“Will you undo my arms?” he asked, savagely. “If I’ve got to spend the night in this jolting carriage I may as well make myself as comfortable as possible.”
This was accordingly done, and Mr. O’Donnel, having come to the conclusion that he had been arrested by some mistake which would be explained as soon as he got to Wartburg, soon recovered his equanimity. He was in search of adventure, and here was one which would make an admirable story for his friends in London; he began already to surround it with humorous details. So passed the night, and in the morning the carriage seemed to ascend a steep hill, and it flashed across the Irishman’s mind that he was being taken to the castle of Wartburg. He chuckled when he thought of meeting the prince again under such different circumstances. The carriage stopped.
“Now I must blindfold you,” said the officer.
“What ridiculous folly is this?” cried Mr. O’Donnel, losing his temper again. “I’ve never been treated so ignominiously in my life. I shouldn’t like to stand in your shoes when I tell the prince how you have used me.”
“Everything that has happened to you is by express command of His Serene Highness.”
The Irishman was too staggered by this to answer, and helplessly allowed his eyes to be bandaged. He was led along passages, through courtyards, down stairs, till a greater chill told him he was underground. The handkerchief was removed, and with a cry Mr.
O’Donnel saw he was in one of those historic dungeons which two days before had so excited his romantic fancy.
“Upon my soul,” he cried, “this is beyond a joke.”
IV
With creaking of locks and drawing of rusty bolts the heavy door was closed and the Irishman was left in absolute darkness; for a while he could see nothing, and it seemed to him the dungeon was darker than the darkest night he had ever known. But presently through a narrow chink he discerned a faint glimmer of light, and, his eyes growing used to the obscurity, he saw that he was in a small chamber with stone walls, slimy and wet. In one corner was a plank bed, and opposite the light was dimly seen a crucifix. He started when something crossed his foot, and with beating heart recognised the scampering of rats. Besides this, all that broke the oppressive silence was a continual drip, drip, as water fell slowly from the damp roof.
Mr. O’Donnel sat on the bed to think what this might mean; the whole thing was so improbable that he was utterly dumfounded; a hundred explanations ran through his mind, but each seemed absurd. He passed from amazement to despondency, from terror to rage. At last, growing desperately hungry, he made the tour of his cell, and discovered in a recess a jug of water and some coarse black bread. This assuaged his hunger, but scarcely his passion, and the more he thought of what had happened the more indignant he grew. Then he heard sounds; the door was ponderously unlocked and two soldiers entered with candles, which they set on a ledge, thus illuminating for the prisoner’s edification all the discomfort of that place. They retired, and in a moment there appeared — John-Adolphus, Hereditary Prince of Wartburg-Hochstein.
“Good morning, my friend,” he said, coolly. “I hope you’ve made yourself at home.”
For an instant Mr. O’Donnel was too much taken aback to reply, but, recovering himself, broke forthwith into an indignant harangue, wherein he threatened the prince with the most horrid revenge, and demanded explanations for the infamous treatment to which he had been subjected. John-Adolphus shrugged his shoulders.
“You entertained me so well that I desired to continue our acquaintance. It seemed the only way to gain once more the pleasure of your conversation was to arrest you before you crossed the frontier.”
“But I will never suffer such an indignity. I will appeal to the English Ambassador, and you shall learn what it means to trifle with the liberty of an English subject.”
“Nonsense, my dear sir. It will never get to the ears of your ambassador that I have taken you prisoner. I can detain you for thirty years without the smallest risk to myself.”
“My disappearance will be remarked and commented upon.”
“I doubt it. I can scarcely think anyone will much trouble himself with the whereabouts of an obscure Irishman who travels with ten thalers in his pocket.”
“How do you know that?”
“You forget that you were searched. Your luggage was examined, and I arrived at the conclusion that you were nearly penniless. By the way, that was a singularly unflattering description you drew of me in your journal — and somewhat treasonable to boot.”
“Treasonable it may have been,” returned Mr. O’Donnel, “but by all the saints of Heaven it was not unflattering.”
“I am anxious to know why you gave your entire fortune to a charitable institution and then sold your ring to pay for my dinner.” With a grim smile the prince held out his hand, on the little finger of which Mr. O’Donnel observed the ring which two days before he had left with the jeweller. He was about to burst out again angrily when the twinkling eyes of the prince suggested to him that the whole thing was an elaborate practical joke.
“Upon my soul,” he cried, “Your Serene Highness has the oddest sense of humour that ever I saw.”
The prince chuckled: it was the first time Mr. O’Donnel had seen in him any signs of amusement.
“You had your little jest with me, Mr. O’Donnel — you must not mind if I have mine. I could not resist the temptation to see how you would like the dungeons about which you raved so poetically when you only knew them from the outside. Let us make friends and go to our dinner, which is just now ready.”
“Faith, I shall be able to do justice to it,” answered the other, still very sore, but determined to make the best of things, “for your prison fare is not calculated to stay a man’s appetite.”
It seemed like a story from the Arabian Nights when Mr. O’Donnel found himself half an hour later seated at table between John-Adolphus and his daughter the Princess Mary. The prince was quite a different creature from the sullen, haughty officer who came to the Golden Eagle, and evidently could enjoy a joke as well as any man. The Irishman, flushed with wine, finding his audience appreciative, gave of his best, and poured forth the full stream of his rollicking fun; there was no restraint to his audacity, to the quaint turns of his humour, to his boisterous anecdote. The prince and his daughter held their sides with laughter. Tears streamed from their eyes, and the grim stone walls of Wartburg had not for years heard such loud hilarity.
But with his spirits Mr. O’Donnel had recovered his sense of the effective; he knew his success was unparalleled, and he did not mean to spoil it by lingering on the scene of his triumph. Admirable actor as he was, he knew the value of a striking exit. No sooner was dinner ended than he rose to his feet.
“It grows late, and I must reach Baden quickly. Have! Your Serene Highness’s permission to retire?”
“To-night?” cried the prince. “Of course, if you wish it, I say nothing; but is there not something I can do before you go to show my appreciation of your wit and good-humour?”
“Certainly,” returned Mr. O’Donnel, promptly. “Your Serene Highness remembers that my means are small. If the carriage that brought me back here may take me again to the frontier you will overwhelm me with benefits.”
“But you have no money at all. Surely now you will accept something from me?”
“The saints preserve me!” cried Mr. O’Donnel, with a wave of the hand. “Have you more charities that you want to benefit?” The prince shook his head, more mystified than ever by this eccentricity. He could not understand that to the Irishman, rollicking and romantic, feather-brained and heroic, a fine phrase or a striking attitude was more than all the treasure of this world. At length he had a sensible idea.
“Mr. O’Donnel, I am going to keep this ring with which you paid for my dinner. In return I crave your acceptance of mine.”
He took a splendid diamond from his finger.
“But beside this mine is quite worthless,” cried Mr. O’Donnel.
; “Pray take it. You may find it useful when next you entertain royal personages at dinner.”
Mr. O’Donnel hesitated no longer, but with profuse thanks slipped the ring on his finger. Then the princess stepped forward.
“I, too, have a present for you. I wish you to keep it in remembrance of the service you did me. It is of no value at all.”
She handed him the glove which he had before gallantly asked for.
“On the contrary,” he said. “It is ten times more valuable than the ring, for you have worn it.”
He bent down and kissed her hand. The carriage was at the door, and, waiting only to launch one parting jest, Mr. O’Donnel took advantage of their laughter to bow and retire. From the window, laughing still, the prince and his daughter watched him drive out into the night, with ten thalers in his pocket and on his hand a ring worth two hundred pounds.
“Is he a mountebank or is he a hero?” she asked. “I’ve never met such a man.”
“English and Irish, they’re all mad,” answered John-Adolphus; “that’s why they conquer the world.”
Meanwhile, Mr. O’Donnel, immensely pleased with himself, without a thought of the difficult future, composed himself to sleep as comfortably as though he lay on a feather bed.
FLIRTATION
I
At the age of forty Bertie Shenton was still a young man about town, and flattered himself that with the light behind him he could yet pass for five and twenty; clean-shaven and slight of build, with a quick eye and a laughing mouth, there was nothing to betray advancing years.
He felt younger than ever, and looked without envy at the youths of twenty who seemed in every way vastly older than himself; he saw no reason why he should ever give way to middle age, for his income was sufficient, his desires easily attainable, and his digestion perfect.
He knew a host of people, whom he kept perpetually amused by his flippant conversation and his good nature; he was the sort of man whom everyone after half-an-hour’s acquaintance calls by his Christian name, and he had scores of intimate friends whom he did not even know by sight.
When he drove to Lady Mereston’s party he was as usual in the best of spirits, and the world seemed an excellent place; the night was warm, the house he was bound for pleasant, and the women without doubt would be pretty. With a smile he greeted the little lady who stepped out of her carriage immediately before himself, and, having given up his hat and coat, waited for her on the stairs.
“I’m lying in wait for you, Mrs. Parnaby,” he cried when she appeared.
He noticed with discreet admiration the beauty of her gown, and he thought the pretty widow had never looked better than that evening. She gave him a quick glance.
“Make it,” she said, imperiously.
“What?”
“The compliment that’s on the tip of your tongue.”
He laughed and asked her to give him that dance.
“Very well,” she answered, “but we must sit down. I’m perfectly exhausted. I’ve just come on from the Lemaines. Let’s go somewhere and talk sensibly.”
“Ah, you want to flirt with me,” he laughed, as they went into the conservatory. “It’s what a woman always means when she asks you to talk sensibly.”
She looked at him calmly. “The only reason I like you, Bertie, is that you don’t make love to me. When you’re an eligible widow you get so tired of it. Men are such bores; I can’t think why they want to make things worse by becoming husbands.”
“You have such odd ideas about my sex.”
“Not at all — only it must be obvious to you that man is an inferior creature. He’s so weak. He has no wiles. When a male thing sees a brick wall it never occurs to him that there’s anything on the other side.”
“You mean he has certain elementary ideas about truthfulness.”
“Poor thing, he has to be truthful, he lies so badly,” returned Mrs. Parnaby, with a shrug of her dainty shoulders. “You know, I’m longing to find the man that I can’t turn round my little finger.”
Bertie Shenton got up and made an elaborate bow. “Madam, your very humble servant.”
“My dear Bertie! I could make you do anything I like,” she laughed. “I could make you propose to me in five minutes.”
“My dear lady, it’s been tried too often. I flatter myself I’m a difficult fish to catch.”
“I detest a man who thinks every woman is in love with him.”
“Bless you, I don’t think that. I only think a great many want to marry me. After all, with the sort of people we know, marriage is still the only respectable means of livelihood for a really nice girl. However old, ugly, and generally undesirable a man is, he’ll find heaps of charming girls who are willing to share with him a house in Portman Square and a comfortable income.”
“But, my dear Bertie, if a woman really makes up her mind to marry a man nothing on earth can save him.”
“Don’t say that,” cried he, “you terrify me.”
She looked at him for one moment and smiled. “You need not be in the least alarmed, because I shall refuse you.”
“Thanks,” he answered; “it’s a bargain, but I don’t think I’ll risk a proposal.”
“Oh yes, you will. I feel absolutely certain. I’ll give you a fortnight.”
He shook his head, laughing. “I’m not at all nervous.”
“My dear man, your only safety is in instant flight. You’re doomed. I’ve made up my mind that you shall propose to me.”
“I bet you a pair of gloves I don’t.”
“Very well.”
Mrs. Parnaby nodded to a young man who passed them, and eagerly he came up.
“I’ve been hunting for you everywhere,” he said. “I was hoping to get a chance of speaking to you.”
“That’s the beauty of a crowd,” she answered, “it gives such opportunities for a tête-à-tête.”
Mrs. Parnaby directed these words to Bertie Shenton with such mockery in her eyes, such a malicious curl of the lip, that he could not help taking the hint.
“Let me give up my seat,” he said. Oddly enough, to do so made him rather cross.
“Remember that the gloves are sixes,” she remarked as he went.
“I fancy there are others to whom that information will be more useful,” he retorted, with a glance of some annoyance at the intruder.
Mrs. Parnaby laughed. She knew very well that Bertie Shenton was devoted to her, but their relations were so pleasant that it had never occurred to her till that moment to make any change in them. He had never shown the least inclination to marry her, and each loved liberty too well to give it up freely. But the thoughtless bet, made lightly on the spur of the moment, set her thinking, and she chuckled to herself at the idea of winning it.
II
Her plan of campaign was quickly made, and for the rest of the evening she avoided Bertie systematically; but whenever his eyes rested upon her pretended to be much engrossed in her partner.
A dozen young men found her more charming than ever before, and each one concluded that he had made something of an impression; in their vanity it never struck them that these charms and graces were displayed only for the purpose of vexing a gentleman of forty, who watched irritably from the other side of the room. These tactics were apparently successful, for Bertie called upon her next day while she was out. She gave orders that he was not to be admitted, and when next he came he had the satisfaction of hearing her play the piano, while a third time on looking up he saw her calmly watching from the window. He smiled drily to himself, and with a little shrug of resignation went to a milliner’s to buy a pair of gloves.
After a week he met her at luncheon, and though he was rather sulky she greeted him with the most malicious good humour; but during the meal, though they sat together, she addressed her conversation exclusively to her other neighbour in a manner which Bertie Shenton thought was as marked as it was disagreeable. When she bade her hostess farewell he rose also.
“Shall I
drive you home?” he asked.
“I’m not going home. But if you like to drive me to Curzon Street you may; I have an appointment there at four.”
“Very well.”
They went out, stepped into a cab, and quite coolly Bertie told the driver to go to Hammersmith.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“I want to have a talk with you.”
“I’m sure that’s charming of you,” she answered, “but I shall miss my appointment.”
“That’s a matter of complete indifference to me.” He paused, smiled, and took from his pocket the gloves he had bought. “You’ll find they’re sixes. If you’re going to make yourself systematically disagreeable unless I marry you — I suppose I must marry you.”
“Is that the proposal?” she asked gaily.
“Name the day, Mrs. Parnaby, and the lamb shall be ready for the slaughter.”
“But that won’t do at all. I must have it in proper terms. First you go on your bended knees.”
“I really can’t in a hansom cab.”
“Then you say you’re entirely unworthy of me.”
“Women have such a passion for the commonplace,” he sighed; “besides, I’m not at all unworthy of you. After all, only four words are needed: Will you marry me?”
She was putting on the gloves he had given her, and held out her hand for him to do up the buttons.
“Then I give you my answer in one: No.”
“I beg your pardon?” he cried in surprise.
“The reply is in the negative.... I promised I’d refuse you.’? “Oh, but I’ll absolve you from your promise.”
“The answer is still the same. I will be a sister to you.”
“But good Heavens, why?”
“I don’t want to marry you in the least. D’you want to marry me?”
“I suppose I do — more or less,” he returned doubtfully. “It’s a chance that will never recur, you know.”
“I hope you agree now that any woman can make any man propose to her within a fortnight.”
“D’you mean to say you’ve been trifling with my feelings?”
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 279