UT PUTO, VESTIS FIO.
The next morning all Artenberg had the air of being rather ashamed of
itself. Styrian traditions had been set at naught. Princess Heinrich
considered that the limits of becoming mirth had been overstepped; the
lines of her mouth had their most downward set. Nothing was said because
the King had led the dance, but disgrace was in the atmosphere. We had
all fallen from heaven--one may mean many things by heaven--and landed
with more or less severity, according to the resources of padding with
which Nature furnished us. To Varvilliers' case, indeed, the metaphor is
inadequate; he had a parachute, sailed to earth gaily with never a
bruise, and was ready to mount again had any of us offered to bear him
company. His invitation, given with a heartiness that mocked his bidden
companions, found no acceptance. We were all for our own planet in the
morning. It was abundantly clear that revels must be the exception at
Artenberg. Victoria was earnestly of this opinion. In the first place,
the physical condition of William Adolphus was deplorable; he leered
rueful roguishness out of bilious eyes, and Victoria could not endure
the sight of him; secondly, she was sure that I had said something--what
she did not know, but something--to Elsa; for Elsa had been found
crying over her coffee in bed in the morning.
"And every word you say to her now is of such supreme importance,"
Victoria observed, standing over my writing-table.
I took my cigarette out of my mouth and answered perversely enough, but
with an eye to truth all the same.
"Nothing that I say to her now is of the very least importance,
Victoria."
"What do you mean?" she cried.
"Much what you do," I rejoined, and fell to smoking again.
Victoria began to walk about the room. I endured patiently. My eyes were
fixed on Waldenweiter. I wondered idly whether the scene of despair had
been enacted yet.
"It's not the smallest good making ourselves unhappy about it," Victoria
announced, just as she was on the turn at the other end of the room.
"Not the smallest," I agreed.
"It's much too late."
"A great deal too late."
Victoria darted down and kissed my cheek.
"After all, she ought to think herself very lucky," she decided. "I'm
sure everybody else considers her so."
"Under such circumstances," said I, "it's sheer perversity in her to
have her own feelings on the matter."
"But you said something that upset her last night," remarked my sister,
with a return to the point which I hoped she had lost sight of. This
time I lowered my guard in surrender.
"Certainly. I tried to make love to her," said I.
"There, you see!" she cried reproachfully. Her censure of the irrelevant
intrusion of such a subject was eloquent and severe.
"It was all Wetter's fault," I remarked, sighing.
"Good gracious! what's it got to do with Wetter? I hate the man!" As she
spoke her eyes fell on a box which stood on my writing-table. "What's
that?" she asked.
"Diamonds," I answered. "The necklace for Elsa."
"You bought the big one you spoke of? Oh, Augustin, how fortunate!"
I looked up at Victoria and smiled.
"My dear Victoria," said I, "it is the finger of Providence. I'll
present them to her after luncheon."
"Yes, do; and mind you don't upset her again."
Alas! I had no desire to "upset" her again. The fit had passed; my only
relations toward it were those of an astonished spectator or a baffled
analyst. It was part of the same mood that had converted Artenberg into
a hall of revelry, of most unwonted revelry. But to-day, with Princess
Heinrich frowning, heaven at a discount, and everybody rather ashamed of
themselves, was it likely that I should desire to upset her again? The
absence of any such wish, combined with the providential diamonds, would
(it might reasonably be hoped) restore tranquillity to Elsa. Victoria
was quite of this optimistic opinion.
Our interview was interrupted by the arrival of Bederhof, who came to
take my final commands with regard to the marriage arrangements. The
whole programme was drawn out neatly on a sort of chart (minus the rocks
and shoals, of course). The Duchess and her daughter were to stay at
Artenberg for another week; it would then be the end of August. On the
1st of September they would reach home, remain there till the 1st of
October, when they and the Duke would set out for Forstadt; they were to
make their formal entry on the 4th, and on the 12th (a week being
allowed for repose, festivities, and preparations) the marriage would be
solemnized; in the evening of that day Elsa and I were to come back to
Artenberg to pass the first days of our married life.
"I hope your Majesty approves?" said Bederhof.
"Perfectly," said I. "Let us go and find the Princess. Hers must be the
decisive word;" and with my programme in one hand and my diamonds in the
other I repaired to the Duchess's room, Bederhof following in high
contentment.
I imagine that there must have been a depression in my looks,
involuntary but reassuring. It is certain that Elsa received me with
more composure than I had ventured to hope. She studied Bederhof's chart
with grave attention; she and her mother put many questions as to the
ceremonial; there was no doubt that Elsa was very much interested in the
matter. Presently my mother came in; the privy council round Bederhof
grew more engrossed. The Chancellor was delighted; one could almost see
the flags and hear the cannon as his descriptive periods rolled out.
Princess Heinrich sat listening with a rather bitter smile, but she did
not cut him short. I leaned over the back of her chair. Once or twice
Elsa glanced at me, timidly but by no means uncheerfully. Behind the
cover of the chair-back I unfastened my box and got out my necklace.
Then I waited for Elsa's next look. It seemed entirely in keeping with
the occasion that I, as well as Bederhof, should have my present for
her, my ornament, my toy.
"Their Majesties' carriage will be drawn by four gray horses," said
Bederhof. The good Duchess laughed, laid her hand on Elsa's, and
whispered, "Their Majesties!" Elsa blushed, laughed, and again glanced
at me. My moment had come. I held up my toy.
"Their Majesties will be dressed in their very best clothes," said I,
"with their hair nicely brushed, and perhaps one of them will be so
charming as to wear a necklace," and I tossed the thing lightly over the
chair-back into Elsa's lap.
She caught it with a little cry, looked at it for a moment, whispered in
her mother's ear, jumped up, and, blushing still, ran round and kissed
me.
"Oh, thank you!" she cried.
I kissed her hand and her cheek. My mother smiled, patiently it seemed
to me; the Duchess was tremulously radiant; Bederhof obviously benign.
It was a pretty group, with the pretty child and her pretty toy for the
centre of it. Suddenly I looked at my mother; she nodded ever so
slightly. I was applauded and commanded to persevere.
Bederhof pursued his description. He went through it all; he rose to
eloquence in describing our departure from Forstadt. This scene ended,
he seemed conscious of a bathos. It was in a dull, rather apologetic
tone that he concluded by remarking:
"Their Majesties will arrive at Artenberg at seven o'clock, and will
partake of dinner."
There appeared to be no desire to dwell on this somewhat inglorious
conclusion to so eventful a day. A touch of haste betrayed itself in my
mother's manner as she asked for the list of the guests. Elsa had
dropped her necklace in her lap, and sat looking before her with an
absent expression. The names of distinguished visitors, however, offered
a welcome diversion. We were all in very good spirits again in a few
minutes. Presently the names bored Elsa; she jumped up, ran to a mirror,
and tried on her necklace. The names bored me also, but I stood where I
was. Soon a glance from her summoned me, and I joined her. The diamonds
were round her neck, squeezed in above the high collar of her morning
gown.
"They'll look lovely in the evening," she said.
"You'll have lots more given you," I assured her.
"Do you think so?" she asked, in gleefulness dashed with incredulity.
"Scores," said I solemnly.
"I am very grateful to you for--for everything," she said almost in a
whisper, with a sort of penitence that I understood well enough, and an
obvious desire to show every proper feeling toward me.
"I delight to please you above all things now," I answered; but even to
myself the words sounded cold and formal. Yet they were true; it was
above all things my wish to persuade her that she was happy. To this end
I used eagerly the aid of the four (or was it six?) gray horses, the
necklace, and "Their Majesties."
In the next few days I was much with Elsa, but not much alone with her.
There was, of course, no want of ready company, but most of those who
offered themselves merely intensified the constraint which their
presence was expected to remove. Even Victoria overdid her part rather,
betraying an exaggerated fear of leaving us to ourselves. Varvilliers'
admirable tact, his supreme apparent unconsciousness, and his
never-failing flow of gaiety made him our ideal companion. I missed in
him that sympathy with my sombre moods which bound me to Wetter, spirit
to spirit; but for lighter hours, for hours that must be made light, he
was incomparable. With him Elsa bloomed into merriment, and being, as it
were, midway between us, he seemed to me to bridge the gulf of mind and
temperament that separated her from me. Hour by hour she grew happier,
less timid, more her true self. I took great comfort from this excellent
state of things. No doubt I must be careful not to upset her (as
Victoria said), but she was certainly getting used to me (as William
Adolphus said). Moreover, I was getting used to her, to the obligations
she expressed, and to the renunciations she involved. But I had no more
wish to try to upset her.
It must be a familiar fact to many that we are very prone to mistake or
confuse the sources of our pleasure and the causes of such contentment
as we achieve. We attribute to our surroundings in general what is due
to one especial part of them; for the sake of one feature the
landscape's whole aspect seems pleasant; we rob Peter with intent to pay
Paul, and then in the end give the money to somebody else. It is not
difficult to see how Elsa and I came to think that we got on better with
one another because we both got on so well with Varvilliers, that we
were more comfortable together because he made us both comfortable, that
we came nearer to understanding each other because he understood us so
admirably. We did not perceive even that he was the occasion of our
improved relations, far less did we realize that he was their cause and
their essence; that it was to him I looked, to him she looked; and that
while he was between there could be no rude direct contact of her eyes
with mine, nor of mine with hers. Onlookers see most of the game, they
say, but here the onlookers were as blind as the players; there was an
air of congratulation at Artenberg; the King and his bride were drawing
closer together. The blindness was complete; Varvilliers himself shared
it. Of his absolute good faith and utter unconsciousness I, who doubt
most things, can not doubt. Had he been Wetter, I should have been alert
for the wry smile and the lift of the brows; but he was his simple self,
a perfect gentleman unspoiled by thought. Such are entirely delightful;
that they work infinite havoc with established relations between other
people seems a small price to pay for the privilege which their
existence confers upon the world. My dear friend Varvilliers, for whom
my heart is always warm, played the mischief with the relations between
Elsa and myself, which we all (very whimsically) supposed him to be
improving.
It was a comparatively small, although an interestingly unusual, thing
that I came to enjoy Elsa's society coupled with Varvilliers', and not
to care much about it taken alone; it was a more serious, though far
more ordinary, turn of affairs that Elsa should come to be happy enough
with me provided that Varvilliers were there to--shall I say to take the
edge off me?--but cared not a jot to meet me in his absence. The latter
circumstance is simply and conventionally explained (and, after all,
these conventional expressions are no more arbitrary than the alphabet,
which is admitted to be a useful means of communicating our ideas) by
saying that Elsa was falling in love with Varvilliers; my own state of
mind would deserve analysis, but for a haunting notion that no states
of mind are worth such trouble. Let us leave it; there it was. It was
impossible to say which of us would miss Varvilliers more. He had become
necessary to both of us. The conclusion drawn by the way of this world
is, of course, at once obvious; it followed pat from the premise. We
must both of us be deprived of him as soon as possible. I am not
concerned to argue that the world is wrong; and the very best way to
advance a paradox is to look as though you were uttering a platitude. In
this art the wittiest writer cuts a poor figure beside the laws of
society.
The end of the week approached. Elsa was to go; Varvilliers was to go.
So the arrangement stood; Elsa was to return, about Varvilliers' return
nothing had been said. The bandage was still over the eyes of all of us;
we had not perceived the need of settling anything about him. He was
still as insignificant to us as he was to Princess Heinrich herself.
This being the state of the case, there enters to me one morning my good
Cousin Elizabeth, tearfully radiant and abundantly maternal. The reason
was soon declared. Elsa had been found crying again, and wondering
vaguely what she was crying about. It was suggested to her that her
grief was due to approaching departure; Elsa embraced the idea at once.
It was pointed out that a month's absence from me was involved; Elsa
sighed deeply and dabbed her eyes. Cousin Elizabeth dabbed hers as she
told the story; then she caught me in her arms, kissed me, and said that
her happiness was complete. What was I to do? I was profoundly
surprised, but any display of that emotion would have been
inappropriate and ungracious. I could appear only compassionate and
gratified.
"Things do happen right sometimes, you see," pursued Cousin Elizabeth,
triumphing in this refutation of some little sneer of mine which she had
contested the day before. "I knew you had come to care for her, and now
she cares for you. I never was indifferent to that side of it. I always
hoped. And now it really is so! Kiss me, Augustin dear."
I kissed Cousin Elizabeth. I was miles away in thought, lost in
perplexed musings.
"I comforted her, and told her that the time would soon pass, and that
then she would have you all to herself, with no tiresome people to
interrupt. But the poor darling still cried a little. But one can't
really grieve, can one? A little sorrow means so much happiness later
on, doesn't it? And though I couldn't comfort her, you'll be able to, I
daresay. What's a month?"
"Nothing," said I. I was conscious of realizing that it was at all
events very little.
"I shall expect to see her quite smiling after she's had a little talk
with you," was Cousin Elizabeth's parting speech. It won from me a very
reassuring nod, and left me in mazes of bewilderment. There was nothing
in particular which I believed, but I disbelieved one thing very
definitely. It was that Elsa wept because she must be absent from me for
a month--a month delightfully busied with the making of four hundred
frocks.
Impelled partly by duty but more by curiosity, I went in search of her.
Having failed to find her in the house or on the terrace, I descended
into the hanging woods, and made for an arbour which she and I and
Varvilliers had fallen into the habit of frequenting. A broad grass
path ran up to the front of it, but, coming as I did, I approached it by
a side track. Elsa sat on the seat and Varvilliers stood before her. He
was talking; she leaned forward listening, with her hands clasped in her
lap and her eyes fixed on his face. Neither perceived me. I walked
briskly toward them, without loitering or spying, but I did not call
out. Varvilliers' talk was light, if it might be judged by his
occasional laughs. When I was ten yards off I called, "Hallo, here you
are!" He turned with a little start, but an easy smile. Elsa flushed
red. I had not yet apprehended the truth, although now the idea was
dimly in my mind. I sat down by Elsa, and we talked. Of what I have
forgotten. I think, in part, of William Adolphus, I laughing at my
brother-in-law, Varvilliers feigning to defend him with good-humoured
irony. It did not matter of what we talked. For me there was
significance in nothing save in Elsa's eyes. They were all for
Varvilliers, for him sparkled, for him clouded, for him wondered,
laughed, applauded, lived. Presently I dropped out of the conversation
and sat silent, facing this new thing. It was not bitter to me; my mood
of desire had gone too utterly. There was no pang of defeated rivalry.
But I knew why Elsa had cried, who had power to bring, and who also had
power to dry, her tears.
Suddenly I saw, or seemed to see, a strange and unusual restraint in
Varvilliers' manner. He missed the thread of a story, stumbled, grew
dull, and lost his animation. He seemed to talk now for duty, not for
pleasure, as a man who covers an awkward moment rather than employs to
the full a happy opportunity. Then his glance rested for an instant on
my face. I do not know what or how much my face told him, but I did not
look at him unkindly.
"I must go, if I may," he said addressing me. "I promised to ride with
Vohrenlorf, and the time is past."
He bowed to Elsa and to me.
"We shall see you this afternoon?" she asked.
He bowed again in acquiescence, but with an air of discomfort. Elsa
looked at him, and from him to me. She flushed again, opened her lips,
but did not speak; then she bent her head down, and the blush spread
from neck to forehead.
"Go, my dear friend, go," said I.
He looked at me as though he would have spoken, almost as though he
would have protested or excused himself, inadmissible as such a thing
plainly was. I smiled at him, but waved my hand to dismiss him. He
turned and walked quickly away along the broad grass path. I watched him
till he was out of sight; all the while I was conscious of an utter
motionlessness in Elsa's figure beside me.
We must have sat there a long while in that unbroken eloquent silence,
hardly moving, never looking at one another. For her I was full of
grief; a wayward thing it was, indeed, of fate to fashion out of
Varvilliers' pleasant friendship this new weapon of attack. She had been
on the way to contentment--at least to resignation--but was now thrust
back. And she was ashamed. Poor child! why, in Heaven's name, should she
be ashamed? Should she not better have been ashamed of a fancy so ill
directed as to light on me when Varvilliers was by? For myself I seemed
to see rising before me the need for a new deception, a hoodwinking of
all the world, a secret that none must know or suspect, that she and I
must have between us for our own. The thing might pass; she was young.
Very likely, but it would not pass in time. There were the frocks. Ah,
but the wardrobe that half hid me would not suffice to obscure
Varvilliers. Or would it? I smiled for an instant. Instead of hiding
behind the wardrobe, I saw myself becoming part of it, blending with it.
Should I take rank as the four-hundred-and-first frock? "Willingly give
thyself up to Clotho, allowing her to spin thy thread into whatever
things she pleases." Even into a frock, O Emperor? Goes the philosophy
as far as that?
At last I turned to her and laid my hand gently on her clasped hands.
"Come, my dear," said I, "we must be going back. They'll all be looking
for us. We're too important people to be allowed to hide ourselves."
As I spoke I jumped to my feet, holding out my hand to help her to rise.
She looked up at me in an oddly pathetic way. I was afraid that she was
going to speak of the matter, and there was nothing to be gained by
speaking of it. "Give me your hand," I said with a smile, and she
obeyed. The pleading in her eyes persisted. As she stood up, I kissed
her lightly on the forehead. Then we walked away together.
That afternoon I was summoned to Princess Heinrich's room to drink tea
with her and the Duchess. Cousin Elizabeth was still exuberant; it
seemed to me that a cold watchfulness governed my mother's mood.
Relations between my mother and myself have not always been cordial; but
I have never failed to perceive and respect in her a fine inner
sincerity, an aptitude for truth and a resolute facing of facts. While
Cousin Elizabeth talked, the Princess sat smiling with her usual faint
smile; it never showed the least inclination to become a laugh. She
acquiesced politely in the rose-coloured description of Elsa's feelings
and affections. She had perception enough to know that the picture could
not be true. Presently I took the liberty of informing her by a glance
that I was not a partner in the delusion. She showed no surprise; but
the fruit of my act was that she detained me by a gesture, after Cousin
Elizabeth had taken her leave. For a few moments she sat silent; then
she remarked:
"The Duchess is a very kind woman, very anxious to make everybody
happy."
"Yes," said I carelessly.
"But it must be in her own way. She is romantic. She thinks everybody
else must be the same. You and I know, Augustin, that things of that
kind occupy a very small part of a man's life. My sex deludes itself.
And when a man occupies the position you do, it's absurd to suppose that
he pays much attention to them."
"No doubt Cousin Elizabeth exaggerates," said I, standing in a
respectful attitude before my mother.
"Well, I daresay you remember the time when Victoria was a girl. You
recollect her folly? But you and I were firm--you behaved very well
then, Augustin--and the result is that she is most suitably and most
happily married."
I bowed. I did not think that any agreement of mine could be worthy of
the magnificent boldness of Princess Heinrich's statement.
"Girls are silly; they pass through a silly time," she pursued, smiling.
A sudden remembrance shot across me.
"It doesn't do to take any notice of such things," said I gravely.
Happily, perhaps, Princess Heinrich was not awake to the fact that she
herself was being quoted to herself.
"I'm glad to hear you say so," she said. "You have your work to do.
Don't waste your time in thinking of girls' megrims--or of their
mothers' nonsense."
I left her presence with a strong sense that Providence had erred in not
making her a saint, a king, or anything else that demands a resolute
repression of human infirmities. Some people are content to triumph over
their own weaknesses; my mother had an eye also for the frailty of
others.
She made no reference at all to Varvilliers. There was always something
to be learned from Princess Heinrich. From early youth I was inured to a
certain degree of painfulness in the lesson.
"Willingly give thyself up to Clotho." My mother was more than willing.
She was proud; and, if I may be allowed to vary the metaphor, she
embarked on the ship of destiny with a family ticket.