Part 16 (1/2)

”We don't want to escape now, you know,” Jack said in his broken Russian. ”We are much more comfortable here than we should be in the cold before Sebastopol.”

The next few days pa.s.sed pleasantly; sometimes the countess was not present, and then the girls would devote themselves to improving the boys' Russian.

Sometimes two sledges would come to the door, and two of the girls accompanied the boys on their drive. On the fourth evening, Count Smerskoff called, and a cloud fell upon the atmosphere.

The countess received him ceremoniously, and maintained the conversation in frigid tones. The girls scarcely opened their lips, and the mids.h.i.+pmen sat apart, as silent as if they understood no word of what was pa.s.sing.

”I am sorry, countess,” the commandant said, ”that I was obliged to quarter these two English boys upon you, but every house in the town is full of sick and wounded; and as they were given over to me as officers, though they look to me more like s.h.i.+p-boys, I could not put them in prison with the twenty or thirty soldiers whom we captured at the victory on the heights above Inkerman.”

”It is my duty to receive them,” the countess said very coldly, ”and it therefore matters little whether it is pleasant or otherwise.

Fortunately one of them speaks a few words of French, and my daughters can therefore communicate with them. So you have twenty or thirty English prisoners in the jail? Where are all the rest; for, of course, in such a great victory, we must have taken, some thousands of prisoners?”

The count glanced angrily at her.

”They have, no doubt, been sent to Odessa and other places,” he said.

”You do not doubt, countess, surely, that a great victory was gained by the soldiers of his Majesty?”

”Doubt,” the countess said, in a tone of slight surprise. ”Have I not read the official bulletins describing the victory? Only we poor women, of course, are altogether ignorant of war, and cannot understand how it is that, when they are always beaten, these enemies of the Czar are still in front of Sebastopol.”

”It may be,” said the count, ”that the Archdukes are only waiting until all the reinforcements arrive to drive them into the sea, or capture them to the last man.”

”No doubt it is that,” said the countess blandly, ”but from the number of sick and wounded who arrive here, to say nothing of those taken to Odessa and the other towns among which, as you say, the prisoners are distributed, it is to be wished that the reinforcements may soon be up, so as to bring the fighting to an end.”

”The enemy are suffering much more than we are,” the governor said, ”and before the spring comes we may find that there are none left to conquer. If the soldiers of the Czar, accustomed to the climate as they are, feel the cold, although they have warm barracks to sleep in, what must be the case with the enemy on the bleak heights? I hear that the English newspapers are full of accounts of the terrible sufferings of their troops. They are dying like sheep.”

”Poor creatures!” the countess said gravely. ”They are our fellow-beings, you know, Count Smerskoff, although they are our enemies, and one cannot but feel some pity for them.”

”I feel no pity for the dogs,” the count said fiercely. ”How dare they set foot on the soil of Holy Russia?”

”Hating them as you do,” the countess said, ”it must be annoying for you indeed, count, to occupy even so exalted a position as that of governor of this town, instead of fighting against the English and French.”

The count muttered something between his teeth, which was certainly not a blessing. Then turning to Katinka, he changed the subject by asking her if she would favor him with some music.

Without a word, the girl seated herself at the piano and played. When she had finished the piece, she began another without stopping, and continued steadily for an hour. The countess leaned back in her chair, as if she considered that conversation would be out of place while her daughter was playing.

Count Smerskoff sat quietly for a quarter of an hour. Then he began to fidget in his chair, but he stoically sat on until, when at the end of an hour Katinka showed no signs whatever of leaving off, he rose, and ceremoniously regretting that his duties prevented him from having the pleasure of hearing the conclusion of the charming little piece which the young countess was playing (for in Russia all children bear the t.i.tle of their parents) he took his leave.

When the door had closed behind him, and the sound of his footsteps along the corridor ceased, the girls burst into a fit of laughter, in which the mids.h.i.+pmen joined heartily.

”Well done, Katinka!” Olga said, clapping her hands. ”That was a splendid idea of yours, and you have routed the governor completely.

Oh, dear, how cross he did look, and how he fidgeted about as you played on and on without stopping! I thought I must have laughed out-right.”

”It was a clever thought,” the countess said, ”and yet the count cannot complain of want of courtesy. He is a disagreeable man, and a bad man; but he is powerfully connected, and it will not do to offend him. We have enemies enough, heaven knows.”

The boys at the time could not gather the drift of the conversation; but a month later, when their knowledge of the language had greatly increased, Olga, when driving in a sledge with Jack, enlightened him as to the position in which they stood.

”Papa,” she said, ”is a Liberal, that is to say, he wants all sorts of reform to be carried out. If he had his way, he would free the serfs and would have the affairs of the nation managed by a parliament, as you do in England, instead of by the will of the Czar only. I don't pretend to know anything about it myself, but papa has perhaps expressed his opinions too openly, and some enemy has carried them to the ears of the Czar. Nicholas is, you know, though it is treason to say so, very autocratic and absolute. Papa was never in favor, because mamma was a Pole, but these terrible opinions finished it. Papa was forbidden to appear at court, and ordered to live upon his estates, and it is even possible,” she said anxiously, ”that this will not be all. You don't know Russia, or how dreadful it is to be looked upon as disaffected here. Papa is so good and kind! His serfs all love him so much, and every one says that no estates in Russia are better managed.

But all this will avail nothing, and it is only because we have powerful friends at court that worse things have not happened.”