Valeria Petrovna ceased weeping as suddenly as she had begun. “Love?” she said, in her husky voice. “Which of these men is it that you love?”
Marie Lou smiled. “All of them, Madame. It may seem strange to you, but I am of the same world as they. For many years I have been isolated, shut off from life. Their coming was to me like being at home again after a long journey.”
“’ave you then known any of them before?” Valeria Petrovna frowned, puzzled.
“No — no. It is difficult to explain, but in the little time since they have come to Romanovsk we have all grown very close together. I know them better than any of the people who were my neighbours for many years. Those three have filled for me an empty world, they are all so kind, so brave, so splendid. Can you wonder that I love them? My freedom when I get out of Russia, instead of being a joy, will be a bitter thing if they are not also free.”
Valeria Petrovna drew away sharply. “You would ’ave joy to leave Russia? To live with our enemies in the capitalist countries — ’ow can you say such things?”
“Madame, my mother, to whom I owe all that I am, was French — therefore France is my natural country — if I wish to leave Russia, it is no more than if you wished to leave France, had you spent much of your life there against your will.”
“It is yourself you accuse,” said Valeria Petrovna bitterly. “Russia ’as fed and cloth’ you, yet you would stab ’er in the back. You are a bourgeoise — in sympathy with the capitalists — a saboteure!”
Marie Lou shook her head. “Please let us not talk of this. Can we not think of some way to help our friends?”
Valeria Petrovna’s maid entered at that moment. She addressed her mistress: “There is an Englishman outside, he wishes to see you.” As the woman spoke she looked askance at Marie Lou, an incongruous figure in that lovely room, travel-stained and dishevelled in her rough patched clothes.
“Some fool ’oo ’as seen me at the theatre,” exclaimed Valeria Petrovna. “Send ’im away.”
“He is insistent,” said the maid, conscious of a twenty-rouble note tucked away in her stocking-top. She forced a visiting-card on her mistress.
“Send ’im away,” repeated Valeria Petrovna angrily. “Richard Eaton,” she read from the card. “I do not know ’im.”
“Madame, one moment,” said Marie Lou, quickly. “Richard Eaton, did you say? That is a friend of Monsieur Simon.”
“’Ow?” Valeria Petrovna turned sharply. “A friend of Simon — ’ow you know this?”
“He told me himself. His last words to me were: ‘If ever you get to London, go and see Richard Eaton at the National Club; tell him what has happened to us’.”
“Let ’im come in, then — ’e may ’ave news.”
The maid, who had been lingering by the door, smiled and beckoned to Richard, who was in the hall.
As he came in he looked at Valeria Petrovna with interest. He thought her more lovely in her déshabillé than when he had seen her in London. At the dusty figure of Marie Lou he hardly glanced, noticing only the intense blue of her eyes in her pale drawn face.
“I must apologize for troubling you like this,” he began, addressing Valeria Petrovna. “I did meet you in London, but I don’t suppose you’d remember that. I think you will remember a great friend of mine, though.”
“I ’ave remember’ you, Mistaire Eaton,” she smiled, graciously. “Not the name, but your face, at once — it is of Simon Aron that you speak, is it not?”
“Yes, and I don’t know if you can help me, but Simon came over to Moscow just after you left England, and I thought — er — well, I thought that it was just on the cards that he might have come to see you when he got here.”
“You are right, Mistaire Eaton; your frien’ came to me, not once, but many times.”
Richard gave a sigh of relief. “Thank the Lord for that. I’ve been quite worried about him — you’ll be able to tell me, then, where I can find him?”
“Please to sit down, Mistaire Eaton. I know, I think, where your frien’ is, but ’e is in bad trouble — the poor Simon — ’ave you knowledge of what ’e came to Russia for?”
An anxious look came into Richard Eaton’s eyes. “Yes,” he said, slowly; “yes, I know about Van Ryn.”
“It was I, then, ’oo obtain for ’im the information that ’is frien’ is in the prison at Tobolsk — fool that I was! — after, ’e go there with ’is other frien’, then there comes trouble — of all that this child can tell you better than I.” She waved her hand in the direction of Marie Lou.
For the first time Richard really looked at the younger of the two women. With a little shock he realized that she was one of the loveliest people that he had ever seen. Even the heavy boots, the woollen hose and the coarse garments could not conceal her small, perfectly proportioned limbs, or the stains of travel and the tousled hair disguise her flower-like face.
As Richard looked at her the ravages of sickness, sleeplessness and anxiety seemed to drop away. There remained the laughing blue eyes, the delicate skin, and the adorable little pointed chin.
She began to speak slowly in a musical voice, with just the faintest suspicion of a delicious accent; telling of her meeting with the three friends in the forest, of their adventures on the way to Romanovsk, as they had been told to her, then of the anxious days they had lived through since, and of their forced descent at Kiev.
“And you mean to say that you have come all the way from Kiev alone?” Richard asked her.
“Yes, Monsieur, not without difficulty; but to reach Madame Karkoff was the only hope of getting assistance for our friends.”
“I think you’ve been wonderful,” said Richard frankly. “It must have been frightful for you not knowing Kiev or Moscow, and hunted by the police.”
Marie Lou felt a little glow of warmth run through her. Valeria Petrovna had almost made her wonder if she had not been cowardly in running away so quickly instead of waiting to see what happened when the agents of the Ogpu appeared on the scene.
Valeria Petrovna rose impatiently to her feet. “I ’ad ’oped, Mistaire Eaton, that you would ’ave ’ad fresh news; ’ow long are you in Moskawa?”
“I only arrived this morning. I slept at Smolensk last night.”
She frowned. “Slept at Smolensk? Why ’ave you done that?”
“I came in my own ’plane,” Richard explained. “If I had arrived last night it would have been too late to do anything, so I preferred to take the last two hundred miles this morning.”
“So — and what plan ’ave you to ’elp your frien’s?”
“I can go to the British Embassy,” he suggested, doubtfully. “I set inquiries on foot in London before I came away.”
Valeria Petrovna waved the suggestion aside. “Useless,” she exclaimed. “Nevaire will the Kommissars admit that they ’ave them prisoners — they ’ave been in the forbidden territory — it will be said that they died there in the snows.”
She began walking rapidly up and down, smoking cigarette after cigarette in a long thin holder. Marie Lou was about to offer a suggestion, but Valeria Petrovna stopped her with an impatient gesture. “Be silent — let me think.”
Her quick brain was working at top speed as she paced up and down; the Englishman was useless, she decided — a nice young man, but stupid — his presence would only increase her difficulties. As for the girl, she must be got rid of. “Love them all indeed!” What woman could love three men at one time? She also was in love with the clever, attractive Simon, that was clear; good-looking little fool — did she think to deceive Valeria Petrovna by not admitting it? Did the minx fancy that she, Valeria Petrovna, would be willing to pick the chestnuts out of the fire for another woman? What a mistake to think that! She should be handed over to the police — was she not a bourgeoise? — but wait — what of the Englishman? He could not be got rid of so easily, and just the stupid sort of fool to create trouble about the girl. Look at him now, gazing at her like a moonstruck calf. No, it must be some other way — and what of Simon, in prison there at Kiev? She must see Stalin. Stalin should give him up to her — he had a sense of humour, that one! There would be conditions, but they might be turned to her advantage. If he refused, she would threaten never to act again; he had trouble enough to keep the people to the work he demanded of them — they would make more trouble if she left the stage because he refused to pardon her lover. A sudden idea came to her as to how to deal with Marie Lou. She stopped in her quick pacing and faced the girl. “Leave us, little one, for a minute, I wish to ’ave a word with Mistaire Eaton.” She pointed to the doorway of an inner room.