CHAPTER 5
The Adventures of an Understudy
With Fritz von Tarlenheim and Colonel Sapt close behind me, I stepped
out of the buffet on to the platform. The last thing I did was to feel
if my revolver were handy and my sword loose in the scabbard. A gay
group of officers and high dignitaries stood awaiting me, at their head
a tall old man, covered with medals, and of military bearing. He wore
the yellow and red ribbon of the Red Rose of Ruritania--which, by the
way, decorated my unworthy breast also.
"Marshal Strakencz," whispered Sapt, and I knew that I was in the
presence of the most famous veteran of the Ruritanian army.
Just behind the Marshal stood a short spare man, in flowing robes of
black and crimson.
"The Chancellor of the Kingdom," whispered Sapt.
The Marshal greeted me in a few loyal words, and proceeded to deliver
an apology from the Duke of Strelsau. The duke, it seemed, had been
afflicted with a sudden indisposition which made it impossible for him
to come to the station, but he craved leave to await his Majesty at the
Cathedral. I expressed my concern, accepted the Marshal's excuses very
suavely, and received the compliments of a large number of distinguished
personages. No one betrayed the least suspicion, and I felt my nerve
returning and the agitated beating of my heart subsiding. But Fritz
was still pale, and his hand shook like a leaf as he extended it to the
Marshal.
Presently we formed procession and took our way to the door of the
station. Here I mounted my horse, the Marshal holding my stirrup. The
civil dignitaries went off to their carriages, and I started to ride
through the streets with the Marshal on my right and Sapt (who, as my
chief aide-de-camp, was entitled to the place) on my left. The city of
Strelsau is partly old and partly new. Spacious modern boulevards and
residential quarters surround and embrace the narrow, tortuous, and
picturesque streets of the original town. In the outer circles the upper
classes live; in the inner the shops are situated; and, behind their
prosperous fronts, lie hidden populous but wretched lanes and alleys,
filled with a poverty-stricken, turbulent, and (in large measure)
criminal class. These social and local divisions corresponded, as I knew
from Sapt's information, to another division more important to me. The
New Town was for the King; but to the Old Town Michael of Strelsau was a
hope, a hero, and a darling.
The scene was very brilliant as we passed along the Grand Boulevard and
on to the great square where the Royal Palace stood. Here I was in
the midst of my devoted adherents. Every house was hung with red and
bedecked with flags and mottoes. The streets were lined with raised
seats on each side, and I passed along, bowing this way and that, under
a shower of cheers, blessings, and waving handkerchiefs. The balconies
were full of gaily dressed ladies, who clapped their hands and curtsied
and threw their brightest glances at me. A torrent of red roses fell on
me; one bloom lodged in my horse's mane, and I took it and stuck it in
my coat. The Marshal smiled grimly. I had stolen some glances at his
face, but he was too impassive to show me whether his sympathies were
with me or not.
"The red rose for the Elphbergs, Marshal," said I gaily, and he nodded.
I have written "gaily," and a strange word it must seem. But the truth
is, that I was drunk with excitement. At that moment I believed--I
almost believed--that I was in very truth the King; and, with a look of
laughing triumph, I raised my eyes to the beauty-laden balconies again
. . . and then I started. For, looking down on me, with her handsome
face and proud smile, was the lady who had been my fellow
traveller--Antoinette de Mauban; and I saw her also start, and her lips
moved, and she leant forward and gazed at me. And I, collecting myself,
met her eyes full and square, while again I felt my revolver. Suppose
she had cried aloud, "That's not the King!"
Well, we went by; and then the Marshal, turning round in his saddle,
waved his hand, and the Cuirassiers closed round us, so that the crowd
could not come near me. We were leaving my quarter and entering Duke
Michael's, and this action of the Marshal's showed me more clearly than
words what the state of feeling in the town must be. But if Fate made me
a King, the least I could do was to play the part handsomely.
"Why this change in our order, Marshal?" said I.
The Marshal bit his white moustache.
"It is more prudent, sire," he murmured.
I drew rein.
"Let those in front ride on," said I, "till they are fifty yards ahead.
But do you, Marshal, and Colonel Sapt and my friends, wait here till
I have ridden fifty yards. And see that no one is nearer to me. I will
have my people see that their King trusts them."
Sapt laid his hand on my arm. I shook him off. The Marshal hesitated.
"Am I not understood?" said I; and, biting his moustache again, he gave
the orders. I saw old Sapt smiling into his beard, but he shook his
head at me. If I had been killed in open day in the streets of Strelsau,
Sapt's position would have been a difficult one.
Perhaps I ought to say that I was dressed all in white, except my boots.
I wore a silver helmet with gilt ornaments, and the broad ribbon of the
Rose looked well across my chest. I should be paying a poor compliment
to the King if I did not set modesty aside and admit that I made a very
fine figure. So the people thought; for when I, riding alone, entered
the dingy, sparsely decorated, sombre streets of the Old Town, there
was first a murmur, then a cheer, and a woman, from a window above a
cookshop, cried the old local saying:
"If he's red, he's right!" whereat I laughed and took off my helmet that
she might see that I was of the right colour and they cheered me again
at that.
It was more interesting riding thus alone, for I heard the comments of
the crowd.
"He looks paler than his wont," said one.
"You'd look pale if you lived as he does," was the highly disrespectful
retort.
"He's a bigger man than I thought," said another.
"So he had a good jaw under that beard after all," commented a third.
"The pictures of him aren't handsome enough," declared a pretty girl,
taking great care that I should hear. No doubt it was mere flattery.
But, in spite of these signs of approval and interest, the mass of
the people received me in silence and with sullen looks, and my dear
brother's portrait ornamented most of the windows--which was an ironical
sort of greeting to the King. I was quite glad that he had been spared
the unpleasant sight. He was a man of quick temper, and perhaps he would
not have taken it so placidly as I did.
At last we were at the Cathedral. Its great grey front, embellished
with hundreds of statues and boasting a pair of the finest oak doors in
Europe, rose for the first time before me, and the sudden sense of my
audacity almost overcame me. Everything was in a mist as I dismounted. I
saw the Marshal and Sapt dimly, and dimly the throng of gorgeously robed
priests who awaited me. And my eyes were still dim as I walked up the
great nave, with the pealing of the organ in my ears. I saw nothing of
the brilliant throng that filled it, I hardly distinguished the stately
figure of the Cardinal as he rose from the archiepiscopal throne to
greet me. Two faces only stood out side by side clearly before my
eyes--the face of a girl, pale and lovely, surmounted by a crown of the
glorious Elphberg hair (for in a woman it is glorious), and the face
of a man, whose full-blooded red cheeks, black hair, and dark deep eyes
told me that at last I was in presence of my brother, Black Michael. And
when he saw me his red cheeks went pale all in a moment, and his helmet
fell with a clatter on the floor. Till that moment I believe that he had
not realized that the King was in very truth come to Strelsau.
Of what followed next I remember nothing. I knelt before the altar and
the Cardinal anointed my head. Then I rose to my feet, and stretched out
my hand and took from him the crown of Ruritania and set it on my head,
and I swore the old oath of the King; and (if it were a sin, may it be
forgiven me) I received the Holy Sacrament there before them all. Then
the great organ pealed out again, the Marshal bade the heralds proclaim
me, and Rudolf the Fifth was crowned King; of which imposing ceremony an
excellent picture hangs now in my dining-room. The portrait of the King
is very good.
Then the lady with the pale face and the glorious hair, her train held
by two pages, stepped from her place and came to where I stood. And a
herald cried:
"Her Royal Highness the Princess Flavia!"
She curtsied low, and put her hand under mine and raised my hand and
kissed it. And for an instant I thought what I had best do. Then I
drew her to me and kissed her twice on the cheek, and she blushed red,
and--then his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop slipped in front of Black
Michael, and kissed my hand and presented me with a letter from the
Pope--the first and last which I have received from that exalted
quarter!
And then came the Duke of Strelsau. His step trembled, I swear, and
he looked to the right and to the left, as a man looks who thinks on
flight; and his face was patched with red and white, and his hand shook
so that it jumped under mine, and I felt his lips dry and parched. And
I glanced at Sapt, who was smiling again into his beard, and, resolutely
doing my duty in that station of life to which I had been marvellously
called, I took my dear Michael by both hands and kissed him on the
cheek. I think we were both glad when that was over!
But neither in the face of the princess nor in that of any other did I
see the least doubt or questioning. Yet, had I and the King stood side
by side, she could have told us in an instant, or, at least, on a little
consideration. But neither she nor anyone else dreamed or imagined that
I could be other than the King. So the likeness served, and for an hour
I stood there, feeling as weary and blase as though I had been a king
all my life; and everybody kissed my hand, and the ambassadors paid me
their respects, among them old Lord Topham, at whose house in Grosvenor
Square I had danced a score of times. Thank heaven, the old man was as
blind as a bat, and did not claim my acquaintance.
Then back we went through the streets to the Palace, and I heard them
cheering Black Michael; but he, Fritz told me, sat biting his nails like
a man in a reverie, and even his own friends said that he should have
made a braver show. I was in a carriage now, side by side with the
Princess Flavia, and a rough fellow cried out:
"And when's the wedding?" and as he spoke another struck him in the
face, crying "Long live Duke Michael!" and the princess coloured--it was
an admirable tint--and looked straight in front of her.
Now I felt in a difficulty, because I had forgotten to ask Sapt the
state of my affections, or how far matters had gone between the princess
and myself. Frankly, had I been the King, the further they had gone the
better should I have been pleased. For I am not a slow-blooded man, and
I had not kissed Princess Flavia's cheek for nothing. These thoughts
passed through my head, but, not being sure of my ground, I said
nothing; and in a moment or two the princess, recovering her equanimity,
turned to me.
"Do you know, Rudolf," said she, "you look somehow different today?"
The fact was not surprising, but the remark was disquieting.
"You look," she went on, "more sober, more sedate; you're almost
careworn, and I declare you're thinner. Surely it's not possible that
you've begun to take anything seriously?"
The princess seemed to hold of the King much the same opinion that Lady
Burlesdon held of me.
I braced myself up to the conversation.
"Would that please you?" I asked softly.
"Oh, you know my views," said she, turning her eyes away.
"Whatever pleases you I try to do," I said; and, as I saw her smile and
blush, I thought that I was playing the King's hand very well for him.
So I continued and what I said was perfectly true:
"I assure you, my dear cousin, that nothing in my life has affected me
more than the reception I've been greeted with today."
She smiled brightly, but in an instant grew grave again, and whispered:
"Did you notice Michael?"
"Yes," said I, adding, "he wasn't enjoying himself."
"Do be careful!" she went on. "You don't--indeed you don't--keep enough
watch on him. You know--"
"I know," said I, "that he wants what I've got."
"Yes. Hush!"
Then--and I can't justify it, for I committed the King far beyond what I
had a right to do--I suppose she carried me off my feet--I went on:
"And perhaps also something which I haven't got yet, but hope to win
some day."
This was my answer. Had I been the King, I should have thought it
encouraging:
"Haven't you enough responsibilities on you for one day, cousin?"
Bang, bang! Blare, blare! We were at the Palace. Guns were firing
and trumpets blowing. Rows of lackeys stood waiting, and, handing the
princess up the broad marble staircase, I took formal possession, as
a crowned King, of the House of my ancestors, and sat down at my own
table, with my cousin on my right hand, on her other side Black Michael,
and on my left his Eminence the Cardinal. Behind my chair stood Sapt;
and at the end of the table, I saw Fritz von Tarlenheim drain to the
bottom his glass of champagne rather sooner than he decently should.
I wondered what the King of Ruritania was doing.
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