“IF THOU WERT KIND AS THOU ART FAIR----”
Leaving his brother to contemplate the beauties of nature under the
shade of the pines, Caerleon walked on, finding his progress much more
rapid than it had been when Cyril was his companion, and arrived
before very long at a point from which he was able to descry the
huntsman’s cottage, built under the shelter of a towering crag.
Pausing for a moment to determine which of two paths now before him
would be more likely to lead him directly towards it, he heard
footsteps above him, and presently a lady came in sight round a
turning in the right-hand path. Tall and slight, she wore a plain
tweed dress and felt hat, and the trim neatness of her appearance
struck Caerleon as most refreshing after the alternate dowdiness and
magnificence of many of the Austrian belles he had come across. It did
not occur to him at first that this stately lady could be the
hoydenish little Scythian schoolgirl of whom he was in search, but
presently it struck him as unlikely that two young ladies would be
wandering alone in the mountains on the same day, and he advanced to
meet the girl.
“Excuse me,” he said, taking off his cap, “but have I the honour of
speaking to Mdlle. O’Malachy?”
“I am Nadia O’Malachy,” she replied, looking at him with an expression
in which he read surprise not wholly unmixed with resentment. He
noticed that her eyes were large and grey, and that her wavy dark hair
grew low on her brow. She spoke English readily, but with a slight
foreign accent.
“I must ask you to forgive me for stopping you in this way,” said
Caerleon, wishing to disarm her evident suspicion, “but the fact is
that Madame O’Malachy was very anxious about you, and I promised to
see you safely back to the hotel.”
“My mother sent you after me?” she said quickly. “It was quite
unnecessary. Pray continue your walk.”
“The object of my walk is achieved,” said Caerleon. “I have only to
return.”
“I have told you,” said the girl, with angry dignity, “that I do not
desire your company.”
Caerleon laughed inwardly. The walk seemed to promise some amusement.
“And I regret, mademoiselle,” he said, “that having promised to see
you home, I must do it. I will walk behind you, if you prefer it.”
“Oh no,” said Mdlle. O’Malachy, pointing to the path beside her with
an imperious gesture, “I do not wish to insult you. You consider
yourself a gentleman. I took you for one.”
She walked on by his side, apparently expecting a retort, but he
maintained a resolute silence, although secretly convulsed by the
contrast between the intention she expressed and the words which
followed it. Suddenly, to his surprise, she turned to him.
“I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. I was wrong.”
“Pray don’t apologise,” said Caerleon. “I am here only as your
mother’s messenger, and I quite understand that you find my presence
disagreeable, and that I can’t expect you to consider my feelings.”
“I do not consider them,” she retorted. “I apologised because it was
right to do it when I had been rude.”
“As a punishment to yourself?” asked Caerleon, much amused.
“Certainly not,” she answered. “As a means of self-discipline.”
“I see--and a punishment to me?”
“By no means. Why should I punish you? What you do has no interest for
me. Oh, I beg your pardon. That was rude again.”
“Not at all. But I am interested in your self-disciplinary system. Do
you mind explaining it a little more fully? I think I ought to hear
something about it, you know, since I have to suffer from it.”
“Now she’s going to flare up again,” he thought, as his companion
turned and glared at him, but the anger faded out of her eyes as he
looked at her in calm expectancy.
“It is a just rebuke,” she said, in a low voice. “I will tell you,
although I do not care to speak of myself, but it will be a good
punishment for me, as you say. My godmother, with whom I have always
lived until lately, used to encourage me to self-denial when I was a
child, saying that one could never rise to the height of a great
renunciation unless one trained oneself for it by means of constant
smaller ones. As I grew older, the principle seemed to me so excellent
that I have followed it in other things.--When you were little, did
you never hold your hand in the flame of the candle to try and find
out whether you could be a martyr?”
“No,” said Caerleon; “I have often done it, but I am afraid it was
because I was told not to.”
“Well, I have done it--often. And so with other things. I discovered
in myself a strong tendency to insincerity, and fearing to yield to
it, I made it a duty never to let politeness or the desire to please
keep me from saying what I thought. How dreadful it would be to fail
in truthfulness at some great crisis on account of a long course of
petty hypocrisies! But I found that this made me appear rude, and I am
very proud, and did not like to confess myself in the wrong. So here
was another opportunity for self-discipline, and I resolved to let
nothing prevent me from instantly asking pardon of any one I had
offended in this way.”
“I see--without regard to that person’s feelings. And may I ask
whether Madame--your godmother--pursues the same system?”
“My godmother is Princess Soudaroff. No; she does not need it, she is
too good. Her life is given up to working among the poor. Her house is
an asylum for the wretched. She loves every one, is kind to every
one.”
“And she has impressed her views upon you, has she? Did I understand
you to say that she brought you up?”
“Yes; she pitied the life I led with my parents, and she adopted me as
her own. She gave me everything I could need, and provided excellent
teachers for me; but, best of all, she allowed me to help her in her
work. Sometimes we lived at her country house, and worked among the
peasants, and sometimes in Pavelsburg, and then our work lay among the
poorest of the poor. Oh, what a life it was! She cares for body and
soul alike. The hospitals and prisons are visited, Bible-classes,
sewing-classes held; drunkards reached, young girls away from home
befriended and taken care of. To be in trouble or in loneliness--that
gives you claim enough upon my Princess.”
“I didn’t know that you went in for all this kind of thing in
Scythia,” said Caerleon. “It’s not quite one’s idea of the Greek
Church, somehow.”
“But we are Evangelicals; we are separated,” said the girl, eagerly.
“They say we are heretics,--Non-conformists, I think you call it in
England,--and they persecute us. My godmother has often been in danger
of exile, but something has always happened to save her. She has no
fear at all.”
“Only for you, perhaps. I suppose the reason you are here is that she
sent you away when danger threatened. You didn’t leave her, I am
sure.”
“Not of my own free will, never! My mother sent for me; but not on
account of any danger. She gave me up willingly enough when I was of
no use to her, but now she thinks that I am old enough to be of
assistance. Assistance to her!”
“I daresay it is better for you, after all, than your life with
Princess Soudaroff,” said Caerleon, judicially. “We can’t always have
what we like, you know, and it doesn’t look well for a girl to be
unable to get on with her mother.”
“How dare you say that?” she cried, turning upon him again. “What do
you know of my circumstances? Do you think I have not tried, longed,
_agonised_ to honour my father and mother? but I will not help them in
their work. Don’t talk to me of the look of things until you know
something about them. Oh, I beg----”
“Excuse me,” said Caerleon, quickly, “but if you have to apologise to
me again, do you mind turning your head away, and doing it in a
whisper? The effect on yourself would be the same, and it would spare
my feelings.”
“You are a scoffer!” said Mdlle. O’Malachy, sharply.
“I hope not; but I am afraid that your apologies will get on my
nerves.”
“Your nerves?” she looked him up and down, and then laughed. “You
don’t suffer from nerves?”
“You don’t know how wearing it is to be always looking out for
apologies--and getting them.”
“But why should it affect your nerves? You are English, you do not
drink absinthe?” She was still looking him over in the light of a
curious medical problem, and her tone was full of interest.
“I hope you don’t intend to catechise me upon my private vices,” said
Caerleon, hastily. “What I said was only in joke. I don’t know what
nerves are.”
“A joke?” Evidently it had not occurred to her that any one could take
such a liberty on such short acquaintance. “But I do not even know
your name, sir.”
“And is it necessary to know a man’s name before he may make a joke in
conversation with you?” asked Caerleon, laughing, but she did not hear
him.
“I know you must be one of the English noblemen who are staying in the
hotel, and you cannot be the brother--he is small and delicate, my
father said so. You are, then, the pretender?”
“The pretender?” asked Caerleon in astonishment.
“I beg your pardon--I should have remembered that the word has a worse
meaning in English than in French. The aspirant, I should say--the
aspirant to the throne of Thracia?”
“Well, I was, a year ago; or rather the throne of Thracia aspired to
me. I refused it, you know.”
“I remember; I was sorry. But you are going to accept it now?”
“Now? I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t a thought of it.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Here? in Hungary? To visit my friend, Count Temeszy.”
“But you are on your way to Thracia?”
“I assure you I am not. What can have put it into your head?”
“Every one thinks so. My parents quite believe it--and so do others.”
“Then they are mistaken, that’s all.”
“But why do you stay here, since Count Temeszy is away? You leave
soon?”
“Not that I know of. Why should we?”
“Sir,” her voice was very earnest, “will you be angry if I give you a
warning? If there is no special reason to keep you here, do not
remain. My father is not--is not a good friend for young men.”
“A card-sharper, of course!” was the thought that darted through
Caerleon’s mind. “It’s good of her to tell me, poor girl!” Aloud he
added, “Thank you for your warning, mademoiselle. Perhaps you would be
so kind as to mention to your father that I don’t carry the revenues
of Thracia about with me.”
“You won’t understand,” cried the girl, passionately; “it is nothing
about money. Consider what political disturbances your acceptance of
the crown might bring about, and that there are those who will suspect
you of desiring to provoke them so long as you remain in this part of
Europe, however innocent your motives may be. I remember that when the
crown was offered to you last year, the affair was much discussed in
our circle. I myself heard Count Wratisloff say in my godmother’s
drawing-room, ‘Here is the peace of Europe hanging upon the caprice of
a boy!’”
“I am much obliged to him,” said Caerleon, grimly.
“Now I have offended you again. I am sorry. Count Wratisloff is a man
who speaks a little emphatically sometimes, but he had no intention of
being unkind. He prayed for you himself at our prayer-meeting the next
day.”
“Very kind of him, I’m sure. I suppose he prayed that I might refuse
the crown?”
“Oh no. How could he pretend to regulate the course of public affairs?
If the time is come for a great European war, who can prevent it? He
prayed that all might happen for the best.”
“Then you and your circle are fatalists, mademoiselle?”
“Surely not. ‘What will be, will be’--that is what the fatalists say,
is it not?” she looked at him inquiringly. “But what we say is, ‘What
will be, must be for the best.’”
“But why pray about it, then?” asked Caerleon, interested by this
frank confession of faith.
“That we may be brought to believe that it is so when we cannot see
it,” she answered, in a low voice; and although Caerleon would
willingly have pursued the subject, a turn in the path here brought
them in sight of Cyril, and there was no further opportunity for
private conversation. During the rest of the way home they spoke
chiefly of temperance work, Mdlle. O’Malachy recounting incidents from
her experience among Princess Soudaroff’s _protégés_, and Caerleon
replying with reminiscences of the various abortive attempts at
restrictive legislation which he had supported in his House of Commons
days, while Cyril listened and smiled with lofty contempt.
“Here we are,” he said at last, with undisguised relief, “and here is
your father coming to meet us, mademoiselle.”
“Naughty girl!” cried the O’Malachy, shaking his fist playfully at his
daughter. “I hope you’ve given trouble enough to us and to these
gentlemen? There’s your mother waiting for you on the balcony. Go and
settle ut with her yourself. Me lord, I can’t tell you how grateful I
am to you and to Lord Cyrul for your goodnuss to-day. Me wife is very
nervous, but you have been most kind in relieving her anxiety. May I
hope that you will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner this
evening? Madame O’Malachy will like to thank you herself.”
“You are very kind,” said Caerleon. “We were hoping to call this
afternoon----”
“Call!” cried the O’Malachy in high contempt. “Would you talk about
calling in this wildernuss? Come to-night, and we’ll be delightud to
see you.”
The invitation was accepted with suitable gratitude, and the O’Malachy
returned to his wife and daughter, while Caerleon and Cyril sought
their own quarters. Lunch was rather a silent ceremony, for Caerleon
felt an unaccountable aversion to detailing to his brother his
conversation with Nadia O’Malachy.
“Not going out again, surely?” said Cyril, when the meal was over, and
Caerleon took up his cap from the window-seat.
“I want a smoke.”
“Well, there are no ladies here, thank goodness! Sit down and smoke
like a reasonable human being.”
“No, I want a walk.”
“I should have thought you had had walking enough for one day,”
grumbled Cyril, but Caerleon was already outside, and he was obliged
to address the remainder of his complaint to his cigar. “He walks with
her all morning, does he? and then goes out again to think about her?
I ought to have foreseen this. That’s the drawback of the kind of life
we’ve been leading for a man of Caerleon’s stamp. He’s scarcely spoken
to a lady since the Governor died, and now the first decent-looking
girl he meets bowls him over at once. What a blessing it is that I’m
not susceptible!”
Caerleon’s walk lasted for over two hours, and Cyril, with a telegram
in his hand, was awaiting him impatiently when he returned.
“Back at last!” he said. “Do see what this is. It may be to summon us
home about something, or it may be from Temeszy.”
“It is from Temeszy,” said Caerleon, opening it. “The steward must
have telegraphed to him yesterday as soon as we were gone. He has
business in Paris which will keep him there for more than a month, but
he wants us to take up our quarters at the castle, ride his horses,
hunt his wolves, or whatever else in the way of game there may be
about, and so on--in fact, use the house as if it was our own.”
“Well, what do you think?” asked Cyril.
“If you ask me,” said Caerleon, slowly, “I think that we might as well
have stayed at Llandiarmid as bury ourselves out there without Temeszy
or any one to speak to.”
“I see,” said Cyril. “You mean to stay on here for the present, then?”
“Yes, I think we might.”
“But you forget that Mr or M. O’Malachy is coming back. What is one to
call a fellow who has an Irish father and a Sarmatian mother, and has
been brought up abroad? But anyhow, he is coming, and we have got his
room.”
“I forgot that,” said Caerleon, rather crestfallen. “We must find out
to-night when he is expected. There’s no need to leave until he
comes.”
Once more Cyril drew dark inferences from his brother’s words, but he
made no remark, and at the appointed time they presented themselves in
Madame O’Malachy’s _salon_, where a most cordial welcome awaited them.
They were the only guests, and it fell naturally to Caerleon to escort
his hostess to the table and to sit beside her, a privilege for which
he was not as grateful as he ought to have been, for he could hear
Cyril and Nadia wrangling busily throughout the meal. Guessing that
his brother was treating Mdlle. O’Malachy to a little _fin de siècle_
philosophy, he had no difficulty in imagining the light in which it
would strike her, and his anxiety to hear what she was saying in reply
distracted his attention a little from her mother, who conversed
vivaciously in French, addressing him as “_mon cher marquis_” in a way
that reminded him vaguely of the Molière he had read when at school.
“I am longing that you should know my son,” she observed at last. “He
is of the same age as your brother, and I have a presentiment that
they will be friends. Louis is a true enthusiast, and it is this trait
in his character that has caused us no small anxiety. My husband has
perhaps told you that until a short time ago the unfortunate boy was
an officer in the Scythian army. Would you believe that he has
resigned his post in order to join the Thracian revolutionists?”
“Indeed?” said Caerleon, much interested; “and has he joined them
yet?”
“No, but he intends to do so as soon as possible. Imagine his throwing
away all his prospects like this! It is madness.”
“Come now, Barbara,” put in the O’Malachy from his end of the table.
“Louie is a very decent feller, and he may make his way yet. You
wouldn’t believe that I meself began life as a leader in the Sarmatian
insurrection, would you?” he asked, turning to the young men with an
air of extreme innocence.
“No, indeed,” said Caerleon, dimly conscious that Cyril started, and
pursed up his lips as though to whistle.
“It’s true, then. When I left Ireland as a young man, after a little
difficulty with the Government connectud with the troubles of ’48, I
took, though it is not I should say ut, a prominent part in the
Sarmatian affair, and yet here I am now, a colonel in the Scythian
army. I learned wisdom, you see. The Scythians were not so bad as I
had thought them, and the Sarmatians were a good deal worse, and so ut
happened that I changed sides, perhaps with a little persuasion of
another kind addud on,” and he glanced waggishly at his wife, who
laughed rather nervously, and remarked that the candles were burning
low.
“But have you never visited England since 1848?” asked Caerleon.
“Surely there can be no danger of your being arrested now? I hope I
may have the pleasure of welcoming you at Llandiarmid yet.”
“Yes,” said Cyril, “if you began as a Sarmatian revolutionist and end
as a Scythian officer, we may hope to see you in a comfortable berth
in the Constabulary yet, O’Malachy.”
“Ah, but there’s another businuss since ’48,” said the O’Malachy. “You
know Balster, the feller that was made Irush Secretary two or three
years ago? When I heard he had got the Irush Offus, I sent um a
present of a box of cigars, the brand I always smoke meself--he had
admired them greatly when I met um at Ludwigsbad some time before.
Well, would you believe ut? Sure ’twas a mighty queer piece of
work--the police opened the box when ut got to Doblun, and they found
dynamite in ut. So then they accused me of trying to blow the man up,
and I daren’t set foot in me native land. I was sorry, of course; but
how was ut me fault?”
“Do you mean to imply,” asked Caerleon, “that the police took the
cigars out and put dynamite instead of them?”
“All I can say,” replied the O’Malachy, spreading out his hands with a
deprecatory gesture, “is that I sent cigars, and that the police
fellers found an infernal machine. You must make what you can of ut.”
“Oh, don’t harp on the subject, Caerleon,” put in Cyril, seeing that
his brother was not satisfied. “Can’t you see that it’s very naturally
disagreeable to the O’Malachy? When do you expect your son,
O’Malachy?”
“In two or three days, Lord Cyrul. I am greatly pleased that he will
be so fortunate as to meet you here.”
“Oh, but we shan’t be here,” said Caerleon, seizing his opportunity.
“We must not forget that we are trespassing on your kindness all the
time we occupy these rooms. We will clear out to-morrow, if you like.”
“That you won’t,” returned the O’Malachy. “Why, when I was hearing in
the town yesterday that your friend was in Parrus, and knew that you
would be wanting to come back here, I went straight to the landlord,
and got um to clear out another room for Louie, without any fuss at
all. So now the place is plenty big for both of us, and I will think
that you are offended with us if you turn out before you have seen all
you want of the neighbourhood.”
“Since you are so kind,” said Caerleon, “we will certainly stay on for
the present.” Here a frown from Cyril reached him, and an almost
imperceptible “Don’t!” and he added rather lamely, “That is, if you
are quite sure we are not inconveniencing you--or Miss O’Malachy.”
“My dear marquis,” said Madame O’Malachy, “let me assure you that your
society is already doing my husband far more good than the waters
here. As for my daughter, how should you inconvenience her?”
“Oh no; why should I need two rooms?” asked Nadia, gloomily, and
Caerleon could get nothing but monosyllables from her during the
remainder of the evening. When the guests were gone, however, she
turned to her parents as she was leaving the room.
“You may be interested to know,” she said in her clear hard voice,
“that Lord Caerleon has no intention of going to Thracia, nor of
accepting the Thracian crown. I am not in the habit of helping you in
your work, but I thought that this piece of news might possibly lead
you to alter your plans a little.”
“Many thanks, my daughter,” said Madame O’Malachy, while her husband
laughed softly. “In what way are our plans to be changed?”
“Surely you can leave Lord Caerleon and his brother alone, now that
you know this, and not seek to involve them in any danger?”
“Mademoiselle,” said the O’Malachy, rising and standing with his back
to the stove, “may I remind you of one small fact? We have not, as you
remark, the honour of your assistance, and I regret to say that this
necessarily deprives you of any pleasure you might derive from sharing
our confidence. Whatever plans your mother and I may have in view, we
do not feel inclined to risk their reaching Lord Caerleon by
communicating them to you.”
Nadia’s face grew crimson, but she threw her head back proudly as she
bade her parents good-night and left the room.
“There is a little fool for you!” said Madame O’Malachy with lazy
contempt.
“What did you mean by making signs to me at dinner?” asked Caerleon of
Cyril, when they were alone together in his room.
“Any one with ordinary common-sense would have seen that I meant you
not to accept the O’Malachy’s offer, but to go on at once, away from
here.”
“But why in the world? You said nothing of this before.”
“Because I did not know who he was, but at dinner it suddenly flashed
upon me that he was the hero of a story which I heard when I was in
Pavelsburg. Old Dostelsky, who helped in putting down the Sarmatian
rebellion, told it to two or three of us in the smoking-room one
night.”
“Something spicy, I suppose? Come, let us hear it.”
“Well, it seems that the O’Malachy was, as he said, one of the
Sarmatian leaders, and he gave the Scythians so much trouble that they
were ready to go any lengths to get rid of him. They tried fair means
and they tried foul--open attacks, and bribes, and attempted
assassination, but it was all no good. At last--I don’t know whether
it was a lucky guess, or whether something showed them his weak
point--they thought of working upon his susceptibilities. They had a
decoy handy, Mdlle. Barbara Platovska, a young Sarmatian lady, brought
up in Paris and trained in Scythia. She had done a good deal of work
for them already, and she was as plucky and as wily as she was
beautiful, so that she was a valuable instrument. Well, they sent her
off with a free hand, and a pardon for O’Malachy, signed by the
Emperor, in her pocket, together with a promise of employment for him
in the Scythian army. Mdlle. Barbara lays her plans, and presently,
travelling by night through a forest where the rebels had one of their
camps, she falls into their hands. There was some talk of shooting her
at once, for her face was unmistakable, and they all knew what harm
she had done to their cause; but she singled out O’Malachy, and threw
herself at his feet and demanded his protection. You wouldn’t find
many Irishmen who would refuse to help a pretty woman in such a
plight, and O’Malachy pulled her behind him, and told the rest to come
on. They nearly got to blows, but at last they agreed to give the girl
some form of trial, and they carried her off to their headquarters.
Naturally O’Malachy kept close to her on the way, and she used her
opportunity so well that before the journey was over he was head and
ears in love with her. He soon discovered that the rest were
determined to kill her, and the very first night that he had the
chance he helped her to escape from the ruined tower in which she was
imprisoned, and escorted her back to her friends. Up to that time he
fully meant to go back and give himself up to his comrades, but now
was Mdlle. Barbara’s chance. She never let him alone on that journey,
until she had got him to promise to come in with her and surrender. He
must have been pretty sick of the Sarmatians altogether--they were
rather a shady lot, always quarrelling and fighting among
themselves--and there was nothing to be made out of their job, and he
was in love as well, and he thought she loved him, so he consented. He
got his pardon and his post in the Scythian army, and he meant to get
Mdlle. Barbara. But when he went to claim her she met him as she had
done the other men she had betrayed, turned her back on him and told
him that no traitor should ever be her husband. But she had tried that
trick once too often. He had her against the wall with a revolver to
her head in an instant, and then and there he made her promise to
marry him. And that wasn’t all, either. He took her to the table,
still with the revolver pointed at her, and made her write out and
sign an account of the scene. Then he let her go, but she married him
the next week. You see he could have ruined her with that paper. If it
had once come to her employers’ ears that she had lost her nerve, and
yielded to threats, they would never have made use of her again.
Perhaps, too, the O’Malachy’s style of wooing pleased her, or she may
have had a soft place for him in her heart all along. At any rate,
they married, and went into partnership, and you see what a happy
couple they are.”
“But how did the story get about?” asked Caerleon. “Surely it was to
the interest of both of them to keep it quiet.”
“Oh, the O’Malachy let it out one evening when he had been
dining--told it as rather a fine thing, I believe.”
“The old beast! to go and give his wife away like that,” remarked
Caerleon, with righteous indignation.
“Well, after all, she doesn’t show up so very much worse than he does
in the matter,” said Cyril. “They are rather a well-matched pair. You
know what their present manner of life is?”
“Oh yes, I know. Card-sharping.”
Cyril stared. “Not unless you are speaking in parables, and alluding
to political cards. They are spies of the Scythian Government, _agents
provocateurs_, and so on. The O’Malachy is supposed to be travelling
for his health, a pursuit which enables him to be pretty constantly on
the move, and turn up just where his presence is required. Oh, he’s a
fine old fellow! Wasn’t that rich about Balster and the infernal
machine? It was an awful sell for him, though. Sorry! of course he was
sorry--that Balster didn’t open it himself, and get blown up. That’s
one of his little ways of employing his leisure hours, and the whole
family are really otherwise engaged than in health-seeking, very much
so.”
“Not all of them. Miss O’Malachy is not.”
“Well, you certainly know more about her than I do, so I can’t say.
You have a queer taste in fathers-in-law, though.”
“Don’t talk rot,” said Caerleon, indignantly. “I won’t hear the girl
slandered, but I can’t even make out whether I like her or not. She
says the most appalling things in the coolest voice, and then
apologises.”
“Well,” said Cyril, getting near the door, “when a man goes out to
think about a girl, and wastes two hours of his valuable time in
trying to decide whether he likes her or not, and then comes back
without having found out, it looks as though he was pretty far gone
already.” And Cyril quitted the room in a hurry, dexterously avoiding
the boot which Caerleon hurled at him.