Complete works of a e w.., p.348
Complete Works of a E W Mason, page 348
She was young indeed. The freshness of her voice, its little tremble of modesty, the earnestness of its appeal, carried her youth quite home to Mr. Wogan’s heart. She was sweet with youth. Wogan felt it more clearly as they stood together in the darkness than when he had seen her plainly in the lighted room, with youth mantling her cheeks and visible in the buoyancy of her walk. Then she had been always the chosen woman. Wogan could just see her eyes, steady and mysteriously dark, shining at him out of the gloom, and a pang of remorse suddenly struck through him. That one step she was to take was across the threshold of a prison, it was true, but a prison familiar and warm, and into a night of storm and darkness and ice. The road lay before her into Italy, but it was a road of unknown perils, through mountains deep in snow. And this escape of to-night from the villa, this thunderous flight, with its hardships and its dangers, which followed the escape, was only the symbol of her life. She stepped from the shelter of her girlhood, as she stepped across the threshold of the villa, into a womanhood dark with many trials, storm-swept and wandering. She might reach the queendom which was her due, as the berlin in which she was to travel might — nay, surely would — rush one day from the gorges into the plains and the sunlight of Italy; but had Wogan travelled to Rome in Gaydon’s place and talked with Whittington outside the Caprara Palace, it is very likely that she would never have been allowed by him to start. Up till now he had thought only of her splendid courage, of the humiliation of her capture, of her wounded pride; she was the chosen woman. Now he thought of the girl, and wondered of her destiny, and was stricken with remorse.
“Promise me,” she repeated, and her hand tightened upon his and clung to it. Wogan had no fine sentiments wherewith to answer her; but his voice took a depth of sincerity and tenderness quite strange to her. Her fingers ceased to tremble.
They went down into the hall. Chateaudoux, who had been waiting in an agony of impatience, opened the door and slipped out; Clementina followed him.
The door was left ajar behind them, and Wogan in the hall saw Chateaudoux speak with the sentinel, saw the sentinel run hurriedly to Clementina, saw Clementina disappear into the snow. Chateaudoux ran back into the hall.
“And you!” he asked, as he barred and locked the door. “The magistrate is coming. I saw the lights of the guard across the avenue.”
Clementina was outside in the storm; Wogan was within the house, and the lights of the guard were already near.
“I go by the way I came,” said he; “I have time;” and he ran quickly up the stairs. In the room he found the Princess-mother weeping silently, and again, as he saw this weak elderly woman left alone to her fears and forebodings, remorse took hold on him.
“Courage, madam,” said he, as he crossed the room; “she goes to wed a king.”
“Sir, I am her mother,” replied the Princess, gaining at this moment a suitable dignity from her tears. “I was wondering not of the King, but of the man the King conceals.”
“You need not, madam,” said Wogan, who had no time for eulogies upon his master. “Take his servant’s loyalty as the measure of his merits.”
He looked out of the window and suddenly drew back. He stood for a moment with a look of great fear upon his face. For the sentinel was back at his post; Wogan dared not at this moment risk a struggle, and perhaps an outcry. Clementina was waiting under the avenue of trees; Wogan was within the house, and the lights of the guard were already flaring in the roadway. Even as Wogan stood in the embrasure of the window, he heard a heavy knocking on the door.
CHAPTER XIV
WOGAN CLOSED THE window cautiously. The snow had drifted through and lay melting in a heap beneath the sill. He drew the curtain across the embrasure, and then he crossed to the bedroom door.
“Jenny,” he whispered, “are you in bed?”
“Yes.”
“Lie close! Do not show your face nor speak. Only groan, and groan most delicately, or we are lost.”
He closed the door upon Jenny, and turning about came face to face with the Princess-mother. She stood confronting him, a finger on her lips, and terror in her eyes; and he heard the street-door open and clang to below.
“The magistrate!” she whispered.
“Courage, your Highness. Keep them from the bed! Say that her eyes are weak and cannot bear the light.”
He slipped behind the curtain into the embrasure, picturing to himself the disposition of the room, lest he should have left behind a trifle to betray him. He had in a supreme degree that gift of recollection which takes the form of a mental vision. He did not have to count over the details of the room; he summoned a picture of it to his mind, and saw it and its contents from corner to corner. And thus while the footsteps yet sounded on the stair, he saw Clementina’s bundle lying forgotten on a couch. He darted from his hiding-place, seized it, and ran back. He had just sufficient and not a second more time, for the curtain had not ceased to swing when the magistrate knocked, and without waiting for an answer entered. He was followed by two soldiers, and these he ordered to wait without the door.
“Your Highness,” he said in a polite voice, and stopped abruptly. It seemed to Wogan behind the curtain that his heart stopped at the same moment and with no less abruptness. There was no evidence of Clementina’s flight to justify that sudden silence. Then he grew faint, as it occurred to him that he had made Lady Featherstone’s mistake, — that his boot protruded into the room. He clenched his teeth, expecting a swift step and the curtain to be torn aside. The window was shut; he would never have time to open it and leap out and take his chance with the sentry underneath. He was caught in a trap, and Clementina waited for him in the avenue, under the fourth tree. All was lost, it seemed, and by his own folly, his own confidence. Had he only told her of the tavern under the city wall, where the carriage stood with its horses harnessed in the shafts, she might still have escaped, though he was trapped. The sweat passed down his face. Yet no swift step was taken, nor was the curtain torn aside.
For within the room the magistrate, a kindly citizen of Innspruck who had no liking for this addition to his duties, stood gazing at the Princess-mother with a respectful pity. It was the sight of her tear-stained face which had checked his words. For two days Clementina had kept her bed, and the mother’s tears alarmed him.
“Her Highness, your daughter, suffers so much?” said he.
“Sir, it is little to be wondered at.”
The magistrate bowed. That question was not one with which he had a mind to meddle.
“She still lies in bed?” said he, and he crossed to the door. The mother flung herself in the way.
“She lies in pain, and you would disturb her; you would flash your lanterns in her eyes, that if perchance she sleeps, she may wake into a world of pain. Sir, you will not.”
“Your Highness—”
“It is the mother who beseeches you. Sir, would you have me on my knees?”
Wogan, but this moment recovered from his alarm, became again uneasy. Her Highness protested too much; she played her part in the comedy too strenuously. He judged by the ear; the magistrate had the quivering, terror-stricken face before his eyes, and his pity deepened.
“Your Highness,” he said, “I must pray you to let me pass. I have General Heister’s orders to obey.”
The Princess-mother now gave Wogan reason to applaud her. She saw that the magistrate, for all his politeness, was quite inflexible.
“Go, then,” she said with a quiet dignity which once before she had shown that evening. “Since there is no humiliation to be spared us, take a candle, sir, and count the marks of suffering in my daughter’s face;” and with her own hand she opened the bedroom door and stood aside.
“Madam, I would not press my duty an inch beyond its limits,” said the magistrate. “I will stand in the doorway, and do you bid your daughter speak.”
The Princess-mother did not move from her position.
“My child,” she said.
Jenny in the bedroom groaned and turned from one side to the other.
“You are in pain?”
Jenny groaned again. The magistrate himself closed the door.
“Believe me,” said he, “no one could more regret than I the incivilities to which I am compelled.”
He crossed the room. Wogan heard him and his men descending the stairs. He heard the door open and shut; he heard Chateaudoux draw the bolts. Then he stepped out from the curtain.
“Your Highness, that was bravely done,” said he, and kneeling he kissed her hand. He went back into the embrasure, slipped the bundle over his arm, and opened the window very silently. He saw the snow was still falling, the wind still moaning about the crannies and roaring along the streets. He set his knee upon the window-ledge, climbed out, and drew the window to behind him.
The Princess-mother waited in the room with her hand upon her heart. She waited, it seemed to her, for an eternity. Then she heard the sound of a heavy fall, and the clang of a musket against the wall of the villa. But she heard no cry. She ran to the window and looked out. But strain her eyes as she might, she could distinguish nothing in that blinding storm. She could not see the sentinel; nor was this strange, for the sentinel lay senseless on the snow against the house-wall, and Mr. Wogan was already running down the avenue.
Under the fourth tree he found Clementina; she took his arm, and they set off together, wrestling with the wind, wading through the snow. It seemed to Clementina that her companion was possessed by some new fear. He said no single word to her; he dragged her with a fierce grip upon her wrist; if she stumbled, he jerked her roughly to her feet. She set her teeth and kept pace with him. Only once did she speak. They had come to a depression in the road where the melted snow had made a wide pool. Wogan leaped across it and said, —
“Give me your hand! There’s a white stone midway where you can set your foot.”
The Princess stepped as he bade her. The stone yielded beneath her tread and she stood ankle-deep in the water. Wogan sprang to her side and lifted her out. She had uttered no cry, and now she only laughed as she stood shivering on the further edge. It was that low musical, good-humoured laugh to which Wogan had never listened without a thrill of gladness, but it waked no response in him now.
“You told me of a white stone on which I might safely set my foot,” she said. “Well, sir, your white stone was straw.”
They were both to remember these words afterwards and to make of them a parable, but it seemed that Wogan barely heard them now. “Come!” he said, and taking her arm he set off running again.
Clementina understood that something inopportune, something terrible, had happened since she had left the villa. She asked no questions; she trusted herself without reserve to these true friends who had striven at such risks for her, she desired to prove to them that she was what they would have her be, — a girl who did not pester them with inconvenient chatter, but who could keep silence when silence was helpful, and face hardships with a buoyant heart.
They crossed the bridge and stopped before a pair of high folding doors. They were the doors of the tavern. Wogan drew a breath of relief, pulled the bobbin, and pushed the doors open. Clementina slipped through, and in darkness she took a step forward and bruised herself against the wheels of a carriage. Wogan closed the door and ran to her side.
“This way,” said he, and held out his hand. He guided Clementina round the carriage to a steep narrow stairway — it was more a ladder than a stair — fixed against the inner wall. At the top of this stairway shone a horizontal line of yellow light. Wogan led the Princess up the stairs. The line of light shone out beneath a door. Wogan opened the door and stood aside. Clementina passed into a small bare room lighted by a single candle, where Mrs. Misset, Gaydon, and O’Toole waited for her coming. Not a word was said; but their eyes spoke their admiration of the woman, their knees expressed their homage to the Queen. There was a fire blazing on the hearth, Mrs. Misset had a dry change of clothes ready and warm. Wogan laid the Princess’s bundle on a chair, and with Gaydon and O’Toole went down the stairs.
“The horses?” he asked.
“I have ordered them,” said Gaydon, “at the post-house. I will fetch them;” and he hurried off upon his errand.
Wogan turned to O’Toole.
“And the bill?”
“I have paid it.”
“There is no one awake in the house?”
“No one but the landlady.”
“Good! Can you keep her engaged until we are ready?”
“To be sure I can. She shall never give a thought to any man of you but myself.”
O’Toole passed through a door at the bottom of the staircase into the common-room of the inn. Wogan gently opened the big doors and dragged the carriage out into the road. Gaydon with the horses galloped silently up through the snow, and together the two men feverishly harnessed them to the carriage. There were six for the carriage, and a seventh for O’Toole to ride. The expedition which Wogan and Gaydon showed was matched by the Princess. For while they were fastening the last buckles, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and again that night Clementina whispered, —
“I am ready.”
“Come!” replied Wogan. She wore a scarlet cloak upon her shoulders, and muffling it about her head she ran down with Mrs. Misset. Wogan opened the lower door of the inn and called for O’Toole. O’Toole came running out before Wogan had ended his words, and sprang into his saddle. Gaydon was already on the box with the reins gathered in his hand. Wogan had the carriage door open before Clementina had reached the foot of the stairs; it was shut upon her and her companion almost before they were aware they were within it; the carriage started almost before the door was shut. Yet when it did start, Wogan was beside Gaydon upon the box. Their movements, indeed, occurred with so exact a rapidity, that though the hostess at once followed O’Toole to bid her guests farewell, when she reached the big doors she saw only the back of the carriage lurching through the ruts of snow.
“Quick!” cried Wogan; “we have lost too much time.”
“A bare twenty minutes,” said Gaydon.
“A good twelve hours,” said Wogan.
Gaydon lashed the horses into a gallop, the horses strained at their collars, the carriage raced out of the town and up the slopes of the Brenner. The princess Clementina had been rescued from her prison.
“But we must keep her free!” cried Wogan, as he blew through his gloves upon his frozen fingers. “Faster! Faster!”
The incline was steep, the snow clogged the wheels, the horses sank deep in it. Gaydon might ply his whip as he would, the carriage might lurch and leap from side to side; the pace was all too slow for Wogan.
“We have lost twelve hours,” he cried. “Oh, would to God we were come to Italy!” And turning backwards he strained his eyes down through the darkness and snow to the hidden roofs of Innspruck, almost fearing to see the windows from one end of the town to the other leap to a blaze of light, and to hear a roar of many voices warn him that the escape was discovered. But the only cry that he heard came from the lips of Mrs. Misset, who put her head from the carriage and bade him stop.
Gaydon brought the horses to a standstill three miles out of Innspruck.
CHAPTER XV
WOGAN JUMPED DOWN from his box and ran to the carriage-door.
“Her Highness is ill?” he cried in suspense.
“Not the least bit in the world,” returned Clementina, whose voice for once in a way jarred upon Wogan’s ears. Nothing short of a positive sickness could justify the delay.
“What is it, then?” he asked curtly, almost roughly, of Mrs. Misset.
“You carried a packet for her Highness. It is left behind at the tavern.”
Wogan stamped impatiently on the ground.
“And for this, for a petticoat or two, you hinder us,” he cried in a heat. “There’s no petticoat in the world, though it were so stiff with gold that it stood on end of itself, that’s worth a single second of the next forty-eight hours.”
“But it contains her Highness’s jewels.”
Wogan’s impatience became an exasperation. Were all women at heart, then, no better than Indian squaws? A string of beads outweighed the sacrifices of friends and the chance of a crown! There was a blemish in his idol, since at all costs she must glitter. Wogan, however, was the master here.
“Her Highness must lose her jewels,” he said roughly, and was turning away when her Highness herself spoke.
“You are unjust, my friend,” she said. “I would lose them very willingly, were there a chance no one else would discover them. But there’s no chance. The woman of the tavern will find the bundle, will open it; very likely she has done so already. We shall have all Innspruck on our heels in half an hour;” and for the first time that night Wogan heard her voice break, and grieved to know that the tears were running down her cheeks. He called to O’Toole, —
“Ride back to the tavern! Bring the packet without fail!”
O’Toole galloped off, and Gaydon drove the carriage to the side of the road. There was nothing to do but to wait, and they waited in silence, counting up the chances. There could be no doubt that the landlady, if once she discovered the jewels hidden away in a common packet of clothing, must suspect the travellers who had left them behind. She would be terrified by their value; she would be afraid to retain them lest harm should come to her; and all Innspruck would be upon the fugitives’ heels. They waited for half an hour, — thirty minutes of gloom and despair. Clementina wept over this new danger which her comrades ran; Mrs. Misset wept for that her negligence was to blame; Gaydon sat on the box in the falling snow with his arms crossed upon his breast, and felt his head already loose upon his shoulders. The only one of the party who had any comfort of that half-hour was Wogan. For he had been wrong, — the chosen woman had no wish to glitter at all costs, though, to be sure, she could not help glittering with the refulgence of her great merits. His idol had no blemish. Wogan paced up and down the road, while he listened for O’Toole’s return, and that thought cheated the time for him. At last he heard very faintly the sound of galloping hoofs below him on the road. He ran back to Gaydon.
