Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  There was no carriage at the station which would hold the party of five, and they had to take two vehicles. Trannel said it was lucky they wanted two, since there were no more, and he put himself in authority to assort the party. The judge, he decided, must go with Ellen and Breckon, and he hoped Boyne would let him go in his carriage, if he would sit on the box with the driver. The judge afterwards owned that he had weakly indulged his dislike of the fellow, in letting him take Boyne, and not insisting on going himself with Tramiel, but this was when it was long too late. Ellen had her misgivings, but, except for that gibe about the decorations, Trannel had been behaving so well that she hoped she might trust Boyne with him. She made a kind of appeal for her brother, bidding him and Trannel take good care of each other, and Trannel promised so earnestly to look after Boyne that she ought to have been alarmed for him. He took the lead, rising at times to wave a reassuring hand to her over the back of his carriage, and, in fact, nothing evil could very well happen from him, with the others following so close upon him. They met from time to time in the churches they visited, and when they lost sight of one another, through a difference of opinion in the drivers as to the best route, they came together at the place Trannel had appointed for their next reunion.

  He showed himself a guide so admirably qualified that he found a way for them to objects of interest that had at first denied themselves in anticipation of the visit from the queens; when they all sat down at lunch in the restaurant which he found for them, he could justifiably boast that he would get them into the Town Hall, which they had been told was barred for the day against anything but sovereign curiosity. He was now on the best term with Boyne, who seemed to have lost all diffidence of him, and treated him with an easy familiarity that showed itself in his slapping him on the shoulder and making dints in his hat. Trannel seemed to enjoy these caresses, and, when they parted again for the afternoon’s sight-seeing, Ellen had no longer a qualm in letting Boyne drive off with him.

  He had, in fact, known how to make himself very acceptable to Boyne. He knew all the originals of his heroical romances, and was able to give the real names and the geographical position of those princesses who had been in love with American adventurers. Under promise of secrecy he disclosed the real names of the adventurers themselves, now obscured in the titles given them to render them worthy their union with sovereigns. He resumed his fascinating confidences when they drove off after luncheon, and he resumed them after each separation from the rest of the party. Boyne listened with a flushed face and starting eyes, and when at last Trannel offered, upon a pledge of the most sacred nature from him never to reveal a word of what he said, he began to relate an adventure of which he was himself the hero. It was a bold travesty of one of the latest romances that Boyne had read, involving the experience of an American very little older than Boyne himself, to whom a wilful young crown-princess, in a little state which Trannel would not name even to Boyne, had made advances such as he could not refuse to meet without cruelty. He was himself deeply in love with her, but he felt bound in honor not to encourage her infatuation as long as he could help, for he had been received by her whole family with such kindness and confidence that he had to consider them.

  “Oh, pshaw!” Boyne broke in upon him, doubting, and yet wishing not to doubt, “that’s the same as the story of ‘Hector Folleyne’.”

  “Yes,” said Trannel, quietly. “I thought you would recognize it.”

  “Well, but,” Boyne went on, “Hector married the princess!”

  “In the book, yes. The fellow I gave the story to said it would never do not to have him marry her, and it would help to disguise the fact. That’s what he said, after he had given the whole thing away.”

  “And do you mean to say it was you? Oh, you can’t stuff me! How did you get out of marrying her, I should like to know, when the chancellor came to you and said that the whole family wanted you to, for fear it would kill her if—”

  “Well, there was a scene, I can’t deny that. We had a regular family conclave — father, mother, Aunt Hitty, and all the folks — and we kept it up pretty much all night. The princess wasn’t there, of course, and I could convince them that I was right. If she had been, I don’t believe I could have held out. But they had to listen to reason, and I got away between two days.”

  “But why didn’t you marry her?”

  “Well, for one thing, as I told you, I thought I ought to consider her family. Then there was a good fellow, the crown-prince of Saxe-Wolfenhutten, who was dead in love with her, and was engaged to her before I turned up. I had been at school with him, and I felt awfully sorry for him; and I thought I ought to sacrifice myself a little to him. But I suppose the thing that influenced me most was finding out that if I married the princess I should have to give up my American citizenship and become her subject.”

  “Well?” Boyne panted.

  “Well, would you have done it?”

  “Couldn’t you have got along without doing that?”

  “That was the only thing I couldn’t get around, somehow. So I left.”

  “And the princess, did she — die?”

  “It takes a good deal more than that to kill a fifteen-year-old princess,” said Trannel, and he gave a harsh laugh. “She married Saxe-Wolfenhutten.” Boyne was silent. “Now, I don’t want you to speak of this till after I leave Scheveningen — especially to Miss Lottie. You know how girls are, and I think Miss Lottie is waiting to get a bind on me, anyway. If she heard how I was cut out of my chance with that princess she’d never let me believe I gave her up of my own free will?”

  “NO, no; I won’t tell her.”

  Boyne remained in a silent rapture, and he did not notice they were no longer following the rest of their party in the other carriage. This had turned down a corner, at which Mr. Breckon, sitting on the front seat, had risen and beckoned their driver to follow, but their driver, who appeared afterwards to have not too much a head of his own, or no head at all, had continued straight on, in the rear of a tram-car, which was slowly finding its way through the momently thickening crowd. Boyne was first aware that it was a humorous crowd when, at a turn of the street, their equipage was greeted with ironical cheers by a group of gay young Dutchmen on the sidewalk. Then he saw that the sidewalks were packed with people, who spread into the street almost to the tram, and that the house fronts were dotted with smiling Dutch faces, the faces of pretty Dutch girls, who seemed to share the amusement of the young fellows below.

  Trannel lay back in the carriage. “This is something like,” he said. “Boyne, they’re on to the distinguished young Ohioan — the only Ohioan out of office in Europe.”

  “Yes,” said Boyne, trying to enjoy it. “I wonder what they are holloing at.”

  Trannel laughed. “They’re holloing at your Baedeker, my dear boy. They never saw one before,” and Boyne was aware that he was holding his red-backed guide conspicuously in view on his lap. “They know you’re a foreigner by it.”

  “Don’t you think we ought to turn down somewhere? I don’t see poppa anywhere.” He rose and looked anxiously back over the top of their carriage. The crowd, closing in behind it, hailed his troubled face with cries that were taken up by the throng on the sidewalks. Boyne turned about to find that the tram-car which they had been following had disappeared round a corner, but their driver was still keeping on. At a wilder burst of applause Trannel took off his hat and bowed to the crowd, right and left.

  “Bow, bow!” he said to Boyne. “They’ll be calling for a speech the next thing. Bow, I tell you!”

  “Tell him to turn round!” cried the boy.

  “I can’t speak Dutch,” said Trannel, and Boyne leaned forward and poked the driver in the back.

  “Go back!” he commanded.

  The driver shook his head and pointed forward with his whip. “He’s all right,” said Trannel. “He can’t turn now. We’ve got to take the next corner.” The street in front was empty, and the people were crowding back on the s
idewalks. Loud, vague noises made themselves heard round the corner to which the driver had pointed. “By Jove!” Trannel said, “I believe they’re coming round that way.”

  “Who are coming?” Boyne palpitated.

  “The queens.”

  “The queens?” Boyne gasped; it seemed to him that he shrieked the words.

  “Yes. And there’s a tobacconist’s now,” said Trannel, as if that were what he had been looking for all along. “I want some cigarettes.”

  He leaped lightly from the carriage, and pushed his way out of sight on the sidewalk. Boyne remained alone in the vehicle, staring wildly round; the driver kept slowly and stupidly on, Boyne did not know how much farther. He could not speak; he felt as if he could not stir. But the moment came when he could not be still. He gave a galvanic jump to the ground, and the friendly crowd on the sidewalk welcomed him to its ranks and closed about him. The driver had taken the lefthand corner, just before a plain carriage with the Queen and the queen-mother came in sight round the right. The young Queen was bowing to the people, gently, and with a sort of mechanical regularity. Now and then a brighter smile than that she conventionally wore lighted up her face. The simple progress was absolutely without state, except for the aide-de-camp on horseback who rode beside the carriage, a little to the front.

  Boyne stood motionless on the curb, where a friendly tall Dutchman had placed him in front that he might see the Queen.

  “Hello!” said the voice of Trannel, and elbowing his way to Boyne’s side, he laughed and coughed through the smoke of his cigarette. “I was afraid you had lost me. Where’s your carriage?”

  Boyne did not notice his mockeries. He was entranced in that beatific vision; his boy-heart went out in worship to the pretty young creature with a reverence that could not be uttered. The tears came into his eyes.

  “There, there! She’s bowing to you, Boyne, she’s smiling right at you. By Jove! She’s beckoning to you!”

  “You be still!” Boyne retorted, finding his tongue. “She isn’t doing any such a thing.”

  “She is, I swear she is! She’s doing it again! She’s stopping the carriage. Oh, go out and see what she wants! Don’t you know that a queen’s wish is a command? You’ve got to go!”

  Boyne never could tell just how it happened. The carriage did seem to be stopping, and the Queen seemed to be looking at him. He thought he must, and he started into the street towards her, and the carriage came abreast of him. He had almost reached the carriage when the aide turned and spurred his horse before him. Four strong hands that were like iron clamps were laid one on each of Boyne’s elbows and shoulders, and he was haled away, as if by superhuman force. “Mr. Trannel!” he called out in his agony, but the wretch had disappeared, and Boyne was left with his captors, to whom he could have said nothing if he could have thought of anything to say.

  The detectives pulled him through the crowd and hurried him swiftly down the side street. A little curiosity straggled after him in the shape of small Dutch boys, too short to look over the shoulders of men at the queens, and too weak to make their way through them to the front; but for them, Boyne seemed alone in the world with the relentless officers, who were dragging him forward and hurting him so with the grip of their iron hands. He lifted up his face to entreat them not to hold him so tight, and suddenly it was as if he beheld an angel standing in his path. It was Breckon who was there, staring at him aghast.

  “Why, Boyne!” he cried.

  “Oh, Mr. Breckon!” Boyne wailed back. “Is it you? Oh, do tell them I didn’t mean to do anything! I thought she beckoned to me.”

  “Who? Who beckoned to you?”

  “The Queen!” Boyne sobbed, while the detectives pulled him relentlessly on.

  Breckon addressed them suavely in their owe tongue which had never come in more deferential politeness from human lips. He ventured the belief that there was a mistake; he assured them that he knew their prisoner, and that he was the son of a most respectable American family, whom they could find at the Kurhaus in Scheveningen. He added some irrelevancies, and got for all answer that they had made Boyne’s arrest for sufficient reasons, and were taking him to prison. If his friends wished to intervene in his behalf they could do so before the magistrate, but for the present they must admonish Mr. Breckon not to put himself in the way of the law.

  “Don’t go, Mr. Breckon!” Boyne implored him, as his captors made him quicken his pace after slowing a little for their colloquy with Breckon. “Oh, where is poppa? He could get me away. Oh, where is poppa?”

  “Don’t! Don’t call out, Boyne,” Breckon entreated. “Your father is right here at the end of the street. He’s in the carriage there with Miss Kenton. I was coming to look for you. Don’t cry out so!”

  “No, no, I won’t, Mr. Breckon. I’ll be perfectly quiet now. Only do get poppa quick! He can tell them in a minute that it’s all right!”

  He made a prodigious effort to control himself, while Breckon ran a little ahead, with some wild notion of preparing Ellen. As he disappeared at the corner, Boyne choked a sob into a muffed bellow, and was able to meet the astonished eyes of his father and sister in this degree of triumph.

  They had not in the least understood Breckon’s explanation, and, in fact, it had not been very lucid. At sight of her brother strenuously upheld between the detectives, and dragged along the sidewalk, Ellen sprang from the carriage and ran towards him. “Why, what’s the matter with Boyne?” she demanded. “Are you hurt, Boyne, dear? Are they taking him to the hospital?”

  Before he could answer, and quite before the judge could reach the tragical group, she had flung her arms round Boyne’s neck, and was kissing his tear-drabbled face, while he lamented back, “They’re taking me to prison.”

  “Taking you to prison? I should like to know what for! What are you taking my brother to prison for?” she challenged the detectives, who paused, bewildered, while all the little Dutch boys round admired this obstruction of the law, and several Dutch housewives, too old to go out to see the queens, looked down from their windows. It was wholly illegal, but the detectives were human. They could snub such a friend of their prisoner as Breckon, but they could not meet the dovelike ferocity of Ellen with unkindness. They explained as well as they might, and at a suggestion which Kenton made through Breckon, they admitted that it was not beside their duty to take Boyne directly to a magistrate, who could pass upon his case, and even release him upon proper evidence of his harmlessness, and sufficient security for any demand that justice might make for his future appearance.

  “Then,” said the judge, quietly, “tell them that we will go with them. It will be all right, Boyne. Ellen, you and I will get back into the carriage, and—”

  “No!” Boyne roared. “Don’t leave me, Nelly!”

  “Indeed, I won’t leave you, Boyne! Mr. Breckon, you get into the carriage with poppa, and I—”

  “I think I had better go with you, Miss Kenton,” said Breckon, and in a tender superfluity they both accompanied Boyne on foot, while the judge remounted to his place in the carriage and kept abreast of them on their way to the magistrate’s.

  XXIV.

  The magistrate conceived of Boyne’s case with a readiness that gave the judge a high opinion of his personal and national intelligence. He even smiled a little, in accepting the explanation which Breckon was able to make him from Boyne, but he thought his duty to give the boy a fatherly warning for the future. He remarked to Breckon that it was well for Boyne that the affair had not happened in Germany, where it would have been found a much more serious matter, though, indeed, he added, it had to be seriously regarded anywhere in these times, when the lives of sovereigns were so much at the mercy of all sorts of madmen and miscreants. He relaxed a little from his severity in his admonition to say directly to Boyne that queens, even when they wished to speak with people, did not beckon them in the public streets. When this speech translated to Boyne by Breckon, whom the magistrate complimented on the perfection of his Dutc
h, Boyne hung his head sheepishly, and could not be restored to his characteristic dignity again in the magistrate’s presence. The judge gratefully shook hands with the friendly justice, and made him a little speech of thanks, which Breckon interpreted, and then the justice shook hand with the judge, and gracefully accepted the introduction which he offered him to Ellen. They parted with reciprocal praises and obeisances, which included even the detectives. The judge had some question, which he submitted to Breckon, whether he ought not to offer them something, but Breckon thought not.

  Breckon found it hard to abdicate the sort of authority in which his knowledge of Dutch had placed him, and when he protested that he had done nothing but act as interpreter, Ellen said, “Yes, but we couldn’t have done anything without you,” and this was the view that Mrs. Kenton took of the matter in the family conclave which took place later in the evening. Breckon was not allowed to withdraw from it, in spite of many modest efforts, before she had bashfully expressed her sense of his service to him, and made Boyne share her thanksgiving. She had her arm about the boy’s shoulder in giving Breckon her hand, and when Breckon had got away she pulled Boyne to her in a more peremptory embrace.

  “Now, Boyne,” she said, “I am not going to have any more nonsense. I want to know why you did it.”

  The judge and Ellen had already conjectured clearly enough, and Boyne did not fear them. But he looked at his younger sister as he sulkily answered, “I am not going to tell you before Lottie.”

  “Come in here, then,” said his mother, and she led him into the next room and closed the door. She quickly returned without him. “Yes,” she began, “it’s just as I supposed; it was that worthless fellow who put him up to it. Of course, it began with those fool books he’s been reading, and the notions that Miss Rasmith put into his head. But he never would have done anything if it hadn’t been for Mr. Trannel.”