Blood Royal Page 21

  “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.r />
  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.

  “I walked on,” she said simply. “I told the chauffeur to follow in a quarter of an hour.”

  As once before, I was speechless, but I put her hand to my lips.

  I lifted my head to find her eyes upon me, and then she was close in my arms and my cheek against hers.

  “My darling,” she breathed, “my Richard, if I had not seen you do it, I would not have believed it could be done.”

  “It was your wish, Leonie.”

  “I cried for the moon, and you gave it into my hand.”

  “We were very lucky,” said I. “And Kneller—”

  “Who gave him his lead? Whose courage stung him to action for very shame?”

  “We will not argue it,” said I. “You were always out of my reach, and I have set a gulf between us which can never be bridged.” I let her go there and covered my eyes. “I deserve no better. That night, here, where we are standing, Fate played clean into my hands, and I was so gallant and cunning that I could not see my fortune, but threw it away.”

  “Richard, dear, it would have been no fortune to take a renegade wife.”

  “Not if she was to be unhappy. But, anyway, the thing is done.” I stood up and drew a deep breath. “We were to build your lodge, dear. If you will send word to Jameson, I should like to begin at once. All of us need distraction, and – and it will help me, my darling, to try to set up your home.”

  “You are very sweet to remember—”

  I cried out at that, as I think any man would have done. Then I put my arms about her and held her close.

  “Don’t say I may not do it,” I said. “We will go about it quietly, and, if you will tell me the way there, no one in Littai need know. We will not use the village. But let me do you this service. Oh, Leonie, my darling, don’t stop me – it’s all I’ve got.”

  She put up a hand there and touched my hair.

  “I am going to Littai, Richard. I…”

  My heart gave one mighty bound and then stood still.

  Her perfume was in my nostrils, and her eager breath upon my cheek, and she was shaking a little, because my arms about her were quivering, do what I would.

  “So be it,” I said hoarsely. “I will wait until you are gone.”

  “Why so, my darling? In my own village—”

  “Because I cannot stand it,” I cried. “Because I love you too much. Things have gone too far for me. I cannot be your neighbour…because I have kissed your lips.”

  I bowed my head, and she put her arms round my neck.

  “I loved you,” she said gently, “before you loved me. That day in the courtyard at Anger, when you stared, and I lost my temper, and you – you brought me low. I loved you then, Richard. And, perhaps because I am a woman, I knew that you would come to love me…”

  “Well, something had to be done. Either I must see you no more – or else I must be free to come to you when you spoke. The point was how to be free. I could, of course, have turned down Paul there and then. I had only to go to the Prince and decline to marry a coward, and the Prince himself would have told me to go in peace. I say, I could have done so, and yet… I could not. I had been chosen for Princess, as you may well believe, against my will: and the man who was to bring me that honour stood in peril of losing his throne. His ship was sinking, Richard, and the rats were leaving it – leaving it right and left… I have my faults, my darling, but I am not a rat. More. I am Leonie of Riechtenburg. Of her it must never be breathed that she had thrown over a man because he could not bring her the honour which she had been led to expect.

  “So, you see, there was nothing for it. Either I must see you no more, or – or Johann had to be beaten and Paul proclaimed.”

  My ears were singing, and my darling’s face was all misty, three inches away. I tried to speak and could not. Instead, I began to tremble from head to foot.

  “This day I broke off my engagement. Sully and Marya were present. The news will be made public a week from today.”

  Still I could say no word. Only, for me the heaven seemed to have been opened, and the silence filled with music and the darkness with light.

  “Oh, my dear, you do not blame me for keeping you in the dark? You do see that I could not tell you? I could beg you to help me, but I could not tell you the reason why Paul’s accession meant to me more than life.”

  I could only cry over her name.

  “Leonie, Leonie.”

  “More than life, my darling. And you – you brought it about.”

  Now, when she said this, and I saw by what a hair’s breadth our sorrow had been turned into
joy, a thrill of fear ran through me. And that, for some strange reason, brought into focus my most astounding fortune, so that for the first time I saw it clearly and knew that I was not dreaming, but that Leonie, Grand Duchess of Riechtenburg, was to become my wife.

  “I – I came to say ‘Goodbye’,” I faltered. “I thought perhaps I should never see you again. And now…”

  “What now, Richard?”

  “I am very happy,” I whispered. “I am so very happy that I do not think I have ever been happy before. I – I have no words, my darling. And, if I had, I could not say them, because my heart is too full.”

  I felt her clasp tighten, and I think that she understood.

  Presently she drew down my head and kissed my lips…

  In the distance an engine was started. Then a car began to approach.

  As in a dream, I loosed her and began to walk by her side, not looking where I was going, but staring at the slim, white fingers that lay on my sleeve.

  “Sully and Marya are here. They have come to say ‘Goodbye’ and to wish us good luck. And then will you drive me to Littai? My great-aunt is there. And tomorrow perhaps you and Mr Hanbury will come to stay. And if you do not mind a poor lodging and if you can – can stand me as your neighbour for two or three weeks…”

  What else she said I do not know and of the meeting which followed I have no clear recollection, save that Marya Dresden was weeping and Sully was deeply moved. But they were both very cordial and spoke most handsomely, and the Countess kissed me at parting, because, I think, she did not want me to find her tears unfriendly to the choice the Grand Duchess had made.

  And then we were in the Rolls and were driving for Littai as we had driven for Anger a week before.

  There is little more to be told.

  Though my marriage must end our alliance, that finest of friends, George Hanbury, rejoiced with me. Indeed, my splendid fortune might have been his, so gay and debonair was his company and so gracious and lively his wit.

  Beneath his blithe direction the rebuilding of the lodge became a festive business. The work was after our heart, and Bell and Rowley took to the enterprise, as children let out of school.