Rex shook his head “Bad landing; the fields’ll suit us best.”
“Do as I say,” cried Simon sharply, taking, the Duke’s wallet. He handed both that and his own to Marie Lou. “Here’s money,” he said, breathlessly. “Get to Moscow, if you can; see Valeria Petrovna Karkoff, she’s the famous actress — anyone will tell you where she lives. Give her this locket and tell her we’re prisoners in Kiev — understand?”
Marie Lou nodded. “Valeria Petrovna,” she repeated. “Yes.”
The ’plane began to wheel in great circles at a steep angle. Simon peered out again. He leant over Rex’s shoulder.
“Think you can make the orchard?” he cried.
“I guess you’re nuts,” said Rex, not understanding what was going on. “There’s a couple of police cars following us on the road — they’re in touch with the ’planes by wireless, you bet — we haven’t a hope in hell of running for it. Still, I’ll do as you say.”
The roofs of the village seemed to be dashing towards them at a terrific speed. They skimmed the thatch of a big barn, and a moment later were bumping along a meadow at fifty miles an hour. With a sudden turn Rex ran the ’plane through a wooden paling, and they brought up with a mild crash against the first trees of an orchard.
“Splendid,” cried Simon, as the engine ceased to throb after its seventeen-hour journey. “Couldn’t have been better.” He was already helping Marie Lou to climb out at the back. “Run,” he shouted, as she dropped to earth.
“My bundle,” she cried; “throw me my bundle.”
“Never mind that,” yelled Simon. “Run!”
She shook her head. “Please — give it to me — I must have it.”
Angrily he spent a couple of precious minutes searching underneath the cabin table. At last he found it and flung it to her. “Quick,” he cried; “Valeria Petrovna; and if you ever get to London, go and see Richard Eaton — National Club — tell him what happened to us all.”
Rex had descended from the front. The Duke followed him more slowly. First he had secured a long flat tin from the cabin. It contained the last of the Hoyo de Monterreys. He lit one himself and offered the tin to Rex. “Thanks,” said Rex, as he walked round the wing and called up: “Simon, where are you?”
“Coming,” sang out Simon. He had just seen Marie Lou disappear among the trees.
Rex helped him down. De Richleau proffered him the last cigar. Simon took it with a grin. “Didn’t know you’d got any left,” he said, as he lit up.
“These are the last,” smiled the Duke. “I kept them for an occasion!”
“Where’s Marie Lou?” asked Rex, anxiously.
“She — er — stayed behind at Romanovsk,” said Simon. “Didn’t you know?” He drew the first puff from the long cigar. “Magnificent stuff, these Hoyos.”
The aeroplanes droned and circled overhead. The siren of a high-powered car shrieked a warning, a moment later the men of the Ogpu, with levelled pistols, came running from the near-by road.
XXII — “He Who Fights and Runs Away”
Valeria Petrovna was seated on the divan in her beautiful apartment, her hands were so tightly clasped that the knuckles showed white under the taut skin.
“And then?” she insisted, “and then — “
“Madame, I do not know — how should I?” Marie Lou shook her head sadly.
“Ah,” Valeria Petrovna stood up with a quick gesture of annoyance, “’Ow should you? You could ’ave stayed among the trees to watch. Now, ’ow do I know if ’e ees alive or dead?” She began to pace rapidly up and down, the draperies of her négligé swirling round her.
“But yes, Madame,” Marie Lou protested. “I heard no shots. Surely they will be prisoners, and not dead?”
She was miserably unhappy; these last days had been a nightmare to her. Having spent all her life except her remote childhood in a sleepy Siberian town, with its stupid half-peasant population, shut off from the world by miles of forest and almost arctic snows, living a simple, monotonous existence and nearly always alone except when teaching children, she was amazed and terrified by her experiences in the big cities that she had so longed to see. And now this strange, beautiful woman, who scolded her because she had run away from the ’plane as quickly as she could, just as Simon had told her to.
“’Ow long ago was this?” demanded Valeria Petrovna, suddenly.
“Three days, Madame.”
“Three days, child? Where ’ave you been all the time?” Tall and dark and lovely, Valeria Petrovna towered accusingly above the unfortunate Marie Lou. “Why ’ave you not come to me at once?”
Marie Lou did not resent the manner in which the other woman addressed her, although actually there could not have been more than a couple of years difference in their ages. She tried patiently to explain.
“Madame, I hid for a long time in a cowshed, it would not have been safe for me to venture out. When night came I started to walk to Kiev; it was a long way — six, seven versts, perhaps; then in the town I did not know the way. I was afraid to ask. I thought every policeman would know about us. I wandered about looking for the railway station. Then there were some men; they were drunk, I think — it was terrible!” A shudder ran through her slight frame at the recollection.
Valeria Petrovna shrugged. “Do you think that the ’ole police of Russia ’ave nothing to do ’unt for you?”
“I didn’t know, Madame. I was tired, you see, and half out of my mind with fear. Had it not been for the big sailor, I do not know what would have happened. He was kind; he got back my bundle and took me to the station. I slept on the floor of the waiting-room that night and the next night also.”
“Then you ’ave waste a ’ole day!” Valeria Petrovna waved her hands angrily again. “Why ’ave you not come by the first train? You knew it was a matter of ’is life.”
Marie Lou shook her head. “I have very little Russian money. All, nearly, that Monsieur Simon gave me was in foreign notes. I did not dare to change them; I had to wait for a place in the slow train. Last night I slept again upon the Moskawa station. All that I could do to reach you quickly, Madame, I have done.”
With a sudden change of mood, Valeria Petrovna sank down beside Marie Lou and took her hands. “Forgive me, little one. I ’ave been rude, unkind, when I should thank you from the bottom of my ’eart; it is a terrible time that you ’ave ’ad, terrible; but I am upset — distraught — you see,” she ended, simply, “I love ’im.”
Admiration struggled with fear in Marie Lou as she looked at the woman kneeling beside her; never, she thought, had she seen anything quite so beautiful. Valeria Petrovna, with her rich silks and laces, her faint delicious perfume, and exotic cultured loveliness, was like a creature from another world. Marie Lou had never seen anyone remotely resembling her before.
The weekly cinemas held in the dance hall of the inn at Romanovsk showed none of the productions of Hollywood or Elstree, only the propaganda films, in which the heroine was a strapping peasant wench or factory girl. Marie Lou could only compare her to those fantastic, unreal creatures that she had read of in her books.
Suddenly Valeria Petrovna burst into tears. “What shall I do?” she sobbed. “What shall I do?”
All Marie Lou’s fear of this imperious beauty left her. She was, after all, but a woman like herself. “Have courage, Madame,” she whispered. “Never did I think to get away from Romanovsk. Never did I think to survive that terrible night in Kiev — but I have done so, I am here in Moskawa. Everything now depends on your courage to help those we love.”