CHAPTER XV
THE ENVOY
In the autumn of the following year, Joan was seated one day in thegarden of her pretty suburban house at Denver. Not far away glittered asilvery lake; beyond a densely wooded plain rose the blue amphitheaterof the Rocky Mountains; the distant clang of a gong told of street carsand the busy life of one of America's most thriving and picturesquecities.
She was somewhat more fragile than when she crossed the Pont Neuf onthat fine morning in May eighteen months ago; but she looked and feltsupremely happy, for Alec would soon be home from his office, wherealready he was proving that the qualities which made him a good Kingwere now in a fair way toward establishing his position as a leadingcitizen of his native State. By her side in a dainty cot reposed anotherAlec, whose age might not yet be measured by many weeks, but whose sizeand lustiness proclaimed him--in his own special circle, at anyrate--the most remarkable baby that ever "occurred" in Colorado.
Mrs. Talbot, Senior, tired of reading, was now dozing peacefully in aneasy chair on the other side of the cot. The day had been warm; but theevening air brought with it the crisp touch of autumn, and Joan wasabout to summon Pauline, who--with honorable mention of the unchangingBosko--had solved for the young couple the most perplexing problem ofAmerican life,--when the click of the garden gate caught her ear and sheheard her husband's firm step. He stooped and kissed her.
"I hope you have passed the whole day in the garden, sweetheart," hesaid.
"Yes," she replied, "I was just going to send baby indoors. Will youtell Pauline it is time he was in bed; but do not disturb your mother.She's asleep."
"Baby can wait one minute," he said. "He looks quite contented where heis. There is news from Delgratz," he added in a lower voice. "KingMichael is dead."
An expression of real sympathy swept across Joan's beautiful face. "I amsorry to hear that," she said. Then, with the innate desire of everyhigh-minded woman to find good where there seems to be naught but evil,she added, "Perhaps, when he reached the throne, he may have mended hisways and striven to be a better man. Did he die suddenly?"
"Yes," and a curious inflection in Alec's voice caused his wife toglance anxiously toward the sleeping woman.
"Was there a tragedy?" she whispered.
"Something of the sort. The details are hardly known yet, and thetelegrams published in our Denver newspapers are not quite explicit.There is an allusion to a disturbance in a local theater, during whichthe heir apparent, Count Julius Marulitch, was fatally stabbed."
"Oh!" gasped Joan.
"It would seem that this incident took place several days ago, butescaped notice in the American press at the time. Attention is drawn toit now by the fact that King Michael was found dead in his apartments atan early hour yesterday morning, and it is rumored that he waspoisoned."
"How dreadful!" she gasped. "It will shock your mother terribly when shehears of it."
"It is an odd feature of the affair," went on Alec, "that the telegramdescribes the King as residing in the New Konak. I suppose he passed thesummer months there, and had not yet returned to Delgratz. Delightful asthe place was, I am glad now we never lived there, Joan."
She rose and caught him by the arm. "Alec," she murmured, "Heaven wasvery good to us in sending us away from that Inferno! You never regretthose days, do you? You never think, deep down in your heart, that if ithad not been for me you would still be a King?"
He laughed so cheerfully that the sound of his mirth woke both hismother and the baby.
"What is it?" asked Mrs. Talbot, scanning the faces of her son and hiswife with a whole world of affection in her kindly eyes.
"Well, nothing to laugh about, mother," said he, "since I was justtelling Joan that the end has come for some one in Kosnovia; but----"
"Is Michael dead?" interrupted his mother, paling a little.
"Yes, mother, he is."
She bent her head in brief reverie, and when she looked up again sheseemed to be gazing at the smiling landscape. But they knew better. Herthoughts had flown many a mile from Colorado.
"May Heaven be more merciful to him than he was to me!" she said atlast, and that was her requiem for the man to whom she had given herbest days. She forgave him; but she could not find it in her heart toregret his loss.
When the New York papers reached Denver, the small household--whoseinterest in the affairs of far off Kosnovia was little dreamed of bytheir neighbors--gleaned fuller details of the tragedy that had againoverwhelmed the Delgrados. Many times did the conversation turn to thetiny Kingdom with which their own lives had been so intimately bound up.So far as the American press was concerned, the topic was soonforgotten; but Alec, having obtained a Budapest journal, found thatStampoff, Beliani, and Sergius Nesimir were taking steps to form aRepublic.
"Sometimes," said Alec during their talk that evening, "it is theexpected that happens."
"I suppose," said Joan musingly, "that the unlucky little Principalityought to prosper under a popular Government--unless----" She paused, andher husband was quick to interpret her thought.
"Unless they obtain the right sort of King," he cried.
"Perhaps that is impossible since you are here, dear," she said softly.
"Is that bee still buzzing in your bonnet?" he laughed. "I agree withyou, Joan; it was a pity I let go so promptly."
She lifted her startled eyes to his. "Oh, Alec!" she cried, "you don'tmean it!"
"I do, sweetheart," he said with a marked seriousness that puzzled her."It was sheer selfishness that drove me from Kosnovia. I honestlybelieve I should have cracked up under the weight of empire; but justfancy what a wonderful Queen you would have made!"
"Oh, don't be stupid," she cried. "You almost frightened me."
Alec's mother put in a gentle word. "If ever either of you is tempted toregret the loss of a throne, you ought to devote half an hour to readingthe history of Kosnovia," she said. "You are happy, and that is what youwould never have been in the Balkans. A curse rests on that unluckyland. Never a Delgrado or Obrenovitch has reigned a decade in peace andsecurity. It was a red letter day for Alec when you brought him awayfrom Delgratz, my dear," she continued, with a fond pressure of her handon Joan's brown hair. "None of us knew it at the time; but there areevents in life that, like certain short and sharp diseases, leave us allthe better when they have passed, though their severity may try uscruelly at the time."
The Indian summer day was drawing to a close, and Bosko entered to closethe windows and pull down the blinds. The sight of him moved Alec tospeak in that sonorous Serbian tongue which was already foreign to hisown ears.
"Do you like America, Bosko?" he said.
The imperturbable one almost started; for it was long since he had heardany words in his own language.
"_Oui, monsieur_," he said.
"And would you go back to Delgratz if you had the opportunity?"
"_Non, monsieur._" For a wonder, he broke into an explanation. "I can goout here without expecting to be fired at from some hedge or ditcharound the next corner, monsieur. You did not know those rascals as Iknew them. They nearly got you once; but they tried a dozen times, andwould have succeeded too, if Stampoff had not been too sharp for them."
"Good gracious, Bosko!" said his master. "This is news, indeed. Why wasI not told?"
"There was no need, monsieur. Each time we discovered a plot we putevery man in jail who might be suspected of the least connection withit. Moreover, had you heard of these things you would have interfered."
"Then, in the name of goodness, why didn't my protectors find out aboutthe attack made by the Seventh Regiment? Surely there were enoughconcerned in that to supply at least one spy?"
Bosko hesitated. He glanced surreptitiously at Alec's mother. "Thingswent wrong that day, monsieur," he said. "Information that ought to havereached the General was withheld."
And Alec left it at that; for the man who might reasonably be suspectedof offsetting Stampoff's vigilance was dead, and no good purpose co
uldbe served by adding one more to his mother's host of bitter memories.
A bell sounded, and Bosko went to the front door. He returned, hisstolid features exhibiting the closest approach to excitement that theywere capable of. Evidently he meant to announce a visitor; but before hecould open his mouth a high and singularly musical voice came from theentrance hall in the exquisite opening bars of the "Salve Dimora."
With one amazed cry of "Felix!" Joan and Alec rushed to the door. Yes,there stood Felix, thinner, more wizened, more shrunken, than when lastthey saw him on the quay at Southampton. Joan, impulsive as ever,welcomed him with a hearty kiss.
"You dear creature!" she said. "Why did you not tell us you were inAmerica?"
"An envoy always delivers his message in person, my belle. I am here onaffairs of state. The telegraph is but a crude herald, and I wasforbidden to write."
Alec dragged him into the room. "Business first, Felix," he said. "Thatis the motto of strenuous America. Now, what is it?"
"Beliani came to me in Paris," said the hunchback, affecting the weightydelivery of one charged with matters of imperial import. "He broughtwith him letters from Stampoff and Nesimir, which I shall deliver. Healso intrusted me with a copy of a unanimous resolution of the KosnovianAssembly, passed in secret session."
Joan's face suddenly paled, Mrs. Talbot's hands clenched the arms of thechair in which she was sitting, and the two women exchanged glances.None of this escaped Alec, who was seemingly unmoved.
"Behold in me, then," continued Poluski, "the Ambassador of Kosnovia.Delgratz wants again to see its Alexis, who is invited to reoccupy thethrone on his own terms,--wife, infant, mother, Bosko, Pauline, evenmyself and the domestic cat, all are welcome. There are no restrictions.At a word from the King even the Assembly itself will dissolve."
Somehow, Poluski's manner conveyed that this was no elaborate jest, andJoan's lips trembled pitifully when, after one look at the youthfulAlec, who was lying on a cushion and saying "Coo-coo" to a rattle, sheawaited her husband's reply. He too looked at her in silence, and evenJoan became dematerialized for one fateful moment. In his mind's eye hesaw the sunlit domes and minarets of the White City. The blue Danubesparkled as of yore beneath its ancient walls. Through the peaceful airof that quiet Denver suburb he caught the sound of cheering crowds, thecrashing of bells, the booming of cannon, that would welcome his return.
But he thought, too, of the fret and fume of Kingship, of the brave menand gracious women who had occupied an unstable throne and were nowcrumbling to dust in the vaults of that gloomy cathedral. He smiledtenderly at his wife, and his hand stole out to meet hers.
"I refuse, Felix!" he said quietly.
Poluski's piercing gray eyes peered at him under the shaggy eyebrows."Is that final?"
"Absolutely final!"
Felix broke into a hearty laugh. "I warned Beliani," he chuckled. "Noone could have written to me as Joan has done and yet want to return tothat whited sepulcher down there in the Balkans. Well, here are mycredentials," and he threw a bundle of papers on the table. "I have donewhat I was asked to do, and thus earned my passage money; and now, whenI have kissed the baby and shaken hands all round, I will bring in mywedding present."
A minute later he danced out into the hall and returned with a hugeroll of canvas. "I unpacked it at the station," he said; "so it is readyfor inspection," and he spread out on the table a replica of the famousMurillo. "There," he cried, "since Joan would not come to the Louvre, Iam bringing the Louvre's chief treasure to her. As it is the last, so isit the best of my copies. My hand was losing its cunning, I felt myselfgrowing old, so I prayed to that sweet Madonna to give me one lastflicker of the immortal fire ere it left me a dry cinder. Well, shelistened, I think. _Ave Maria!_ the great Spaniard himself would rub hiseyes if he could see this. Now, I shall go back contented, and dream ofthe days that are gone."
His voice broke. He was gazing at Joan, at the glory of maternity in herface.
"You are not going back, Felix," said Alec. "Kosnovia has now lost bothits King and its Ambassador. You are here, and here you shall stay."
"Yes, dear Felix," whispered Joan, "we have found our Kingdom. Our courtis small; but there is always room in it for you."
So Denver heard wild snatches of song, and listened, and marveled, and ababy cultivated a strange taste in lullabies, and Pallas Athene forgotthat one of her chosen sons dwelt in Colorado, or, if she remembered,her heart was softened and she forbore.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters errors andomissions, and to regularize usage of hyphens and other punctuation.
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