The Crown of Life Part 51

Mrs. Borisoff kept her eyes upon him as he spoke, seeming to reflect rather than to listen.

"I ought to tell you," she said, "that I don't know Russian.

Irene--Miss Derwent almost shamed me into working at it; but I am so lazy--ah, so lazy! you are aware, of course, that Miss Derwent has learnt it?"

"Has learnt Russian?" exclaimed Piers. "I didn't know--I had no idea----"

"Wonderful girl! I suppose she thinks it a trifle."

"It's so long," said Otway, "since I had any news of Miss Derwent. I can hardly consider myself one of her friends--at least, I shouldn't have ventured to do so until this morning, when I was surprised and delighted to have a letter from her about that _Nineteenth Century_ article, sent through the publishers. She spoke of you, and asked me to call--saying she had written an introduction of me by the same post."

Mrs. Borisoff smiled oddly.

"Oh yes; it came. She didn't speak of the _Vyestnik_?"

"No."

"Yet she has read it--I happen to know. I'm sorry I can't. Tell me about it, will you?"

The Russian article was called "New Womanhood in England." It began with a good-tempered notice of certain novels then popular, and pa.s.sed on to speculations regarding the new ideals of life set before English women. Piers spoke of it as a mere bit of apprentice work, meant rather to amuse than as a serious essay.

"At all events, it's a success," said his listener. "One hears of it in every drawing-room. Wonderful thing--you don't sneer at women. I'm told you are almost on our side--if not quite. I've heard a pa.s.sage read into French--the woman of the twentieth century. I rather liked it."

"Not altogether?" said Otway, with humorous diffidence.

"Oh! A woman never quite likes an ideal of womanhood which doesn't quite fit her notion of herself. But let us speak of the other thing, in the _Nineteenth Century_--'The Pilgrimage to Kief.' For life, colour, sympathy, I think it altogether wonderful. I have heard Russians say that they couldn't have believed a foreigner had written it."

"That's the best praise of all."

"You mean to go on with this kind of thing? You might become a sort of interpreter of the two nations to each other. An original idea. The everyday thing is to exasperate Briton against Russ, and Russ against Briton, with every sort of cheap joke and stale falsehood. All the same Mr. Otway, I'm bound to confess to you that I don't like Russia."

"No more do I," returned Piers, in an undertone. "But that only means, I don't like the worst features of the Middle ages. The Russian-speaking cosmopolitan whom you and I know isn't Russia; he belongs to the Western Europe of to-day, his country represents Western Europe of some centuries ago. Not strictly that, of course; we must allow for race; but it's how one has to think of Russia."

Again Mrs. Borisoff scrutinised him as he spoke, averting her eyes at length with an absent smile.

"Here comes my tutelary teapot," she said, as a pretty maid-servant entered with a tray. "A phrase I got from Irene, by the bye--from Miss Derwent, who laughs at my carrying the thing about in my luggage. She has clever little phrases of that sort, as you know."

"Yes," fell from Piers, dreamily. "But it's so long since I heard her talk."

When he had received his cup of tea, and sipped from it, he asked with a serious look:

"Will you tell me about her?"

"Of course I will. But you must first tell me about yourself. You were in business in London, I believe?"

"For about a year. Then I found myself with enough to live upon, and came back to Russia. I had lived at Odessa----"

"You may presuppose a knowledge of what came before," interrupted Mrs.

Borisoff, with a friendly nod.

"I lived for several months with Korolevitch, on his estate near Poltava. We used to talk--heavens! how we talked! Sometimes eight hours at a stretch. I learnt a great deal. Then I wandered up and down Russia, still learning."

"Writing, too?"

"The time hadn't come for writing. Korolevitch gave me no end of useful introductions. I've had great luck on my travels."

"Pray, when did you make your studies of English women?"

Piers tried to laugh; declared he did not know.

"I shouldn't wonder if you generalise from one or two?" said his hostess, letting her eyelids droop as she observed him lazily. "Do you know Russian women as well?"

By begging for another cup of tea, and adding a remark on some other subject, Piers evaded this question.

"And what are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Borisoff "Stay here, and write more articles?"

"I'm going to England in a few days for the summer."

"That's what I think I shall do. But I don't know what part to go to.

Advise me, can you? Seaside--no; I don't like the seaside. Do you notice how people--our kind of people, I mean--are losing their taste for it in England? It's partly, I suppose, because of the excursion train. One doesn't grudge the crowd its excursion train, but it's so much nicer to imagine their blessedness than to see it. Or are you for the other point of view?"

Otway gave an expressive look.

"That's right. Oh, the sham philanthropic talk that goes on in England!

How it relieves one to say flatly that one does _not_ love the mult.i.tude!--No seaside, then. Lakes--no; Wales--no; Highlands--no.

Isn't there some part of England one would like if one discovered it?"

"Do you want solitude?" asked Piers, becoming more interested.

"Solitude? H'm!" She handed a box of cigarettes, and herself took one.

"Yes, solitude. I shall try to get Miss Derwent to come for a time. New Forest--no, Please, please, do suggest! I'm nervous; your silence teases me."

"Do you know the Yorkshire dales?" asked Otway, watching her as she watched a nice little ring of white smoke from the end of her cigarette.

"No! That's an idea. It's your own country, isn't it?"

"But--how do you know that?"

"Dreamt it."

"I wasn't born there, but lived there as a child, and later a little.

You might do worse than the dales, if you like that kind of country.

Wensleydale, for instance. There's an old Castle, and a very interesting one, part of it habitable, where you can get quarters."

"A Castle? Superb!"

"Where Queen Mary was imprisoned for a time, till she made an escape----"

"Magnificent! Can I have the whole Castle to myself?"