CHAPTER XI
Therefore she waited in patience. It was still winter at Innspruck,though the calendar declared it to be spring. April was budless andcold, a month of storms; the snow drifted deep along the streets and M.Chateaudoux was much inconvenienced during his promenades in theafternoon. He would come back with most reproachful eyes for Clementinain that she so stubbornly clung to her vagabond exile and refused sofine a match as the Prince of Baden. On the afternoon of the 25th,however, Clementina read more than reproach in his eyes, more thandiscomfort in the agitation of his manner. The little chamberlain wasafraid.
Clementina guessed the reason of his fear.
"He has come!" she cried. The exultation of her voice, the deep breathshe drew, the rush of blood to her face, and the sudden dancing light inher eyes showed how much constraint she had set upon herself. She waslike an ember blown to a flame. "You were stopped in your walk. You havea message for me. He has come!"
The height of her joy was the depth of Chateaudoux's regret.
"I was stopped in my walk," said he, "but not by the Chevalier Wogan.Who it was I do not know."
"Can you not guess?" cried Clementina.
"I would not trust a stranger," said her mother.
"Would you not?" asked Clementina, with a smile. "Describe him to me."
"His face was wrinkled," said Chateaudoux.
"It was disguised."
"His figure was slight and not over-tall."
M. Chateaudoux gave a fairly accurate description of Gaydon.
"I know no one whom the portrait fits," said the mother, and againClementina cried,--
"Can you not guess? Then, mother, I will punish you. For though Iknow--in very truth, I know--I will not tell you." She turned back toChateaudoux. "Well, his message? He did fix a time, a day, an hour, formy escape?"
"The 27th is the day, and at eight o'clock of the night."
"I will be ready."
"He will come here to fetch your Highness. Meanwhile he prays yourHighness to fall sick and keep your bed."
"I can choose my malady," said Clementina. "It will not all becounterfeit, for indeed I shall fall sick of joy. But why must I fallsick?"
"He brings a woman to take your place, who, lying in bed with thecurtains drawn, will the later be discovered."
The Princess's mother saw here a hindrance to success and eagerly shespoke of it.
"How will the woman enter? How, too, will my daughter leave?"
M. Chateaudoux coughed and hemmed in a great confusion. He explained indelicate hints that he himself was to bribe the sentry at the door tolet her pass for a few moments into the house. The Princess broke into alaugh.
"Her name is Friederika, I'll warrant," she cried. "My poor Chateaudoux,they _will_ give you a sweetheart. It is most cruel. Well, Friederika,thanks to the sentry's fellow-feeling for a burning heart, Friederikaslips in at the door."
"Which I have taken care should stand unlatched. She changes clotheswith your Highness, and your Highness--"
"Slips out in her stead."
"But he is to come for you, he says," exclaimed her mother. "And howwill he do that? Besides, we do not know his name. And there must be afitting companion who will travel with you. Has he that companion?"
"Your Highness," said Chateaudoux, "upon all those points he bade me sayyou should be satisfied. All he asks is that you will be ready at thetime."
A gust of hail struck the window and made the room tremble. Clementinalaughed; her mother shivered.
"The Prince of Baden," said she, with a sigh. Clementina shrugged hershoulders.
"A Prince," said Chateaudoux, persuasively, "with much territory to hisprinceliness."
"A vain, fat, pudgy man," said Clementina.
"A sober, honest gentleman," said the mother.
"A sober butler to an honest gentleman," said Clementina.
"He has an air," said Chateaudoux.
"He has indeed," replied Clementina, "as though he handed himself upon aplate to you, and said, 'Here is a miracle. Thank God for it!' Well, Imust take to my bed. I am very ill. I have a fever on me, and that'struth."
She moved towards the door, but before she had reached it there came aknocking on the street door below.
Clementina stopped; Chateaudoux looked out of the window.
"It is the Prince's carriage," said he.
"I will not see him," exclaimed Clementina.
"My child, you must," said her mother, "if only for the last time."
"Each time he comes it is for the last time, yet the next day sees himstill in Innspruck. My patience and my courtesy are both outworn.Besides, to-day, now that I have heard this great news we have waitedfor--how long? Oh, mother, oh, mother, I cannot! I shall betray myself."
The Princess's mother made an effort.
"Clementina, you must receive him. I will have it so. I am your mother.I will be your mother," she said in a tremulous tone, as though the mereutterance of the command frightened her by its audacity.
Clementina was softened on the instant. She ran across to her mother'schair, and kneeling by it said with a laugh, "So you shall. I would notbarter mothers with any girl in Christendom. But you understand. I ampledged in honour to my King. I will receive the Prince, but indeed Iwould he had not come," and rising again she kissed her mother on theforehead.
She received the Prince of Baden alone. He was a stout man of muchceremony and took some while to elaborate a compliment upon Clementina'saltered looks. Before, he had always seen her armed and helmeted withdignity; now she had much ado to keep her lips from twitching into asmile, and the smile in her eyes she could not hide at all. The Princetook the change to himself. His persistent wooing had not been after allin vain. He was not, however, the man to make the least of hissufferings in the pursuit which seemed to end so suitably to-day.
"Madam," he said with his grandest air, "I think to have given you someproof of my devotion. Even on this inclement day I come to pay my dutythough the streets are deep in snow."
"Oh, sir," exclaimed Clementina, "then your feet are wet. Never run suchrisks for me. I would have no man weep on my account though it were onlyfrom a cold in the head."
The Prince glanced at Clementina suspiciously. Was this devotion? Hepreferred to think so.
"Madam, have no fears," said he, tenderly, wishing to set the anxiouscreature at her ease. "I drove here in my carriage."
"But from the carriage to the door you walked?"
"No, madam, I was carried."
Clementina's lips twitched again.
"I would have given much to have seen you carried," she said demurely."I suppose you would not repeat the--No, it would be to ask too much.Besides, from my windows here in the side of the house I could not see."And she sighed deeply.
The fatuous gentleman took comfort from the sigh.
"Madam, you have but to say the word and your windows shall lookwhichever way you will."
Clementina, however, did not say the word. She merely sighed again. ThePrince thought it a convenient moment to assert his position.
"I have stayed a long while in Innspruck, setting my constancy, whichbade me stay, above my dignity, which bade me go. For three months Ihave stayed,--a long while, madam."
"I do not think three years could have been longer," said Clementina,with the utmost sympathy.
"So now in the end I have called my pride to help me."
"The noblest gift that heaven has given a man," said Clementina,fervently.
The Prince bowed low; Clementina curtsied majestically.
THE PRINCE STRUTTED TO THE WINDOW; CLEMENTINA SOLEMNLYKEPT PACE WITH HIM."--_Page 161._]
"Will you give me your hand," said he, "as far as your window?"
"Certainly, sir, and out of it."
Clementina laid her hand in his. The Prince strutted to the window;Clementina solemnly kept pace with him.
"What do you see? A sentinel fixed there guarding you. At the doorstands a second sentinel. Answer me as I w
ould be answered, your windowand your door are free. Refuse me, and I travel into Italy. My trunksare already packed."
"Neatly packed, I hope," said Clementina. Her cheek was flushed; herlips no longer smiled. But she spoke most politely, and the Prince wasat a loss.
"Will you give me your hand," said she, "as far as my table?"
The Prince doubtfully stretched out his hand, and the couple paced in astately fashion to Clementina's table.
"What do you see upon my table?" said she, with something of thePrince's pomposity.
"A picture," said he, reluctantly.
"Whose?"
"The Pretender's," he answered with a sneer.
"The King's," said she, pleasantly. "His picture is fixed there guardingme. Against my heart there lies a second. I wish your Highness all speedto Italy."
She dropped his hand, bowed to him again in sign that the interview wasended. The Prince had a final argument.
"You refuse a dowry of L100,000. I would have you think of that."
"Sir, you think of it for both of us."
The Prince drew himself up to his full stature.
"I have your answer, then?"
"You have, sir. You had it yesterday, and if I remember right the daybefore."
"I will stay yet two more days. Madam, you need not fear. I shall notimportune you. I give you those two days for reflection. Unless I hearfrom you I shall leave Innspruck--"
"In two days' time?" suddenly exclaimed Clementina.
"On the evening of the 27th," said the Prince.
Clementina laughed softly in a way which he did not understand. She wasaltogether in a strange, incomprehensible mood that afternoon, and whenhe learnt next day that she had taken to her bed he was not surprised.Perhaps he was not altogether grieved. It seemed right that she shouldbe punished for her stubbornness. Punishment might soften her.
But no message came to him during those two days, and on the morning ofthe 27th he set out for Italy.
At the second posting stage, which he reached about three of theafternoon, he crossed a hired carriage on its way to Innspruck. Thecarriage left the inn door as the Prince drove up to it. He noticed thegreat size of the coachman on the box, he saw also that a man and twowomen were seated within the carriage, and that a servant rode onhorseback by the door. The road, however, was a busy one; day and nighttravellers passed up and down; the Prince gave only a passing scrutinyto that carriage rolling down the hill to Innspruck. Besides, he wasacquainted neither with Gaydon, who rode within the carriage, nor withWogan, the servant at the door, nor with O'Toole, the fat man on thebox.
At nightfall the Prince came to Nazareth, a lonely village amongst themountains with a single tavern, where he thought to sleep the night.There was but one guest-room, however, which was already bespoken by aFlemish lady, the Countess of Cernes, who had travelled that morning toInnspruck to fetch her niece.
The Prince grumbled for a little, since the evening was growing stormyand wild, but there was no remedy. He could not dispute the matter, forhe was shown the Countess's berlin waiting ready for her return. Aservant of the Count's household also had been left behind at Nazarethto retain the room, and this man, while using all proper civilities,refused to give up possession. The Prince had no acquaintance with theofficers of Dillon's Irish regiment, so that he had no single suspicionthat Captain Misset was the servant. He drove on for another stage,where he found a lodging.
Meanwhile the hired carriage rolled into Innspruck, and a storm ofextraordinary violence burst over the country.