THE COUNTER CONSPIRACY: AN EPISODE IN THE STYLE OF THE WORST WRITERS
Down in a deep dark hole the society plotted a horror.
It was some three weeks after the date of the last chapter that Count
Vorza left the palace without giving the customary notification to his
august master (who was taking his august siesta), at two o'clock in the
afternoon. He passed quickly along, avoiding observation and courting
the most devious by-ways, till he came at last to an obscure and squalid
doorway at the end of a filthy alley.
"Who is there?" inquired a girl's treble.
"_Regnestro_."
"_Invenu_."
He followed into a bare and horrible cellar, damper than a subaqueous
vault. This was the Temple of Conspiracy, or shall we say
Counter-Conspiracy? correctly chosen, according to all traditions, an
utterly unnecessary, even dangerous, choice, for the house of Peronella
would have been a far safer resort than this most suspect vault. But no
Alsandrian conspirator could have enjoyed himself or felt at ease in
less mysterious, less uncomfortable surroundings. Truly the scene was
picturesque enough to satisfy the most theatrical appetite: and the
motives of the conspirators themselves in plotting against the impostor
were various enough to give psychological interest to the melodrama.
Dark girder beams projected low, so that the tallest had to stoop: and
illumination was produced day and night from a sickly and evil-smelling
lamp. Nor were the individuals here assembled less in keeping with the
true spirit of second-rate tragedy that pervades the novels of the good
old school of Harrison Ainsworth. Here was Cesano, his arms folded, his
back to the wall, confident in his power of fascination, aglow with a
foretaste of revenge. Peronella had avowed herself sick enough of her
English Grocer-King, when Cesano, bursting with Father Algio's tremulous
confidences, flung himself at her feet. But there was a fine, large step
between hating Norman and loving Cesano: and the girl had by now
regained enough spirits to tease quite heartlessly her sombre suitor.
She also laughed a little at the conspiracy, but enjoyed being
important. She tried at first to give herself the black air of a
desolate Ariadne: but soon discarded it in the delights of plotting. She
had grown up very swiftly--her beauty was a flourish of trumpets--but
how the charm had fled! She was entrusted with the task of admitting the
conspirators into the cellar upon the pronouncement of the password. She
had taken to practising with a very expensive revolver which she had
made Cesano give her, and also to smoking cigarettes, to the distress of
Father Algio, who was seated beside her on a packing case. Cesano, whose
presence we have remarked, had chosen the darkest corner of the cellar
to glower in. Other conspirators prowled round. The lamp was giving out
more smoke than ever and the room was stifling. No one could have kept
quite sane in such an atmosphere for half-an-hour.
The venerable form of Vorza was greeted with respect and enthusiasm.
"Has anything happened, Duke Vorza?" inquired Peronella, whose modesty
was decreasing, before anyone else could get in a word.
"Nothing," said Vorza. "The notice will be round the town in an hour's
time: Cuvas has worked well: the whole town will be in the castle square
and the usurper will meet his doom."
"What doom?" inquired Peronella, meekly.
"Oh, I doubt if we shall have to take formal proceedings against him.
The mob will tear him to pieces, I imagine. Lynch law--those damned
republics have taught us something, after all. Ah! is that Cuvas?"
Peronella opened the door and Cuvas, the weary-looking editor of the
_Alsandrian Gazette,_ stepped into the room, a stick of a man.
"You have managed splendidly," said Vorza to him.
"I am very tired. You do speak loudly, by the way. I could hear you
right outside."
"What, talking about the probable end of our mock King?"
"Yes, and I did not like your talk entirely. Couldn't you ensure his
safety? It would be rather a stroke. You see, very luckily the usurper
made no attempt against King Andrea but simply put him into an asylum,
as we have discovered. Wouldn't it look well in the eyes of Europe if we
treated the usurper with the same leniency? Lynching doesn't look well,
you know: it doesn't look well."
Cuvas was a man of peace, and not quite such a fool as the others, as
will be seen.
"Why, what an absurd idea!" exclaimed the Duke. "You are a queer man,
Cuvas, or I would have to call you a coward."
"It would give Alsander such a bad name in the world, brutally to
destroy a man who, after all, has done little harm and some good, and we
must remember we belong to a civilized State and are now engaged in
making history. That is the way things are worked nowadays, you know.
Look at Portugal, and Turkey and China. I repeat, the grocer has set a
good example."
"You dare praise him for not having killed your lawful King!" cried
Father Algio.
"You dare compare the foul deposition of a legitimate monarch to the
upsetting of a a low-born, vile, foreign impostor!" cried Vorza.
"Of course not," said Cuvas. "But I deprecate excitement. I deprecate
bloodshed. It's the style in which you write your article, not what you
say in it, that draws the populace. It's the way you conduct your
revolution, not the justice of your cause, that appeals to the
diplomats. You must remember that to some people there would be a good
deal to be said for the impostor."
"Good things to be said of a grocer!" exclaimed Cesano.
"A Persian cobbler founded Persia's best dynasty," said Cuvas. "And a
grocer is not worse than a cobbler. And in England, all things are
different: I have heard that in that country grocers may be the friends
of Kings and have been ennobled."
"Those English!" groaned Vorza, with contempt. "We are Alsandrians, not
Persians, or English, and God be praised! But why to-day of all days do
you trouble us with literary dissertations, Cuvas? What has this grocer
done that you should defend him before he dies?"
"Well, he has worked already, and worked hard, in the interests of the
country. He has begun to dredge the river and pave the streets, and
light the town. He is already planning a new railway."
"He?" said Vorza. "Do you think he does anything? He spends half his
time shut up with that scoundrelly Jew doctor, whom he would have made
Prime Minister if I had let him."
Cuvas thought to himself that Vorza had had many years of power, and yet
that more had been done for the country in the last three weeks than
during all the years of his regency. However, he had no idea of angering
the Count, and held his peace.
"Come, Cuvas," said Father Algio. "Remember what work we have in hand.
We have the honour of our country to avenge. We have the Right to fight
for. Nothing but death awaits impiety like this. I knew the young man. I
could even have loved him once. He may be lowly born, but he looks and
acts like a King. I admit it. Truly he has played a fine game with this
country with the fiend's aid. But were he my own brother he could not be
spared now. He has mocked at religion, fooled the Church, driven out the
anointed King, blasphemed the holy oil. His sacrilege is heavy on him,
and on this land, and only blood can wipe out our infamy. I am an old
man, a feeble man, yet if he were now to come into this room I would
tear him with my own hands, and the Queen of the Skies would give me
strength to do it. Do not waver, do not flinch, for you are about a high
and holy business."
"I wish they would come!" interrupted Peronella, with some impatience,
quite irresponsive to this outburst of sacerdotal fervour.
"While we are waiting for the true ruler of this land let us betake
ourselves to prayer," continued the priest, not heeding her.
"I hear them!" exclaimed the girl, starting up and leaping to the
entrance. There was a sound of a carriage stopping outside and much
commotion at the door.
"We have him!" came a reassuring voice, and three guardsmen entered,
weary, perspiring, bedraggled and unkempt, bearing with them on a litter
none other than the real King Andrea.
"We had to fight our way through the asylum," said the excited guards,
in answer to a wind of questions. "There was no other way to get at him.
The patients have all escaped and are gibbering in the open fields. Some
must have perished: we have had a dreadful time."
They continued vivifying their experiences. Father Algio paid them no
attention, but went to the bier and kissed the hand of Andrea, who
heard not, felt not, cared not, for he was very sound asleep.
"Where is Makzelo?" asked Cuvas of the guardsmen, cutting short the tale
of their heroism.
The guards who had been ordered by Sforelli to catch and imprison
Makzelo had never been able to carry out their orders, and that
subterranean person had sold Vorza some very decent information at a
very decent price.
"Ill, couldn't come," briefly replied the man to whom the question was
put: and the others smiled.
"He is not a desperately brave man," said Vorza "But we owe much to his
connivance. Ah! his Majesty is opening his eyes!"
And Vorza, who was in general a fairly courageous person, but had not
lost that uncanny fear of lunatics to which was due the possibility of
the amazing substitution, edged away rapidly.
Royalty opened its eyes, blinked, shut them again, then opened them,
stared at Peronella, sat up on his litter, and in a stridently audible
voice declared to the assembled company:
"I want her: she must be my Queen!"
His eyes glowed with anticipation. All kept silent, half wondering, half
horrified, half amused.
"Come here," continued Andrea, "do come here!"
"The devil take you!" muttered the girl, retreating to the end of the
room.
"Do not speak like that to the King," said the priest.
"Come here. I command you. This time I must be obeyed," pursued the old
maniac, and a dread sight he was with his stubbly beard and unholy light
in his eyes. "They are always taking me away from you! I have waited
such a long time--I want to kiss you! Will no one bring her here? This
world is all full of traitors and liars."
"Go to him," said Vorza to Peronella. "Cesano, persuade her!"
Peronella's face flushed hot with disgust. The King rose right up and
tottered towards her. She instantly put her hand to her girdle and
levelled her pistol at him.
"Put him back!" she said, with a quietness almost hysterical.
They had to obey her, well knowing her determined spirit; and fearing
the King would become violent the guards strapped him down upon his
litter, but fortunately the jolting of the carriage had tired him
thoroughly and he slept once more.
"It seems almost a pity," said Cuvas, softly, "to dethrone so active and
enterprising an usurper merely to put that driv-- that unfortunate King
in his place."
He spoke half to himself, but the others heard him. They all began to
talk at once with the angry remonstrance of men who feel that they may
be in the wrong.
"What is progress?" said Vorza. "We have been happy for a thousand years
and will be for another thousand if we are left alone."
"Nothing can come of lies but failure," said Father Algio.
"We are in it to the death now," said Cesano.
"Oh! that is true: so am I. And we have not the slightest prospect of
failure. I only said it had a regrettable aspect," said the editor. "And
I wondered if any of the people might think so, too, and not be
over-anxious to join us when the moment comes!"
"Oh, Cuvas!" said Vorza, in what he took for a light, bantering tone.
"You always were a damned old Liberal at heart. But the people of
Alsander are staunch and true, and love the old principles, the beauty
of their religion, the glories of their city. They do not want their
churches desecrated by an unbeliever, their city made boisterous by ugly
trains, their pure torrents debased to turn buzzing ma-chines, their
river bed all churned up into mud by dredgers, their virgin mountains
defiled by smoke and steam."
"But they have shown no discontent," objected the editor, not daring to
taunt Vorza for declaring his hatred of the reforms of which he had a
few minutes ago delicately suggested himself as the real author.
"You spend all your day on a stool, Cuvas. What do you know about the
hearts of our people? You have no time to do anything but transcribe
telegrams. The people do not mind, because they are so pleased to have
their King returned to sanity. What did I hear an old man say but a few
hours ago? He said that no one could become sane straight at once, after
all those years; that one might forgive all this reforming nonsense at
first, and that he wished anyone might have cured the Sovereign but that
hellish Jew of a doctor!"
"Curses on him!" said Father Algio.
"Are you content now, Count Cuvas?" said Vorza.
The title was only in part in jest: ennoblement was the understood
reward of complicity.
"You are right: I am well contented," said Cuvas. "I have, of course,
some ideas which I do not share with you, but in this business command
me. I have joined your conspiracy because I cannot stand immorality and
imposture," he added, with dignity. "Still, I can but think it only
right to remark once in public--now that it cannot affect our
action--what I have so often remarked to you in private--that it would
have been no imposture but sound policy to ask old Count Arnolfo
whether the rightful heir to the throne, the Princess Ianthe, were not
fit to conduct a regency."
Considerable stir was caused by these words of Cuvas, which reflected
thoughts which many a conspirator had been waiting for some one else to
utter.
"And I have answered you as many times," cried Vorza, turning on him in
a veritable fury, "that I have clear evidence that Count Arnolfo's own
son was implicated in this dastardly plot. A fine person to ask for
information or advice, your Arnolfo! Let us first of all get Andrea
safely restored, and then we can talk about a Regency!"
"Well, well," said Cuvas, "you are our leader!" He said it in a tone of
resignation which was entirely false, for Cuvas was by no means the
simple-souled Conservative-Liberal he seemed. His little speeches, as
well as his actions, were a cunning preparation for all eventualities.
Two days ago he had sent a trusty messenger to Count Arnolfo to inform
him truly not only that the King of Alsander had proved a grocer, but
also that the said grocer was in imminent peril of his life and throne.
"Is it nearly time?" called one of the guards. "I hear a noise outside."
Vorza, the only man of the party who possessed a watch (for in Alsander
you go by the cathedral bells), looked at it, and cried, "So it is!"
The little company hesitated and each of them turned cold for a moment
with the terror of excitement. Outside there was a clattering and
shouting in the streets, the curious persistent sound of people running
all in the same direction.
"Come!" said Vorza. "Where is the wine?"
The wine, or rather spirit, was produced from a bottle in the corner,
and poured out into a great bowl, from which each drank in turn,
pledging the sleeper in their midst. Then with a shout of "The King! The
King!" and with revolvers pointing carelessly aloft and an Alsandrian
banner borne by Peronella in the van, the little party streamed out into
the alley, and hardly were they in the street when their shout seemed to
re-echo all round them and a tremendous cry rose up, thunderous, to
heaven, "The King! The King!"