Читать книгу The Secret Dispatch; or, The Adventures of Captain Balgonie - James Grant - Страница 4

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Captain Balgonie, of the Regiment of Smolensko, soon found himself in a comfortable bed-chamber, where the genial glow of a peitchka, or Russian wall-stove, diffused warmth through his chilled frame, and where every current of the external atmosphere was carefully excluded by double window sashes, adorned with artificial flowers between.

When he chose to repose, a couch draped with snow-white curtains, and having a coverlet of the softest fur, awaited him; and above it hung a little holy picture of the Byzantine school, a Holy Virgin, with a halo of shining metal in the form of a horse-shoe round her head, if he chose to be devout and offer up a prayer.

A valet, after supplying him with hot coffee and a good dram of vodka (which somewhat reminded him of his native "mountain dew"), said that the Count, his master, would rejoice to have the pleasure of the visitor's society, after he had made a suitable toilet, and exchanged his wet uniform for a luxurious robe-de-chambre, in the pocket of which he took especial care to secure his dispatch, unseen.

Hospitality such as this, was not merely then a characteristic of the people, but was the result, perhaps, of a meagre population, and the absence of inns; thus the arrival of a stranger, especially an officer on duty, at this Russian mansion, created little or no surprise among its inmates.

He was ushered into the presence of Count Mierowitz, whose name at once inspired him with confidence and satisfaction; for, by one of those singular coincidences "which novelists dare not use in fiction, but which occur daily in actual and matter-of-fact life," he had arrived at a mansion where he was not altogether unknown.

"I have to apologise to your High Excellency for this apparent intrusion," said he; "but I have been misled or abandoned by my guide. I am Captain Balgonie, of the Regiment of Smolensko, and have the good fortune to number among my friends your son, Lieutenant Basil Mierowitz, the senior subaltern of my company."

"For Basil's sake, not less than your own, Captain, are you most welcome to the Castle of Louga," replied the Count, lifting and laying aside his cap.

He was a man well on in years; his stature was not great, neither was his presence dignified; he stooped a little and was thick set, with a venerable beard, undefiled by steel; for, like a true old Muscovite, he contended that man was made in the image of God, and should neither be cut or carved upon. His eyebrows were white, but his eyes were dark, keen, quick, and expressed a spirit of ready impulse, for laughter or for ferocity—one, who by turns could be suave or irritable, especially when under the influence of wine, which generally made him fierce and stupid; for never, in all his life, had he suffered control or had his will disputed.

His silver hair was simply tied behind with a black ribbon; in his hand he carried a little cap of black wolf's fur, adorned by rudely set jewels; he wore a queerly cut coat of dark red cloth trimmed with fur, and wore breeches of the same stuff, and lacked but a dagger and pistols with brass Turkish butts at his girdle, to seem what he really was, in disposition and character, a type of the boyar of the old school, who preferred quass to champagne, ate his pancakes with caviare, and was proud of being a specimen of the old Russian noble, as he existed in the time of Peter the Great, when his class first united some of the vices and luxuries of Western Europe to their native lawlessness and hardy ferocity.

Such was Count Mierowitz.

"When did you last see my son?" he asked, in tone more of authority than of anxious inquiry.

"Some three months since, Excellency: he has been detached on the Livonian frontier."

"And you, Captain—"

"I am proceeding on urgent imperial service from Novgorod where my regiment is stationed in the old palace of the Czars."

"To whither?"

"Schlusselburg."

The host changed countenance and almost manifested signs of discomposure on hearing of that formidable fortress and prison—the veritable Bastille of St. Petersburg, and he said:

"A name to shudder at—by St. Nicholas it is!"

"And, but for the feather in the wax of my dispatch," resumed Balgonie (showing a red government seal in which a piece of feather twitched from a pen was inserted, the usual Russian emblem of speed), "I had not, perhaps, tempted the dangers of the Louga, but sought a billet on the other side, if such could be found."

"You know not, perhaps, that my woods are full of wolves; but this is not the way to St. Petersburg."

"Yet I was so directed, Excellency."

"You have been misled, and are only some seventy versts or so from the place you have left."

"You amaze me, Count," exclaimed the perplexed Captain; for in the Russian service, an error becomes a crime.

"Captain, you should have gone by Gori, Oustensk, Spask, and so on."

"That devil of a Podatchkine, an orderly of General Weymarn, who sent him specially with me, has either deluded or abandoned me."

"Yet we must thank your Podatchkine, in so far that he has procured us the pleasure of your society in this lonely place—my daughter and my niece, Captain Ivanovitch Balgonie," continued the Count, introducing two young ladies who came through the curtains of a species of boudoir, "Natalie and Mariolizza Usakoff. Our visitor, Natalie, is that Ivanovitch Balgonie of whom Basil has spoken so much and so kindly."

Without being a vain man, Balgonie felt at that moment considerable satisfaction in the conviction that he was—as his glass had often informed him—decidedly a good-looking young fellow, with regular features, fine dark eyes, curling brown hair, and a smart moustache; for Natalie Mierowna, like her cousin Mariolizza, was one of the most attractive women at the dangerous Court of the Empress Catharine II.; for it was during her reign that the story and the atrocities we have unfortunately to record took place; when among us, in more civilised Britain, the grandfather of her present Majesty, old George III., was king, and the arts of peace and war grew side by side.

"The friend and comrade of my brother Basil is welcome," said Natalie, presenting her hands (very tiny and delicate they were) to Balgonie, who bowed and touched them lightly with his lips; "he has often written to us concerning you and your adventures together in Silesia."

"I am but too fortunate to be remembered thus."

"Nay," rejoined Natalie, "we could scarcely forget that daring act of yours, which won you the rank you hold at present. Ah, Basil told us all about that when he was last here," she added, with a beautiful smile, of which she knew that many had already felt the power.

"You mean my reconnoitring the enemy's position and avoiding being taken by them?"

"Yes, pray tell me about it?" said Mariolizza, her blue eyes dilating with pleasure; "my brother was there too—Apollo Usakoff, a lieutenant in the Regiment of Valikolutz."

"It was a very simple matter," replied Balgonie, bowing to each of the cousins, and not sorry to have a good personal anecdote to relate of himself, one which was certain to make him appear to advantage in the estimation of two very attractive women. "It was only a ruse de guerre, and occurred when our Regiment of Smolensko was with the combined armies in Silesia, and before the King of Prussia attacked Count Daun at the Heights of Buckersdorff. An exact account of the Austrian position was required by our general, who had not then received the orders of the Empress to fall back upon the Russian frontier. The task was one of extreme peril; so I being a soldier of fortune, having all to win, and nothing to lose——"

"Save your life!" interrupted Natalie.

"One in my position, among a foreign army, must not value that too much," said the Captain, in a tone not untinged with melancholy.

"Well?"

"I volunteered for it, despite all that your son, Count, my friend could say to dissuade me. Well armed, at midnight, I set out upon my solitary mission, unattended and alone, without relinquishing my uniform; for if taken prisoner when otherwise attired, I would infallibly be hanged as a spy; but ere long I found, that in such a dress, there were insuperable difficulties to making the reconnoissance required.

"At the cottage of a Silesian boor, near the base of the Eulanbirge (or mountain of the owls), I stopped to make some inquiries. The fellow proved to be partially tipsy; the contents of my pocket-flask, potent vodka, completed his happy condition, and after a few jests I prevailed upon him to change dresses with me. He donned the green coat, epaulettes, and boots of the Regiment of Smolensko; I, the ample canvas caftan and girdle of a Silesian boor,—a fur cap, and a visage daubed with grime, completed my costume. Thus attired, and retaining only my pistols, I reconnoitred safely and unheeded the Austrian position, noting the defences, trenches, fascine batteries, cannon, and general disposition; but I had a narrow escape, for when returning to the cottage of my new friend the boor, a party of Count Daun's Imperial Cuirassiers, who had been patrolling the Eulanbirge, overtook me, and at once perceiving I was not a Silesian, questioned me rather closely and curiously.

"I succeeded in passing myself off as a Pomeranian, and pointing to the cottage, told them that there was concealed an officer of the famous Regiment of Smolensko. They at once galloped off and surrounded it, while I stole away to a thicket, and climbed into a tree, from whence I could see the poor boor, clad in my uniform, and still labouring under the influence of his late debauch, dragged a prisoner—despite all his bewildered protestations and denials—towards the camp of Count Daun, while I, under cover of night, reached in safety the lines of the allies, and made my report to General Weymarn, then commanding our division of the army.

"It proved of no use to us, as we fell back next day; but it enabled our ally, the King of Prussia, to storm with signal success the Heights of Buckersdorff, to drive back Count Daun, and invest Schwiednitz. He offered me rank in his army; but I declined, on which the Empress sent me the commission of Captain in her Regiment of Smolensko, thus enabling me to rank as a noble of the ninth class."

"May you soon rank as one of the sixth," said the Count, patting the Captain on the shoulder frankly.

"Ah, Excellency, it may be long ere I become a colonel; yet," he added, almost as if talking to himself, "when I got the letter of the Empress addressed to me, Carl Ivanovitch Hospodeen* Balgonie, I could not but smile at the thought of how such a title would have sounded in the ears of my good father, old John Balgonie, of that Ilk!"

* Equivalent to Monsieur or Esquire.

"Let me repeat that you are most welcome," said the Count, who totally failed to understand the meaning of the last remark; "and luckily you have arrived just as the ladies and I were about to proceed to the supper-table."

To Balgonie it had become apparent that each time he mentioned the name of the Empress, the proud pink nostrils of Natalie seemed to dilate, and that a decidedly dangerous expression glittered in her splendid dark eyes.

Natalie Mierowna, whose beauty had caused such jealousy at Moscow and St. Petersburg (two duels are spoken of concerning her), had ever shone brilliantly in the "follow-my-leader" kind of dance, now so well known among us as the Mazurka,—the old Sclavonian measure, in which all succeeding couples have to imitate the motions of the first; and the chief Russian peculiarity of the dance consists still in the circumstance of the ladies selecting their own partners—the brilliant Natalie, we say, having twice sportively, or in a spirit of coquettish bravado, chosen a handsome young aide-de-camp, whom the Empress was supposed to view with favour, led to her abrupt exile from Court, and to the detaching of Captain Vlasfief, of the Imperial Guards, to irksome and secluded duty at the state prison of Schlusselburg. This unmerited affront filled her brother, Basil Mierowitz, with such fiery indignation, that but for the dread of compromising his whole family, he would have cast his commission at the feet of the imperious Catharine, and quitted the Russian army; but flight or exile must at once have followed the act.

As it was, though detached and distant on the Livonian frontier, he was now conceiving a scheme for vengeance, much more perilous to himself and to all concerned, and which actually aimed at the dethronement of the Empress Catharine!