HIT AND MISS.
“Oh, the dear cunning things! They’re just too sweet for words!”
Maimie was standing before the gate of St Mary Windicotes churchyard,
contemplating, with a rapt expression of ecstasy, the two huge
laurel-wreathed skulls, carved in stone, now hideously blackened with
time, which crowned the high gate-posts. The clerk’s wife, unaware
that in seeing these skulls the visitor was fulfilling one of her
dearest and creepiest early hopes, felt that the grisly objects were
not being treated with proper respect.
“They ain’t no figures of fun, miss. It’s what we all ’ave to come
to,” she observed reprovingly. “Not but what old Mr Cowell opposite
did say, when there was a talk of takin’ of ’em down and puttin’ up
common stone balls like in their place, ‘Never a foot do I set within
the church-door again if them death’s-’eads is took down,’ says he.
‘I’ve see ’em all my life as boy and man, and the church wouldn’t be
the church without ’em.’ But there’s no call for strangers to be
a-lovin’ of ’em, but only to remember their latter end, as may be
sooner than they think.”
They were now walking up the path, itself flagged with gravestones,
which led to the church-door, and Maimie noticed with something of a
shudder the embattled rows of monuments on either hand, of all sizes
and shapes and all manner of deviation from the perpendicular, and the
ranges of displaced stones which lined the churchyard walls. For the
moment she felt that she hated the place. How could people in their
senses have had a wedding there? It was bound to turn out badly.
“And in that very pew there, as is now cleared away”--the clerk’s wife
was concluding with much impressiveness a speech containing valuable
historical information--“my mother see with her own eyes the great
Dook of Wellington sit hevery Trinity Monday, for to ’ear the
appointed sermon.”
This information was generally received with bated breath by visitors
to the church, and the good woman was conscious of very natural
disgust when Maimie responded to it merely with a casual “Is that so,
really?” They had paused in the porch while the guide pointed out the
modern representative of the fateful pew, but now she led the way in
with a jangle of keys and a contemptuous sniff. Maimie devoured the
scene with eager eyes. The fine dark oak carving in the chancel, the
small oval window representing the Nativity, and the large window
above it, decorated in stripes of crude colour--she knew them all, but
there was something wanting.
“There ought to be pictures of Moses and Aaron there!” she cried,
pointing to the chancel, “and right high up on that wall a big shadowy
picture of some old king or queen, in a great gold frame.”
“Well, now, to think of you knowin’ that!” the clerk’s wife was
somewhat mollified; “and you must ’a been rare and small when you left
the parish, miss, for me not to remember you.”
“I’ve never been here in my life before, but I heard all about the
church in America,” said Maimie breathlessly. “What’s come to the
pictures?”
“Why, Moses and Aaron is there still, miss, hid out of sight behind
that there bed-furniture, as I calls it--and as like as two peas to my
aunt’s best bed, as lived out Earlham way,” pointing to an elaborate
curtain behind the communion-table. “That’s the new Vicar’s
doin’”--Maimie felt her heart sink--“and her Majesty Queen Hann and
the Royal Harms is both took down and made away with--despisin’ of
dignities, as we’re told shall be.”
“But the registers are here yet, I suppose? and I can see about this
marriage, any way?” asked Maimie anxiously, for the clerk was coming
up the church, unorthodox corduroys marring the effect of his
professional black coat. She had discovered from a board over his door
that he was an undertaker in a small way on week-days, and it had been
necessary to send a boy to summon him, while his wife led the way to
the church.
“Oh yes, miss. No one can’t do nothing to them. Here’s Clegg just
a-comin’. You step this way,” and Maimie was ushered into the vestry,
a small room panelled throughout in dark oak. Light was admitted by
two windows close under the ceiling, and the decorations were confined
to a table of the Degrees of Affinity, and another, quite as long and
a good deal more complicated, of burial fees. Presently the clerk
arrived, and opened a huge safe built in the thickness of the wall and
masked by the wainscoting.
“What might be the year of the marriage you was wishin’ to find,
miss?” he asked, and Maimie noticed that the woman looked suspiciously
at her when she answered. She had determined that she would give no
clue to her identity, in case some evil chance should lead Mr
Steinherz to revisit the church, but she foresaw that it might be
difficult to maintain this reticence.
“And ’ave you any idea what part of the year would be likely, miss?”
asked the clerk again, selecting a volume and laying it upon the
table.
“May, somewhere near the 18th,” was the reply, greeted with a gasp by
the clerk’s wife.
“And the names, miss? There was a good few weddin’s just about that
time.”
“Joseph Bertram to Constance Lily Garland.” Maimie’s voice was shaking
a little, but her excitement was nothing to that of the clerk’s wife.
“Now you just tell me who you are,” she said resolutely, interposing
her substantial person between Maimie and the register. “You ain’t
neither of them two foreign young ladies, that I’m certain, and you
won’t tell me as you’re Mrs Bertram’s daughter--Miss Garland as was?
What have you got to do with it?”
“My mother was at the wedding, and signed the register,” Maimie
admitted.
“Then you ain’t got nothink to do with Mr Bertram’s family?--though
why they should think to interfere at this time of day beats me.”
“’Ere it is, miss,” said the clerk. “Joseph Bertram to Constance Lily
Garland, by the Vicar, May 19th. Do you wish a copy?”
Moving aside unwillingly, the woman allowed Maimie to approach the
table. There was no question of a dream or hallucination here, at any
rate. There was the entry, and as Maimie turned over the pages, there
also was the slight discoloration of the inside of the cover which
showed where a slip of paper had been pasted upon it. She ran her
finger along the line, and resisted an eager desire to try and tear
the slip off. When the clerk asked again whether she would like a
certified copy of the entry, she was obliged to pause before
answering. Without the addition which that piece of paper held
concealed, the certificate was of comparatively little value; and yet,
supposing that by some accident or otherwise the church should be
destroyed and the register with it, might not the copy just suffice to
establish the marriage? Knowing nothing of Somerset House and its
requirements, Maimie saw herself the _dea ex machinâ_ in the
restoration of Mr Steinherz to his original position, and replied
unhesitatingly that she would have a copy. While the clerk was making
it out, she stood looking with a vague awe at the pile of registers
remaining in the safe. Was there still among those dusty volumes with
their ragged edges the one which, as Mrs Steinherz had told with bated
breath, contained records of many burials distinguished by the letters
“Pl.,” denoting a victim of the Great Plague? But the clerk’s wife was
not content to waste such an opportunity, and interrupted her
meditations.
“And so your ma--Miss Slazenger as she were then--signed there, did
she, miss?” indicating the rudely formed letters in which a hand
accustomed only to the German character had inscribed an unfamiliar
name. “Mrs Cotton she took to her wonderful, just the same as to Miss
Garland. It do seem a pity as you shouldn’t have come before she left
the parish, after all the many times she have said to me, ‘Mrs Clegg,’
says she, ‘I would give a deal to know what become of Mr and Mrs
Bertram after all, that I would.’”
“Then Mrs Cotton is not dead?” asked Maimie eagerly.
“Why, whatever give you that hidea, miss? The Vicar ’ad a stroke and
give up the parish, and they lives down at Whitcliffe now. This last
summer as ever was, they arsk Clegg and me down for the day, and took
us for a ride in a carriage, and give us tea in the garden, just like
ladies and gentlemen--though if you arsk me, I say give me an ’ouse,
or even a harbour, the grass bein’ damp and spiders about.”
“Could you give me Mrs Cotton’s direction?”
“To be sure I could, miss--Windicotes, Cavendish Road,
Whitcliffe-on-Sea. But, miss, if you’re lookin’ for witnesses to swear
to that there weddin’, don’t you forget that me and Clegg was there
just as much as Mrs Cotton and the Vicar, him givin’ the bride away
and me ready with a bottle of salts in case of the ladies’ bein’
overcome. Why, Mrs Cotton she says to me herself that morning, ‘Mrs
Clegg,’ says she, ‘don’t you let your Tommy go to school to-day, and
I’ll make it up to him’; and if she didn’t set him to play marbles
just outside the churchyard gate, sayin’ that if he saw a cab drive
up, or so much as any strangers comin’ along, he was to run in and
whisper to her at once, ‘and then, Mrs Clegg,’ says she, ‘you and me
will fasten the church-door and pile the forms against it until Mr
Cotton have finished the service, sooner nor let those dear young
people be separated before they’re properly married, for it’s in my
mind as Mr Bertram’s cruel relations will try to part ’em at the
last.’ And I was that worked up with the thought of Miss Garland bein’
dragged off shriekin’ to one of them convents, and that nice young
gentleman her ’usband--for a fine military-lookin’ gentleman he was,
though a trifle ’aughty in speakin’--throwed into chains and a
dungeon, that I ’id my broom be’ind the church-door, and I was ready
to fight for ’em, I was. Not that anythink come of it, after all.” Mrs
Clegg spoke with evident disappointment.
“I’ll remember,” said Maimie. “But don’t tell any one that I’ve been
here, any way.” She folded up the certificate and placed it in her
pocket-book, gave the clerk his fee, and prepared to go. “The cruel
relations may show up yet, you know.”
“So they may, miss, but you may depend upon me and Clegg.” The clerk’s
wife was now escorting her out of the church. “I see you know all
about that bit of paper at the end of the book there, which I
understand there’s property dependin’ on it. Now you’ll maybe ’ardly
believe it, miss, but neither me nor Clegg have ever mentioned that
slip to a livin’ soul, least of all to the new Vicar, as ain’t ashamed
to walk about the parish in petticoats, and wearin’ a Roman mitre on
his ’ead.”
The description was startling, but Maimie recognised the object of it
when she was walking past the vicarage, having rid herself of Mrs
Clegg by means of a gratuity. The green door in the high wall opened,
and a tall thin man came out, wearing a cassock and a curious
head-dress that seemed a cross between a Tam-o’-Shanter and a
mortar-board. A youthful voice from the other side of the narrow
street inquired shrilly, “Where _did_ you get that ’at?” and a small
boy scampered away as fast as his legs would carry him, while the new
Vicar, with the air of a martyr, walked rapidly towards the church. As
for Maimie, she stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to restrain a
peal of hysterical laughter, and turned her steps hastily towards the
station. Her experiences of the morning seemed altogether too absurd
and incongruous for real life, and in spite of the strained excitement
with which she had set forth on her quest, the clergyman’s martyrlike
aspect put the finishing touch to her helpless mirth. When she was
safely in the train, and had allowed herself the luxury of a long
laugh over this anti-climax to her adventure, she became suddenly
serious, however.
“Now let me see,” she said severely to herself; “what have I gained,
any way? Well, I know that Mr Steinherz and Aunt Connie were married
at that church, and that there’s a slip of paper which _may_ cover
their secret. And I’ve found three witnesses certainly--four if the
old Vicar’s mind isn’t affected by his stroke--who can testify to the
marriage. I guess it’s just as well that the gentleman in the ‘Roman
mitre’ wasn’t the Vicar when Pappa Steinherz went to enlist his
sympathies. I don’t believe he has any; he might even have assisted to
drag poor Aunt Connie shrieking to a convent. Well, but after all,
it’s quite possible yet for Mr Steinherz to have made out that he was
Prince Joseph of Arragon when he isn’t, or even to have invented the
tale just to impress Lord Usk. I don’t think so, but I’m set on
looking things in the face. Any way, I guess I can’t do anything
towards clearing up the affair without Mr Steinherz’s help, or else
the use of those relics that Mr Hicks has in charge. How am I to fix
things? I have no pull on Pappa Steinherz, and if I make him mad he’ll
just take Fay right away from me, and break my heart. I’ll have to
wait. And yet something ought to be done right now, or some of those
old folks that can swear to the marriage will be dying off. I wonder
if I couldn’t take their evidence. No, I’m pretty certain it would
need to be sworn to before a judge, and I daren’t have any other
person come into the secret, even if I knew a judge to speak to. Well,
I guess I must sit tight, and that’s all just now.”
Nevertheless, when she left the train at Charing Cross, and took a
hansom mechanically to drive to the hotel, her brain busied itself
with a fresh problem, which was yet an old one, the question of
preventing an engagement between Usk and Félicia. Such an engagement
would put an end once for all to her ambitious schemes for Félicia’s
future, which seemed perfectly feasible in the light of the
revelations of the night before. Not that either Maimie or Félicia
herself would have cared much for the engagement, had there been a
prospect of a more brilliant alliance, but it would give Mr Steinherz
a vantage-ground of which he would make full use. Once Félicia was
engaged, he would see that the engagement was fulfilled. He would
hurry on the marriage, and never relax his vigilance until his
daughter had become Viscountess Usk, and Félicia, in her present
mood, would offer no opposition. The prospect of escaping from his
tutelage, and feeling that she was her own mistress (Usk did not
count), was far more attractive to her than Maimie’s lofty hopes. It
seemed that there was no help for it, and Maimie decided reluctantly
to bow to circumstances, and make herself so agreeable to Usk that he
could not but approve of her friendship with Félicia. As she came to
this decision, she was startled by meeting Usk and Mr Steinherz face
to face. Her driver was trying to cross Oxford Street in the direction
of Bloomsbury, but there was a block in the traffic, and an inexorable
policeman detained the hansom close to one of those islands of refuge
on which strange groups assemble by force of circumstances. Here stood
Mr Steinherz and Usk, unable to penetrate the solid phalanx of
vehicles which confronted them, and waiting with what patience they
might while the policeman marshalled a train of old ladies and country
cousins in readiness for a break in the line. They were the last
people Maimie would have chosen to meet at such a moment, when that
dreadful certificate seemed to be burning in her pocket.
“You are out pretty early, Maimie,” said Mr Steinherz.
“I----I came out on an errand for Félicia, way down in the City,”
stammered Maimie, remembering for the first time that the errand had
never been performed.
“You should have mailed the order. I don’t choose to have you running
around for Félicia. You look just tired out.”
“I wish you had been with us just now, Miss Logan,” said Usk, changing
the subject hastily, either on account of Maimie’s evident
embarrassment or because he could not bear to hear Félicia blamed.
“We came across the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim and an aide-de-camp
poking about Trafalgar Square in mufti. Wasn’t it a good thing I had
studied him so long yesterday, so that I could point him out to Mr
Steinherz? But I did wish you and Miss Steinherz were there.”
Usk spoke fast and somewhat nervously. Maimie read in his face that
the night had made no change in his feelings. He was prepared to marry
Félicia and keep her in ignorance of her father’s descent, and Mr
Steinherz was well pleased with his decision. Maimie felt that she
hated them both.
“By the way,” said Mr Steinherz, “I guess I am in Félicia’s black
books yet?” Maimie nodded, for she had left Félicia comfortably
established in her room, with no intention of showing herself for the
present. “Well, we lunch Lord Usk to-day, and he would be real sorry
to miss her. Do you happen to know anything she wants right now?”
“Why, I guess one of those gold girdles with turquoise bosses would
fix up her new Paris tea-gown to perfection,” said Maimie slowly,
adding vengefully to herself, as she saw Usk redden, “I won’t let you
down easy this time, Pappa Steinherz--talking that way about Fay
before her best young man!”
“Then maybe you’ll intimate that I’m bringing along something of the
sort when you get back,” said Mr Steinherz.
“Why, certainly. I guess you’ll find Regent Street the best place,”
cried Maimie, as the cab moved on. It was some satisfaction to her to
see the disappointment on Usk’s face. “He’s death on getting it over,”
she said to herself; “and now Mr Steinherz will have him trail
half-way round London before coming in.”
But her satisfaction was dashed with dismay when she remembered again
the pair of dainty high-heeled slippers still reposing in her satchel.
How could she account to Félicia for the morning which was to have
been devoted to changing them? If she refused to give an explanation,
or offered a lame one, she knew Félicia would never rest until she
had solved the mystery. And if she guessed that Maimie did not wish Mr
Steinherz to know what she had been doing, she would appeal to him
sooner than allow herself to be foiled. There was a relentless
malevolence about Félicia on these occasions, when Maimie was trying
to deceive her purely for her own good, which Maimie felt deeply.
“I don’t dare go back without changing them,” she sighed to herself,
and standing up, began an agitated colloquy with the driver.
“Can you get back to the City from here, hackman, right away?” she
asked him. “There’s something I have forgotten.”
The man asked where she wanted to go, and then opined that the shop
could easily be reached by way of Holborn. He turned at the first
opportunity, and as they approached the corner Maimie caught sight of
Mr Steinherz and Usk a second time, looking at some books in a
shop-window. They had not gone far towards Regent Street, and Maimie
laughed to herself as she thought of Usk’s impatience. When she looked
round again, her attention was attracted by a man standing on the
pavement at the corner, who was gazing--glaring was the word that
occurred to her--across the street at the bookshop opposite. He was
elderly and poorly dressed, and evidently a foreigner, with a ragged
beard and unkempt hair.
“An Italian,” said Maimie to herself. “How he looks! like a lion
stalking his prey. What can he be staring at, any way?”
As the thought crossed her mind, the man dashed suddenly into the
street in front of the hansom, and seeming not to hear the lively
remonstrances of the driver, who was obliged to pull up pointblank,
threaded his way through the traffic to the opposite corner. Maimie,
watching him carelessly through the side-window, saw him reach the
pavement. What followed was done all in a moment. He took one step
forward, there was the flash of something long and shining which fell
and rose and fell again, and Mr Steinherz sank heavily against Usk.
That was all Maimie saw, for her wild scream sent the horse, already
startled by the sudden check, tearing down Holborn, and it seemed to
her an eternity before the driver succeeded in stopping it, and
turning back again at her frenzied entreaty. The irate policemen whose
orders they had disregarded in their wild career, and the other
drivers whose destruction they had sought to compass, took no notice
of them as they returned; every one was running or looking in one
direction. Even at that moment Maimie was conscious of a feeling of
wonder as the crowd gathered. People came hurrying out of shops,
pouring down side streets, rushing up from behind, and very soon the
hansom could go no farther. Maimie waited in agony while the driver
tried to force his horse through the crowd, and found herself the
recipient of the confidence bestowed on a friend by a boy with a
baker’s basket.
“I see ’im come runnin’ like mad, brandishin’ ’is drippin’ knife--as
good as a theaytre. ’E run strite into the middle of the street, all
among the ’orses, rarght in front of the dray. Blowed if ’e didn’t ’it
out at the ’orses with the knife as ’e went down. ’E _was_ gyme!”
“Say, who is it? what has happened?” gasped Maimie to a policeman, who
found even his authority insufficient to clear a passage for him into
the midst of the crowd, and was forced to content himself with
ordering the people on its outskirts to move on. He answered civilly,
and with obvious self-importance.
“An Eye-talian, miss, supposed to be a lunatic, that stabbed an
American gentleman, and then threw himself under the ’orses’ feet.”
“But Mr Steinherz--the gentleman who was stabbed?” she cried. “I saw
it all. What about him? He is my guardian.”
“You saw it, miss? Then I must trouble you for your name and address.
You’ll be wanted at the inquest. They’re takin’ him to the ’orspital.”
“Oh, where is it? You’ll show me, officer, won’t you? But I guess I
ought to go and fetch his daughter. You’ll let the hack through?”
“It’s no good, miss. I doubt myself if he’ll live to reach the gate.
You had better send the cab away, and I’ll take you to the ’orspital.”
“Tell me about it, any way. What did you see?” Maimie asked
feverishly, as the policeman pushed a way for her through the crowd,
after she had dismissed the cab.
“All I saw as I come along Oxford Street was ten or twelve people
round an old party as I thought was preachin’ on the pavement. I went
to move ’em on, and a lady bursts out and ketches ’old of me that
tight I couldn’t move. ‘Oh, policeman, policeman!’ she says; ‘murder!
save him! fetch a doctor, quick!’ and ’olds me tight all the time,
while the old chap goes on jawin’ to the crowd about a righteous
vengeance and the task of his ’ole life, and his father bein’ shot and
his mother turned out of doors in a winter’s night, and defyin’
anybody to arrest him, though he’d thrown down his knife. And then,
all of a sudden, while I was strugglin’ to get free from the lady, he
give a great yell and cried out, ‘It’s the wrong man--not the
Archduke!’ and caught up a long knife with blood drippin’ from it off
of the pavement, and went for the people. They made room for him
pretty quick, I can tell you, and he rushed across into ’Olborn, and
me after him. You’d have said he was mad if you’d seen him charge the
traffic just like an army, as I did, and he’d near got through when he
was knocked down by a dray. And there’s no need to take _him_ to
’orspital. And what was it you saw, miss?”
“I just saw him standing on the side-walk and watching, and then he
ran across and pulled out something, and struck--and struck--and
then----” Maimie’s voice failed her.
“Case of mistaken hidentity,” remarked the policeman complacently,
“but it’s not often those foreigners make mistakes. Now it’s a curious
thing----”
But Maimie was not destined to receive further enlightenment from his
stores of wisdom, for they had arrived at the hospital gate by this
time, and Usk was coming out of it, looking like a man who was going
to be hanged.
“He’s gone!” he said heavily, in answer to Maimie’s gasp of
inquiry--“died just as they carried him in. But you’re here--and you
know all about it--you’ll be able to tell Félicia. I didn’t know how
to break it to her. I was trying to think what I should say if I had
to tell Phil that our father was dead. But you’re a woman, you know
how to put things, you can soften it to her----”
“Oh, I can’t! I daren’t!” cried Maimie, shrinking back. Then she
remembered in a flash that if she threw the burden of the disclosure
upon Usk, it would be a tacit recognition of his position with regard
to Félicia. No, he was not engaged to her yet, and if Maimie could
help it, the engagement should not take place.
“I guess I’ll have to do it,” she said resolutely.
“I’ll take you back to the hotel,” said Usk. “The policeman will call
a hansom, for I’m sure you can’t walk.”
“Tell me just what happened. Who was the man?” asked Maimie
breathlessly, when they were in the cab.
“I can’t tell you. It was all so awfully sudden. We were looking in at
a shop-window, when suddenly some one shouted out something in Italian
behind us--about his father and mother, I think--and I heard two blows
struck, and Mr Steinherz gave a kind of gasp, and fell against me. I
tried to lift him up and stop the bleeding, and people were standing
round staring, and the man who had done it kept talking, talking, in
English. But when I got Mr Steinherz’s head on my shoulder, so that
his face showed, the man gave a yell and dashed away. They say there’s
no doubt he mistook him for the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim, and it’s
curious that last night I noticed there was a distinct likeness
between them from behind, but not the very least in front.”
“I would just love to tell you that I know exactly as much as you do!”
thought Maimie enviously. Aloud she merely said, “And Mr Steinherz?”
“A doctor came up, and said he was stabbed in the lungs, and couldn’t
possibly live. He tried to speak, though the doctor told him not, but
he could only get out a few disjointed words. And just as they got him
into the receiving-room he died.”
They had reached the hotel now, and Usk waited in the sitting-room
while Maimie went to look for Félicia. It was more than an hour
before she came back, and in the interval Usk was a prey to all kinds
of interruptions. In order to spare the girls, he made all the
arrangements he could without direct authority from them; other
matters he put aside resolutely, refusing to allow Miss Steinherz to
be troubled at present. When Maimie returned she looked so old and
harassed that he was shocked.
“How is she?” he asked anxiously.
“Quieter now; I’ve given her a sleeping-draught. But it’s been
terrible. Her nerves are pretty highly strung, and she screamed fit to
make your blood run cold. And I know there are millions of things to
do, and I can’t tell the way they fix them over here. Say, Lord Usk,
you oughtn’t to be here, any way; people will talk, you know they
will. Folks in England are so censorious. Do, please, go right away.
It makes me nervous to see you there.”
Usk obeyed, with apparent willingness, for a splendid idea had entered
his head. He went straight to the nearest post-office, and telegraphed
to the Marchioness of Caerleon at Llandiarmid Castle.
“‘Terrible accident to Mr Steinherz. Daughter quite prostrate. Can you
come?’” He read over the message. “That’ll bring her,” he muttered.
“And I never knew the people yet that the mater couldn’t comfort when
they were in trouble.”
As he put the change into his pocket he felt a paper there. Taking it
out, he found it was the envelope Mr Steinherz had given him the night
before, to be opened after his death. The time had come already, he
realised with awe. Stepping aside, he opened the envelope, and drew
out a cutting from a newspaper.
“Great consternation has been caused in august circles in Vindobona by
the reported reappearance of the Grey Lady of the Hohenstaufens. The
scene of the apparition was the portion of the Imperial Schloss known
as the Arragon-Palast, which is occupied by the Prince of Arragon,
titular King of Cantabria, and his family, when the Court is at
Vindobona, and it is alleged that the ghost-seer, a sentinel on duty,
is absolutely convinced of the reality of the sight, which is believed
to portend an approaching death in the House of Hohenstaufen. The last
recorded appearance of the Grey Lady in this portion of the Schloss
took place prior to the death of the late King Paul of Cantabria,
which occurred at an advanced age ten years ago. The king was
connected with the Hohenstaufens through his mother, who was a
Pannonian archduchess.”