Kitabı oku: «The Great Court Scandal», sayfa 4
Chapter Six
The House of her Enemies
Two days later the Crown Princess Claire returned to Marburg.
In the twilight the express from Vienna came to a standstill in the big, echoing station at Treysa, the bright and wealthy capital, and descending from her private saloon, she walked over the red carpet laid for her, bowing pleasantly to the line of bare-headed officials waiting to receive her; then, mounting into her open landau, she drove up the fine, tree-lined Klosterstrasse to the royal palace.
De Trauttenberg was with her – the woman whom she now knew to be a spy. Around her, on every side, the crowd at her side shouted a glad welcome to “their Claire,” as they called her, and just before the royal carriage could move off, two or three of the less timorous ones managed to seize her hand and kiss it, though the police unceremoniously pushed them away.
She smiled upon the enthusiastic crowd; but, alas! she was heavy of heart. How little, she thought, did those people who welcomed her dream of her unhappiness! She loved the people, and, looking upon them, sighed to think that she was not free like them.
Behind her clattered the hoofs of her cavalry escort, and beside the carriage were two agents of police on bicycles. Wherever she moved in her husband’s kingdom she was always under escort, because of anarchist threats and socialistic rumours.
Marburg was one of the most beautiful and wealthiest of the kingdoms and duchies comprised in the German Empire. The fine capital of Treysa was one of the show cities of Germany, always bright, gay, and brilliant, with splendid streets, wide, tree-lined promenades, a great opera house, numerous theatres, gay restaurants, and an ever-increasing commerce. Frequented much by English and Americans, there were fine hotels, delightful public gardens, and pleasant suburbs. In no other part of the Empire were the nobility so wealthy or so exclusive, and certainly no Court in Europe was so difficult of access as that of Marburg.
The kingdom, which possessed an area of nearly seven thousand square miles and a population of over fifteen millions, was rich in manufactures and in minerals, besides being a smiling country in a high state of cultivation, with beautiful mountainous and wooded districts, where in the valleys were situated many delightful summer resorts.
Through its length and breadth, and far beyond the frontiers, the name of the Crown Princess Claire was synonymous of all that was good and affable, generous to the poor, and ever interested in the welfare of the people.
The big electric globes were already shining white in the streets as she drove back to the beautiful royal palace that was, alas! to her a prison. Her few days of liberty in Vienna were over, and when presently, after traversing many great thoroughfares full of life and movement, the carriage swung out into a broader tree-lined avenue, at the end of which were the great gates of the royal gardens, her brave heart fell within her.
Beyond was the house of her enemies, the house in which she was compelled to live friendless, yet surrounded by those who were daily whispering of her overthrow.
The great gates swung open to allow the cavalcade to pass, then closed again with a clang that, reaching her ear, caused her to shudder.
The Countess noticed it, and asked whether she felt cold. To this she gave a negative reply, and still remained silent, until the carriage, passing up through the beautiful park, at last drew up before the magnificent palace.
Descending, she allowed the gorgeously-dressed man in the royal livery to take her cloak from her shoulders; and then, without a word, hastened along the great marble hall, up the grand staircase and along corridor after corridor – those richly-carpeted corridors of her prison that she knew so well – to her own splendid suite of apartments.
The servants she met at every turn bowed to her, until she opened the door of a large, airy, well-furnished room, where a middle-aged woman, in cap and apron, sat reading by a shaded lamp.
In an instant, on recognising the newcomer, she sprang to her feet. But at the same moment the Princess rushed to the dainty little cot in the corner and sank down beside the sleeping curly-haired child – her child – the little Princess Ignatia.
So passionately did she kiss the sweet chubby little face of the sleeping child that she awoke, and recognising who it was, put out her little hands around her mother’s neck.
“Ah, my little pet!” cried the Princess. “And how are you? It seems so long, so very long, since we parted.” And her voice trembled, for tears stood in her eyes. The child was all she had in the world to love and cherish. She was her first thought always. The glare and glitter of the brilliant Court were all hateful to her, and she spent all the time she dared in the nursery with little Ignatia.
The English nurse, Allen, standing at her side, said, with that formality which was bound to be observed within those walls, —
“The Princess is in most excellent health, your Imperial Highness. I have carried out your Highness’s instructions, and taken her each day for a walk in the park.”
“That’s right, Allen,” responded the mother, also in English. “Where is the Crown Prince?”
“I have not seen him, your Highness, since you left. He has not been in to see Ignatia.”
Claire sighed within herself, but made no outward sign. “Ah, I expect he has been away – to Berlin, perhaps. Is there any function to-night, have you heard?”
“A State ball, your Highness. At least they said so in the servants’ hall.”
The Princess glanced at the little silver timepiece, for she feared that her presence was imperative, even though she detested all such functions, where she knew she would meet that brilliant crowd of men and women, all of them her sworn enemies. What Steinbach had told her in confidence had lifted the scales from her eyes. There was a wide and cleverly-contrived conspiracy against her.
She took her fair-haired child in her arms, while Allen, with deft fingers, took off her hat and veil. Her maids were awaiting her in her own room, but she preferred to see Ignatia before it was too late to disturb the little one’s sleep. With the pretty, blue-eyed little thing clinging around her neck, she paced the room with it, speaking, in German, as every fond mother will speak to the one she adores.
Though born to the purple, an Imperial Princess, Claire was very human after all. She regretted always that she was not as other women were, allowed to be her own mistress, and to see and to tend to her child’s wants instead of being compelled so often to leave her in the hands of others, who, though excellent servants, were never as a mother.
She sent Allen upon a message to the other end of the palace in order to be alone with the child, and when the door closed she kissed its soft little face fondly again and again, and then burst into tears. Those Court sycophants were conspiring, to drive her away – perhaps even to part her from the only one for whom she entertained a spark of affection. Many of her enemies were women. Could any of them really know all that was meant by a mother’s heart?
Prince Ferdinand-Leopold-Joseph-Marie, her husband, seldom, if ever, saw the child. For weeks he never mentioned its existence, and when he did it was generally with an oath, in regret that it was not a son and an heir to the throne.
In his paroxysms of anger he had cursed her and his little daughter, and declared openly that he hated the sight of them both. But she was ever patient. Seldom she responded to his taunts or his sarcasm, or resented his brutal treatment. She was philosophic enough to know that she had a heavy burden to bear, and for the sake of her position as future Queen of Marburg she must bear it bravely.
Allen was absent fully a quarter of an hour, during which time she spoke continually to little Ignatia, pacing up and down the room with her.
The child, seeing her mother’s tears, stared at her with her big, wide-open eyes.
“Why does mother cry?” she asked in her childish voice, stroking her cheek.
“Because mother is not happy, darling,” was the Princess’s sad answer. “But,” she added, brightening up, “you are happy, aren’t you? Allen has bought you such a beautiful doll, she tells me.”
“Yes, mother,” the child answered. “And to-morrow, Allen promises, if I am very good, that we will go to buy a perambulator for my dolly to ride in. Won’t that be nice?”
“Oh, it will! But you must be very, very good – and never cry, like mother, will you?”
“No,” answered the little one. “I’ll never cry, like mother does.”
And the unhappy woman, hearing the child’s lisping words, swallowed the great lump that arose in her throat. It was surely pathetic, that admission of a heart-broken mother to her child. It showed that even though an Imperial Princess, she was still a womanly woman, just as any good woman of the people.
A few moments later Allen returned with the reply to the message she had sent to the aged King.
“His Majesty says that, though regretting your Imperial Highness is tired after her journey, yet your presence with the Crown Prince at the ball is imperative.” Claire sighed with a heavy heart, saying, —
“Very well, Allen. Then we will put Ignatia to bed, for I must go at once and dress,” and she passed her hand across her hot, wearied brow.
Again and again she kissed the child, and then, having put her back into her cot, over which was the royal crown of Marburg in gold, she bade the infant Princess good-night, and went along to eat a hasty dinner – for she was hungry after her eighteen-hour journey – and afterwards to put herself in the charge of her quick-handed maids, to prepare her for the brilliant function of that evening.
Two hours later, when she swept into the magnificent Throne Room, a brilliant, beautiful figure in her Court gown of cream, and wearing her wonderful tiara, her face was as stern and haughty as any of those members of the royal family present. With her long train rustling behind her, and with her orders and ribbons giving the necessary touch of colour to her bodice, she took up her position beside her husband, a fair-headed, round-faced, slight-moustached man, in a dark-blue uniform, and wearing a number of orders. His face was flat and expressionless.
Though they had not met for a week, no word of greeting escaped him. They stood side by side, as though they were strangers. He eyed her quickly, and his countenance turned slightly pale, as though displeased at her presence.
Yet the whole assembly, even though hating her, could not but admire her neat waist, her splendid figure, and matchless beauty. In the whole of the Courts of Europe there was no prettier woman than the Crown Princess Claire; her figure was perfect, and her gait always free – the gait of a princess. Even when dressed in her maid’s dresses, as she had done on occasion, her walk betrayed her. Imperial blood can seldom be disguised.
The hundred women, those German princesses, duchesses, countesses, baronesses, to each of whom attached their own particular scandal – the brilliant little world that circled around the throne – looked at her standing there with her husband, her hands clasped before her, and envied her looks, figure, position – everything. She was a marked woman.
The proud, haughty expression upon her face as she regarded the assembly was only assumed. It was the mask she was compelled to wear at Court at the old King’s command. Her nature was the reverse of haughty, yet the artificiality of palace life made it necessary for the Crown Princess to be as unapproachable as the Queen herself.
The guests were filing before the white-haired King, the hide-bound old martyr to etiquette, when the Crown Prince spoke to his wife in an undertone, saying roughly, with bitter sarcasm, —
“So you are back? Couldn’t stay away from us longer, I suppose?”
“I remained in Vienna as long as I said I should,” was the sweet-faced woman’s calm reply.
“A pity you didn’t stay there altogether,” he muttered. “You are neither use nor ornament here.”
“You have told me that several times before. Much as I regret it, Ferdinand, my place is here.”
“Yes, at my side – to annoy me,” he said, frowning.
“I regret to cause you any annoyance,” she answered. “It is not intentional, I assure you.”
A foul oath escaped him, and he turned from her to speak with Count Graesal, grand-marechal of the Court. Her face, however, betrayed nothing of his insult. At Court her countenance was always sphinx-like. Only in her private life, in that gorgeous suite of apartments on the opposite side of the palace, did she give way to her own bitter unhappiness and blank despair.
Chapter Seven
A Shameful Truth
When at last the brilliant company moved on into the great ballroom she had an opportunity of walking among those men and women who, though they bent before her, cringing and servile, were, she knew, eagerly seeking her ruin. The Ministers, Stuhlmann, Hoepfner, and Meyer, all three creatures of the King, bowed low to her, but she knew they were her worst enemies. The Countess Hupertz, a stout, fair-haired, masculine-looking woman, also bent before her and smiled – yet this woman had invented the foulest lies concerning her, and spread them everywhere. In all that brilliant assembly she had scarcely one single person whom she could term a friend. And for a very simple reason. Friendliness with the Crown Princess meant disfavour with the King, and none of those place-seekers and sycophants could afford to risk that.
Yet, knowing that they were like a pack of hungry wolves about her, seeking to tear her reputation to shreds and cast her out of the kingdom, she walked among them, speaking with them, and smiling as though she were perfectly happy.
Presently, when the splendid orchestra struck up and dancing commenced, she came across Hinckeldeym, the wily old President of the Council of Ministers, who, on many occasions, had showed that, unlike the others, he regarded her as an ill-used wife. A short, rather podgy, dark-haired man, in Court dress, he bowed, welcomed her back to Treysa, and inquired after her family in Vienna.
Then, as she strolled with him to the farther end of the room, lazily fanning herself with her great ostrich-feather fan, she said in a low voice, —
“Hinckeldeym, as you know, I have few friends here. I wonder whether you are one?”
The flabby-faced old Minister pursed his lips, and glanced at her quickly, for he was a wily man. Then, after a moment’s pause, he said, —
“I think that ever since your Imperial Highness came here as Crown Princess I have been your partisan. Indeed, I thought I had the honour of reckoning myself among your Highness’s friends.”
“Yes, yes,” she exclaimed quickly. “But I have so many enemies here,” and she glanced quickly around, “that it is really difficult for me to distinguish my friends.”
“Enemies!” echoed the tactful Minister in surprise. “What causes your Highness to suspect such a thing?”
“I do not suspect – I know,” was her firm answer as she stood aside with him. “I have learnt what these people are doing. Why? Tell me, Hinckeldeym – why is this struggling crowd plotting against me?”
He looked at her for a moment in silence. He was surprised that she knew the truth.
“Because, your Imperial Highness – because they fear you. They know too well what will probably occur when you are Queen.”
“Yes,” she said in a hard, determined voice. “When I am Queen I will sweep clear this Augean stable. There will be a change, depend upon it. This Court shall be an upright and honourable one, and not, as it now is, a replica of that of King Charles the Second of England. They hate me, Hinckeldeym – they hate me because I am a Hapsbourg; because I try and live uprightly and love my child, and when I am Queen I will show them that even a Court may be conducted with gaiety coupled with decorum.”
The Minister – who, though unknown to her, was, perhaps, her worst enemy, mainly through fear of the future – listened to all she said in discreet silence. It was a pity, he thought, that the conspiracy had been betrayed to her, for although posing as her friend he would have been the first to exult over her downfall. It would place him in a position of safety.
He noted her threat. It only confirmed what the Court had anticipated – namely, that upon the death of the infirm old monarch, all would be changed, and that brilliant aristocratic circle would be sent forth into obscurity – and by an Austrian Archduchess, too!
The Princess Claire unfortunately believed the crafty Hinckeldeym to be her friend, therefore she told him all that she had learnt; of course, not betraying the informer.
“From to-day,” she went on in a hard voice, “my attitude is changed. I will defend myself. Against those who have lied about me, and invented their vile scandals, I will stand as an enemy, and a bitter one. Hitherto I have been complacent and patient, suffering in silence, as so many defenceless women suffer. But for the sake of this kingdom, over which I shall one day be Queen, I will stand firm; and you, Hinckeldeym, must remain my friend.”
“Your Imperial Highness has but to command me,” replied the false old courtier, bowing low with the lie ever ready upon his lips. “I hope to continue as your friend.”
“From the day I first set foot in Treysa, these people have libelled me and plotted my ruin,” she went on. “I know it all. I can give the names of each of my enemies, and I am kept informed of all the scandalous tales whispered into my husband’s ears. Depend upon it that those liars and scandalmongers will in due time reap their reward.”
“I know very little of it,” the Minister declared in a low voice, so that he could not be overheard. “Perhaps, however, your Highness has been indiscreet – has, I mean, allowed these people some loophole through which to cast their shafts?”
“They speak of Leitolf,” she said quite frankly. “And they libel me, I know.”
“I hear to-day that Leitolf is recalled to Vienna, and is being sent as attaché to Rome,” he remarked. “Perhaps it is as well in the present circumstances.”
She looked him straight in the face as the amazing truth suddenly dawned upon her.
“Then you, too, Hinckeldeym, believe that what is said about us is true!” she exclaimed hoarsely, suspecting, for the first time, that the man with the heavy, flabby face might play her false.
And she had confessed to him, of all men, her intention of changing the whole Court entourage the instant her husband ascended the throne! She saw how terribly injudicious she had been.
But the cringing courtier exhibited his white palms, and with that clever exhibition of sympathy which had hitherto misled her, said, —
“Surely your Imperial Highness knows me sufficiently well to be aware that in addition to being a faithful servant to his Majesty the King, I am also a strong and staunch friend of yours. There may be a plot,” he said; “a vile, dastardly plot to cast you out from Marburg. Yet if you are only firm and judicious, you must vanquish them, for they are all cowards – all of them.” She believed him, little dreaming that the words she had spoken that night had sealed her fate. Heinrich Hinckeldeym was a far-seeing man, the friend of anybody who had future power in his hands – a man who was utterly unscrupulous, and who would betray his closest friend when necessity demanded. And yet, with his courtly manner, his fat yet serious face, his clever speech, and his marvellous tact, he had deceived more than one of the most eminent diplomatists in Europe, including even Bismarck himself.
He looked at her with his bright, ferret-like eyes, debating within himself when the end of her should be. He and his friends had already decided that the blow was soon to be struck, for every day’s delay increased their peril. The old King’s malady might terminate fatally at any moment, and once Queen, then to remove her would be impossible.
She had revealed to him openly her intention, therefore he was determined to use in secret her own words as a weapon against her, for he was utterly unscrupulous.
The intrigues of Court had a hundred different undercurrents, but it was part of his policy to keep well versed in them all. His finger was ever upon the pulse of that circle about the throne, while he was also one of the few men in Marburg who had the ear of the aristocratic old monarch with whom etiquette was as a religion.
“Your Imperial Highness is quite right in contemplating the Crown Prince’s accession to the throne,” he said ingeniously, in order to further humour her. “The doctors see the King daily, and the confidential reports made to us Ministers are the reverse of reassuring. In a few months at most the end must come – suddenly in all probability. Therefore the Crown Prince should prepare himself for the responsibilities of the throne, when your Highness will be able to repay your enemies for all their ill-nature.”
“I shall know the way, never fear,” she answered in a low, firm voice. “To-day their power is paramount, but to-morrow mine shall be. I shall then live only for my husband and my child. At present I am living for a third reason – to vindicate myself.”
“Then your Imperial Highness contemplates changing everything?” he asked simply, but with the ingenuity of a great diplomatist. Every word of her reply he determined to use in order to secure her overthrow.
“I shall change all Ministers of State, Chamberlains, every one, from the Chancellor of the Orders down to the Grand Master of the Ceremonies. They shall all go, and first of all the dames du palais– those women who have so cleverly plotted against me, but of whose conspiracy I am now quite well aware.” And she mentioned one or two names – names that had been revealed to her by the obscure functionary Steinbach.
The Minister saw that the situation was a grave, even desperate one. He was uncertain how much she knew concerning the plot, and was therefore undecided as to what line he should adopt. In order to speak in private they left the room, pacing the long, green-carpeted corridor that, enclosed in glass, ran the whole length of that wing of the palace. He tried by artful means to obtain from her further details, but she refused to satisfy him. She knew the truth, and that, she declared, was all sufficient.
Old Hinckeldeym was a power in Marburg. For eighteen years he had been the confidant of the King, and now fearing his favour on the wane, had wheedled himself into the good graces of the Crown Prince, who had given him to understand, by broad hints, that he would be only too pleased to rid himself of the Crown Princess. Therefore, if he could effect this, his future was assured. And what greater weapon could he have against her than her own declaration of her intention to sweep clear the Court of its present entourage?
He had assuredly played his cards wonderfully well. He was a past master in deception and double-dealing. The Princess, believing that he was at least her friend, had spoken frankly to him, never for one moment expecting a foul betrayal.
Yet, if the truth were told, it was that fat-faced, black-eyed man who had first started the wicked calumny which had coupled her name with Leitolf; he who had dropped scandalous hints to the Crown Prince of his beautiful wife’s penchant for the good-looking chef du cabinet; he who had secretly stirred up the hostility against the daughter of the Austrian Archduke, and whose fertile brain had invented lies which were so ingeniously concocted that they possessed every semblance of truth.
A woman of Imperial birth may be a diplomatist, versed in all the intricacies of Court etiquette and Court usages, but she can never be at the same time a woman of the world. Her education is not that of ordinary beings; therefore, as in the case of the Princess Claire, though shrewd and tactful, she was no match for the crafty old Minister who for eighteen years had directed the destiny of that most important kingdom of the German Empire.
The yellow-haired Countess Hupertz, one of Hinckeldeym’s puppets, watched the Princess and Minister walking in the corridor, and smiled grimly. While the orchestra played those dreamy waltzes, the tragedy of a throne was being enacted, and a woman – a sweet, good, lovable woman, upright and honest – was being condemned to her fate by those fierce, relentless enemies by which she was, alas! surrounded.
As she moved, her splendid diamonds flashed and glittered with a thousand fires, for no woman in all the Court could compare with her, either for beauty or for figure. And yet her husband, his mind poisoned by those place-hunters – a man whose birth was but as a mushroom as compared with that of Claire, who possessed an ancestry dating back a thousand years – blindly believed that which they told him to be the truth.
De Trauttenberg, in fear lest she might lose her own position, was in Hinckeldeym’s pay, and what she revealed was always exaggerated – most of it, indeed, absolutely false.
The Court of Marburg had condemned the Crown Princess Claire, and from their judgment there was no appeal. She was alone, defenceless – doomed as the victim of the jealousies and fears of others.
Returning to the ballroom, she left the Minister’s side; and, by reason of etiquette, returned to join that man in the dark-blue uniform who cursed her – the man who was her husband, and who ere long was to reign as sovereign.
Stories of his actions, many of them the reverse of creditable, had reached her ears, but she never gave credence to any of them. When people discussed him she refused to listen. He was her husband, the father of her little Ignatia, therefore she would hear nothing to his discredit.
Yes. Her disposition was quiet and sweet, and she was always loyal to him. He, however, entirely misjudged her.
An hour later, when she had gone to her room, her husband burst in angrily and ordered the two maids out, telling them that they would not be wanted further that night. Then, when the door was closed, he strode up to where she sat before the great mirror, lit by its waxen candles, for Henriette had been arranging her hair for the night.
“Well, woman!” he cried, standing before her, his brows knit, his eyes full of fire, “and what is your excuse to me this time?”
“Excuse?” she echoed, looking at him in surprise and very calmly. “For what, Ferdinand?”
“For your escapade in Vienna!” he said between his teeth. “The instant you had left, Leitolf received a telegram calling him to Wiesbaden, but instead of going there he followed you.”
“Not with my knowledge, I assure you,” she said quickly. “Why do you think so ill of me – why do you always suspect me?” she asked in a low, trembling voice of reproach.
“Why do I suspect you? You ask me that, woman, when you wrote to the man at his hotel, made an appointment, and actually visited him there? One of our agents watched you. Do you deny it?”
“No,” she answered boldly. “I do not deny going to the Count’s hotel. I had a reason for doing so.”
He laughed in her face.
“Of course you had – you, who pretend to be such a good and faithful wife, and such a model mother,” he sneered. “I suppose you would not have returned to Treysa so soon had he not have come back.”
“You insult me!” she cried, rising from her chair, her Imperial blood asserting itself.
“Ah!” he laughed, taunting her. “You don’t like to hear the truth, do you? It seems that the scandal concerning you has been discovered in Vienna, for De Lindenau has ordered the fellow to return to the diplomatic service, and is sending him away to Rome.”
She was silent. She saw how every word and every action of hers was being misconstrued.
“Speak, woman!” he cried, advancing towards her. “Confess to me that you love the fellow.”
“Why, Ferdinand, do you wish me to say what is untrue?” she asked in a low voice, quite calm again, notwithstanding his threatening attitude.
“Ah, you deny it! You lie to me, even when I know the truth – when all the Court discuss your affection for the fellow whom you yourself introduced among us. You have been with him in Paris. Deny that!”
“I deny nothing that is true,” she answered. “I only deny your right to charge me with what is false.”
“Oh yes,” he cried. “You and your brat are a pretty pair. You believe we are all blind; but, on the contrary, everything is known. Confess!” he muttered between his teeth. “Confess that you love that man.”
She was silent, standing before him, her beautiful eyes fixed upon the carpet.
He repeated his question in a harder tone than before, but still she uttered no word. She was determined not to repeat the denial she had already given, and she recognised that he had some ulterior motive in wringing from her a confession which was untrue.
“You refuse to speak!” he cried in a quick paroxysm of anger. “Then take that!” and he struck her with his fist a heavy blow full in the face, with such force, indeed, that she reeled, and fell backwards upon the floor.
“Another time perhaps you’ll speak when I order you to,” he said through his set teeth, as with his foot he kicked her savagely twice, the dull blows sounding through the big, gilt-ceilinged room.
Then with a hard laugh of scorn upon his evil lips the brute that was a Crown Prince, and heir to a European throne, turned and left with an oath upon his lips, as he slammed the door after him.
In the big, gorgeous room, where the silence was broken by the low ticking of the ormolu clock, poor, unhappy Claire lay there where she had fallen, motionless as one dead. Her beautiful face was white as death, yet horribly disfigured by the cowardly blow, while from the corner of her mouth there slowly trickled a thin red stream.
