Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  “No one knows, Excellency.”

  “Ah!” said Bernstorff with a dry smile. “No one knows.”

  “No one. He was very secret. And yet — explain it to me, Excellency — he rides through the main streets on the Hamburg road at eleven o’clock today, his head in the air as though he had won all Europe by a throw of the dice. Another thing! Two years ago I came suddenly face to face with him in the gateway of Monplaisir. Excellency, he was frightened. He shrank away from me with a cry, a cry of fear. He was the pretty boy of the Castle Chapel all in a second. I meet him again this morning and he laughs me in the face. I am no longer a figure of terror. No, I am a worm without a sting.”

  It was the longest speech Muller had ever made in his life, and he stumbled through it with a great heat. Bernstorff’s smile broadened.

  “And you do not like it, my good Muller! No! It is not pleasant after you have been terrible, to be ridiculous.”

  “But explain these changes to me, Excellency!” Muller urged. “Once it was enough for me when Your Excellency said ‘Do this! Go there!’ Now it is different. I ask myself questions. I am puzzled. And I serve you the better when I have answers clear. Why does the Count Tercis sneak after dark into Celle, and a few hours later Count Philip von Königsmark in broad daylight ride out of Celle as bold as brass? Why was he shaken out of his wits at one time and grinning derisively the next?”

  Bernstorff was highly amused by his servant’s perplexity. He twirled the stem of his wine glass in his fingers and stretched out his legs under his table.

  “I can only give you this explanation, good Muller,” he said. “Love is a very complicated emotion. Meanwhile let us not forget the Count Tercis. We may with good fortune find that name used again.”

  Meanwhile Philip rode northwards, having planned to join his retinue and his baggage that night at Lüneburg. A long day’s ride but no day could be too long, provided that he rode alone. So high his spirits soared, so deep a spring of gratitude welled up in his heart. If he had not won all Europe, he could plead that he had won all that Europe had of worth for him, its Flower, its Crown. One regret he had, and he felt its ache for the first time that morning, that his great passion and Sophia’s sweet response must be hidden from the world. He wanted to shout it aloud so that the very birds might carry the news of it over forest and town. He would have liked every dullard on the road to see Sophia’s image on his forehead and in his eyes and stand dazzled and marvelling as he passed by. The old paralysing obsession that he was a pariah, that all men, however politely they might talk to him, knew it at the back of their minds, was lifted from him forever. How could he ever have been troubled by it — he whom Sophia invested with her love and sanctified with the pressure of her lips! Why, he trod down the stars!

  But as the evening drew on his raptures declined and he fell into a deep melancholy and remorse. He loved Sophia passionately — now. Last night had set an eternal seal upon them both. But it was not for love of Sophia that he had sought to win her. He had tricked her, he had gone about with her, driven on by a monstrous belief that winning her would set him free from the haunting sense of his inferiority. He had gained his end, he would not again start up in his bed, the sweat pouring from his body as he fled screaming with fear through the streets of London. He would not watch himself again babbling like a craven at the feet of a Jack-in-Office. He had won, but by a shameful treachery to the adored woman whose love had enable him to win.

  He would have to confess that treachery. His heart sank as he forecast the moment of confession. Delay it, as he might, it would have to come. He had reached that point of honesty. She might forgive — she had so much tenderness. She might banish him — she had so much pride. The dreadful moment did come but under no conditions which he could foresee, and at its own fitting time.

  Perhaps his soul went to its place the whiter because it went confessed.

  XXVIII. LETTERS ARE THE DEVIL

  TO THE WORTHY Bernstorff’s disgust, Philip was entrusted with the business of opening up negotiations with Sweden. His instructions reached him whilst he was trying to bring some order into his neglected estate in Hamburg, and he was as surprised as Bernstorff was disgusted. But he was at a convenient spot, he was a Swede, and he carried a name from his forefathers and a reputation won by his own sword which must commend him to the leaders of a great military nation. It was his task to prepare the ground for the commission of lawyers and statesmen which would follow. Philip accepted his charge with alacrity even though it must keep him from Sophia’s neighbourhood.

  “If I desire anything for myself, to win renown, to push myself to great estate, it is only for the love of you and in the hope that you may love me more,” he wrote to Sophia. “For an insignificant lover without high employment cannot hope to be long in the good graces of a lady of your rank.”

  He travelled accordingly to Stockholm, shedding lover’s letters behind him like a trail scattered by the hares in a paper chase and receiving through this and that agent tender and adoring replies. They were at this time as sure of each other’s eternal constancy as children at the very first blossoming of passion. They were at once humble and proud. He was making her quite devout; she prayed to God so continually for him. She dreaded the moment when she must return to the busier life of Hanover. Here in Celle she had solitude which she preferred to all the pleasures in the world since it gave her more time to think of him.

  “I dream of you,” she wrote, “with infinite pleasure, thinking I am with you. Then I wake to inconsolable grief.”

  At Stockholm in the midst of the discussions over the treaty a most serious problem occurs to him which she alone can decide. Should he cut his hair and were a peruke like other men, or keep his own tumbling about his shoulders? She resolves his doubts by the first post. He has the most beautiful hair in the world. It would be an offence against God to cut it, even if he ransacked the markets of Paris for the silkiest of women’s tresses wherewith to replace it. They had no fears at this time. Even a visit which Königsmark received one morning from King Charles the Eleventh’s Chamberlain gave him no warning of trouble to come. Yet the warning was clear enough if his mind had not been filled with the vision of a room in Celle Castle and of a pair of dark eyes which shone with mystery and longing as the light of a lamp slowly sank and died.

  “His Majesty,” said the Chamberlain, “views with regret the continuance of a young Swedish nobleman of wealth and distinction in a foreign service. His Majesty commands me to point out that Sweden itself has enemies and the first claim upon its own citizen.”

  Königsmark was taken aback by the unexpected complaint. He stammered a word or two about the tradition of his family which had always inspired its members to crusades against the infidel and in support of the Protestant religion.

  “His Majesty recognises that admirable inspiration,” the Chamberlain continued coldly, “and notices that it can be obeyed by service to Protestant Sweden, with the added advantage that the great wealth of the Königsmarks would be spent in Sweden rather than in countries which have no reasonable charge upon it.”

  Philip Königsmark gasped. To live where Leonisse was not, where no tree had every shaded her when she walked, where no river rippled through her dreams and no birds had piped for her delight, was not to live at all.

  “I’d sooner bury myself in the Indies,” Philip thought, but he had prudence enough not to speak his thought.

  “My humble duty to His Majesty,” he began, and the Chamberlain interrupted him.

  “I have not finished the Royal Message,” he said superbly, and Philip bowed.

  “His Majesty, recognising your experience in the conduct of war, offers you the command and the rank of General in the Swedish Army.”

  Philip had not a moment’s hesitation in answering. He desired power and fame and the high consideration which this promotion would confer upon a young man still in his twenty-fifth year — nay, he longed for them. They would lift him nearer to the
pedestal on which his mistress stood. But they meant absence, separation, banishment.

  “His Majesty honours me beyond my merits,” he replied very respectfully, “and I pray you to convey to him my deep gratitude. But I have pledged my sword to the service of the Duke of Hanover. His need is great and I must keep my word or be dishonoured.”

  His honour, indeed, was not concerned. His own sovereign claimed him as he had a right to do. It was Philip’s one chance to save both Sophia Dorothea and himself from two nerve-wracking years and the ghastly tragedy which ended them. But he turned his back upon it; and it never occurred again.

  Königsmark made his report to Duke Ernst Augustus on the morning after he had reached Hanover. It was not very hopeful and he ended it with an account of King Charles’ attempt to detach him from the Duke’s service. The Duke thanked him cordially.

  “For so much depends upon our campaign in Flanders. Namur is threatened. I am told that King Louis himself will lead his troops. Would that I could do the same!” For he was grown to so gross and corpulent a bulk that he could hardly rise from a chair without help or sit in one without his whole body tumbling in a run. “My army will march in the first week of June. You will commend my Regiment of Guards. But you will see Podevils.”

  Philip, upon leaving the Duke’s presence, passed through the great Rittersaal where the banners of the Knights hung from the high roof. At the end of the Rittersaal a circular staircase led down to a garden which flanked the Palace upon one side as Sophia Dorothea’s wing flanked it on the other. He ran lightly down the steps. It was April, the daffodils were in flower and the fragrance of carnations in the air. He was in Hanover, he had the right of entry into the Palace by day and by night, and the adored lady was home from Celle. It was as much as he could do not to sign aloud in that august place, and as if to crown his happiness, as he reached the last tread a child’s laughter came to his ears. Sophia Dorothea and her little daughter were framed in the bright square of the porch. Their backs were towards the sunlight, but he saw Sophia Dorothea waver and her hand go to her heart. Philip bowed low before the daughter.

  “You have all my respects, little Princess,” said he, and passing her, he raised her mother’s hand to his lips. It was trembling. Before he could speak, she breathed a warning so low that he hardly heard it.

  “Be careful.”

  Over her shoulder he saw the flutter of a dress behind a shrub. Someone was watching. He laughed. He took a step forward towards the shrub, but before he could discover who it was that watched, the child uttered a plaintive cry. Philip turned and saw the little girl looking up the steep circular staircase.

  “Mummy, I’m so tired,” she said.

  “I’ll carry you, darling,” her mother replied.

  “Nay, Your Highness,” Philip protested gaily, “all good soldiers are good nursemaids. A tender heart and a lusty arm, will guard a small Princess from harm,” and to the rhythm of his doggerel he swung the six-year-old Sophia up on to his shoulder and mounted the stairs.

  The child clapped her hands and crowed with delight.

  “Mummy, look at me!”

  “Yes, darling!”

  “Little Princess, with your head in the sky,

  You’re up in the blue where the angels fly.

  Don’t put your head through or the stars will fall,

  And there won’t be any at night at all,”

  Philip chanted.

  “Oh, Mummy, poetry!” squealed Sophia, drumming on the breast of her bearer with her heels. “About me!”

  Philip reached the landing at the top of the stairs and Sophia Dorothea a moment afterwards. For a second they stood looking at one another in silence, Sophia with her eyes dewy and a smile of great tenderness upon her face. In both their minds was a vision of old days at Celle when Schultz was Chancellor; if only he had been the Duke’s son instead of the page and she the maid of honour instead of the Duke’s daughter, the youngster on his shoulder might have belonged to both of them.

  Whilst they stood thus, Madame von Platen came in from the garden up the stairs, made a deep and ironical obeisance with a look of fury upon her face and passed on to the Duke’s apartments.

  Philip pulled a grimace. Outrage had been done to the great God Etiquette. Complaint would be made. He would be carpeted, reprimanded. But he was not in the mood to care.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” he cried, and he carried the little Sophia through the gorgeous reception rooms and only set her down in the corridor at her mother’s door. He turned with a smile towards his mistress and saw with a shock that her face was troubled and her eyes full of fear. Sophia Dorothea opened the door for his child to pass through and when she had gone: “I must see you tonight,” she whispered.

  There was fear in her voice as well as in her eyes.

  “At eleven I will be here,” he answered and sought to reassure her with the confident accent in his voice.

  But he was no longer confident. For months, at Hamburg and in Sweden he had been walking in a mist of dreams and vague hopes and vivid recollections. But meanwhile, here in Hanover, something had happened — something untoward. He had run down the staircase from the Rittersaal with all the spring singing in his blood. He walked slowly down this staircase at the opposite end of the Palace, into the great Court, apprehension clutching at his heart and washing all the colour from the world.

  He had hardly taken a step before the old Field-Marshall Podevils came out from the big porch by the guard-room and called to him. Philip advanced quickly and saluted.

  “Just walk a yard or two with me,” said the old man very seriously. “We are now in the last week of April.”

  “Yes, sir,” Philip agreed.

  “And you go into camp with your regiment in the first week of June.”

  “So His Highness informed me.”

  “Between the last week of April and the first week of June there is time for much to happen,” the Field-Marshall continued.

  He stopped suddenly in his walk.

  “I have been your friend, I think, since you came to Hanover.”

  “Sir, I have been very grateful for your friendship,” answered Philip.

  “You have a friend more powerful than me in Her Highness, the Duchess Sophia.”

  Königsmark was surprised, and flushed with pleasure. He could not have at this moment too many powerful friends in Hanover.

  “Her Highness’s philosophy has not destroyed her æsthetic appreciation,” Podevils continued with a smile. “She admires your good looks, she speaks of the charm of your manner. She notices a modesty in your address. It would be unwise to lose her good will.”

  “I shall do all that I can to retain it,” said Philip.

  “Will you?” the old man asked suddenly. “It is certainly within your power if you will.”

  He pushed his arm under Philip’s and they walked thus to the gates of the courtyard, Philip uncomfortable and embarrassed, the Field-Marshall silent and anxious. At the gates he stopped again.

  “My dear friend,” he said with a warmth of friendship, “may God guard you! But take this advice from me! Do not let your love hinder you from thinking of your fortune.”

  He clapped Philip on the shoulder and walked quickly away before any answer could be returned to him. Philip indeed had no answer to give. He had turned his back upon his fortune in Sweden a month ago. He was not troubled by the sacrifice of ambition, but he was gravely concerned by the Field-Marshall’s warning. Someone had guessed his secret. He stood watching the dwindling figure of old Podevils and wondering who had guessed and how. Had he been careless? Had Sophia herself let slip his name in a quarrel? He smiled rather grimly as he turned away to his own house. He would attend the Duke’s Court after supper tonight, as his position gave him the right to do. He would have a good chance there of finding out from what quarter this unfavourable wind was blowing.

  His entrance caused a trifle of a stir. A fan was dropped, a card misplaced, and a fe
w curious pairs of eyes shifted their glances from him to George Louis and back again from George Louis to him. But that was all. His Highness Duke Ernst Augustus sat apart with Clara von Platen and did not even reprimand him for his breach of etiquette that morning. George Louis gave him his usual cold greeting. The greeting was the recognition of one good soldier by another. The coldness expressed his distaste for what he called a Frenchified elegance. Philip passed from group to group. Here one whispered and stopped guiltily at his approach. There another took courage from the conventionality of his reception and took him into its conversation. Philip got no nearer to the solving of his problem and towards eleven o’clock, slipped away from the assembly.

  The apartment of the Princess had a deserted look. The corridor was dimly lighted. No sound of laughter, no buzz of talk swelled out from behind the closed doors. Eleonore von Knesebeck admitted him to the ante-room. The Princess’s page had been dismissed from his duties. In the inner room he found Sophia Dorothea alone. For a little while, in the joy of this meeting after so long a separation, their troubles were forgotten. Each had so much to say — how the same thought had come to them both miraculously at the same moment, how she had been afraid of she knew not what on the day when King Charles’s Chamberlain had summoned him to abandon Hanover, how she had thanked him with many tears for the sacrifice of his ambitions and yet had regretted it for his sake with many more. He had to laugh her regrets away and recompense her for her tears by his adoration. But in the end Sophia Dorothea took a letter from a locked casket and put it into his hands.

  “See!” she said. “It was closed by a red wafer — nothing more.”

  “But I sealed it,” cried Philip staring at the torn wafer. “With the special seal I had made for my letters to you. I am sure I did.”

  “My dear, you did. The outstretched hand with the heart upon the palm. I know that very well, for the seal was enclosed within the letter.”

  “What!”

  He opened out the letter. Yes, the wax seal was within it. He began to read the text.