by Louis Tracy
CHAPTER XI
JOAN DECIDES
An odd element of fatality seemed to attach itself to the ByzantineSaint Peter in the cathedral of Delgratz. Joan nearly lost her lifewithin a few hours of the time when first she saw that remarkable workof art, and it was ordained that one of the last clear memories of thecheckered life in Kosnovia should be its round staring eyes, its stifflymodeled right hand, uplifted, it might be, in reproof or exhortation,the ornate pastoral staff, and the emblem of the crossed keys thatlabeled the artist's intent to portray the chief apostle. Poor Joan hadalready conceived a violent dislike of the reputed Giotto. It was nolonging to complete her work that drove her, at the end, to the solemncathedral, but the compelling need of confiding in Felix. For it hadcome to this: she must fly from Delgratz at once and forever.
It chanced that morning that Alec had taken a holiday. He appearedunexpectedly at breakfast and sat by Joan's side, and his lover's eyeshad detected a pallor, a certain strained and wistful tension of thelips, signs of mental storm and stress that she hoped would not benoticeable.
"Sweetheart," he whispered in quick alarm, "you are not well. You arefeeling this wretched climate. I am minded to throw sentiment aside andsend my mother and you to the New Konak to-day."
"I am quite well," she said, with a forced composure that she felt didnot deceive him. It was necessary to invent some explanation, and shecontinued hurriedly, "I did not sleep soundly last night. Some wanderingnight bird flew in through my open window and startled me with itsfrantic efforts to escape from the room. That is all. After a littlerest I shall be myself again."
"That gloomy old cathedral is not a healthy place, I am inclined tothink," he said, scanning her face again with the anxious gaze of onewho could not endure even a momentary eclipse of its bright vivacity."You go there too often, and now that we know from whom your commissionwas received it is straining a point of etiquette to continue your work.It will relieve any scruples you may have on that head if I tell youthat I paid Monsieur Beliani yesterday every farthing of the moneyadvanced to you by his agent in Paris."
"I am glad of that," she said simply. "I did not like the idea of beingindebted to him. Though he is a very clever man, I regard him as a gooddeal of a rogue."
Alec was not to be switched off personal issues because Joan expressedher opinions in this matter of fact manner. "I am quite sure you areill, or at any rate run down," he persisted. "What you need is a changeof air. I think I can allow myself a few hours' respite from affairs ofstate to-day. What say you if the two of us drive to our country housethis morning and find out for ourselves the progress made by theworkmen? I seem to remember that the contractor named a date, not fardistant now, when the place would be habitable."
"There is nothing in the world that I should like better," said Joan.
Again Alec detected a strange undercurrent of emotion in her voice; buthe attributed it to the lack of sleep she had complained of, and withhis customary tact forbore from pressing her for any furtherexplanation.
They took their drive, and to all outward semblance Joan enjoyed itthoroughly. Her drooping spirits revived long before the last stragglinghouses of Delgratz were left behind. She exhibited the keenest interestin the house and gardens. Although their inspection did not end untilthe sun was high in the heavens, she insisted upon entering every roomand traversing many of the paths in the spacious grounds. She talked,too, with a fluency that in any other woman would have aroused asuspicion of effort; but Alec was too glad that the marked depression ofthe morning had passed to give heed to her half-hysterical mood. Heentered with zest into her eager scrutiny of their future home, soughther advice on every little detail, and grew enthusiastic himself at theprospect of a speedy removal from the barnlike presidential palace tothat leafy paradise. He remembered afterward how Joan's eyes dweltlongingly on an Italian garden that had always attracted her; but it wasimpossible that he should read the farewell in them.
They returned to the city in time for luncheon; then the King had tohurry away to try and overtake the day's engagements.
His parting words were an injunction to Joan that she should not go outagain during the hot hours, but endeavor to obtain the rest of which shehad been deprived during the night.
"Good-by, dear," she said. "You may feel quite certain that when next wemeet I shall be a different person altogether to the pallid creaturewhom you met at breakfast this morning."
Alec was still conscious of some strange detachment in her words. Hisearlier feeling that she was acting a part came back with renewed force;but he again attributed it to the reaction that comes to highly strungnatures after a surfeit of excitement in the midst of a new anddifficult environment.
He kissed her tenderly, and Joan seemed to be on the verge of tears. Hewas puzzled; but thought it best to refrain from comment. "Poor girl!"he said to himself. "She feels it hard to be surrounded by people whoare all strangers, and mostly shut off by the barrier of language."
But he was in no sense alarmed. He left the palace convinced that a fewhours of repose would bring back the color to her cheeks and the naturalbuoyancy to her manner. Then he meant to chaff her about her distractedair; for Joan was no neurotic subject, and she herself would be thefirst to laugh at the nervous fit of the morning.
Poluski, hard at work at his frescoes since an early hour, andgrudgingly snatching a hasty meal at midday, was surprised when Joancame to him after the King's departure and told him that she meant tofinish her picture that afternoon. He made no comment, however, indeedhe was glad of her company, and the two drove away together in thecapacious closed carriage that brought them to and fro between cathedraland palace. During their working hours, they refused to be hampered bythe presence of servants. An old Greek, who acted as caretaker, tookcharge of canvases, easels, paintboxes, and other utensils of thepainter's craft, and he came out gleefully from his lodge as soon astheir vehicle rumbled under the deep arch of the outer porch.
Usually, Joan had a word and a smile for him, though the extent of herGreek conversation was a phrase or two learned from Felix; but to-dayshe hardly seemed to see him, and lost not a moment in settling down towork. She had not much to do; in fact, so far as Felix took note of heraction, after adjusting the canvas and mixing some colors on thepalette, she sat idle for a long time, and even then occupied herselfwith an unnecessary deepening of tints in the picture, which alreadydisplayed an amazing resemblance to its stilted and highly coloredprototype.
At last she spoke, and Felix, perched on a platform above her head, wasalmost startled by the sorrow laden cadence of her voice.
"I did not really come here to-day to paint," she said. "The picture isfinished; my work in Delgratz is ended. You and Pauline are the only twopeople in the world whom I can trust, and I have brought you here,Felix, to tell you that I am leaving Delgratz to-night."
The hunchback slid down from the little scaffolding he had constructedto enable him to survey the large area covered by the frescoes. "Isuppose I have understood what you said," he cried. "It is impossible tofocus one's thoughts properly on the spoken word when a huge dome addsvibrations of its own, and I admit that I am invariably irritated myselfwhen I state a remarkable fact with the utmost plainness and peoplepretend to be either deaf or dull of comprehension."
That was Poluski's way. He never would take one seriously; but Joanmerely sighed and bent her head.
"You say you are leaving Delgratz to-night! May one ask why?" he wenton, dropping his bantering manner at once.
"No," she said.
Felix bassooned a few deep notes between his lips. "You have some goodreason for telling me that, I presume?" he muttered, uttering the firstwords that occurred to his perplexed brain.
"Yes, the very best of reasons, or at least the most convincing. Icannot remain here unless I marry Alec, and as I have absolutelydetermined not to marry him, it follows that I must go."
"Ah, you are willing to give some sort of reason, then," he said. "Atpresent I am mudd
led. One grasps that unless you marry Alec you must go;but why not marry Alec? It sounds like a proposition of Euclid with themain clauses omitted."
"I am sorry, Felix, but I cannot explain myself further. You came toDelgratz with me; will you return with me to Paris? If not, will you atleast promise to help me to get away and keep secret the fact that I amgoing?"
Felix grew round eyed with amazement; but he managed to control histongue. "You are asking a good deal, dear," he said. "Do you know whatyou are doing? Do you realize what your action will mean to Alec? Whathas happened? Some lover's tiff. That is unlike you, Joan. If you runoff in this fashion, you will be trying most deliberately to break poorAlec's heart."
Joan uttered a queer little choking sob, yet recovered her self controlwith a rapidity that disconcerted Felix far more than she imagined atthe moment.
"He will suffer, I know," she murmured, "and it does not console me tofeel that in the end I shall suffer far more; but I am going, Felix,whatsoever the cost, no matter whose heart may be broken. Heaven helpme! I must go, and I look to you for assistance. Oh, my friend, myfriend! I have only you in all the world. Do not desert me in my need!"
She had never before seen Felix really angry; but even in the extremityof her distress she could not fail to note a strange glitter in the grayeyes now fixed on her in a fiery underlook. The little man was deeplymoved; for once in his life he did not care how much he showed hisresentment.
"_Saperlotte!_" he growled. "What has come to you? Is it you who speak,or the devil? You are possessed of a fiend, Joan, a fiend that istempting you to do this wrong!"
Joan rose, pale faced and resolute. Despite the flood of rage anddespair that surged in Poluski's quivering frame, she reminded him of aglimpse he caught of her in that last desperate moment when the door ofthe hotel was battered open by the insurgents and her mind was alreadyfixed on death as a blessed relief from the horror of life.
"I only ask you to believe in my unalterable purpose," she said with acalmness that stupefied him. "If no other means presents itself, Ishould wander out of the palace in the darkness and endeavor to reachAustria by the ferry across the Danube. I believe there are difficultiesfor the stranger if one goes that way; but again I throw myself on yourmercy, Felix, and appeal to you for guidance and help. This is my worsthour. If you fail me now, I shall indeed be wretched."
Felix leaned against an upright of the scaffolding and passed atrembling hand over his forehead. "Forgive me, Joan, if I have spokenharshly!" he muttered in the dubious voice of a man who hardly knowswhat he is saying.
"There is nothing to forgive. It is I, rather, who should seekforgiveness from you for imposing this cruel test of friendship. Butwhat can I do, Felix? I am a woman and alone, and, when I think of whatlies before me, I am afraid."
With a great effort he steadied himself. Placing both hands on thegirl's shoulders, he turned her face to the light that fell from a smallrose window in a side aisle. In silence he looked at her, seeking towring the secret of this madness from her steadfast eyes.
"_Ma belle_," he cried suddenly, "I am beginning to believe that you arein earnest."
"No matter how many years it may please God to leave me on earth, Ishall never be more resolved on anything than on my departure fromDelgratz to-night."
"You place trust in me, you say in one breath, yet you deny it inanother. Tell me then, Joan, what is the obstacle that has arisen toprevent you from marrying Alec? It all hinges on that. Who has beenlying to you?"
She could not continue to meet his accusing eyes. It seemed to her thatif he urged her more her heart would burst. Yielding to the impulse ofthe hunted animal, she wrenched herself free and turned to runsomewhere, anywhere, so that she might avoid his merciless inquisition.A harsh laugh fell on her ears, and nothing more effective to put a stopto her flight could have been devised.
"Name of a name!" he roared, "shall we not take our pictures? If we arefalse to all else, let us at least be true to our harmless daubs!"
The taunt was undeserved and glanced unheeded from the shield of thegirl's utter misery. Perhaps because that was so, the Pole's next wordswere tender and soothing.
"Come, then, my Joan," he growled, "never shall it be said against methat I deserted a comrade in distress. I hoped to see you happilywedded. It was my fantasy that Alec and you would inaugurate a new lineof monarchs and thus bring about the social revolution from anunexpected quarter. But I was mistaken. Holy blue! never was man so ledastray since Eve strolled into the wrong orchard and brought Adam withher!"
By this time he had caught her. He held her arm, and began to stroke oneof her hands softly as if she had shown symptoms of falling in a faint."We will go, _mignonne_," he soothed her, "you and I, and none hereshall know till we have crossed the frontier. Not even then will theyguess what has become of us, unless you find it in your heart to leavesome little word for Alec. You will do that? You will save him fromdespair, from the torture of doubt----"
"Oh, Felix, spare me!" she sobbed convulsively.
"But one must look squarely at the facts, _mignonne_. If you run awayand give no sign, it can only be supposed that you have met with someevil fate. There are others than Alec who will think that disaster hasbefallen you, and they will have uneasy souls, and Alec will look intotheir guilty faces with the eyes of a wrathful lover, which at suchtimes can be superhuman, terrible, heart piercing. There is no knowingwhose blood will stain his hands then; for he will accept from no onebut yourself the assurance that you have left him of your own freewill."
"That, at least, is true," she said wearily. "I shall write a letterwhich must be given to him when I am gone."
"_Grand Dieu!_ what a resolute will is yours, Joan! Have you counted thecost? Leave Alec out of it; but do you think his hog of a father, hiseasily swayed mother, Stampoff, the short sighted and patriotic, or thatscheming Greek and his puppet Marulitch, will gain the ends for which,between them, they have contrived your flight? Do you know Alec solittle as to believe that he will leave the field clear to that crew?Why, dear heart, he will sweep them aside like an angry god! They havebewitched your brain with some tale of the evil that will accrue to theKing if he weds the woman he loves. If that is all, it is a fiction fitonly to frighten a child. Hear me, Joan! You are not helping Alec bytearing yourself away from Delgratz; but condemning to the deepest hellnot him alone but some millions of people who have done no wrong. Theygave their honest affections to this boy, because he strikes theirimagination as a King sent straight from Heaven. It is a vile plot, dearheart, to drive Alec from Kosnovia. How can you, of all women, lendyourself to it?"
Felix could not guess how his words lacerated the unhappy girl's soul;but she did not falter in her purpose, and again endeavored to rush fromthe church. Poluski uttered a queer click with his tongue. It testifiedthat he had done his uttermost and failed.
"Be it so, then!" he muttered. "Help me to pack up these masterpieces. Ican plan and scheme with any man living; but I cannot cope with heavyparcels of holiness."
Joan, distraught though she was, felt that he had given way. Withoutanother word she assisted in packing the carriage with their canvasesand other belongings. The old Greek caretaker hobbled after them when hesaw that they were going without depositing their paraphernalia in thelodge as usual.
"You will come back some day and copy another picture, I hope,Excellency," he cried, doffing his cap to Joan.
She opened her purse, since she did not understand what the old man wassaying.
"No, no, Excellency," he protested. "The King himself told me you werenot to be pestered by beggars. I have threatened to crack the skulls ofone or two who persisted in annoying you, and it would ill become me totake a reward for doing what the King ordered."
"He will not accept anything," said Felix. "I may not tell you what elsehe said, since he only put my arguments in simpler words."
He shot a quick look at her, hoping to find some slight sign ofweakening; but her marble face wore the expression of on
e who hassuffered so greatly that the capacity for suffering is exhausted. Fromthat instant Felix urged her no more. He obeyed her without question orprotest, contriving matters so that when she quitted the palace, deeplyveiled, to walk to the station, the soldiers on guard imagined she was aserving maid going into the town.
Pauline, though prepared to be faithful at any hazard, wept when she wastold that she must stay in Delgratz and face the storm that would ragewhen she delivered into the King's own hand the letter Joan intrusted toher care. But even Pauline herself realized that if her mistress was toescape from Delgratz unnoticed, she, the maid, must remain there tillthe following day. By that time there would be no reason why Joan's maidshould not leave openly for the west, and the Frenchwoman was only toothankful at the prospect of a speedy exit from "this city of brigands"to protest too strenuously against the role thrust upon her by Felix.
As events unrolled themselves, the two travelers encountered nodifficulty in leaving Delgratz. It will be remembered that Beliani'sforesight had provided them with return tickets to Paris, and thiscircumstance aided them greatly. In those closely guarded lands wherekeen eyed scrutineers keep watch and ward over a frontier, theproduction of the return half of a ticket issued in the same city as apassport at once lulls any doubt that might arise otherwise.
Moreover, Joan and Felix occupied separate carriages, and the Belgradeofficials, concerned only with the examination of tickets, gave no heedto them, though one man seemed to recognize Felix and grinned in afriendly way. Passport formalities did not trouble them till the trainhad crossed the Tave River and was already in Austrian territory. Thefrontier officers could not possibly know them. Their papers were inorder, and received only a passing glance. Even Joan, adrift in a sea oftrouble, saw that it was a far easier matter to leave the Balkan areathan to enter it.
They arranged to meet in the dining saloon, when all necessity forfurther precaution would have disappeared. Felix was astounded at theself possession Joan now displayed. She was pale but quite calm. Hereyes were clear and showed no traces of grief. Even her very manner wasreverting to that good humored tone of frank camaraderie that theunavoidable ceremoniousness of the last fortnight had kept insubjection. Felix was secretly amazed at these things; but in the depthsof his own complex nature were hidden away, wholly unknown to the littlehunchback himself, certain feminine characteristics which enabled himdimly to understand that the woman who suffers most is she who has thestrength and the courage to carry her head most proudly before thestorm.
"Well," said he when the mail train had left Semlin far behind and theywere speeding northward through the night to Budapest,--"well, Joan, nowthat the severance is complete, do you still refuse me your confidence?"
Her luminous eyes dwelt on his with a sad smile. She had closed thegates of her paradise, and there was to be no faint hearted lookingbackward.
"No," she said, "I have attained my end. It is due to you, my friend,that I should tell you why I have abandoned the only man I shall everlove. It lay with me to choose between his success or failure; perhapsthere rested on my frail shoulders the more dreadful issues of life anddeath. If I had married Alec, I should have pulled him down to ruin,even to the grave. What else would you have me do but save him, nomatter what the cost to myself?"
He propped his chin on his hands and surveyed her quizzically. Felix,despite his protests, was not enamoured of Delgratz, and his mercurialtemperament rejoiced in the near approach of his beloved Paris.
"All this sounds heroic and therefore unconvincing," he said. "I do notwant to condemn your motives before I know them, Joan; but I hope youwill allow me to criticize false sentiment," he added, seeing theexpression of pain that for an instant mastered her stoicism and threwits dull shadow across her face.
"Say what pleases you, Felix," she replied gently. "I shall not suffermore than I have already endured. I think I am benumbed now; but atleast I am sure that I have acted right. There were influences at workin Delgratz of which even you had no cognizance. Popular as Alec seemedto be, every prejudice of the Serb was arrayed against him. He appealedto the imagination of the people as a brave and gallant figure; but heis and will ever remain a foreigner among them. They are a race apart,and Alec is not of them, and it would have been a fatal error to givethem as a Queen another foreigner like himself.
"Alone, he will win his way. In the course of years he cannot fail toidentify himself more and more with their interests; he will--someday--marry a Princess of the blood to which he belongs. That will helpKosnovia to forget that he was neither born nor bred in the country, andthe presence of a Serbian consort will tend to consolidate his reign. Itwould have been quite different if he and I were married within a fewweeks. Those who are opposed to him--and they are far more numerous thanyou may guess at this moment--would have been given a most powerfulargument by the refusal of the Greek archimandrite to perform theceremony. You see, Alec himself is not a member of the national church,nor am I, and a drawback that may be overlooked when a Slav Princessbecomes Queen of Kosnovia would have been a fatal thing for me."
Poluski could not but admire Joan's splendid detachment in speaking ofAlec's hypothetical wife. His thin lips creased in a satirical grin. "Isthat it," said he, "the everlasting religious difficulty? No, my belle,tell that to the marines, or, at any rate, to some guileless person notversed in Kosnovian history! There never yet was bloodstained conqueroror evil living Prince in that unhappy city of Delgratz who failed toobtain the sanction of orthodoxy for his worst deeds, whether inbeheading a rival or divorcing a wife."
Joan hesitated. She was obviously choosing her words; but the burdenlaid upon her was too great for the hour to prevent her from adopting asubterfuge that would surely be detected by her shrewd companion. "I donot wish to lay too much stress upon that particular phase of thematter," she said at last. "It was only one of many. In itself it mighthave been surmounted; but when the church, a large section of the army,and nearly all the higher officials of the State are ready to combineagainst Alec's uncompromising sincerity of purpose, it was asking toomuch of me knowingly to provide the special excuse for his downfall."
There was silence for a little while, and Poluski's keen gray eyes stilldwelt searchingly on the girl's sorrow laden though resigned features.She did not flinch from the scrutiny, and there was a certain sadness inthe Pole's next comment.
"What you say, _ma petite_, sounds very like the dry-as-dust utterancesof some podgy Minister of State; they are far from being the words of awoman who loves, and so they are not yours."
"Perhaps you are right, Felix," she said wearily. "Perhaps, had I toldAlec these things, he might have silenced my doubts and persuaded me todare everything for his sake."
"Yet, knowing this, you are here!" he cried, his conscience stinging himat the memory of that forsaken King mourning his lost bride.
"Yes, and no consideration would induce me to return."
"Ah, then there is something that you have not yet told me."
"Yes, and it can never be told, Felix. Be content, my friend, with thatassurance. There is nothing that can happen which has the power tochange my decision. Heaven help me, I can never marry Alec!"
"The true cause must remain a secret!"
"Yes."
"A woman's secret?"
"Yes, my secret."
His eyes sparkled. He bent nearer and sank his voice to a deep whisper,for there were others in the carriage, and that which he had to say mustreach her ears only.
"Not yours, Joan. Oh, no! Not yours. Another woman's. Ha! Blind that Iwas--now I have it! So that is why you are running away. They threatenedto drag Alec headlong from the throne unless you agreed. My poor girl,you might have told me sooner. The knowledge has been here, lurking inthe back of my head for years; but I never gave a thought to it. Whyshould I? Who would have dreamed of such a tragicomedy? Joan, to-day inthe cathedral I could have bound you with ropes if that would haveserved to keep you in Delgratz; but now I kiss the hem of your dress. Mypo
or girl, my own dear Joan, how you must have suffered! Yet I envyyou--I do, on my soul! Life becomes ennobled by actions such as yours.And Alec must never know what you have done for him. That is both thegrandeur and the pathos of it. Joan, my precious, your namesake wasburnt on the pyre for a King's cause, yet her deed would rank no higherthan yours if the world might be allowed to judge between you. But donot dream that your romance is ended. _Saperlotte!_ Old Dame Nature is abetter dramatist than that. If she has contrived so much for you in alittle month, what can she not accomplish in a year?"
And, in a perfect frenzy of excitement, he threw himself back in hischair and amazed another group of cosmopolitan diners by singing.
But this time Joan did not care who stared or whispered. She sat there,a beautiful statue, sorely stricken, and not daring to believe that thehour of blessedness promised in Poluski's song would be vouchsafed aftermany years of pain.
