Through Russian Snows (39 page)

The meal was now laid, and Julian and the child sat down to it with a
vigorous appetite. Their food while in the village had been coarse
though plentiful, and Julian especially appreciated the delicate flavour
and perfect cooking of the many dishes of whose names and contents he
was absolutely ignorant. An hour after they had finished, the count came
in.

"Your mother has borne it better than I expected, Stephanie," he said.
"I have been able to break the news to her sooner than I expected. Come
with me; be very quiet and do not talk much. She will be well content to
have you lying quietly in her arms." So saying, he lifted her and
carried her off, saying to Julian, "I will return and have the pleasure
of a talk with you after I have left Stephanie with her mother."

IN COMFORTABLE QUARTERS

It was an hour before the Count returned to the nursery. "Ah, my
friend," he said, "what happiness have you brought to us. Already my
wife is a new creature. I had begun to think that I should lose her too,
for the doctors told me frankly that they feared she would fall into a
decline. Now her joy is so great that it was with difficulty that I
could tear myself away from contemplating her happiness, but the doctor
came in and recommended that she should try and sleep for a time, or if
she could not sleep that she should at least lie absolutely quiet, so
Stephanie has nestled down by her side, and I was able to come to you."
He now led the way to a luxuriously furnished smoking-room.

"This is my snuggery," he said. "The library below is where I go into
matters with my stewards, receive persons who come on business, and so
on. This is where I read and receive my friends. Now, will you help
yourself to those cigars, and let us talk. At present I know nothing.
Stephanie was left down at our estate, near Kieff, under the charge of
her French nurse, who has been with her since she was born. She was
rather governess than nurse of late. She was a French
émigré
, and of
good French family, and we had implicit confidence in her. I wrote to
her when the invasion first began, saying that as at present we could
not tell whether St. Petersburg or Moscow would be Napoleon's object of
attack, but as all the centre of Russia would be involved in the war, I
wished that Stephanie should remain quietly with her. I said that,
should any French army approach Kieff, she was to take Stephanie at once
to my estate near Odessa.

"After the invasion began I sent off several letters to the same
effect, two by my own couriers, but owing to our army falling back so
rapidly, I imagine that none of the letters ever reached the nurse. Of
course, the whole postal communication of the country has been thrown
into confusion. At last, two months ago, a messenger from Kieff brought
me a letter from her making no allusion to those I had sent her, but
saying that as she heard that the French army was at Moscow she felt
sure I should wish her to bring Stephanie to us, and that, after a
consultation with my steward, she would in three days start direct after
sending off her letter. We were, of course, thunderstruck. She
apparently had the idea that the whole of the French were at Moscow, and
that it would, therefore, be perfectly safe to cross the roads between
them and the frontier. The poor woman said that should they by any
chance come across any body of her countrymen, she was sure that they
would not interfere with a woman and child. Her anxiety seemed to relate
solely to the weather and food, but she assured me that she would bring
an abundance of wraps of all sorts, and a supply of provisions in the
fourgon
sufficient for the journey.

"Half an hour after I received the letter I sent off two couriers. They
were, of course, to go round east of Moscow and then to Kieff. They were
to drive at the top of their speed the whole way, and I obtained a
special order for them to be instantly furnished with post-horses
everywhere. In the meantime there was nothing to do but to wait. My
orders were that immediately they arrived they were to send off a fresh
messenger by the way they had come, saying whether Stephanie had
started, and they were bearers of letters of instruction to the steward
that six mounted men were instantly to follow the road the carriage had
taken, making inquiries at every post-house, and to endeavour to trace
them, and if the clue was anywhere lost to bring word to me. I waited
ten days, then I got news that Stephanie had left five weeks before my
messengers arrived there. The nurse's letter had been a very long time
in coming to me, and they had started, as she said, three days after it
was written, therefore if they had got safely through the country
occupied by the French they should have arrived here at least three
weeks before.

"According to the dates there was little doubt that they must have
crossed the main road from Moscow to the frontier at the very time when
the French army on its retreat would be moving along. All that we had
heard and knew of the terrible distress, both of their army and of our
own, showed that at that time the intense suffering of the French and
the savage reprisals of our peasantry had reduced them to a state when
nothing was respected, and that a pair of valuable horses and a heap of
costly furs, to say nothing of the food carried, would be prizes almost
beyond value. Deprived of these, a nurse and child would, in a few
hours, die of the cold. That some such fate must have befallen them
seemed almost certain, for otherwise they must have joined us.

"I could tell pretty well the road that they would follow, and started
along it. Half way between here and Smolensk I met the six men. What
they said confirmed my worst fears. They had learnt where the carriage
had last halted for the night. The party had not travelled post, but had
kept their own horses and had travelled only by day. Had they lingered
only one day anywhere on the way they would have crossed the Moscow road
on the day after the rear-guard of the French had passed.

"But news travelled slowly, and no doubt, at the post-house where they
slept, no word that the French army was passing along had been received.
Beyond that, the men had been able to gather no news whatever of the
carriage. The country was a desert, tenanted only by dead; and the men's
descriptions of what they saw were so horrible that my blood was
frozen. However, I kept on my journey, taking them with me. We went to
the post-house where the carriage had last stopped, and then took up the
search. There were half a dozen roads by which they might have
proceeded; however, we took the most easterly one, and then, when it
crossed the main road, followed the latter. It was choked with deserted
waggons and guns. Dead bodies lay everywhere; many partly devoured by
wolves; all stripped of their clothing. After making our way through
this terrible scene for a few miles, we saw, fifty yards from the road,
the remains of a sleigh. Its bright yellow colour caught our eyes, and
when we got to it there was no room for doubt. The body of the sleigh
was gone—had been burnt for firewood; but the colour was that of my own
carriage, and two of the men who belonged to the stables at Kieff said
that they could swear to it, owing to a new iron that had been put on to
one of the runners the day before it had started. But there were other
signs. Portions of the harness lay about, and on one of these enough of
the silver-work remained to show that it was ours.

"Then we searched farther. Turning over a mound of newly-fallen snow, we
found the bodies of the coachman and the nurse. We searched for hours,
but could not find that of the child; but as to her fate we had no
doubt. She might have run away into the forest, or she might have been
devoured by wolves. That she was dead was certain. I left four of the
men there. They were to establish themselves in the nearest village, and
to continue the search day by day, and to remain there, if necessary,
till the spring came and the snow disappeared. I returned here ten days
ago with the news that all hope was at an end, and that Stephanie was
lost to us for ever. Now, sir, will you tell me how it was that you
saved her? You were doubtless with the French army, though how you came
to be there is almost as great a puzzle as how Stephanie was saved."

"I will tell you that afterwards, Count," Julian replied.

Then he related how, on marching past the overturned carriage, he heard
what would doubtless have been Stephanie's last cry, and had found her
lying half-frozen among the cushions. He stated the means he had taken
to restore warmth to her, and how he had strapped her to his back under
his warmly-lined cloak.

Then he gave, as well as he could remember, the details of each day's
experience: how Stephanie had become a general pet of the soldiers; how
they had manufactured a warm cloak and hood for her; how she had ridden
on shoulders, and had joined in the marching songs of the regiment, and
had really kept well and in good spirits on the march; how, as he got
too weak to carry her, she had trotted by his side; and how his
comrades, in spite of their exhaustion, had been willing to relieve him
of her weight. Then he told how, at last, they had separated from the
regiment when but a few hours' march from the Berezina; and how
Stephanie in turn had saved his life from the peasants.

"So you see, Count," he concluded, "the kindness that I had shown your
child has already been repaid to me many fold. Not only did she save my
life from the peasants, but I have no doubt that her pretty talk, and
the occupation she offered to my thoughts, and her warmth as she nestled
close to me at night, were the means of my retaining my strength to a
far greater degree than was the case with most of my comrades, and
enabled me to survive when so many dropped dead from cold and
exhaustion."

"That may be so, my friend," the count said. "God has doubtless rewarded
you for your good action, but that in nowise lessens our obligations
towards you. Now, will you tell me somewhat of your own history?"

"It is a long story, Count."

"All the better, my friend. I trust that my wife is asleep by this
time, and the child with her, and nothing can be of greater interest to
me than to hear it."

Julian therefore related his story in full, and produced the paper given
him on his enlistment, guaranteeing that he should not be called upon to
fight against his countrymen.

"Since we entered Russia, Count," he said, "and I have seen the savage
manner in which the peasantry were treated, not so much by the French
troops as by the allies, I bitterly regretted that I had enlisted; but,
at the time, no notion of this had ever entered my mind. I have told you
that the life at Verdun was intolerable. We died in hundreds, for a sort
of dull despair seemed to settle on everyone; and, although for a long
time I had borne up against it, I had come to the point when death would
have been welcome. A return to my own country seemed closed to me, owing
to the circumstances I have related to you; and I entered the French
service, just as, in the wars a couple of hundred years ago, Englishmen
and Scotchmen were to be found fighting as soldiers of fortune in the
armies of well-nigh every power of Europe."

"I cannot blame you, Mr. Wyatt. Yours is a singular and most unfortunate
story, and it seems to me that, had I been in your place, I should have
acted precisely the same, and should have been glad to take service
under any flag rather than have remained to rot in a prison. Certainly
you had a thousand times better excuse than had the Austrians and
Prussians, who, after having been our allies, entered upon this savage
war of invasion without a shadow of excuse, save that it was the will of
Napoleon. However, I think that it will be as well, in order to save any
necessity for explanation, that I should introduce you to my friends as
an English gentleman who has come to me with the warmest
recommendations, and whom I am most anxious to serve in any way. This is
not a time when men concern themselves in any way with the private
affairs of others. There is not a family in Russia, high or low, who
has not lost one or more members in this terrible struggle. Publicly,
and as a nation, we rejoice at our deliverance, and at the destruction
of our enemies. Privately, we mourn our losses.

"They have been terrible. As yet we scarcely know how great; but I
imagine that they will be found to have been no less than that of the
enemy. We hear that, in the pursuit, and without having taken any part
in the actual fighting after Krasnoi, Kutusow's army alone has lost
nearly 100,000 men from cold and fatigue; while, of the central army of
Napoleon, but four hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry repassed the
Niemen with their arms and standards. The other Russian divisions
suffered as severely as those with Kutusow. The Emperor has himself gone
to Wilna to endeavour to alleviate the sufferings of the sick and
wounded, with which the city is crammed. Wide as will be the mourning in
France, it will be no less so in Russia. Now, the first thing to do is
to provide you with suitable garments. This I will put in hand
immediately; but, until they can be procured, you must content yourself
with some of mine, though, as you are some four inches taller than I am
and far wider, they will suit you but poorly. However, I have an ample
store of dressing-gowns and wraps, and you must remain indoors a
prisoner until you are properly fitted out. By the way, I had an
interview with the two honest men who came with you before I returned to
you, and have arranged their business fully to their satisfaction. The
Papa will be able to build himself a new church, and the villagers to
repair all the losses they have suffered in the campaign.

"They were," he said, with a smile, "anxious to see you, as they said
that they had an account to settle with you, as you had furnished
one-third of the money required for the trip. However, I told them that
they could set their minds at rest on that score, for that I would
settle with you privately. I only mention it that you should not think
they had gone off without any remembrance of your share in the
business."