WHAT first entered my brain as the wildest possibility grew rapidly
to a desire which possessed my whole being with absolute passion. The
situation was in itself so singular and tantalising, and the Princess
was so beautiful a woman, to be on these terms of delicious intimacy
with the daughter of one of Europe’s sovereigns (a little sovereign it
is true, but great by race and connection), to meet her constantly in
absolute defiance of all the laws of etiquette, yet to see her wear
through it all as unapproachable a dignity, as serene an aspect of
condescension, as though she were presiding at her father’s Court—it
was enough, surely, to have turned the head of a wiser man than myself!
It was not long before Mademoiselle Ottilie, the lady-in-waiting,
discovered the secret madness of my thoughts—in the light of what
has since occurred I can truly call it so. And she it was who, for
purposes of her own, shovelled coals on the fire and fanned the flame.
One way or another, generally on her initiative, but always by her
arrangement, we three met, and met daily.
On the evening of a day passed in their company, with the impression
strong upon me of the Princess’s farewell look, which had held, I
fancied, something different to its wont; with the knowledge that I
had, unrebuked, pressed and kissed that fair hand after a fashion more
daring than respectful, with my blood in a fever and my brain in a
whirl, now seeming sure of success, now coldly awake to my folly, I
bethought me of taking counsel again with my great-uncle’s pedigree.
And heartened by the proofs that the blood of Jennico was good enough
for any alliance, I fell to completing the document by bringing it
up to date as far as concerned myself. Now, when I in goodly black
letters had set down my own cognomen so fair upon the parchment, I was
further seized with the fancy to fill in the space left blank for my
future marriage; and I lightly traced in pencil, opposite the words
“Basil Jennico, Lord of Tollendhal,” the full titles and names, which
by this time I had studied till I knew them off by heart, of her Serene
Highness the Princess Marie Caroline Dorothée Josephine Charlotte
Ottilie of Lausitz.
It made such a pretty show after all that had gone before, and it
brought such visions with it of the glories the name of Jennico might
yet rise to, that I could not find it in me to erase it again, and so
left it as it stood, telling myself, as I rolled up the great deed
again and hooked it in its place beneath my uncle’s portrait, that it
would not be my fault if the glorious entry did not remain there for
ever.
The next time the ladies visited me, Mademoiselle Ottilie—flitting
like a little curious brown moth about the great room, dancing
pirouettes beneath my uncle’s portrait, and now and again pausing
to make a comical grimace at his forbidding countenance, while I
entertained her mistress at its further end—must needs be pricked by
the desire to study the important document, which I had, as I have
said, already submitted to her view.
Struck by her sudden silence and stillness, I rose and crossed the
room to find her with the parchment rolled out before her, absorbed in
contemplation, her elbows on the table, her face leaning on her hands.
With a fierce rush of blood to my cheeks, in a confusion that set every
pulse throbbing, I attempted to withdraw from her the evidence of what
must seem the most impudent delusion. But she held tight with her
elbows, and then, disregarding my muttered explanation that I intended
to rub out at once the nonsense I had written in a moment of idleness,
she laid her small finger upon the place, and, looking at me gravely,
said:
“Why not?”
The whole room whirled round with me.
“My God,” I cried, “don’t mock me!”
But she, with a new ring of feeling in her voice, said earnestly:
“She has such misery before her if her father carries out his will.”
To hear these words from her, who of all others must be in her
mistress’s confidence, ought, however amazing to reason and common
sense, to have been a spur to one whose ambition soared so high.
Nevertheless, I hesitated. To be honest with myself, not from a lover’s
diffidence, from a lover’s dread of losing even hope, but rather from
the fear of placing myself in an absurd position—of risking the deadly
humiliation of a refusal.
I dared therefore nothing but soft looks, soft words, soft pressures of
the hand; and the Princess received them all as she received everything
that had gone before. From one in her position this might seem of
itself encouragement enough in all conscience; but I waited in vain
for some break in her unruffled composure—some instant in which I
could mark that the Princess was lost in the woman. And so what drew
me most to her kept me back. At the same time a rooted distrust of the
little lady-in-waiting, a certain contempt, too, for her personality
as belonging to that roture so despised of my great-uncle and myself,
prevented me from placing confidence in her.
But she, nevertheless, precipitated the climax. It was three days after
the scene in my great-uncle’s room, one Sunday morning, beside the
holy-water font in the little chapel of Schreckendorf Castle, whither,
upon the invitation of its present visitors—my own priest being ill,
poor man, of an ague—I had betaken myself to hear mass. The Princess
had passed out first, and had condescended, smiling, to brush the
pious drops from my finger; but Mademoiselle Ottilie paused as she too
touched with hers my outstretched hand, and said in my ear as crossly
as a spoilt child:
“You are not a very ardent lover, M. de Jennico. The days are going by;
the Countess Schreckendorf is beginning to speak quite plain again. It
is impossible that her Highness should be left in this liberty much
longer.”
I caught her hand as she would have hurried away.
“If I could be sure that this is not some foolish jest,” I said in a
fierce whisper in her ear.
And she to me back again as fiercely:
“You are afraid!” she said with a curling lip.
That settled it.
I rode straight home, though I was expected to have joined the ladies
in some expedition. I spent the whole day in a most intolerable state
of agitation; and then, my mind made up, I sat down after supper to
write, beneath my uncle’s portrait. And the first half of the night
went by in writing and re-writing the letter which was to offer the
hand and heart of Basil Jennico to the Princess Marie Ottilie of
Lausitz.
I wrote and tore up till the ground around me was strewn with the
fragments of paper; and now I seemed too bold, when the whole
incongruity and absurdity of my desire took tangible form to mock me in
the silence of the night; and now too humble, when in the flickering
glimmer of candle-light my great-uncle would frown down upon me, and I
could hear him say:
“Remember that thou Jennico bist!”
At last a letter lay before me by which I resolved to abide. I believe
that it was an odd mixture of consciousness of my own temerity in
aspiring so high, and at the same time of conviction that the house of
Jennico could only confer, and not receive, honour. I even proposed to
present myself boldly with my credentials at the Court of Lausitz (and
here of course the famous pedigree came in once more), and I modestly
added that, considering my wealth and connections, I ventured to hope
the Duke, her father, might favourably consider my pretensions.
This written and sealed, I was able to sleep for the rest of the night,
but was awake again with dawn and counting the minutes until I could
decently despatch a mounted messenger to Schreckendorf.
When the man rode forth I believe it was a little after eight; and I
know that it was on the stroke of one when I heard his horse’s hoofs
ringing again in the courtyard. But time had no measure for the strange
agony of doubt in which I passed those hours, not (once again have I to
admit it) because I loved her too dearly to bear the thought of life
without her, but because of my fierce pride, which would not brook the
shame of a refusal.
I called in a frenzy to hurry the lagging fool into my presence; and
yet when he laid the letter on my table I stared at the great seal
without daring to open it. And when at last I did so my hand trembled
like an aspen leaf.
“Monsieur de Jennico,” it began abruptly, “I ought to call you mad,
for what you propose is nothing less indeed than madness. You little
know the fetters that bind such lives as mine, and I could laugh and
weep together to think of what the Duke, my father, would say were you
really to present yourself before him as you suggest.”
So it ran, and as I read I thought I was contemned, and in my fury
would have crushed the letter in my hand, when a word below caught my
eye, and with an intensity of joy on a par only with the passion of
wounded pride that had preceded it, I read on:
“But, dear Monsieur de Jennico,” so ran the letter then, “since you
love me, and since you honour me by telling me so; since you offer me
so generously all you have to give, I will be honest with you and tell
you that my present life has no charm for me. I know only too well
what the future holds for me in my own home, and I am willing to trust
myself to you and to your promises rather than face the lot already
drawn for me.
“Therefore, Monsieur de Jennico, if it be true that, as you say, all
your happiness depends upon my answer, I trust it may be for the
benefit of both that I should say ’Yes’ to you to-day. But what is
to be must be secretly done, and soon Are you willing, to obtain
your desire, to risk a little, when I am willing to risk so much in
granting it? If so, meet my lady-in-waiting to-day at six, alone,
where we first met, and she will tell you all that I have decided.”
It was signed simply—“Marie Ottilie.”
There was no hint of answering love to my passionate declaration, but
I did not miss it. I had won my Princess, and the few clear words in
which she laid bare before me the whole extent of my presumption only
added to the exquisite zest of my conquest.
It was a very autumn day—autumn comes quickly in these lands. It had
been raining, and I rode down from the higher level into a sea of white
writhing mists. It was still and warm—one of those heavy days that
as a rule seem like to clog the blood and fill one with reasonless
foreboding. I remember all that now; but I know that there was no place
for foreboding in my exulting heart as I sallied out full early to the
trysting-place.
The mare I rode, because of the close atmosphere and her own headstrong
temper, was in a great lather when I arrived at the little pine-wood,
and I dismounted and began to lead her gently to and fro (for I loved
the pretty creature, who was as fond and skittish as a woman) that she
might cool by degrees and take no injury. I was petting and fondling
her sleek coat, when of a sudden, without my having had the least
warning of her coming, I turned to find Mademoiselle Ottilie before me.
She looked at me straight with one of those odd searching looks which I
had now and again seen her fix upon me; and without either “Good-even”
or “How-do-you-do,” she said abruptly:
“I saw you coming all the way along the white road from the moment it
turns the corner, and I saw how your mare fought you, and how difficult
it was to bring her past the great beam of the well yonder. You made
her obey, but you have not left a scratch upon her sides—yet you wear
spurs.”
She looked at me with the most earnest inquiry, and, ruffled by the
futility of the question when so much was at stake, I said to her
somewhat sharply:
“What has this to do, Mademoiselle, with our meeting here to-day?”
“It has this to do, Monsieur,” she answered me composedly, “that her
Highness’s interests are as dear to me as my own, and that I am glad
to learn that the man she is to wed has a merciful heart. I know a
man,” she went on, “in our own country who passes for the finest, the
bravest, the most gallant, but when he brings a horse in from the
chase its legs will be trembling and it will be panting so that it can
scarce draw breath, because the rider is so brave and dashing that he
must go the fastest of all, and he will have left his mark upon the
poor beast’s sides in great furrows where he has ploughed them with his
spurs. He is greatly admired by every one; but his horses die, and his
hounds shrink when he moves his hand: that is what my country-people
call being manly—being a real cavalier!”
The scorn of her tone was something beyond the mere girlish pettishness
I generally associated with her; but to me, except as she represented
or influenced her mistress, she had never had any interest. And so
again impatiently I brought her back to the object of our meeting.
“Her Highness has entrusted you with a message?” I asked.
“Her Highness would first of all know,” said the maid of honour, “if
you fully realise the difficulties you may bring upon yourself by the
marriage you propose?”
“The Princess,” said I proudly, “has condescended to say that she will
trust herself to me. After that, as far as I am concerned, there can be
no question of difficulty. As for her, if she will consent to accompany
me to England, no trouble or reproach need ever reach her ears. If she
prefers to remain here, I shall none the less be able to protect my
wife, were it against the whole Empire itself.”
“That is the right spirit,” said Mademoiselle Ottilie, nodding her
head approvingly. “What you say has not got a grain of common sense,
but that is all as it should be. And next,” she continued, drawing
closer to me, for there was a twilight dimness about us, and standing
on tiptoe in the endeavour to bring her gaze on a level with mine, “her
Highness wishes to know”—she dropped her voice a little—“if you love
her very much?”
As if the gaze of those yellow hazel eyes of hers had cast a sudden
revealing light upon my soul, I stood abashed and dumb, self-convicted
by my silence. Love! Did I love her whom I would make my wife? Taken
up with schemes of vainglory and ambition, what room had I in my heart
for love? In all my triumph at having won her, was there one qualifying
thread of tenderness? Would I, in fine, have sought the woman,
beautiful though she was, were she not the Princess?
In a sort of turmoil I asked myself these things under the compelling
earnestness of Mademoiselle Ottilie’s eyes, and everything in myself
looked strange and hideous to myself, as beneath a vivid lightning
flash the most familiar scene assumes a singular and appalling aspect.
In another moment she moved away and turned aside from me; and then,
even as after the lightning flash all things resume their normal
aspect, I wondered at my own weak folly, and my blood rose hotly
against the impertinence that had evoked it.
“By what right,” said I, “Mademoiselle, do you ask me such a question?
If it be indeed by order of her Highness, pray tell her that when she
will put it to me herself I will answer it to herself.”
The maid of honour wheeled round with her arch, inscrutable smile.
“Oh!” she said, “believe me, you have answered me very well. I was
already convinced of the sincerity and ardour of your attachment to
... her Highness—so convinced, indeed, that I am here to-night for
the sole purpose of helping both you and her to your most insane of
marriages. The Princess is accustomed to rely upon me for everything,
and upon me, therefore, falls the whole burden of preparation and
responsibility. Whether the end of all this will be a dungeon for the
lady-in-waiting, if indeed the Duke does not have her executed for
high treason, is naturally a contingency which neither of you will
consider worth a moment’s thought. It is quite certain, however, that
without me you would both do something inconceivably stupid, and ruin
all. But, voyons, Monsieur de Jennico,” she went on with sudden gravity
of demeanour, “this is no time for pleasantry. It is a very serious
matter. You are wasting precious moments in a singularly light-hearted
fashion, it seems to me.”
The reproach came well from her! But she left me no time to protest.
“I am here,” she said, “as you know, to tell you what the Princess has
decided, and how we must act if the whole thing is not to fail. First
of all, the arrival of some important person from the Court of Lausitz
may take place any day, and then—’Bonjour!’” She blew an airy kiss and
waved her hand, while with a cold thrill I realised the irrefutable
truth of her words.
“If it is to be,” she went on, unconsciously repeating almost the exact
text of her mistress’s letter to me, “it must be at once and in secret.
Mind, not a word to a soul till all is accomplished! On your honour I
lay it! And she, her Highness, enjoins it upon you not to betray her to
any single human being before you have acquired the right to protect
her. It is surely not too much to ask!”
She spoke with deep solemnity, and yet characteristically cut short my
asseverations.
“And, that being settled, and you being willing to take this lady for
your wife,—probably without a stiver, and certainly with her father’s
curse” (I smiled proudly in the arrogance of my heart: all Duke as he
was I did not doubt, once the first storm over, but that my exalted
father-in-law would find very extenuating circumstances for his wilful
daughter’s choice).—“that being settled,” continued Miss Ottilie, “it
only remains to know—are you prepared to enter the marriage state two
nights hence?”
“I wish,” said I, and could not keep the note of exultation from my
voice at having the rare prize thus actually within my reach—“I wish
you would ask me for some harder proof of my complete devotion to her
Highness.”
“Well, then,” she said hastily, whispering as if the pines could
overhear us, “so be it! I have not been idle to-day, and I have laid
the plot. You know the little church in that wretched village of
Wilhelmsdhal we posted through two days ago? The priest there is very
old and very poor and like a child, because he has always lived among
the peasants; and now indeed he is almost too old to be their priest
any more. I saw him to-day, and told him that two who loved each other
were in great straits because people wanted to wed the maiden to a bad
and cruel man,—that is true, Monsieur de Jennico,—I told him that
these two would die of grief, or lose their souls, perhaps, were they
separated, because of the love they bore each other.... There, sir, I
permitted myself a poetical license! To be brief, I promised him in
your name what seemed a great sum for his poor, a thousand thalers—you
will see to that—and he has promised me to wed you on Wednesday night,
at eight of the clock, secretly, in his poor little church. He is so
old and so simple it was like misleading a child, but nevertheless,
the cause being good, I trust I may be forgiven. Drive straight to the
church, and there you will find one who will direct you. The Princess
will not see you again till she meets you before the altar. You will
bring her home to your castle. A maid will accompany her. And that is
all. Adieu, Monsieur de Jennico.”
She stretched out her hand and her voice trembled.
“You will not see the maid of honour perhaps ever again. Her task is
done,” she added.
I took her hand, touched by her accent of earnestness, and gratefully
awoke to the fact that she alone had made the impossible possible to
my desire. I looked at her face, close to mine in the faint light; and
as she smiled at me, a little sadly, I was struck with the delicate
beauty of the curve of her lip, and the exquisite finishing touch of
the dimple that came and went beside it, and the thought flashed into
my mind—“That little maid may one day blossom into the sort of woman
that drives men mad.”
She slipped her hand from mine as I would have kissed it, and nodded at
me with a return of the cool impudence that had so often vexed me.
“Good-bye, gallant cavalier,” she said mockingly.
She whistled as if for a dog, and I saw the black figure of the nurse
start from the shadow of the trees a few yards away, and, meeting, they
joined in the mist and merged swiftly into it.
Whereupon I mounted the mare, who was sorely tried by her long waiting;
and as we cantered homewards I was haunted, through the extraordinary
blaze of my triumphant thoughts, to my own exasperation and surprise,
oddly and unwillingly, by the arch sweetness of the maid of honour’s
smile.
And once (I blushed all alone in the darkness for the shame of such
a thought in my mind at such a moment) I caught myself picturing the
sweetness a man might find in pressing his lips upon the tantalising
dimple.