And then, all at once, out of the blue came that revolution which, for
nine days more or less, made obscure little Altronde the centre of the
world's attention.
It happened, as will be remembered, when the Grand Duke was at luncheon,
entertaining the officers of his guard; and it must have been a highly
amusing scene. Towards the end of the refection, Colonel Benedetti,
contrary to all usage and etiquette, rose and said, “Gentlemen, I give
you the Grand Duke.” Whereupon twenty gallant uniforms sprang to their
feet crying, “The Grand Duke! the Grand Duke!” with hands extended
towards that monarch. Only each hand held, instead of a charged bumper
of champagne, a charged revolver.
Massimiliano, according to his genial daily custom, was already
comfortably intoxicated, but at this he fell abruptly sober. White, with
chattering teeth, “What do you mean? What do you want?” he asked.
Colonel Benedetti succinctly explained, while the twenty revolvers
continued to cover his listener. “Speaking for the army and people of
Altronde, I beg to inform Your Highness that we are tired of you--tired
of your rule and tired of your extravagant and disgusting habits. I hold
in my hand an Act of Abdication, which Your Highness will be good enough
to sign.” He thrust an elaborately engrossed parchment under the Duke's
nose, and offered him a fountain pen.
“This is treason,” said Massimiliano. “It is also,” was his happy
anti-climax, “a gross abuse of hospitality.”
“Sign--sign!” sang one-and-twenty martial voices.
“But I should read the document first. Do I abdicate in favour of my
son?”
“Your Highness has no legitimate son,” Benedetti politely reminded him,
“and Altronde has no throne for a bastard. You abdicate in favour of
Civillo Bertrandoni, Duke of Oltramare, already our sovereign in the
rightful line.”
Massimiliano plucked up a little spirit. “Bertrandoni--the hereditary
enemy of my house? That I will never do. You may shoot me if you will.”
“It is not so much a question of shooting,” said the urbane Colonel.
“We cover Your Highness with our firearms merely to ensure his august
attention. It is a question of perpetual imprisonment in a fortress--and
deprivation of alcoholic stimulants.” Massimiliano's jaw dropped.
“Whereas,” the Colonel added, “in the event of peaceful abdication,
Your Highness receives a pension of one hundred thousand francs, and can
reside anywhere he likes outside the Italian peninsula--in Paris, for
example, where alcohol in many agreeable forms is plentiful and cheap.”
“Sign--sign!” sang twenty voices, with a lilt of gathering impatience.
Of course poor Massimiliano signed, Civillo forthwith was proclaimed
from the palace steps, and at five o'clock that afternoon, amid
much popular rejoicing, he entered his capital. He had happened,
providentially, to be sojourning incognito in the nearest frontier town.
V
When next morning the news reached Villa Santa Cecilia, by the medium of
a dispatch in the _Fieramosca_, we may believe it caused excitement.
“But it can't be true,” said Lucilla. “Only two days ago the Duchess
assured me--in all good faith, I'm certain--that her husband had no more
chance of regaining his throne than he had of growing wings, and Bertram
himself has always scoffed at the idea.”
“Yes,” said Ponty. “But perhaps Bertram and his mother were not entirely
in the Pretender's confidence. This story, for a fake, is surprisingly
apropos of nothing, and surprisingly circumstantial. No, I'm afraid it's
true.”
He reread the dispatch, frowning, seeking discrepancies.
“Oh, it's manifestly true,” was his conclusion. “I suppose I ought to
go down to the Lung 'Arno, and offer Bertram our congratulations. And
as for you”--he bowed to Ruth,--“pray accept the expression of our
respectful homage. Here, instead of an empty title, is the reversion of
a real grand-ducal crown. And you a mere little American! What trifling
results from mighty causes flow. A People rise in Revolution--that
a mere little American girl may adorn her brown-red hair with a
grand-ducal crown.”
“The People don't appear to have had any voice in the matter,” said
Lucilla, poring over the paper. “It was just a handful of officers. It
was what they call a Palace Revolution.”
“It was what the judicious call a Comic Opera Revolution,” said Ponty.
“It was a Palace version of Box and Cox.”
He went down to the Lung 'Arno, and found Bertram, pale, agitated, in
the midst of packing.
“Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't talk of congratulations,” the troubled
young man cried, walking up and down the floor, and all but wringing
his hands, while his servant went methodically on folding trousers and
waistcoats. “This may be altogether the worst thing that could possibly
have happened, so far as I'm concerned.”
“I see you're packing,” Pontycroft remarked.
“Yes--we've had a telegram from my father ordering us to join him at
once. We leave at twelve o'clock by a special train. My dear chap, I'm
sick. I'm in a cold perspiration. Feel my hands.” His hands were indeed
cold and wet. He pressed one of them to his side. “And there's something
here that weighs like a ton of ice. I can hardly breathe.”
“The remedy indicated,” said Ponty, “is a brandy-and-soda.”
Bertram's gesture pushed the remedy from him.
“A single spoonful would make me drunk,” he said. “I'm as nearly as
possible off my head already. I feel as if I were going out to be
hanged. If it weren't for my mother--some one's got to go with her--upon
my word, I'd funk it, and take the consequences.”
“_Allons donc_,” Ponty remonstrated. “A certain emotion is what you must
expect--it's part of the game. But think of your luck. Think of your
grandeurs. Think of the experience, the adventure, that's before you. To
be a real, actual, practising Royalty, a Royal Heir Apparent. Think of
the new angle of view from which you'll be able to look at life.”
“Luck? Don't speak of it,” Bertram groaned. “If I had known, if I had
dreamed. But we were kept in the dark absolutely. Oh, it was outrageous
of the old man. We had a right at least to be warned, hadn't we? Since
it involves our entire destinies? Since every one of our hopes, plans,
intentions, great or small, is affected by it? We had a right to be
warned, if not to be consulted. But never a word--until this
morning--first the newspaper--and then his wire. Think of my mother
being left to learn the thing from a newspaper. And then his wire: 'Come
at once to Altronde.' I feel like a conscript. I feel like a man
suddenly summoned from freedom to slavery.”
“You'll find your chains bearable--you'll find them interesting,”
Ponty said. “You leave at noon by a special train. Is there any way,
meanwhile, in which I can be useful to you?”
“Yes--no--no. Unless you can devise some way to get me out of the mess.
The special train is for my mother. In her own fashion she's as much
upset as I am. She could not travel _coram publico_, poor lady.”
“No, of course not. I hope you will make her my compliments,” said
Ponty, rising.
“Thank you. And you will say good-bye to Lady Dor for us and--and to
Miss Adgate,” Bertram responded. But there was a catch in his voice, and
he grew perceptibly paler. “I--I,” he stumbled, hesitated, “I will write
to you as soon as I know where I am.”
Ponty went home thoughtful; thoughtful, but conscious of an elusive
inward satisfaction. This rather puzzled him. “It's the sort of thing
one feels when one has succeeded in evading an unpleasant duty--a
sentiment of snugness, safety, safety and relief. But what unpleasant
duty have I succeeded in evading?” he asked himself. Yet there it
was--the comfortable sense of a duty shirked.
“I'm in doubt whether to hail you as the Queen Elect of Yvetot, or to
offer you my condolences upon the queering of your pitch,” he said to
Ruth. “He loved and rode away. He certainly loved, and he's as certainly
riding away--at twelve o'clock to-day, by a special train. I supposed
he would charge me with a message for you--but no--none except a
commonplace good-bye. No promise, nothing compromising, nothing that
could be used as evidence against him. However, he said he'd write--as
soon as he knew whether he was standing on his head or on his heels.
One thing, though, you might do--there's still time. You might go to the
railway station and cover his flight with mute reproaches. Perhaps the
sight of your distraught young face would touch his conscience. You
might get the necessary word from him before the train started.”
“Be quiet, Harry,” said Lucilla. “You shan't chaff her any longer.
Prince Bertrandoni is a man of honour--and he's as good as pledged to
her already. This is a merely momentary interruption. As soon as he's
adjusted his affairs to the new conditions, he'll come back.”
“Ay, we know these comings back,” answered Ponty, ominously. “But a wise
fisherman lands his fish while it's on the hook, and doesn't give it
a chance of swimming away and coming back. I see a pale face at the
window, watching, waiting; and I hear a sad voice murmuring, 'He cometh
not.'”
“You're intolerable,” Lucilla cried out, with an impatient gesture.
“Ruth, don't pay him the least attention.”
“Oh, don't mind me,” said Ruth. “I'm vastly amused. Faithful are the
wounds of a friend.”
“There's just one element of hope,” Ponty ended, “and that is that
even to demi-semi Royalty a matter of thirty thousand a year must be a
consideration.”
A column from Altronde in the _Fieramosca_ of the morrow gave a glowing
description of Bertram's and his mother's arrival, which Pontycroft
translated at the breakfast table: how the Grand Duke, in the uniform
of a general, met and tenderly embraced them as they stepped from
the train, and drove with them in a “lando di gala” through streets
brilliant with flags and thronged by cheering subjects, to the Palace,
escorted by the selfsame regiment of guards whose officers the other day
had so summarily cooked the goose of Massimiliano. “That is pretty and
touching,” was Ponty's comment, “but listen to this--this is rich. The
Grand Duke introduced them to his people, in a proclamation, as 'my most
dear and ever dutiful son, and my beloved consort, the companion and
consoler of my long exile!' What so false as truth is? Well, there's
nothing either true or false but thinking makes it so. And the mayor and
corporation, in a loyal address, welcomed Bertram as the 'heir to the
virtues as well as to the throne of his august progenitor.' His august
progenitor's virtues were jewels which, during his career in Paris, at
any rate, he modestly concealed. However! Oh, but here--here's something
that really _is_ interesting. 'The festivities of the evening were
terminated by a banquet, at which the Grand Duke graciously made a
speech.' Listen to one of the things he said: 'It has been represented
to me as the earnest aspiration of my people that my solemn coronation
should be celebrated at the earliest possible date. But unhappily, the
crown of my fathers has been sullied by contact with the brows of a
usurping dynasty. That crown I will never wear. A new, a virgin crown
must be placed upon the head of your restored legitimate sovereign. And
I herewith commission my dear son, whom Heaven has endowed, among many
noble gifts, with the eye and the hand of an artist, to design a crown
which shall be worthy of his sire, himself, and his posterity.' Well,
that will keep Bertram out of mischief. I see him from here--see
and hear him--bending over his drawing-board, with busy pencil, and
whistling 'The girl I left behind me.'”
And then a servant entered bearing a telegram.
“What will you give me,” Ponty asked, when he had opened and glanced at
it, “if I'll read this out?”
“Whom's it from?” asked Lucilla.
“The last person on earth that you'd expect,” he answered. “Come, what
will you give?”
“I believe it's from Prince Bertrandoni himself,” cried Lucilla, agog.
“If it is, we'll give you fits if you _don't_ read it out--and at once.”
She showed him her clenched fist.
“Very good. Under that threat, I'll read it,” remarked Ponty, and he
read: “Arrived safely, but homesick for dear Villa Santa Cecilia. My
mother joins her thanks to mine for your constant kindness. Will write
as soon as an hour of tranquillity permits. Please give my affectionate
greetings to Lady Dor and Miss Adgate, and beg them not to forget their
and your devoted Bertram.”
“There!” crowed Lucilla. “What did I tell you?”
Ponty looked up blankly. “What did you tell me?”
“That he would come back--that this was only a momentary interruption.”
“Does he say anything about coming back?” Ponty asked, scrutinizing the
straw-coloured paper. “That must have missed my eye.”
“Boo,” said Lucilla. “What does he mean by the hope of an early
reunion?”
“A slip of the pen for blessed resurrection, I expect,” said Ponty.
“Boo,” said Lucilla. “It's the message of a man obviously, desperately,
in love--yearning to communicate with his loved one--but to save
appearances, or from lover-like timidity perhaps, addressing his
communication to a third person. That telegram is meant exclusively
for Ruth, and _you're_ merely used as a gooseberry. Oh, Ruth, I _do_
congratulate you.” Ruth vaguely laughed.