Part 7 (2/2)
The next morning the two ladies left the s.h.i.+p at Brindisi before either the Prince or Stephen Strong was awake. Both were silent upon the subject of the night before, until Millicent at last said when they were in the train:
”Tamara--you won't tell Henry or your family, will you, dear? Because really, last night he was so fascinating--but that dancing! I am sure you feel, with me, we could have died of shame.”
CHAPTER VI
When Tamara reached Underwood and saw a letter from her Russian G.o.dmother among the pile which awaited her, she felt it was the finger of fate, and when she read it and found it contained not only New Year's wishes, but an invitation couched in affectionate and persuasive terms that she should visit St. Petersburg, she suddenly, and without consulting her family, decided she would go.
”There is something drawing me to Russia,” she said to herself. ”One gets into the current of things. I felt it in the air. And why should I hesitate now I am free? Why should I not accept, just because one Russian man has horrified me. It is, I suppose, a big city, and perhaps I shall never see him there.”
So she announced her decision to the dumfounded household, and in less than a week took the Nord Express.
”The Court, alas! is in mourning,”--her G.o.dmother had written,--”so you will see no splendid Court b.a.l.l.s, but I daresay we can divert you otherwise, Tamara, and I am so anxious to make the acquaintance of my G.o.dchild.”
The morning after she left them Aunt Clara expressed herself thus at breakfast:
”I see a great and most unwelcome change in dear Tamara since she returned from Egypt, I had hoped Millicent Hardcastle would be all that was steadying and well-balanced as a companion for her, but it seems this modern restlessness has got into her blood. I tremble to think what ideas she will bring from Russia. Almost savages they are there!--She may be sent to Siberia or something dreadful, and we may never see her again.”
”Oh! come Aunt Clara!” Tom Underdown protested, as he b.u.t.tered his toast. ”I think you are a little behind the times. There is a Russian at Oxford with me and he is the decentest chap in the world. You speak as though they almost lived on raw fis.h.!.+”
”My dear Tom,” said Miss Underdown, severely. ”I was reading only yesterday, in the 'Christian Clarion,' how one of their Emperors cut off everyone's head. Dreadful customs they have, it seems; and one of their Empresses--Catherine, I think; her name was. Well, dear, it is too shocking to speak of--and most people were sent to the mines!”
”Oh! hang it all, Aunt Clara, you can't have looked at the date! You can hunt up just those jolly kind of stories about our Henry VIII. if you want to, you know, and our Elizabeth wasn't the saint they made out. And as for Siberia, I am going there myself some day, on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Tamara will be all right. I wish to heavens she had taken me with her. We have got dry rot in this house, that is what is the matter with us!”
”Tom!” almost gasped Miss Underdown. ”Your manners are extremely displeasing, and the tone of your remarks is far from what one could wis.h.!.+”
Meanwhile Tamara was speeding on her way to the North, her interest and excitement in her journey deepening with each mile.
The snow and the vast forests impressed her from the train windows.
Every smallest shade made its effect upon her brain. Tamara was sensitive to all form and color. She was a person who apprehended things, and from the habit of keeping all her observations to herself perhaps the faculty of perception had grown the keener.
The silence seemed to be the first thing she remarked on reaching the frontier. The porters were so grave and quiet, with their bearded kindly faces, many of them like the saints and Biblical characters in Sunday-school picture books at home.
And finally she arrived at St. Petersburg, and found her G.o.dmother waiting for her on the platform. They recognized each other immediately. Tamara had several photographs of the Princess Ardacheff.
”Welcome, _ma filleule_,” that lady cried, while she shook her hand.
”After all these years I can have you in my house.”
They said all sorts of mutually agreeable things on their way thither, and they looked at each other shyly.
”She is not beautiful,” ran the Princess' comments. ”Though she has a superb air of breeding--that is from her poor mother--but her eyes are her father's eyes. She is very sweet, and what a lovely skin--yes, and eyelashes--and probably a figure when one can see beneath the furs--tall and very slender in any case. Yes, I am far from disappointed--far.”
And Tamara thought:
”My G.o.dmother is a splendid looking lady! I like her bright brown eyes and that white hair; and what a queer black mole upon her left cheek, like an early eighteenth-century beauty spot. Where have I heard lately of someone with a mole------?
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