Red Stefan (25 page)

“What had the man done?” said Elizabeth. No wonder the house had felt horrible.

“Oh, he was a groom. He'd lamed the prince's favourite horse, I believe.”

They crossed the hall and passed through a gaping doorway into a long stone passage.

“Where are we going?”

“To the kitchens.”

“Do we go out that way?”

“We don't go out,” said Stephen.

“What do you mean?”

He said, “Wait and see,” and with that they came to a heavy door hanging drunkenly from wrenched hinges. The lock had been smashed and then burnt out. The wood showed pitted and blackened in the ray of the torch. Beyond, stone steps went down and out of sight.

“The cellars are as old as the hall,” said Stephen.

Elizabeth stared into the black depths.

“Are we going down there?”

“It's not as bad as it looks.”

They went down fifteen steps, and were in a vaulted hall, stone paved and quite dry under foot. The air was heavy and cold. Stephen took out a piece of candle and lit it. The yellow flame burned unstirred by any draught. The place was very big, and seemed all the bigger for the shadows which thronged it. That the wreckers had been here was very plain. Doors to the right and left had been smashed, casks rolled out and broken, bottles splintered. The stone under foot was deeply stained. Elizabeth hoped, shuddering, that the darkest stains were wine, not blood.

“They made a pretty fair mess of things,” said Stephen dispassionately. “Paul was most awfully proud of his cellar. Some of the wine was absolutely priceless.” He laughed a little. “They just smashed everything and wallowed. Well, here we are.”

The last door on the left had been dragged right off its hinges. It lay where it had fallen, and they had to step over it to enter the cellar it had guarded. It was a small place with an arched roof and a row of wine-bins running round three sides of it.

“Look out for the glass,” said Stephen. He held the candle up to show the littered floor.

There were smashed bottles everywhere. The candlelight picked up the shining splinters and the jagged edges of larger fragments.

“This was the old madeira,” said Stephen. “Paul's grandfather laid it down. If anyone had told him his serf's grandsons would drink it, he would have had a fit. He was a bit of a connoisseur. Well, they found the madeira, but here's something they didn't find. And that's a thing I've been thankful for ever since.”

He stood the candle on the side of one of the bins and went into the far corner of the cellar, where he carefully moved some of the litter aside, shifting it this way and that with his foot. Then he seemed to press downwards with considerable force, whilst at the same time he grasped the corner bin with a hand on either of its wooden sides. With a grinding sound the whole bin swung out, disclosing a narrow arch some four feet in height. He laughed, let go, and turned round upon Elizabeth.

“There's our road into Poland,” he said.

CHAPTER XXVII

Elizabeth put out a hand to steady herself. She took a step nearer the wall, and a piece of glass under her foot cracked and splintered. She looked at the black mouth of the arch and said,

“Poland?”

Stephen nodded. He was dusting his hands and picking up the candle.

“The house is just on the frontier. Thank the Lord no one knows about this old passage. Paul told me the last time I saw him, and my word, it's been useful.”

Elizabeth looked at the black arch with a sort of fascinated horror. There was the way to safety and freedom.
A horrible way
. Its dank breath sickened her. She said faintly,

“Who made it?”

“Well, I gather there was an old passage running from here to a sort of shrine or chapel, but the chapel fell down and a good deal of the passage fell in. Then when Paul's great-great-grandfather built on to the house, he had men down from his estates in the north and he had the passage cleared out and rebuilt. The men who did it were told they'd lose their tongues if they talked, and the secret never got out. I don't know why Prince Boris wanted the passage restored, but I believe he was a desperate intriguer, and I daresay it was useful. Anyhow there it is. It's about half a mile long and it's in quite decent repair. It comes out on the Polish side of the frontier in the ruins of the old chapel, and it has been an absolute god-send to me.”

“Are we going now?” said Elizabeth.

All her life she had had a horror of just such a place as this. It was like the horror of a nightmare. Dark passages—low passages—dark cramping walls, and a low slimy roof—places where you could not lift your head, or breathe, or see the terrors that pursued you. There was always a pursuing terror, and you could not run from it, because the roof closed down.

When Stephen said “Come along,” she took a step forward, but her face was suddenly so drawn that he said,

“What's the matter?”

She found herself looking at him with entreaty.

“It's the passage—”

“What's the matter with the passage?”

His voice made the nightmare seem farther off. He patted her shoulder encouragingly.

“It's not as bad as it looks. I have to look after my head the whole way, but you'll be able to straighten up as soon as you're through the arch. I'll go first with the light. I always take a candle through here in case of bad air. It's a good danger signal.”

“Is there bad air?” said Elizabeth by the arch.

“Not now. There are ventilating shafts. Some of them were blocked, and I had to clear them out. Now stand just where you are while I shut the door.”

She was about a yard inside the arch, and she could stand upright, though she guessed that there was very little room over her head. She saw Stephen with a candle in his hand replacing the broken glass which he had pushed aside in order to open the secret door. Then he caught hold of the bin and swung it back. The door shut with a click and he squeezed past her, holding up the light.

The passage stretched away before them. After a yard or two there were some steps, seven or eight of them, taking them still farther down under the earth. The steps were of stone, and the passage was floored, and walled, and roofed with stone. It was like being in a great stone drain. The air had an odd dead feeling. It was not nearly so cold as it had been in the house or even in the cellar.

A yard or two beyond the foot of the steps a second passage ran away to the left. The candle-light hardly penetrated its blackness. Elizabeth looked, and looked away quickly. She had a feeling of the earth pressing down on them, over-weighted by the ruin of Paul Darensky's house.

“Where does that go to?” she said in a voice that would not rise above a whisper.

“Guess.”

“How can I guess?”

He laughed.

“It wouldn't have suited old Boris to have his secret visitors trekking through the cellars and the kitchen premises. Publicity was about the last thing he wanted. That passage comes out in the room we were in.”

“Then why did we come round by the cellars?”

“Well, the passage isn't too safe. There is a wooden stair, and some of the steps have gone, but at a pinch it might have come in handy. If Glinka had rolled up unexpectedly, there was our bolt-hole. That's why I chose that room.”

“Where does the passage come out?”

“Behind my mother's picture. The panel opens like a door. No one has ever found it.”

So Fay Darenska stood guard over Prince Boris' secret door.… Elizabeth wondered what kind of visitors had come through it—hooded, cloaked, perhaps a little breathless from the darkness and the danger. She wondered if any of them were women. She wondered whether she could love any man enough to go to him at night through these dark passages.

They had gone a little way past the second passage, when Stephen uttered a sharp exclamation and stopped. He held up the candle, and Elizabeth looked over his shoulder. Her first impression was that there was a wall in front of them, and then she saw that it wasn't a wall of any man's building. The candle-light was stopped by a ragged fall of earth. The black arch of the passage was blocked. The roof had fallen in.

Stephen stood quite silent for a moment. Then he said in his most ordinary voice,

“I'll have to clear it away. I hope there isn't a great deal of it. Do you mind holding the candle?”

She took the candle, and was told not to worry.

“I don't suppose it's very much.” He was taking off his coat and rolling up the sleeves of his blouse. “Here—you'd better have my coat to sit on. I tell you what I think has happened. I think some of the falling masonry from the house has come down on the roof of the passage and made it cave in. I always thought it might happen some day. Bits of the west wing keep on falling. Don't bother—we'll get through all right.”

After a preliminary survey he went back to the cellar for tools. He suggested that Elizabeth should stay where she was, but when she refused, he agreed that she might make herself useful by carrying things.

“When they passed through the secret door she had the feeling that they had turned their backs upon the frontier. What was the good of it being only half a mile away if the way was blocked by who knew how many tons of earth?

Stephen collected a couple of iron bars, an old shovel, and some sacking. Then they returned to the passage and he fell to work. She had wondered about the sacking, but she soon discovered its use. The earth that was cleared had to be dragged away and spread out upon the floor of the passage. It was weary, heavy work. They strained and sweated, and at the end of three hours the way was still blocked. They knocked off then, ate a brief meal in the cellar, drank snow water, and returned to the passage to lie down and take a few hours of uneasy sleep.

CHAPTER XXVIII

“How long will our food last?” asked Elizabeth.

They had waked, toiled, eaten, rested, and toiled again. She had lost count of the time, but the day must be far spent. They were resting when she asked her question, sitting on the mud-heap on the floor of the passage.

Elizabeth ached in every limb. Her hands were scraped and sore from the rough sacking and the rougher stone and earth. All day long she had been piling earth upon the sacking and dragging it away. They had come now to the point where they could not afford to raise the floor any farther. The earth had to be dragged into the branch passage and spread out there. She could not tell Stephen how much she minded having to go into that darkness. Every time she came there stumbling and panting with her heavy load, this horror of the darkness met her, and every time she had to go a little farther away from Stephen and the candle-light by which he worked.

Now they were resting. A meagre portion of food had been served out. A can of snow water stood between them. Elizabeth asked her question:

“How long will our food last?”

“Oh, long enough,” said Stephen with cheerful vagueness.

She did not press the point. What was the use? She didn't really want to know just how desperate a case they were in, but that horror of the dark made her say quickly,

“We shan't run out of candles?”

He shook his head.

“Oh no—they're all right. I've got two whole ones left, and an end or two besides.”

Elizabeth gave a sigh of relief. She pushed back her hair, lifted the can of snow water, and took a long drink. She had discarded her wig hours ago, and the sweat of her labours had removed the sticking-plaster, and most of the make-up with which Stephen had disguised her. The warts which had so outraged her feelings were gone. When she had drunk, she wetted a corner of the handkerchief which she had been wearing about her head and bathed her face with it.

Stephen laughed at her a little.

“You can't pass for a gipsy now.”

“I wasn't a gipsy. You never meant me to be one. I was Nikolai's sister Anna, and now—”

“Well?” said Stephen. “What are you now?”

“I don't know. What am I?”

His eyes dwelt on her for a moment. Then he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“You're a very good caddy. I expect we ought to be going on again.”

They went on. Elizabeth's head swam and her hands shook. Every time she dragged her load of earth along the passage she said to herself, “Just this one, and then I'll tell him I can't go on.” But when she came back with the empty sacking the words repeated themselves, and her shaking hands began to gather the earth and pile it on the sack. She came to a dazed state in which she only knew that she mustn't fail Stephen. She must pile the earth, and drag the sack, and spread the earth, and go back again for more—pile, drag, spread, and back again—pile, drag, spread—pile, drag, spread.

Sharp through the daze in which she moved cut Stephen's voice:

“We're through!”

She must have been standing with the empty sack in her hands, because when he came climbing back across the rubble, the sack had just fallen in a heap at her feet. Her hands were still stretched out as if they held it, but her eyes were blank. She did not see him, because the passage was suddenly full of mist, but she felt his arms come round her and swing her off her feet.

“Elizabeth—we're through! It's going to be all right. I say, you're not going to faint—not now—not when it's going to be all right?
Elizabeth!
”

Elizabeth let her head fall on his shoulder. She was no longer faint. The mist had cleared. Her heart was beating wildly. If she said that she wasn't going to faint, Stephen would put her down—or would he? She wasn't sure. She didn't want him to put her down. She drew a long sighing breath.

“Elizabeth—”

She turned her head a little. There was a torn and gritty blouse under her cheek. Stephen's eyes looked into hers. They held a triumphant sparkle.