Kitabı oku: «The Adventure of Princess Sylvia», sayfa 7

CHAPTER IX
A WHITE NIGHT

 
"You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies —
What are you when the moon shall rise?"
 

THE first and second dressing-gongs had sounded at Schloss Lynarberg on the evening of the day after Otto's visit to his brother, and the Grand Duchess was beginning to wonder what detained her daughter, when ringed fingers tapped smartly at the door. "Come in!" she answered the familiar sound, and Sylvia appeared on the threshold, still in the tennis dress she had worn that afternoon. She stood for an instant without speaking, her face so radiantly beautiful that it seemed illumined by a light from within.

It had been on the tip of her mother's tongue to scold the girl for her delay, since to be late was an almost unpardonable offense, with Royalty in the house. But the words died, and others of a different sort came trooping to their place.

"Sylvia, what is it? You look – I hardly know how you look! But something has happened."

The Princess came slowly across the room, smiling with the air of one who walks in sleep. She hardly appeared to see the chair she took, but sat down as if by instinct, then rested her elbows on her knees, her chin nestling between her palms, like a pinky-white rose in its calyx.

"You may go, Josephine," said the Grand Duchess to her maid. "I will ring when I want you again."

The elaborate process of dressing her luxuriant gray hair had just been finished. The rest might wait until curiosity was satisfied.

But Sylvia sat still, dreaming. The Grand Duchess had to speak twice in a raised tone before she could command attention. "My child – have you anything to tell me?"

Sylvia roused herself. "Nothing, mother, Really – except that I am the happiest girl on earth."

"Why – what has he said?"

"Not a word that any one might not have listened to. But I know. He does care; and I think he will say something before we part."

"There is only one day more of his visit here, after to-night."

"One whole, long, beautiful day —together!"

"But after all, darling," ventured the Grand Duchess, "what do you expect? If you were really only Miss de Courcy, marriage between you and the Emperor of Rhaetia would be out of the question. You've never been very communicative on this subject, but I wish I knew exactly what you hope for, what you will consider the – the keystone of the situation?"

"Only for him to tell me that he loves me," Sylvia confessed. "If I am right – if I have brought something new into his life – something which has shown him that he has a heart as well as a head – then there will come a moment when he can keep silent no longer, when he will have to say, 'I love you', and because we can be nothing to each other day is turned into night for me. Then – when that moment comes – the tide of my fortune will be at its flood. I shall tell him that I love him, too – and —I shall tell him all the truth."

"You will tell him who you really are?"

"Yes; and why I have been masquerading. That it was because he had always been the one man on earth for me; because, when our marriage was suggested, I would win his love first as a woman, or I would live single all my days."

"What if he should be angry and refuse to forgive you? You know, dear, we shall be in a curious position, at best, when the truth comes out, having made our acquaintances here under the name of De Courcy. Even Lady West, so dear a friend, so romantic a heart, was uncomfortable about the letters. She only eased her conscience because our real position in the world was much higher than the one we assumed; therefore, those to whom we were introduced would be but too pleased to know us in our own characters at the end. Yet Maximilian is a man, not a romantic woman; he has always borne a reputation for austerity, for being just before he was generous, and it may be that to one of his nature a mad prank like this of yours – "

"You think of him as he was, not as he is, if you fancy he would be hard with – a woman he loved," said Sylvia. "He will forgive me, mother; I have no fear of that. To-night, I have no fear of anything. He loves me – and I am Empress of the world."

"Many women would be satisfied with Rhaetia," was the practical thought in the mind of the Grand Duchess; but she would throw no more cold water upon her daughter's mood of exaltation. She kissed Sylvia on the forehead, breathed a few words of sympathy; and then shook her head, sighing doubtfully, when the girl had gone to her own room to dress.

It sounded poetical, and as easy to arrange as turning a kaleidoscope to form a new combination, while Sylvia talked; but, when her happy face and brilliant eyes no longer illumined the situation, the way seemed dark. To be sure, Sylvia had so far walked triumphantly along the high road to success; but it was not always a good beginning which made a good ending, as the old Duke of Northminster had been wont to observe; and now the Grand Duchess of Eltzburg-Neuwald felt that her nerves must remain at high tension until matters were definitely settled, for better or for worse.

Sylvia had never in her life been lovelier than she was that night at dinner, and Otto von Markstein's admiration for her beauty had in it a new ingredient, which added a fascinating spice. He had regarded her until yesterday as a penniless connoisseur regards a masterpiece of statuary which it is impossible that he should dream of possessing. What we know is not for us, we are scarcely conscious of desiring; but the moment an element of hope enters in, we behold the object from a more personal point of view.

Otto looked also very often at the Emperor, contrasting his sovereign's appearance somewhat unfavourably with his own. Maximilian was thin and dark, with a grave cast of feature; while Otto's face had contrived to retain all the colour and beauty of youth. Alma Tadema would have wreathed him with vine leaves, given him a lute, draped him in a tiger skin, and set him down on a marble bench against a sapphire sky, when he would have appeared to far greater advantage than in the stiff uniform of a crack Rhaetian regiment. Maximilian, on the contrary, must always have been painted as a soldier, and it seemed to the young officer, since his grim brother had put the thought into his head, that there could be no question as to the ultimate preference of a normal girl.

Miss de Courcy did not – notice him at present, because the Emperor loomed large in the foreground; but Eberhard had evidently a plan in his head for removing that stately obstacle into the perspective.

Otto had not heard that Miss de Courcy was an heiress, therefore, even had there been no Emperor, he would not have prostrated himself at the attractive shrine. But now the shrine was newly decked. Otto dwelt much in thought upon the Chancellor's apparently impulsive offer and the somewhat contradictory command which had, a little later, enjoined delay.

He had not, fortunately, been forbidden to preen himself under the eyes of the English beauty, and his desire now was, when the men should rejoin the ladies after dinner, to make his way at once to Miss de Courcy's side. But, as bad luck would have it, Baron von Lynar detained him for a few moments with the account of a marvellous remedy which might cure the Chancellor's gout; and when he escaped to look for Miss de Courcy in the great white drawing-room, she was nowhere to be seen. From the music-room adjoining, however, came sounds which drew him toward the door. He knew Miss de Courcy's touch on the piano; she was there, playing soft, low chords. Perhaps she was preparing to sing, as she had once or twice before, and would need some one to turn the pages of her music. Otto was in the act of pushing aside the embroidered white velvet portiere that curtained the door, when his hostess smilingly beckoned him away. "The Emperor has just asked Miss de Courcy to teach him an old-fashioned English or Scotch air (I fear I don't know the difference!) called 'Annie Laurie,'" she explained. "He was quite charmed when she sang it the other day; and I have been telling him that the music would exactly suit his voice. I think we had better not disturb them until the lesson is over. Tell me (I had hardly a moment to ask you last night), how did you really find the Chancellor?"

Chained to a forced allegiance, Otto mechanically answered the quickly following questions of the Baroness, ears and eyes both doing their secret best to penetrate the curtain of white and gold.

Everybody knew of the music lesson, and everybody chatted in tactful pretense of ignorance. Once, twice, and thrice the mezzo-soprano and the baritone sang conscientiously through the verses of "Annie Laurie," with occasional breakdowns and new beginnings; then a few more desultory chords were struck on the piano: and at last silence reigned in the music-room. Were the two still there? If they conversed in low tones, it would not only be impracticable to catch what they said, but even to hear the murmur of their voices, in the drawing-room. To interrupt such a tête-à-tête was not to be thought of, but Otto was turning over in his mind some less conspicuous, equally efficacious way of ending it, when there came a sudden diversion.

Lady de Courcy received a telegram, brought by mounted messenger from Salzbrück, and was so much affected thereby that she showed signs of swooning. Her plump, pleasant little face grew pale; she rose from her chair, tottering, and admitted, in answer to Baroness von Lynar's solicitous inquiries, that she had had bad news.

"Where is my daughter?" she asked. "I think, as I am rather upset by – by disquieting accounts of a dear friend, I had better go to my room. And I shall be so much obliged if – Mary can be sent to me as soon as she comes in."

Now was Otto's chance. While every one gathered round Lady de Courcy, and smelling-salts were in requisition, he lifted the white portière and peeped through a small antechamber into the music-room. The Emperor and Miss de Courcy were no longer there.

Otto twisted his moustache; he usually twisted it on the right side when pleased; and he twisted it – a great deal more – on the left when he was displeased. He looked reproachfully round the room, and presently observed that one of the large windows leading to the Italian garden stood wide open.

The month of September was dying; but, though winter had begun in the Rhaetian mountains, warmth and sunshine still lingered in the neighbourhood of Salzbrück. A balmy air, laden with sweet scents of the flowers which Baron von Lynar had imported from Italy, floated to Otto's nostrils. The languorous perfume suggested soft dalliance and confessions of love. The Emperor had taken Miss de Courcy into the garden: Otto knew that well enough; and if there had been a plentitude of trees, with broad trunks, behind which a man's figure might modestly conceal itself in the darkness, he would unobtrusively have followed. But he mentally reviewed the shrubbery, plant by plant, as he could recall it, and decided at last that the better part of valour for an officer and a gentleman lay in remaining within doors. He did not, however, return to the drawing-room, despite the concern for Lady de Courcy's health which had taken him in search of her daughter. Heavy curtains of olive-green velvet hung straight down over the windows of the music-room, and by neatly sandwiching oneself in a deep embrasure between drapery and window-frame, one found a convenient niche for observing a limited quarter of the garden. The moon was rising over the lake, and long, pale rays of level light were creeping up the paths, like the fingers of a blind man that touch gropingly the features of a beloved face.

Otto could not see very far, but if the Emperor and his companion returned by the way they had taken, as they were almost sure to do, he would know whether they walked back to the house in the attitude of formal acquaintances or – lovers.

They had not been gone from the piano for many minutes, and they would not be likely to extend this duet which so logically followed the music much longer. One of the two, if not both, would have sense enough left to remember les convenances.

But the moments went on, and Otto, whose patent-leather pumps were rather tight, changed from one position to another, straining his eyes down the whitening alleys in vain.

* * * * * * * * * *

Everything in the garden that was not white was gray as a dove's wing that night. Even the shadows were not black. And the sky was gray, with a changeful glory of stars, like the shimmering light on a spangled fan that moves to and fro in the restless hand of a woman. White moths, forgetful that summer would come no more into their brief lives, fluttered out from the shadows like rose petals tossed by the south wind. On a trellis, a sisterhood of pale nun-roses hung their faces earthward in memento mori.

It was a white night; a night of enchantment; a night for lovers.

Maximilian had only meant to take Sylvia out to see the moon rise over the water, turning the surface of jet to a sheet of steel; for there had been clouds or rain on other nights, and he had said to himself that perhaps never again would they two stand alone together in the moonshine. He had meant to keep her to himself for five minutes, saying little, though it might be that he would think a great deal. He had meant that – no more; but they had walked down to the path which rimmed the cliff above the lake. And the moonlight lay on her gold hair and her fair face like a benediction. They did not look at one another, but out over the water, where the silver sheen cut the darkness like the sword Excalibur, rising from the lake.

Then came a sudden rustling in the grass by the side of the path, at their feet. It was some small winged thing of the night asking a lodging in a bell-shaped flower whose blue colour the moon had drunk. Maximilian bent to pluck the branch of blossoms, and at the same instant Sylvia stooped with a childlike impulse to "make the flower- bells ring."

Their hands met on the stem as it broke, and Maximilian's closed over hers.

The moment she desired had come; yet, womanlike, she wished it away – not gone forever, but waiting still, just round the corner of the future.

"The flowers are yours," she said, as if she thought it was in eagerness to obtain the spray that he had grasped her fingers.

"You are the flower I want – the flower of all the world!" he suddenly answered. For the ice barriers had held back the torrent of which he had told her, had melted beneath the sun of love long ago. In turn, they had been replaced by other barriers, well-nigh as strong – his convictions; his duty as a man at the head of a nation. But now, in a moment, these too had been swept away. "I love you better than the life you saved," he spoke again. "I have loved you since that first hour, on the mountain; and every day since my love has grown, until I can fight against it no longer. Only say that you care for me a little – only say that."

"I do care," Sylvia whispered. She was very happy. She had prayed for this, lived for this. Yet she had pictured a different scene; she had seemed to hear broken words of sorrow and renunciation on his lips – a sorrow she could turn to joy. "I do care – so much that – it is hard to think there is nothing for us but parting."

"If you care, then we shall not be parted," said Maximilian.

The Princess looked up at him in wonder, putting him from her, as he would have taken her in his arms. What did he mean? What was in his mind that, believing her to be Mary de Courcy, yet made it possible for him to speak as he was speaking now?

"I don't understand," she faltered. "What else is there for us? You are the Emperor of Rhaetia; I – "

"You are my wife, if you love me."

In the shock of her surprise she was helpless to resist him longer; and he held her tightly, passionately, his lips on her hair, as her face lay pressed against his heart. She could hear it beating, feel it throb under her cheek. His wife? How was it possible?

But he said the words again, "My darling – my wife!"

"You love me well enough – for that?" she breathed. Sylvia had not dared to dream of such a triumph as this. "But the law of your country? Oh, surely you have forgotten! We can only love each other, and say good-bye." She was ready to try him yet a little further.

"We will love each other, but by heaven, we shall not say good-bye – not after this hour. I could not lose you. As for the law, there is nothing in it which prevents my being your husband, you my wife."

"It is strange." Sylvia's breath came quickly. "I have thought – I have always believed – that the Empress of Rhaetia must be of Royal blood. I – "

"Ah, my darling, the Empress of Rhaetia I cannot make you. If you love me as well – only half as well as I love you, you will be satisfied with the empire of my heart."

Suddenly the warm, throbbing blood in Sylvia's veins grew chill. It was as if a wind had blown up from the dark depths of the lake, to strike with an icy chill upon her soul. A moment more and she would have told him the whole truth, worshipping him because he had been ready to break through all the traditions of his country for her sake. But now her passionate impulse of gratitude was frozen by that biting blast. If only it came from clouds of misunderstanding – if only the clouds would part, and give her back the full glory of a vanishing joy!

"The empire of your heart!" she echoed. "I should be richer than with all the treasures of the world, if that were mine. If you were the chamois-hunter I met on the mountain, I would love you as I love you now, and I would go with you to the ends of the earth, as your wife. But you are not the chamois-hunter; you are an emperor. Had you told me only of a hopeless love, having nothing else to offer save that, and a promise not to forget, since your high destiny must stand between us, I could still have been happy. Yet you say more than that. You say something I cannot understand. What an emperor offers a woman he honours, must be all or – nothing."

"I do offer you all," said Maximilian. "All myself, my life, the very soul of me – all that is my own to give. The rest belongs to Rhaetia."

"Then – what – "

"Do you not understand, my sweet, that I have asked you to be my wife? What can a man ask more?"

"Your wife yet not the Empress. How can the two be separated?"

He tried to take her once more in his arms, but when he saw that she would stand aloof, he held his love in control and waited. He was certain that he need not wait long, for not only had he laid his heart at her feet, but, to do that, he pledged himself to a tremendous sacrifice. The step upon which he had decided, in the moment when passion for her had overcome all prudent scruples, would create dissension among his people, rouse fierce anger in the heart of one who had been his second father, incense England and Germany because of the young Princess whose name rumour had already coupled with his, and altogether raise a fierce storm about his ears. When she had reflected, when she fully understood, she would be his, now and forever.

Very tenderly he took her hand and lifted it to his lips; then, when she did not snatch it from him – (because he was to have his chance of explanation) – he kept it between both his own, as he talked on.

"Dearest one," he said, "when I first knew that I loved you (as I had not known it was in my nature to love a woman), for your sake and my own I would have avoided seeing you too often. This I tell you frankly. I did not see how, in honour, such a love could end except in sorrow for me – even for you, if it were possible that I could make you care. If you and Lady de Courcy had stayed at the hotel, I think I could have been faithful to the resolve. But when Baroness von Lynar spoke to me of your coming here, at the time of my own visit, my heart leaped up. I said in my mind: At least I shall have the happiness of seeing her every day, for a time, without doing anything to darken her future. I shall have these days always to remember, when she has gone out of my life, and no harm will be done, except to myself. Still, I only thought of parting, in the end – for that seemed in – itable. But not one night have I slept since I have been here at Lynarberg. My rooms open on a lawn at the other side of the house. Often I came out here in the darkness, when every one else was sleeping; and sometimes I have stood on this very spot, where you and I stand together now – heart to heart for the first time, my darling – thinking whether, if you should care, there was any way to be found out of such difficulties as mine. At last a ray of light seemed to shine through the clouds. There was much to be overcome on both sides, and my mind was not yet clear, until I brought you here with me to-night. When I saw you by my side, the moonlight shining on your face, I caught at this way of binding our lives together. I knew that my life was worth nothing to me, unless it were to be shared with you."

"Yet you have not answered my question," said Sylvia.

"I am coming to that now. It was best that you should hear first what has been in my heart and mind, these last days which have held more joy for me than all the years I have left behind. You know that men who have their place at the head of a great nation cannot think merely of themselves and those they love better than themselves. If they desire to snatch at personal happiness, they must take the only way open to them that is all. Don't do me the injustice to believe that I would not be proud to show you to my subjects as their Empress; but, instead, I can only offer you what men of Royal blood have for hundreds of years offered women whom they respected as well as loved. You have heard of an arrangement which in your country is called a morganatic marriage? That is what I propose."

With a low cry of pain – the bitter pain of disappointed love and wounded pride – Sylvia tore her hand from his.

"Never!" she exclaimed. "It is an insult."

"An insult? Then, even now I have not made you understand."

"I think that I understand very well – far too well," said Sylvia brokenly. The beautiful fairy structure of happiness that she had reared lay shattered – destroyed in the moment which should have seen its completion.

"I tell you that you do not understand, or you would not say – you would not dare to say, my love – that I had insulted you. You would be honourably my wife in the sight of God and man."

"Your wife!" and Sylvia gave a hard little laugh which hurt more cruelly than tears. "You have a strange idea of that word, which has always been sacred to me. I would be your wife, you say; I would give you all my love, all myself; you – would give me your left hand. And you know well that, at any moment, you would be free to marry another woman – (a woman you could make an Empress!) – as free as if I had no existence."

"Legally I might be free," he answered, "but I swear to you that I would never take advantage of such liberty."

"To know you possessed it would be death to me. Oh, I tell you again, it was an insult to suggest a fate so miserable, so contemptible, for a woman you profess to love. How could you bear to break it to me? If only you had never spoken the hateful words; if you had left me the ideal I had formed of you – noble, glorious! But you are selfish, cruel – after all. If you had only said, 'I love you, yet we must part, for Fate stands between', then I could – I could: but no, I can never tell you now what I might have answered if you had said that instead."

Under the sharp fire of her reproaches he stood still, his lips tightly closed, his shoulders squared, as if he had bared his breast for the blow of a knife.

"By heaven, it is you who are cruel!" he said at last. "How can I show you your injustice?"

"In no way. There is nothing more to say between us two, except – farewell."

"It shall not be farewell!"

"It shall – it must. Because – I wish it."

He had caught her dress as she turned to go; but now he released her. "You wish it? It is not true that you love me, then?"

"It was true. Everything – everything in my whole life – is changed now. It would be better if I had never seen you. Good-bye."

She ran from him. One step he took as if to pursue and keep her, but checked himself and followed her only with his eyes. In them there was more of anger than yearning; for Maximilian was a proud man, and to have his love, and the sacrifice he would have made for love's sake, flung back in his face, came like an icy douche when the blood is at fever heat.

For love of this girl he had in a few days altered the habits of a lifetime. Pride, reserve, iron self-control, the wish not only to appear, but to be, a man above the frailties of common men; the desire to be admired almost as a god by his people all, all, he had flung aside for her. He was too just not to realize that if one of his many Royal cousins, of younger branches than his, had contemplated throwing away for love half that he was ready now to cast to the winds, he would have regarded such weakness with contempt. "He jests at scars who never felt a wound"; and until the Emperor had learned by his own most unlooked-for experience what love meant, what men will do for love while its sweet madness is on them, he would have been utterly unable to sympathize with such passionate insanity as his own. A cousin inclined to act as he was bent on acting would once have found all the Emperor's influence, even force perhaps, brought forward to constrain him. Maximilian saw this change in himself, was astonished and shamed by it; yet would have persevered, recklessly trampling down every obstacle, if only Sylvia had seen things with his eyes.

She had accused him of insulting her, caring not at all that, even to make her morganatically his wife, he must give great cause of offense to his Ministers and his people. He was expected to marry a woman of Royal rank, suitable to his own, and to give the country an heir. If Sylvia had accepted the position he offered, he could never have thought of another marriage. Not only would it be exceedingly difficult, in modern days, to find a princess willing to tolerate such a rival, but it would be impossible for him so to desecrate the bond between himself and the woman he adored. This being so, there could be no direct heir to the throne. At his death his uncle, the Archduke Egon's son, would succeed; and, during his own reign, the popularity which was dear to him would be hopelessly forfeited. Rhaetians would never forgive him for selfishly preferring his own private happiness to the good of the nation, or what they would consider its good; and they would have a right to their resentment, as they had a right to demand that he should marry. He could fancy how old "Iron Heart" von Markstein would present this view to him, with furious eloquence, temples that throbbed like the ticking of a watch, eyes netted with bloodshot veins. He could fancy, too, how with Sylvia's love and promise to uphold him, he could have stood against the storm, steadfast in his own indomitable will. But now, the will which had carried him through life in a triumphal progress had been powerless against that of a girl. She would have none of him. A woman whose face was her fortune, whose place in life reached hardly so high as the first steps of a throne, had refused – an emperor.

Hardly yet could Maximilian believe the things which had happened. He had spoken of doubting that he had won her love; and so he had doubted. But he had allowed himself very strongly to hope, since in the annals of history it had scarcely been known that an emperor's suit should be despised. Besides, he had loved her so passionately, that it seemed she could not be cold. He hoped still that, when she had passed the night in reflecting, in thinking over the situation, perhaps taking counsel with that commonplace but sensible lady, her mother, she might be ready, if approached for the second time, to change her mind.

For the first moment or two after the stinging rebuff he had suffered, Maximilian felt that he could not demean himself – having been so misjudged, so accused – to sue again. But, as he looked toward the house, and thought of Sylvia's sweetness, her beauty dimmed by grief – which he had caused – a great tenderness breathed its calm over the thwarted passion in his breast.

He would write a letter and send it to her room; or no, better give her a longer interval for repentance. To-morrow he would see her and show her all the depth of the love she had thrust aside. She could not withstand him forever; and now that he had burned his boats behind him, he would not go back. He could not give her up.

Sylvia had hurried blindly toward the house, and it was instinct rather than intention which led her to the open window of the music-room. Tears burned her eyelids, but they did not fall until she stood once more where she and Maximilian had so lately been together. There she had sat, at the piano, while he had bent over her, and she had been happy. How little she had guessed the humiliation that was to come! How could she bear it, and how could she live out the years of her life after this?

She paused in the embrasure of the window, her little fingers fiercely clutching the heavy curtain, as she gazed through a mist at the picture called up by the open piano. Then a sob tore its way from her heart to her lips. "Cruel – cruel!" she stammered, half aloud. "What agony – what an insult! Ah, well, the dream's ended now."

Dashing the tears away to clear her vision, with desperation that must vent itself somehow, she flung the curtain aside and would have moved out into the room beyond, had not her gesture revealed the presence of a figure wrapped in the folds of velvet.

Some one else was there in the embrasure of the window – some one was hiding, and had been spying. Dark as it was behind the satin-lined velvet curtain, she must have seen a form pressed back into the shadow, had not her eyes been blinded by her tears.