True, the revolutionists were unusually active at that moment, and the throne of Russia had become seriously menaced. Any other but a man of iron constitution and nerves of steel would surely have been driven to lunacy by the constant terror in which he was forced to exist. Yet, though he took ample precaution, he never betrayed the slightest anxiety, a fact which held everyone amazed. He was a true Russian, an autocrat of dogged courage, quick decision, always forceful and impelling, a faithful friend, but a bitter and revengeful enemy; a born ruler and a manly Emperor in every sense of the word.
The Grand Duchess Natalia has been with the Emperor. Did she return with you this morning? I inquired.
Yes, drawled the equerry. Shes been admired everywhere, as usual, and half our staff are over head and ears in love with her. Shes been flirting outrageously.
Then half your staff are fools, I exclaimed bluntly.
Ah, my dear Trewinnard, she is so sweet, so very charming, so exquisite, so entirely unlike the other girls at Court so delightfully unconventional.
A little too unconventional to suit some if all I hear be true, I remarked with a smile.
You know her, of course. Shes an intimate friend of yours. I overheard her one day telling the Emperor what an excellent tennis player you were.
Well, I dont fancy His Majesty interests himself very much in tennis, I laughed. He has other, and far more important, matters to occupy his time the affairs of his great nation.
Natalia, or Tattie, as they call her in the Imperial circle, is his favourite niece. Nowadays she goes everywhere with him, and does quite a lot of his most private correspondence that which he does not even trust to Calitzine.
Then the Emperor is more friendly towards Her Imperial Highness than before eh? I asked, for truth to tell I was very anxious to satisfy myself upon this point.
Yes. She has been forgiven for that little escapade in Moscow.
What escapade? I asked, feigning surprise.
What escapade? my friend echoed. Why, you know well enough! Ive heard it whispered that it was owing to your cleverness as a diplomat that the matter was so successfully hushed up and an ugly affair it was, too. The suicide of her lover.
Thats a confounded lie! I said quickly. He did not commit suicide at all. At most, he left Russia with a broken heart, and that is not usually a fatal malady.
Well, you neednt get angry about it, my dear fellow, complained my friend. The affair is successfully hushed up, and I fancy shes got a lot to thank you for.
Not at all, I declared. I know that you fellows have coupled my name with hers, just because Ive danced with her a few times at the Court balls, and Ive been shooting at her fathers castle away in Samara. But I assure you my reputation as the little Grand Duchesss intimate friend is entirely a mythical one. Captain Stoyanovitch only smiled incredulously, stretched out his long legs and shrugged his shoulders.
Well, I went on, has she been very terrified about all these reports of conspiracies?
Frightened out of her life, poor child! And who would not be? he asked. We didnt know from one hour to another that we might not all be blown into the air. Everywhere the railway was lined by Cossacks, of course. Such a demonstration is apt to lend an air of security, but, alas! there is no security with the very Ministry undermined by revolution, as it is.
I sighed. What he said was, alas! too true. Russia, at that moment, was in very evil case, and none knew it better than we, the impartial onlookers at the British Embassy.
The warm June sun fell across the rather faded carpet of that sombre old-fashioned room with its heavy furniture, which was my own sanctum, and as the smart captain of the Imperial Guard lolled back picturesquely in the big armchair I looked at him reflectively.
They were strange thoughts which flooded my brain at that moment thoughts concerning that pretty, high-born young lady whom we had just been discussing, the girl to whom, he declared, His Majesty entrusted the greatest secrets of the throne.
Stoyanovitch was an extremely elegant and somewhat irresponsible person, and the fact that the Emperor had allowed the Grand Duchess Natalia to write his private letters did not strike me as the actual truth. The Tzar was far too cautious to entrust the secrets of a nation to a mere girl who was certainly known to be greatly addicted to the gentle pastime of flirtation.
Whatever the equerry told us, we at the Embassy usually added the proverbial grain of salt. Indeed, the diplomat at any post abroad learns to believe nothing which he hears, and only half he actually sees.
But the Emperor had sent me, by the mouth of that smart young officer, the word Bathildis which was an ancient womans Christian name and to me it conveyed a secret message, an announcement which held me in surprise and apprehension.
What could have happened?
I dreaded to think.
Chapter Two.
An Audience of the Emperor
You understand, Trewinnard. There must be no scandal. What I have just revealed to you is in strictest confidence an inviolable secret a personal secret of my own.
I understand Your Majestys commands perfectly.
There is already a lot of uncharitable chatter in the Court circle regarding the other matter, I hear. Has anything reached you at the Embassy?
Not a whisper, as far as I am aware. Indeed, Your Majestys words have greatly surprised me. I did not believe the affair to be so very serious.
Serious! echoed the Emperor Alexander, speaking in English, his dark, deep-set eyes fixed upon me. I tell you it is all too serious, now that I find myself completely isolated oh! yes, Trewinnard, isolated with scarce one single friend. God knows! I have done my best for the nation, but, alas! everyones hand is raised against me. And his firm mouth hardened behind his full, dark beard, and he drew his hand wearily across his broad, white brow.
The room in the Winter Palace in which we sat was cosy and luxuriantly furnished, the two windows looking forth upon a grey, cheerless quadrangle whence came the tramp of soldiers at drill.
Where we sat we could hear the sharp words of command in Russian, and the clang of the rifle-butts striking the stones.
The room was essentially English in its aspect, with its rich china-blue Axminster carpet, and silk upholstery with curtains to match, while the panelling from floor to ceiling was enamelled dead white, against which the fine water-colour drawings of naval scenes stood out in vivid relief. Upon a buhl table was a great silver bowl filled with Marshal Niel roses for His Majesty was passionately fond of flowers and beside it, large framed panel photographs of the Tzarina and his children. And yet those dead white walls and the shape of those square windows struck a curious incongruous note, for if the actual truth be told, those walls were of steel, and that private cabinet of the Emperor had been constructed by the Admiralty Department with armour-plates which were bomb-proof.
That apartment in the west angle of the Palace quadrangle was well-known to me, for in it His Majesty had given me private audience many times. That long white door which had been so silently closed upon me by the Cossack sentry when I entered was, I knew, of armour-plate, four inches in thickness, while beside the windows were revolving shutters of chilled steel.
There, at that great littered roll-top writing-table, upon which was the reading-lamp with its shade of salmon-pink silk with the loaded revolver beside it, the Emperor worked, attending to affairs of State. And in his padded chair, leaning back easily as he spoke to me, was His Majesty himself, a broad-shouldered, handsome man just past middle-age, dressed in a suit of navy blue serge. He was a big-faced, big-limbed, big-handed man of colossal physique and marvellous intelligence. Though haunted by the terror of violent death, he was yet an autocrat to the finger-tips, whose bearing was ever that of a sovereign; yet his eyes had a calm, sympathetic, kindly look, and those who knew him intimately were well aware that he was not the monster of oppression which his traducers had made him out to be before the eyes of Europe.