The Grand Babylon Hotel - Arnold Bennett (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📗

will end? All our trouble, our anxieties, our watchfulness, may come to nothing. I tell you that when I see Eugen lying there, and think that we cannot learn his story until he recovers, I am ready to go mad. We might be arranging things, making matters smooth, preparing for the future, if only we knew⁠—knew what he can tell us. I tell you that I am ready to go mad. If anything should happen to you, Miss Racksole, I would kill myself.”

“But why?” she questioned. “Supposing, that is, that anything could happen to me⁠—which it can’t.”

“Because I have dragged you into this,” he replied, gazing at her. “It is nothing to you. You are only being kind.”

“How do you know it is nothing to me, Prince?” she asked him quickly.

Just then the sick man made a convulsive movement, and Nella flew to the bed and soothed him. From the head of the bed she looked over at Prince Aribert, and he returned her bright, excited glance. She was in her travelling-frock, with a large white Belgian apron tied over it. Large dark circles of fatigue and sleeplessness surrounded her eyes, and to the Prince her cheek seemed hollow and thin; her hair lay thick over the temples, half covering the ears. Aribert gave no answer to her query⁠—merely gazed at her with melancholy intensity.

“I think I will go and rest,” she said at last. “You will know all about the medicine.”

“Sleep well,” he said, as he softly opened the door for her. And then he was alone with Eugen. It was his turn that night to watch, for they still half-expected some strange, sudden visit, or onslaught, or move of one kind or another from Jules. Racksole slept in the parlour on the ground floor.

Nella had the front bedroom on the first floor; Miss Spencer was immured in the attic; the last-named lady had been singularly quiet and incurious, taking her food from Nella and asking no questions, the old woman went at nights to her own abode in the purlieus of the harbour. Hour after hour Aribert sat silent by his nephew’s bedside, attending mechanically to his wants, and every now and then gazing hard into the vacant, anguished face, as if trying to extort from that mask the secrets which it held. Aribert was tortured by the idea that if he could have only half an hour’s, only a quarter of an hour’s, rational speech with Prince Eugen, all might be cleared up and put right, and by the fact that that rational talk was absolutely impossible on Eugen’s part until the fever had run its course. As the minutes crept on to midnight the watcher, made nervous by the intense, electrical atmosphere which seems always to surround a person who is dangerously ill, grew more and more a prey to vague and terrible apprehensions. His mind dwelt hysterically on the most fatal possibilities.

He wondered what would occur if by any ill-chance Eugen should die in that bed⁠—how he would explain the affair to Posen and to the Emperor, how he would justify himself. He saw himself being tried for murder, sentenced (him⁠—a Prince of the blood!), led to the scaffold⁠ ⁠… a scene unparalleled in Europe for over a century!⁠ ⁠… Then he gazed anew at the sick man, and thought he saw death in every drawn feature of that agonized face. He could have screamed aloud. His ears heard a peculiar resonant boom. He started⁠—it was nothing but the city clock striking twelve. But there was another sound⁠—a mysterious shuffle at the door. He listened; then jumped from his chair. Nothing now! Nothing! But still he felt drawn to the door, and after what seemed an interminable interval he went and opened it, his heart beating furiously. Nella lay in a heap on the door mat. She was fully dressed, but had apparently lost consciousness. He clutched at her slender body, picked her up, carried her to the chair by the fireplace, and laid her in it. He had forgotten all about Eugen.

“What is it, my angel?” he whispered, and then he kissed her⁠—kissed her twice. He could only look at her; he did not know what to do to succour her.

At last she opened her eyes and sighed.

“Where am I?” she asked vaguely, in a tremulous tone as she recognized him. “Is it you? Did I do anything silly? Did I faint?”

“What has happened? Were you ill?” he questioned anxiously. He was kneeling at her feet, holding her hand tight.

“I saw Jules by the side of my bed,” she murmured; “I’m sure I saw him; he laughed at me. I had not undressed. I sprang up, frightened, but he had gone, and then I ran downstairs⁠—to you.”

“You were dreaming,” he soothed her.

“Was I?”

“You must have been. I have not heard a sound. No one could have entered. But if you like I will wake Mr. Racksole.”

“Perhaps I was dreaming,” she admitted. “How foolish!”

“You were overtired,” he said, still unconsciously holding her hand. They gazed at each other. She smiled at him.

“You kissed me,” she said suddenly, and he blushed red and stood up before her. “Why did you kiss me?”

“Ah! Miss Racksole,” he murmured, hurrying the words out. “Forgive me. It is unforgivable, but forgive me. I was overpowered by my feelings. I did not know what I was doing.”

“Why did you kiss me?” she repeated.

“Because⁠—Nella! I love you. I have no right to say it.”

“Why have you no right to say it?”

“If Eugen dies, I shall owe a duty to Posen⁠—I shall be its ruler.”

“Well!” she said calmly, with an adorable confidence. “Papa is worth forty millions. Would you not abdicate?”

“Ah!” he gave a low cry. “Will you force me to say these things? I could not shirk my duty to Posen, and the reigning Prince of Posen can only marry a Princess.”

“But Prince Eugen will live,” she said positively, “and if he lives⁠—”

“Then I shall be free. I would renounce all my rights to make