I wish you would tell us how it was you got arrested.’
‘Ah! that’s a long story,’ returned Petrovitch, ‘and one which, as it concerns others beside myself, I don’t feel justified in telling.’ Then as the boy coloured and looked embarrassed, he added kindly, ‘There wasn’t the slightest indiscretion in the question, and some other time, perhaps, I shall be able to answer it. But, since adventures are the order of the evening, you should get Hirsch to tell you some of his. He has had more than Othello.’
The Austrian was beginning to protest that nothing had ever happened to him, when a rustle of silk on the stairs outside silenced him, and the men all looked at each other inquiringly in the moment that elapsed before the door was opened and disclosed the velvet bonnet and abundant flounces of Mrs Quaid. Mr Quaid was there, too, but he did not take the eye or captivate the attention. That was Mrs Quaid’s department, ‘My dear Mr Petrovitch, how can I apologise enough for our intrusion? The maid gave us no idea that you were entertaining. Ah! here’s Mr Pewtress. How do you do? And Mr Vernon, too. How delightful! Why, we’re all among friends. And you won’t think me quite an old marplot if I stay for a few moments, for I really have something special to say to you.’
‘It’s very good of you to honour me with a call,’ said Petrovitch, wondering intensely what had brought her there.
‘We have been to see some friends at Regent’s Park, and we are going on to dine with the Pagets — (you know the Pagets, Mr Petrovitch? No! Ah, I must introduce you; they are such sweet people, quite devoted to our side) — and so we thought we would call as we passed to ask you if you will come and dine with us on Tuesday. You’ll excuse an informal invitation, I know. I thought if we came ourselves to ask you we should be more likely to succeed.’