NOT IN THE PROGRAM
Letters of introduction for Lady Mowbray and her daughter to
influential and interesting persons attached to the Rhaetian Court,
were necessarily a part of the wonderful plan connected in the English
garden, though they were among the details thought out afterwards.
The widow of the Hereditary Grand Duke of Baumenburg-Drippe was
reported in the journals of various countries, to be traveling with
the Princess Virginia and a small suite, through Canada and the United
States; and fortunately for the success of the innocent plot, the
Grand Duchess had spent so many years of seclusion in England, and
had, even in her youth, met so few Rhaetians, that there was little
fear of detection. Her objections to Virginia's scheme for winning a
lover instead of thanking Heaven quietly for a mere husband, were
based on other grounds, but Virginia had overcome them, and
eventually the Grand Duchess had proved not only docile, but
positively fertile in expedient.
The choosing of the borrowed flag under which to sail had at first
been a difficulty. It was pointed out by a friend taken into their
confidence (a lady whose husband had been ambassador to Rhaetia), that
a real name, and a name of some dignity, must be adopted, if proper
introductions were to be given. And it was the Grand Duchess who
suggested the name of Mowbray, on the plea that she had, in a way, the
right to annex it.
The mother of the late Duke of Northmoreland had been a Miss Mowbray,
and there were still several eminently respectable, inconspicuous
Mowbray cousins. Among these cousins was a certain Lady Mowbray, widow
of a baron of that ilk, and possessing a daughter some years older and
innumerable degrees plainer than the Princess Virginia.
To this Lady Mowbray the Grand Duchess had gone out of her way to be
kind in Germany, long years ago, when she was a very grand personage
indeed, and Lady Mowbray comparatively a nobody. The humble connection
had expressed herself as unspeakably grateful, and the two had kept
up a friendship ever since. Therefore, when the difficulty of realism
in a name presented itself, the Grand Duchess thought of Lady Mowbray
and Miss Helen Mowbray. They were about to leave England for India,
but had not yet left; and the widow of the Baron was flattered as well
as amused by the romantic confidence reposed in her by the widow of
the Grand Duke. She was delighted to lend her name, and her daughter's
name; and who could blame the lady if her mind rushed forward to the
time when she should have earned gratitude from the young Empress of
Rhaetia? for of course she had no doubt of the way in which the
adventure would end.
As for the wife of the late British Ambassador to the Rhaetian Court,
she was not sentimental and therefore was not quite as comfortably
sure of the sequel. As far as concerned her own part in the plot,
however, she felt safe enough; for though she was, after a fashion,
deceiving her old acquaintances at Kronburg, she was not foisting
adventuresses upon them; on the contrary, she was giving them a chance
of entertaining angels unawares, by sending them letters to ladies who
were in reality the Grand Duchess of Baumenburg-Drippe and the
Princess Virginia.
The four mysterious gentlemen left Alleheiligen the day after
Virginia's encounter with the chamois hunter; but the Mowbrays
lingered on. The adventure had begun so gloriously that the girl
feared an anti-climax for the next step. Though she longed for the
second meeting, she dreaded it as well, and put off the chance of it
from day to day. The stay of the Mowbrays at Alleheiligen lengthened
into a week, and when they left at last, it was only just in time for
the great festivities at Kronburg, which were to celebrate the
Emperor's thirty-first birthday, an event enhanced in national
importance by the fact that the eighth anniversary of his coronation
would fall on the same date.
On the morning of the journey, the Grand Duchess had neuralgia and was
frankly cross.
"I don't see after all, what you've accomplished so far by this mad
freak which has dragged us across Europe," she said, fretfully, in the
train which they had taken at a town twenty miles from Alleheiligen.
"We've perched on a mountain top, like the Ark on Ararat, for a week,
freezing; the adventure you had there is only a complication. What
have we to show for our trouble--unless incipient rheumatism?"
Virginia had nothing to show for it; at least, nothing that she meant
to show, even to her mother; but in a little scented bag of silk which
lay next her heart, was folded a bit of blotting-paper. If you looked
at its reflection in a mirror, you saw, written twice over in a firm,
individual hand, the name "Helen Mowbray."
The Princess had found it on a table in the best sitting-room, after
Frau Yorvan had made that room ready for its new occupants. Therefore
she loved Alleheiligen: therefore she thought with redoubled
satisfaction of her visit there.
To learn her full name, he must have thought it worth while to make
inquiries. It had lingered in his thoughts, or he would not have
scrawled it twice on some bit of paper--since destroyed no doubt--in a
moment of idle dreaming.
Through most of her life, Virginia had known the lack of money; but
she would not have exchanged a thousand pounds for the contents of
that little bag.
Hohenlangenwald is the name of the House from which the rulers of
Rhaetia sprang; therefore everything in the beautiful city of Kronburg
which can take the name of Hohenlangenwald, has taken it; and it was
at the Hohenlangenwald Hotel that a suite of rooms had been engaged
for Lady Mowbray.
The travelers broke the long journey at Melinabad; and Virginia's
study of trains had timed their arrival in Kronburg for the morning of
the birthday eve, early enough for the first ceremony of the
festivities; the unveiling by the Emperor of a statue of Rhaetia in
the Leopoldplatz, directly in front of the Hohenlangenwald Hotel.
Virginia looked forward to seeing the Emperor from her own windows; as
according to her calculation, there was an hour to spare; but at the
station they were told by the driver of the carriage sent to meet
them, that the crowd in the streets being already very great, he
feared it would be a tedious undertaking to get through. Some of the
thoroughfares were closed for traffic; he would have to go by a
roundabout way; and in any case could not reach the main entrance of
the hotel. At best, he would have to deposit his passengers and their
luggage at a side entrance, in a narrow street.
As the carriage started, from far away came a burst of martial music;
a military band playing the national air which the chamois hunter had
heard a girl sing, behind a closed door at Alleheiligen.
The shops were all shut--would be shut until the day after to-morrow,
but their windows were unshuttered and gaily decorated, to add to the
brightness of the scene. Strange old shops displayed the marvelous,
chased silver, the jeweled weapons and gorgeous embroideries from the
far eastern provinces of Rhaetia; splendid new shops rivaled the best
of the Rue de la Paix in Paris. Gray medieval buildings made wonderful
backgrounds for drapery of crimson and blue, and garlands of blazing
flowers. Modern buildings of purple-red porphyry and the famous
honey-yellow marble of Rhaetia, fluttered with flags; and above all,
in the heart of the town, between old and new, rose the Castle Rock.
Virginia's pulses beat, as she saw the home of Leopold for the first
time, and she was proud of its picturesqueness, its riches and
grandeur, as if she had some right in it, too.
Ancient, narrow streets, and wide new streets, were alike arbors of
evergreen and brilliant blossoms. Prosperous citizens in their best,
inhabitants of the poorer quarters, and stalwart peasants from the
country, elbowed and pushed each other good-naturedly, as they
streamed toward the Leopoldplatz. Handsome people they were, the girl
thought, her heart warming to them; and to her it seemed that the very
air tingled with expectation. She believed that she could feel the
magnetic thrill in it, even if she were blind and deaf, and could hear
or see nothing of the excitement.
"We must be in time--we shall be in time!" she said to herself. "I
shall lean out from my window and see him."
But at the hotel, which they did finally reach, the girl had to bear a
keen disappointment. With many apologies the landlord explained that
he had done his very best for Lady Mowbray's party when he received
their letter a fortnight before, and that he had allotted them a good
suite, with balconies overlooking the river at the back of the
house--quite a venetian effect, as her ladyship would find. But, as to
rooms at the front, impossible! All had been engaged fully six weeks
in advance. One American millionaire was paying a thousand gulden
solely for an hour's use of a small balcony, to-day for the unveiling
and again to-morrow for the street procession. Virginia was pale with
disappointment. "Then I'll go down into the crowd and take my chance
of seeing something," she said to her mother, when they had been shown
into handsome rooms, satisfactory in everything but situation. "I must
hurry, or there'll be no hope."
"My dear child, impossible for you to do such a thing!" exclaimed the
Grand Duchess. "I can't think of allowing it. Fancy what a crush there
will be. All sorts of creatures trampling on each other for places.
Besides, you could see nothing."
"Oh, Mother," pleaded the Princess, in her softest, sweetest
voice--the voice she kept for extreme emergencies of cajoling. "I
couldn't _bear_ to stay shut up here while that music plays and the
crowds shout themselves hoarse for _my_ Emperor. Besides, it's the
most curious thing--I feel as if a voice kept calling to me that I
must be there. Miss Portman and I'll take care of each other. You
_will_ let me go, won't you?"
Of course the Grand Duchess yielded, her one stipulation being that
the two should keep close to the hotel; and the Princess urged her
reluctant companion away without waiting to hear her mother's last
counsels.
Their rooms were on the first floor, and the girl hurried eagerly
down the broad flight of marble stairs, Miss Portman following
dutifully upon her heels.
They could not get out by way of the front door, for people had paid
for standing room there, and would not yield an inch, even for an
instant; while the two or three steps below, and the broad pavement in
front were as closely blocked.
Matters began to look hopeless, but Virginia would not be daunted.
They tried the side entrance and found it free, the street into which
it led being comparatively empty; but just beyond, where it ran into
the great open square of the Leopoldplatz, there was a solid wall of
sight-seers.
"We might as well go back," said Miss Portman, who had none of the
Princess's keenness for the undertaking. She was tired after the
journey, and for herself, would rather have had a cup of tea than see
fifty emperors unveil as many statues by celebrated sculptors.
"Oh no!" cried Virginia. "We'll get to the front, somehow, sooner or
later, even if we're taken off our feet. Look at that man just ahead
of us. _He_ doesn't mean to turn back. He's not a nice man, but he's
terribly determined. Let's keep close to him, and see what he means
to do; then, maybe, we shall be able to do it as well."
Miss Portman glanced at the person indicated by a nod of the
Princess's head. Undismayed by the mass of human beings that blocked
the Leopoldplatz a few yards ahead, he walked rapidly along without
the least hesitation. He had the air of knowing exactly what he wanted
to do, and how to do it. Even Miss Portman, who had no imagination,
saw this by his back. The set of the head on the shoulders was
singularly determined, and the walk revealed a consciousness of
importance accounted for, perhaps, by the gray and crimson uniform
which might be that of some official order. On the sleek, black head
was a large cocked hat, adorned with an eagle's feather, fastened in
place by a gaudy jewel, and this hat was pulled down very far over the
face.
"Perhaps he knows that they'll let him through," said Miss Portman.
"He seems to be a dignitary of some sort. We can't do better, if
you're determined to go on, than keep near him."
"He has the air of being ready to die," whispered Virginia, for they
were close to the man now.
"How can you tell? We haven't seen his face," replied the other, in
the same cautious tone.
"No. But look at the back of his neck, and his ears."
Miss Portman looked and gave a little shiver. She would never have
thought of observing it, if her attention had not been called by the
Princess. But it was true. The back of the man's neck and his ears
were of a ghastly, yellow white.
"Horrid!" she ejaculated. "He's probably dying of some contagious
disease. Do let's get away from him."
"No, no," said Virginia. "He's our only hope. They're going to let him
pass through. Listen."
Miss Portman listened, but as she understood only such words of
Rhaetian as she had picked up in the last few weeks, she could merely
surmise that he was ordering the crowd out of his way because he had a
special message from the Lord Chancellor to the Burgomaster.
The human wall opened; the man darted through, and Miss Portman was
dragged after him by the Princess. So close to him had they kept, that
they might easily be supposed to be under his escort; and in any
case, they passed before there was time to dispute their right of way.
"It must be the secretary of Herr Koffman, the new Burgomaster,"
Virginia heard one man say to another. "And those ladies are with
him."
On and on, through the crowd, passed the man in gray and crimson,
oblivious of the two women who were using him. There was something
about that disagreeable back of his which proclaimed him a man of but
one idea at a time. Close to the front line of spectators, however,
there came a check. People were vexed at the audacity of the girl and
the elderly woman, and would have pushed them back, but at the
critical second the blue and silver uniformed band of Rhaetia's crack
regiment, the Imperial Life Guards, struck up an air which told that
the Emperor was coming. Promptly the small group concerned forgot its
grievance, in excitement, crowding together so that Virginia was
pressed to the front, and only Miss Portman was pushed ruthlessly into
the background.
The poor lady raised a feeble protest in English, which nobody heeded,
unless it were the man who had inadvertently acted as pioneer. At her
shrill outburst he turned quickly, as if startled by the sudden cry,
and Virginia was so close to him that her chin almost touched his
shoulder. For the first time she had a glimpse of his face, which
matched the yellow wax of his neck in pallor.
The girl shrank away from him involuntarily. "What a death's head!"
she thought. "A sly, wicked face, and awful eyes. He looks frightened.
I wonder why!"
Assured that the sharp cry did not concern him, the man turned to the
front again, and having obtained his object--a place in the foremost
rank of the crowd, with one incidentally for the Princess--he
proceeded to take from his breast a roll of parchment, tied with a
narrow ribbon, and sealed with a large red seal. As he drew it out,
and rearranged his coat, his hand trembled. It, too, was yellow white.
The fellow seemed to have no blood in him.
Virginia, standing now shoulder to shoulder with the man in gray and
crimson, had just time to feel a stirring of dislike and perhaps
curiosity, when a great cheer arose from thousands of throats. The
square rang with a roar of loyal acclamation; men waved tall hats,
soft hats, and green peasant hats with feathers. Beautifully dressed
women grouped on the high, decorated balconies waved handkerchiefs or
scattered roses from gilded baskets; women in gorgeous costumes from
far-off provinces held up half-frightened, half-laughing children; and
then a white figure on a white charger came riding into the square
under the triumphal arch wreathed with flags and flowers.
Other figures followed; men in uniforms of green and gold and red, on
coal black horses, yet Virginia saw only the white figure, shining,
wonderful.
Under the glittering helmet of steel with its gold eagle, the dark
face was clear-cut as a cameo, and the eyes were bright with a proud
light. To the crowd, he was the Emperor; a fine, popular, brilliant
young man, who ruled his country better than it had been ruled yet by
one of his House, and above all, provided many a pleasing spectacle
for the people. But to Virginia he was far more; an ideal Sir Galahad,
or a St. George strong and brave to slay all dragon-wrongs which might
threaten his wide land.
"What if he should never love me?" was the one sharp thought which
pierced her pride of him.
The people were proud, too, as he sat there controlling the white
war-horse with its gold and silver trappings, the crusted jewels of
many Orders sparkling on his breast, while he saluted his subjects, in
his soldier's way.
For a moment there was a pause, save for a shouting, which rose and
rose again; then he alighted, whereupon important looking men with
ribbons and decorations came forward bowing, to receive the Emperor.
The ceremony of unveiling the statue of Rhaetia was about to begin.
To reach the great crimson-draped platform on which he was to stand,
the Emperor must pass within a few yards of Virginia. His gaze flashed
over the gay crowd. What if it should rest upon her? The girl's heart
was in her throat. She could feel it beating there; and for a moment
the tall, white figure was lost in a mist which dimmed her eyes.
She had forgotten how she came to this place of vantage, forgotten the
pale man in gray and red to whom she owed her good fortune; but
suddenly, while her heart was at its loudest, and the mist before her
eyes at its thickest, she grew conscious again of his existence,
poignantly conscious of his close presence. So near her he stood that
a quick start, a gathering of his muscles for a spring, shot like an
electric message through her own body.
The mist was burnt up in the flame of a strange enlightenment, a
clarity of vision which showed, not only the hero of the day, the
throng, and the wax-white man beside her, but something which was in
the soul of that man as well.
"He is going to kill the Emperor."
It was as if a voice spoke the words in her ear. She knew now why she
had struggled to win this place, why she had succeeded, what she had
to do--or die in failing to do.
Leopold was not half a dozen yards away, and was coming nearer. No one
but Virginia suspected evil. She alone had felt the thrill of a
murderer's nerves, the tense spring of his muscles. She alone guessed
what the roll of parchment hid.
"Now--now!" the voice seemed to whisper again, and she had no fear.
While the crowd shouted wildly for "Unser Leo!" a man in gray and red
leaped, catlike, at the white figure that advanced. Something sharp
and bright flashed out from a roll of parchment, catching the sun in a
streak of steely light.
[Illustration: "_Let the law deal with the madman; it is my will_"]
Leopold saw, but not in time to swerve. The crowd shrieked, rushed
forward, too late, and the blade would have drunk his life, had not
the girl who had felt all, seen all, struck up the arm before it fell.
The rest was darkness for her. She knew only that she was sobbing, and
that the great square with its crowded balconies, its ropes of green,
its waving flags, seemed to collapse upon her and blot her out.
* * * * *
It was Leopold who caught her as she swayed: and while the people
surged around the thwarted murderer, the Emperor sprang up the steps
of the great crimson platform, with the girl against his heart.
It was her blood that stained the pure white of his uniform, the blood
from her arm wounded in his defense. And holding her up he stood
dominating the crowd.
Down there at the foot of the steps, the man in gray and red was like
a spent fox among the hounds, and Leopold's people in the fury of
their rage would have torn him in pieces as the hounds tear the fox,
despite the cordon of police that gathered round him. But the voice of
the Emperor bade his subjects fall back.
"My people shall not be assassins," he cried to them. "Let the law
deal with the madman; it is my will. Look at me, alive and unhurt.
Now, give your cheers for the lady who has saved my life, and the
ceremonies shall go on."
Three cheers, had he said? They gave three times three, and bade fair
to split the skies with shouts for the Emperor. While women laughed
and wept and all eyes were upon that noble pair on the red platform,
something limp and gray was hurried out of sight and off to prison. On
a signal the national anthem began; the voices of the people joined
the brass instruments. All Kronburg was singing; or asking "Who is
she?" of the girl at the Emperor's side.