Only after traversing several corridors did she begin to notice the unfamiliarity of her surroundings, and realize that her headlong rush had carried her far beyond the state apartments into regions where she had never as yet penetrated—the oldest part of the Castle, disused now for many years—a gloomy labyrinth of intersecting passages, of dark rooms furnished in the austere fashion of many generations before; somber salons and antechambers and galleries where faded brocade draperies shivered and rippled in ghostly cross-currents of icy wind. She was breathing short, her feet tripped again and again on wrinkled carpets and rugs, but she never stopped, for nervous panic such as she had never known was clutching her by the throat, and it was from sheer exhaustion rather than from any purposeful intent that she suddenly broke her flight and leaned panting against a wall.
Where was she? The early winter afternoon was drawing to a close, and every object around her was beginning to be shrouded by the snow-footed twilight stealing in from without. Great chests bound with bands of tarnished steel lined the vast oval chamber where she stood; ancient oaken benches, worm-eaten and scarred with age, were stiffly ranged along the four gaunt sides of a ponderous table; the windows were uncurtained, excepting by rigid lambrequins covering only the upper portion of them as they might have a catafalque.
Laurence shudderingly took in all this, and her teeth began to chatter, not from cold only—though it was intensely cold there, where the benefits of hot-water pipes, or even of stoves or open fires, were non-existent—but from fear and apprehension carried to their highest degree.
“The muniment-room,” she whispered to herself. Basil had spoken of it once, but she had never come there, so incurious was she about the past of a race she cared nothing for, excepting in so far as it concerned her own present High-Mightiness and colossal wealth.
Twice she tried to steady her trembling limbs—she knew she must go back to her own apartments before she fainted—twice she failed, clutching convulsively at the top of the nearest chest for support, and it was only after five minutes of strained effort that she succeeded in dragging herself away, step by shaking step. What she had at first taken for a niche in the wall opened before her like a crafty eye, revealing a winding stair in the thickness of the masonry, dusty, gloom-filled, and spider-webbed. Had she unconsciously climbed to an upper floor, she questioned herself, or was she still on a level with her own rooms? She did not know, nor had she any means of finding out, especially in her present state of semi-collapse, so she fearfully recrossed the muniment-room and glanced down a straight, narrow gallery which she could not recall having traversed. Night was creeping on so rapidly now that once more terror shook her, and sooner than try that way she summoned her remaining strength, and, going back once more, after a moment’s hesitation whether to follow the gut-like spiral up or down, she commenced to descend the narrow steps. It must be in a tower, she hazily realized, since there it was a trifle lighter, owing to the thickly glazed meurtrières, which reappeared at each successive winding of the interminable flight. Would she ever reach the bottom? Mechanically she began to count them one by one, lost the sequence, and at length found herself stranded in a square hall that smelled of mould and ancient damp. A faint gray light showed beyond an arched doorway on the other side, and toward this she walked, dragging her mauve velvets in the sodden grime, for even the weight of her train had grown to be too much for her. Another minute or so and she was in a high-vaulted passage, opening far down an endless perspective of groinings like some queer souterrain upon a clearer place—a lamp-lit place, evidently—some sort of still-room or cellar, she thought, for presently she could see great casks and chests along its rough stonework. This she negotiated, steering for another opening exactly opposite, but before she quite reached that she heard voices from beyond a nail-studded door that stood ajar on her right—angry Russian voices raised in execration or denunciation—she knew not which, for she had never been able to learn Russian well enough to follow a rapid conversation, nor had she tried very strenuously to do so, but in her over-excited condition the whistling syllables became, curiously enough, almost plain to her.
“She? Help us?” the raucous, vòdka-soaked accents were saying. “This stranger from among strangers! Bah! You don’t believe it, do you? Did she ever do any of us a kindness, or throw us a look, even? We are not as good as dogs to her. But wait, she’ll find us to be wolves, too, on occasion. Have patience, little fathers; our turn will come soon now; and were it not for the Boy—for Basil-Vassilièvitch, too, who cares for us in his way—when she lets him—we’d show her what we can do! Let her not tempt us too far, however—or we’ll make her dance in the moonlight!” There was a chorus of coarse laughter, and then a short silence.
Making herself exceeding small, Laurence flattened herself against the spring of the huge stone arch behind her. Who could that be who had just spoken words of sedition within Tverna Castle? Who were they who had threatened her—and what—what was that about “dancing in the moonlight?” Her servants, the staròstá, mujiks, perhaps? Who could it have been? she asked herself. She felt that in another second she would ask aloud, and then cry out for help; and yet she knew instinctively that no sound could pass her throat, her parched lips. Suppose the speakers were to come out and see her there—she, the abhorred one? Would they tear her to pieces? She scarcely doubted it, and as noiselessly as she could she slipped into a near-by recess, trying still further to conceal herself. Encountering wood instead of stone, her hand groped feverishly for some means of escape—and, yes, was luck going to be with her at last?—her shaking fingers found a polished knob which yielded at her touch. A slight creak that brought the goose-flesh all over her for fear it should be heard, and the panel of a door receded, showing a lighted staircase, clean and garnished for constant use, as every inch of it denoted.
With a wild heart-beat she slid the panel to as quietly as she could, and ran with reviving energy up and up and higher up, until after a little she cleared the last steps and found herself face to face with another door. This she had no difficulty in opening, pushed aside a thick curtain, and there was the state-hall with its two huge fireplaces, its fur rugs and broad divans, its panoplies of arms, and tall candelabras shedding their mellow radiance over multitudinous and exquisite luxuries. At the farther end rose grandly the double flight leading to the private apartments, and up this too she raced as if hotly pursued, although all was silence and peace and delicious warmth, from the heaped-up logs burning rosily on the twin hearths to the broad bowls of violets and narcissi, roses and gardenias, filling the air with their delicate fragrance.
The same impulse of unquenchable terror drove her to close and double-lock all the entrances of her own rooms before letting herself fall in a heap upon the white-bear rug of her boudoir, and there she lay motionless, save for a persistent tremor which ran up and down her slim body in spasmodic waves.
After a time—it might have been an hour, more or less—there was a soft tap at the door opening upon the main gallery; but she did not stir, and the knock was repeated louder, and then still more loudly.