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The Crown of Life, a novel by George Gissing |
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Chapter 32 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXII Again it was springtime--the spring of 1894. Two years had gone by since that April night when Piers Otway suffered things unspeakable in flesh and spirit, thinking that for him the heavens had no more radiance, life no morrow. The memory was faint; he found it hard to imagine that the loss of a woman he did not love could so have afflicted him. Olga Hannaford--Mrs. Florio--was matter for a smile; he hoped that he might some day meet her again, and take her hand with the old friendliness, and wish her well. He had spent the winter in St. Petersburg, and was making arrangements for a visit to England, when one morning there came to him a letter which made his eyes sparkle and his heart beat high with joy. In the afternoon, having given more than wonted care to his dress, he set forth from the lodging he occupied at the lower end of the Nevski Prospect, and walked to the Hotel de France, near the Winter Palace, where he inquired for Mrs. Borisoff. After a little delay, he was conducted to a private sitting-room, where again he waited. On a table lay two periodicals, at which he glanced, recognising with a smile recent numbers of the _Nineteenth Century_ and the _Vyestnik Evropy_. There entered a lady with a bright English face, a lady in the years between youth and middle age, frank, gracious, her look of interest speaking a compliment which Otway found more than agreeable. "I have kept you waiting," she said, in a tone that dispensed with formalities, "because I was on the point of going out when they brought your card----" "Oh, I am sorry----" "But I am not. Instead of twaddle and boredom round somebody or other's samovar, I am going to have honest talk under the chaperonage of an English teapot--my own teapot, which I carry everywhere. But don't be afraid; I shall not give you English tea. What a shame that I have been here for two months without our meeting! I have talked about you--wanted to know you. Look!" She pointed to the periodicals which Piers had already noticed. "No," she went on, checking him as he was about to sit down, "_that_ is your chair. If you sat on the other, you would be polite and grave and--like everybody else; I know the influence of chairs. That is the chair my husband selects when he wishes to make me understand some point of etiquette. Miss Derwent warned you, no doubt, of my shortcomings in etiquette?" "All she said to me," replied Piers, laughing, "was that you are very much her friend." "Well, that is true, I hope. Tell me, please; is the article in the _Vyestnik_ your own Russian?" "Not entirely. I have a friend named Korolevitch, who went through it for me." "Korolevitch? I seem to know that name. Is he, by chance, connected with some religious movement, some heresy?" "I was going to say I am sorry he is; yet I can't be sorry for what honours the man. He has joined the Dukhobortsi; has sold his large estate, and is devoting all the money to their cause. I'm afraid he'll go to some new-world colony, and I shall see little of him henceforth. A great loss to me." Mrs. Borisoff kept her eyes upon him as he spoke, seeming to reflect rather than to listen. "I ought to tell you," she said, "that I don't know Russian. Irene--Miss Derwent almost shamed me into working at it; but I am so lazy--ah, so lazy! you are aware, of course, that Miss Derwent has learnt it?" "Has learnt Russian?" exclaimed Piers. "I didn't know--I had no idea----" "Wonderful girl! I suppose she thinks it a trifle." "It's so long," said Otway, "since I had any news of Miss Derwent. I can hardly consider myself one of her friends--at least, I shouldn't have ventured to do so until this morning, when I was surprised and delighted to have a letter from her about that _Nineteenth Century_ article, sent through the publishers. She spoke of you, and asked me to call--saying she had written an introduction of me by the same post." Mrs. Borisoff smiled oddly. "Oh yes; it came. She didn't speak of the _Vyestnik_?" "No." "Yet she has read it--I happen to know. I'm sorry I can't. Tell me about it, will you?" The Russian article was called "New Womanhood in England." It began with a good-tempered notice of certain novels then popular, and passed on to speculations regarding the new ideals of life set before English women. Piers spoke of it as a mere bit of apprentice work, meant rather to amuse than as a serious essay. "At all events, it's a success," said his listener. "One hears of it in every drawing-room. Wonderful thing--you don't sneer at women. I'm told you are almost on our side--if not quite. I've heard a passage read into French--the woman of the twentieth century. I rather liked it." "Not altogether?" said Otway, with humorous diffidence. "Oh! A woman never quite likes an ideal of womanhood which doesn't quite fit her notion of herself. But let us speak of the other thing, in the _Nineteenth Century_--'The Pilgrimage to Kief.' For life, colour, sympathy, I think it altogether wonderful. I have heard Russians say that they couldn't have believed a foreigner had written it." "That's the best praise of all." "You mean to go on with this kind of thing? You might become a sort of interpreter of the two nations to each other. An original idea. The everyday thing is to exasperate Briton against Russ, and Russ against Briton, with every sort of cheap joke and stale falsehood. All the same Mr. Otway, I'm bound to confess to you that I don't like Russia." "No more do I," returned Piers, in an undertone. "But that only means, I don't like the worst features of the Middle ages. The Russian-speaking cosmopolitan whom you and I know isn't Russia; he belongs to the Western Europe of to-day, his country represents Western Europe of some centuries ago. Not strictly that, of course; we must allow for race; but it's how one has to think of Russia." Again Mrs. Borisoff scrutinised him as he spoke, averting her eyes at length with an absent smile. "Here comes my tutelary teapot," she said, as a pretty maid-servant entered with a tray. "A phrase I got from Irene, by the bye--from Miss Derwent, who laughs at my carrying the thing about in my luggage. She has clever little phrases of that sort, as you know." "Yes," fell from Piers, dreamily. "But it's so long since I heard her talk." When he had received his cup of tea, and sipped from it, he asked with a serious look: "Will you tell me about her?" "Of course I will. But you must first tell me about yourself. You were in business in London, I believe?" "For about a year. Then I found myself with enough to live upon, and came back to Russia. I had lived at Odessa----" "You may presuppose a knowledge of what came before," interrupted Mrs. Borisoff, with a friendly nod. "I lived for several months with Korolevitch, on his estate near Poltava. We used to talk--heavens! how we talked! Sometimes eight hours at a stretch. I learnt a great deal. Then I wandered up and down Russia, still learning." "Writing, too?" "The time hadn't come for writing. Korolevitch gave me no end of useful introductions. I've had great luck on my travels." "Pray, when did you make your studies of English women?" Piers tried to laugh; declared he did not know. "I shouldn't wonder if you generalise from one or two?" said his hostess, letting her eyelids droop as she observed him lazily. "Do you know Russian women as well?" By begging for another cup of tea, and adding a remark on some other subject, Piers evaded this question. "And what are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Borisoff "Stay here, and write more articles?" "I'm going to England in a few days for the summer." "That's what I think I shall do. But I don't know what part to go to. Advise me, can you? Seaside--no; I don't like the seaside. Do you notice how people--our kind of people, I mean--are losing their taste for it in England? It's partly, I suppose, because of the excursion train. One doesn't grudge the crowd its excursion train, but it's so much nicer to imagine their blessedness than to see it. Or are you for the other point of view?" Otway gave an expressive look. "That's right. Oh, the sham philanthropic talk that goes on in England! How it relieves one to say flatly that one does _not_ love the multitude!--No seaside, then. Lakes--no; Wales--no; Highlands--no. Isn't there some part of England one would like if one discovered it?" "Do you want solitude?" asked Piers, becoming more interested. "Solitude? H'm!" She handed a box of cigarettes, and herself took one. "Yes, solitude. I shall try to get Miss Derwent to come for a time. New Forest--no, Please, please, do suggest! I'm nervous; your silence teases me." "Do you know the Yorkshire dales?" asked Otway, watching her as she watched a nice little ring of white smoke from the end of her cigarette. "No! That's an idea. It's your own country, isn't it?" "But--how do you know that?" "Dreamt it." "I wasn't born there, but lived there as a child, and later a little. You might do worse than the dales, if you like that kind of country. Wensleydale, for instance. There's an old Castle, and a very interesting one, part of it habitable, where you can get quarters." "A Castle? Superb!" "Where Queen Mary was imprisoned for a time, till she made an escape----" "Magnificent! Can I have the whole Castle to myself?" "The furnished part of it, unless someone else has got it already for this summer. There's a family, the caretakers, always in possession--if things are still as they used to be." "Write for me at once, will you? Write immediately! There is paper on the desk." Piers obeyed. Whilst he sat penning the letter, Mrs. Borisoff lighted a second cigarette, her face touched with a roguish smile. She studied Otway's profile for a moment; became grave; fell into a mood of abstraction, which shadowed her features with weariness and melancholy. Turning suddenly to put a question, Piers saw the change in her look, and was so surprised that he forgot what he was going to say. "Finished?" she asked, moving nervously in her chair. When the letter was written, Mrs. Borisoff resumed talk in the same tone as before. "You have heard of Dr. Derwent's discoveries about diphtheria?-- That's the kind of thing one envies, don't you think? After all, what can we poor creatures do in this world, but try to ease each other's pain? The man who succeeds in _that_ is the man I honour." "I too," said Piers. "But he is lost sight of, nowadays, in comparison with the man who invents a new gun or a new bullet." "Yes--the beasts!" exclaimed Mrs. Borisoff, with a laugh. "What a world! I'm always glad I have no children. But you wanted to speak, not about Dr. Derwent, but Dr. Derwent's daughter." Piers bent forward, resting his chin on his hand. "Tell me about her--will you?" "There's not much to tell. You knew about the broken-off marriage?" "I knew it _was_ broken off." "Why, that's all anyone knows, except the two persons concerned. It isn't our business. The world talks far too much about such things--don't you think? when we are civilised, there'll be no such things as public weddings, and talk about anyone's domestic concerns will be the grossest impertinence. That's an _obiter dictum_. I was going to say that Irene lives with her father down in Kent. They left Bryanston Square half a year after the affair. They wander about the Continent together, now and then. I like that chumming of father and daughter; it speaks well for both." "When did you see her last?" "About Christmas. We went to a concert together. That's one of the things Irene is going in for--music. When I first knew her, she didn't seem to care much about it, though she played fairly well." "I never heard her play," fell from Piers in an undertone. "No; she only did to please her father now and then. It's a mental and moral advance, her new love of music. I notice that she talks much less about science, much more about the things one really likes--I speak for myself. Well, it's just possible I have had a little influence there. I confess my inability to chat about either physic or physics. It's weak, of course, but I have no place in your new world of women." "You mistake, I think," said Piers. "That ideal has nothing to do with any particular study. It supposes intelligence, that's all." "So much the better. You must write about it in English; then we'll debate. By the bye, if I go to your Castle, you must come down to show me the country." "I should like to." "Oh, that's part of the plan. If we don't get the Castle, you must find some other place for me. I leave it in your hands--with an apology for my impudence." After a pause, during which each of them mused smiling, they began to talk of their departure for England. Otway would go direct in a few days' time; Mrs. Borisoff had to travel a long way round, first of all accompanying her husband to the Crimea, on a visit to relatives. She mentioned her London hotel, and an approximate date when she might be heard of there. "Get the Castle if you possibly can," were her words as they parted. "I have set my heart on the Castle." "So have I," said Piers, avoiding her look. And Mrs. Borisoff laughed. _ |
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