Paul Patoff Part 35

If the search proved fruitless, he was still in the position of a man who is liable to suspicion, and he had firmly resolved that he would not permit the woman he loved to marry a man who could be accused, however unjustly, of the crime of murder. On the other hand, he knew that while she was present in Constantinople he was not master of his feelings, hardly of his words; and he could not go away: first, because to go away would be to leave the search wholly in the hands of others; and secondly, because his presence was required at the emba.s.sy and his services were constantly in requisition. To abandon his career was a course he never contemplated for a moment. His personal resources were small, and his pay was now considerable, so that he depended upon it for the necessities of life. He had never been willing to touch his brother's money, either, and this honorable refusal had practically crushed all gossip about Alexander's disappearance; so that at the present time he was dependent upon himself. With the prospect of being a _charge d'affaires_ in a short time, and of being chancellor of an emba.s.sy at forty, he believed that he could fairly propose to marry Hermione. But to do this he must abide by his career, a conclusion which effectually prevented his flying from danger and giving the inquiry entirely into my hands. With a keen sense of honor and a very strong determination on the one side, and all the force of his love for Hermione on the other, Paul's position was not an easy one, and he knew it.

Nor was his mind wholly at rest concerning his mother. He had seen her that afternoon, and had recognized that in the ordinary sense of the word, and in the common opinion of people on the subject, she was perfectly sane. She looked, moved, talked, ate, and dressed as though she were wholly in her right mind; but Paul was not satisfied. He had seen the old gleam of unreasoning anger in her eyes, when she had said that he knew Alexander could never be found; meaning, as Paul supposed, that he knew how the unfortunate man had come to his end. That this belief had been the cause and first beginning of her madness, he was convinced; and if the disturbing element was still present in her mind, it might a.s.sert itself again at any moment with direful results. He was willing, for the sake of argument, to believe that her idea was a delusion, and indeed he preferred to think so. He did not like the thought that his mother could seriously and sanely believe him to be a murderer, though she had given him reason enough for knowing how she had always disliked him. There was no affection between the mother and the son, there was not even much respect; but beyond respect and affection we recognize in the relations of a mother with her children a sort of universal law of fitness, embracing the few conditions without which there can be no relations at all between them. That a mother should dislike her child offends our feelings and our conceptions of human sympathy; but that a mother should wantonly and without evidence accuse her son of a fearful crime, and be his only accuser, is a sin against humanity itself, and our reason revolts against it as much as our heart.

It was hopeless to attempt an explanation of Madame Patoff's state of mind. Paul might have understood her better had he known how she talked and behaved when he was not present. John Carvel and his wife had indeed a.s.sured Paul that his mother was entirely sane, and had forgotten her resentment against him, speaking of him affectionately, and showing herself anxious to see him during the long journey. But there was one of the party who could have told a different story; who could have repeated some of her aunt's utterances, and could have described certain phases in her temper in such a way as would have surprised the rest. Madame Patoff had naturally chosen to confide in Hermione, for Hermione had first startled her into a confession of her sanity, and with her rested the secret of the last two years. On the occasion which Carvel had mentioned in his letter to me, when Madame Patoff had been surprised in a sensible conversation by her nurse, the old lady had shown very great presence of mind. She had recognized immediately that she was detected, and that she would find it extremely difficult in future to deceive the practiced eye of the vigilant Mrs. North. She was tired, too, in spite of what she said to Hermione, of the absolute seclusion in which she lived; not that she was wearied of mourning for Alexander, but because she had exhausted one way of expressing her grief. So, at least, it seemed to Hermione. Madame Patoff had therefore accepted the situation and made the best of it, declaring herself sane and entirely recovered.

She had always contemplated the possibility of some such termination to her pretended madness, and was perhaps glad that it had come at last.

She even found at first a pleasant relaxation in leading the life of an ordinary person, and she tried to join in the life of the family in such a way as to be no longer a burden or a source of anxiety to those she had capriciously sacrificed during a year and a half. But with Hermione she was not the same as with the rest. She was with her what she had been on the first day when Hermione had declared her love for Paul, and it appeared to the young girl that her aunt was in reality leading a double existence, being in one state when with the a.s.sembled family, and in quite another when she was alone with Hermione.

Madame Patoff was able to force herself upon her niece, for the young girl had given a promise not to betray her secret, and though often in hard straits to elude her father's questions without falling into falsehood, felt herself bound to her aunt, and obliged to submit to long conversations with her. It was a difficult position, and any one less honest than Hermione and less sensitively tactful would have found it hard to maintain the balance. She herself avoided carefully all mention of Paul, but her aunt delighted in talking of him. One of these conversations took place on the evening of their arrival in Constantinople, and may well serve as a specimen of the rest. When all the party had retired for the night, Madame Patoff came into Hermione's room and sat down, evidently with the intention of staying at least an hour. Hermione looked at her with a deprecating expression, being indeed very tired, and wis.h.i.+ng that her aunt would put off her visit until the next day. She saw, however, that there was no hope of this, and submitted herself with a good grace.

"Are you not tired, aunt Annie?" asked the young girl.

"No, no, not very, my dear," said the old lady, smoothing her thick gray hair with her hand, and fixing her dark eyes on her niece's face. "Oh, Hermy, what a meeting!" she suddenly exclaimed. "If you knew how hard I tried to be kind to him, I am sure you would pity me. It is so hard, so hard!"

"It is the least you can do,--to treat him kindly," answered Hermione, somewhat coldly. "But I was very glad to see that you kissed him when we arrived."

"It was dreadfully hard to do it. The very sight of him freezes my blood. Oh, Hermy dear, how can you love him so much, when I love you as I do? It frightens me"----

"It does not frighten me, aunt Annie," said her niece. "I can say, when you love me as you do, how can you not love him?"

"It is not the same, my dear. How could I love him, knowing what I know?"

"You do not know it," answered Hermione very firmly, "and you must not suggest it to me. Sometimes I could almost think you were really mad, aunt Annie,--forgive me, I must say it. Not mad as you pretended to be, but mad on this one point. You have always hated poor Paul since he was a child, and you have treated him very unkindly. But you have no right to accuse him now, and I would not listen to you unless I believed that I could help to make you see him as you should."

Madame Patoff bent her head and hid her eyes in her hand, as though greatly distressed.

"I love you so much, dear Hermy--I cannot bear to think of your marrying him. You cannot understand me--I know--and you think me very unkind. But I hate him!" she cried, with a burst of uncontrollable anger. "Oh, how I hate him!"

Her hands had dropped from her face, and her dark eyes flashed wickedly as she stared at the young girl. Hermione was startled for a moment, but she also had learned a lesson of self-possession.

"Do you think that I am afraid when you look at me like that, aunt Annie?" she asked, very quietly.

Madame Patoff's features relaxed, and she laughed a little foolishly, as though ashamed of herself.

"No, child; why should you be afraid? I am only an unhappy old woman. I cannot speak to any one else."

"And you must not speak to me in that way," answered Hermione, in a gentle tone. "I love Paul with all my heart, and I cannot hear him abused by you, even though I know you are out of your mind when you say such things. I should be despicable if I listened to you."

"If I loved you less, dear," returned the old lady, "I might hate him less. Ah, if you could only have married Alexis,--if it could only have been the other way!"

"Hus.h.!.+" exclaimed Hermione, almost roughly. "You are wis.h.i.+ng that Paul were dead, instead of his brother. I will go away, if you talk like that."

She suited the action to the word, and rose to go towards the door. She knew her aunt very well. Madame Patoff changed her tone at once.

"Oh, don't go away, don't go away!" she cried nervously. "I will never speak of him again, if you will only stay with me."

Hermione turned and came back, and saw that her threat had for the present produced its effect, as it usually did. Madame Patoff had indeed a strange affection for her niece, and the latter knew how to manage her by means of it. At the mere idea of Hermione's leaving her in anger, the aunt softened and became docile.

"I did not mean it, child," she said, dolefully. "I am always so unhappy, so dreadfully wretched, that I say things I do not altogether mean. I am not quite myself to-night, either. Coming here, to the place where my poor boy was lost, has upset my nerves; and, really, your aunt Chrysophrasia is so very tactless. She always was like that. I remember the way in which she treated my poor husband before we were married. It was she who made all the quarrel, you know. It broke up my life at the very beginning, and we two sisters never saw each other again. I do not know what would have become of me if my husband had not loved me as he did. He was so kind to me, always, and he sympathized in all my feelings and ideas. If he had only lived, how different it might all have been!"

Hermione thought so, too; reflecting that if Paul's father had been alive during the time when he was growing up, the unfortunate boy would have been spared a vast deal of suffering, and Madame Patoff would perhaps have been held in check. Her character was not of the kind which could safely be left to its own development, for she called her caprices justice and her obstinacy principle, a mode of viewing life not conducive to much permanent satisfaction when not modified by the salutary restraint of a more sensible companion. But Hermione was glad that her aunt was willing to talk of anything except Paul, and encouraged her to continue, though she had heard again and again Madame Patoff's account of her own life and of the family quarrels. By carefully listening and watching her, it was possible to keep her from reaching the point at which Hermione was always obliged to protest that she would not hear more.

It may be judged from this scene that the young girl's position was not an easy one. She was beginning to feel that Madame Patoff's hatred for Paul approached in reality much nearer to insanity than the affected apathy she had a.s.sumed before Hermione discovered the imposition; but, nevertheless, the young girl felt that, sane or not sane, she could allow no one to cast a slur on the name of the man she loved. She was glad, indeed, that Madame Patoff did not make her hatred and her suspicion topics for conversation with the rest of the family, and she was willing to suffer much in order that her aunt might confide in her alone, and behave herself with propriety and dignity before the others.

But when Madame Patoff overstepped the limits Hermione had set for her, the old lady invariably found herself checked and even frightened by the authoritative manner of her niece. The anxiety, however, and the constant annoyance to which she was subjected, together with the sorrow of the separation from Paul, had told upon the girl's strength, and it was no wonder that she had grown thinner during the last months. Her young character was forming itself under terrible difficulties, and it was well that she inherited more of her father's good sense and courage than of her mother's meekness and gentleness under all circ.u.mstances.

Hermione looked back and tried to remember what she had been six months ago, but she hardly recognized herself in the picture called up by her memories. She thought of her ignorance about her aunt's state, and of how she had sometimes felt sad and sorry for the old lady, but had on the whole not found that her presence in the house materially changed her own smooth life. She looked further back, and remembered as in a dream her first London season. She had not enjoyed herself; she had been oppressed rather than delighted by the crowds, the lights, the whirl of a life she could not understand, the terrors of presentation, the men suddenly brought up to her, who bowed and immediately whirled her away amongst a crowd of young people, all spinning madly round, and knowing each other probably as little as she knew her partner of the moment. It had all been strange to her, and she realized with pleasure that she should not be obliged to go through it again this year. Her mother was not a worldly woman, and had not inspired her, while still in the schoolroom, with a mad desire for the world. Hermione was an only daughter, and there was no reason for hastening her marriage; nor had she ever been told, as many young girls are, that she must marry well, and if possible in her first season. She saw many men in the round of parties to which she was taken, but she found it hard to remember the names of even a few of them. They had been presented, had danced with her, had perhaps danced with her again somewhere else, and had dropped out of her existence without inspiring in her the smallest interest.

Now, after nearly a year, she would not have known their faces. Some had talked to her, but their language was not hers; it was the jargon of society, the petty gossip, the eternal chatter of people and people's doings. Her answers were vague, and when she asked a question about a book, about an idea, about a fact, the faultlessly correct young men smiled sweetly, and answered that they did not understand that sort of thing. Towards the end of the season, when the first surprise of watching the moving crowds, the dancing, the women's gowns, and the men's faces, had worn out, Hermione had regarded the whole thing as an inexpressible bore, and had returned with delight to the quiet life at Carvel Place, glad that her father's position and tastes did not lead him to keep open house, as some of his neighbors did, and that she was allowed to read and to be quiet, and to do everything she liked.

Then her real life had begun, and her character, untouched and unchanged by what she had seen in a London season, had suddenly come under the influence of another character, strong, dominant, and apparently good, but in the eyes of the young girl eminently mysterious. She had known Paul Patoff as one knows people in the midst of a small family party in a country house, and he had at first repelled her, as he repelled many people; but soon, very soon, she thought, the feeling of repulsion had grown to be a curiosity to know the man's history, the secret of his coldness towards his mother, and of his hard and cynical expression.

From such interest as she felt for him, it was but a step to love, and the step was soon taken. The nearer she came to him, the more she felt the power of his fascination, and the more she wondered that every one else did not see it as she saw it, and yield to it as she yielded to it.

Then had come the afternoon in the park; the joy of those few hours; the scene at dinner on the same evening; the revelation she had extracted from Cutter; the discovery that her aunt was sane; her interview with Paul, and his sudden departure, wounded by her speech;--all these events following on each other in less than four-and-twenty hours. From that day she knew that she had changed much, and she realized the strength of her love for Paul. And on that day, also, had begun her annoyances with Madame Patoff, her constant defense of the son against the accusations of the mother, and her own fears lest she should be playing a double part. She had suffered much by the separation from Paul; she suffered more whenever her aunt fell into her pa.s.sionate way of abusing him, and she felt that her faculties were overstrained when she was in the society of her strange relative. But Madame Patoff loved her, and her affection was so evident to Hermione that she found it hard to cut her speeches short with a sharp word, however painful it might be to her to listen to them. Of late she had adopted the practice of treating her as she did on the first night, a.s.suming that her hatred was very nearly an insanity in itself, and managing her almost like a child, threatening to leave her when she said too much, and bringing her to her senses by seeming to withdraw her affection. Indeed, there was something exaggerated in Madame Patoff's love for the girl, as there appeared to be in everything she really felt. With the other members of the household she behaved with perfect self-possession, but when she was alone with Hermione she laid aside all her a.s.sumed calm, and spoke unreasonably about her son, as though it gave her pleasure; always submitting, however, to the rebuke which Hermione invariably administered on such occasions. But the idea that whenever she was alone with her aunt something of the kind was sure to occur made Hermione nervous, so that she avoided an interview whenever she could.

XVI.

If any of the party could have guessed what Gregorios Balsamides and I were doing on that dark night, they would not have slept as soundly as they did. It was an evil night, a night for a bad deed, I thought, as I looked out of the carriage-window, when we were clear of the houses and streets of Pera. The black clouds drove angrily down before the north wind, seeming to tear themselves in pieces on the stars, as one might tear a black veil upon steel nails. The wind swept the desolate country, and made the panes of the windows rattle even more loudly than did the hoofs and wheels upon the stony road. But the horses were strong, and the driver was not a s.h.i.+vering Greek, but a st.u.r.dy Turk, who could laugh at the wind as it whistled past his ears, striking full upon his broad chest. He drove fast along the rising ground, and faster as he reached the high bend which the road follows above the Bosphorus, winding in and out among the hills till it descends at last to Therapia.

"The clouds look like the souls of the lost, to-night," said Balsamides, drawing his fur coat closely around him. "One can imagine how Dante conceived the idea of the scene in h.e.l.l, when the souls stream down the wind."

"You seem poetically inclined," I answered.

"Why not? We are out upon a romantic errand. Our lives are not often romantic. We may as well make the best of it, as a beggar does when he gets a bowl of rice."

"I should fancy you had led a very romantic life," said I, lighting a cigarette in the dark, and leaning back against the cus.h.i.+ons.

"That is what women always say when they want a man to make confidences," laughed Balsamides. "No, I have not led a romantic life. I pa.s.s most of my time sitting on my horse in the hot sun, or the driving snow, preserving, or pretending to preserve, the life of his Majesty from real or imaginary dangers. Or else I sit eight or nine hours a day chatting and smoking with the other adjutants. It is not a healthy life.

It is certainly not romantic."

"Not as you describe it. But I judged from the ease with which you made the preparations for this expedition that you had done things of the sort before."

My friend laughed again, but turned the subject.

"I hope that when we meet your friends to-morrow morning, we may have something to show for our night's work," he said. "Fancy what an excitement there would be if we brought Alexander Patoff back with us!

Not that it is at all probable. We may bring back nothing but broken bones."

"I do not think Selim will hurt us much," I answered. "He is not exactly an athlete. I would risk a fight with him."

"I dare say. But there may be plenty of strong fellows about the premises. There are the four cadjs, the boatmen, to begin with. There is a coachman and probably two grooms. Very likely there are half a dozen big hamals about."

"That makes thirteen," I said. "Six and a half to one, or four and a third to one, if we count upon our own driver."

"You may count upon him," replied Gregorios. "He is an old soldier, and as strong as a lion. In case of necessity he will call the watch from Yeni Koj. There is a small detachment of infantry there. But we shall not have to resort to such measures. I believe that I can make the Khanum confess. If so, I can make her order Selim to give up Patoff, if he is alive."

"And if he is dead?"

"It will be the worse for the Khanum and her people. She is not in good odor at the palace. It would not take much to have her exiled to Arabia, even though she be dying, as they say she is. That is the question. Let me only find her alive, and I will answer for the rest."

"She might very well refuse to confess, I fancy," I remarked, surprised at my friend's tone of conviction.