Читать книгу The Kings of the East - Sydney C. Grier - Страница 7

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The bitter words in which Cyril renounced all interest in Thracia were interrupted by an exclamation from Mansfield, who was staring incredulously at a little party of people approaching from one of the winding paths. There were an old lady in a bath-chair, a girl, and a young man, the last two unmistakably English.

“Don’t you see, Count? It’s Lady Phil and Usk!” cried Mansfield, quickening his steps; but Cyril caught him by the arm.

“Wait a minute, Mansfield. Did my brother stipulate that you were not to speak to Lady Phil during this year of probation? If he did, I will curb my natural longing to see my niece, and we will turn our backs upon danger.”

“Oh, no, really!” Mansfield was horror-struck by the suggestion. “I was not to follow her about; but I was never forbidden to speak to her if we met. Lord Caerleon trusted me, I am sure.”

“Caerleon was always trustful,” said Cyril unkindly; but he consented to keep pace with Mansfield’s hurrying feet, and was considerate enough to allow the young people to greet one another apart, while he presented Prince Mirkovics in due form to Princess Soudaroff, an exiled Scythian lady who occupied the position of godmother to both the Marchioness of Caerleon and her daughter. Had the matter rested with him, he would have left them to themselves for a longer time, but Prince Mirkovics, who was standing with his hat in his hand, looked at him reproachfully.

“Alas, Count! am I not to enjoy the honour of being presented also to Madame your niece?”

“Prince Mirkovics accords you royal honours, Phil,” said Cyril. “Is it necessary to mention that Lady Philippa is Lord Caerleon’s daughter, Prince?”

“Quite unnecessary, Count. Madame must not come to Thracia unless she comes as queen. There are still old men who remember her father’s reign, and it goes without saying that all the young men would be ready to champion the cause of such a lady.”

“I’m so glad you think me like my father,” said Philippa, in her old impulsive way. “But even if he was still King of Thracia, I shouldn’t be of any importance, you know. Usk would be the great person, not I.”

Prince Mirkovics glanced at the slight dark-haired youth whose mirthful grey eyes met his across the bath-chair, and shook his head.

“No, madame, Milord Usk resembles your mother too much. She was a beautiful girl, indeed—I remember seeing her at the municipal ball given in honour of your father’s arrival at Bellaviste—but to us she is only the woman for whose sake Carlino forsook Thracia.”

“What a horrid way of putting it!” cried Philippa. “You ought to be thankful that I’m not a princess, for I should get you banished from Court for saying such things. Uncle Cyril, I am sure we ought not to keep Prince Mirkovics standing here so long.”

She glanced entreatingly at her uncle, for Prince Mirkovics still maintained his deferential attitude, hat in hand, and Cyril came to the rescue. “My niece is afraid you will take cold, Prince. Pray put on your hat.”

“May I be permitted to attend Madame for a short distance?” asked the old man, complying immediately with the request, and Cyril, much amused, accepted the humbler office of walking beside the bath-chair, while Mansfield, looking extremely disconsolate, attached himself to Usk.

“Ah, Princess, this is your doing!” said Cyril to the old lady. “You are certainly an inveterate match-maker. I never knew any one like you.”

“Why, what have I done?” asked Princess Soudaroff, with great simplicity. “I thought the Ludwigsbad waters might do me good, and therefore I came here. Could I leave Phil and her brother behind, when their parents had entrusted them to my care?”

“Perhaps you had heard that the Ludwigsbad water is meat and drink in one, and thought you might economise, eh, Princess? Have you been spending your whole year’s income in advance on your charities, as usual?”

“No, no. The fact is, poor Phil seemed so painfully interested in Ludwigsbad and your letters, that I thought the waters would—would do me no harm, and so we are here.”

“The truth at last, Princess! Confession is good for the soul.”

“I like the look of the young man,” remarked the Princess confidentially. “Of course I have heard a great deal about him already from Usk, but I was anxious to see him. And he is your secretary, Lord Cyril? And you are engaged in bringing about the restoration of the Jews to their own land? What a wonderful age this is of ours, and what a privilege for you to be allowed to assist in such a work! I can’t tell you how thankful it makes me that I have been allowed to live long enough to witness this crowning fulfilment of prophecy.”

“I must introduce my friend Goldberg to you if he comes here,” said Cyril. “You and he both take that view of things.”

“I have already had some correspondence with the Chevalier Goldberg on the subject of relief for the Scythian Jews. Ah, how sad it is that my own country should take the lead in ill-treating God’s ancient people! Is it true that Scythia is even now resisting your measures for releasing them from bondage?”

“Scythia is undoubtedly doing her best to spoil our plans at Czarigrad.”

“Lord Cyril, a thought has struck me.” The old lady sat upright suddenly. “I am expecting Vladimir Alexandrovitch here in a day or two. You know that he manages my affairs, and is anxious to consult me about some investment. When I told him I should be at Ludwigsbad, he said that would suit him quite well.”

“Prince Soudaroff is coming here?”

“Yes, merely on this business of mine, as I said. But he is an honourable, fair-minded man. Why should you not meet him informally and talk things over? You could put the case for the Jews fully before him—men in his position are always surrounded by people whose interest it is to keep the truth from them—and I am sure he would be convinced. Then he could represent the real state of affairs to the Emperor. You won’t refuse to make the attempt? It may save so much delay.”

“I shall be delighted to meet Prince Soudaroff whenever you like, Princess.” But in his own mind Cyril was using very different language regarding the prospective visit of the great diplomatist who was so fortunate as to be brother-in-law to the unsuspicious old lady in the bath-chair.

“Then they have felt the pinch already? This is sharp work. Wily idea to cloak the object of Soudaroff’s journey in this way. But I shall have to walk warily, for it’s no joke to find oneself between him and her most sapient Highness of Dardania.”

They had arrived at the bridge between the old and new promenades, and he seized the opportunity to detach Prince Mirkovics from Philippa, and carry him off to his rooms, earning Mansfield’s undying gratitude by deputing him to escort the ladies back to their lodgings—a gratitude which was immediately extended to the Princess when she remarked that it would be pleasant to take a turn in the Neue Wiese before returning.

“Do you know,” said Philippa mysteriously, as she resumed her place beside the chair, while Mansfield unblushingly deserted Usk in order to walk with her, “I think that poor old man must be a little queer. He has been going on in the most extraordinary way, saying that I ought to be a queen, and trying to make me discontented with my humble lot in life. I told him I was perfectly happy in it, and then he said that I had inherited my father’s only fault, lack of ambition, and that if father and Uncle Cyril could be mixed up together, they would make a perfect king. I told him that I thought Uncle Cyril was splendid, but that I wouldn’t have father the least bit different for anything, and he said that only confirmed what he had remarked before.”

“He evidently thinks it’s your duty to worry father back to Thracia,” laughed Usk.

“Awfully lucky for me that you don’t agree with him,” said Mansfield. “I should never have had a chance of coming across you in that case.”

“And if you had,” said Usk, “it wouldn’t have done you much good. Do you think her Royal Highness the Princess Philippa would have condescended to be aware of your existence?”

“Usk! as if I should ever forget old friends, or pretend to make any difference with them!” cried Philippa indignantly.

“I am sure you never would,” said Mansfield, so fervently that Usk laughed aloud, and Princess Soudaroff smiled a placid smile. They had now reached the Königspark, and were passing one of the outlying restaurants with which it is dotted. Before the door stood three dusty travelling-carriages loaded with luggage. The drivers were refreshing themselves after the not very lengthy journey from Charlottenbad, and a number of servants, swaggering about, were displaying their liveries before the admiring eyes of the waitresses. As Princess Soudaroff and her companions passed on, they came in sight of a group of rather noisy young men, who were gathered round a table on a terrace overlooking the river, apparently recruiting their exhausted energies with the help of beverages not exactly of a temperance character. One of the drinkers, who sat by himself on one side of the table, made a remark to the rest, and the whole party turned round and stared at Philippa. The blush called up on her cheek by the fervour of Mansfield’s remark changed into a flush of anger when she became aware of their rudeness, and she held her golden head very high as she addressed a studiously careless observation to Usk, but her displeasure appeared to fail of its intended effect.

“A la belle Anglaise!” cried the youth who had already spoken to his friends, who were now all standing up round the table, and the words were followed by the crash of broken glass as the goblets were dashed down after the toast had been drunk.

“I say, this is beyond a joke!” cried Usk angrily, but Mansfield gripped his arm, with a look that said, “We will come back and settle things when the ladies are gone indoors.” Philippa was too much discomposed to observe this piece of by-play, finding it necessary to relieve her feelings by a sweeping denunciation of the manners of foreigners, in which both the young men heartily agreed with her. When Mansfield had stigmatised the unknown roisterers as a set of cads, and Usk had added that they were probably shop-walkers from Vindobona out for a holiday, she felt better, and made haste to turn the conversation to more agreeable themes. Before very long, however, a hurried footstep became audible in the direction from which they had come, and an officer in undress uniform, catching them up, bowed profoundly to the Princess and Philippa.

“My august master, the King of Thracia, regrets deeply that the indiscreet remarks of some person in his company annoyed mademoiselle,” he said, in French. “It will afford his Majesty much gratification to be permitted to offer his apologies in person later in the day.”

“We are much honoured by his Majesty’s solicitude, monsieur,” replied Princess Soudaroff promptly, “and neither my god-daughter nor I could dream of demanding further apologies. Karl, you may go on.”

And with a bow that equalled his own in courtliness, the Princess left the discomfited emissary standing in the road.

“It is nothing but a trick to discover where we are staying,” she remarked to the rest, when they were out of earshot.

“I shall have something to say to that youth,” said Usk, jerking his head in the direction of the distant monarch. “Wretched little whippersnapper, how can he summon up the cheek to look a Mortimer in the face?”

“No, Usk,” said Philippa earnestly; “you mustn’t say a word to him. It might get Uncle Cyril into fresh trouble. I suppose if the King is determined to make our acquaintance, he must; but if he does I shall let him know what I think of him.”

None of the party happened to look round, or they would have perceived the disconsolate messenger following them at a discreet distance. His errand of pursuing these strangers to their hotel was not an agreeable one to him, and he hailed gladly the appearance of Prince Mirkovics, whose elaborate salutation showed that he was acquainted with them, as a relief from the necessity. The old noble’s eyes gleamed when he heard the story.

“Yes; I can tell his Majesty who the young lady is,” he said, and walked on so fast that the officer could hardly keep pace with him or find breath to tell the King why he had come.

“Well, Prince; so you can tell us who it is that we have been admiring?” said King Michael, lazily erecting a pile of broken wine-glasses.

“The lady, sir, is the daughter of the Marquis Carlino, your august father’s predecessor on the throne.”

“The niece, then, of the excellent Count Mortimer!” said the Scythian officer who had failed in his errand.

“What does that signify, when she has such hair?” demanded King Michael. “I never saw anything like it. All these German women look washed-out beside her.”

The youthful monarch posed as a connoisseur of female beauty, and his attendants murmured a respectful acquiescence in his decision. Prince Mirkovics alone did not seem to have heard it. His sombre eyes were gleaming again under their shaggy brows.

“I am glad your Majesty has enjoyed this one glimpse of the lady,” he said.

“Why do you speak as though I should never see her again, Prince? I intend to make her acquaintance at the ball to-night, and I’ll bet you anything you like that she gives me half a dozen dances.”

“The lady does not attend public balls, sir.” As he spoke Prince Mirkovics blessed secretly the strict principles in which Nadia Caerleon had brought up her daughter.

“Not go to balls? Why not?” asked the King, in unaffected astonishment.

“Possibly because her parents do not approve of the class of person she would meet there, sir,” replied Prince Mirkovics, bestowing a severe glance upon the would-be lady-killer, who looked offended.

“Oh, very well: then I shall command Count Mortimer to present her, that’s all. I mean to speak to her.”

“With what object, sir, if I may venture to ask?”

“Because I want to see whether she is as lively as she is handsome, of course. She ought to have plenty of fun in her, from her face.”

“If your Majesty is really desirous of making the lady’s acquaintance”—Prince Mirkovics was astonished and delighted by the sudden development in himself of such powers of diplomacy as he had never suspected hitherto—“surely it would be well to say nothing to Count Mortimer. As I ventured to hint just now, if his Excellency knew that you, sir, had been graciously pleased to express admiration of his niece, he would probably remove her at once from Ludwigsbad.”

“Hang it! so he would,” said the King peevishly. “It would be just like him.”

“Perhaps, sir, without mentioning the matter to Count Mortimer, I might have the honour of making your Majesty acquainted with the lady at a little entertainment of some sort. A ball, of course, is out of the question——”

“And moreover, their Highnesses the Princess of Dardania and Princess Ludmilla could not be present,” put in the Scythian officer.

The King frowned fiercely at the interrupter. “Their Highnesses have nothing whatever to do with it,” he said angrily. “I make my own friends without asking their leave.”

“Sir,” said Prince Mirkovics, “allow me to say that Captain Roburoff is nevertheless in the right. I must be able to invite the Princess Ludmilla, at any rate, to grace the entertainment by her presence. Would a party of pleasure to visit some object of interest meet your Majesty’s wishes?”

“Anything, anything!” said the King sulkily. “Arrange it as you like, Prince; only be sure to let me know in time, so that I may make no other engagement. And see here, you must look after Princess Lida. I am not going to dangle after her all day, instead of talking to the beautiful Mortimer.”

“I will do my best to arrange everything to your Majesty’s taste,” said Prince Mirkovics as he retired. Once out of the King’s presence, a feeling of sick disgust came over the old man as he thought of the part he had played.

“That wretched boy the son of Queen Ernestine!” he muttered. “It is as well she cannot see him. And I to be plotting to give him Carlino’s daughter! But that is the very thing. She has spirit and strength of mind sufficient to save him in spite of himself. And if not—if he ventured to slight her, to ill-treat her”—Prince Mirkovics’s hand clenched itself involuntarily—“we would tear him from the throne, and seat her there alone. I would kill him with my own hands; but it would be worth a year or two of misery for her to have her reigning in Thracia.”

After due consultation with his hotel-keeper and with the director of the baths, Prince Mirkovics sent out that evening the invitations for his picnic, and resigned himself to wait four whole days before he could do anything more. During this period, however, King Michael contrived to steal a march upon him. Cyril, to whom in righteous indignation Mansfield had borne the news of the King’s extraordinary behaviour, thought it well to make a point of accompanying Princess Soudaroff and Philippa in their morning and evening promenades, and on these occasions his party invariably encountered that of the King. The first time this happened, King Michael, who had not chosen to receive Cyril when the latter called at his hotel the day before, stopped and spoke to him with marked graciousness. The next time, becoming aware, apparently, that the ex-Premier was not alone, he desired him to present his relations, and addressed to each of them a few affable words, delivered with a blasé and venerable air which sat oddly upon his youthful countenance. This gave him the opportunity of seeing Philippa in a new character, for the spectacle of the sallow, weary-eyed boy, who had treated him with so much ingratitude, patronising her beloved uncle, was almost too much for her, and her blue eyes sparkled with the indignation which her close-pressed lips succeeded in restraining. Cyril was not blind to the feelings of either side, but his only comment on what he saw was to tease Philippa afterwards about her manners, which he declared to lack the repose that ought to mark the caste of Vere de Vere.

On the evening before Prince Mirkovics’s picnic Cyril and Mansfield betook themselves to Princess Soudaroff’s rooms to join her dinner-party, instead of dining as usual in the open air. The only other visitor present was her brother-in-law, the great Scythian diplomatist, and it was for his benefit that this formal indoor dinner had been arranged, in order that the keen eyes of Ludwigsbad might not observe his conference with Cyril. As soon as the meal was over Usk gave his arm to the Princess, Mansfield, who had received his orders beforehand, followed, nothing loth, with Philippa, and the two statesmen were left to themselves, Cyril bringing his chair to Prince Soudaroff’s end of the table, and waiting for him to begin to speak. A curious visitor might have observed that when either man glanced away the eyes of the other ran searchingly over him, as though to discover some joint in his armour, but that when the two pairs of eyes met, an impenetrable veil seemed to be let down to hide the soul behind each. Prince Soudaroff raised a glass of wine critically to the light as he said—

“What are your terms, Count?”

“You desire an accommodation, then?”

Prince Soudaroff shrugged his shoulders. “What would you have? You have hedged us in so completely that we must capitulate or starve. I suppose it is understood that if we withdraw our opposition at Czarigrad you get us the loan we want on easy terms?”

“I regret to say that no money can pass until our concession is actually granted. Aid in corn you shall have to any reasonable extent.”

“This is ungenerous, Count. Why such distrust of our honour?”

“It is a compliment to you, Prince. We must make things safe.”

“Well, I suppose you rely on cruel necessity to bring us to our knees. But there is one indispensable condition. The proposed governor of Palestine must be an Orthodox prince.”

“That is not our affair. It is for the Powers to decide.”

“Nonsense, my friend! No one knows better than you how to manage the Powers. You and your syndicate can impose your will upon them in this particular as in others. Our honour forbids us to accept anything else. Our past history, the blood we have shed in the Christian cause against the infidel——”

“Let me advise you to write it off as a bad debt, Prince.”

“Impossible. I dare not return to Pavelsburg without this modification. The Emperor is firm. He will risk and lose everything rather than yield the point.”

“Then he must bring the Powers to see it in the same light.”

“But that is impossible, I tell you. We have no means of bringing them to our side. Come, Count, we must have your help. Prince Kazimir of Dardania is our candidate—a German on the mother’s side. Europe will not be irreconcilable. What can we offer you to ensure his election?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything I want,” drawled Cyril.

“Money—when we get it? Titles—we will make you a prince? Political power?—come, we will propose you as High Commissioner of Minoa, and you can enjoy yourself there to your heart’s content.”

“Thanks, Prince; it’s not big enough.”

“Well, if you will not accept anything for yourself, what of your family? Would you care to see your niece Queen of Thracia? Roburoff tells me that young Michael is perfectly infatuated with her.”

“Unfortunately there is an obstacle, in the shape of the Princess of Dardania and her daughter.”

“Oh, the Princess has failed us twice, we need not consider her. One throws away an untrustworthy tool, you know. As for the girl, we will find her another husband. Your niece would suit Michael much better—keep him well in hand and look the part, too. I have been studying her closely since I came here. She will never have the regular beauty of her mother; but her colouring is far more charming, and—Englishwoman though she is—she has not the distressing woodenness of manner which spoiled the lovely Nadia Mikhailovna in her younger days. If that girl had been brought up by a woman of the world, instead of a saintly fanatic like my sister Pauline Vassilievna, she would have taken Europe by storm. Your niece can never rival her. But then, as I say, she has dignity and good-humour and bonhomie such as her mother did not possess. Why, I would advise my august master to obtain her hand for the Crown Prince, but that I should despair of making her a convert to Orthodoxy.”

Cyril laughed gently. “If my niece wishes to be Queen of Thracia, Prince, she will attain her object without my help. If she doesn’t, nothing I could do would have any effect upon her.”

“You would return to Thracia as Premier, of course.”

“Thanks, but that I have already refused to do.”

“Then I fear we can settle nothing,” said Prince Soudaroff, rising from the table, “since I am forbidden to accept any agreement that excludes this all-important stipulation. I am returning to Pavelsburg at once, and I will take his Imperial Majesty’s pleasure on the subject. Shall we join the ladies? I must make my adieux at once, or I shall not reach Charlottenbad in time for the train.”

But although Prince Soudaroff’s coachman was distinctly ordered, in the hearing of Cyril and Usk, to take the Charlottenbad road, he did not do so, nor did the occupant of the carriage appear to feel any alarm when he found himself being driven exactly in the opposite direction. The road which the coachman appeared to prefer led into the hills, and after a drive of about twenty minutes the carriage stopped at a small door in a park-wall, and Prince Soudaroff alighted. The door opened at his knock, and he walked briskly along the path that led from it, guided by a ray of light from a window at some distance in front. Below this window was a door, which was also opened promptly by an invisible watcher, and admitted the visitor to a passage in which was a back staircase. The man-servant who had been stationed at the door conducted him in perfect silence up the stairs, and through a small ante-room into a luxurious boudoir, in which was sitting a lady in trailing garments of black and a cap with a long black veil falling from it to the ground. She dismissed the servant with a gesture.

“Well, what is your news?” she asked imperiously of Prince Soudaroff.

“Bad, madame. The Mortimer is incorruptible.”

“Then the negotiations are broken off?”

“Unfortunately, madame, we cannot afford to do that. The other side know that they have only to wait, and we must yield.”

“He refuses to consent to the election of my son?”

“He will not express any preference, madame. The matter is one for the Powers, he says. You and I know that his personal assent would satisfy the Emperor, and give us all we want.”

“Because it would discredit him with the Jews when it came out?”

“Either that, madame, or it would so revolt the Catholic powers that they would combine to oblige Roum to refuse the concession, and he would lose his prestige. When the Jews reject him, he cannot sink much lower. Perhaps Hayti would afford the only possible field for his powers.”

The Princess of Dardania smiled gently at the brutal joke. “Then the affair resolves itself once more into a personal contest between Count Mortimer and myself,” she said. “You will let me know anything of moment that occurs to you, and I will turn my thoughts to winning the assent which is either to ruin our friend’s influence or discredit his cause, or both.”

“The task could not be in abler hands, madame. Perhaps I might venture to offer one single suggestion? I hear rumours that the Mortimer is aiming at the throne of Thracia for his niece.”

“Ah, he wishes her to supplant my daughter?”

“Exactly so, madame. The presumption of the idea is atrocious, but it occurs to me that it might prove useful. It might be possible to lead him on by its means. For instance, from an incautious remark he let drop, it seems to me that his Majesty must have made overtures to him, with the view of inducing him to return to Thracia. That opens up dangerous possibilities, but it also gives us some idea how to set to work.”

“I see.” The Princess sat with her black brows drawn together.

“And now, madame, I will depart, if your Royal Highness will permit me. It would not look well to lose my train after starting in such excellent time. You wished me to convey a letter to the Emperor, I believe?”

The Princess unlocked her writing-case, and took out a sealed envelope, which Prince Soudaroff placed in an inner pocket. Kissing the hand which the Princess extended to him, he took his leave, and quitted the villa with the same precautions as he had observed on entering it. His carriage was waiting for him under the wall of the park, and he was quickly embarked on the long drive necessary to bring him to Charlottenbad and the train.