The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories

by George Barr McCutcheon

  So it was that the Princess of Graustark, erstwhile Miss Guggenslocker, was being dragged through the most unhappy affairs that ever beset a sovereign. Within a month she was to sign away two-thirds of her domain, transforming multitudes of her beloved and loving people into subjects of the hated Axphain, or to sell herself, body and soul, to a loathsome bidder in the guise of a suitor. And, with all this confronting her, she had come to the realization of a truth so sad and distracting; that it was breaking her tortured heart. She was in love—but with no royal prince! Of this, however, the Countess knew nothing, so Lorry had one great secret to cherish alone.

  “Has she chosen the course she will pursue?” asked Lorry, as the Countess concluded her story. Isis face was turned away.

  “She cannot decide. We have wept together over this dreadful, this horrible thing. You do not know what it means to all of us, Mr. Lorry. We love her, and there is not one in our land who would sacrifice her to save this territory. As for Gabriel, Graustark would kill her before she should go to him. Still she cannot let herself sacrifice those northern subjects when by a single act she can save them. You see, the Princess has not forgotten that her father brought this war upon the people, and she feels it her duty to pay the penalty of his error, whatever the cost.”

  “Is there no other to whom she can turn no other course?” asked Lorry.

  “There is none who would assist us, bankrupt as we are. There is a question I want to ask, Mr. Lorry. Please look at me—do not stare at the fountain all the time. Why have you come to Edelweiss?” She asked the question so boldly that his startled embarrassment was an unspoken confession. He calmed himself and hesitated long before answering, weighing his reply. She sat close beside him, her clear gray eyes reading him like a book.

  “I came to see a Miss Guggenslocker,” he answered at last.

  “For what purpose? There must have been an urgent cause to bring you so far. You are not an American banker?”

  “I had intended to ask her to be my wife,” he said, knowing that secrecy was useless and seeing a faint hope.

  “You did not find Miss Guggenslocker.”

  “No. I have not found her.”

  “And are you going home disappointed, Mr. Lorry, because she is not here?”

  “I leave the answer to your tender imagination.”

  There was a long pause.

  “May I ask when you expect to leave Graustark?” she asked, somewhat timidly.

  “Why do you wish to know?” he asked in turn.

  “Because I know how hopeless your quest has been. You have found Miss Guggenslocker, but she is held behind a wall so strong and impregnable that you cannot reach her with the question you came to ask. You have come to that wall, and now you must turn back. I have asked, how soon?”

  “Not until your Princess bids me take up my load and go. You see, my lady, I love to sit beneath the shadow of the wall you describe. It will require a royal edict to compel me to abandon my position.”

  “You cannot expect the Princess to drive you from her country,—you who have done so much for her. You must go, Mr. Lorry, without her bidding.”

  “I must?”

  “Yes, for your presence outside that wall may make the imprisonment all the more unendurable for the one your love cannot reach. Do you understand me?”

  “Has the one behind the wall instructed you to say this to me?” he asked miserably.

  “She has not. I do not know her heart, but I am a woman and have a woman’s foresight. If you wish to be kind and good to her, go!”

  “I cannot!” he exclaimed, his pent feelings bursting forth. “I cannot go!”

  “You will not be so selfish and so cruel as to increase the horror of the wreck that is sure to come,” she said, drawing back.

  “You know, Countess, of the life-saving crews who draw from the wrecks of ships lives that were hopelessly lost? There is to be a wreck here; is there to be a life-saver? When the night is darkest, the sea wildest, when hope is gone, is not that the time when rescue is most precious? Tell me, you who know all there is of this approaching disaster?”

  “I cannot command you to leave Edelweiss; I can only tell you that you will have something to answer for if you stay,” said the Countess.

  “Will you help me if I show to you that I can reach the wreck and save the one who clings to it despairingly?” he asked, smiling, suddenly calm and confident.

  “Willingly, for I love the one who is going down in the sea. I have spoken to you seriously, though, and I trust you will not misunderstand me. I like you and I like Mr. Anguish. You could stay here forever so far as I am concerned.”

  He thought long and intently over what she had said as he smoked his cigar on the great balcony that night. In his heart he knew he was adding horror, but that persistent hope of the life-saver came up fresh and strong to combat the argument. He saw, in one moment, the vast chasm between the man and the princess; in the next, he laughed at the puny space.

  Down on the promenade he could see the figures of men and women strolling in the moonlight. To his ears came the occasional laugh of a man, the silvery gurgle of a woman. The royal military band was playing in the stand near the edge of the great circle. There was gaiety, comfort, charm and security about everything that came to his eyes and ears. Was it possible that this peace, unruffled, was so near its end?

  He smiled as he heard Harry Anguish laugh gaily in his good old way, his ringing tones mingling with a woman’s. There was no trouble in the hearts of the Countess and his blithe comrade. Behind him rose the grim castle walls, from the windows of which, here and there, gleamed the lights of the night. Where was she? He had seen her in the afternoon and had talked with her, had walked with her. Their conversation had been bright, but of the commonplace kind. She had said nothing to indicate that she remembered the hour spent beside his couch a day or so before; he had uttered none of the words that struggled to rush from his lips, the questions, the pleadings, the vows. Where was she now? Not in that gay crowd below, for he had scanned every figure with the hawk’s eye. Closeted again, no doubt, with her ministers, wearying her tired brain, her brave heart into fatigue without rest.

  Her court still trembled with the excitement of the daring attempt of the abductors and their swift punishment. Functionaries flocked to Edelweiss to inquire after the welfare of the Princess, and indignation was at the highest pitch. There were theories innumerable as to the identity of the arch-conspirator. Baron Dangloss was at sea completely. He cursed himself and everybody else for the hasty and ill-timed execution of the hirelings. It was quite evident that the buzzing wonder and intense feeling of the people had for the moment driven out all thought of the coming day of judgment and its bitter atonement for all Graustark. Today the castle was full of the nobility, drawn to its walls by the news that had startled them beyond all expression. The police were at work, the military trembled with rage, the people clamored for the apprehension of the man who had been the instigator of this audacity. The general belief was that some brigand chief from the south had planned the great theft for the purpose of securing a fabulous ransom. Grenfall Lorry had an astonishing theory in his mind, and the more he thought it over the more firmly it was imbedded.

  The warm, blue coils from the cigar wafted away into the night, carrying with them a myriad of tangled thoughts,—of her, of Axphain, of the abductor, of himself, of everything. A light step on the stone floor of the shadowy balcony attracted his attention. He turned his head and saw the Princess Yetive. She was walking slowly toward the balustrade, not aware of his presence. There was no covering for the dark hair, no wrap about the white shoulders. She wore an exquisite gown of white, shimmering with the reflections from the moon that scaled the mountain top. She stood at the balustrade, her hands clasping a bouquet of red roses, her chin lifted, her eyes gazing toward the mountain’s crest, the prettiest picture he had ever seen. The strange dizziness of love overpowered him. His hungry eyes glanced upward towards the sky w
hich she was blessing with her gaze, and beheld another picture, gloomy, grim, cheerless.

  Against the moonlit screen of the universe clung the black tower of that faraway monastery in the clouds, the home of the monks of Saint Valentine. Out of the world, above the world, a part of the sky itself, it stood like the spectre of a sentinel whose ghostly guardian ship appalled and yet soothed.

  He could not, would not move. To have done so meant the desecration of a picture so delicate that a breath upon its surface would have swept it forever from the vision. How long he revelled in the glory of the picture he knew not, for it was as if he looked from a dream. At last he saw her look down upon the roses, lift them slowly and drop them over the rail. They fell to the ground below. He thought he understood; the gift of a prince despised.

  They were not twenty feet apart. He advanced to her side, his hat in one hand, his stick—the one that felled the Viennese—trembling in the other.

  “I did not know you were here,” she exclaimed, in half frightened amazement. “I left my ladies inside.”

  He was standing beside her, looking down into the eyes.

  “And I am richer because of your ignorance,” he said, softly. “I have seen a picture that shall never leave my memory—never! Its beauty enthralled, enraptured. Then I saw the drama of the roses. Ah, your Highness, the crown is not always a mask.”

  “The roses were—were of no consequence,” she faltered.

  “I have heard how you stand between two suitors and that wretched treaty. My heart has ached to tell you how I pity you.”

  “It is not pity I need, but courage. Pity will not aid me in my duty, Mr. Lorry. It stands plainly before me, this duty, but I have not the courage to take it up and place it about my neck forever.”

  “You do not, cannot love this Lorenz?” he asked.

  “Love him!” she cried. “Ach, I forget! You do not know him. Yet I shall doubtless be his wife.” There was an eternity of despair in that low, steady voice.

  “You shall not! I swear you shall not!”

  “Oh, he is a prince! I must accept the offer that means salvation to Graustark. Why do you make it harder with torture which you think is kindness? Listen to me. Next week I am to give my answer. He will be here, in this castle. My father brought this calamity upon Graustark; I must lift it from the people. What has my happiness to do with it?”

  Her sudden strength silenced him, crushed him with the real awakening of helplessness. He stood beside her, looking up at the cold monastery, strangely conscious that she was gazing toward the same dizzy height.

  “It looks so peaceful up there,” she said at last.

  “But so cold and cheerless,” he added, drearily. There was another long silence in which two hearts communed through the medium of that faraway sentinel. “They have not discovered a clue to the chief abductor, have they?” he asked, in an effort to return to his proper sphere.

  “Baron Dangloss believes he has a clue—a meager and unsatisfactory one, he admits—and today sent officers to Ganlook to investigate the actions of a strange man who was there last week, a man who styled himself the Count of Arabazon, and who claimed to be of Vienna. Some Austrians had been hunting stags and bears in the north, however, and it is possible he is one of them.” She spoke slowly, her eyes still bent on the home of the monks.

  “Your highness, I have a theory, a bold and perhaps a criminal theory, but you will allow me to tell you why I am possessed of it. I am aware that there is a Prince Gabriel. It is my opinion that no Viennese is guilty, nor are the brigands to be accused of this masterpiece in crime. Have you thought how far a man may go to obtain his heart’s desire?”

  She looked at him instantly, her eyes wide with growing comprehension, the solution to the mystery darting into her mind like a flash.

  “You mean—” she began, stopping as if afraid to voice the suspicion.

  “That Prince Gabriel is the man who bought your guards and hired Geddos and Ostrom to carry you to the place where he could own you, whether you would or no,” said Lorry.

  “But he could never have forced me to marry him, and I should, sooner or later, have exposed him,” she whispered, argumentatively. “He could not expect me to be silent and submit to a marriage under such circumstances. He knows that I would denounce him, even at the altar.”

  “You do not appreciate my estimate of that gentleman.”

  “What is to become of me!” she almost sobbed, in an anguish of fear. “I see now—I see plainly! It was Gabriel, and he would have done as you say.” A shudder ran through her figure and he tenderly whispered in her ear:

  “The danger is past. He can do no more, your Highness. Were I positive that he is the man—and I believe he is—I would hunt him down this night.”

  Her eyes closed happily under his gaze, her hand dropped timidly from his arm and a sweet sense of security filled her soul.

  “I am not afraid,” she murmured.

  “Because I am here?” he asked, bending nearer.

  “Because God can bless with the same hand that punishes,” she answered, enigmatically, lifting her lashes again and looking into his eyes with a love at last unmasked. “He gives me a man to love and denies me happiness. He makes of me a woman, but He does not unmake me a princess. Through you, He thwarts a villain; through you, He crushes the innocent. More than ever, I thank you for coming into my life. You and you alone, guided by the God who loves and despises me, saved me from Gabriel.”

  “I only ask—” he began, eagerly, but she interrupted.

  “You should not ask anything, for I have said I cannot pay. I owe to you all I have, but cannot pay the debt.”

  “I shall not again forget,” he murmured.

  “Tomorrow, if you like, I will take you over the castle and let you see the squalor in which I exist,—my throne room, my chapel, my banquet hall, my ball room, my conservatory, my sepulchre. You may say it is wealth, but I shall call it poverty,” she said, after they had watched the black monastery cut a square corner from the moon’s circle.

  “Tomorrow, if you will be so kind.”

  “Perhaps I may be poorer after I have saved Graustark,” she said.

  “I would to God I could save you from that!” he said.

  “I would to God you could,” she said. Her manner changed suddenly. She laughed gaily, turning a light face to his. “I hear your friend’s laugh out there in the darkness. It is delightfully infectious.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE EPISODE OF THE THRONE ROOM

  “This is the throne room. Allode!”

  The Princess Yetive paused before two massive doors. It was the next afternoon, and she had already shown him the palace of a queen—the hovel of a pauper!

  Through the afternoon not one word other than those which might have passed between good friends escaped the lips of either. He was all interest, she all graciousness. Allode, the sturdy guard, swung open the doors, drew the curtain, and stood aside for them to pass. Into the quiet hall she led him, a princess in a gown of gray, a courtier in tweeds. Inside the doors he paused.

  “And I thought you were Miss Guggenslocker,” he said. She laughed with the glee of a child who has charmed and delighted through surprise.

  “Am I not a feeble mite to sit on that throne and rule all that comes within its reach?” She directed his attention to the throne at the opposite end of the hall. “From its seat I calmly instruct gray-haired statesmen, weigh their wisdom and pass upon it as if I were Demosthenes, challenge the evils that may drive monarchs mad, and wonder if my crown is on straight.”

  “Let me be ambassador from the United States and kneel at the throne, your Highness.”

  “I could not engage in a jest with the crown my ancestors wore, Mr. Lorry. It is sacred, thou thoughtless American. Come, we will draw nearer that you may see the beauty of the workmanship in that great old chair.”

  They stood at the base of the low, velveted stage on which stood the chair, with its high back, its
massive arms and legs ashimmer in the light from the lofty windows. It was of gold, inlaid with precious stones—diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and other wondrous jewels—a relic of ancient Graustark.

  “I never sit in the center. Always at one side or the other, usually leaning my elbow on the arm. You see, the discussions are generally so long and dreary that I become fatigued. One time,—I am ashamed to confess it, I went to sleep on the throne. That was long ago. I manage to keep awake very well of late. Do you like my throne room?”

  “And to think that it is yours!”

  “It is this room that gives me the right to be hailed with ‘Long live the Princess!’ Not with campaign yells and ‘Hurrah for Yetive!’ How does that sound? ‘Hurrah for Yetive!’” She was laughing merrily.

  “Don’t say it! It sounds sacrilegious—revolting!”

  “For over three years—since I was eighteen—I have been supreme in that chair. During the years of my reign prior to that time I sat there with my Uncle Caspar standing beside me. How often I begged him to sit down with me! There was so much room and he certainly must have grown tired of standing. One time I cried because he frowned at me when I persisted in the presence of a great assemblage of nobles from Dawsbergen. It seems that it was a most important audience that I was granting, but I thought more of my uncle’s tired old legs. I remember saying, through my sobs of mortification, that I would have him beheaded. You are to guess whether that startling threat created consternation or mirth.”

  “What a whimsical little princess you must have been, weeping and pouting and going to sleep,” he laughed. “And how sedate and wise you have become.”

  “Thank you. How very nice you are. I knave felt all along that some one would discern my effort to be dignified and sedate. They say I am wise and good and gracious, but that is to be expected. They said that of sovereigns as far back as the deluge, I’ve heard. Would you really like to see me in that old chair?” she asked.