Kitobni o'qish: «The Princess Virginia»

CHAPTER I
WHEN THE NEWS CAME

“No,” said the Princess. “No. I’m —dashed if I do.”

“My darling child!” exclaimed the Grand Duchess. “You’re impossible. If any one should hear you!”

“It’s he who’s impossible,” the Princess amended. “I’m just trying to show you – ”

“Or to shock me. You are so like your grandmother.”

“That’s the best compliment any one can give me, which is lucky, as it’s given so often,” laughed the Princess. “Dear, adorable Virginia!” She cuddled into the pink hollow of her hand the pearl-framed ivory miniature of a beautiful, smiling girl, which always hung from a thin gold chain around her neck. “They shouldn’t have named me after you, should they, if they hadn’t wanted me to be like you?”

“It was partly a question of money, dear,” sighed the Grand Duchess. “If my mother hadn’t left a legacy to my first daughter only on consideration that her own extremely American name of Virginia should be perpetuated – ”

“It was a delicious way of being patriotic. I’m glad she did it. I love being the only Royal Princess with American blood in my veins and an American name on my handkerchiefs. Do you believe for an instant that if Grandmother Virginia were alive, she would let Granddaughter Virginia marry Prince Henri de Touraine?”

“I don’t see why not,” said the Grand Duchess. “She wasn’t too patriotic to marry an English Duke, and startle London as the first American Duchess. Heavens, the things she used to do, if one could believe half the wild stories my father’s sister told me in warning! And as for my father, though a most charming man, of course, he could not – er – have been called precisely estimable, while Prince Henri certainly is, and an exceedingly good match even for you – in present circumstances.”

“Call him a match, if you like, Mother. He’s undoubtedly a stick. But no, he’s not a match for me. There’s only one on earth.” And Virginia’s eyes were lifted to the sky as if, instead of existing on earth, the person in her thoughts were placed as high as the sun that shone above her.

“I should have preferred an Englishman – for you,” said the Grand Duchess, “if only there were one of suitable rank, free to – ”

“I’m not thinking of an Englishman,” murmured her daughter.

“If only you would think of poor Henri!”

“Never of him. You know I said I would be d – ”

“Don’t repeat it! Oh, when you look at me in that way, how like you are to your grandmother’s portrait at home – the one in white, painted just before her marriage. One might have known you would be extraordinary. That sort of thing invariably skips over a generation.”

The Grand Duchess laid down the theory as a law; and whether or no she were right, it was at least sure that she had inherited nothing of the first Virginia’s daring originality. Some of her radiant mother’s beauty, perhaps, watered down to gentle prettiness, for the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Baumenburg-Drippe at fifty-one was still a daintily-attractive woman, a middle-aged Dresden china lady, with a perfect complexion, preserved by an almost perfect temper; surprised eyebrows, kindly dimples, and a conventional upper lip.

She was not by birth “Hereditary.” Her lord and (very much) her master had been that, and had selected her to help him reign over the Hereditary Grand Duchy of Baumenburg-Drippe, not only because her father was an English Duke with Royal Stuart blood in his veins, but because her Virginian mother had brought much gold to the Northmoreland exchequer. Afterwards, he had freely spent such portion of that gold as had come to his coffers, in trying to keep his little estates intact; but now it was all gone, and long ago he had died of grief and bitter disappointment; the Hereditary Grand Duchy of Baumenburg-Drippe was ruled by a cousinly understudy of the German Emperor William the Second; the one son of the marriage had been adopted, as heir to his crown, by the childless King of Hungaria; the handsome and lamentably extravagant old Duke of Northmoreland was dead; his title and vast estates had passed to a distant and disagreeable relative; and the widowed Grand Duchess, with her one fair daughter, had lived for years in a pretty old house with a high-walled garden, at Hampton Court, lent by the generosity of the King and Queen of England.

For a long moment the Dresden china lady thought in silence and something of sadness. Then she roused herself again and asked the one and only Royal Princess with an American name what, in the way of a match, she really expected.

“What do I expect?” echoed Virginia. “Why, I wish for the Moon – no, I mean the Sun. But I don’t expect to get it.”

“Is that a way of saying you never intend to marry?”

“I’m afraid it amounts to that,” admitted Virginia, “since there is only one man in the world I would have for my husband.”

“My dearest! A man you have let yourself learn to care for? A man beneath you? How terrible! But you see no one. I – ”

“I’ve never seen this man. And – I’m not ‘in love’ with him; that would be too foolish. Because, instead of being beneath, he’s far, far above me.”

“Virginia! Of whom can you be talking? Or is this another joke?”

Virginia blushed a little, and instead of answering her mother’s look of helpless appeal, stared at the row of tall hollyhocks that blazed along the ivy-hidden garden wall. She did not speak for an instant, and then she said with the dainty shyness of a child pinned to a statement by uncomprehending elders, “It isn’t a joke. Nonsense, maybe – yet not a joke. I’ve always thought of him – for so many years I’ve forgotten when it first began. He’s so great, so – everything that appeals to me; how could I help thinking about him, and putting him on a pedestal? I – there’s no idea of marriage in my mind, of course. Only – there’s no other man possible, after all the thoughts I’ve given him. No other man in the world.”

“My dear, you must tell me his name.”

“What, when I’ve described him – almost – do you still need to hear his name? Well then, I – I’m not ashamed to tell. It’s ‘Leopold.’”

“Leopold! You’re talking of the Emperor of Rhaetia.”

“As if it could have been any one else.”

“And you have thought of him – you’ve cherished him – for years – as an ideal! Why, you never spoke of him particularly before.”

“That’s because you never seriously wanted me to take a husband until this prim, dull French Henri proposed himself. My thoughts were my own. I wouldn’t have told, only – you see why.”

“Of course. My precious child, how extremely interesting, and – and romantic.” Again the Grand Duchess lapsed into silence. Yet her expression did not suggest a stricken mind. She merely appeared astonished, with an astonishment that might turn into an emotion more agreeable.

Meanwhile it was left for Virginia to look vexed, vexed with herself. She wished that she had not betrayed her poor little foolish secret – so shadowy a secret that it was hardly worthy of the name. Yet it had been precious – precious since childhood, precious as the immediate jewel of her soul, because it had been the jewel of her soul, and no one else had dreamed of its existence. Now she had shown it to other eyes – almost flaunted it. Never again could it be a joy to her.

In the little room, half study, half boudoir, which was her own, there was a desk, locked in her absence, where souvenirs of the young Emperor of Rhaetia had been accumulating for years. There were photographs which Virginia had contrived to buy secretly; portraits of Leopold from an early age, up to the present, when he was shown as a tall, dark, cold-eyed, warm-lipped, firm-chinned young man of thirty. There were paragraphs cut from newspapers, telling of his genius as a soldier, his prowess as a mountaineer and hunter of big game, with dramatic anecdotes of his haughty courage in time of danger, his impulsive charities, his well thought out schemes for the welfare of his subjects in every walk of life.

There were black and white copies of bold, clever pictures he had painted; there was martial music composed by him, and plaintive folk-songs adapted by him, which Virginia had tried softly to herself on her little piano, when nobody was near. There were reports of speeches made by him since his accession to the Throne; accounts of improvements in guns, and an invention of a new explosive; there was a somewhat crude, yet witty play which he had written; and numerous other records of the accomplishments and achievements, and even eccentricities which had built up the Princess Virginia’s ideal of this celebrated young man, proclaimed Emperor after the great revolution eight years ago.

“You are worthy to be an Empress.”

Her mother’s voice broke into Virginia’s thoughts. She started, and found herself under inspection by the Grand Duchess. At first she frowned, then she laughed, springing up on a quick impulse to turn earnest into jest, and so perhaps escape further catechising.

“Yes, would I not make an Empress?” she echoed, stepping out from the shadow of her favorite elm, into the noontide radiance of summer.

The sun poured over her hair, as she stood with uplifted head, and threaded it with a network of living gold, gleaming into the dark gray eyes rimmed with black lashes and turning them to jewels. Her fair skin was as flawless in the unsparing light as the petals of lilies, and her features, though a repetition of those which had made a Virginia girl famous long ago, were carved with Royal perfection.

“There is no real reason why you should not make an Empress, dearest,” said her mother, in pride of the girl’s beauty, and desiring, womanlike, to promote her child’s happiness. “Stranger things have happened. Only last week, at Windsor, the dear Queen was saying what a pity poor Henri was not more – but no matter, he is well enough. However, if – And when one comes to think of it, it’s perhaps not unnatural that Leopold of Rhaetia has never been mentioned for you, although there could be nothing against the marriage. What a match for any woman! A supreme one. Not a Royal girl but would go on her knees to him, if – ”

“I wouldn’t,” said Virginia. “I might worship him, yet he should go on his knees to me.”

“I doubt if those proud knees of his will ever bend in homage to man or woman,” replied the Grand Duchess. “But that’s a mere fantasy. I’m serious now, darling, and I very much wish you would be.”

“Please, I’d rather not,” smiled Virginia, uneasily. “Let us not talk of the Emperor any more – and never again after this, Mother. You know now. That’s all that’s necessary, and – ”

“But it’s not all that’s necessary. You have put the idea into my head, and it’s not an unpleasing idea. Besides, it has evidently been in your head for a long time – and – I should like to see you happy – see you in a position such as you’re entitled to grace. You are a very beautiful girl (there’s no disguising that from you, as you know you are the image of your grandmother, who was a celebrated beauty) and the best blood in Europe runs in your veins. You are royal, and yet – and yet our circumstances are such that – in fact, for the present, we’re somewhat handicapped.”

“We’re beggars,” said Virginia, laughing; but it was not a happy laugh.

“Cophetua married the beggar maid,” the Grand Duchess reminded her, with elaborate playfulness. “And, you know, all sorts of things have happened in history – much stranger than any one would dare put in fiction, if writing of Royalties. My dear husband was second cousin once removed to the German Emperor, though he was treated – but we mustn’t speak of that. The subject always upsets me. What I was leading up to, is this; though there may be other girls who, from a worldly point of view, are more desirable; still, you’re strictly within the pale from which Leopold is entitled to choose his wife, and if – ”

“Dear little Mother, there’s no such ‘if.’ And as for me, I wasn’t thinking of a ‘worldly point of view.’ The Emperor of Rhaetia barely knows that I exist. And even if by some miracle he should suddenly discover that little Princess Virginia Mary Victoria Alexandra Hildegarde of Baumenburg-Drippe was the one suitable wife for him on earth, I wouldn’t have him want me because I was ‘suitable,’ but – because I was irresistible. I’d want his love – all his love – or I would say ‘no, you must look somewhere else for your Empress.’”

“But that’s nonsense, darling. Royal people seldom or never have the chance to fall in love,” said the Grand Duchess.

“I’m tired of being Royal,” snapped the Princess. “Being Royal does nothing but spoil all one’s fun, and oblige one to do stupid, boring things, which one hates.”

“Nevertheless, noblesse does oblige,” went on the Dresden china prophetess of conventionality. “When alliances are arranged for women of our position, we must content ourselves with the hope that love may come after marriage. Or if not, we must go on doing our duty in that state of life to which Heaven has graciously called us.”

“Bother duty!” broke out Virginia. “Thank goodness, in these days not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can make even a Princess marry against her will. I hate that everlasting cant about ‘duty in marriage.’ When people love each other, they’re kind and good, and sweet and true, because it’s a joy, not because it’s a duty. And that’s the only sort of loyalty worth having between men and women, according to me. I wouldn’t accept anything else from a man; and I should despise him if he were less – or more – exacting.”

“Virginia, the way you express yourself is almost improper. I’m thankful that no one hears you except myself,” said the Grand Duchess. But at this moment, when clash of tongues and opinions seemed imminent, there occurred a happy diversion in the arrival of letters.

Virginia, who was a neglectful correspondent, had nothing; but two or three important looking envelopes claimed attention from the Grand Duchess, and as soon as the ladies were once more alone together in the sweet-scented garden, she broke the crown-stamped seal of her son Adalbert, now by adoption Crown Prince of Hungaria.

“Open the others for me, dear,” she demanded, excitedly, “while I see what Dal has to say.” And Virginia leisurely obeyed, wondering whether Dal’s news would by-and-by be passed on to her. It was always an event when a long letter came from him; and the Grand Duchess invariably laughed and exclaimed, and sometimes blushed as she read; but when she blushed, the letter was not given to the Crown Prince’s sister.

There was a note to-day from an old friend of her mother’s of whom Virginia was fond, and she had just begun to be interested in the third paragraph, all about an adorable Dandy Dinmont puppy, when an odd, half-stifled ejaculation from the Grand Duchess made the girl lift her eyes.

“Has Dal been having something beyond the common in the way of adventures?” she inquired dryly.

Her mother did not answer; but she had grown pink and then pale.

Virginia began to be uneasy. “What is the matter? Is anything wrong?” she asked.

“No – nothing in the least wrong. Far from it, indeed. But – oh, my child!”

“Mother dear, what is it?”

“Something so extraordinary – so wonderful – I mean, as a coincidence – that I can hardly speak. I suppose I can’t be dreaming? You are really talking to me in the garden, aren’t you?”

“I am, and I wish you were telling me the mystery. Do, dear. You look awake, only rather odd.”

“It would be strange if I didn’t look odd. Dal says – Dal says – ”

“What has he been doing? Getting engaged?”

“No. It is – your Emperor, not Dal, who talks of being engaged.”

“Oh,” said Virginia, trying not to speak blankly, trying not to flush, trying not to show in any way the sudden sick pain in her heart.

Of course she was not in love with him. Of course, though she had been childish enough long ago to make him her ideal, and foolishly faithful enough to keep him so, she had always known that he would never be more to her than a Shadow Emperor. Some day he would marry one of those other Royal girls who were so much more suitable than she; that would be natural and right, as she had more than once told herself with no conscious pang. But now that the news had come – now that the Royal girl was actually chosen, and she must hear the letter and read about the happy event in the newspapers, it was different. She felt suddenly cold and sick under the blow; hurt and defrauded, and even jealous. She knew that she would hate the girl – some wretched, commonplace girl, with stick-out teeth, perhaps, or no figure, and no idea of the way to wear her clothes or do her hair.

But she swallowed hard, and clenched her fingers under the voluminous letter about Dandy Dinmont. “Oh, so our friend is going to be married?” she remarked lightly.

“That depends,” replied the Grand Duchess, laughing mysteriously, with a catch in her voice, as if she had been a nervous girl. “That depends. You must guess – but no, I won’t tease you. My dear, my dear, after Dal’s letter, coming as it has in the midst of such a conversation, I shall be a firm believer in telepathy. This letter, on its way to us, must have put the thoughts into our minds, and the words on our tongues. It may be that the Emperor of Rhaetia will marry; it may not. For, my sweet, beautiful girl, it depends upon – you.”

“Me?” The voice did not sound to Virginia like her own. Was she too, dreaming? Were they both in a dream?

“He wishes to marry you.”

All the letters dropped from Virginia’s lap, dropped, and fluttered to the grass slowly, like falling rose leaves. Scarcely knowing what she did, she clasped her hands over the young bosom shaken with the sudden throbbing of her heart. Perhaps such a betrayal of feeling by a Royal maiden decorously sued (by proxy) for her hand, was scarcely correct; but Virginia had no thought for rules of conduct, as laid down for her too often by her mother.

“He wishes to marry – me?” she echoed, dazedly. “Why?”

“Providence must have drawn your inclination toward him, dearest. It is indeed a romance. Some day, no doubt, it will be told to the world in history.”

“But how did he – ” Virginia broke off, and began again: “Did he tell this to Dal, and ask him to write you?”

“Not – not precisely that,” admitted the Grand Duchess, her face changing from satisfaction to uneasiness. For Virginia was difficult in some ways, though adorable in others, and held such peculiar ideas about life – inherited from her American grandmother – that it was impossible to be sure how she would receive the most ordinary announcements.

The Princess’s rapt expression faded, like the passing of dawn.

“Not precisely that?” she repeated. “Then what – how – ”

“Well, perhaps – though it’s not strictly the correct thing – you had better read your brother’s letter for yourself.”

Virginia put her hands behind her back with a childish gesture, and a frightened look came into the eyes which at most times gazed bravely upon the world. “I – somehow I can’t,” she said. “Please tell me.”

“To begin with, then, you know what an admiration Dal has felt for Count von Breitstein, ever since that diplomatic visit the Rhaetian Chancellor paid to Hungaria. The fancy seemed to be mutual; but then, who could ever resist Dal, if he wanted to be liked? The Chancellor has written to him from time to time, and Dal has quite enjoyed the correspondence; the old man can be witty as well as cynical if he chooses, and Dal says he tells good stories. Now it seems (in the informal way in which such affairs are usually put forward) that Count von Breitstein has written confidentially to Dal, as our only near male relative, asking how your family would regard an alliance between Leopold and you, or if we have already disposed of your hand. At last the Emperor is inclined to listen to his Chancellor’s advice and marry, and you, as a Protestant Princess – ”

“A Protestant Princess, indeed!” cried Virginia. “I protest against being approached by him on such terms.”

The face of the Grand Duchess was darkened by the gloom of her thoughts. “My daughter,” she exclaimed mildly, yet despairingly, “it’s not possible that when this wonderful chance – this unheard of chance – this chance that you were praying for – actually falls into your hands, you will throw it away for – for a sentimental, school-girl scruple?”

“I was not praying for it,” said Virginia. “I’m sure, Mother, you would have considered it most bold in me to pray for it. And I didn’t. I was only refusing other chances.”

“Well, at all events, you have this one now. It is yours.”

“Not in the one way I should have loved to see it come. Oh, Mother, why does the Emperor want to marry me? Isn’t there some other reason than just because I’m a proper, Protestant Princess?”

“Of course,” insisted the Grand Duchess, faintly encouraged. “Dal mentions several most excellent reasons in his letter – if you would only take them sensibly.”

“I should like to hear them, at all events,” answered Virginia.

“Well, you see the Empress of Rhaetia must be a Protestant, and there aren’t many eligible Protestant girls who would be acceptable to the Rhaetians – girls who would be popular with the people. Oh, I have finished about that! You need not look so desperate. Besides, Dal explains that Leopold is a young man who dominates all around him. He wishes to take for his bride a girl who could not by any possibility herself be heiress to a throne. Dal fancies that his desire is to mold his wife, and therefore to take a girl without too many important and importunate relatives; for he is not one who would dream of adding to his greatness by using the wealth or position of a woman. He has all he needs, or wants, of that sort. And then, Dal reminds me, Leopold is very partial to England, who helped Rhaetia passively, in the time of her trouble eight years ago. The fact that you have lived in England and had an English education, would be favorably regarded both by Leopold and his Chancellor. And though I’ve never allowed you to have a photograph taken, since you were a child (I hate seeing young girls’ faces in the newspapers and magazines; even though they are Royal, their features need not be public property!) and you have lived here in such seclusion that you’ve been little seen, still, the rumor has reached Rhaetia that you are – good to look at. Leopold has been heard to say that, whatever else the future Empress of Rhaetia may be, he won’t give his people an ugly woman to reign over them. And so, altogether – ”

“And so, altogether, my references being satisfactory, at a pinch I might do for the place,” cut in Virginia, with the hot, impatient rebellion of her youth. “Oh, Mother, you think me mad or a fool, I know; and perhaps I am mad; yet not mad enough not to see that it would be a great thing, a wonderful thing to be asked in marriage by the One Man in my world, if – ah, that great ‘if’ – he had only seen and fallen in love with me. It might have happened, you know. As you say, I’m not ugly. And I can be rather pleasant if I choose – so I believe. If he had only come to this land, to see what I was like, as Royal men did in the dear old fairy stories, and then had asked me to be his wife, why, I should have been conceited enough to think it was because he loved me, even more than because of other things. Then I should have been happy – yes, dear, I’ll confess it to you now – almost happy enough to die of the great joy and triumph of it. But now I’m not happy. I will marry Leopold, or I’ll marry no man. But I swear to you, I won’t be married to Leopold in Count von Breitstein’s hateful old, cold, cut-and-dried way.”

“It’s the Emperor’s way as well as von Breitstein’s.”

“Then for once in his big, grand, obstinate life he’ll have to learn that there’s one insignificant girl who won’t play Griselda, even for the sake of being his Empress.”

The girl proclaimed this resolve, rising to her feet, with her head high, and a look in her gray eyes which told the Grand Duchess that it would be hopeless for her to argue down the resolution. At first it was a proud look, and a sad look; but suddenly a beam of light flashed into it, and began to sparkle and twinkle. Virginia smiled, and showed her dimples. Her color came and went. In a moment she was a different girl, and her mother, bewildered, fearful still, dared to hope something from the change.

“How odd you look!” she exclaimed. “You’ve thought of something. You are happy. You have the air of – of having found some plan.”

“It found me, I think,” the girl answered, laughing. “All suddenly – just in a flash. That’s the way it must be with inspirations. This is one – I know it. It’s all in the air – floating round me. But I shall grasp it soon.”

She came close to her mother, still smiling, and knelt down in the grass at her feet, looking up with radiance in her eyes.

Luckily there was no one save the Dresden china lady and the birds and flowers to see how a young Princess threw her mantle of dignity away; for the two did not keep Royal state and a Royal retinue in the quaint old house at Hampton Court; and the big elm which Virginia loved, kindly hid the mother and daughter from intrusive eyes.

“You do love me, don’t you, dearest?” cooed the Princess, softly as a dove.

“You know I do, my child, though I don’t pretend to understand you,” sighed the Grand Duchess, well aware that she was about to be coaxed into some scheme, feeling that she would yield, and praying Providence that the yielding might not lead her into tribulation.

“People grow dull if we understand them too well,” said Virginia. “It’s like solving a puzzle. There’s no more fun in it, when it’s finished. But you wish me to be happy, darling?”

“More than I wish for anything else, excepting of course dear Dal’s – ”

“Dal is a man and can take care of himself. I must do the best I can – poor me! And there’s something I want so much, so much, it would be heaven on earth, all my own, if I could win it. Leopold’s love, quite for myself, as a girl, not as a ‘suitable Protestant Princess.’ For a few horrid minutes, I thought it was too late to hope for that, and I must give him up, because I never could be sure if I accepted him without his love, and he said it had come afterwards, that it was really, really true. Anyway, it could never be the same; and I was miserable over what might have been. Then, suddenly, I saw how it still might be. I almost think I may be able to win his love, if you’ll promise to help me, dear.”

“Of course I will,” said the Grand Duchess, carried out of her pretty little, conventional self into unwonted impulsiveness, by the warmth of kisses soft and sweet as the roses on Virginia’s bosom.

“That is, I will if I can. But I don’t at all see what I can do.”

“I see. And what I want you to do, is to please, please see with my eyes.”

“They’re very bright ones,” smiled her mother.

Princess Virginia clasped the Grand Duchess round the waist so tightly that it hurt. Then she laughed, an odd, half-frightened, excited laugh. “Dearest, something perfectly wonderful is going to happen to you and me,” she said. “The most wonderful thing that ever has happened. We are going to have a – great – adventure. And what the end of it will be – I don’t know.”