The Princess Dehra
Page 13
XIII IN THE JAPONICA WALK
The Regent signed the last document, and, pushing it across the table,laid aside the pen.
"How much better it would be if that were 'Armand, Rex,'" she said.
The Prime Minister was putting up his papers.
"And better, still, if it were 'Dehra, Regina,'" he returned, closing theportfolio and locking it.
She made a gesture of dissent.
"There would be no need for the Book, then," he continued; "and no dangerof Lotzen becoming king. It is God's blessing on Valeria that you wereyou, and could assume the government--otherwise, we would have had civilwar. Your Highness has no conception of the sentiment in the Army; it istwo to one for the Archduke; but Lotzen's third is unduly powerfulbecause of a coterie of high officers, who are jealous of the 'American,'as he is styled, and their readiness to precipitate a contest; andArmand's contingent is unduly weak, because they do not feel assured thathe would countenance war. In a word, the rogues and rascals are forLotzen--they recognize a kindred leader and the opportunity for highreward. But they would accept you for Queen with enthusiasm--even roguesand rascals love a pretty woman who can rule them with a heavy hand."
Dehra looked at her hand, slender, soft, small, and smiled.
Count Epping nodded. "Very pretty," he said, "very pretty, but it's aDalberg hand, you know--and they know, too."
"And as they shall experience," she remarked, eyelids narrowed just atrifle, "if they show a disposition to forget it.... And in theexperience they may learn that the Governor of Dornlitz also has aDalberg hand."
"There will be no civil war now," said the Count; "your regency has quiteobviated any such catastrophe; and if the Book be found, its decisionwill be accepted without protest by the Army, as well as by the people atlarge. What I fear is the contest in the House of Nobles--the marginthere will be very narrow, I apprehend; and that involves high feelingand fierce antagonism and smoldering family hate fanned into fire; andthen, if Lotzen lose, the new king may have a chance to show his hand."
"Armand the First will show it, never fear," she said, with the pride awoman always has for him she loves.
"I have no fear," he said; "if I had, I would not help to make himking--yet, if I may be permitted, Henry the Fifth would be a title farmore pleasing to the nation than Armand the First. He bears the GreatHenry's features, let him bear his name, as well."
She sprang up.
"He shall, he shall!" she exclaimed; "he will do it for me, I know."
The old Count's face softened in one of its rare smiles.
"He would be a poor sort of man, indeed, my lady, who would deny anythingto you," he said, and in his stately, old-fashioned way he bent andkissed her hand.
As he arose, the Princess suddenly slipped an arm around his neck, andfor the briefest moment her soft lips rested on his forehead.
The Prime Minister kept his face lowered; when he raised it, the tearsstill trembled in his eyes.
"Don't tell the Archduke," she laughed gayly, seeing how he was moved.
"No," said he, laughing with her now, "I'll not tell him--and lose allchance for another."
"I'll give you another now," she cried, and, springing on the chairbeside him, she kissed him on the cheek. "Now go--you've had more thanyour share--but you shall have a third the day Armand is king."
He took her hand, and gallantly helped her down.
"You give me another object in life," he said.--"I shall claim it if theKing permit."
"You may claim it, before him and all the Court," she answered.
After Count Epping had gone, the Princess turned to the table, andsitting on the corner, one foot on a chair, the other dangling, took upsome papers he had left with her for examination. In the midst of it theDuke of Lotzen was announced.
"I am engaged," she said curtly; "I cannot see him ... or stay, admithim."
After her question and his answer in the garden near the sun-dial, twodays before, she had decided she would receive him only upon occasions ofceremony, when, to exclude him, would have required a special order; butthis unexpected and, for him, amazingly early visit, piqued her curiositytoo sharply to resist.
But there was no cordiality in her look nor attitude, as he bowed beforeher in the intensely respectful manner he could assume so well. She madeno change in her position, nor offered him her hand, nor smiled; her eyesshowed only polite indifference as, for a space, she let him wait forleave to speak. When she gave it, her voice was as indifferent as hereyes.
"Well, Your Royal Highness," she said, "how can we serve you?"
Not a shade of her bearing had missed the Duke, and though his angerrose, yet his face bore only a placid smile of amused unconcern.
"I desire the Regent's permission," he said, "to absent myself from thecountry for an indefinite period."
"It is granted--a year, if you wish."
The Duke laughed softly, almost mockingly, indeed.
"I fear I may not stay quite so long," he answered, "much as it wouldplease me to oblige you. My presence will be necessary in a certainceremony in the Cathedral, that is fixed for a few weeks short of ayear."
The Regent's eyes narrowed. "In the crypt, you mean?--your absence will,at least, postpone the ceremony--had you remained, I imagine it wouldhave occurred much earlier."
Even Lotzen's calmness was disturbed by such a threat from a woman--and,momentarily, his color heightened and his eyes snapped in irritatedsurprise. Then he bowed.
"I am glad to have been shown the claws so early," he replied withsneering sarcasm; "I shall endeavor to keep beyond their reach. But Ishall do my best to furnish the crypt another tenant, though I will notpromise to put my Court in mourning for him."
The Princess shrugged her shapely shoulders.
"It is quite unnecessary to tell us what your barbaric nature told uslong ago," she replied. "When do you wish to depart?"
"Within the week."
"And for where?"
"For France--Paris in particular."
"Very well--prefer your request through the regular channel, as any otherofficer, and I will grant it;" and with a perfunctory nod, she resumedher reading.
"I am permitted to withdraw?" he asked.
"You are always permitted to withdraw," she answered, without looking up.
"I like your spirit, Dehra," he laughed; "you and I would make anunconquerable pair; it is a pity you won't be my queen."
She pointed toward the door.
"Go, sir," she ordered, her voice repressed to unusual softness; "go! norpresent yourself again until you have received permission."
And with a smile and a bow, he went; backing slowly from the room, in anaggravation of respect.
He had not come to the Palace for leave to go to France, or any whereelse; where he wanted to go, and when, he went. But his plans requiredthat he be absolutely free and untrammeled, and so he had done this toinsure himself against being ordered suddenly to some military duty thatmight hamper his movements even slightly. And his visit had been doublysuccessful--he had the permission, and in such a form that he was giventhe utmost liberty, and he had also learned the Regent's real attitudetoward him, and that even with her it would be a fight without quarter.What the American would make it, the dead bodies in the De Saure househad indicated as plainly as spoken words--and, indeed, as such he knewthey had been deliberately intended.
As he passed one of the windows in the corridor, he caught, far off amidthe trees, the sheen of a white gown; he paused, and presently herecognized Mlle. d'Essolde. With a smile of sudden purpose, he wentquickly down a private stairway that opened on the Park below the marbleterrace, and, eyes on the white gown, that showed at intervals throughthe bushes, he sauntered toward it.
There was, to be sure, a woman with raven hair and dead-white cheek atthe Ferida, but there was also a woman yonder, and handier, with goldenhair and shell-pink cheek; and variety was much to his taste, attimes-
-and the picture on the stair still lingered with him, fresh andalluring. True, she had not received his advances with that flatteredacquiescence he was rather used to, but he had no particular objection totemporary opposition; it gave zest to the victory--and, with him, victoryhad been rarely lost.
He encountered her in a narrow path, walled in by thick hedges of scarletjaponica, turning the corner suddenly and greeting her with a smile ofwell assumed surprise; stopping quite a little way off and bowing, hiscap across his heart.
And she stopped, also; touched by fear and repugnance, as though a snakelay in her path.
"A happy meeting, mademoiselle," he said.
"For whom, sir?" she asked, turning half away.
"For me," he laughed, going toward her; "and for you, too, I hope."
She put her back to the hedge and made no answer.
"I owe you a very abject apology, for the other day," he said, standingclose beside her, and leaning on his sword. "I fear I was brutally rude."
"There isn't the least doubt of it," she replied, and made to pass on.
He stepped before her.
"And are so still," she added.
"Come, Elise," he smiled, still blocking the way, "come; forgive me."
"Very well, I forgive you," she said, indifferently, and tried again topass.
"Nonsense, my dear," catching her wrist, "put a bit of warmth intoit--and then prove it by a little stroll with me toward the lake."
She recoiled at his touch, much as though the snake had stung her, andtried to wrench free, tearing her thin gown and scarring her flesh on thesharp thorns of the japonica, but making no outcry.
And this encouraged Lotzen; she was playing it very prettily indeed--toyield presently, the weary captive of superior strength. That a womanmight be honest in her resistance, he was always slow to credit; but thatone should actually be honest, and yet struggle silently rather thanpermit others to see her with him, was quite beyond his understanding.
He glanced up and down the path; no one was in sight, and the hedge washigh--he would make the play a little faster. Hitherto, he had beencontent to hold her with a sure grip, and let her fling about in futilestrivings; now he laughed, and drew her slowly toward him, his eyes fixedsignificantly upon her flushed face and its moist red lips, parted withthe breath-throbs.
"Where shall I kiss you first, little one?" he asked--"on the mouth, or acheck, or the gleaming hair?"--He held her back an instant in survey...."Coy?--too coy to answer--come, then, let it be the lips now, and theothers later, by the lake."
She had ceased to struggle, and her blue eyes were watching the Duke infascinated steadiness. To him, it signified victory and a willingmaid--he took a last glance at the path--then with a cry and a curse hedropped her wrist and sprang back, wringing his hand, the blood gushingfrom a ragged wound across its back, where Elise d'Essolde's teeth hadsunk into the flesh.
And she, with high-held skirts, was flying toward the Palace.
He sprang in pursuit--and stopped; she would pass the hedge before hecould overtake her; and the open Park was no place for love making of theviolent sort--nor with a wound that spurted red. The business would haveto bide, for the present.... Over toward the terrace he saw the flutterof a white gown.
"Damn the little cat!" he muttered; "she shall pay me well for this."
Elise d'Essolde, spent with running, her brain in a whirl, her hairdishevelled, weak-kneed and trembling now with the reaction, reached themarble steps near the pergola and sank on the lowest, just as ColonelMoore came springing down them, his eyes toward the japonica walk,searching for the girl in a white gown whom he was to have met there halfan hour ago.
And he would have passed, unseeing, had she not spoken.
"Ralph!" she said, "Ralph!"
He swung around.
"Elise!" he exclaimed, "I'm sorry to be so late--I was--heaven, child,what has happened?"
The sight of him, and the sound of his voice, had calmed her instantlyand put her pulse to normal beating; and now that she was with him, safeand unscathed, the coquette in her could not resist the temptation totorment him.
"Another kept the rendezvous," she answered, with affected naivete.
He pointed to the torn gown.
"And that?" he asked.
"I did it."
"And the hair?"
"The penalty of an ill-arranged coiffure."
"And the red mark on your face--blood, it looks like."
"Blood!" she cried; "blood? where--where?"
"On your lips--around the mouth--"
The coquette vanished--the horror of it all flashed back uponher:--Lotzen's sybaritic leer--his easy confidence of assuredsuccess--the touch of his loathsome hand to her face--the sickeningsensation as her teeth cut through his flesh and scraped the bonesbeneath--with a cry of disgust she sprang up, swayed unsteadily, andwould have fallen had not Moore caught her.
"Water!" she implored, "water!" rubbing her lips frantically with herhandkerchief--"water, oh, water!"
Amazed--mystified--alarmed, he stood an instant irresolute--then swingingher up, he bore her to where, near the sun-dial, a fountain played andsplashed among the giant ferns. As they reached there, the nervous tumultsubsided as quickly as it came, and she slipped swiftly out of his arms,and knelt beside the fountain, the spray powdering her hair with rainbowdust. And when she had bathed her face free of the blood-stain--thoughshe could not wash away the red of her own embarrassment--she ventured tolook at him.
He met her with a smile, that showed only sharp concern and tenderestsympathy.
"My child," he said, taking her hand, in the most gentle deference, andholding it in both of his, "tell me what has unstrung you socompletely--you who are always merry and serene."
She gently freed her hand, and, gathering up the trailing ends of herskirt, turned toward the Palace.
"If I tell you," she said, "promise me that you won't make a scene nortry to punish him."
"Him!" he exclaimed, stopping short, "him! God in Heaven, was it thatdevil, Lotzen?"--he seized her arm--"where is he--where is he?"
She smiled at him very sweetly, loving the anger that blazed his face.
"I'll tell you nothing," she answered, "so long as you are in thathumor--your promise first."
"No--no--I promised and forbore the other day; but now, withthat"--sweeping his hand at gown and hair--"I'll forbear no longer."
She moved on.
"Come, Elise, who was it?"
She gave him another smile, but shook her head.
"Was it Lotzen--tell me, was it?"
Again the smile, and the motion of refusal.
"Very well, if you won't, I'll find out for myself."
"You cannot--the man won't tell--and no one saw it."
He laughed with quiet menace.
"I'll find him," he said; "I'll find him."
Quick fear seized her. He would succeed, she knew; and then, what wouldhe do! Something, doubtless, to try to force the Duke to fight; and whichwould result only in his own disgrace and in being driven from thecountry. He must not suffer for her misfortune--and Dornlitz, without herdear Irishman, would be impossible; and she was not yet quite ready to gowith him. She had told him something--as much as she might with properreserve--of Lotzen's behavior that other morning; and it had beendifficult enough to restrain him then. Now, with the dishevelled hair,and torn gown, and blood on her face, only his own word would hold him.
"Promise me, Ralph, promise me," she implored; "there is no reason forpunishment--see," holding out her hand, "here is the only place hetouched me--only on the wrist--I swear it, Ralph--"
He took the hand, and looked at the soft, blue-veined flesh, chafed andabraded with the pinch of iron fingers; and again the rage of hate swepthim, and he put the hand down sharply and turned away his head, unwillingthat she should see his face while passion marked it.
She touched his arm, almost timidly.
"Promise me, dear," she said--"please promise me."
"I promise," he said; "I ought not to; but because you wish it, Ipromise--now will you tell me?"
She looked up at him gratefully--and such women as Elise d'Essolde cansay much with their eyes. They had mounted the steps and were on theterrace; she pointed into the Park.
"It was in the japonica walk," she said; "I was waiting for you, whenLotzen came upon me, seemingly by accident----"
"There are no accidents with Lotzen," Moore broke in.
"It may be, but he chose to treat it so;--I tried to pass--he stopped meand begged forgiveness for his brutal rudeness of the other day; Iforgave him indifferently, hoping to escape quickly, and tried again topass. He caught my wrist, and demanded a kiss, and that I walk with himto the lake. I was close against the hedge, and it was in my struggles toget free from him that the sharp thorns tore my gown. He let me thrashout my strength, holding me all the time by this wrist; presently, whenhe was about to kiss me by main force, I bit him in the hand, andescaped, running at top speed, and in fright and exhaustion collapsingwhere you found me.... That was all, Ralph," she ended.
Moore's intense repression found some relief in a long breath.
"All!" he said, rather huskily; "all! ... well, all I ask is, some day,to have him against me, sword in hand."
"Your promise!" she exclaimed.
He smiled down at her. "The promise holds, child, as you well know; butthis affair of the Book may work an opportunity."
"If it does, take it," said she instantly.
"Trust me, my lady," he answered, as he left her at the small door usedonly by the Princess and her privileged intimates.
"Your lady?" she echoed across the sill--her natural witchery increasedfour-fold, in his eyes, by the tumbled hair--"your lady--perhaps."
In the hallway, just at her own room, she met the Princess, who,woman-like, marked at a glance every detail of her disordered attire.
"Good heaven, Elise," she exclaimed, "what has that Adjutant of mine beendoing to you?"
"Practicing sword tricks on my skirt," said she, holding it up to showthe rents, "and learning to be un coiffeur."
"He seems to be as uncommonly proficient in the one as he is deficient inthe other,"--then looked at her questioningly; "but seriously, Elise,what happened?--if you care to tell me."
"The Duke of Lotzen found me alone in the japonica walk."
The Princess struck her hands together angrily.
"Lotzen! oh, Lotzen!" she exclaimed; "some day--did Moore come on himthere? If he did, the some-day is already here."
"Fortunately, no, since I escaped unharmed."
"Unfortunately, you mean--it saved to the world another scoundrel."
"And Ralph would be a fugitive in disgrace," said Mlle. d'Essolde.
"With the Lion and a Brigadier's commission as a punishment," the Regentanswered.
"He wanted to go back, and it was I that kept him."
"It's a misfortune--more than a misfortune; it's almost a calamity--mydear Elise, if ever again your Colonel get so proper an excuse to killthat devil, pray don't intervene."
"I'm sorry--very sorry, I'm almost criminally stupid."
"Nonsense, dear," said the Princess; "there will be otherchances--meanwhile, what happened?... Bit him! Oh, delightful,delightful!"
The other gave a shiver of repugnance.
"Disgusting, I should call it, now--I did it in the frenzy to be free. Ishall never forget the horrible thing."
"Nor will he--you've marked him for life--the pity is it wasn't hisface.--Go on; what happened then?"...
"The nasty brute," said Dehra, when she had heard the last detail--"andsave for the punishment you yourself administered, he, for the time, mustgo scatheless; you cannot permit such a story to go through the Court andthe Clubs; and you may be quite sure he won't tell it." She struck herhands together vehemently. "Lotzen! oh Lotzen!--Some day, Elise, yourlover or mine is going to be granted the blessed privilege of putting asword through his vile heart." She sprang up. "Come, dear, you needdiversion--we will ride; and if I can get the Archduke, we'll take yourColonel, too." She went to the telephone.... "Is that you, Armand?"--whenthe recall bell rang.... "This is Dehra--Elise and I are off for a ride;if you can go with us, I'll have Moore go, too.... Bother your importantappointment; break it.... You can't?... We can be back by fouro'clock.... Have matters to see to; will they occupy all theafternoon?... They will?... And you need Moore, also?--all right, takehim--what is your appointment?... Can't tell me over telephone?... Tellme to-night--well, I suppose I can wait--come for dinner.... Yes,stupid.... Good-bye, dear."
She hung up the receiver. "You heard, Elise; neither of them can go. Ishould hate to be a man and always busy. Come, we will go ourselves, andmake an afternoon of it--and stop at the Twisted Pines for tea."