Moscow: A Story of the French Invasion of 1812

"What mean you?" asked the old man, looking up startled from his occupation.

"Hitherto Louise has been with our visitors as a man among men; this day, in the presence of Monsieur le Baron, she has behaved as a woman in the presence of the man who is her soul's affinity."

"I'll not believe it of her," said old Pierre angrily; "because you have been a fool, Marie, and proved yourself no wiser than other silly women, you would have me believe that Louise can be equally foolish. I will speak to Louise; she shall belie your accusation."

Louise did belie it, but with blushing and much confusion. Possibly her father's words were the first intimation to her heart that it was no longer fancy-free.

The conversation left her very thoughtful, however, and very silent; and when the Baron arrived with De Tourelle and other friends on the following day, he found her—as has been said—somewhat inclined to give him the cold shoulder.

CHAPTER VIII

At D'Estreville's second visit to old Pierre Dupré's he was accompanied by Paul de Tourelle and by Vera Demidof, now a beautiful girl of nineteen. The Baron was proud of his pretty cousin, between whom and his friend Paul a considerable friendship had lately sprung up.

In so far as De Tourelle was concerned, his sentiments towards Vera differed, as he had found to his surprise, from those he had ever experienced before this time towards any member of the fair sex. Up to the day upon which he had first made acquaintance with Vera Demidof, Paul had looked upon women as toys created for the delectation and amusement of mankind; he was always glad to play with them, to have his pleasure in their society, but not to take them seriously. He had always found young women in his own class charmed to meet him upon his own ground; to excurse with him as far as he was pleased to go into the pleasant glades of love-making, but to take him no more seriously than he chose to be taken.

With Vera it was otherwise. From the first he was aware that here was a creature of a different make, a more attractive toy than any he had yet set himself to play with, and, withal, one which, somehow, was extremely difficult to handle. Paul found that he was unable to have his way with this little Russian; she was unlike the French girls he was accustomed to; she took life more seriously, moved more cautiously, maintained an attitude of "stand-offishness" which at first puzzled him very much and perhaps exasperated him, but which he presently began to admire and respect.

"You'll have to be careful, my friend," Henri d'Estreville had told Paul, early in his acquaintance with Vera, before De Tourelle realised that his heart was in danger; "Vera is not like our French girls; not only is she far more serious-minded, but also she is a fiancée, after a fashion."

"A fiancée?" exclaimed Paul, laughing boisterously—"Mademoiselle Demidof fiancée? To whom? You rave, man!"

"No, it is true; she is betrothed; observe that I added 'after a fashion'. She was betrothed to some Russian bear as a child."

"Bah! as a child! and the bear a child also? She has never mentioned to me this young bear of hers. You speak foolishly, Henri, mon cher; such things are not done."

"Ask her for yourself," Henri laughed. "For the matter of that, fall in love with my cousin, if you like. I would rather she mated with a good Frenchman than with a—what do you call them—a Moujik of Russia."

Paul did not, however, ask Vera as to her betrothal. He treated the matter with sufficient contempt to forget all about it. As to the second half of Henri's advice, however, he followed it to the letter, and fell so completely in love with Vera Demidof that he was himself astonished, for he had always boasted that to fall in love was not in his line, and was, indeed, a mistake he would never commit, since it was his pride to be a soldier of the French Army, and he possessed ambitions which he could not afford to thwart by indulgence in such foolishness as love.

Moreover, Paul not only fell in love but confessed the fact to Vera at the earliest opportunity.

Vera Demidof had listened during the last year or two to some half a dozen similar confessions from the gilded youth of Paris. She was, indeed, the object of much admiration in the gay city. But whereas Vera had listened and simply thanked each aspirant for his flattering declaration, regretting that she was unable to respond in the manner he would prefer, she gave Paul de Tourelle a piece of information which she had withheld from the rest.

"I must not listen to such things," she said, "for I am already a fiancée."

Paul suddenly remembered that he had been informed a month or two before that this was so.

"Betrothed as a child to a Russian child whom you may never see again," said Paul; "I have heard the story. For God's sake, Mademoiselle, do not allow so foolish a matter to stand between us."

"Monsieur takes too much for granted," said Vera coldly. "There is much that stands between Monsieur and myself besides my betrothal."

"You cannot pretend that you desire to regard that betrothal as binding, Mademoiselle; the idea is preposterous."

"I pretend nothing, Monsieur. I say that, being betrothed, I must not permit myself to listen to protestations such as you have just made."

Beyond this point Paul was unable, at his first attack, to push his advance. On subsequent occasions he showed more discretion, and took nothing for granted. He did not retire from his position as suitor, but betook himself to graduate for her love, a matter which he had at first supposed was to be had for the asking.

By this time the two were great friends. Vera made no secret of her partiality for De Tourelle, whom she liked very much better than any other youth of his standing; but on the rare occasions when Paul hinted that friendship was pleasant but lacked finality, Vera would shake her head and remind him that she was a fiancée.

"There are dark clouds on the horizon," said Paul on one occasion; "our little Corporal threatens to fasten his fingers about the throat of your big Emperor; we shall soon be en route for Moscow. Be sure that I shall seek out your fiancé; it shall be my first act upon reaching Moscow. Is your fiancé soldier or bourgeois?"

"A soldier and a splendid fencer!" said Vera, looking out of the window and far away.

"Good," said Paul; "I would rather fight a man than kill a sheep."

"I think you will never come to Moscow, and I pray God you may not," said Vera; "that would be a disaster indeed."

"I promise you it should be a disaster for your fiancé," said Paul; but it is probable that she heard nothing of what he said; her mind was entirely absorbed by this new and overwhelming idea: that Napoleon threatened Moscow—the holy city of her own race. "It is not a real danger?" she asked.

"What, this that your fiancé must run? Indeed, it is a very real danger."

"No, no—this war you speak of—this horrible quarrel of the two nations."

"They say that Napoleon has almost made up his mind; already the conscription is in full swing; Russia may yield, of course; if she does not, Moscow will be a French city by this time next year."

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Vera, hiding her eyes in her two hands. "The French must wade through a sea of Russian blood before Moscow is reached—it is horrible, Monsieur, this thought of yours."

"I did not invent it, Mademoiselle Vera; all the world will tell you that politics are to-day looking very darkly."

This was true enough. Vera questioned her father presently upon the subject, and learned many things which caused her the greatest anxiety, for Vera was a patriotic Russian, and was well aware that war with France must end disastrously for her beloved country. She was French enough to feel that to be arrayed against the terrible Napoleon was to court certain defeat, so tremendous was the Emperor's reputation among his own people.

With regard to private affairs, when Vera had explained to Paul that she was already a fiancée and must therefore refuse to listen to protestations of love, she had spoken the truth.

Only lately Alexander Maximof had written to her. Maximof had heard wonderful reports from Paris of Vera's beauty and charm, and had congratulated himself that he had had the good sense to keep the contract of betrothal intact. It had only now occurred to him, however, that he had either neglected or forgotten to inform Vera that he had not destroyed the document, as agreed upon at their last interview, three years ago. Hence his letter to Paris at this time.

"I forgot to inform you," Maximof wrote, "that upon inquiry at the notary's office, I learned to my surprise that our contract of betrothal could not be destroyed excepting in presence of and by sworn consent of both parties. This may of course merely amount to a formality to be gone through at your next visit to Russia, which visit is likely to take place sooner than you had intended, if political prophets speak truly; for the horizon is dark indeed, and in case of a rupture between the Tsar and the Emperor, your father would doubtless leave Paris together with the Ambassador Kurakin. May I add, that I look forward with particular interest to our next meeting. We have never met as adults, and if all we hear with regard to the beautiful Vera Demidof be true, I may yet have cause to rejoice that our parents were longer-sighted than I at least had supposed. I may say, further, that my heart is disengaged. I have eschewed the follies of cadetdom...."

Vera laughed when she received this letter. The fact that her betrothal was still uncancelled did not at that time weigh upon her in the least. As, however, her friendship with Paul de Tourelle increased, it began to occur to her that circumstances might possibly arise which would cause her to regret that Alexander Maximof had not torn up their silly contract, as he had agreed to do. Paul de Tourelle had not greatly appealed to Vera's fancy at first acquaintance; she had disapproved of his self-assurance, his confident manner; but Paul had improved of late in these respects, and she had come to see beneath the veneer of mannerism a manliness and strength which she admired.

CHAPTER IX

Vera went to old Pierre Dupré's fencing establishment with her cousin, Henri d'Estreville. She was anxious to see these two young women of whom Paris talked, though she felt that the exhibition of their skill would probably displease her. In this respect she soon found that she was mistaken. Old Dupré's pride in his daughters amused her, and the girls themselves, especially Louise, greatly attracted her.

Paul de Tourelle undertook to fence a bout with Marie, the eldest girl, an undertaking which he found considerably less of a walk over than he had expected. He held his own, certainly, but was obliged to put forth more effort into his work than he had expected to be called upon to display. At the call of time he was a point or two to the good, but he ended, surprised and a little mortified that he should have been compelled to extend himself in order to obtain this result.

During the bout with her sister Louise sat beside Vera and conversed with her, while the Baron, who glanced constantly in her direction, stood with Dupré and his assistants at the edge of the arena. Louise displayed no shyness; indeed she plied Vera with questions some of which Vera found rather embarrassing. Many of them referred to the Baron, whose name Louise mentioned with a certain hesitation. He was a soldier? and had fought in the wars with the Emperor? He must be a favourite with men—and, oh yes, this undoubtedly, with the ladies!

And Mademoiselle herself, she moved in the great world—ah, it must be pleasant to have the entrée there! Mademoiselle was doubtless fiancée? Vera admitted, laughing, that this was so and yet not so, a reply which puzzled her companion not a little.

Louise reflected. "Ah, Mademoiselle," she said, "perhaps I have solved the conundrum—Mademoiselle is betrothed to her cousin, Monsieur le Baron; but betrothals to cousins, as all the world knows, are not to be accounted as serious contracts; they are made for the convenience of both, but are not intended to be regarded seriously?" Louise gazed so intently in Vera's eyes as she put forward this suggestion that Vera was too surprised to laugh as she had at first felt inclined to do.

"My cousin?" she said; "Mon Dieu, no; the Baron is not of the kind to take the trouble to be fiancé for considerations of convenience."

"The Baron is not then betrothed to Mademoiselle?" murmured Louise, and presently she began to speak of the fencing, no longer interested—as it appeared to Vera—in the conundrum with regard to Mademoiselle's betrothal.

Which very naïve conversation went to convince Vera that howsoever gifted the fair Louise might be in the manly attribute of fencing, there was still much of the woman remaining in her composition. She watched Louise somewhat carefully after this, anxious to learn more as to her interest in Henri's affairs, when it was easy to perceive that though obviously avoiding the Baron, doubtless for reasons of her own, the girl's eyes constantly turned in the direction of her cousin.

"Poor little Louise!" thought Vera. "Henri of all people!"