THE QUEEN'S ERROR
The Reverend Mother looked from Madame la Comtesse to me, and from me
back again to the Comtesse.
"Madame," she said, addressing her, "without doubt you are old friends;
here is a re-union of the most pleasant!"
We heard her words, both of us, I have no doubt, but we did not answer
her; my thoughts were back again in that basement room at Monmouth
Street. I saw "Madame la Comtesse," this healthy, bright looking old
lady, lying on the disordered bed, her clothes soaked in blood, a great
wound in her throat.
How did she come here?
How did she escape?
Those were the two questions which, for the moment, absorbed my whole
faculties.
Her face, as I gazed upon it, expressed first blank amazement and
alarm; then pleasure; finally the formation in a strong mind of a great
resolve; she was the first to recover her entire self-possession,
which, perhaps, she had really never lost.
"Mr. Anstruther," she said in English, extending her frail, delicate
looking hand, "I am delighted to meet you again."
She took my hand in both of hers, and still holding it looked up into
my face.
"You are well," she said, "I can see that, and happy. So you should be
with such a charming wife. Please present me to her."
Dolores wanted no presentation; I think she loved the dear old lady at
the very first sight. She went to her and gave her both her hands, and
the Comtesse drew her face down to hers and kissed her.
"Your good husband did me a great service once, my dear," she said,
"perhaps the greatest service a man can do a woman."
Dolores looked down at her wonderingly, and then at me.
"I wish I could tell you what it was, my dear," she continued, "but it
is a secret. Still, perhaps your husband will tell you, _when I have
told him_. I do not think that he realised the great benefit he did me
at the time, for the good reason that he did not know its extent."
Dolores nodded her head and smiled, but I am sure she did not
understand. How should she? I did not understand myself.
Our hostess, the nun, stood looking from one to the other of us with a
smile on her face of that fixity which denoted that she did not
understand a single word of what we were talking about.
Madame la Comtesse noted her isolation at once.
"Pray forgive me, _chère mère_," she said, breaking into French, which
she pronounced with a very charming accent. "Mr. Anstruther and I are
old friends. I meet madame, his wife, for the first time today."
In voluble language the Reverend Mother expressed her gratification at
so happy a re-union, and in the midst of her compliments a nun arrived
to say that _déjeuner_ was served.
"Go to your lunch, my dears," the Comtesse said, "you must be famished
after your long row on the lake." We had told her of our morning
excursion. "Come back to me here afterwards," she continued, "if you
will, and perhaps I will tell you that which you had a right to know
long ago. Go now, and come back to me. I shall be under those trees
yonder in the little arbour, which is cool in the heat of the
afternoon."
Dolores and I went off to our _déjeuner_, but though it was excellent,
we ate but little; we were thinking of the Comtesse.
"What a dear old lady she is," commented my warm-hearted little wife.
"I don't think I have ever seen any one with such a sweet expression as
she has!"
Neither had I, save, of course, Dolores.
"But whatever can she have to say to you, Will?" she continued, "and
what is this great service you have done her?"
Alas, I could not tell her! I remembered my promise of eternal
silence, made to her father before our marriage.
A cold muteness fell upon us both when I shook my head and did not
answer her; it was the first time that the barrier of secrecy had
arisen between us. The air of the room seemed cold as we sat there,
though the sun shone brilliantly without. The fruits the nuns had
placed before us at the end of our meal remained untouched.
"Coffee will be served to you on the terrace, monsieur and madame,"
announced our attendant nun, "it is the wish of Madame la Comtesse."
We arose silently, and went forth on to the sunlit terrace again, with
its wealth of flowers and perfumed air. We walked without a word
passing between us, and we came to the arbour in the shade overlooking
a grand stretch of blue lake; here was the Comtesse, a table before her
with coffee and liqueurs, amongst them a sparkling cut-glass decanter
of yellow Chartreuse. A nun stood ready to pour out the coffee, the
same that had written at the old lady's dictation and held her sunshade
in the morning. She served us with our coffee, then with a low bow
disappeared.
"Sister Thérèse," remarked the Comtesse, "is a great comfort to me; she
writes all my letters and waits on me as if I were her mother."
At the word "mother" the old lady paused, and I saw her blue eyes fixed
on a distant sail on the lake, with a sad, almost yearning look in them.
But in a moment it was gone. She turned to us, smiling.
"You must take a glass of Chartreuse," she said, filling the tiny
glasses, "it is so good for you. It is a perfect elixir!"
We drank the liqueur more to please her than anything else; then
Dolores rose. I have never seen such a look of pain on her sweet face
as was there then. God send I never see such again!
"No doubt, Madame la Comtesse," she began, "you wish to speak to my
husband alone?"
The old lady glanced up at her for a few moments without speaking,
there was a slightly puzzled look in her kind blue eyes; then, in a
second, this look was gone, and one of deep solicitude and affection
took its place.
It was as if some expression or passing glance on my dear wife's face
had touched a chord somewhere in her nature, perhaps long forgotten.
She put out her slender white hand and drew Dolores down beside her on
to the bench on which she sat; then she put her arm round her and
pressed her to her, as one fondles a child.
"My dear," she said, "between a husband and his wife there should be no
secret. No secret of mine shall divide you two. What I tell to one, I
tell to both. What does it matter? For myself, I shall soon be gone;
for the others, what harm can it bring them?"
We sat in silence, she with her arm round Dolores, her eyes fixed on
the blue lake, a tear trembling in each, and she spoke to us as one
whose thoughts were far away among the people and the scenes she
described. I sat enthralled by every word she uttered.
"My eyes first saw the light," she began, "in a castle among the
mountains around Valoro, one of the seats of my father, the king!"
Though I started at her words, they did not amaze me; I was prepared
for them.
"My mother died when I was ten," she continued. "How I remember her
with her fair curls and blue eyes, they seemed so strange among the
dark-skinned Aquazilians! Young though I was, the shock of her death
was the most awful, I think, that I ever had, perhaps--save one. It
was all the greater because I had no brother or sister to share my
grief with me. Yet I loved my father very dearly; he was a good and
great man, and much reverenced by his people. There was no talk of
revolutions nor republics in those days; the people were content under
a mild rule.
"The years went on, and I became a woman, nurtured in the magnificence
of a rich palace, yet imbued with the fear of God, for my father was a
good man, and had me well taught my faith. I grew up, I think, with
the brightness of my dead mother's spirit pervading me, for I avoided
many of the pitfalls of youth.
"My royal father, often taking my face between his hands, would look
into my eyes, and thank God that I had not in me the wickedness of the
Dolphbergs, the race from which we sprang. It was when I was
three-and-twenty that a sudden chill, caught by my father when out
hunting, produced a fever which robbed me of him, and I was left an
orphan; an orphan queen to reign over a nation.
"I was my father's only child; there was no Salic law to bar me. But
as the orphan is ever succoured by heaven, so was I in my lonely royal
state upheld by the counsels of a good and great man.
"Your grandfather, my child," she continued turning to Dolores, "the
old Don Silvio d'Alta.
"He had been my father's stay in all his troubles; the d'Altas were a
race of diplomatists, and when death claimed him your father, Don Juan,
took his place."
A soft look came into her eyes as she sat with Dolores' hand in hers, a
far-away look; her thoughts were in the times she spoke of.
"Those were happy days, Dolores," she continued, "those first years
when your father and I ruled the people of Aquazilia. I had had a
reign of ten years when your grandfather died and young Don Juan took
the reins of government as my adviser; no one ever thought of
contesting his right to it. Was he not a d'Alta?
"He was but twenty-five and I barely nine years older when he became my
chancellor, and those ten years of ruling should have taught me
prudence as a queen had I but listened to Don Juan's counsels too. For
I know he loved me, loved me far too well perhaps and above my deserts.
"Had I had the prudence of an honest milkmaid who guards her honour as
by instinct, I might have reigned this day at Valoro, instead of being
the victim of a villain who, creeping into my heart like the serpent
into Eden, destroyed it with the fire of burning love, and left me only
ashes."
* * * * *
"It was in the very first year of Don Juan's chancellorship that there
came to Valoro the son of a Grand Duke of one of the German States;
what brought him there I shall never know. He told me it was the sight
of my face in a picture, and the 'glamour of my virgin court,' but I
think rather it was the spirit of the adventurer, or the gamester,
which seeks for gain and counts not the cost to others. The Prince of
Rittersheim----"
"Rittersheim!" I exclaimed, interrupting her.
"Yes," she continued, "Adalbert, the eldest son of the Grand Duke of
Rittersheim, he who succeeded his father two years later.
"The Prince was, I think, the handsomest man I have ever seen, and I
think the wickedest. His tall fine presence, set off by a magnificent
uniform, was seen at every Court I held. At every Court ball he
claimed my hand for the first dance; as far as my lonely state allowed
he sought me at every opportunity, and I, like a fool, was flattered by
his attentions.
"Yes, to my sorrow, I began to love him.
"I had travelled but little; travelling was harder in those days; one
tour in Europe with my father, that was all.
"I had fondly imagined that my suitor was a free, unmarried man. The
first shock of his perfidy came when I learned he was not; but it came
too late--I loved him.
"Don Juan told me, as he was bound in duty and honour to tell me from
his position, that the Prince of Rittersheim was already married, but
was separated from his wife.
"At the very next opportunity I had of speaking to the Prince--it was
in a secluded part of the palace gardens, and the meetings were
connived at by one of my ladies, the Baroness of Altenstein--I asked
him plainly if he were married.
"This was apparently the opportunity he had been waiting for; he threw
himself at my feet, and in passionate terms declared his love for me.
"He had loved me from the first moment that he had seen my portrait, he
had loved me ten times more since he had seen the original.
"I stayed the torrent of his words and reminded him that he was married.
"Yes, he admitted he was married in name, but his marriage was no
marriage; he had separated from his wife by the direction of the Grand
Duke, his father--in this he spoke the truth, but the reason was far
different--his so-called marriage was soon to be set aside as null and
void, he told me.
"'Then come back to me when you are free,' I answered, 'and I will
listen to you if the Church permits,' for I knew he was not of my
Faith, and the German States treated marriage lightly. My answer only
caused him to redouble his entreaties; he begged me not to drive him
from me, he could not live away from my presence, and I, poor fool,
looking down at his handsome face and graceful person, and loving him
with my whole heart, believed him.
"I know not how it came about, but I found myself sitting on a seat in
that secluded corner of my garden with the Prince beside me with his
arms around me, whilst my lady-in-waiting, the Baroness d'Altenstein,
had discreetly wandered off out of earshot, but still with a keen eye
that no one should disturb us.
"I never can account for it, I never can understand how it was I
listened to him. I suppose it was the hot bad blood of the Dolphbergs
which lurked in my veins and urged me, for I loved with all the passion
of my race then; loved as a woman over thirty loves who has never loved
before.
"Sitting on that rustic seat with him, whilst the cool evening wind
played about us, I listened to a scheme he unfolded to me. He said he
loved me to such distraction that he could not leave me, it would kill
him; he could not wait until his marriage was set aside. He swore that
he believed himself conscience free to marry, and swore a great oath
that nothing should ever part him from me.
"In soft, loving whispers, he proposed that we should be married
secretly; he had a priest all ready willing to perform the ceremony.
"Then he would be sure of me and could live content.
"In a few months his former alliance would be set aside; before all the
world we could be married again. A grand state ceremony if I would
have it so.
"I listened to him, and my heart beat high as he spoke, yet I doubted
in my saner moments whether I should ever be permitted to marry him by
my ministers and my people were he free that very day.
"Poor fool that I was, he bent me to his will within a week, and he had
no greater advocate for his cause than the Baroness d'Altenstein, my
lady, though, poor soul, she only meant me well. But she was romantic,
and had not long been married to a man she loved, a courtier from the
country of the Dolphbergs; she had spent her honeymoon in their
capital, and was an advocate for love at any price.
"Knowing I loved the Prince of Rittersheim, she worked only to make me
happy by a marriage with him.
"With her knowledge only, I slipped away from Court for a week and went
through a ceremony of marriage with the Prince at a little village
church hidden away in the mountains a hundred miles from Valoro.
"I married him in the dress and under the name of a simple peasant
woman, not knowing--as he did--that such a ceremony was utterly null
and void.
"Was I happy? I think he loved me then--a little." A soft, sad look
overspread the sweet old face; she gazed away across the lake in
silence for a few moments. It seemed that, even after all these years,
that time of love and falseness held some tender recollection still.
She came, as it were, to herself almost directly, and heaving a great
sigh, went on--
"Long before the week was ended, the Prince had told me I must return
to the Court, and take my place there as before.
"Of course I protested, and begged him to even then make our marriage
public; that I would give up the throne. Had I not a great fortune
left me by my father?
"Yes, that was the point that touched him, the great fortune. The
treasures of my late father were immense. Besides an enormous fortune
in money, mostly invested prudently in Europe, he possessed some of the
most valuable diamonds in the world. It had been his diversion to
collect them; he believed that they were always a most valuable
security, likely to increase in value, and therefore he did not grudge
the money sunk in them. The most valuable, reckoned to be worth a
million English pounds, were stored in a safe of special construction
made of steel. They were apart from the Crown Jewels, and were never
worn. Indeed most of them were unset. My father's theory was that
they were of immense value and could be carried in a small compass in
case of necessity.
"The Prince, of course, knew from me full well of these treasures, and
I firmly believe hungered for their possession from the very moment he
learned from my foolish lips of their existence. He forced me at the
end of the few days' honeymoon to return to the Court, and then from
that time forth I saw him only surreptitiously with the aid of
d'Altenstein, who was the aider and abettor of it all, yet loving me,
and working only, as she thought, poor soul, for my happiness.
"I was soon undeceived in my Prince. I soon learned that he was in
sore straits for money, and that he intended to get it from me.
"I gave him all I could, but he was insatiable. Finally he would come
to me drunk and strike me when I could not meet his demands for
thousands upon thousands.
"It was then that in my desperation, when I knew I was to be a mother
soon, I confided all to Don Juan d'Alta, and by so doing perhaps saved
my life and my child's."