Two days later the Crown Princess Claire returned to Marburg.
In the twilight the express from Vienna came to a standstill in the big,
echoing station at Treysa, the bright and wealthy capital, and
descending from her private saloon, she walked over the red carpet laid
for her, bowing pleasantly to the line of bareheaded officials waiting
to receive her; then, mounting into her open landau, she drove up the
fine, tree-lined Klosterstrasse to the royal palace.
De Trauttenberg was with her--the woman whom she now knew to be a spy.
Around her, on every side, the crowd at her side shouted a glad welcome
to "their Claire," as they called her, and just before the royal
carriage could move off, two or three of the less timorous ones managed
to seize her hand and kiss it, though the police unceremoniously pushed
them away.
She smiled upon the enthusiastic crowd; but, alas! she was heavy of
heart. How little, she thought, did those people who welcomed her dream
of her unhappiness! She loved the people, and, looking upon them,
sighed to think that she was not free like them.
Behind her clattered the hoofs of her cavalry escort, and beside the
carriage were two agents of police on bicycles. Wherever she moved in
her husband's kingdom she was always under escort, because of anarchist
threats and socialistic rumours.
Marburg was one of the most beautiful and wealthiest of the kingdoms and
duchies comprised in the German Empire. The fine capital of Treysa was
one of the show cities of Germany, always bright, gay, and brilliant,
with splendid streets, wide, tree-lined promenades, a great opera house,
numerous theatres, gay restaurants, and an ever-increasing commerce.
Frequented much by English and Americans, there were fine hotels,
delightful public gardens, and pleasant suburbs. In no other part of
the Empire were the nobility so wealthy or so exclusive, and certainly
no Court in Europe was so difficult of access as that of Marburg.
The kingdom, which possessed an area of nearly seven thousand square
miles and a population of over fifteen millions, was rich in
manufactures and in minerals, besides being a smiling country in a high
state of cultivation, with beautiful mountainous and wooded districts,
where in the valleys were situated many delightful summer resorts.
Through its length and breadth, and far beyond the frontiers, the name
of the Crown Princess Claire was synonymous of all that was good and
affable, generous to the poor, and ever interested in the welfare of the
people.
The big electric globes were already shining white in the streets as she
drove back to the beautiful royal palace that was, alas! to her a
prison. Her few days of liberty in Vienna were over, and when
presently, after traversing many great thoroughfares full of life and
movement, the carriage swung out into a broader tree-lined avenue, at
the end of which were the great gates of the royal gardens, her brave
heart fell within her.
Beyond was the house of her enemies, the house in which she was
compelled to live friendless, yet surrounded by those who were daily
whispering of her overthrow.
The great gates swung open to allow the cavalcade to pass, then closed
again with a clang that, reaching her ear, caused her to shudder.
The Countess noticed it, and asked whether she felt cold. To this she
gave a negative reply, and still remained silent, until the carriage,
passing up through the beautiful park, at last drew up before the
magnificent palace.
Descending, she allowed the gorgeously-dressed man in the royal livery
to take her cloak from her shoulders; and then, without a word, hastened
along the great marble hall, up the grand staircase and along corridor
after corridor--those richly-carpeted corridors of her prison that she
knew so well--to her own splendid suite of apartments.
The servants she met at every turn bowed to her, until she opened the
door of a large, airy, well-furnished room, where a middle-aged woman,
in cap and apron, sat reading by a shaded lamp.
In an instant, on recognising the newcomer, she sprang to her feet. But
at the same moment the Princess rushed to the dainty little cot in the
corner and sank down beside the sleeping curly-haired child--her child--
the little Princess Ignatia.
So passionately did she kiss the sweet chubby little face of the
sleeping child that she awoke, and recognising who it was, put out her
little hands around her mother's neck.
"Ah, my little pet!" cried the Princess. "And how are you? It seems so
long, so very long, since we parted." And her voice trembled, for tears
stood in her eyes. The child was all she had in the world to love and
cherish. She was her first thought always. The glare and glitter of
the brilliant Court were all hateful to her, and she spent all the time
she dared in the nursery with little Ignatia.
The English nurse, Allen, standing at her side, said, with that
formality which was bound to be observed within those walls,--
"The Princess is in most excellent health, your Imperial Highness. I
have carried out your Highness's instructions, and taken her each day
for a walk in the park."
"That's right, Allen," responded the mother, also in English. "Where is
the Crown Prince?"
"I have not seen him, your Highness, since you left. He has not been in
to see Ignatia."
Claire sighed within herself, but made no outward sign. "Ah, I expect
he has been away--to Berlin, perhaps. Is there any function to-night,
have you heard?"
"A State ball, your Highness. At least they said so in the servants'
hall."
The Princess glanced at the little silver timepiece, for she feared that
her presence was imperative, even though she detested all such
functions, where she knew she would meet that brilliant crowd of men and
women, all of them her sworn enemies. What Steinbach had told her in
confidence had lifted the scales from her eyes. There was a wide and
cleverly-contrived conspiracy against her.
She took her fair-haired child in her arms, while Allen, with deft
fingers, took off her hat and veil. Her maids were awaiting her in her
own room, but she preferred to see Ignatia before it was too late to
disturb the little one's sleep. With the pretty, blue-eyed little thing
clinging around her neck, she paced the room with it, speaking, in
German, as every fond mother will speak to the one she adores.
Though born to the purple, an Imperial Princess, Claire was very human
after all. She regretted always that she was not as other women were,
allowed to be her own mistress, and to see and to tend to her child's
wants instead of being compelled so often to leave her in the hands of
others, who, though excellent servants, were never as a mother.
She sent Allen upon a message to the other end of the palace in order to
be alone with the child, and when the door closed she kissed its soft
little face fondly again and again, and then burst into tears. Those
Court sycophants were conspiring, to drive her away--perhaps even to
part her from the only one for whom she entertained a spark of
affection. Many of her enemies were women. Could any of them really
know all that was meant by a mother's heart?
Prince Ferdinand-Leopold-Joseph-Marie, her husband, seldom, if ever, saw
the child. For weeks he never mentioned its existence, and when he did
it was generally with an oath, in regret that it was not a son and an
heir to the throne.
In his paroxysms of anger he had cursed her and his little daughter, and
declared openly that he hated the sight of them both. But she was ever
patient. Seldom she responded to his taunts or his sarcasm, or resented
his brutal treatment. She was philosophic enough to know that she had a
heavy burden to bear, and for the sake of her position as future Queen
of Marburg she must bear it bravely.
Allen was absent fully a quarter of an hour, during which time she spoke
continually to little Ignatia, pacing up and down the room with her.
The child, seeing her mother's tears, stared at her with her big,
wide-open eyes.
"Why does mother cry?" she asked in her childish voice, stroking her
cheek.
"Because mother is not happy, darling," was the Princess's sad answer.
"But," she added, brightening up, "you are happy, aren't you? Allen has
bought you such a beautiful doll, she tells me."
"Yes, mother," the child answered. "And to-morrow, Allen promises, if I
am very good, that we will go to buy a perambulator for my dolly to ride
in. Won't that be nice?"
"Oh, it will! But you must be very, very good--and never cry, like
mother, will you?"
"No," answered the little one. "I'll never cry, like mother does."
And the unhappy woman, hearing the child's lisping words, swallowed the
great lump that arose in her throat. It was surely pathetic, that
admission of a heart-broken mother to her child. It showed that even
though an Imperial Princess, she was still a womanly woman, just as any
good woman of the people.
A few moments later Allen returned with the reply to the message she had
sent to the aged King.
"His Majesty says that, though regretting your Imperial Highness is
tired after her journey, yet your presence with the Crown Prince at the
ball is imperative." Claire sighed with a heavy heart, saying,--
"Very well, Allen. Then we will put Ignatia to bed, for I must go at
once and dress," and she passed her hand across her hot, wearied brow.
Again and again she kissed the child, and then, having put her back into
her cot, over which was the royal crown of Marburg in gold, she bade the
infant Princess goodnight, and went along to eat a hasty dinner--for she
was hungry after her eighteen-hour journey--and afterwards to put
herself in the charge of her quick-handed maids, to prepare her for the
brilliant function of that evening.
Two hours later, when she swept into the magnificent Throne Room, a
brilliant, beautiful figure in her Court gown of cream, and wearing her
wonderful tiara, her face was as stern and haughty as any of those
members of the royal family present. With her long train rustling
behind her, and with her orders and ribbons giving the necessary touch
of colour to her bodice, she took up her position beside her husband, a
fair-headed, round-faced, slight-moustached man, in a dark-blue uniform,
and wearing a number of orders. His face was flat and expressionless.
Though they had not met for a week, no word of greeting escaped him.
They stood side by side, as though they were strangers. He eyed her
quickly, and his countenance turned slightly pale, as though displeased
at her presence.
Yet the whole assembly, even though hating her, could not but admire her
neat waist, her splendid figure, and matchless beauty. In the whole of
the Courts of Europe there was no prettier woman than the Crown Princess
Claire; her figure was perfect, and her gait always free--the gait of a
princess. Even when dressed in her maid's dresses, as she had done on
occasion, her walk betrayed her. Imperial blood can seldom be
disguised.
The hundred women, those German princesses, duchesses, countesses,
baronesses, to each of whom attached their own particular scandal--the
brilliant little world that circled around the throne--looked at her
standing there with her husband, her hands clasped before her, and
envied her looks, figure, position--everything. She was a marked woman.
The proud, haughty expression upon her face as she regarded the assembly
was only assumed. It was the mask she was compelled to wear at Court at
the old King's command. Her nature was the reverse of haughty, yet the
artificiality of palace life made it necessary for the Crown Princess to
be as unapproachable as the Queen herself.
The guests were filing before the white-haired King, the hide-bound old
martyr to etiquette, when the Crown Prince spoke to his wife in an
undertone, saying roughly, with bitter sarcasm,--
"So you are back? Couldn't stay away from us longer, I suppose?"
"I remained in Vienna as long as I said I should," was the sweet-faced
woman's calm reply.
"A pity you didn't stay there altogether," he muttered. "You are
neither use nor ornament here."
"You have told me that several times before. Much as I regret it,
Ferdinand, my place is here."
"Yes, at my side--to annoy me," he said, frowning.
"I regret to cause you any annoyance," she answered. "It is not
intentional, I assure you."
A foul oath escaped him, and he turned from her to speak with Count
Graesal, grand-marechal of the Court. Her face, however, betrayed
nothing of his insult. At Court her countenance was always sphinx-like.
Only in her private life, in that gorgeous suite of apartments on the
opposite side of the palace, did she give way to her own bitter
unhappiness and blank despair.