“Do tell!” cried Maimie. “Who asked you to make conditions, Lord Usk? Send him off right away, Fay.”
“You said you cared for me,” urged Usk. Félicia wavered.
“Félicia Steinherz, if you give in now I’m done with you,” said Maimie, and Félicia unhooked Usk’s ring from her bangle, and threw it at him.
“I just hate you both!” she cried; “but I’ve concluded which to choose.”
CHAPTER XIII.
MALA SORTE.
“Is that you, Usk? Come in. Why, what’s gone wrong?”
“Félicia and I have broken it off. I thought you’d be glad to know.”
“I am interested to hear it. You broke it off, I hope?”
“I suppose you would say it was done by mutual consent,” said Usk drearily. “I told her to choose between the King and me, and she chose him.”
“I am glad she has made a definite choice, at any rate,” said his uncle. “Hard hit, Usk? What do you mean to do.”
“Leave this to-morrow, unless you or Aunt Ernestine want me for anything.”
“Why, where are you off to?”
“Only to London. My father will be busy with this Bill of his, and I daresay I can help him a little.”
“Right. Throw yourself into it. Work as hard as you can. But don’t you think such a sudden departure will seem a little marked?”
“I don’t know. I can’t help it.” Usk wondered why his uncle was looking at him with such a curious, meditative gaze. “I couldn’t stay here and meet them every day.”
“I suppose not. The natural instinct is to hide yourself, no doubt. But don’t give way to it more than you can help. It’ll soon wear off, and you will find some one who will compensate you for everything.”
“Never!” said Usk, so tragically that Cyril only restrained a smile with difficulty. “I may marry, to please my father and mother, but I can never feel again to any woman as I have done to Félicia.”
“Don’t be too sure. Why, if you stayed on here for a day or two, you might even find your heart caught at the rebound almost at once.”
“If you knew how I have loved and—and believed in Félicia, you wouldn’t say that—and I thought she loved me. How could I ever trust a woman again who said she cared for me? I believe these French marriages are better, after all. If you don’t love a woman, it can’t hurt so much when she plays you false.”
“My dear Usk, you will allow me to say that you are talking very great and very youthful nonsense. But I will remember your partiality for arranged marriages, and possibly I may be able to gratify you at some future time. And don’t make sweeping statements about women, because that only shows how young you are. You are prejudiced just now.”
“Prejudiced? I should think I was!” laughed Usk fiercely. “Why, as I came home just now, I couldn’t see a fellow walking with a girl without wanting to call out to him that she was making a fool of him.”
“You had better go back to London, certainly, and forswear female society for the present. It would be brutal to inflict you on any unfortunate girl while you are in this state of mind. Your aunt will agree with me, though we shall miss you.”
“Oh, but there’s another thing!” cried Usk, with sudden recollection. “Don’t you think you had better come home too? The Princess of Dardania came and spoke to me this afternoon, and gave me a message for you. She wants the King to marry the girl she’s got staying with her, you know, and she says if you don’t let him do it, she’ll tell Prince Soudaroff all your plans.”
“Well, she ought to know by this time that Michael will marry to please himself, and not either her or me.”
“Yes; but she thinks you can keep him from marrying Félicia, at any rate.”
“I see; you were to warn me and have Félicia back? But you went to her first.”
“It didn’t seem to strike the Princess that I might prefer her to marry Michael if she wanted him. I didn’t need a bribe to warn you. She says that all your arrangements are known to her as soon as they are made, and that she has agents at all your meetings, and that your life is in danger.”
“And you remembered what I told you at Llandiarmid, and wisely concluded that the matter was not pressing? Quite right. The Princess knows only of the sham plot, not of the real one. At all the headquarters it is arranged who is to act as her tool, and provide her with carefully edited reports—a sort of bogus information-bureau for her special benefit. She has not the faintest idea that the plot to establish me in Palestine is really one to establish Malasorte in Neustria. To make things safe, in case any genuine spies should be present, he is always spoken of as Mortimer, and Neustria as Palestine, and so on—in fact, there is a regular code. So you see she is quite at fault.”
“But you’re only thinking of your schemes, and I’m thinking of you. If she and Prince Soudaroff believe in the bogus plot, it’s just as dangerous for you as if it was genuine. I don’t believe you’re safe anywhere but in England or at Sitt Zeynab.”
“Why, what should she do—burn the hotel down, or kidnap me? Paschics and Dietrich and I keep a very good look-out, I can assure you. If I believed there was actual danger, do you think I would expose my wife to it?”
“But why not come to England?”
“And leave Michael’s affairs to go wrong again? Now that we have eliminated you, as I wished, I hope to set them right before very long. No, don’t be afraid; I shall do my work.”
“If you had seen her face when she spoke of you——”
“My dear Usk, I don’t doubt her will to ruin me body and soul, but merely her power. If she had me anywhere in the wilds of Dardania, now, with a few half-Roumi retainers within call—but she hasn’t, and if I can help it, she won’t get the chance. That’s enough.”
Thus dismissed, Usk carried to Queen Ernestine the news of his approaching departure, and noticed that she looked at him with the same anxious, questioning glance as his uncle. She said nothing, however, save to agree that it was better he should go, and he went to tell Nicholson, who was quite prepared to make a personal grievance out of the announcement.
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Usk, when a fit of coughing had forced the invalid to desist from his animadversions upon the vile selfishness which was about to deprive him of the only man he knew in this wretched place, “but I really can’t stay. You see, I—I—— Well, I didn’t know you liked seeing me so much, but I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll ask my aunt to come and see you sometimes, and that’ll be much better.”
“Oh, don’t alter your plans for me,” muttered Nicholson frigidly. “If your aunt cares to come in, I shall be thankful, and if she doesn’t, I shan’t be surprised. I shan’t long be a bother to any one, but I never thought you would go and leave me out here like this.”
Usk felt somewhat guilty, but he reflected that, after all, he had not brought Nicholson to Nice, and that his visits had never seemed to give him any particular pleasure. At any rate, he could not bring himself to alter his determination, for the whole aspect of the place was hateful to him now. He thought of London mud and fog with absolute yearning, feeling that this sunlit white and green town with its fringing blue sea could never be anything but a loathed memory in future. Idleness was intolerable, and such sports as the Riviera afforded were not much better. Work was his only hope—to plunge into it, bury himself in it, and thus to forget the dazzling, disquieting, bitterly disappointing experiences of the past few months. Therefore he remained immovable, and, in spite of Nicholson’s fretful objections, insisted on bringing the Queen to see him the next day. Nicholson was too ill now to be conscious of the awed satisfaction that the rank of his visitor would have caused him in his days of health, but the gracious kindness which had conquered so many hearts did not fail of its effect with him; and when the Queen had promised to visit him every day, and talk to him a little if he was well enough, he was quite ready to let Usk go. Thus relieved of his chief anxiety, Usk had time to make a farewell call on the Grand-Duke and Duchess, neither of whom he saw, and then applied himself to the preparations for his journey.
Late in the afternoon he was on his way to the station, alone, by his own wish, when he found that his rug had been left behind, and sent his driver back for it, himself walking on to get his ticket. Presently a carriage drew up just beyond him, and a resplendent chasseur came to say that the Grand-Duchess of Schwarzwald-Molzau would be glad to speak to him if he could spare her a moment. When he reached the carriage, the Grand-Duchess insisted on giving him a lift to the station, and talked volubly of the loss his absence would prove to his uncle and aunt.
“And, indeed, we shall all be so sorry to lose you—shan’t we, Lenchen?” she turned suddenly to her daughter, who had sat silent hitherto, leaning back wearily in her place. It struck Usk that if her face had looked thin the other day, it was now actually pinched and drawn, and he wondered whether it could be merely the afternoon light filtering through the fresh foliage of the plane-trees which made her look so ghastly. Her lips seemed to be moving, but she roused herself with a start at her mother’s appeal, and Usk felt that there was strong entreaty in the eyes which met his through her veil as she answered—
“Yes, we shall all be very sorry.”
Usk felt vaguely uncomfortable. What could she want him to do? She had blushed violently when his intent gaze showed that he had read her look, and would not meet his eye again; but when the station was reached, and he bade her good-bye, he surprised that piteous glance once more. It haunted him for some time, until at last he thought he had found a clue to it.
“They’re worrying her to marry that brute Ivan Petrovitch, and she wanted to have another talk, and relieve her feelings,” he said to himself. “It’s awfully hard on her, poor little girl! but the Grand-Duchess is a good-natured old lady, and won’t let her be badgered into accepting him if she really dislikes him. What a world it is! One can’t marry the woman he wants, and another is tormented to marry a man she doesn’t want. The pater and mater won’t tease me to get married, but I know they’d be awfully pleased if I did—some nice good little girl with nothing baffling or exciting about her, whose mind I could read like a book. There are those two Jones girls, now, the mater would like one of them—be quite her right hand in pauperising the estate. But I don’t a bit know which of them is which, and yet they must be quite different, of course. It’ll have to depend upon which of them I come across first. No, I really think one might study them a little, even in making a sacrifice of oneself, just to see which was most suitable. But to have the Reverend Goronwy for a father-in-law! Why, he’d be always about the Castle. The mater wouldn’t like that. I think we must get him moved to a distance before doing anything serious. That’s a respite, anyhow. If the mater is very miserable about me, I can tell her I’m thinking of one of the Jones girls, and she’ll be pleased. But I never want to see a girl again. Hope the Trade will move heaven and earth against the Bill, so that we may have a rousing time. Only wish it was the Commons—I do bar the Lords.”
“Exit Viscount Usk!” said Maimie, and read aloud from the paper she was scanning: “‘Viscount Usk left Nice for England on Wednesday. During the present parliamentary session he will act as private secretary to his father, the Marquis of Caerleon, to whom, as a leading light of the Temperance party, it has fallen to pilot the Anti-Tied-Houses Bill through the House of Lords.’ That ends a chapter, Fay.”
“Well, I hope you’re right happy now. You’ve destroyed the one chance I had of being a good woman, and don’t you forget it.”
“I didn’t know you had aspirations that way; but I guess Lady Caerleon would receive you with open arms even now if you went back to her properly penitent.”
“Not I—but I wish I cared for Usk either more or less. If I didn’t care for him, I wouldn’t mind his going; and if I was really in love with him, I wouldn’t have had him go.”
“You don’t care for him,” said Maimie decisively. “If you did, a crown wouldn’t have tempted you. You just felt sort of safe with him, knowing that he would be kind and fair all the time, whatever you might do. And just tell me what would have happened if I hadn’t helped you get rid of him? When the Grand-Duke said he understood you were betrothed to the son of the Marquis of Caerleon, and that in view of such an honourable alliance the Emperor might be willing to acknowledge your father as morganatically married, and give you a patent of nobility—didn’t that show you where you stood? You were on the very point of losing everything. If we hadn’t been able to tell him that there had been some thought of such a thing once, but you had broken it off because Usk objected to your pressing the claim, you’d have been just simply left!”
“That’s so,” responded Félicia. “It’s as well to be through with it, any way. I love that old Grand-Duke—he’s a real nice man.” The liking was mutual, although Félicia had said things to the Grand-Duke which would have made Helene’s hair stand on end with horror if she had heard them. “But I can’t just see why he don’t have his wife and daughter call on us.”
“Why, it isn’t advisable yet. They can’t treat you as a princess before you are one, and they’d think you wouldn’t just choose to be treated as a no-account person. Say, Fay! she’s betrothed—that little plain girl.” Maimie was still glancing over the paper. “Do you remember the evil-looking Scythian that was riding in the Grand-Duchess’s carriage yesterday—the dark man with the beard? That’s the happy man. ‘A marriage has been arranged, and will take place at Molzau shortly after Easter, between the Grand-Duke Ivan Petrovitch of Scythia and the Princess Helene, youngest and only unmarried daughter of the Grand-Duke and Duchess of Schwarzwald-Molzau.’”
“Shortly after Easter? Then we won’t see it!” cried Félicia. “I do think these folks might hustle things a little. To keep me waiting months this way, and not even let me stay here, is just horrid!”
“But the yacht!” Maimie reminded her. “We’ll have a lovely time these weeks, and it’ll be real elegant to appear among your new relations in your own ship.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Félicia doubtfully. As delicately as he could, the Grand-Duke had suggested that pending the decision of the Emperor and the Prince of Arragon on her claim, it would be well for her to withdraw herself to a certain extent from the public eye. A sojourn in some quiet mountain village, whither her fame as an American heiress would not precede her, and where her footsteps would not be dogged by reporters, would best suit the views of her father’s august relations. Maimie, reading between the lines of his speech, saw that some rumour of the Carnival proceedings and other doings of the kind had reached him, and forestalled Félicia’s indignant refusal by suggesting that she should send for the Bluebird, the beautiful steam-yacht which Mr Steinherz had designed and constructed for himself, and sailed in all the Western seas, so as to take a short cruise in the Mediterranean. The idea did not displease Félicia, and to the Grand-Duke it came as such an evident relief that she could not refuse to adopt it, especially when she found the yacht could not reach Nice before Mid-Lent, which would enable her to take part in the Battle of Flowers and other festivities of the occasion. But there were details in connection with the proposed cruise which still rankled in her mind, and again she turned angrily upon Maimie. “And I do think, Maimie Logan, you might have stood by me, so’s we wouldn’t have an old school-ma’am trail us along everywhere. It makes me real mad to be shepherded around that way.”
This referred to a proposal of the Grand-Duke’s that the chaperon on board the Bluebird should not be Mrs van Zyl, but a lady of the Pannonian Court, who might give the two girls various useful hints in case of a change in their position. Félicia, who had delightful dreams of fluttering the Imperial dovecotes by appearing among her august relations as a frank and unashamed American, had been horrified to hear Maimie acquiesce in the suggestion. In ordinary society anywhere Maimie felt that she could hold her own and guide Félicia, but on these lofty heights she was at fault, and she had the good sense to see it. Félicia was more difficult to manage than she had expected, but at last she succeeded in making her see that any faux pas on her first introduction would produce a bad impression and alienate King Michael, and she yielded with a poor enough grace.
“But you save so much time getting at things on the voyage,” Maimie urged now.
“How does that make up, when I wanted to take a real nice party on board, and have a good time? It’s nothing but a snub to poor Sadie, I say.”
“She won’t have you see that she feels it so, any way. She’ll conclude to keep track of you, with an eye to the future, I know. And I thought the Grand-Duke fixed it real nicely to have this Baroness Radnika come and stay at the hotel, so’s you could just fall in love with her, and invite her to make the cruise with you.”
“Oh, it’s all awfully smart, of course, and I guess Count Mortimer was somewhere around when it was fixed. But for you and the Grand-Duke both to insist that I must have this old dowd of a Baroness tag after me, just because she knew pappa, and can teach me their tricks—why, it’s the meanest thing out! I’m real thankful there’s the chance of a frolic or two first. I’ll even up my accounts with you, you bet!”
To Maimie this was sufficiently alarming, and yet, although Félicia kept her word, and enjoyed herself thoroughly at the Mid-Lent gaieties, the great and most disagreeable shock which the Battle of Flowers brought with it was not due to her. As a reward for her complaisance in withdrawing from the pleasures of society for the present, she had promised herself the delight of outshining all possible rivals before she disappeared from view. Her carriage was a bower of irises in all the delicate shades which the flower presents, and the occupants were dressed to correspond. Mrs van Zyl’s gown was a soft harmony in yellow and lavender, Maimie wore white and dark purple, and Félicia was in the colour she loved best, a clear pale lilac, emphasised, but not unduly so, by the touches of black velvet demanded by fashion. The scheme of decoration had been kept a profound secret, and the “iris carriage” was greeted with shouts of admiration from end to end of the course. Close at hand rode King Michael, duly masked, but quite recognisable to the spectators, in a rich gold-embroidered Thracian dress of two shades of purple. The understanding which was implied by the correspondence between his costume and those of the ladies suggested a hint of romance which the populace were not slow to take, and he shared in the plaudits which accompanied the carriage in its progress. Maimie felt a little uneasy, wondering whether his action would be considered premature by his relations, but before long she was conscious of quite a different cause for anxiety. Among the mounted men by whom the line of carriages was every now and then broken was one who seemed to be manœuvring to place himself near Félicia, endeavouring also to attract her attention by making his horse prance and curvet. He seemed to be short of stature, but the close-fitting Mephistopheles dress which he wore, carried out not in red but in black, set off a peculiarly graceful figure, and he displayed a complete mastery over his restless steed. His hair was black, and his eyes, when they could be distinguished through the holes in his mask, dark and glittering. His mysterious appearance was well calculated to rouse the curiosity of any one not absolutely engrossed, as was Félicia, by her carriage, her clothes, and her prize, and Maimie saw that King Michael was obviously uneasy. Again and again, when the procession paused for a moment before one of the tribunes, or when the carriage turned at the end of the course, he interposed his horse so that the unknown cavalier should not approach Félicia. His first idea had been that the stranger was his vanquished rival, Usk, but it was obvious that the Englishman’s broad shoulders could not possibly be hidden under the black doublet, and he scented a deeper mystery. Presently another stoppage occurred before one of the stands, in which sat the Grand-Duke and Duchess of Schwarzwald-Molzau and the Grand-Duke Ivan Petrovitch. Bouquets were flying fast and furiously, the air was full of roses, jonquils, violets, mimosa; shrieks of laughter arose, now from the carriages and now from the tribune, but King Michael took no part in the fray. In thrusting his horse between Félicia’s carriage and the unknown rider, he had forced the latter close to the Scythian Prince, who was staring at him in astonishment, and presently addressed him in his own language. The reply which reached King Michael’s ear, “An affair of the heart; you won’t give me away?” only deepened his suspicions. Presently he was able to leave Félicia in the safe keeping of his uncle, who asked to be allowed to occupy the fourth seat in the carriage as it moved on again, and he leaned over the railing to the Grand-Duke Ivan.
“Who is the black Mephistopheles?” he asked.
“You won’t betray him, I presume? Timoleon Malasorte.”
“Then I was mistaken. I thought it was some one I knew, and I wanted to play him a trick.” The King spoke with admirable nonchalance, but he was inwardly perturbed. He knew the story of the Pretender’s courtship of Félicia, and foresaw a repetition of it, and he blessed the obtuseness of his uncle, who was enjoying himself hugely as the butt of all the hardest bouquets, and claiming Félicia’s attention at every turn. She looked round in vain for some one to deliver her, while the Grand-Duke was giving her a long account of his daughter’s obstinate refusal to attend the festivities with her betrothed. The Grand-Duchess persisted she was ill; but he had been determined she should go, and would have carried his point if his wife had not called in a rascally, venal doctor to her aid. Félicia did not find Helene’s delinquencies at all amusing, but while she sought for help, she did not happen to glance in the direction of her former suitor. King Michael returned to his post in the nick of time, and remained at her side so gallantly for the rest of the afternoon that Malasorte had no chance of accosting her. Apparently accepting his defeat, the Prince dropped behind the carriage, but when King Michael saw him next, he was picking up a spray of white lilac Maimie had dropped, and slipping something with it into her hand. The King nursed his wrath in silence until the return to the Villa, when he stopped Maimie as she was following Félicia upstairs.
“May I trouble you for the note Prince Malasorte gave you for the Princess Félicia, mademoiselle?”
Maimie stared at him in astonishment. She had not at all decided whether to give Félicia the letter which Malasorte, relying on her old friendliness, had entrusted to her, or not, but now she had to come to a decision at once. What was the exact meaning of Malasorte’s presence here, where he was at any moment liable to be arrested and conducted to the frontier? Was he on his way to make himself emperor, or was it only that he had learnt Félicia’s true descent, and desired the support her family and fortune could give him in his campaign? There were many things it would be well to know before determining the fate of the letter, but here stood King Michael opposite her, holding out his hand for it. “I guess I won’t jump at the shadow and lose the substance,” she said to herself, and gave it to him. Somewhat to her surprise he opened it immediately.
“I am not like that poor fool Usk, to be deceived and hoodwinked, mademoiselle,” he replied to her amazed look. “I protect myself, and it appears it is necessary. Do you not think so?” He read from the note: “‘Meet me at eight to-morrow morning in the garden of the Villa Bougainvillea. I must speak to you. I have more to lay at your feet than I had once.—M.’ Has he any ground for believing she would be willing to meet him?” he demanded, looking Maimie sternly in the face.
“None. She hasn’t a notion that he’s around. We lost sight of him years back,” she answered, her tone anxious in spite of herself.
“And if he renews his attempt, on which side are you? I wish to know, that I may lay my plans accordingly. I am not to be tricked, mademoiselle.”
“On yours,” said Maimie firmly. “I don’t see throwing away all the trouble and worry we’ve had these last months.”
“You are wise. You will not find me ungrateful, but I beg you to understand that I trust no one absolutely. To show that I am favourably disposed towards you, I may tell you that Count Mortimer has strongly recommended me to see that you are removed from the household of the Princess before she becomes my wife. I mention this that you may arrange with her to retain your services, for I find it desirable to have at hand a trustworthy person with whom I can discuss matters affecting the Princess which might be disagreeable to herself. As long as your influence is exerted in compliance with my wishes, your position in the Court will be secure.”
“And when it’s exerted against your wishes——?” thought Maimie, as he allowed her to depart. “You scored this time, you consequential little wretch, but I guess you won’t do it any more. And as for your dear stepfather, I’ll just count the days until I can punish him. Trying to part me from Fay, indeed!”
Nothing more was seen or heard of Prince Malasorte just then, and Maimie guessed that Félicia’s non-appearance at the rendezvous had disgusted him beyond remedy. Very shortly after the Battle of Flowers she and Félicia embarked on the Bluebird, accompanied by the Baroness Radnika, for whom, fortunately enough, Félicia had conceived one of her sudden attachments. Maimie, who knew that the Baroness’s maiden name had been Aline von Hartenweg, was not surprised by the passionate tenderness with which she responded to Félicia’s endearments, and wondered at the practical wisdom which had been shown in selecting Prince Joseph’s old love as the instructress of his daughter. Meanwhile, Mr Hicks was summoned from New York, bringing with him the documents committed to his care; and alarming legal personages invaded the parish of St Mary Windicotes, and the peaceful dwelling of the old clergyman and his wife at Whitcliffe, demanding evidence on oath with regard to the marriage of Joseph Bertram and Constance Lily Garland. While the Bluebird cruised in the Western Mediterranean, never spending more than one night away from port, the negotiations dragged their slow length along. About once a-week a hitch appeared, which threatened to bring them to a dead stop, but as King Michael invariably marked these occasions by paying fresh attention to the Grand-Duchess Sonya, matters were smoothed over in some way or other.
The first hitch presented itself just after Mr Hicks’s arrival in Europe, when the ‘Empire City Diurnal,’ a paper which was the unresting rival of the ‘Crier,’ and even more noted for its skill in exploiting sensations, suddenly published what purported to be an interview with an intimate friend of Félicia’s. Her father’s history was detailed in a highly-coloured style, embodying just enough of truth to wring severely the withers of the royal and imperial personages concerned, and ending with a claim, put forward apparently in all seriousness, to the crown of Pannonia itself on Félicia’s behalf. This claim was further pressed in a fervid editorial, calling upon the manhood of the United States to arise and cross the ocean, and sweep to destruction the effete usurpers who were keeping an American woman out of her rights by force and fraud. A subscription-list towards effecting this noble object followed, headed by the proprietor and ending with the office-boy, and the names of eleven volunteers (others were stated to be arriving in thousands) appeared below. The extracts telegraphed at once to Europe raised a ferment in Pannonian Court circles, and the Grand-Duke of Schwarzwald-Molzau was very nearly driven to wash his hands altogether of Félicia and her claims. Cyril happened to be in England at the time, but Mr Hicks succeeded in saving the situation. An expenditure at which the Grand-Duke stood aghast seemed nothing to him, and he cabled whole columns to his own journal. The next day the ‘Crier,’ strong in the indubitable fact of possessing one of the trustees of the claimant on its staff, administered a douche of cold water to the excited public of the ‘Diurnal.’ So far from possessing or advancing a claim to any crown whatsoever, Miss Steinherz was solely concerned to vindicate the good name of her mother; and the ‘Diurnal’s’ polemic was nothing but an attempt to prejudice her in this sacred task by alienating the august relatives who had welcomed the news of her existence with tears of joy, and were only restraining their eagerness to receive her into their midst in order that her claim might be properly substantiated according to law.
“Draw it mild, Hicks!” said Cyril, when they next met, and he read this reply. “Any one can see you had your tongue in your cheek the whole time.”
“Is that so, Count? Well now, I’d bet my bottom dollar you’re the only man that will see the thing was wrote sarcastic. There were tears in the Grand-Duke’s eyes when he read it, any way. And in the States the effect has been colossal, I hear, especially of the paragraph about the ‘Diurnal’s’ stopping the cash-boys’ salaries to stick in its subscription-lists. It isn’t every day a man can make a big scoop for his paper and pat Europe on the head as well.”
In any case, the ‘Diurnal’s’ sensation wilted, as Mr Hicks put it, and no more was heard of it after the paper’s unfulfilled promise to publish the name of the “distinguished lady” who had given the information. The next difficulty came from Mr Steinherz’s elder brother, Don Ramon, who demanded that before he considered her claim, Félicia should prove her good faith by surrendering her fortune into his hands as head of the house of Arragon. Her father’s will provided effectually against this, and led to a deadlock; but as Félicia intimated that her relations’ interests would receive careful consideration from her if the relationship were established, the difficulty was shelved. Then a hitch was caused by the discovery that Konstantia von Lilienkranz was not sufficiently high in rank for even the Emperor to raise her retrospectively to a level befitting the bride of a Prince of Arragon. Cyril replied with the terse advice, “Consult the heralds”; and after a little expenditure of time and trouble Félicia’s mother was provided with a descent which rivalled that of the Schwarzwald-Molzaus themselves. The difficulty which came next threatened to be more serious; for the Church objected to the recognition of the irregular marriage, on the ground that the Pope’s consent to a mixed marriage had not been obtained, and that no provision had been made for the children to be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. The solution obviously intended was that Félicia should change her creed; but Cyril, on behalf of King Michael, pointed out that this would make her impossible as a Queen for Thracia. The Emperor, to whom the marriage offered a way out of many difficulties, brought a despairing pressure to bear upon the Vatican, and the matter was compromised on the understanding that Félicia should build and endow a magnificent church to her father’s memory. She consented at once, as she would have consented to build a mosque had it been required of her; for the nearer she came to her goal, the more intolerable did the thought of failing to reach it appear. It was a joy to feel that Cyril and Mr Hicks were already discussing how her fortune could best be applied to solve the financial problems of Thracia without infringing the provisions of her father’s will; a greater joy to learn that King Michael’s conditional proposal of marriage had become a definite one; and greatest of all, to receive through Mr Hicks a telegram, half-invitation, half-command, directing her to proceed in her yacht to the Pannonian coast, that she might be presented to her father’s family.
CHAPTER XIV.
FOR PITY’S SAKE.
When Usk returned to England, he found his parents in London, established in a corner of the vast mansion which had been built by Lord Caerleon’s grandfather, the Peninsular General, and much adorned by his son, the Crimean hero, in the palmy days of landowning. Both these veterans took a keen professional interest in battle-pictures, and had embellished Caerleon House with many square yards of warlike frescoes, which their civilian descendant sometimes wished had been painted on canvas, so that they could be removed and sold. When his father’s death, or, strictly speaking, the duties consequent thereon, left Lord Caerleon unable to keep up two establishments, he succeeded in letting the town house on a long lease to a Northern magnate who had made a fortune in sugar-refining, but now sugar, as well as land, had fallen upon evil days. The house was on its owner’s hands once more, and it was cheaper to encamp in some of the smaller rooms than to live in lodgings, especially since Lady Caerleon’s chief desire was for a drawing-room which she could lend for meetings. Thus, while in the state apartments the blinds remained down, and the furniture looked ghostly in holland wrappings, Usk and his parents lived and worked, interviewed political friends and opponents, and furthered various religious and philanthropic schemes, in the modest suite traditionally allotted to the heir of the house, and called the Viscount’s rooms. It did not occur to them to feel ashamed of their obvious poverty, and they found pleasure in entertaining the few, chiefly old friends or fellow-workers, who did not consider that stinted means and lack of “smartness” placed the Caerleons beyond the pale of decent society.
As for Usk, he threw himself so completely into his parents’ interests that he had no time to think even of running down to Llandiarmid, and thus the peace of mind of Gwladys and Myfanwy Jones remained undisturbed. Lord Caerleon’s Temperance measure had hitherto escaped the different snares and pitfalls in its path, and was rapidly nearing the goal which was the usual fate of the Bills he brought forward—a piteous request from the Government for its withdrawal, since to press it further would jeopardise the success of the complete and carefully drawn scheme of reform which His Majesty’s Ministers intended to introduce next session. It is a striking instance of the vanity of human wishes that never in any case did the next session see the introduction of such a Bill.
This was the state of affairs when one afternoon, about the middle of April, Cyril walked into Caerleon House, and found his brother and sister-in-law in the great desolate conservatory, which was sparsely sprinkled with pots of flowers sent up from Llandiarmid. Lady Caerleon thought the conservatory the most country-like place in the house; and her husband preferred it because to smoke in any of the other rooms seemed like sacrilege.
“Why, Cyril!” cried Lady Caerleon, catching sight of him first. “Is the—is Ernestine here?”
“No, I have run over alone. Usk’s out, I hope? I wanted to catch you two together. Bill flourishing, Caerleon? The session onward plods its weary way, I suppose? How does Usk work?”
“Splendidly. When we have him in the Commons, we shall begin to move at last, I feel certain.”
“Good. No chance that the Southumberland seat will fall vacant just yet, is there, though? Morrell will hang on until death or a general election unseats him, and there’s no present likelihood of either, I believe?”
“Not that I know of.”
“That’s all right, then. I want Usk.”
Lady Caerleon turned pale. “Oh, Cyril, has Félicia repented?”
“Never further from it. She is making splendid progress towards her heart’s desire. But your maternal instinct was not at fault, Nadia. It is on behalf of a prospective daughter-in-law that I am come to you.”
“But Usk has never said anything——”
“About her? I think he has. Has he never mentioned the Princess Helene of Schwarzwald-Molzau?”
“A Schwarzwald-Molzau!” cried Lord Caerleon, but his wife broke in—
“Yes, of course. We saw her engagement to the Grand-Duke Ivan, and Usk was quite unhappy about it. He said the man was a brute.”
“Well, it was broken off about a week ago, but I suppose the news has not got into the English papers yet. That is the young lady.”
“But, Cyril, I am quite sure Usk has never thought of her in that way.”
“It’s just possible he might learn to do it.”
“But why should he? Oh, you can’t mean that she has fallen in love with him, and let other people see it, when he hasn’t said a word to her?”
“Why that tone of deep disgust? I seem to remember a young lady once whom I only dissuaded with the greatest difficulty from sending a refusal, in writing, to a man who had never proposed to her.”
“Unfair, Cyril!” cried Lord Caerleon. “Nadia couldn’t help knowing that I cared for her.”
“I can’t stand up against the two of you, that’s certain. Well, Nadia, let me tell you the circumstances, and I think you will acquit poor little Princess Lenchen of any worse crimes than a romantic disposition, and an ingenuous readiness to take Usk on trust on the strength of a childlike adoration for his uncle.”
“Of course I don’t wonder at her falling in love with Usk,” said Usk’s mother.
“Of course you don’t. And she never told her love, at any rate, which is an extenuating circumstance. You mustn’t think there was ever any affection between her and Ivan Petrovitch. Her parents had been pressing her to accept him, and she yielded suddenly at last, about—yes, it must have been just about the time Usk came home—simply because she had not vitality enough to hold out longer, I should think. She looked like a ghost after the engagement, but she was dragged out to all the gaieties there were, which in itself was nearly enough to kill a delicate girl brought up very quietly in the mountains. She looked worse and worse as the days went on, and Ernestine almost broke her heart over her; but when she spoke to the Grand-Duchess, she only wept, and said her husband was determined the marriage should take place, and she dared not cross him. The climax came at the time of the Mi-Carême Battle of Flowers. The Grand-Duke and the lover insisted upon the poor girl’s going, though she had a perfect terror of it, after the fright she got at the Carnival, where Usk met her first. She fainted twice while she was dressing, and the Grand-Duchess was alarmed at last, and sent for a doctor. Very fortunately, the English doctor whom Ernestine had advised her to call in was in the hotel at the moment, visiting Usk’s friend Nicholson, who was his patient. He put an absolute veto on the girl’s going out that day, and promised to come and examine her thoroughly in the morning. They told him nothing of the circumstances, but after seeing her he said there was some trouble pressing upon her mind, and if it was not removed she would die of sheer terror. The Grand-Duke stormed, but could not shake him, and as no one could pretend not to know what the trouble was, Ivan Petrovitch was sent about his business. I should imagine the Grand-Ducal family went through stormy times for a day or two. The Grand-Duke is not a pleasant man to oppose, but if you have to do it, it’s as well to do it with spirit. Félicia and he get on excellently, because if she doesn’t like what he tells her to do, she says so, and the matter is at an end. Well, the doctor continued his visits, as the Grand-Duchess asked him, but he told Ernestine privately that it was useless. There was no organic disease, but the child did not seem to have any wish to live. She knew that her parents quarrelled over her, I suppose, and had not the courage to assert herself. She was quiet and fairly happy when once her engagement was broken off, but she didn’t get better. And only just seventeen, Nadia!”
“Much too young to be thinking about engagements at all,” said Lady Caerleon, decisively but not harshly.
“Ah, well, her parents had put the thought into her mind, you see. Then, three days ago, she had a dreadful shock. Usk’s friend Nicholson had another attack of hæmorrhage, and died in the hotel. Ernestine thought him very much softened lately, and he used to like her to read to him. She was with him just before the end, and the Grand-Duchess asked her not to go and see Helene that day, lest she should inquire for him. She took an interest in him as an invalid, you see, and used to send him some of the flowers which were sent her. That afternoon the Grand-Duke came to our rooms in a terrible state of mind. The Grand-Duchess’s maid had let out to Helene that Nicholson was dead, and, somehow, it seemed to awaken the child to the fact that she wasn’t very far from dying herself. It did not disturb her to realise it, but the Grand-Duke complained that his wife and the other women looked at him as if he was a murderer. He begged Ernestine to go and see them, and even promised that anything she thought might be any good should be done. Of course Ernestine went, and you can imagine the state of things she found—the lady-in-waiting weeping in the salon, the maid sobbing in the passage, and the Grand-Duchess herself in Helene’s room in floods of tears. I suppose the poor girl thought she had no time to lose, for without giving her mother any opportunity of recovering from the first shock, she had asked for her jewels and other little things, and was saying who she would like to have them. She’s such a simple little soul that it didn’t occur to her she was doing anything hackneyed—it was just the most natural thing in the world to her. There were bracelets and so on for her sisters and cousins, and some trifle for me, and then she touched a ring which she always wears, which was given her at her confirmation, and said she would like Usk to have it. Her mother was so much astonished that she didn’t answer for a moment, and Helene said piteously, ‘You won’t mind then, will you, mamma? I shall never see him again, you know.’ Ernestine thought the Grand-Duchess had gone out of her mind, for she got up suddenly and seized her by the arm and took her out of the room. When the door was shut, she said, ‘That’s what the child wants! You will help me. We will take her to the mountains at once, and she shall marry your nephew instead of Ivan Petrovitch, and get well. Come, let us tell her about it.’ Ernestine begged her to wait and consult the Grand-Duke, but she absolutely refused. She went back into Helene’s room, and swept all the jewels into their box again. ‘Nonsense, Lenchen!’ she said. ‘You are not going to die. This place is too hot for you. We will go back to the mountains, to our own Lauterbach, just you and I, and your aunt will come and stay with us.’ Ernestine felt obliged to back her up by saying that as I could not leave Nice just at present, she would ask Usk to come and escort her to Lauterbach, and they would stay at the cottage close to the Schloss, so that Helene might be quite quiet. She says she didn’t dare to look at the child as she spoke, but she heard her whisper, ‘Then I shall see him again, after all!’ and for the first time she felt there was some hope.”
“But the Grand-Duke!” cried Lord Caerleon. “What did he think about it?”
“Well, Ernestine and the Grand-Duchess very prudently came to our rooms to have it out with him, lest Helene should be disturbed. Of course he vowed he would never hear of such a thing, but for once his wife seemed to have lost her fear of him. She told him plainly that she would separate from him rather than let Helene die when she could be saved; and as the money is nearly all hers, that brought him round. At last he calmed down sufficiently to allow the doctor to be consulted, and he was called in. He approved highly of the mountain plan, and recommended very strongly that the girl’s inclination should not be forced in any way. She was so sensitive, he said, that only a man of a most sympathetic type could hope to make her happy. In deference to the Grand-Duke’s feelings, his wife consented to leave that part of the programme in abeyance, but they start for the mountains to-morrow, and I should like to pack Usk off to join them, if you have no objection.”
“On what footing?” asked Lord Caerleon sharply. “I won’t have him bandied about according to the state of the Grand-Duke’s temper.”
“My dear Caerleon, haven’t you learnt yet that the honour—the punctilio, I might say—of the family is safe with me? Usk will be received as a suitor approved by the young lady’s parents, though he will not be formally presented to her as such.”
“Well,” said Lady Caerleon, “if I were in Princess Helene’s place, it would not make me better to know that a young man was being brought to marry me, quite irrespective of his own wishes.”
“She knows nothing of the kind, and no one has suggested it to her. I don’t pretend to say what may be passing in her mind, but I should imagine she flatters herself that she regards him merely as a dear friend. But I seem to be unfortunate in my advocacy, Nadia. Since my words only prejudice you further against the poor little girl, I shall be obliged to show you this, which I didn’t mean to bring out if I could help it, for it’s not flattering.”
He handed Lady Caerleon a photograph, which she took with a stern and unbending aspect, but her look changed suddenly.
“Oh, Cyril, what a sad little face!—and how very——”
“Plain?” suggested Cyril, as she hesitated. “If you saw her, you wouldn’t think so. It’s the expression that is wanting in the photograph.”
“She must have beautiful eyes and hair,” said Lady Caerleon slowly. “But, Cyril, Carlino, think of the difference from Félicia! Do you think Usk would ever care for her? And so badly dressed! I should like to take her in hand.”
“Come,” said Cyril, “this is a ray of hope. Now you realise that she needs comforting and dressing, Nadia, you won’t steel your heart against her for long.”
“I don’t want to steel my heart against her, poor little thing! but you don’t seem to see—I daresay it sounds very selfish, but you feel it too, don’t you, Carlino?—when Phil is so far away, to have to give up Usk too! I know I ought to be willing to do it, if it’s to help some one, but for him to have to go and live in Germany—it would be like losing him altogether.”
“No, no, Nadia,” said her husband quickly, as she turned to him with streaming eyes, “that’s out of the question. Usk has his duties here, and he won’t give them up with my consent.”
“You both seem to have the worst possible opinion of me,” lamented Cyril. “Is it likely that I should deliberately arrange for Usk to become a hanger-on at a petty German Court, where he wouldn’t even be welcomed? No; the Grand-Duchess quite sees that her husband and her daughter agree best at a distance. ‘The young people will live in England, of course,’ she said to me, ‘but they must come and see me in the mountains every year, and sometimes I will come and see them.’”
“Is that Usk coming in?” cried Lady Caerleon, starting up.
“Suppose you break the idea to him, Nadia, and see how he takes it,” suggested Cyril. “No one wants to force him into anything, of course, but I hardly see how he can do better. And you will manage it much more artistically than I should, for with you I began by giving the poor little girl away, which was the last thing I meant to do.”
Lady Caerleon hurried into the house, and the brothers were left together.
“I hope Usk will be able to see his way to it,” said Cyril. “Ernestine and I are quite foolish over this child Helene. Imagine my tearing across Europe just to get her what she wants!”
“I can’t understand even now how the Grand-Duke came to give in. One has always heard that his views on unequal marriages were so very strict.”
“I’m going to give you a tip,” said Cyril. “You mustn’t allow that it is unequal, on any account. Play the grand seigneur anglais for all you’re worth when you meet him. Be impassive, bored, contemptuously tolerant of all you see, and let him know that you have much better at home.”
“Anything else?”
“It’s perfectly true. None of the Grand-Duke’s palaces can hold a candle to this house, and there’s no need to mention that you can’t afford to live in it. And as for Llandiarmid, though Félicia was pleased to turn up her pretty nose at it, it would make him miserably discontented with all his country seats, even if he saw it as it is. To German ears your rent-roll sounds magnificent, and the family jewels are historic. I’m thankful you never parted with them—but they are heirlooms, aren’t they? so it was not any virtue on your part. If you have to come to Molzau—for the wedding—make Nadia wear the emeralds, and have the pearls mounted afresh for Helene. That will smooth your path wonderfully.”
“If you exalt me much higher, I shall begin to think that it is Usk who is making the mésalliance.”
“Oh, the rest of the Schwarzwald-Molzau family will soon undeceive you in that case. It’s the Grand-Duke’s bitterest pill that he has imbued his children so thoroughly with his views that they will all look askance at him now. The youngest son, Prince Franz, who married the daughter of Félicia’s uncle, Don Florian, is the only one from whom he can expect any sympathy. Princess Resi is recht demokratisch, I understand.”
“Nice to be received upon sufferance into a family where only the Radicals will tolerate you!”
“You must make allowance for the susceptibilities of young people who have all married as they were told, and done excellently for themselves. I don’t know whether they married for rank, but they have certainly married where rank is. The Grand-Duke has always warned them against the romantic taint which crops out in the family with such curious persistency, and their feelings will naturally be hurt when it turns out that the taint has reappeared and vanquished him in the youngest and most timid of them all.”
“And this taint is merely a disposition to marry for love, I suppose?”
“Exactly; the sort of thing which can’t be allowed in a semi-royal house. The men in whom it appeared have generally gone to the bad, I believe, and the women become dévotes, after experiences which proved how wise their family were in refusing to listen to their wishes. It doesn’t seem to have struck the family that it would have been cheaper, and saved a good deal of scandal, to allow the delinquents to resign their rank, and settle down in private life with the objects of their affections. Their domestic squabbles would have served as awful warnings to the next generation. Perhaps that is the secret of the Grand-Duke’s yielding now.”
“Cyril!” Lord Caerleon turned and looked fixedly at his brother. “I hope there’s no morganatic foolery about this business? That I won’t stand.”
“Certainly not. Our Plantagenet blood, which your Radical friends think so lightly of except when they want you to push their Bills in Parliament, has stood us in good stead here, as I have often found before. But I own I never expected to be grateful for poor old O’Malachy’s descent from Irish kings. It was a happy thought of his to have that elaborate pedigree drawn out, though I believe it was the only thing he had to leave Nadia at his death, wasn’t it? I must have it copied to take back with me, though I remembered enough of it to quiet the Grand-Duke’s apprehensions as to Usk’s mother’s possessing the regulation number of quarterings. But it is a curious thing that you, the most typical Englishman I know, should apparently be doomed to associate with foreigners. You have a foreign wife, so have I, and now everything is conspiring to provide you with a foreign daughter-in-law.”
Lord Caerleon growled impatiently. “It doesn’t seem to have struck any one to ask how Usk and his wife are to live,” he said. “Has the Princess any money?”
“In Germany she is regarded as something of an heiress, and her fortune undoubtedly looks rather imposing reckoned in marks. I should say she would have about eight hundred a-year—pounds, I mean.”
“Even with what I can give Usk, it’ll be precious little to support such a lot of grandeur upon. They won’t have much margin.”
“She is sure to be a good housekeeper. All German girls are. By the bye, what about that new railway which was to pass Llandiarmid and open up the hill district? Is it still on the tapis?”
“Rather. But Nadia and I both felt that we ought not to run up the price of the land, as the line is so much needed.”
“You didn’t tell the Company that, I hope? Don’t, pray, feel that you must love your neighbour better than yourself. Let them make the first offer. You may be sure they won’t propose to give more than the land is worth, but you certainly ought to get enough out of them to increase Usk’s allowance to something a little more in accordance with his position.”
In the meantime, Lady Caerleon had intercepted her son in the hall, and drawn him aside into the library.
“Your uncle is here, Usk, and he and your father are having a little talk. Come in here. I—I want to speak to you.”
“Anything wrong?” he asked in surprise. “Why, you’ve been crying, mater! What is it?”
“No, dear, there is nothing wrong. It was foolish of me to cry. I ought to feel very glad and proud, after what I have just heard about you.”
“There’s little enough about me to make you either glad or proud, I’m afraid,” he said bitterly. “But I’m glad you’re pleased, mater, whatever it is.”
“But I am not pleased!” cried Lady Caerleon. “At least, as I say, I ought to be. But if it is to make you happy, I will be pleased.”
Usk changed colour. “Mother,” he said, almost breathlessly, “if it’s any message about—anything from Félicia, it’s no good. I don’t want to hear from her. I could never trust her again.”
“No, no! It’s about the Princess Helene of Schwarzwald-Molzau. Her engagement to the Scythian Prince is broken off.”
“Is that all?” cried Usk. “What a start you gave me! And what in the world has it to do with me?—though of course I’m glad for the poor little girl’s own sake.”
“Usk,” said his mother quickly, “had you any idea she cared for you?”
“For me? Princess Helene? What an idea! Of course not.”
“She has been very ill, and when she thought she was dying, she begged that the ring she always wore might be given to you. And now—they hope she will not die.”
“I—I don’t think you ought to have told me this,” said Usk awkwardly. He looked with a kind of reproach at his mother, who could not meet his eyes. “You see,” he went on more firmly, “she’s such a nice little girl that it’s a shame to say that sort of thing about her. She’s as innocent as a baby, and it would get her into dreadful trouble with her people if they thought it was true.”
“It is true,” said Lady Caerleon desperately, “and your uncle would like you to marry her. Could you care for her at all, Usk?”
“No one could help caring for her, she’s such a gentle, friendly little thing. But not in that way! Mater, say you’re joking.”
“I wish I could, but everything is arranged in a way. They think she is pining after you—no, I know it doesn’t sound kind to say it, Usk, but what am I to say? You were kind to her, weren’t you? and she misses you, and they say it would cheer her if you went and stayed with your aunt near her, and saw her every day. It doesn’t sound much to ask, but then it involves a good deal more.”
“But why?” asked Usk quickly. “I shouldn’t a bit mind seeing her as much as she liked, and—anything of that sort. Why shouldn’t it stop there?”
“I suppose people would talk—I don’t know. Besides, if she really——”
Usk stopped her. “Please don’t. It would make her so awfully miserable if she knew things of that kind were being said about her. Feeling as I do, I have no business to listen to it. If I cared for her, it might be different.”
“But couldn’t you? Do you never mean——”
“To marry? I don’t know. Perhaps some day it will seem more possible than it does now. Mother, think! If you knew how I loved and trusted Félicia, you would know that I could never feel the same to any woman again, never! If she had even broken it off at one wrench, it would not be so bad; but she played me like a salmon, pretending to let me go, and then drawing me back again, until every feeling of that sort seems quite dried up.”
“But you are young, Usk. You will get over it some day.”
“Possibly. I don’t feel like it just yet.”
“And a good girl—not one like Félicia——”
“Do you realise what Félicia is—how beautiful?—‘witchlike’ Princess Helene called it once, I remember. If she was looking at me, I should know it, though I was at the other end of the room and there was a crowd of people between,—I should feel it all over me, somehow. I couldn’t feel like that for the little Princess. I should like to make her happy, to take her away from her father and be kind to her, and see her begin to assert herself, and hear the funny things she says, but I couldn’t marry her on that, could I?”
“But pity is akin to love.”
“Mater, you’re weakening! You don’t mean to say you would wish it?”
“I don’t wish it, but—I’m beginning to be afraid it may be your duty.”
“And then it’s all up, isn’t it? What a thing it is to have a mother with a conscience!”
“Don’t talk so hardly, Usk. I can’t help thinking how we should feel if the poor girl died. You say you would not make it up with Félicia if you could; don’t you think you may be called to make this sacrifice?”
“It’s not a sacrifice altogether,” admitted Usk. “I really do like her, you know, but not in that way. The question is, is it fair to Princess Helene herself? No; certainly it would not be such a sacrifice as marrying one of the Jones girls,” he added with a laugh.
“What, Gwladys or Myfanwy? My dear Usk!”
“Why, mater, I had made up my mind to propose to one of them in due time, simply because I thought you were so fond of them.”
“As helpers in the parish, perhaps. But not to marry you.”
“It’s just as well that we have had this explanation, then, for I should certainly have done it.”
“I am most thankful you haven’t. And Mr Jones—oh, Usk!”
“Mater, I’m afraid you’re a very worldly woman.”
“Am I? I hope not. But perhaps I am, though I don’t think there’s anything wrong in preferring a Princess of Schwarzwald-Molzau to Miss Jones. No, I’m afraid you’re right. I have always been so anxious people should not think your father had done himself harm in marrying me. It was pride, of course, because I used to hope you would both make brilliant marriages. But I couldn’t wish Phil to have chosen differently—though I wish she lived in England. But I should like you to marry well, Usk.”
“Then, on your own rule of conduct, I ought to go and propose to Miss Jones at once, so as to mortify your pride, oughtn’t I?”
“No, it would not be fair to Princess Helene. We have her to think of too, you know.” Usk raised his eyebrows at this sophistry. “I—I should like you to go back with your uncle, Usk.”
“And propose immediately to the poor little girl?”
“Oh no, that’s not necessary. Only go and be kind to her. You may find that she doesn’t care for you, after all, or you may come to care for her, in time.”
“And in any case I shall be safe from your friends?”
“Don’t, Usk. I only want to see you happy, you know that. Any woman that can make you happy again will be welcome to me.”
“Then the Princess Helene shall have the honour of trying the experiment,” said Usk.
CHAPTER XV.
NOT LONG A-DOING.
It was night when Usk arrived at Lauterbach. At the little station, far down in the valley below, Queen Ernestine’s solemn Syrian major-domo and several of the Schwarzwald-Molzau servants had met him with horses and pack-mules, and they had ridden up and up all through the hours of the spring evening. When they reached the tiny table-land on which the Bergschloss stood, it was too dark to distinguish anything but towering peaks on every hand shutting out the stars, with a gleam of whiteness at one side, cast by the waterfall which filled the air with such a tumult of sound that Usk wondered how the dwellers on the plateau ever heard each other speak. He was to learn later that those who were accustomed to the noise did not even hear it, and that they could distinguish other sounds as though it had not been. Even now Helene, lying awake in one of the turret-rooms of the Schloss, the twinkling lights of which showed its position against the dark mountains, heard the sound of the horses’ feet as they passed, and said to herself, “He is come, then, at last!” But although Usk, as he rode under the walls of the castle, wondered for a moment which was Helene’s room, he thought no more of her that night after reaching the smaller house, called Luisenruh, after its builder, the mother of the present Grand-Duke, where his aunt was staying. Queen Ernestine had much to ask him about his parents and his work in London, and he had to tell her the various incidents of his journey, and as if by a tacit understanding they held aloof from the delicate matter which had brought him to Lauterbach.
In the morning, however, he found that they were to join the Grand-Duchess and her daughter at the Schloss for the late breakfast; and he walked with the Queen through the gardens, which adjoined each other so nearly that few people could have told where the grounds of the cottage ended and those of the Schloss began, and learned from a servant who was sent to meet them that the meal was served in the Chinese pavilion. There were several of these summer-houses dotted about in the gardens—a Greek temple, a hermitage, a Persian mosque, an Arcadian shepherd’s hut, all absurdly incongruous in their architecture as in their names, but affording pleasant retreats in hot or wet weather, and fine views of the mountains and the waterfall at all times. In the Chinese pavilion, which had a range of pointed roofs one above another, with little bells hung at every possible extremity, the visitors found the Grand-Duchess, whose nervousness was concealed under a restless activity which would have been called bustling in a lady of lower rank. Helene, very thin and bright-eyed, with a red spot in either cheek, was propped up with pillows on a couch which commanded the finest of the views.
“What do you think of my mountains?” she demanded eagerly of Usk, as soon as she had greeted him, and she smiled with pleasure over his answer that they looked jolly. “You can’t know them properly by only seeing them from this distance,” she went on. “I shall show you all my own special views and paths, and all the things I used to discover.”
“No mountain-climbing just yet, Lenchen!” said the Grand-Duchess. “You are to walk a little every day as soon as you are rested from the journey, you know, but it must be only about the gardens, where the paths are level.”
“Walking where the paths are level! Why, mamma, in a fortnight I shall be bicycling again. We will keep the level paths for that. I want to take Lord Usk up the mountains, and see all my friends.”
But in spite of Helene’s eagerness for exertion, it was long before she could attempt the mountains. Naturally enough, when the excitement of returning to her favourite scenes, and of welcoming Usk, had passed, she seemed to lose strength, and to the anxious eye of her mother appeared actually worse than she had been at Nice. Almost in desperation, the Grand-Duchess threw herself upon Usk for help, and adopted him as the natural sharer of her anxieties with a calmness that surprised him.
“You must help me to save her,” she said. “Here are the doctor’s directions, and I look to you to carry them out.”
Somewhat amused though he was at being turned into a sick-nurse, Usk accepted the position, which he found to be no sinecure, and which made him feel by turns horribly cruel and a good deal of a fool. Helene was to live almost entirely in the open air, it seemed, and to take exercise at stated hours and for a fixed period of time. If she grew tired too soon, it was his duty to pretend not to notice it, and to talk to her as she walked until she forgot it too. Or if, as sometimes happened, she was ready to wander on when the stated time was over, he was obliged to induce her to rest, which could occasionally only be done by pretending that he himself was tired. It struck him once, when he was hurrying after his patient with a rug, because she would not sit down anywhere but on the grass, that his position was a good deal less romantic than might have been expected from his conversation with his mother. Helene talked to him as naturally as if he had been her brother, and he could not flatter himself that her frank pleasure in his society, and her readiness to turn to him for everything she wanted done, sprang from any stronger feeling than pure friendliness. His uncle and the Grand-Duchess must have been mistaken, he decided, and the fact produced in him curiously mixed sensations. On the one hand, when Helene was better, nothing more would be expected of him, and he could go his way in peace; but, on the other, he felt that he had to some extent been fooled when he was induced to screw himself up to the performance of a tremendous exploit which now appeared quite unnecessary. But he grew genuinely fond of Helene in a brotherly way, and was as proud as her mother when she began to show unmistakable signs of returning health. When she refused breakfast one day, and the Grand-Duchess only waited until she was out of sight to weep, Usk showed no disappointment. His prescience was rewarded in the course of the morning, when Helene confessed suddenly that she was “so hungry,” and asked him to fetch her something to eat. Then there was the day when for the first time an expedition was undertaken beyond the grounds, and Helene proudly introduced him to one of her friends, the wife of a goatherd who lived on the mountain-side. The good woman set before her visitors a meal of black bread and goats’ milk; and this simple fare, which Usk privately thought very nasty, Helene ate and enjoyed, and the Grand-Duchess wept again, but this time her tears were of joy.
Now that Helene was sufficiently recovered to take longer walks, her mother thought it advisable to consider the conventions once more. At first she succeeded in putting a veto on any distant expeditions by the plea that Helene would overtask her strength, but when Usk had suggested taking a pony with them, on which she could ride when she was tired, it was necessary to provide suitable companions. Neither the Grand-Duchess nor the Queen were equal to the exertion involved, but the former invited her youngest son and his wife to pay a visit to Lauterbach. Prince Franz Immanuel had been educated in England, and Usk and he had been contemporaries at Eton for some years, so that they had many interests in common, while Princess Theresia, the daughter of Félicia’s uncle, Don Florian of Arragon, was so fond of things English that she was known at the Pannonian Court as the Anglomaniac. To her the Grand-Duchess had divulged her scheme concerning Usk and Helene as soon as it was formed, hoping to gain one firm ally, and the event proved that her object had been attained. The elder children of the Grand-Duchess, to whom the secret had not been revealed, were already writing from their married homes to inquire suspiciously why “that man Mortimer’s nephew” was being thrown so much with Lenchen, and prophesying that complications would occur; but Princess Resi was an ardent supporter of the match, and insisted that her husband should share her views. He had been inclined at first to adopt the natural Schwarzwald-Molzau attitude, and scout the idea of a mésalliance; but he and his wife were a most devoted couple, and she fairly talked him over. Plied all day and every day with arguments in favour of love-matches, unequal marriages, unions in which the parties were of different nationalities, and harassed by the unreasonable conduct of Princess Resi, who insisted on taking any opposition as a reflection on herself or her mother, whose admission into the house of Albret-Arragon had only been secured by her immense dowry, he yielded at last, and when they arrived at Lauterbach his wife had him well in hand. He was further cheered by finding that Usk showed no signs of undue elation, and that the intercourse between him and Helene was of so free and brotherly a nature as to suggest that the Grand-Duchess’s plan had miscarried.
Prince Franz and his wife were ideal companions on the expeditions Helene loved. Princess Resi’s Anglomania was of so pronounced a character as to degenerate occasionally into caricature, especially in the matter of the costumes she adopted for climbing; but she made it a point of honour to do as much as her husband, and they followed Helene uncomplainingly into all the nooks and corners of the mountains. So tireless was Helene herself that Prince Franz unhesitatingly expressed his opinion that she had never been ill at all, and that her ailments had simply been assumed as an excuse for leaving Nice and returning to her beloved Lauterbach, but his wife reproved him for this in private. She understood from the Grand-Duchess, she said, that Helene’s recovery was almost entirely due to Usk’s care of her, and the firmness with which he had carried out the doctor’s orders, and if things of that kind were said, he would think her friends grudged him his fitting reward. Even now, said Princess Resi, she thought his feelings must have been wounded in some way, for she took care that he had an opportunity nearly every day of speaking to Helene, but it was clear he had not done it yet.
As for Usk, about this time he wrote to his mother alluding gloomily to Miss Jones, without specifying which Miss Jones he meant, and advised her to make up her mind to welcome that young lady into the family after all. It is possible that he was influenced by an incident from which he drew, perhaps, larger deductions than he should have done.
He was mounting the stairs which led to the morning-room at the Schloss one day when he heard a sound as of paper being torn violently, and then Prince Franz’s voice raised in protest.