JOHN ARMITAGE
If so be, you can discover a mode of life more desirable than the being a
king, for those who shall be kings; then the true Ideal of the State will
become a possibility; but not otherwise.—Marius the Epicurean.
June roses overflowed the veranda rail of Baron von Marhof’s cottage at
Storm Springs. The Ambassador and his friend and counsel, Judge Hilton
Claiborne, sat in a cool corner with a wicker table between them. The
representative of Austria-Hungary shook his glass with an impatience that
tinkled the ice cheerily.
“He’s as obstinate as a mule!”
Judge Claiborne laughed at the Baron’s vehemence.
“He comes by it honestly. I can imagine his father doing the same thing
under similar circumstances.”
“What! This rot about democracy! This light tossing away of an honest
title, a respectable fortune! My dear sir, there is such a thing as
carrying democracy too far!”
“I suppose there is; but he’s of age; he’s a grown man. I don’t see what
you’re going to do about it.”
“Neither do I! But think what he’s putting aside. The boy’s clever—he
has courage and brains, as we know; he could have position—the home
government is under immense obligations to him. A word from me to Vienna
and his services to the crown would be acknowledged in the most generous
fashion. And with his father’s memory and reputation behind him—”
“But the idea of reward doesn’t appeal to him. We canvassed that last
night.”
“There’s one thing I haven’t dared to ask him: to take his own name—to
become Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, even if he doesn’t want his
father’s money or the title. Quite likely he will refuse that, too.”
“It is possible. Most things seem possible with Armitage.”
“It’s simply providential that he hasn’t become a citizen of your
republic. That would have been the last straw!”
They rose as Armitage called to them from a French window near by.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen! When two diplomats get their heads together
on a summer afternoon, the universe is in danger.”
He came toward them hatless, but trailing a stick that had been the prop
of his later convalescence. His blue serge coat, a negligée shirt and
duck trousers had been drawn a few days before from the trunks brought by
Oscar from the bungalow. He was clean-shaven for the first time since his
illness, and the two men looked at him with a new interest. His deepened
temples and lean cheeks and hands told their story; but his step was
regaining its old assurance, and his eyes were clear and bright. He
thrust the little stick under his arm and stood erect, gazing at the near
gardens and then at the hills. The wind tumbled his brown newly-trimmed
hair, and caught the loose ends of his scarf and whipped them free.
“Sit down. We were just talking of you. You are getting so much stronger
every day that we can’t be sure of you long,” said the Baron.
“You have spoiled me,—I am not at all anxious to venture back into the
world. These Virginia gardens are a dream world, where nothing is really
quite true.”
“Something must be done about your father’s estate soon. It is yours,
waiting and ready.”
The Baron bent toward the young man anxiously.
Armitage shook his head slowly, and clasped the stick with both hands and
held it across his knees.
“No,—no! Please let us not talk of that any more. I could not feel
comfortable about it. I have kept my pledge to do something for his
country—something that we may hope pleases him if he knows.”
The three were silent for a moment. A breeze, sweet with pine-scent of
the hills, swept the valley, taking tribute of the gardens as it passed.
The Baron was afraid to venture his last request.
“But the name—the honored name of the greatest statesman Austria has
known—a name that will endure with the greatest names of Europe—surely
you can at least accept that.”
The Ambassador’s tone was as gravely importunate as though he were
begging the cession of a city from a harsh conqueror. Armitage rose and
walked the length of the veranda. He had not seen Shirley since that
morning when the earth had slipped from under his feet at the bungalow.
The Claibornes had been back and forth often between Washington and Storm
Springs. The Judge had just been appointed a member of the Brazilian
boundary commission which was to meet shortly in Berlin, and Mrs.
Claiborne and Shirley were to go with him. In the Claiborne garden,
beyond and below, he saw a flash of white here and there among the dark
green hedges. He paused, leaned against a pillar, and waited until
Shirley crossed one of the walks and passed slowly on, intent upon the
rose trees; and he saw—or thought he saw—the sun searching out the gold
in her brown hair. She was hatless. Her white gown emphasized the
straight line of her figure. She paused to ponder some new arrangement of
a line of hydrangeas, and he caught a glimpse of her against a pillar of
crimson ramblers. Then he went back to the Baron.
“How much of our row in the hills got into the newspapers?” he asked,
sitting down.
“Nothing,—absolutely nothing. The presence of the _Sophia Margaret_ off
the capes caused inquiries to be made at the embassy, and several
correspondents came down here to interview me. Then the revenue officers
made some raids in the hills opportunely and created a local diversion.
You were hurt while cleaning your gun,—please do not forget that!—and
you are a friend of my family,—a very eccentric character, who has
chosen to live in the wilderness.”
The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a
little constraint upon them all. The Baron’s question was still
unanswered.
“You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were
sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe
some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely.”
“That was very generous of them;” and Armitage shifted his position
slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he
was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he
wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone
to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward
Armitage—for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people
of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him.
“The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough,” remarked Armitage. He had
not yet answered the Baron’s question, and the old gentleman grew
restless at the delay. “I read in the _Neue Freie Presse_ a while ago
that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is
reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is
only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs.”
“Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate.”
“We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile,” remarked Judge
Claiborne. “We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in
the safety box at New York to be as he described them.”
“They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk
in destroying them than in preserving them,” said the Baron.
Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further
custody.”
A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read.
“It’s from the commander of the _Sophia Margaret_, who is just leaving
Rio Janeiro for Trieste, and reports his prisoners safe and in good
health.”
“It was a happy thought to have him continue his cruise to the Brazilian
coast before returning homeward. By the time he delivers those two
scoundrels to his government their fellow conspirators will have
forgotten they ever lived. But”—and Judge Claiborne shrugged his
shoulders and smiled disingenuously—“as a lawyer I deplore such methods.
Think what a stir would be made in this country if it were known that two
men had been kidnapped in the sovereign state of Virginia and taken out
to sea under convoy of ships carrying our flag for transfer to an
Austrian battle-ship! That’s what we get for being a free republic that
can not countenance the extradition of a foreign citizen for a political
offense.”
Armitage was not listening. Questions of international law and comity had
no interest for him whatever. The valley breeze, the glory of the blue
Virginia sky, the far-stretching lines of hills that caught and led the
eye like sea billows; the dark green of shrubbery, the slope of upland
meadows, and that elusive, vanishing gleam of white,—before such things
as these the splendor of empire and the might of armies were unworthy of
man’s desire.
The Baron’s next words broke harshly upon his mood.
“The gratitude of kings is not a thing to be despised. You could go to
Vienna and begin where most men leave off! Strong hands are needed in
Austria,—you could make yourself the younger—the great Stroebel—”
The mention of his name brought back the Baron’s still unanswered
question. He referred to it now, as he stood before them smiling.
“I have answered all your questions but one; I shall answer that a little
later,—if you will excuse me for just a few minutes I will go and get
the answer,—that is, gentlemen, I hope I shall be able to bring it back
with me.”
He turned and ran down the steps and strode away through the long shadows
of the garden. They heard the gate click after him as he passed into the
Claiborne grounds and then they glanced at each other with such a glance
as may pass between two members of a peace commission sitting on the same
side of the table, who will not admit to each other that the latest
proposition of the enemy has been in the nature of a surprise. They did
not, however, suffer themselves to watch Armitage, but diplomatically
refilled their glasses.
Through the green walls went Armitage. He had not been out of the Baron’s
grounds before since he was carried thence from the bungalow; and it was
pleasant to be free once more, and able to stir without a nurse at his
heels; and he swung along with his head and shoulders erect, walking with
the confident stride of a man who has no doubt whatever of his immediate
aim.
At the pergola he paused to reconnoiter, finding on the bench certain
_vestigia_ that interested him deeply,—a pink parasol, a contrivance of
straw, lace and pink roses that seemed to be a hat, and a June magazine.
He jumped upon the bench where once he had sat, an exile, a refugee, a
person discussed in disagreeable terms by the newspapers, and studied the
landscape. Then he went on up the gradual slope of the meadow, until he
came to the pasture wall. It was under the trees beneath which Oscar had
waited for Zmai that he found her.
“They told me you wouldn’t dare venture out for a week,” she said,
advancing toward him and giving him her hand.
“That was what they told me,” he said, laughing; “but I escaped from my
keepers.”
“You will undoubtedly take cold,—without your hat!”
“Yes; I shall undoubtedly have pneumonia from exposure to the Virginia
sunshine. I take my chances.”
“You may sit on the wall for three minutes; then you must go back. I can
not be responsible for the life of a wounded hero.”
“Please!” He held up his hand. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“About being a hero? You have taken an unfair advantage. I was going to
send for the latest designs in laurel wreaths to-morrow.”
She sat down beside him on the wall. The sheep were a grayish blur
against the green. A little negro boy was shepherding them, and they
scampered before him toward the farther end of the pasture. The faint and
vanishing tinkle of a bell, and the boy’s whistle, gave emphasis to the
country-quiet of the late afternoon. They spoke rapidly and impersonally
of his adventures in the hills and of his illness. When they looked at
each other it was with swift laughing glances. Her cheeks and hands
were-already brown,—an honest brown won from May and June in the open
field,—not that blistered, peeling scarlet that marks the insincere
devotee of racket, driver and oar, who jumps into the game in August, but
the real brown conferred by the dear mother of us all upon the faithful
who go forth to meet her in April. Her hands interested him particularly.
They were long, slender and supple; and she had a pretty way of folding
them upon her knees that charmed him.
“I didn’t know, Miss Claiborne, that I was going to lose my mind that
morning at the bungalow or I should have asked your brother to conduct
you to the conservatory while I fainted. From what they told me I must
have been a little light-headed for a day or two. If I had been in my
right mind I shouldn’t have let Captain Dick mix up in my business and
run the risk of getting killed in a nasty little row. Dear old Dick! I
made a mess of that whole business; I ought to have telegraphed for the
Storm Springs constable in the beginning, and told him that if he wasn’t
careful the noble house of Schomburg would totter and fall.”
“Yes; and just imagine the effect on our constable of telling him that
the fate of an empire lay in his hands. It’s hard enough to get a man
arrested who beats his horse. But you must go back to your keepers. You
haven’t your hat—”
“Neither have you; you shan’t outdo me in recklessness. I inspected your
hat as I came through the pergola. I liked it immensely; I came near
seizing it as spoil of war,—the loot of the pergola!”
“There would be cause for another war; I have rarely liked any hat so
much. But the Baron will be after you in a moment. I can’t be responsible
for you.”
“The Baron annoys me. He has given me a lot of worry. And that’s what I
have come to ask you about.”
“Then I should say that you oughtn’t to quarrel with a dear old man like
Baron von Marhof. Besides, he’s your uncle.”
“No! No! I don’t want him to be my uncle! I don’t need any uncle!”
He glanced about with an anxiety that made her laugh.
“I understand perfectly! My father told me that the events of April in
these hills were not to be mentioned. But don’t worry; the sheep won’t
tell—and I won’t.”
He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished
to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air
was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field
stole sweetly upon them.
“Shirley!”
He touched her hand.
“Shirley!” and his fingers closed upon hers.
“I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,—before
the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of
the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and
romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful
world. I understood—I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those
things meant to you;—but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life
for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will
take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not
take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be
thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I
bore as a boy and disgraced in my father’s eyes,—his name that he made
famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the
name I flung away in anger,—they wish me to take that.”
She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills.
“The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it
all over,—in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the
herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne;
but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a
shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me
except dominion and power,—it can serve no purpose for me to take it
now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham
and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great
defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right
of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me
force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man’s right to live and
do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the
old name unless,—unless you tell me I must, Shirley!”
There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He
looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lips.
“It was that way,—you were just like that when I saw you first, Shirley,
with the dreams in your eyes.”
He caught her hand and kissed it,—bending very low indeed. Suddenly, as
he stood erect, her arms were about his neck and her cheek with its
warmth and color lay against his face.
“I do not know,”—and he scarcely heard the whispered words,—“I do not
know Frederick Augustus von Stroebel,—but I love—John Armitage,” she
said.
Then back across the meadow, through the rose-aisled ways of the quiet
garden, they went hand in hand together and answered the Baron’s
question.