PERONELLA AND THE PRIEST
Creep, and let no more be said.
_Matthew Arnold._
The prolonged absence of the King having given rise to no small anxiety,
there was universal relief at his reappearance, and he was welcomed with
uproarious cheers as he stepped out of the palace gates, preceded by the
Royal torchbearers. The King regretted to those of his notable guests
whom he chanced to meet that affairs of State should have demanded his
attention even on so holiday an evening. Sforelli also, by the Royal
command, told Vorza to let it be known quietly that the King's health
would not permit of his dancing that evening. To counteract the
disappointment of this announcement, the King went round, with "Arnolfo"
in attendance, among his subjects, conversing kindly with them and
especially with those who were already his acquaintance. And seeing
Peronella clinging to her mother, the widow, he did not hesitate, but
went up to the couple, and after thanking the old lady for the excellent
care she had taken of her Englishman, he praised her cooking,
especially of beans and potatoes, and the softness of her linen, and the
charm of her daughter. He then asked them both to come and pay him a
visit in the course of the week. But not by a look, a sign, or a glance
did he show to Peronella that he still loved or even that he still
wanted her, In her new wisdom, born of bitterness of heart, the girl
understood that her day was over, and inwardly she cursed Norman, and
the mysterious young man at his side, who had so often taken him away
from her, and the day that she was born.
"Ah, Norman," said Ianthe, as they left the group, in her low and gentle
tones, "I see you are playing the game bravely. But you must play it as
if you loved it, for it is a game for the glory of Alsander--if you do
not love Alsander you cannot love its Queen; and if you do love
Alsander, then, perhaps--but, hush! There is Vorza, dodging us round the
statue."
The King beckoned to Vorza, who had just appeared from behind the
pedestal of the statue of Kradenda, and was walking apparently in
meditation. The Duke bowed. "Your Majesty," he said.
The King felt that an explanation of his apparently intimate converse
with young Arnolfo was needed.
"Count Vorza," he said, pleasantly, "this young man, for all that he is
the most charming of young men and a friend of yours and mine, is
importunate. It is only my coronation day--my first evening of
reign--and he is already trying to interest me in affairs of State."
"He is misguided but young," said Vorza, trying to catch the King's
amiable tone of banter.
"He is misguided and young," echoed the King. "I have also noted in him
a certain flightiness, eccentricity and weakness of purpose. But it
seems he also has ambition."
"Ambition!" said Vorza, genuinely startled. "I have known him as the
gayest and most delightful young man in Alsander, but he is surely not
interested in affairs of State!"
"We have been deceived, Count Vorza. He is an enthusiast. He hopes to
reform us all. He desires a post in the government."
"Surely he would be out of his element in serious affairs--if your
Majesty and the gracious subject of our conversation will pardon my
saying so!"
"I do not know, Vorza; I do not know. We need enthusiasts, we need
youth. His father, however mistaken in his views, is an able man, and
the ability may be inherited. I should like to give him a place in the
government--but what place? I ask your advice, my Lord Chamberlain."
"I have no hesitation in giving it, your Majesty. My poor experience is
always at your service and the service of the country. If any government
post be given to this young man, it must be the Ministry of Fine Arts--a
post which I am sure he would fill with distinction."
"I am entirely of your opinion, Count Vorza. The appointment shall be
gazetted to-morrow."
Upon which the Count withdrew, meditative but not gloomy. If such young
fools were to be the King's favourites, there would be ample opportunity
for him to continue wielding the supreme power in Alsander. For a moment
he forgot his suspicions as he dreamt the dreams of a man whose ambition
age has sharpened instead of dulled.
But late that night when guests and populace (as it had been arranged
for the sake of the King's supposed weak health) had dispersed, Vorza,
as he jogged home in his carriage, and looked back on the events of the
day, was again seized with the conviction that both he and Alsander had
been the victims of a childish, simple and audacious hoax. He raged
inwardly. Suppose it were found out by some outsider, and he--he, the
wise Vorza--were shown to have been miserably fooled by an English
jester and a Jew doctor? Was young Arnolfo a plotter, too--had he secret
instructions from his old scoundrel of a father? Either, Vorza
determined, the hoax must remain unexposed or he must expose it. Pacing
the quiet flags of his great hall he passed the hours till morning.
Meanwhile the King had formally dismissed his guests, none of whom were
staying in the Castle, which, despite the efforts of plumbers,
scullions, chambermaids and upholsterers, could only just accommodate
with decency the King himself. As he entered the great gate the guard
fell back, and he suddenly discovered with a queer thrill that the
boy-princess had appeared from nowhere in particular and that they were
walking together in the palace garden, the little ruined garden of King
Basilandron, which at night, now that the little summer-houses and
temples had all their graceful lines traced out with rows of Fairy
lamps, had an air not of decay but rather of mystery and sweetness, so
tangled were its bowers, so heavy hung the scent of roses in the air.
Norman trembled, feeling the enchantment of the moonlight and all the
fear that comes with the birth of passion; but he listened in silence to
the silvery accents of the Princess as she told her tale.
It seems the admirable old Count Arnolfo was, as the Princess had
described him to Norman when she pretended to be his son, sent to
Alsander on a patriotic mission. The real son existed, but had been in
America for many years; the real father was, as the Princess had
depicted him, an ardent patriot, a man, however, of liberal views. He
let the Princess run fairly wild--shocking a good deal the other little
Royal households with whom they came into contact and giving rise
thereby to the legends of her wildness that had reached even Alsander.
But, naturally enough, even his liberal and easy mind would not have
contemplated the possibility of his charge roaming Alsander in boy's
attire. What old Count Arnolfo had done, however, was to sanction the
Princess to make a journey incognito (not, indeed, that such a very
unimportant and impoverished Princess would have been much disturbed by
adventurers) with her trusty governess, Miss Johnson. Old Arnolfo was
getting too old to wander far from home, but he felt all the same that
the Princess ought to have a course of good, healthy eye-opening travel
in the English fashion.
They were to go anywhere they liked except--and the old man warned them
like Bluebeard admonishing his wives--_except_ into the kingdom of
Alsander. And of course, like Blue-beard's wife, Ianthe was fired with a
resolve to go. But she did not know how to carry out the resolve, though
she often thought of simply going and leaving Miss Johnson to her fate.
It was the thought of getting poor Miss Johnson into trouble that
prevented her from carrying out this plan rather than any fear of the
difficulties of the enterprise. So the Princess kept quiet and toured
the helpless Miss Johnson round, and wrote at regular intervals letters
to her guardian full of admirable descriptions of the places and
monuments visited, culled from Baedeker's well-known hand-books. In the
monotony of luxurious travel she all but forgot Alsander.
But one night (and as she began to say one night, Norman, who had cared
little to hear the long story, was caught to attention by the music of
her words)--one night in London she leant out of her window and watched
the Thames shining in the light of the moon. All the dark chimneys
across the water were dancing in the moonlight like heavenly towers: and
she almost loved the city that till then had seemed so hateful and so
dark that she could not understand why men suffered to dwell therein.
Then down the embankment came a man singing--but what was he singing?
Not the latest infamy of the halls, nor yet a hearty British ballad--but
the Song of the Black Swans of the Kradenda which every Alsandrian knows
and loves. The singer passed beneath her window: she cried out, "Who
goes there singing Alsandrian in the City of London?" Miss Johnson was
shocked. The singer replied in English, "Who speaks to me in Alsandrian
in a voice that is like a song?" Looking more closely, the Princess saw
the singer to be a venerable and beautiful old man.
"I am an Alsandrian: speak English no more," she replied to his
question.
"Ah! but I must speak English," said the stranger.
"But why?"
"Because I am an Englishman, fair lady of Alsander," replied the poet,
for it was he, as Norman had already guessed.
A little disappointed, as she confessed, the Princess told how,
nevertheless, she called the poet to come in and see her, and to a
scandalized protest from Miss Johnson merely rejoined that if he might
not come in through the door he should enter through the window.
It was the poet, then, who arranged the secret visit of Ianthe to
Alsander. It was he who suggested her disguise, he who made friends for
her in Alsander who could be trusted with the great secret, he who
managed Miss Johnson. This latter superhuman task he managed heaven
knows how. But I think the little old lady was a romantic and would have
come, too, had it not been necessary for her to continue the tour and
post from various illustrious towns the charming letters which the
Princess with the poet's aid (to lighten the touch of Baedeker) composed
beforehand ready for the post. "And so ends my tale," concluded the
Princess. "Three days ago Sforelli, at my request, informed my guardian
of all the amazing truth: and he (stern old man!) without one comment,
has ordered me back. I must obey. I leave to-night. Here ends the
masquerade!"
"Poor masquerade!" cried Norman. "Is it here the curtain falls? Whatever
be the strong and radiant drama of our lives on which it shall rise
again, I regret the masquerade!"
Their footsteps ceased upon the garden path. The moonlight flung their
stilly shadows to the tattered roses. On the pediment of Love's plaster
Temple one fairy light still palely glimmered in the vast white
splendour of chaste Artemis. A nightingale trilled once, then fell
a-dreaming. And through the boy's learned soul passed murmurs of ages
far estranged, which yet blended together and took on a nature of their
own--a clear dim note of the Athenian lyre, hinting beneath all
artificial chords the melody of the earth and of truth, a gavotte by
Lully or Rameau, a laugh of Heine, or songs they sang at the Cremorne
Gardens, twenty years ago. He felt the moonlit sky, the ruined bowers,
the Temple and the roses dwindle and shapen into the scenery of a
stage--as though the girl in travesty before him had made a mockery of
all the linked worlds. Then suddenly he knew.
"Columbine," he said, "you will not leave me thus?"
She stepped away from him lightly, arms akimbo.
"And what are you to me, Pierrot?" she cried; "or Columbine to you?"
"To me," he answered, "you are the colour of the soul of the marble
statues, and the shape of the movement of the gliding moon."
"Like her," she laughed, "I shine falsely and I shine pale. Like her, to
you I am only a shape that is no shape and a colour that is no colour."
"I will chase you from shape to shape," replied the young King. "I will
pursue you from hue to hue; though you change to a slim gazelle or
silver fish or a little seed of corn. And when I have conquered you at
last, and held you, and driven you to your true and pristine form, then
victorious, as now vanquished, will I swear eternal passion at your
feet."
And he knelt on one knee before her.
"Why, Pierrot!" she whispered, "you said you would not love me yet!"
"But that," he replied, "was three hours ago."
"Pursue me no more, Pierrot," she warned him. "The moon has tricked your
eye: the scents of the garden have deceived your heart. Am I not still
Arnolfo? am I not still a boy?"
"Columbine," he replied, "I am pleading for love. Answer me now, tell
me my doom, torment me no longer, for I hear approaching the fiery
wheels of your departure."
"Oh, what a thirst for words you have," sighed she. "Stay there on your
knees in silence, impatient, importunate Pierrot, and wait till I choose
to answer."
"They have come to take you away!" he cried. "Your dragon is roaring at
the gate. Your answer, Columbine!"
"Oh, stay there kneeling as I bid you," she cried, "and forget your
thirst for words. Was it your mother, boy, who gave you eyes that colour
in the night? Stay there and do not speak or raise your glance till you
hear my dragon rolling me away--and let me give you, in my own fashion,
the silent answer of my farewell."
She spake, and the very dragon ceased to roar, as though even his steely
heart recognized the bell-like voice of his mistress, commanding silence
throughout the world. Haunted with expectation Norman bowed his eyes:
soon he felt her presence bending over him its wings. Softly her arm
stole across his shoulder, and suddenly, to his great wonder, fell over
his cheek a wave of the soft and fragrant hair he had never seen; and on
his lips she answered him.
Too soon she was gone: but he obeyed her to the end; ecstasy which had
snatched his spirit out into the realms of fire, had left his body
frozen like ice and statues and the moon. He listened immobile to her
step fading down the garden: he heard the rumour of her departure. Then
he rose and like a man whom life has forgotten, he walked slowly back to
his royal home.
* * * * *
But as for Peronella, she, poor girl, had made her way home early
enough, clinging to her mother, not heeding the pity, envy, laughter or
ridicule of the revellers, dozens of whom pointed to her to make their
comment--so famous was she now. On her arrival she paid no attention to
her mother's attempts to reassure her (which consisted in the reflection
that no harm had been done, and the assertion that the King would
provide her with a magnificent dowry), but rushing to her room, as ten
thousand million disappointed maids have done before, she flung herself
on the bed and burst into tears. Then she opened her box and took out a
letter. A little slip may ruin a great cause, and the conspirators, who
had thought to make all their plans so neatly and completely, had
forgotten about letters. And this was a letter, with a British postmark
and addressed to Norman Price.
"All Alsander may be deceived," cried Peronella to herself. "But I'll be
even with the liar." Peronella, after a moment's hesitation, opened the
letter with a little knife, cunningly, so that it could be sealed again.
It was, of course, in English, so she could not understand it. She put
it under her pillow with a peasant's caution, and cried herself to
sleep.
The next morning she found Father Algio--whom she sought--at the
confessional.
"You do well to come to me," said the priest, kindly. "You have been
away too long."
"Ah! father," said Peronella, with a not quite honest sigh.
"The ways of Princes are not our ways, Peronella, and hard is the lot of
the women whose path they cross."
"Princes?" said Peronella. "Do you believe that tale? A Prince--that
Englishman who said he loved me?"
"What do you mean, my daughter? Which tale?"
"Do you believe that that Englishman who came to stay with us was our
King Andrea?"
"But who ever doubted it, girl?" rejoined the old priest, pretending
greater astonishment than he felt, for, after all, similar questions had
been in the hearts of many. "In that he came to Alsander in secret for a
few days before his accession we all count it for great wisdom on his
part. You must be mad, girl, to talk such treason. Could all our rulers
be lying to us?"
"Well, read this letter," said Peronella. "I cannot, for it is in
English. It is addressed to him under the name he had when he was with
me. It arrived after he left."
The worthy priest, who had been expecting a sad confession of deviation
from the straight path of virtue, was more shocked than he would have
been at any weakness of the flesh, at this manifestation of coldness,
pettiness and deceit. (He need not be therefore accused of having hoped
for a romantic tale. His long experience told him that small sins were
sometimes worse than great ones.)
"Give me the letter," he said. Taking it, he addressed the girl
severely. "You have committed many sins," he said. "You have sinned in
stupidly doubting your lawful King; in thinking yourself cleverer than
all the rest of Alsander; in taking a letter, which was not yours; in
opening that letter and in attempting to disclose its contents to
another. I shall reseal the letter and send it instantly to the palace:
nor will I betray my King by giving a single glance at the contents. I
am most displeased with you, my daughter."
"You will think differently of me when you have read the letter,"
sneered Peronella, rising and departing abruptly down the aisle with a
confident and cynical laugh--a laugh sad years older than her laughter
of a week ago.
The old priest looked after her with melancholy eyes, then let his
glance fall on the letter. He then read it.
Father Algio was a strictly virtuous and honourable old man. He must,
therefore, have had good reason for acting in this strictly
dishonourable fashion, doing practically thereby what he had reprimanded
Peronella for doing, exactly what he had given his word not to do, and
exactly what Peronella had prophesied he would do. Was it that something
the girl said had struck him, and he believed in her more than he
pretended to do? Was it that he had a spiritual intuition? I fear no.
The envelope being open, and he equipped with a slight knowledge of the
English tongue, he could not resist the temptation. Was he a fraud? No
more than St Peter or King David. He was just that very common
phenomenon which novelists refuse to admit--a good man doing a bad
action, with no extenuating circumstances.
The letter ran in the original thus (which was not quite as Father Algio
closeted in his library with a very old English dictionary rendered it
into Alsandrian, but no matter):
MY DEAR SON
"Mr Gaffekin did give me your address which you never thought to send
to me or write a line and I think you might have more affection for your
old father with one foot in his grave than to leave him and go to
foreign parts without a word not to mention robbing me of all my money
which I will forgive if you will give back the money at once as I am
very poor and the shop going badly, though it was a great sin and shame
to rob your father and if you come back I will see you, your loving
"FATHER."
Having made out the rough sense of this the old priest tumbled his head
on his beard. A quick psychologist, he knew he had before him a genuine
human document, an able logician, he soon deduced the facts of the case
from the given data. Then he arose, struck the table violently, swore
that divine guidance had prompted him to read the letter (whereby he
added the sin of hypocrisy to that of curiosity and misnamed the latter)
Not only was the King an impostor, it seemed, but a vulgar thief as
well. He sat in his armchair for some time, pondering on what plan he
should pursue. At last he left the monastery and, taking the letter and
his translation with him, he communicated them in a secret interview to
Count Vorza that very night.
And this explains how it was that Count Vorza spent yet a second night
pacing up and down his gorgeous courtyard.