Kitabı oku: «The Everlasting Arms», sayfa 20
CHAPTER XXXV
The Eternal Struggle
Count Romanoff was faultlessly dressed, and looked calm and smiling.
"Ah, Countess," he said, "I am fortunate in finding you alone. But you have had visitors, or, to be more exact, a visitor."
"Yes; I have had visitors. I often have of an afternoon."
"But he has been here."
"Well, and what then?"
The Count gazed at her steadily, and his eyes had a sinister gleam in them.
"I have come to have a quiet chat with you," he said – "come to know how matters stand."
"You want to know more than I can tell you."
Again the Count scrutinised her closely. He seemed to be trying to read her mind.
"Olga," he said, "you don't mean to say that you have failed? He has been in London some time now, and as I happen to know, he has been here often. Has not the fish leaped to the bait? If not, what is amiss? What? – Olga Petrovic, who has turned the heads of men in half the capitals of Europe, and who has never failed to make them her slaves, fail to captivate this yokel! I can't believe it."
There was sullen anger in her eyes, and at that moment years seemed to have been added to her life.
"Beaten!" went on the Count, with a laugh – "Olga Petrovic beaten! That is news indeed."
"I don't understand," said the woman. "Something always seems to stand between us. He seems to fear me – seems to be fighting against me."
"And you have tried all your wiles?"
"Listen, Count Romanoff, or whatever your name may be," and Olga Petrovic's voice was hoarse. "Tell me what you want me to do with that man."
"Do? Make him your slave. Make him grovel at your feet as you have made others. Make him willing to sell his soul to possess you. Weave your net around him. Glamour him with your fiendish beauty. Play upon his hopes and desires until he is yours."
"Why should I?"
"Because it is my will – because I command you."
"And what if I have done all that and failed?"
"You fail! I can't believe it. You have not tried. You have not practised all your arts."
"You do not understand," replied the woman. "You think you understand that man; you don't."
The Count laughed. "There was never a man yet, but who had his price," he said. "With some it is one thing, with some it is another, but all – all can be bought. There is no man but whose soul is for sale; that I know."
"And you have tried to buy Faversham's soul, and failed."
"Because I mistook the thing he wanted most."
"You thought he could be bought by wealth, position, and you arranged your plans. But he was not to be bought. Why? You dangled riches, position, and a beautiful woman before his eyes; but he would not pay the price."
"I chose the wrong woman," said the Count, looking steadily at Olga, "and I did not reckon sufficiently on his old-fashioned ideas of morality. Besides, I had no control over the woman."
"And you think you have control over me, eh? Well, let that pass. I have asked you to tell me why you wish to get this man in your power, and you will not tell me. But let me tell you this: there is a strange power overshadowing him. You say I must practise my arts. What if I tell you that I can't?"
"I should say you lie," replied the Count coolly.
"I don't understand," she said, as if talking to herself. "All the time when he is with me, I seem to be dealing with unseen forces – forces which make me afraid, which sap my power."
The Count looked thoughtful.
"I thought I had captivated him when that German man brought him to the East End of London," she went on. "I saw that I bewildered him – dazzled him. He seemed fascinated by my picture of what he could become. His imagination was on fire, and I could see that he was almost held in thrall by the thought that he could be a kind of uncrowned king, while I would be his queen. He promised to come to me again, but he didn't. Then I went to see him at his hotel, and if ever a woman tempted a man, I tempted him. I know I am beautiful – know that men are willing to become slaves to me. And I pleaded with him. I offered to be his wife, and I almost got him. I saw him yielding to me. Then suddenly he turned from me. A servant brought him a card, and he almost told me to go."
"You saw who these visitors were?"
"Yes; an old man and a slip of a girl. I do not know who they were. Since he has been living in London, I have watched my opportunities, and he has been here. I have flattered him; I have piqued his curiosity. I have been coy and reserved, and I have tried to dazzle him by smiles, by hand pressures, and by shy suggestions of love. But I cannot pierce his armour."
"And you will give up? You will confess defeat?"
The woman's eyes flashed with a new light. "You little know me if you think that," she cried angrily. "At one time I – yes, I, Olga Petrovic – thought I loved him. I confessed it to you, but now – now – "
"Yes, now?" questioned the Count eagerly.
"Now that thought is not to be considered. I will conquer him; I will make him my slave. He shall be willing to sacrifice name, position, future, anything, everything for me —everything."
"Only, up to now, you've failed."
"Because, because – oh, Romanoff, I don't understand. What is he? Only just a commonplace sort of man – a man vulnerable at a hundred points – and yet I cannot reach him."
"Shall I tell you why?" asked the Count.
"Tell me, tell me!" she cried. "Oh, I've thought, and thought. I've tried in a hundred ways. I've been the grand lady with a great position. I've been an angel of light who cares only for the beautiful and the pure. I've appealed to his ambition – to his love for beautiful things. I've tried to make him jealous, and I've nearly succeeded; but never altogether. Yes; he is just a clever man, and very little more; but I can't reach him. He baffles me. He does not drink, and so I cannot appeal to that weakness. Neither is he the fast man about town that can be caught in my toils. He honours, almost venerates, pure womanhood, and – "
"Tah!" interrupted the Count scornfully.
"You do not believe it?"
"Woman is always man's weak point – always!"
"But not his – not in the way you think. I tell you, he venerates ideal womanhood. He scorns the loud-talking, free-spoken women. He told me his thought of woman was like what Wordsworth painted. At heart I think he is a religious man."
"Listen," said the Count, "I want to tell you something before I go. Sit here; that's it," and he drew a chair close to his side.
He spoke to her half earnestly, half cynically, watching her steadily all the time. He noted the heaving of her bosom, the tremor of her lips, the almost haunted look in her eyes, the smile of satisfied desire on her face.
"That is your plan of action," he concluded. "Remember, you play for great stakes, and you must play boldly. You must play to win. There are times when right and wrong are nothing to a man, and you must be willing to risk everything. As for the rest, I will do it."
Her face was suffused half with the flush of shame, half with excited determination.
"Very well," she said; "you shall be obeyed."
"And I will keep my compact," said the Count.
He left her without another word, and no sign of friendship passed between them.
When he reached the street, however, there was a look of doubt in his eyes. He might have been afraid, for there was a kind of baffled rage on his face.
He stopped a passing taxi, and drove straight to his hotel.
"Is he here?" he asked his valet as he entered his own room.
"He is waiting, my lord."
A minute later the little man who had visited him on the day after Dick Faversham's return to Parliament appeared.
"What report, Polonius?" asked Romanoff.
"Nothing of great importance, I am afraid, my lord, but something."
"Yes, what?"
"He went to Wendover on the day I was unable to account for his whereabouts."
"Ah, you have discovered that, have you?"
"Yes; I regret I missed him that day, but I trust I have gained your lordship's confidence again."
The Count reflected a few seconds. "Tell me what you know," he said peremptorily.
"He went down early, and had a talk with an old man at the station. Then he walked to the house, and had a conversation with his old housekeeper."
"Do you know what was said?"
"There was not much said. She told him there were rumours that Anthony Riggleton was dead."
The Count started as though a new thought had entered his mind; then he turned towards his spy again.
"He did not pay much attention to it," added Polonius, "neither did he pay much attention to what she told him about Riggleton's doings at Wendover."
"Did he go through the house?"
"No; he only stayed a few minutes, but he was seen looking very hard at the front door, as though something attracted him. Then he returned by another route, and had lunch with that old man who has a cottage near one of the lodge gates."
"Hugh Stanmore – yes, I remember."
"After lunch he went through the park with the old man's granddaughter. They were talking very earnestly."
The Count leapt to his feet.
"You saw this girl?" he asked.
"Yes. A girl about twenty, I should think. Very pretty in a simple, countrified way. She is very much loved among the cottage people. I should say she's a very religious girl. I'm told that she has since become engaged to be married to a Sir George Weston, who was a soldier in Egypt."
"Sir George Weston. Let me think. Yes; I remember. Ah, she is engaged to be married to him, is she?"
"That is the rumour. Sir George was staying at Stanmore's cottage at the time of Faversham's visit. He left the day after."
"And Faversham has not been there since?"
"No, my lord."
"Well, go on."
"That is all I know."
"Then you can go; you know my instructions. Remember, they must be obeyed to the very letter."
"They shall be – to the very letter."
The Count entered another room, and opened a safe. From it he took some papers, and read carefully. Then he sat thinking for a long time. Presently he looked at his watch.
Daylight had now gone, early as it was, for winter still gripped the land. Some days there were suggestions of spring in the air, but they were very few. The night was cold.
The Count went to the window, and looked out over St. James's Park. Great, black ominous-looking clouds rolled across the sky, but here and there were patches of blue where stars could plainly be seen. He had evidently made up his mind about something.
His servant knocked at the door.
"What time will your lordship dine?"
"I shall not dine."
"Very good, my lord."
Count Romanoff passed into the street. For some time he walked, and then, hailing a taxi-cab, drove to London Bridge. He did not drive across the bridge, but stopped at the Cannon Street end. Having paid the driver, he walked slowly towards the southern bank of the river. Once he stood for more than a minute watching while the dark waters rolled towards the sea.
"What secrets the old river could tell if it could speak," he muttered; "but all dark secrets – all dark."
He found his way to the station, and mingled with the crowd there.
Hours later he was nearly twenty miles from London, and he was alone on a wide heath. Here and there dotted around the outskirts of the heath he saw lights twinkling.
The sky was brighter here; the clouds did not hang so heavily as in the city, while between them he occasionally saw the pale crescent of a waxing moon. All around him was the heath.
He paid no heed to the biting cold, but walked rapidly along one of the straight-cut roads through the heather and bushes. It was now getting late, and no one was to be seen. There were only a few houses in the district, and the inhabitants of these were doubtless ensconced before cosy fires or playing games with their families. It was not a night to be out.
"What a mockery, what a miserable, dirty little mockery life is!" he said aloud as he tramped along. "And what pigmies men are; what paltry, useless things make up their lives! This is Walton Heath, and here I suppose the legislators of the British Empire come to find their amusement in knocking a golf-ball around. And men are applauded because they can knock that ball a little straighter and a little farther than someone else. But – but – and there comes the rub – these same men can think – think right and wrong, do right and wrong. That fellow Faversham – yes; what is it that makes him beat me?"
Mile after mile he tramped, sometimes stopping to look at the sullen, angry-looking clouds that swept across the sky, and again looking around the heath as if trying to locate some object in which he was interested.
Presently he reached a spot where the road cut through some woodland. Dark pine trees waved their branches to the skies. In the near distance the heath stretched away for miles, and although it was piercingly cold, the scene was almost attractive. But here it was dark, gloomy, forbidding. For some time he stood looking at the waving pine trees; it might have been that he saw more than was plainly visible.
"What fools, what blind fools men are!" he said aloud. "Their lives are bounded by what they see, and they laugh at the spiritual world; they scorn the suggestion that belting the earth are untold millions of spirits of the dead. Here they are all around me. I can see them. I can see them!"
His eyes burnt red; his features were contorted as if by pain.
"An eternal struggle," he cried – "just an eternal struggle between right and wrong, good and evil – yes, good and evil!
"And the good is slowly gaining the victory! Out of all the wild, mad convulsions of the world, right is slowly emerging triumphant, the savage is being subdued, and the human, the Divine, is triumphing."
He lifted his right hand, and shook his fist to the heavens as if defiantly.
"I had great hopes of the War," he went on. "I saw hell let loose; I saw the world mad for blood. Everywhere was the lust for blood; everywhere men cried, 'Kill! kill!' And now it is over, and wrong is being defeated – defeated!"
He seemed to be in a mad frenzy, his voice shook with rage.
"Dark spirits of hell!" he cried. "You have been beaten, beaten! Why, even in this ghastly war, the Cross has been triumphant! Those thousands, those millions of men who went out from this land, went out for an ideal. They did not understand it, but it was so. They felt dimly and indistinctly that they were fighting, dying, that others might live! And some of the most heroic deeds ever known in the history of the world were done. Men died for others, died for comradeship, died for duty, died for country. Everywhere the Cross was seen!
"And those fellows are not dead! They are alive! they have entered into a greater life!
"Why, even the ghastly tragedy of Russia, on which we built so much, will only be the birth-pains which precede a new life!
"Everywhere, everywhere the right, the good, is emerging triumphant!"
He laughed aloud, a laugh of almost insane mockery.
"But men are blind, blind! They do not realise the world of spirits that is all around them, struggling, struggling. But through the ages the spirits of the good are prevailing!
"That is my punishment, my punishment spirits of hell, my punishment! Day by day I see the final destruction of evil!"
His voice was hoarse with agony. He might have been mad – mad with the torture of despair.
"All around me, all around me they live," he went on. "But I am not powerless. I can still work my will. And Faversham shall be mine. I swore it on the day he was born, swore it when his mother passed into the world of spirits, swore it when his father joined her. What though all creation is moving upwards, I can still drag him down, down into hell! Yes, and she shall see him going down, she shall know, and then she shall suffer as I have suffered. Her very heaven shall be made hell to her, because she shall see her son become even what I have become!"
He left the main road, and followed a disused drive through the wood. Before long he came to a lonely house, almost hidden by the trees. A dark gloomy place it was, dilapidated and desolate. Years before it had perchance been the dwelling-place of some inoffensive respectable householder who loved the quietness of the country. For years it was for sale, and then it was bought by a stranger who never lived in it, but let it fall into decay.
Romanoff found his way to the main entrance of the house, and entered. He ascended a stairway, and at length found his way to a room which was furnished. Here he lit a curiously-shaped lamp. In half an hour the place was warm, and suggested comfort. Romanoff sat like one deep in thought.
Presently he began to pace the room, uttering strange words as he walked. He might have been repeating incantations, or weaving some mystic charms. Then he turned out the lamp, and only the fire threw a flickering light around the room.
"My vital forces seem to fail me," he muttered; "even here it seems as though there is good."
Perspiration oozed from his forehead, and his face was as pale as death.
Again he uttered wild cries; he might have been summoning unseen powers to his aid.
"They are here!" he shouted, and there was an evil joy in his face. Then there was a change, fear came into his eyes. Looking across the room, he saw two streaks of light in the form of a cross, while out of the silence a voice came.
"Cease!" said the Voice.
CHAPTER XXXVI
His Guardian Angel
Romanoff ceased speaking, and his eyes were fixed on the two streaks of light.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked.
"I am here to bid you desist."
"And who are you?"
Slowly, between him and the light, a shadowy figure emerged. Second after second its shape became more clearly outlined, until the form of a woman appeared. But the face was obscure; it was dim and shadowy.
Romanoff's eyes were fixed on the figure; but he uttered no sound. His tongue was dry, and cleaved to the roof of his mouth. His lips were parched.
The face became plainer. Its lineaments were more clearly outlined. He could see waves of light brown hair, eyes that were large and yearning with a great tenderness and pity, yet lit up with joy and holy resolve. A mouth tender as that of a child, but with all the firmness of mature years. A haunting face it was, haunting because of its spiritual beauty, its tenderness, its ineffable joy; and yet it was stern and strong.
It was the face of the woman whom Dick Faversham had seen in the smoke-room of the outward-bound vessel years before, the face that had appeared to him at the doorway of the great house at Wendover.
"You, you!" cried Romanoff at length. "You! Madaline?"
"Yes!"
"Why are you here?"
"To plead with you, to beseech you to let my son alone."
A change came over Romanoff's face as he heard the words. A new strength seemed to have come to him. Confidence shone in his eyes, his every feature spoke of triumph.
"Your son! His son!" he cried harshly. "The son of the man for whom you cast me into the outer darkness. But for him you might have been the mother of my son, and I – I should not have been what I am."
"You are what you are because you have always yielded to the promptings of evil," replied the woman. "That was why I never loved you – never could love you."
"But you looked at me with eyes of love until he came."
"As you know, I was but a child, and when you came with your great name, your great riches, you for a time fascinated me; but I never loved you. I told you so before he came."
"But I loved you," said Romanoff hoarsely. "You, the simple country girl, fascinated me, the Russian noble. And I would have withheld nothing from you. Houses, lands, position, a great name, all – all were yours if you would have been my wife. But you rejected me."
"I did not love you. I felt you were evil. I told you so."
"What of that? I loved you. I swore I would win you. But you – you – a simple country girl, poor, ignorant of the world's ways, resisted me, me – Romanoff. And you married that insipid scholar fellow, leaving me scorned, rejected. And I swore I would be revenged, living or dead. Then your child was born and you died. I could not harm you, you were beyond me, but your son lived. And I swore again. If I could not harm you, I could harm him, I could destroy him. I gave myself over to evil for that. I, too, have passed through the doorway which the world calls death; but powers have been given me, powers to carry out my oath. While his father was alive, I could do nothing, but since then my work has been going forward. And I shall conquer, I shall triumph."
"And I have come here to-night to plead with you on my son's behalf. He has resisted wrong for a long time. Leave him in peace."
"Never," cried Romanoff. "You passed into heaven, but your heaven shall be hell, for your son shall go there. He shall become even as I am. His joy shall be in evil."
"Have you no pity, no mercy?"
"None," replied Romanoff. "Neither pity nor mercy have a place in me. You drove me to hell, and it is my punishment that the only joy which may be mine is the joy of what you call evil."
"Then have pity, have mercy on yourself."
"Pity on myself? Mercy on myself? You talk in black ignorance."
"No, I speak in light. Every evil you do only sinks you deeper in mire, deeper in hell."
"I cannot help that. It is my doom."
"It is not your doom if you repent. If you turn your face, your spirit to the light."
"I cannot repent. I am of those who love evil. I hate mercy. I despise pity."
"Then I must seek to save him in spite of you."
"You cannot," and a laugh of savage triumph accompanied his words. "I have made my plans. Nothing which you can do will save him. He has been given to me."
For a few seconds there was tense unnatural silence. The room was full of strange influences, as though conflicting forces were in opposition, as though light and darkness, good and evil, were struggling together.
"No, no, Madaline," went on Romanoff. "Now is my hour of triumph. The son you love shall be mine."
"Love is stronger than hate, good is stronger than evil," she replied. "You are fighting against the Eternal Spirit of Good; you are fighting against the Supreme Manifestation of that Goodness, which was seen two thousand years ago on the Cross of Calvary."
"The Cross of Calvary!" replied Romanoff, and his voice was hoarse; "it is the symbol of defeat, of degradation, of despair. For two thousand years it has been uplifted, but always to fail."
"Always to conquer," was the calm reply. "Slowly but surely, age after age, it has been subduing kingdoms, working righteousness, lifting man up to the Eternal Goodness. It has through all the ages been overcoming evil with good, and bringing the harmonies of holiness out of the discord of sin."
"Think of this war!" snarled Romanoff. "Think of Germany, think of Russia! What is the world but a mad hell?"
"Out of it all will Goodness shine. I cannot understand all, for full understanding only belongs to the Supreme Father of Lights. But I am sure of the end. Already the morning is breaking, already light is shining out of the darkness. Men's eyes are being opened, they are seeing visions and dreaming dreams. They are seeing the end of war, and talking of Leagues of Nations, of the Brotherhood of the world."
"But that does not do away with the millions who have died in battle. It does not atone for blighted and ruined homes, and the darkness of the world."
"Not one of those who fell in battle is dead. They are all alive. I have seen them, spoken to them. And the Eternal Goodness is ever with them, ever bearing them up. They have done what they knew to be their duty, and they have entered into their reward."
"What, the Evil and the Good together?" sneered Romanoff. "That were strange justice surely."
"Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do Right? They are all in His care, and His pity and His love are Infinite. That is why I plead with you."
"What, to spare your son? If what you say is true I am powerless. But I am not. Wrong is stronger than right. I defy you."
"Then is it to be a fight between us?"
"If you will. He must be mine."
"And what then?" There was ineffable sorrow in the woman's voice. "Would you drag him into æons of pain and anguish to satisfy your revenge?"
"I would, and I will. What if right is stronger than wrong, as you say? What if in the end right shall drag him through hell to heaven? I shall still know that he has lived in hell, and thus shall I have my revenge."
"And I, who am his mother, am also his ministering angel, and it is my work to save him from you."
"And you are powerless – powerless, I tell you?"
"All power is not given to us, but God has given His angels power to help and save."
"If you have such power, why am I not vanquished?"
"Have you not been vanquished many times?"
"Not once!" cried Romanoff. "Little by little I have been enveloping him in my toils."
"Think," replied the other. "When he was tossing on the angry sea, whose arms bore him up? Think again, why was it when you and he were in the library together at Wendover, and you tempted him to sell his soul for gain; – whose hand was placed on his, and stopped him from signing the paper which would have made him your slave?"
"Was it you?" gasped Romanoff.
"Think again. When the woman you selected sought to dazzle him with wild dreams of power and ambition, and who almost blinded him to the truth, what led him to discard the picture that came to him as inventions of evil? Who helped to open his eyes?"
"Then you – you," gasped Romanoff – "you have been fighting against me all the time! It was you, was it?"
"I was his mother, I am his mother; and I, who never intentionally did you harm, plead with you again. I love him, even as all true mothers, whether on earth or in the land of spirits, love their children. And I am allowed to watch over him, to protect him, to help him. It is my joy to be his guardian angel, and I plead with you to let him be free from your designs."
"And if I will – what reward will you give me?"
"I will seek to help you from your doom – the doom which must be the lot of those who persist in evil."
"That is not enough. No, I will carry out my plans; I will drag him to hell."
"And I, if need be, will descend into hell to save him."
"You cannot, you cannot!" and triumph rang in his voice. "I swore to drag him to hell, swore that his soul should be given over to evil."
The woman's face seemed to be drawn with pain, her eyes were filled with infinite yearning and tenderness. She moved her lips as if in speech, but Romanoff could distinguish no words. Then her form grew dimmer and dimmer until there was only a shadowy outline of what had been clear and distinct.
"What do you say? I cannot hear!" and his voice was mocking.
The man continued to look at the place where he had seen her, but, as her form disappeared, the two shafts of light grew more and more luminous. He saw the bright shining Cross distinctly outlined, and his eyes burnt with a great terror. Then out of the silence, out of the wide spaces which surrounded the house, out of the broad expanse of the heavens, words came to him:
"Underneath, underneath, Underneath are the Everlasting Arms."
Fascinated, Romanoff gazed, seeing nothing but the shining outline of the Cross, while the air seemed to pulsate with the great words I have set down.
Then slowly the Cross became more and more dim, until at length it became invisible. The corner of the room which had been illumined by its radiance became full of dark shadows. Silence became profound.
"What does it mean?" he gasped. "She left me foiled, defeated, in despair. But the Cross shone. The words filled everything."
For more than a minute he stood like one transfixed, thinking, thinking.
"It means this," he said presently, and the words came from him in hoarse gasps, "it means that I am to have my way; it means that I shall conquer him – drag him to hell; but that underneath hell are the Everlasting Arms. Well, let it be so. I shall have had my revenge. The son shall suffer what the mother made me suffer, and she shall suffer hell, too, because she shall see her son in hell."
He turned and placed more wood on the fire, then throwing himself in an arm-chair he sat for hours, brooding, thinking.
"Yes, Olga will do it," he concluded after a long silence. "The story of the Garden of Eden is an eternal principle. 'The woman tempted me and I did eat,' is the story of the world's sin. He is a man, with all a man's passions, and she is a Venus, a Circe – a woman – and all men fall when a woman tempts."
All through the night he kept his dark vigils; there in the dark house, with only flickering lights from the fire, he worked out his plans, and schemed for the destruction of a man's soul.
In the grey dawn of the wintry morning he was back in London again; but although the servants looked at him questioningly when he entered his hotel, as if wondering where he had been, he told no man of his doings. All his experiences were secret to himself.
During the next few days the little man Polonius seemed exceptionally busy; three times he went to Wendover, where there seemed to be many matters that interested him. Several times he made his way to the War Office, where he appeared to have acquaintances, and where he asked many questions. He also found his way to the block of buildings where Dick Faversham's flat was situated, and although Dick never saw him, he appeared to be greatly interested in the young man's goings out and his comings in. He also went to the House of Commons, and made the acquaintance of many Labour Members. Altogether Polonius's time was much engaged. He went to Count Romanoff's hotel, too, but always late at night, and he had several interviews with that personage, whom he evidently held in great awe.
More than a week after Romanoff's experiences at Walton Heath, Olga Petrovic received a letter which made her very thoughtful. There was a look of fear in her eyes as she read, as though it contained disturbing news.
And yet it appeared commonplace and innocent enough, and it contained only a few lines. Perhaps it was the signature which caused her cheeks to blanch, and her lips to quiver.
