“Your business,” said she, curtly. Wogan no less curtly replied that he had a wish to escort Mlle. de Caprara to Bologna. He spoke as though he was suggesting a walk on the Campagna.
“And why should I travel to Bologna?” she asked. Wogan explained. The explanation required delicacy, but he put it in as few words as might be. There were slanderers at work. Her Highness the Princess Clementina was in great distress; a word from Mlle. de Caprara would make all clear.
“Why should I trouble because the Princess Clementina has a crumpled rose-leaf in her bed? I will not go,” said Mlle. de Caprara.
“Yet her Highness may justly ask why the King lingers in Spain.” Wogan saw a look, a smile of triumph, brighten for an instant on the angry face.
“It is no doubt a humiliation to the Princess Clementina,” said Maria Vittoria, with a great deal of satisfaction. “But she must learn to bear humiliation like other women.”
“But she will reject the marriage,” urged Wogan.
“The fool!” cried Maria Vittoria, and she laughed almost gaily. “I will not budge an inch to persuade her to it. Let her fancy what she will and weep over it! I hate her; therefore she is out of my thought.”
Wogan was not blind to the inspiriting effect of his argument upon Maria Vittoria. He had, however, foreseen it, and he continued imperturbably,—
“No doubt you think me something of a fool, too, to advance so unlikely a plea. But if her Highness rejects the marriage, who suffers? Her Highness’s name is already widely praised for her endurance, her constancy. If, after all, at the last moment she scornfully rejects that for which she has so stoutly ventured, whose name, whose cause, will suffer most? It will be one more misfortune, one more disaster, to add to the crushing weight under which the King labours. There will be ignominy; who will be dwarfed by it? There will be laughter; whom will it souse? There will be scandal; who will be splashed by it? The Princess or the King?”
Maria Vittoria stood with her brows drawn together in a frown. “I will not go,” she said after a pause. “Never was there so presumptuous a request. No, I will not.”
Wogan made his bow and retired. But he was at the Caprara Palace again in the morning, and again he was admitted. He noticed without regret that Maria Vittoria bore the traces of a restless night.
“What should I say if I went with you?” she asked.
“You would say why the King lingers in Spain.”
Maria Vittoria gave a startled look at Wogan.
“Do you know why?”
“You told me yesterday.”
“Not in words.”
“There are other ways of speech.”
That one smile of triumph had assured Wogan that the King’s delay was her doing and a condition of their parting.
“How will my story, though I told it, help?” asked Mlle. de Caprara. Wogan had no doubts upon that score. The story of the Chevalier and Maria Vittoria had a strong parallel in Clementina’s own history. Circumstance and duty held them apart, as it held apart Clementina and Wogan himself. In hearing Maria Vittoria’s story, Clementina would hear her own; she must be moved to sympathy with it; she would regard with her own generous eyes those who played unhappy parts in its development; she could have no word of censure, no opportunity for scorn.
“Tell the story,” said Wogan. “I will warrant the result.”
“No, I will not go,” said she; and again Wogan left the house. And again he came the next morning.
“Why should I go?” said Maria Vittoria, rebelliously. “Say what you have said to me to her! Speak to her of the ignominy which will befall the King! Tell her how his cause will totter! Why talk of this to me? If she loves the King, your words will persuade her. For on my life they have nearly persuaded me.”
“If she loves the King!” said Wogan, quietly, and Maria Vittoria stared at him. There was something she had not conjectured before.
“Oh, she does not love him!” she said in wonderment. Her wonderment swiftly changed to contempt. “The fool! Let her go on her knees and pray for a modest heart. There’s my message to her. Who is she that she should not love him?” But it nevertheless altered a trifle pleasurably Maria Vittoria’s view of the position. It was pain to her to contemplate the Chevalier’s marriage, a deep, gnawing, rancorous pain, but the pain was less, once she could believe he was to marry a woman who did not love him. She despised the woman for her stupidity; none the less, that was the wife she would choose, if she must needs choose another than herself. “I have a mind to see this fool-woman of yours,” she said doubtfully. “Why does she not love the King?”
Wogan could have answered that she had never seen him. He thought silence, however, was the more expressive. The silence led Maria Vittoria to conjecture.
“Is there another picture at her heart?” she asked, and again Wogan was silent. “Whose, then? You will not tell me.”
It might have been something in Wogan’s attitude or face which revealed the truth to her; it might have been her recollection of what the King had said concerning Wogan’s enthusiasm; it might have been merely her woman’s instinct. But she started and took a step towards Wogan. Her eyes certainly softened. “I will go with you to Bologna,” she said; and that afternoon with the smallest equipment she started from Rome. Wogan had ridden alone from Bologna to Rome in four days; he had spent three days in Rome; he now took six days to return in company with Mlle. de Caprara and her few servants. He thus arrived in Bologna on the eve of that day when he was to act as the King’s proxy in the marriage.
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the tiny cavalcade clattered through the Porta Castiglione. Wogan led the way to the Pilgrim Inn, where he left Maria Vittoria, saying that he would return at nightfall. He then went on foot to O’Toole’s lodging. O’Toole, however, had no news for him.
“There has been no mysterious visitor,” said he.
“There will be one to-night,” answered Wogan. “I shall need you.”
“I am ready,” said O’Toole.
The two friends walked back to the Pilgrim Inn. They were joined by Maria Vittoria, and they then proceeded to the little house among the trees. Outside the door in the garden wall Wogan posted O’Toole.
“Let no one pass,” said he, “till we return.”
He knocked on the door, and after a little delay—for the night had fallen, and there was no longer a porter at the gate—a little hatch was opened, and a servant inquired his business.
“I come with a message of the utmost importance,” said Wogan. “I beg you to inform her Highness that the Chevalier Wogan prays for two words with her.”
The hatch was closed, and the servant’s footsteps were heard to retreat. Wogan’s anxieties had been increasing with every mile of that homeward journey. On his ride to Rome he had been sensible of but one obstacle,—the difficulty of persuading the real Vittoria to return with him. But once that had been removed, others sprang to view, and each hour enlarged them. There was but this one night, this one interview! Upon the upshot of it depended whether a woman, destined by nature for a queen, should set her foot upon the throne-steps, whether a cause should suffer its worst of many eclipses, whether Europe should laugh or applaud. These five minutes while he waited outside the door threw him into a fever. “You will be friendly,” he implored Mlle. de Caprara. “Oh, you cannot but be! She must marry the King. I plead for him, not the least bit in the world for her. For his sake she must complete the work she has begun. She is not obstinate; she has her pride as a woman should. You will tell her just the truth,—of the King’s loyalty and yours. Hearts cannot be commanded. Alas, mademoiselle, it is a hard world at the end of it. It is mortised with the blood of broken hearts. But duty, mademoiselle, duty, a consciousness of rectitude,—these are very noble qualities. It will be a high consolation, mademoiselle, one of these days, when the King sits upon his throne in England, to think that your self-sacrifice had set him there.” And Mr. Wogan hopped like a bear on hot bricks, twittering irreproachable sentiments until the garden door was opened.
Beyond the door stretched a level space of grass intersected by a gravel path. Along this path the servant led Wogan and his companion into the house. There were lights in the windows on the upper floor, and a small lamp illuminated the hall. But the lower rooms were dark. The servant mounted the stairs, and opening the door of a little library, announced the Chevalier Wogan. Wogan led his companion in by the hand.
“Your Highness,” said he, “I have the honour to present to you the Princess Maria Vittoria Caprara.” He left the two women standing opposite to and measuring each other silently; he closed the door and went down stairs into the hall. A door in the hall opened on to a small parlour, with windows giving on to the garden. There once before Lady Featherstone and Harry Whittington had spoken of Wogan’s love for the Princess Clementina and speculated upon its consequences. Now Wogan sat there alone in the dark, listening to the women’s voices overhead. He had come to the end of his efforts and could only wait. At all events, the women were talking, that was something; if he could only hear them weeping! The sound of tears would have been very comforting to Wogan at that moment, but he only heard the low voices talking, talking. He assured himself over and over again that this meeting could not fail of its due result. That Maria Vittoria had exacted some promise which held his King in Spain he was now aware. She would say what that promise was, the condition of their parting. She had come prepared to say it—and the thread of Wogan’s reasonings was abruptly cut. It seemed to him that he heard something more than the night breeze through the trees,—a sound of feet upon the gravel path, a whispering of voices.
The windows were closed, but not shuttered. Wogan pressed his eyes to the pane and looked out. The night was dark, and the sky overclouded. But he had been sitting for some minutes in the darkness, and his eyes were able to prove that his ears had not deceived him. For he saw the dim figures of two men standing on the lawn before the window. They appeared to be looking at the lighted windows on the upper floor, then one of them waved to his companion to stand still, and himself walked towards the door. Wogan noticed that he made no attempt at secrecy; he walked with a firm tread, careless whether he set his foot on gravel or on grass. As this man approached the door, Wogan slipped into the hall and opened it. But he blocked the doorway, wondering whether these men had climbed the wall or whether O’Toole had deserted his post.
O’Toole had not deserted his post, but he had none the less admitted these two men. For Wogan and Maria Vittoria had barely been ten minutes within the house when O’Toole heard the sound of horses’ hoofs in the entrance of the alley. They stopped just within the entrance. O’Toole distinguished three horses, he saw the three riders dismount; and while one of the three held the horses, the other two walked on foot towards the postern-door.
O’Toole eased his sword in its scabbard.
“The little fellows thought to catch Charles Wogan napping,” he said to himself with a smile, and he let them come quite close to him. He was standing motionless in the embrasure of the door, nor did he move when the two men stopped and whispered together, nor when they advanced again, one behind the other. But he remarked that they held their cloaks to their faces. At last they came to a halt just in front of O’Toole. The leader produced a key.
“You stand in my way, my friend,” said he, pleasantly, and he pushed by O’Toole to the lock of the door. O’Toole put out a hand, caught him by the shoulder, and sent him spinning into the road. The man came back, however, and though out of breath, spoke no less pleasantly than before.
“I wish to enter,” said he. “I have important business.”
O’Toole bowed with the utmost dignity.
“Romanus civis sum,” said he. “Sum senator too. Dic Latinam linguam, amicus meus.”
O’Toole drew a breath; he could not but feel that he had acquitted himself with credit. He half began to regret that there was to be a learned professor to act as proxy on that famous day at the Capitol. His antagonist drew back a little and spoke no longer pleasantly.
“Here’s tomfoolery that would be as seasonable at a funeral,” said he, and he advanced again, still hiding his face. “Sir, you are blocking my way. I have authority to pass through that door in the wall.”
“Murus?” asked O’Toole. He shook his head in refusal.
“And by what right do you refuse me?”
O’Toole had an inspiration. He swept his arm proudly round and gave the reason of his refusal.
“Balbus aedificabat murum,” said he; and a voice that made O’Toole start cried, “Enough of this! Stand aside, whoever you may be.”
It was the second of the two men who spoke, and he dropped the cloak from his face. “The King!” exclaimed O’Toole, and he stood aside. The two men passed into the garden, and Wogan saw them from the window.
Just as O’Toole had blocked the King’s entrance into the garden, so did Wogan bar his way into the house.
“Who, in Heaven’s name, are you?” cried the Chevalier.
“Nay, there’s a question for me to ask,” said Wogan.
“Wogan!” cried the Chevalier, and “The King!” cried Wogan in one breath.
Wogan fell back; the Chevalier pushed into the hall and turned.
“So it is true. I could not, did not, believe it. I came from Spain to prove it false. I find it true,” he said in a low voice. “You whom I so trusted! God help me, where shall I look for honour?”
“Here, your Majesty,” answered Wogan, without an instant’s hesitation,—“here, in this hall. There, in the rooms above.”
He had seized the truth in the same second when he recognised his King, and the King’s first words had left him in no doubt. He knew now why he had never found Harry Whittington in any corner of Bologna. Harry Whittington had been riding to Spain.
The Chevalier laughed harshly.
“Sir, I suspect honour which needs such barriers to protect it. You are here, in this house, at this hour, with a sentinel to forbid intrusion at the garden door. Explain me this honourably.”
“I had the honour to escort a visitor to her Highness, and I wait until the visit is at an end.”
“What? Can you not better that excuse?” said the Chevalier. “A visitor! We will make acquaintance, Mr. Wogan, with your visitor, unless you have another sentinel to bar my way;” and he put his foot upon the step of the stairs.
“I beg your Majesty to pause,” said Wogan, firmly. “Your thoughts wrong me, and not only me.”
“Prove me that!”
“I say boldly, ‘Here is a servant who loves his Queen!’ What then?”
“This! That you should say, ‘Here is a man who loves a woman,—loves her so well he gives his friends the slip, and with the woman comes alone to Peri.’”
“Ah. To Peri! So I thought,” began Wogan, and the Chevalier whispered,—
“Silence! You raise your voice too high. You no doubt are anxious in your great respect that there should be some intimation of my coming. But I dispense with ceremony. I will meet this fine visitor of yours at once;” and he ran lightly up the stairs.
Then Wogan did a bold thing. He followed, he sprang past the King, he turned at the stair-top and barred the way.
“Sir, I beg you to listen to me,” he said quietly.
“Beg!” said the Chevalier, leaning back against the wall with his dark eyes blazing from a white face; “you insist.”
“Your Majesty will yet thank me for my insistence.” He drew a pocket-book out of his coat. “At Peri in Italy we were attacked by five soldiers sent over the border by the Governor of Trent. Who guided those five soldiers? Your Majesty’s confidant and friend, who is now, I thank God, waiting in the garden. Here is the written confession of the leader of the five. I pray your Majesty to read it.”
Wogan held out the paper. The Chevalier hesitated and took it. Then he read it once and glanced at it again. He passed his hand over his forehead.
“Whom shall I trust?” said he, in a voice of weariness.
“What honest errand was taking Whittington to Peri?” asked Wogan, and again the Chevalier read a piece here and there of the confession. Wogan pressed his advantage. “Whittington is not the only one of Walpole’s men who has hoodwinked us the while he filled his pockets. There are others, one, at all events, who did not need to travel to Spain for an ear to poison;” and he leaned forward towards the Chevalier.
“What do you mean?” asked the Chevalier, in a startled voice.
“Why, sir, that the same sort of venomous story breathed to you in Spain has been spoken here in Bologna, only with altered names. I told your Majesty I brought a visitor to this house to-night. I did; there was no need I should, since the marriage is fixed for to-morrow. I brought her all the way from Rome.”
“From Rome?” exclaimed the Chevalier.
“Yes;” and Wogan flung open the door of the library, and drawing himself up announced in his loudest voice, “The King!”
A loud cry came through the opening. It was not Clementina’s voice which uttered it. The Chevalier recognised the cry. He stood for a moment or two looking at Wogan. Then he stepped over the threshold, and Wogan closed the door behind him. But as he closed it he heard Maria Vittoria speak. She said,—
“Your Majesty, a long while ago, when you bade me farewell, I demanded of you a promise, which I have but this moment explained to the Princess, who now deigns to call me friend. Your Majesty has broken the promise. I had no right to demand it. I am very glad.”
Wogan went downstairs. He could leave the three of them shut up in that room to come by a fitting understanding. Besides, there was other work for him below,—work of a simple kind, to which he had now for some weeks looked forward. He crept down the stairs very stealthily. The hall door was still open. He could see dimly the figure of a man standing on the grass.
“And Whittington?”
“He has gone,” replied Wogan.
“You have sent him away?”
“I took so much upon myself.”
The Chevalier held out his hand to Wogan. “I have good reason to thank you,” said he, and before he could say another word, a door shut above, and Maria Vittoria came down the stairs towards them. O’Toole was still standing sentry at the postern-door, and the three men escorted the Princess Caprara to the Pilgrim Inn. She had spoken no word during the walk, but as she turned in the doorway of the inn, the light struck upon her face and showed that her eyes glistened. To the Chevalier she said, “I wish you, my lord, all happiness, and the boon of a great love. With all my heart I wish it;” and as he bowed over her hand, she looked across his shoulder to Wogan.
“I will bid you farewell to-morrow,” she said with a smile, and the Chevalier explained her saying afterwards as they accompanied him to his lodging.
“Mlle. de Caprara will honour us with her presence to-morrow. You will still act as my proxy, Wogan. I am not yet returned from Spain. I wish no questions or talk about this evening’s doings. Your friend will remember that?”
“My friend, sir,” said Wogan, “who was with me at Innspruck, is Captain Lucius O’Toole of Dillon’s regiment.”
“Et senator too,” said the Chevalier, with a laugh; and he added a friendly word or two which sent O’Toole back to his lodging in a high pleasure. Wogan walked thither with him and held out his hand at the door.
“But you will come up with me,” said O’Toole. “We will drink a glass together, for God knows when we speak together again. I go back to Schlestadt to-morrow.”
“Ah, you go back,” said Wogan; and he came in at the door and mounted the stairs. At the first landing he stopped.
“Let me rouse Gaydon.”
“Gaydon went three days ago.”
“Ah! And Misset is with his wife. Here are we all once more scattered, and, as you say, God knows when we shall speak together again;” and he went on to the upper storey.
O’Toole remarked that he dragged in his walk and that his voice had a strange, sad note of melancholy.
“My friend,” said he, “you have the black fit upon you; you are plainly discouraged. Yet to-night sees the labour of many months brought to its due close;” and as he lit the candles on his chimney, he was quite amazed by the white, tired face which the light showed to him. Wogan, indeed, harassed by misgivings, and worn with many vigils, presented a sufficiently woe-begone picture. The effect was heightened by the disorder of his clothes, which were all daubed with clay in a manner quite surprising to O’Toole, who knew the ground to be dry underfoot.
“True,” answered Wogan, “the work ends to-night. Months ago I rode down this street in the early morning, and with what high hopes! The work ends to-night, and may God forgive me for a meddlesome fellow. Cup and ball’s a fine game, but it is ill playing it with women’s hearts;” and he broke off suddenly. “I’ll give you a toast, Lucius! Here’s to the Princess Clementina!” and draining his glass he stood for a while, lost in the recollecting of that flight from Innspruck; he was far away from Bologna thundering down the Brenner through the night, with the sparks striking from the wheels of the berlin, and all about him a glimmering, shapeless waste of snow.
“To the Princess—no, to the Queen she was born to be,” cried O’Toole, and Wogan sprang at him.
“You saw that,” he exclaimed, his eyes lighting, his face transfigured in the intensity of this moment’s relief. “Aye,—to love a nation,—that is her high destiny. For others, a husband, a man; for her, a nation. And you saw it! It is evident, to be sure. Yet this or that thing she did, this or that word she spoke, assured you, eh? Tell me what proved to you here was no mere woman, but a queen!”
The morning had dawned before Wogan had had his fill. O’Toole was very well content to see his friend’s face once more quivering like a boy’s with pleasure, to hear him laugh, to watch the despondency vanish from his aspect. “There’s another piece of good news,” he said at the end, “which I had almost forgotten to tell you. Jenny and the Princess’s mother are happily set free. It seems Jenny swore from daybreak to daybreak, and the Pope used his kindliest offices, and for those two reasons the Emperor was glad to let them go. But there’s a question I would like to ask you. One little matter puzzles me.”
“Ask your question,” said Wogan.
“To-night through that door in the garden wall which I guarded, there went in yourself and a lady,—the King and a companion he had with him,—four people. Out of that door there came yourself, the lady, and the King,—three people.”
“Ah,” said Wogan, as he stood up with a strange smile upon his lips, “I have a deal of clay upon my clothes.”
O’Toole nodded his head wisely once or twice. “I am answered,” he said. “Is it indeed so?” He understood, however, nothing except that the room had suddenly grown cold.