Читать книгу The Pride of Jennico: Being a Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico - Castle Egerton - Страница 5

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I mind me that when she had drawn from me all she had wanted to know, the little lady’s pert tongue became still for a while, and that she stretched her long young limbs and lay back upon her mound of hay with the most absolute unconcern either of my presence or of the Princess’s, gazing skyward with a sudden gravity in her look. As for me, I was content to sit in silence too, glad of the quiet, because it gave me leisure to taste the full zest of this fortunate and singular meeting. I thought I had never seen a human being whom silence became so well as the Princess Ottilie. Contrasted with the recklessness and chatter of her companion her attitude struck me as the most perfectly dignified it had ever been my lot to observe.

Presently the nymph in yellow roused herself from her reverie, and sat up, with her battered hat completely on one side and broken bits of grass sticking in the tangled mass of her brown hair. She arched her lip at me with her malicious smile, and addressed her companion.

“Is it your Highness’s pleasure,” she asked, “that I should gratify some of this young English nobleman’s curiosity concerning the wandering of a Princess in so unprincely a fashion?”

“Ach!” rebuked her Highness, on the wings of a soft sigh. The truth of the girl’s assertion that her mistress’s kindness of heart amounted to weakness, was very patent; the dependant was undoubtedly indulged to the verge of impertinence, although it is also true that her manner seemed to stop short of any open show of disrespect.

“Now attention, please, Monsieur de la Faridondaine! His Most Absolutely to be Revered and Most Gracious Serenity, father of her Highness, reigns over a certain land, a great many leagues from here,” she began, with all the gusto of one who revels in the sound of her own voice. “Her Highness is his only daughter, and this August Person has the condescension to feel for her some of those sentiments of paternal affection which are common even to the lowest peasant. You have been about Courts, Monsieur Jean Nigaud, the fact is patent and indubitable. You can therefore realise the extent of such condescension. A little while ago, moved by these sentiments, my gracious Sovereign believed there was a paleness upon her Highness his daughter’s cheek.”

Involuntarily I looked at the Princess, to see, with a curious elation, how the rich colour rushed, under my gaze, yet more richly into her face.

“It does not appear now,” pursued the imperturbable speaker, whom no blink of mine seemed to escape, “but there was a paleness, and the Court doctor decided there was likewise a trifling loss of tone and want of strength. He recommended a change of air, tonic baths, and grape cure. In consequence, after due deliberation and consultation, it was decreed that her Highness should be sent to a certain region in the mountains, where Höchst die Selbe has a grand, a most high, ducal aunt, the said region being noted for its salubrious air, its baths, the quality and extent of its vineyards. In company, therefore, of a few indispensable court officials—the Lord Chamberlain (as a responsible person for her Highness’s movements), the most gracious a certain aged and high born Gräfin (our chief Court lady, once the Highness’s own gouvernante), the second Court doctor, the third officier de bouche, and mine own humble self——”

Here she paused, and, with a sudden assumption of dolefulness that was certainly comic, proceeded in quite another voice:

“I am a person of no consequence at Court, Monsieur de la Faridondaine. I am merely tolerated because of her Highness’s goodness, and also because, you must know, that I have a reputation of being a source of amusement to her Serenity. You may already have noticed that it is fairly well founded that I am talkative and entertaining, as a lady-in-waiting should be, and this is the reason why I have attained a position to which my birth does not entitle me.”

A little frown came across the Princess’s smooth brow at these words. She shot a look of deprecation at her attendant, but the latter went on, resuming her former manner, in a bubbling of merriment:

“Facts are facts, you see—I am even hardly born. My mother happened to be liked by the mother of her Serene Highness—an angel—and when I was orphaned she took me closer to her. So we grew up together, her Highness and I, and so I come to be in so grand a place as a Court. There, Monsieur, you have in a word the history of Mademoiselle Marie Ottilie. I have no wish that she should ever seem to have appeared under false colours.”

The Princess, whose sensitive blood had again risen to a crimson tide, cast a very uneasy look at her companion. I could see how much her affectionate delicacy was wounded by this unnecessary candour.

But little mademoiselle, after returning the glance with one as mischievous and unfeeling as a jackdaw’s, continued, hugging her knees with every appearance of enjoyment:

“And now we come to the series of delightful accidents which brought us here. Behold! no sooner had we left the Court of—the Court her Highness belongs to—than the smallpox broke out in the Residenz and in the palace itself. The father of her Serenity had had it; there was no danger for him, and he was in the act of congratulating himself upon having sent the Princess out of the way, when, in the most charming manner (for the Ducal Court of her Highness’s aunt was even duller than Höchst die Selbe’s own, and after the tenth bunch of grapes you get rather tired of a grape cure, and as for mud baths—oh fie, the horror!), we discovered that we had brought the pretty illness with us. And first one and then the other of the retinue sickened and fell ill. Then a Court lady of the Duchess took it, and next who should develop symptoms but the old growl-bear and scratch-cat, our own chief Hofdame, chief duenna, and chief bore. That was a stroke of fortune, you must admit! But wait a moment, you have not heard the best of it yet.”

At the very first mention of the smallpox the Princess grew pale, and made the sign of the cross. And indeed it seemed to me, myself, a tempting of Providence to joke thus lightly about a malady so dangerous to life and so fatal to looks. But the girl proceeded coolly:

“Her Serene Highness, like her most venerated brother, had had the disease; I believe they underwent it together in their Serene Babyhood. But her Serene Highness was deeply alarmed by the danger to which her Serene niece was exposed. The Court doctor was no less concerned—it is a bad thing for a Court doctor if a princess in his charge fall a victim to an epidemic—so they put their heads together and resolved to send the exalted young lady into some safer region, in company of such of her retinue as seemed in the soundest health. An aged lady, mother of M. de Schreckendorf, our Chamberlain already described to you, dwells in these plains. As a matter of fact,” said the speaker, pointing a small finger in the direction of the town, “her castle is yonder. The Duchess had once condescended to spend a night there to break a journey, and it had remained stamped on her ducal memory that the place was quiet,—not to say a desert,—that there were vineyards close by, and also that the air was particularly salubrious. She knew, too, that the Countess Schreckendorf was quite equal to the guarding of any youthful Serenity, in short, a dragon of etiquette, narrow-mindedness, prudery, and ugliness. Together, therefore, with the Chamberlain, a few women, and the poor doctor, we were packed into a ducal chariot, and carted here, the Countess receiving the strictest orders not to divulge the tremendous altitude of her visitor’s rank. She would die rather than betray the trust,—especially as to thwart innocent impulses is one of her chief pleasures, nay, I may say her only pleasure in life. Little does she or the Highness her mistress suspect the existence of a Seigneur de la Faridondaine, roaming about in the guise of a simple Silesian shepherd and pretending to sleep in order to surprise the little secrets of wandering princesses! We were told, when we asked whether there was no neighbourly creature within reach, that the only one for leagues was a fearful old man with one eye and one tooth, who goes about using his cane as freely on every one’s shoulders as the Prussian king himself. Well, never mind, don’t speak, I have yet the cream of the tale to offer! We arrived here three weeks ago and found the grapes no more spicy, the castle no more amusing, and the neighbourhood more boring than even the ducal Court itself. But one excellent day, the good little Chamberlain began to look poorly, complained of his poor little head, and retired to his room. The next morning what does the doctor do, but pack him into a coach and drive away with him like a fury. Neither coach, nor postillions, nor doctor, nor Chamberlain, have been seen or heard of since! But I, who am awake with the birds, from my chamber window saw them go—for I heard the clatter in the courtyard, and by nature, M. the Captain, I am as curious as a magpie.”

“Oh, that,” said I with conviction, “you need not tell me!”

She seemed vastly tickled by the frankness of this my first observation after such long listening, and had to throw herself back on the hay, and laugh her laugh out, before she could sit up again and continue:

“So, as I was saying, I saw the departure. The doctor looked livid with fright, and as for the Herr Chamberlain, he was muffled up in blankets and coats, but I got a glimpse of his face for all that, and it was spotted all over with great red spots!”

The Princess pushed her hat off her forehead, and turned upon her lady-in-waiting a face that had grown almost livid.

“Pooh!” said the lady-in-waiting; “your Highness is over-nervous; ’tis now a good fortnight since the old gentleman left us, and if you or I were to have had it we should have shown symptoms long ago. Well, sir, to continue: our worthy hostess the Countess was in a fine fume, as you can fancy, between duty and natural affection, terror and anxiety. She was by way of keeping the whole matter a dead secret both from us and from the servants; but the fumigations she set going in the house, the airing, the dosing, together with her own frantic demeanour, would have been enough to enlighten even obtuser wits than ours. With one exception all our servants fled, and all hers. She had to replace them from a distance. The anger, the responsibility, the agitation generally, were too much for her years and constitution; and three days ago—in the act (as we discovered) of writing to the Duchess for instructions, for she had expected the Court doctor would have sent on special messengers to the courts of her Highness’s relatives, and was in a perfect fever at receiving no news—as I say, in the very act of writing evidently to despatch another post herself, the poor old lady was struck with paralysis, and was carried speechless to bed. Now, Monsieur Jean Nigaud, you English are a practical race. Do you not agree with me that since the Lord, in His wisdom, decreed that it was good for the Countess’s soul to have a little physical affliction, it could not have happened at a better moment for us? I know that her Highness disapproves of what she calls my heartlessness, but I cannot but rejoice in our freedom.

“The Countess is recovering, but she won’t speak plain for a long time to come. Meanwhile we are free—free as air! Our only personal attendant is my own—my old nurse. You shall see her. She speaks but little, but she adores me. But as we cannot understand a word of the language spoken here, and the resources of this district are few, I will own to you, her Highness has found it a little dull, in spite of her lady-in-waiting’s well-known gift of entertainment, up to to-day.”

She threw me an arch look as she spoke, but the Princess, rising with the dignity peculiar to her, conveyed her sense that the joke had this time been carried a little too far.

The shadows were lengthening, the wind had fallen, it was an hour of great peace and beauty in the land. The Princess took a few steps towards the road where waited the carriage; I ran forward and presumed to offer her my arm, which she very graciously, but not without a blush, accepted. The maid of honour, springing to her feet, followed us, tripping over the rough ground, with a torn frock and her hat hanging on her neck by its ribbons. I mind me well how the chasseurs of the equipage stared to see their lady come leaning on the arm of a peasant. How they stared, too, at the unabashed, untidy apparition of the lady-in-waiting! But she, humming a little song as she went, seemed the last in the world to care what impression she made.

As we neared the coach, a tall woman all in black, with a black shawl over her black hair, jet-black eyes, staring blankly out of a swarthy face, descended from it. She looked altogether so dark and forbidding a vision that I gave a start when I saw her thus unexpectedly. She seemed a sort of blot on the whole smiling, sunny landscape. But as Mademoiselle Ottilie drew near, the woman turned to her, her whole face breaking pleasantly into a very eloquence of silent, eager love.

Of course I guessed at once that this was the nurse to whom the saucy maiden had already referred. I heard them whisper to each other (and it seemed to me as if the woman were remonstrating with her mistress) while I installed the Princess on her cushions. Then both rejoined us to enter the carriage likewise. Before she jumped in, Mademoiselle Ottilie tapped her nurse on the shoulder with the sort of indifferent, kind little pat one would bestow on a dog. The woman caught the careless hand and kissed it, and her eyes as she looked after the girl’s figure were absolutely adoring; but her whole countenance again clouded over strangely when her glance fell upon us. At length they all three were seated, and my graceful retirement was clearly expected. But still I lingered.

“The vintage had begun in my vineyards,” quoth I hesitatingly; “if her Highness would honour me by coming again upon my lands, the sight might interest her.”

The Princess hesitated, and then, evidently doubtful as to the propriety of the step, threw a questioning glance at her companion.

“But certainly,” said the latter instantly, “why not accept? Your Highness has been advised to keep in the open air as much as possible, and your Highness has likewise been recommended innocent diversion: nothing could be better. When shall we say?”

“If to-morrow would suit,” I suggested boldly, “I could ride over after noon, if her Highness would permit me to be her escort. And perhaps she will also further honour me by accepting some slight refreshment at my castle. It is worth seeing,” I said, for I saw no reason why I should be bashful in pushing my advantages, “if your Highness is not afraid to enter Le Château des Fous?” I ventured to look deep into her eyes as I spoke, and I remember how those eyes wavered shyly from my gaze, and how the white lids fell over them. And I remember, too, with what a sudden mad exultation leaped my heart.

But, as before, it was the lady-in-waiting who answered.

“Afraid! who is afraid? Your Highness, will you not comfort the poor young man and tell him you are not afraid?”

“If your Highness would deign,” said I, pleadingly, and leaning forward into the carriage.

And then she looked at me, and said to me in the sweetest guttural in all the world, “No, I am not afraid.”

We were speaking French. I bowed low, fearing to spoil it all by another word. The Princess stretched out her hand and I kissed the back of her glove, and then I had the privilege of also kissing Miss Ottilie’s sunburnt, scratched, and rather grimy bare little paw, which she, with affected dignity, thrust forward for my salute.

The carriage drove away, and as it went I mind me how the nurse looked after me with a darkling anxiety, and also how as I stalked homewards through the evening glow, with my body-guard tramping steadily behind me, I kept recalling the sound of the four gracious words with which the Princess had consented to accept of my hospitality.

She had said, it is true, “Che n’ai bas beur,” but none the less was the memory a delicate delight to my heart the whole night through.