Читать книгу The Price of Power - William Le Queux - Страница 9

Six hours later, accompanied by Saunderson, our tall, thin Chargé d’Affaires, and the Embassy staff, all in our uniforms and decorations, I entered the huge white-and-gold ballroom of the Winter Palace, where the Russian Court, the representatives of exclusive Society, the bureaucracy of the Empire and the corps diplomatique had assembled.

The scene was perhaps the most brilliant and picturesque that could be witnessed anywhere in the world. Beneath the myriad lights of those huge cut-glass chandeliers, and reflected by the gigantic mirrors upon the walls, were hundreds of gold-laced uniforms of every shade and every style. Across the breasts of many of the men were gay-coloured scarves of the various orders, with diamond stars, while others wore around their necks parti-coloured ribbons with enamelled crosses at their throat, or rows of decorations across their breasts.

And to this phantasmagoria of colour, as all stood in little groups chattering and awaiting Their Majesties, was added that of the splendid long-trained dresses of the women, nearly all of whom wore their diamond tiaras, or diamond ornaments in their corsage.

It was indeed, a cosmopolitan gathering, half of Russians and half of the diplomatic set, and around me, as I bowed over the hand of a well-known Baroness, wife of the Minister of War, I heard animated chatter in half a dozen tongues. The Emperor had returned, and there would now be a month of gaiety before he retired for the summer to Gatchina. The spring season in Petersburg had been cut short—first by the indisposition of the Empress, and afterwards by reason of the Emperor’s tour to the distant shore of the Caspian.

Therefore at this, the delayed Court ball, everybody who was anybody in Russia was present.

In one end of the huge Renaissance salon, with its wonderful painted ceiling and gilded cupids, was a great semicircular alcove, with a slightly raised daïs, whereon sat the Dowager-Empress, the Grand Duchesses and those of the blood-royal, with their attendant ladies, while the male members of the Court lounged behind.

The opposite end of the great ballroom led to another salon with parquet floor, decorated in similar style, and with many mirrors, and almost as large, while beyond was a somewhat smaller room, the whole effect being one of gorgeous grandeur and immensity.

I had paused to chat with a stout lady in cream, who wore a beautiful tiara. Princess Lovovski, wife of the Governor-General of Finland, and she had commenced to tell me the latest tit-bit of scandal concerning the wife of a certain War Office official, a matter which did not interest me in the least, when suddenly there came three loud taps—the taps of the Grand Chamberlain—announcing the entrance of His Majesty. As by enchantment a wide door in the side of the ballroom flew open, and the glittering throng, bejewelled and perfumed, flashing colours amid plumes, aigrettes and flowers, laughing and murmuring to the clink of gala swords and sabres, was struck to silence.

His Majesty passed—a tall, commanding figure in a white uniform covered with the stars, crosses and many-coloured ribbons of the various European orders. Beneath the thousand lights the bare shoulders of the beautiful women inclined profoundly.

Then again the loud chatter recommenced.

The Emperor’s presence, tall, erect, muscular, was indeed a regal one. He looked every inch a ruler and an autocrat as he advanced to the alcove, where the whole Court had risen to receive him, and with a quick gesture he gave the signal for dancing to commence.

I retreated to the wall, being in no humour to dance, and stood gazing at him. He seemed, indeed, a different person to that deep-eyed, earnest man in dark-blue serge who had sat chatting with me so affably six hours ago. He was in that hour a man, but now the centre of that gay patrician throng, he was ruler, the autocrat who by a stroke of the grey quill could banish to the mines or the oubliettes any of those of his subjects who bowed before him—sweep them out of existence as completely as though the grave had claimed them; for every exile lost his identity and became a mere number; his estate was administered as though he were dead, and apportioned, with the usual forfeiture to the State, among his heirs. So that it was impossible for an exile to be traced.

I thought of Madame Marya de Rosen and of poor little Luba. Ah! I wondered how many delicate women and handsome, intelligent men who had danced over that polished floor were now dragging out their weary lives in those squalid, filthy Yakut yaurtas of Eastern Siberia. How many, alas! had, in innocence, fallen victims to that corrupt bureaucracy which always concealed the truth from His Majesty.

To the camarilla, a dozen or so men who were present there in brilliant uniforms and wearing the Cross of St. Andrew, with the pale-blue ribbon, the highest Order of the Empire, bestowed upon them for their “fidelity,” that present reign of terror was solely due. It was to the interests of those men that the Emperor should be perpetually terrorised. Half those so-called conspiracies were the work of the Secret Police themselves and their agents-provocateurs; and hundreds of innocent persons were being spirited away without trial to the frozen wastes of Northern and Eastern Siberia, upon no other charge than the trivial one that they were “dangerous” persons!

Madame de Rosen and her pretty daughter had fallen victims of the bitter unscrupulousness of that short, stout, grey-moustached man, who at that moment was bowing so obsequiously before his Sovereign, the man who was one of the greatest powers in the Empire, General Serge Markoff, Chief of Secret Police.

The first dance was in progress. Pretty women, with their smart, good-looking cavaliers, were whirling about me to the slow, tuneful strains of one of the latest of Strauss’s waltzes, when Colonel Mellini, the Italian military attaché, halted before me to chat. He had just returned from leave, and had much Embassy gossip to relate to me from the Eternal City, where I had served for two years.

“I hear,” he remarked at last, “that another plot was discovered early this morning—a desperate one in the Nevski. Markoff really seems ubiquitous.”

I looked into his dark eyes and smiled.

“Ah! I see, caro mio,” he laughed. “Your thoughts are similar to mine—eh? These plots are a little too frequent to be genuine,” and, lowering his voice to a whisper, he added: “I can’t understand how His Majesty does not see through the transparency of it. They are terrorising him every day—every hour. A man of less robust physique or mental balance would surely be driven out of his mind.”

“I agree with you entirely, my dear friend. But,” I added, “this is not the place to discuss affairs of State. Ah, Madame!” and turning, I bent over the gloved hand of old Madame Neilidoff, one of the leaders of Society in Moscow, with whom I stood chatting for a long time, and who kindly invited me for a week out at her great country estate at Sukova in Tver.

Captain Stoyanovitch, gay with decorations, hurried past me on some errand for the Emperor, and gave me a nod as he went on, while young Bertram Tucker, our third secretary, came up and began to chat with the yellow-toothed old lady, who was such a power in the Russian social circle.

I suppose it must have been nearly two o’clock, when, after wandering through the salons, greeting many men and women I knew, I suddenly heard a voice behind me exclaim in English:

“Hulloa, old Uncle Colin! Am I too small to be recognised?”

I turned quickly and confronted the pretty laughing girl of nineteen of whom I had been in search all the night—Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia Olga Nicolaievna.

Tall, slim, with a perfect figure, she was dressed in cream, a light simple gown which suited her youth and extreme beauty admirably. Across her dark, well-dressed hair she wore a narrow band of forget-me-nots; at her throat was a large single emerald of great value, suspended by a fine chain of platinum, a present from His Majesty, while on the edge of her low-cut corsage she wore a bow of pale-blue ribbon embroidered in silver with a Russian motto, and from it was suspended a medallion set with diamonds and bearing in the centre the enamelled figure of Saint Catherine—the exclusive Order of Saint Catherine bestowed upon the Grand Duchesses.

“How miserable you look, Uncle Colin!” exclaimed the dark-eyed girl before I could reply. “Whatever is the matter? Is the British Lion sick—or what?”

“I really must apologise to Your Imperial Highness,” I said, bowing. “I was quite unaware that I looked miserable. I surely could never look miserable in your presence.”

We both laughed, while standing erect and defiant, before me she held up a little ivory fan, threatening to chastise me with it.

“Well,” I said, “and so you are safely back again in Petersburg, after all your travels! Why, it’s surely eight weeks since we were at the ball at the Palace of your uncle, the Grand Duke Serge.”

“Where you danced with me. Do you remember how we laughed? You said some nasty sarcastic things, so I punished you. I told Captain Stoyanovitch and some of the others that you had flirted with me and kissed me. So there!”

I looked at her in stern reproach.

“Ah!” I said. “So that is the source of all those rumours—eh? You’re a very wicked girl,” I added, “even though you are a Grand Duchess.”

“Well, I suppose Grand Duchesses are in no way different to other girls—eh?” she pouted. “Sometimes I wish I were back again at school at Eastbourne. Ah! what grand times I used to have in those days—hockey and tennis and gym, and I was not compelled to perform all sorts of horrible, irksome etiquette, and be surrounded by this crowd of silly dressed-up apes. Why, Uncle Colin, these are not men—all these tight-uniformed popinjays at Court.”

“Hush, my child!” I said. “Hush! You will be overheard.”

“And I don’t care if I am. Surely a girl can speak out what she thinks!”

“In England, yes, in certain circumstances, but in Russia—and especially at Court—never!”

“Oh, you are so horribly old-fashioned, Uncle Colin. When shall I bring you up-to-date?” cried the petted and spoiled young lady, whose two distinctions were that she was one of the most beautiful girls in all Russia, and the favourite niece of the Tzar Alexander. She had nicknamed me “Uncle,” on account of my superior age, long ago.

“And you are utterly incorrigible,” I said, trying to assume an angry look.

“Ah! You’re going to lecture me!” she exclaimed with another pout. “I suppose I ought never to dance at all—eh? It’s wicked in your eyes, isn’t it? You are perhaps, one of those exemplary people that I heard so much of when in England—such an expressive name—the Kill-joys!”

“No, Your Highness,” I protested. “I really don’t think I’m a killjoy. If I were, I couldn’t very well be a diplomat. I—”

“But all diplomats are trained liars,” she asserted with abrupt frankness. “The Emperor told me so only the other day. He said they were men one should never trust.”

“I admit that, without the lie artistique, diplomacy would really be non-existent,” I said, with a laugh. “But is not the whole political world everywhere in Europe a world of vain promise, intrigue and shame?”

“Just as our social world seems to me,” she admitted.

“Ah! Then you are beginning to realise the hollow unreality of the world about you—eh?” I said.

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, “you talk just like a bishop! I really don’t know what has come to my dear old Uncle Colin. You must be ill, or something. You never used to be like this,” she added, with a sigh and a well-feigned look of regret that was really most amusing, while at the same time she made eyes at me.

Truly, she was a most charming little madcap, this Imperial Grand Duchess—the most charming in all Europe, as the diplomatic circle had long ago agreed.

So she had taken revenge upon me for uttering words of wisdom by telling people that I had flirted with and kissed her! She herself was responsible for the chatter which had gone round, with many embellishments, concerning myself, and how deeply I was in love with her. I wondered if it had reached the Emperor’s ears?

I felt annoyed, I here confess. And yet so sweet and irresponsible was she, so intelligent and quick at repartee, that next moment I had forgiven her.

And I frankly told her so.

“My dear Uncle Colin, it would have been all the same,” she declared airily. “You shouldn’t have lectured me. I assure you I have had enough of that at home. Ever since I came back from England everybody seems to have conspired to tell me that I’m the most terrible girl in Russia. Father holds up his hands; why, I really don’t know.”

“Because you are so extremely unconventional,” I said. “A girl of the people can act just as she likes; but you are a Grand Duchess—and you can’t.”

“Bother my birth. That’s my misfortune. I wish I were a shopgirl, or a typist, or something. Then I should be free!” she exclaimed impatiently. “As it is, I can’t utter a word or move a little finger without the whole of Russia lifting up their hands in pious horror. I tell you, Uncle Colin,” she added, her fine, big, dark eyes fixed upon me, “I’m sick of it all. It is simply unbearable. Ah! how I wish I were back at dear old Southdene College. I hate Russia and all her works!”

“Hush!” I cried again. “You really must not say that. Remember your position—the niece of His Majesty.”

“I repeat it!” she cried in desperation, her well-formed little mouth set firmly. “And I don’t care who hears me—even if it’s Uncle Alexander himself!”