At the end of the previous chapter I described our arrival in the
kingdom of Gota, and the farewell we took of the men who had risked so
much to bring about our safe arrival there. As it transpired, we arrived
only just in time, for two days later my mother was taken seriously ill,
and for upwards of a month lay at death's door. During that time the
news we received from Pannonia was far from being satisfactory. The
Prime Minister, the Count von Marquart, who still remained staunch to my
father, had done his best to reduce the country's affairs to something
like order, but his efforts were in vain. In consequence he was
compelled to beat a hasty retreat to his country seat, and to leave it
to its own devices. Trading on the popularity he believed himself to
enjoy, the Prince of Lilienhoehe returned from exile, and, assisted by
certain notorious enemies of the Ramonyi dynasty, made a vigorous
attempt to seize the throne. He also was disappointed in his endeavour,
for the country would have neither a Lilienhoehe nor a Ramonyi. What it
wanted was a Republic of the French and American description, and a
Republic, in hot haste, it was determined to have. As a result the
Prince followed our example and crossed the Border with as much despatch
as possible.
As soon as my mother was convalescent, it became necessary to arrive at
some sort of an understanding as to what our future was to be. To return
to our own country was out of the question; for many reasons, too
numerous to mention, it was impossible for us to remain in Gota; while
the neighbouring kingdoms were equally unsafe. It was King George
himself, our host, who solved the problem for us. As a result my tenth
birthday found us on English soil. Nowhere else in Europe could we hope
to be so safe, and the affection I feel for that country may be said to
have originated at the moment we set foot upon her shores. We were
welcomed by the country at large, while, with thoughtful generosity, a
royal residence was placed at our disposal until we should be in a
position to find one for ourselves. This done, however, we settled down
to the enjoyment of a quiet country life, and to wait until the course
of events should make it possible for us to return to Pannonia once
more. The change in our affairs proved exactly to my father's taste. He
was no longer worried with the cares and responsibilities of kingship,
but was able to give himself up entirely to the studies he so ardently
loved. In my own heart I believe that, during the period of years that
elapsed before his death, he had but one real fear, and that was the
dread lest affairs should right themselves in Pannonia and he be called
upon to resume his old life. With my mother it was altogether different.
Where he rejoiced at his new-found liberty, she chafed and worried about
the change in our lives. She could not forget that she was a king's wife
and a king's daughter, and that in England we were exiles, turned out of
our country and defrauded of our just rights. Where he scarcely spoke of
his old life, and took but small interest in the country of his birth,
she was invariably well informed as to all that occurred. She was
fighting for her children's rights, and declared that she could never
rest, or know any peace of mind, until we had come to our own again.
Alas! for her happiness, poor soul, she did not live to see that day.
To Max and myself, accustomed as we were to the excitement of a Court,
the new life came as a decided, and by no means welcome, change.
It was not long, however, before we became reconciled to it, and by the
time we had been a year in England we could not only speak the language
fluently, but were to all appearances veritable sons of the soil. It was
a quiet life we led, but not an aimless one. The best of tutors were
engaged for us, and the smallest detail of our studies was attended to
by my mother with scrupulous exactness. We learnt to play cricket and
football, to fence and box like English boys; and in order that our
military education should not be neglected, it was decided that as soon
as we were old enough, Max and I should enter the British Army, for
which my mother entertained the greatest admiration. "The training," she
was accustomed to say, "will prove of the greatest value to them when
they return to Pannonia," and that seemed to settle it. Strangely
enough, however, Max did not hail the arrangement with the delight that
she had expected him to show. For some reason, as he grew up, his
disposition seemed to change. He, who was at first a headstrong,
impulsive boy, was developing into a silent and almost taciturn young
man. The notion that he would not succeed to the throne of his
ancestors, which he had conceived as a boy, now returned to him with
renewed force. It grew with him and thrived upon the thoughts that
fostered it. One little incident will be sufficient to show the hold
this strange idea had upon him. He was nineteen at the time; I was
scarcely sixteen. In appearance he was a tall, fine-looking young
fellow, with clean-cut features, dark resolute eyes, and black hair,
that he wore in a somewhat foreign fashion. While he was, to all intents
and purposes, a man, I was still a boy, fairly well grown it is true,
perhaps somewhat advanced for my years, but in many respects as inferior
to Max as a child of six is to a lad of twelve.
"My dear," said my father, one morning, addressing my mother, when we
sat at breakfast, which, _en passant_, we took together in the homely
English fashion, "I have received a letter that you will doubtless
consider of some importance. The Count von Marquart is in England, and,
with your permission, will pay us a visit to-day. May I instruct
Beckerstein to telegraph to the effect that you will receive him?"
A look of pleasure came into my mother's face. What did Marquart's
presence in England mean? Did it foretell a change in our lives? She
hastened to assure my father that it would give her the utmost pleasure
to see the old Minister who had served our House so faithfully. I
thought of the Chancellor as I had last seen him, bending over my
mother's hand as he bade her good-bye in the street beyond the palace,
that terrible night on which we had fled from the Capital, and informed
her in answer to her question that I remembered him perfectly. Strangely
enough the enthusiasm which took possession of my mother and myself did
not extend to my father and Max. The former, I am inclined to think,
dreaded lest the Count's presence meant the commencement of an intrigue,
which would eventually land him in Pannonia; but Max's reception of the
news I am altogether at a loss to understand. The fact, however,
remained, that the Count was in England, and that in a few hours we
should see him once more.
For the remainder of the time that elapsed before he could be with us,
my mother was filled with the greatest impatience. Never before had she
been so well disposed towards the old man.
At last his carriage was seen rolling up the drive. Contrary to custom,
and, perhaps, to etiquette, we had assembled on the terrace before the
house, to await his arrival. Gradually the carriage drew nearer, and at
last it pulled up at the steps. When the servants had opened the door,
the figure of the aged statesman appeared, and ascended to where we were
standing waiting to receive him. The time that had elapsed since we had
last seen him had not played such havoc with him as we had expected. His
back was still as straight, his glance as piercing; his moustache and
hair may have been a little whiter, but it curled as fiercely as before.
His age must have bordered close upon eighty, but his intellect was as
keen as in his prime. He saluted my father and mother; then turned to
Max. I saw his eyes wander over him with evident approval, taking in and
appreciating the details of his appearance. "Here," doubtless he was
saying to himself, "is a man worthy to be called king." Then he turned
to me and took my hand. Immediately his expression changed and a look of
bewilderment spread over his face. "Good Heavens! Michael's cross!" I
heard him mutter to himself, and I could not have been mistaken, for the
others of the party heard it also.
An awkward pause followed, during which I thought of that interview with
the gipsy so many years before. Perhaps Max was thinking of it also, for
his face grew very hard, and I knew by experience that he was battling
with the temper that was trying to get possession of him. Nothing was
said on the subject, however, and when Marquart had recovered his
self-possession (why he should have lost it I cannot say) we followed
our elders into the house. Though he endeavoured not to show it, I am
inclined to believe that my father was more touched by his old
Minister's visit than he would have liked us to suppose. At any rate, he
forebore to indulge in his usual fits of cynicism. Though at dinner that
evening he did not once refer to Pannonia, I feel certain a large
portion of his thoughts were with her. Indeed, all things considered, it
could scarcely have been otherwise. Since the establishment of the
Republic, the old Chancellor had held aloof from public affairs. Nothing
would induce him to take any part in the new state of things. "They have
mounted their horse of folly," he had observed when he had been
approached on the subject, "let them ride it to death. I, for one, will
not attempt to stop them." With that he had retired to his castle at
Friedelbain, and had sat himself down to work out his Logarithms and to
wait for the old order to reassert itself. This he confidently believed
would some day come to pass.
After dinner, my father and Marquart withdrew to the former's study,
while Max and I joined our mother in the drawing-room. Her
lady-in-waiting, for though we were in exile we still preserved the
semblance of a Court, was reading to her; but when we entered, at a
signal from my mother, she stopped and put away her book. It was easily
seen that the former had been upset by something, for, when we spoke to
her, her thoughts seemed far away, and she answered with a hesitation
that was by no means usual to her. Another thing struck me as
remarkable, and that was her treatment of Max. They had not quarrelled;
indeed, I had never known them to do such a thing, and yet her behaviour
towards him seemed based on something that I could not for the life of
me understand. It was as if she were trying to make up to him for an
unintentional wrong that she had done him, and which she feared he might
not forgive when he discovered. To add further to this strange state of
affairs, the more amiable she was towards him the more ill at ease did
he become with her. He seemed restless, discontented, and yet
particularly anxious to be on friendly terms with myself, the one person
of all others, after what had happened that afternoon, whom he might
have been forgiven had he ignored. I could not understand it all, and
the more I thought of it the more it troubled me. Surely Max did not
imagine that I deemed it likely I should ever ascend the throne! I could
not believe that he would be so foolish as to attach any credence to the
old superstition concerning the Michael cross, or that even if he did,
he would be weak enough to allow it to embitter his life.
If I live to be a hundred I shall not forget that evening, every detail
connected with which, as I have shown, is engraved upon my memory. It
was considerably after ten o'clock before my father and Marquart joined
us in the drawing-room. The former seemed in excellent spirits, the
latter scarcely so happy. Doubtless he had come expecting to find his
old master pining to be back in his own country once more. His shrewd
common sense, however, must have shown him, before they had been very
long together, that this was far from being the case. He found him
contented with his lot, and far from desirous of again taking up the
load of responsibility he had been so fortunate as to cast off. Knowing
nothing of the strained state of affairs that had existed prior to their
entrance, Marquart must not be blamed if he unwittingly intensified the
unpleasantness of the situation. He seated himself by the side of my
mother, and talked with her of bygone days, and of friends of whom she
had long lost sight, thus raising a train of thoughts in her mind that
could only give birth to hopes she must have felt in her heart would
never now be realised. It was noticeable also that the Count's eyes
wandered continually in my direction. In consequence, I did not appear
at my best. Knowing that Max was watching me, and that my mother was
nervous on his account, I would have given anything to have been able to
slip quietly from the room, and not make my appearance in public again
until Marquart had left the house. This, however, was out of the
question. The Count was our guest, and it behoved me to remain with him.
How thankful, therefore, I was when the time arrived for us to say
good-night, I must leave you to imagine. In silence Max and I made our
way to our own quarter of the house. I wanted to say something to him,
and yet I did not know with what words to approach him. I remembered the
look I had seen on his face that afternoon, and dreaded lest an
explosion were imminent. Such, however, was not the case. Having reached
my bedroom, we paused to bid each other good-night. Then Max put his
hand on my shoulder and looked sadly down at me. There was an expression
upon his face that I had never seen there before. It told me that he had
battled with himself, and that, after a severe struggle, his better
nature had come out triumphant.
"Poor old Paul!" he said in a kindlier tone than I think he had ever yet
spoken to me. "Come what may, we will be friends. Whatever the future
may have in store for us, we will not quarrel, will we? Shall we swear
to that?"
"Of course we will be friends, Max," I answered. "We'll never be
anything else, happen what may. Why should we?"
He did not answer my question, but shook me by the hand, and then, with
a little sigh, turned and went along the corridor to his own room, while
I went into mine, vainly trying to arrive at an understanding of the
situation. One thing, at any rate, was certain: Max and I had agreed not
to quarrel. Yet instinctively I felt that it had cost him something to
speak to me as he had done. Poor Max! Poor Max! I have known many men,
but few with such honest hearts as yours.
A few minutes later I was in bed, but, as I soon discovered, not to
sleep. The stirring events of the day had exercised a greater effect
upon my brain than I had imagined. My interview with Max was still too
fresh in my memory to permit of my settling down to slumber. My heart
was upbraiding me for not having met his advances with a greater show of
warmth. While he had been all generosity to me, it struck me that I had
been almost cold to him. How devoutly I wished that Marquart had never
come to England at all! Unconsciously, it is true, he had done his best
to estrange my brother and myself; he had put all sorts of thoughts in
my mother's head that had better not have been there, and for what
purpose? For the life of me I could not tell. What a strange world it
is, after all, and what blind bats we mortals may consider ourselves!
While I was fretting and worrying because Max was unhappy, Destiny was
slowly moving forward her chessmen, in the ranks of which we none of us
knew what parts we were to play. Looking back at that time, I am struck
by two strange facts. If my mother could see sufficiently far into the
future to entertain vague fears upon Max's account, and the latter,
forewarned by fate, perhaps, thought it necessary to make me swear that
we should ever remain friends, how was it that they could not see
further? Had they done so, Max would have----but there, we could not
see, so what more remains to be said? Let me return, therefore, to the
point at which I broke off.
I had retired to rest for upwards of an hour when I caught the sound of
a door being shut further along the corridor, and a moment later of a
soft footfall outside my room. I wondered who it could be, for there was
no room save Max's and my own in that quarter of the house, and I did
not know of any one who would be likely to visit it. As I listened, the
footfalls were accompanied by something that was very like a sob. I
could restrain my curiosity no longer, but, springing from my bed,
opened the door and looked out. A figure was making its way towards the
main portion of the house, and one glance was sufficient to show me that
it was my mother. She had been to Max's room, and was returning to her
own, weeping bitterly. Had there been the remotest chance of my catching
her, I should have run after her and attempted to comfort her, but I was
too late. Feeling as if I were the cause of her unhappiness, I returned
to bed, and once more set to work to try and unravel the mystery that
surrounded us. Had I been able to guess what the future had in store for
us, I might have been able to set it right. I wonder if I should have
had the pluck to do so? In my own heart I like to think it possible.