The rebellion of the Princess

AS the girls drew nearer I caught a glimpse of a third figure in the rear; my friend the duenna was following slowly, leaning on her staff. Meanwhile Vassalissa had stopped at the sight of me and plucked at her companion’s skirts, but the princess did not heed her, she came steadily toward me, stepping so lightly that I do not believe a blade of grass was crushed beneath her feet. She would have passed me, responding but slightly to my salutation, but I barred the way; with uncovered head.

“I must speak with you, Princess,” I said firmly, “of a matter that concerns your safety as much as that of Maître le Bastien.”

She halted at that, though the duenna began to chatter objections and shake her staff at me, but Daria silenced her by a gesture.

“Speak on, sir,” she said to me, and through her veil I could see her beautiful eyes regarding me gravely.

I plunged at once into my story, telling her—as briefly as I could—of the summons to the Kremlin, and of Sophia’s anger, and of her determination to solve the problem of the lost miniature. While I spoke I saw that Lissa was listening with evident agitation, clinging to her cousin’s arm, but I could not read the thoughts of the princess. She heard me to the end, without the slightest interruption, and once or twice she glanced in the direction of the palace and then back at my face, but her composure was entirely unshaken.

When I had finished my recital Lissa could be restrained no longer; she broke out impetuously, and in a frightened voice.

“It is all my fault, Daria,” she said. “Oh, forgive me! What shall we do? Of course, the fat creature is furious!”

The fat creature! Oh, if Sophia had heard her!

The princess cast an impatient glance at her cousin.

“For myself it does not matter, Lissa,” she said quietly, “and I, too, am to blame—but, look you, here is the good goldsmith in peril for our sakes.”

“I know,” said Lissa, nodding her head at me, “I know—but we must get him out of this trouble.”

“Can you give me the czarevna’s picture, Princess?” I asked. “If you can, I will undertake to straighten the matter for you.”

She looked at me absently, apparently lost in thought.

“Of course, he can have the picture, Daria,” Lissa cried eagerly.

“Yes, he can have it,” the princess replied calmly, “but that will not matter—it is only the beginning of the end. It was folly, it was madness——” She broke off, and stood looking at the ground, an expression of great perplexity upon her face. She had pushed her veil aside and I saw that she was very pale.

Lissa looked at her, clinging to her hand.

“Oh, I think it will not matter so much, Daria,” she said. “Uncle Kirill will straighten it for us.”

The princess smiled sadly and shook her head.

“If you will trust me,” I said, addressing her, “I will take the miniature to her highness, and I will so bear the matter out that you shall not fall under the shadow of a connection with the change of portraits. You may trust me, mademoiselle, on my honour as a French gentleman.”

She gave me a swift, searching glance, and with her hand on Lissa’s lips checked that young girl’s impulsive reply.

“Sir,” she said gravely, “you cannot understand how serious this matter is. It began in a moment of folly—a jest upon Prince Galitsyn, but I had repented of it—and all would have been well but for the—the accident that gave the locket back to him, and through him to the czarevna.”

“Surely, mademoiselle, not by his free will,” I said, “if he is the brave man that men call him.”

She coloured deeply. “I think not by his free will,” she said, “for he must know the peril of it for me, and for mine. Howbeit, I am no coward,” she added proudly, “and I must face it to the end. But you must have the miniature, if only for Maître le Bastien’s sake, and”—she stopped and glanced at me almost shyly, more girlish in her aspect than I had ever seen her—“and for yours, monsieur.”

I bowed gravely. “Consider me not at all, Princess,” I said softly, “except as your servant.”

“I thank you,” she replied, with simple dignity. “I will send at once for the miniature.”

“Let me go!” pleaded Lissa; “let me do this much to atone, Daria.”

“So you shall,” replied the princess, clapping her hands softly, and as she did so another attendant, a tall, raw-boned lad, in a serf’s dress, appeared.

“Take Konrat and go,” she said to Vassalissa, “and let your feet be fleet as the raven’s wings, Lissa, for a good man is in trouble for our folly.”

Her little cousin needed no second bidding, but ran off, with the serf, in the direction of the Bielui-gorod. And the Princess Daria, after a few words to the duenna, walked a little apart on a mossy bank below the fountain, and then signed to me to follow her. I supposed that she intended to question me about the czarevna, but she did not. The sun was shining on her, as if it loved her, and her veil made a filmy white hood above her charming face.

“You are from France, sir,” she said softly; “will you tell me something of that far-off land—more than I have learned in books? Is your home in that great city where the king lives?”

“Nay, mademoiselle,” I replied, surprised and pleased, “my home is in a province of France, called Normandy, and from the turrets of my house I can see the waves sweep wild and free on a long stretch of hard, white beach, and the smell of the salt is in the air, and there is ever the deep boom of the ocean. When the day breaks there is a whiteness on the sea, and when the night falls, a shadow, and the stars shine on the water. And the turf is green there, and the trees and flowers come to an earlier budding, and I think, too, the birds sing more sweetly. And there are orchards, and fields of grain, and you can see the cattle standing, ankle-deep, in the stream that runs across the meadows below the château, and——” I broke off; presently I should tell her more than I cared to have her know.

She had listened attentively, her eyes on the distance, and as I paused, she sighed softly.

“It must be a fair country,” she said. “I see you love it, sir—but I thought you were a goldsmith from Paris,” and she darted one of her keen looks at me.

It was now my turn to redden. “I am from Paris last, Princess,” I said, “but I am Norman-born.”

“I understand,” she said. “’Tis so here also. We are from different provinces; from the north and the south, from Great and Little and White Russia, from Kief, and Novgorod, and Kazan, and Lithuania, but,” she added softly, “we all love the White Mother Moscow. Is it so with Paris?”

I shook my head, smiling a little. Our brethren south of the Loire had not loved Paris much since Saint Bartholomew, and there were others. I remembered that I had thought it an evil star which took me to Paris, but now I began to think differently.

“Paris is a very great city, mademoiselle,” I said, “and emulation and jealousy and strife are there—in secret places—just as turbulence and strife are brooding here to-day in Moscow.”

She opened her eyes and looked at me in surprise.

“I do not understand you, monsieur,” she said.

“I mean the Streltsi, mademoiselle, and the jealousy between the Naryshkins and Miloslavskys. The soldiers seem ripe for rebellion.”

She shrugged her shoulders with a disdainful smile.

“They would not dare,” she said haughtily; “what are they? Nothing but moujiks, and the sons of moujiks; there is no aristocratic blood there to lead.”

“Sometimes the canaille can do much mischief, Princess,” I replied, “and what if these moujiks are secretly led by royalty itself?”

She glanced at me quickly, a little startled, but she had an aristocrat’s contempt for the mob.

“I cannot believe they would be,” she said. “He who turned the rabble loose would be in the greatest danger himself. Besides, the government has conceded so much to these soldiers; too much, my father says.”

“That is precisely the point, mademoiselle,” I replied; “it has conceded so much that it can no longer command; it is entreating them.”

Her expression changed and grew grave. Then, after a moment, she smiled and seemed to cast the whole matter to the four winds.

“Where is my bracelet, sir?” she asked suddenly. “Have you mended it?”

“Not yet, mademoiselle,” I replied, as glibly as I could, “but it shall be mended in a manner worthy of the arm that is to wear it.”

“You have never mended bracelets!” she said, looking at me from under her long lashes.

“If I mended one for anyone, it would be for the Princess Daria,” I replied, with gallantry.

She blushed. “You are long about it,” she retorted, pouting. “I want my bracelet!”

“’Tis hard to part with it, Princess,” I said daringly.

She bridled, and I know not what she would have replied, for, at the moment, Lissa came running up, breathless, with the miniature, which she thrust into my hands.

“Go, go!” she cried, “and save your master and save us too!”

“Yes,” said the princess gravely, “there is no time to lose, master goldsmith!”

It was hard to go, but I knew also that time was precious; I concealed the miniature on my person, and bowed profoundly to the two young girls.

“To hear you is to obey, Princess,” I said, looking straight into her eyes, and she blushed furiously and dropped her veil over her face.

“Then go, sir,” she said imperiously.

“At once, mademoiselle,” I replied, and turned away.

I had gone, perhaps, ten or twenty yards, when I heard the patter of feet behind, and Lissa came running after me.

“Do not mind her,” she panted. “Daria is not really cross, only she will play the princess. But, oh, do smooth the matter over with that dreadful czarevna, for it was all my fault! I gave the trinket to Galitsyn; you know he is half mad with love of Daria? Oh, there! I have told too much——” She clapped her hands over her rosy lips, her eyes dancing.

We heard the princess calling sharply: “Lissa, Lissa!”

“I come, I come!” cried the girl and to me, “there—do, do it, sir, do help us!”

“Trust me, mademoiselle,” I said, smiling; “not only for her sake—but for yours, too.”

“I thank you.” The girl poised on one foot, ready to run back to her cousin; “and—and I do not believe you are a horrid old goldsmith either!” and she was off, fleet as a young fawn.