The Dark Star by Robert W. Chambers (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📖

And two curious conversations occurred at that dinner:

The Turkish Chargé suddenly turned to me and asked me in English whether I were not the daughter of the Reverend Wilbour Carew who once was in charge of the American Mission near Trebizond. I was so surprised 148 at the question; but I answered yes, remembering that Murad must have mentioned me to him.

He continued to ask me about my father, and spoke of his efforts to establish a girls’ school, first at Brusa, then at Tchardak, and finally near Gallipoli. I told him I had often heard my father speak of these matters with my mother, but that I was too young to remember anything about my own life in Turkey.

All the while we were conversing, I noticed that the Princess kept looking across the table at us as though some chance word had attracted her attention.

After dinner, when the gentlemen had retired to the smoking room, the Princess took me aside and made me repeat everything that Ahmed Mirka had asked me.

I told her. She said that the Turkish Chargé was an old busybody, always sniffing about for all sorts of information; that it was safer to be reticent and let him do the talking; and that almost every scrap of conversation with him was mentally noted and later transcribed for the edification of the Turkish Secret Service.

I thought this very humorous; but going into the little salon where the piano was and where the music was kept, while I was looking for an old song by Messager, from “La Basoche,” called “Je suis aimé de la plus belle—” Ahmed Mirka’s handsome attaché, Colonel Izzet Bey, came up to where I was rummaging in the music cabinet.

He talked nonsense in French and in English for a while, but somehow the conversation led again toward my father and the girls’ school at Gallipoli which had been attacked and burned by a mob during the first month after it had been opened, and where the German, Herr Wilner, had been killed.

“Monsieur, your reverend father, must surely have told you stories about the destruction of the Gallipoli school, mademoiselle,” he insisted.

“Yes. It happened a year before the mission at Trebizond was destroyed by the Turks.” I said maliciously.

“So I have heard. What a pity! Our Osmanli—our peasantry are so stupid! And it was such a fine school. A German engineer was killed there, I believe.”

“Yes, my father said so.” 149

“A certain Herr Conrad Wilner, was it not?”

“Yes. How did you hear of him, Colonel Izzet?”

“It was known in Stamboul. He perished by mistake, I believe—at Gallipoli.”

“Yes; my father said that Herr Wilner was the only man hurt. He went out all alone into the mob and began to cut them with his riding whip. My father tried to save him, but they killed Herr Wilner with stones.”

“Exactly.” He spread his beautifully jewelled hands deprecatingly and seemed greatly grieved.

“And Herr Wilner’s—property?” he inquired. “Did you ever hear what became of it?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “My father took charge of it.”

“Oh! It was supposed at the time that all of Herr Wilner’s personal property was destroyed when the school and compound burned. Do you happen to know just what was saved, mademoiselle?”

Of course I immediately thought of the bronze demon, the box of instruments, and the photographs and papers at home with which I used to play as a child. I remembered my father had said that these things were taken on board the Oneida when he, my mother, and I were rescued by marines and sailors from our guard vessel which came through the Bosporus to the Black Sea, and which escorted us to the Oneida. And I was just going to tell this to Izzet Bey when I also remembered what the Princess had just told me about giving any information to Ahmed Pasha. So I merely opened my eyes very innocently and gazed at Colonel Izzet and shook my head as though I did not understand his question.

The next instant the Princess came in to see what I was about so long, and she looked at Izzet Bey with a funny sort of smile, as though she had surprised him in mischief and was not angry, only amused. And when Colonel Izzet bowed, I saw how red his face had grown—as red as his fez.

The Princess laughed and said in French: “That is the difference between professional and amateur—between Nizam and Redif—between Ahmed Pasha and our esteemed but very youthful attaché—who has much yet to learn about that endless war called Peace!” 150

I didn’t know what she meant, but Izzet Bey turned a bright scarlet, bowed again, and returned to the smoking room.

And that night, while Suzanne was unhooking me, Princess Naïa came into my bedroom and asked me some questions, and I told her about the box of instruments and the diary, and the slippery linen papers covered with drawings and German writing, with which I used to play.

She said never to mention them to anybody, and that I should never permit anybody to examine those military papers, because it might be harmful to America.

How odd and how thrilling! I am most curious to know what all this means. It seems like an exciting story just beginning, and I wonder what such a girl as I has to do with secrets which concern the Turkish Chargé in Paris.

Don’t you think it promises to be romantic? Do you suppose it has anything to do with spies and diplomacy and kings and thrones, and terrible military secrets? One hears a great deal about the embassies here being hotbeds of political intrigue. And of course France is always thinking of Alsace and Lorraine, and there is an ever-present danger of war in Europe.

Mr. Neeland, it thrills me to pretend to myself that I am actually living in the plot of a romance full of mystery and diplomacy and dangerous possibilities. I hope something will develop, as something always does in novels.

And alas, my imagination, which always has been vivid, needed almost nothing to blaze into flame. It is on fire now; I dream of courts and armies, and ambassadors, and spies; I construct stories in which I am the heroine always—sometimes the interesting and temporary victim of wicked plots; sometimes the all-powerful, dauntless, and adroit champion of honour and righteousness against treachery and evil!

Did you ever suppose that I still could remain such a very little girl? But I fear that I shall never outgrow my imagination. And it needs almost nothing to set me dreaming out stories or drawing pictures of castles and princes and swans and fairies. And even this letter seems a part of some breathlessly interesting plot which I am 151 not only creating but actually a living part of and destined to act in.

Do you want a part in it? Shall I include you? Rather late to ask your permission, for I have already included you. And, somehow, I think the Yellow Devil ought to be included, too.

Please write to me, just once. But don’t speak of the papers which father had, and don’t mention Herr Conrad Wilner’s box if you write. The Princess says your letter might be stolen.

I am very happy. It is rather cold tonight, and presently Suzanne will unhook me and I shall put on such a pretty negligée, and then curl up in bed, turn on my reading light with the pink shade, and continue to read the new novel recommended to me by Princess Naïa, called “Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard.” It is a perfectly darling story, and Anatole France, who wrote it, must be a darling, too. The Princess knows him and promises that he shall dine with us some day. I expect to fall in love with him immediately.

Good night, dear Mr. Neeland. I hope you will write to me.

Your little Gayfield friend grown up,
Ruhannah Carew.

This letter he finally did answer, not voluminously, but with all cordiality. And, in a few days, forgot about it and about the girl to whom it was written. And there was nothing more from her until early summer.

Then came the last of her letters—an entirely mature missive, firm in writing, decisive, concise, self-possessed, eloquent with an indefinite something which betrayed a calmly ordered mind already being moulded by discipline mondaine: