As Roger had not been alone with her for a single moment during all these hours they had had no opportunity of exchanging anything but the amiable civilities required by the occasion, and exhausted as he was by the events of the day, he was by no means sorry that he was to be spared an explanation with her that night. Having smilingly kissed her hand, forehead and cheeks he wished her good sleep, and with considerable relief, watched her being led away by her companions.
Throughout the whole afternoon and evening he had rarely been without a glass in his hand, and the drinkings of his health to which he had had to respond had been innumerable; so had it not been for his excellent head he would have been drunk already. As it was a little crowd of his newly acquired in-laws now gathered round him, and insisting that it would be against all custom for him to go to bed sober, plied him with further liquor.
Wishing to be rid of them as soon as possible he tossed" off several brandies to Natalia's green eyes, then pretended a greater degree of drunkenness than he was actually feeling. Seeing his apparent state his two old acquaintances of the Chevalier guard presented themselves, and after many noisy good-nights had been said, escorted him to the room from which they had brought him nearly twelve hours earlier.
Alone at last, he sat with his head in his hands for a few minutes; then with an effort stood up, splashed his face with water from the jug, struggled out of his clothes and flung himself into bed. Fatigue even more than the amount he had drunk weighed upon his brain, and after a brief period of futile speculation as to whether or not Mr. Tooke would devise a means to pull him out of the frightful mess he was in, he fell asleep.
In the morning the two footmen called him at seven and brought his breakfast. When he had eaten it one of them told him that a carriage had been ordered for nine o'clock to take him into St. Petersburg; so he got up, dressed in his travelling-clothes, and unlocking his money chest, distributed all the cash he had about him. By the time he had finished repacking his other belongings it was close on nine; a knock came on the door, and in reply to his call of "Entrez!" the two Chevalier guards appeared.
Giving him a polite good-morning, they asked if they might have the pleasure of attending him to his second marriage ceremony.
Roger was somewhat surprised at their couching their proposal to accompany him in the form of a request, as he had a shrewd suspicion that the two young men were among the few people who knew that he had incurred the Empress's displeasure, and that she had ordered them to keep an eye on him. In any case he did not feel that he was in a position to refuse their offer, so he accepted with a good grace and went downstairs with them.
He had expected that he and Natalia would be sent in to St. Petersburg together, and that he would at last be called on to face a tete-a-tetewith his wife; but it transpired that she was to follow him in a separate carriage with two of the ladies who had attended her the previous day. So Roger and his companions got into a four-horse barouche, and at a spanking pace set out to cover the sixteen miles to the capital.
Having as yet not the faintest idea as to the procedure adopted towards people exiled to Siberia, Roger thought this a good opportunity to secure some information on it, so he remarked:
"I little expected, gentlemen, when you brought me from the Fortress of Schlusselburg four days ago, that I should leave the Peterhof in such pleasant circumstances. It seemed far more likely that I should leave it but to be conveyed back to my cell, or as a prisoner on his way to exile."
Having waited for their laugh, he went on: "Had the latter proved my fate I take it that you would hardly have been put to the inconvenience of escorting me further than Petersburg, and that there you would have handed me over to the police for transportation to Siberia."
They both looked at him in surprise, and the taller of the two answered. "You are mistaken, Sir. None but felons and people of the baser sort, sentenced to work in the mines, are transported thither by the police. Persons of quality are simply ordered by the Empress to take up their residence there in a specific place, or, more generally, in a town of their own choosing; they then make their own arrangements for the journey."
This was the best news Roger had had since his return from Finland. Apparently it meant that, if Mr. Tooke remained adamant in his refusal to help him, once he was clear of St. Petersburg he would be able to change his course and drive hell-for-leather for the Polish or Austrian frontier. Concealing his elation, he said:
"In that case what surety has Her Majesty that those she banishes will ever go to Siberia? It seems that, without her knowledge, they might quite well take another direction and go into comfortable retirement on some country estate."
The tall man shook his head. "For a Russian to even contemplate disobeying a direct order from Her Majesty is unthinkable."
"But in the case of a foreigner, such as myself," Roger hazarded.
"You would soon be brought to book," laughed his informant. "The chief of police in every town and district keeps a record of all persons entering or leaving the area for which he is responsible, and these reports are forwarded to the Residence. Were your name not found upon them as travelling in the right direction an inquiry would be set on foot, and 'tis no easy matter for persons of quality to hide themselves in Russia; so you would soon be located and arrested to suffer a severer penalty."
With that Roger had to be content for the time being, but he felt that his prospects of devising some means of getting out of the country were considerably brighter than he had thought them the previous day. He therefore led the talk into other channels, and a little before eleven, they arrived at the English Factory.
To his surprise a stream of people, mostly dressed in sober black, was crossing the main courtyard, and entering the church. A few equipages were setting down richly-clad Russians, some of whom he recognised as relatives of Natalia's to whom he had been introduced the day before, but the bulk of the little crowd had a curiously homelike, British look; and only then did he realise that it was Sunday morning. His recent experiences had made him lose count of the days, but evidently Mr. Tooke's usual congregation were assembling for the Sabbath service, so he assumed that his wedding-ceremony would not take place until after it.
The Reverend William was waiting in the porch to receive him, and Roger anxiously scanned his face, hoping for a sign that he had decided to help him in some way; but the clergyman's expression was blankly courteous as he asked Roger and his companions to go in and seat themselves in the front pew on the right. A few minutes after they had taken their places, Natalia Andreovna, dressed ready for a journey, arrived with her bridesmaids and they filed into the opposite pew. The service then commenced.
By contrast to that of the previous day it was the essence of simple, genuine worship, and it made Roger homesick to a degree that he found almost unbearable. The English voices, the hymns and psalms, all brought back to him with poignant clarity the services he had attended with such regularity during his boyhood in Lymington at the old parish church of St. Thomas a' Becket. When he closed his eyes in prayer he could so easily imagine himself back there again, but on opening them one sideways glance showed him Natalia's beautiful, wicked profile barely a yard away across the aisle. More than once he was seized with the impulse to spring to his feet and shout aloud that he would not marry her, but he knew that it was too late, the deed was already done.