Clementina by A. E. W. Mason (rocket ebook reader txt) 📖

to show either to her Highness or, what I take to be more important, to her Highness's mother," and he went back to his poetry.

Misset and his wife, on the other hand, drove forward to the town of Colmar, where they bought a travelling carriage and the necessaries for the journey. Misset left his wife at Colmar, but returned every twenty-four hours himself. They made the excuse that Misset had won a deal of money at play and was minded to lay it out in presents to his wife. The stratagem had a wonderful success at Schlestadt, especially amongst the ladies, who could do nothing day and night but praise in their husbands' hearing so excellent a mode of disposing of one's winnings.

O'Toole spent his month in polishing his pistols and sharpening his sword. It is true that he had to persuade Jenny to bear them company, but that was the work of an afternoon. He told her the story of the rich Austrian heiress, promised her a hundred guineas and a damask gown, gave her a kiss, and the matter was settled.

Jenny passed her month in a delicious excitement. She was a daughter of the camp, and had no fears [pg 153] whatever. She was a conspirator; she was trusted with a tremendous secret; she was to help the beautiful and enormous O'Toole to a rich and beautiful wife; she was to outwit an old curmudgeon of an uncle; she was to succour a maiden heart-broken and imprisoned. Jenny was quite uplifted. Never had a maid-servant been born to so high a destiny. Her only difficulty was to keep silence, and when the silence became no longer endurable she would run on some excuse or another to Wogan and divert him with the properest sentiments.

"To me," she would cry, "there's nothing sinful in changing clothes with the beautiful mistress of O'Toole. Christian charity says we are to make others happy. I am a Christian, and as to the uncle he can go to the devil! He can do nothing to me but talk, and I don't understand his stupid language."

Jenny was the one person really happy during this month. It was Wogan's effort to keep her so, for she was the very pivot of his plan.

There remains yet one other who had most reason of all to repine at the delay, the Princess Clementina. Her mother wearied her with perpetual complaints, the Prince of Baden, who was allowed admittance to the villa, persecuted her with his attentions; she knew nothing of what was planned for her escape, and the rigorous confinement was not relaxed. It was not a happy time for Clementina. Yet she was not entirely unhappy. A thought had come to her and stayed with her which called the colour to her cheeks and a smile to her lips. It accounted to [pg 154] her for the delay; her pride was restored by it; because of it she became yet more patient with her mother, more gentle with the Prince of Baden, more good-humoured to her gaolers. It sang at her heart like a bird; it lightened in her grey eyes. It had come to her one sleepless night, and the morning had not revealed it as a mere phantasy born of the night. The more she pondered it, the more certain was she of its truth. Her King was coming himself at the hazard of his life to rescue her.

[pg 155] CHAPTER XI

Therefore she waited in patience. It was still winter at Innspruck, though the calendar declared it to be spring. April was budless and cold, a month of storms; the snow drifted deep along the streets and M. Chateaudoux was much inconvenienced during his promenades in the afternoon. He would come back with most reproachful eyes for Clementina in that she so stubbornly clung to her vagabond exile and refused so fine a match as the Prince of Baden. On the afternoon of the 25th, however, Clementina read more than reproach in his eyes, more than discomfort in the agitation of his manner. The little chamberlain was afraid.

Clementina guessed the reason of his fear.

"He has come!" she cried. The exultation of her voice, the deep breath she drew, the rush of blood to her face, and the sudden dancing light in her eyes showed how much constraint she had set upon herself. She was like an ember blown to a flame. "You were stopped in your walk. You have a message for me. He has come!"

The height of her joy was the depth of Chateaudoux's regret.

[pg 156]

"I was stopped in my walk," said he, "but not by the Chevalier Wogan. Who it was I do not know."

"Can you not guess?" cried Clementina.

"I would not trust a stranger," said her mother.

"Would you not?" asked Clementina, with a smile. "Describe him to me."

"His face was wrinkled," said Chateaudoux.

"It was disguised."

"His figure was slight and not over-tall."

M. Chateaudoux gave a fairly accurate description of Gaydon.

"I know no one whom the portrait fits," said the mother, and again Clementina cried,—

"Can you not guess? Then, mother, I will punish you. For though I know—in very truth, I know—I will not tell you." She turned back to Chateaudoux. "Well, his message? He did fix a time, a day, an hour, for my escape?"

"The 27th is the day, and at eight o'clock of the night."

"I will be ready."

"He will come here to fetch your Highness. Meanwhile he prays your Highness to fall sick and keep your bed."

"I can choose my malady," said Clementina. "It will not all be counterfeit, for indeed I shall fall sick of joy. But why must I fall sick?"

"He brings a woman to take your place, who, lying in bed with the curtains drawn, will the later be discovered."

[pg 157]

The Princess's mother saw here a hindrance to success and eagerly she spoke of it.

"How will the woman enter? How, too, will my daughter leave?"

M. Chateaudoux coughed and hemmed in a great confusion. He explained in delicate hints that he himself was to bribe the sentry at the door to let her pass for a few moments into the house. The Princess broke into a laugh.

"Her name is Friederika, I'll warrant," she cried. "My poor Chateaudoux, they will give you a sweetheart. It is most cruel. Well, Friederika, thanks to the sentry's fellow-feeling for a burning heart, Friederika slips in at the door."

"Which I have taken care should stand unlatched. She changes clothes with your Highness, and your Highness—"

"Slips out in her stead."

"But he is to come for you, he says," exclaimed her mother. "And how will he do that? Besides, we do not know his name. And there must be a fitting companion who will travel with you. Has he that companion?"

"Your Highness," said Chateaudoux, "upon all those points he bade me say you should be satisfied. All he asks is that you will be ready at the time."

A gust of hail struck the window and made the room tremble. Clementina laughed; her mother shivered.

"The Prince of Baden," said she, with a sigh. Clementina shrugged her shoulders.

[pg 158]

"A Prince," said Chateaudoux, persuasively, "with much territory to his princeliness."

"A vain, fat, pudgy man," said Clementina.

"A sober, honest gentleman," said the mother.

"A sober butler to an honest gentleman," said Clementina.

"He has an air," said Chateaudoux.

"He has indeed," replied Clementina, "as though he handed himself upon a plate to you, and said, 'Here is a miracle. Thank God for it!' Well, I must take to my bed. I am very ill. I have a fever on me, and that's truth."

She moved towards the door, but before she had reached it there came a knocking on the street door below.

Clementina stopped; Chateaudoux looked out of the window.

"It is the Prince's carriage," said he.

"I will not see him," exclaimed Clementina.

"My child, you must," said her mother, "if only for the last time."

"Each time he comes it is for the last time, yet the next day sees him still in Innspruck. My patience and my courtesy are both outworn. Besides, to-day, now that I have heard this great news we have waited for—how long? Oh, mother, oh, mother, I cannot! I shall betray myself."

The Princess's mother made an effort.

"Clementina, you must receive him. I will have it so. I am your mother. I will be your mother," she said in a tremulous tone, as though the mere [pg 159] utterance of the command frightened her by its audacity.

Clementina was softened on the instant. She ran across to her mother's chair, and kneeling by it said with a laugh, "So you shall. I would not barter mothers with any girl in Christendom. But you understand. I am pledged in honour to my King. I will receive the Prince, but indeed I would he had not come," and rising again she kissed her mother on the forehead.

She received the Prince of Baden alone. He was a stout man of much ceremony and took some while to elaborate a compliment upon Clementina's altered looks. Before, he had always seen her armed and helmeted with dignity; now she had much ado to