CHAPTER VIII
PAUL AND THE PRINCESS
After a brief interval of repose Paul awoke, and had scarcely donnedhis uniform when a court chamberlain, carrying a silver gilt staff,presented himself with a message to the effect that, "The Princess ofCzernova, having learned that the illustrious defender of Tajapore isat the present time within her palace, desires to hold a privateinterview with him in the White Saloon."
The chamberlain went on to say that though court dress or militaryuniform was _de rigueur_ in such interviews, he had been expresslycommanded to state that on the present occasion the princess wouldwaive all ceremony.
Having no other attire with him, Paul had of necessity to go to thismomentous meeting in his uniform, and accordingly he set off at oncewith the chamberlain, who on the way ventured to remind him of theetiquette to be observed during the approaching interview: he muststand unless requested to sit; make no observation of his own, butsimply reply to the questions addressed him; he must not withdraw tillthe princess should give the signal, and in withdrawing he must keephis face turned towards her.
All this, and much more, from Silver Staff touched Paul with a senseof humor, when he recalled the sweet and unrestrained intercourse atCastel Nuovo.
On entering the White Saloon Paul perceived Barbara seated at atable, and pencil in hand, ostensibly occupied in annotatingstate-papers. She wore a dainty dress of white tulle sparkling withsilver embroidery over ivory satin.
She was evidently in a state of nervousness. The pencil trembledwithin her fingers. She did not glance at Paul, but kept her eyes uponthe papers before her.
Now that the chamberlain had withdrawn, she was expecting Paul to comeforward with the greeting, "Barbara!" Nay, if the truth must be told,she was longing to be folded in his arms, and to hear again thepassionate language which he had addressed to her on that memorableday of their parting.
But to her disappointment Paul seemed as formal as a courtier. Withhis plumed helmet doffed he stood at the distance prescribed by courtetiquette waiting for her to speak.
Quick to interpret his secret thought, she saw that he recognized theexistence of a wide gulf between them, a gulf that could be crossedonly from her side; if there was to be a renewal of love it was forher to take the initiative.
This attitude on his part, though studiously correct, embarrassed herexceedingly.
"I little thought," she began in a low and faltering voice, "whenreading of the brave deeds of one Captain Woodville, that the doer ofthem was known to me. Captain Cressingham," she continued, revertingto the more familiar name, "for two years I have been under the beliefthat you perished in that Dalmatian earthquake."
"Your Highness, I have been under a similar belief regardingyourself."
"Knowing, as you do," she continued, aimlessly tracing lines on thepaper before her, "that I cannot be the real Princess Natalie, you areperhaps of opinion that I have no right to the throne of Czernova?"
"Princess--no! I will believe anything rather than that you are anusurper or an impostor."
The energy with which he spoke attested the sincerity of his belief.
Now for the first time since his entrance the princess raised hereyes, and their flash of gratitude thrilled Paul.
"Your faith in me is not misplaced, for I am truly the lawful Princessof Czernova, though a strange necessity has compelled me to assume thename of my sister Natalie. You shall have the story anon, CaptainCressingham," she continued, in a curiously labored voice, as if thechoice of words were a difficulty, "we were parted in a very strangeway. You will perhaps have guessed that I was carried off by theorders of Cardinal Ravenna, who acted, however, under the authority ofmy father, Prince Thaddeus.
"They justified the secret abduction on the ground that in my newsphere it would be wise, nay absolutely necessary, to break entirelywith the past. But for my own part," added the princess softly, andwith the color mantling her cheek, "I do not see the necessity forignoring all former ties."
"Your Highness has not forgotten the days spent at Castel Nuovo?"
"No, nor that day in Isola Sacra. Captain Cressingham, I am aLilieska, and the herald will tell you that the motto of the House ofLilieski is '_Keep to troth_.'"
Paul caught his breath at these words, the significance of which wasnot to be mistaken.
That the lovely convent maiden should care for such an unworthy fellowas himself had been a marvel to him two years previously; but thatnow, when a princess, and capable of forming a brilliant alliance withking or noble, she should still adhere to him, was more marvellousstill.
Barbara, no longer able to endure this state of tension, rose to herfeet, and with unsteady step moved towards Paul.
"When the suitor is of inferior rank," she said with a strange catchin her voice, "court etiquette permits a princess to make the firstadvance in love. Thus, then, do I avail myself of the privilege.Paul," she continued, taking his hands in her own, and striving tolook into his averted face, "have you forgotten your words to me onthat sunny day in the old Greek temple? Day and night for two years Ihave never ceased to think of them. Yes, though you may reproach mewith the name of Bora, your image has never been absent from my mind.Does my new rank embarrass you? To you I am the same Barbara now as Iwas then. I long to lay aside my state; to wander again through thepine-woods of Dalmatia; to handle an oar on the blue Adriatic as onthat day when we were so cruelly parted. Ah, heaven! how cold, howsilent you are! Why do you turn away your eyes? Paul, look at me," sheentreated wistfully.
Paul, knowing full well that her attachment to him was certain tocreate confusion in Czernovese politics, had come fully prepared tosacrifice his own happiness to her interests. But this appeal on herpart overcame him. He could not resist the temptation presented by thebeautiful face so close to his own. Moved by a sudden impulse, heclasped her passionately in his arms.
"Oh! this cannot be," he murmured a moment afterwards. "It ismadness."
"Then let me be mad," she said with a low sweet laugh as she clung tohim.
"You are a princess, and I am merely a military officer."
"And where would the princess now be but for the officer who found herwandering in the wild-wood?"
"Princess--Barbara--I love you--"
"I have been waiting for those words, Paul."
"I love you--how deeply no words of mine can tell; but when I think ofthe difference in our rank--"
"But you must not think of it, Paul," she interrupted, still withinthe circle of his arms, and placing her finger with a witching air onhis lip.
"It must be that we part. The law of Czernova forbids our union."
"The Diet shall repeal that law."
"Your ministers, your nobility, your people will never tolerate anuntitled Englishman."
"I am ruler in Czernova," she answered proudly. "No one shall dictateto me as to my choice of a consort."
"The Duke of Bora--what of him?" said Paul, with difficultypronouncing the name that had become doubly hateful to him.
Barbara's eyes drooped. She hid her face on his breast.
"Forgive me, Paul. Do not reproach me with his name. Remember that Ithought you dead. I have never forgotten you, nor ceased to love yourmemory. It was political necessity that drove me to the arms of Bora.On my coming here from Dalmatia in the character of Princess Natalie,I was compelled by the _role_ I had assumed to receive the addressesof the duke, addresses which I at heart loathed. It had been myintention to break with him ultimately; but of late, since I have beenthreatened with deposition by Cardinal Ravenna,--yes, deposition," sherepeated with flashing eyes,--"I have weakly thought of marrying theduke; for inasmuch as he is the heir-apparent I should thus ensure myrank, if not my power, as princess. But that idea is gone now; I castit from me forever."
"But why? Is not the necessity for conciliating the duke as greatto-day as yesterday?"
"No; for if I should have lost my crown I should have lost the onething I held most dear; if I lose it now--"
"Yes, if you should lose it now--?"
"Have I not you?" she answered with a soft pressure of her arms. Paulwould have deserved instant knouting if he had not kissed the princessfor that saying. Then, becoming grave again he said,--
"You say the cardinal threatens you with deposition? Why thishostility on his part?"
"Because I will not dance to his piping."
"And by adhering to me you will increase his hostility, since with himI shall not be a _persona gratissima_."
"He cannot ruin me without ruining himself, and ambition will causehim to pause ere doing that."
"But," said the puzzled Paul, "since you are the daughter of PrinceThaddeus, how is it possible for him to dethrone you, and why is itnecessary that you should personate the Princess Natalie?"
All this time Barbara had been standing clasped within Paul's arms;but now, taking him by the hand, she led him to a seat, and sat downbeside him.
"The story of my life, as far as it was known to me, I told you atIsola Sacra. Let me now supplement it with details which I have sincelearned."
The following is a brief outline of Barbara's narration.
The late Prince Thaddeus had in youth contracted a marriage with ayoung English lady named Hilda Tressilian, who lived in theneighborhood of Warsaw. Thaddeus, aware that his father would beaverse to this match, kept it a secret, visiting his wife atintervals. During his absence in Czernova Hilda died suddenly, and wasburied ere the prince had time to gaze upon her lifeless form.
On reaching the scene of her death, Thaddeus learned that there hadbeen a daughter still-born, the truth being that the infant was inreality alive, Hilda's servants having been bribed to relate thisfalsehood by Pasqual Ravenna, at that time a youthful priest ofambitious views. His object was to train the child in the Catholicfaith,--Thaddeus was a Greek,--and ultimately to restore her to herrightful dignity as Princess of Czernova; the interests of the LatinChurch would be thereby advanced. And for eighteen years Ravenna,while rising from one ecclesiastical dignity to another, never lostsight of this scheme; and, when he deemed the time ripe, secretlyapprised Thaddeus of the existence of Barbara.
That prince, pressed by political necessity, had made a secondmarriage, the issue of which was an only child, Natalie, born eighteenmonths after Barbara.
This Natalie, to whom Thaddeus had become passionately attached, wasnow threatened with exclusion from the throne by the existence of herelder half-sister. Thaddeus, suspecting a plot on the part of thecardinal, refused to acknowledge his resuscitated daughter; and for atime the matter remained in abeyance.
Some months later the Princess Natalie, being in a somewhat delicatestate of health, was advised by the court physician to take a tour inthe countries around the Adriatic; and Thaddeus, prompted either byfear or by some other motive, permitted Cardinal Ravenna to takecharge of the princess. Among other places Dalmatia was visited, andhere, while at Castel Nuovo, Natalie died.
"In what way?" asked Paul.
"She committed suicide," replied Barbara, in a whisper of awe.
"You have proof of this?"
"I have my father's word. He had come to Dalmatia purposely to seeNatalie, and was in the neighborhood of Castel Nuovo at the time ofthe tragedy. He was at once sent for. Oh! no, there was nothingsuspicious in her death," continued Barbara, observant of themisgiving expressed on Paul's face. "Do you think that my father, wholoved Natalie so dearly, would have connived at a crime?"
Paul considered it not at all unlikely that Thaddeus had been deceivedby the cardinal. He refrained, however, from expressing his doubts.
"In what way did she commit suicide?"
"She stabbed herself before any one could prevent her. My father hadthe story from Lambro and Jacintha, who, as well as the cardinal, wereeye-witnesses of the deed."
Paul was of opinion that the cardinal who had bribed servants to utterthe falsehood of Barbara's death would certainly employ the likeexpedient where his own guilt was concerned.
The more Paul recalled Jacintha's air of terror and her admission asto the mysterious oath taken on the Holy Sacrament, the more he becameconvinced that Natalie Lilieska had met her death by foul play. Butdead princesses tell no tales; and the disappearance of the twowitnesses of the deed, Lambro and Jacintha, in the submergence ofCastel Nuovo, made it extremely improbable that the charge would everbe brought home to the cardinal.
It was agreed, Barbara continued, that the scandal of PrincessNatalie's suicide must be kept secret. Her body, sealed in a leadencoffin, was concealed beneath the flooring of the cardinal's study atCastel Nuovo, to be removed at a convenient opportunity to theprincely vault at Slavowitz. That opportunity never came, and thewaves of the Adriatic now flowed over the body of the PrincessNatalie.
It was clear that unless Thaddeus consented to recognize theconvent-maiden as his daughter, the crown of Czernova would devolveupon one whom he personally disliked, namely, upon Bora, thoughNatalie herself had accepted the duke's addresses with pleasure.
Accordingly, Thaddeus, accompanied by the cardinal, set off for theconvent of the Holy Sacrament, to see the daughter whom he had neveryet seen. On his arrival, however, he learned with dismay thatBarbara had fled the day previously.
Many weeks were spent by the prince and the cardinal in searching forher in the neighboring province and Bosnia. They had been led intothis region by a story to the effect that she had been seen journeyingin a caravan of gypsies.
Disappointed in their quest, Thaddeus and Ravenna returned to CastelNuovo, arriving there by a singular chance on the very day that Pauland Barbara had chosen for their excursion to Isola Sacra. Theyinstantly resolved to send over a band of men for the purpose ofcarrying off Barbara, and of leaving behind on the island thedangerous young Englishman who was unknowingly wooing a princess.
Their plan succeeded.
Fortunately, Barbara and her abductors did not pass that night atCastel Nuovo. In the mist the boat was carried by the current somemiles lower down the coast; and captors and captive lodged at an innwhich remained unaffected by the earthquake that had devastated therest of Dalmatia.
Barbara's passion of grief and indignation at being torn from Paul wasso violent, that the prince and the cardinal had no other course thanto promise that she should have her own way as regarded the youngEnglishman. But next morning, to the despair of Barbara, the relief ofThaddeus, and the secret joy of Ravenna, it was seen that Isola Sacrahad disappeared beneath the waves. It was naturally concluded thatPaul had gone down with it.
Grief-stricken at this ending of her love-dream, Barbara was moredisposed to return to the convent and assume the veil of a nun than toaccept the prospective crown of Czernova; but finally she waspersuaded to this latter course by Thaddeus, who, convinced now thatBarbara was indeed his daughter, displayed all a father's tenderness.
There would be a difficulty, however, in persuading the Czernovesepeople to accept as the daughter of their prince a maiden of whom theyhad never before heard.
Now it so happened that the church in which Thaddeus's marriage withHilda Tressilian had taken place had been subsequently destroyed byfire, and with it the documentary evidence tending to prove Barbara'sidentity and legitimacy.
Thaddeus was thus unable to establish her relationship to himself. TheDiet might be pardoned for refusing to take his bare word as proof.Bora, too, would loudly declare that Barbara was a supposititiouschild brought forward to deprive him of the throne.
In view, therefore, of her marvellous resemblance to Natalie, it wasdecided by the prince and the cardinal that Barbara should lose herown identity and should personate the late princess.
This Barbara had done, and with such art and tact that not even Borasuspected the pardonable, if not altogether innocent manoeuvre bywhich she had contrived to secure her rights.
"With the exception of yourself," said Barbara in conclusion, "thecardinal is the sole depositary of my secret, for not even to Zabern
,my confidant in most things, have I revealed it. Now you understandthe power which the cardinal professes to wield over me, and why heinsolently presumes to menace me with deposition. But he shall notsucceed. Zabern is my hope. Zabern, crafty and subtle, will find a wayof defeating the cardinal's machinations; and then," she murmured,"and then--he shall regret his threat to dethrone the Princess ofCzernova."
Barbara, menaced on the one side by the cardinal and on the other bythe Czar, had not a very firm hold on her throne, at least in Paul'sjudgment; and now by her attachment to himself she was still furtherimperilling her position. But he ceased to argue the matter. Any manwith those lovely arms around him might be pardoned for shutting hiseyes to the future.
"And so your mother was an Englishwoman?" he remarked, seeing in thatfact a possible explanation of Barbara's pro-Anglian tastes.
"Yes, I am half English," she replied, "and I am glad for your sakethat I am such. You have not told any one of our prior meeting inDalmatia?"
"I have kept it a secret."
"Let it remain such. And our love, too, must be kept secret,--atleast, for a time," she added with a sigh, for she loved open dealing,and the hiding of her real faith, together with the assumption of hersister's name, had never ceased to be a source of pain.
"How happily we sit here," murmured Barbara, "giving no thought to himwho is lying dead! You were with Trevisa at the time of his murder;tell me how it happened."
Paul gave an account of Trevisa's death, in itself a sad event, andone rendered still more painful to Barbara by the thought that it hadoccurred so shortly after his dismissal from his secretaryship. Thesorrowful look with which he had received her decision would neverfade from her mind. She felt his loss keenly, inasmuch as he had beenher friend as well as her amanuensis, and for a long time she sattalking of Trevisa, of his loyalty and his good services.
"I shall require a new secretary," she said. "You, Paul, must fillTrevisa's place. Nay, forgive me for being thus imperious. I speak asif I had the right to your obedience. My commands are for myministers, not for you."
"'See how well it becomes you,' she said, drawing him gently towards a mirror."]
She slid playfully upon her knees before him, and put her handstogether with a demure air.
"May I have you for my secretary?"
Paul, though sometimes given to day-dreams, had certainly neveranticipated the time when a fair princess would be kneeling at hisfeet. He attempted to raise her.
"I will not rise till you grant my request."
No post could be more acceptable to Paul than this secretaryship,since he would thus live in daily companionship with Barbara; and,moreover, the handling of her correspondence would initiate him intothe secrets of that fascinating subject, European diplomacy.
"Are you won over yet?" she asked.
"Who may gainsay a princess?" said Paul. "But are you certain that myappointment will not give offence?"
"I reign over a divided realm. If I appoint a Pole I shall have theMuscovites against me; if I appoint a Muscovite I shall have the Polesagainst me. Therefore I will choose my secretary from neither party."
"In order to unite both against you," smiled Paul. "But I fear,Barbara, that I am ill-qualified for the post."
"So much the better, Paul, for it will be charming to be yourinstructress," she replied, delighted that he had accepted theappointment. "What will your sovereign say at losing a brave soldier?"
"The princess is now my sovereign."
"Nay, not your sovereign, Paul, but your equal."
She rose and walked to a buhl table on which rested a golden diadem,and returning with it, she placed it playfully upon his head.
"See how well it becomes you," she said, drawing him gently towards amirror. "There! every inch a prince."
Paul smiled oddly at his reflection in the glass. He to wear the crownof Czernova! The idea seemed too fantastic to be entertained. For thelast four and twenty hours he seemed to have been playing a _role_ insome romantic opera rather than to have been living in the world ofreality.
He put the diadem aside.
"It is not a crown I want, Barbara, but your own sweet self."
"And you have me, Paul," she said, kissing him affectionately."Nothing but death shall part us. And now," she continued, quittinghis arms with reluctance, "we must put on our masks and play ourparts, for I am about to summon the chamberlain."
On the appearance of Silver Staff, Barbara said,--
"Call the marshal to our presence."
Zabern was soon found. On entering he glanced keenly at Paul's face asif expecting to gain from it some idea of the character of his longinterview with the princess; but Paul, when he chose, could be asinscrutable as Zabern himself, and his face revealed nothing.
"What news of Russakoff?" asked the princess.
"Your Highness, I regret to say that the spy is still at large."
"The ruffians of Russograd, who slew Trevisa because he was anEnglishman and loyal to me, shall find that they have gained little bytheir deed, for I herewith replace him by an Englishman equally asloyal. Marshal, my new secretary."
Zabern bowed and answered like a courtier.
"No appointment could give the cabinet and the Diet greater pleasure,"he replied, knowing that he was committing himself to a doubtfulstatement.
"It is a matter in which the cabinet and the Diet have no concern,"replied Barbara with a touch of hauteur in her voice.
"Your Highness, Miroslav is without, charged with a question from theDuke of Bora."
"What says that law-breaker?"
"His grace is desirous of learning from the princess how long hisdetention is to last."
"Till the mark on my secretary's cheek shall have disappeared. If hisgrace be dissatisfied with our justice, it is open to him to appeal tothe law-courts of Czernova, whose sentence he will find considerablyless lenient than our own."
"Your Highness, I shall have extreme pleasure in conveying thatmessage to the duke."
The Shadow of the Czar Page 13