Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer
LONG LIVE THE KING
By Mary Roberts Rinehart
CONTENTS
I. The Crown Prince runs away
II. And sees the World
III. Disgraced
IV. The Terror
V. At the Riding-School
VI. The Chancellor pays a Visit
VII. Tea in the Schoolroom
VIII. The Letter
IX. A Fine Night
X. The Right to live and love
XI. Rather a Wild Night
XII. Two Prisoners
XIII. In the Park
XIV. Nikky does a Reckless Thin
XV. Father and Daughter
XVI. On the Mountain Road
XVII. The Fortress
XVIII. Old Adelbert
XIX. The Committee of Ten
XX. The Delegation
XXI. As a Man may love a Woman
XXII. At Etzel
XXIII. Nikky Makes a Promise
XXIV. The Birthday
XXV. The Gate of the Moon
XXVI. At the Inn
XXVII. The Little Door
XXVIII. The Crown Prince’s Pilgrimage
XXIX. Old Adelbert the Traitor
XXX. King Karl
XXXI. Let Mettich guard his Treasure
XXXII. Nikky and Hedwig
XXXIII. The Day of the Carnival
XXXIV. The Pirate’s Den
XXXV. The Paper Crown
XXXVI. The King is dead
XXXVII. Long live the King
XXXVIII. In the Road of the Good Children
XXXIX. The Lincoln Penny
LONG LIVE THE KING!
CHAPTER I. THE CROWN PRINCE RUNS AWAY
The Crown Prince sat in the royal box and swung his legs. This was
hardly princely, but the royal legs did not quite reach the floor from
the high crimson-velvet seat of his chair.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto was bored. His royal robes, consisting of
a pair of blue serge trousers, a short Eton jacket, and a stiff, rolling
collar of white linen, irked him.
He had been brought to the Opera House under a misapprehension. His
aunt, the Archduchess Annunciata, had strongly advocated “The Flying
Dutchman,” and his English governess, Miss Braithwaite, had read him
some inspiring literature about it. So here he was, and the Flying
Dutchman was not ghostly at all, nor did it fly. It was, from the
royal box, only too plainly a ship which had length and height, without
thickness. And instead of flying, after dreary aeons of singing, it was
moved off on creaky rollers by men whose shadows were thrown grotesquely
on the sea backing.
The orchestra, assisted by a bass solo and intermittent thunder in the
wings, was making a deafening din. One of the shadows on the sea backing
took out its handkerchief and wiped its nose.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto looked across at the other royal box, and
caught his Cousin Hedwig’s eye. She also had seen the handkerchief;
she took out her own scrap of linen, and mimicked the shadow. Then, Her
Royal Highness the Archduchess Annunciata being occupied with the storm,
she winked across at Prince Ferdinand William Otto.
In the opposite box were his two cousins, the Princesses Hedwig and
Hilda, attended by Hedwig’s lady in waiting. When a princess of the
Court becomes seventeen, she drops governesses and takes to ladies in
waiting. Hedwig was eighteen. The Crown Prince liked Hedwig better than
Hilda. Although she had been introduced formally to the Court at the
Christmas-Eve ball, and had been duly presented by her grandfather,
the King, with the usual string of pearls and her own carriage with the
spokes of the wheels gilded halfway, only the King and Prince Ferdinand
William Otto had all-gold wheels,--she still ran off now and then to
have tea with the Crown Prince and Miss Braithwaite in the schoolroom at
the Palace; and she could eat a great deal of bread-and-butter.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto winked back at the Princess Hedwig. And
just then--“Listen, Otto,” said the Archduchess, leaning forward. “The
‘Spinning Song’--is it not exquisite?”
“They are only pretending to spin,” remarked Prince Ferdinand William
Otto.
Nevertheless he listened obediently. He rather liked it. They had not
fooled him at all. They were not really spinning,--any one could see
that, but they were sticking very closely to their business of each
outsinging the other, and collectively of drowning out the orchestra.
The spinning chorus was followed by long and tiresome solos. The Crown
Prince yawned again, although it was but the middle of the afternoon.
Catching Hedwig’s eye, he ran his fingers up through his thick yellow
hair and grinned. Hedwig blushed. She had confided to him once, while
they were walking in the garden at the summer palace, that, she was
thinking of being in love with a young lieutenant who was attached to
the King’s suite. The Prince who was called Otto, for short, by the
family, because he actually had eleven names--the Prince had been much
interested. For some time afterward he had bothered Miss Braithwaite to
define being in love, but he had had no really satisfactory answer.
In pursuance of his quest for information, he had grown quite friendly
with the young officer, whose name was Larisch, and had finally asked to
have him ride with him at the royal riding-school. The grim old King had
granted the request, but it had been quite fruitless so far after all.
Lieutenant Larisch only grew quite red as to the ears, when love was
mentioned, although he appeared not unwilling to hear Hedwig’s name.
The Crown Prince had developed a strong liking for the young officer.
He assured Hedwig one time when she came to tea that when he was king
he would see that she married the lieutenant. But Hedwig was much
distressed.
“I don’t want him that way,” she said. “Anyhow, I shall probably have to
marry some wretch with ears that stick out and a bad temper. I dare say
he’s selected already. As to Lieutenant Larisch, I’m sure he’s in love
with Hilda. You should see the way he stares at her.”
“Pish!” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto over his cup. “Hilda is not
as pretty as you are. And Nikky and I talk about you frequently.”
“Nikky” was the officer. The Crown Prince was very informal with the
people he liked.
“Good gracious!” exclaimed the Princess Hedwig, coloring. “And what do
you say?”
Miss Braithwaite having left the room, Prince Ferdinand William Otto
took another lump of sugar. “Say? Oh, not much, you know. He asks how
you are, and I tell him you are well, and that you ate thirteen pieces
of bread at tea, or whatever it may have been. The day Miss Braithwaite
had the toothache, and you and I ate the fruit-cake her sister had sent
from England, he was very anxious. He said we both deserved to be ill.”
The Princess Hedwig had been blushing uncomfortably, but now she paled.
“He dared to say that?” she stormed. “He dared!” And she had picked up
her muff and gone out in a fine temper.
Only--and this was curious--by the next day she had forgiven the
lieutenant, and was angry at Ferdinand William Otto. Women are very
strange.
So now Ferdinand William Otto ran his fingers through his fair hair;
which was a favorite gesture of the lieutenant’s, and Hedwig blushed.
After that she refused to look across at him, but sat staring fixedly
at the stage, where Frau Hugli, in a short skirt, a black velvet bodice,
and a white apron, with two yellow braids over her shoulders, was
listening with all the coyness of forty years and six children at home
to the love-making of a man in a false black beard.
The Archduchess, sitting well back, was nodding. Just outside the royal
box, on the red-velvet sofa, General Mettlich, who was the Chancellor,
and had come because he had been invited and stayed outside because he
said he liked to hear music, not see it, was sound asleep. His martial
bosom, with its gold braid, was rising and falling peacefully. Beside
him lay the Prince’s crown, a small black derby hat.
The Princess Hilda looked across, and smiled and nodded at Ferdinand
William Otto. Then she went back to the music; she held the score in
her hand and followed it note by note. She was studying music, and her
mother, who was the Archduchess, was watching her. But now and then,
when her mother’s eyes were glued to the stage, Hilda stole a glance
at the upper balconies where impecunious young officers leaned over the
rail and gazed at her respectfully.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto considered it all very wearisome. If one
could only wander around the corridor or buy a sandwich from the stand
at the foot of the great staircase--or, better still, if one could only
get to the street, alone, and purchase one of the fig women that Miss
Braithwaite so despised! The Crown Prince felt in his pocket, where his
week’s allowance of pocket-money lay comfortably untouched.
The Archduchess, shielded by the velvet hangings with the royal arms on
them, was now quite comfortably asleep. From the corridor came sounds
indicating that the Chancellor preferred making noises to listening
to them. There were signs on the stage that Frau Hugli, braids, six
children, and all, was about to go into the arms of the man with the
false beard.
The Crown Prince meditated. He could go out quickly, and be back before
they knew it. Even if he only wandered about the corridor, it would
stretch his short legs. And outside it was a fine day. It looked already
like spring.
With the trepidation of a canary who finds his cage door open, and,
hopping to the threshold, surveys the world before venturing to explore
it, Prince Ferdinand William Otto rose to his feet, tiptoed past the
Archduchess Annunciata, who did not move, and looked around him from the
doorway.
The Chancellor slept. In the royal dressing-room behind the box a lady
in waiting was sitting and crocheting. She did not care for opera.
A maid was spreading the royal ladies’ wraps before the fire. The
princesses had shed their furred carriage boots just inside the door.
They were in a row, very small and dainty.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto picked up his hat and concealed it by his
side. Then nonchalantly, as if to stretch his legs by walking ten feet
up the corridor and back, he passed the dressing-room door. Another
moment, and he was out of sight around a bend of the passageway, and
before him lay liberty.
Not quite! At the top of the private staircase reserved for the royal
family a guard commonly stood. He had moved a few feet from his post,
however, and was watching the stage through the half-open door of a
private loge. His rifle, with its fixed bayonet, leaned against the
stair-rail.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto passed behind him with outward calmness.
At the top of the public staircase, however, he hesitated. Here,
everywhere, were brass-buttoned officials of the Opera House. A
garderobe woman stared at him curiously. There was a noise from the
house, too,--a sound of clapping hands and “bravos.” The little Prince
looked at the woman with appeal in his eyes. Then, with his heart
thumping, he ran past her, down the white marble staircase, to where the
great doors promised liberty.
Olga, the wardrobe woman, came out from behind her counter, and stood
looking down the marble staircase after the small flying figure.
“Blessed Saints!” she said, wondering. “How much that child resembled
His Royal Highness!”
The old soldier who rented opera glasses at the second landing, and who
had left a leg in Bosnia, leaned over the railing. “Look at that!”
he exclaimed. “He will break a leg, the young rascal! Once I could
have--but there, he is safe! The good God watches over fools and
children.”
“It looked like the little Prince,” said the wardrobe woman. “I have
seen him often--he has the same bright hair.”
But the opera-glass man was not listening. He had drawn a long sausage
from one pocket and a roll from the other, and now, retiring to a far
window, he stood placidly eating--a bite of sausage, a bite of bread.
His mind was in Bosnia, with his leg. And because old Adelbert’s mind
was in Bosnia, and because one hears with the mind, and not with the
ear, he did not hear the sharp question of the sentry who ran down the
stairs and paused for a second at the cloak-room. Well for Olga, too,
that old Adelbert did not hear her reply.
“He has not passed here,” she said, with wide and honest eyes; but with
an ear toward old Adelbert. “An old gentleman came a moment ago and got
a sandwich, which he had left in his overcoat. Perhaps this is whom you
are seeking?”
The sentry cursed, and ran down the staircase, the nails in his shoes
striking sharply on the marble.
At the window, old Adelbert cut off another slice of sausage with his
pocket-knife and sauntered back to his table of opera glasses at the
angle of the balustrade. The hurrying figure of the sentry below caught
his eye. “Another fool!” he grumbled, looking down. “One would think new
legs grew in place of old ones, like the claws of the sea-creatures!”
But Olga of the cloak-room leaned over her checks, with her lips curved
up in a smile. “The little one!” she thought. “And such courage! He
will make a great king! Let him have his prank like the other children,
and--God bless him and keep him!”