‘Means!’ she cried. ‘They have been found and prepared before you knew the need for them. Sign the despatch, and let us be done with this delay.’
‘Madam, I said “honourable,”‘ returned Otto, bowing. ‘This war is, in my eyes, and by Herr von Gondremark’s account, an inadmissible expedient. If we have misgoverned here in Grünewald, are the people of Gerolstein to bleed and pay for our mis-doings? Never, madam; not while I live. But I attach so much importance to all that I have heard to-day for the first time — and why only to-day, I do not even stop to ask — that I am eager to find some plan that I can follow with credit to myself.’
‘And should you fail?’ she asked.
‘Should I fail, I will then meet the blow half-way,’ replied the Prince. ‘On the first open discontent, I shall convoke the States, and, when it pleases them to bid me, abdicate.’
Seraphina laughed angrily. ‘This is the man for whom we have been labouring!’ she cried. ‘We tell him of change; he will devise the means, he says; and his device is abdication? Sir, have you no shame to come here at the eleventh hour among those who have borne the heat and burthen of the day? Do you not wonder at yourself? I, sir, was here in my place, striving to uphold your dignity alone. I took counsel with the wisest I could find, while you were eating and hunting. I have laid my plans with foresight; they were ripe for action; and then — ’she choked — ’then you return — for a forenoon — to ruin all! To-morrow, you will be once more about your pleasures; you will give us leave once more to think and work for you; and again you will come back, and again you will thwart what you had not the industry or knowledge to conceive. O! it is intolerable. Be modest, sir. Do not presume upon the rank you cannot worthily uphold. I would not issue my commands with so much gusto — it is from no merit in yourself they are obeyed. What are you? What have you to do in this grave council? Go,’ she cried, ‘go among your equals? The very people in the streets mock at you for a prince.’
At this surprising outburst the whole council sat aghast.
‘Madam,’ said the Baron, alarmed out of his caution, ‘command yourself.’
‘Address yourself to me, sir!’ cried the Prince. ‘I will not bear these whisperings!’
Seraphina burst into tears.
‘Sir,’ cried the Baron, rising, ‘this lady — ’
‘Herr von Gondremark,’ said the Prince, ‘one more observation, and I place you under arrest.’
‘Your Highness is the master,’ replied Gondremark, bowing.
‘Bear it in mind more constantly,’ said Otto. ‘Herr Cancellarius, bring all the papers to my cabinet. Gentlemen, the council is dissolved.’
And he bowed and left the apartment, followed by Greisengesang and the secretaries, just at the moment when the Princess’s ladies, summoned in all haste, entered by another door to help her forth.
CHAPTER VIII — THE PARTY OF WAR TAKES ACTION
Half an hour after, Gondremark was once more closeted with Seraphina.
‘Where is he now?’ she asked, on his arrival.
‘Madam, he is with the Chancellor,’ replied the Baron. ‘Wonder of wonders, he is at work!’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘he was born to torture me! O what a fall, what a humiliation! Such a scheme to wreck upon so small a trifle! But now all is lost.’
‘Madam,’ said Gondremark, ‘nothing is lost. Something, on the other hand, is found. You have found your senses; you see him as he is — see him as you see everything where your too-good heart is not in question — with the judicial, with the statesman’s eye. So long as he had a right to interfere, the empire that may be was still distant. I have not entered on this course without the plain foresight of its dangers; and even for this I was prepared. But, madam, I knew two things: I knew that you were born to command, that I was born to serve; I knew that by a rare conjuncture, the hand had found the tool; and from the first I was confident, as I am confident to-day, that no hereditary trifler has the power to shatter that alliance.’
‘I, born to command!’ she said. ‘Do you forget my tears?’
‘Madam, they were the tears of Alexander,’ cried the Baron. ‘They touched, they thrilled me; I, forgot myself a moment — even I! But do you suppose that I had not remarked, that I had not admired, your previous bearing? your great self-command? Ay, that was princely!’ He paused. ‘It was a thing to see. I drank confidence! I tried to imitate your calm. And I was well inspired; in my heart, I think that I was well inspired; that any man, within the reach of argument, had been convinced! But it was not to be; nor, madam, do I regret the failure. Let us be open; let me disclose my heart. I have loved two things, not unworthily: Grünewald and my sovereign!’ Here he kissed her hand. ‘Either I must resign my ministry, leave the land of my adoption and the queen whom I had chosen to obey — or — ’ He paused again.
‘Alas, Herr von Gondremark, there is no “or,”‘ said Seraphina.
‘Nay, madam, give me time,’ he replied. ‘When first I saw you, you were still young; not every man would have remarked your powers; but I had not been twice honoured by your conversation ere I had found my mistress. I have, madam, I believe, some genius; and I have much ambition. But the genius is of the serving kind; and to offer a career to my ambition, I had to find one born to rule. This is the base and essence of our union; each had need of the other; each recognised, master and servant, lever and fulcrum, the complement of his endowment. Marriages, they say, are made in heaven: how much more these pure, laborious, intellectual fellowships, born to found empires! Nor is this all. We found each other ripe, filled with great ideas that took shape and clarified with every word. We grew together — ay, madam, in mind we grew together like twin children. All of my life until we met was petty and groping; was it not — I will flatter myself openly — it was the same with you! Not till then had you those eagle surveys, that wide and hopeful sweep of intuition! Thus we had formed ourselves, and we were ready.’
‘It is true,’ she cried. ‘I feel it. Yours is the genius; your generosity confounds your insight; all I could offer you was the position, was this throne, to be a fulcrum. But I offered it without reserve; I entered at least warmly into all your thoughts; you were sure of me — sure of my support — certain of justice. Tell me, tell me again, that I have helped you.’
‘Nay, madam,’ he said, ‘you made me. In everything you were my inspiration. And as we prepared our policy, weighing every step, how often have I had to admire your perspicacity, your man-like diligence and fortitude! You know that these are not the words of flattery; your conscience echoes them; have you spared a day? have you indulged yourself in any pleasure? Young and beautiful, you have lived a life of high intellectual effort, of irksome intellectual patience with details. Well, you have your reward: with the fall of Brandenau, the throne of your Empire is founded.’
‘What thought have you in your mind?’ she asked. ‘Is not all ruined?’
‘Nay, my Princess, the same thought is in both our minds,’ he said.
‘Herr von Gondremark,’ she replied, ‘by all that I hold sacred, I have none; I do not think at all; I am crushed.’
‘You are looking at the passionate side of a rich nature, misunderstood and recently insulted,’ said the Baron. ‘Look into your intellect, and tell me.’
‘I find nothing, nothing but tumult,’ she replied.
‘You find one word branded, madam,’ returned the Baron: ‘“Abdication!”‘
‘O!’ she cried. ‘The coward! He leaves me to bear all, and in the hour of trial he stabs me from behind. There is nothing in him, not respect, not love, not courage — his wife, his dignity, his throne, the honour of his father, he forgets them all!’
‘Yes,’ pursued the Baron, ‘the word Abdication. I perceive a glimmering there.’
‘I read your fancy,’ she returned. ‘It is mere madness, midsummer madness. Baron, I am more unpopular than he. You know it. They can excuse, they can love, his weakness; but me, they hate.’
‘
Such is the gratitude of peoples,’ said the Baron. ‘But we trifle. Here, madam, are my plain thoughts. The man who in the hour of danger speaks of abdication is, for me, a venomous animal. I speak with the bluntness of gravity, madam; this is no hour for mincing. The coward, in a station of authority, is more dangerous than fire. We dwell on a volcano; if this man can have his way, Grünewald before a week will have been deluged with innocent blood. You know the truth of what I say; we have looked unblenching into this ever-possible catastrophe. To him it is nothing: he will abdicate! Abdicate, just God! and this unhappy country committed to his charge, and the lives of men and the honour of women . . .’ His voice appeared to fail him; in an instant he had conquered his emotion and resumed: ‘But you, madam, conceive more worthily of your responsibilities. I am with you in the thought; and in the face of the horrors that I see impending, I say, and your heart repeats it — we have gone too far to pause. Honour, duty, ay, and the care of our own lives, demand we should proceed.’
She was looking at him, her brow thoughtfully knitted. ‘I feel it,’ she said. ‘But how? He has the power.’
‘The power, madam? The power is in the army,’ he replied; and then hastily, ere she could intervene, ‘we have to save ourselves,’ he went on; ‘I have to save my Princess, she has to save her minister; we have both of us to save this infatuated youth from his own madness. He in the outbreak would be the earliest victim; I see him,’ he cried, ‘torn in pieces; and Grünewald, unhappy Grünewald! Nay, madam, you who have the power must use it; it lies hard upon your conscience.’
‘Show me how!’ she cried. ‘Suppose I were to place him under some constraint, the revolution would break upon us instantly.’
The Baron feigned defeat. ‘It is true,’ he said. ‘You see more clearly than I do. Yet there should, there must be, some way.’ And he waited for his chance.
‘No,’ she said; ‘I told you from the first there is no remedy. Our hopes are lost: lost by one miserable trifler, ignorant, fretful, fitful — who will have disappeared to-morrow, who knows? to his boorish pleasures!’
Any peg would do for Gondremark. ‘The thing!’ he cried, striking his brow. ‘Fool, not to have thought of it! Madam, without perhaps knowing it, you have solved our problem.’
‘What do you mean? Speak!’ she said.
He appeared to collect himself; and then, with a smile, ‘The Prince,’ he said, ‘must go once more a-hunting.’
‘Ay, if he would!’ cried she, ‘and stay there!’
‘And stay there,’ echoed the Baron. It was so significantly said, that her face changed; and the schemer, fearful of the sinister ambiguity of his expressions, hastened to explain. ‘This time he shall go hunting in a carriage, with a good escort of our foreign lancers. His destination shall be the Felsenburg; it is healthy, the rock is high, the windows are small and barred; it might have been built on purpose. We shall intrust the captaincy to the Scotsman Gordon; he at least will have no scruple. Who will miss the sovereign? He is gone hunting; he came home on Tuesday, on Thursday he returned; all is usual in that. Meanwhile the war proceeds; our Prince will soon weary of his solitude; and about the time of our triumph, or, if he prove very obstinate, a little later, he shall be released upon a proper understanding, and I see him once more directing his theatricals.’
Seraphina sat gloomy, plunged in thought. ‘Yes,’ she said suddenly, ‘and the despatch? He is now writing it.’
‘It cannot pass the council before Friday,’ replied Gondremark; ‘and as for any private note, the messengers are all at my disposal. They are picked men, madam. I am a person of precaution.’
‘It would appear so,’ she said, with a flash of her occasional repugnance to the man; and then after a pause, ‘Herr von Gondremark,’ she added, ‘I recoil from this extremity.’
‘I share your Highness’s repugnance,’ answered he. ‘But what would you have? We are defenceless, else.’
‘I see it, but this is sudden. It is a public crime,’ she said, nodding at him with a sort of horror.
‘Look but a little deeper,’ he returned, ‘and whose is the crime?’
‘His!’ she cried. ‘His, before God! And I hold him liable. But still — ’
‘It is not as if he would be harmed,’ submitted Gondremark.
‘I know it,’ she replied, but it was still unheartily.
And then, as brave men are entitled, by prescriptive right as old as the world’s history, to the alliance and the active help of Fortune, the punctual goddess stepped down from the machine. One of the Princess’s ladies begged to enter; a man, it appeared, had brought a line for the Freiherr von Gondremark. It proved to be a pencil billet, which the crafty Greisengesang had found the means to scribble and despatch under the very guns of Otto; and the daring of the act bore testimony to the terror of the actor. For Greisengesang had but one influential motive: fear. The note ran thus: ‘At the first council, procuration to be withdrawn. — Corn. Greis.’
So, after three years of exercise, the right of signature was to be stript from Seraphina. It was more than an insult; it was a public disgrace; and she did not pause to consider how she had earned it, but morally bounded under the attack as bounds the wounded tiger.
‘Enough,’ she said; ‘I will sign the order. When shall he leave?’
‘It will take me twelve hours to collect my men, and it had best be done at night. To-morrow midnight, if you please?’ answered the Baron.
‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘My door is always open to you, Baron. As soon as the order is prepared, bring it me to sign.’
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘alone of all of us you do not risk your head in this adventure. For that reason, and to prevent all hesitation, I venture to propose the order should be in your hand throughout.’
‘You are right,’ she replied.
He laid a form before her, and she wrote the order in a clear hand, and re-read it. Suddenly a cruel smile came on her face. ‘I had forgotten his puppet,’ said she. ‘They will keep each other company.’ And she interlined and initiated the condemnation of Doctor Gotthold.
‘Your Highness has more memory than your servant,’ said the Baron; and then he, in his turn, carefully perused the fateful paper. ‘Good!’ said he.
‘You will appear in the drawing-room, Baron?’ she asked.
‘I thought it better,’ said he, ‘to avoid the possibility of a public affront. Anything that shook my credit might hamper us in the immediate future.’
‘You are right,’ she said; and she held out her hand as to an old friend and equal.
CHAPTER IX — THE PRICE OF THE RIVER FARM; IN WHICH VAINGLORY GOES BEFORE A FALL
The pistol had been practically fired. Under ordinary circumstances the scene at the council table would have entirely exhausted Otto’s store both of energy and anger; he would have begun to examine and condemn his conduct, have remembered all that was true, forgotten all that was unjust in Seraphina’s onslaught; and by half an hour after would have fallen into that state of mind in which a Catholic flees to the confessional and a sot takes refuge with the bottle. Two matters of detail preserved his spirits. For, first, he had still an infinity of business to transact; and to transact business, for a man of Otto’s neglectful and procrastinating habits, is the best anodyne for conscience. All afternoon he was hard at it with the Chancellor, reading, dictating, signing, and despatching papers; and this kept him in a glow of self-approval. But, secondly, his vanity was still alarmed; he had failed to get the money; to-morrow before noon he would have to disappoint old Killian; and in the eyes of that family which counted him so little, and to which he had sought to play the part of the heroic comforter, he must sink lower than at first. To a man of Otto’s temper, this was death. He could not accept the situation. And even as he worked, and worked wisely and well, over the hated details of his principality, he was secretly maturing a plan by which to turn the situation. It was a scheme as pleasing to the man as it was dishonourable in the prince; in which his frivolou
s nature found and took vengeance for the gravity and burthen of the afternoon. He chuckled as he thought of it: and Greisengesang heard him with wonder, and attributed his lively spirits to the skirmish of the morning.
Led by this idea, the antique courtier ventured to compliment his sovereign on his bearing. It reminded him, he said, of Otto’s father.
‘What?’ asked the Prince, whose thoughts were miles away.
‘Your Highness’s authority at the board,’ explained the flatterer.
‘O, that! O yes,’ returned Otto; but for all his carelessness, his vanity was delicately tickled, and his mind returned and dwelt approvingly over the details of his victory. ‘I quelled them all,’ he thought.
When the more pressing matters had been dismissed, it was already late, and Otto kept the Chancellor to dinner, and was entertained with a leash of ancient histories and modern compliments. The Chancellor’s career had been based, from the first off-put, on entire subserviency; he had crawled into honours and employments; and his mind was prostitute. The instinct of the creature served him well with Otto. First, he let fall a sneering word or two upon the female intellect; thence he proceeded to a closer engagement; and before the third course he was artfully dissecting Seraphina’s character to her approving husband. Of course no names were used; and of course the identity of that abstract or ideal man, with whom she was currently contrasted, remained an open secret. But this stiff old gentleman had a wonderful instinct for evil, thus to wind his way into man’s citadel; thus to harp by the hour on the virtues of his hearer and not once alarm his self-respect. Otto was all roseate, in and out, with flattery and Tokay and an approving conscience. He saw himself in the most attractive colours. If even Greisengesang, he thought, could thus espy the loose stitches in Seraphina’s character, and thus disloyally impart them to the opposite camp, he, the discarded husband — the dispossessed Prince — could scarce have erred on the side of severity.
Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) Page 54
