CHAPTER XIV

_The story of the Bernin family_

The strange scene passed so rapidly, that the fact it conveyed had been accepted by the three spectators before any of them thought of making a move.

"Why, the blind man can see!" was Leo's first thought; and before his still incredulous eyes, the man in the armchair proceeded to divest himself of his venerable white beard and his poetical white locks, revealing a face twenty years younger, in which Leo recognized with something of a shock, the fugitive of the railway carriage and the avenue, the melancholy young man whose lined face was worn with recent illness. The blind Bernin was merely a fiction: under that disguise the hunted Bernard Jenin had been hidden the whole time. The truth dawned upon Leo as though a blind had been suddenly pulled up.

"Don't take off your wig," said Wallion, "and you had better put on the blue spectacles again. Your disguise is perfectly wonderful: I can't understand how you came to have it at hand yesterday evening?"

Lona Ivanovna took up the tale.

"We had better be quite open with our sharp-sighted guest, Sergius. How long has it taken you to see through our poor little stratagem, Mr. Wallion?"

"I suspected something of the kind before I got here," explained Wallion, "otherwise the disappearance of the fugitive would have been nothing short of miraculous. And then the name helped me: how could you be so daring as to call yourself Bernard Jenin, which is neither more nor less than an anagram on Andrei Bernin?"

"That was in case I came to grief," answered the fugitive; "if my mother saw that name in the papers, she would know that it referred to me. Years ago, sitting round the table after the lamp was lighted, we used to amuse ourselves making anagrams on our names. For instance, Sonia Bernin became Nina Biornsen; I chose my uncle's name, because he is dead."

"Dead! Is Andrei Bernin dead?"

"Yes, he died at Moscow on the fourteenth of November, 1916."

Maurice Wallion looked inquiringly at Lona Ivanovna, and she replied to his unspoken question.

"My brother left the Copper House in January, 1916, for a reason which I will tell you by and by. For the same reason, Sonia and I allowed our friends to believe that he was still here, but too ill to see anyone. No one suspected the truth; I made for myself the disguise which Sergius is wearing now, and on two occasions I purposely allowed Baron Fayerling's spies to get a glimpse of the sick man, who was believed to be, but really was not, here."

It did not occur to Wallion to smile at the grotesque idea of the old lady in a false beard and man's clothes: on the contrary, he found something touching and pathetic in what she had done; he understood that she had been driven to it by the direst necessity.

"It was a hard blow for us when my brother died," she continued. "He died secretly in the country which had rejected him. My son has carried on his work, and now it is finished: but it has nearly cost him his life...."

She spoke slowly and composedly, and with a calm dignity which made Wallion feel that he was standing on holy ground; he fixed his gray eyes on her with a look of warm admiration.

"Then," he asked, "is your son--here?"

"Sergius is my son," she replied.

Wallion nodded; the discovery did not surprise him, since it had been one of his theories in the course of his attempts to arrive at the truth during the last few hours. He understood too, from Leo's expression, that this was the information which the young man had been so anxious to convey to him. But he was silent, for he could see that Lona Ivanovna had more to say. Presently she began again:

"I know you are our friend, Mr. Wallion; we can never forget how you saved Sergius yesterday, and to-day we have waited and hoped for you hour after hour. You must think it very strange that we should be in the Copper House, apparently at the beck and call of such creatures as Baron Fayerling and his companions; but you may find the explanation even more surprising. If you really are willing to help us, I will be perfectly frank with you, and tell you the whole story."

She spoke with a perceptible effort to keep to the point and to repress any display of emotion, which she would have considered a sign of weakness, but in spite of the quiet words, it was apparent that she was deeply moved. Sergius leaned forward and stroked her hand, and Wallion got up, shut the door into the hall, and said:

"Miss Sonia, as you are nearest, will you kindly look out, and tell me if you see anyone outside the window; I think it wisest not to show my face yet."

The girl complied; there was nobody outside: everything was quiet. Even the great barrier of dark thunder-clouds seemed motionless. Wallion looked round him once more with those keen eyes of his that nothing escaped; he missed something, and it struck him that the Austrian's calm, intelligent face would just have made their circle complete. But for the present, that was impossible.

Lona Ivanovna had seated herself beside her son, and waited for the journalist to follow her example. He understood her look, and readily obeyed it, saying with a smile:

"I am sure that between us we shall find a way out of all our difficulties: at any rate, I promise to do my best. I shall be delighted to hear your story, to begin with."

Lona Ivanovna took up her work-basket, which had been hanging neglected on her arm, remarking:

"I can think better when I am working," and as her crochet-needle flashed in and out of the stitches, she began her tale.

"Our father was a magistrate at Saratov. It was his wish that my brother should obtain a commission in the army, but as both our parents died early, we were left, whilst still quite young, to fend for ourselves. We had a little money, but not much, because my father, who had been sufficiently original not to make a fortune by means of bribery and corruption, had left nothing but debts behind him.

"We became students at Moscow, and you would scarcely believe how cleverly we and our companions managed to live upon nothing! It was a long time ago, in the days of Russia's slavery, and we youngsters hated the oppressors. You know what a struggle we made; and in the free countries around us the comfortable middle-classes sat still and called us anarchists! We were revolutionaries, and I, Lona Ivanovna, have risked my own life in active propaganda-work. My brother was weaker, and he served the cause with his pen, whilst I did so with words and deeds. We formed a little group of devoted enthusiasts, and there was one man who constituted himself a leader among us, constantly urging us on to fresh exertions. He became my husband, and Sergius is our son. The name of that man was Marcus Tassler."

"Marcus Tassler!" exclaimed Leo involuntarily, and with intense astonishment. Lona Ivanovna looked at him steadily, and he dropped his eyes and added confusedly:

"Forgive my interruption, but somehow that man's name surprised me more than anything else."

Wallion moved impatiently.

"Please go on," he murmured.

"Yes, I married Marcus Tassler," she went on calmly. "He was at that time a Russian subject, and we were just of an age. Perhaps he was not so worthless then: I don't know; we change with time. Several years passed; not all 'red,' but very often 'black' ones. I was imprisoned for the cause of liberty in Peter-Paul fortress. Then came 1905, that year of bloodshed and of barricades, with days of ardent enthusiasm, and of bitter disappointment; when the soldiers mutinied at Sevastopol, Poland was declared to be in a state of siege, and barricades were set up in the streets of Moscow. Can you imagine the horrors we went through? Spies and traitors were to be found, even amongst us.... One night our house was surrounded by Cossacks. My brother was there, Marcus Tassler, myself, and Sergius, who was then a boy of fourteen...."

"Fourteen!" echoed her son, "and I remember it all vividly: the wild faces, the whips cracking, the shooting--I remember it all."

"We were driven to prison like animals to the slaughter," she continued, "and we expected nothing else but death, for we were guilty of taking part in the December risings in Moscow. Then the examinations began: we were called in one by one. A fortnight later, a miracle happened! We were set at liberty, with no verdict, no conditions, no supervision. We returned to our comrades, and a terrible and inconceivable experience awaited us: they cast us out, accusing us of having purchased our freedom by treachery. We denied it indignantly. They reckoned up the names of all who had been shot, all who had been sent to Siberia--we were the only ones who had been set free. It was useless to protest, to ask for explanations, we were caught in a net, and they shrank from us as though we were pariahs.... We were even subjected to attacks from bombs, and it was due to one of these that Andrei lost his sight. That ended it. We were obliged to leave Russia, to escape from the vengeance of our former comrades. For private reasons, into which I need not enter now, I obtained a legal separation from Marcus Tassler;--perhaps I unconsciously saw through him already--Sergius remained with me, and as exiles we sought sanctuary in Sweden. I haven't mentioned my brother's marriage; during a visit to Sweden in 1898, he had met and married Helena Flycht, a young half-Finnish, half-Swedish girl, who followed him to Russia. She died when Sonia was born, and the child was brought up by her mother's parents in Finland. Well, when Andrei, Sergius and I settled in Sweden, my brother sent for Sonia, and we were quite a little family party again. But the circle was soon broken. As Sergius grew up, the 'liberty-fever' developed in him, and he returned to Russia under an assumed name to take part in the work; for several years we heard no more of him."

"For a very good reason," interposed Sergius: "I was in prison the greater part of the time!"

"Then the World War began," Lona Ivanovna went on: "my brother made one attempt to offer his services to the revolutionaries. They answered us: 'Unless you can prove that you did not betray us in 1905, we will have nothing to do with you: we have forgotten nothing!' Prove it! How could we hope to do so now, if we had not succeeded at the time? We felt that we were excommunicated forever. Then Tassler reappeared. I had not heard a word of him for nine years, but now, in the spring of 1915, he came back. He undertook to prove our innocence of the accusation of treachery, upon one condition, that we in our turn, should help him. Bit by bit, he told us of a man called Gabriel Ortiz, who was planning a gigantic attempt to organize the Russian efforts for freedom. It sounded genuine, we should, at all events, be once more working for the cause of liberty, and that decided us. In the summer of 1915, we settled down here at the Copper House ... Andrei, Sonia and I."

"Did Marcus Tassler really initiate you into Ortiz' plan?" asked Wallion, thoughtfully.

"Yes, into part of it, at any rate: that is to say, Baron Fayerling