Harold MacGrath - The Princess Elopes
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Harold MacGrath >> The Princess Elopes
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"What is it?" I asked, turning it over and over.
"It's the one slender link that connects me with my babyhood. It wag
around my neck when Scharfenstein picked me up. Open it and look at
the face inside."
I did so. A woman's face peered up at me. It might have been
beautiful but for the troubled eyes and the drooping lips. It was
German in type, evidently of high breeding, possessing the subtle lines
which distinguish the face of the noble from the peasant's. From the
woman's face I glanced at Max's. The eyes were something alike.
"Who do you think it is?" I asked, when I had studied the face
sufficiently to satisfy my curiosity.
"I've a sneaking idea that it may be my mother. Scharfenstein found me
toddling about in a railroad station, and that locket was the only
thing about me that might be used in the matter of identification. You
will observe that there is no lettering, not even the jeweler's usual
carat-mark to qualify the gold. I recall nothing; life with me dates
only from the wide plains and grazing cattle. I was born either in
Germany or Austria. That's all I know. And to tell you the honest
truth, boy, it's the reason I've placed my woman-ideal so high. So
long as I place her over my head I'm not foolish enough to weaken into
thinking I can have her. What woman wants a man without a name?"
"You poor old Dutchman, you! You can buy a genealogy with your income.
And a woman nowadays marries the man, the man. It's only horses, dogs
and cattle that we buy for their pedigrees. Come; you ought to have a
strawberry mark on your arm," I suggested lightly; for there were times
when Max brooded over the mystery which enveloped his birth.
In reply he rolled up his sleeve and bared a mighty arm. Where the
vaccination scar usually is I saw a red patch, like a burn. I leaned
over and examined it. It was a four-pointed scar, with a perfect
circle around it. Somehow, it seemed to me that this was not the first
time I had seen this peculiar mark. I did not recollect ever seeing it
on Max's arm. Where had I seen it, then?
"It looks like a burn," I ventured to suggest.
"It is. I wish I knew what it signifies. Scharfenstein said that it
was positively fresh when he found me. He said I cried a good deal and
kept telling him that I was Max. Maybe I'm an anarchist and don't know
it,"--with half a smile.
"It's a curious scar. Hang me, but I've seen the device somewhere
before!"
"You have?"--eagerly. "Where, where?"
"I don't know; possibly I saw it on your arm in the old days."
He sank back in his chair. Silence, during which the smoke thickened
and the pup whined softly in his sleep. Out upon the night the
cathedral bell boomed the third hour of morning.
"If you don't mind, Artie," said Max, yawning, "I'll turn in. I've
been traveling for the past fortnight."
"Take a ride on Dandy in the morning. He'll hold your weight nicely.
I can't go with you, as I've a lame ankle."
"I'll be in the saddle at dawn. All I need is a couple of hours
between sheets."
As I prodded my pillow into a comfortable wad under my cheek I wondered
where I had seen that particular brand. It was a brand. I knew that I
had seen it somewhere, but my memory danced away when I endeavored to
halter it. Soon I fell asleep, dreaming of somebody who wasn't Max
Scharfenstein, by a long shot.
V
That same evening the grand duke's valet knocked on the door leading
into the princess' apartments, and when the door opened he gravely
announced that his serene Highness desired to speak to the Princess
Hildegarde. It was a command. For some reason, known best to herself,
the princess chose to obey it.
"Say that I shall be there presently," she said, dismissing the valet.
As she entered her uncle's study--so called because of its dust-laden
bookshelves, though the duke sometimes disturbed their contents to
steady the leg of an unbalanced chair or table--he laid down his pipe
and dismissed his small company of card-players.
"I did not expect to see you so soon," he began. "A woman's curiosity
sometimes has its value. It takes little to arouse it, but a great
deal to allay it."
"You have not summoned me to make smart speeches, simply because I have
been educated up to them?"--truculently.
"No. I have not summoned you to talk smart, a word much in evidence in
Barscheit since your return from England. For once I am going to use a
woman's prerogative. I have changed my mind."
The Princess Hildegarde trembled with delight. She could put but one
meaning to his words.
"The marriage will not take place next month."
"Uncle!"--rapturously.
"Wait a moment,"--grimly. "It shall take place next week."
"I warn you not to force me to the altar," cried the girl, trembling
this time with a cold fury.
"My child, you are too young in spirit and too old in mind to be
allowed a gateless pasture. In harness you will do very well." He
took up his pipe and primed it. It _was_ rather embarrassing to look
the girl in the eye. "You shall wed Doppelkinn next week."
"You will find it rather embarrassing to drag me to the altar,"--evenly.
"You will not," he replied, "create a scandal of such magnitude. You
are untamable, but you are proud."
The girl remained silent. In her heart she knew that he had spoken
truly. She could never make a scene in the cathedral. But she was
determined never to enter it. She wondered if she should produce the
bogus certificate. She decided to wait and see if there were no other
loophole of escape. Old _Rotnaesig_? Not if she died!
When these two talked without apparent heat it was with unalterable
fixedness of purpose. They were of a common race. The duke was
determined that she should wed Doppelkinn; she was equally determined
that she should not. The gentleman with the algebraic bump may figure
this out to suit himself.
"Have you no pity?"
"My reason overshadows it. You do not suppose that I take any especial
pleasure in forcing you? But you leave me no other method."
"I am a young girl, and he is an old man."
"That is immaterial. Besides, the fact has gone abroad. It is now
irrevocable."
"I promise to go out and ask the first man I see to marry me!" she
declared.
"Pray Heaven, it may be Doppelkinn!" said the duke drolly.
"Oh, do not doubt that I have the courage and the recklessness. I
would not care if he were young, but the prince is old enough to be my
father."
"You are not obliged to call him husband." The duke possessed a
sparkle to-night which was unusual in him. Perhaps he had won some of
the state moneys which he had paid out to his ministers' that day.
"Let us not waste any time," he added.
"I shall not waste any,"--ominously.
"Order your gown from Vienna, or Paris, or from wherever you will.
Don't haggle over the price; let it be a good one; I'm willing to go
deep for it."
"You loved my aunt once,"--a broken note in her voice.
"I love her still,"--not unkindly; "but I must have peace in the house.
Observe what you have so far accomplished in the matter of creating
turmoil." The duke took up a paper.
"My sins?"--contemptuously.
"Let us call them your transgressions. Listen. You have ridden a
horse as a man rides it; you have ridden bicycles in public streets;
you have stolen away to a masked ball; you ran away from school in
Paris and visited Heaven knows whom; you have bribed sentries to let
you in when you were out late; you have thrust aside the laws as if
they meant nothing; you have trifled with the state papers and caused
the body politic to break up a meeting as a consequence of the
laughter."
The girl, as she recollected this day to which he referred, laughed
long and joyously. He waited patiently till she had done, and I am not
sure that his mouth did not twist under his beard. "Foreign education
is the cause of all this," he said finally. "Those cursed French and
English schools have ruined you. And I was fool enough to send you to
them. This is the end."
"Or the beginning,"--rebelliously.
"Doppelkinn is mild and kind."
"Mild and kind! One would think that you were marrying me to a horse!
Well, I shall not enter the cathedral."
"How will you avoid it?"--calmly.
"I shall find a way; wait and see." She was determined.
"I shall wait." Then, with a sudden softening, for he loved the girl
after his fashion: "I am growing old, my child. If I should die, what
would become of you? I have no son; your Uncle Franz, who is but a
year or two younger than I am, would reign, and he would not tolerate
your madcap ways. You must marry at once. I love you in spite of your
wilfulness. But you have shown yourself incapable of loving.
Doppelkinn is wealthy. You shall marry him."
"I will run away, uncle,"--decidedly.
"I have notified the frontiers,"--tranquilly. "From now on you will be
watched. It is the inevitable, my child, and even I have to bow to
that."
She touched the paper in her bosom, but paused.
"Moreover, I have decided," went on the duke, "to send the Honorable
Betty Moore back to England."
"Betty?"
"Yes. She is a charming young person, but she is altogether too
sympathetic. She abets you in all you do. Her English independence
does not conform with my ideas. After the wedding I shall notify her
father."
"Everything, everything! My friends, my liberty, the right God gives
to every woman--to love whom she will! And you, my uncle, rob me of
these things! What if I should tell you that marriage with me is now
impossible?"--her lips growing thin.
"I should not be very much surprised."
"Please look at this, then, and you will understand why I can not marry
Doppelkinn." She thrust the bogus certificate into his hands.
The duke read it carefully, not a muscle in his face disturbed.
Finally he looked up with a terrifying smile.
"Poor, foolish child! What a terrible thing this might have turned out
to be!"
"What do you mean?"
"Mean? Do you suppose anything like this could take place without my
hearing of it? And such a dishonest unscrupulous rascal! Some day I
shall thank the American consul personally for his part in the affair.
I was waiting to see when you would produce this. You virtually placed
your honor and reputation, which I know to be above reproach, into the
keeping of a man who would sell his soul for a thousand crowns."
The girl felt her knees give way, and she sat down. Tears slowly
welled up in her eyes and overflowed, blurring everything.
The duke got up and went over to his desk, rummaging among the papers.
He returned to the girl with a letter.
"Read that, and learn the treachery of the man you trusted."
The letter was written by Steinbock. In it he disclosed all. It was a
venomous, inciting letter. The girl crushed it in her hand.
"Is he dead?" she asked, all the bitterness in her heart surging to her
lips.
"To Barscheit,"--briefly. "Now, what shall I do with this?"--tapping
the bogus certificate.
"Give it to me," said the girl wearily. She ripped it into halves,
into quarters, into infinitesimal squares, and tossed them into the
waste-basket. "I am the unhappiest girl in the world."
"I am sorry," replied the grand duke. "It isn't as if I had forced
Doppelkinn on you without first letting you have your choice. You have
rejected the princes of a dozen wealthy countries. We are not as the
common people; we can not marry where we will. I shall announce that
the marriage will take place next week."
"Do not send my friend away," she pleaded, apparently tamed.
"I will promise to give the matter thought. Good night."
She turned away without a word and left him. When he roared at her she
knew by experience that he was harmless; but this quiet determination
meant the exclusion of any further argument. There was no escape
unless she ran away. She wept on her pillow that night, not so much at
the thought of wedding Doppelkinn as at the fact that Prince Charming
had evidently missed the last train and was never coming to wake her
up, or, if he did come, it would be when it was too late. How many
times had she conjured him up, as she rode in the fresh fairness of the
mornings! How manly he was and how his voice thrilled her! Her horse
was suddenly to run away, he was to rescue her, and then demand her
hand in marriage as a fitting reward. Sometimes he had black hair and
eyes, but more often he was big and tall, with yellow hair and the
bluest eyes in all the world.
VI
The princess rose at dawn the following day. She routed out Hans, the
head groom, and told him to saddle Artemis, the slim-limbed, seal-brown
filly which an English nobleman had given to her. Ten minutes later
she was in the saddle, and the heaviness on her heart seemed to rise
and vanish like the opal mists on the bosom of the motionless lake. A
pale star blinked at her, and the day, flushed like the cheek of a
waking infant, began drowsily to creep over the rolling mountains.
How silent all the city was! Only here and there above the chimneys
rose a languid film of smoke. The gates of the park shut behind her
with a clang, and so for a time she was alone and free. She touched
Artemis with a spur, and the filly broke into a canter toward the lake
road. The girl's nostrils dilated. Every flower, the thousand
resinous saps of the forest, the earth itself, yielded up a cool sweet
perfume that was to the mind what a glass of wine is to the blood,
exhilaration.
Mottled with pink, and gray, and blue, and gold, the ever-changing hues
of the morning, the surface of the lake was as smooth as her mirror
and, like it, always reflecting beauty. Fish leaped forth and fell
with a sounding splash, and the circles would widen and gradually
vanish. A blackbird dipped among the silent rushes; a young fox barked
importantly; a hawk flashed by. The mists swam hither and thither
mysteriously, growing thinner and fainter as the gold of day grew
brighter and clearer. Suddenly--in the words of the old
tent-maker--the false morning died, and it was day.
I'm afraid that somewhere among the princess' ancestors there was a
troubadour; for she was something of a poet. Indeed, I have already
remarked that she wrote verses. The atmospheric change of the morning
turned her mind into sentimental channels. How she envied the peasant
woman, who might come and go at will, sleep in the open or in the hut,
loving or hating with perfect freedom! Ah, Prince Charming, Prince
Charming! where were you? Why did you loiter? Perhaps for her there
was no Prince Charming. It might be so. She sighed.
She would never marry Doppelkinn--never. That horrible Steinbock! She
was glad, glad that she had struck him, again and again, across his
lying eyes and evil mouth. She had believed that she knew the world;
it was all yet a mystery; the older she grew the less she understood.
Wasn't anybody good? Was everybody to be distrusted? Which way should
she turn now? The world was beautiful enough; it was the people in it.
Poor Betty! She had her troubles, too; but somehow she refused to
confide them. She acted very much as if she were in love.
She gazed at the hawk enviously. How proud and free he was, so high up
there, circling and circling. Even the fox was freer than she; the
forests were his, and he might go whither he listed. And the fish that
leaped in frolic from the water, and the blackbird in the rushes! She
could not understand.
She would never marry Doppelkinn--never.
But how should she escape--how? On Wednesday night she would be given
her quarterly allowance of a thousand crowns, and on Thursday she must
act. . . . Yes, yes, that was it! How simple! She would slip over
into Doppelkinn, where they never would think to search for her. She
knew a place in which to hide. From Doppelkinn she would go straight
to Dresden and seek the protection of her old governess, who would hide
her till the duke came to his senses. If only she had an independent
fortune, how she would snap her fingers at them all!
She was distracted by the sound of jangling steel. Artemis had cast a
shoe. How annoying! It would take ten minutes to reach old Bauer's
smithy, and ten minutes more to put on a shoe. She brought the filly
down to a walk.
What was the use of being a princess if one was not allowed to act in a
royal fashion? It wasn't so terrible to wear men's clothes, and,
besides, they were very comfortable for riding a horse; and as for
riding a bicycle in the public streets, hadn't that ugly Italian
duchess ridden through the streets of Rome, and in knickerbockers, too?
Nobody seemed to mind it there. But in Barscheit it had been little
short of a crime. She recalled the flaming fagots and the red-hot wire
of her unfortunate wheel. A smile rippled over her face, but it passed
quickly. There was nothing left to smile over. They were going to
force her to marry a tomb, a man in whom love and courage and joy were
as dead things. Woe to Doppelkinn, though--woe to him! She would lead
him a dance, wild and terrible.
If only she were Betty, free to do what she pleased, to go and come at
will! She wasn't born to be a princess; she wasn't commonplace enough;
she enjoyed life too well. Ah, if only she might live and act like
those English cousins of hers with whom she went to school! _They_
could ride man-fashion, hunt man-fashion, shoot, play cards and bet at
the races man-fashion, and nobody threatened them with Doppelkinns.
They might dance, too, till the sun came into the windows and the rouge
on their faces cracked. But _she_! (I use the italics to illustrate
the decided nods of her pretty head.) Why, every sweet had to be
stolen!
She would never marry Doppelkinn--never. She would never watch his old
nose grow purple at the table. She would run away. And since Prince
Charming was nowhere to be seen, it were better to die an old maid.
Presently the smithy came into view, emerging from a cluster of
poplars. She rode up to the doors, dismounted and entered. Old Bauer
himself was at the bellows, and the weird blue light hissing up from
the blown coals discovered another customer. She turned and met his
frank glance of admiration. (If she hadn't turned! If his admiration
hadn't been entirely frank!) Instantly she sent Bauer a warning glance
which that old worthy seemed immediately to understand. The stranger
was tall, well-made, handsome, with yellow hair, and eyes as blue as
the sky is when the west wind blows.
He raised his cap, and the heart of the girl fluttered. Wherever had
this seemly fellow come from?
"Good morning," said the stranger courteously. "I see that you have
had the same misfortune as myself."
"You have lost a shoe? Rather annoying, when one doesn't want a single
break in the going." She uttered the words carelessly, as if she
wasn't at all interested.
The stranger stuffed his cap into a pocket. She was glad that she had
chosen the new saddle. The crest and coat of arms had not yet been
burned upon the leather nor engraved upon the silver ornaments, and
there was no blanket under the English saddle. There might be an
adventure; one could not always tell. She must hide her identity. If
the stranger knew that she belonged to the House of Barscheit, possibly
he would be frightened and take to his heels.
But the Princess Hildegarde did not know that this stranger never took
to his heels; he wasn't that kind. Princess or peasant, it would have
been all the same to him. Only his tone might have lost half a key.
Bauer called to his assistant, and the girl stepped out into the road.
The stranger followed, as she knew he would. It will be seen that she
knew something of men, if only that they possess curiosity.
"What a beautiful place this is!" the stranger ventured, waving his
hand toward the still lake and the silent, misty mountains.
"There is no place quite like it," she admitted. "You are a stranger
in Barscheit?"--politely. He was young and certainly the best-looking
man she had seen in a month of moons. If Doppelkinn, now, were only
more after this pattern!
"Yes, this is my first trip to Barscheit." He had a very engaging
smile.
"You are from Vienna?"
"No."
"Ah, from Berlin. I was not quite sure of the accent."
"I am a German-American,"--frankly. "I have always spoken the language
as if it were my own, which doubtless it is."
"America!" she cried, her interest genuinely aroused. "That is the
country where every one does just as he pleases."
"Sometimes." (What beautiful teeth she had, white as skimmed milk!)
"They are free?"
"Nearly always."
"They tell me that women there are all queens."
"We are there, or here, always your humble servants."
He was evidently a gentleman; there was something in his bow that was
courtly. "And do the women attend the theaters alone at night?"
"If they desire to."
"Tell me, does the daughter of the president have just as much liberty
as her subjects?"
"Even more. Only, there are no subjects in America."
"No subjects? What do they call them, then?"
"Voters."
"And do the women vote?"
"Only at the women's clubs."
She did not quite get this; not that it was too subtle, rather that it
was not within her comprehension.
"It is a big country?"
"Ever so big."
"Do you like it?"
"I love every inch of it. I have even fought for it."
"In the Spanish War?"--visibly excited.
"Yes."
"Were you a major or a colonel?"
"Neither; only a private."
"I thought every soldier there was either a colonel or a major."
He looked at her sharply, but her eye was roving. He became
suspicious. She might be simple, and then again she mightn't. She was
worth studying, anyhow.
"I was a cavalryman, with nothing to do but obey orders and, when
ordered, fight. I am visiting the American consul here; he was a
school-mate of mine."
"Ah! I thought I recognized the horse."
"You know him?"--quickly.
"Oh,"--casually,--"every one hereabouts has seen the consul on his
morning rides. He rides like a centaur, they say; but I have never
seen a centaur."
The stranger laughed. She was charming.
"He ought to ride well; I taught him." But the gay smile which
followed this statement robbed it of its air of conceit. "You see, I
have ridden part of my life on the great plains of the West, and have
mounted everything from a wild Indian pony to an English thoroughbred.
My name is Max Scharfenstein, and I am here as a medical student,
though in my own country I have the right to hang out a physician's
shingle."
She drew aimless figures in the dust with her riding-crop. There was
no sense in her giving any name. Probably they would never meet again.
And yet--
"I am Hildegarde von--von Heideloff," giving her mother's name. He was
too nice to frighten away.
The hesitance over the "von" did not strike his usually keen ear. He
was too intent on noting the variant expressions on her exquisite face.
It was a pity she was dark. What a figure, and how proudly the head
rested upon the slender but firm white throat! After all, black eyes,
such as these were, might easily rival any blue eyes he had ever seen.
(Which goes to prove that a man's ideals are not built as solidly as
might be.)
"It is rather unusual," he said, "to see a woman ride so early; but you
have the right idea. Everything begins to wake, life, the air, the
day. There is something in the dew of the morning that is a better
tonic than any doctor can brew."
"Take care! If you have no confidence in your wares, you must not
expect your patients to have."
"Oh, I am a doctor of philosophy, also."
"That is to say," she observed, "if you lose your patients, you will
accept their loss without a murmur? Very good. May I ask what you
have come so far to study?"
"Nerves."
"Is it possible!"--with a smile as fleet as the wind.
He laughed. This was almost like an American girl. How easy it was to
talk to her! He tried again to catch her eye, but failed. Then both
looked out over the lake, mutually consenting that a pause should
ensue. He did not mind the dark hair at all.
"Do you speak English?" she asked abruptly in that tongue, with a full
glance to note the effect.
"English is spoken to some extent in the United States," he answered
gravely. He did not evince the least surprise at her fluency.
"Do you write to the humorous papers in your country?"
"Only to subscribe for them," said he.
And again they laughed; which was a very good sign that things were
going forward tolerably well.
And then the miserable fellow of a smith had to come out and announce
that the stranger's horse was ready.
"I'll warrant the shoe," said Bauer.
"You haven't lost any time," said Max, his regret evident to every one.
The girl smiled approvingly. She loved humor in a man, and this one
with the yellow hair and blue eyes seemed to possess a fund of the dry
sort. All this was very wrong, she knew, but she wasn't going to be
the princess this morning; she was going to cast off the shell of
artificiality, of etiquette.
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