The Puppet Crown - Harlod MacGrath (nice books to read TXT) 📗

/> Afterward the Englishman remembered seeing a white dog lying on the opposite seat.


CHAPTER IV


AN ADVENTURE WITH ROYALTY

Maurice Carewe, attached to the American legation in Vienna, leaned against the stone parapet which separated the terraced promenade of the Continental Hotel from the Werter See, and wondered what had induced him to come to Bleiberg.

He had left behind him the glory of September in Vienna, a city second only to Paris in fashion and gaiety; Vienna, with its inimitable bands, its incomparable gardens, its military maneuvers, its salons, its charming women; and all for a fool's errand. His Excellency was to blame. He had casually dropped the remark that the duchy's minister, Baron von Rumpf, had been given his passports as a persona non grata by the chancellor of the kingdom, and that a declaration of war was likely to follow. Maurice's dormant love of journalistic inquiry had become aroused, and he had asked permission to investigate the affair, a favor readily granted to him.

But here he was, on the scene, and nobody knew anything, and nobody could tell anything. The duchess had remained silent. Not unnaturally he wished himself back in Vienna. There were no court fetes in the city of Bleiberg. The king's condition was too grave to permit them. And, besides, there had been no real court in Bleiberg for the space of ten years, so he was told. Those solemn affairs of the archbishop's, given once the week for the benefit of the corps diplomatique, were dull and spiritless. Her Royal Highness was seldom seen, save when she drove through the streets. Persons who remembered the reign before told what a mad, gay court it had been. Now it was funereal. The youth and beauty of Bleiberg held a court of its own. Royalty was not included, nor did it ask to be.

A strange capital, indeed, Maurice reflected, as he gazed down into the cool, brown water. He regretted his caprice. There were pretty women in Vienna. Some of them belonged to the American colony. They danced well, they sang and played and rode. He had taught some of them how to fence, and he could not remember the times he had been "buttoned" while paying too much attention to their lips and eyes. For Maurice loved a thing of beauty, were it a woman, a horse or a Mediterranean sunset. What a difference between these two years in Vienna and that year in Calcutta! He never would forget the dingy office, with its tarnished sign, "U. S. Consul," tacked insecurely on the door, and the utter loneliness.

He cast a pebble into the lake, and watched the ripples roll away and disappear, and ruminated on a life full of color and vicissitude. He remembered the Arizona days, the endless burning sand, the dull routine of a cavalry trooper, the lithe brown bodies of the Apaches, the first skirmish and the last. From a soldier he had turned journalist, tramped the streets of Washington in rain and shine, living as a man lived who must.

One day his star had shot up from the nadir of obscurity, not very far, but enough to bring his versatility under the notice of the discerning Secretary of State, who, having been a friend of the father, offered the son a berth in the diplomatic corps. A consulate in a South American republic, during a revolutionary crisis, where he had shown consummate skill in avoiding political complications (and where, by a shrewd speculation in gold, he had feathered his nest for his declining years), proved that the continual incertitude of a journalistic career is a fine basis for diplomatic work. From South America he had gone to Calcutta, thence to Austria.

He was only twenty-nine, which age in some is youth. He possessed an old man's wisdom and a boy's exuberance of spirits. He laughed whenever he could; to him life was a panorama of vivid pictures, the world a vast theater to which somehow he had gained admission. His beardless countenance had deceived more than one finished diplomat, for it was difficult to believe that behind it lay an earnest purpose and a daring courage. If he bragged a little, quizzed graybeards, sought strange places, sported with convention, and eluded women, it was due to his restlessness. Yet, he had the secretiveness of sand; he absorbed, but he revealed nothing. He knew his friends; they thought they knew him. It was his delight to have women think him a butterfly, men write him down a fool; it covered up his real desires and left him free.

What cynicism he had was mellowed by a fanciful humor. Whether with steel or with words, he was a master of fence; and if at times some one got under his guard, that some one knew it not. To let your enemy see that he has hit you is to give him confidence. He saw humor where no one else saw it, and tragedy where it was not suspected. He was one of those rare individuals who, when the opportunity of chance refuses to come, makes one.

"Germany and Austria are great countries," he mused, lighting a cigar. "Every hundredth man is a king, one in fifty is a duke, every tenth man is a prince, and one can not take a corner without bumping into a count or a baron. Even the hotel waiters are disquieting; there is that embarrassing atmosphere about them which suggests nobility in durance vile. As for me, I prefer Kentucky, where every man is a colonel, and you never make a mistake. And these kingdoms!" He indulged in subdued laughter. "They are always like comic operas. I find myself looking around every moment for the merry villagers so happy and so gay (at fifteen dollars the week), the eternal innkeeper and the perennial soubrette his daughter, the low comedian and the self-conscious tenor. Heigho! and not a soul in Bleiberg knows me, nor cares.

"I'd rather talk five minutes to a pretty woman than eat stuffed pheasants the year around, and the stuffed pheasant is about all Bleiberg can boast of. Well, here goes for a voyage of discovery;" and he passed down the stone steps to the pier, quite unconscious of the admiring glances of the women who fluttered back and forth on the wide balconies above.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon; a fresh wind redolent of pine and resin blew across the lake. Maurice climbed into a boat and pulled away with a strong, swift stroke, enjoying the liberation of his muscles. A quarter of a mile out he let the oars drift and took his bearings. He saw the private gardens of the king and the archbishop, and, convinced that a closer view would afford him entertainment, he caught up the oars again and moved inland.

The royal gardens ran directly into the water, while those of the archbishop were protected by a wall of brick five or six feet in height, in the center of which was a gate opening on the water. Behind the gate was a small boat dock. Maurice plied the oars vigorously. He skirted the royal gardens, and the smell of newly mown lawns filled the air. Soon he was gliding along the sides of the moss-grown walls. A bird chirped in the overhanging boughs. He was about to cast loose the oars again, when the boat was brought to a violent stop. A few yards waterward from the gate there lay, hidden in the shadowed water, a sunken pier. On one of the iron piles the boat had become impaled.

Maurice was tumbled into the bow of the boat, which began rapidly to fill. First he swore, then he laughed, for he was possessed of infinite good humor. The only thing left for him to do was to swim for the gate. With a rueful glance at his thin clothes, he dropped himself over the side of the wreck and struck out toward the gate. The water, having its source from the snowclad mountains, was icy. He was glad enough to grasp the lower bars of the gate and draw himself up. He was on the point of climbing over, when a picture presented itself to his streaming eyes.

Seated on a bench made of twisted vine was a young girl. She held in her hand a book, but she was not reading it. She was scanning the unwritten pages of some reverie; her eyes, dark, large and wistful, were holding communion with the god of dreams. A wisp of hair, glossy as coal, trembled against a cheek white as the gown she wore.

At her side, blinking in the last rays of the warm sun, sat a bulldog, toothless and old. Now and then a sear leaf, falling in a zig-zag course, rustled past his ears, and he would shake his head as if he, too, were dreaming and the leaves disturbed him. All at once he sniffed, his ears stood forward, and a low growl broke the enchantment. The girl, on discovering Maurice, closed the book and rose. The dog, still growling, jumped down and trotted to the gate. Maurice thought that it was time to speak.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "pardon this intrusion, but my boat has met with an accident."

The girl came to the gate. "Why, Monsieur," she exclaimed, "you are wet!"

"That is true," replied Maurice, his teeth beginning to knock together. "I was forced to swim. If you will kindly open the gate and guide me to the street, I shall be much obliged to you."

The gate swung outward, and in a moment Maurice was on dry land, or the next thing to it, which was the boat-dock.

"Thank you," he said.

"O! And you might have been drowned," compassion lighting her beautiful eyes. "Sit down on the bench, Monsieur, for you must be weak. And it was that sunken pier? I shall speak to Monseigneur; he must have it removed. Bull, stop growling; you are very impolite; the gentleman is in distress."

Maurice sat down, not because he was weak, but because the desire to gain the street had suddenly subsided. Who was this girl who could say "must" to the formidable prelate? His quick eye noticed that she showed no sign of embarrassment. Indeed, she impressed him as one who was superior to that petty disturbance of collected thought. Somehow it seemed to him, as she stood there looking down at him, that he, too, should be standing. But she put forth a hand with gentle insistence when he made as though to rise. What an exquisite face, he thought. Against the whiteness of her skin her lips burned like poppy petals. Innocent, inquisitive eyes smiled gently, eyes in whose tranquil depths lay the glory of the world, asleep. Presently a color, faint and fugitive, dimmed the whiteness of her cheeks. Maurice, conscious of his rudeness and of a warmth in his own cheeks, instinctively lowered his gaze.

"Pardon my rudeness," he said.

"What is your name, Monsieur," she asked calmly.

"It is Maurice Carewe. I am living in Vienna. I came to Bleiberg for pleasure, but the first day has not been propitious," with an apologetic glance at his dripping clothes.

"Maurice Carewe," slowly repeating the full name as if to imprint it on her memory. "You are English?"

He said: "No; I am one of those dreadful Yankees you have possibly read about."

Her teeth gleamed. "Yes, I have heard of them. But you do not appear so very dreadful; though at present you are truly not at your best. What is this-this Yankeeland like?"

"It would take me ever so long to tell you about it, it