Kitabı oku: «The Adventure of Princess Sylvia», sayfa 12
CHAPTER XV
THE OLDNESS OF THE CHANCELLOR
MAXIMILIAN had not made an appointment with the Chancellor through the telephone, either for an hour or place of meeting. He had been in no mood at the time for the cool mapping out of details; and later, when there had been plenty of leisure for reflection, he had let himself hope that the Chancellor would already be willing to qualify his rash accusations. If this were so, the old man would be as eager to avoid a visit to the hunting-lodge as he had been a few hours ago to propose it. Maximilian did not mean to let Von Markstein escape the obligation of this visit, but he would have triumphed in the Chancellor's desire to evade it, which would have meant much.
"If he still persists in his abominable idea that she has gone to the hunting-lodge," thought the Emperor (with that vagueness of expression which lovers of high or low degree use in designating the one woman in the world), "he will risk no chance of missing me, but will be waiting at the station. Should he, on the contrary, have had reason since our talk to doubt the accuracy of his own information, he will take advantage of the uncertainty I've left him in regarding my movements, to keep out of the way."
So arguing, Maximilian looked sharply from the window as his special train entered the Salzbrück station along the track that had been kept clear for its arrival. No other train was due from any direction at the moment, therefore few persons were on the platform, and a figure in a long gray coat, with its face shadowed by a slouch hat, was all the more conspicuous. Maximilian's heart sank. He believed in his love, but he would have preferred the Chancellor's absence.
"I hope that Your Majesty will forgive the liberty I have taken in being here, to place myself at your convenience and so avoid delay," were the old man's first words, as he took off his hat to the Emperor. "I drove down from my house some time ago, expecting that you might arrive by special train; and I need hardly say that my carriage, which is waiting, is at your disposal for any use you may care to make of it."
"I wish to go instantly to the hunting-lodge near Bünden," said the Emperor, watching the other's face, and still hoping against hope for a visible sign of discomfiture. But he was not to be gratified.
"I was prepared for that wish, Your Majesty," promptly said the Chancellor. "The horses are fresh, and they will make the journey in an hour and a half."
"Very well, then, there is nothing that need delay us. You are ready to go with me, of course?" Another detective glance, destined again to pass unrewarded by revelations.
"I am ready, Your Majesty – as always, I trust, when I am needed."
It was on Maximilian's tongue to say that it would be well if his Chancellor's readiness confined itself entirely to such occasions; but he shut his lips upon the words and walked by the old man's side in frozen silence.
It was not yet eight o clock, but the month of October had just begun, and the sun having set an hour or more ago, the swiftly fading Rhaetian twilight had darkened into a starlit night. Though the day had been warm, there was now a crisp keenness in the air, and the Chancellor's coachman and groom had prepared themselves with high sable collars for their country drive.
The horses, which had been kept moving up and down the long straight avenue of the Bahnhofstrasse, were nervous and restive, and no sooner had the green-liveried footman shut the carriage door than they bounded off at a pace almost beyond control.
Both windows were closed, to keep out the chill, but Maximilian impatiently lowered the one nearest him, forgetting the Chancellor's tendency to rheumatism, and stared into the night. The railway station was on the outskirts of the town; and speedily passing the few warehouses and factories in the neighbourhood, they struck into the open country. There was a pungent scent of dying leaves on the breeze that blew in through the open window, and Maximilian knew that never again could he inhale the melancholy fragrance of the falling year with out recalling this hour, so vivid with sensations.
He was desperately eager to reach the end of the journey, that the Chancellor might be confounded once for all; yet, as the horses hoofs rang tunefully along the hard roads, and landmark after landmark glided out of sight among tree-branches thickly laced with stars, he would have stayed the passing moments if he could. He wished to know, yet he did not wish to know. He burned to ask questions, yet would have died rather than put them.
It was a relief when Von Markstein spoke at last; a relief that brought a prick of resentment with it; for even the Chancellor had no right to break a silence that the Emperor kept.
"Your Majesty's anger is hard to bear. Yet I can bear it uncomplainingly, because I am confident that my reward is not far off. I look for it no further in the future than to-night."
"And I think that you will get your reward!" retorted the Emperor sharply.
"Not only in your forgiveness, but your thanks."
"I will forgive you when you have found Miss de Courcy for me, and begged her pardon for your calumnies."
"I have already found her, Your Majesty, and am taking you to her now."
"You actually believe your own story, Von Markstein? You believe that this sweet and gracious lady is a fast actress, a friend of your notoriously gallant friend, and willing to compromise her good name by paying a night visit to his hunting-lodge? You really think that we shall see her there?"
"I shall see her, Your Majesty. And you will see her, if this madness you call love has not blinded the eyes of your body as well as of your mind. That she is there I know, for the Prince told me with his own lips that she was driving out to the lodge with him this afternoon."
"You mean that he told you his friend the actress was going. I'll stake my life he did not dare to say Miss de Courcy."
"He said Miss Brand, the actress, it is true. But when he called upon her at the Hohenburgerhof (where he and I had met to talk of a matter which can be no mystery to Your Majesty) he asked for Miss de Courcy. And the message which came down was that Miss de Courcy would see him. This left no doubt in my mind (however the matter may present itself to you) that she had remained in Salzbrück, after giving out that she was departing to-day, for the express purpose of a meeting with her old friend, the Prince. She probably hoped that, as she was supposed to be gone, her indiscretion might be hidden from Your Majesty and others."
"Pray spare me your deductions, Chancellor," said the Emperor curtly. "I am with you in this expedition to prove you wrong, not right, and nothing that you can say will convince me that the Prince's friend and Miss de Courcy are one. If we find a woman at the hunting-lodge it will not be the lady we seek; and as you will presently be ready to eat the words you have spoken, the fewer such bitter pills you have to swallow, the better."
So snubbed by the young man whom he had held in his arms, an imperious as well as Imperial infant, the old statesman relapsed into silence. But he had said that which had been in his mind to say, and he was satisfied to know that it was left to rankle. Meekness was not his métier, but he could play the part of the faithful retainer, humbly loyal through injustice and misunderstanding, when it was the one effective role; and he played it now to perfection. He sat with bowed head and stooping shoulders, suggesting the weakness of old age, his hands clasped on his knee; and from time to time he breathed a stifled sigh.
His silent pathos wrung no sign of relenting from Maximilian, however, and not a word was exchanged between the two men for nearly an hour, until they had driven under the dark arch of the first trees of the Niederwald. Then it was the Emperor who spoke.
"You have led me to suppose that our call at the hunting-lodge is to take its master by surprise. Is that supposition the correct one, Chancellor?"
Count von Markstein would greatly have preferred that this question should have remained in abeyance. He had intended to convey the impression credited to him by the Emperor, but he had not wished to clothe it in actual statement. The Prince understood that he was to be the leading actor in the "little comedy" to which he had merrily referred, and he would know how to feign the astonishment indispensable to success. It was to be hoped that he would have the skill to carry it out to the end, since the Chancellor was now called upon irrevocably to commit himself.
"Were our visit expected, we should not be likely to find the lady, Your Majesty. The Prince, who is on terms of confidence with me, did not hesitate to mention that he was to have a pretty actress as his guest; how could he dream that the event would be of importance to the Emperor of Rhaetia? But had he known that the entertainment he meant to offer her might be interrupted, naturally he would, out of consideration for the lady's feelings, have taken means to secure her against embarrassment."
"This night's work will give him cause to pick a private quarrel with me, if he chooses," said the Emperor, satisfied at least of the Chancellor's integrity.
"I do not think that he will choose, Your Majesty. You are in a mood to be glad if he did, I fear. But, after all, I need not fear. You will always remember Rhaetia and put her interests before your own."
"You did not feel so confident of that a few hours ago, Chancellor."
"I was taken by surprise. But I knew well enough in my heart that when the test should come, Your Majesty's cool head would prevail over the hot impulses of youth. See, we are passing through the village of Bünden, fast asleep already, every window dark. In another ten minutes we shall be at the lodge gates."
The Emperor laughed shortly and somewhat bitterly. "Add twice ten minutes to that, and we shall be out of the lodge gates again, with Chancellor von Markstein a sadder and a wiser man."
Meekness was once more the rôle for "Iron Heart," and lifting his hands, palm upward, in a gesture of generous indulgence, he denied himself the satisfaction of retort.
The hunting-lodge, now the property of the Chancellor's accommodating young friend, had until a year ago belonged to a Rhaetian semi-royal prince, who had been forced by lack of sympathy among his creditors to sell. The present owner was a keen sportsman, and, though he came seldom, had spent a good deal of money upon much needed repairing of the quaint old house in the woods. It was years since the Emperor had visited the place, and the very outlines of the low rambling structure looked strange to him, as in the distance they were silhouetted against a spangled sky. He was glad of this; for he had spent some happy days here as a boy, and he wished to separate from the past the impressions which to-night must engrave upon his mind.
Two tall chimneys stood up like the erected ears of some alert, crouching animal; the path to the lodge gleamed white and straight in the darkness as a parting in the rough black hair of a giant; the trees of the forest gossiped together in the wind. It seemed to Maximilian now that they were evil things who told lies, slandering his love, and he hated them, and their rustling; he hated the two yellow eyes of the animal with pricked ears, which were only lighted windows; he hated the young Prince who had bought the right to bring scandal to this quiet place, and he would have hated the Chancellor, had not the old man limped as he stepped down from the carriage, showing how heavy was the burden of his years, as he had never shown it before.
The carriage was bidden to wait at a little distance from the lodge, and Maximilian, with "Iron Heart" at his side, walked up the path that led to a hooded entrance. They ascended the two or three stone steps, and the Chancellor raised the mailed, clenched fist that did duty as a knocker. Twice he brought it down on the oak panel, and the sound of the metal ringing against wood went echoing away through the house, with an effect of emptiness and desolation.
Nobody came to answer the summons, and Maximilian smiled in the darkness. He did not believe even that the Prince was there; a practical joke had been played upon the Chancellor.
Again the mailed fist rang on oak. Only the echo replied. Von Markstein was alarmed. He thanked the night, which hid the tell-tale vein beating on his forehead from the keen eyes of the Emperor.
"I begin to think, Von Markstein, that we might as well look for Miss de Courcy in a more likely, and, at the same time, more becoming place," he remarked, with a drawl meant to be aggravating. "There doesn't seem to be any one here; even the caretaker is out courting, perhaps."
"But listen, Your Majesty," said the Chancellor.
Maximilian did listen. Steps could be heard approaching the door inside the house – the sound of a heel on a floor of stone or marble.
CHAPTER XVI
THE OPENING OF A DOOR
IT was a jäger who opened the door of the hunting-lodge and gazed at the two men standing in the shadow of the porch, apparently without recognition.
"We wish to see the Prince," said the Chancellor crisply, taking the initiative, as he knew that the Emperor would desire him to do.
"The Prince is not at home, sir," returned the jäger.
Maximilian's eyes lightened as he threw a glance of sarcastic meaning at his companion. But "Iron Heart" was undaunted. He knew very well now that this was only a prelude to the comedy, and though he had had a pang of anxiety at first, he thought that his young friend was playing the part allotted him with commendable realism. Naturally, when beautiful actresses came into the country unchaperoned, to dine with fascinating princes, the least such favoured Royalties could do was to issue notice to an intrusive public that they were "not at home."
"You are mistaken," returned the Chancellor "The Prince is at home, and he will receive us. It will be better for you to admit us without further parley."
Under the domination of the eyes which could quell a Reichstag, the jäger weakened, as doubtless his master had expected would happen in good time. "If may be that I have made a mistake, sir," he stammered, "though I do not think so. If you will have the kindness to walk in and wait until I can inquire whether the Prince has come home, or when he is likely to come home, I – "
"That is not necessary," said the Chancellor. "The Prince dines here with a lady this evening. We will go with you to the door of the dining-room, and follow your announcement of our presence."
But the jäger was no longer uncertain of his duty. The reaction had come, and he faced the invaders boldly. If his master had given instructions only to be overridden, at least the servant was sincere in his respect for them. He put himself in the doorway, and looked a barrier formidable to dislodge.
"That is impossible, sir!" he exclaimed. "I have my orders, which are that His Royal Highness is not at home to-night, and until I find out differently, nobody, not if it were the Emperor himself, should force himself in."
"You fool, those orders are not for us; and it is the Emperor who will go in." With a step aside, the Chancellor let the light from a hanging lamp in the hall shine full upon Maximilian's face, hitherto masked in shadow.
His boast forgotten, the jäger uttered an exclamation of dismay, and, with a sudden falling of the knees, he left the doorway free.
"Your Majesty!" he faltered. "I did not see – I could not know! Most humbly I beg Your Majesty's gracious pardon. If Your Majesty will but hold me blameless with His Royal Highness – "
"Never mind yourself, and never mind His Royal Highness," broke in the Chancellor. "Open that door at the end of the hall, and announce the Emperor and Count von Markstein."
The unfortunate jäger, well-nigh in a state of collapse, obeyed. The door of the dining-room, which Maximilian knew of old, was flung wide, and a quavering voice made known to whom it might concern the arrival of "His Imperial Majesty the Emperor and the Herr Chancellor von Markstein."
The scene disclosed was as unreal, in Maximilian's eyes, as a painted picture: the walls of Pompeian red, the bronze candelabra, the polished floor, with rugs of creamy fur, and in the centre a flower- decked table glittering with lights, sparkling with silver; springing up from his chair a young man in evening dress, who faced the door; sitting motionless, her back half-turned, a slender girl in satin of bridal white, her uncovered shoulders gleaming with the soft sheen of pearl in the candle-light. This was the stage setting; these the characters discovered.
At sight of the girl Maximilian stopped on the threshold. All the blood in his body seemed rushing to his head, then surging back again upon his heart. The impossible had happened. His star had fallen from heaven, and the sky was dark.
CHAPTER XVII
THE THIRD COURSE
THE Prince came forward. "What a delightful surprise!" he exclaimed. "How good of you both to look me up! But I wish my prophetic soul had hinted to me that it would have been well to delay dinner. We have just reached the third course."
His eyes met the Chancellor's, then hid a twinkle under lashes that a professional beauty might have envied. "You must honour me by dining with us," he went on. "All will be ready in a moment, and I keep a man here whose bisque d'écrevisse is not half bad."
"Thanks," said Maximilian, "we cannot dine. Our visit is purely one of business, and a moment will see it finished. We owe you an explanation for intruding upon you in this manner." He paused; all his calculations were upset by Von Markstein's triumph; deliberately to plan beforehand what he would do if he should find Miss de Courcy in this man's house would have been to insult her. He had merely arranged a campaign in the event of the Chancellor's defeat. Now, the one course which appealed to him was frankness. He did not look at the girl, though he saw her, and her alone, with his eyes coldly fixed upon the Prince. He knew that she had risen, not in haste, as one who is detected and ashamed, but with a leisured and dainty dignity, as if concerned only to respect his rank. Her face was turned toward him now; he felt it – as a blind man may feel the rising of the sun – though still he would not look. No longer ago than last night at this hour they had been together in the garden at Schloss Lynarberg; he had held her in his arms; she had made him think she loved him. She had acted an agony of resentment because he had offered her his heart in his left hand. Now she was here with this butterfly who flitted through life in a rose-garden of pretty women. They had been laughing and talking before they were interrupted – these two at the dinner-table. The champagne glass beside her plate was half-full. On the plate was fish, with a pink sauce; she had been enjoying her dinner in the Prince's company. Maximilian was not conscious that he had seen and noted all these trifling details which, together, proved her a soulless thing, light and worthless as a piece of thistledown yet each one was like a separate poisoned thorn that rankled in his flesh.
His pause, his search for the words of explanation which he had volunteered was really brief – scarcely so long as to count for a pause at all; yet he had aged in it. He felt that youth and the joy of life had fallen from him like a mantle, since he stepped across the threshold.
"I have spent some hours to-day," he said, "in looking for this lady. I was told that I should find her in your company. I came, and brought Count von Markstein, to prove to him that he was mistaken. Instead, my mistake has been proved to his satisfaction, since Miss de Courcy is here."
"Miss de Courcy is not here," broke in the girl, speaking for the first time. "I have reason to believe that she is in India."
"I would to heaven that you were with her or anywhere on earth but where you are!" cried the Emperor. He turned to the Prince. "You have my explanation," he said. "It remains only for Count von Markstein and me to bid you and this lady good-night."
The twinkle had died out of the Prince's eyes, and they sparkled with another light. The scene, though planned, had not been rehearsed; and the effect upon himself, now that it came to be acted, differed from his expectations. His quick temper, never too fast asleep to wake at the first call, sprang up under the look in Maximilian's eyes.
"You'll not bid her good-night in that manner, if you please," he angrily began, when the girl, catching his arm, cut him short. The familiar way in which she touched the gay young Apollo, resting against his shoulder, sent a red-hot dart of pain through Maximilian's nerves, and he scorned himself for it, because his love ought already to have been uprooted, like a noxious weed.
"Wait, wait!" she cried. "This is my affair, please. You see, the difficulty is that the Emperor doesn't know who I am, and – "
"It is time I told him!" exclaimed the Prince.
"Let the Chancellor do that," said she. "I can see he is dying to. And as he has taken a great deal of trouble, he deserves some reward."
"I have already informed His Imperial Majesty that he would find with the Prince Miss Minnie Brand, an English actress" – the old man bowed, sneering – "justly famous for her talents."
"And His Majesty. What does he say?" The girl's voice sounded anxious now, even wistful. She still stood beside the Prince, but her eyes so appealed to Maximilian's that he could not withhold them, granting her at last a cold and fixed regard.
"I say nothing," he answered. "You have left me nothing to say. You are the Prince's friend. You do not need anything that I can give."
"Yet last night," she cried, "you said you loved me."
"Is this the place to remind me of that?" he demanded fiercely.
"Yes; because I came here hoping that you would follow. I do care for the Prince; I should be very ungrateful if I didn't; but I care far more for you."
The boldness of the announcement, its astounding impertinence, coming as it did, when and where it did, was like a smart box upon the ear, literally staggering Maximilian. Sparks danced before his eyes. He opened his lips to answer her with deadly bitterness, but did not speak. With one look, that pent-up all the passion of outraged love, and a fury of disappointment that was and must ever be unutterable, he turned upon his heel.
"You would go and leave me here?" exclaimed the girl.
He wheeled round in the doorway. "I am not sure how to address you," he said, "since you no longer claim the name by which I have thought of you, nor do I seem any longer to know you. But if there be the slightest doubt in your mind as to your desire to stay here, I – Count von Markstein and – I would gladly place our carriage at your service."
She ran to him, holding out both hands, like a child who asks indulgence. "If I can explain," she said, with quickening breath, her eyes shining, star-like, "if I tell you that it is quite, quite a mistake, that there was no thought of harm in my coming to this house, that I am true to all you thought me, to all I hope you thought me, will you believe my word?"
Maximilian looked her in the eyes and straightway forgot that he and she were not alone. And the Chancellor saw that he forgot, and wished much to remind him of many things connected with his own presence. But even he dared not speak at that instant, and had to listen, biting his lip with a well-preserved tooth.
"Believe your word!" the Emperor echoed slowly. He would have said, "Why should I believe it, when it is enough that I believe my eyes?" But he was gazing into hers, and so he could not say it. No other woman's eyes had ever before had power to play tricks with his will, therefore he was the more ready to fall under the spell of hers. "I must believe it!" he pronounced. "It is death to doubt you. Tell me you are all I thought you, show me how it can be so, and I will believe in spite of everything."
"Your Majesty!" groaned the Chancellor. But His Majesty did not hear. It was the Prince who drowned the warning.
"Oh, come!" he exclaimed; "this is going farther than I bargained for. I can't stand all this talk about doubting and proving. The whole thing – "
"Is for me to explain, not you," broke in Sylvia. "It is my right. I will not have it taken from me. Maximilian, last night you said that you cared for me, or – this would never have happened. A few moments ago you asked if the Prince's hunting-lodge were a fit place for me to remind you of that, and I answered yes. It was not time to tell you why, then, but it is time now. I said that this was the proper place, because it is my brother's house, and if we are ever to be anything to one another, it is fitting that my brother should put my hand in yours."
"At last, then, I can introduce my sister, Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald," ejaculated the Crown Prince of Abruzzia, with a sigh of overwhelming relief.
* * * * * * * * * *
For a moment nobody spoke. The room seemed to ring with Friedrich's words, with the name which, till now, had held so little music for Maximilian's ears. He heard it and was speechless, even as the Chancellor was speech less. He looked at Friedrich, as if he would have spoken; he looked at Sylvia, and forgot to speak. She held out her hands once more, and with an impulse which he did not strive to control, he went down upon one knee as he caught and kissed them.
Long ago she had vowed that he should bend the knee to her, if he were to win her; but now that the prophecy proved true, she bade him rise as he whispered the one word "Forgive!"
"Oh, it is I who must be forgiven!" she said, with tears instead of triumph in her voice. "You don't half understand yet."
Friedrich and Count von Markstein stole from the room and were not missed. Their parts were played.
"I want no explanation," Maximilian answered. "I want only you."
"I won't try to tell you how it all began – not now. But my ears tingle still with some words which my actions gave you the right to speak," she urged. "Last night I wanted to go into a convent, and, above all things, I wished to get away from Rhaetia. We were forced to wait, because of Miss M'Pherson's illness. When Count von Markstein called, we excused ourselves. But when Fritz's card came up, it was different. We couldn't guess whether or not he really knew who we were. His face of surprise showed us he didn't. At first he was going to be secretive; but Fritz isn't good at fibs, unless he's had time to prepare them; and a plot he'd just been concocting with the Chancellor all came out. The truth was, he'd taken me for an actress with whom I'm afraid he'd been flirting in Abruzzia. It seems he'd informed her that there might one day be something between his sister and the Emperor of Rhaetia; she knew, too, that the real De Courcys were Fritz's cousins, for she'd met them when acting in Calcutta. Altogether, for these and other reasons, he fancied I might be Miss Brand, seeking revenge for a slight by humiliating his sister. Imagine how he felt when he saw me! And here's the point where Count von Markstein turned into my guardian angel, instead of driving me from Eden with a flaming sword. He'd told Fritz that you were searching for Mary de Courcy to ask her to be the Empress. At this, from being the most miserable, I became the happiest girl on earth. I forgave Fritz, he forgave me, and – I at last induced him to let the plot be carried out to the end. I hadn't doubted what that end would be till you came into this room and I saw the look in your eyes. It was like a dagger of ice in my heart. Tell me you forgive me for everything. Tell me that, if I'd been different, and content with conventionalities, you would not have loved me more."
He took her in his arms, and held her as if he would never let her go. "If you had been different, I would not have loved you at all," he said. "Yet if things had been different, I could not have helped but love you, just the same. I should have been bound to fall in love with Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald at first sight, as I fell in love with Mary de Courcy."
"Ah, but at best you would have fallen in love with Sylvia because it was your duty. And you fell in love with Mary because it was your duty not to. Which makes it so much better."
"It was no question of duty, but of fate," the Emperor persisted. "The stars ordained that I should love you."
"Then I wish" – and Sylvia laughed happily, as she could afford to laugh now – "that the stars had told me last summer. It would have saved me a great deal of trouble. And yet I don't know," she added more slowly. "It has been a wonderful adventure. We shall think of it when we are old."
"We shall never be old, for we love each other," said the Emperor.
