Читать книгу Envoy Extraordinary - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 5

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Matresser laid down the Times and rose to his feet as Mademoiselle Stamier came a little doubtfully into the small reception room.

“I am afraid, mademoiselle,” he said, “that you see your doom. The Dean and his wife have engaged in a desperate struggle of bridge with my sister and brother-in-law and Ann’s badminton with the doctor seems to be a nightly affair. It is clearly your duty to come and talk to me.”

She moved smilingly towards the divan where he had been seated.

“To tell you the truth,” she confided, “I came to see whether I was wanted. I drove my little car into Norwich this afternoon and the wind coming back—well, you know for yourself what it was.”

“You have a headache?”

She nodded but nevertheless she sank into the divan and surrounded herself with cushions.

“I expected to find the whole family at your feet,” she said, “listening to your exploits.”

“I am afraid,” he complained, “my people don’t take very much interest in my travellings.”

“That may be your fault,” she pointed out. “Ann thinks you are very secretive. She has no address, however urgently she may wish to communicate with you, except the address of a bank in London.”

“That’s why I always receive my letters,” he remarked. 21 “It is impossible to let a dozen people know just where you are. One person I keep informed from every post office and cable station I reach. Anything addressed to me there is only subject to the minimum of delay.”

“It sounds very businesslike,” she admitted.

“Thank you.”

“And efficient.”

He occupied himself in holding a light to the cigarette to which she had helped herself.

“As a matter of fact,” he reiterated, “it is a fact that my people are very little interested in my wanderings. My mother would very much rather I stayed at home and my brother-in-law, Stephen Hennerley, thinks it is the duty of every Englishman to be proclaiming his country’s danger either from the hustings or from one of the Houses. Ann, little hussy, thinks I ought to stay at home and keep the house filled with amusing guests, and Margaret and His Reverence are convinced that the Kingdom of Heaven lies somewhere in the diocese of Norwich.”

She laughed quietly.

“Poor Lord Matresser! No wonder you are not encouraged to talk about your wanderings.”

“You yourself,” he reflected, “are not altogether a stay-at-home.”

“Explain that, please,” she begged.

“Well, you were entertaining for your uncle when he had Rome and your aunt was ill. Before that you travelled with him when he undertook a certain mission for his country and that, by the by, brought me my first glimpse of you.”

“So you remembered.”

“So I remembered. You are not a person, mademoiselle, 22 whom one easily forgets. Apart from that, those were stirring moments. I have heard it said that but for your uncle’s intervention at that time all Morocco would have been in a blaze.”

“It is curious that you should say that,” she murmured.

“Why?”

“Because I heard another story.”

“And that was?”

“That if a certain Englishman had not taken a very daring risk and presented an ultimatum from his country to that madman who had suddenly collected about a hundred thousand tribesmen, the work of twenty-five years would have been swept away in one whirlwind campaign and heaven knows how many lives lost. My uncle was there as a neutral. He had no definite authority behind him or if he had, diplomacy forbade his using it. He is not one who takes risks.”

“Those days are past,” Matresser replied, “but it is queer to meet you again, mademoiselle.”

“Why?”

“Because then the world was more or less in peril. To-day one hears—I am no politician—one understands that there are even greater dangers still threatening.”

“Tell me about them,” she begged.

He shook his head.

“It is I who should ask you for news,” he replied. “I have been away for over two years. I have not even seen a copy of the Times for many months.”

She leaned back amongst her cushions and there was a very sad light in her eyes.

“As for me,” she sighed, “there has been nothing for 23 years but suffering and distress. I am after all an Austrian and whatever faults we may have as a nation we love our country. If your wanderings had ever led you to visit Vienna and if you gave yourself the trouble to compare the present with the past you would realise the bitter sufferings and humiliations through which we have passed.”

“But you still have hopes.”

She looked at him with a swift intensive glance of enquiry. His face, as it always seemed, was like a mask.

“You mean,” she said under her breath, “if we, the only nation which has preserved its aristocracy, were to throw in our weight with the people’s god.”

“I do not believe,” he protested, “that any one of your statesmen would lend himself to such a suggestion.”

She leaned towards him.

“What other hope have we?”

“Why ask me? I only know, as many others must, that Hellstern has created a Frankenstein and must have outside help or be crushed himself. Tell me about your uncle. He was always my idea of a great statesman. I hear, by the by, that he is very popular indeed at Court here.”

“It is a pleasant thing to know,” she said, “but alas, where will that lead to? He is almost an old man, you know, Lord Matresser. He has not the force or the courage left to strike a blow for his country. Let us talk of this no more. . . . Even at this terrible time of the year I cannot tell you how much I admire this peaceful English country of yours; also, I admire so much, your mother. A grande dame in a living world. And Ann—such a brilliant young person. I never thought I would care for another girl as I do for Ann.”

“It was a great surprise to find you here,” he meditated.

“It was not, I hope, an unhappy one?” she asked.

He did not at once reply. She looked at him curiously.

“I am not a sentimental person,” he said, “but I may tell you this—may I not? I have always hoped that we might meet again. It is a great, a very great pleasure for me to return and find you a member of my household. Still, it is also a great surprise.”

“Why?”

“We never met in those few days of tragedy,” he explained, “but of course one heard you spoken of. Your family was supposed to be one of the fortunate ones who had survived the war and was still wealthy and powerful.”

“We were wealthy and powerful still because we owned great estates in Germany and Hungary as well as in Austria. These were confiscated and all the income that came from them. You know what has happened to our currency. If it had not been for the great store of jewels which none of my people has ever been content to part with we should have been as badly off as the others. As it is, I am glad to be here, but that is chiefly because I love to be with Ann. If some day none of you like me any more and you send me away—well, even then I should not be like some of my less fortunate fellow countrywomen—I should not starve.”

The badminton was broken up. Ann came over and joined them.

“You do not play to-night, Elisabeth?” she asked.

“You will excuse, please,” the girl answered. “That wind this afternoon—I think I hear it still in my ears. 25 I should have had a headache but it has passed while I have been talking to your brother.”

“You ought not to have gone out on such a day,” Ann expostulated. “I know quite well that it was because you had promised to do something for mother. It would have been much better if we had telephoned.”

“I rather like driving in the rain,” Elisabeth declared, “and as for the roads—you should see what we have to go over at home—twelve miles of mule track in the mountains, almost impassable, and even if we had the money, we are not allowed to employ anyone to work on them. All the labour must be spent on the railways and the main roads. It is quite right but it makes a part of the world like this a paradise in which to dwell.”

The last rubber of bridge had come to an end. Matresser strolled across the room.

“Will you have a whisky and soda here, sir,” he asked the Dean, “or down in my den?”

“If I may be excused,” the latter begged. “I took an extra glass of your wonderful port and I feel happy and sleepy.”

“Notwithstanding a revoke,” his wife observed severely.

“Since you mention the fact, I believe that some slight incident of the sort did occur,” the Dean admitted.

“On the other hand you must admit that I played that last hand marvellously,” Stephen Hennerley chuckled. “We won the rubber and deserved to. Very enjoyable bridge on the whole.”

“Delightful,” the Dean’s wife assented. “I only hope that we shall be able to steal away from all these wonderful players to-morrow night.”

“I’ll guarantee it,” Matresser promised. “You shall have a specially arranged table. What about you, Stephen? Are you coming down for a nightcap?”

“I would rather not, if you don’t mind,” his brother-in-law begged. “If I do change my mind I know I shall find everything I want in our sitting-room.”

“Then come along, Andrews,” Matresser said, waving his hand. “You and I will be the only dissolute ones.”