“I love and I am loved. Is there any happiness in the world approaching mine...? You have never appeared to me so altogether lovely as on that night... The memory of it blots out trouble itself. With crossed hands and bended knees I thank you...”
There was more in the same strain — pages of it, extravagant, at times fantastic in their extravagance. He had been near to swooning when he thought of her and had not his servant brought him de l’eau de la reine d’Hongrie, he did not know but what he would have died.
In a hurry he turned to the superscription and exclaimed with relief.
“But it’s addressed to Knesebeck. Look! Not to you. And the letter’s written to Leonisse. And it’s signed Tercis. Eleonore has a lover. We must congratulate her upon her conquest. My pretty heart, you’re afraid without a reason for fear.”
But Sophia Dorothea gently took the letter from him and pointed to the signature.
“You signed it, Tercis. Look closely at your signature.”
Philip bent his eyes to it.
“Someone has drawn with a pencil a loop round the name,” he said slowly.
“Yes.”
“You!” said Philip forcing a smile.
Sophia Dorothea shook her head.
“The one who opened this letter.”
“But no one but you and I know that Tercis stands for Philip.”
“Someone does,” the Princess insisted.
Philip was at a loss. Never had he spoken of himself as Tercis. The only clue to the cipher, he carried always about with him when he was awake, and when he slept it was hidden beneath his pillow.
“Someone? Who then?” he asked.
“Clara von Platen.”
Philip stared at his mistress aghast. Clara von Platen? How in the world could she have guessed? Sophia had allowed her fears to outrun her judgment.
“Ever since your first day in Hanover, Clara von Platen has hated you,” he said.
“Yes, ever since that day,” the Princess admitted. “Oh, she had reason enough. I was younger than she was, I refused her friendship. I insisted upon her deference, I tried to outshine her with my jewels. I was as foolish as a young girl can be. But it was a sort of sleeping hatred, a Vesuvius of a hatred. Every now and then it rumbled. Every now and then it exploded. But for the rest of the time it left me alone. Now it’s more active, more virulent. You saw her face this morning on the staircase. She would have struck me dead if she could. She’s jealous, Philip. Jealous of you. And she knows that my heart answers to yours as the waves of the sea to the moon.”
“Dearest!” said Philip with a smile and sank back again into his questioning. Certainly he had remarked the wild fury of Clara von Platen that morning. There must be some reason for that. Certainly his good friend the Field-Marshall had gone out of his way to warn him. There must have been talk and conjecture. But knowledge?
“I can’t believe it,” he began and broke off before he had finished the sentence. “Wait, sweetheart!” He picked up the letter which lay between them on the couch and looked at the signature again. His mind went scurrying back through the days of his journey to Sweden. He had received his mistress’s letters at this stage and sent his answers back at that — and suddenly he knew how the secret had escaped. He sat staring in front of him at the streets of Celle.
“God’s blood, but that’s the truth,” he said in a low voice. “It’s I, I alone, who have put you to this torture.”
“You, Philip? She leaned her cheek against his shoulder with a little laugh. No hurt could be done to her by him.
“You? How?”
“I stayed at the golden Lantern at Celle. A pot-house. It was a mistake. The mere choice of so vile a place was suspicious. I gave my name as Count Tercis.”
“Oh!” said Sophia with a moan.
“It was madness. The next morning as I rode away, I came face to face with — what’s the fellow’s name — Muller — yes, Heinrich Muller, Bernstorff’s servant in the Zöllner Strasse. My dear, I was out of my wits with pride. Nothing in the world could touch me to my hurt. I felt your love about me like armour. My happiness was glorious. He had terrified me once. I grinned at him with derision like a schoolboy. The fellow was astounded. Yes, that’s it. I’ll wager that within the hour Bernstorff knew that I had lain hidden for a night in Celle under the name of Tercis. And what Bernstorff knows, Clara von Platen knows too.”
For a little while the lovers sat huddled together silent and aghast. Then Sophia Dorothea — she made no reproaches — said in a small voice.
“I think Maximilian knows too.”
“Maximilian? No!” said Philip violently.
Prince Maximilian would have asked his price for his secrecy, had he known. He had so pestered Sophia Dorothea that she could not visit Herrenhausen itself until she had made sure that Maximilian slept in a quarter of the house far removed from hers. But some delicacy hindered him from giving that reason for his conviction. He had another at his hand.
“Maximilian and Clara von Platen are at daggers drawn. Don’t you remember? He had been told that water in which peas had been boiled was an infallible test of rouge and he squirted some into Clara von Platen’s face when she had a party at Monplaisir. It was just the sort of monkey trick Maximilian would play. He was arrested for it and locked up in his bedroom. He and Madame von Platen never speak.”
“They do now,” Sophia returned. “She and Maximilian and Monsieur de la Cittardie.”
“Cittardie!” cried Philip recalling the little fat friend who trotted at the heels of Maximilian. “That hogshead! That barrel of lard!”
“They are always together. They are plotting something. I am frightened,” said Sophia with a shiver, and Philip caught her close to him.
“My dear one! The pain I cause you! But listen! They have no proof. It’s guesswork and prattle. The name of Tercis must disappear. I’ll call myself the Chevalier. We’ll think of another name for you — a lovely one to fit you. And we’ll face them boldly. That’s the way.”
Facing people was his way but not hers. Love had made a coward of her. She saw peril in each dark corner and read an accusation into each whispered word.
“I’ll give a great party in my garden and ask all Hanover,” he cried.
“Clara von Platen too,” urged Sophia.
“Clara von Platen and Max the monkey and the barrel of lard. No one shall be left out,” and then he sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands covering his eyes. He sat so long in that strained attitude, so motionless, so lost in unhappy thoughts that Sophia forgot her own distress.
“Dearest, so long as we are faithful, what else matters? I love you to madness.”
Suddenly Philip rose to his feet and catching her up in his arms kissed her passionately.
“Beautiful mouth, I love you. And I want the world to know it. I want you side by side with me through life, through death. If ever I do anything worth doing, I want men to say, ‘Without her it would never have been done at all.’ Secrecies! Shifts! Dear God if we could be free of them! You and I together always! What couldn’t we do?”
An old theme for baffled lovers. But probably no pair ever debated it so vainly as this luckless couple in the Palace at Hanover. Already suspicion was penning them in, fear had come to them and, so far from striving to make a glorious record of their united lives, they were already at their wits’ end to avoid discovery and avert disgrace.
XXIX. A PLOT FOILED
KÖNIGSMARK’S GREAT PARTY was given during the last week of May and followed the fashion of the times. The cost of it was colossal and put a strain even upon the Königsmark fortune. His sister Aurora, whose beauty was already a theme for poets, acted as hostess for him and she and Philip were the only two unmasked and dressed in the current mode. The guests included all who were of mark in Hanover and many of Philip’s old friends from Dresden. Prince Frederick Augustus, the heir to the Electorate of Saxony and Philip’s crony of the days in Venice came as Orpheus �
� an Orpheus with a lute, in a full-bottomed peruke, silk stockings and high red heels. Marshal Podevils was Nestor, George Louis his great ancestor Henry the Lion, the Princess Sophia Dorothea Diana, and Clara von Platen most appropriately Fredegonda. Ermengarde von Schulenberg for once made a profit out of her height for she came as the young Endymion and with her fair hair and her coat of white ermine to do service for a sheepskin she could hold her own against anyone even in that galaxy. But whether they came as gods of old Greece, shepherdesses, gypsies, Turks, sultanas, slaves or Romans, they came spangled with diamonds and gleaming in velvet and satin.
The party began with a dinner, the couples for which were arranged by the chances of a lucky bag, and it happened that Frederick Augustus of Saxony drew as his partner Aurora von Königsmark and thus began the long association which filled so great a part of the chroniques scandaleuses of the next generation.
After the dinner was finished the guests found twenty card tables laid ready in one room with a large buffet at the end of it. Beyond was a dancing hall with a chosen orchestra. In a music gallery a concert, for which the finest voices — Ferdinando, Nicolini, Salvadore and Borosini — had been fetched from Italy, only waited its audience to begin. And beyond the blaze of the windows and glass doors, the wide garden steeped in the cool blue dusk of a summer night spread out its invitation. Lanterns burned dimly and discreetly. Arbours fragrant with the scent of flowers half hid themselves cunningly. Smooth lawns were interspaced with lime-tree walks; and at its boundary the Leine River rippled by, now whispering against the bank, now laughing over the stones.
By midnight Philip could feel that his duties as host were sufficiently discharged. He stood outside one of the glass doors in the garden with his handkerchief to his forehead. From the windows near to him came the rattle of coins in the card-room. Farther away the rhythm of feet and the swoon of violins pulsed out into the air. He had hardly spoken to his mistress all that evening and as he looked about in the hope of snatching if only half a dozen words with her, a voice spoke at his elbow.
“Sir, will you give me your arm?”
He turned and saw a woman masked and shrouded from head to foot in a white domino. She spoke in a counterfeit voice, but it was not the woman for whom he looked. Some leap of the heart would have told him, had it been. He bowed and thought that below the domino he saw the hem of Fredegonda’s billowing dress.
“On one condition,” he said lightly. “That Your Majesty is pitiful tonight.”
It seemed to him that his playful phrase had struck a note more apt than he expected. For the woman started and spoke again with a change in her voice.
“And why tonight should I be pitiful?” she asked and a pair of dark eyes boldly challenged him.
“Because others have the armour of a mask to protect them. I alone am at your mercy and Queen Fredegonda was more famous for her cruelties than her gentleness.”
The woman laughed and slipped her gloved hand under his arm.
“Your history is at fault,” she answered. “Were I Queen Fredegonda, as you imagine, no one should be more at ease than you.”
“And, prithee, why?”
“Because that great lady had a kindly eye for a handsome spark, and kept her cruelties for the punishment of her rivals.”
There was a savage little note of anticipation in the woman’s voice which made Philip shiver. He had no doubt now that it was the one who had taken the character of Fredegonda who was with him and that that one was Clara von Platen.
“In that case the ladies in my garden shall walk without fear,” said Philip. “For if I may judge from a pair of eyes, this Fredegonda can have no rivals.”
Fredegonda sighed with satisfaction and leaned her hand upon his sleeve with a tender pressure. Philip’s piece of flattery was as witless a thing as the veriest dunce could utter. But he knew there was no need to polish it. Clara von Platen was not particular for verbal refinements. Praise was praise and she liked it slab and thick like the red and white upon her cheeks.
They came to little summer-hose about which the path wound and Queen Fredegonda commanded.
“Let us rest here for a little while.”
Her voice cooed, her eyes made the kindest promises, but the grip of her hand upon his arm was the grip of a jailor.
“We are alone,” she said in a whisper as they passed into the shelter and she drew him down onto a bench beside her. She sighed. “Surely a fine summer night is the most alluring circumstance, and when privacy adds its opportunity what poor woman but must tremble lest her defences crumble.”
Philip was beginning to feel singularly uncomfortable. Clara’s addresses were as he knew direct.
“It is so indeed, Madam. A fine night as you say and privacy,” he stammered “though to be sure there is little real privacy where at any moment we may be interrupted,” and to himself he added. “And how the devil am I going to extricate myself here?”
He was in a double quandary. For whilst he had nothing but repugnance for the lady, he was in doubt whether she had not some cunning trick in her mind which she had prepared for his undoing. For she was listening, though she leaned against him and sighed like some amorous wench in the very extremity of passion. Was she listening for that very interruption which he had pretended to dread? She certainly was not listening to him. And she still held him by the arm with a strength which only violence could overcome.
The interruption came. Two voices were heard, two men walked into view from behind the pavilion. The path ran close by the front of it, and one voice had the thick note of George Louis, the other the mincing tone of Count von Platen. With a little cry of assumed terror, Clara von Platen sprang to her feet — a cry just loud enough to be heard by those two upon the path.
“I am lost,” she exclaimed, and she flashed from the pavilion in her white domino and fled towards the house.
“Who’s that?” cried the Prince with an oath. Franz von Platen let out a thin laugh.
“Egad, Your Highness, this is a dovecote and we have driven one of the doves away. Most impolite and unseasonable of us upon my word.”
George Louis in a high good humour bellowed.
“By God, than, we owe the other one our apologies. Let’s see who it is!” he exclaimed, and he ran forward into the arbour with von Platen at his heels. There was no escape for Philip nor could he remain unnoticed. He was wearing a dress of satin embroidered with diamonds, the coat the palest shade of blue, the waistcoat and the breeches white. Even in the gloom of the little pavilion he stood out shimmering against the brown of the walls.
“Ho ho! Our noble host!” cried George Louis, as Philip bowed to him. “We’ve been spoiling sport, have we” Who was the wench?”
“Nay, Your Highness, she wore a mask,” Philip replied.
George Louis burst into a loud guffaw.
“That be hanged for a tale! You’ll not fob me off so easily. By the way the filly kicked up her heels and ran, you had undone more than her mask, I warrant you.”
Was this a chance encounter, Philip wondered, or the good Queen Fredegonda’s contrivance! Mere chance if he looked only at the Prince, for George Louis had drunk himself into a boisterous sort of joviality which had nothing to do with plans and trickeries. But contrivance if he looked at Franz von Platen. Clara’s partner and coadjutor was too aptly on the spot for Philip to accept his appearance as an accident.
“Come! Out with her name, man!” bawled George Louis. “We’ll keep your secret. Egad, you’re as nice as a confessor.”
And suddenly with a little whoop which was as poor an imitation of surprise as Philip had ever come across, von Platen darted forward and stooped. Under the bench on which Queen Fredegonda had languished something — a piece of lace? — a handkerchief, gleamed white.
“Oh ho!” and again the Minister’s mimicry of high spirits alarmed Philip by its utter poverty. “The lady has left her gage behind.” He stood with a fringed glove dangling from his fingers. “She defied us t
o name her.”
But he had not finished the sentence before the Prince with an oath had snatched the glove out of his hand.
“Good God!” he cried, all his joviality gone in the second. He bent his eyes to the glove. “Von Platen, fetch me one of those damned lanterns off a tree and you, my Lord” — he flung a black glance at Königsmark— “I pray you to stay with me.”
Franz von Platen was out of the arbour in a flash. The Prince stood silent and scowling with the glove crushed in his hand. He was as sober now as if he had touched nothing but water for a fortnight. Philip was silent too. Some devilish trick had been played upon him by Clara von Platen and her obedient scullion of a husband and the less he said at this juncture, the better.
Von Platen came hurrying back with the lantern tossing in his hand.
“Keep it steady, man!” cried the Prince and he held the glove to the light.
At the first glimpse of it, he saw his world — girdled in a blaze of ruin. He had watched Sophia Dorothea strip with a curious repugnance that very same glove from her hand in his house. It was on the night before he had marched for the Morea. She would not even touch the miniature he had had painted for her, whilst that glove was between her hand and it. The glove was Sophy’s, but Clara von Platen had secured it. Clara von Platen had dropped it; and he might claim Clara von Platen to have been his companion in the arbour from now on to Doomsday, the Prince would never believe him. And indeed why should he? Or anyone else? What! Clara von Platen, who flaunted her armours, run away in a panic like some poor doe with the dogs at her heels, lest she be discovered in a summer-house with Philip Königsmark! And buttoned up to the chin into the bargain! He could see all Hanover splitting its sides in derision.
Prince George Louis raised his eyes to Königsmark’s face.
“A glove,” he said.
“And a charming glove,” returned Philip.
“You applaud my taste.”
“If Your Highness bought it.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 720