With this perturbing thought he fell into an uneasy sleep.
12
Unmasked Again
When Roger woke it was a little before midday. For a second he wondered how in the world he came to be in a ship’s cabin; then his arrival on board with Prebendary Nordin in the early hours of the morning and the events which had followed the attack beneath Natalia Andreovna’s balcony, rushed back to him.
Again he was seized with apprehension at the thought that he had placed himself in the power of the slim, green-eyed Russian for whom he felt at the same time such a strong attraction and repulsion. He was like a man who, in a tropical jungle, comes upon a gloriously-hued flower which he knows perfectly well exudes a deadly miasma, yet finds the temptation to examine it closely almost irresistible. He had toyed with this poisonous blossom for a time with complete impunity, only to receive a sudden violent reminder of its toxic emanations, and now he had deliberately put himself in a situation where there was no escape from the proximity of this fascinating but evil flower.
His first spontaneous idea had been to get aboard the ship in which she was being expelled from Sweden and tell her that, learning of her expulsion, his love for her was so great that he could not bear to part with her; and so had bribed his way aboard to accompany her to Russia.
On the other hand, he now felt, such an abject admission of her power over him might satiate her vanity to a point where she would despise him. If so, instead of assisting him when they reached Russia, she might find fresh grounds for malicious amusement in persecuting him.
Suddenly he became conscious that he was ravenously hungry, and remembered that he had not eaten for close on twenty hours. Jumping from his narrow bunk he pulled on his clothes, then cautiously opened the cabin-door.
The ship was still riding at anchor and no sound suggesting the arrival of passengers came from above decks. Stepping out into the passage he mounted the first companionway he came upon, and, gaining the upper deck saw the Captain leaning idly on the rail of the poop.
As Roger approached, the Captain straightened and greeted him with a slow smile. After the usual courtesies had been exchanged, Roger said: ‘ ’Tis many hours, Sir, since I have eaten, so I should be grateful for a meal. Moreover, as Prebendary Nordin informed you, there are certain duties I am called upon to perform whilst in your ship. Should it meet with your convenience I’d be glad of the opportunity to have a word with you about them while I regale myself on such fare as your cook can offer me.’
The Captain nodded. The hour of your rising is well chosen, Chevalier. In ten minutes my own meal is due, and a second cover is easily laid. May it please you to accompany me to the stateroom.’
They descended to the main cabin beneath the poop and were soon seated opposite one another at the single long, narrow table. When the cabin boy had served the first dish Roger said in carefully thought-out German:
‘I am, as you know, in the service of King Gustavus. My mission is a somewhat delicate one. I am already acquainted with the Baroness Stroganof but have quarrelled with her. ’Tis necessary that I should regain her confidence. To that end I plan to take strong measures. While she is at supper I intend to conceal myself in her cabin, and later surprise her there. There will be a scene and she may shout for help to have me turned out. I give you my word that I will do your passenger no harm, but ’tis essential that we should not be interrupted. Can you arrange to ensure that for me?’
The Captain considered for a moment, then he replied: ‘As you are already aware I am giving her my own cabin, which lies behind this. All the other Russians will be accommodated below decks, so ’tis unlikely that they would hear her shouts. The officer of the watch, the helmsman, and any other members of the crew who happen to be about might do so; but I could place a sentry on the passage leading to her stateroom, with orders that no one is to be allowed to pass.’
‘Excellent,’ smiled Roger. ‘Please do so; but not until her maid and all the other Russians have retired to bed; then, late tonight, when we are well at sea, I’ll venture on my attempt to make her see reason. In the meantime it is important that none of the Russians should know of my presence on board. So I shall remain in my own cabin, and should be grateful if you would send me down some supper.’
Matters having been thus satisfactorily arranged they talked for a little of affairs in Sweden, then Roger borrowed a few books from the Captain, with a view to improving his German, and retired to his self-imposed confinement.
Soon after four o’clock the sounds of shouting overhead told him that the boats bringing off the party from the Russian Embassy had come alongside. Then half an hour later there came the clanking of chains as the anchor was weighed, and a slight rolling of the ship as her unfurled sails were caught by the wind. Gradually the bustle subsided and at a steady pace the ship ploughed her way out to sea.
Eight bells, terminating the second dog watch, had only just sounded when the Captain poked his head through the door of Roger’s cabin, and said to him:
‘Your meal will be coming down in a few minutes now, Chevalier, and the Baroness will be leaving her stateroom to sup with me. Her maid feeds below decks in a mess that I have arranged for the Russian servants; so for the next hour or so your way will be clear.’
Roger smiled his thanks and soon after the Captain had left him he was despatching a hearty meal washed down with a bottle of tolerably good Bordeaux. Immediately he had finished he went up on deck, loitered under the break of the poop for a few moments with apparent casualness, then stepped into the narrow passage and tiptoed along it to Natalia’s stateroom. It was a low but large apartment shaped like a bow, with six small-paned windows in its curbed extremity looking out on to the foaming wake of the ship. Beneath the sloping windows there ran a long curved plush-covered settee with lockers under it, and instead of the usual bunk there was a large, low, boxlike bed screwed to the deck. A table occupied the middle of the room and a commodious desk was fixed to one of the walls; a Turkey carpet on the floor, and the red patterned curtains framing the windows, gave the place a comfortable air, which was now the greater from having Natalia’s belongings scattered about it.
Roger made straight for the big cupboard that he had noticed the previous night. The four hours since they had sailed had evidently been sufficient for Natalia’s unpacking, as hanging from hooks in it there were now a score or more of her dresses. But behind them there was still ample room for him to conceal himself, and appreciatively sniffing the heady scent she used, he squeezed his way through the silken screen; then he drew the door to after him and settled himself as comfortably as he could on the floor.
Some half-hour later he heard the cabin-door open and light footsteps moving about the room. He thought it a fair bet that Natalia had returned from her supper, but he made no move to leave his hiding-place, as it might have been her maid.
After another ten minutes the door opened again and two voices came so clearly to him that he could have caught every word they said had he understood Russian; but he knew the tones of both so well that he recognised them at once as those of Natalia Andreovna and the girl who had been in her bed on his first midnight visit to the Russian Embassy.
For over an hour, he sat in the close, hot darkness, while they continued a desultory conversation and moved about, evidently arranging the stateroom to Natalia’s liking. Then he heard them exchange two of the Russian sentences that he had picked up on his visits to the Embassy: ‘Good night; good rest,’ said one; and the other replied: ‘May St. Nicholas guard you while sleeping.’ The door closed behind the maid with a sharp clack, and a sudden silence ensued which led him to judge that Natalia must now be in bed.
He could not see his watch but thought it to be about a quarter past ten, so that most of the ship’s company, apart from the duty-watch, would have turned in; but he decided to wait a further quarter of an hour, as the fewer people who heard any commotion the little Russian might make on his appearance, the better.
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This last wait seemed intermiable, but at length he decided that the time had come to act, so he cautiously stood up and flexed his cramped limbs. The slight noise he made in pushing his way through the dresses and opening the door of the cupboard a crack was covered by the hissing of the sea, as it rushed past the stern of the ship, and the creaking of her timbers.
By pushing the door open a little further he could see across the cabin. It was still broad daylight outside, but the red curtains had been drawn, giving the room a warm subdued twilight. Natalia Andreovna was lying on her back in the broad box-like bed with her eyes shut.
As Roger looked across at her he wondered with grim humour if he would share it with her for the rest of the night or if she would prove adamant and drive him from her. On that, or rather, on the next half hour everything depended. He knew that he would have to fight a battle-royal with her which would require all his wits and courage if he was to emerge victorious. He had had ample time to make up his mind on the policy he meant to pursue, and intended to burn his boats by not only charging her with her perfidy but punishing her for it. Such a grasping of the nettle, he felt, offered the only chance of gaining a mental ascendancy over her; but if it failed she would have real cause to vent her spite on him, and he would find himself in the very devil of a mess when they landed in Russia.
Thrusting the door wide he stepped out into the room. Natalia was not asleep. She sat up with a start, and failing to recognise him for a moment in the dim light, cried sharply in German: ‘Who are you? How did you get into my room?’
‘ ’Tis I, Rojé Christorovitch!’ he replied harshly, advancing towards the bed. ‘Surely you did not think to throw off a man of my mettle with impunity?’
She stared at him, her eyes widening with sudden fear; but her voice was steady as she demanded: ‘How did you come to be aboard this ship?’
‘ ’Twas the talk of the town this noon that King Gustavus had ordered you and the staff of the Russian Embassy out of his country. I had no sooner heard it than I came off to the frigate and persuaded the Captain to give me a passage in her.’
‘With what intent? What do you want with me?’
His laugh was tinged with bitterness. “That should not be hard for you to guess.’
‘Your face is hard and cold, Rojé Christorovitch.’ Her voice faltered a little. ‘I have never seen you so before. Can it—can it be that your love for me has turned to hate; and that you have sought me out to be revenged upon me for that which occurred after our last meeting? If so, I swear to you that it was none of my fault.’
‘You lie,’ he said tersely.
‘Nay,’ she protested, her long fingers clutching nervously at the sheets. ‘The commotion in the street below fetched me out on to my balcony, and I saw that you were attacked. But ’twas all over in a few moments, and I saw you rescued by the stranger in the coach. Other wise I would have roused the Embassy and brought you aid.’
‘You lie,’ he repeated. ‘You stood there laughing at the vile sport you had planned for your own diversion. I both saw and heard you whilst I fought. And the leader of my attackers was Count Yagerhorn. I knew him by his voice. Believing me to have been unfaithful to you with Angélique de Pons you deliberately set your ex-lover on to give me a whipping before your eyes.’
Seeing that he knew too much for there to be any sense in denying it further, she flared with sudden anger: ‘Well, what if I did? I warned you when I took you for my lover that I’d give you cause to rue it if you betrayed me with another. From your first night in Stockholm you had a fancy for that French bitch. You admitted that you had been to her birthday-party, and you failed to keep our midnight tryst. In Sweden only big functions are kept up late; ’twas proof enough that you had remained on, or gone back afterwards. I know the Marquis to have been in Gothenburg, and ’twas too good a chance for the pair of you not to take a tumble in her bed.’
He shook his head. ‘In that you wrong both myself and Angélique. ’Tis true I was unable to keep my midnight tryst with you, since the party was on the French model and a late one; yet in that lies the very proof of my innocence. We kept it up till past four o’clock, and I then returned to the city in company with the six other guests, who would vouch for dropping me at my inn. Twas full daylight already and, even had I left my inn again to return to the French Embassy, by the time I had got there the servants would have been up and about, so there was nought of the night left to make love in.’
‘I care not,’ she muttered sullenly. ‘ ’Tis my opinion that my suspicions were fully justified by your having failed to be at my disposal at the usual place and time. I warned you that I should take it ill should you ever fail in that.’
‘I’ve not forgotten it,’ he snapped. ‘But at least you should have had the decency to first accuse me to my face, and seek to verify your suspicions before setting your bullies on to me. To conceal your evil thoughts beneath false smiles, and let me lie with you after you had already planned to have me treated worse than a dog, was a most shameful thing to do.’
‘Nay,’ she protested with an outrageous frankness that quite took him aback. ‘How otherwise could I have ensured your being outside the postern-gate at dawn and getting the beating I believed you to deserve?’
‘But, damn it!’ Roger gasped. ‘Have you no understanding of the baseness of such an act?’
She shook her head. ‘I know only that I had wanted you the night before and believing you to be in the arms of another was rendered half-mad from jealousy. At two o’clock, since you had not come, and I could not beat you, I pulled my maid from her bed and beat her instead. But I vowed that I’d make you pay for the misery you had caused me before another night was past, and laid my plans accordingly.’
Roger scowled at her thin, sullen face below him, and the thought that the wretched maid had been beaten for no fault of her own added fresh fuel to his anger.
‘ ’Tis over-time that someone put a check upon your vicious habits,’ he stormed. ‘Have you never a thought but for yourself? Did it not occur to you that in such an ambush as you planned someone might have lost his life? You knew that I carried a cutlass and would be certain to use it; but with five of those rogues against me I might well have received a mortal wound myself.’
She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘I loved you passionately and thought that you loved me no longer; so had you been killed I should have suffered less than in believing that you had cast me off and that another was the recipient of your caresses.’
‘Love.’ he snarled. ‘You do not even begin to know the meaning of the word!’ And he slapped her hard with the flat of his hand across the face.
He had wrought himself up into a temper, yet his anger was nothing near so great as it appeared; and the blow was not delivered spontaneously, but as a set-piece in an act that he had worked out with great care several hours before. He meant to break her spirit if he could, and had decided that in offering her violence lay his only real chance of making her his submissive puppet by the time they reached Russia.
White and shaken she recoiled from the blow with a little gasp. Then her mouth opened to let out a scream. With a second slap he checked it, so that her cry was half-strangled in her throat.
Squirming away from him she choked out a torrent of abuse mingled with the most terrifying threats. ‘You filthy Frenchman! By the death of God you shall pay for this. Son of a whore, how dare you strike me in the face! Wait only until we reach Russia, you gutter bred parvenu, and I’ll have the Empress’s Cossacks ply their knouts upon you till you’re flayed alive!’
‘We are not in Russia yet,’ he said curtly. ‘And before we get there I mean to teach you how a decent woman should behave herself.’
‘You’ll teach me nothing!’ she screamed. ‘You’ll not have the chance. I’ll rouse the ship and have the Captain put you in irons for making an assault upon me.’
Swift as an eel she slid out of bed. He grabbed at her shoulder and caught her night-robe, bu
t it ripped right down to the waist, and half-naked, she dashed towards the door with Roger in hot pursuit.
Before she could get it open he was upon her. Grasping her wrist he gave it a violent jerk, which swung her round and sent her crashing to the floor. Swiftly he shot the bolt, then turned again towards her.
She was already on her feet and had kicked herself free of her trailing night-robe. Agile as a panther, she bounded across the room towards the heavy desk, wrenched open one of its upper drawers and grabbed a long, curved knife. Before he could get within two yards of her she had whipped round and flashed the glittering blade before his eyes.
Roger halted abruptly in his tracks. For a moment they both remained motionless, glaring at one another. Even in that moment of crisis he could not but catch his breath at the violent beauty of the figure she made. She had not a stitch of clothing on her slim, lissome body but her long, silvery-blonde hair hung like a cloak about her shoulders and half-way down her back. Her small breasts heaved violently with stress and emotion, and her green eyes blazed at him with the fury of a trapped animal.
He felt certain that she meant to kill him if she could, yet he dared not back down now. To have shown a trace of fear or attempted to temporise would have spelled certain disaster. Even if it meant an ugly wound he had got to get the knife from her; otherwise there could be no reconciliation, and within a week she would carry out her threat to have him knouted to death. She was not the woman to forget an injury. Immunity from her vengeance could be secured only by subduing her completely. He had gambled on being able to do that, and now he must go through with it or pay the forfeit.
Suddenly it came to him that, for these next few moments, he must forget that she was a woman, and deal with her as he would a drunken sailor who attempted to knife him in a brawl. So far he had merely slapped her; but now he must hit her in good earnest as the only means of preventing her from giving him an ugly wound.
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree Page 29