Kitabı oku: «Jennie Baxter, Journalist», sayfa 14
CHAPTER XIX. JENNIE EXPERIENCES THE SURPRISE OF HER LIFE
At nine o’clock the long train came to a standstill, seventeen minutes late at Luga, and ample time was allowed for a leisurely breakfast in the buffet of the station. The restaurant was thronged with numerous passengers, most of whom seemed hardly yet awake, while many were unkempt and dishevelled, as if they had had little sleep during the night.
Jennie found a small table and sat down beside it, ordering her coffee and rolls from the waiter who came to serve her. Looking round at the cosmopolitan company, and listening to the many languages, whose clash gave a Babel air to the restaurant, Jennie fell to musing on the strange experiences she had encountered since leaving London. It seemed to her she had been taking part in some ghastly nightmare, and she shuddered as she thought of the lawlessness, under cover of law, of this great and despotic empire, where even the ruler was under the surveillance of his subordinates, and could not get a letter out of his own dominion in safety, were he so minded. In her day-dream she became conscious, without noting its application to herself, that a man was standing before her table; then a voice which made her heart stop said,—
“Ah, lost Princess!”
She placed her hand suddenly to her throat, for the catch in her breath seemed to be suffocating her, then looked up and saw Lord Donal Stirling, in the ordinary everyday dress of an English gentleman, as well groomed as if he had come, not from a train, but from his own house. There was a kindly smile on his lips and a sparkle in his eyes, but his face was of ghastly pallor.
“Oh, Lord Donal!” she cried, regarding him with eyes of wonder and fear, “what is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” the young man replied, with an attempt at a laugh; “nothing, now that I have found you, Princess. I have been making a night of it, that’s all, and am suffering the consequences in the morning. May I sit down?”
He dropped into a chair on the other side of the table, like a man thoroughly exhausted, unable to stand longer, and went on,—
“Like all dissipated men, I am going to break my fast on stimulants. Waiter,” he said, “bring me a large glass of your best brandy.”
“And, waiter,” interjected Jennie in French, “bring two breakfasts. I suppose it was not a meal that you ordered just now, Lord Donal?”
“I have ordered my breakfast,” he said; “still, it pleads in my favour that I do not carry brandy with me, as I ought to do, and so must drink the vile stuff they call their best here.”
“You should eat as well,” she insisted, taking charge of him as if she had every right to do so.
“All shall be as you say, now that I have the happiness of seeing you sitting opposite me, but don’t be surprised if I show a most unappreciative appetite.”
“What is the matter?” she asked breathlessly. “You certainly look very ill.”
“I have been drugged and robbed,” he replied, lowering his voice. “I imagine I came to close quarters with death itself. I have spent a night in Hades, and this morning am barely able to stagger; but the sight of you, Princess—Ah, well, I feel once more that I belong to the land of the living!”
“Please do not call me Princess,” said the girl, looking down at the tablecloth.
“Then what am I to call you, Princess?”
“My name is Jennie Baxter,” she said in a low voice.
“Miss Jennie Baxter?” he asked eagerly, with emphasis on the first word.
“Miss Jennie Baxter,” she answered, still not looking up at him.
He leaned back in his chair and said,—
“Well, this is not such a bad world, after all. To think of meeting you here in Russia! Have you been in St. Petersburg, then?”
“Yes. I am a newspaper woman,” explained Jennie hurriedly. “When you met me before, I was there surreptitiously—fraudulently, if you like; I was there to—to write a report of it for my paper. I can never thank you enough, Lord Donal, for your kindness to me that evening.”
“Your thanks are belated,” said the young man, with a visible attempt at gaiety. “You should have written and acknowledged the kindness you are good enough to say I rendered to you. You knew my address, and etiquette demanded that you should make your acknowledgments.”
“I was reluctant to write,” said Jennie, a smile hovering round her lips, “fearing my letter might act as a clue. I had no wish to interfere with the legitimate business of Mr. Cadbury Taylor.”
“Great heavens!” cried the young man, “how came you to know about that? But of course the Princess von Steinheimer told you of it. She wrote to me charging me with all sorts of wickedness for endeavouring to find you.”
“No, Lord Donal, I did not learn it from her. In fact, if you had opened the door of the inner room at Mr. Cadbury Taylor’s a little quicker, you would have come upon me, for I was the assistant who tried to persuade him that you really met the Princess von Steinheimer.”
Lord Donal, for the first time, laughed heartily.
“Well, if that doesn’t beat all! And I suppose Cadbury Taylor hasn’t the slightest suspicion that you are the person he was looking for?”
“No, not the slightest.”
“I say! that is the best joke I have heard in ten years,” said Lord Donal; and here, breakfast arriving, Jennie gave him his directions.
“You are to drink a small portion of that brandy,” she said, “and then put the rest in your coffee. You must eat a good breakfast, and that will help you to forget your troubles,—that is, if you have any real troubles.”
“Oh, my troubles are real enough,” said the young man. “When I met you before, Princess, I was reasonably successful. We even talked about ambassadorships, didn’t we, in spite of the fact that ambassadors were making themselves unnecessarily obtrusive that night? Now you see before you a ruined man. No, I am not joking; it is true. I was given a commission, or, rather, knowing the danger there was in it, I begged that the commission might be given me. It was merely to take a letter from St. Petersburg to London. I have failed, and when that is said, all is said.”
“But surely,” cried the girl, blushing guiltily as she realized that this was the man she had been sent to rob, “you could not be expected to ward off such a lawless attempt at murder as you have been the victim of?”
“That is just what I expected, and what I supposed I could ward off. In my profession—which, after all has a great similarity to yours, except that I think we have to do more lying in ours—there must be no such word as fail. The very best excuses are listened to with tolerance, perhaps, and a shrug of the shoulders; but failure, no matter from what cause, is fell doom. I have failed. I shall not make any excuses. I will go to London and say merely, ‘The Russian police have robbed me.’ Oh, I know perfectly well who did the trick, and how it was done. Then I shall send in my resignation. They will accept it with polite words of regret, and will say to each other, ‘Poor fellow, he had a brilliant career before him, but he got drunk, or something, and fell into the ditch.’ Ah, well, we won’t talk any more about it.”
“Then you don’t despise the newspaper profession, Lord Donal?”
“Despise it! Bless you, no: I look up to it. Belonging myself to a profession very much lower down in the scale of morality, as I have said. But, Princess,” he added, leaning towards her, “will you resign from the newspaper if I resign from diplomacy?”
The girl slowly shook her head, her eyes on the tablecloth before her.
“I will telegraph my resignation,” he said impetuously, “if you will telegraph yours to your paper.”
“You are feeling ill and worried this morning, Lord Donal, and so you take a pessimistic view of life. You must not resign.”
“Oh, but I must. I have failed, and that is enough.”
“It isn’t enough. You must do nothing until you reach London.”
“I like your word must, Jennie,” said the young man audaciously. “It implies something, you know.”
“What does it imply, Lord Donal?” she asked, glancing up at him.
“It implies that you are going to leave the ‘Lord’ off my name.”
“That wouldn’t be very difficult,” replied Jennie.
“I am delighted to hear you say so,” exclaimed his lordship; “and now, that I may know how it sounds from your dear lips, call me Don.”
“No; if I ever consented to omit the title, I should call you Donal. I like the name in its entirety.”
He reached his hand across the table. “Are you willing then, to accept a man at the very lowest ebb of his fortunes? I know that if I were of the mould that heroes are made of, I would hesitate to proffer you a blighted life. But I loved you the moment I saw you; and, remembering my fruitless search for you, I cannot run the risk of losing you again; I have not the courage.”
She placed her hand in his and looked him, for the first time, squarely in the eyes.
“Are you sure, Donal,” she said, “that I am not a mere effigy on which you are hanging the worn-out garments of a past affection? You thought I was the Princess at first.”
“No, I didn’t,” he protested. “As soon as I heard you speak, I knew you were the one I was destined to meet.”
“Ah, Donal, Donal, at lovers’ perjuries they say Jove laughs. I don’t think you were quite so certain as all that. But I, too, am a coward, and I dare not refuse you.”
Lord Donal glanced quickly about him; the room was still crowded. Even the Berlin Express gave them a long time for breakfast, and was in no hurry to move westward. His hurried gaze returned to her and he sighed.
“What an unholy spot for a proposal!” he whispered; “and yet they call Russia the Great Lone Land. Oh, that we had a portion of it entirely to ourselves!”
The girl sat there, a smile on her pretty lips that Lord Donal thought most tantalizing. A railway official announced in a loud voice that the train was about to resume its journey. There was a general shuffling of feet as the passengers rose to take their places.
“Brothers and sisters kiss each other, you know, on the eve of a railway journey,” said Lord Donal, taking advantage of the confusion.
Jennie Baxter made no protest.
“There is plenty of time,” he whispered. “I know the leisurely nature of Russian trains. Now I am going to the telegraph office, to send in my resignation, and I want you to come with me and send in yours.”
“No, Lord Donal,” said the girl.
“Aren’t you going to resign?” he asked, in surprise.
“Yes, all in good time; but you are not.”
“Oh, I say,” he cried, “it is really imperative. I’ll tell you all about it when we get on the train.”
“It is really imperative that you should not send in your resignation. Indeed, Donal, you need not look at me with that surprised air. You may as well get accustomed to dictation at once. You did it yourself, you know. You can’t say that I encouraged you. I eluded the vigilant Cadbury Taylor as long as I could. But, if there is time, go to the telegraph office and send a message to the real Princess, Palace Steinheimer, Vienna. Say you are engaged to be married to Jennie Baxter, and ask her to telegraph you her congratulations at Berlin.”
“I’ll do it,” replied the young man with gratifying alacrity.
When Lord Donal came out of the telegraph office, Jennie said to him, “Wait a moment while I go into the sleeping car and get my rugs and handbag.”
“I’ll go for them,” he cried impetuously.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ll tell you why, later. The conductor is a villain and was in collusion with the police.”
“Oh, I know that,” said Lord Donal. “Poor devil, he can’t help himself; he must do what the police order him to do, while he is in Russia.”
“I’ll get my things and go into an ordinary first class carriage. When I pass this door, you must get your belongings and come and find me. There is still time, and I don’t want the conductor to see us together.”
“Very well,” said the young man with exemplary obedience.
CHAPTER XX. JENNIE CONVERSES WITH A YOUNG MAN SHE THINKS MUCH OF
When the train started, they were seated together in a carriage far forward.
“One of my failings,” said the girl, “is to act first, and think afterwards. I am sorry now that I asked you to send that telegram to the Princess.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a great deal to tell you, and perhaps you may wish to withdraw from the rash engagement you have undertaken.”
“A likely thing!” cried the ardent lover. “Indeed, Miss Princess, if you think you can get rid of me as easily as all that, you are very much mistaken.”
“Well, I want to tell you why I did not allow you to resign.”
Slowly she undid the large buttons of her jacket, then, taking it by the lapel and holding it so that no one else could see, she drew partly forth from the inside pocket the large envelope, until the stamp of the Embassy was plainly visible. Lord Donal’s eyes opened to their widest capacity, and his breath seemed to stop.
“Great heavens!” he gasped at last, “do you mean to say you have it?”
“Yes,” she said, buttoning up her jacket again. “I robbed the robbers. Listen, and I will tell you all that happened. But, first, are you armed?”
“Yes,” he replied, “I have a trumpery revolver in my pocket; little good it did me last night.”
“Very well, we shall be across the frontier by noon to-day. If the Russian authorities find before that time how they have been checkmated, and if they have any suspicion that I am the cause of it, is it not likely that they will have me stopped and searched on some pretence or other?” Lord Donal pondered for a moment. “They are quite capable of it,” he said; “but, Jennie, I will fight for you against the whole Russian Empire, and somebody will get hurt if you are meddled with. The police will hesitate, however, before interfering with a messenger from the Embassy, or anyone in his charge in broad daylight on a crowded train. We will not go back into that car, but stay here, where some of our fellow-countrymen are.”
“That is what I was going to propose,” said Jennie. “And now listen to the story I have to tell you, and then you will know exactly why I came to Russia.”
“Don’t tell me anything you would rather not,” said the young man hurriedly.
“I would rather not, but it must be told,” answered the girl.
The story lasted a long time, and when it was ended the young man cried enthusiastically in answer to her question,—
“Blame you? Why, of course I don’t blame you in the slightest. It wasn’t Hardwick who sent you here at all, but Providence. Providence brought us together, Jennie, and my belief in it hereafter will be unshaken.”
Jennie laughed a contented little laugh, and said she was flattered at being considered an envoy of Providence.
“It is only another way of saying you are an angel, Jennie,” remarked the bold young man.
They crossed the frontier without interference, and, once in Germany, Jennie took the object of so much contention and placed it in the hands of her lover.
“There,” she whispered, with a tiny sigh, for she was giving up the fruits of her greatest achievement, “put that in your despatch box, and see that it doesn’t leave that receptacle until you reach London. I hope the Russians will like the copy of the Daily Bugle they find in their envelope.”
The two chatted together throughout the long ride to Berlin, and when 11 p.m. and the Schleischer station came at last, they still seemed only to have begun their conversation, so much more remained to be told.
The telegram from the Princess was handed to Lord Donal at Berlin.
“I congratulate you most sincerely,” she wired; “and tell Jennie the next time you see her”—Lord Donal laughed as he read this aloud—“that the Austrian Government has awarded her thirty thousand pounds for her share in enabling them to recover their gold, and little enough I think it is, considering what she has done.”
“Now, I call that downright handsome of the Austrian Government,” cried Lord Donal. “I thought they were going to fight us when I read the speech of their Prime Minister, but, instead of that, they are making wedding presents to our nice girls.”
“Ah, that comes through the good-heartedness of the Princess, and the kindness of the Prince,” said Jennie. “He has managed it.”
“But what in the world did you do for the Austrian Government, Jennie?”
“That is a long story, Donal, and I think a most interesting one.”
“Well, let us thank heaven that we have a long journey for you to tell it and me to listen.”
And saying this, the unabashed, forward young man took the liberty of kissing his fair companion good-night, right there amidst all the turmoil and bustle of the Schleischer Bahnhof in Berlin.
It was early in the morning when the two met again in the restaurant car. The train had passed Cologne and was now rushing up that picturesque valley through which runs the brawling little river Vesdre. Lord Donal and Jennie had the car to themselves, and they chose a table near the centre of it and there ordered their breakfast. The situation was a most picturesque one. The broad, clear plate glass windows on each side displayed, in rapid succession, a series of landscapes well worth viewing; the densely wooded hills, the cheerful country houses, the swift roaring stream lashing itself into fleecy foam; now and then a glimpse of an old ruined castle on the heights, and, in the deep valley, here and there a water mill.
It was quite evident that Jennie had slept well, and, youth being on her side, her rest had compensated for the nightmare of the Russian journey. She was simply but very effectively dressed, and looked as fresh and pretty and cool and sweet as a snowdrop. The enchanted young man found it impossible to lure his eyes away from her, and when, with a little laugh, Jennie protested that he was missing all the fine scenery, he answered that he had something much more beautiful to look upon; whereat Jennie blushed most enticingly, smiled at him, but made no further protest. Whether it was his joy in meeting Jennie, or the result of his night’s sleep, or his relief at finding that his career was not wrecked, as he had imagined, or all three together, Lord Donal seemed his old self again, and was as bright, witty, and cheerful as a boy home for the holidays. They enjoyed their breakfast with the relish that youth and a healthy appetite gives to a dainty meal well served. The rolls were brown and toothsome, the butter, in thick corrugated spirals, was of a delicious golden colour, cold and crisp. The coffee was all that coffee should be, and the waiter was silent and attentive. Russia, like an evil vision, was far behind, and the train sped through splendid scenery swiftly towards England and home.
The young man leaned back in his chair, interlaced his fingers behind his head, and gazed across at Jennie, drawing a sigh of deep satisfaction.
“Well, this is jolly,” he said.
“Yes,” murmured Jennie, “it’s very nice. I always did enjoy foreign travel, especially when it can be done in luxury; but, alas! luxury costs money, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, you don’t need to mind, you are rich.”
“That is true; I had forgotten all about it.”
“I hope, Jennie, that the fact of my travelling on a train de luxe has not deluded you regarding my wealth. I should have told you that I usually travel third class when I am transporting myself in my private capacity. I am wringing this pampered elegance from the reluctant pockets of the British taxpayer. When I travel for the British Government I say, as Pooh Bah said to Koko in the ‘Mikado,’ ‘Do it well, my boy,’ or words to that effect.”
“Indeed,” laughed Jennie, “I am in a somewhat similar situation; the newspaper is paying all the expenses of this trip, but I shall insist on returning the money to the Bugle now that I have failed in my mission.”
“Dear me, how much more honest the newspaper business is than diplomacy! The idea of returning any money never even occurred to me. The mere suggestion freezes my young blood and makes each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. Our motto in the service is, Get all you can, and keep all you get.”
“But then, you see, your case differs from mine; you did your best to succeed, and I failed through my own choice; and thus I sit here a traitor to my paper.”
“Well, Jennie,” said the young man, picking up the despatch-box, which he never allowed to leave his sight, and placing it on the table, “you’ve only to say the word, and this contentious letter is in your possession again. Do you regret your generosity?”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, I would not have it back on any account. Even looking at the matter in the most materialistic way, success means far more to you than it does to me. As you say, I am rich, therefore I am going to give up my newspaper career. I suppose that is why women very rarely make great successes of their lives. A woman’s career so often is merely of incidental interest to her; a man’s career is his whole life.”
“What a pity it is,” mused the young man, “that one person’s success usually means another person’s failure. If I were the generous, whole-souled person I sometimes imagine myself to be, I should refuse to accept success at the price of your failure. You have actually succeeded, while I have actually failed. With a generosity that makes me feel small and mean, you hand over your success to me, and I selfishly accept it. But I compound with my conscience in this way. You and I are to be married; then we will be one. That one shall be heir to all the successes of each of us and shall disclaim all the failures of each. Isn’t that a good idea?”
“Excellent,” replied Jennie; “nevertheless, I cannot help feeling just a little sorry for poor Mr. Hardwick.”
“Who is he—the editor?”
“Yes. He did have such faith in me that it seems almost a pity to disappoint him.”
“You mustn’t trouble your mind about Hardwick. Don’t think of him at all; think of me instead.”
“I am afraid I do, and have done so for some time past; nevertheless, I shall get off at Liege and telegraph to him that I am not bringing the document to London.”
“I will send the telegram for you when we reach there; but, if I remember rightly what you told me of his purpose, he can’t be very deeply disappointed. I understood you to say that he did not intend to publish the document, even if he got it.”
“That is quite true. He wished to act as the final messenger himself, and was to meet me at Charing Cross Station, secure the envelope, and take it at once to its destination.”
“I must confess,” said the young man, with a bewildered expression, “that I don’t see the object of that. Are you sure he told you the truth?”
“Oh, yes. The object was this. It seems that there is in the Foreign Office some crusty old curmudgeon who delights in baffling Mr. Hardwick. This official—I forget his name; in fact, I don’t think Mr. Hardwick told me who he was—seems to forget the Daily Bugle when important items of news are to be given out, and Mr. Hardwick says that he favours one of the rival papers, and the Bugle has been unable, so far, to receive anything like fair treatment from him; so Mr. Hardwick wanted to take the document to him, and thus convince him there was danger in making an enemy of the Daily Bugle. As I understood his project, which didn’t commend itself very much to me, Hardwick had no intention of making a bargain, but simply proposed to hand over the document, and ask the Foreign Office man to give the Bugle its fair share in what was going.”
“Do you mean to say that the official in question is the man to whom I am to give this letter?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my prophetic soul, my uncle! Why, that is Sir James Cardiff, the elder brother of my mother; he is a dear old chap, but I can well understand an outsider thinking him gruff and uncivil. If the editor really means what he says, then there will be no difficulty and no disappointment. If all that is needed is the winning over of old Jimmy to be civil to Hardwick, I can guarantee that. I am the especial protégé of my uncle. Everything I know I have learned from him. He cannot understand why the British Government does not appoint me immediately Ambassador to France; Jimmy would do it to-morrow if he had the power. It was through him that I heard of this letter, and I believe his influence had a good deal to do with my getting the commission of special messenger. It was the chagrin that my uncle Jimmy would have felt, had I failed, that put the final drop of bitterness in my cup of sorrow when I came to my senses after my encounter with the Russian police. That would have been a stunning blow to Sir James Cardiff. We shall reach Charing Cross about 7.30 to-night, and Sir James will be there with his brougham to take charge of me when I arrive. Now, what do you say to our settling all this under the canopy of Charing Cross Station? If you telegraph Mr. Hardwick to meet us there, I will introduce him to Sir James, and he will never have any more trouble in that quarter.”
“I think,” said the girl, looking down at the tablecloth, “that I’d rather not have Mr. Hardwick meet us.”
“Of course not,” answered the young man quickly. “What was I thinking about? It will be a family gathering, and we don’t want any outsiders about, do we?”
Jennie laughed, but made no reply.
