Blood Royal (22 page)

Prince Paul’s servants relieved us at half past nine, and I must confess that I never put off any clothing with so much thankfulness.

Now we would have slipped away by the way we had come, but for the warrant that was running for our arrest. Not that we meant to stay in Vigil, but we wished to visit our flat, to make our toilet and to take away our baggage without any fuss. We had, therefore, to speak with Sully; and, since he was up to his ears in business of State, we had to make up our minds to wait at least until the Council was done. And this was the devil, for now we were fish out of water in very truth, and had nowhere to go or to turn for an hour and a half.

At one end of the hall was all the panoply of Death – flowers and prelates and two dragoons standing with arms reversed; at the other, the bustle of Accession was prevailing, while the servants’ quarters were agog with wide-eyed footmen, constantly seeking instruction and very much afraid of Grimm, who was fuming to see a confusion with which he could hardly cope.

We would have withdrawn to the wardrobe, but, when the Proclamation was over, this had been allotted to Johann; and there he and Brooch were sitting, in as gloomy a silence as ever two sinners preserved, waiting till night should come, to go their ways.

At ten o’clock precisely Prince Paul, with Sully and Kneller, left the suite, to go to the Council Chamber a few yards away, and two or three minutes later young Grimm made his way to my side.

“Sir,” said he, “the Grand Duchess wishes to see you before she goes.”

I followed him to the hall, very conscious of being in the way and of cutting a figure which would have been sent packing from any but the humblest of inns.

My clothes were those that had suffered in my brush with the police. I had no collar, and my shirt was so tattered as scarce to be worth putting on. My coat I had long ago discarded, and, though my overalls did much to cover these shortcomings, I had so faithfully fouled them, that these were not fit to be seen. Add to this that I had not been able to get the powder out of my hair, so that I was more fit to scare crows than to have to do with a lady of high degree.

Yet, at the sight of my lady I forgot my looks.

She came to meet me quickly, with the sweetest smile on her lips.

A few feet away stood the Countess, and, as well as the two men-at-arms, two footmen were in the hall.

“I have so much to say, Richard, and I dare say nothing at all. Listen, my dear.
Paul is dangerous
. I think, if he could, he would kill you – to whom he owes his throne. You must not come to the Lessing Strasse even by night. I think you should leave the country as soon as you can.”

“I cannot leave you like this, Leonie.”

“Till Wednesday, dear. That is the day of the funeral. Do you remember where we stopped near Elsa and looked out the way to Vogue?”

“Yes, Leonie.”

“Will you be there on Wednesday at midnight?”

“I shall count the hours, Leonie.”

“Goodbye, my darling,” she whispered.

I bowed and stepped back.

A moment later she and Madame Dresden were out of the suite.

Miserably enough, I made my way back to George.

There was nothing to be done. As plain as though she had said it, I read the truth. Prince Paul suspected our relation
and I had made him powerful to find us out
. Yesterday he dared give no order outside his house: today he was almighty. Eager to prove its fealty, every sort of creature was hanging upon his lips. There was nothing to be done.

Three quarters of an hour dragged by.

Then the sergeant-footman came hastening to say that Sully hoped we would come to the dining-room.

The Lord President tried to thank us, with tears running down his cheeks, and, when we begged him to say nothing, he shook his head.

“You do not know,” he insisted, “what you have done. Prince Paul will be a focus for loyalty – nothing more. The Council will rule this country, rule it well and truly for years to come. Johann would have been ruthless. In six months he would have destroyed the labour of twenty years. And you have laid the terror – the ghost which has ridden my slumbers ever since Duke Charles renounced his right to the throne.”

“‘Cast your bread upon the waters’,” said George. “If you hadn’t taught us German, and taught us so devilish well, we couldn’t have stayed the course. Fancy bickering with Grimm in English as to who was to man which door.”

“Listen,” said I. “We must go.”

“You must see the Prince,” said Sully. “He—”

“On no account,” said I. “I could give you a dozen reasons, but one’s enough. I was rather hasty this morning – at half past three. But one thing you must wangle.”

George took out the warrant and gave it into his hand. “That’s a warrant for our arrest. They nearly had us on Friday, and—”

“What rubbish is this?” cried Sully.

“Johann’s,” said I. “Mark that. Johann’s rubbish. But he chose his deponents well.”

With that, I turned over the sheet and showed him Duke Paul’s deposition at the foot of the page.

“My God!” said Sully. He lowered the papers and looked from me to Hanbury with parted lips. “And, knowing this, you—”

“He was only a cat’s-paw,” said George. “And what we’ve done, we’ve done for you and my lady – don’t forget that. By the way, tell me one thing. I know why you were so anxious to – to save his throne.
But why was she?
I mean…”

Sully put a hand to his eyes.

“God forgive me,” he said, “but I can think of no reason why she should have raised a finger in his behalf. She – she is a great lady.”

George returned to the warrant.

“Perhaps you can get hold of Weber. The simplest way would be to have us policed. If we could have a man attached to us – to tell his unenlightened comrades to let us alone… I mean, we’ll be leaving today.”

“It shall be done,” said Sully. “A man shall be sent to meet you in a quarter of an hour. But you cannot go like this. When the funeral is over—”

“We shall not leave Austria,” I said. “We’ll have a weekend together, as soon as you have the time.”

Here Kneller came in, to say that Sully was needed to deal with some matter of State, but he would not go until he had seen Bell and Rowley and had thanked them in the name of the country for what they had done.

Kneller was very civil, but seemed very much relieved to learn that we were leaving the country without delay.

“It was highly irregular,” he said, tugging his heavy moustache. “I never thought to subscribe to such goings on. I am for rules and precedents, and you – you have driven a coach and six through the lot.”

“True enough, sir,” said George. “But at a critical moment you took the reins.”

For the first time I saw the man smile. Then, as though to correct such a lapse, he put up his eye-glass and drew his brows into a frown.

“I trust,” he said roughly, “I trust your men are discreet.”

“They are ex-soldiers, sir,” said George.

Kneller nodded approvingly, and, the moment seeming propitious, we took our leave.

Our parting with Grimm was less simple.

The old sergeant-footman was at a loss for words, and, now that the strain was over, our recent, curious relation troubled him as never before. He begged us to forgive him if he had seemed disrespectful and thanked us a thousand times for making his path so smooth, and at last, to our great distress, he began to weep, declaring that his master ‘now in heaven’ would remember our devotion and would intercede with St Peter in our behalf.

Then nothing would do but we must enter the bedroom and view the dead Prince, “for,” said he, “it was you, sirs, that brought him his peace at the last. On Saturday morning I gave him to understand that four strong men had been sent to see justice done, and thereafter he fretted no more.”

So once again that day we looked upon the face of the Prince, whose livery we had been wearing, whose name we had never heard a fortnight before.

Then for the last time we used the passage, and thirty minutes later we were back in our flat.

Once there, we wasted no time.

A car was procured, and Rowley left with the detective to fetch the Rolls. We had no sooner bathed and changed than they were back, and, before the clocks had struck two, our baggage was at the station and we were over the border and were taking the Salzburg road.

I think it was natural that the next three days should hang most dull and heavy upon our souls.

Indeed, to me life seemed to have snapped off short, and, when I awoke on Monday, to find myself at Salzburg and to see the dormers of the houses against our old inn, for a moment the waters of dejection passed over my head.

The Grand Duchess apart, the burden of the last ten days had been so strange and brilliant that our simple habits of fishing sequestered streamlets and proving the countryside seemed to us jailbirds’ portion and our very freedom a prison into which we had been suddenly cast.

But for George Hanbury, I think that I should have done nothing but wander the streets of Salzburg, wrapped in melancholy and staring at every clock, but, though we came nearer to a quarrel than ever before, he insisted that we should go fishing and put our minds to the business of finding unmapped waters and beguiling suspicious trout. Whilst I was still protesting, he called for Bell and Rowley and bade them have the Rolls ready in half an hour, and, ere they were gone, began to go over our tackle as though some throne were depending upon whether we caught any fish.

So we went forth that Monday, as though Vigil was a phantom city and all our late adventure a lively dream; and, though for the first few hours our occupation seemed hollow and our surroundings strange, the sights and sounds of the country soon came to refresh our senses and our simple pastime in some sort to fill the blank.

For all that, I cannot pretend that, after the business of king-making, the tempting of sprightly fishes was anything but very small beer, and, while it was honest medicine and did us a world of good, the hours went by very slowly and life seemed uneventful and monstrous smooth.

We did not speak of my lady, for, for my part, my heart was too full, and George had no comfort to offer that was not cold: but I fancy he thought of her often, and I know that never for one instant was she out of my mind.

As I have said, at the moment that I knew that I loved her, my world was changed: and, when I learned that she loved me, my world was changed again. Our love for one another preoccupied my wits, and all that I thought and did was subject to that desperate condition which Fate had brought about. To pray to be delivered never entered my head. I would have fought like a madman to keep my yoke. Yet this was very grievous and like to grow more heavy than I could bear.

The future appalled me.

Prince Paul’s jealousy apart, no fellowship was to be thought of, if only because I could not stand it – and that was the simple truth.

I would build her the house I had promised, but not whilst she lay at Littai, three miles away. I would see her, if this could be compassed, from time to time. But bear her company I dared not, because I loved her too well.

Yet my world without her was bleak as a winter’s day, and I knew that only her presence would ever lighten the darkness in which I was now to dwell.

So much for myself.

Of what lay before my darling I scarcely could bear to think. I was at least a free man. I need take no wife to my wounding, to mimic her lovely manners or ape the brush of her lips. But she – she was to go in marriage to a man as vile of body as he was vile of soul.

The shocking thought that by my interference I had not only bound her more straitly to this her unhappy fate, but had bruised her heart, which, but perhaps for my coming, might have been always whole, sent me half out of my mind. At such times, cowardly enough, I fled back to my own misfortune, to scourge myself with the terror of my long drive back from Elsa and of taking up the thread of a life which had been very happy and was now to be very sad.

Shakespeare has said somewhere that ‘men have died and worms have eaten them – but not for love’: and, though I am a child in such matters, I cannot doubt that he is right. Even in those three days I never doubted it. But, though I was not to die, Leonie, Grand Duchess of Riechtenburg, was a maid whom once a man had laid eyes on he never forgot. Her physical beauty was so startling, her nature stood out so handsome and all her ways were so royal that, had she not lived so lonely and out of touch, I think she would have been the darling of half the world. And I was in love with this nonsuch – and she had come to love me. I do not think I should have been human, if her loss had not promised to be an abiding sorrow.

At eleven o’clock on Wednesday I brought the Rolls to rest at the spot where, six nights before, we had looked out the way to Cromlec and on to Vogue.

Only Bell was with me, and I think he knew as well as I did that I was to meet the Grand Duchess – and take my leave.

The night was superb. A fine moon was sailing low down in a cloudless sky, and the breeze which had risen to temper the heat of the day had sunk to rest. Not a breath stirred the leaves of the chestnuts which hereabouts grew very thick and threw all the road into shadow for half a mile.

I was glad of this darkness and bade Bell put out the lights, and so sat thinking and smoking until it seemed to me that my pipe had gone out.

The silence was absolute, and when an owl cried from some thicket, his lusty sentence had the world to itself.

So for some fifty minutes. Then I heard a car, coming from Elsa, a little way off.

At once I turned on our side lights and stepped down into the road, but, though I expected every instant the lights of the other to appear, I saw no sign of them, and, when I listened again, I could hear the engine no more.

Now I was sure of my place, so I bade Bell stay where he was and strolled down the road towards Elsa, with my ears pricked and my eyes searching the darkness for any sign of approach.

I had meant to walk to the bend round which I had been waiting for the lights of the car to appear, and I had gone nearly so far, when I saw the Grand Duchess before me in the midst of the way.