Читать книгу The Prince of the Captivity - Sydney C. Grier - Страница 8

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So confident was Usk in his mother’s kindness of heart that when Lord and Lady Caerleon arrived in London late that evening, he was waiting for them at the terminus, eager to conduct them at once to the Hotel Bloomsbury. Having seen the evening papers in the course of their journey, they were acquainted with the details of the tragedy, and did not need to be assured by him of the desolate state of the two girls.

“I knew you would come,” he said.

“How could we do anything else?” asked his mother. “Poor Félicia! one’s heart bleeds for her. Only just engaged, and her joy clouded in this terrible way——!”

“Oh, but—— we aren’t exactly engaged yet,” said Usk uncomfortably. “You see, Mr Steinherz had given his consent all right, but I hadn’t spoken to Félicia, and there has been no opportunity since.”

“No, of course not. But this makes it rather awkward, Usk. It seemed only natural to come and look after the poor girl when I thought she was engaged to you, but now she may consider it a liberty.”

“Not she, mater! She’ll think it just too sweet for words, as she and Miss Logan are always saying. They stand in tremendous awe of you.”

“There, Nadia!” said Lord Caerleon, “that settles it. You have somehow managed to inspire these unknown Americans with awe, and it’s your bounden duty to go and put things right—your duty, mind.”

“I will go and ask if I can do anything for them, certainly, as soon as we get there, but that’s different from having the right to go and mother them, as it were.”

“No; that’s just what they want,” said Usk. “Think of it, mater—two girls alone in a strange country in such terrible circumstances! Of course they want mothering.”

Lady Caerleon never allowed herself to shrink from a duty when it was once set plainly before her, and half an hour later she knocked at the door of the Steinherzes’ sitting-room. Maimie, who was sitting alone, worn out by innumerable harassing interviews with reporters, police inspectors, officials from the Pannonian and United States Embassies, and various tradesmen, thought wearily that here was another caller.

“Come right in,” she answered with resignation, but stood up astonished when she saw that the visitor was a stately and very handsome middle-aged lady. The surprise did not last more than a moment.

“You are the Marchioness of Caerleon,” she said, and again her tone spoke of hopeless resignation. “I sort of felt you would come.”

“My son told me of your sad trouble, and Lord Caerleon and I thought we might perhaps be some help to you,” said Lady Caerleon, almost timidly. She was trying to assure herself that Maimie’s words bespoke nothing but confidence, but she had an uncomfortable suspicion that they covered dislike, even defiance.

“Lord Usk is real considerate, but Miss Steinherz and I have no claim on the kindness of his relations,” said Maimie icily. Lady Caerleon mistook her meaning, and thought she had penetrated the secret of this cool reception.

“I assure you,” she said with a touch of hauteur, “I know perfectly well how things stand between Miss Steinherz and my son. She need have no fear that Usk will intrude himself and his wishes upon her at such a time. Pray believe that I have merely come to offer you such help as I can.”

“You are real good,” said Maimie, blushing as she realised what her words had implied to Usk’s mother; “but I’m so awfully tired to-night, I just can’t seem to say things right. I don’t know what way they fix anything over here, or what to say to the people that have been coming around all day.”

“My husband will undertake to see any one who comes on business, and he will advise you in any way he can,” said Lady Caerleon, touched by the confession. “I really think you will find it an advantage to have a man to represent you,” she added gently. “People here like it better.”

“And in England it’s just as well to have a lord back of one all the time?” Maimie spoke quite seriously, but it struck her at once that the words sounded like an ill-timed joke.

“I won’t ask to see Miss Steinherz to-night,” said Lady Caerleon, with some coldness; “but if she feels well enough in the morning——”

“If you please, miss,” said Félicia’s maid, entering the room, “Miss Steinherz have woke up all of a tremble, and she says will her ladyship go and see her for a moment, if she would be so kind?”

“I’ll just speak to her,” said Maimie quickly, and she hastened to Félicia’s room. “Fay,” she whispered hurriedly, “you won’t have Lady Caerleon see you to-night, will you? I didn’t want to bring her along till to-morrow, when I’ve got things fixed. I’ve planned it all out for us to go right back home at once, so’s you won’t have to come to any conclusion yet, and then in the spring we’ll cross to Europe just by ourselves and have an elegant time.”

“You make me tired—you and your plans and plots!” cried Félicia vehemently. “I’m so nervous I could fly, and I want to see somebody quiet and restful. That’s what I feel all the time with Usk. He’s not smart, but he’s real good. Just bring his mother right along in.”

Warned by the shrill voice and gleaming eyes, Maimie obeyed without a word, wondering maliciously what Lady Caerleon would think of the unconventional greeting she would probably receive. But Félicia made her way to her visitor’s heart at once. After one look at the calm beautiful face bent over her, she rose impulsively and threw herself into Lady Caerleon’s arms.

“Oh, love me!” she cried. “Pet me, just as if I was a baby again!”

“Oh, my darling!” cried Lady Caerleon, taken by storm. “Are you come to me instead of my Phil? I have lost her, you know; she was married last year, and I have wanted a daughter so much.”

She held the quivering form in her arms, stilled the sobs which broke forth, murmured tender names, until Félicia consented to lie down again, and then sat by her until she fell asleep, Maimie watching in the background, with bitter jealousy gnawing at her heart. She, who had mothered Félicia since she was nine and Félicia six, was nothing to her now that this Englishwoman had come on the scene. Then she remembered certain previous experiences of the kind, and was comforted. Félicia had turned from her before, in transient fits of virtue or of friendship, but she had always come back.

“She is the dearest girl!” Lady Caerleon said to her husband, with tears in her eyes, when she was at length free to seek her own room; “very unconventional—quite a child of nature, but my heart went out to her. It seemed as if she had always felt the want of a mother so terribly, and to-night, of course, worse than ever.”

During the days that followed, not only Félicia, but Maimie, learned to be thankful for the presence and countenance of Usk’s parents. The reporters had been inclined to invent scandalous stories on the strength of the supposed likeness between the murdered American millionaire and the Pannonian Archduke, but when Lord Caerleon, backed by the police and the hospital officials, assured them that the likeness was purely a delusion of the murderer’s, they were forced to restrain their exuberant fancy. As for Usk, he stood uneasily aloof when discussions of this kind were taking place, wondering at the blindness of the experts. With his mind’s eye he saw continually one of the chief treasures of Llandiarmid, a snuff-box presented to his great-grandfather when a young soldier by the aged Emperor Matthias of Pannonia, the great-grandfather alike of the present Emperor and of Mr Steinherz, in recognition of a gallant deed of arms done under his own eye. The monarch’s portrait, set in diamonds, ornamented the lid of the box, and it seemed almost incredible to Usk that his father could look at the face of the murdered man and not recall at once the miniature which was so familiar to him.

In the absence of the clue which Usk possessed, public interest, though keenly excited by the tragedy, failed to seize upon its details with the wolfish eagerness which would have been aroused by any hint of the truth. It was made clear at the inquest that the murderer, who was identified as an Italian violinist named Marco Farinelli, had been known to the police for some time as an associate of foreign Republicans in London. He had lived many years in England, having just escaped the consequences of complicity in a plot against the Pannonian occupation of Venetia. His father, who had helped him to leave the country, and forcibly resisted the Pannonian soldiers sent to arrest him, had been summarily shot, and his mother, who was ill in bed, turned out in a winter night on the roadside, where she died. For nearly forty years Farinelli had cherished the memory of his wrongs, and it was shown that he was greatly excited by the news of the approaching visit to England of the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim, who had been in military command of the district in which his parents lived. It was proved that he had tried to form a band of assassins, who were to see that the Archduke did not leave London alive; but his friends had other work on hand, or preferred not to bring themselves into public notice, and he had evidently determined to accomplish his vengeance alone. In the breast-pocket of his coat was found a paper which aroused much curiosity—a kind of itinerary of London, duly mapped out into days. “Wednesday, Trafalgar Square and British Museum; Thursday, Houses of Parliament and Government Offices ...” it ran, but the Scotland Yard officials charged with the protection of the Archduke during his visit were able to explain it. Having learnt, with considerable dismay, that the distinguished visitor proposed to devote his mornings while in London to wandering about incognito, they arranged with much care a false time-table, which was allowed to circulate freely in his household. The expected leakage occurred, and the whole arrangement became known in some mysterious way to Farinelli, but while he was keeping his eager watch in the neighbourhood of the Museum, the Archduke was being conducted over the Horse-Guards. The mistake which had occurred was now perfectly clear to the jury, who had heard Usk acknowledge that there was from one point of view a certain likeness between the Archduke and Mr Steinherz, and they returned a verdict of wilful murder against the Italian, adding an expression of their sympathy with the family of the victim. In Farinelli’s case the verdict was one of accidental death, although there was some attempt to bring it in as suicide, and the jury were discharged, and the nine days’ wonder was at an end.

Maimie had found Lord Caerleon a tower of strength while the inquest was going on. He made a point of accompanying her backwards and forwards each day, and sitting beside her in court, and he was so quiet and so impassive that her restless impatience seemed to be calmed perforce. She did not fret over the fact that Lady Caerleon and Félicia were continually together; and she received with outward resignation the news which was awaiting her when the inquest ended, and which she had, indeed, foreseen. It fell to Lady Caerleon to communicate it, which she prepared to do with some anxiety, and Maimie’s lip curled when she realised what was coming. It was quite like Félicia to depute another person to make an announcement that might prove disagreeable.

“Félicia and I have been talking things over,” said Lady Caerleon, “and we think we have arranged a very pleasant plan. But of course we could not decide upon it without you.”

“I guess not, indeed. Félicia and I don’t ever act independently of one another,” returned Maimie, with sarcastic emphasis.

Lady Caerleon went on hastily. She thought she understood perfectly well the soreness which filled the heart of the girl who found herself set aside for the lover and his relations, and she was very sorry for Maimie. “It is very touching,” she said, “how stringently Mr Steinherz in his will expressed his desire to be buried in America by the side of his wife. I can quite sympathise with Félicia’s natural desire to take his body home herself, which she tells me you suggested she should do. But she is really not fit for it. I never saw any one so completely a creature of nerves. The least excitement seems to throw her into a fever, and the strain of such a journey at this time of year would be enough to kill her.”

“In other words, Fay don’t choose to risk a voyage in the fall,” said Maimie to herself, even while she was listening with polite interest to Lady Caerleon.

“And so our idea—of course I suggested it—was that Usk should cross to America with—the body, and superintend the funeral, and see that everything was done as you and Félicia would wish, and that you should both come home with us to Llandiarmid for the winter. The quiet country life would be sure to do Félicia good, and it would be the greatest pleasure to my husband and me to have young people about us again. I can’t tell you how I was dreading another winter without my daughter.”

“Lady Caerleon—” Maimie was looking at her with searching eyes—“I’d like to ask you just one question—does this bind Félicia to anything when Lord Usk comes home?”

Lady Caerleon looked surprised and somewhat annoyed. “I see nothing binding in what I have said,” she answered.

“There won’t be any doubt that Lord Usk goes as Mr Steinherz’s friend, not as Félicia’s lover—that his kindness gives him no claim on her? People look at things so differently over here.”

“I should have thought gentlemanly conduct was the same on both sides of the Atlantic. A gentleman does not consider that he has established a claim upon a woman when he does her a service.”

“Now I have made you mad,” said Maimie sorrowfully, “and I’m real grieved. It’s just for Félicia’s sake I’m speaking. I don’t want to see her engage herself right now, when she’s naturally thinking more of her father’s wish, and of all your sweet love and kindness to her, than of her own feelings.”

Lady Caerleon wished in vain that there was some means of knowing whether this girl was laughing at her or not. “You seem to suggest that nothing but pressure from her father would have induced Félicia to accept Usk,” she said. “If you have any reason to believe this, I think it is your duty to tell me.”

“Why, that’s just what I can’t tell you,” said Maimie, with the most engaging frankness. “I don’t see anything of Félicia these days, and I can’t seem to find out what she feels like. Only I had my misgivings before all of this happened, and I don’t want to see her rushed into anything.”

“You may feel quite happy. No one will put the slightest pressure upon Félicia to do anything but please herself,” said Lady Caerleon stiffly. “Usk won’t even try to come to an understanding with her before he sails.”

“And when he comes back, he’ll just begin over again from the beginning?” cried Maimie ecstatically. “Dear Lady Caerleon, you have taken a weight off my mind!”

“What a curious person Miss Logan is!” said Lady Caerleon afterwards to her son. “I can never make her out. She always seems to suspect us in some way.”

Usk’s private opinion was that Maimie suspected the Caerleon family, generally and individually, of anxiety to lay hold upon Félicia’s fortune, but he would not suggest this to his mother, lest in the shock of such an accusation she should insist upon washing her hands of both girls forthwith.

“Oh, I don’t think she likes me much,” he said lightly; “but one can’t wonder at it, when she’s so devoted to Félicia. You won’t let her turn Félicia against me while I am away, will you?”

But Maimie had no thought of doing anything so crude. One of her reasons for wishing to return to America had been the hope of obtaining from Mr Hicks some clue to the nature of the proofs Mr Steinherz had left in his charge; but since she was foiled in this, she had decided to keep her secret to herself for the present. As things were, Félicia’s claim upon her father’s relations would meet only with ridicule if it was brought to their notice. The house of Albret-Arragon would be likely to entertain it only if it offered some advantage, Mr Steinherz had said, and so far there was nothing but money to offer. But time might bring other opportunities, and it was time that Maimie had gained. Still, she did not think it well to let Félicia see that she was tolerably satisfied.

“I wonder just how long you’ll find Llandiarmid endurable!” she said to her. “You’re to have Phil’s room, you know, and sort of take her place.”

“I don’t care,” was the irritating reply. “Lady Caerleon is just sweet. I do love to have her sit by me and talk nicely about poor Pappa. It don’t remind me the least of what he was, but it’s real soothing to hear.”

There was a touch of the old Félicia in this speech, and Maimie saw in a flash why Lady Caerleon’s society had been preferred to her own of late. Félicia felt more at her ease with a stranger, who would naturally credit her with possessing all the feelings suitable to the occasion, than with one who knew as well as Maimie had done the lack of sympathy between her father and herself.

There was now no need to remain longer in London, and after a funeral service at a neighbouring church, which was attended by the American Ambassador, and to which the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim sent a representative, Usk started on his mournful journey. His farewell was clouded by the dismay which seized upon Félicia at the sight of the funeral arrangements. They were so poor, so shabby, she lamented; it would be said all over America that she had economised on her father’s funeral. It was in vain that Lord Caerleon assured her everything had been done without regard to expense; she was plunged in woe for a whole day, recounting to Lady Caerleon at intervals the extraordinary sums which had been spent on costly “caskets” and other accessories at the funerals of different acquaintances, not heeding that her auditor thought the expenditure a wicked waste, and the publication of the cost ostentation of the worst kind.

The next day the two girls travelled to Llandiarmid with Lord and Lady Caerleon. It was a long journey, and the autumn dusk was already gathering when they arrived, but just before the lamps were lighted, Maimie, who was helping the maid to unpack for Félicia, happened to glance out of the window, and laughed gently. Félicia, who was lying exhausted on the couch, recovered sufficiently to come and look out as well, and saw Lord and Lady Caerleon setting out together for a ramble in the twilight. He had already routed out and put on an old Norfolk jacket and tweed cap, and Lady Caerleon’s long skirt was gathered up to a serviceable length. Her hand was tucked into her husband’s arm, and they were stealing out like two children bent on a frolic, talking happily.

“Can you see yourself and Usk going out together that way?” asked Maimie, in a low voice.

“I guess not,” was Félicia’s emphatic answer.

“But why not? It’s just awfully charming. Why, they’re not even stout—Lord Caerleon is too active, and she worries too much over other folks—they’re just nice, solid, comfortable, middle-aged people. Oh, you’ll get like them, Fay. You’re going to be put in training for that now, and don’t you forget it.”

Félicia answered by an apprehensive glance round the room. Lady Philippa Mortimer had not been by any means a luxurious young person, and her favourite decorations appeared to have been hunting trophies. Her room had seemed to her the very acme of comfort, but she had never cared to stay indoors when she could possibly be out, and to the two American girls the place looked woefully bare. But there was a gleam of triumph in Maimie’s eye, and Félicia hid her dismay manfully. Maimie scolded herself for that involuntary glance, and waited.

For the first two or three days all went well. It was natural that Félicia should be considered an invalid after the journey, and she was pursued everywhere by Lady Caerleon or her maid, anxious to establish her on the most comfortable sofa that could be found. There was the Castle to explore, too—a small portion at a time, that she might not be fatigued; and if Lord Caerleon was wounded by her audacious and irreverent comments on the family portraits and other valued treasures, he was too hospitable to betray the fact, realising that she fully believed she was entertaining him. But the fatigue even of a six hours’ railway journey is not expected to last for ever, and presently Lady Caerleon hinted to Maimie that she thought it would be far better for Félicia’s health if she would exert herself a little. What was there she would like to do?

It was a shock to the busy mistress of Llandiarmid to learn that Félicia could not walk, could not sew or embroider, did not care to sing, play, or draw, and when she read, read nothing but new novels, of which the Castle was conspicuously destitute. Moreover, anything that she was invited to do happened to be one of the very things that hurt her eyes, or made her head ache, or her face flush. In her distress Lady Caerleon took counsel with Maimie, who, though well aware that Félicia would not walk lest it should make her feet large, or work lest it should spoil her hands, did not feel called upon to reveal these reasons.

“What do you do in America, if you never go for walks?” asked the perplexed hostess.

“Why, we go out riding,” answered Maimie carelessly.

“Riding? Why didn’t you tell me before? I never thought Félicia would ride, and it will be an excellent thing for her. There’s Phil’s horse——”

“Oh, I don’t mean that. I meant carriage-rides and sleigh-rides.”

“Oh, driving?” said Lady Caerleon involuntarily. “But she won’t come out with me.”

“I guess it’s just because she’s afraid you’ll have her go and see poor folks. We don’t do that sort of thing in America.”

“If Félicia is to live here after me, I hope she will be known as a friend in every house on the estate,” said Lady Caerleon seriously.

Maimie was silent. The suggestion was too absurd to need argument. Then a happy idea occurred to her. “But Félicia has learnt riding, Lady Caerleon, and if you have a well-mannered horse——”

“My husband trained Philippa’s horse himself,” said Lady Caerleon, and Maimie undertook to suggest the idea to Félicia. Félicia thought it sounded promising, especially since it involved Lord Caerleon’s escort, and she appeared in an exquisitely cut habit, perfect down to the minutest detail.

“She looks very well on horseback, but she sits a little stiffly,” remarked Lady Caerleon to Maimie, as they watched the riders start. “Has she ridden much across country?”

“Lady Caerleon!” shrieked Maimie in horror; “don’t tell me your husband’s going to take her ’cross lots. We don’t ride that way in America—not in the East, any way—only on the roads. She’ll be killed.”

“You may be quite sure my husband won’t take her anywhere dangerous,” said Lady Caerleon; but Maimie waited in agony until Félicia returned, more dishevelled-looking than she had ever seen her. Lord Caerleon’s good-humoured face was somewhat clouded as he helped her to dismount.

“You have a very good seat—for the Park,” was the only comment he allowed himself to make upon the ride, but Félicia was less reticent when she had reached her room.

“Maimie Logan,” she said emphatically, “I call you to witness that I won’t ever again go riding with an Englishman anywhere outside of London. When I had declined all the tempting fences and ditches Lord Caerleon showed me, I thought I was through; but suddenly we came out upon a piece of waste land, and he said, ‘This is Phil’s favourite bit of common. Shall we canter?’ and the horse flew off before I could refuse. I was shaken to death, and the wind was ahead of us, so I haven’t a scrap of skin left on my face, and I guess my bang won’t ever curl again.”

Maimie received this information with a shriek of unfeigned dismay, and for the next two days Félicia remained invisible to the rest of the household, submitting to many unpleasant and infallible remedies warranted to restore a damaged complexion. Lord and Lady Caerleon were overwhelmed with self-reproach, and Maimie assured Félicia that she would never be asked to ride again. This seemed to her quite satisfactory; but on the evening of the second day, when she rushed upstairs after dinner, she found her friend dissolved in tears.

“Why, Fay, your eyes!” she cried, and Félicia applied a handkerchief delicately, then wept again.

“Oh, it’s killing me!” was her moan. “Everything here’s just horrid. There isn’t any place to lounge—not even a rocker!”

It was quite true. There was an old-fashioned sofa, on which it was possible to lie at full length, but certainly not to lounge, and a low basket-chair, which Philippa, who had upholstered it herself, had thought the most restful thing in the world. The photograph of herself and her husband, which hung over the mantelpiece, in the place where she had always kept her family photographs, seemed to smile maliciously upon the present occupier of the room, as she sat curled-up in a nest of cushions. Maimie came gallantly to the rescue.

“Say, Fay, we’re fixed here for the winter, and I guess we must stick the time out. But I’ll have them give you a different room if you won’t spoil your eyes crying.”

“How?” asked Félicia, with some interest.

“Oh, I’ll fix things,” said Maimie, mysteriously but with secret satisfaction. Félicia was returning to her allegiance very fast. It was another reason for contentment that Félicia asked no questions as to the way in which she secured success. This was very simple. Maimie told Lady Caerleon that Félicia slept badly, which was true, and suggested that she ought not to sleep alone. Before Lady Caerleon, somewhat puzzled, had time to propose that Maimie should move into the same room, Maimie added that she felt sure the easterly aspect of Lady Philippa’s room was not good for Félicia. Informed that it was the outlook which Philippa had specially loved, Maimie retorted that that might be so, but Félicia was just perished with cold. Lady Caerleon remarked that she was sure to be cold in the winter if she would not go out; to which Maimie replied that in America the houses were heated, and people had not to go outdoors to get warm. Lady Caerleon was horrified by the implied reproach. She had meant the girl Usk loved to be so much to her, but in some mysterious way they seemed to be fast drifting apart. And now it was suggested that Félicia was suffering heroically in silence, fearing to wound her hostess by the suggestion that Philippa’s room was too cold for her! Always ready to accuse herself, Lady Caerleon blamed her own lack of sympathy and insight, and entreated Maimie to say what she thought it would be best to do. Maimie was quite prepared for this. There were two rooms opening into one another, and facing south-west, which she thought would be just right. And might she look about in the unoccupied rooms of the Castle, and choose the furniture that Félicia would probably like? In her compunction, Lady Caerleon would have given leave for anything, and in due time Maimie introduced Félicia to a kind of fairy bower. There were quaint tables and cabinets belonging to the Castle, but the draperies and ornaments came from Maimie’s own stores. She had foreseen this crisis, and provided against it.