The Hippodrome Part 24

The opening of the box had revealed a sinister-looking bouquet of artificial black roses tied with blood-red ribbons.

In Barcelona there are many strange and ingenious ways of conveying death by explosives. A clock, a painted casket which might contain bon-bons; a coffee-pot, a _ca.s.serole_--any apparently harmless and common utensil.

A bunch of flowers was one of the most common mediums for a bomb.

The Anarchist colours showed clearly that it must either have been sent by an enemy who had been formerly one of the band, and who was now revenging himself by an attempt to see his former a.s.sociates "hoist with their own petard," or else it was an affair of the police. In any case, supposing the thing to be harmless, it was a warning of danger.

Emile's wits worked swiftly, and he was used to emergencies. He looked round, and found a jug of water, and the floral tribute floated harmlessly therein. As it did not sink at once he concluded that there was no concealed bomb. Then he turned his attention to Arith.e.l.li, and gave her a vigorous shaking, which was probably, under the circ.u.mstances, the best possible restorative.

"You'll die more than once in imagination before your time comes, Fatalite. Probably the next parcel you receive will not need as much investigation."

She tried to smile. "I'm sorry! They looked so uncanny, and when I saw red I thought--Emile, what does it all mean?"

"It means danger, my dear. It means that you are suspected. You yourself best know whether the suspicion is deserved or not. Of course it may be only one of the police tricks, but I don't think so. Anyway whether it was charged or not it's safe enough now. Look in the box and on the floor to see if there's any note or message. There isn't?

_Eh bien_! I suppose they thought this would speak with sufficient eloquence."

He fished the bedraggled bouquet out of the water and hung it like a trophy across Arith.e.l.li's mirror, which was a fetish of its owner and the one valuable thing she now possessed. It had been the gift of Michael Furness, who had bought it from the Jewish herbalist. It was of antique silver gilt in oval shape, and rimmed with rough topaz set in silver, and was alleged by its former owner to have been the property of Agnes Sorel. Arith.e.l.li had often declared that in it she could see visions as in a crystal.

Over it Emile carefully arranged the flowers so that the stained red ribbons hung limply across the polished surface. Then he sat down again and lighted another cigarette.

"You ought not to be afraid of this sort of thing, you know," he said.

"Sudden death is part of our business. In the oath we take we swear to 'Slay or be slain,' if by so doing we can advance the Cause one small step forward."

She caught at her breast with a sudden gesture of pa.s.sion.

Death--could they talk and think of nothing else? And she was a woman now, not a weapon, and she wanted life.

"You don't seem very enthusiastic," the cold voice continued. "A few months ago the dangerous side of the game was rather an attraction to you than otherwise. Now you shrink and shiver at everything. You do your work, yes, because, you can't help doing that, but is there any heart in what you do?"

"None! Every day I live, I loathe it more!"

"Take care!"

"I'm past caring. When I came out here first I was a child playing at a new game."

Emile's back was turned to her, and if his answering speech was brutal, it was because his conscience was awake and crying fiercely. He would not be likely to make the mistake of interfering with people's lives a second time. He had seen in her an instrument to be handled at will, and had charged himself with the burden of her destiny, and now he supposed she was about to reproach him.

"You are hysterical. That's the worst of women. They always are--more or less. You had better go to bed, and not talk nonsense. If you were a child only a few months ago you are not too old to be treated as one now."

It hurt him more than it hurt her, but she would never know that. His pulses hammered furiously as she dropped at his side with a soft rustle of garments. Her clasped hands rested on his knee; the strong, slender hands that had grown rough with work.

"Emile," she whispered, "can't you see that I've altered? I'm a woman now. You said I should be one soon. I've wanted to tell you all along, but I always hoped you had guessed."

"Perhaps I did, but I preferred that you should tell me yourself. And since when have you become what you call 'a woman'? No, you needn't answer. When I knew that you and Vardri had been together in my rooms, I was certain I had not warned you without reason."

"You knew before I did myself."

"_Mon enfant_, I'm neither blind nor a fool. As they say in this country, 'love and a cough cannot be hidden.' I was sure about Vardri, but about you;--no, one couldn't say. When you came out here you were a s.e.xless creature with a brain. It did not seem likely that you would develop into the ordinary girl with a lover."

It was the only way he could keep a hold upon himself, by keeping up a pose of cynicism. The fragrance of her hair, the curved mouth so close to his own, maddened him. He who could have been her lover had been only her guardian, her taskmaster. And now she was ready to give herself to a boy, who thought life was a romance, and who would probably sit at her feet reading poetry while they both starved.

"You have been together often?"

Her head drooped. "Yes. I should have told you before."

"What plans have you made? I suppose it will be the usual mad scheme of running away. I ought to betray you, of course, but--"

"We haven't arranged anything yet; there is plenty of time."

"Plenty of time--Mon Dieu!" the man rasped out. "How like you, Fatalite! What a pair! Vardri always living _au clair de la lune_, and you half asleep, and full of illusions. _Les illusions sont les hirondelles_. How often have I told you that?"

"They make life possible," Arith.e.l.li answered softly.

Again the man stared and marvelled. Verily, here was another being who was neither "Becky Sharp" nor "Fatalite." The exultation, the triumph of one loved and desired, was hers for the moment. Who, seeing her now, could have the heart to warn her of inevitable disillusion, the doubts and fears, the clinging and the torments that are the heritage of all womenkind.

He, too, had once dreamed foolish dreams.

He gripped her by the shoulder and forced her to look at him.

"Vardri is your lover? You shall answer me before I leave this room."

She did not flinch, or blush, or look away.

"I love him."

Joy shone in her widely open eyes. Love hovered about her mouth, and the pa.s.sion that had stirred in him momentarily shrank back ashamed.

He pushed back her hair with a rough caress.

"It's all right, _ma chere_. You needn't be afraid. I shall not be here to advise you soon, and all I have to say now is, never imagine yourself secure for an instant. Sobrenski is bound to discover this in the course of time, and he has seen this sort of thing before, which will not make him any more merciful. He has watched human nature long enough to know that where there is what you would call love, people want to create, they no longer want to destroy. If, as you say, you have made no plans, then make them. And now you'd better go to bed, unless you want to look more like a ghost than usual to-morrow."

As he went out into the moonlit street Emile knew that he had taken the first step on his _Via Crucis_. He did not call it that, for of religion in the orthodox sense he possessed nothing, but he knew that his feet were set upon the path where snow and blood would mingle in his footprints. He was going back to Russia, where death would be a thing to be welcomed and desired. He had listened to the tales of escaped prisoners, and he knew that no words could exaggerate this frozen h.e.l.l in which flourished vices unnamable, where men rotted alive, and women strangled themselves with their own hair, or cut their throats with a sc.r.a.p of gla.s.s to escape the brutalities of a gaoler or Cossack guard.

He wondered whether it would be Akatui, or the mines, for him. It was no use to try and delude himself that he could escape the police.

He had got out of Russia by the skin of his teeth last time, and, even if he managed to get his despatches safely delivered, there would be a raid on the newspaper office, an arrest in the street. Of course there was always the hope that he might come in for a chance shot in a scrimmage, but that was too much luck to expect.

He had nothing to wait for now after what he had heard to-night, and the sooner he put himself out of the way, the better. He would volunteer at once for the St. Petersburg mission. The usual custom was to cast lots, unless some enthusiast begged for the privilege of a speedy doom. By virtue of his long service he had a right to claim that privilege.

If he could go to-morrow so much the better. After what Arith.e.l.li had confessed it would be dangerous for them both if he stayed. For a moment the primaeval man in him leapt up, telling him that he had only to pit himself against Vardri, and the victory would be a.s.suredly his own. His rival was only a boy, and Emile knew that if there came the struggle between male and male, the odds were all in his own favour.

Arith.e.l.li had grown into the habit of obedience to him, and if he wished it he could make it practically impossible for her to see Vardri without his knowledge and consent. She would sorrow for her lover at first, but he was a man, and he could make her forget.

A thousand little devils crowded close, whispering how easy it would be to get Vardri sent out of the way. A few words to Sobrenski, and the whole thing would be done.

His sense of justice reminded him that he least of all people had a right to grudge her a few hours of happiness. If he obliterated himself he was only making her a deserved reparation for some of the things she had suffered. Through him she had joined the Anarchist ranks, and through him she had taken vows that despoiled her of the hopes and joys of womanhood, and transformed her into an instrument of vengeance. She had apparently never realised that she had been in any way injured, for she had never blamed him, and been invariably grateful for anything he had done for her physical comfort.

She loved Vardri, or imagined that she did. Emile told himself savagely that he was a fool who deserved no pity, for he had had his own chance and missed it. He had been with her by night and day, and her life had been in his own hands all these months, but he had never made love to her. He had only bullied her, taught her, made her work, looked after her clothes and food, and, he knew it now too late, loved her.

She had never suspected it, and the secret should remain his own. Love and love-making were two very different things. She did not know that now, but later on she would, when she was ten years older, perhaps, and then it would not matter to him, for he would be under two or three feet of snow in a Siberian convict settlement.

He had gone about persuading himself that she was still a child, and this Austrian boy, this wastrel and dreamer, had awakened her.