THE QUEEN'S ATONEMENT
"Yes, but for the intervention of Don Juan d'Alta, my Chancellor at
that time," continued the old lady, "my life might have ended in
despair.
"From the very first, although he did not tell me so then, he saw that
I had been simply _exploited_ by this heartless and unprincipled
scoundrel, Prince Adalbert of Rittersheim. But your father," she
proceeded, turning to Dolores and placing her hand on hers, "your
father, my dear, by his self-sacrifice and the pure affection which he
bore me, saved me.
"He realised that he had to do with a villain whose object was plunder,
and who at that time dominated the situation. He foresaw that a
liberal outlay of money was the only thing that would rid me of this
fiend. He went to Prince Adalbert and simply asked him his price.
"He named at first an exorbitant sum, _and the diamonds of my late
father contained in the steel safe_.
"This was refused. Don Juan at last brought him to his knees by
defying him and telling him to do his worst.
"Then he agreed to a yearly pension of one hundred thousand dollars,
which would be paid to him on condition that he left me unmolested.
"He made a fight for the custody of the child which was coming, as I
doubt not he thought that he could have a greater hold over me if he
had it, but this request was flatly refused, and he sailed away from
Aquazilia the richer by a great income, but bought at the price of a
loving woman's happiness."
The old queen stopped and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Do not go on, your Majesty," urged Dolores, half dazed at the
disclosures; "you distress yourself."
The old lady brightened at once and pressed her hand, putting away her
handkerchief.
"No," she answered; "I prefer to tell you _all_ and _now_.
"By the aid of Don Juan and the Baroness d'Altenstein, who was broken
down with grief at the course affairs had taken, my condition was
concealed, and arrangements were made for my accouchement under
circumstances of the greatest secrecy. Don Juan had abandoned all hope
from the outset of legitimatising the child; his one object was to
conceal my shame. This he succeeded in doing. I gave birth to a boy,
and my love for him has been the great solace of my life."
"And he is living, madame?" I ventured to ask.
"Yes, living," she answered, the sweet smile playing about her lips
again--"living, and the greatest comfort God has given me in my trials.
"From his babyhood he was the one thought I had; his training, his
education, the fostering of good in his receptive mind that he might
grow up a good man. And he has repaid me a thousandfold.
"But in those years great troubles came upon me. Prince Adalbert,
known as one of the greatest roués and spendthrifts in Europe, had
succeeded his father two years after he left me, and was now Grand
Duke. His first wife had been taken back again--or he never could have
faced his people--and had borne him a son. This son was fated to be
the scourge of my life hereafter.
"Meanwhile, in the throes of a continental war, the Grand Duchy of
Rittersheim was absorbed into the neighbouring great state, and the
Grand Duke Adalbert, deposed and impoverished, became simply a
pensioner, and a most importunate blackmailer of myself.
"His one great object in life--and later he confided this secret, with
the story of our marriage, to his son--was to obtain possession of the
great fortune in diamonds, still locked in the steel safe bequeathed me
by my father, and which I had steadfastly refused to part with, nay,
even to withdraw a single stone from.
"But the value had, in the drink-distorted mind of the Grand Duke
Adalbert, become immensely exaggerated. The safe was believed by his
son Waldemar to contain diamonds to the value of five millions of
English pounds!"
Hence his intense rapacity in later years; for when my boy was
twenty-five his father, the Grand Duke Adalbert, died, and was
succeeded in the title only, for the power was gone, by his son
Waldemar, but two years younger than my own.
"This Waldemar appears to have been evilly disposed from boyhood, and
embittered against mankind in general, first by the loss of his Duchy,
and in addition by the destruction of an eye which he suffered in some
low fracas, for his delight was to mingle and drink with the lowest of
mankind. On his father's death he came to Valoro and demanded that the
pension paid to the late Duke by me should be continued to him!
"This was refused.
"Then he had the impudence to try and bargain with me, offering to keep
silence for a certain sum. Finally he laid claim to the diamonds in
the steel safe, which he stated were his father's property. My answer
to his requests and fraudulent claims was to have him placed on board a
steamer bound for Europe.
"Then he threatened me with his life-long vengeance. Leagued with a
professional agitator named Razzaro, he commenced to undermine my
authority with great subtilty, till in the end my simple people who
once had loved me and my family grew to hate me, and to look upon
Waldemar, even the Royalists, as a much-wronged person.
"You know the rest; it is written in the history of the world. My
people rose in rebellion. I was dethroned, and with one single
faithful companion, the Baroness d'Altenstein, fled to Europe in the
warship of a friendly nation.
"But before the storm burst I had sent to Europe the steel safe and its
precious contents, the diamonds.
"For some reasons, I have many times since wished that it had sunk to
the bottom of the Atlantic.
"For years I lived in one of the fairest cities of Europe with my
faithful d'Altenstein, and for those years the Duke Waldemar left me
in peace, being, I suppose, occupied in some other villainy.
"But suddenly he commenced his importunities again, and made one
dastardly attempt, through others, to steal the safe from the bankers'
vaults in which it lay, but this was frustrated.
"Harried to death by his persecution, I consulted a learned English
judge whom I met in Society in Paris, Sir Henry Anstruther, your
father," she added, turning to me, "and it has always seemed to me a
providential coincidence that in my need I should also have turned to
you.
"I asked this good English judge, without disclosing my secret, what he
considered the most effectual mode for a woman to adopt to hide herself
entirely from the world and her friends. I said I was very curious to
know what his long experience had taught him in that respect.
"He seemed amused at my question, and thought for some time before
replying, little guessing what was running in my mind. He answered me
at last, and said that he thought that a person could be best hidden
and lost to the world by living just a fairly ordinary life in a quiet
way in one of the larger towns in England. That was his experience
during his long life as a lawyer.
"I treasured his opinion, and formed a scheme in my mind upon it.
"Just then poor Carlotta d'Altenstein, a widow without friends, my dear
companion, was seized with her mortal illness, and then I saw my scheme
complete before me.
"By the lavish use of money, of which I had more than I needed by far,
for my father's private fortune invested in Europe was very great, I
contrived that I should change places with the Baroness d'Altenstein.
"To the public it was _I_ who was ill; to the world at large, even to
Don Juan, it was _I_ who died. It was then that, passing as the
Baroness d'Altenstein--in England as plain Mrs. Carlotta Altenstein--I
went to the city of Bath, which had been recommended, and also offered
certain devotional advantages to me, for I intended to give the
remainder of my life to religion and the poor.
"There in Monmouth Street, where you saw me, Mr. Anstruther, amusing
myself with philanthropic literature, I succeeded for ten years in
hiding myself from the Duke Waldemar of Rittersheim, who had in a
manner reformed himself and become a philanthropist too, _in public_;
in secret his life was worse than ever. In that little room in which
you found me, I was foolish enough to keep the steel safe, hidden away
in a receptacle cut in the stone wall of the house. But the safe no
longer contained all the diamonds. I had been gradually selling them
and devoting the proceeds to the poor of the world. This convent, a
refuge for aged men and women, and orphaned children, was founded with
part of the money.
"But to my horror, at the end of the ten years, I met the Duke
Waldemar, face to face, coming out of the Pump Room at Bath, where
quietly and unobtrusively I had gone to take the waters. That was on
the morning of the day I spoke to you, for I knew then that my refuge
was a refuge no longer.
"I intended on the morrow to have asked you to help me remove what
remained of the diamonds to a place of security and leave the safe
behind. Perhaps I might have even encroached on your kindness to have
asked you to escort me here, but it was arranged otherwise.
"During the night and early morning, I became aware that something was
taking place in the next house, which up to then had stood empty. I
connected it in my mind with some plot of the Duke, who I doubted not
had had me followed home. The sequel proved I was right.
"This fear so worked upon me that, towards morning, I rose and
commenced to write the letters to you and Don Juan, and to make them up
in packets.
"The letter to the latter, in which I told him I should come here if I
lived, of course I placed in the ebony casket with something else that
was worth more to me than all the diamonds in the world; it was the
certificate of my marriage to Prince Adalbert of Rittersheim at the
little church of the remote mountain village in Aquazilia.
"I was far more fearful of losing that than all my fortune. It was the
certificate of my honour and my son's birthright. I knew that if the
Duke Waldemar once got it into his possession he could demand any price
from me for its return.
"It was late in the morning, a dull foggy November morning, when I had
finished sealing the packets and locked them away in the steel safe
with my own key. The one I had given you was the only duplicate in
existence; they both bore my father's initial C, he was Carlo the Third
of Aquazilia.
"Having left directions on a paper which you could see within the safe
when you opened it, I carefully locked it and hid my own key under a
special place in the carpet.
"I intended then to write to you at once and tell you to come and open
the safe, whatever might happen to me, for I believed that its
hiding-place would not easily be discovered, but I never had this
chance.
"Exhausted with want of sleep, I went back to my room and threw myself
on my bed, half dressed as I was, with my white silk dressing-robe on
in which I had sat writing half the night.
"I at once fell asleep and must have slept for hours, for it was dark
again when I awoke, and then I was called back to consciousness by
having my arm roughly shaken. I found the Duke Waldemar and two other
men in my room.
"He at once demanded to know the whereabouts of the steel safe with the
diamonds, and held a naked knife to my throat to force me to tell him.
"Life was of very little value to me in comparison with the needs of
the poor for whom I was determined to preserve the riches.
"Each time I refused to tell him he pressed the knife closer to my
throat, until it cut into the flesh, and I felt the warm blood
trickling down on to my white dressing-robe.
"When he and his companions had been there it seemed to me a long, long
time, and it was useless for me to shriek for help, I gave myself up
for lost, turning my thoughts as well as I could to the next world.
"It was then that the Duke and his men were startled by hearing you
open the front door of the house and stumble through the dark passage.
"With horrible curses they fled through the window.
"Then you came, and I had just the strength left to whisper to you to
open the safe when I fainted away.
"I have no recollection of what occurred after. Many hours must have
elapsed before I regained consciousness, and then I came to myself in
an underground room of what I knew after to be a lonely tower on the
hills near Bath."
"What, not Cruft's Folly?" I suggested.
"Yes," she replied thoughtfully; "I believe that was the name I
afterwards learned was given to the place.
"I was waited on by a German woman, the wife of one of the Duke's
followers, a big dark man with a black beard.
"My dress, my bed, and general surroundings were those of a poor
country woman.
"But this black-bearded German and his wife were the means of saving me.
"There had been an accident, a man had fallen off the tower and been
killed.
"The big dark man and his wife were terribly frightened, and in this
state could not withstand the temptation of the big bribe I promised
them if they would obtain my release.
"They brought a country cart to the tower, full of straw, as soon as it
was dusk on the day of the accident, and in this I was driven to
Devizes. From there I telegraphed to my bankers and they sent a
special messenger to me with an abundance of money and a new
cheque-book; from that time forth I was my own mistress again.
"The wound in my neck, which was only skin deep, had been carefully
bandaged by the German woman; under the hands of a skilled doctor and
nurse, it soon healed.
"I have very little doubt but that the Duke intended to keep me a
prisoner in the tower until I disclosed the whereabouts of the diamonds.
"The big German who had arranged my escape--and to whom I gave five
hundred pounds--told me that a grave had already been dug to receive my
body in the old graveyard behind the house in Monmouth Street.
"Had the Duke discovered the diamonds, I should have been murdered to
save further trouble from me; he knew, of course, I was already dead to
the world. As it was, they only buried my bloodstained bed-linen in
the grave when they carried me off from the house, after you had left
the Duke stunned."
I could have told the old Queen that the big German did not long enjoy
her five hundred pounds, but that he himself filled the grave intended
for her, and which, probably, he had helped to dig. I did not tell her
this, she had had trouble enough; but I had little doubt that the Duke
had discovered that the man had played him false, and had shot him and
disposed of his body in that way.
Queen Inez paused, and passed her frail white hand across her eyes.
"I have told you all now, I think," she said slowly, for she was
fatigued. "When I was well enough I came here and found a telegram
from Don Juan. I knew you had delivered the casket. Here I have
remained; here I shall, if it be God's will, remain to the end."
Seeing that the long relation had tired her, I leant forward and filled
one of the little liqueur glasses with the golden Chartreuse and handed
it to her. She took it from me with a smile, and insisted that we
should take some too. We sat sipping the delicious liqueur in silence,
our gaze fixed on the blue lake and the white sails slowly moving in
the stillness of the afternoon heat.
As I saw the colour returning to the Queen's face, I ventured to ask
her another question.
"There is one person, madame," I said, "who's history you have not yet
thought fit to tell us. Forgive me if I am presumptuous in asking the
question. It is your son I speak of."
A very sweet smile came over her face as I ceased speaking. She
glanced, it appeared involuntarily, at the sparkling liqueur in her
little glass.
"My dear son's history is soon told," she said, still smiling. "He has
been a Carthusian monk, a Trappist, since his youth. He never had the
least inclination for the life of the world. He is the abbot of the
monastery of San Juan del Monte, near Valoro."
_Then_ I recollected his fair face, and blue eyes, and remembered that
he had reminded me of _some one_; now I knew who that some one was--his
mother. It was plain to me why Don Juan had taken us there.
"Every year," continued Queen Inez, "by the special permission of the
head of his order, he comes to me and stays ten days. Those are, to
me, ten days stolen from heaven. Thank God, he comes next month, and
each time he comes," she added, with a smile, raising her little glass,
"he brings me a present from his monastery of the veritable Chartreuse."
We lingered with the dear old Queen until the sun was declining over
the lake, whose waters were turning a darker blue; the sister came with
wraps and a warning glance to take her to her rooms in the convent.
At her request, during our short stay at Lucerne, we visited her again
and again, until the day of parting came, and we bade her farewell on
the terrace where we had first met her, above the blue waters of the
lake.
There were tears in her eyes and ours when we left her, and the tears
came back again to ours as we looked wistfully up at the terrace as
Fritz rowed us away, and we saw her waving to us no longer.
That was the last we saw of her, or shall ever see in this world, for
six months after we received a letter from the Reverend Mother telling
us that "Madame la Comtesse" was dead, and Dolores and I, remembering
her sufferings, her patience, and her great love, are presumptuous
enough to think that heaven has gained another saint.
* * * * *
No, neither Ethel nor St. Nivel are married yet, but I would not say
that they never will be. I have heard rumours of a Guardsman on the
one hand, and a sweet Irish girl on the other.
At any rate, during those happy autumn weeks which Dolores and I
invariably spend at dear old Bannington in the shooting season, if, by
any chance, Ethel and I meet in the gloaming in the long, oak-panelled
corridors, we indulge in no more cousinly kisses; she _won't_.