A slight snore drew their attention. Rex was sound asleep on the sofa. It was the first sleep he had had since he had risen from his bunk in the prison at Tobolsk, little knowing that his friends were near, thirty-six hours before.
“Hope she doesn’t get in a muddle through helping us,” said Simon, thoughtfully.
The Duke took out his automatic, and removing the magazine, began to clean it carefully from the fouling of the morning.
In a very short time the girl returned, bringing with her a basket of eggs. She took down her largest frying-pan, and started to break the eggs into a basin.
Simon questioned her, while Rex snored loudly in the corner. How had she managed to evade the rationing laws?
She threw back her head, and gave a delicious ripple of laughter. That rationing — what nonsense! It was gone long ago, in the country towns at least. It had failed miserably; the greedy peasants lied and cheated, always withholding secret stores. In the end it had been thought better to let them do as they would, although there were still heavy penalties in force against anyone who was discovered hoarding. The only redress that the Communists had was to charge them higher prices for the goods, which they could obtain only from the Co-operative Stores. For her it was simple — her little pupils liked her — the peasants, their parents, were her friends — she had but to ask and for her there was always plenty and to spare.
As she talked she was frying a great yellow omelette. Rex was roused from his short slumber, and soon they were all seated round the table enjoying this unexpected treat. De Richleau declared that it could not have been better cooked by Mère Poulard of the Mont St. Michael herself.
“Ah, Monsieur,” she answered, “the making of an omelette is one of the many things that I learnt from my poor mother.”
“Your mother is dead then, Mademoiselle?”
“Alas, yes — in the year of the great famine. It was terrible, that. I do not know how any of us survived.”
“May one ask why your mother came to settle in this wild place, so far from home?”
“It was Le Prince Shulimoff, Monsieur. My mother had known him many years — before even I was born. She was of gentle people but very poor, you understand. When I was five he offered her a position as companion to his niece. Never would he permit this niece to live in St. Petersburg or Moscow — here only, in the solitude of the great Château among the woods, and so we came to live in the Château, also. That was a year or so before the War.”
De Richleau nodded. “It is remarkable that you should have escaped in the years of revolution, Mademoiselle.”
She shrugged. “My mother was much respected in the town; all her interests were with the poor and sick. She was the Châtelaine — none but her and the little Princess Sophie and myself lived in the Château. And Monsieur le Prince, he was a strange man. On his occasional visits to us he would sneer at her charities one day, and give her great sums of what he called ‘sin money’ the next, to spend as she would. When the troubles came there were many to protect my mother. She had, too, the great courage, she feared to go nowhere, and she organized the hospital — nursing Reds and Whites alike.”
“Would the Château be any great way from here,” asked Rex, who had been listening intently.
“No, Monsieur, not more than half a verst on the far side of the highway. One could walk there in fifteen minutes.”
“Would there be any folk living there now?”
“Ah, no. A great part of it was burnt. It is said that Monsieur de Prince himself set it on fire when the Bolsheviks came. I remember it well, that night; it was the day after my tenth birthday. I cried and cried because all my presents were destroyed. I was not old enough to be frightened for my mother or Monsieur de Prince. I thought nothing about all the beautiful and valuable things which were burning up in great columns of red flame. We stood there, on the lawn, watching the peasants throw the furniture out of the windows, saving what they could. That was until they thought of the cellars. Then, when they began to loot the sweet wine and brandy, we had to go away.”
“So what was left of it has stood empty ever since?” said Simon.
“In the bad times the brigands used it as a headquarters; they terrorized the countryside. Sometimes there were as many as two hundred there at one time, but in the end they were massacred by the Whites. After that it was empty for a long time until the Stiekomens came to live there.”
“The Stiekomens?” Simon looked puzzled.
“A religious, and his disciples. He was a leader of one of the mystic religious brotherhoods which are always springing up in Russia. They were a harmless people, wanderers in the forest before they settled here. They lived a simple, communistic life in the great ruin for perhaps a year, then, one day, a detachment of real communists — the Red Guards — marched through the village. For a reason that no one knew they butchered the poor Stiekomens against the Château wall. Since then there has been no one.”
“They are evil times that you have lived in, Mademoiselle — it is marvellous that you should have come through unscathed,” said De Richleau, regarding her thoughtfully. With her pointed chin, incredibly blue eyes, well-marked eyebrows and close-cropped curls, she reminded him of a prize Persian kitten as she sat, curled up, with her legs tucked under her on a corner of the divan, but his shrewd glance showed him that the blue eyes were very direct, the pointed chin very firm, and the red mouth could take on a determined curve as well as the slight wistful smile which was habitual to it.
She smiled. “There is one good thing about Communism, Monsieur. If you give your labour to the State no one can harm you or compel you in marriage. I earn my living by teaching in the school. I am free to come and go. That is better, surely, than to be married off as a young girl to some man whom you have hardly seen, as in the old days. That must have been horrible!”
“Perhaps,” the Duke agreed. “But I imagine that for a long time there was no safety for anyone.”
“There were difficulties,” she said, simply. “Much of the time my mother kept me hidden in the roof — often for days together. Once I was caught by some soldiers in the woods, but I shot the ear from one with the little pistol that I carry. See, here it is.” As she spoke she produced a tiny, old-fashioned revolver with an inlaid mother-of-pearl handle. “The others thought it so funny to see their comrade running up and down, howling with pain, that they stood in a ring and jeered at him, while I ran away. It was lucky for him that I did not fire quite straight!”
“Good for you!” laughed Rex. “What a poor boob that bird must have felt, getting his ear shot off by a girl!”
“Mademoiselle,” said the Duke, seriously. “If we were to be found here, I fear it would mean trouble for you. Will you add to your great kindness by telling me if there is any chance of our procuring horses, in order to proceed on our way?”
She frowned. “But I do not want you to go — this is, what you say, a red letter day for me — to talk with people who are of my mother’s world. I have a thousand things I want to ask; tell me about Paris — I can remember nothing but the busy streets, and the caraway seeds on the little rolls of white bread, of which I was so fond. Stay here for tonight, and I will see if I can arrange for horses tomorrow.”
All three shook their heads, and Rex put their thoughts into words. “It’s this way,” he said, slowly. “It’s just great of you to offer, but I’ve just broken prison, and there’s other matters too. We couldn’t have them find us here, with you, so if there’s no chance of horses we’ll just have to walk.”