The Big Book of Christmas

by Anton Chekhov

  "Not very, but it is going to be hard work."

  He felt more practical. His delight had slipped from him at the realisation of her relationship to McVay. For a moment he felt depressed, then as he saw her struggling to undo the knot that held the comforter about her, he forgot everything but the pleasure of doing her a service. And in the midst of this joy, the coverlet slid to the ground and revealed her clad from head to foot in his sister's sables.

  There was a pause.

  "What are you looking at?" she asked.

  "That is a nice warm coat you have on."

  "Isn't it?" She rubbed her cheek against the high collar with a tenderness trying to any masculine onlooker. "It saved my life."

  It was on the tip of Geoffrey's tongue to ask if he was not entitled to a similar claim on her consideration, but he suppressed it. Was it possible that she did not know that the garments she wore were stolen? Could any sane woman really believe that sable coats fell naturally to the lot of night watchmen? Her manner was candour itself, but how should it not be? What more inevitable than that she should make an effort to deceive a casual stranger? She had the most evident motives for behaving exactly as she did. Just so, however, he had reasoned about McVay, and yet McVay had been sincere. There had been a girl in distress exactly as he had said. It was contrary to all reason, but it was true. Might not the girl be true too? Was it not possible, he asked himself, and answered that it was more than possible, it was the truth. He chose to believe in her, and turned his anger against McVay, who could drag her through such a mire. He felt the tragedy of a high-minded woman tricked out in stolen finery, and remembered with a pang that he himself was hurrying on the moment of disillusion.

  "I wonder," she said, "if I could take some things with me. Is it impossible for me to carry a bag?"

  "Yes, but not for me."

  "It would be only this." She held up a small Russia leather affair legibly marked with Mrs. Inness' initials.

  "I will take it," said Geoffrey. His faith was sorely tried.

  She moved about collecting things and packing, and presently remarked:

  "But if Billy is all right, why didn't he come for me himself?"

  "Oh, because—" Geoffrey hesitated an instant, and her fears interpreted the pause.

  "He's hurt. You are keeping it from me. You are deceiving me."

  "I would scorn to deceive you," said Geoffrey with passion, and looked at her to find some answer to the reverse question which he did not put into words.

  She did not appear to understand. "Then why didn't he come?" she asked.

  "He had been out in the storm already. I thought it was my turn."

  "I think you must be stronger than Billy." She cast a reflective glance at his shoulders, and he was ashamed to find himself inordinately flattered.

  "He is really safe at your house?"

  "I hope so, I did my best," he returned grimly.

  She looked at him gravely. "You have been very kind to a stranger," she said.

  And at this point Geoffrey made the fatal mistake of his dealing with her. It did not occur to him that he was going to shield McVay, but he thought a more advantageous time could be found for telling her the truth, in case of course she did not know it already. He felt that he himself would be better able to deal a cold blow when she was warm and sheltered. No man, he said to himself, could be disagreeable to a girl who had no one to depend on but himself. So he said:

  "He was not exactly a stranger to me. We were at school together."

  "Oh, another of Billy's friends. I never knew such a person for discovering friends at the most opportune times. He never wants anything but what a friend turns up. Did you find him wandering about, or did he come and demand admittance?"

  "Why, neither exactly. I was not in the house at the time. He felt he knew me well enough to walk in."

  "He never told me he had a friend in the neighbourhood."

  "We have not met since we were at school."

  "He had not seen you since he was at school, and yet he felt he knew you well enough to walk in on you!"

  "Yes, he just walked in, and then I would not let him go."

  "Men are so queer!" she exclaimed with a little laugh that had a spice of admiration in it, under which Geoffrey writhed. He was sailing under such false colours as her brother's benefactor.

  "We ought to be starting," he said.

  She looked round the room. "I hate to leave all these nice things," she said. "Billy is so fond of them. There is some wine that some one gave him that he says is really priceless."

  "Leave it," said Geoffrey shortly.

  "One would think you were a teetotaller from that tone. I wonder if I could not take one bottle as a surprise to Billy. He would like to contribute something to your hospitality, I am sure. Besides, if I leave it, it may be stolen."

  "Yes, it may be stolen." He looked down into her face.

  "Then—"

  "I ask you as a favour to leave it behind."

  Nothing could have been more charming than her manner of yielding, sweet and quick like a caress. It made him feel how pitiful sordid it all was.

  They started immediately, started with a certain gaiety. Geoffrey chose to remember only that they were together through a hard adventure, and that it was his part to smooth her way. The bond of difficulties to overcome united them. They felt the intimacy of a single absorbing interest. They had nothing to think of but accomplishing their task,—of that and of each other. As far as they could see were snow and black trunks of trees. They scarcely remembered that any one but themselves existed.

  Now justly he could admire something besides her beauty. Her courage warmed his heart. Yet with all her spirit she made no attempt to assert her independence. She turned to him at every point. He guided her past the scenes of his own disasters and saved her from the mistakes he had already made.

  But only for a little while did they move forward in this delightful exhilaration. Before they had gone far she grew silent, and when she did answer him spoke less spontaneously. She asked for neither help nor encouragement, but plunged along as steadily as she was able. Her skirts, however, wet and heavy, hampered her desperately, and the exertion of walking through the thick snow began to tell. Geoffrey made her stop every now and then for a breathing spell, but at length she stopped of herself.

  "Have we done half yet?" she asked.

  "Just about," he answered, stretching truth in order to encourage her. But he saw at once that he had failed,—that she had had a hope that they were nearer their destination—that she began to doubt her own powers. Presently she moved forward again in silence.

  He began to be alarmed lest they should never reach his house, yet took comfort in the thought, as he looked at her, that whatever strength she had, she would use to the end. No hysterical despair would exhaust her beforehand. She would not fail through lack of determination. Whether or not she were the confederate of a thief she was a brave woman, yes, and a beautiful one, he thought, looking down upon her in the glare of the snow.

  Presently he held out his hand in silence, and she as silently took it. This was to Geoffrey the explanation of his whole life. This was what men were made for.

  Once as they stood resting the wind, which fortunately had been at their backs the entire trip, hurled her against him, where she remained an instant, too weak to move. It was he who set her gently on her feet again.

  The latter part of the journey she made almost wholly by his help, and when they stood before the piazza, she could not have managed the little step had he not virtually lifted her up. He took her directly to the library and laid her on the sofa. The fire, owing to the absence of McVay, had gone out. It took Geoffrey some time with his benumbed hands to build a blaze. When he turned toward her again she was sleeping like a child.

  The sight was too much for his own weariness, and reflecting that McVay was either gone or still safe, he stretched himself on the hearth-rug and was soon asleep also.

&
nbsp; Chapter 4

  It was after two o'clock in the afternoon when he awoke. He must have slept three hours. He looked at the sofa and saw the girl still sleeping peacefully. He almost wished that she would never awake to all the dreadful surprises that the house held for her. Her eye-lashes curved long and dark on her cheek. Geoffrey turned away quickly.

  He had awakened with a sudden disagreeable conviction that people have been known to smother to death in closets. He stole quietly from the library and ran up stairs with not a little anxiety. Indeed so great was his dread that he would have been really relieved to see the closet door standing open as an immediate proof that it did not hide a corpse. It was, however, locked as he had left it. But as he hastened to undo it, a voice from within reassured him:

  "Well, where have you been all this time?"

  "You may be thankful I'm back at all. It did not look like it, at one time."

  "Where is Cecilia?"

  "Down stairs asleep."

  McVay gave a little giggle. "Ah," he said, "I bet you have had the devil of a time. I bet you wished once or twice that you had let me be the one to go."

  "It wasn't child's play."

  "Child's play! I rather think not. These things are all well enough among men, but women!" he waved his hand; "so sensitive, so cloistered!"

  "Your sister behaved nobly," said Geoffrey severely.

  "Bound to, Holland, bound to. Still it must have been a shock."

  "It was a hard trip for any woman."

  McVay looked up. "Oh," he said, "I wasn't speaking of the trip. I meant about me. What did she say?"

  "She did not say anything. She went to sleep."

  "She did not say anything when you told her I was booked for the penitentiary?"

  "Oh," said Geoffrey, and there was a slight pause. Then he added: "Why should I tell her what she must know."

  "I tell you she knows nothing about my—profession."

  "Your profession!"

  "Hasn't a notion of it."

  "What, with my sister's coat on her back, and the Innes' bag in her hand"?"

  "No!" McVay drew a step nearer. "You see I told her that I had found a second-hand store where I could get things for nothing." He chuckled, and Geoffrey withdrew with a look of repulsion that evidently disappointed the other.

  "That was a good idea, wasn't it?" he asked with a faint appeal in his voice. "She thought it was likely, anyhow."

  "She must be very gullable," said Geoffrey brutally.

  "Or else," said McVay with a conscious smile, "I must be a pretty good dissembler."

  At this acute instance of fatuity Geoffrey, if he had followed his impulse, would have flung McVay back in the closet and locked the door. Instead, he said:

  "Come down stairs. I want to look up something to eat."

  "Thank you," said the burglar, "it would be a good idea."

  "You need not thank me," said Geoffrey. "I don't take you with me for the pleasure of your company, but because I don't dare let you out of my sight."

  McVay, as was his habit when anything unpleasant was said, chose to ignore this speech.

  "You know," he said, as they went down stairs, "I suppose that most men shut up in a closet for all those hours would take it as a hardship, but, to me it was a positive rest. I really in a way enjoyed it. It is one of my theories that every one ought to have resources within. Now I dare say you were quite anxious about me."

  "I never thought of you at all," said Geoffrey. "After I got in I went to sleep for three hours."

  McVay looked at him once or twice, in surprise. Then he said with dignity: "Asleep? Well, really, Holland, I don't think that was very considerate."

  "Don't talk so loud," said Geoffrey, "you'll wake your sister."

  Geoffrey had always been in the habit of going on shooting trips at short notice, and so it was his rule to keep a supply of canned eatables in the house to be ready whenever the whim took him. On these he now depended, and was not a little annoyed to find the kitchen store room where they were kept securely locked.

  This difficulty, however, McVay made light of. He asked for his tools and on being given them set to work on the door.

  "Have you ever noticed," he said, "the heavy handed way in which some men use tools? Look at my touch,—so light, yet so accurate. I take no credit to myself. I was born so. It's a very fortunate thing to be naturally dexterous."

  "It would have been more fortunate for you if you had been a little less so."

  "Oh, I don't know about that, Holland. I might have starved to death years ago."

  "I wish to God you had," said Geoffrey.

  McVay shook his head faintly in deprecation of such violence, but otherwise preferred to pass the remark by, and they soon set to work heating soup and smoked beef. When all was ready and spread in the dining-room—this was McVay's suggestion; he said food was unappetising unless it were nicely served—Geoffrey said:

  "Go and see if your sister is awake, and if she is," he added firmly, "I'll give you a few minutes alone with her, so that you can explain the situation fully."

  McVay nodded and slipped into the library. Geoffrey shut the door behind him, and sat down on a bench in the hall from which he could command both doors.

  If he entertained the doubts of her innocence which he continually told himself no sane man could help entertaining, he found himself strangely nervous. He felt as if he were waiting outside an operating room. He thought of her as he had seen her asleep, of the curve of her eye-lashes on her cheek, of her raising those lashes, awaking to be met with McVay's revelations. Even if she were guilty, Geoffrey found it in his heart to pity her waking to learn that her brother was a prisoner. How unfortunate, too, would be her own position,—the guest, if only for a few hours, of a man who was concerned only to lodge her brother in jail.

  His heart gave a distinct thump when the library door opened and they came out together. His eyes turned to her face at once, and found it unperturbed. Didn't she care, or had she always known?

  McVay caught his arm when she had passed them by, and whispered glibly:

  "Thought it was better to wait until she had had something to eat—shock on an empty stomach, so bad—so hard to bear."

  Geoffrey shook his arm free. "You infernal coward," he whispered back.

  "Well, I like that," retorted McVay, "you didn't tell her yourself when you had the chance."

  "It wasn't my affair. I did not tell her because—"

  "Oh, I know," McVay interrupted with a chuckle. "I've been knowing why for the last ten minutes."

  They followed her into the dining-room.

  It was not a sumptuous repast to which they sat down, but Geoffrey asked nothing better. He was sitting opposite to her,—a position evidently decreed him by Fate from the beginning of time. He could look at her, and now and then, in spite of her delicious reluctance, could force her to meet his eyes. When this happened, nothing was ever more apparent than that, for both of them, a momentous event had occurred.

  She was almost completely silent, and as for him, his responses to the general conversation which McVay kept attempting to set up, were so entirely mechanical that he was scarcely aware of them himself.

  It was she who suddenly remembered that it was Christmas day.

  "And this is our Christmas dinner," observed McVay regretfully.

  "Oh, no," returned the girl, "this is luncheon. I'll cook your dinner. You'll see."

  There was a pause. Geoffrey looked at McVay. The moment for disillusioning her had manifestly come. Wherever they might next meet it would not be at his dinner table. A hateful vision of a criminal court rose before him.

  "Miss McVay," he said gravely, indifferent to the signals of warning which the other man was directing toward him; "we shall not be here at dinner. Your brother will tell you my reasons for wishing to start down the mountain."

  "Now?"

  "At once."

  She coloured slowly and deeply,—the only evidence of anger. "I do no
t need any other reason than your wish that we should go," she said, rising. "I should thank you for having borne with us so long."

  "Upon my word, Holland, it is madness to start as late as this," said McVay. "It will be dark in an hour."

  She turned on her brother quickly: "Please say no more about the matter, Billy," she said. "We will start at once."

  "You won't start if it means certainly freezing to death," he remonstrated.

  She flashed a glance at Geoffrey, who had also risen and was trying to compel the truth from McVay by a stern, steady glance.

  "I would," she answered and shut the door behind her.

  McVay sprang up and was about to follow her when Geoffrey stopped him. "One moment," he said, "you are quite right. It is too late to start to-night. We must stay here until to-morrow. But if we are to spend a night here without your sister's being told—"

  "My dear Holland, think of her position, if we did tell her!"

  "I grant that the information had better be withheld until just as we are starting, but in that case I must—"

  "I know what you are going to ask,—my word of honour not to escape. I give it, I give it willingly."

  "I'm not going to ask for anything at all," said Geoffrey. "I'm going to tell you one or two things, and I advise you to pay attention. We won't have any nonsense at all. Remember I am armed, and I am a quick man with a gun. There may be some quicker, but not in the East, and it wasn't in the East I got my training. You will always keep in front of me where I can see you plainly, and you will never, under any circumstances come nearer than six feet to me. If you should ever come nearer than that or take a sudden step in my direction, I'd shoot you just as sure as I stand here."

  McVay looked distinctly crestfallen. "Oh, come, Holland," he said, "isn't that the least little bit exaggerated? You would not shoot me before my own sister?"

  "I would not like to, but there are things I should dislike even more, and having you escape is one of them."

  The other thought it over. "The trouble is," he explained, "that I am impulsive. You must have noticed it. I get carried away. You know how I am. I'm not at all sure that I shall remember."