Sadder and heavier grew the honest heart of Balgonie, as the escort and its hearse-like carriage passed on; and, as he looked after it, the fair merry face, the full and voluptuous figure, the gay manner, and remarkable finesse d'esprit of the betrothed of poor Basil, as he had last seen her at Louga, came back vividly to memory now.
Balgonie was at St. Petersburg when Mierowitz was executed, and when other horrors followed. Moreover, he was closely and repeatedly interrogated by the Grand Chancellor, the Privy Councillor, Count Panim, by Count Orloff (the present lover of the Empress), and by General Weymarn, as to all he knew and had seen of the conspirators—so closely, that nothing surprised him so much as to find that no suspicion was attached to himself. But being a soldier of fortune, who possessed nothing in the world but his sword and his epaulettes, he was not worth suspecting by the Imperial Government.
Ere long, the name of Natalie came before the Secret Chancery, as a prisoner in Schlusselburg; and, like the rest, she was tried and condemned in absence, undefended and unheard; and sentenced, too, amid the solitude of her prison.
To Balgonie the charm of life seemed to have passed away; and, during the week or two that followed his return to St. Petersburg, dreary, weary, and unmeaning, indeed, seemed the routine of his duties as aide-de-camp at the vast parades, the brilliant receptions, the courts-martial, and other public affairs to which he followed his chef, General Weymarn, at the palaces of Tsarsky Selo or Oranienbaum, and elsewhere, while ignorant of the fate of Natalie—while the very life of her he loved hung in the balance.
When compared with their fate, how happy seemed those lovers, who, though separated for a period, could look confidently forward through the long succession of hours, of days and nights, of weeks, and months, or even years, and reckon with certainty on the time of reunion! With him and Natalie, time stretched into a length that seemed interminable: their future had no background; their separation was one without hope.
Charlie, in his desperation, applied to the Marquis de Bausset and to Sir George Macartney, then the Ambassadors from France and Britain; and both received his verbal prayers—he dared not write on such a subject—for mercy to the Count's family: but they were unheeded; and the Ministers replied only by bows, grimaces, and shrugs of their diplomatic shoulders. Their interference was impossible—quite; and, unfortunately, his old patron, Admiral Thomas Mackenzie, was with the fleet in the Black Sea.
The suspicions excited against his Regiment and the Grenadiers of Valikolutz, might procure the banishment of both; he feared it in the form of service in Siberia, or at the Crimean lines of Perecop. In either case, unless Weymarn stood his friend, how could he hope to succour Natalie!
At every tea-house, hotel, and café, his uniform of the Smolensko Infantry, and the knowledge that he was the staff officer who had been in Schlusselburg, and who brought the first tidings of the late affair, made him an object of special interest; but the subject was alike a perilous and painful one. Walls have many ears in Russia; so he was compelled to be silent, or discreet, even to rudeness, though the following declaration, which was issued by the Empress, might have allayed his fears:—
"We, Catharine the Second, by the Grace of God, Empress and Sovereign of all the Russias, &c., &c., make known to our Regiment of Smolensko Infantry that, according to the equity which we exert towards our faithful subjects, we cannot represent to ourselves, without profound grief, how much that regiment must be afflicted, for having among its officers a wretch in the person of Mierowitz: nevertheless, as the crime of one man cannot affect those who had no part in it, and that, besides, we know the bravery with which the regiment has distinguished itself upon all occasions, its attachment to strict discipline, and its exactness in the military duty of our empire; therefore we grant it, through our imperial good-will, the same assurances of protection which it has in all times deserved. In consequence, we forbid all and every one, to reproach or upbraid the said regiment concerning the treason of Mierowitz, under pain of incurring our indignation, and drawing on themselves the effects of our just resentment.
(Signed) "CATHARINE."