It was the day of the Princess Fleta’s wedding and the whole city
was _en fête_.
Hilary Estanol paced the streets wildly, like a creature distracted.
He had never seen her face since the day he returned from the secret
monastery. He could not trust himself to go near her. He felt that
the savage in him must kill, must destroy, if too much provocation
were given him.
He held this savage in check as well as he could. He would not trust
himself under the same roof with the woman he loved as he loved
nothing else in life, and who had given him her love while she gave
herself to another man. Herself! How much that meant Hilary seemed
only now to know, now that he heard her marriage bells ringing, now
that she was absolutely given. Yes, she had given herself away to
another man. Was it possible? Hilary stood still now and again in
the midst of the crowded street trying to remember the words she had
said to him in that wood in the early morn when she had accepted his
love. What had she taken from him then? He had never been the same
since. His heart lay cold, and chill, and dull within him save when
her smile or its memory woke him to life and joy. Were these gone
for ever? Impossible. He was still young—a mere boy. She could not
have stolen so much from him! No—he had the first right—he would be
her lover still and always, to whoever else she gave herself in
name. This was the point of thought to which Hilary perpetually
returned. Undoubtedly she was his, and he would claim her. But
obscured and excited as his mind was he had sufficient intelligence
to know that his must be a secret claim even though it stood before
all others. He could not go and claim her at the altar, for she had
not given him any right to. What she had said was, “Take from me
what you can.” Well, he could not make her his wife. He could not
marry a royal Princess. She was not of his class. This being so,
what could he hope for? Nothing—and yet he had her love—yes, the
last kind touch of her hand, the last sweet smile on her lips, were
still with him, and drove his blood rioting through his veins.
At last the procession is coming—the soldiers have already cleared
the way and with their horses keep back the crowd. Hilary stands
now, still as a carven figure, watching only for one face. He sees
it suddenly—ah! so beautiful, so supremely beautiful, so
mysterious—and everything in Heaven and earth becomes invisible,
non-existent, save that one dear face. A voice rang out on the air,
clear, shrill, above all other voices.
“Fleta! Fleta! My love! my love!”
What a cry! It penetrated to Fleta’s ears; it reached the ears of
her bridegroom.
In the church, amid the pomp and ceremony, and the crowd of great
people, Otto did a thing which made those near him stare. He went to
meet his bride and touched her hand.
“Fleta,” he said, “that voice was the voice of one who loves you.
What answer do you make to it?”
Fleta put her hand in his.
“That is my answer,” she said.
And so they stepped up the broad low steps to the altar. None heard
what had been said except the king.
Fleta’s father was strangely unlike herself. He was a rugged,
morose, sombre man, ill-disposed towards all humanity, as it would
seem, save those few who held the key to his nature. Of these, his
daughter was one; some said she was the only one. Others said her
power lay in the fact that she was not his daughter, but a child of
other parents altogether than those reputed to be hers; and that a
State secret was involved in the mystery of her birth.
At all events, it was seldom indeed that the king interfered with
Fleta. But he did so now, at this moment, with all the eyes of the
Court upon them.
He spoke low into her ear, he stood beside her.
“Fleta,” he said, “is this marriage right?”
Fleta turned on him a face so full of torture, of deathly pain, that
he uttered an ejaculation of horror.
“Say no word, my father,” she said, “it is right.”
And then she turned her head again, and fixed her glorious eyes on
Otto.
What a strangely beautiful bride she was! She was dressed with
extraordinary simplicity; her robe had been arranged by her own
hands in long, soft lines that fell from her neck to her feet, and a
long train lay on the ground behind her, but it was undecked by any
lace or flowers. No flowers were in her hair, no jewels on her neck.
Never had a princess been dressed so simply, a princess who was to
be a queen. The Court ladies stared in amazement. But they knew well
that there was a grace so supreme, a dignity so lofty, in this royal
girl, that however simple her dress she outshone them all, and would
outshine any woman who stood beside her.
No one heard any of what passed between the three chief actors in
this scene; yet everyone was aware that there was something unusual
in it. There was an atmosphere of mystery, of excitement, of
strangeness. And yet what else would be possible where the Princess
Fleta was concerned? In her father’s Court she was looked upon as a
wild, capricious, imperious creature whose will none could resist.
None would have wondered had they believed her carriage to have
passed over the body of an accepted lover, now thrown aside and
discarded. So did these people interpret the character of Fleta.
Otto knew this, felt it, understood it; knew that those creatures of
intrigue and pleasure would have thought her far less worthy had
they judged her character more nearly as he did. To him she was
pure, stainless, unattainable; virgin in soul and thought. This he
said to her when, on leaving the cathedral, they entered a carriage
together and alone. They had together passed through crowds of
congratulators, nobles, great ladies, diplomats from different parts
of Europe. They had bowed and smiled, and answered courteously the
words addressed to them. And yet how far away were their thoughts
all the while! They neither of them knew who they had met, who they
had spoken to. All was lost in one absorbing thought. But it was not
the same thought. No, indeed, their minds were separated widely as
the poles.
Fleta was filled with the sense of a great purpose. This marriage
was but the first step in a giant programme. Her thoughts had flown
now from this first step and were dwelling on the end, the
fulfilment; as an artist when he draws his first sketch sees in his
own mind the completed picture.
Otto had but one overwhelming thought; a very simple one, expressed
instantly, in the first words he uttered when they were alone:
“Fleta, you did not fancy that I doubted you? I never meant that!
And yet it seemed as if there was reproach in your eyes! No, Fleta,
never that. But the cry was so terrible—it cut my heart. You did not
fancy I meant any doubt?—assure me, Fleta!”
“No, I did not,” replied Fleta quietly. “You know whose voice it
was.”
“No—it was unrecognisable—it was nothing but a cry of torture.”
“Ah! but I knew it,” said Fleta. “It was Hilary Estanol who cried
out my name.”
“He said ‘Fleta, my love, my love,’” added Otto. “Is he that?”
“Yes,” said Fleta unmoved, indeed strangely calm. “He is. More,
Otto; he has loved me long centuries ago, when this world wore a
different face. When the very surface of the earth was savage and
untaught so were we. And then we enacted this same scene. Yes Alan,
we three enacted it before, without this pomp, but with the natural
splendour of savage beauty and undimmed skies. Otto, I sinned then I
expiated my sin. Again and again have I expiated it. Again and again
has Nature punished me for my offence against her. Now at last I
know more, I see more, I understand more. The sin remains. I desired
to take, to have for myself, to be a conqueror. I conquered—I have
conquered since! how often! That has been my expiation: satiety. But
now I will no longer enjoy. I will stand on that error, that folly,
and win from it strength which shall lift me from this wretched
little theatre where we play the same dramas for ever through the
fond weariness of recurring lives.”
Otto had drawn back from her, and gazed intently upon her as she
spoke, passion and vehemence gradually entering her low voice. As
she ceased he passed his hand over his forehead.
“Fleta,” he said, “is this some spell of yours upon me? While you
spoke I saw your face change, and become the face of one familiar to
me, but far, far back! I smelled the intense rich scent of
innumerable fruit blossoms——Fleta, tell me, are you dreaming or
speaking fables, or is this thing true? Have I lived for you before,
loved you, served you, ages back, when the world was young?”
“Yes,” said Fleta.
“Ah!” cried Otto suddenly, “I feel it—there is blood on you—blood on
your hand!”
Fleta raised her beautiful hand, and looked at it with an infinite
sadness on her face.
“It is so,” she answered. “There is blood on it, and there will be,
until I have got beyond the reign of blood and of death. You held me
down then, Otto; you triumphed by brute force, not knowing that in
me lay a power undreamed of by you—a vital, stirring will. I could
have crushed you. But already I had used my will once, and found the
bitter, unintelligible suffering it produced. I determined to try
and understand Nature before I again used my power. So I submitted
to your tyranny; you learned to love it, and through many lives have
learned to love it more. It has brought you a crown at last, and a
little army of soldiers to defend it for you, and half-a-dozen
crafty old diplomats who want you to keep it, and who think they can
make you do just as their respective monarchs wish. Move your
puppets, Otto. No such kingdom satisfies me. I mean to win my own
crown. I will be a queen of souls, not of bodies; a queen in
reality, not in name.”
She seemed to wrap herself in an impenetrable veil of scorn as she
ceased speaking and leaned back in the carriage.
Some great emotion was stirring Otto through and through. At last he
spoke; and the man seemed changed—a different being. From under the
gentle manner, the docile, ready air, came struggling up the fierce
spirit of opposition.
“You despise the crown you married me for? Is that so? Well, I will
teach you to respect it.”
A smile dawned on Fleta’s clouded face and then was gone again in a
moment. This was all the answer she vouchsafed to the kingly threat.
Otto turned and looked at her steadily.
“A magnificent creature,” he said, “beautiful, and with a brain of
steel, and perhaps for all I know, a heart like it. You won a great
deal from me, Fleta, a little while since. Did I not submit to the
masquerading of your mysterious Order? Did I not trust my life to
those treacherous monks of yours, submit to be blindfolded and led
into their haunt by secret ways. For what end? Ivan told me of
aspirations, of ideas, of thoughts, which only sickened my soul and
filled me with shame and despair. For I am a believer in order, in
moral rule, in the government of the world in accordance with the
principles of religion. I told you I was willing to become a member
of the order; yes, because my nature is in sympathy with its avowed
tenets. But its secret doctrines as I have heard them from you, as I
have heard them from the man you call your master, are to me
detestable. And it is for the carrying out of this unholy theory or
doctrine that you propose to surrender your life? No, Fleta; you are
now my queen.”
“Yes,” said Fleta. “I am now your queen. I know that I have chosen
the lot willingly. You need not again tell me that I have the crown
I purposed to obtain.”
At this moment they arrived at the palace. There was yet a weary
mass of ceremony and speaking of polite nothings to be passed
through before there was any chance of their being alone again. Otto
relapsed into the pleasant and kindly manner which was habitual with
him. Fleta fell into one of her abstracted moods, and the court
adopted its usual policy under such circumstances—let her be
undisturbed. Few of the men cared to risk the satirical answers that
came readiest to her lips when she was roused out of such a mood as
this.
And yet at last someone did venture to rouse her; and a smile,
delicious as a burst of sunshine, came swiftly and suddenly on her
mouth.
It was Hilary Estanol. Pale, worn, the mere ghost of himself, his
dark eyes looking strangely large in the white face they were set
in. They were fixed on her as though there were nothing else in the
world to look at.
Fleta held out her hand to him; his companion—a military officer who
had brought him under protest, and in some doubt, for Hilary had no
friends at Court—drew back in amazement. He understood now Hilary’s
importunity.
Hilary bent over Fleta’s hand and held his lips near it for an
instant, but did not touch it. A sort of groan came to her ear from
his lips.
“You have resigned me?” she asked in a low vibrating whisper.
“You have cast me off,” he answered.
“Be it so,” she replied, “but you have lived through it, and you now
claim nothing. Is it not so? I read it in the dumb pain in your
eyes.”
“Yes,” said Hilary, straightening himself and standing upright close
beside her, and looking down upon her beautiful dark head. “It is
so. I will not cry for the moon, nor will I weary any woman with my
regret or entreaty, even you, Fleta, though it is no dishonour to
humble oneself at the feet of such as you. No; I will bear my pain
like a man. I came here to say good-bye. You are still something
like the Fleta that I loved. To-morrow you will not be.”
“How can you tell?” she said with her inscrutable smile. “Still, I
think you are right. And now that we are no longer lovers will you
enter with me another bond? Will you be my comrade in undertaking
the great task? I know you are fearless.”
“The great task?” said Hilary vaguely, and he put his hand to his
forehead.
“The one great task of this narrow life—To learn its lesson and go
beyond it.”
“Yes, I will be your comrade,” said Hilary in an even voice and
without enthusiasm.
“Then meet me at two this very morning at the gate of the
garden-house where you used to enter.”
It was now just midnight. Hilary noticed this as he turned away, for
a little clock stood on a bracket close by. He looked at it, and
looked back at Fleta. Could she mean what she said? But already the
Fleta he knew had vanished; a cold, haughty, impassive young queen
was accepting the uninteresting homage of a foreign minister. The
guests were beginning to take their departure. Fleta and Otto did
not propose to take any journey in honour of their wedding as is the
custom in some places; the king opened for their use the finest set
of guests’ chambers in the palace, and these they occupied,
remaining among the visitors until all had departed. On the next day
Otto was to take his queen home; but he had had to give way to the
wishes of Fleta and her father as to the postponing of the journey.
From the great drawing-rooms Fleta went quietly away when the last
guest had departed; she moved like a swift shadow noiselessly along
the corridors. She entered her own room, and there began, without
summoning any attendant, to hastily take off her bridal robes. On a
couch was lying the white robe and cloak which she had worn when she
had endeavoured to enter the hall of the mystics. These she put on,
and wrapping the cloak round her turned to leave the room. As she
did so she came face to face with Otto, who had entered noiselessly,
and was standing in silence beside her. She seemed scarcely to
notice him, but changed her direction and proceeded towards another
door. Otto quickly placed himself again in her way.
“No,” he said; “you do not leave this room to-night.”
“And why?” asked Fleta, looking gravely at his set face.
“Because you are now my wife. I forbid it. Stay here, and with me.
Come, let me take off that cloak, without any trouble; the white
gown under it suits you even better than your wedding-dress.”
He unfastened the clasps which held the cloak together. Fleta made
no opposition, but kept her eyes on his face; he would not meet her
gaze, though his face was white and rigid with the intensity of his
passion and purpose.
“Do you remember,” said Fleta, “the last thing that you did when you
were with Father Ivan? Do you remember kneeling before him and
uttering these words—‘I swear to serve the master of truth and the
teacher of life——’”
“That master—that teacher!” interrupted Otto hotly. “I reserved my
reason even in that incense-scented room. That master—that
teacher—is my own intelligence—so I phrased it in my own mind—I
recognise no other master.”
“Your own intelligence!” repeated Fleta. “You have not yet learned
to use it. You did not so phrase the vow then; you only rephrased it
so afterwards, when you were away, and alone, and began again to
struggle for your selfish freedom. No, Otto, you have not begun to
use your intelligence. You are still the slave of your desires,
eaten up with the longing for power and the lust of the tyrannical
soul. You do not love me—you only desire to possess me. You fancy
your power is all you wish it to be. Well, put it to the test. Take
this cloak from my shoulders.”
Otto came close, and took the cloak in his hands; and then a
sudden passion filled him—he seized her in his arms and pressed
his lips to hers—yet he did not do so, either, for the attempt was
instantaneously surrendered. He staggered back, white and
trembling.
Fleta stood erect and proud before him.
“That vow you took,” she said quietly, “you knew very well in the
inner recesses of your soul, in your true unblinded self, to make
you a slave of the Great Order. That vow may yet save you from
yourself, if you do not resent it too fiercely. But remember this; I
am a neophyte of that order, and you being its slave, are under my
command. I am your queen, Otto, but not your wife.”
She passed him as she said this, and he made no effort to detain
her; indeed, the trembling had not yet left him, and his whole
strength was taken by the attempt to control it. As she reached the
door he succeeded in speaking:
“Why did you marry me?”
“Did I not tell you?” she said, pausing a moment and turning to look
at him. “I think I did. Because I have to learn to live on the plain
as contentedly as on the mountain tops. There is but one way for me
to do this, and that is to devote my life as your queen to the same
great purpose it would serve were I the silver-robed initiate I
desire to be. I go now to commence my work, with the aid of a lover
who has learned to surrender his love.”
She moved magnificently from the room, looking much taller even than
her natural height. And Otto let her go without any word or sign.