The _bora_ which had raged for days, making it not only unsafe but
impossible to venture out of doors, had flown round the isthmus to
torment Fiume. The blue Adriatic sparkled in a great silence, and, so
brilliant was the atmosphere, Ranata could fancy she saw Italy far away
on the edge of the level waters. Even the little breakers at the foot
of the castle growled like cubs instead of bellowing in fury at the
high confident roar in the pine tops on the hill. The white castle,
with its Norman tower and gateway and innumerable turrets, fresh,
strong, symmetrical, solitary on the long curving line of white coast,
whose little peninsula juts abruptly from the wooded mountain into the
sea, was the fairest prison that had ever held a princess captive. The
bluest sea in the world was at its feet, the yellow sun flamed in a sky
almost as blue, and on the mountain behind were the everlasting greens
of cypress and pine. There is no more dazzling combination of color in
the world, and on moonlight nights it is but the exchange of gold for
silver.
Ranata, standing on the stone terrace in front of the library and
overhanging the sea, her back to the war-ship on the right of the
castle, her eyes roaming from the incomparable expanse of the Adriatic
to Trieste and the mountains beyond, felt that with knowledge, in
addition to the faith that sustained her, she could serenely endure
her exile throughout what she believed to be the inevitable months.
She had now been two weeks at Miramar, and kings might have died and
dynasties fallen, the very continents might be at war, for all the news
that had come to her from the world. Not a letter, not a newspaper,
passed the sentries at the gates; the grounds swarmed with guards; one
paced the terrace where she stood; others were on duty at the head
of the staircase at night. She met Maria Leopoldina at the second
breakfast and at dinner, and was accompanied by that vigorous duenna
on her long walks in fine weather, but subjects of common interest had
long since been exhausted and they bore each other silent company, the
older woman too thankful that her charge was amiable to repine at her
own fate.
Complete faith had restored Ranata’s peace of mind, delivered her even
from variability of mood, and on the whole she had been glad of these
many days alone. She no longer yearned with romantic melancholy for
life companioned but by a spiritualized memory, but examined herself
and her possibilities conscientiously, and dwelt much, if soberly, in
the upper air. If she idealized Fessenden and the matrimonial state,
that did her no harm. Still, the time seemed long, and she had not
the least idea by what method the American lover purposed to induce a
Hapsburg to give him his daughter in marriage. She knew that he would
succeed, but she also knew that the petrifactions in his way might
yield very slowly even to his energy and habit of success.
She sighed and entered the castle. Her morning walk had been a long
one, and she returned to the library for rest and the unfailing
distraction it afforded her. It was a lofty room, not too large, the
light woods of floor and ceiling almost reflecting the sunshine which
poured through the windows. Each one of the six thousand books in many
languages looked as if personally selected by the poor gentleman
and scholar who had graced so delightfully the one sphere for which
Nature had designed him, and in whose alien rôle naught had become him
but his death. The room had been bright even while the _bora_ seemed
to blow the very sun about the sky, and the books in their haphazard
bindings looked so gay and fresh that it was difficult to believe
their owner had left them forty years before. Only the photographs of
friends, which covered the walls of the adjoining study, were faded,
their garments old-fashioned. Eugénie, in her crinoline, looked like
a by-gone fashion-plate; even her autograph was dim; for the pictures
had been hastily thrust into ordinary little wooden or gilt frames,
and unprotected by glass. The beauty of Elizabeth had retired to the
inmost folds of her hideous Victorian costume, and of her two oldest
babies, taken with her, little was noticeable but the bulging brow
and solemn eyes of Rudolf. But the crimson of hangings and chairs was
still fresh and vivid, the heavy woodwork of the low ceiling, its
design repeated in the floor, was highly polished, the pen on the table
might have been dropped yesterday; all the clocks had been ticking
these forty years. Every room in the castle looked as if designed and
furnished by the happy young couple, but these two rooms were still
most personal, still were pervaded by the refinement, the love of
comfort and of home, of Maximilian and Carlotta. Ranata, when forced
to remain in-doors, spent most of her time in them. In the library she
had discovered five volumes of _Reports on Explorations and Surveys_,
fruits of the thirty-third Congress of the United States, and had read
them diligently. She had succeeded in investing the dry and spotted
pages with a sentimental interest, all things being possible to a woman
in love; but although most of the books she read at this time were
written in the English language, it must be confessed that she did not
find her profoundest distraction in the _Reports_. To-day, however, she
was taking down the fourth volume, albeit with some humor, when Maria
Leopoldina entered the library hurriedly, consternation and amazement
distorting a countenance habitually masked with the mincing placidity
of the courtier.
“The ship is weighing anchor!” she exclaimed. “And all but the usual
guard have received orders--by telegraph from Vienna--to return
to Trieste. And that is not all! I was asked a moment ago to look
through the spy-glass--a steam-yacht is approaching from the Italian
coast--they say it is Mr. Abbott’s. Can Franz have gone mad? Good God!
can he be dead?”
Ranata dashed past her, and up the stair to the tower-room, where
she had spent so many hours scanning the horizon through the glass.
A moment later, in its burgee, she had read the personality of the
rapidly approaching yacht. It was the _Alexandra_; and the war-ship was
steaming in the opposite direction.
When she turned to the agitated Obersthofmeisterin, close upon her
heels, she was trembling so violently she hardly could stand, her
cheeks were blazing, and she thrust her hands into her heavy hair, and
pulled it down as if its weight were intolerable.
“It means,” she stammered--“it means--cannot you see?--he has
won--already--_I am to marry him!_” And then Maria Leopoldina felt
as if her nerves had been assaulted by a swarm of hornets. Ranata
collapsed upon a chair, and flew into hysterics. She had suffered in
silence during that first awful week in the Hofburg, pride carrying
her successfully through even that ordeal; and she had been calm
enough during the past fortnight of solitude and uncertainty; but in
the face of this sudden and violent prospect of victory and immediate
happiness, her suppressed energies leaped their walls, and she cried
and laughed and talked incoherent phrases until the duenna could stand
no more and took refuge in a dead faint.
Ranata promptly recovered her reason, and applied the necessary
restoratives without summoning help. When she had led her vibrating
relative to a sofa, and fetched a bottle of salts, she arranged her
own hair and face, and returned to the tower to watch the approach
of the yacht. It steamed swiftly over the calm sea, but to Ranata’s
excited nerves hours passed before she could read the ensign and burgee
without the aid of the glass. She was now schooled to any surprise, but
experienced a sharp thrill nevertheless when the proud craft, instead
of passing the castle and making for Trieste, deliberately swung about
and dropped anchor upon the exact spot where the war-ship had kept its
vigilant watch. A moment later it ran up two flags, side by side--the
Austrian and the American.
Ranata sank again upon a chair and held her breath, expecting to see
a boat lowered and Fessenden descend. But the long moments passed--an
hour passed; the incident appeared to be closed for the present.
Officers sauntered up and down the deck, sailors bustled about, but no
one appeared to manifest any interest in the castle. Finally she was
forced to conclude that, whatever Fessenden had accomplished in Vienna,
his yacht had come without him.
To remain inactive any longer was beyond her electrified nerves. She
regarded Maria Leopoldina’s authority as at an end, and it was evident
that the shaken Obersthofmeisterin was of the same opinion, for she had
dragged herself to her room, and was seen no more that day. Ranata sent
an invitation to the captain and the officers of the yacht to lunch at
the castle. They lowered the flags and returned with the messenger;
and although there was an animated party in the little dining-room
up-stairs, all her subtle questioning was able to extract were the bare
facts that on the previous evening they had received orders from their
master in Vienna to proceed in the morning to Miramar, run up the two
flags as they anchored off the castle, and not to lower them until they
had received some answering signal from her. They were naïvely curious,
and, face to face with the Archduchess beloved of their chief, frankly
suspicious of the sequel. It was evident, however, that her information
was more meagre than theirs, and they were so glad to get back to the
tonic sweetness of the Adriatic after their fortnight at Venice, most
malodorous of cities, and so enchanted with this beautiful princess and
her castle, that they were content without knowledge, Yankees though
they were.
After luncheon Ranata took them for a walk through the gardens and
woods of the park, keeping them until they bored her, for she dreaded
solitude and looked forward to the night with terror. But before the
night came her nerves were to be lifted from the rack.