MARRIAGE-BELLS AND SYSTEMS.
Prince Petros scarcely seemed to have overrated--though it was ever his
habit to take a sufficiently rosy view of the verdict of the world on
himself--the favourable impression he had made in those two days at
Amandos. The officers whom he had met at the review admired his fine
horsemanship no less than his amiability, for no man could be more
agreeable without any suspicion of condescension than he. The ladies of
the Court were entranced by the charm of his manners and the grace of
his dancing. Sophia, as has been seen, was captive to the mastery of his
bezique, and Prince Demetrius, a testimonial to the full as striking as
any of these, had never snarled at him once. The fact of their betrothal
was made known before the lapse of many days, and the news evoked bells,
fireworks and universal approval.
Sophia’s acceptance of him delighted her father, and he would certainly
have made himself odious had she refused him. He had no wish to see his
daughter a second Queen Elizabeth, and the romance of such a figure in
his eyes bore no comparison with the desired consummation of his hopes
to see her a matron with a lusty and numerous progeny. His cousins he
frankly looked upon in the light of obscene birds of prey, ready to
batten on his own extinct line. Already, so it seemed to him, they were
hopping hungrily about the steps of the throne of Rhodopé, but the news
of Sophia’s betrothal scared them hurriedly away, and from afar they
sent long congratulatory telegrams. Prince Demetrius smiled to himself
when he thought how bitter must those honeyed words have been to their
royal authors. The Grand Duke Nicholas, so he thought, alone acted in a
self-respecting manner, for he sent no word.
As for the affianced husband, he was in a stupor of content. Thanks to
his native amiability, to horsemanship nearly as native--for the Princes
of Herzegovina were men almost born in the saddle--and to his carefully
acquired skill at the cards, already the first and most difficult act of
his ‘Empire of the East’ was finished. Had he been, in common with most
gamblers, a victim to superstition, he might almost have been frightened
at the ease of these first steps, and have taken such extreme favours of
fortune with caution. But his own common-sense lulled him to security,
and he played the assiduous suitor to perfection, and, indeed, it was no
part he played.
Princess Sophia alone, and she hardly consciously, was a little afraid
of what she had done. During the days that followed, and especially when
the Prince had departed on a hurried visit home, and she was left alone
with her reflections, the thought that she was so soon to marry him, to
be indissolubly his, came to her with a shock as if of sudden awakening.
Two days’ intercourse, followed by a single word, had changed the whole
course of her life; and though she had always taken it as a matter of
certainty that she would some time marry, yet the imminence of it, the
particulars of it and the ease with which the Fates had woven for her,
hit her like a douche of chilly water. An attractive person, a fine
horseman, a good card-player, these had been her formulated requirements
exhaustively stated, and they were fully satisfied; the measure had been
pressed down, and it ran over. He was all these superlatively, and
though she had never been of the make to indulge in maidens’ fancies, in
daydreams of tenor voices and faultless coiffures, yet she wondered if
there was not something missing. Her rank necessarily limited the number
of eligible suitors; in this she acquiesced fully, for she accepted the
disabilities of being royal, and assuredly none so eligible as Petros
had yet presented himself. But the illimitable choice of suitable
helpmeets granted to the middle classes seemed to her in this month
before her wedding to have something in its favour. Not that she
repented her decision: she would have accepted him again and yet again,
and yet a little inward voice said to her, ‘Is this all?’
The wedding was to be hurried on, and its celebration was fixed for the
first possible day of July. Prince Petros had an ample fortune for
himself, and it was not to be thought of that anyone but her father
should make settlement on the Princess of Rhodopé. All that the old man
wished was that there should be no delay.
‘I have been an unconscionable time living,’ he said one day to his
daughter, ‘and I do not intend to be an unconscionable time dying.
Besides, it is much easier when one is not in very good health to die
than to live, and I have always wished to save myself trouble. So I
propose to die pretty soon. I should like to see a grandson, Sophia, but
that is all I want.’
Sophia started.
‘A grandson!’ she said. ‘That will make me a mother. How very
ridiculous!’
‘Well, if you choose to look at it like that, I hope you will be
ridiculous as soon as possible, and more than once. I think you have got
a good husband; he is not a fool or a cad. That means a great deal.
Nothing really matters besides that.’
‘I do not care for fools and cads,’ remarked Sophia.
‘I knew that, and that is why I was afraid you would not marry at all;
for it is a sad truth that most men are one or the other, and many both.
Your poor dear mother was a fool, Sophia,’ he added, with a touch of
what might be called tenderness.
There was silence for a moment, and then Prince Demetrius went on:
‘Petros will save you a great deal of troublesome detail,’ he said,
‘just as you have of late saved it me. He loves to be popular, and I
think he likes a parade of power. Let him have his fill of it. There is
a great deal of tiresome business in the working of the state of
Rhodopé, about school boards and potatoes--you well know the kind of
thing. He will take all that off your hands, and at the same time win
golden opinions for himself, and enjoy his little triumphs. In fact, it
will add to the absurd veneration--for it is absurd--in which we are
held by the people if you make yourself, when you are on the throne,
rather more scarce than I have done. Let your appearances be something
to be remembered; do not let the people get used to you.’
Sophia looked up.
‘Yes, I never thought of that; that will be a great advantage. Petros
can constantly take my place in the Assembly, and I hope he will enjoy
it more than I have done. He can see to the tobacco and potato bills
during the day, and play cards in the evening. He likes detail--he told
me so. He says it is only by great attention to details that anyone
arrives at great results.’
‘Oh, he said that, did he?’ remarked her father, and then rejected the
idea that had leaped unbidden into his mind, as out of the question. He
little knew how nearly true Prince Petros’s words would prove.
Within a month from their betrothal the wedding was celebrated. Royal
personages flocked from all countries to Rhodopé, and the ports of
Mavromáti and Búlteck were gay with the flags of all nations. The palace
at Amandos, as well as the shooting-boxes on the hills above, were
filled with guests, and the odour of the wedding bake-meats was in the
air. Prince Demetrius was a miracle of courtesy to his visitors, thereby
doing a violence to his normal nature. But he was so uncommonly pleased
at the event, that this subversion of his habits may be forgiven him.
Prince Petros played his part--if indeed such a term can be applied to a
gratification so sincere--to admiration, and the more open-minded of
those whom Prince Demetrius had alluded to as birds of prey confessed
that so amiable a paragon had no more than his deserts.
The entertainment, both of the visitors of the Prince and of the native
populace, endorsed the reputation for hospitality which Rhodopé has
always enjoyed. Down the sides of the square in which stood the
cathedral where the wedding was to be celebrated ran immense tables at
which all comers were feasted. Oxen were roasted whole in the
market-place, and the cellars of the Prince poured out, like the opened
sluices of a river in flood, the garnered sunshine of summers long past.
Magnificent, too, were the presents of the bride and bridegroom. There
were ropes of pearls, some like misty moons, some pink, some black, and
of extraordinary lustre; two diamond tiaras, in the centre of one of
which blazed the famous ‘Blue Wonder,’ a stone from Golconda of
priceless worth; a necklace of opals set in diamonds; a ruby brooch of
unmatched depth of colour, each stone being of the true pigeon’s blood;
eighteen gold shoe-horns, on each of which was the Princess’s monogram
and a crown in diamonds; a bezique-box of chrysoprase, with hinges and
lock of gold (this was from the bridegroom to the bride); four beautiful
bicycles; eight complete Louis Seize tea services, with cups of royal
blue Sèvres; five gold-fitted tea-baskets for four people; and a perfect
grove of gold-handled umbrellas, among which lay gold-mounted
dressing-cases, like boulders in a pine-wood, and enough antique
candlesticks to illuminate the whole kingdom. More curious still was a
roulette-board, of which the marble was a sapphire, and all the numbers
set in precious stones, and (for the folk of Rhodopé knew their beloved
Princess’s tastes, and were anxious to give her presents which would
certainly be useful to her) two thousand packs of picquet cards, a gift
from the Board-school children of Amandos.
The cathedral--that small but exquisite building, built, it is said, on
the designs of Prince Djem--was not sufficient to seat more than the
invited guests of Prince Demetrius and the chief officials of the State;
but outside tiers and tiers of benches had been erected in the streets,
and immense wedge-shaped stands on the flat roofs of the municipal
buildings which line the square. The enthusiasm was prodigious; long
before the head of the procession reached the square, the shouting from
the folk who lined the route from the Palace was like the roar of the
sea, and when the Guards and the first of the royal carriages appeared,
the people rose like one man, and every throat was loud with the Rhodopé
National Anthem. Never had Prince Petros worn a more engaging smile than
when, from his fine black charger, he acknowledged right and left the
thunder of their welcome; never had Sophia looked more graciously
magnificent than when she bowed from the carriage containing her and
Prince Demetrius. The maddening music of the shouts touched her heart,
and the bet that she had made with the Princess Charlotte of Roumania,
that they would not reach the square under an hour from the time they
left the Palace, was, even though she had won, completely effaced from
her mind, and Princess Charlotte never paid.
The two left Amandos the evening after the wedding for their honeymoon,
which they were to spend on Prince Demetrius’s yacht, cruising in the
Mediterranean. The twelve miles of road down to Mavromáti was
illuminated with Oriental gorgeousness, and a continuous torchlight
procession of runners, picturesquely clothed in the national costume,
accompanied them down to the sea. Every half-mile there was a fresh
relay of a hundred, who ran with them their appointed course, and then,
throwing their torches in the air by way of salute, gave way to the
next. The port was one blaze of coloured light, and the yacht
_Felatrune_ a ship from Fairyland. Sophia, warm-hearted and impulsive,
was greatly affected by the enthusiasm of the people; it was for her
they had made the darkness many-coloured; it was the wishes for her
happiness that turned the wonted silence of night into a chorus of
sound. Once during the drive down she had touched Petros on the arm.
‘It is for me they have done this, these dear folk,’ she said.
‘Yes, darling, for us,’ said Petros; and Sophia thought, but without
resentment, that there was just a touch of correction in his voice.
‘Yes, for us,’ she repeated; and her emotion almost made her feel she
loved him, for the inward voice which had queried ‘Is this all?’ was
answered by, ‘Is this not enough?’
The yacht put off as soon as they were on board, and after waiting on
deck--Danae to the golden showers of fireworks--till the shore had faded
to a blur of light, they went below. Supper was prepared for them, and
on another table were candles and the bezique packs, put there by some
thoughtful servant.
Sophia saw them, and her eyes grew bright and dim.
‘How kind they all are!’ she said. ‘They think of everything.’
Prince Petros had also seen.
‘Yes, a game of bezique would be pleasant after supper,’ he said; but
Sophia, womanlike and unreasonable, felt a touch chilled.
In halcyon weather they hastened a south-westerly course, and the second
day saw them gliding, under the cloud-cowled head of Etna, through the
Straits of Messina. They made the straits by three in the afternoon, and
dusk showed them the beacon of Stromboli lit on the starboard bow. It
had been almost tacitly agreed that they were to go straight to Monte
Carlo, or, as Sophia put it, that very pleasant place, somewhere on the
Riviera, where you could play for small stakes without a raid from the
police.
But soon after they had got free of the Straits, it became evident that
the halcyon days were over, for a stiff gale was blowing, and as the
yacht threw the knots over its quarter, the sea, which on leaving the
Straits was choppy, grew frankly rough, and they pitched considerably to
the head sea, even the bowsprit now and then dipping, and raising itself
again with a little whiff of spray. They were sitting on the aft deck,
and Sophia was feeling exhilarated by the leap and shock of the
encountered waves.
‘Oh, Petros!’ she exclaimed, ‘is it not wild and splendid? I love the
sea! And here we are, you and I only.’
She stopped suddenly, for Petros had left her; only a dark figure was
scudding sideways to the companion ladder.
That evening her husband had a little soup in the privacy of his cabin,
for the sea continued boisterous, and Sophia dined alone. It was
exceedingly rough; the fiddles were on the table, and she had to make
swoops and dashes at her food, and peck, as it were, at her glass. But
though she ate with an excellent appetite (for the sea air always made
her hungry), she had a clouded brow. She was sorry for Petros’
indisposition, but she felt not the slightest inclination to sit by his
bedside, read to him, or remind him that his was only a transient agony.
In fact, it was ridiculous that a man should be sea-sick, as ridiculous
as that a man should not be able to ride; and as a matter so superficial
as a man’s seat on a horse had been among the factors which attracted
her to him, so she found that a matter so superficial as this failure of
his internal mechanism to stand a rough sea was a factor on the other
side. The whole affair, however, was so infinitesimal that she soon
dismissed it from a mind that never indulged in that melancholy
diversion self-analysis, and she played several games of Russian
patience by herself, and obtained fresh light on the subject of the
maliciousness of inanimate things.
The yacht arrived at ‘that very pleasant place on the Riviera’ two days
after, and the newly-married pair spent a very interesting fortnight
there. One thing alone troubled Sophia, and that was the discovery that
her husband played on a finely elaborated and seemingly successful
system, involving all sorts of abstruse sums in multiplication. Now,
this to her was a shock, for she was of the type of gambler which, for
want of a better word, we may call the romantic. Primarily she played
for the sake of the play, and it was not the winning of money which she
enjoyed so much as the winning in the abstract. The whole charm of the
thing to her lay in that rolling marble the momentum of which no one
knew, not even the croupier who set it going. She backed her luck,
another unknown agent, against the immutable and incalculable laws of
gravity and friction, and though she had all the gambler’s fine
superstitions, and would back a run of luck, and never lay a sou on No.
13, it was the utter uncertainty of the thing which fascinated her.
She almost felt that Petros ought to have made a clean breast of it
before he married her, classing it among those confessions which many
men may have to make before they take a girl to share their lives, and
she was a little hurt he had not done so. Eventually she decided one day
to talk the matter over with him.
‘Yes; I was surprised, and--shall I say it?--a little disappointed,
dear,’ she said, ‘when I found out that you had a system. Why did you
not tell me? Well, never mind. When a game depends on its uncertainty,
any subtraction from that surely subtracts from its charm. Suppose
anyone invented an infallible system----’
Petros frowned, for he was just multiplying one hundred and
seventy-three by fourteen, and dividing it by seventeen, a calculation
often incidental to the system in question.
‘Mine is infallible,’ he interrupted rather sharply.
‘Yet you lost heavily all the morning, did you not?’
‘I shall win heavily all the evening, you will see;’ and he made a note
of some figures.
‘Oh, Petros, leave the calculation alone a minute,’ she said, ‘and
listen to me. I don’t think of roulette as a means of livelihood.’
Petros laughed.
‘That is just as well, dear Sophia,’ he said, ‘for you would not exactly
have paid your way since you have been here.’
‘Oh, hear me out,’ she replied. ‘It is the excitement I love it for. I
do not think of Monte Carlo as a sort of Stock Exchange, where the acute
make money and the stupid lose it. A system reduces it to just that--a
sort of Stock Exchange without any bulls and bears, whatever they are.’
‘I prefer to win,’ said Petros.
‘Yes; so do I, but I would not promise never to go to the tables if the
croupier gave me an annuity to keep away.’
‘It depends on the size of the annuity.’
‘Ah, then, that is exactly where we differ,’ said she, rising. ‘I should
be no happier for an annuity, nor, indeed, would you, but I am a great
deal happier for a little excitement. It is a lovely afternoon. What a
wonderful colour the sea is! Let us go to the tables.’
Petros won largely that afternoon, and the system justified itself as
far as it is possible for a system to be justified. But the charm of
him considered merely as a gambler, as a man who had made a fortune at
Homburg, had terribly faded in Sophia’s eyes; indeed, to win money at
the tables on a system seemed to her slightly sordid, a kind of trade,
and the money thus won, she imagined, would have a kind of stuffy smell
about it. The feeling she knew was unreasonable, and she did not defend
it; but she never fell into the error of reasoning about a conviction,
and concluding that she was made so and her husband otherwise, she
dismissed the matter as far as possible from her mind.
She herself on the last day that they were there had one of those runs
of luck which occur once in a lifetime. Four times she staked a hundred
napoleons on one number, and twice out of the four times, incredible to
state, won. Then she played on the colour for half an hour, and lost
scarcely once out of ten times, and, to crown all, backed the bank for
the last hour and cleared as much again. Petros was aghast; he himself
would never have backed one number, and to do so four times seemed to
him either imbecile or criminal, and he could not say to himself that
Sophia was imbecile. It materially added to his annoyance to see her win
twice, while the sordid and infallible system was losing on an average
fifty francs an hour--a monotonous and inglorious form of adventure. He
felt warmly on the subject, and as they were rowed across to the yacht
that night addressed a remark to Sophia which keenly resented.
‘I would as soon think of backing one number,’ he said, ‘as of robbing
my father.’
‘And I would as soon think of playing on a system’ returned Sophia, with
spirit, ‘as of sea-sick.’