A Cigarette-Maker's Romance Part 15

"But how? Oh, Vjera--I am in such trouble that I could almost bring myself to borrow it of you if you could lend it--I despise myself, but it is growing so late, and it will only be until to-morrow, only for a few hours perhaps. If you will wait to-night I may bring it to you before bedtime.

But--are you sure, Vjera? Have you really got it? If I should wait here--and you should not find it--and my word should be broken--"

"For your word I give you mine. You shall have it in an hour." She tried to throw so much certainty into her tone as might persuade him, and she succeeded. "Where will you wait for me? In the shop?" she asked.

"No--not there. In the Cafe here--I am tired--I will sit down and drink a cup of coffee. I think I have a little money--enough for that." He smiled faintly as he felt in his pockets. Then his face fell. On the previous evening, when they had led him away from the eating-house, he had carelessly given all he had--a mark and two pennies--to pay for his supper, throwing it to the fat hostess without any reckoning, as he went out. "Never mind," he said, after the fruitless search. "I will wait outside."

But Vjera thrust a silver piece into his hand and was gone before he could protest. And in this way she took upon herself the burden of the Count's debt of honour.

CHAPTER X.

Vjera turned her head when she had reached the corner of the street, and saw that the Count had disappeared. He had entered the Cafe, and had evidently accepted her a.s.surance that she would bring the money without delay. So far, at least, she had been successful. Though by far the most difficult portion of the enterprise lay before her, she was convinced that if she could really produce the fifty marks, the approaching catastrophe of total madness would be averted. Her determination was still so strong that she never doubted the possibility of performing her promise. Without hesitation, she returned to the shop, in search of Johann Schmidt, to whose energies and kindness she instinctively turned for counsel and help.

As she came to the door she saw that he was just bidding good-night to his employer. She waited a moment and met him on the pavement as he came out.

"I must have fifty marks in an hour, Herr Schmidt," she said, boldly. "If I do not get it, something dreadful will happen."

"Fifty marks!" exclaimed the Cossack in a tone of amazement. If she had said fifty millions, the shock to his financial sense could not have been more severe. "It is an enormous sum," he said, slowly, while she fixed her eyes upon him, waiting for his answer. "What is the matter, Vjera? Have you not been able to pay your rent this year, and has old h.o.m.olka threatened to turn you out?"

"Oh no! It is worse than that, far worse than that! If it were only myself--" she hesitated.

"What is it? Who is it? Perhaps it is not so serious as you think. Tell me all about it."

"There is very little time--only an hour. He is going mad--really mad, Herr Schmidt, because he has given his word of honour to pay Herr Fischelowitz that money this evening. I only calmed him, by promising to bring the money at once."

"You promised that?" exclaimed Schmidt. "It was a very wild promise--"

"I will keep it, and you must help me. We have an hour. If we do not succeed he will never be himself again."

"But fifty marks!" Schmidt could not recover from his astonishment. "Oh, Vjera!" he exclaimed at last, in the simplicity of his heart, "how you must love him!"

"I would do more than that--if I could," she answered. "But come, you will help me, will you not? I have a ten-mark piece and an old thaler put away at home. That makes thirteen, and two I have in my pocket, fifteen and--I am afraid that is all," she concluded after a slight hesitation.

"And five are twenty," said the Cossack, producing the six which he had, and taking one silver piece out of the number to be returned to his pocket. The children must not starve on the morrow.

"Oh, thank you, Herr Schmidt!" cried poor Vjera in a joyful voice as she eagerly took the proffered coins. "Twenty already! Why, twenty-five will be half, will it not? And I am sure that we can find the rest, then."

"There is Dumnoff," said Schmidt. "He probably has something, too."

"But I could not borrow of him--besides, if he knew it was for the Count--and he is so rough--he would not give it to us."

"We shall see," answered the other, who knew his man. "Wait a moment. He is still inside."

He re-entered the shop, where Fischelowitz and his wife were conversing under the gaslight.

"I tell you," Akulina was saying, "that it is high time you got rid of him. The new workman from Vilna will take his place, and it is positively ridiculous to be made to submit to this madman's humours, and impertinence. What sort of a man are you, Christian Gregorovitch, to let the fellow carry off your Gigerl, with his airy promise to pay you the money to-day?"

"The Gigerl was broken," observed the tobacconist.

"Oh, it could have been mended; and if it was really stolen, was that our business, I would like to know? n.o.body would ever have supposed, seeing it in our window, that it had been stolen. And it could have been mended, as I say, and might have been worth something after all. You never really tried to sell it, as you ought to have done from the very first. And now you have got nothing at all, nothing but that insolent maniac's promise.

If I were you I would take the money out of his wages, I would indeed!"

"No doubt you would," said Fischelowitz, with sincere conviction.

Meanwhile Schmidt had gone into the back shop, where Dumnoff was still doggedly working, making up for the time he had lost by coming late in the morning. He was alone at his little table.

"How much money have you got?" asked the Cossack, briefly. Dumnoff looked up rather stupidly, dropped the cigarette he was making, and felt in his pocket for his change. He produced five marks, an unusual sum for him to have in his possession, and which would not have found itself in his hands had not his arrest on the previous evening prevented his spending considerably more than he had spent in his favourite corn-brandy.

"I want it all," said Schmidt.

"You are a cool-blooded fellow," laughed Dumnoff, making as though he would return the coins to his pocket.

"Look here, Dumnoff," answered the Cossack, his bright eyes gleaming. "I want that money. You know me, and you had better give it to me without making any trouble."

Dumnoff seemed confused by the sharpness of the demand, and hesitated.

"You seem in a great hurry," he said, with an awkward laugh, "I suppose you mean to give it back to me?"

"You shall have it at the rate of a mark a day in the next five work days.

You will get your pay this evening and that will be quite enough for you to get drunk with to-night."

"That is true," said Dumnoff, thoughtfully. "Well, take it," he added, slipping the money into the other's outstretched palm.

"Thank you," said the Cossack. "You are not so bad as you look, Dumnoff.

Good-night." He was gone in a moment.

Dumnoff stared at the door through which he had disappeared.

"After all," he muttered, discontentedly, "he could not have taken it by force. I wonder why I was such a fool as to give it to him!"

"I tell you," said Akulina to her husband as Schmidt pa.s.sed through the outer shop, "that he will end by costing us so much in money lent, and squandered in charity, that the business will go to dust and feathers! I am only a weak woman, Christian Gregorovitch, but I have four children--"

The Cossack heard no more, for he closed the street door behind him and returned to Vjera's side. She was standing as he had left her, absorbed in the contemplation of the financial crisis.

"Five more," said he, giving her the silver. "That is one half. Now for the other. But are you quite sure, Vjera, that it is as bad as you think?

I know that Fischelowitz does not in the least expect the money."

"No--I daresay not. But I know this, if I had not met him just now and promised to bring him the fifty marks, he would have been raving mad before morning." Schmidt saw by her look that she was convinced of the fact.

"Very well," he said. "I am not going to turn back now. The poor Count has done me many a good turn in his time, and I will do my best, though I do not exactly see what more I can do, at such short notice."

"Have you got anything worth p.a.w.ning, Herr Schmidt?" asked Vjera, ruthless, as devoted people can be when the object of their devotion is in danger.

"Well--I have not much that I can spare. There is the bed--but my wife cannot sleep on the floor, though I would myself. And there are a few pots and pans in the kitchen--not worth much, and I do not know what we should do without them. I do not know, I am sure. I cannot take the children's things, Vjera, even for you."

"No," said Vjera doubtfully. "I suppose not. Of course not!" she exclaimed, immediately afterwards, with an attempt to express conviction.