THE OCEANA
Very thankful were my two cousins and I when we got clear of the fogs
of the Mersey and were fairly out at sea. Not that we were bad
sailors. We did not proclaim that we were, at any rate, though I will
admit that for the first two days I found my comfortable brass bedstead
a resting-place much more to my liking than a seat at the dinner-table,
although I duly turned up there for the sake of appearances. During
this period of seclusion I thought deeply of the latest attempt of my
enemies to secure the casket, and it caused me great uneasiness. I
could not imagine how they knew that I should go to my lawyers for it.
Ethel made a brave show, but it was quite the third day out from
Liverpool before I saw her smile as I wished to see her smile--without
a mental reservation, in fact.
St. Nivel was really the only perfectly unconcerned member of our
party, and it was through his persevering attendances on the promenade
deck, that I became acquainted with a young lady who will figure
largely in these pages, although she in reality was by no means of
commanding stature, but one of those charming petite persons whose
mission in life appears to be to exemplify what extraordinarily choice
pieces of human goods can be made up in small parcels.
It was on the fourth day out that I became acquainted with Dolores
d'Alta. While I had been lying disconsolately on my cot, St. Nivel had
been improving the shining hour by looking after Miss Dolores, who had
taken up her position, during the first few days of her trial, in a
sheltered position on the promenade deck, in preference to her "stuffy
cabin," as she called her state room.
It had been the pleasure, and had become the duty--a self-imposed
one--of St. Nivel to see that she was properly wrapped up.
She did not object to smoke either, having, as she stated, been brought
up in an atmosphere of smoke at home. Therefore Jack smoked his cigar.
Had I not known that St. Nivel's inclinations were apparently fixed in
the direction of bachelorhood, I should have thought he had fallen in
love; but I discovered later that he had, to use an expression of his
own, "simply taken on another pal." He found her a congenial person in
whose society to smoke cigars. But if he had fallen in love, certainly
he would have had a most excellent excuse for doing so.
A daintier little specimen of Southern beauty it would have been
difficult to imagine than this little Aquazilian aristocrat. To
describe her in a few words, she was a beautiful woman in miniature;
she was the most perfectly symmetrical little piece of womanhood that I
had ever set eyes upon.
A perfectly clear, creamy complexion, yet not without colour of a rose
tint; dimples in the cheeks, which were ravishing when she smiled,--and
she was very fond of smiling, ay, and laughing too, and showing the
most perfect set of white teeth,--black hair, and very dark blue eyes;
and there you have her. United to this beauty of person was a most
fascinating natural manner; not the manner of a flirt, but that of a
light-hearted, pure-minded girl, as gay as a lark released from
captivity, and not unlike it in its new freedom, for she had not
escaped from a first-rate finishing school in Paris more than six
months.
She had spent the intervening period under the care of a sister of her
father who had married an Englishman and who lived in good society.
She had had a season in London and had spent the autumn in a round of
country visits which accounted for her wonderful _savoir faire_; she
was only eighteen. Now she was going home to her dear father, a
widower, under the care of her aunt. Hearing her always referred to in
conversation as "Dolores," her surname was a revelation when I heard it
properly pronounced. St. Nivel's idea of foreign names was exceedingly
hazy and misleading. As soon as she told me she was going home to
Aquazilia, I became very alert and began to ask her questions.
"Yes," she replied to my query concerning her parent's name, "my father
is the Senor Don Juan d'Alta; in the old time of our monarchy he was
for many years the Prime Minister. He is a very old man is my father,"
she further explained; "he is nearly seventy!"
Looking at her I could understand the old man simply making an idol of
this his only child. It appeared to me very marvellous that I should
have met her.
Some of the other passengers told me that he was a member of one of the
oldest and most aristocratic families in the country.
It was very lovely as we steamed farther and farther away from our own
cold fogs and got into the warmth of the south; very fascinating to
walk on deck with Dolores and talk, under the brilliant stars, of
Aquazilia and the extraordinary chance which had made us meet on board
both with the same destination in view--the house of her father.
"I don't think, though, it is so strange," she confided to me one
lovely moonlight night when we were walking the promenade deck side by
side; "it is not an unreasonable thing that we should have taken the
same boat, considering that they only run once a fortnight."
"It is certainly not unreasonable," I answered, with a look into her
eyes. "It is the most reasonable chance that I have ever come across
in the whole of my life!"
"Why?" she answered, with a look of mischief in her dark blue eyes.
"Because," I answered fervently, with a little tremor in my voice, "it
has given me the chance of spending three weeks near you!
"Let us go and look at the flying fish," she answered hastily, to
change the conversation. "I do so love to see them."
Yes, I was daily becoming more and more attached to her; for the first
time in my long career of flirtation I was beginning to find out what
love _really_ meant.
I was falling in love with a little divinity twelve years my junior,
and from the depths of my knowledge I expected she would very justly
make a fool of me--not intentionally, perhaps, but in effect the
same--and laugh at me for my pains.
It seemed very bitter to think of as I saw her walking--and laughing
and talking too--with St. Nivel who was six years my junior. It seemed
to me, in my growing jealousy, an ideal match for her.
I forgot that young ladies never fall in love with the persons they are
expected to, but invariably go off on an unknown tangent of their own,
in obedience to the same law of Nature, perhaps, which causes an
unusually tall girl to lose her heart to a very diminutive--though
generally very consequential--little man.
In the contemplation of the varied charms of Dolores d'Alta, I almost
forgot my precious casket, confided in fear and trembling to the care
of the captain, and locked up by him in the ship's strong room in my
presence and in the presence of St. Nivel.
In due course we came to Coruña, or Corunna as we more commonly call
it, and there I had the delight of strolling about the old
fortifications all alone with Dolores and showing her the tomb of Sir
John Moore, while St. Nivel obligingly took charge of her aunt, and
solicitously kept her out of earshot. The old lady had lived long
enough in England to appreciate the attentions of a lord, and he a rich
one, without designs on her niece's fortune.
Yes, that fortune was my stumbling-block; I learned of it from old Sir
Rupert Frampton, our minister to Aquazilia, who was travelling back to
his post on the _Oceana_.
"I really don't suppose," he said, one evening in the smoking-room,
nodding his head sententiously, "that old Don Juan d'Alta knows what he
is worth; neither do I suppose that he cares much, for he is a man of
the simplest tastes, living on the plainest food, and having but one
hobby and object, in fact, in life."
"His daughter?" I suggested at once, Dolores, of course, being the
uppermost thought in my mind.
"No," replied the old gentleman crisply, with the smartness of the
_diplomat_; "reptiles!"
"Reptiles!" I exclaimed in disgust; "what reptiles?"
"Principally snakes," replied the old man, shifting his cigar in his
mouth; "he has a regular Zoological Gardens full of them--all kinds,
from boa-constrictors to adders. He makes pets of them."
"Not about the _house_?" I suggested.
"No, not exactly," Sir Rupert replied, "unless they stray in by
themselves. He's very eccentric and I don't think has been quite
himself since the queen abdicated. They say he was in love with her,
notwithstanding the fact that she was a confirmed old maid."
"Indeed," I replied, curious to keep the old man talking, for I was
desirous of hearing as much as I possibly could about Aquazilia and its
capital, Valoro, "it sounds quite romantic."
"Well, it _was_ romantic in a way," he proceeded, glad to have a
listener, as old men are; "there's always a certain amount of romance
about the court of a reigning queen. Of course you know that the Salic
law did not prevail in the kingdom of Aquazilia when it _was_ a
kingdom. Yes, it was a splendid court was that of Valoro when Her
Majesty Inez the Second reigned over it. I just remember it
thirty-five years ago when I went out to it as a young attaché on one
of my first appointments and took such a fancy to the lovely country."
"Then it _is_ lovely," I ventured; "the reports of it are not
exaggerations?"
Old Sir Rupert replied almost with emotion--
"It is superb. It is the loveliest country in the world!"
"In those days I am speaking of," he proceeded, "Valoro was a place
worth living in. In many respects it outshone some of the courts of
Europe, with which, by the bye, it was in close contact. Queen Inez,
as you no doubt know, was a Princess of Istria; the royal line of
Aquazilia was simply a collateral branch of the great Imperial House of
Dolphberg. And there were those that said that Queen Inez despite all
her resistance of the many endeavours to induce her to enter the
married state--and her offers had been abundant--was not only a queen
and a rich one, but she was also a very beautiful woman."
"Your account of Queen Inez, Sir Rupert, is absolutely fascinating," I
said. "I am almost inclined to fall in love with her. Where is she
now?"
The old man paused and a sad look came over his face.
"She is dead, poor woman," he answered sadly; "they say she died of a
broken heart."
"At losing the throne?" I queried.
"I don't know, I'm sure," he said slowly, throwing away the end of his
cigar. "Some say she was glad to get rid of the responsibilities of
it, and quite content to retire to a castle she had in Switzerland not
far from the Lake of Lucerne. She was a woman of very simple tastes."
"It seems a pity she did not marry," I suggested, "as far as one can
judge."
"Well, it is highly probable," he answered, "that she would not have
lost her throne if she had had a husband to stand up for her. She was
no match for Razzaro."
"Who was Razzaro?" I asked.
"Well, he was the sort of adventurer," the old diplomat answered, "that
South America seems especially to breed. He was a man of great talents
and abandoned to unscrupulousness. I believe he would have sold his
own mother, if he could have got a good bid, and would have haggled
with the purchaser whether the price was to include the clothes she
stood in."
"A thoroughly honourable, straightforward gentleman," I suggested
ironically. "I can imagine a lady such as you describe Queen Inez to
have been being peculiarly unfitted to deal with such a man!"
"Yes," agreed Sir Rupert; "and her Prime Minister, or Chancellor as
they called him, Don Juan d'Alta, was not much better. He had the
misfortune to possess the nature of a modern Bayard, and believed in
everybody, until he found out too late that he had been deceived. That
is how Queen Inez lost her throne. Razzaro was slowly but surely
sapping the Royal power for years, right under d'Alta's nose, and he
never really found it out until the whole country burst into
revolution."
"What happened then?" I asked.
"Nothing happened," replied Sir Rupert. "When the Queen discovered
that the voice of the people was in favour of a Republic she simply
abdicated. She would not allow a drop of blood to be shed in her
behalf. An Istrian warship which had been waiting for her at the coast
took her to Europe with her devoted lady-in-waiting, the Baroness
d'Altenberg."
"D'Altenberg," I muttered; "where have heard that name?"
"It was a bloodless revolution."
"And Razzaro triumphed?" I added aloud.
"Yes; Razzaro triumphed," he replied; "and, as a matter of fact,
thoroughly got hold of the popular favour. His son is President of the
Republic at the present moment. Old Razzaro made a sort of family
living of the Presidency."
"And Don Juan d'Alta retired into private life?" I ventured.
"Into private life and the society of his reptiles," added the old
diplomatist, rising. "I think the latter have consoled him for many
disappointments."
"Whom did he marry?" I asked.
"A very beautiful French lady," he replied, "whose husband, a French
nobleman, had come to Aquazilia to try and make his fortune, and had
died in the effort."
"Poor man!" I commented. "And Don Juan married his widow?"
"Exactly; and this pretty little lady, Señorita Dolores, who is
returning to Valoro with us, is the result of the union. They say she
is the very image of her mother, who died when she was five."
"Then the mother must have been very beautiful," was my comment.
The old minister stopped and looked at me for some moments without
saying anything. Then, with a peculiar smile about the corners of his
good-natured mouth, shook his head and went slowly out of the
smoking-room.