Death In Hyde Park (13 page)

Ivan had lived in France while he was studying Kropotkin’s work. He had been employed as a printer’s apprentice and had spent all his spare time perusing Anarchist books and pamphlets with the passion of a zealot—and a zealot he was. As a very young man, Ivan had been seized by the Russian police for refusing to serve in the Czar’s army; imprisoned, he had refused to recognize the authority of his judges and jailers, and had been brutally beaten for his resolute nay-saying. The way out of prison had involved taking as hostage Georgi Fedorov—an important official, the son of Princess Fedorovna and the nephew of Grand Duke Gerasimov, a favorite of the Czar—and when Fedorov was shot by prison guards during the escape, a price was laid on Ivan’s head. He had fled to his village for a last farewell before leaving Russia forever, but there he discovered that his parents had been brutally executed by the police, in retribution for their son’s escape. Until then, he had been genuinely remorseful at Fedorov’s death, but this pitiless murder of innocents hardened him. There was nothing left for Ivan, as there was nothing left for so many dispossessed, dispersed Russians, but to stoke the flaming fires of hatred in his heart and vow to find a way to bring down the hated regime of the Czar.

And Anarchism seemed to offer that way. Living on his luck and by his wits in some of the filthiest slums of Paris, Munich, and Brussels, he had met many other comrades who shared his passionate views, his hatred of corrupt regimes, his fury at the ruling class. And at last, he met Kropotkin, a Russian nobleman who had repudiated rank and riches and become an uncompromising apostle of the necessity of violence as a means of destroying the old world and clearing the way for the new. This should be done, Kropotkin urged, “by speech and written word, by dagger, gun, and dynamite,” and when the revolution had come (Kropotkin calculated that it would take no more than three to five years), all governments would be destroyed, and all property would become the property of all the people. Each person would draw upon the community warehouses for food and goods according to his needs, and each person would work according to his talents, for the good of all. In such a world, there would be no greed, no oppression, no slums, no prisons—and no murder of innocents.

Ivan’s hungry soul had been fed by Kropotkin’s shining, inspiring dream. He knew that he was strong and dedicated enough to answer the stirring summons to “men of courage willing not only to speak but to act, men who prefer prison, exile, and death to a life that contradicts their principles.” These men of courage—and Ivan knew that he was one—would make up the advance guard of the revolution, prepared to act long before the masses were awake to the possibility of a new future. Men of strength like himself and Pierre and even Adam (although he was a trade unionist, and a reformer, and not an Anarchist). Women of strength, like Lottie, lovely Lottie, whom Ivan would have loved with all the fierce passion of his Slavic soul, had he allowed himself to do so. Lottie, whose mischievous smile and gay laugh so belied her firm will, her dedication to all that was right and just and noble. And then there was Yuri.

Still on his back, Ivan raised his right leg and began to flex it rhythmically. It was ironic, wasn’t it? He had considered himself in the advance guard, laboring to spread the Anarchist word through the pages of the
Clarion,
when all the time, unbeknownst to anyone, Yuri Messenko—affectionate, gentle, Yuri, a boy to whom no one had paid any special regard—had been plotting a revolutionary deed so bravely violent and so startlingly audacious as to bring credit to them all.

Ivan had been astonished when he heard what Yuri had done; he had been utterly dumbfounded, and he was dumbfounded still, as he thought about it. That Yuri would have the courage, the cleverness, the extraordinary
commitment
required to carry out such a singular act made him feel enormously proud, even as he shook his head over the amazing improbability of such a thing. He felt a sharp sense of loss, as well (although he reminded himself that this was unforgivably bourgeois), for he had allowed himself to love Yuri (to the extent that an Anarchist could feel love) for his gentleness and compassion. Ivan feared that he had never fully understood the boy, for at times Yuri seemed remarkably dim-witted and yet at other times exhibited a deeply intuitive vision. And he had certainly neither understood nor shared Yuri’s devotion to Pierre, that inflammatory fire-brand of a fellow who seemed to Ivan to be manipulative and devious in the extreme. But this had not changed Ivan’s fondness for Yuri, and while he saluted Yuri’s heroic act, he mourned the lost young hero.

But there were other problems upon which Ivan must exercise his mind. His defense, for instance. Mr. Morley, the solicitor who had been sent by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants to defend Adam, had refused to take Ivan’s and Pierre’s case, on the grounds that the ASRS was paying him to arrange the defense of one man, not three. Nicholas Petrovich, one of the few comrades brave enough to acknowledge any connection with their jailed colleages, had paid Ivan a visit the day before, bringing some cheese and apples—which were promptly confiscated by the guard. Nikki had come to let Ivan know that a solicitation was being conducted among the members of the Hampstead Road cell to collect the eight guineas required by Mr. Brownlow, a barrister who had defended other Anarchists on occasion.

“Brownlow is very sharp, we understand,” Nikki had said, in his thick Slavic accent. “If anyone can get you two off the charge, he’s the man.”

“
If
the eight guineas can be found,” Ivan said dispiritedly. “That seems high.”

“I’m afraid it’s the charge,” Nikki replied in an apologetic tone. “If it had been anything else but explosives with intent, he would’ve come cheaper. But explosives—”

“Explosives?” Ivan had interrupted sharply. “How do explosives come into it?”

Nikki gazed at him as if he didn’t quite understand. “Why, the bombs,” he said. “In your room, and Pierre’s. Ginger-beer bottles with something in them—nitric acid, they say. Not to mention the Anarchist literature, and the bomb-making instructions found in Pierre’s pocket.” Admiration and pride were mixed with exasperation in his look. “The comrades said to tell you that they didn’t know that you were a Dynamitard, or that you and Yuri and Pierre were planning to blow up the King. If they’d known, they’d have said it wasn’t a good idea. Too dangerous all ’round.”

“It was Yuri’s plan, not mine,” Ivan said. “I had nothing to do with it.” He was about to add that he had no idea how a bomb had come to be found in his room, but held his tongue. The comrades could think as they liked about him. And if they liked to think that he was a man of deeds, rather than words only, well, that was their choice. He stood no chance before the British bench, anyway, with or without the aid of the eight-guinea Brownlow. He was a Russian and an Anarchist, and when he was found guilty and had served his sentence, he would be handed over to the Ochrana, the Czar’s secret police, who would arrange for his deportation. Once in Russia, he was a dead man.

And this opened another vast panorama of problems upon which Ivan must exercise his mental faculties. For the past three weeks, he had suspected that he was being trailed by one of the Russian secret agents who prowled London, keeping a watch on the Russian émigrés, many of whom had sought refuge in the teeming East End. Ivan had done his best to avoid the man—a tall, thin fellow with a black Vandyke beard, wearing a dark overcoat with a fur collar—but he knew it was a futile effort. Whatever he did, he could not get away from the man. And even if he did, it would be of no use, for now that the Ochrana had located him, they would merely assign another agent to trail him.

In fact, now that he thought about it, it seemed to him quite likely that the explosives found in his room had been put there by a Russian agent, immediately after he was seen to be seized in the raid on the
Clarion
. The agent would know that Special Branch police would search his rooms and would want to ensure that they find something incriminating. Of course, the Ochrana would prefer to get their hands on him immediately, so it was possible that they might make some sort of arrangement with the British authorities to hand him over—a trade for another prisoner, or even an arranged escape. One had heard of that sort of thing.

Ivan ran his hands through his lanky, dirty hair. Of course, this didn’t explain why a bomb had also been placed in Pierre’s room, since an Ochrana agent was not likely to have any special animosity toward a French Anarchist. Ivan smiled bleakly. Especially an ineffectual French Anarchist, all fierce words and no deeds, whose passion for the Cause blinded him to any real possibility for vigorous action. But there were French secret agents in the City as well (not to mention German and Spanish and Italian and American) and perhaps there had been some sort of collaboration.

However, Ivan did not intend to expend his mental energies on Pierre and his fate. He had to think how best to manage to free himself from this unimaginably tangled web and from the agent who would be waiting to lay hands on him when the Court found him guilty—which would happen, he was sure of it, whatever the efforts of Mr. Eight-Guinea Brownlow.

 
 
But Brownlow was to make no such efforts on their behalf, as Pierre Mouffetard learned the next day. Pierre, a dingy, hard-faced man, his jaw patchily smudged with a meager whisker, had also been in jails before, usually on a charge of picking pockets, for that was his criminal trade. But he had never stayed for long, since he or his associates had always managed some early means of egress. He therefore remained unconcerned about his current situation and continued to carry himself with his customary air of blustery self-confidence, even when Nicholas Petrovich came to tell him that Brownlow would not be hired, after all.

The conversation had taken place just an hour ago, in the visiting cage. Nikki said that he had been sent to inform both Pierre and Ivan that the Hampstead Road Anarchists had changed their minds. Instead of helping to procure a defense, they had decided that it would be best for them to disassociate themselves from their jailed comrades. As a messenger, Nikki was clearly uncomfortable with this announcement, and stammered as he said it.

“They . . . we want to express solidarity with militant action, of course, but we . . . the group, that is, feels it can’t be reckless.” He colored. “You must take it as you like, Pierre, but they . . . we have decided to disclaim all connection with you and Ivan. And Adam Gould, too, of course—he’s not a member, anyway. It’s the explosives, you see. Everyone’s nervous.”

Pierre frowned, not so much at the way the comrades had abandoned him, but at the charge itself, which he had heard from Nikki the day before, for the first time. “But I had no explosives in my room,” he said. “I told you that yesterday.”

“That does not alter the fact,” Nikki replied somberly, “that the police say they found a bomb there. And there were the instructions for bomb-making in your pocket.”

“Instructions?” Pierre gave a hard laugh. “That was merely a letter—a French compatriot writing to tell me about a Spanish comrade who built an explosive device of some sort.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Nikki pressed his lips together. “The comrades said that they are sorry, but they know that you, of all people, will appreciate that they must act in their own self-interest.”

Of course they must act in their own self-interest, Pierre thought scornfully, and
he
would act—as he always did—in his. That was what it meant to be an Anarchist, and whatever else he was (and he was many things), he was an Anarchist at heart. He stared down for a moment at the knot of his long, thin fingers, thinking about the bomb that had been put in his room by—by whom? He frowned, for while his impulsive actions and inflammatory temper had made him many enemies, he could think of none who would have chosen this route to revenge. But Pierre had been in difficult straits before, and things had come right in the end. Things seemed dark indeed, but there would be a way out. And if he could not find one, why, then, he would make one.

So Pierre had merely smiled tightly, asked Nikki to tell the comrades that he appreciated their position, and retired to his cell to consider the matter further. In his considerations, of course, his mind went to Ivan and Adam, in whose rooms the police had also found bombs. Pierre had no special liking for Adam, who was a reformist, not a revolutionary. But he was truly sorry for Ivan, whom he especially admired, for Ivan was both passionate and dedicated and had suffered through many trials, always showing himself worthy. With his training as a printer, Ivan was well on his way to making important contributions to the Cause—far more than he, Pierre, could ever hope to make. Pierre did not possess a great deal of self-knowledge, but he knew enough about himself to recognize that he had made very little of his life, and of the opportunities that had come his way. If he had to do it over again, he would do what Ivan had done: study more diligently, learn a trade, and find a way to do something significant for the Cause.

But there was no use in regret. The past was past, and neither here nor there. For now, there was nothing to do but wait and see what might happen.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 
 
 
 
Charles took the train up to London early on Monday morning. He disembarked when it reached the Liverpool Street Terminus and found a cab to take him to Sibley House, the Mayfair mansion that had been purchased by his great-grandfather for the family’s use when in London. Charles did not enjoy the pleasures of the City and much preferred his wife’s home at Bishop’s Keep to the London house—or to Somersworth, for that matter, his family estate in Norfolk. Now that his mother was dead, he went less often to Somersworth; at some point, and perhaps very soon, he ought to come to some conclusions about how best to deal with the estate, which was far too large to be conveniently managed. He did not like the idea of breaking it up for sale, for there were the tenants and estate staff to be considered, and besides, he had no need for the money. While he was in town, he planned to talk with his old friend Canon Rawnsley, who had created a new organization he was calling the National Trust. Perhaps the Trust would be the best way to deal with Somersworth.