The Great Court Scandal Part 15

At a small wayside station where they stopped about seven o'clock she bought a gla.s.s of coffee, and then they continued until the Austrian frontier at Voitersreuth was reached; and at Eger, a few miles farther on, she was compelled to descend and change carriages, for only the _wagon-lit_ went through to the capital.

It was then eleven o'clock in the morning, and feeling hungry, she took little Ignatia into the buffet and had some luncheon, the child delighted at the novel experience of travelling.

"We are going to see grandfather," her mother told her. "You went to see him when you were such a wee, wee thing, so you don't remember him."

"No," declared the child with wide-open, wondering eyes; "I don't remember. Will Allen be there?"

"No, darling, I don't think so," was the evasive reply to a question which struck deep into the heart of the woman fleeing from her persecutors.

While Ignatia had her milk, her mother ate her cutlet at the long table among the other hasty travellers, gobbling up their meal and shouting orders to waiters with their mouths full.

Hitherto, when she pa.s.sed there in the royal saloon, the railway officials had come forward, cap in hand, to salute her as an Imperial Archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria; but now, unknown and unrecognised, she pa.s.sed as an ordinary traveller. Presently, when the Vienna express drew up to the platform, she fortunately found an empty first-cla.s.s compartment, and continued her journey alone, taking off her hat and settling herself for the remaining nine hours between there and the capital. Little Ignatia was still very sleepy, therefore she made a cus.h.i.+on for her with her cape and laid her full length, while she herself sat in a corner watching the picturesque landscape, and thinking--thinking deeply over all the grim tragedy of the past.

After travelling for three hours, the train stopped at a small station called Protovin, the junction of the line from Prague, whence a train had arrived in connection with the express. Here there seemed quite a number of people waiting upon the platform.

She was looking out carelessly upon them when from among the crowd a man's eyes met hers. He stared open-mouthed, turned pale, and next instant was at the door. She drew back, but, alas! it was too late.

She was without hat or veil, and he had recognised her.

She gave vent to a low cry, half of surprise, half of despair.

Next second the door opened, and the man stood before her, hat in hand.

"Princess!" he gasped in a low, excited voice. "What does this mean?

You--alone--going to Vienna?"

"Carl!" she cried, "why are _you_ here? Where have you come from?"

"I have been to my estate up at Rakonitz, before going to Rome," was his answer. "Is it Destiny that again brings us together like this?"

And entering the carriage, he bent and kissed her hand.

Was it Destiny, or was it Doom?

"You with Ignatia, and no lady-in-waiting? What does this mean?" he inquired, utterly puzzled.

The porter behind him placed his bag in the carriage, while he, in his travelling-ulster and cap, begged permission to remain there.

What could she say? She was very lonely, and she wanted to tell him what had occurred since her return to Treysa and of the crisis of it all. So she nodded in the affirmative.

Then he gave the porter his tip, and the man departed. Presently, before the train moved off, the sleeping child opened her eyes, shyly at first, in the presence of a stranger; but a moment later, recognising him, she got up, and rus.h.i.+ng gladly towards him, cried in her pretty, childish way,--

"Leitolf! Good Leitolf to come with us! We are so very tired!"

"Are you, little Highness?" exclaimed the man laughing, and taking her upon his knee. "But you will soon be at your destination."

"Yes," she pouted, "but I would not mind if mother did not cry so much."

The Princess pressed her lips together. She was a little annoyed that her child should reveal the secret of her grief. If she did so to Leitolf she might do so to others.

After a little while, however, the motion of the train lulled the child off to sleep again, and the man laid her down as before. Then, turning to the sorrowing woman at his side, he asked,--

"You had my message--I mean you found it?"

She nodded, but made no reply. She recollected each of those finely-penned words, and knew that they came from the heart of as honest and upright a man as there was in the whole empire.

"And now tell me, Princess, the reason of this second journey to Vienna?" he asked, looking at her with his calm, serious face.

For a moment she held her breath. There were tears welling in her eyes, and she feared lest he might detect them--feared that she might break down in explaining to him the bitter truth.

"I have left Treysa for ever," she said simply.

He started from his seat and stared at her.

"Left Treysa!" he gasped. "Left the Court--left your husband! Is this really true?"

"It is the truth, Carl," was her answer in a low, tremulous tone. "I could bear it no longer."

He was silent. He recognised the extreme gravity of the step she had taken. He recognised, too, that, more serious than all, her unscrupulous enemies who had conspired to drive her from Court had now triumphed.

His brows were knit as he realised all that she was suffering--this pure, beautiful woman, whom he had once loved so fondly, and whose champion he still remained. He knew that the Crown Prince was a man of brutal instinct, and utterly unsuited as husband of a sweet, refined, gentle woman such as Claire. It was, indeed, a tragedy--a dark tragedy.

In a low voice he inquired what had occurred, but she made no mention of the brutal, cowardly blow which had felled her insensible, cut her lip, and broken her white teeth. She only explained very briefly the incident of the three guests at dinner, and the amazing conversation she had afterwards overheard.

"It is a dastardly plot!" he cried in quick anger. "Why, you are as sane as I am, and yet the Crown Prince, in order to get rid of you, will allow these doctors to certify you as a lunatic! The conspiracy shall be exposed in the press. I will myself expose it!" he declared, clenching his fists.

"No, Carl," she exclaimed quickly. "I have never done anything against my husband's interest, nor have I ever made complaint against him. I shall not do so now. Remember, what I have just told you is in strict confidence. The public must not know of it."

"Then will you actually remain a victim and keep silence, allowing these people to thus misjudge you?" he asked in a tone of reproach.

"To bring opprobrium upon my husband is to bring scandal upon the Court and nation," was her answer. "I am still Crown Princess, and I have still my duty to perform towards the people."

"You are a woman of such high ideals, Princess," he said, accepting her reproof. "Most other wives who have been treated as you have would have sought to retaliate."

"Why should I? My husband is but the weak-principled puppet of a scandalous Court. It is not his own fault. He is goaded on by those who fear that I may reign as Queen."

"Few women would regard him in such a very generous light," Leitolf remarked, still stunned by the latest plot which she had revealed. If there was an ingenious conspiracy to confine her in an asylum, then surely it would be an easy matter for the very fact of her flight to be misconstrued into insanity. They would tear her child from her, and imprison her, despairing and brokenhearted. The thought of it goaded him to desperation. She told him of her intention of returning to her father, the Archduke Charles, and of living in future in her old home at Wartenstein--that magnificent castle of which they both had such pleasant recollections.

"And I shall be in Rome," he sighed. "Ah, Princess, I shall often think of you, often and often."

"Never write to me, I beg of you, Carl," she said apprehensively. "Your letter might fall into other hands, and certainly would be misunderstood. The world at large does not believe in platonic friends.h.i.+p between man and woman, remember."

"True," he murmured. "That is why they say that you and I are still lovers, which is a foul and abominable lie." Their eyes met, and she saw a deep, earnest look in his face that told her that he was thinking still of those days long ago, and of that giddy intoxication of heart and sense which belongs to the novelty of pa.s.sion which we feel once, and but once, in our lives.

At that moment the train came to a standstill at the little station of Gratzen, and, unnoticed by them, a man pa.s.sed the carriage and peered in inquisitively. He was a thick-set, grey-bearded, hard-faced German, somewhat round-shouldered, rather badly dressed, who, leaning heavily upon his stick, walked with the air of an invalid.

He afterwards turned quickly upon his heel and again limped past, gazing in, so as to satisfy himself that he was not mistaken.

Then entering a compartment at the rear of the train the old fellow resumed his journey, smiling to himself, and stroking his beard with his thin, bony hand, as though he had made a very valuable discovery and yet was puzzled.