Huntingtower Page 3

  PROLOGUE

  The girl came into the room with a darting movement like a swallow,looked round her with the same birdlike quickness, and then ran acrossthe polished floor to where a young man sat on a sofa with one leg laidalong it.

  "I have saved you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the namewith a pretty staccato. "You must be so lonely not dancing, so I willsit with you. What shall we talk about?"

  The young man did not answer at once, for his gaze was held by her face.He had never dreamed that the gawky and rather plain little girl whom hehad romped with long ago in Paris would grow into such a being. Theclean delicate lines of her figure, the exquisite pure colouring of hairand skin, the charming young arrogance of the eyes--this was beauty, hereflected, a miracle, a revelation. Her virginal fineness and her dress,which was the tint of pale fire, gave her the air of a creature of iceand flame.

  "About yourself, please, Saskia," he said. "Are you happy now that youare a grown-up lady?"

  "Happy!" Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music. "Thedays are far too short. I grudge the hours when I must sleep. They sayit is sad for me to make my debut in a time of war. But the world isvery kind to me, and after all it is a victorious war for our Russia.And listen to this, Quentin. To-morrow I am to be allowed to beginnursing at the Alexander Hospital. What do you think of that?"

  The time was January, 1916, and the place a room in the great NirskiPalace. No hint of war, no breath from the snowy streets, entered thatcurious chamber where Prince Peter Nirski kept some of the chief of hisfamous treasures. It was notable for its lack of drapery andupholstering--only a sofa or two and a few fine rugs on the cedar floor.The walls were of a green marble veined like malachite, the ceiling wasof darker marble inlaid with white intaglios. Scattered everywhere weretables and cabinets laden with celadon china, and carved jade, andivories, and shimmering Persian and Rhodian vessels. In all the roomthere was scarcely anything of metal and no touch of gilding or brightcolour. The light came from green alabaster censers, and the place swamin a cold green radiance like some cavern below the sea. The air waswarm and scented, and though it was very quiet there, a hum of voicesand the strains of dance music drifted to it from the pillared corridorin which could be seen the glare of lights from the great ballroombeyond.

  The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the mouthand eyes. The warm room had given him a high colour, which increasedhis air of fragility. He felt a little choked by the place, which seemedto him for both body and mind a hot-house, though he knew very well thatthe Nirski Palace on this gala evening was in no way typical of the landor its masters. Only a week ago he had been eating black bread with itsowner in a hut on the Volhynian front.

  "You have become amazing, Saskia," he said. "I won't pay my oldplayfellow compliments; besides, you must be tired of them. I wish youhappiness all the day long like a fairy-tale Princess. But a crock likeme can't do much to help you to it. The service seems to be the wrongway round, for here you are wasting your time talking to me."

  She put her hand on his. "Poor Quentin! Is the leg very bad?"

  He laughed. "Oh, no. It's mending famously. I'll be able to get aboutwithout a stick in another month, and then you've got to teach me allthe new dances."

  The jigging music of a two-step floated down the corridor. It made theyoung man's brow contract, for it brought to him a vision of dead facesin the gloom of a November dusk. He had once had a friend who used towhistle that air, and he had seen him die in the Hollebeke mud. Therewas something _macabre_ in the tune.... He was surely morbid thisevening, for there seemed something _macabre_ about the house, the room,the dancing, all Russia.... These last days he had suffered from a senseof calamity impending, of a dark curtain drawing down upon a splendidworld. They didn't agree with him at the Embassy, but he could not getrid of the notion.

  The girl saw his sudden abstraction.

  "What are you thinking about?" she asked. It had been her favouritequestion as a child.

  "I was thinking that I rather wished you were still in Paris."

  "But why?"

  "Because I think you would be safer."

  "Oh, what nonsense, Quentin dear! Where should I be safe if not in myown Russia, where I have friends--oh, so many, and tribes and tribes ofrelations? It is France and England that are unsafe with the German gunsgrumbling at their doors.... My complaint is that my life is toocosseted and padded. I am too secure, and I do not want to be secure."

  The young man lifted a heavy casket from a table at his elbow. It was ofdark green imperial jade, with a wonderfully carved lid. He took off thelid and picked up three small oddments of ivory--a priest with a beard,a tiny soldier and a draught-ox. Putting the three in a triangle, hebalanced the jade box on them.

  "Look, Saskia! If you were living inside that box you would think itvery secure. You would note the thickness of the walls and the hardnessof the stone, and you would dream away in a peaceful green dusk. But allthe time it would be held up by trifles--brittle trifles."

  She shook her head. "You do not understand. You cannot understand. Weare a very old and strong people with roots deep, deep in the earth."

  "Please God you are right," he said. "But, Saskia, you know that if Ican ever serve you, you have only to command me. Now I can do no morefor you than the mouse for the lion--at the beginning of the story. Butthe story had an end, you remember, and some day it may be in my powerto help you. Promise to send for me."

  The girl laughed merrily. "The King of Spain's daughter," she quoted,

  "Came to visit me, And all for the love Of my little nut-tree."

  The other laughed also, as a young man in the uniform of thePreobrajenski Guard approached to claim the girl. "Even a nut-tree maybe a shelter in a storm," he said.

  "Of course I promise, Quentin," she said. "_Au revoir._ Soon I will comeand take you to supper, and we will talk of nothing but nut-trees."

  He watched the two leave the room, her gown glowing like a tongue offire in the shadowy archway. Then he slowly rose to his feet, for hethought that for a little he would watch the dancing. Something movedbeside him, and he turned in time to prevent the jade casket fromcrashing to the floor. Two of the supports had slipped.

  He replaced the thing on its proper table and stood silent for amoment.

  "The priest and the soldier gone, and only the beast of burden left....If I were inclined to be superstitious, I should call that a dashed badomen."