Red Stefan (12 page)

In the morning there was a frozen whiteness everywhere under a heavy lowering sky. Stephen and Yuri went out to make a path to the cow-shed and the barn. Presently Stephen came back alone.

“We're off,” he said. “Yuri's getting out the sledge. He's grumbling like anything, but he's really quite pleased, because he'll get a fabulous price in Tronsk for Akulina's eggs and a couple of the cheeses they've been hiding. The hens have laid so well this week that if they were anyone else's, Akulina would say it was witchcraft.”

The sledge was much more comfortable than the cart had been. It ran smoothly over the crisp snow, under which lay buried the ruts and pot-holes of their journey from Tronsk. Yuri drove. The horse went gaily to a tinkling of bells. Elizabeth, well wrapped from the biting cold, found herself strangely happy. Pleasant to be flying along like this—pleasant to be leaving the village behind—pleasant to be getting away from Irina. Before she knew what she was going to say, she had spoken Irina's name.

“Irina—why did she go away like that?”

“She went to the Collective Farm,” said Stephen without any expression in his voice.

“Why?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“She often goes there.”

Elizabeth had a quick, vivid memory of what she had seen when she came into the barn—Irina holding Stephen by the arm, leaning to him, speaking low and earnestly, with the glow in her cheeks which gave her a warmer beauty. Why had she begun to speak about Irina? If there was something between her and Stephen, he would not tell her. Why should he? She was just a stranger whom he was befriending at a great risk to himself because she was his countrywoman. Why should he tell her about his private affairs? She felt suddenly cold and desolate. A shiver ran over her, and at once Stephen asked,

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

“You shivered.”

“I'm not cold.”

Stephen considered this for a moment. Then he said,

“Have I made you angry?”

“Of course not.”

He pursued this line of thought.

“You sounded angry.”

It would be quite dreadful if he were to think that she was angry about Irina. She said quickly in a laughing voice,

“You don't know how I sound when I'm angry.”

Stephen said, “No—that's true.” And then, with one of his sudden changes of subject, “I want to talk to you about Petroff. Do you mind?”

He was really thinking that he should like to see Elizabeth angry, because that was a way he had not seen her yet. Every fresh way of seeing her was something added to the picture in his mind. Anger is like a lightning flash; it reveals with an intense, brief light. He would like to see Elizabeth by that revealing flash. Only of course he would rather the anger should not be directed against him. Petroff stepped naturally into his mind as an altogether suitable person for Elizabeth to be angry with. Let Petroff be struck by the lightning, and more power to it. He smiled affably as he said,

“I want to talk to you about Petroff. Do you mind?”

At any other moment Elizabeth would have minded. She would not, perhaps, have said so, but she would have winced a little. At this moment, and as an alternative to Irina, Petroff was positively welcome. She said quite truthfully,

“No, I don't mind.”

Stephen leaned back beside her.

“Well then, I've been thinking a lot about Petroff's position. You see, the whole thing is a good deal like that game called devil-in-the-dark. I don't know if you ever played it. You put out all the lights, and one person is
He
. The others are all trying to get out of the room without being caught. You have to listen like mad and guess where
He
is, and what
He's
doing, before you move a step. That's why I want to talk about Petroff—I've got to guess what he's likely to do. To begin with—is he in love with you?”

Elizabeth's lips lifted a little.

“I shouldn't call it that.”

“Well, it's more a question of what he would call it—isn't it?”

“He called it being in love,” said Elizabeth.

“Sometimes that sort of thing is just a passing fancy with a fellow like Petroff, but sometimes it takes a pretty strong hold. I'm awfully sorry to bother you about this, but you're the only person I can ask—I can't very well go to Petroff. I hope you don't mind.”

“Why should I mind?” said Elizabeth. Petroff was no longer the last horror of a nightmare. She had come out of the dream in which he had troubled her, and he simply did not matter any more.

“Well then, have you any idea how deep this went with him?”

Elizabeth's brows drew together.

“I don't really know. I should say not very deep. But he likes getting his own way. I've heard him boast that nobody ever got the better of him.”

“You think he'd try and find you?”

“I think he'd try and find the formula.”

“Yes—if he thought you'd got it. He really does think so?”

“I don't know. He may have been trying to torment me. I don't know. I believe he does think I know something.”

Stephen nodded thoughtfully.

“Then I figure it out this way. He'll try very hard to find you. He's not in terribly good odour at present—I've heard that from more than one quarter. A lot of the Communists in power are very strict about things like drink, and it's perfectly well known that Petroff is a good deal too fond of the vodka bottle. If he hadn't been a really clever mining engineer, he'd have got the sack long ago. If he could produce a new aluminium alloy which would assure them a lead in the manufacture of aircraft, it would be bound to give him a new lease of political life. That's how it looks to me. So when I heard he was down at the Collective Farm, I thought we'd better get a move on.”

Elizabeth drew a sharp breath of dismay.

Stephen nodded.

“I heard yesterday.”

“The farm Irina went to?”

“That's the one.” He laughed a little. “An old lady who lived near my guardian in Devonshire used to say, ‘Compliments pass when gentlefolk meet.' She was about a hundred.”

Elizabeth's eyes were on him, wide and startled.

“Do they know each other, Irina and Petroff?”

“Oh Lord, yes! Irina knows everyone. She was one of the people who told me that Petroff was for it unless he mended his ways.”

“I see—” said Elizabeth.

Petroff and Irina—Irina and Petroff.… The names linked themselves in her mind. And Irina had gone to the Collective Farm.

Stephen's voice came through her thoughts.

“I wanted to ask you about that formula. You haven't got it written down anywhere?”

“No. Nicolas said it wouldn't be safe.”

“Yes—he was right. You wouldn't know how to hide it.” He paused, and then added briskly, “But I should.”

Elizabeth looked at him in surprise.

“Do you want me to write it down?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Why?” said Elizabeth.

Stephen was silent.

Elizabeth fixed her eyes on him.

“Do tell me why you said that.”

“Well, it's rather difficult to explain. I was thinking you might easily forget a bit of it—and—several other things like that.”

“What sort of things?”

He shook his head. Impossible to tell her just what their chances were of getting clear, or that he might use the formula to bargain her free. It wasn't that he had thought out any plan. It was merely the old sense that knowledge was power.

Elizabeth looked away across the snow for some time. Little feathery clouds blew up from the horse's hoofs. The bells on the harness tinkled. The runners of the sledge made a soft crunching sound as they slid over the snow and pressed it down. There were no other sounds. Everything beyond them was cold, still, and empty—life, and growth, and fertility all frozen. But in Elizabeth herself they had suddenly, wonderfully quickened. The frost was all gone from her heart; just in one moment the last of it had broken and dissolved in a strange warmth and confusion of thought and feeling. She felt as if it were about to sweep her away. Her hands clasped one another beneath the sheepskins. She closed her eyes for a moment.

At once Stephen was asking her,

“What is it? What's the matter?”

She looked up at him then, a strange bewildered look.

“What were we talking about?”

“Are you all right? Why did you shut your eyes like that? We were talking about the formula.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth—“the formula. You wanted it?”

She had quite forgotten why Stephen wanted it, and it did not matter in the least. She had a most overwhelming desire to give him whatever he wanted. If it had been the heart out of her breast, it would have been a little thing, and this longing to give would be still unspent. The formula was like a mere speck of dust caught in a torrent. If he wanted it, it was his. Whatever he wanted of her was his already, given with both hands and a heart that asked only to go on giving.

She told him the formula in a soft, steady voice, repeating it as she had learned it from Nicolas Radin's dry and shaking lips. Poor Nicolas! She thought of him with a great softness of pity. She said the words he had taught her without missing a syllable. She repeated the figures, the instructions, the explanatory details. How many hundreds of times had she said them over in her mind—as she walked along a lonely street, as she stood silent in the bread queue waiting for her poor ration, or at night whilst the old woman snored beside her in the dark? It was as if they had been frozen into the ice about her heart. Now, on this new warm flood, they came pouring out. Only she could still control her voice. The outpouring was in thought alone. The words came in a quiet, measured order, whilst her hands held one another hard and her eyes looked away across the snow to the grey horizon. For Elizabeth it flamed with all the jewel colours of sunrise.

“You've got an awfully good memory,” said Stephen in an admiring voice.

He had produced pencil and paper. She found him looking at her with a gratified air.

“Do you mind saying it all over again? I want to write it down.”

Elizabeth didn't mind how often she said it. She wanted to do what Stephen wanted her to do, and to unpack her mind of this dangerous secret stuff gave her a sense of pure relief. She gave the words and figures again with a slow, meticulous accuracy and watched him write them down.

When he had finished, she asked him,

“Where will you hide it?”

Lovely to feel that it was no longer any affair of hers. But just for curiosity's sake she might ask her question.

Stephen said, “Hush!” and bent a frowning face over the paper. His lips moved in a soundless mutter. He made horrible faces like a schoolboy.

Elizabeth regarded him with tenderness. Men never grew up. No, that wasn't it—the man you loved never grew up. Behind the grown-up make-believe there was the dear funny little boy whom his mother had loved. Perhaps some day there would be another little boy, very dear and funny, with bright blue eyes and an inky frown.

Stephen's frown went suddenly. He looked up with a beaming smile, and Elizabeth repeated her question.

“How are you going to hide it?”

He burst out laughing and tapped his forehead.

“Here,” he said, and began tearing the paper into tiny scraps which he tossed out upon the snow.

CHAPTER XII

In the stable behind the tumble-down pot-house where Yuri unharnessed his horse it occurred to Elizabeth for the first time that she did not know where they were going. Perhaps at the back of her mind she had taken it for granted that they would go back to the room to which Stephen had taken her on the first night. It appeared, however, that she was mistaken. Stephen when asked where they were going said that he didn't know. After which he linked his arm in hers and marched her out into the street.

“Are we not going to the same place as before?”

He shook his head decidedly.

“No. It's not fit for you—and it's dangerous.”

“Are we just going to walk about the streets?” said Elizabeth demurely.

Stephen laughed.

“Would you like to? I don't trust you, you know. You might just slip away into the snow and get lost. There's not much more of you than a snowflake. Would you like some hot coffee?”

Her lips trembled into a smile.

“I might like the moon.”

He patted her arm.

“Oh, you'll get the coffee all right. Here—there's a short cut down this alley. It takes us in by the back way.”

“But in where?”

“It's a café. I'll have to leave you there whilst I go and prospect. I think I know someone who will lend us a room, but it might be dangerous to take you there till I'm sure the coast is clear.”

They turned out of the alley into a yard. A path had been cut through the snow to a door in the wall of a ramshackle house. On this Stephen knocked. It was opened by a middle-aged woman with a face heated and reddened by cooking. She beckoned them in, shut the door again, and began to scold Stephen for coming in that way. Talking and scolding all the time, she took them across the kitchen and up some steps, at the top of which she left them. The scolding voice retreated. They were in a narrow, dark passage where Elizabeth could see nothing. She pressed involuntarily against Stephen, and for a moment his arm came round her and held her there. He said something under his breath, but her heart beat so loudly that she lost the sense of what he said. It was just Stephen's voice which came to her, low and moved. And then a door in front of them was pushed open and a tall, thin man in the dress of a waiter stood aside to let them pass.

They came into a room with alcoves on either side and small tables everywhere. Stephen took her across to one of the alcoves, ordered coffee, and when the waiter had gone put the money to pay for it into her hand.