Royal Highness Part 17

"Just as much. It's much the same. Much the same everywhere."

That was all. Klaus Heinrich, and one pace behind him Herr von Braunbart, stood with their hands to their helmets as the chauffeur slipped his gear in and the motor car s.h.i.+vered and started.

It may be imagined that this meeting did not long remain the private property of the Dorothea Hospital; on the contrary, it was the general topic of conversation before the day was out. The _Courier_ published, under a sentimental poetical heading, a detailed description of the rencontre, which, without too violent a departure from the exact truth, yet succeeded in making such a powerful impression on the public mind, and evoked symptoms of such lively interest, that the vigilant newspaper was induced to keep a watchful eye for the future on any further rapprochements between the Spoelmann and Grimmburg houses. It could not report much.

It remarked a couple of times that his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich, when walking through the promenade after a performance at the Court Theatre, had stopped for a moment at the Spoelmanns' box to greet the ladies. And in its report of the fancy-dress charity bazaar, which took place in the middle of January in the Town Hall--a smart function, in which Miss Spoelmann, at the urgent request of the Committee, acted as seller--no small s.p.a.ce was devoted to describing how Prince Klaus Heinrich, when the Court was making a round of the bazaar, had stopped before Miss Spoelmann's stall, how he had bought a piece or two of fancy gla.s.s (for Miss Spoelmann was selling porcelain and gla.s.s), and had lingered a good eight or ten minutes at her stall. It said nothing about the topic of the conversation. And yet it had not been without importance.

The Court (with the exception of Albrecht) had appeared in the Town Hall about noon. When Klaus Heinrich, with his newly bought pieces of gla.s.s in tissue paper on his knee, drove back to the "Hermitage," he had announced his intention of visiting Delphinenort and inspecting the Schloss in its renovated state, on the same occasion viewing Mr.

Spoelmann's collection of gla.s.s. For three or four old pieces of gla.s.s had been included in Miss Spoelmann's stock which her father himself had given to the bazaar out of his collection, and one of them Klaus Heinrich had bought.

He saw himself again in a semicircle of people, stared at, alone, in front of Miss Spoelmann, and separated from her by the stall-counter, with its vases, jugs, its white and coloured groups of porcelain. He saw her in her red fancy dress, which, made in one piece, clung close to her neat though childish figure, while it exposed dark shoulders and arms, which were round and firm and yet like those of a child just by the wrist. He saw the gold ornament, half garland and half diadem, in the jet of her billowy hair, that showed a tendency to fall in smooth wisps on her forehead, her big, black, inquiring eyes in the pearly-white face, her full and tender mouth, pouting with habitual scorn when she spoke--and round about her in the great vaulted hall had been the scent of firs and a babel of noise, music, the clash of gongs, laughter, and the cries of sellers.

He had admired the piece of gla.s.s, the fine old beaker with its ornament of silver foliage, which she proffered to him, and she had said that it came from her father's collection. "Has your father, then, got many fine pieces like this?"--Of course. And presumably her father had not given the best items to the bazaar. She could guarantee that he had much finer pieces of gla.s.s. Klaus Heinrich would very much like to see them! Well, that might easily be managed, Miss Spoelmann had answered in her broken voice, while she pouted and wagged her head slightly from side to side.

Her father, she meant, would certainly have no objection to showing the fruits of his zeal as a collector to one more of a long succession of intelligent visitors. The Spoelmanns were always at home at tea-time.

She had gone straight to the point, taking the hint for a definite offer, and speaking in an entirely off-hand way. In conclusion, to Klaus Heinrich's question, what day would suit best, she had answered: "Whichever you like, Prince, we shall be inexpressibly delighted."

"We shall be inexpressibly delighted"--those were her words, so mocking and pointed in the exaggeration that they almost hurt, and were difficult to listen to without wincing. How she had rattled and hurt the poor sister in the Hospital the other day! But all through there was something childish in her manner of speech; indeed, some sounds she made were just like those children make--not only on the occasion when she was comforting the little girl about the inhaler. And how large her eyes had seemed when they told her about the children's fathers and the rest of the sad story!

Next day Klaus Heinrich went to tea at Schloss Delphinenort, the very next. Miss Spoelmann had said he might come when it suited him. But it suited him the very next day, and as the matter seemed to him urgent, he saw no point in putting it off.

Shortly before five o'clock--it was already dark--he drove over the smooth roads of the Town Garden--bare and empty, for this part of it belonged to Mr. Spoelmann. Arc-lamps lit up the park, the big square spa-basin s.h.i.+mmered between the trees; behind it rose the white Schloss with its pillared porch, its s.p.a.cious double staircase which led by gentle degrees between the wings up to the first floor, its high leaded windows, its Roman busts in the niches--and Klaus Heinrich, as he drove along the approach avenue of mighty chestnuts, saw the red-plush negro with his staff standing on guard at the foot of the staircase.

Klaus Heinrich crossed a brightly lighted stone hall, with a floor of gilt mosaic and with white statues of G.o.ds round it, pa.s.sed straight over to the broad red-carpeted marble staircase, down which the Spoelmanns' major-domo, clean shaven, with shoulders squared and arms stiff, pot-bellied and haughty, advanced to receive the guest. He escorted him up into the tapestried and marble-chimneyed ante-room, where a couple of white-and-gold swan's-down footmen took the Prince's cap and cloak, while the steward went in person to announce him to his master.... The footman held aside one of the tapestries for Klaus Heinrich, who descended two or three steps.

The scent of flowers met him, and he heard the soft splash of falling water; but just as the tapestry closed behind him, so wild and harsh a barking was heard that Klaus Heinrich, half deafened for a moment, stopped at the foot of the steps. Percival, the collie, had dashed at him in a fury. He pranced, he capered in uncontrollable pa.s.sion, he pirouetted, beat his sides with his tail, planted his forefeet on the floor, and turned wildly round and round, and seemed like to burst with noise. A voice--not Imma's--called him off, and Klaus Heinrich found himself in a winter garden, a gla.s.s conservatory with white marble columns and a floor of big square marble flags. Palms of all kinds filled it, whose trunks and tops often reached close up to the gla.s.s ceiling. A flower-bed, consisting of countless pots arranged like the stones of a mosaic, lay in the strong moonlight of the arc-lamp and filled the air with its scent. Out of a beautifully carved fountain, silver streams flowed into a marble pool, and ducks with strange and fantastic plumage swam about on the illuminated water. The background was filled by a stone walk with columns and niches.

It was Countess Lowenjoul who advanced towards the guest, and curtseyed with a smile.

"Your Royal Highness will not mind," she said, "our Percy is so uproarious. Besides, he's so unaccustomed to visitors. But he never touches anybody. Your Royal Highness must excuse Miss Spoelmann....

She'll be back soon. She was here just now. She was called away, her father sent for her. Mr. Spoelmann will be delighted...."

And she conducted Klaus Heinrich to an arrangement of basket chairs with embroidered linen cus.h.i.+ons which stood in front of a group of palms. She spoke in a brisk and emphatic tone, with her little head with its thin iron-grey hair bent on one side and her white teeth showing as she laughed. Her figure was distinctly graceful in the close-fitting brown dress she was wearing, and she moved as freshly and elegantly as an officer's wife. Only in her eyes, whose lids she kept blinking, there was something of mistrust or spite, something unintelligible. They sat down facing each other at the round garden-table, on which lay a few books. Percival, exhausted by his outburst, curled himself up on the narrow pearl-grey carpet on which the furniture stood. His black coat was like silk, with white paws, chest, and muzzle. He had a white collar, yellow eyes, and a parting along his back. Klaus Heinrich began a conversation for conversation's sake, a formal dialogue about nothing in particular, which was all he could do.

"I hope, Countess, that I have not come at an inconvenient time. Luckily I need not feel myself an unauthorized intruder. I do not know whether Miss Spoelmann has told you.... She was so kind as to suggest my calling. It was about those lovely pieces of gla.s.s which Mr. Spoelmann so generously gave to yesterday's bazaar. Miss Spoelmann thought that her father would have no objection to letting me see the rest of his collection. That's why I'm here ..."

The Countess ignored the question whether Imma had told her of the arrangement. She said: "This is tea-time, Royal Highness. Of course your visit is not inconvenient. Even if, as I hope will not be the case, Mr.

Spoelmann were too unwell to appear...."

"Oh, is he ill?" In reality Klaus Heinrich wished just a little that Mr.

Spoelmann might be too unwell. He antic.i.p.ated his meeting with him with vague anxiety.

"He was feeling ill to-day, Royal Highness. He had a touch of fever, s.h.i.+vering, and a little faintness. Dr. Watercloose was with him for a long time this morning. He was given an injection of morphia. There's some question of an operation being necessary."

"I am very sorry," said Klaus Heinrich quite honestly. "An operation?

How dreadful!"

To which the Countess answered, letting her eyes wander: "Oh yes. But there are worse things in life--many much worse things than that."

"Undoubtedly," said Klaus Heinrich. "I can quite believe it." He felt his imagination stirred in a vague and general way by the Countess's allusion.

She looked at him with her head inclined to one side, and an expression of contempt on her face. Then her slightly distended grey eyes s.h.i.+fted, while she smiled the mysterious smile which Klaus Heinrich already knew and which had something seductive about it.

He felt it was necessary to resume the conversation.

"Have you lived long with the Spoelmanns, Countess?" he asked.

"A fairly long time," she answered, and appeared to calculate. "Fairly long. I have lived through so much, have had so many experiences, that I naturally cannot reckon to a day. But it was shortly after the blessing--soon after the blessing was vouchsafed to me."

"The blessing?" asked Klaus Heinrich.

"Of course," she said decidedly with some agitation. "For the blessing happened to me when the number of my experiences had become too great, and the bow had reached breaking point, to use a metaphor. You are so young," she continued, forgetting to address him by his t.i.tle, "so ignorant of all that makes the world so miserable and so depraved, that you can form no conception of what I have had to suffer. I brought an action in America which involved the appearance of several generals.

Things came to light which were more than my temper could stand. I had to clear out several barracks without succeeding in bringing to light every loose woman. They hid themselves in the cupboards, some even under the floors, and that's why they continue torturing me beyond measure at nights. I should at once go back to my Schloss in Burgundy if the rain did not come through the roofs. The Spoelmanns knew that, and that is why it was so obliging of them to let me live with them indefinitely, my only duty being to put the innocent Imma on her guard against the world.

Only of course my health suffers from my having the women sitting at nights on my chest and forcing me to look at their disgusting faces. And that is why I ask you to call me simply Frau Meier," she said in a whisper, leaning forward and touching Klaus Heinrich's arm with her hand. "The walls have ears, and it is absolutely necessary for me to keep up the incognito I was forced to a.s.sume in order to protect myself against the persecution of the odious creatures. You will do what I ask, will you not? Look on it as a joke ... a fad which hurts n.o.body.... Why not?"

She stopped.

Klaus Heinrich sat upright and braced up in his wicker chair opposite her and looked at her. Before leaving his rectilineal room, he had dressed himself with his valet Neumann's help with all possible care, as his life in the public eye required. His parting ran from over his left eye, straight up to the crown of his head, without a hair sticking up, and his hair was brushed up into a crest off the right side of his forehead. There he sat in his undress uniform, whose high collar and close fit helped him to maintain a composed att.i.tude, the silver epaulettes of a major on his narrow shoulders, leaning slightly but not comfortably forward, collected, calm, with one foot slightly advanced, and with his right hand above his left on his sword-hilt. His young face looked slightly weary from the unreality, the loneliness, strictness, and difficulty of his life; he sat looking at the Countess with a friendly, clear, but composed expression in his eyes.

She stopped. Disenchantment and disgust showed themselves in her features, and, while something like hate towards Klaus Heinrich flamed up in her tired grey eyes, she blushed in the strangest of ways, for one half of her face turned red, the other white. Dropping her eyelids she answered: "I have been living with the Spoelmanns for three years, Royal Highness."

Percival darted forward. Dancing, springing, and wagging his tail he trotted towards his mistress--for Imma Spoelmann had come in--raised himself in a dignified way on his hind legs and laid his fore paws in greeting on her breast. His jaws were wide open, and his red tongue hung out between his ivory-white teeth. He looked like a heraldic supporter as he stood there before her.

She wore a wonderful dress of brick-red silk with loose hanging sleeves, and the breast covered with heavy gold embroidery. A big egg-shaped jewel on a pearl necklace lay on her bare neck, the skin of which was the colour of smoked meerschaum. Her blue-black hair was parted on one side and coiled, though a few smooth wisps tended to fall on her forehead. Holding Percival's head in her two narrow, ringless little hands, she looked into his face, saying, "Well, well, my friend. What a welcome! We are glad to see each other--we hated being parted, didn't we? Now go back and lie down." And she put his paws off the gold embroidery on her breast, and set him on his four paws again.

"Oh, Prince," she said. "Welcome to Delphinenort. You hate breaking your promise, I can see. I'm coming to sit next you. They'll tell us when tea is ready.... It's against all the rules, I know, for me to have kept you waiting. But my father sent for me--and besides you had somebody to entertain you." Her bright eyes pa.s.sed from Klaus Heinrich to the Countess and back in a rather hesitating way.

"That's quite true," he said. And then he asked how Mr. Spoelmann was, and received a fairly rea.s.suring answer. Mr. Spoelmann would have the pleasure of making Klaus Heinrich's acquaintance at tea-time, he begged to be excused till then.... What a lovely pair of horses Klaus Heinrich had in his brougham! And then they talked about their horses, about Klaus Heinrich's good-tempered brown Florian from the Hollerbrunn stud, about Miss Spoelmann's Arabian cream, the mare Fatma which had been given to Mr. Spoelmann by an oriental prince, about her fast Hungarian chestnuts, which she drove four-in-hand.

"Do you know the country round?" asked Klaus Heinrich. "Have you hunted with the Royal pack? Have you been to the 'Pheasantry'? There are lots of lovely excursions."

No, Miss Spoelmann was not at all clever in finding out new roads, and the Countess--well, her whole nature was unenterprising, so they always chose the same road, in the Town Gardens, for their ride. It was boring, perhaps, but Miss Spoelmann was not on the whole so blase as to need constant change and adventures. Then he said that they must go together some time to a meet of the hounds or to the "Pheasantry," whereupon she pursed her lips and said that that was an idea which might be discussed some time in the future. Then the major-domo came in and gravely announced that tea was ready.

They went through the tapestry hall with the marble fireplace, conducted by the strutting butler, accompanied by the dancing Percy, and followed by Countess Lowenjoul.

"Has the Countess been letting her tongue run away with her?" asked Imma _en route_, without any particular lowering of her voice.

Klaus Heinrich started and looked at the floor. "But she can hear us!"

he said softly.

"No, she doesn't hear us," answered Imma. "I can read her face. When she holds her head crooked like that and blinks her eyes it means that she is wandering and deep in her thoughts. Did she let her tongue run away with her?"

"For a minute or two," said Klaus Heinrich. "I got the impression that the Countess 'let herself go' every now and then."

"She has had a lot of trouble." And Imma looked at him with the same big searching dark eyes with which she had scanned him in the Dorothea Hospital. "I'll tell you all about it another time. It's a long story."

"Yes," he said. "Some other time. Next time. On our ride perhaps."

"On our ride?"