QUEEN AND KING.
The fifth Neustrian Revolution was complete. The _plébiscite_ had
been taken, and by an overwhelming majority Prince Timoleon Lucanor
Malasorte was requested to proclaim himself Emperor of the Neustrians.
Such a request was naturally regarded as a command by the person most
concerned, and the telegram which informed foreign countries of the
result of the _plébiscite_ contained also the first proclamation of
the Emperor Timoleon V. A semi-official _communiqué_ accompanying the
intelligence announced that the betrothal of the new monarch to the
Grand-Duchess Sonya Eugenovna, cousin of the Emperor of Scythia, would
take place almost immediately, and that this union would cement a
closer alliance between the two countries than could ever have
subsisted while the government of one was an autocracy and of the
other a republic. These items of news were received without surprise
by Europe generally, but in one distant corner of the continent they
resulted in a wholly unexpected series of events.
It happened that there was a luncheon-party at the Palace at
Bellaviste, to which the Premier, who had but just received the
message from Neustria, came late, bringing the telegram with him. He
said nothing until the meal was over, but then asked for an immediate
audience of the King. Displeased by the breaking-up of her party, and
no more disposed than she had been as Miss Steinherz to accept meekly
anything that interfered with her wishes, Queen Félicia sent her
equerry to ask her husband and Prince Mirkovics what the news was. The
King, who had learnt by experience that his bride was quite capable of
pursuing him and assisting at the interview unless her request was
complied with, sent her a copy of the telegram, which she read as she
moved about among her guests.
“Logan, come right here. I want you this instant!” were the words that
startled the room, and made Baroness Radnika, who had accompanied the
new Queen as her mistress of the household, look round in distress.
She had thought Félicia cured of her Americanisms, but at the first
moment of excitement the old habits revived. A covert glance of
amusement passed between the ladies of the British and United States
legations, and the Baroness threw herself bravely into the breach by
trying to start a fresh subject of conversation as Maimie responded to
Félicia’s summons.
“Read that, now. I might have been an empress to-day,” said the Queen,
putting the telegram into her friend’s hand.
“Well, I guess it isn’t my fault you are not,” was the swift answer,
given in an undertone, for Félicia’s words had been distinctly
audible.
“That is so. And we can’t alter things now, any way.”
“No; you’ll just have to make the best of them.”
That was all, but Félicia remained pensive for the rest of the day,
and there were those at hand who watched her every look and treasured
up any incautious word. One of these was King Michael’s aide-de-camp,
Captain Andreivics, to whom his master had recently intimated that he
might make himself useful by marrying Maimie, so that, while still
about the Court, she might be removed from her position of paramount
influence with Félicia. Somewhat against his will, so far as his
personal feelings were concerned, but with a keen sense of the
direction in which his material interests pointed, the aide-de-camp
had done his best to obey, only to find himself smartly refused by
Maimie, and to become, as he shrewdly suspected, a never-failing
subject of amusement to his lady-love and the Queen. To-day he saw his
opportunity for a neat little revenge on both of them, for even at
this early date the married life of the royal couple was by no means a
path of roses. The King’s marriage had been extremely popular in
Thracia, on account of the reputed wealth of the bride, which was
expected to descend in a golden shower on all classes of the
community. But it had proved rather to resemble the grants made to
deserving objects by certain philanthropic bodies, which require as a
condition of their reception that at least an equal amount shall be
raised by the locality benefited. Moreover, the thrifty Thracians,
already disturbed in their minds by the cost of the festivities
incident upon the state entry of the King and Queen into their
capital, found that their new sovereign had no intention of serving
the country at the cost of her own wishes. Addresses presented by
impassioned patriots implored her to adopt the national costume, which
it was quickly known she had pronounced hideous, and to encourage
local manufactures by wearing no materials but those made in Thracia,
which she flatly refused to do. King Michael had never shown himself
particularly amenable to the wishes of his people in the past, but he
had a lively sense of the value of popularity, and felt that it would
be an excellent thing for Félicia to make a few little sacrifices in
the interests of the nation and the dynasty. Unfortunately, however,
Félicia did not take this view of things. The King had already become
aware that to be her husband meant chiefly that he was responsible for
providing her with a “good time” generally, and that any attempt to
coerce her would be either ignored or laughed aside. He had sufficient
self-control to behave as if his forced acquiescence was due to a
natural willingness to indulge his bride as far as possible, but he
was keenly on the look-out for some means of inflicting an exemplary
defeat upon her. It was unfortunate for him that in the first fall he
tried with her, he himself was the defeated party. Félicia’s yacht,
the Bluebird, in which they had spent the honeymoon, was about to
convey them on a series of visits to various foreign Courts. King
Michael wished to arm the vessel and change her status to that of a
warship, thus doubling the numerical strength of the Thracian navy at
one stroke; but Félicia not only refused her assent to the change,
but persisted in continuing to sail the ship under the Stars and
Stripes, and retaining her American crew. King Michael saw Maimie’s
hand in this, and lacking the wisdom which would have led him to wait
for the moment when the crew would begin to grumble at serving so far
from home, argued the matter with Félicia on every possible occasion.
His only hope of success lay in winning her over to his side, for her
marriage-contract secured to her the absolute control of the vessel,
but he could not bring himself to let the subject drop, and begin
again when she had forgiven his persistence, and things were thus ripe
for a quarrel between the two.
As for Félicia, she had obtained her ambition, and it wholly failed
to satisfy her. Considered as the capital of a Balkan state,
Bellaviste was wonderfully advanced, but to her it seemed dull, behind
the times, and above all, provincial. The Thracians, who had so
sturdily resisted Queen Ernestine’s efforts to Europeanise them, were
not more ready to succumb to the fascinations of Queen Félicia, even
when these were backed by the prestige of her wealth, and she was
beginning to see that her intention of gathering a gay society around
her was not likely to become a reality. People who were accustomed to
Lutetia and Vindobona might pay a flying visit to this far corner of
Europe if a series of special festivities was in progress, but they
would not make a long stay, and most emphatically they would never
regard Bellaviste seriously as a spot which must be visited once a
year. Thus disillusioned, Félicia found herself suddenly face to face
with the fact that by her own action, or inaction, long ago she had
thrown away the chance of reigning as the supreme arbitress of taste
and fashion in the city which to her, as to all good Americans, was
the actual centre of the world. Instead of setting the fashions, all
she could now do was to be allowed, by the special favour of the great
_couturiers_ she patronised, to follow them at secondhand, and her
taste could only be imposed upon the small and often recalcitrant
circle of Thracian officialdom, instead of upon an admiring world.
Left to herself, Félicia would doubtless have followed Maimie’s
prudent advice, and, with the common-sense on which she prided
herself, have determined to make the best of her position, but she had
gained too many enemies to be allowed to do this. Captain Andreivics
found an ally in one of the many ladies to whom King Michael’s
unguarded attentions in past years had given hopes of sharing his
throne, hopes doomed to be blighted by a sudden and somewhat tardy
recollection on his part of the duty he owed to his house. Félicia’s
remark to Maimie, her obvious depression during the rest of the day,
offered abundant material for disturbing the mind of a husband who was
already notoriously prone to jealousy, and almost without knowing it,
the conspirators added a touch here, and deepened a shadow there,
until the least that could be imagined was that Félicia had played
off Prince Timoleon Malasorte and himself against one another until
her very marriage-day, and had only chosen him at last because she
distrusted his rival’s prospects of establishing himself on the
Neustrian throne. Whispers followed as to a certain mysterious cabinet
in the inner boudoir which was sacred to her Majesty and Miss Logan.
This cabinet had never been seen open, but ladies on duty in the outer
rooms had heard it closed and locked, after the Queen and her
favourite had sat for a long time rustling papers and talking in low
tones. What more likely than that the cabinet contained love-letters,
which would prove to King Michael that he had been cruelly duped by
his bride, and in which she took a stolen pleasure even now?
There was this amount of inherent probability in the suggestions which
Captain Andreivics ventured, somewhat gingerly at first, to throw out,
that King Michael was very well aware Félicia had played off Usk and
himself against one another in the manner described, so that she might
quite conceivably have treated a third unfortunate in the same way
without their knowledge. He had viewed her treatment of Usk with a
fine indifference, but he was the last man to submit meekly to similar
usage himself. Moreover, if there was any foundation for the
aide-de-camp’s hints, Maimie also had deceived him in the most
barefaced way, which demanded condign punishment. A strong man would
have taxed both women openly with the alleged deception, but King
Michael preferred to work on different lines. Armed with various
bunches of keys, he made his way that evening by a private passage
from his rooms to Félicia’s. The door opening into the passage from
the inner boudoir was locked, but he opened it with a master-key,
after listening to make sure that Félicia and Maimie were not talking
inside. The room was empty, and switching on the electric light, he
began to try the lock of the cabinet--a fanciful thing of old French
workmanship, but well made and in excellent repair--with one key after
another. To his disgust, there was not one that would open it, though
he found two that seemed to fit. Striking a match, and examining the
lock closely by its light, he saw where the difficulty lay, and that
it was easily overcome. The blade of his knife, inserted where the
doors met, forced back the bolt at once, and the secrets of the
cabinet lay open before him. Moreover, the cabinet was packed with
them; the mass of evidence was enormous. But as he took out one thing
after another at random, he grew more and more perplexed. There were
ball-programmes, bouquet-holders, _bonbonnières_, cotillon gifts and
favours, a few valentines or Christmas cards of a specially flattering
character, some invitations to important or exclusive gatherings. It
was an interesting social museum, but it was not what he wanted. He
pulled out the drawer at the top. Photographs!--he clutched them
eagerly. But they were all of Félicia herself, in every possible
variety of dress and attitude, and each marked with the date and place
of its taking. More angry than ever, he drew out the deep drawer at
the bottom. It was very full, and the rustling of paper rewarded him
as he plunged his hand into it. But it was all newspaper--a collection
of cuttings from all sorts and conditions of American journals,
forming Félicia’s social biography, from her school “graduation” and
coming-out ball to her marriage, over which the journalistic mind
appeared to have run riot. There were interviews with her of various
dates, accompanied by unrecognisable portraits of herself and of “J.
Bertram Steinherz, father of Miss Steinherz,” and of “the late Mrs
Constance L. Steinherz,” and interior and exterior views of the family
abode. Some of the accounts had a small piece of dress-material
carefully pinned to them, evidently that of the gown worn at the ball
or theatre-party in question, and all were neatly arranged and
docketed.
King Michael stood before the rifled cabinet in a towering rage. He
was in no mood for the consolation, of which the examination of his
wife’s dearest treasures might have assured him, that she loved no one
but herself; all he felt was that he was in an absurd and ungraceful
position. To put everything back as he had found it was almost an
impossibility, even if he could get the cabinet-door to lock again. If
he could not, Félicia and that American woman would guess the truth
at once. Only one person would tamper with the cabinet so clumsily if
he ventured to do it all. He was beginning to lay the papers in the
drawer as smoothly as he could, trusting that Félicia might not
remember the exact order in which she had left them, when he was
horrified by the sound of voices in the next room.
“I just wish that Paris store would hurry up with those albums,
Maime,” said Félicia, and her voice was coming closer. “When one has
them make things to one’s own design, they’re so awfully long about
it.”
“I’d have them send one at a time, just as they’re finished,” Maimie
answered. “Then we can start on your graduation right away.”
“I guess I will,” said Félicia, as she drew the curtain aside. “Say!”
she cried shrilly, “and what are you doing here, Michael?”
She seemed to grow taller as he looked at her, and towered above him
so magnificently that he was conscious of actual fear. He tried to
bluster the matter out.
“And if I am here, madame, has not your husband a right to--to----”
“To go through my private papers?” with deadly quietness.
“Exactly. I claim that right, and I exercise it.”
“And to break into my bureau?” Her quick eye had caught sight of the
knife, and she took possession of it before he could prevent her.
“Thanks for the warning. You may claim your right just as much as ever
you want to, but you’ve exercised it for the last time.”
“In that you will find yourself mistaken, madame.”
“You are pretty much mistaken if you think you’ll have the chance of
doing it again. Why, you little miserable----” she stopped suddenly.
“But I won’t call you names. You’ll hear plenty before long from other
people.”
“In your present rank of life, madame, it is not the custom to make
the world a sharer in family disputes.”
“It is unavoidable at times,” drawled Félicia--“when a separation is
to be arranged, for instance.”
“This is preposterous. You have no grounds for anything of the kind.”
“Just wait until I go way back to the States and ask for one.”
“Do you imagine that you will be permitted to visit America for any
such purpose? No, madame, let us look at this affair in a sensible
light. If I have damaged your cabinet, I will replace it. Your
interesting records you will find untouched, and I shall be happy to
add some article of value to your collection--” he waved his hand
towards the drawers of nicknacks--“to show my regret for this slight
misunderstanding. You will be so good as to make your own choice.”
“And you think you can bribe an American woman to overlook an insult
like this?” demanded Félicia, but Maimie was at her side.
“Don’t fuss over it any more to-night, Fay. Leave things till
morning.”
“Miss Logan’s advice is excellent. I trust I shall find you in a more
accommodating temper in the morning, madame. I wish you a very good
night,” and King Michael left the room with what dignity he could
muster. At a sign from Félicia, Maimie locked the door after him.
“Maime, what about the Bluebird’s steam launch?” asked Félicia
quickly.
“It was to wait around at the steps up to midnight to see if there was
any change in the orders for to-morrow. Are you real set on it, Fay?”
“Dead set,” responded Félicia through her teeth. “Send those girls to
bed. Let them know I’m just pining for a walk on the terrace.”
While Maimie went obediently to dismiss the dressers, Félicia threw
on a cloak, and pulled the hood over her head. She had another cloak
ready for Maimie when she returned, but close upon her heels came
Baroness Radnika, with an anxious face.
“You will not walk on the terrace to-night, madame?” she said
uneasily. “It is cold, and the damp is rising from the river. I
thought I would venture to speak when I heard Miss Logan telling your
dressers.”
“I am going out,” said Félicia. “I can’t stay indoors to-night.”
“It is something more,” said the Baroness, coming closer, and laying
her hands on Félicia’s shoulders. “Forgive me, madame, but I see it
in your face. You will not gratify your slanderers by giving them such
a handle against you? Ah, dear child, I loved your father; bear with
me, and listen to me now. Don’t take this step, whatever it may be.
You are excited--agitated----”
“Feel of my hand, Baroness. There’s no excitement there--not much! I’m
real fond of you, but I can’t have you delay me this way. The step I
am going to take is due to myself, and nobody will blame me when they
know the reason. If you’ll sort these things here, I’ll be grateful,
for I may send for them soon, and I’m sorry that you’ll just have to
stay here till morning.”
She withdrew herself from the clinging hands as she spoke, and before
the Baroness knew what she was going to do, she had passed under the
curtain Maimie was holding, and locked the door of the larger boudoir.
This portion of the palace was now deserted for the night, and the
Baroness could not make up her mind to attract the attention of any of
the sentries in the garden to her position. Perhaps she had misjudged
Félicia; she might only be intending to walk on the terrace, as she
had said, but the Baroness’s heart misgave her as she remembered that
the Bluebird was lying at the mouth of the river, with her fires
banked, in case the King and Queen should be able to make a start
early on the morrow. She would have been more anxious still if she had
known that the yacht’s steam-launch was waiting off the palace itself
for orders, and that those orders were conveyed to it by Félicia in
person. But when the astonishing news arrived in the morning that the
Queen was missing, and that her yacht had steamed out to sea in the
night, it was the Baroness, released after a weary vigil, who
undertook to face the King in the first fury of his wrath. He would
send his gunboat to pursue the Bluebird, he would telegraph to every
port that she was to be detained, he would enlist the help of every
government in Europe to restore his truant wife, and he would--he
would--words failed to express the punishment that should be meted out
to every one concerned in the affair. But the Baroness held her
ground, and fought Félicia’s battle with a courage which was
absolutely regardless of the King’s frantic displeasure. To prevent a
scandal, and leave the way open for the two to be brought together
again, was her only aim, and she had her reward, when she left the
King’s presence at last, in the brief announcement which was to be
added to the daily Court Circular:--
“Her Majesty the Queen, attended by Miss Logan, left Bellaviste last
night on board the royal yacht Bluebird for a short cruise. His
Majesty the King, who had intended to accompany her Majesty, is
detained some time longer by the course of public affairs.”
“For real genuine slave-driving commend me to a pretty woman who knows
her own value--as all pretty women ought to,” added Mr Hicks
gallantly, repenting, apparently, of his opening complaint.
“Who is the lady?” asked Usk.
“No less a person than her Majesty Queen Félicia, sir. She is lying
off Paranati in the Bluebird, and has had the mate come over the
mountains on horseback at the risk of his life, with a message for me
that she has no use for matrimony just now, and I may as well fix up a
separation.”
“What, already?” cried Usk, with unintentional irony.
“Why, certainly. The King has insulted her unpardonably, so she says,
and I guess there isn’t anything to be done but eliminate him for the
future.”
“Then you will be obliged to go to her at Paranati?”
“That’s so, and it makes me real mad. I had concluded to wander around
in these parts some, and try and solve the mystery of this last
disappearance of the Count’s, and now I don’t see but you’ll have to
do what you can without me. What riles me is the way things seem to
work for the other side all the time. It’s that which is telling on
Lady Usk too, I guess.”
Usk nodded gravely, for it seemed as if Helene could not forgive
herself for her failure to rescue Cyril. In vain her husband and Mr
Hicks pointed out that she could not in any case have saved him by
herself, and that the circumstances made it impossible for her to get
together a band of helpers. She was convinced that there was something
she might have done if she had had more presence of mind, or even--to
go back to the beginning of her misfortunes--that she would have done
far better not to approach the Pelenko mansion at all, rather than
give the alarm by her sudden appearance there, and thus enable Dr
Gregorescu to remove his patient. That there was some truth in this
could not be denied, and Helene brooded over it until she was at times
persuaded that Usk must hate her for her disastrous interference, and
she made herself miserable over an alienation which was quite
imaginary. To Usk such a state of mind was utterly incomprehensible.
Helene was tired after her adventures and inclined to be morbid, he
thought, and he dragged her out into the fresh air, and scolded her
good-humouredly, never dreaming that she took his scoldings seriously
to heart, and believed that he invited her out with him as a matter of
duty.
“It’s a real misfortune that your mother is set fast at Geneva, and
Queen Ernestine at Vindobona,” Mr Hicks went on. “You and I, Lord Usk,
we don’t know just the way to get hold of a little sensitive girl like
that, and put things so’s she must take a cheerful view of them. We
can’t seem to fix it that she should have a good cry, and feel better,
which is what she wants.”
Usk was silent. His private opinion was that Helene cried a great deal
without feeling any better, but he was not going to say this to Mr
Hicks, although he did not resent his curious assumption of a share in
the charge of her, knowing that any woman in trouble imposed a
responsibility upon the American to see that she was comforted or
righted.
“Did you try suggesting to her that her mother should come here?” Mr
Hicks asked.
“Yes; but it was no good. She said at once that her mother couldn’t
leave her father, and that the Grand-Duke wouldn’t like this place at
all.”
“No; I guess he’d raise Cain a few dozen times a day, which wouldn’t
be soothing to his daughter’s nerves. And did you propose that she
should take a fortnight’s vacation, and go right home to them?”
“Yes; and it made her perfectly miserable. She thought I wanted to
send her away from me, and she was so unhappy I had to promise never
to suggest such a thing again.”
“Well, well!” remarked Mr Hicks soothingly, “things will pan out all
right yet. You know the pay-dirt’s there, and by and bye you’ll get
down to the bed-rock, and find you’re come upon a real Bonanza.
That’ll be when you understand her all through, see? And for the
present you’ll do your level best to be father and mother to her as
well as husband. That starched stone image of a maid of hers is worse
than no one. And I wouldn’t wonder if things will all go smooth when
once we start finding the Count, any way. That little lady of yours
has so much grit that it only needs an emergency to bring her along
smiling.”
“Pity the emergency doesn’t hurry up!” said Usk. “Why, Hicks, there
must be a countryman of yours inside there,” as a slow voice of
extraordinary solemnity, speaking in English, made itself audible on
the terrace where they sat.
“That’s the mate of the Bluebird,” responded Mr Hicks. “I told him
come out here when he was finished stoking. Is that you, Mr Bradwell?
Come right out. Did the folks give you a good square meal?”
“According to their lights, sir, according to their lights.” The
sailor, a gaunt middle-aged man, emerged from the doorway and bowed to
Usk. “They don’t know to fix that sort of thing properly here.”
“Nor anywhere out of the States,” agreed Mr Hicks heartily. “I don’t
wonder her Majesty is tired of these one-horse countries. Did I hear
you say she didn’t incline to go back to Thracia alive?”
“Won’t trust herself on shore, not even to visit the Prince and
Princess,” was the reply. “Ship prepared for action, rifles got up and
ball ammunition served out. Boats patrolling around all night, watch
on deck forbidden to snooze.”
“Ah, she knows her way about!” said Mr Hicks admiringly. For a few
minutes they smoked in silence, and then the sailor inquired
suddenly--
“Is there any sort of a State asylum in these parts?”
“Not much there isn’t--not near here, any way. What’s the racket?”
“What would be your candid opinion of a man that located one in the
mountains, just over the Dardanian frontier there?”
“Either that he was the worst kind of a fool, or that he had concluded
it was safer to keep himself out of sight.”
“Well,” pursued the sailor slowly, “there’s one of our firemen taken
to hurling chunks of coal at the other men instead of into the
furnaces. It ain’t only his fun, but the rest of the boys object to
it. It seemed sort of suitable when I asked that guide of mine this
afternoon what a certain house was, and he gave me to understand it
was a lunatic asylum. I don’t see but a week or two way up there while
we’re lying off Paranati might set this nigger right.”
“You didn’t go so far as make any inquiries?” asked Mr Hicks.
“Well, I just did, as we were giving the horses a rest in the village.
Saw the doctor chap, ain’t been long at the business, only one patient
at present, old fellow who’s forgotten his own name, but looks smart
enough.”
“What’s the doctor’s name?” broke from Usk and Mr Hicks together.
“Gregory? no, something sort of foreign-sounding--Gregorescu, here it
is. I said I would have him hear from me.”
“So you shall, to-morrow morning,” said Mr Hicks, “and I’ll go along
there with you.”
“The doctor would as lief be rid of this old fellow, I guess. He told
me he was quite safe to be allowed out, but he didn’t know where to
find his friends.”
“Then his friends will find him. Did you say you were coming here?”
“Well, yes, I guess I did.”
“I don’t just see this,” murmured Mr Hicks, “but we will look into it
to-morrow.”