CHAPTER XXII
Wogan was guided through the streets to the mouth of a blind alley, atthe bottom of which rose a high garden wall, and over the wall thesmoking chimneys of a house among the tops of many trees freshly green,which shivered in the breeze and shook the sunlight from their leaves.This alley, from the first day when the Princess came to lodge in thehouse, had worn to Wogan a familiar air; and this morning, as hepondered dismally whether, after all, those laborious months since hehad ridden hopefully out of Bologna to Ohlau were to bear no fruit, hechanced to remember why. He had passed that alley at the moment of greydawn, when he was starting out upon this adventure, and he had seen aman muffled in a cloak step from its mouth and suddenly draw back as hishorse's hoofs rang in the silent street, as though to elude recognition.Wogan wondered for a second who at that time had lived in the house; buthe was admitted through a door in the wall and led into a little roomwith French windows opening on a lawn. The garden seen from here was awealth of white blossoms and yellow, and amongst them Clementina pacedalone, the richest and the whitest blossom of them all. She was dressedsimply in a white gown of muslin and a little three-cornered hat ofstraw; but Wogan knew as he advanced towards her that it was not merelythe hat which threw the dark shadow on her face.
She took a step or two towards him and began at once without anyfriendly greeting in a cold, formal voice,--
"You have received a letter this morning from his Majesty?"
"Yes, your Highness."
"Why does the King linger in Spain?"
"The expedition from Cadiz--"
"Which left harbour a week ago. Well, Mr. Wogan," she asked in bitingtones, "how does that expedition now on the high seas detain his Majestyin Spain?"
Wogan was utterly dumfounded. He stood and gazed at her, a great troublein his eyes, and his wits with that expedition all at sea.
"Is your Highness sure?" he babbled.
"Oh, indeed, most sure," she replied with the hardest laugh which he hadever heard from a woman's lips.
"I did not know," he said in dejection, and she took a step nearer tohim, and her cheeks flamed.
"Is that the truth?" she asked, her voice trembling with anger. "You didnot know?"
And Wogan understood that the real trouble with her at this moment wasnot so much the King's delay in Spain as a doubt whether he himself hadplayed with her and spoken her false. For if he was proved untrue here,why, he might have been untrue throughout, on the stairway at Innspruck,on the road to Ala, in the hut on the bluff of the hills. He could seehow harshly the doubt would buffet her pride, how it would wound her tothe soul.
"It is the truth," he answered; "you will believe it. I pledge my soulupon it. Lay your hand in mine. I will repeat it standing so. Could Ispeak false with your hand close in mine?"
He held out his hand; she did not move, nor did her attitude of distrustrelent.
"Could you not?" she asked icily.
Wogan was baffled; he was angered. "Have I ever told you lies?" he askedpassionately, and she answered, "Yes," and steadily looked him in theface.
The monosyllable quenched him like a pail of cold water. He stoodsilent, perplexed, trying to remember.
"When?" he asked.
"In the berlin between Brixen and Wellishmile."
Wogan remembered that he had told her of his city of dreams. But it wasplainly not to that that she referred. He shrugged his shoulders.
"I cannot remember."
"You told me of an attack made upon a Scottish town, what time the Kingwas there in the year '15. He forced a passage through nine grenadierswith loaded muskets and escaped over the roof-tops, where he played agame of hide-and-seek among the chimneys. Ah, you remember the storynow. There was a chain, I remember, which even then as you told of itpuzzled me. He threw the chain over the head of one of those ninegrenadiers, and crossing his arms jerked it tight about the man's neck,stifling his cry of warning. 'What chain?' I asked, and youanswered,--oh, sir, with a practised readiness,--'The chain he woreabout his neck.' Do you remember that? The chain linked your hand-locks,Mr. Wogan. It was your own escape of which you told me. Why did youascribe your exploits to your King?"
"Your Highness," he said, "we know the King, we who have served him dayin and day out for years. We can say freely to each other, 'The King'sachievements, they are to come.' We were in Scotland with him, and weknow they will not fail to come. But with you it's different. You didnot know him. You asked what he had done, and I told you. You asked formore. You said, 'Amongst his throng of adventurers, each of whom hassomething to his credit, what has he, the chief adventurer?'"
"Well, sir, why not the truth in answer to the question?"
"Because the truth's unfair to him."
"And was the untruth fair to me?"
Mr. Wogan was silent.
"I think I understand," she continued bitterly; "you thought, here's afoolish girl, aflame for knights and monsters overthrown. She cries fordeeds, not statecraft. Well, out of your many, you would toss her one,and call it the King's. You could afford the loss, and she, please God,would be content with it." She spoke with an extraordinary violence in alow, trembling voice, and she would not listen to Wogan's stammeredinterruption.
"Very likely, too, the rest of your words to me was of a piece. I was agirl, and girls are to have gallant speeches given to them like so manylollipops. Oh, but you have hurt me beyond words. I would not havethought I could have suffered so much pain!"
That last cry wrung Wogan's heart. She turned away from him with thetears brimming in her eyes. It was this conjecture of hers which he haddreaded, which at all costs he must dispel.
"Do not believe it!" he exclaimed. "Think! Should I have been at so muchpains to refrain from speech, if speech was what I had intended?"
"How should I know but what that concealment was part of the gallantry,a necessary preface to the pretty speeches?"
"Should I have urged your rescue on the King had I believed you what youwill have it that I did,--a mere witless girl to be pampered withfollies?"
"Then you admit," she cried, "you _urged_ the King."
"Should I have travelled over Europe to search for a wife and lit onyou? Should I have ridden to Ohlau and pestered your father till heyielded? Should I have ridden across Europe to Strasbourg? Should I haveendangered my friends in the rush to Innspruck? No, no, no! From firstto last you were the chosen woman."
The vehemence and fire of sincerity with which he spoke had its effecton her. She turned again towards him with a gleam of hopefulness in herface, but midway in the turn she stopped.
"You spoke to me words which I have not forgotten," she said doubtfully."You said the King had need of me. I will be frank, hoping that you willmatch my frankness. On that morning when we climbed down the gorge, andever since I cheered myself with that one thought. The King had need ofme."
"Never was truer word spoken," said Wogan, stoutly.
"Then why is the King in Spain?"
They had come back to the first question. Wogan had no new answer to it.He said,--
"I do not know."
For a moment or two Clementina searched his eyes. It seemed in the endthat she was satisfied he spoke the truth. For she said in a voice ofgreater gentleness,--
"Then I will acquaint you. Will you walk with me for half a mile?"
Wogan bowed, and followed her out of the garden. He could not thinkwhither she was leading him, or for what purpose. She walked without aword to him, he followed without a question, and so pacing with muchdignity they came to the steps of a great house. Then Clementina halted.
"Sir," said she, "can you put a name to the house?"
"Upon my word, your Highness, I cannot."
"It is the Caprara Palace," said she, suddenly, and suddenly she benther eyes upon Wogan. The name, however, conveyed no meaning whatever tohim, and his blank face told her so clearly. She nodded in a sort ofapproval. "No," she said, relenting, "you did not know."
She mounted the ste
ps, and knocking upon the door was admitted by an oldbroken serving-man, who told her that the Princess Caprara was away. Itwas permitted him, however, to show the many curiosities and treasuresof the palace to such visitors as desired it. Clementina did desire it.The old man led her and her companion to the armoury, where he was forspending much time and breath over the trophies which the distinguishedGeneral Caprara had of old rapt from the infidels. But Clementinaquickly broke in upon his garrulity.
"I have a great wish to see the picture gallery," said she, and the oldman tottered onwards through many shrouded and darkened rooms. In thepicture gallery he drew up the blinds and then took a wand in his hand.
"Will you show me first the portrait of Mlle. de Caprara?" saidClementina.
It was a full-length portrait painted with remarkable skill. MariaVittoria de Caprara was represented in a black dress, and the warmItalian colouring of her face made a sort of glow in the dark picture.Her eyes watched you from the canvas with so life-like a glance you hada thought when you turned that they turned after you. Clementina gazedat the picture for a long while, and the blood slowly mounted on herneck and transfused her cheeks.
"There is a face, Mr. Wogan,--a passionate, beautiful face,--which mightwell set a seal upon a man's heart. I do not wonder. I can well believethat though to-day that face gladdens the streets of Rome, a lover inSpain might see it through all the thick earth of the Pyrenees. There,sir, I promised to acquaint you why the King lingered in Spain. I havefulfilled that promise;" and making a present to the custodian, shewalked back through the rooms and down the steps to the street. Woganfollowed her, and pacing with much dignity they walked back to thelittle house among the trees, and so came again into the garden ofblossoms.
The anger had now gone from her face, but it was replaced by a greatweariness.
"It is strange, is it not," she said with a faltering smile, "that on aspring morning, beneath this sky, amongst these flowers, I should thinkwith envy of the snows of Innspruck and my prison there? But I owe you areparation," she added. "You said the King had need of me. For thatsaying of yours I find an apt simile. Call it a stone on which you bademe set my foot and step. I stepped, and found that your stone wasstraw."
"No, madam," cried Wogan.
"I had a thought," she continued, "you knew the stone was straw whenyou commended it to me as stone. But this morning I have learned myerror. I acquit you, and ask your pardon. You did not know that the Kinghad no need of me." And she bowed to him as though the conversation wasat an end. Wogan, however, would not let her go. He placed himself infront of her, engrossed in his one thought, "She must marry the King."He spoke, however, none the less with sincerity when he cried,--
"Nor do I know now--no, and I shall not know."
"You have walked with me to the Caprara Palace this morning. Or did Idream we walked?"
"What your Highness has shown me to-day I cannot gainsay. For this isthe first time that ever I heard of Mlle. de Caprara. But I am very surethat you draw your inference amiss. You sit in judgment on the King, notknowing him. You push aside the firm trust of us who know him as a thingof no account. And because once, in a mood of remorse at my ownpresumption, I ascribed one trivial exploit--at the best a success ofmuscle and not brain--to the King which was not his, you strip him ofall merit on the instant." He saw that her face flushed. Here, at allevents, he had hit the mark, and he cried out with a ringingconfidence,--
"Your stone is stone, not straw."
"Prove it me," said she.
"What do you know of the Princess Caprara at the end of it all? Youhave told me this morning all you know. I will go bail if the wholetruth were out the matter would take a very different complexion."
Again she said,--
"Prove that to me!" and then she looked over his shoulder. Wogan turnedand saw that a servant was coming from the house across the lawn with aletter on a salver. The Princess opened the letter and read it. Then sheturned again to Wogan.
"His Eminence the Cardinal fixes the marriage in Bologna here for to-dayfortnight. You have thus two weeks wherein to make your word good."
Two weeks, and Wogan had not an idea in his head as to how he was to setabout the business. But he bowed imperturbably.
"Within two weeks I will convince your Highness," said he, and for agood half-hour he sauntered with her about the garden before he took hisleave.