olga davidoff's wedding was one of the most brilliant social successes of that tobolsk season. davidoff père surpassed himself in the costliness of his exotics, the magnificence of his presents, the reckless abundance of his veuve clicquot. madame davidoff successfully caught the governor and the general, and the english traveller from india via the himalayas. the baron[pg 171] looked as gorgeous as he was handsome in his half russian, half tartar uniform and his oriental display of pearls and diamonds. olga herself was the prettiest and most blushing bride ever seen in tobolsk, a simple english girl, fresh from the proprieties of the laurels at clapham, among all that curious mixed cosmopolitan society of semi-civilized siberians, catholic poles, and orthodox russians.
as soon as the wedding was fairly over, the bride and bridegroom started off by toross to make their way across the southern plateau to the baron's village.
it was a long and dreary drive, that wedding tour, in a jolting carriage over siberian roads, resting at wayside posting-houses, bad enough while they were still on the main line of the imperial mails, but degenerating into true central-asian caravanserais when once they had got off the beaten track into the wild neighbourhood of the baron's village. nevertheless, olga davidoff bore up against the troubles and discomforts of the journey with a brave heart, for was not the baron always by her side? and who could be kinder, or gentler, or more thoughtful than her buriat husband? yes, it was a long and hard journey, up among those border mountains of the chinese and tibetan frontier; but olga felt at home at last when, after three weeks of incessant jolting, they arrived at the buriat mountain stronghold, under cover of the night; and niaz led her straightway to her own pretty little european boudoir, which he had prepared for her beforehand at immense expense and trouble in his upland village.
the moment they entered, olga saw a pretty little room, papered and carpeted in english fashion, with a small piano over in the corner, a lamp burning brightly on the tiny side-table, and a roaring fire of logs blazing and crackling upon the simple stone hearth. a book or two lay upon the shelf at the side: she glanced casually[pg 172] at their titles as she passed, and saw that they were some of tourgénieff's latest novels, a paper-covered zola fresh from paris, a volume each of tennyson, browning, carlyle, and swinburne, a demidoff, an emile augier, a revue des deux mondes, and a late number of an english magazine. she valued these things at once for their own sakes, but still more because she felt instinctively that niaz had taken the trouble to get them there for her beforehand in this remote and uncivilized corner. she turned to the piano: a light piece by sullivan lay open before her, and a number of airs from chopin, schubert, and mendelssohn were scattered loosely on the top one above the other. her heart was too full to utter a word, but she went straight up to her husband, threw her arms tenderly around his neck, and kissed him with the utmost fervour. niaz smoothed her wavy fair hair gently with his hand, and his eyes sparkled with conscious pleasure as he returned her caress and kissed her forehead.
after a while, they went into the next room to dinner—a small hall, somewhat barbaric in type, but not ill-furnished; and olga noticed that the two or three servants were very fierce and savage-looking buriats of the most pronounced tartar type. the dinner was a plain one, plainly served, of rough country hospitality; but the appointments were all european, and, though simple, good and sufficient. niaz had said so much to her of the discomforts of his mountain stronghold that olga was quite delighted to find things on the whole so comparatively civilized, clean, and european.
a few days' sojourn in the fort—it was rather that than a castle or a village—showed olga pretty clearly what sort of life she was henceforth to expect. her husband's subjects numbered about a hundred and fifty (with as many more women and children); they rendered him the most implicit obedience, and they evidently looked upon him entirely as a superior being. they were trained to a military[pg 173] discipline, and regularly drilled every morning by niaz in the queer old semi-chinese courtyard of the mouldering castle. olga was so accustomed to a russian military régime that this circumstance never struck her as being anything extraordinary; she regarded it only as part of the baron's ancestral habits as a practically independent tartar chieftain.
week after week rolled away at the fort, and though olga had absolutely no one to whom she could speak except her own husband (for the buriats knew no russian save the word of command), she didn't find time hang heavily on her hands in the quaint, old-fashioned village. the walks and rides about were really delightful; the scenery was grand and beautiful to the last degree; the chinese-looking houses and tartar dress were odd and picturesque, like a scene in a theatre. it was all so absurdly romantic. after all, olga said to herself with a smile more than once, it isn't half bad being married to a tartar chieftain up in the border mountains, when you actually come to try it. only, she confessed in her own heart that she would probably always be very glad when the winter came again, and she got back from these mountain solitudes to the congenial gaiety of tobolsk or petersburg.
and niaz—well, niaz loved her distractedly. no husband on earth could possibly love a woman better.
still, olga could never understand why he sometimes had to leave her for three or four days together, and why during his absence, when she was left all alone at night in the solitary fort with those dreadful buriats, they kept watch and ward so carefully all the time, and seemed so relieved when niaz came back again. but whenever she asked him about it, niaz only looked grave and anxious, and replied with a would-be careless wave of the hand that part of his duty was to guard the frontier, and that the czar had not conferred a title and an order upon him for[pg 174] nothing. olga felt frightened and disquieted on all such occasions, but somehow felt, from niaz's manner, that she must not question him further upon the matter.
one day, after one of these occasional excursions, niaz came back in high spirits, and kissed her more tenderly and affectionately than ever. after dinner, he read to her out of a book of french poems a grand piece of victor hugo's, and then made her sit down to the piano and play him his favourite air from der freischütz twice over. when she had finished, he leant back in his chair and murmured quietly in french (which they always spoke together), "and this is in the mountains of tartary! one would say a soirée of st. petersburg or of paris."
olga turned and looked at him softly. "what is the time, dearest niaz?" she said with a smile. "shall i be able to play you still that dance of pinsuti's?"
niaz pulled out his watch and answered quickly, "only ten o'clock, darling. you have plenty of time still."
something in the look of the watch he held in his hand struck olga as queer and unfamiliar. she glanced at it sideways, and noticed hurriedly that niaz was trying to replace it unobserved in his waistcoat pocket. "i haven't seen that watch before," she said suddenly; "let me look at it, dear, will you?"
niaz drew it out and handed it to her with affected nonchalance; but in the undercurrent of his expression olga caught a glimpse of a hang-dog look she had never before observed in it. she turned over the watch and looked on the back. to her immense surprise, it bore the initials "f. de k." engraved upon the cover.
"these letters don't belong to you, niaz," she said, scanning it curiously.
niaz moved uneasily in his chair. "no," he answered, "not to me, olga. it's—it's an old family relic—an heirloom, in fact. it belonged to my mother's mother. she[pg 175] was—a mademoiselle de kérouac, i believe, from morbihan, in brittany."
olga's eyes looked him through and through with a strange new-born suspicion. what could it all mean? she knew he was telling her a falsehood. had the watch belonged—to some other lady? what was the meaning of his continued absences? could he——but no. it was a man's watch, not a lady's. and if so—why, if so, then niaz had clearly told her a falsehood in that too, and must be trying to conceal something about it.
that night, for the first time, olga davidoff began to distrust her buriat husband.
next morning, getting up a little early and walking on the parapet of the queer old fortress, she saw niaz in the court below, jumping and stamping in a furious temper upon something on the ground. to her horror, she saw that his face was all hideously distorted by anger, and that as he raged and stamped the tartar cast in his features, never before visible, came out quite clearly and distinctly. olga looked on, and trembled violently, but dared not speak to him.
a few minutes later niaz came in to breakfast, gay as usual, with a fresh flower stuck prettily in the button-hole of his undress coat and a smile playing unconcernedly around the clear-cut corners of his handsome thin-lipped mouth.
"niaz," his wife said to him anxiously, "where is the watch you showed me last night?"
his face never altered for a moment as he replied, with the same bland and innocent smile as ever, "my darling, i have broken it all to little pieces. i saw it annoyed you in some way when i showed it to you yesterday, and this morning i took it out accidentally in the lower courtyard. the sight of it put me in a violent temper. 'cursed thing,' i said, 'you shall never again step in so cruelly between me and my darling. there, take that, and that,[pg 176] and that, rascal!' and i stamped it to pieces underfoot in the courtyard."
olga turned pale, and looked at him horrified. he smiled again, and took her wee hand tenderly in his. "little one," he said, "you needn't be afraid; it's only our quick buriat fashion. we lose our tempers sometimes, but it is soon over. it is nothing. a little whirlwind—and, pouf, it passes."
"but, niaz, you said it was a family heirloom!"
"well, darling, and for your sake i ground it to powder. voilà, tout! come, no more about it; it isn't worth the trouble. let us go to breakfast."
