Wogan mounted the stairs, not daring to speculate upon the nature of the
bad news. But his face was pale beneath its sunburn, and his hand
trembled on the balustrade; for he knew--in his heart he knew. There
could be only one piece of news which would make his haste or tardiness
matters of no account.
Both branches of the stairs ran up to a common landing, and in the wall
facing him, midway between the two stairheads, was a great door of tulip
wood. An usher stood by the door, and at Wogan's approach opened it.
Wogan, however, signed to him to be silent. He wished to hear, not to
speak, and so he slipped into the room unannounced. The door was closed
silently behind him, and at once he was surprised by the remarkable
silence, almost a cessation of life it seemed, in a room which was quite
full. Wherever the broad bars of sunshine fell, as they slanted dusty
with motes through the open lattices of the shutters, they striped a
woman's dress or a man's velvet coat. Yet if anyone shuffled a foot or
allowed a petticoat to rustle, that person glanced on each side
guiltily. A group of people were gathered in front of the doorway. Their
backs were towards Wogan, and they were looking towards the centre of
the room. Wogan raised himself on his toes and looked that way too.
Having looked he sank down again, aware at once that he had travelled of
late a long way in a little time, and that he was intolerably tired. For
that one glance was enough to deprive him of his last possibility of
doubt. He had seen the Chevalier de St. George, his King, sitting apart
in a little open space, and over against him a short squarish man, dusty
as Wogan himself, who stood and sullenly waited. It was Sir John Hay,
the man who had been sent to fetch the Princess Clementina privately to
Bologna, and here he now was back at Bologna and alone.
Wogan had counted much upon this marriage, more indeed than any of his
comrades. It was to be the first step of the pedestal in the building up
of a throne. It was to establish in Europe a party for James Stuart as
strong as the party of Hanover. But so much was known to everyone in
that room; to Wogan the marriage meant more. For even while he found
himself muttering over and over with dry lips, as white and exhausted he
leaned against the door, Clementina's qualifications,--"Daughter of the
King of Poland, cousin to the Emperor and to the King of Portugal, niece
to the Electors of Treves, Bavaria, and Palatine,"--the image of the
girl herself rose up before his eyes and struck her titles from his
thoughts. She was the chosen woman, chosen by him out of all Europe--and
lost by John Hay!
He remembered very clearly at that moment his first meeting with her.
He had travelled from court to court in search of the fitting wife, and
had come at last to the palace at Ohlau in Silesia. It was in the dusk
of the evening, and as he was ushered into the great stone hall, hung
about and carpeted with barbaric skins, he had seen standing by the
blazing wood fire in the huge chimney a girl in a riding dress. She
raised her head, and the firelight struck upwards on her face, adding a
warmth to its bright colours and a dancing light to the depths of her
dark eyes. Her hair was drawn backwards from her forehead, and the
frank, sweet face revealed to him from the broad forehead to the rounded
chin told him that here was one who joined to a royal dignity the simple
nature of a peasant girl who works in the fields and knows more of
animals than of mankind. Wogan was back again in that stone hall when
the voice of the Chevalier with its strong French accent broke in upon
his vision.
"Well, we will hear the story. Well, you left Ohlau with the Princess
and her mother and a mile-long train of servants in spite of my commands
of secrecy."
There was more anger and less despondency than was often heard in his
voice. Wogan raised himself again on tiptoes and noticed that the
Chevalier's face was flushed and his eyes bright with wrath.
"Sir," pleaded Hay, "the Princess's mother would not abate a man."
"Well, you reached Ratisbon. And there?"
"There the English minister came forward from the town to flout us with
an address of welcome in which he used not our incognitos but our true
names."
"From Ratisbon then no doubt you hurried? Since you were discovered, you
shed your retinue and hurried?"
"Sir, we hurried--to Augsburg," faltered Hay. He stopped, and then in a
burst of desperation he said, "At Augsburg we stayed eight days."
"Eight days?"
There was a stir throughout the room; a murmur began and ceased. Wogan
wiped his forehead and crushed his handkerchief into a hard ball in his
palm. It seemed to him that here in this room he could see the Princess
Clementina's face flushed with the humiliation of that loitering.
"And why eight days in Augsburg?"
"The Princess's mother would have her jewels reset. Augsburg is famous
for its jewellers," stammered Hay.
The murmur rose again; it became almost a cry of stupefaction. The
Chevalier sprang from his chair. "Her jewels reset!" he said. He
repeated the words in bewilderment. "Her jewels reset!" Then he dropped
again into his seat.
"I lose a wife, gentlemen, and very likely a kingdom too, so that a lady
may have her jewels reset at Augsburg, where, to be sure, there are
famous jewellers."
His glance, wandering in a dazed way about the room, settled again on
Hay. He stamped his foot on the ground in a feverish irritation.
"And those eight days gave just the time for a courier from the Emperor
at Vienna to pass you on the road and not press his horse. One should be
glad of that. It would have been a pity had the courier killed his
horse. Oh, I can fashion the rest of the story for myself. You trailed
on to Innspruck, where the Governor marched out with a troop and herded
you in. They let _you_ go, however. No doubt they bade you hurry back to
me."
"Sir, I did hurry," said Hay, who was now in a pitiable confusion. "I
travelled hither without rest."
The anger waned in the Chevalier's eyes as he heard the plea, and a
great dejection crept over his face.
"Yes, you would do that," said he. "That would be the time for you to
hurry with a pigeon's swiftness so that your King might taste his bitter
news not a minute later than need be. And what said she upon her
arrest?"
"The Princess's mother?" asked Hay, barely aware of what he said.
"No. Her Highness, the Princess Clementina. What said she?"
"Sir, she covered her face with her hands for perhaps the space of a
minute. Then she leaned forward to the Governor, who stood by her
carriage, and cried, 'Shut four walls about me quick! I could sink into
the earth for shame.'"
Wogan in those words heard her voice as clearly as he saw her face and
the dry lips between which the voice passed. He had it in his heart to
cry aloud, to send the words ringing through that hushed room, "She
would have tramped here barefoot had she had one guide with a spirit to
match hers." For a moment he almost fancied that he had spoken them, and
that he heard the echo of his voice vibrating down to silence. But he
had not, and as he realised that he had not, a new thought occurred to
him. No one had remarked his entrance into the room. The group in front
still stood with their backs towards him. Since his entrance no one had
remarked his presence. At once he turned and opened the door so gently
that there was not so much as a click of the latch. He opened it just
wide enough for himself to slip through, and he closed it behind him
with the same caution. On the landing there was only the usher. Wogan
looked over the balustrade; there was no one in the hall below.
"You can keep a silent tongue," he said to the usher. "There's profit in
it;" and Wogan put his hand into his pocket. "You have not seen me if
any ask."
"Sir," said the man, "any bright object disturbs my vision."
"You can see a crown, though," said Wogan.
"Through a breeches pocket. But if I held it in my hand--"
"It would dazzle you."
"So much that I should be blind to the giver."
The crown was offered and taken.
Wogan went quietly down the stairs into the hall. There were a few
lackeys at the door, but they would not concern themselves at all
because Mr. Wogan had returned to Bologna. He looked carefully out into
the street, chose a moment when it was empty, and hurried across it. He
dived into the first dark alley that he came to, and following the wynds
and byways of the town made his way quickly to his lodging. He had the
key to his door in his pocket, and he now kept it ready in his hand.
From the shelter of a corner he watched again till the road was clear;
he even examined the windows of the neighbouring houses lest somewhere a
pair of eyes might happen to be alert. Then he made a run for his door,
opened it without noise, and crept secretly as a thief up the stairs to
his rooms, where he had the good fortune to find his servant. Wogan had
no need to sign to him to be silent. The man was a veteran corporal of
French Guards who after many seasons of campaigning in Spain and the Low
Countries had now for five years served Mr. Wogan. He looked at his
master and without a word went off to make his bed.
Wogan sat down and went carefully over in his mind every minute of the
time since he had entered Bologna. No one had noticed him when he rode
in as the lady's postillion,--no one. He was sure of that. The lady
herself did not know him from Adam, and fancied him an Italian into the
bargain--of that, too, he had no doubt. The handful of lackeys at the
door of the King's house need not be taken into account. They might
gossip among themselves, but Wogan's appearances and disappearances were
so ordinary a matter, even that was unlikely. The usher's silence he had
already secured. There was only one acquaintance who had met and spoken
with him, and that by the best of good fortune was Harry
Whittington,--the idler who took his banishment and his King's
misfortunes with an equally light heart, and gave never a thought at all
to anything weightier than a gamecock.
Wogan's spirits revived. He had not yet come to the end of his luck. He
sat down and wrote a short letter and sealed it up.
"Marnier," he called out in a low voice, and his servant came from the
adjoining room, "take this to Mr. Edgar, the King's secretary, as soon
as it grows dusk. Have a care that no one sees you deliver it. Lock the
parlour door when you go, and take the key. I am not yet back from
Rome." With that Wogan remembered that he had not slept for forty-eight
hours. Within two minutes he was between the sheets; within five he was
asleep.