Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  As he rode he formulated his inconsistencies. Thus: “I ought to be pleased that since Philip has come to Hanover for the Carnival” — he did not doubt that it was the Carnival which had attracted him— “he has been captured by the dilapidated charms of Clara von Platen. He is now safely housed in the enemy’s camp. He wears the von Platen label round his neck, and by tonight all Hanover will know it. He remained with her after all her other guests had gone and all Hanover, except presumably His Highness Ernst Augustus, will understand what that means.

  “The Princess Sophia will understand as quickly as any other. It will accentuate his offence that he stood up to dance with the mistress who has supplanted her, the giraffe von Schulenberg. The affection in which her memories held him will receive its death blow. Moreover, should his memories prompt him to renew an old courtship, the voracious Clara will leave him little leisure and less money to pursue it with.

  “Taking it for all in all I should be pleased. The situation is not the best in the best of all possible worlds, but it is the best that we can do in Hanover.”

  Thus the more rational side of his mind discoursed. But his emotions were not convinced.

  “But I am not pleased at all,” he cried. “I am against the giraffe. I am against the Platen woman. It is no business of mine and I am no doubt the world’s prize fool. But I am heart and soul for the lovely girl who with her high spirit, her eagerness for the joy of life, her quick response to affection and her two children, should be the idol of this Court, and is in fact subjected to public humiliation or neglected altogether. Philip Königsmark has behaved like a boor. He should have felt enough kindness for the Princess to prevent him from enlisting with her enemies. He should have learnt enough of good manners to stop him from flaunting his treachery. He may have grace in his feet, but he has none of it in his heart. And if I could catch him at some knavery I’d have him dry-drummed out of the town!”

  At this point Craston shrugged his shoulders in contempt of his own futility. It was all very comforting and encouraging to talk of if this and if that and the fine big things he would do to prove to Sophia Dorothea that there was one at all events who gave to her the devotion which was her right. But what could he do — except sit at his desk and code his Ambassador’s despatches?

  Then, at the mouth of the street in which he lodged, he reined in his horse and sat still. Something had happened last night — no, this morning — early this morning — a little thing, rather odd — perhaps rather promising. A small spark of an idea glimmered amongst the dead ashes of Craston’s hopes. If that could be blown into a flame big enough to dislodge Philip Königsmark from Hanover! Craston wondered. He was deluding himself, no doubt. But perhaps — if he could find out more about that queer little incident — it might be worth while trying to find out more.

  He touched his horse with his heel and rode on. He had not noticed a little group of people gather on the pavement and stare at the rider sitting as rigid as a statue with his eyes set on vacancy. And he did not notice now that a painted coach with a footman standing up behind and another on the pavement by the door was drawn up close by his own house.

  Craston’s groom was waiting and led the horse away. Craston mounted the stairs, entered his sitting-room and called for his servant. As he unclasped his cloak from his shoulders a young man dressed in a suit of silver-grey velvet with a froth of white ruffles at throat and wrist rose quickly from a chair before the fire.

  “Anthony!” he cried, and with a laugh of pleasure he held out his hand.

  Craston stopped dead, his face set, his eyes like pebbles. He gave his cloak, his hat and his riding-crop to his servant. Then he asked of him: “I have the honour to receive...?”

  “Count Philip von Königsmark,” returned the man.

  “I thank you,” said Anthony.

  He was the pattern of stateliness and he was superlatively ridiculous. He was not, however, aware of his absurdity although the glimmer of a smile on Königsmark’s mouth might have informed him of it. He was only aware for the moment — and with an unreasonable irritation — that Philip had seemingly lost not a jot of either his youth or his good looks since he had seen him six years before standing alone in the gloomy Court at the Old Bailey. Youth and good looks had served a bad cause too well upon that day. They should not, if Craston could help it, repeat that service here.

  He turned and looked at Philip. The long eyelashes shading the dark and liquid eyes lent again to his glance the hint of unfathomable mystery; the heavy curls of the colour of a ripe chestnut rippled and spread as thickly about his shoulders, the full and mobile mouth showed teeth as white or drooped with the same wistful melancholy, and the clear pallor of his face still made its strange appeal as for someone doomed before his time. He had the old nervous slenderness of limb and figure, and the hand which rested lightly on the back of a chair was as white and delicate as the lace ruffles at the end of his sleeve.

  “I can’t imagine what business Count Philip von Königsmark can have with me,” said Anthony, still stately and still ridiculous. “It is no doubt too early for a morning call at Monplaisir and visitors to the Carnival must get rid of the empty hours somehow. But so fine a gentleman is really quite out of place in the drab lodging of a second Secretary.”

  It just needed the backward toss of Philip’s head and the look of challenge and bravado upon his face to carry Anthony straight back to the moment when he had turned away from him at the doorway of the Criminal Court. But now Philip did not accept his dismissal.

  “As for my clothes, you must excuse them,” he said. “I had the privilege of an audience with the Duke this morning and I must needs go dressed with due respect.”

  Anthony bowed.

  “As for myself, I am not a visitor to the Carnival.”

  Anthony was startled. He had counted upon a short sojourn of Königsmark — say until Shrove Tuesday. But here was news more menacing. He took a step forward.

  “You are not a visitor?” he stammered.

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “How should you? I came indeed to explain my position to you.”

  Craston understood at all events that his pretence of ignoring Philip was fatuous. If he was to scheme against Philip, it must be on better knowledge than he had. With a gesture he invited Philip to be seated.

  “I shall be obliged if you will.”

  He took his stand by the fireplace and with an elbow on the mantelpiece listened whilst Philip talked. For a little while he paid no great heed to what was said. Philip was telling his story from the day when he and Anthony had parted; and it seemed to have no bearing upon his position in Hanover today. But Anthony did not interrupt. For with every sentence he was learning that Philip, in spite of his looks, had aged, had changed. The banishment from Celle with its attendant humiliations, the flight from England with the mob upon his heels had, taken together, shaken his confidence. He had fled to Paris with a look of bravado upon his face and a sense of inferiority at his heart. In Paris he had found success easy — success with women, success with men, too. But there was always lingering at the back of his mind the knowledge that two countries had cast him out with ignominy. He had grown hard, bitter and a little contemptuous of his easy triumphs and very wary lest ruin should sweep him into the depths again. He had lost whilst still a boy the generosity of a boy’s mind, its finer impulses, its courage.

  “I studied in Paris. I was offered a commission in Louis’ army under General Louvois. But I preferred to serve with my brother, Karl John, against the Turks. I left France of my own free will — remember that, Craston! I was with my brother when he died of fever in the Morea and I inherited his fortune. But you know that, of course.

  “No, I didn’t,” Anthony replied coldly, “but I can now account for the two footmen on the dickey.”

  “When the campaign was over I went to Venice,” Philip continued.

  “Of course,” said Craston suddenly.
r />   There was merely agreement in the tone of his voice. Philip sooner or later would be drawn to Venice by some subconscious compulsion. Craston recognised an affinity and correspondence between his visitor and that magical city. Its romance, its appeal, and something sombre too. Its hint of mystery and swift eclipse in the silent gliding of a gondola out of bright moonlight into a chasm black as death between high Palace walls. Surely Venice would whisper its invocation to Philip Königsmark in such clear sweet notes that he would hear it across an ocean and obey.

  But Philip was telling with a curious insistence of his love affairs. There had even been a nun to whom he had laid a successful siege. Craston heard underneath the spoken words a cry, “If I was driven contumely from Celle, I triumphed at Venice.

  “At Venice I made a great friend, young Frederick Augustus of Saxony,” he went on, “and, going on to Dresden with him, I took service with his brother, the Elector. I had fought in Argos, in Hungary. I became a Colonel.”

  “Yes,” said Anthony, wondering whither all this exordium was leading.

  “And this year, my uncle Otto William died.”

  “It is the law of nature,” said Anthony.

  “I am therefore the last male Königsmark alive.”

  “You can repair that misfortune, no doubt, by a marriage.”

  “I was bequeathed my uncle’s fortune in addition to my brother’s,” Philip continued imperturbably.

  “All the more easily, therefore, can you repair the misfortune. For I believe that your uncle’s fortune was large,” said Anthony, not quite concealing a yawn behind his hand.

  “It gave me complete freedom,” said Philip. “I resigned from the Elector of Saxony’s service.”

  “No doubt,” said Anthony.

  But he stood now erect. He no longer found the story tedious. He was afraid of what was to come. There was a moment’s silence which Philip altogether misunderstood. For he said in a rush: “I resigned entirely by my own wish. I could have lived my life out in Dresden.”

  Again there were evident in his thoughts the banishment from Celle, the expulsion from England, the challenge to any detractor to prove that he was marked with the stigma of defeat; and again Anthony was occupied by his own fears.

  “It is natural that you should leave so small a field as Dresden,” he said eagerly. “The world’s yours for the asking.”

  Philip shook his head and smiled.

  “I told you I was not a visitor to Hanover for the Carnival.”

  Anthony felt such a chill at his heart that he shivered. He looked at Philip with eyes in which fear showed stark. He was as one who sees an avalanche roaring down towards him in a mist of snow and cannot move from its path.

  “I don’t understand,” he babbled with the accent of a child. “No, I don’t.”

  He wouldn’t understand. He would shut his ears to comprehension. He wouldn’t listen. Yet he did, and so that no word escaped him.

  “His Highness, the Duke, offered me this morning the command of his Regiment of Guards.”

  “But you refused it.”

  “No. I accepted it,” said Philip and for awhile there was silence between the two.

  Anthony was flung into a consternation which numbed his mind. Whatever he had dreaded, the fact exceeded it. One question came to the top in this confusion of his mind and clamoured for an answer. To what end had Philip accepted this appointment? Philip was twenty-two. He had such a conglomeration of advantages as hardly another man alive could claim. He had youth, beauty, talents, high birth, a romantic name and colossal wealth. There was no Court so magnificent but he must shine in it. There was no office beyond his reach. Why had he turned his back upon so much splendour to bury himself amidst the showy insignificance of Hanover?

  “So you prefer Herrenhausen to Versailles?” Anthony asked drily.

  “Yes,” answered Philip.

  “Even Dresden has more to offer than Hanover.”

  Philip was staring into the fire.

  “That may be. I prefer the Leine River to the Elbe.”

  “Why?”

  Philip Königsmark lifted his eyes from the fire. He let them rest upon the troubled face of his companion and for a time he did not answer. He looked back again into the fire and Craston saw or fancied that he saw a smile of amusement play over his face, destroy its beauty and make it devilish. Finally he turned again to Anthony and threw back his head, braving him, challenging him.

  “I think that I will tell you,” he said.

  “Do,” said Anthony.

  “You won’t laugh? You won’t write me down a sentimental idiot? I should hate to lie under your ridicule.”

  Was Philip bantering him? Anthony had never been less inclined to laugh in his life. Moreover he was aware now that the Philip who was staring at him with the enigmatic smile playing about his lips was a man nursing a secret plan and dangerous.

  “I shall not laugh,” he promised.

  “Very well,” said Philip. He paused and added slowly, so that each word might reach its mark; “I left Dresden because I could not endure to see a Prince breaking the heart of an incomparable wife by preferring to her a greedy and trivial mistress.”

  Whether the accusation against the Elector of Saxony was true, Anthony Craston did not know. But whether true or false, it did not matter. The application of the words was to be found here — in Hanover. Anthony’s face grew livid.

  “For the same reason you have come to Hanover?” he cried.

  Philip Königsmark did not profess any astonishment at the question. He kept his eyes on Craston’s face.

  I do not say so,” he replied.

  Anthony’s first impulse was to strike the man who had once been his friend, across the face, to lean down and hit with all his might, to ruin for ever those fine looks which had won so many easy triumphs. But there would be a meeting if he did and, whatever the result, there would be talk and the truth of it would out. Though his fingers clenched themselves and bit into the palms of his hands, he mastered his desire.

  “So the first thing you did to make proof of your fine conscience was to stand up publicly in a minuet with a greedy and trivial mistress here.”

  Philip Königsmark nodded his head.

  “Yes, I saw that you were watching from a box.”

  “And the second thing you did,” Craston continued in a white heat, “was to go home to Monplaisir with the incomparable Princess’s deadly enemy.”

  “I had my reasons for that,” said Königsmark (and it was quite clear that he did not mean to give them). For the moment after he had spoken he got to his feet and crossed the room. Anthony watched him, feeling utterly helpless. On the chair against the wall an ermine cloak with a lining of grey satin which matched the shade of Philip’s suit was carelessly thrown and a three- cornered hat trimmed with gold lace on the top of it. Philip was going. Tomorrow he would be wearing a uniform. He would be Colonel of the Duke’s own Regiment of Guards — and he would have the keys of the Leine Palace in his pocket — and Anthony could not do the smallest thing to hinder it. He saw Philip sling the cloak across his shoulders and fasten the clasps across his chest. Anthony tried to make light of his anxieties.

  “I am probably making a fuss like an old hen when a fox comes prowling round the chicks in her coop. Philip mayn’t have any plan in his mind. He mayn’t have had any reason for going out to Monplaisir, beyond that a woman’s a woman and the von Platen one of them. Anyway one can manage to make sure that the Princess shall hear of it. I can do that myself since I have an audience with her this morning.”

  But he could not console himself so easily. Philip turned towards him. With his fine clothes, his slim and graceful figure, his dark eyes and his curious appeal as of one set apart for a tragic destiny, like some youth in an old play of Greece, he was the very man to capture the hearts of women. Add the memory of an early love violently interrupted! There was too much danger in him — if he stayed in Hanover. Philip took his hat and placed it
under his arm.

  “I must go,” he said and he moved towards the door with a smile and a nod.

  In another moment he would have gone. Anthony in a desperation caught at the tiny fragment of an idea which had come to him as he rode up to his door. He had no time to examine it. He must shoot his arrow at a venture.

  “Just a word,” he said quickly and Philip stopped.

  “Well?”

  He took his watch from his fob and glanced at it.

  “Is your life safe in Hanover?”

  A look of complete surprise came into Philip’s face.

  “As safe as another’s,” he answered.

  “Are you sure?”

  Anthony made the very most of his question. Philip laughed.

  “I can defend myself. You should know, Anthony. Even as long ago as when we were at Faubert’s school, sword play was one of my knightly accomplishments.”

  Anthony was careful not to join in the laugh. He shook his head seriously.

  “I am not thinking of an encounter according to the rules.”

  “No? Of murder then?”

  Anthony did not answer directly. He tried to fill his eyes with great meaning.

  “Haven’t you an enemy in Hanover who would stop at nothing to make his account with you?”

  Philip was puzzled. He reflected. He searched for names.

  “Not that I know.”

  “Nor in Celle?”

  There was a pause. Philip shook his head and smiled.