Frances Waldeaux Part 7

"Is he superfluous?" Jean glanced to the corner where the prince and Lucy were eagerly searching for the blood of Rizzio upon the steps.

"Decidedly," said Perry. "I wished to show you and Miss Dunbar a live prince, and I did it. That is done and over with. He has been seen and heard. There is no reason why he should pop up here and there all over Great Britain like a Jack-in-the-box. He's becoming a bore."

"You suspect him to be an impostor?" said Jean quickly.

"No. He's genuine enough. But we don't want any foreigners in our caravan," stroking his red beard complacently.

"No. What do you suppose is his object?" asked Jean, with one of her quick, furtive glances.

Mr. Perry's jaws grew red as his beard. "How can I tell?" he said gruffly. He went on irritably, a moment later: "Of course you see it.

The fellow has no delicacy. He makes no more secret of his plans than if he were going to run down a rabbit. Last night at Stirling, over his beer, he held forth upon the dimples on Miss Dunbar's pink elbows, and asked me if her hair were all her own. I said, at last, that American men did not value women like sheep by their flesh and fleece and the money they were rated at in the market. I hit him square that time, prince or no prince!"

"Yes, you did, indeed," said Jean vaguely. Her keen eyes followed Lucy and the prince, who were loitering through the gallery, pausing before the faded portraits. "You think it is only her money that draws him after us?"

"Why, of course! A fellow like that could not appreciate Miss Dunbar's beauty and wit."

"You think Lucy witty?" said Jean dryly. "And you think she would not marry for a t.i.tle?"

"I don't believe any pure American girl would sell herself, like a sheep in the shambles! And she is pure! A lamb, a lily! cried Perry, growing incoherent in his heat.

"She would not if her heart were preoccupied," said Jean thoughtfully.

"And you think----" he said breathlessly.

But Jean only laughed, and said no more.

The guide had been paying profound deference to Prince Wolfburgh, keeping close to his heels. Now he swung open a door. "If your Highnesses will come this way?" he said, bowing profoundly to Lucy.

The little girl started and hurried back to Miss Vance. Her face was scarlet, and she laughed nervously. Prince Wolfburgh also laughed, loudly and meaningly. He swore at the old man and went out into the cloister where his cousin stood smoking.

"Had enough of the old barracks?" said the captain.

"I found I was making too fast running in there," said the prince uneasily; "I'll waken up and find that girl married to me some day."

"Not so bad a dream," puffed his cousin.

"I'll take a train somewhere," said the prince. "But no matter where I go, I'll find an American old woman with a girl to marry. They all carry the Hof Kalender in their pockets, and know every bachelor in Germany."

The captain watched him attentively. "I don't believe those women inside mean to drive any marriage bargain with you, Hugo," he said gruffly. "I doubt whether the little mees would marry you if you asked her. Her dot, I hear, is e-normous!" waving his hand upward as if to mountain heights. "And as for beauty, she is a wild rose!"

Now, there were reasons why the captain should rejoice when Hugo allied himself to the little mees. On the day when he would take these hills of gold and wild rose to himself, the captain would become the head of the house of Wolfburgh. It was, perhaps, a mean, ungilded throne, but by German law no nameless Yankee woman could sit upon it.

The prince looked at Captain Odo. "You cannot put me into a gallop when I choose to walk," he said. "She's a pretty girl, and a good girl, and some time I may marry her, but not now."

Odo laughed good-humoredly, and they sauntered down the path together.

The prince had offered to dine with Miss Vance that evening, but sent a note to say that he was summoned to the Highlands unexpectedly.

"It is adieu, not auf wiedersehen, I fear, with his Highness," Miss Vance said, folding the note pensively. She had not meant to drive a marriage bargain, and yet--to have placed a pupil upon even such a bric-a-brac throne as that of Wolfburgh! She looked thoughtfully at Lucy's chubby cheeks. A princess? The man was not objectionable in himself, either--a kindly, overgrown boy. "He told me," said Jean, "that he was going to a house party at Inverary Castle."

"Whose house is that, Jean?" asked Lucy.

"It is the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll."

"Oh!" Lucy gave a little sigh. Prince Hugo was undeniably fat and very slow to catch a joke, but there was certainly a different flavor in this talk of dukes and ancestral seats to the gossip about the Whites and Greens at home.

Indeed, the whole party, including even Mr. Perry, experienced a sensation of sudden vacancy and flatness when his Highness left them.

It was as though they had been sheltering a royal eagle that was used to dwelling in sunlit heights unknown to them, and now they were left on flat ground to consort with common poultry.

CHAPTER VI

Miss Vance led her party slowly through Scotland and down again to London. Mrs. Waldeaux went with them. The girls secretly laughed together at her fine indomitable politeness, and her violent pa.s.sion for the Stuarts, and hate of the Roundheads. But Mr. Perry was bored by her.

"What is it to us," he said, "that Queen Mary paddled over this lake, or Cromwell's soldiers whitewashed that fresco? Give me a clean, new American church, anyhow, before all of your mouldy, tomby cathedrals.

These things are so many cancelled cheques to me. I have nothing to pay on them. It is live issues that draw on my heart. You American girls ought to be at home looking into the negro problem, or Tammany, or the Sugar Trust, instead of nosing into Rembrandts, or miracles at Lourdes, or palaces. These are all back numbers. Write n. g. on them and bury them. So, by the way, is your Mrs. Waldeaux a back number.

My own opinion is that all men and women at fifty ought to go willingly and be shut up in the room where the world keeps its second-hand lumber!"

"Yet n.o.body," said Lucy indignantly, "is more careful or tender with Mrs. Waldeaux than you!"

"That is because Mr. Perry has the genuine American awe of people of good birth," said Jean slyly. "It is the only trait which makes me suspect that he is a self-made man." Mr. Perry, for answer, only bowed gravely. He long ago had ceased to hide his opinion that Miss Ha.s.sard was insufferable.

Frances, for her part, was sure that the young people were glad to have her as a companion. One day she decided to stay with them, and the next to go to New York on the first steamer. She seemed to see life hazily, as one over whose mind a cataract was growing. What had she to do in Europe, she reasoned? George was gone. Her one actual hold on the world had slipped from her. That great mysterious thing called living was done and past for her.

And yet--there was Kenilworth, and Scott's house? Scott, who had been her friend and leader since she was eight years old! And in that anthem at York minster there was a message, which she had been waiting all of her life to hear! And here was Lucy beside her with her soft voice, and loving blue eyes--Lucy, who should have been George's wife!

In all of these things something high and good called to the poor lady, which she heard and understood as a child would the voice of its mother.

One hour she resolved to leave her son with his wife, to go back to Weir at once and work with the poultry and Quigg's jokes for the rest of her life. She was dead. Let her give up and consent to be dead.

The next, she would stay where she could see George sometimes, and try to forgive the woman who had him in her keeping. Perhaps, after all, she was human, as Clara said. If she could forgive Lisa, she could be happy with these young people and live--live in this wonderful old world, where all that was best of past ages was kept waiting for her.

When they came to London, she went at once to Morgan's to make a deposit, for she had been hard at work on her jokes as she travelled, and had received her pay.

"Your son, madam," said the clerk, "drew on his account to-day. He said he expected remittances from you. Is this to be put to his credit?"

"My son was in London to-day?

"He has just left the house."

"Did he--he left a message for me? A letter, perhaps?"

"No, nothing, madam."

"Put the money to his credit, of course." She went out into the narrow street and wandered along to the Bank of England, staring up at the huge buildings.