Harold MacGrath - The Princess Elopes
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Harold MacGrath >> The Princess Elopes
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THE PRINCESS ELOPES
by
HAROLD MACGRATH
Author of The Puppet Crown, The Grey Cloak, The Man on the Box
With Illustration by Harrison Fisher
[Frontispiece: Princess Hildegarde (Gretchen) playing the piano.]
New York
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers
Copyright 1905
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
TO MY WIFE
THE PRINCESS ELOPES
I
It is rather difficult in these days for a man who takes such scant
interest in foreign affairs--trust a whilom diplomat for that!--to
follow the continual geographical disturbances of European surfaces.
Thus, I can not distinctly recall the exact location of the Grand Duchy
of Barscheit or of the neighboring principality of Doppelkinn. It
meets my needs and purposes, however, to say that Berlin and Vienna
were easily accessible, and that a three hours' journey would bring you
under the shadow of the Carpathian Range, where, in my diplomatic days,
I used often to hunt the "bear that walks like a man."
Barscheit was known among her sister states as "the meddler," the
"maker of trouble," and the duke as "Old Grumpy"--_Brummbaer_. To use a
familiar Yankee expression, Barscheit had a finger in every pie.
Whenever there was a political broth making, whether in Italy, Germany
or Austria, Barscheit would snatch up a ladle and start in. She took
care of her own affairs so easily that she had plenty of time to
concern herself with the affairs of her neighbors. This is not to
advance the opinion that Barscheit was wholly modern; far from it. The
fault of Barscheit may be traced back to a certain historical pillar of
salt, easily recalled by all those who attended Sunday-school.
"Rubbering" is a vulgar phrase, and I disdain to use it.
When a woman looks around it is invariably a portent of trouble; the
man forgets his important engagement, and runs amuck, knocking over
people, principles and principalities. If Aspasia had not observed
Pericles that memorable day; if there had not been an oblique slant to
Calypso's eyes as Ulysses passed her way; if the eager Delilah had not
offered favorable comment on Samson's ringlets; in fact, if all the
women in history and romance had gone about their affairs as they
should have done, what uninteresting reading history would be to-day!
Now, this is a story of a woman who looked around, and of a man who did
not keep his appointment on time; out of a grain of sand, a mountain.
Of course there might have been other causes, but with these I'm not
familiar.
This Duchy of Barscheit is worth looking into. Imagine a country with
telegraph and telephone and medieval customs, a country with electric
lights, railways, surface-cars, hotel elevators and ancient laws!
Something of the customs of the duchy must be told in the passing,
though, for my part, I am vigorously against explanatory passages in
stories of action. Barscheit bristled with militarism; the little man
always imitates the big one, but lacks the big man's excuses.
Militarism entered into and overshadowed the civic laws.
There were three things you might do without offense; you might bathe,
eat and sleep, only you must not sleep out loud. The citizen of
Barscheit was hemmed in by a set of laws which had their birth in the
dark dungeons of the Inquisition. They congealed the blood of a man
born and bred in a commercial country. If you broke a law, you were
relentlessly punished; there was no mercy. In America we make laws and
then hide them in dull-looking volumes which the public have neither
the time nor the inclination to read. In this duchy of mine it was
different; you ran into a law on every corner, in every park, in every
public building: little oblong signs, enameled, which told you that you
could _not_ do something or other--"Forbidden!" The beauty of German
laws is that when you learn all the things that you can not do, you
begin to find out that the things you can do are not worth a hang in
the doing.
As soon as a person learned to read he or she began life by reading
these laws. If you could not read, so much the worse for you; you had
to pay a guide who charged you almost as much as the full cost of the
fine.
The opposition political party in the United States is always howling
militarism, without the slightest idea of what militarism really is.
One side, please, in Barscheit, when an officer comes along, or take
the consequences. If you carelessly bumped into him, you were knocked
down. If you objected, you were arrested. If you struck back, ten to
one you received a beating with the flat of a saber. And never, never
mistake the soldiery for the police; that is to say, never ask an
officer to direct you to any place. This is regarded in the light of
an insult. The cub-lieutenants do more to keep a passable
sidewalk--for the passage of said cub-lieutenants--than all the
magistrates put together. How they used to swagger up and down the
Koenigsstrasse, around the Platz, in and out of the restaurants! I
remember doing some side-stepping myself, and I was a diplomat,
supposed to be immune from the rank discourtesies of the military. But
that was early in my career.
In a year not so remote as not to be readily recalled, the United
States packed me off to Barscheit because I had an uncle who was a
senator. Some papers were given me, the permission to hang out a
shingle reading "American Consul," and the promise of my board and
keep. My amusements were to be paid out of my own pocket. Straightway
I purchased three horses, found a capable Japanese valet, and selected
a cozy house near the barracks, which stood west of the Volksgarten, on
a pretty lake. A beautiful road ran around this body of water, and it
wasn't long ere the officers began to pass comments on the riding of
"that wild American." As I detest what is known as park-riding, you
may very well believe that I circled the lake at a clip which must have
opened the eyes of the easy-going officers. I grew quite chummy with a
few of them; and I may speak of occasions when I did not step off the
sidewalk as they came along. A man does more toward gaining the
affection of foreigners by giving a good dinner now and then than by
international law. I gained considerable fame by my little dinners at
Mueller's Rathskeller, under the Continental Hotel.
Six months passed, during which I rode, read, drove and dined, the
actual labors of the consulate being cared for by a German clerk who
knew more about the business than I did.
By this you will observe that diplomacy has degenerated into the gentle
art of exciting jaded palates and of scribbling one's name across
passports; I know of no better definition. I forget what the largess
of my office was.
Presently there were terrible doings. The old reigning grand duke
desired peace of mind; and moving determinedly toward this end, he
declared in public that his niece, the young and tender Princess
Hildegarde, should wed the Prince of Doppelkinn, whose vineyards gave
him a fine income. This was finality; the avuncular guardian had
waited long enough for his wilful ward to make up her mind as to the
selection of a suitable husband; now _he_ determined to take a hand in
the matter. And you shall see how well he managed it.
It is scarcely necessary for me to state that her Highness had her own
ideas of what a husband should be like, gathered, no doubt, from
execrable translations from "Ouida" and the gentle Miss Braddon. A
girl of twenty usually has a formidable regard for romance, and the
princess was fully up to the manner of her kind. If she could not
marry romantically, she refused to marry at all.
I can readily appreciate her uncle's perturbation. I do not know how
many princelings she thrust into utter darkness. She would _never_
marry a man who wore glasses; this one was too tall, that one too
short; and when one happened along who was without visible earmarks or
signs of being shop-worn her refusal was based upon just--"Because!"--a
weapon as invincible as the fabled spear of Parsifal. She had spurned
the addresses of Prince Mischler, laughed at those of the Count of
------ - ------ (the short dash indicates the presence of a hyphen) and
General Muerrisch, of the emperor's body-guard, who was, I'm sure, good
enough--in his own opinion--for any woman. Every train brought to the
capital some suitor with a consonated, hyphenated name and a pedigree
as long as a bore's idea of a funny story. But the princess did not
care for pedigrees that were squint-eyed or bow-legged. One and all of
them she cast aside as unworthy her consideration. Then, like the
ancient worm, the duke turned. She should marry Doppelkinn, who,
having no wife to do the honors in his castle, was wholly agreeable.
The Prince of Doppelkinn reigned over the neighboring principality. If
you stood in the middle of it and were a baseball player, you could
throw a stone across the frontier in any direction. But the vineyards
were among the finest in Europe. The prince was a widower, and among
his own people was affectionately styled "_der Rotnaesig_," which, I
believe, designates an illuminated proboscis. When he wasn't fishing
for rainbow trout he was sleeping in his cellars. He was often missing
at the monthly reviews, but nobody ever worried; they knew where to
find him. And besides, he might just as well sleep in his cellars as
in his carriage, for he never rode a horse if he could get out of doing
so. He was really good-natured and easy-going, so long as no one
crossed him severely; and you could tell him a joke once and depend
upon his understanding it immediately, which is more than I can say for
the duke.
Years and years ago the prince had had a son; but at the tender age of
three the boy had run away from the castle confines, and no one ever
heard of him again. The enemies of the prince whispered among
themselves that the boy had run away to escape compulsory military
service, but the boy's age precluded this accusation. The prince
advertised, after the fashion of those times, sent out detectives and
notified his various brothers; but his trouble went for nothing. Not
the slightest trace of the boy could be found. So he was mourned for a
season, regretted and then forgotten; the prince adopted the
grape-arbor.
I saw the prince once. I do not blame the Princess Hildegarde for her
rebellion. The prince was not only old; he was fat and ugly, with
little, elephant-like eyes that were always vein-shot, restless and
full of mischief. He might have made a good father, but I have nothing
to prove this. Those bottles of sparkling Moselle which he failed to
dispose of to the American trade he gave to his brother in Barscheit or
drank himself. He was sixty-eight years old.
A nephew, three times removed, was waiting for the day when he should
wabble around in the prince's shoes. He was a lieutenant in the duke's
body-guard, a quick-tempered, heady chap. Well, he never wabbled
around in his uncle's shoes, for he never got the chance.
I hadn't been in Barscheit a week before I heard a great deal about the
princess. She was a famous horsewoman. This made me extremely anxious
to meet her. Yet for nearly six months I never even got so much as a
glimpse of her. Half of the six months she was traveling through
Austria, and the other half she kept out of my way,--not intentionally;
she knew nothing of my existence; simply, fate moved us about blindly.
At court, she was invariably indisposed, and at the first court ball
she retired before I arrived. I got up at all times, galloped over all
roads, but never did I see her. She rode alone, too, part of the time.
The one picture of her which I was lucky enough to see had been taken
when she was six, and meant nothing to me in the way of identification.
For all I knew I might have passed her on the road. She became to me
the Princess in the Invisible Cloak, passing me often and doubtless
deriding my efforts to discern her. My curiosity became alarming. I
couldn't sleep for the thought of her. Finally we met, but the meeting
was a great surprise to us both. This meeting happened during the
great hubbub of which I have just written; and at the same time I met
another who had great weight in my future affairs.
The princess and I became rather well acquainted. I was not a
gentleman, according to her code, but, in the historic words of the
drug clerk, I was something just as good. She honored me with a frank,
disinterested friendship, which still exists. I have yet among my
fading souvenirs of diplomatic service half a dozen notes commanding me
to get up at dawn and ride around the lake, something like sixteen
miles. She was almost as reckless a rider as myself. She was truly a
famous rider, and a woman who sits well on a horse can never be aught
but graceful. She was, in fact, youthful and charming, with the most
magnificent black eyes I ever beheld in a Teutonic head; witty,
besides, and a songstress of no ordinary talent. If I had been in love
with her--which I solemnly vow I was not!--I should have called her
beautiful and exhausted my store of complimentary adjectives.
The basic cause of all this turmoil, about which I am to spin my
narrative, lay in her education. I hold that a German princess should
never be educated save as a German. By this I mean to convey that her
education should not go beyond German literature, German history,
German veneration of laws, German manners and German passivity and
docility. The Princess Hildegarde had been educated in England and
France, which simplifies everything, or, I should say, to be exact,
complicates everything.
She possessed a healthy contempt for that what-d'-ye-call-it that
hedges in a king. Having mingled with English-speaking people, she
returned to her native land, her brain filled with the importance of
feminine liberty of thought and action. Hence, she became the bramble
that prodded the grand duke whichever way he turned. His days were
filled with horrors, his nights with mares which did not have
box-stalls in his stables.
Never could he anticipate her in anything. On that day he placed
guards around the palace she wrote verses or read modern fiction; the
moment he relaxed his vigilance she was away on some heart-rending
escapade. Didn't she scandalize the nobility by dressing up as a
hussar and riding her famous black Mecklenburg cross-country? Hadn't
she flirted outrageously with the French attache and deliberately
turned her back on the Russian minister, at the very moment, too, when
negotiations were going on between Russia and Barscheit relative to a
small piece of land in the Balkans? And, most terrible of all to
relate, hadn't she ridden a shining bicycle up the Koenigsstrasse, in
broad daylight, and in bifurcated skirts, besides? I shall never
forget the indignation of the press at the time of this last escapade,
the stroke of apoplexy which threatened the duke, and the room with the
barred window which the princess occupied one whole week.
They burned the offensive bicycle in the courtyard of the palace,
ceremoniously, too, and the princess had witnessed this solemn _auto da
fe_ from her barred window. It is no strain upon the imagination to
conjure up the picture of her fine rage, her threatening hands, her
compressed lips, her tearless, flashing eyes, as she saw her beautiful
new wheel writhe and twist on the blazing fagots. But what the deuce
was a poor duke to do with a niece like this?
For a time I feared that the United States and the Grand Duchy of
Barscheit would sever diplomatic relations. The bicycle was,
unfortunately, of American make, and the manufacturers wrote to me
personally that they considered themselves grossly insulted over the
action of the duke. Diplomatic notes were exchanged, and I finally
prevailed upon the duke to state that he held the wheel harmless and
that his anger had been directed solely against his niece. This letter
was duly forwarded to the manufacturers, who, after the manner of their
kind, carefully altered the phrasing and used it in their magazine
advertisements. They were so far appeased that they offered me my
selection from the private stock. Happily the duke never read anything
but the _Fliegende Blaetter_ and _Jugend_, and thus war was averted.
Later an automobile agent visited the town--at the secret bidding of
her Highness--but he was so unceremoniously hustled over the frontier
that his teeth must have rattled like a dancer's castanets. It was a
great country for expeditiousness, as you will find, if you do me the
honor to follow me to the end.
So the grand duke swore that his niece should wed Doppelkinn, and the
princess vowed that she would not. The man who had charge of my horses
said that one of the palace maids had recounted to him a dialogue which
had taken place between the duke and his niece. As I was anxious to be
off on the road I was compelled to listen to his gossip.
THE GRAND DUKE--In two months' time you shall wed the Prince of
Doppelkinn.
THE PRINCESS--What! that old red-nose? Never! I shall marry only
where I love.
THE GRAND DUKE--Only where you love! (_Sneers_.) One would think, to
hear you talk, that you were capable of loving something.
THE PRINCESS--You have yet to learn. I warn you not to force me. I
promise to do something scandalous. I will marry one of the people--a
man.
THE GRAND DUKE--Bah! (_Swears softly on his way down to the stables_.)
But the princess had in her mind a plan which, had it gone through
safely, would have added many grey hairs to the duke's scanty
collection. It was a mighty ingenious plan, too, for a woman to figure
out.
In his attitude toward the girl the duke stood alone. Behind his back
his ministers wore out their shoes in waiting on the caprices of the
girl, while the grand duchess, half-blind and half-deaf, openly
worshiped her wilful but wholly adorable niece, and abetted her in all
her escapades. So far as the populace was concerned, she was the
daughter of the favorite son, dead these eighteen years, and that was
enough for them. Whatever she did was right and proper. But the
hard-headed duke had the power to say what should be what, and he
willed it that the Princess Hildegarde should marry his old comrade in
arms, the Prince of Doppelkinn.
II
As I have already remarked, I used frequently to take long rides into
the country, and sometimes I did not return till the following day. My
clerk was always on duty, and the work never appeared to make him
round-shouldered.
I had ridden horses for years, and to throw a leg over a good mount was
to me one of the greatest pleasures in the world. I delighted in
stopping at the old feudal inns, of studying the stolid German peasant,
of drinking from steins uncracked these hundred years, of inspecting
ancient armor and gathering trifling romances attached thereto. And
often I have had the courage to stop at some quaint, crumbling
_Schloss_ or castle and ask for a night's lodging for myself and horse.
Seldom, if ever, did I meet with a refusal.
I possessed the whimsical habit of picking out strange roads and riding
on till night swooped down from the snow-capped mountains. I had a bit
of poetry in my system that had never been completely worked out, and I
was always imagining that at the very next _Schloss_ or inn I was to
hit upon some delectable adventure. I was only twenty-eight, and
inordinately fond of my Dumas.
I rode in grey whipcord breeches, tan boots, a blue serge coat, white
stock, and never a hat or cap till the snow blew. I used to laugh when
the peasants asked leave to lend me a cap or to run back and find the
one I had presumably lost.
One night the delectable adventure for which I was always seeking came
my way, and I was wholly unprepared for it.
I had taken the south highway: that which seeks the valley beyond the
lake. The moon-film lay mistily upon everything: on the far-off lake,
on the great upheavals of stone and glacier above me, on the long white
road that stretched out before me, ribbon-wise. High up the snow on
the mountains resembled huge opals set in amethyst. I was easily
twenty-five miles from the city; that is to say, I had been in the
saddle some six hours. Nobody but a king's messenger will ride a horse
more than five miles an hour. I cast about for a place to spend the
night. There was no tavern in sight, and the hovels I had passed
during the last hour offered no shelter for my horse. Suddenly, around
a bend in the road, I saw the haven I was seeking. It was a rambling,
tottering old castle, standing in the center of a cluster of firs; and
the tiles of the roofs and the ivy of the towers were shining silver
with the heavy fall of dew.
Lady Chloe sniffed her kind, whinnied, and broke into a trot. She knew
sooner than I that there was life beyond the turn. We rode up to the
gate, and I dismounted and stretched myself. I tried the gate. The
lock hung loose, like a paralytic hand. Evidently those inside had
nothing to fear from those outside. I grasped an iron bar and pushed
in the gate, Chloe following knowingly at my heels. I could feel the
crumbling rust on my gloves. Chloe whinnied again, and there came an
answering whinny from somewhere in the rear of the castle. Somebody
must be inside, I reasoned.
There were lights in the left wing, but this part of the castle was
surrounded by an empty moat, damp and weedy. This was not to be
entered save by a ladder. There was a great central door, however,
which had a modern appearance. The approach was a broad graveled walk.
I tied Lady Chloe to a tree, knotted the bridle-reins above her neck to
prevent her from putting her restless feet into them, and proceeded
toward the door.
Of all the nights this was the one on which my usually lively
imagination reposed. I was hungry and tired, and I dare say my little
mare was. I wasn't looking for an adventure; I didn't want any
adventure; I wanted nothing in the world but a meal and a bed. But for
the chill of the night air--the breath of the mountain is cold at
night--I should have been perfectly willing to sleep in the open. Down
drawbridge, up portcullis!
I boldly climbed the steps and groped around for the knocker. It was
broken and useless, like the lock on the gate. And never a bell could
I find. I swore softly and became impatient. People in Barscheit did
not usually live in this slovenly fashion. What sort of place was this?
Suddenly I grew erect, every fiber in my body tense and expectant.
A voice, lifted in song! A great penetrating yet silkily mellow voice;
a soprano; heavenly, not to say ghostly, coming as it did from the
heart of this gloomy ruin of stone and iron. The jewel song from
_Faust_, too! How the voice rose, fell, soared again with intoxicating
waves of sound! What permeating sweetness! I stood there, a solitary
listener, as far as I knew, bewildered, my heart beating hard and fast.
I forgot my hunger.
Had I stumbled upon one of my dreams at last? Had Romance suddenly
relented, as a coquette sometimes relents? For a space I knew not what
to do. Then, with a shrug--I have never been accused of lacking
courage--I tried once more, by the aid of a match, to locate a bell.
There was absolutely nothing; and the beating of my riding-crop on the
panels of that huge door would have been as noisy as a feather. I
grasped the knob and turned it impatiently. Behold! the door opened
without sound, and I stepped into the hallway, which was velvet black.
The wonderful voice went on. I paused, with hands outstretched.
Supposing I bumped into something! I took a step forward, another and
another; I swung my crop in a half-circle; all was vacancy, I took
another step, this time in the direction of the voice--and started back
with a smothered curse. Bang-ang! I had run into a suit of old armor,
the shield of which had clattered to the stone floor. As I have
observed, I am not a coward, but I had all I could do to keep my
legs--which were stirrup-weary, anyhow--from knocking under me!
Silence!
The song died. All over that great rambling structure not even the
reassuring chirp of a cricket! I stood perfectly still. What the
deuce should I do? Turn back? As I formed this question in my mind a
draft of wind slammed the door shut. I was in for it, sure enough; I
was positive that I could never find that door again. There was
nothing to do but wait, and wait with straining ears. Here were
mysterious inhabitants.--they might be revolutionists, conspirators,
counterfeiters.
Heaven knows how long I waited.
Soon I heard a laugh, light, infectious, fearless! Then I heard a
voice, soft and pleading.
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