The Princess indulged in one of those exquisite little grimaces, half of protest yet wholly sympathetic.
“One need not,” she sighed gently. “Only, dear Joan, some days when the tables are stupid and the people are boring and the Mistral comes, you will permit that we flirt with him just a little?”
“A very little indeed,” Lydia also pleaded, “because, you see, we all love him.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
Table of Contents
CREAKING and groaning with the imposition of the brakes upon its slowly turning wheels, yet bringing with it around the curve and into the station itself something of the drama of its nine-hundred-mile progress, the Blue Train, still to the casual traveller the portent of romance, slowed down in ponderous majesty to a halt in Monte Carlo station. The history of every day, as on that February morning a year ago, repeated itself. There were people leaning from the windows clamouring for porters, there were others leaving everything to the train attendant, stepping out on to the platform and hastening towards the exit. Almost the first to pass the barrier, and certainly the most eager arrival, was Joan Haskell. In one hand she carried her ticket and the yellow registration paper for her baggage, in the other her small handbag. It was all she had dreamed and imagined. François, the concierge, was there hat in hand waiting for her yellow ticket, the omnibus was drawn up to the kerb, the row of little carriages was there in the background. The sun was shining. There was scarcely a human being without a smile upon his face. She paused for one second to draw a long breath of happiness, to bestow one sweet lingering thought upon that morning twelve months ago when, full of the spirit of adventure, she had done this same thing. Then she held out her billet.
“You will collect these things, François,” she directed. “I shall take a carriage.”
A voiture rattled up. The little dog, approving of its prospective passenger, gave a bark of welcome. The cocher took off his hat. Joan was duly installed. François, the smile still upon his face, leaned towards her.
“Everyone at the hotel is expecting you, Mademoiselle,” he told her. “It is a great pleasure to see you again.”
The words seemed to stick a little in her throat but her smile was enough.
“The Hôtel de Paris,” François called out.
“Stop at the bar entrance,” Joan found herself able to say.
“Parfaitement, Madame.”
The little dog took its place solemnly, the cocher cracked his whip, up the hill they went, round the corner. There before her was the Place. It was all so much like twelve months ago, and yet so different. There were scattered groups seated at the small tables outside the Café de Paris. The music of Franchesa faintly reached her ears. The gardens of the Placewere aglow with flowers. People came and went from the Casino. Everyone, it seemed to her, was smiling. There were a few fleecy clouds passing across the blue sky, but the sun was warm and the breeze wonderful upon her parched cheeks after the night’s restless travelling. The great white front of the Hôtel de Paris was there. Everything was exactly the same. She felt her breath coming quickly as they neared the bar. The window seemed thronged with people. Upon the steps alone—they had permitted him that—stood Rudolph. It was true—not a dream at all, nor a mirage. It had all happened. It had all come to pass. Ridiculous, this aching at her heart strings—and yet what happiness! Rudolph took her frankly into his arms, making not the slightest attempt to conceal his joy. Somehow or other, he remembered to push money into the palm of the cocher, somehow or other, she trod on air into the bar, waved at Louis’s beaming face and turned to the round table where a little forest of hands seemed to be extended. Lydia, Lucille—they were all there, pressing forward. Last of all, as it seemed to her, Domiloff. He took her hands and held them tightly before he raised them to his lips.
“This is happiness!” he exclaimed. “It is to this, dear Joan, that we have looked forward day by day. It was a sweet idea of yours. Not one of us is missing but there is not one whose heart is lighter than mine to welcome you back.”
“I am so happy,” she faltered breathlessly.
She sat down in the midst of them, Rudolph on one side, Lucille on the other. Everyone talked at the same time. Everyone, it seemed to her, was a little hysterical. They all drank to her and Rudolph held her hand, and in the midst of it all something that was almost like peace came to her. Her voice, very soft still, became firm and her heart had stopped its wild beating. Joy was passing into happiness. Perhaps it was the constant pressure of his fingers.
“Twelve months ago yesterday I came here for the first time,” she murmured. “Five weeks I stayed here—yes, just five weeks.”
“And to-day you have come for the rest of your life, my dear,” Rudolph said, “although, as you are marrying a man of affairs, you will not be able to spend all your time at play. Your servants are installed at the Clos Fleuri, but I hope I have done right. I have told them that to-night we must dine with all our friends. Then to-morrow we lunch at St. Paul on our way home and afterwards we must see whether we approve of what the people I sent down from Paris have done. And amongst all these other minor details,” he concluded, “please do not forget that you have a little engagement at three o’clock at the Church here with His Reverence the Bishop, and at four o’clock at the Mairie.”
“We are all witnesses,” Domiloff told her. “We are aching to show you how civilized marriages are in Monaco.”
“It is to be to-day, really?” she asked with a wondering glance at Rudolph.
“Of course,” he answered joyfully. “There were difficulties but they exist no longer.”
“Do you not think that our dear refugee looks wonderful?” Lydia asked. “I am afraid, though, that they starved him at the fortress.”
“It was only the first two months that were bad,” he told them. “Afterwards, the real trial was perfectly fair and, according to the laws, I think I pretty well deserved what I got, for I did lose my head now and then with Rothmann and he had all the money he wanted at any time. I was sentenced to ten months’ detention in the fortress and the two months I had spent there already were knocked off. Is it not wonderful to be back here with you all? Do you know that one short month ago I was what you call in England a ‘jailbird’?”
“And to-day you have blossomed into a bird of paradise,” Lucille laughed. “Joan dear, you are going to make us all so jealous. He has wonderful cars, aeroplanes, a yacht which has made Léon mad with envy and everyone says that from the outside the Clos Fleuri is marvellous. Not one of us has been allowed yet to cross the threshold.”
Louis came up with a fresh tray of cocktails. Joan insisted upon shaking hands with him. He wiped the tears from his eyes. She looked meaningly across at Domiloff.
“You have been looking after him, Louis,” she said.
“I have done my best, Mademoiselle,” the man declared. “Since all this anxiety passed away and the money came streaming once more into the place he has grown younger every day. Twelve months ago it was nothing but courage that kept him alive. To-day he is good for another twenty years. And your young gentleman, Mademoiselle, all I can say is what we all say—no one has brought so much happiness into Monte Carlo.”
“There are only two faces I miss here,” Joan said looking along the crowded bar. “Sir Julian Townleyes, of course, I know about. He is back in the Cabinet with a peerage.”
“A well deserved one,” Rudolph murmured. “I doubt whether England will ever realize what she owes to him.”
“His rooms here are booked for the day Parliament rises,” Domiloff confided.
“And the little grey man?” she asked.
Domiloff leaned a little farther forward.
“He was to have had a million pounds if war had been declared,” Domiloff told her. “He came very near earning it, too. The only flaw was Rudolph. Somehow, I fancy that we shall hear of Mr. Ardrossen again in some other quarter of the world.”
Joan reflected for a moment. The Café at Geneva h
ad floated into her memory.
“I think that it will be in Russia,” she said.
Presently Rudolph insisted on taking her away. He pointed to Mollinet, who had been for a long time lingering in the background.
“Come and let me show you your rooms, dear,” he begged. “There is Monsieur Mollinet waiting.”
Joan had forgotten all her independence. She took his arm as they walked down the bar. Monsieur Mollinet beamed as he bowed again and again in welcome.
“You remember, Monsieur Mollinet,” she said, “twelve months ago when I thought my room was too expensive and you told me you were sure I should have a happy time here?”
“I remember every word you spoke, Mademoiselle. I remember the way you went out on to the balcony and looked at it all. Everyone is so happy to have you back—and there is a surprise.”
He led them to the second floor. Joan laughed.
“I know what it is,” she cried. “It is my old room.”
“Your old room,” Monsieur Mollinet declared, throwing open the door. “But see—the chambers of a palace! There are six rooms in this suite now,” he went on proudly as he led them from one to the other. “No one has occupied them yet. They will be at your disposal whenever you choose. When you are away they will be the Royal Suite for the most distinguished visitors I have.”
“And this for twenty-four hours!” she exclaimed, looking around her in amazement.
“Monsieur Sagastrada,” Mollinet confided, “sent to Fauvelle’s in Paris with orders to turn this into a suite worthy of your occupation. And Mademoiselle,” he concluded, “if this time your stay is short, Monte Carlo will always be here and Monsieur has promised that four months of every year you will be near us.”
“Your Majesty’s beggarmaid is overwhelmed,” she declared clinging to her lover’s arm as they left the room.
They drank their last cocktail before luncheon and all trooped into the restaurant. The round table in the centre of the room, the decorations for which had been designed and chosen by Lydia herself, was a blaze of colour—red roses, scarlet poinsettia and rich clusters of bougainvillæa mingled with masses of white lilies. The great cake, not to be cut until later in the day, had been brought down from Vienna by two chefs, one of the offerings from Leopold, head of the Sagastradas. As they sat down—Joan between Domiloff, who was to give her away, and Rudolph—the bells of the Cathedral commenced to chime. Foxley Brent, even before they had all taken their places, sprang up with his glass in his hand.
“I know very well,” he said, “that I shall have no chance afterwards. I am a small man and I was crowded out in the bar; but here I stand, my glass in my hand, every drop of which I intend to drink in a matter of a few seconds to the long life and happiness of two of the most delightful visitors who ever found their way into this strange bewitching corner of the earth which so many of us have learnt to love. Not another word, I promise you. I raise my glass and I ask you to drink the health of Joan Haskell and Rudolph Sagastrada.”
“Apt,” the Baron murmured as the little man sat down and the service of luncheon commenced. “A well-chosen moment, too.”
“Joan, my dear, enjoy your luncheon in peace,” Lydia begged her. “We have not had a word together yet, but my own maid has got your keys from François and everything is being prepared for you.”
“You dear people think of everything,” Joan replied gratefully. “My last anxiety is removed.”
Rudolph looked around him with a glad and happy smile upon his lips. There was a flash of humour, too, in his eyes.
“What I love almost more than anything,” he declared, “is our ultra-modernity. We have revived Victorianism, we have proved that it is possible to bring the greatest romance to the most exquisite maturity by the old-fashioned device of marriage.”
An answering flash came from Domiloff.
“And in Monte Carlo!” he murmured.
THE END
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