Read Ebook: Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723. by Phillimore Lucy

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Ebook has 766 lines and 97720 words, and 16 pages

She was walking to a telegraph office to send a message to her father explaining her position and imploring him to respond, when she heard her name pronounced by some one behind her. Turning, she recognized Donat Prilukoff, one of the wealthiest lawyers in Moscow. He had been a visitor at her house in the days of her glory, and Marie had been aware that he was in love with her.

Prilukoff was rich! Marie recollected that too! She had disliked him in the past, but she was poor now and beggars cannot be choosers.

"My dear friend," she murmured, and tears came into her fascinating eyes.

Prilukoff guessed how her affairs stood, and came to the rescue, but she could not forget her antipathy to the lawyer. A new passion had arisen in her, however, a passion for money, and henceforth she meant never to feel the want of it again, even if she had to pretend to love Prilukoff.

They became inseparable, the Moscow lawyer and the beautiful adventuress who had broken so many hearts and her own life.

"What has become of Dr. Stahl?" Marie asked shortly after their reunion.

Prilukoff laughed carelessly.

"He shot himself through the heart the other day," he said, in a callous tone. "They sent for me, and he died with your name on his lips, Marie."

She was "Marie" now to the man she had christened "The Scorpion" when she was rich and at the height of her popularity.

Prilukoff, middle-aged and unromantic-looking, was fiercely in love with the countess. At all their previous meetings he had been thrust into the background by the clever, handsome young men who had worshipped at Marie Tarnowska's shrine, but now he had her to himself. Every day she accepted money from him. Her creditors having discovered her address, presented their bills with unveiled threats.

Prilukoff saved the situation each time. He paid out thousands of pounds, and Marie Tarnowska hated him the more she was indebted to him. Had he ill-treated her she might have showered kisses on his feet, but he was recklessly generous, and she despised and hated him. She was that sort of woman.

It was necessary, of course, that they should move about, for it would have damaged Prilukoff's reputation as a sound family lawyer whom elderly ladies could trust with their investments if it was known that he was supplying a notorious woman with funds.

Marie gladly went to Italy, leaving the lawyer to attend to his business, but he was with her again within seventy-two hours.

"I cannot bear to let you out of my sight," he said. "The business must take care of itself."

Prilukoff produced a roll of notes.

"Don't be afraid," he said, "there is always plenty to be had."

She was completely in Prilukoff's power when she renewed her acquaintanceship with an old friend, Count Paul Kamarowsky, a colonel in the Russian Army, and a wealthy man. The count had just lost his wife, and he was endeavouring to escape from loneliness by wandering about Europe with his little daughter. Marie, therefore, came into his life again at a very critical time, and she had no difficulty in making him fall in love with her. He was ready to be tricked, and with Prilukoff's help she proceeded to swindle him.

Marie had had no intention of obtaining money from Kamarowsky until the Moscow lawyer had startled and terrified her by confessing that he was practically penniless. He had not only spent his means on her, but he had stolen over forty thousand pounds from his clients in order to satisfy her extravagant whims. When Marie, regarding him with horror, suggested that he should return to Moscow, he gripped her by the wrist.

She saw the threat in his eyes, but did not hear his words.

Events now followed one another in rapid succession. Prilukoff had to be careful to keep out of the way of the police, whilst Countess Tarnowska, who would have given anything to be rid of him, had to see him every day and discuss ways and means of obtaining supplies of hard cash.

Prilukoff, who discerned that Kamarowsky was in love with Marie, conceived a scheme by which they eventually extracted a large sum from him. Scarcely had the swindle been accomplished than Marie heard that her husband had divorced her. She was free to marry again, and she had already pledged her word to the swindling lawyer to take his name, but Count Paul Kamarowsky, rich, of noble family, and likely to make a devoted husband, was going to propose to her!

The count did so that very night, and Marie accepted him, extracting a promise that he would keep their engagement a secret. She was terrified lest Prilukoff should tell Paul that she was his, and so she played with the two men, keeping them apart and persuading each that he was the chosen bridegroom, though well aware that she was in the power of Prilukoff and that she dare not disobey him.

Marie was not in love. As I have said, her capacity for love had ceased to exist with the death of Alexis Bozevsky, but she wanted Kamarowsky's fortune, and she would obtain it only by conspiring with Donat Prilukoff, the dishonest lawyer, her master.

As though the situation was not sufficiently complicated, a third lover now came on the scene. This was Nicholas Naumoff, a youngster of twenty, the only son of the governor of Orel. Nicholas and Kamarowsky were devoted friends, and when the count introduced him to Marie he succumbed on the spot to the charmer.

With three lovers, one of whom held her in the hollow of his hand, Marie Tarnowska had a breathlessly exciting time. In the old days she would have enjoyed the situation, but now she hungered and thirsted for gold, and it was of money only that she thought whenever she asked herself what she should do.

The lawyer from Moscow haunted her. How she wished that he would die and leave her to marry the rich Count Kamarowsky, the man who could take her back into society and open the doors now closed to her! Marriage with Prilukoff would mean the perpetuation of her disgrace, and she would inevitably sink lower; yet she dare not move without his permission, and whenever he came to her she had to do his bidding.

It was a cruel trick of Fate's to put her in such a position. Countess Tarnowska, who had once driven men crazy by her capriciousness, the beauty who could pick and choose her lovers--and did so--was now at the beck and call of an ugly lawyer with an ugly record! She shed bitter tears, and was only comforted when Prilukoff whispered that there was a way of getting Kamarowsky's fortune and never knowing again the terrors of poverty.

Meanwhile, Paul Kamarowsky suggested that they should prepare for their wedding. Marie, who only dreamt of the time when she would be his, had to plead for a postponement, knowing that if she fixed the date Prilukoff would do something desperate. But despite her dislike for the lawyer she complained to him that Kamarowsky had not yet referred to financial matters.

Prilukoff, confident that Marie could not escape his clutches, propounded a plan whereby Kamarowsky was to be induced to make his will in her favour and also insure his life for ?25,000 on her behalf. The trick was simplicity itself.

Prilukoff allowed Marie to dine with Kamarowsky in an hotel at Venice, where they were all staying, and in the middle of the dinner a waiter handed the woman a letter. Marie started and went crimson when she read it, and her companion, insisting on seeing what had disturbed his fianc?e, read the note, which purported to have been written by a well-known Russian prince offering to settle his fortune on her and insure his life for ?25,000 if only she would return to Russia and marry him. Prilukoff had, of course, written the letter, and Marie Tarnowska acted her part so realistically that the next day Kamarowsky's will and insurance on his life were facts, and she was heiress to both!

But once Kamarowsky had appointed the Russian beauty the sole inheritor of his property in the event of his death the conspirators wasted no time arranging for his murder. They both wanted his money badly. Marie, realizing that she could never marry him without Prilukoff's permission--a permission which would never be granted--entered into the conspiracy with a callousness and an abandon that were inhuman. She was only twenty-seven, but she could plot in cold blood to take the life of one who had been and was extremely generous to her.

Of course Marie herself would not do the deed, and Prilukoff, whose nerve had long since gone, was quite incapable of actually killing anyone. He could arrange the details and hand the knife or revolver to the selected assassin, but beyond that he could not go.

However, they were thorough and remorseless plotters. Kamarowsky was in their way. His death would make Marie a rich woman and Prilukoff a rich man, because then he could make her marry him. The count, therefore, must be removed. But who was to kill him? That was a question that was answered within a few hours by the arrival of Nicholas Naumoff.

The young man found Marie in her hotel at Venice, and there and then it flashed across her mind that he was the very person to kill Kamarowsky and at one stroke turn her poverty into riches, for Prilukoff having no more clients to rob, Kamarowsky must be murdered.

She was too clever, of course, to take him into her confidence, although Naumoff was so infatuated that he would have obeyed any command she was pleased to give him. But Marie Tarnowska had a wholesome fear of the law, and, whilst she was willing to consign her young friend to a living grave, she had not the slightest desire to experience the discomforts of a prison herself.

It turned out that Naumoff had called to ask her to marry him. His proposal inwardly amused Marie, for he was so young and she was so old--in experience. But she listened gravely to him, and when he had finished she kissed him on the forehead and whispered in a voice broken with sobs that she had prayed for this day and now that it had come she could not, dare not, aspire to happiness because a certain man stood between them and would prevent their marriage.

The ardent youth naturally demanded to know who it was who was driving her to madness. She answered under pressure that he was Count Paul Kamarowsky, Naumoff's dearest friend.

He was so surprised that he tried to persuade Marie that she was mistaken. Somehow Naumoff had not regarded Kamarowsky as an aspirant to her hand. He was so old compared with him, and love was, in his opinion, the prerogative of youth.

"Watch him," said Marie, who had been secretly engaged to the count for some months, "and you will be convinced that he persecutes me. I have to be polite to him, but, Nicholas, dear, I should be happy if I never saw him again."

Naumoff watched as bidden, and of course he saw Kamarowsky wait attentively on the woman to whom he was engaged. Quite innocent of the fact that he was giving cause for offence to his young friend, Kamarowsky seldom went out unaccompanied by Marie; and, when he was not looking and Nicholas was near her, she would make a little grimace of disgust to indicate that the count's presence was distasteful to her.

Naumoff, who had again proposed to Marie and been accepted, was nearly driven out of his mind by jealousy. He had pledged his word of honour not to reveal his engagement to Kamarowsky, who was also similarly placed by a promise to the beauty. Only Prilukoff, who remained in the background, knew the true state of affairs, and he was too worried by fear of the police to be able to enjoy the comedy.

But that comedy quickly developed into one of the most amazing tragedilborn I went, and there used such despatch, that soon after ten of the clock, I took a boat and went to Winchester House, where I found the steward at the water gate waiting to let me in the nearest way; who told me that my lord had called twice to know if I were come. I asked where his lordship was? He answered, in his great gallery , and thither I going, the door was locked, but upon my lifting a latch, my lord of St. David's opened the door, and, letting me in, locked it again.

'There I found but those three Lords, who causing me to sit down by them, my Lord of Durham began to me: "Doctor, your Lord here will have it so, I that am the unfittest person must be the speaker. But thus it is. After you left us yesterday at Whitehall, we entering into further discourses of those things which we foresee and conceive will ere long come to pass, resolve to again to speak to you before you went hence.

'"We must know of you, what your thoughts are concerning your master the Prince. You have now been his servant above two years, and you were with him in Spain. We know he respects you well; and we know you are no fool, but can observe how things are like to go." "What things, my Lord?" . "In brief," said he, "how the Prince's heart stands to the Church of England, that when God brings him to the Crown we may know what to hope for."

'My reply was to this effect, that however I was most unfit of any opinion herein, attending but two months in the year and then at a great distance, only in the closet and at meals; yet, seeing they so pressed me, I would speak my mind freely; so I said, "I know my master's learning is not equal to his father's, yet I know his judgement to be very right; and as for his affection in these particulars which your Lordships have pointed at, for upholding the doctrine and discipline and right estate of the Church, I have more confidence of him than of his father, in whom they say is so much inconstancy in some particular cases."

'Hereupon my Lords of Durham and St. David's began to argue it with me, and required me to let them know upon what ground I came to think thus of the Prince. I gave them my reasons at large; and after many replyings, then my Lord of Winchester bespake me these words:--

'"Well, Doctor, God send you may be a good prophet concerning your master's inclinations in these particulars, which we are glad to hear from you. I am sure I shall be a true prophet: I shall be in my grave, and so shall you, my Lord of Durham; but my Lord of St. David's and you, Doctor, will live to see that day that your master will be put to it, upon his head and his crown, without he will forsake the support of the Church."

'Of these predictions made by that holy father,' adds the writer, 'I have now no witness but mine own conscience and the Eternal God who knows I lie not; nobody else being present when this was spoken but these three Lords.'

After this the four friends separated and Wren returned to Cambridge.

'The Bishop of London by a strong north wind blowing out of Scotland is blown over the Thames to Lambeth; the king having professed to the Bishop himself as also to all the Lords of this council that it is neither the respect of his learning, his wisdom nor his sincerity , that hath made him to prefer him above the rest of his fellows, but merely the recommendation of his faithful servant Dunbar that is dead, whose suit on behalf of this Bishop he cannot forget, nor will suffer to lose his intention.'

The consequences of such an ecclesiastical appointment made for so insufficient a reason were disastrous indeed. Had Andrewes succeeded Bancroft, and had Laud succeeded Andrewes, 'the Church had been settled on so sure a foundation that it had not easily been shaken.'

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