Part 29 (1/2)
”I would try to tell you, but you would not understand. Perhaps I did not know then what I know now. There are some things which we only learn with difficulty, lessons which it needs suffering to teach us.”
A sharp spasm, almost of pain, crossed the Count's face.
”That is very true,” he exclaimed, ”please do not think I am deficient in understanding. It has been necessary for you to come to Poland to discover where your happiness lay?”
”Yes, it has been necessary.”
”Do you understand, that this would mean the termination of your good understanding with my friend Gessner. You could not remain in his house naturally.”
”I have thought of that. It will be necessary for me to leave him as you say. But I have been an interloper from the beginning, and I do not see how I could have remained. While everything was new to me, while I lived in Wonderland, I never gave much thought to it; but here when I begin to think, I am no longer in doubt. How could I shut myself up in a citadel of riches and know that so many of my poor people were starving not ten miles from my door. I would feel as though I had gone into the enemy's camp and sold myself for the gratification of a few silly desires and a whole pantomime of show which a decent man must laugh at.
It is better for me to have done with it once and for all and try to get my own living. Lois will give me the right to work, if she ever wins her liberty, which I doubt. You could help her to do so, if you were willing, Count.”
”I, what influence have I?”
”As much as any man in Poland, I should say.”
”Ah, you appeal to my vanity. I wish it could respond. Frankly, my Government will be little inclined to clemency, just now at any rate.
Why should it be? These people are burning down our houses, why should we help them to build their own? Your old friend Boriskoff was as dangerous a man as any in Poland, why should they let him go just because an English banker wishes it.”
”They will let him go because he is more dangerous in prison than out of it. In London I could answer for him. I could not answer while he is at Petersburg.”
”My dear lad, we must really make you Master of all these pretty ceremonies. I'll speak to Zaniloff.” He laughed lightly, for the idea of this mere stripling being of any use to his Government amused him greatly. His apologies for the indulgence, however, were not to be spoken, for the blood suddenly rushed from his cheeks, and the good nurse intervened in some alarm.
”Please to leave him,” she said to Alban in French. He obeyed her immediately, seeing that he had been wrong to stay so long.
”I will come again when you permit me. Please let me know when his excellency is better.”
She promised him that she would do so, and he returned to his own rooms.
He was not, however, to see the Count again until he met him many years afterwards in Paris. The distressed Zaniloff himself carried the amazing news, some two hours later.
”You are to leave for London by the evening mail,” the Chief said shortly, ”a berth has been reserved for you, and I myself will see you into the train. Do not complain of us, Mr. Kennedy. I can a.s.sure you that there are many cities more agreeable than Warsaw at the present moment.”
Alban was not surprised, nor would he argue upon it. He realized that his labors in Poland had been in vain. If he could save Lois from the prison, he must do so in London, in the alleys and dens he had so long deserted. Not toward Wonderland, not at the shrines of riches, but as an exile returned to labor with the humblest, must this journey carry him.
And he bowed his head to destiny and believed that he stood alone against the world.
CHAPTER x.x.x
WE MEET OLD FRIENDS
Alban had returned some two months from Poland, when, upon a drear October evening, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury, my Lady Sarah, the flower girl, and ”Betty,” the half-witted boy, made their way about half-past nine o'clock to the deserted stage of the Regent Theatre, and there by the courtesy of the watchman, distantly related to Sarah, began their preparations for a homely evening meal.
To be quite candid, this was altogether a more respectable company than that which had a.s.sembled in the Caves at the springtime of the year. The Lady Sarah wore a spruce black silk dress which had adorned the back of a d.u.c.h.ess more than three years ago; the Archbishop boasted a coat that would have done no discredit to a Canon of St. Paul's; the boy they would call ”Betty” had a flower at the b.u.t.ton-hole of a neat gray suit, and carried himself as though all the world belonged to him. This purple and fine linen, to be sure, were rather lost upon the empty stage of that dismal theatre, nor did the watchman's lantern and two proud wax-candles which the Lady Sarah carried do much for their reputation; but, as the Archbishop wisely said, ”We know that they are there, and Sarah has the satisfaction of rustling for us.”
Now to be plainer, this was the occasion of a letter just received from ”the Panorama,” who had gone to America since June, and of joyful news from that incurable optimism.
”I gather,” the Archbishop had said, as he pa.s.sed the doc.u.ment round, ”that our young friend, er--hem--having exhibited the American nation in wax, a symbol of its pliability, surely is now proceeding to melt it down and to return to England. That is a wise undertaking. Syrus, the philosopher, has told us that Fortune is like gla.s.s, when she s.h.i.+nes too much she is broken. Let our friend take the tide at the flood and not complain afterwards that his s.h.i.+p was too frail. The Panorama has achieved reputation, and who is of the world does not know the pecuniary worth of that? Consider my own case and bear with me. I have the misfortune to p.r.i.c.k myself with a needle and to suffer certain personal inconveniences thereby. The world calls me a villain. Other men, differently situated, kill thousands of their fellow-creatures and look forward to the day when they will be buried in Westminster Abbey. We envy them at the height and the depth of it. This the Panorama should remember. A successful showman is here to-day and--er--hem--melted down to-morrow. It is something to have left no debts behind him; it is much more to have remembered his old friends in these small tokens which we shall consume in all thankfulness, according to our happiness and our digestions.”