I laid down my cloak and hat, and professional arguments came to my aid. After all, Davout had no right to arrest me within the Grand Duke’s sovereignty; why should I then aid him in his usurpation? Why condone the breach by offering myself as a sheep to the slaughter? No, I would remain where I was, and if a way of escape presented itself, I would take it.
It was not the more heroic choice, and it remained to be seen whether it would avail. I had still to learn whether the Duchess’s ingenuity would prove equal to the task, and in a state of suspense, painful to remember, I awaited the event. I had until noon, it was already close on eleven. If Her Highness acted she must act quickly — quickly. I wandered from door to window. I looked out on the gardens, anxious to discern some indication, some proof, that she was at work.
Presently I perceived signs that there was something in preparation. There were movements on the Terrace, a bevy of servants crossed it and went down to the gardens. One bore a pair of long white staves, another a bundle of flags, a third a chair of state.
By and by an odd figure came into view, and began to pace the length of the Terrace. And at that my heart sank, for I recognized in the figure one of the pawns in the garden-chess game. So that was all! They were going to play chess. I was in peril, I was in suspense, the minutes were speeding by, and with true courtly frivolity they were going to — play chess!
It certainly was so, for presently another and a stranger figure appeared — a canvas-covered knight, his visor raised, bestriding a canvas hobby-horse. He paused on the Terrace, chose at his leisure a seat in the sun and, disengaging himself from his steed, sat down to wait. Then a second pawn followed, and a third, each making his way down to the gardens.
Then, in a whirl of laughter and flying garments, Babetta! Babetta, prancing and sidling, swathed in one of the chess-suits, and dragging after her a vast train. The dress was ludicrously too large for her, but undeterred by this, or by the fact that she was as good as blindfold — for nothing was visible of her face — she jigged this way and that, now waving her arms and curtseying to the windows, now with a great part of the skirts gathered up in her arms, gambolling wildly up and down.
Laughter eddied from her, and little hoots of defiance. “Me voici! Me voici! La Tour! La Tour!” she cried, a fantastic, leaping, freakish figure, that at another time would have amused me sufficiently. Every moment I looked to see Martha or another run out to seize her, for it was clear that the child had eloped with some one’s dress.
But no one came after her, and presently she reached a spot opposite to my window. There she fell to a new play, whirling round one way until she had wound her train about her legs, then pirouetting the other way until she was again enmeshed. She had done this twice when I caught the note of a whistle, and as quickly the strange figure bounded to my window and tapped on it.
I opened it, dumbfounded; she tumbled into the room, and in a trice, struggling frantically, had disengaged her flushed, laughing face and tumbled hair.
“Did I not do it well?” she panted. “It is for you, Monsieur. Put it on, and when the whistle sounds again, join that knight on the seat there, and go down to the chess. You are a Castle — you have no face, you look through these holes. Hauser — Hauser is the Knight — will tell you where to stand. You are Chemnitz the herbalist, if anyone asks you. When the game is over go straight out through the gates with the other pieces — there are seven or eight from the town — and go down the main street till you come to Puckler’s on the right side, next the bridge. He has a carriage waiting for you.” The lesson — it was evidently a lesson — tripped fluently off her tongue, but before it was half told I had caught her drift, and had begun to drag on the ungainly garment that she had put off. Distended by circular wires, and borne on the shoulders by straps, it was, viewed from outside, a fair imitation of a round tower.
“Did I not do it well?” she repeated, in high glee. “That whistle was to say that there was no one looking. It is the best dress of all for hiding one.”
“Am I right, Princess?” I asked.
“Parfaitement! But no! When Chemnitz wears it he fills it. The walls stick out.”
I hurried it off again, and slipped into the fur cloak, remembered the money, too, and pocketed it. Then on with the Castle masque again, “Is that better?”
She clapped her hands. “Oh magnifique! Colossal! Now you are stout — like a German!”
“Good,” I said. “Will you be good enough to take a message for me to Her Highness? Will you tell her—”
But the whistle sounded and cut me short, and Babetta pushed me towards the window. “ Tout de suite! Tout de suite!” she urged. “Go to Hauser! You see him? Go down with him. Do what he tells you!”
I hastened to obey, climbing clumsily through the window on to the Terrace. For a moment, the scope of my vision limited by the eyelet holes, I was at a loss. Then I picked up the Knight who was mounting his hobbyhorse at leisure, and I moved stiffly towards him.
He bade me by a gesture to accompany him, and “ Right hand square, back line is yours,” he muttered, as we proceeded slowly, and cautiously, holding up our skirts, down the stone steps to the gardens. “I am next to you. And say little, gnadige Herr — Chemnitz is a sulky fellow. When it is over join me — I also am going into the town. Slowly, slowly, mein Herr! Do not hurry!” Sauntering with as easy an air as a man can assume whose limbs are swaddled in a long nightshirt, and his head in a linen-basket, I arrived by his side at the ground.
It was a warm day for the end of October, and the sun shone on a scene certainly strange. The pieces, some red, some white, and thirty in number, lounged or chatted in twos and threes on either side of the board. This was a rectangular space, paved in alternate squares with black and white marble and framed in smooth green sward. At either end rose a wide marble rostrum finely designed, and so shaped that the middle and the two ends curved forward.
Each of these balconies was capacious enough to seat five or six persons, besides the player whose chair of state occupied the middle projection. Against the black and white pavement and the green turf the scattered pieces in their red or white masques produced a gay and lively effect; so much so, indeed, that though my heart beat more quickly than was pleasant, and between the heat and the lack of air I was in a perspiration, I could not but admire it.
I fancy that my arrival had been carefully timed. But accidents will happen, and one had perhaps delayed the Grand Ducal party, for there was a pause which I found very trying. Hauser, engaging me in talk at a little distance from the others, shielded me as well as he could from strange overtures; but presently one of the other pieces, a Bishop, crossed the board towards me, evidently with the intention of joining us.
Hauser did what he could. He seized the man by his dress, drew him aside, and for a minute or more held him in conversation. But the Bishop was pertinacious and restive; he had business, it appeared, with Chemnitz, and twice he tried to get round my friend. The third time he succeeded. Breaking from Hauser’s detaining hand he took me by a loose fold of my disguise, and ——
“Chemnitz,” he said, “ how is it to be? Are you going to give me the price of that ham? It’s yes or no, man, for I can’t wait any longer. Is it a bargain?”
“Nein!” I grunted, perspiring more than ever, and wishing with all my heart that he and his ham were in a still hotter place. “Nein! Nein!”
“Eh! What?” in angry surprise. “ You won’t? Oh, but you can’t treat me so to the rules of business contrary. I kept it for you, my friend, and it is not too friendly now to—”
Crack! A staff fell sharply on the front of the nearer rostrum, and “Places! To your places!” cried a shrill, commanding treble. It was Babetta’s; the child had perceived my difficulty and with equal resource had seen now to deliver me from it. “ March, Herren, if you please!” And crack! crack! the staff falling on the ront of the rostrum gave weight to her order. “Places!” You may take it from me that I was not behind hand in obeyin
g. I shook off my business friend and in a twinkling got Hauser between us. The Bishop, placed on the other side of him, and perforce divided from his bargain, made an attempt to continue the discussion across the Knight’s crupper.
“My ham, my ham!” he began, but I would not listen and Hauser cut him short. “ Have done with your ham, Fichte!” he growled. “ The Princess has her eye on you! Have a care!” and seeing that this was the fact Herr Fichte subsided, grumbling.
Thank heaven, a moment later the trumpets sounded high, in honour of the Grand Duke’s arrival. He mounted the rostrum behind me, and took his seat, attended by two or three of his gentlemen. His opponent, the Court Physician, with a great show of humility, ascended the other rostrum, but did not venture to sit down. The Duchess and the old Grafin, with several ladies, chose to sit on the sward beside the board.
A Court official bade all be silent, and a kind of Master of the Board, armed with a wand as long as a salmon rod, took his stand at the right-hand end of each rostrum. Apparently his business was to pass on the players’ orders, and if need be, to hasten the pieces’ movements with a touch of his rod. The trumpets sounded a challenge, the lists were opened, the mimic tournament began.
I knew that all that I should be called upon to do was of the simplest. But between the heat and my excitement, I was extremely uncomfortable. All sorts of untoward accidents rose before my mind. What if I made some stupid blunder and was ordered to unmask? Or what if the real Chemnitz, whom I supposed to be locked up in some distant room, escaped and put in an appearance — as damnably unwelcome as the ghost in Hamlet? Or suppose I were to faint with the heat? Or — and now, there! There was Hauser my ally and dependence gone from me — moved two squares to the front, leaving my flank unprotected!
By and by I should be left alone, commanded by eyes on every side. I wondered if my boots were visible. They were of English make, they might betray me. Or there might be some formality, usual when a piece was moved, which I in my ignorance might omit!
And, confound it, the piece that masked me in front was gone also! Presently I should have to move, half a dozen spaces at once, half across the board, perhaps. And how should I acquit myself? Could I do it with the trained step, the stiff bearing of the drilled pieces? I waited — waited nervously for the word of command, fearful lest I should fail to hear it, apprehensive that I should attract notice in some way.
I stared straight before me, wound up to move. And oh, how hot it was! And how oppressive the silence between the moves!
CHAPTER IX
AND — ALL BUT CHECKMATE
AND the ignominy of it! If anything could add to my confusion of mind it was the sense of the false position in which I had been so weak as to place myself. For, now that it was too late, now that I could not extricate myself, I was convinced that I ought to have run any risk rather than submit to this wretched travesty, detection in which must cover me with ridicule.
I recalled the ripple of laughter which had stirred the embassies from Naples to London when poor Drake had fled across Germany disguised in a green poke-bonnet and a woman’s pelisse. I remembered the volley of jests, of cartoons and pasquinades which had hailed about his unlucky head, and even the “Poor devil! C’en est fait de lui! “with which I had dismissed him from future employment.
And here was I, with that warning before my eyes — here was I, but a short six months before, a British Minister accredited to a first-class Court — sneaking about a chess board in a disguise still more ludicrous and absurd, obeying orders and tapped on the shoulder by the wand of a miserable Jack in livery!
No wonder that with these reflections I lost my head at the moment when I needed it most. The order for me to move was given; I failed to hear it. It was repeated violently, and tap, tap, down on my head fell the scandalized wand, while from all sides “Move! Move, Herr Roche. Don’t you hear, Dummer? Move, Chemnitz!” Injunctions in all forms rained upon me, completing my confusion.
Shade of Perceval Ellis! Virulently was he avenged in that hour. I started at last, but in my haste I tripped and all but fell over the skirt of my dress. Pulled up by it, I lost my place, and did not know where to go; and it was only when a clear childish voice, rising above the grumbled objurgations, shrilled “Four to the front!” that clumsily and lamely I executed the move.
I had done it now! I had called attention to myself with a vengeance! I heard on one hand an angry exclamation — that the knave was drunk; on the other a growl — that the fool was ill. For the moment I felt all eyes upon me and I awaited what was to come.
And heaven knows what might not have come of it, if in the nick of time luck had not intervened to save me. The trumpets blared anew, there was a cry of “The Prince! The Prince!” and in a moment all eyes left me and were turned in curiosity on the august arrival.
I and my scrape were forgotten, and I had a moment’s respite. I collected my scattered senses. I could afford to make no more blunders, that was clear.
I had a glimpse of Davout, the clear brisk little man, as he passed, a few paces from me, along the side of the board, to pay his court to the Duchess and her ladies. His white gloves and his white breeches gleamed, his epaulettes and sword-hilt glittered in the sun — he was fine enough. But I felt too that he was real, terribly real!
I perceived, and I am sure that I was not the only one who perceived, the harsh contrast between his steadfast presence and this mimic court, this mimic war! Between his firm tread and the flaccid pretensions on which he politely but firmly intruded. He passed behind me, and mounted the rostrum; I could no longer see him.
But I could fancy that the easy benevolence, the long mild face and quaint pigeon-wings of the Grand Duke, made but a poor show beside him, and that even in the breasts of the Grand Duke’s subjects there must be some searchings of heart, as, awed and intimidated, they eyed this strange phenomenon, this master of their masters.
There was here no one to cry “Vivat Schill,” no one to speak for the Vaterland, no champion of the vast invertebrate Germany. But surely, here and there, in the subservient watching crowd, there must be felt some twinge of misgiving, some pang of shame, some feeling of distaste. The Master of their Masters! Of Prussia! Of Germany! Ay, the Master of all — under his Master.
But if this was so, nothing bore witness to it, no one dared to voice it. After a moment, “ Proceed!” cried the Master of the Game. “It is the wohlgeboren Hofarzl’s move.”
The Court Physician moved. The Grand Duke moved in his turn — moved, and moved me. But this time, strung to attention and nerved by Davout’s presence, and the urgency of the peril, I kept my head. I behaved as others. And the next move — oh, joy — removed me from the Board.
A red Knight captured me, and with what dignity I might and a sigh of relief I joined the “ taken pieces,” who in an orderly motionless line formed a red and white fringe along the left hand side of the board, where our presence added to the picturesqueness of the scene.
I was thankful for the respite, and my spirits rose. But the crux remained. I had still to pass the gates and the sentries. I had still to escape from the town, and for some time to come suspense must be my portion. My place in the line happened to be opposite to the spot where the Duchess sat, and I had leisure to observe her; and as I watched her slowly waving her fan and now and again languidly murmuring a word to her ladies, I was tempted to believe that she had forgotten my plight.
Babetta, too, at play behind her and now skipping over her rope, now tossing back her ringlets as she expressed a shrill and free opinion on a move; it was hard to believe that the child had a care in the world, harder still to suppose that she had the eye of a hawk for whatever might affect the Englander whom she had taken under her protection.
But I had presently proof that I wronged them both. I saw the child lean over to her mother, and “Oh, dear, dear!” the Duchess exclaimed, in a voice audible across the board, “How hot those poor Castles must be! That one opposite; he very nearly fain
ted just now. Who is he? Herr Chemnitz? Well, poor man, tell him he may go. And Herr Hauser — his vizor must be stifling.” Then to an attendant, “Tell Herr Chemnitz and Herr Hauser they may go. His Highness permits.”
The servant brought the message to us and I suppose that the permission was not unusual, for no one expressed surprise. With a low obeisance we fell out of the line. Hauser made a sign to me, and when we had retired a few yards we made a second obeisance. Then we turned, and side by side, as quickly as our masquerade and our skirts permitted, we walked towards the entrance gates, which stood near the extremity of the Terrace, and about a furlong from the chess board.
The Duchess’s bold stroke, while it had relieved me, had also surprised me. I had thought to pass the gates, one of a crowd; now that it was to be done in the company of Herr Hauser only, I felt the pinch. I appreciated, perhaps a little too clearly, the risks. What if the sentries stopped us? Or compelled us to unmask? Short as was the distance we had to cover, I had time before we reached the gates to wish that the Duchess had not interfered, but had left us to pass out with the others.
I wondered what Hauser thought of it, and as we climbed the steps to the Terrace, “ Suppose that they ask us to unmask?” I suggested. I could see the gates and between them a smudge or two of bright colour, in sharp contrast with the lace-work of russet boughs that overtopped the wall.
“Ach!” he answered with German phlegm. “ We will hope not, mein Herr. I came in with Chemnitz. Why should they?”
“But we are going out, not coming in.”
“So!” he answered, and that was all.
I could only hope that he was right. The gates were of fine iron-work in a frame of the same, and above them the Grand Ducal flag floated idly. Between them I could look down the vista of the cobbled street flanked on either hand by the green shutters of clean substantial houses.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 687