THE EAVESDROPPER OF THE QUEEN’S WALK
“Say, Dorothy!” cried Beatrice Cuming, sweeping into Miss Brandon’s
apartment with the energy and enthusiasm of a miniature cyclone; “I’m
so glad to catch you alone--so glad! I was afraid somebody would be
here and I wouldn’t have a chance to talk to you right away.”
Dorothy shifted her fair head from its position on the cushions of her
easy-chair and turned her blue eyes upon the speaker.
“Why, what has happened, Trixy?” she asked with languid interest. “It
must, of course, be something of much importance, considering it’s
almost an hour since you left me.”
“An hour!” exclaimed Beatrice; “let me tell you, a whole catalogue of
wonderful things can happen in an hour. And so it is here. I’ve a whole
bookful to tell you--a romance--a love affair--a tragedy!”
“Your introduction is certainly promising, Trixy, dear,” remarked
Dorothy with the same languid interest, “but it’s rather lengthy.
Remember, long introductions to romances have been out of fashion since
the days of our great-grandmothers. Wouldn’t it be well to begin your
story?”
“I don’t know just how to begin it,” answered Beatrice ingenuously,
“it’s so interesting. But,” she added suddenly, “you’re quite sure you
meant what you told me the other day?”
“Told you the other day?” inquired Dorothy, puzzled; “told you about
what?”
“About your not caring anything for him, of course?”
“And who may ‘_him_’ be?” asked Dorothy, with an ever so slight change
of voice.
“Why, Captain Mortimer, of course!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Dorothy, her face flushing slightly, “of course not.
How silly you are, Trixy!”
“Well,” replied Beatrice, “I thought I’d make quite sure, you know.
Dear old papa says I’m always blundering into things without first
making proper inquiry, so I thought I’d make quite sure in this case. I
wonder who it can be, though?”
“Who what can be?”
“Never mind!” retorted Beatrice; “listen to my story first, and we can
then put our heads together and try to guess who the _she_ is.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Dorothy, slightly arching her eyebrows, “you have
really decided to begin, then?”
“Stop, Dorothy,” protested Beatrice, “don’t tease me! You’ll drive
some of it out of my head and I don’t want to forget anything. Let me
see; where shall I begin? Oh, yes! Well; after I left you I went for
a stroll in the park. It was such a beautiful day; the smell of the
flowers and the grasses was so sweet that I kept on and on almost to
the end of the Queen’s Walk. Presently I felt tired and looked about me
for a place to rest. I saw a seat some little distance away and I kept
on until I reached it and there I sat down. Do you follow me, Dorothy?”
“I find no difficulty in doing so thus far, Trixy,” answered Dorothy,
with a smile. “Consider that I’ve followed you to the seat at the end
of the Queen’s Walk.”
“I hadn’t been there more than a few minutes,” resumed Beatrice, “when
I noticed, around a bend in the path, two officers approaching. Who do
you think they were?”
“Remember, Trixy,” answered Dorothy, “you are supposed to be telling a
story--not propounding riddles!”
“Why, Captain Swords and Captain Mortimer, Dorothy!”
“Indeed!” remarked Dorothy very quietly.
“Yes. They were talking together and they didn’t see me. What do you
think I did, Dorothy?”
“Now you are asking a riddle, Trixy,” replied Dorothy. “You waited
until they came up, I suppose, and then monopolized their attention
during the rest of the promenade!”
“All wrong--all wrong!” cried Beatrice gayly; “nothing of the kind!
Right back of my seat was a big tree, or bush--as high as this room and
half as big around. Watching them closely and being quite sure they
hadn’t seen me, I crept around to the back of that bush and hid.”
“Hid!” exclaimed Dorothy in astonishment; “why, what was your object in
doing that?”
“Just this,” said Beatrice, with a merry laugh; “I thought they might
take the seat I had left and, if they did, what fun it would be to
creep up behind them and drop a few grains of gravel down the collar of
Ralph’s uniform.”
“Oh, the idea!” exclaimed Dorothy, with a shocked air. “And, Trixy,”
severely, “since when have you taken to calling the officers of the
Guard by their first names?”
“Captain Swords, I should say, of course,” replied Beatrice, not in the
least abashed; “but he’s so jolly and all his brother officers call him
Ralph. It seems so much easier to call him that. What a brave fellow
he must be, too! Captain Bingham was telling me how he--Ral--Captain
Swords, I mean--rode out to retake the abandoned guns at Vladivik and
how he was wounded. Oh, I just thrilled as I listened to that story.”
“Yes,” exclaimed Dorothy, apparently catching Beatrice’s enthusiasm,
“but Captain Mortimer was there, too. It was he, after all, who brought
in the guns and, though wounded, carried Captain Swords from under the
Russian fire.”
“Yes; and Ralph--Captain Swords, I mean--was decorated with the
Columbia Cross,” said Beatrice.
“So was Captain Mortimer,” replied Dorothy, “besides receiving mention
in General Orders. But,” she added hastily, “are we going to discuss
the Russian War, dear, or are you going on with your story?”
“I’m sure it must have been you who interrupted me, dear,” rejoined
Beatrice imperturbably. “Let me see, where was I? Oh, yes! I had
hidden behind the big bush. Well, on they came and, sure enough, they
seated themselves at the very place I had just left. For a while they
sat there quite still. Neither of them said anything and from my
hiding-place I could smell the smoke of their cigars. I was trying to
find some gravel, but I couldn’t discover any behind the bush, so I was
stooping down looking for some pebbles of the right size, when suddenly
Captain Swords’ voice came to me. ‘Stanley, old fellow,’ he said,
‘there’s been something wrong with you the last few days. Won’t you
speak out and tell me what’s the matter? Usually there are no secrets
between us.’
“It seemed to me a long time before the other made any reply, but at
last his voice came to me.
“‘Ralph,’ he said, ‘I want to get out of this--to get away from here.
I’ve made up my mind to leave the Guard and exchange into the Tenth, or
some other regiment.’
“‘You astonish me, Stanley,’ replied Captain Swords; ‘for I thought it
was rather jolly here and that you found it so, too. But, be that as it
may, if you want to exchange, then exchange let it be for both of us.
Just say the word--when?’
“‘What! You’ll leave the Imperial Guard, too?’ the other exclaimed.
“‘Yes,’ said Captain Swords, ‘we’ve always been together. Whenever you
go, I go with you. Still, I’d like to know just what has put you out of
sorts with things here.’
“Again there was a long pause before there came an answer. I was
puzzling just what I ought to do--whether to come out and announce
myself, or stay quietly where I was. You see, having unintentionally
listened so far, I was embarrassed and didn’t know quite what to do.
Before I could make up my mind, Captain Mortimer again spoke.
“‘Ralph,’ he said, ‘I’ll be quite frank with you. Before I came to this
cursed Court, my experiences with women had been the ordinary ones of
a soldier. I hadn’t been here a week, though, before I met one who
appealed to me as no other woman ever had. No need for me to name her.
You know whom I mean.’
“‘The women here do seem to have a decidedly queer effect upon a man,’
answered Captain Swords. ‘I have noticed that. But I didn’t mean to
interrupt. Go on, Stanley.’
“‘Ralph,’ said the other one, and his voice seemed to me to shake
as he spoke, ‘I’m an infernal fool. I loved that woman--loved her
passionately, reverently, madly. Her presence, her voice, her touch
seemed to open the gates of heaven to me--the world was different from
what it ever had looked to me before. It was heaven and yet there was a
hell in it, too. Ralph, I tell you, man, if you’d be happy, never love
a woman like that.’
“‘Poor old fellow!’ said Captain Swords.”
“Excuse me, Trixy, dear,” exclaimed Dorothy, suddenly wheeling her
chair, “but the light hurts me. You won’t mind my turning this way,
will you? No, dear, don’t move. I like your voice to come to me that
way--from behind me. I’m listening. Continue.”
“Very well, let me see where I was,” resumed Beatrice. “Oh, yes;
Captain Swords said: ‘Poor old fellow!’ and then the other continued:
“‘I told you, Ralph, that I was an infernal fool and that’s putting
it mildly. I loved her and I was fool enough for a brief, mad period
to hope--to believe--that she loved me. Lady Brooke happened to speak
her name one night and incidentally mentioned a few details concerning
her. Lady Brooke said she was a favorite with the Queen and that she
was considered to be one of the richest heiresses of the Court. As she
said the words, Ralph, I went sick all through me. I felt as when that
Russian bullet hit me at Pedershof, for I had known nothing of this and
here, it seemed, was an unexpected barrier between us. Lady Brooke,
however, went on to say--and she warned me that this was strictly
confidential, of course--that this report, like many other reports,
had little foundation in fact; that in reality the lady’s money was
largely in expectancy as the heiress of her maternal uncle, Sir Ray
Murray, the head of the Copper Trust; that Sir Ray was engaged in a
war to the death with Sir Brussels Page and that the whole thing might
result in Sir Ray’s financial annihilation, in which case the lady’s
supposed millions would dwindle to nothing. It seems a strange, I might
say almost a mean thing, Ralph, to rejoice at some form of ill-fortune
touching the woman you adore, but the truth is the truth--I did rejoice
at those words of Lady Brooke. Those millions would have been a barrier
between us. Without them, I felt she was nearer to me. Lady Brooke is
a handsome woman--although I never particularly took to her--but she
never looked so handsome to me as at that moment. I could have laughed
out--laughed out loud and long--as she spoke pityingly of the almost
certain loss of those confounded millions. Just as if the man who wins
her for her own sweet sake alone will not be richer than the royal heir
who comes to his throne.’”
“He said that--he said that! You heard him say that?” murmured Dorothy,
from her chair, in a strangely muffled voice.
“Yes; of course that’s what he said,” replied Beatrice, engrossed in
her story. “Am I not giving you the exact words?”
“Go on--go on.”
“There now! You’ve thrown me all out by interrupting and I’ve lost the
thread.”
“Please forgive me. What did they say next?”
“Well,” resumed Beatrice, “Captain Swords asked him why he had given up
hope. Why was it that he thought the lady didn’t care for him?”
“Yes; yes!”
“Then the other answered him this way: ‘Ralph, it’s all over. I’m just
as much a “goner” as a solitary picket cut off and surrounded by a
sotnia of Cossacks. You remember, Ralph, the night of the ball--the
last one. I danced twice with her that night and twice, as we danced,
she looked into my eyes and I could have sworn I saw the love-light
there. I was encouraged, Ralph--buoyed up by my fool hopes and went
blindly on to the awful ambuscade that lay for me at the end of this
lover’s lane I was treading. After the second dance, I walked with her
in the great conservatory and there, my brain whirling, I told her--I
don’t know what!’”
“‘And she refused you?’ Captain Swords asked.
“‘Refused me!’ the other answered, oh! so sadly; ‘well, she listened
to the end and then gave a little laugh, treated it all as a mere
jest--a nothing--murmured some words which I was too dazed even to
understand--and left me hastily to join her partner for the next dance.’
“‘The cursed coquette!’ I heard Captain Swords say savagely.
“Then the other turned upon Captain Swords fiercely and declared that
he wouldn’t hear one word of reproach spoken of her in his presence;
that whatever she had done was, beyond question, right; no doubt that
was the way of the ladies of the Court, and if rough soldiers, who had
spent their lives in camp and field, didn’t properly understand those
ways, it was their fault and they ought not to complain.”
“How noble--how generous!” came from the figure in the chair.
“Wasn’t it, Dorothy!” continued Beatrice; “but that’s not all. He said
that after the lady had refused him, he remained in the conservatory
for some time and then, not very well knowing what he was doing, he
wandered back to the ball-room to catch another glimpse of her as she
danced with that black-looking devil, Lord Ashley, as he called him.
Then he went on to say that as he stood there, Lady Brooke came up and
began to talk to him. She drew his attention to the lady and asked him
if she and Lord Ashley didn’t make a handsome couple--she so light and
he so dark. Lady Brooke said that she thought there would surely be a
match, as she had been playing her cards to win Lord Ashley because of
his title, and a titled husband was the one thing above everything that
the lady had set her heart on.”
“She said that--she said that to him!” cried Dorothy, suddenly sitting
upright in her chair.
“Yes, yes; that’s what she said and more too. She went on to tell him
that she thought the lady would very likely succeed and would become
Lady Ashley, as she was a clever and skilful angler, but did he not
think that she angled for him a little too openly and too boldly?”
“Oh--oh! What----”
“Now don’t interrupt me, Dorothy,” exclaimed Beatrice, completely
engrossed in her story, “or I’ll lose it all again. Well, when Lady
Brooke said that to him the one wish in his mind, he said, was that she
were a man and he would have strangled her where she stood for those
words she had spoken.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, and then he went on to say that whomever she chose--whether lord
or commoner--would be fortunate, indeed, and that he hoped she would be
as happy as he knew she was good and beautiful. Then he told Captain
Swords that he should always love her, with the loyalty a soldier has
for his flag; worship her with the blind idolatry of a fanatic for his
God. He said that if war should again break out, it would find him at
the front and that when he fell his one hope was that her face might be
the last vision to pass before his eyes; her name the last word upon
his lips. Oh, Dorothy, I tell you he spoke so beautifully and so sadly
of her that I just sniveled behind the bush and the sob I gave nearly
betrayed me. As for Captain Swords, I could hear him pacing up and
down the path and he flung his cigar away with such violence that it
flew clear over the big bush and almost fell on my head. I wish I had
someone to care for me like that. As for Lady Brooke----”
At the mention of that name, Dorothy suddenly sprang from her chair and
confronted Beatrice with pale face and strained, wide-staring eyes.
“The wretch--oh, the wretch!” she murmured fiercely. “Such base
falsehood!”
“Why, Dorothy,” exclaimed Beatrice, startled, “why are you so excited?”
“Excited! Who wouldn’t be in the face of such horrible untruths--such a
dreadful mistake!”
“Why, why, Dorothy!” cried Beatrice quickly. “Do you know anything of
this? Who the lady is? Is she some friend of yours? Have I made you
unhappy?”
Dorothy took a step forward and put her arms around Beatrice.
“Unhappy!” she stammered; “oh, I’m wretched--so wretched. No, no; I
mean I’m happy--so very happy. You don’t understand.”
But Beatrice released herself and looked anxiously into her friend’s
face.
“What has happened, Dorothy?” she inquired with concern. “You are ill!
You are all white and red by turns.”
“No, no; you don’t understand!”
“Understand, eh!” quoth Beatrice, the light of a sudden intelligence
coming into her eyes. “Oh! I see--I see. There now! Just to think of
it! As papa would say, I’ve been blundering again.”
“See! You see what?”
“But you distinctly told me,” came the somewhat irrelevant answer,
“that you didn’t care for him!”
“Why, of course--of course not; you silly, silly goose! You don’t
understand--you don’t understand----”
And by way of adding to Beatrice’s comprehension of the situation,
Dorothy suddenly drew her to her heart, sank her head upon her
shoulder, and, with great broken sobs following fast upon one another,
wept as if her heart would break.