Now, on careful inquiry, there was discovered a fact which the official spies, who always acted by precedent and pursued their inquiries according to the rules of the human heart as taught by the Secret Inquisition of the Republic of Venice, had naturally failed to perceive. This fact consisted in a rumour, very vague but very persistent, that Prince Alberic did not inhabit his wing of the palace in absolute solitude. Some of the pages attending on his person affirmed to have heard whispered conversations in the Prince’s study, on entering which they had invariably found him alone; others maintained that, during the absence of the Prince from the palace, they had heard the sound of his private harpsichord, the one with the story of Orpheus and the view of Soracte on the cover, although he always kept its key on his person. A footman declared that he had found in the Prince’s study, and among his books and maps, a piece of embroidery certainly not belonging to the Prince’s furniture and apparel, moreover, half finished, and with a needle sticking in the canvas; which piece of embroidery the Prince had thrust into his pocket. But, as none of the attendants had ever seen any visitor entering or issuing from the Prince’s apartments, and the professional spies had ransacked all possible hiding-places and modes of exit in vain, these curious indications had been neglected, and the opinion had been formed that Alberic, being, as everyone could judge, somewhat insane, had a gift of ventriloquism, a taste for musical-boxes, and a proficiency in unmanly handicrafts which he carefully dissimulated.
These rumours had at one time caused great delight to Duke Balthasar; but he had got tired of sitting in a dark cupboard in his grandson’s chamber, and had caught a bad chill looking through his keyhole; so he had stopped all further inquiries as officious fooling on the part of impudent lacqueys.
But the Jesuit foolishly adhered to the rumour. “Discover her,” he said, “and work through her on Prince Alberic.” But Duke Balthasar, after listening twenty times to this remark with the most delighted interest, turned round on the twenty-first time and gave the Jesuit a look of Jove-like thunder; “My father,” he said, “I am surprised, I may say more than surprised, at a person of your cloth descending so low as to make aspersions upon the virtue of a young Prince reared in my palace and born of my blood. Never let me hear another word about ladies of light manners being secreted within these walls.” Whereupon the Jesuit retired, and was in disgrace for a fortnight, till Duke Balthasar woke up one morning with a strong apprehension of dying.
But no more was said of the mysterious female friend of Prince Alberic, still less was any attempt made to gain her intervention in the matter of the drysalter Princess’s marriage.
XII
More desperate measures were soon resorted to. It was given out that Prince Alberic was engrossed in study, and he was forbidden to leave his wing of the Red Palace, with no other view than the famous grotto with the verde antique apes and the Porphyry Rhinoceros. It was published that Prince Alberic was sick, and he was confined very rigorously to a less agreeable apartment in the rear of the palace, where he could catch sight of the plaster laurels and draperies, and the rolling plaster eyeball of one of the Twelve Caesars under the cornice. It was judiciously hinted that the Prince had entered into religious retreat, and he was locked and bolted into the State prison, alongside of the unfinished sepulchral chapel, whence a lugubrious hammering came as the only sound of life. In each of these places the recalcitrant youth was duly argued with by some of his grandfather’s familiars, and even received a visit from the old duke in person. But threats and blandishments were all in vain, and Alberic persisted in his refusal to marry.
It was six months now since he had seen the outer world, and six weeks since he had inhabited the State prison, every stage in his confinement, almost every day thereof, having systematically deprived him of some luxury, some comfort, or some mode of passing his time. His harpsichord and foils had remained in the gala wing overlooking the grotto. His maps and books had not followed him beyond the higher story with the view of the Twelfth Caesar. And now they had taken away from him his Virgil, his inkstand and paper, and left him only a book of Hours.
Balthasar Maria and his councillors felt intolerably baffled. There remained nothing further to do; for if Prince Alberic were publicly beheaded, or privately poisoned, or merely left to die of want and sadness, it was obvious that Prince Alberic could no longer conclude the marriage with the drysalter Princess, and that no money to finish the grotto and the chapel, or to carry on Court expenses, would be forthcoming.
It was a burning day of August, a Friday, thirteenth of that month, and after a long prevalence of enervating sirocco, when the old duke determined to make one last appeal to the obedience of his grandson. The sun, setting among ominous clouds, sent a lurid orange beam into Prince Alberic’s prison chamber, at the moment that his ducal grandfather, accompanied by the Jester, the Dwarf and the Jesuit, appeared on its threshold after prodigious clanking of keys and clattering of bolts. The unhappy youth rose as they entered, and making a profound bow, motioned his grandparent to the only chair in the place. Balthasar Maria had never visited him before in this, his worst place of confinement; and the bareness of the room, the dust and cobwebs, the excessive hardness of the chair, affected his sensitive heart, and, joined with irritation at his grandson’s obstinacy and utter depression about the marriage, the grotto, and the chapel, actually caused this magnanimous sovereign to burst into tears and bitter lamentations.
“It would indeed melt the heart of a stone,” remarked the Jester sternly, while his two companions attempted to soothe the weeping duke “to see one of the greatest, wisest, and most valorous princes in Europe reduced to tears by the undutifulness of his child.”
“Princes, nay, kings and emperors’ sons,” exclaimed the Dwarf, who was administering Melissa water to the duke, “have perished miserably for much less.”
“Some of the most remarkable personages of sacred history are stated to have incurred eternal perdition for far slighter offences,” added the Jesuit.
Alberic had sat down on the bed. The tawny sunshine fell upon his figure. He had grown very thin, and his garments were inexpressibly threadbare. But he was spotlessly neat, his lace band was perfectly folded, his beautiful blond hair flowed in exquisite curls about his pale face, and his whole aspect was serene and even cheerful. He might be twenty-two years old, and was of consummate beauty and stature.
“My lord,” he answered slowly, “I entreat your Serene Highness to believe that no one could regret more deeply than I do such a spectacle as is offered by the tears of a Duke of Luna. At the same time, I can only reiterate that I accept no responsibility…”
A distant growling of thunder caused the old duke to start, and interrupted Alberic’s speech.
“Your obstinacy, my lord,” exclaimed the Dwarf, who was an excessively choleric person, “betrays the existence of a hidden conspiracy most dangerous to the state.”
“It is an indication,” added the Jester, “of a highly deranged mind.”
“It seems to me,” whispered the Jesuit, “o savour most undoubtedly of devilry.”
Alberic shrugged his shoulders. He had risen from the bed to close the grated window, into which a shower of hail was suddenly blowing with unparalleled violence, when the old duke jumped on his seat, and, with eyeballs starting with terror, exclaimed, as he tottered convulsively, “The serpent! the serpent!”
For there, in a corner, the tame grass snake was placidly coiled up, sleeping.
“The snake! the devil! Prince Alberic’s pet companion!” exclaimed the three favourites, and rushed towards that corner.
Alberic threw himself forward. But he was too late. The Jester, with a blow of his harlequin’s lath, had crushed the head of the startled creature; and, even while he was struggling with him and the Jesuit, the Dwarf had given it two cuts with his Turkish scimitar.
“The snake! the snake!” shrieked
Duke Balthasar, heedless of the desperate struggle.
The warders and equerries, waiting outside, thought that Prince Alberic must be murdering his grandfather, and burst into prison and separated the combatants.
“Chain the rebel! the wizard! the madman!” cried the three favourites.
Alberic had thrown himself on the dead snake, which lay crushed and bleeding on the floor, and he moaned piteously.
But the Prince was unarmed and overpowered in a moment. Three times he broke loose, but three times he was recaptured, and finally bound and gagged, and dragged away. The old duke recovered from his fright, and was helped up from the bed on to which he had sunk. As he prepared to leave, he approached the dead snake, and looked at it for some time. He kicked its mangled head with his ribboned shoe, and turned away laughing.
“Who knows,” he said, “whether you were not the Snake Lady? That foolish boy made a great fuss, I remember, when he was scarcely out of long clothes, about a tattered old tapestry representing that repulsive story.”
And he departed to supper.
XIII
Prince Alberic of Luna, who should have been third of his name, died a fortnight later, it was stated, insane. But those who approached him maintained that he had been in perfect possession of his faculties; and that if he refused all nourishment during his second imprisonment, it was from set purpose. He was removed at night from his apartments facing the grotto with the verde antique monkeys and the Porphyry Rhinoceros, and hastily buried under a slab, which remained without any name or date, in the famous mosaic sepulchral chapel.
Duke Balthasar Maria survived him only a few months. The old duke had plunged into excesses of debauchery with a view, apparently, to dismissing certain terrible thoughts and images which seemed to haunt him day and night, and against which no religious practices or medical prescription were of any avail. The origin of these painful delusions was probably connected with a very strange rumour, which grew to a tradition at Luna, to the effect that when the prison room, occupied by Prince Alberic, was cleaned, after that terrible storm of the 13th August of the year 1700, the persons employed found in a corner, not the dead grass-snake, which they had been ordered to cast into the palace drains, but the body of a woman, naked, and miserably disfigured with blows and sabre cuts.
Be this as it may, history records as certain, that the house of Luna became extinct in 1701, the duchy lapsing to the Empire. Moreover, that the mosaic chapel remained forever unfinished, with no statue save the green bronze and gold one of Balthasar Maria above the nameless slab covering Prince Alberic; and that the rockery also was never completed; only a few marble animals adorning it besides the Porphyry Rhinoceros and the verde antique apes, and the water supply being sufficient only for the greatest holidays. These things the traveller can confirm; also, that certain chairs and curtains in the porter’s lodge of the now long deserted Red Palace are made of the various pieces of an extremely damaged arras, having represented the story of Alberic the Blond and the Snake Lady.
Madeline Yale Wynne (1847–1918) was an American metal worker and artisan and enthusiastically supported the arts and crafts movement. She founded both the Society of Deerfield Industries and Chicago Arts and Crafts Society. She often extolled the virtues of creative expression in articles and essays such as “Clay Paint and Other Wall Finishings” (1902), which was published in the magazine House Beautiful. In addition to writing, she had talent in metalworking, basket weaving, woodworking, and painting. “The Little Room,” which first appeared in Harper’s Magazine, was not her only creative publication, but it was Wynne’s only story of any acclaim.
The Little Room
Madeline Yale Wynne
“HOW WOULD IT DO for a smoking-room?”
“Just the very place! only, you know, Roger, you must not think of smoking in the house. I am almost afraid that having just a plain, common man around, let alone a smoking man, will upset Aunt Hannah. She is New England—Vermont New England—boiled down.”
“You leave Aunt Hannah to me; I’ll find her tender side. I’m going to ask her about the old sea-captain and the yellow calico.”
“Not yellow calico—blue chintz.”
“Well, yellow shell then.”
“No, no! don’t mix it up so; you won’t know yourself what to expect, and that’s half the fun.”
“Now you tell me again exactly what to expect; to tell the truth, I didn’t half hear about it the other day; I was woolgathering. It was something queer that happened when you were a child, wasn’t it?”
“Something that began to happen long before that, and kept happening, and may happen again; but I hope not.”
“What was it?”
“I wonder if the other people in the car can hear us?”
“I fancy not; we don’t hear them—not consecutively, at least.”
“Well, mother was born in Vermont, you know; she was the only child by a second marriage. Aunt Hannah and Aunt Maria are only half-aunts to me, you know.”
“I hope they are half as nice as you are.”
“Roger, be still; they certainly will hear us.”
“Well, don’t you want them to know we are married?”
“Yes, but not just married. There’s all the difference in the world.”
“You are afraid we look too happy!”
“No; only I want my happiness all to myself.”
“Well, the little room?”
“My aunts brought mother up; they were nearly twenty years older than she. I might say Hiram and they brought her up. You see, Hiram was bound out to my grandfather when he was a boy, and when grandfather died Hiram said he ‘s’posed he went with the farm, long o’ the critters,’ and he has been there ever since. He was my mother’s only refuge from the decorum of my aunts. They are simply workers. They make me think of the Maine woman who wanted her epitaph to be: ‘She was a hard working woman.’ ”
“They must be almost beyond their working-days. How old are they?”
“Seventy, or thereabouts; but they will die standing; or, at least, on a Saturday night, after all the house-work is done up. They were rather strict with mother, and I think she had a lonely childhood. The house is almost a mile away from any neighbors, and off on top of what they call Stony Hill. It is bleak enough up there, even in summer.
“When mamma was about ten years old they sent her to cousins in Brooklyn, who had children of their own, and knew more about bringing them up. She staid there till she was married; she didn’t go to Vermont in all that time, and of course hadn’t seen her sisters, for they never would leave home for a day. They couldn’t even be induced to go to Brooklyn to her wedding, so she and father took their wedding trip up there.”
“And that’s why we are going up there on our own?”
“Don’t, Roger; you have no idea how loud you speak.”
“You never say so except when I am going to say that one little word.”
“Well, don’t say it, then, or say it very, very quietly.”
“Well, what was the queer thing?”
“When they got to the house, mother wanted to take father right off into the little room; she had been telling him about it, just as I am going to tell you, and she had said that of all the rooms, that one was the only one that seemed pleasant to her. She described the furniture and the books and paper and everything, and said it was on the north side, between the front and back room. Well, when they went to look for it, there was no little room there; there was only a shallow china-closet. She asked her sisters when the house had been altered and a closet made of the room that used to be there. They both said the house was exactly as it had been built—that they had never made any changes, except to tear down the old wood-shed and build a smaller one.
“Father and mother laughed a good deal over it, and when anything was lost they would alway
s say it must be in the little room, and any exaggerated statement was called ‘little-roomy.’
“When I was a child I thought that was a regular English phrase, I heard it so often.
“Well, they talked it over, and finally they concluded that my mother had been a very imaginative sort of a child, and had read in some book about such a little room, or perhaps even dreamed it, and then had ‘made believe,’ as children do, till she herself had really thought the room was there.”
“Why, of course, that might easily happen.”
“Yes, but you haven’t heard the queer part yet; you wait and see if you can explain the rest as easily.
“They staid at the farm two weeks, and then went to New York to live. When I was eight years old my father was killed in the war, and mother was broken-hearted. She never was quite strong afterwards, and that summer we decided to go up to the farm for three months.
“I was a restless sort of a child, and the journey seemed very long to me; and finally, to pass the time, mamma told me the story of the little room, and how it was all in her own imagination, and how there really was only a china-closet there.
“She told it with all the particulars; and even to me, who knew beforehand that the room wasn’t there, it seemed just as real as could be. She said it was on the north side, between the front and back rooms; that it was very small, and they sometimes called it an entry. There was a door also that opened out-of-doors, and that one was painted green, and was cut in the middle like the old Dutch doors, so that it could be used for a window by opening the top part only. Directly opposite the door was a lounge or couch; it was covered with blue chintz—India chintz—some that had been brought over by an old Salem sea-captain as a ‘venture.’ He had given it to Hannah when she was a young girl. She was sent to Salem for two years to school. Grandfather originally came from Salem.”
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy Page 65