Chapter XVIII · THE PROGRESS HE MADE.

Little knowing the peculiarity of the perils that surrounded her, Gwenny felt tolerably secure in Yaila, chiefly because Horace Ramornie was there, and only once or twice did she reflect on how strange and horrible her isolation and detention would have been had he not been there by being a prisoner elsewhere, or with the army before Sebastopol. But Gwenny did not like gloomy thoughts, so she speedily thrust these aside.

When safe at home and free it would be something great to talk about, to remember, and to think of—it would be like a leaf from a romance, the fact that they should have both, he and she, been together prisoners of war in a Russian fortress. And then the revelation of their engagement (that terrible secret) must eventually come about pleasantly, even to Aunt Wedderburn; as for good, easy Sir John, Gwenny stood in no awe of him.

She complained to Madame Tegoborski that she saw but little of Captain Ramornie, for repeatedly when he had called at the quarters of the Pulkovnick, the Karaïte maiden in the white fereedji, made incomprehensible excuses for not admitting him. Horace knew well why this came about; but Madame, who only half understood the queries of her guest, could only shrug her shoulders and make grimaces in reply. Galitzin, however, stated to her, that it was deemed improper to permit frequent conferences between those who were prisoners in a fortress, on the principle of military expedience.

This explanation, though utter nonsense, partially satisfied the girl for a time, and she could only sigh and watch incessantly at the window in the hope of seeing Horace pass through the yard before the barracks.

So never dreaming that danger menaced her, she sometimes took merry bursts of laughter at the abrupt and inflated love-making of Galitzin which he sometimes conducted in French as well as English; but her untimely merriment caused his dark eyes to gleam and his brow to become purple with passion, while bitter and evil thoughts of violence flashed upon his lawless mind.

But Gwenny, though she knew it not, had one great safety in the fact that the love of Galitzin was almost destitute of all passion; and provided that he obtained her hand and fortune by an undoubtedly legal marriage, which not even the law of England could break, he cared for little else. Yet it was pleasing to him, the conviction that the girl so completely in his power and at the mercy of his passions, was one possessed of beauty, accomplishments, and vivacity.

And poor Horace as he walked about in the gravelled yard or square, under the irritating observation of a long grey-coated Russian sentinel, chafed when he heard Gwenny's voice through the open window as she sang and played in the drawing-room of Madame Tegoborski, for the delectation of Galitzin; and also on other occasions, when he saw the latter mounted to accompany her and her "matron" for a drive in the Tartar pony-carriage of the latter to the village of Alushta, Babugan Yaila, or to Bagtche Serai, from the high road to which the valley of Inkerman, with its perforated cliffs and ruined fortress was visible, with an old Genoese bridge in the foreground; and in the distance, by the aid of a telescope, they could from thence see the green domes of Sebastopol and the white tents of the right flank of the British camp, at which Gwenny would cast many a wistful glance. Ramornie always viewed their departure on these expeditions with something of terror, lest they might not return, for he knew not what nefarious plans might be forming in the inscrutable mind of Galitzin, and his best hope lay in the chance of their falling in with and being carried off by some foraging or scouting party of the allied cavalry.

But on one evening after their return from a drive, and when Madame Tegoborski had gone on some mission to a Russian church among the mountains close by, Galitzin found himself alone with Gwenny and hastened to improve the opportunity; for the old Pulkovnick, shrewdly conceiving himself to be in the way, had taken his forage cap and meerschaum and limped forth to enjoy the latter on the gun-battery which faced the road to the Tchatr Dagh.

"What say you, Mademoiselle," he whispered with a soft smile during a pause in her playing; "how should you like to become a Princess?"

"I know not—I never thought of such a thing."

"The dignity would well become your beauty, and you could then be the mistress of peasants who should be to you as slaves—people whose teeth you might even draw, if you could find among them one white enough to replace a lost one of your own."

"A most shocking idea! I never saw a princess; but in India I have seen a Begum riding on a snow-white elephant, in a golden howdah, hung with scarlet silk."

"I could not exactly give you all that," said the Prince (and indeed he might have added, "nor anything else;") "but I can assure you that there is no nobler title in Russia than that of Galitzin."

"Oh, I perceive; you are pleading for yourself!" said Gwenny, laughing, amid her well-acted surprise.

"Do you not understand the spirit of all I have said to you?" he asked, gravely.

"I think so."

"How then, this laughter?" he asked.

"We are here in a horrid old prison, apparently, as in a dull house in the country," said Gwenny, still endeavouring to parry his addresses. "You have paid me certain well-bred attentions, such as every pretty girl expects. You praise my singing, which I know to be tolerable—my playing too, which I know to be good; and you seem to like my society, which I am vain enough to conceive must be much more pleasant than that of old Tegoborski, or of Madame his wife, but all this must end."

"How so, and when?"

"I shall soon be released; I am a non-combatant," said she, smiling; "to detain me is simply absurd, and I have powerful friends who will not forget me."

"St. Ivan Veliki! we shall see what we shall see!" said he, through his set teeth.

And Gwenny laughed again with her head waggishly on one side, as she ran her fingers over the ivory keys of the piano.

She knew not what Horace did; that she was in the hands of a dissipated and blasé wretch, a world-weary reprobate, who had long since done with all human emotions, save avarice, and perhaps a little of lust. He was artful, however, and thought to enlist her vanity in his favour.

"Your life must be dull here?" he resumed.

"Very," said she, sighing.

"I could soon remove you to the wonders of St. Petersburg."

"Thank you—but dull as it is, I should prefer remaining here."

"Why?" asked he, with surprise.

"I am nearer the British before Sebastopol."

"I don't think that will matter much to you now," said he, with a wicked glitter in his eyes; but the expression was unseen by Gwenny, for during this conversation she never turned her face towards him.

"As the wife of a Galitzin you will be equal in rank with the Dolgourukis, the Volhonskis, and the noblest in Russia—even with those who boast of their descent from Rurik of Kiev."

All this did not convey much to Gwenny's ear.

"I am utterly sick of this place and of old Tegoborski; a married officer is never a good boon companion or a jolly comrade. He becomes a man with selfish interests. Ah, if his wife were only like you!"

Gwenny did not understand this wish; but it conveyed a volume. He then proceeded to expatiate on the gaieties to which he pretended he could introduce her, and on the post he could get her in the household of the Empress; on the charms of the opera house at St. Petersburg, where she might hear the national hymn and grand military chorus composed by Lvcoff, who in the latter had always at his disposal forty-eight pieces of artillery, which are discharged by him with the aid of a galvanic wire; he next dwelt on the splendour of the palace of the Czars, with its Granovataya Palata, or reception-room; of the hall of St. George with its alabaster walls; of that of St. Andrew, which seems to have been carved out of rose-coloured marble; of the brilliant entertainments, the promenades à la Polonaise, the balls and banquets to which he should introduce her; but Gwenny only smiled wearily, and relinquishing the piano, proceeded to fan herself.

"Think too, Mademoiselle, of the grand field days in the presence of the august Emperor, when you shall see a glittering array of perhaps three hundred thousand men, of all the races composing mighty Russia, the infantry of Muscovy and Poland, the horsemen of the Don and the Dnieper, and from the steppes of Circassia, defiling past the grand stand, where you sit among the ladies of the Imperial Court. Oh, what is all the army of your little island, when compared to a show like that? Then there are masked balls at the Kremlin in Moscow; ah, you must see that Kremlin," he added, with something of true enthusiasm, "at the hour of vespers, when, as Mouravieff says, 'to the call of the golden headed giant, Ivan Veliki, suddenly respond from all sides those bells, the voices of his numberless children, and the sound reverberates through the startled air—the many, silver-voiced sound, formed not out of the tolling alone, but out of thoughts, feelings and words which fall not to the earth.'"

And thus translating rapidly from memory, Galitzin spoke all this as if he actually felt it; but Gwenny only muttered "barbarians," under her breath, however, and fanned herself more vigorously than ever; while Galitzin—who in reality was tabooed by his sovereign, and had not the power to have introduced her anywhere, though he sketched so freely castles in the air out of her own fortune—as he looked down on the dazzling whiteness of her slender throat, and the little delicate ears, at each of which a simple jet-drop dangled, thought to himself, "how could I ever, for an instant, have admired the amplitude of Norina Paulovna, with her Schologoleff cannon balls, and large fat fingers covered with rings?"

"I shall even try to get you an elephant to ride upon," he resumed. "I suppose you rode one in India?"

Amid her vexations, and they were not small, Gwenny could not help laughing at this offer; and Galitzin, finding her still in the mood to ridicule him, twisted up his moustachios angrily and left her with a haughty bow.

Her child-like entreaties that she might be permitted to write to her aunt, only excited the genuine merriment of the Prince; but Horace was not without hope that the wretched exploit of pounding the stranded yacht with cannon shot, and the sudden appearance of the two ladies at Balaclava, might have the effect of getting an expedition dispatched, for the purpose of capturing and destroying the somewhat paltry fortress of Yaila.

From thenceforward, all the conversations of Galitzin with Gwenny tended towards St. Petersburg and Moscow the holy. The officers and troops in the Crimea were daily being changed, and he would get his command transferred from thence to one or other of those cities; and she devoutly hoped he might be successful.

He saw that the hackneyed, "the venerable protestations which lovers from time immemorial have uttered," were useless with her; yet he felt himself compelled to recur to them.

Once, when he held her hand almost forcibly and kissed it, she said to him with quiet energy, "I entreat you to respect me, and be kind to me here, in my unfortunate position, as if I were your younger sister, or your daughter."

"My sister, perhaps," replied Galitzin, making a grimace, as the alternative suggested an unpleasant disparity of years; "I have seen much of life in all its phases; I have felt much, suffered much, and enjoyed much; but never knew till now that a passing glance, a smile, could be so priceless to me—never till I met you. Ah, there are higher prizes in this world than courtly rank or military glory; and how often need I reiterate that I love you! You must marry me, Mademoiselle."

"Remember that there are others whose permission is requisite."

"Others?—whom? where?" asked Galitzin, with genuine surprise.

"At home in Britain."

"Ah, the little cock-boat of an island, where people jostle each other at every step; bah! you may never see it, till we visit it together after this foolish war against Russia is over, and peace proclaimed."

All this was becoming unpleasantly plain, she was to be coerced, perhaps; so she said haughtily "I am weary of all this—obey me, Monseigneur le Prince, if you please, and leave me."

"I am more used to command than to obey," he replied, while seating himself with perfect deliberation.

"Yes, your serfs, and soldiers, who are little better; but you have no right to command me."

"That we shall see," said he, laughing, for her grand airs amused rather than piqued him.

"Come," said she, giving him her hand, which he kissed tenderly; "do not let us quarrel; I fully believe that at heart you are a gallant soldier, and—"

"One you could love?" he added, with his moustachio close to her ear.

"Nay," she replied, shrinking, "my husband—pardon me, must be younger, and have fewer lines—"

"These are Circassian sabre cuts! You will not have me then?"

"On a fortnight's acquaintance? it is impossible."

"Am I to suppose then," he asked, in a low and concentrated tone, "that you love another?"

"Perhaps," said she, with a provoking smile.

"You dare to say this to me?"

"Who are you that dare to question me?"

"Who am I?" he exclaimed, in a loud and imperious voice, while he started to his feet, and Gwenny became dismayed. "Mademoiselle, is this a vaudeville we are acting?"

"Prince," said she, "the conversation is again becoming unpleasant. In accepting the offer with which you honour me, I should be guilty of dishonesty to you, to myself, and the world at large."

"I don't understand all this. Please to explain?"

"To accept you, I ought to love you."

"Well, I suppose so—if not now, at least by and by," said he, leisurely, and playing with the tassels of his sash.

"But what if I love another?"

"Again that hint! Who is this other?"

"I have not said that I do; I merely said if."

"Well?"

"Then I could not marry you, and what is more, I won't," she added, suddenly losing all patience, and beating the floor with her foot, while her eyes sparkled with resentment. "Set me free from this horrid place; send me to Balaclava to my aunt and friends—send Horace too."

"Oh, the devil! Ramhornoff, eh? Perhaps you prefer the society of this dilettanti young countryman of yours to mine?"

"I have not said so," replied Gwenny, feeling herself on dangerous ground.

"Ah; we shall know each other better by and by."

"With you, Prince, this alleged love is caprice; to me it may be fate—destruction!"

"I know that I am your senior in years—not much though; but when better acquainted you shall find no disparity in our tastes, or temper; and if you entrust me with your future happiness, you shall never have cause to repent of becoming the Princess Galitzin."

"Never, but once," thought Gwenny.

Again the high-spirited little beauty was exasperated by his confident mode of annoying her; and when Galitzin saw the bright flash of the usually soft dark eye, the quivering of the cherry-like nether lip of her exquisitely cut mouth, and the curve of the proud nostril, he knew that he had nothing to hope from her concession or complaisance. He could win her, but by force or fraud only; and by one or other he was resolved she should be won. She was his prisoner, and he would take time to consider the matter well.

"You are very haughty and coy, Mademoiselle," said he, giving her one of his darkest glances, while he took his flat green foraging cap and jerked his sabre under his arm; "but if I find that your friend—your cousin, or whatever he is—this Capitan Ramhornoff, stands in my way, or will not use his persuasive powers for me, I may dispose of him as I did that fellow Chesters, who robbed me in Paris!"

And with these threatening words, which he closed by some tremendous Russian oath, he left her.

She remembered Rebecca and the Templar in the castle of Torquilstone, and ever so many more heroines and melodramatic situations with which the contents of the box that came quarterly from Mudie's to Willowdean had stored her mind; but she gathered no comfort therefrom, or from the conviction that there are "greater novels in real life than in stories."

They were all perilous scrapes—unpleasant, desperate, and so forth, and in this age of gas, steam, and electricity, absurd and unsuited to the case; yet a spice of her Indian breeding came at times to her mind, and she felt, that if sorely pushed and she had a weapon, Major-General the Prince Galitzin, Colonel of the Tambroy Infantry, &c., might stand a very fair chance of having a hole punched in his skin.