The Vagrant Duke Part 44

If the stranger knew that Peter was in New Jersey there was no doubt that there were others who knew it also, those who employed him--those in whose interests he was working. Who? The same madmen who had done Nicholas to death and had killed one by one the misguided Empress, Olga, Tania, the poor little Czarevitch and the rest.... Did they consider him, Peter Nichols, lumber-jack extraordinary, as a possible future claimant to the throne of Russia? Peter smiled grimly. They were "straining at a gnat while swallowing the camel." And if they feared him, why didn't they strike? The stranger had already had ample opportunity to murder him if he had been so disposed, could still do it during Peter's daily rides back and forth from the Cabin to the camp and to the Upper Reserve.

All of these thoughts percolated slowly, as a result of the sudden inspiration at the bunk-house which had liberated a new train of ideas, beginning with the identification of the Russian characteristics of the new lumberman, which were more clearly defined under the beard and workman's shirt than under the rather modish gray slouch hat and American clothing in which Peter had seen him earlier. And Peter had merely let the man go. He had no proof of the fellow's purposes, and if he had even discovered exactly what those purposes were, there was no recourse for Peter but to ask for the protection of Washington, and this he had no desire to do.

If the man suspected from the quickly spoken Russian sentence that Peter now guessed his mission, he had given no sign of it. But that meant nothing. The fellow was clever. He was doubtless awaiting instructions.

And unless Peter took his case to the Department of Justice he could neither expect any protection nor hope for any security other than his own alertness.

At the Cabin Beth was waiting for him. These hours of music and Beth were now as much a part of Peter's day as his breakfast or his dinner.

And he had only failed her when the pressure of his responsibilities was too great to permit of his return to the Cabin. The hour most convenient for him was that at the close of the day, and though weary or discouraged, Peter always came to the end of this agreeable hour rested and refreshed, and with a sense of something definitely achieved. For whatever the days brought forth of trouble and disappointment, down at the logging camp or the mills, here was Beth waiting for him, full of enthusiasm and self-confidence, a tangible evidence of success.

The diligence with which she applied his instructions, the ease with which she advanced from one step to another, showed her endowed with an intelligence even beyond his early expectations. She was singing simple ballads now, English and French, and already evinced a sense of interpretation which showed the dormant artist. He tried at first, of course, to eliminate all striving for effect, content to gain the purity of tone for which he was striving, but she soared beyond him sometimes, her soul defying limitations, liberated into an empyrean of song. If anything, she advanced too rapidly, and Peter's greatest task was to restrain her optimism and self-confidence by imposing the drudgery of fundamental principles. And when he found that she was practicing too long, he set her limits of half-hour periods beyond which she must not go. But she was young and strong and only once had he noted the slightest symptom of wear and tear on her vocal chords, when he had closed the piano and prohibited the home work for forty-eight hours.

As to their personal relations, Peter had already noticed a difference in his own conduct toward Beth, and in hers toward him,--a shade of restraint in Beth's conversation when not on the topic of music, which contrasted rather strangely with the candor of their first meetings.

Peter couldn't help smiling at his memories, for now Beth seemed to be upon her good behavior, repaying him for her earlier contempt with a kind of awe at his attainments. He caught her sometimes in unguarded moments looking at him curiously, as though in wonder at a mystery which could not be explained. And to tell the truth, Peter wondered a little, too, at his complete absorption in the task he had set himself. He tried to believe that it was only the music that impelled him, only the joy of an accomplished musician in the discovery of a budding artist, but he knew that it was something more than these. For reducing the theorem to different terms, he was obliged to confess that if the girl had been any one but Beth, no matter how promising her voice, he must have been bored to extinction. No. He had to admit that it was Beth that interested him, Beth the primitive, Beth the mettlesome, Beth the demure. For if now demure she was never dull. The peculiarity of their situation--of their own choosing--lent a spice to the relationship which made each of them aware that the other was young and desirable--and that the world was very far away.

However far Beth's thoughts may have carried her in the contemplation of the personal pulchritude of her music master (somewhat enhanced by the extirpation of the h.e.l.lion triplet in her own behalf) it was Peter Nicholaevitch who made the task of Peter Nichols difficult. It was the Grand Duke Peter who wanted to take this peasant woman in his arms and teach her what other peasant girls had been taught by Grand Dukes since the beginning of the autocratic system of which he had been a part--but it was Peter Nichols who restrained him. Peter Nicholaevitch feared nothing, knew no restraint, lived only for the hour--for the moment.

Peter Nichols was a coward--or a gentleman--he was not quite certain which.

When Peter entered the Cabin on the evening after the appointment of Jesse Brown as foreman at the lumber camp, Beth could not help noticing the clouds of worry that hung over Peter's brows.

"You're tired," she said. "Is anything wrong at the camp?"

But he only shook his head and sat down at the piano. And when she questioned him again he evaded her and went on with the lesson. Music always rested him, and the sound of her voice soothed. It was the "Elegie" of Ma.s.senet that he had given her, foolishly perhaps, a difficult thing at so early a stage, because of its purity and simplicity, and he had made her learn the words of the French--like a parrot--written them out phonetically, because the French words were beautiful and the English, as written, abominable. And now she sang it to him softly, as he had taught her, again and again, while he corrected her phrasing, suggesting subtle meanings in his accompaniment which she was not slow to comprehend.

"I didn't know that music could mean so much," she sighed as she sank into a chair with a sense of failure, when the lesson was ended. "I always thought that music just meant happiness. But it means sorrow too."

"Not to those who hear you sing, Beth," said Peter with a smile, as he lighted and smoked a corncob pipe, a new vice he had discovered at the camp. Already the clouds were gone from his forehead.

"No! Do you really think that, Mr. Nichols?" she asked joyously.

She had never been persuaded to call him by his Christian name, though Peter would have liked it. The "Mr." was the tribute of pupil to master, born also of a subtler instinct of which Peter was aware.

"Yes," he replied generously, "you'll sing that very well in time----"

"When I've suffered?" she asked quickly.

He glanced up from the music in his hand, surprised at her intuition.

"I don't like to tell you so----"

"But I think I understand. n.o.body can sing what she doesn't feel--what she hasn't felt. Oh, I know," she broke off suddenly. "I can sing songs of the woods--the water--the pretty things like you've been givin' me.

But the deep things--sorrow, pain, regret--like this--I'm not 'up' to them."

Peter sat beside her, puffing contentedly.

"Don't worry," he muttered. "Your voice will ripen."

"And will I ripen too?"

He laughed. "I don't want you ever to be any different from what you are."

She was thoughtful a moment, for Peter had always taken pains to be sparing in personalities which had nothing to do with her voice.

"But I don't want always to be what I am," she protested, "just growin'

close to the ground like a pumpkin or a squash."

He laughed. "You might do worse."

"But not much. Oh, I know. You're teachin' me to think--and to feel--so that I can make other people do the same--the way you've done to me. But it don't make me any too happy to think of bein' a--a squash again."

"Perhaps you won't have to be," said Peter quietly.

"And the factory--I've got to make some money next winter. I can't use any of Aunt Tillie's savin's. But when I know what I _might_ be doin', it's not any too easy to think of goin' back _there_!"

"Perhaps you won't have to go," said Peter again.

Her eyes glanced at him quickly, looked away, then returned to his face curiously.

"I don't just understand what you mean."

"I mean," said Peter, "that we'll try to find the means to keep you out of the gla.s.s factory--to keep on with the music."

"But how----? I can't be dependent on----" She paused with a glance at him. And then quickly, with her characteristic frankness that always probed straight to her point, "You mean that _you_ will pay my way?"

"Merely that I'm going to find the money--somehow."

But she shook her head violently. "Oh, no, I couldn't let you do that, Mr. Nichols. I couldn't think of it."

"But you've got to go on, Beth. I've made up my mind to that. You'll go pretty fast. It won't be long before you'll know all that I can teach you. And then I'm going to put you under the best teacher of this method in New York. In a year or so you'll be earning your own way----"

"But I can't let you do this for me. You're doin' too much as it is--too much that I can't pay back."

"We won't talk of money. You've given me a lot of enjoyment. That's my pay."

"But this other--this studyin' in New York. No, I couldn't let you do that. I couldn't--I can't take a cent from you or from any man--woman either, for that matter. I'll find some way--workin' nights. But I'm not goin' back," she added almost fiercely between her teeth, "not to the way I was before. I won't. I can't."

"Good. That's the way great careers are made. I don't intend that you shall. I'm going to make a great singer of you, Beth."

She colored with joy.

"Are you, Mr. Nichols? Are you? Oh, I want to make good--indeed I do--to learn French and Italian----" And then, with a sharp sigh, "O Lord, if wishes were horses----!" She was silent again, regarding him wistfully.

"Don't think I'm not grateful. I'm afraid you might. I _am_ grateful.

But--sometimes I wonder what you're doin' it all for, Mr. Nichols. And whether----"

As she paused again Peter finished for her.

"Whether it wouldn't have been better if I hadn't let you just remain--er," he grinned, "a peach, let's say? Well, I'll tell you, Beth," he went on, laying his pipe aside, "I came here, without a friend, to a strange job in a strange country. I found you. Or rather _you_ found _me_--lost like a babe in the woods. You made fun of me.

n.o.body had ever done that before in my life, but I rather liked it. I liked your voice too. You were worth helping, you see. And then along came Shad. I couldn't have him ordering you about, you know--not the way he did it--if he hadn't any claim on you. So you see, I had a sense of responsibility for you after that----About you, too----," he added, as though thinking aloud.