Читать книгу The Prince of the Captivity - Sydney C. Grier - Страница 6

“Then your family have actually no idea that you are alive?”

“Not the slightest. They advertised their undying grief at my loss, and boomed that shipwreck all it was worth, for it cleared off a scandal in the most satisfactory way. The surprise wedding was buried in oblivion, and when a whisper of the truth got around, it was promptly silenced. Naturally, you couldn’t expect them allude to it on the tablet at Vindobona, though all of the other remarks proper to the occasion are there.”

“And no one in America ever penetrated the secret?”

“Just one man, and I was in deadly fear when I found it out. It was our mutual friend Hicks. He got it in his head that I was a Hamburg shipping clerk that the police were watching out for, who had forged his employer’s name and eloped with his daughter, and he set to work to trace my movements right back to my starting-point. Pretty soon he found he was on the wrong track, and then a chance word from a friend in Vindobona sent him flying along. The scandal, the rumoured marriage, the escaped Prince—there it all was, and if a mysterious hint in his paper hadn’t suddenly shown me what he was aiming at, so that I took Konstantia along, and we just threw ourselves on his mercy, he would have made his own fortune and the ‘Crier’s’ by revealing all of the story. He took pity upon us and kept his mouth shut, and he and I have been friends ever since. I have appointed him Félicia’s trustee in case of my death.”

“And you don’t intend to be reconciled to your family?”

“Why should I? They are all thoroughly happy, believing me dead, and enjoying my property. If my son had lived—well, I don’t know, but I guess I would have laid things before him when he came of age, and given him his choice. Florian left only a daughter behind him, and Ramon has three, and no sons. There seems a fate against us Albrets. If he had concluded to claim such rights as will be mine on Ramon’s death, I daresay we could have fixed it. With the pile I can show, there wouldn’t be much difficulty in having them recognise my marriage. The Emperor could do it, with Ramon’s consent, and if I greased the wheels a bit, Félicia would pretty soon be a Princess of Arragon.”

Maimie drew in her breath sharply. Usk spoke with some hesitation.

“Please don’t think me officious, sir—it’s quite against myself, you know—but do you think it is fair to keep her in ignorance—the Princess, I mean?”

“Miss Félicia Steinherz, you mean,” corrected Félicia’s father. “I think it so far fair that if the Emperor, and my brother Ramon, and all of my family, were to kneel to me to-morrow, and entreat me to come along back, I would refuse, and forbid them to mention the subject to her.”

“Then you feel that your experiment was a success?”

“I don’t pretend that I never felt the difference between the gayest and most polite society in Europe and that of a one-horse American coast-town, and the smart people in New York who would have liked to welcome me with open arms as a multi-millionaire haven’t compensated me much. But I made a determined break out of that elegant prison of mine, just to lead my own life,—a better life, I may fairly say, than that old one,—and if it was to do, I would do it again. A succession of such marriages as mine might yet save the great houses with which I have the honour to be connected; but they won’t see it so. I am glad to have cut myself off from them.”

“But should not Miss Steinherz know the truth?”

“No, sir, she should not.” The words came crisply. “If I told Félicia in the morning all of what I have told you, by the evening, prompted by that little firebrand Maimie, she would have cabled to Vindobona, ‘What price full recognition?’ I did my best to make her as democratic as we thought ourselves, sent her to the most typical American school and college I could find, and she comes back with the most consuming ambition for social distinction that I ever saw in a woman. It comes partly from the way girls are brought up in the States—but if that was all, it might expend itself in trampling under foot every male creature that comes near her. It is mostly the Hohenstaufen blood coming out. She would a million times rather be a poor relation in Ramon’s priest-ridden household than an American heiress of no particular birth—or so she thinks now. With so many needy archdukes to be provided for, it would be easy enough to fix her up with a husband, and she would be plunged back in the life from which I broke away.”

“But if she preferred it?”

“I don’t take any stock in her preferences. When I concluded to Americanise my family, Lord Usk, I guess I began a generation too late. I should have taken myself in hand first, for I have never acquired that subservience to my womenfolk which the true American glories in. The neighbours set my wife down as a domestic martyr, I believe; and I am free to confess that if she had thought less of the honour I had done her, we might both of us have been happier. But Félicia has grown up in full knowledge of her rights as an American woman, and a pretty strong determination to see that she gets them; and I will acknowledge to you that when we fall out the forces on either side are more evenly balanced than I care about. I give my orders and stick to them, and gain the victory that way; but the peace-offerings afterwards come expensive. Can you wonder that I have no particular use for a storm over this?”

“But supposing that she should ever find out——?”

“How’d she do it? But I have watched out for that. When she marries, her fortune will remain in the hands of trustees, though settled strictly on herself. If any other person, either her husband or any member of my family, claims to get control of the money by virtue of any family or state law, I have fixed it that all but the merest pittance will go to the Mayor of New York for the time being in trust for the beautifying of the city. I guess Tammany won’t have such a chance go by, and my noble relations must just climb down.”

“I think you are very wise,” said Usk slowly.

“But that’s only in case she marries a foreigner. What I should fairly admire would be to have her marry an Englishman. I thought of an American first; but where would I find one that wouldn’t lie down and let Félicia walk over him if there were ructions? Maybe you see now why I have encouraged you to visit here?”

“Because you think I could be trusted to keep Miss Steinherz in order?”

“Now don’t get mad. Your feelings were not just exactly a secret, you know, from the first day you came. The actual fact is that Hicks, knowing my wishes, brought you along that you might fall in love with Félicia, and you did, right away.”

“Perhaps Miss Steinherz knows your wishes too?”

“It is my mature opinion, sir, that she does not. If she did, I incline to think they would not stand much chance of fulfilment. But you are on a different platform, and I am talking with you as a business man. I would like to marry my daughter to an Englishman of sufficiently high position to make my family think twice before they meddled with him. You seem to me to fill the bill pretty well. So far as I understand, you are a young man needing money and some one to shove you along, and in marrying Félicia you would get both. I guess that tremendous ambition of hers would justify its existence then—she would see you Premier or die. Think it over.”

“What is there to think about?” demanded Usk hotly. “It’s not as if you had told me anything that could change my feelings. Félicia is Félicia, and I can’t say more than that. I should be proud and thankful to marry her this moment if she would have me. But supposing the truth ever comes out, how can I face her if she asks me how I dared to keep her in ignorance, when she might have made a far more splendid match?”

“How would it ever come out? You won’t tell her, Hicks won’t tell her, I won’t tell her—and there’s no other person knows the secret. It would need a series of most improbable coincidences to bring it to light, any way. As things are now, you are a most suitable match for her—rank on your side, the dollars on hers. Of course, if you are afraid to go ahead, just because the unlikely will maybe happen, I can’t help it.”

“I only want to act fairly by her. If I felt she could justly reproach me——”

“If she does, just go down town for an hour or so, and bring her along a bracelet when you come back,” was the unsympathetic reply. “Or it might even run to a necklace, but you would better reserve that for a pretty large emergency. Well, go home and think it over.”

“I don’t want to think it over. If you will only give your consent on condition that I keep silence, what can I do?”

“I don’t see but you’ll have to give in,” smiled Mr Steinherz, “being the man you are, and in your present state of high emotion.”

“Unless you meant me to consult my father——?”

“Not at all. I have the highest respect for your parents, but I understand they both look at everything from a lofty moral standpoint. They would think it my duty to do about forty million things that I don’t incline to do, and that would tire me. No, my first reason for telling you all of this was that it seemed playing it pretty low down to put you in a position in which some extraordinary chance might spring the family history on you without warning. And, of course, you might object to mix the Plantagenet blood you Mortimers are all so proud of with that of Albret and Hohenstaufen. You feel yourselves on a level with the royal houses of Europe, I believe—even leaving out of account the Continental adventures of your father and uncle, and the new lustre they have shed upon your name?”

“May I ask your other reasons?” asked Usk, his blood tingling at the tone of genial sarcasm. It was clear that Mr Steinherz did not share Mr Hicks’s enthusiasm over Count Mortimer’s marriage.

“There’s only one, but I won’t tell you that right now. You see this envelope? I will seal it and direct it to you, and you can open it this day six months, or at my death. The enclosure will explain itself.”

Usk put the envelope into his pocket, struck by the change in his host’s manner, but the momentary gloom passed quickly.

“Think things over to-night, as I said. We will meet at the club to-morrow at eleven, and you can tell me what you have concluded to do. I have been frank with you, and I look to you to be frank with me. And I’ll make just this one exception to your vow of silence. You may tell all of the circumstances to your uncle, Count Mortimer, if he should be in Europe any time. Don’t trust them to paper. He is a man of the world, and will fix you up with the best advice. I say this because Hicks asked me some time back to nominate him as a second trustee, if he would consent to act. And one thing yet. If by any grievous necessity you are forced to have the secret become public property, face it out boldly. You would rather marry the Yankee shipbuilder’s daughter than the morganatic daughter of a Prince of Arragon, wouldn’t you? So I thought. Well, remember that my marriage was not morganatic. I made it just as legal and binding every way as I could, and there is to be no half-recognition. If Félicia is not a Princess of Arragon, she is Miss Steinherz of Rhode Island. I leave her mother’s name in your care. All of the proofs that you’ll need are in Hicks’s hands—papers, portraits, little things that belonged to my mother, the list of witnesses of the Vindobona marriage, my own sworn and attested statement of the facts—Hicks has everything in charge.”

“What has Mr Hicks got in charge?” asked a voice gaily as Mr Steinherz opened the door leading into the sitting-room. Maimie stood at the side-table, pouring out a glass of iced water from the jug which was placed there in compliment to American tastes. Anxious to hear as much as she could, she had found it quite impossible to escape when the voices approached the door, and had barely succeeded in reaching the table.

“What are you doing here this time of night?” asked Mr Steinherz.

“Why, I have been sitting up,” said Maimie glibly, “and I guess my book wasn’t soothing enough. I don’t feel the least bit like going to sleep, any way, and the water in my room is just torrid, so I remembered this pitcher here, and came to get some.”

She faced her guardian boldly, with bright eyes and flushed face. “I just hope he won’t have me produce the book that proved so interesting,” she thought, and then became aware that the glass in her hand was shaking visibly, for the long crouching in a cramped position had left her deadly cold. “Like must cure like!” she said to herself, and drank off the water with a smile to Mr Steinherz. “I’d like to have you tell Félicia that she mustn’t pass along her nerve-attacks to me,” she added aloud. “What with her headache and that book, I’m so nervous I could dance.”

“Unless you have a particular wish for Lord Usk as a partner, I would advise you to go right to your own room, and do it there,” said Mr Steinherz, and Maimie was thankful to escape. Passing Félicia’s door, she caught the monotonous tones of the weary maid, who was reading her mistress to sleep, and heard also a pettish voice say, “What nonsense you make of it, Pringle! I believe you are going right asleep. I had just lost myself, and now you have waked me up again.”

“Maybe I ought to go and massage her head,” said Maimie thoughtfully to herself, “but I guess I’ll have Pringle go on suffering this once. I want to think. If Félicia only knew! But if I told her now, the same house wouldn’t hold her and her father. And I can’t tell Lord Usk about it, because he knows already, nor talk about it with Pappa Steinherz, because he would know I’d been listening, and it’s no use thinking of making it public, because he would be fit to deny all of the story, and I suppose it couldn’t be proved without him. When I concluded to find out why he was so set on marrying Félicia off to this lord, I didn’t ever expect this. It’s tremendous. For—the—land’s—sake!” she spoke slowly and emphatically, “what a boom I could work up if we were back in New York! But here I don’t see I can do anything with it any way. I guess I’ll just have to save it up in case Prince Malasorte should show his face again. I might fix things then so’s it would fall to him to charge it on Mr Steinherz. But what am I to say about my listening? I’m not ashamed of it a cent—though I did feel awfully mean when he talked about his love-affairs—but some folks would think it cast a doubt on my evidence. What I want is some queer fact that would be likely to set my wits to work until I puzzled out the thing for myself. But suppose there isn’t anything really. Suppose Mr Steinherz dreamed all of the story—suppose he has lost his mind! Oh, I can’t endure this! There must be something right away back that I could remember, to give me the clue I want. St Mary Windicotes! Where have I ever heard that name before?”

She sat for a while pondering the question, then sprang up, and throwing open a huge trunk in a corner, plunged her arm to the very bottom, and brought out a small old-fashioned Prayer-book. She turned to the fly-leaf. On it were written the words, “Julia Slazenger, from her sincere friend Marian Cotton. St Mary Windicotes Vicarage, May 18th, 18—.”

“I knew it!” she cried, “and Aunt Connie used to tell Fay and me all about it evenings when we were babies. We thought it must be a mean sort of a place, but she seemed real fond of it, and I would know it anywhere. I’ll go right there, and look up that register for myself. Charing Cross, Mr Steinherz said—that’s somewhere down town, I know—and Bradcross is a suburb, so I guess it can’t be far away. I’ll take that message about Félicia’s shoes to the store myself, instead of having Pringle go, and then I’ll go way down there without any other person’s knowing. I will find out whether it’s a dream or not.”