Comrades

Front matter

COMRADES COMRADES BY ANNABEL GRAY AUTHOR OF 'MARGARET DUNBAR', 'TWIXT SHADE AND SHINE', 'A ROMANCE OF REGENT STREET', 'UNMASKED', 'JEROME', 'THROUGH RIFTED CLOUDS' ' A SPANISH SINGER', ETC. " The need of the Universe is not sot theology, but for hitman sympathy." LONDON HENRY J. DRANE, CHANT & CO. SALISBURY HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, FLEET STREET, E.C. Printed in Holland by HENRY J. DRANE, London & Amsterdam. ■Q^yiry^^ySX^ CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE I. THE 'DINER A DEUX' IN SACKVILLE STREET . 7 II. THE DAUGHTERS OF CADIZ 1 9 III. VALENCIA 33 IV. JOWSKY 41 V. THE HOME OF THE MANGLE 53 VI. "I LOVE YOUR DAUGHTER" 6 1 VII. WILFRED ASHTON 70 VIII. "LET US COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING" . 80 IX. THE PIECE OF PINK PAPER. . " 8/ X. FOR THY SOUL'S SAKE 98 XI. JOWSKY IS IMPERTINENT ....... 107 XII. HE IS REVENGED 113 XIII.

MRS. COLONEL PIPPIN CONSOLES I 19 XIV. THE LAST BLOW 130 XV. ELDRED'S VISITORS 140 XVI. JOWSKY'S PLOT 148 XVII. AFTERNOON TEA 1 58 XVIII. THE RED CAP CLAN 170 XIX. THE CRUSE OF TEARS 1 YI <~B*PTRR. ' 10' XX. UNCLE JACOB 195 XXI. BAFFLED 207 XXII. SAFFRON HILL 2l8 XXIII. LUIGI 227 XXIV. "HOME, SWEET HOME" 24O XXV. THE PAPER IN FLEET ST. THAT DID NOT PAY 252 XXVI. THE UNTOLD STORY 265 XXVII. THE CHARMING LIE 275 XXVIII. AULSTYNE'S VISITORS 292 XXIX. JOWSKY MAKES ENQUIRIES . .- 300 XXX. FACE TO FACE 3 1 I XXXI. JOWSKY'S WINNING CARD 324 XXXII. A FIERY TRIAL 334 XXXIII. DARKENING SHADOWS 343 XXXIV. THE DREAM MESSAGE -355 XXXV. THE PURSUING VENGEANCE 366 XXXVI. RENUNCIATION 38 COMRADES.

Chapter I. The

'DINER A DEUX' IN SACKVILLE STREET. It is not love but fear ; Nay, sweet; — it is not fear but love, I know.'' T was towards the close of the London season, and ■ Eldred Aulstyne, M.P. for Bishopstone,"was returning from the House of Commons, of which he was a distinguished member. The expression of Mr. Aulstyne's face could not exactly be considered agreeable at the present moment; one might detect a strange discord of mood and humour between the bitter smile in his eyes and the constant contraction of the mouth. Did it denote inward suffering — or merely the anger of a proud and clever man possibly thwarted by his colleagues or by circumstances in the fulfilment of some long contemplated Parliamentary scheme, policy, or purpose? In any case, he was a man to be trusted to keep his own secrets and those of others.

Your true inborn diplomatist must have no impulses save to deceive. Men who had watched his career, dazzled in some senses and alarmed at his daring, declared that Eldred Aulstyne was the 'coming man'. He was indeed pre-eminently fitted to be a leader of men. He had the finest style, method, and utterance possible ; these gifts constituting the peculiar fascination he exerted over his followers and hearers. He was a brilliant orator, and it was, moreover, oratory ofthe distinctly literary character that distinguished Pitt. Comrades. 8 He towered above his contemporaries in splendour of height and form as well as of intellect. His athletic, muscular figure, dark strong face, caustic irony, and at times passionate eloquence, once seen and heard were not easily forgotten. In some respects he was even fit to reign ; he had something of Peter the Great's genius, but he would never have resorted to cruelties save under severe necessity or outside pressure.

Yet it was not love of England, her people, or even her glory, fame, and com mercial success and interests that ruled his policy, making him still more critical and severe in his judgment of his rivals. It was simply ambition and self-love that governed Aulstyne's mind and senses — he had no more love of humanity than he had of England — or Ireland for the matter of that. And needless to add, he had very little, if any, orthodox religion — he was apt to consider the latter a failure. Fancy nearly twenty millions expended yearly on theology, to support a priest-hood, and creeds in which all agreed to differ. But religion alone could have softened, changed, elevated him and raised the tone of his political genius — religion alone have given him true insight and sympathy. His ideas, grand and far-reaching as they might be, were yet in a sense, borne, limited.

He was essentially a positivist, and no supernatural light, no mysterious side of thought or feeling ever dawned on his imagination ; in fact, the all-pervading prin ciple of mystery — the veil enshrouding the origin of personality, mind, sense, never appealed to his profound material ism. Death to him signified eternal oblivion. In fact he should prefer to see Christianity less active ; it interfered largely with his political schemes in the East in many ways ; there was also something in it that irritated, since it eluded him. Its sublimity and elevating influences had no meaning for him, but his hostility towards it was more from an intellectual, than an emotional, point of view. Yet he preferred the trained priest-hood of Rome in many respects to Protestantism — with its universal spirit of oppor tunism, and its fewer, as he considered, spiritual advantages, which were often unable to utilize or indeed organize that enthusiasm so necessary to secure true fanatics and devotees.

The intellectual freedom offered by the Reformers had not, he fancied, removed the obstacles to faith. A cynic and man of the world, Eldred was a cold, hard reasoner, the beauty and tenderness of religion could not touch him. The ' Diner a deux ' in Sackville Street. 9 Believing in nothing and in no one, doubting every one's goodness, motive, honesty or purpose, he had the solid peace of the animal that roams, prowls, sleeps, eats, enjoys — yet knows neither faith nor hope in the future. Nature— yes — it was always Nature with Eldred — his was a purely pagan organization that lived for the pleasures of the present alone. He admired science and scientists — had taken up astronomy because of its boundless grandeur and possible discoveries — had stayed with M. Flammarion when in Paris, and travelled immensely.

He was never happier than when visiting foreign scenes and lands, and above all, foreign courts. He was a true courtier and diplomatist, though he disliked the fatigue, dulness, and ennui of State performances, etiquette and routine ; but his foreign missions might all converge to one end — that of one day seeing himself Prime Minister of England. Already he had been spoken of by those 'in the know' — as the 'coming man.' And if he had one honest, unadulterated hatred, it was at present the Irish Question ; Aulstyne's 'little bill' had been prolific of much chaff and many caricatures in the leading 'Comics.' Some said he had Home Rule on the brain. But Home Rule signified nothing to Aulstyne beyond a valuable card he had to play, and which he carefully held in reserve. Your political gambler alone knows the value of cards like these.

As an orator he was irresistible when he forbore calculation, but dreading the inner violence of his own temperament he was constantly employed in checking the impulse, which was the the real secret of his power. His spirit of self-exaggeration had been increased by the incense that had been universally offered him — for incense of this kind never fails to produce a sort of slow, moral intoxication. Hurrying along Bond Street to-day, with a flower in his coat (purchased at his own charming little flower-shop in Bond Street, where the beauty of his young flower-seller Valen cia invariably attracted the attention of numerous fashionable Johnnies) and his air of bien-ctre, Eldred ran against the very man he was expecting to dine with him this evening at his house in Sackville Street. Harry Vasher had also visited the little shop in Bond Street for more reasons than one.

He visited the Gaiety stalls and the Empire, however, even more frequently. In the first place the flower-seller, Valencia Windell, was Comrades. 10 divinely beautiful even in the eyes of so advanced, and educated a masher and in some respects so true an enfant du siecle as Harry — in the second, because Maudie Opaline of Mabel Grove, Brompton, wanted a big ' booquay ' for a party to-night ; she was off at The Troc and The Tiv for this evening at least, and was going to some wedding festivities at Kentish Town. Vasher intended to marry this young lady with her convenient thousands. "Ah! Harry," said Eldred, frowning a little, for he recognised the tuberose in that faultless coat as being one of his own importation from Banstead. (Eldred had several farms and conservatories in Surrey). " Where have you been ?

I hope you paid for that rose. We don't give credit in Bond Street you know." Vasher smiled inanely and would have blushed — only he had long forgotten the art. I've been to see Valencia, dear boy, that's all "Oh! You've been trying that game on, have you?" Vasher gnawed the ends of his blonde moustache and sighed. Weak and invertebrate-looking, he was very frightened of Eldred and very much in his debt. But Aulstyne was not flattered by Harry's mental subservience. "What game?" he asked innocently. Blue eyes are some times very deceitful, but with their sky-like azure have a wonderful way of looking artless and true. Harry was collecting his thoughts, — it was necessary to be always on guard in talking to Eldred. "Any one can see you're after the girl." "What girl?" (That facial expression of innocency was a study).

" Oh ! you know .... Valencia." "Not my style a bit," said Vasher putting his glass to his eye. " Now if it were the Countess Blavintsky — well, you might say I was far gone there." "What, Norah? Great Scot!" "A really pretty woman." "Not pretty, but handsome, Hal, and a little too brainy and in earnest; but she'd soon have you shewn the door if you were impertinent." "Don't be so violent, please," said Vasher admiring the opal studs he had just bought in the Burlington Arcade with Eldred's money. " Am I not coming to dine with our — er — The 'Diner a deux' in Sackville Street. 11 suture Prime Minister to-night ?. They say you've a marvellous facility for keeping your temper when your colleague worries you in the House; he juggles with words as a conjuror with a hat or handkerchief." " Somehow I hate to hear you talk about women — you're so banale."

" I'm not half so bad as you, Aulstyne." Eldred laughed — not a pleasant laugh — but still his moody humour seemed breaking up by degrees. "They say a man is never so bad but he is fit to be a member of Parliament." He enjoyed the joke against himself. They were now walking towards Sackville Street arm-in-arm, like two dear friends. "How old is the Countess?" then asked Harry nervously. " About — let me see — five and thirty." " Not — not a youthful forty or fifty ? Women do make up so now-a-days." " She never lies to me," said Eldred with a smile, " say — well, an elderly thirty." "She does to me," lisped Vasher: "Says — er — the very nicest things in the world and doesn't mean one of them." " You can tell the London season is on the wane by the country cousins we meet," went on Eldred more pleasantly.

"And German visitors are also arriving. There is one — see, he faithfully carries his Baedecker in one hand and his umbrella in the other, and you bet he will visit the South Kensington and British Museums, the theatres, and the Indian Exhibition." Harry put his glass to his eye. "Domestic people — the Germans— Mein Herr is evidently a good husband; die gnddige Frau is by his side." "There is a domestic fowl, Harry, that is also true to one mate." Without that fowl-like fidelity, Harry had a few fine domestic predilections himself, but at present he had 'girls' on the brain. At that moment a carriage and pair dashed round the corner of the street they were about crossing. It was that of the Countess Blavintsky, who was sitting inside accompanied by a young lady — none other than Edith Vasher — Harry's sister.

No greater contrast than between these two, and such are the caprices of heredity that the moral nature of brother Comrades. 12 and sister were as dissimilar as their physical appearance. The Countess, with heightened colour, ordered her coachman to stop. Both Eldred and Harry raised their hats and approached her side. Eldred's apparent indifference with its really cold brutality was not assumed, he merely experimentalized on the Countess as a moral vivisector — and she was in truth an excellent subject for his study. There was something strange and immaterial about her that made him call her a fantastic angel, and he admired her wit. "Going home to dinner?" she asked, while Edith, having bowed to Eldred leaned forward to speak to her brother. "You two appear inseparable." "He is my fidus Achates, you know."

"Poor fellow!" said Norah, with a smile. "You both bore each other I expect." Harry had a faint consciousness that she despised him ; it excited him and he liked her all the better for it. Norah thought how sickly and weak he looked — the touch of his hand was very different from the muscular strength of Eldred's strong fingers. " Have you had any more visits lately from Russian spies or conspirators?" he asked, with more show of interest. "You who have lived so long in Russia should beware." " I am deeply interested in the Nihilists and their schemes," she said thoughtfully. "Oh! the suffering in Russia! I wish to introduce you to a very noted conspirator one day." "Your husband?" asked Eldred, glancing at her under his heavy lids. She looked a perfect femme a la mode with the deep-eyed southern beauty we often see in Irish women.

"Oh no — 'Some one much more interesting. Blavintsky was a shocking blunderer — I wonder he escaped the knout and mines, or the fortress of Peter and Paul. The Russian secret police long suspected him. This man is called Jowsky in London — tout court; il ira loin — if I don't mistake." "Take care," said Eldred in a low voice — "you've given up music, morphia, and chloral to mix yourself up in politics, plots, and conspiracies. Strange that when women miss their natural line in life and have migratory husbands and no children, that their energies must find a vent in somethings dynamitish and dangerous." "At any rate you have sold me no government secrets yet," she said playfully. The 'Diner a deux' in Sackville Street. 13 " I want you to help me. Countess." "And be your spy? Merci, monsieur, I have already been your dupe," she whispered.

Yet he read her secret. Women think more than men because they act less ; there was a volume in her dark blue eyes. Eldred then turned to Miss Vasher. "You see I am taking good care of your brother, as you begged me to do." Edith had always feared that Harry would sink : that all appeals to his higher life and instincts would be futile. She was not quite sure, however, if Eldred were in earnest or no, and she looked slightly troubled. "He was always very weak," she said timidly, and paused, "so easily led and influenced by others." "I will take him in hand," said the Countess gaily in her charming way. "He will be safer with me than even with Mr. Aulstyne." "I am afraid Miss Vasher is inclined to be severe. Well, no deep or passionate affection is ever indulgent, or it would not be affection."

Eldred's dark eyes were fixed on Norah's as he spoke ; Harry glancing from one to the other. "Girls are so foolish," he said, lifting his glass, and vexed at being the subject of their bantering discussion. "Mrs. Colonel Pippin — -Lucinda — and they say she is one of the loveliest women of the season, and certainly one of the most run after— Caerlyn of the 5th Lancers is simply 'gone' over her — -thinks I've a good deal of latent strength — and it's your fools after all that generally get on the best in this world — cleverness isn't in it now-a-days." "Their moral epidermis is nice and thick ; they drift, dodge, or slide, and resist nothing," said the Countess, smiling and tapping his little soft arm maternally. "And now we must be driving homewards — the Pippins are coming to my 'at home' this evening."

After some polite words of adieu had been spoken, the Countess turned to Edith with a sigh, and said as the carriage dashed through the Park gates : "With your romantic imagination, Edith, you would be quite capable of falling in love with Mr. Aulstyne — and I am sure he admires you." The Countess had all the charm, grace, and refinement of Comrades. 14 Ireland — and the rare and unique beauty of that ill-fated race. With the sympathy of all truly generous natures she entered into Edith's difficulties and cares. She had also that indescribable grace and graciousness rarely found in Englishwomen — a delicate wit, a naivete of mind, mood and sentiment that, when they were understood and appreciated, made her wholly irresistible. Her deep dark blue eyes — those Irish eyes so full of love and fire, fringed with black curling lashes — were large and brilliant enough for a poet to immortalize and mirror his dreams in.

There was something ofthe sublimity and force of an antique character about her, and her dark delicate head with its rippled waves of hair was of the type that Murillo and Velasquez loved to paint — while few who knew her intimately could remain indifferent to her personal charms. She was not happy — but she was resigned, and only a sufferer can exactly explain the various subtle nuances between these two states of feeling. Strange hereditary combinations of both French and Spanish ancestry had formed her physique and moral. She had suffered deeply, and so she was imbued with that philosophy of misfortune which makes a woman ever cynical au fond, for she who has suffered too much, knows too much. Despair has its silent canker — its secret corruption; a youth unenjoyed with its innocent hopes and aims frustrated is like snow in spring — or a sudden unexpected old age.

"I do not think, dear," Edith answered slowly, "that admir ation of anyone or anything is quite in his line. He doubts and disbelieves too much and has a restless vanity and self love that, with his ambition, occupy all his thoughts and time." The Countess, like other moral sufferers and social failures, had marvellous intuitions and clairvoyance. " He would never be worthy of you, Edith. I don't know, in fact, any one who is good enough for you — still you might reform and redeem him." "The man is not yet even in love with me," said Edith nervously; "I don't know what you mean." "Men fall in love and out very easily," said Norah laconic ally. " He is capable of two or three different kinds of love. The struggle between good and evil alone sustains our interest in life ; he is trying to persuade himself that neither exist."

"How awful! And I feel sure he has no religion." The ' Diner a deux ' in Sackville Street. 15 " Yes, it's very shocking, I know. I try to convince him that if the triumph of evil ever really arrived, the monotony produced by its effects would be worse than anything. Perhaps, Edith, you could save him." " I'm rather afraid of him to tell you the truth, and so, Norah, I think are you." "A man with such gifts — such eloquence — foresight, diplo macy, and a dead soul, mere matter with intellectual strength and no spiritual light — it is awful!" went on the Countess in her fervid way. "A free thinker too— member of the Secular Society." "Yes," answered Edith, "a clever, intellectual man working or plotting evil is only a sort of disguised devil. Ignorance and stupidity may be forgiven the crimes and follies they commit — but power and enlightenment make a man responsible for his deeds."

The Countess was silent and Edith who followed her moods almost mesmerically, such as is a woman's way, slipped her little hand in hers, and sighed. She was thinking of Harry, who was just then dreaming of Miss Opaline's agreeable dowry. Edith suffered much on his account. But we must each ' dree our weird ' and complete our appointed destiny in this world. Those who are so fond of depreciating women, talking about the vanished womanliness of the sex, can have no real insight into the innermost mysteries of the goodness, the tenderness, of the feminine human heart. To form and grace an ideal home — to please, comfort, and cherish a husband — to worship him with a love as inarticulate, as unfathomable as music, are as truly and deeply hidden in women's breasts now as in the bad old times of ignorance and unculture.

Edith was also imbued with that sense of duty — that prayerful sweetness — which makes a woman sacrifice herself unreservedly for those she loves. She had tried to guide her brother, whose unstable character made him in constant danger. Mr. Aulstyne had often warned her he lacked ballast. Aulstyne's was one of those apparently glacial, unimpassioned temperaments (with in reality a volcano beneath) in which irony is strength and protection. Ice is of course a mask, and his whole life, words, and actions were disguised on principle. He always made it a rule to quietly and politely Comrades. drop all poor, unhappy or unlucky people; this vein of worldliness in him differed from Vasher's only in degree. His outward amiability and reserve masked an absolute indifference, even contempt, for his fellows, and he never denied himself a single material pleasure.

His favourite painter was Rubens — satisfied flesh and brutal joys were at least intel legible. The saint's creed to his mind savoured of crass insanity: it was beautiful as an ideal study no doubt, but most unsatisfactory when one reflects that one has only one life and one maturity. He used to boast he had never really fallen in love, that was a snare if you like. He enjoyed the society of silly, fashionable women, after long periods of refined intercourse with the Countess ; his ear and taste were never shocked by the tones of a voice — the vulgarity of a thought or movement. Not one of the chattering, mindless magpies (not society ones this time) who occasionally amused him — creatures with the grossness of mere instincts, and whose vocabulary hardly exceeded a hundred words of two syllables, should, however, bear his name, and he avoided Queens of luxury and adventuresses.

Fancy one's property and estates being devoured by such harpies and carrion, as caterpillars devour a mulberry leaf — or moths the choicest ermine. He preferred the plumage and airs of a peacock to a crow — and always hoped to marry either some blue-blooded pauperess — or a wealthy upper-class girl. He knew it was easy to sink, and with a grand or wealthy marriage the conjugal chains would be at least well gilded. He had always vowed that his wife must be a sleek, satiny, conventional creature, cradled in ' purple,' fine linen, and luxury, with thousands squandered on her physical and mental wants and training since infancy. The woman who should make her debut in Society as Mrs. Aulstyne must have been 'well-groomed,' thoroughly up to date, and not with a doubtful past associated with dull poverty, dirt, or neglect.

There is an hereditary fatality in even the merest trifles. Your bricklayer's daughter will always have transmitted disadvantages however dense and well-meaning she may be. He always fancied there must be a screw loose, a lack of insight or an over-development of good nature in men who threw themselves away in the marriage market. Clever and coarse-nosed, Eldred was a trained athlete — his photograph exhibited in all the leading illustrated papers of the day — and his brain was as strong as The 'Diner a deux' in Sackville Street. 17 his muscle. He could be generous to his friends, but it was generosity that did not admit of the disturbing element of gratitude. You were at once impressed on introduction to him by the man's reserve of power. And he had that which is rare in these fin-de-siicle men — the strength of repose.

Marriage to Eldred had never seemed a desirable fortress to storm save as a means to an end — in either furthering his political ambition or in gaining him wealth and the entrance to the smartest sets, but it was not Society he cared so much about as the conquering force of a successful leader. And now in spite of his resolves, Fate had checked him in advance. He loved and coveted a poor girl whom he inwardly swore to possess at any price — he certainly wished to marry her. Valencia Windell's indifference to himself was the one fly in his ointment, — so slight apparently are the invisible meshes that rule men's hearts — so unbreakable in reality the chains of an all-absorbing passion — an incurable sentiment. Were his senses then growing disordered — was there also a screw loose in his organization?

The two men meanwhile sauntered on slowly to Sackville Street. Both tacitly recognized the superiority, the grace, the charm of the women they had just parted from. But one was thinking of Maudie Opaline of The Troc and The Tiv, and the other of his pretty flower-seller in Bond Street — Valencia Windell. It is not superiority or always beauty that attracts men — it is not virtue, goodness, refinement, the niceties and subtleties of speech, the music of a perfect life — that enchant their ear and senses — it is generally that something which especially appeals to the god or the brute in them. "I wonder," said Vasher, who being limply in love with the Countess was inclined in a weak moment to be slightly metaphysical, "what is Mme. Blavintsky's real inner life — tragedy or comedy?" He glanced at his yellow, brittle finger-nails.

Eldred was lighting a cigar. " All women have to act Harry, and all wear a mask. Nearly all their success is due to their appearance. Like the Jesuits they are trained from infancy to appear, not to be, and also to appear the very opposite from what they really are. If tragedy results from such training, it is caused by a false civilization. But women generally prefer comedy, it pays better, while tragedy ages them even on the stage." Comrades. "Poor thing!" said Vasher. He read an indefinable sad ness about her, and in his limp, feeble way, he was sorry for her since she was tolerably young and still a handsome, spirited woman. "They say that a woman with a past is one without a future." "We must have some sherry and bitters first to get up our appetites," said Eldred, man-like, contemplating his dinner.

" I have a stunning chef, a perfect cordon bleu, lived five years with the Marquis de Tourville, and we all know his stomach was more than his god — or goddess. I've got a nasty head-ache though, listening to those verbal juggleries in the House. Ah 1 none can touch Salisbury — you see I've the grace to admire the Opposition. The irony, the point, the force, the simple directness, the tact, the trained oratorical skill — how splendid they all are — how admirable is his foreign policy! I shall never equal him — or be a second Pitt for that matter," he ended, knocking at the door of 99, Sackville Street. Eldred had long renounced the frivolities of existence for the excitements of the struggle for power. To govern — to set his foot on the neck of the people, was one idea, his sole ambition, — playing the part of providence with an innate worship of his own strength, intelligence, and skill.

It was the unique passion of the king, senator, or politician, who is at heart a tyrant, whose appetite to rule,. to crush, is insatiable, who only sees himself and his interests, not a nation to be slaughtered, sacrificed, or benefited as he pleases. So true it is that 'by no political alchemy can you get golden conduct out of leaden instincts."

Chapter II. The Daughters Of Cadiz

"And after that no more— my fate had met me in the eyes, And thence it was another world — ruled by another sun." LDRED'S house had none of the grandeur about it of a veritable Town mansion : he was fairly wealthy and made a good appearance at home and in Society, but one could trace no passion for art or elegance, any more than for religion in his surroundings. The member for Bishopstone had no artistic fads of any kind, his one god was his personal ambition ; as he used to remark, one never knew what might be gained from the corruptions and changes of politics and parties. Plenty of comfort — in fact a deification of comfort — furniture of the latest pattern and style, made by the first upholsterers of the day; no blatant atrocities, everything of the best, but chosen without the display of any individual taste or harmony whatever.