Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  Anthony, indeed, had half risen from his seat when his neighbour put out an arm and pulled him down. The Chief Justice was speaking. Anthony’s moment of violence passed. Public interruptions, the attraction of attention to himself — no! The Königsmarks might have their fill of them! He sank back into his seat.

  “You were to buy English horses, milord, with the thousand pistols.”

  “As soon as the second message came,” Philip replied. “But it did not come.”

  “No, nor could it,” said Pemberton. “For halfway through January the alliance was as dead as Michaelmas.”

  He dismissed Philip with a friendly nod, and Philip, as he turned away, for the first time since the trial began, looked up to the corner where Anthony sat. There was a yearning in his eyes, a prayer for forgiveness, a hope that he would be forgiven. But met so hard a glare of indignation that no doubt of the answer was left to him. Karl John might go free, but he was sentenced. His feet faltered a little as he sought his place again and a wistful smile twisted his lips. It was as though he said aloud: “I told you thus it would be.”

  Karl John made a short speech, at once irrelevant and effective. It was a great happiness to him in all his trouble, that he a Protestant of Protestant forefathers was to be tried by a Protestant Court. If any of his former actions could give to any the least suspicion that he was guilty of the foul act, he was very willing to have his life cut off immediately.

  “Against the wish of all my relations,” he added, “I brought my young brother into England to be brought up in the Protestant religion and in the same love for this nation which I have myself.”

  The Solicitor-General followed him at greater length — all that Anthony remembered of it was the applause of Monmouth’s friends, and the Lord Chief Justice summed up quite fairly and justly, making a new point. If Vratz had sought to avenge an insult upon Count Königsmark without Königsmark’s knowledge, this could not in law lie against Königsmark. And so he dismissed the jury to their deliberations. Half an hour was enough for them. Vratz, the Polander, Leiutenant Stern were found guilty, Karl John Königsmark was acquitted.

  Once more in a dead silence the Clerk of the Court cried: “George Boroski, hold up thy hand!” and in a few minutes the Court was emptying.

  Anthony was one of the last to escape. As he looked back, he saw the ushers putting out the lights. He marvelled at the silence and the emptiness where there had lately been so thick a press and so loud a clatter. Philip was standing alone amongst the deserted tables and, as the usher approached him with an order that he must go, he looked up suddenly. Anthony from the doorway saw that his face had grown bitter. It wore a look of bravado, which Anthony found very strange and new. The Chapter of Celle was closed. Outside in the streets there was uproar enough to warn him that so too was the Chapter of England. He threw his head back with a jerk. Anthony Craston could almost hear the words which were passing through Philip’s mind.

  “Well! Who cares? Not I.”

  XII. CLARA PLATEN FORGETS SOMETHING

  CLARA PLATEN AWOKE in her darkened bedroom and lay still for a few luxurious moments savouring the softness of her bed and the caress of her silken sheets. The March sunlight streamed in through the crevices of the shutters and glinted on the implements of her toilet table and the gold tassels of a curtain. A long mirror against a wall had luminous black depths. On the painted ceiling a winged Cupid drew the shaft of an arrow to his ear. Monplaisir.

  The sisters Meissenberg and their needy old father, Count Philip, had fought a desperate battle. If they lost, poverty, insignificance, oblivion; if they conquered, one of those equivocal high positions sanctioned by the usage of the times. Clara had been the strategist; Count Philip the necessary evidence of nobility; Catherine Marie, the younger sister, a pretty and obedient ally. For a long time the battle had been a losing one. The Court of Louis XIV had been found impregnable. It was impossible to crash the gates of Versailles whilst Madame de Montespan barred the gateway. In England Louise de Querouaille dropped a hint and the Meissenbergs fled from those unfriendly shores. And then in an auspicious hour, Hanover! The ample heart of Duke Ernst Augustus was for the moment disengaged; George Louis, the eldest son and his brother were this winter back from the Grand Tour; there were galas and festivities to welcome them; Platen and Busche their tutors, capable and ambitious men, were on the alert for new jobs; and Duchess Sophia, that strange woman, the most honest and most complaisant of wives, accepted without revolt and with open eyes the canons of her day. Her romance was the Crown of England; her husband was her duty; her love she gave with both hands to her children and her favourite niece; her intellect took its food from the correspondence of philosophers; and in the affairs of every day she was as practical as a tradesman, indifferent to what she couldn’t help, so that she might have the greater energy for what she could.

  The sisters Meissenberg had used their last opportunity with the skill of an old campaigner. The two young ladies composed and acted a little pastoral comedy in a garden on a moonlit night. Shepherdesses of the Age of Innocence, Clara the elder danced and sang her way into the affections of Ernst Augustus, Catherine Marie the younger charmed his son. Indecorous but convenient combination! At hand were Platen and Busche ready to take the undignified roles which the drama of the day allotted to husbands: undignified, but in this case profitable. For Platen and Busche — worthy firm of Purveyors to Their Highnesses — entered into the ducal service and the bonds of matrimony on the same day.

  The sagacity which had inspired Clara Meissenberg had not failed Clara Platen. She had strengthened her hold upon Ernst Augustus. She had made her boudoir the chief Council Chamber of the State; and halfway between the pleasure-house of Herrenhausen and the Leineschloss, the official Palace in Hanover, had risen with the magic of a fairy’s want, her superb mansion, Monplaisir, Clara Platen was at last secure.

  It pleased her thus to lie for a few minutes before the chicaneries of the day began and revel in the fine anchorage she had reached after so many storms. A very few minutes sufficed her, for she had the mind which ran forward rather than looked back. Then she struck a little gong on the table by her bedside. The chime had hardly died out of the air, before the door was softly opened, the curtains of blue brocade drawn back, the shutters opened and Madame’s chocolate and courier at her bedside. Clare Platen kept up a large correspondence with her friends abroad and her daily budget was heavy. But there was one letter for which she had been looking with anxiety for a fortnight past. This morning she found it and pounced upon it with a sigh of relief; a letter from England. “Now we shall see!” she said and she tore it open at the seal. It was a long letter with a good deal of gossip about the Court which she glanced through impatiently. Followed an account of Count Königsmark’s trial.

  “Nothing so barbarous or fantastic has happened within the memory of living man,” her correspondent wrote, “Karl John was saved by the looks and the charming voice of his young brother, Philip, who was not even sworn, but testified from the floor of the Court. The one piece of common sense in the whole affair was a saying of Monsieur Lienburg, the Swedish Minister. ‘There will be no good living in England for any that meddle with Mr Thynne.’ And so it has proved, for the brothers were on the high seas by the morning and the unfortunate Monsieur Faubert has removed what was left of his Academy to a quarter less in the town’s eye.”

  Clara Platen smiled as she read.

  “The little Philip! He has not much chance. First scratched by the good Bernstorff’s claws, and now drummed out of England. However, the third time is the lucky one, as who should know but I?” She read on and with a little cry of delight reached the news for which she had been waiting. She read it a second time. She gasped. “Was there anything so English? Oh that people. They are impayable.” And suddenly she began to laugh. It was true, as the good Bernstorff had told his servant Muller, that the only bird at whose bed-time Clare Platen went to bed was the nightingale, but she had none of P
hilomela’s melancholy. She laughed roundly till her bed shook and the tears stood in her eyes.

  “Platen!” she cried aloud. “Come to me! Platen! And when her maid, startled by the joyous outbreak, ran into the room. “Ilse, ask Monsieur Platen to come to me. Tell him he must come at once. I have news which cannot wait. He must share it or I die. My sister too. Madame Busche! Quick! Quick!”

  Ilse flew upon her errands. It was not often that she found her mistress in so good a humour. She ran to Privy-Councillor Platen who had been diligently at work these three hours past. She ran to Madame Busche. They were wanted urgently. Madame was in a paroxysm of laughter.

  Privy-Councillor Platen walked gravely to the bedroom, but the gravity changed into a smile as he entered.

  “What good news has tickled you, my dear?” he asked.

  These two were without pretence to one another. They were partners in a first-class business with which sentiment had nothing to do, and they were very good friends.

  “Let us wait for Catherine Marie.”

  Catherine Marie arrived, a shadow of her sister, already waning whilst Clara was in full bloom. She was followed by Privy- Councillor Busche, a staid and solemn man who assumed an ignorance of the particular kind of good fortune which had gained him his position in the State. He watched Clara bubbling with laughter in her bed with alarm. Things might be said which he must not understand.

  “My dears,” cried Clara. “Imagine it if you can. Your lover, Catherine, has been made a Doctor of Laws by the University of Cambridge.”

  Catherine clapped her hands; Platen guffawed; Busche had not heard a word.

  “Think of it! George Louis! Who never opened a book unless it described a glacis or a new way to take cities — a Doctor of Laws. The poor man cannot have the hand of the Princess Anne. No, no! That is too much. He is sullen, he is gauche, he is a clumsy princeling from some little State the size of a shilling. But it is pretty of him to come and visit us. We must do something for him in return. Ha! The University of Cambridge shall give him a degree. He shall go down to Cambridge and walk in a procession and listen to a Latin speech of which he won’t understand one word. George Louis, Prince of Hanover, D.C.L. it is magnificent. It would be witty, if it were a snub. But it is an honour. Only the English could have thought of it.”

  “It is a high compliment,” said Busche sedately, as he stood by the window. “There will be a red gown.”

  “You must make him parade in it, my dear,” said Clara to her sister.

  “Well, it will be change from the night-gown in which I usually see him,” said Madame Busche.

  “I have my work to do,” said Monsieur Busche primly and he stalked out of the room.

  None of the three remaining jeered at him as he went. They were practical people who accepted the world as it was and plucked out of it what advantage they could. It was Busche’s pretence to know nothing of his wife’s amours and to ascribe his Privy-Councillorship to his merits. He was absurd and ridiculous, but since that particular hypocrisy was in the composition of the man, by all means let him have the satisfaction of it! They gathered closer about the bed.

  “Sit down and let us be serious,” said Clara, ceasing from her laughter. “George Louis is coming back with his tail between his legs. Good! William of orange will be pleased, and I think — yes, I think” — she snuggled down in her bed and purred like a contented cat— “that we shall within the week receive some solid evidence of how very pleased he is.”

  “Oh!” cried Catherine Busche, gazing at her sister in a startled admiration. “It was you, then, who managed it.”

  “I helped, darling, that was all,” said Clara modestly. “George Louis never wanted to go to England. Duchess Sophia harried him into going. He was certain to show himself at his worst, shy and tongue-tied and uncouth as a bear on a leash. A hint or two carefully developed that he was awkward because he found the person of the Princess Anne displeasing — yes, princesses resent that like other women — and had said so. I may, without flattering myself, say that I helped.”

  “But now?” said Platen, hitching his chair a little closer. Clara, his wife, nodded her head.

  “George Louis comes back with his prestige lost. There is a marriage which will restore it. George Louis has spent in England a great deal of money and impoverished the State. There is a marriage which will make Hanover rich.”

  Platen sat up in his chair.

  “The Princess of Celle!” he said.

  “The little Sophia Dorothea, the French girl,” Clara agreed with a smile.

  “But, my dear!” Platen expostulated, thrusting back his chair. Clara lifted a white and slender hand.

  “Wait! Let us, like good accountants make sure first of our advantages here. Ernst Augustus was inclined to the match before George went to England. He will be heart and soul for it now. There is a great affection between the two brothers of Celle and Hanover, though Celle is always paying and Hanover is always taking. We have a right to count that affection amongst our assets.”

  “But—” Platen interrupted in desperation.

  Clara Platen took no notice of his interruption. She continued to tack off her advantages upon her fingers.

  “In addition, this marriage will guarantee the fulfilment of Duke George William’s promise that on his death Hanover and Celle shall be united. Celle is rich. Hanover is poor. Celle is thrifty, Hanover extravagant. But the two combined? Another Brandenburg? Another Saxony? Who knows? At all events” — and she paused to emphasise the words— “at all events, an Electoral Hat.”

  Platen was wont to admit to himself that Clara had more of a man’s mind than he had. The fripperies of her life, the entertainments, the rich dresses and sparkling jewels, the envy of other women, the servility of courtiers — yes, she delighted in them but they did not content her. Even Monplaisir with its great staff of liveried servants, its horses and its carriages, its crowded reception rooms and its equipment of gold and silver plate, was more precious to her as a symbol of power that shall be than of power that is. She was ambitious for a greater Hanover. No doubt she saw herself recognised as its Providence and Creator, but that was not all the dream. Hanover must be a State to which Europe listened, which Europe must consider, and the first great step was a seat in that small Electoral College which chose the Emperor.

  “Yes,” she repeated, “an Electoral Hat, and the little Sophia Dorothea with her vast fortune and the Duchy of Celle in her pocket with help us to it.”

  Platen at last found a moment of silence for his objection. “My dear Clara, a dream! You are forgetting Duchess Sophia. She hates the d’Olbreuse. She calls her a clot of mud. Celle with its French manners, its delicate meals, its little refinements, is food for her contempt. She would as soon marry her son to the daughter of her laundress as to the Princess Sophia Dorothea.”

  Clara Platen did not answer for a little while; but the little grimace she made showed that she was not persuaded. She lay looking up at her painted ceiling. Then she said slowly: “Duchess Sophia is a great woman — greater than any probably in the world today. She despises the d’Olbreuse? No doubt. She worships her ancestry like a Chinaman. But she has the courage to swallow every foul insult she has uttered, if she is convinced that it will help her house and her family to do so.”

  Platen was silent. He knew that Clara Platen was Duchess Sophia’s Mistress of the Robes, that the Duchess accepted her with courtesy, and he never understood it. Clara was wonderful — granted! Bright and clever and adroit — to be sure! But how Ernst Augustus’ mistress could be tolerable as Mistress of the Robes to Ernst Augustus’ wife was a problem which bewildered him whenever he thought about it. He could not fathom the composure with which Duchess Sophia faced facts, or that aloof and philosophic mind which enable her to retain her dignity in spite of them.

  “But how can you convince Her Highness that it will help her to swallow her insults?’

  Clara Platen turned with a smile to her partner. />
  “I can’t, Platen. But you can.”

  “I?”

  The poor man started up from his chair. There was no one of whom he was more frightened than Duchess Sophia. She had learning at her fingers’ ends. Religion, too! He remembered one dreadful day when she had set him at a Calvinist Minister and asked them to debate for her instruction and edification some abstruse differences between the Lutherans and the Calvinists. The sweat broke out upon his brow now as he remembered the mockery in her voice and the unintelligible questions with which she had plied him.

  “I? My dear, have pity! How?”

  “By emptying the Treasury. See to it, Platen, that when autumn comes, there’s no money for the French comedy, no money for the Italian Opera, no money for the Carnival, and no money for Ernst Augustus to spend upon his pleasures. And, by the way — let us not forget him! — the excellent Bernstorff might have some of it before it is gone. A rare opportunity has occurred” — Clara turned towards her husband, to use the title with which the marriage ceremony had endowed him, with a glint of amusement in her eyes— “it is remarkable how many rare opportunities have occurred to Gottlieb Bernstorff within the year.”

  Platen frowned and shrugged his shoulders.

  “He is without moderation, that fellow!” he exclaimed.

  Clara Platen laughed with amusement.

  “So our pretty Philip found in the Castle Chapel of Celle,” she said. “But this Bernstorff has a cousin at Court of Dresden, and has no doubt learnt his lesson there from him. But on this occasion it will suit us to gratify him.”

  “And what is this rare opportunity?”

  “A few acres on the bank of the Aller and enough capital to build a tobacco factory. It seems that flat-bottomed boats can go up and down the river between Celle and the big ships at Bremen at very little cost. I will speak to His Highness myself, so that an order may come to you from him.”