What the Father Economus said when he found the grocer’s billet under
the red-spotted trout we may not hear. How the Archbishop received
the warning must be equally a matter of conjecture. Hasten on to the
smarting conclusion of the Day of Disgrace that dawned so fairly, that
shone so brightly, that promised such a harvest to those who failed
to mark how upon the southwest horizon huge formless ramparts of blue
black cumuli were steadily building, while faint mutterings of distant
thunder presaged the breaking of the storm....
The four adventurers had supped together upon the best the inn could
furnish. Now, seated at ease about the relics of the banquet, in the
dining-room of the private suite occupied by His Serene Highness and
Her Excellency, they discussed the Plan of Campaign. Fragrant vapors
of choicest Habanas enhaloed them, by permission of Her Excellency,
who held between her exquisite lips a Turkish cigarette. And as they
smoked and talked, the contents of a capacious China Bowl of Maraschino
Punch (compounded by Köhler, who was a clever hand at such delicious
chemistry) sank lower, inch by inch....
You may picture Steyregg, revived by much food and a great deal of
liquor; his cuts and scratches plastered with diachylum, the Alpine
summit of his bald occiput adorned by a compassionate chambermaid with
patches of brown-paper steeped in vinegar, retained in place by a linen
bandage of turban-shape, reading from a folio sheet of coarsely printed
rag-paper, blackened with ancient Gothic capitals (and filched from
where it had fluttered, held by a pin, upon one of the notice-boards
exposed in the porch of the Cathedral), the Programme for the following
day.
“We begin,” he boomed, after much preliminary throat-scraping, “by Your
Serene Highness’s permission--if the Herr Attorney-Oath-Commissioner
will snuff the candles I shall be able to see better!--we begin
with Deputations from the various Trades-bands and Companies of
Handi-craftsmen carrying banners.... Follow....”
The gross man expanded his chest, and rolled out:
“The Charity-Children of both sexes, the boys carrying green branches,
the girls bouquets of flowers. Succeed....
“Confraternities of Sodalists, male and female, headed by Persons on
Horseback in Roman and Silesian costumes, representing St. Lawrence
with his gridiron and St. Hyacinth with his ax.
“A triumphal Car, with a Tableau of St. Helena in Roman Imperial Habit,
instructing St. Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, where to Dig for the
Relic of the True Cross....
“The Four Mendicant Orders of Religious of both sexes, with tapers.
“The Boys of the Dominican Orphanage bearing tapers.
“The Girls of the Carmelite School strewing flowers.
“The Image of Our Lady of the Assumption, attended by Sisters of the
Order of the Immaculate Heart.”
Dunoisse started in his chair. A burning heat raced through him, and
yet he shivered, oppressed by a deadly sickness of the soul.
“The Secular Clergy,” read von Steyregg, and cleared his throat. “The
Archbishop and Chapter. The Sacred Canopy, borne by six Noble Officers
of the Garrison in Full Uniform.”...
Dunoisse, with an ashen face, rose up at the foot of the table....
It had been revealed to him as by a lightning-flash, over what a
bottomless abyss he hung.... Henriette appeared to notice nothing....
von Steyregg pursued:
“In this unhappy document, Madame, I have suggested an alteration. As
here provided, the Mayor and Corporation, the Garrison--in uniform of
review--with the towns-people, peasants, children, and beggars were to
have brought up the rear of the procession. But my amendment (forwarded
in writing to the Archbishop, since that prelate has rudely closed his
doors against us), is, that His Lordship and the Chapter should be
followed by--grant but a moment!--I will set it down....”
He sucked a black-lead pencil, scrawled on the wide margin of the
official programme, and read as he scrawled:
“His Serene Highness, Hector-Marie-Aymont, Prince-Aspirant of
Widinitz, carrying a taper, and attended by the _Wohlgeboren_
Herr Attorney-and-Oath-Commissioner Ottilus Köhler, and the
_Hochwohlgeboren_ Herr Baron, Rodobald Siegfridus Theodore von
Steyregg, Knight of the Most Pious Order of Saint Emmerich.” He added,
blowing like a seal, and mopping his great moist countenance with a
crumpled table-napkin:
“Take the word of a Magyar nobleman, Your Serenity, that taper of yours
will have cooked the Regent Luitpold’s goose for him, all being said
and done!”
But His Serene Highness, who had dropped heavily back into the
chair, was leaning upon his folded arms, staring with an air of deep
abstraction at the polished surface of the dessert-covered mahogany,
and might have heard or not.
“Dull dog that you are, my Prince!” said von Steyregg mentally,
“this charming Eve of yours is worth a million of you. Were she
Princess-Aspirant of this phlegmatic State, it would be a hop, skip
and jump into the saddle. With you, had you not a Steyregg at your
elbow--_Ps’sst!_--the whole adventure would fizzle off like a damp
squib--I would bet my head on it! Now, what picture you are gaping
at--with your eyes fixed and your jaw dropping--I would give this glass
of punch to know.”
He tossed it off with a flourish and a wink at his rat-faced
confederate. The flourish, the wink, were lost upon Dunoisse.
* * * * *
For as a hanging man may see, in the last struggles of asphyxia, the
dreadful details of the crime that led to his execution limned in
lifelike action and color on the swirling fire-shot blackness, so rose
before the mental vision of the son of Marie-Bathilde a picture of
the Cathedral, with the great procession of the morrow--headed by the
white-robed bearer of the Crucifix, amidst wafts of incense and intoned
Litanies, rolling down the nave of the Cathedral and out through its
west door upon the streets.
Ah! was Henriette deaf, that she did not hear the chanting voices,
and the slow, measured tread of the lay folk, and religious, and the
pattering footsteps of the children, as, with reverent demeanor and
hushed, rapt faces they moved before or followed the image of the
Mother of God?
Did she not see the Canopy of wrought cloth-of-gold, adorned with
tassels of pearls, fringed with innumerable little golden bells
that tinkled as its bearers bore it onwards? Was she blind to the
Figure that stumbled along in its shelter, robed in white linen,
bloodstained and torn and dusty, bending almost double under a Cross of
roughly-shaped timbers, and wearing a Crown of Thorns?...
The haggard black eyes sought hers in desperate interrogation. But
Henriette was dreamily playing with a silver fruit-knife as she
listened to von Steyregg. Her own eyes were hidden under their long
lashes; her face told no tale, as the intolerable voice of the agent
trumpeted:
“As regards a favorable answer from this arrogant prelate, Your
Excellency, I will guarantee it within the hour--or two--having, in His
Serene Highness’s name, as his business-representative, undertaken that
compliance with his desires will be made profitable in the pecuniary
sense by a donation of One Thousand Thalers to the Restoration Fund of
the Cathedral. Ahem!”
He winked his left eye, which the sliding turban threatened to
extinguish, folded up the official programme and threw it on the table,
saying:
“This reading dries the throat consumedly. With Her Highness’s--I mean
with Madame’s permission, I will take another drop of punch!”
He filled a bumper and proposed a toast: “To the Success of The
Adventure!”
Köhler drank the sentiment with enthusiasm. Henriette sipped, smiling
at her moody lover, who pushed his glass away. And a resonant, cultured
voice said from the doorway:
“Permit me to beg pardon of the company for having entered unannounced!”
The heads of the adventurers turned as by a single impulse. The
landlord, who had knocked unheard, and ushered in a stranger under
cover of the toast-drinking, was seen to be posed, in an attitude of
rigid respect, beyond the threshold. The person who had spoken, a
short priest with singularly bright gray eyes shining out of a pale,
thin-featured face;--who was wrapped, despite the sultry heat of
August, in a voluminous and shabby black cloak, and did not seem at all
embarrassed,--was standing just within the door.
He said, and the great volume of his voice seemed to fill the room
and flow outwards through the French windows that opened upon a stone
balcony overhanging the Market Place:
“May it be understood that I am here as the mouthpiece of the
Archbishop of Widinitz?... May I presume that I shall be patiently
listened to?... I will be as brief as is compatible with clearness.
Pray remain seated, all of you. No, sir, I am obliged!...”
For Henriette had risen languidly and curtsied deeply. Von Steyregg had
hoisted himself to those baluster-shaped legs of his. Köhler had got
up with his mouth full of almonds and raisins: and Dunoisse, with the
polished grace that distinguished him, was offering the little priest
his chair.
The ecclesiastic scanned the dark, handsome face and the soldierly,
muscular, supple figure with a degree of kindliness. He said, as he
waved the offered seat away:
“What I have to say, Colonel Dunoisse, will be best said standing.
Your intention to visit this town was not previously notified to the
Archbishop. He was not consulted in the matter of your intentions
and views. Otherwise you might have been spared the commission of
a grievous error, which cannot but create antagonism, prejudice,
and contempt in the minds of those whom you would most desire to
ingratiate----”
He broke off, for von Steyregg smote upon the table, and bellowed,
while the decanters and glasses jingled, peaches hopped from the center
dish, and the thumper’s turban fell off and rolled under the board:
“‘Contempt,’ sir, is not a word to be used in connection with His
Serene Highness. I, Rodobald von Steyregg, Baron and Knight of the
Sublime Order of St. Emmerich, protest against its use!”
Having protested, Steyregg dived for his turban, replaced it on his
head, and snorted defiance. The small pale priest regarded him with a
faint, lurking smile, and said calmly:
“Sir, the Archbishop received a letter from you this evening. I am
charged with the answer to the document herewith.”
He turned to Dunoisse and continued:
“Colonel Dunoisse, the fact of your near alliance by blood with the
reigning House of Widinitz is incontestable and undeniable. Did not
the Salic law obtain in this principality, upon you would undoubtedly
devolve the Hereditary Crown.”
His great voice seemed to be a palpable presence in the room. While
he spoke, not by any means at the full pitch of it, the wires of a
spinet that stood against the wall vibrated audibly; and the crystal
pendants on the chandeliers and mantel-vases tinkled with a gentle
musical sound. While another sound, of which Dunoisse had been faintly
conscious for some time, and which might have been the muttering of
distant thunder; or the humming of innumerable bees; or the purring of
a cat of Brobdingnagian proportions, was stilled as though the unknown
forces that combined to cause it had caught an echo of the powerful
tones, and held their peace to listen.
As the priest went on:
“Undoubtedly, but the fundamental law as it stands strictly excludes
the female line and the males derived from it. And were it possible
to change this law, even at the eleventh hour, I am deputed to say to
you that the procedure would be strenuously opposed _by the person
who would in that event stand as the direct dynastic successor to the
hereditary authority_!”
“My mother!”
Dunoisse, through whom the words had darted with a shock and thrill
resembling the discharge from an electric battery, thrust from him the
chair on which he had hitherto indifferently leaned, and turned upon
the speaker a face that had suddenly grown sharp and pinched, saying in
a voice that was curiously flat and toneless:
“You are in communication with my mother, sir? You have been deputed by
her to say this to me?”
The priest bowed assent, and continued calmly:
“For, though it be true that the Almighty, in His Infinite wisdom, has
chastened us Catholics of Widinitz by placing over us a sovereign of
the Reformed Faith; and, though we cannot but deplore the rigor with
which the Regent has treated certain communities of religious hitherto
resident in the principality; we are bound to own that in other
respects we have been treated with clemency and justice. In addition,
the domestic life of our Regent is free from scandal....”
Dunoisse’s ears burned like fire. The little priest’s great voice went
on:
“We recognize in His Serene Highness a chaste spouse, a wise father, a
prudent governor. How ill-advised should we be to prefer to a ruler
such as this a bad Catholic, an individual whose personal history
affords a lamentable example of ungoverned passions; who, dead to all
sense of shame, blazons his infamy before the eyes of the conscientious
and the decent----”
Dunoisse interrupted, saying with stiff lips:
“May I take it that these personalities are leveled at myself?”
The little priest returned, with extraordinarily quiet dignity:
“The rebuke, Colonel Dunoisse, is meant for you. I do not deal in
personalities.”
He added, in a voice that sent keen, icy thrills coursing down the
spines of his listeners:
“The Archbishop replies to the proposal contained in your agent’s
letter emphatically in the negative. He says to you, Colonel Dunoisse,
with the voice that speaks to you now: ‘You have offered us a price in
money for the privilege of participating in the morrows procession. You
have not scrupled to present yourself as a partaker in the solemnities
of our Blessed Lady’s Festival. You shrink not at the thought of
approaching Him Who is borne beneath the Sacred Canopy, unconfessed,
unabsolved--in a state of deadly sin. Shameless, unabashed, you would
display yourself to the scandal of Christ’s servants, accompanied by
the partner of your lamentable errors--with your acknowledged mistress,
the unfaithful wife of another, flaunting by your side!”
Henriette, pale as death, leaped up from her seat as a woman might
who had swallowed some deadly alkaloid. Dumbly, as though the
poison veritably stiffened her muscles, she writhed, fighting for
speech--wrenching at the velvet ribbon that confined her swelling
throat.
“You!--you!--you hear these insults?” she at last stammered, pointing
a quivering hand at Dunoisse, whom the words seemed to have deprived
of the powers of speech and motion. “Are you deaf, sir, that such
things are spoken, and you stand there silent as one of those statues
in the Cathedral? Are you dumb or paralyzed that you do not order
this man to leave my presence? Cannot you see,” she raved, “that this
is no messenger from the Archbishop? Some fanatical priest,--some
presumptuous secretary,--has dared--has----! Just Heaven!--if my
husband had been here, he would have thrown the creature from the
room!”
But Dunoisse remained speechless and frozen, under the fiery torrent
of her upbraidings. It was von Steyregg who, in absence of any
demonstration from his principal, seized his opportunity to be
effective and picturesque. He strode haughtily to the door, and,
opening it, turned with majesty to the intruder, trumpeting:
“With your person, sir, respecting your cloth as I abhor your
sentiments, I will not soil my fingers. But unless you instantly remove
yourself from these apartments, private to His Serene Highness and Her
Excellency, I will--I will ring for the landlord and have you carried
out and put upon the street!”
“That could hardly be,” said the little gray priest mildly, “for I am
the Archbishop of Widinitz....”
He showed one lean finger outside the folds of the shabby cloak.
Upon the digit a great sapphire gleamed darkly.... And a silence of
unspeakable consternation fell upon the conspirators, that was suddenly
broken by a half-brick, deftly thrown, that crashed through a pane
of one of the French windows, shivered a crystal chandelier full of
twinkling wax-lights that hung above the supper-table; and plopped
into the punch-bowl, dispersing shivers of Oriental ware and gouts of
fragrant liquor into every corner of the room....