"Listen now," said Annouschka: "your position is terrible, I grant that, and your grief is great; but your grief could be greater and your position more terrible still. If the general knew this."
"What difference would it make to me?" said Vaninka. "I shall weep for him before the whole world."
"Yes, but you will be dishonoured before the whole world! To-morrow your slaves, and the day after all St. Petersburg, will know that a man died of suffocation while concealed in your chamber. Reflect, my lady: your honour is the honour of your father, the honour of your family."
"You are right," said Vaninka, shaking her head, as if to disperse the gloomy thoughts that burdened her brain,-"you are right, but what must we do?"
"Does my lady know my brother Ivan?"
"Yes."
"We must tell him all."
"Of what are you thinking?" cried Vaninka. "To confide in a man? A man, do I say? A serf! a slave!"
"The lower the position of the serf and slave, the safer will our secret be, since he will have everything to gain by keeping faith with us."
"Your brother is a drunkard," said Vaninka, with mingled fear and disgust.
"That is true," said Annouschka; "but where will you find a slave who is not? My brother gets drunk less than most, and is therefore more to be trusted than the others. Besides, in the position in which we are we must risk something."
"You are right," said Vaninka, recovering her usual resolution, which always grew in the presence of danger. "Go and seek your brother."
"We can do nothing this morning," said Annouschka, drawing back the window curtains. "Look, the dawn is breaking."
"But what can we do with the body of this unhappy man?" cried Vaninka.
"It must remain hidden where it is all day, and this evening, while you are at the Court entertainment, my brother shall remove it."
"True," murmured Vaninka in a strange tone, "I must go to Court this evening; to stay away would arouse suspicion. Oh, my G.o.d! my G.o.d!"
"Help me, my lady," said Annouschka; "I am not strong enough alone."
Vaninka turned deadly pale, but, spurred on by the danger, she went resolutely up to the body of her lover; then, lifting it by the shoulders, while her maid raised it by the legs, she laid it once more in the chest. Then Annouschka shut down the lid, locked the chest, and put the key into her breast. Then both threw back the linen which had hidden it from the eyes of the general. Day dawned, as might be expected, ere sleep visited the eyes of Vaninka.
She went down, however, at the breakfast hour; for she did not wish to arouse the slightest suspicion in her father"s mind. Only it might have been thought from her pallor that she had risen from the grave, but the general attributed this to the nocturnal disturbance of which he had been the cause.
Luck had served Vaninka wonderfully in prompting her to say that Foedor had already gone; for not only did the general feel no surprise when he did not appear, but his very absence was a proof of his daughter"s innocence. The general gave a pretext for his aide-de-camp"s absence by saying that he had sent him on a mission. As for Vaninka, she remained out of her room till it was time to dress. A week before, she had been at the Court entertainment with Foedor.
Vaninka might have excused herself from accompanying her father by feigning some slight indisposition, but two considerations made her fear to act thus: the first was the fear of making the general anxious, and perhaps of making him remain at home himself, which would make the removal of the corpse more difficult; the second was the fear of meeting Ivan and having to blush before a slave. She preferred, therefore, to make a superhuman effort to control herself; and, going up again into her room, accompanied by her faithful Annouschka, she began to dress with as much care as if her heart were full of joy. When this cruel business was finished, she ordered Annouschka to shut the door; for she wished to see Foedor once more, and to bid a last farewell to him who had been her lover. Annouschka obeyed; and Vaninka, with flowers in her hair and her breast covered with jewels, glided like a phantom into her servant"s room.
Annouschka again opened the chest, and Vaninka, without shedding a tear, without breathing a sigh, with the profound and death-like calm of despair, leant down towards Foedor and took off a plain ring which the young man had on his finger, placed it on her own, between two magnificent rings, then kissing him on the brow, she said, "Goodbye, my betrothed."
At this moment she heard steps approaching. It was a groom of the chambers coming from the general to ask if she were ready. Annouschka let the lid of the chest fall, and Vaninka going herself to open the door, followed the messenger, who walked before her, lighting the way.
Such was her trust in her foster-sister that she left her to accomplish the dark and terrible task with which she had burdened herself.
A minute later, Annouschka saw the carriage containing the general and his daughter leave by the main gate of the hotel.
She let half an hour go by, and then went down to look for Ivan. She found him drinking with Gregory, with whom the general had kept his word, and who had received the same day one thousand roubles and his liberty. Fortunately, the revellers were only beginning their rejoicings, and Ivan in consequence was sober enough for his sister to entrust her secret to him without hesitation.
Ivan followed Annouschka into the chamber of her mistress. There she reminded him of all that Vaninka, haughty but generous, had allowed his sister to do for him. The, few gla.s.ses of brandy Ivan had already swallowed had predisposed him to grat.i.tude (the drunkenness of the Russian is essentially tender). Ivan protested his devotion so warmly that Annouschka hesitated no longer, and, raising the lid of the chest, showed him the corpse of Foedor. At this terrible sight Ivan remained an instant motionless, but he soon began to calculate how much money and how many benefits the possession of such a secret would bring him. He swore by the most solemn oaths never to betray his mistress, and offered, as Annouschka had hoped, to dispose of the body of the unfortunate aide-decamp.
The thing was easily done. Instead of returning to drink with Gregory and his comrades, Ivan went to prepare a sledge, filled it with straw, and hid at the bottom an iron crowbar. He brought this to the outside gate, and a.s.suring himself he was not being spied upon, he raised the body of the dead man in his arms, hid it under the straw, and sat down above it. He had the gate of the hotel opened, followed Niewski Street as far as the Zunamenie Church, pa.s.sed through the shops in the Rejestwenskoi district, drove the sledge out on to the frozen Neva, and halted in the middle of the river, in front of the deserted church of Ste. Madeleine. There, protected by the solitude and darkness, hidden behind the black ma.s.s of his sledge, he began to break the ice, which was fifteen inches thick, with his pick. When he had made a large enough hole, he searched the body of Foedor, took all the money he had about him, and slipped the body head foremost through the opening he had made.
He then made his way back to the hotel, while the imprisoned current of the Neva bore away the corpse towards the Gulf of Finland. An hour after, a new crust of ice had formed, and not even a trace of the opening made by Ivan remained.
At midnight Vaninka returned with her father. A hidden fever had been consuming her all the evening: never had she looked so lovely, and she had been overwhelmed by the homage of the most distinguished n.o.bles and courtiers. When she returned, she found Annouschka in the vestibule waiting to take her cloak. As she gave it to her, Vaninka sent her one of those questioning glances that seem to express so much. "It is done,"
said the girl in a low voice. Vaninka breathed a sigh of relief, as if a mountain had been removed from her breast. Great as was her self-control, she could no longer bear her father"s presence, and excused herself from remaining to supper with him, on the plea of the fatigues of the evening. Vaninka was no sooner in her room, with the door once closed, than she tore the flowers from her hair, the necklace from her throat, cut with scissors the corsets which suffocated her, and then, throwing herself on her bed, she gave way to her grief. Annouschka thanked G.o.d for this outburst; her mistress"s calmness had frightened her more than her despair. The first crisis over, Vaninka was able to pray. She spent an hour on her knees, then, yielding to the entreaties of her faithful attendant, went to bed. Annouschka sat down at the foot of the bed.
Neither slept, but when day came the tears which Vaninka had shed had calmed her.
Annouschka was instructed to reward her brother. Too large a sum given to a slave at once might have aroused suspicion, therefore Annouschka contented herself with telling Ivan that when he had need of money he had only to ask her for it.
Gregory, profiting by his liberty and wishing to make use of his thousand roubles, bought a little tavern on the outskirts of the town, where, thanks to his address and to the acquaintances he had among the servants in the great households of St. Petersburg, he began to develop an excellent business, so that in a short time the Red House (which was the name and colour of Gregory"s establishment) had a great reputation.
Another man took over his duties about the person of the general, and but for Foedor"s absence everything returned to its usual routine in the house of Count Tchermayloff.
Two months went by in this way, without anybody having the least suspicion of what had happened, when one morning before the usual breakfast-hour the general begged his daughter to come down to his room.
Vaninka trembled with fear, for since that fatal night everything terrified her. She obeyed her father, and collecting all her strength, made her way to his chamber, The count was alone, but at the first glance Vaninka saw she had nothing to fear from this interview: the general was waiting for her with that paternal smile which was the usual expression of his countenance when in his daughter"s presence.
She approached, therefore, with her usual calmness, and, stooping down towards the general, gave him her forehead to kiss.
He motioned to her to sit down, and gave her an open letter. Vaninka looked at him for a moment in surprise, then turned her eyes to the letter.
It contained the news of the death of the man to whom her hand had been promised: he had been killed in a duel.
The general watched the effect of the letter on his daughter"s face, and great as was Vaninka"s self-control, so many different thoughts, such bitter regret, such poignant remorse a.s.sailed her when she learnt that she was now free again, that she could not entirely conceal her emotion.
The general noticed it, and attributed it to the love which he had for a long time suspected his daughter felt for the young aide-de-camp.
"Well," he said, smiling, "I see it is all for the best."
"How is that, father?" asked Vaninka.
"Doubtless," said the general. "Did not Foedor leave because he loved you?"
"Yes," murmured the young girl.
"Well, now he may return," said the general.
Vaninka remained silent, her eyes fixed, her lips trembling.
"Return!" she said, after a moment"s silence.
"Yes, certainly return. We shall be most unfortunate," continued the general, smiling, "if we cannot find someone in the house who knows where he is. Come, Vaninka, tell me the place of his exile, and I will undertake the rest."
"n.o.body knows where Foedor is," murmured Vaninka in a hollow voice; "n.o.body but G.o.d, n.o.body!"
"What!" said the general, "he has sent you no news since the day he left?"
Vaninka shook her head in denial. She was so heart-broken that she could not speak.