Her Royal Highness: A Romance of the Chancelleries of Europe
TekstChapter Eleven.
Strictly Incognita
That afternoon at half-past three o’clock, the hour when in winter all Rome goes out for its airing on the Pincio, Hubert Waldron was idling along the terrace, gazing at the wonderful panorama of the Eternal City stretched away before him in the yellow sundown.
In Rome it is the correct thing to go to the Pincio, and there pay visits to the Roman ladies who sit in their smart carriages or automobiles as they slowly file up the historic hill and down on the other side. There, in those famous gardens of Lucullus, in which in ancient days Messalina, the wife of Claudius, celebrated her orgies, modern Rome daily holds its daily alfresco reception, for everybody who is anybody in the capital goes there to see and to be seen.
Hubert had been chatting with the Baroness Lanzenhofen, an Austrian hostess very popular in Rome, but her carriage had moved on, and now he stood alone near the kerb looking out upon the wonderful view, and about to descend to the city and drive back in a taxi to his rooms in the Via Nazionale.
Behind him a procession of smart equipages of all kinds filed slowly around the terrace, when of a sudden he heard an excited cry – his name:
“Signor Waldron! Signor Waldron!”
Turning in sudden surprise, he found himself face to face with Lola who, seated alone in one of the royal carriages – a splendid landau bearing the arms of Savoy upon its panels, a footman and coachman in the royal livery and powdered hair – was smiling at him mischievously.
He raised his hat and advancing eagerly took the little white-gloved hand outstretched to him, for the carriage had already pulled up, the fine pair of bays champing impatiently at their bits.
“Well!” he cried. “This is really a great surprise!”
“Yes. I heard that you had been transferred here from Madrid,” she laughed, speaking in English. “But oh! I’ve got lots to explain. I want to see you, Mr Waldron – to see you very particularly. I came here this afternoon to find out if you were here. May I call on you this evening? I know where you live, in the Via Nazionale. When will you be at home?”
He was rather taken aback. Ever since his discovery of her portrait in the Embassy a couple of hours ago he had been plunged in thought, for did he not know her secret – the secret of this madcap Princess who had scandalised the Royal House of Savoy?
“This is really a great surprise to me, Mademoiselle Lola,” he answered, scarce knowing what he said. “I, too, would like to have a chat with you. But is it really wise for you to come to my rooms?” he asked in English, glancing at the two royal servants sitting statuesque upon the box.
“Nobody will know. These men do not know English. Shall we say at ten o’clock to-night? I can get away then – not before, I fear. We have a Court dinner.”
“Very well,” he said, looking into her splendid dark eyes. “At ten o’clock then.”
“Addio– eh! Till ten o’clock?” she laughed.
“But are you sure it would not be an injudicious step – to visit a bachelor in his rooms?” he queried gravely.
“I don’t care, Signor Waldron – if you don’t. I always take every precaution. My maid, Renata, is as silent as the Sphinx we saw in Egypt. Do you remember? And how I fell off my camel?”
“Shall I ever forget those days?” he remarked as he took the outstretched hand and bowed over it. “Very well, mademoiselle – at ten o’clock.”
“Bene. Then I will explain matters. You must be terribly puzzled. I see it in your face,” she laughed.
He smiled and as he stood hat in hand the royal carriage moved off, the onlookers staring to note that the popular young Princess should have stopped and have spoken to a man, an ordinary foot-passenger on the Pincio.
For a second the diplomat glanced after her, then he turned upon his heel and began to descend the winding roadway, past those busts of all the distinguished Italians from Julius Caesar to Marin.
Before him lay that wonderful view of Rome, where beyond the Porta del Popolo and the new quarter with the Palazzo di Giustizia, on the opposite bank of the Tiber, rose the great dome of St. Peter’s from the grey mists of the sunset, while on the right stood the spire of the Church of Lourdes, the Vatican, and a portion of the Leontine wall. Away on the right rose Monte Mario with its dark funereal cypresses, while to the left of St. Peter’s could be seen the round castle of Sant Angelo with the bronze angel that crowned it. The pines on the height of the castle were familiar to him, being those of the Villa Lante on the Janiculum with the Passeggiata Margherita on which the great statue of Garibaldi was the most conspicuous object.
And as he went along his mind was filled with thoughts of the strange situation, and of the amazing discovery he had that day made.
Lola, his charming little friend of the Nile, at whose side he had so often ridden over the desert, was actually a Princess of the blood-royal – the madcap Princess of the House of Savoy! And ere he had descended the hill her splendid carriage with its jingling harness flashed by him and she nodded merrily as he raised his hat, while two cavalry officers, recognising her, raised their hands in ceremonious salute.
He was reflecting upon those idle sunny days in the far-off Nile-land, those evenings when the western sky was diffused and glorified with gold and saffron, and the shades of night crept up from the silent bosom of the desert where the Bedouins and Bishareen halted their caravans to camp.
In that sunset hour he knew that the faces of the devout were now turned towards Mecca – away from that golden mystery and beauty that the sun had placed in the west – to recite their evening prayers. And up from the mists, as he gazed away across to the low purple hills of the Campagna rose that sweet, smiling, beautiful face – the face which he had once again gazed upon, though he had believed it had passed out of his ken for ever.
Punctually at ten o’clock that evening Waldron’s English valet, Peters – the faithful, clean-shaven, but hunch-backed old Peters who had been with him over ten years – ushered Lola, a sweet-faced, girlish figure into his sitting-room where he stood ready to receive her.
“Really, Mr Waldron, what awfully jolly quarters you have here!” she exclaimed, glancing quickly around the well-furnished bachelor room. The man he had succeeded at the Embassy believed in personal comfort, and had furnished his flat in English style. Therefore he had been fortunate in being able to purchase it cheaply, for its owner had been transferred to Tokio.
“Yes,” her host agreed: “they’re not half bad. But,” he added, “do you really think it prudent to come and visit me at this hour?”
“Why not? I couldn’t very well come in the daytime. Somebody might recognise me.”
“But is not ten o’clock at night a rather unusual time for a young lady to visit a bachelor?” he queried.
“Well, I don’t mind,” she laughed gaily. “But there, you’re such a dear, conventional old thing!”
He noted that, contrary to her appearance in the afternoon, when she had worn a smart costume and hat which was evidently the latest creation of the Rue de la Paix, she was now very neatly, almost shabbily dressed in a plain blue serge coat and skirt which had seen its best days, a small, close-fitting little hat which showed evident signs of wear, and sadly worn furs.
She noticed that he surveyed her as she took the armchair he offered her.
“Yes,” she said, “it is very fortunate that my maid, Renata, is about the same figure as myself, and that her clothes fit me. I usually pass as her when I go out at night. The sentries change every week, so as long as I am dressed as a maid I have no difficulty – though I sometimes have trouble to avoid the other servants.”
“I should think you run very great risks of recognition,” he remarked. “And if the truth leaked out would there not be some serious trouble?”
“Trouble! Oh, I dread to think of it!” she declared with a shrug of the shoulders. “I receive daily lectures about my non-observance of the social amenities, my lack of personal pride, and all that. But there – Mr Waldron, you must, I know, have been greatly surprised at meeting me to-day. I know I deceived you. But it was imperative, as I was then travelling incognita. So I hope you will forgive me.”
“You practised a very cruel deception upon me,” he said with mock severity. “And I don’t know if I really ought to forgive you.”
“Oh yes, you will – you dear old thing,” she cried persuasively, laughing in his face. He was double her age, therefore the endearing terms in which she addressed him were not exactly out of place. Yet, remembering the secret lover, he wondered what had become of him.
“Then old Gigleux was not your uncle, after all?” remarked Waldron, for he remembered how Jack Jerningham had recognised him on that New Year’s night at Shepheard’s.
“No. Listen and I’ll tell you the truth,” the Princess said in very good English. She was delightfully unconventional. “You see my aunt, the Queen, was very much annoyed because I motored to Florence alone, and some gossip got about regarding me – because I went to a fancy-dress ball with a gentleman I know. Well, I fear I was a little hot-tempered, with the result that I was unceremoniously packed off on a long tour to Egypt and given into the charge of Miss Lambert and old Ghelardi, who had been in the German Service, but who had just returned to Italy and was appointed by the King as Chief of our Secret Police. I was ordered by the King to assume the name of Duprez, while Ghelardi was to be known as Jules Gigleux. And I think we kept up the farce fairly well – didn’t we?”
“Most excellently. Nobody had the slightest suspicion of the truth, I feel sure.”
“I know I told you some awful stories – about my poverty, and all that. But you will forgive me – won’t you?” she implored.
“Of course,” replied the diplomat, charmed by her sweetness and frankness of manner. “It was necessary in order to preserve your incognita. I realise now the reason why your pseudo-uncle regarded me with such a decided antipathy. First he feared lest we might fall in love with each other – ”
“And there was no fear of that, was there?” she laughed, interrupting.
“I don’t know exactly,” he answered half-dubiously. “You flirted with me outrageously sometimes.”
“Ah, I know I did! It was, I admit, too bad of me, Mr Waldron. But I do hope even now you’ve found me out in all those white lies that it will make no difference to our friendship.”
“Why, not in the least,” he declared. “I am greatly honoured by Your Royal Highness’s friendship.”
“No, no,” she cried impatiently, “not Highness to you, Mr Waldron. Lola – still Lola, please.”
“Very well,” laughed the man. “But surely that will sound too familiar from one in my station?”
“When we are alone, I mean. Of course in Society, or at Court I may be Her Royal Highness the Principessa Luisa Anna Romana Elisabetta Marie Giovanna di Savoia – and half a dozen other names and titles if you like. They really don’t trouble me,” and she carelessly cast her well-worn sealskin muff upon the couch near her.
“Ah,” he sighed, “I fear you are a sad breaker of the conventionalities. Before I knew that you were my little friend of the Nile I had heard several stories of your various little escapades.”
“Oh yes,” she cried quickly. “No doubt you’ve been told some awful tales about my doings – stories which get about Rome, and everyone exaggerates them as they pass from mouth to mouth. My worst offence, I believe, is because I entered for a motor-cycle race and won it. Well, haven’t your girls in England won similar races?”
“True, but what a shop-assistant may do is forbidden to a princess,” was his reproof.
“Ah, that’s just it?” she exclaimed in protest. “Merely because I happen to be born a princess I’m supposed to put on a veneer of Court manners, and observe Court etiquette day in and day out, until it all bores me stiff – as you say in English. Just because I try and behave like other girls, obtain my freedom when I can, and enjoy myself with open-air pursuits, I am held in horror by Their Majesties, and the people declare that I am a disgrace to our Royal House.”
“No – not a disgrace, Princess.”
“Lola, please,” she said, correcting him.
“Lola then – if you will have it so,” he said. “The people secretly admire you for your courage in breaking the steel bonds of Court etiquette; nevertheless remember that such escapades as yours must lead you into danger – grave personal danger. You are a girl, and remember also that there are some blackguards about who, knowing your active and daring temperament, may entrap you and then levy blackmail upon you.”
Her beautiful face instantly fell. He saw that she grew paler and more thoughtful. Her lips twitched slightly.
“You think so,” she said slowly, her voice so changed that he wondered. “You think that someone might really attempt to levy blackmail upon me – eh?”
“Certainly. And in that lies the very serious peril to which you must be exposed, if you continue to disregard the conventionalities which surround you as a daughter of a Royal House.”
“You are rather hard upon me, Mr Waldron,” she said in a low voice, quite unusual to her.
“Not in the least. Remember I am your friend. If at any time I can serve you in any way you have only to come to me, and I will exert every effort on your behalf,” he said, speaking very earnestly. “But I would beg of you to exercise the greatest discretion. Why continue to annoy Their Majesties by this conduct which must sooner or later bring unpleasantness, and perhaps trouble, upon you?”
“Trouble!” she echoed, her great dark eyes fixed upon him. “Trouble! It has already brought trouble upon me. That is why I came here to-night to see you – to tell you – to confess – and to ask your help as my good, kind friend?”
Chapter Twelve.
The King’s Confidences
At that moment there was a discreet tap at the door and Peters entered, saying:
“An aide-de-camp of His Majesty wishes to see you on a matter of great importance, sir.”
For a second Waldron stood confused.
“Oh! he must not find me here,” whispered the Princess, starting up in quick alarm. “Where can I go?”
“In this room,” the diplomat replied quickly, opening a door which led to his small dining-room. He switched on the light, and she passed within, closing the door noiselessly. It was all done in a few seconds, and then Hubert said in his natural voice:
“Oh, show him in.”
Next moment a tall, good-looking, dark-moustached officer, wearing his grey military cloak, entered jauntily, saying in Italian with a merry twinkle in his eyes as he grasped the other’s hand:
“Sorry to disturb you at this hour, friend Waldron – especially when you have a lady visitor.”
“Lady visitor! What do you mean?” he asked, for Count Guicciolo was an old friend of many years.
“Well, your man told me that you could not be disturbed, so I naturally formed my own conclusions,” replied the aide-de-camp airily, pointing to the muff. “But I apologise. Here is a message for you from His Majesty. I was to deliver it into your hands,” and from beneath his cloak he produced a letter which upon the flap bore the neat royal cipher of the House of Savoy.
In surprise the diplomat broke the seal and read the following formal words:
“His Majesty the King commands to private audience the Honourable Hubert Waldron, M.V.O., this evening and immediately,” followed by the date.
Hubert noticed the neat handwriting. It had been penned by His Majesty King Umberto himself.
“Well!” he asked the Count.
“I was sent to bring you at once to the Palace, my friend,” replied the other.
“What is amiss? Surely it is strange that I should receive a command at this hour!”
“Yes. But His Majesty works very late sometimes.”
“Is anything seriously wrong?”
“Not that I am aware of. I was simply summoned to the private cabinet, and His Majesty gave me that letter, and ordered me to find you at once,” and he took a cigarette from the silver box which Waldron handed him, and holding it in his white-gloved hand slowly lit it.
“Will you come with me now?” he asked as he cast away the match. “I’m awfully sorry to disturb you,” he added with a laugh. “But it is His Majesty’s orders.”
“Oh, don’t apologise,” was the diplomat’s reply. He was annoyed, for he knew what a sad gossip was Guicciolo, and that on the morrow half Rome would know that a young lady had been found in his rooms. At all hazards her identity must be concealed. Therefore, making an excuse to obtain his coat, Waldron passed into the dining-room where the Princess was standing in anxiety, whispered to her an explanation how he would have to leave unceremoniously and urging her to leave five minutes later.
“We will resume our conversation to-morrow,” he added. “But not here. It is far too dangerous.”
“Where then?” she asked eagerly in a low whisper. “I will meet you anywhere after dark.” He reflected a second. Then said:
“Do you know Bucci’s little restaurant in the Piazza delle Coppelle?”
“Yes, I know. Quite a quiet little place. I will never be recognised there.”
“Well, at half-past eight. The dinner will be over then, and the place will be empty.”
“Agreed. Addio,” she said, and they grasped hands quickly. Then he put on his overcoat, and went out with the Count, while five minutes later Peters, ignorant of her identity, showed the Princess out, and accompanied her downstairs to the door.
As Waldron and the Count entered the fine Quirinale Palace they were challenged by the sentries at the great gateway, whereupon the aide-de-camp gave the password and they saluted.
Then, crossing the great handsome courtyard, they entered by one of the smaller doors, and passing round the gallery to the huge gilded staircase where two servants in the royal livery stood on either side like statues. They ascended, and passing along a well-carpeted corridor, halted at last before a heavy mahogany door outside which stood a sentry on duty – the door of the King’s private cabinet.
Again the Count uttered the password, was saluted, and was then allowed to knock.
A deep voice gave permission to enter, whereupon Hubert Waldron crossed the threshold and bowed low in the presence of a rather short, middle-aged man of smart military appearance, though he wore civilian evening dress with a single decoration on the breast of his coat, the Star of the Order of the Crown of Italy, of which he was Master.
The room was not large, but was tastefully, even luxuriantly furnished. In the centre stood a great mahogany writing-table piled with papers, from which he had just risen, while at the side was set an armchair for those to whom His Majesty gave audience.
“Ah, Waldron, I am very glad they have found you so quickly,” he exclaimed, putting out his hand in gracious welcome. “I want to have a confidential chat with you. I want you to assist me, for I feel sure you can.”
“If I can serve Your Majesty in any way,” replied the British diplomat, “I am, as you know, only too anxious and too willing.”
“Ah! I know. I know that,” replied King Umberto briskly. “Good! Sit down.”
Then, when His Majesty had settled himself again in his padded writing-chair – at that table where for many weary hours each day he attended to matters of State affecting forty millions of his subjects – he looked straight at the man before him, and asked suddenly in Italian:
“Signor Waldron, can you keep a Secret?”
“That is my profession,” was the other’s calm reply. “And any secret of Your Majesty’s will, I assure you, be safe in my keeping.”
The King paused. He was dressed plainly, for after the banquet given that night to a Russian royalty he had changed from his striking uniform into easier clothes before commencing work. Yet in his face was a deep, earnest, noble expression, for he was a monarch who had the welfare of his nation very deeply and genuinely at heart. His dark, deep-set eyes, his slightly sallow skin, and the three lines across his brow told their own tale. Though a King, the crown bore heavily upon his head, for the responsibilities of a State run by a Ministry which was not above suspicion weighed very heavily upon him.
The Cabinet was, alas, composed mainly of men with axes to grind. Of financial scandals there had been many, and more than once there had been a public outcry when Ministers had been tried as criminals and convicted of bribery, and of peculation of the public funds.
Yet as monarch his hands were tied, and perhaps no ruler in all Europe had so many sleepless nights as he.
The silence was broken by a bugle in the great courtyard below. The Palace guard were changing.
“Listen, Waldron,” he said at last in a low voice of deep earnestness after he had ascertained that the door was closed, “I have asked you here to-night because I feel that I can trust you. My father trusted your father, and I have known you ever since we were lads. I know how shrewd and painstaking you are, and what a high sense of honour you possess.”
“Your Majesty is far too flattering,” Hubert replied modestly. “I know that my dead father always held yours in the highest esteem. And you have shown towards myself a graciousness that I never expected.”
“Because I know that you are my friend,” he said. “Even a King must have a friend in whom he can at times confide. That is why I have asked you to come and see me.”
“You do me too great an honour,” declared the diplomat.
“Not at all. It is I who am asking your favour in your assistance,” was His Majesty’s quiet response. “Let me explain the situation of which you, as a British diplomat, will at once recognise the extreme gravity.” And then drawing his white hand wearily across his brow, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. In that gay, brilliant Court – one of the gayest in all Europe – His Majesty always presented a brilliant and kingly figure in his splendid uniforms and dazzling decorations, but at heart he hated all pomp and show, and as soon as a ceremony was over he always changed into evening-clothes, or else into a navy serge suit which, being an old friend, was slightly shiny at the elbows.
A high-minded, God-fearing ruler, he carried out to the letter all the traditions of the House of Savoy and worked incessantly and untiringly for the welfare of his nation, and for the benefit of the sweated factory-hand, and the poor, half-starved contadino. For certain Hebrew financiers who had tried to grip the country and strangle it, he had nothing but hatred. For the present Cabinet, mostly composed of commercial adventurers and place-seeking lawyers, he had the most supreme contempt, and daily he sighed that he was not an autocrat, so that he could sweep away with a single stroke of the pen all those who stood in the way of his beloved Italy’s prosperity.
True, by dint of his own business acumen and his resolute firmness against the various Ministers of Finance who were too often rogues, many of whom ought long ago to have been in prison, he had himself placed the finances of Italy upon a sound basis. The lire was now almost equal in value to the French franc. By this, commercial industries had been encouraged, foreign capital had been invested in Italy, the railways had been taken over by the State, and a wave of prosperity had swept upon the nation such as had never hitherto been experienced.
But this had not suited the Cabinet, every man of whom could be bought at a price. Hence he stood alone as ruler, compelled daily to combat the intrigues of that unscrupulous horde of adventurers which composed the Chamber of Deputies, and to continue the policy he had marked out as his own.
As a diplomat Hubert Waldron knew all this and deeply sympathised with him. Truly, the Palace of the Quirinale was not a bed of roses for its Sovereign.
Again the bugle sounded, and from below came the regular tramp of armed men.
The little buhl clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the hour upon its silver bell, the big fire burned cosily, and over the great writing-table the two green silk-shaded electric lamps threw their mellow glow.
“Waldron, my nation is to-day in gravest peril,” the King said at last, looking straight into the other’s eyes very gravely. “A secret – one which I foolishly believed to be safe from our enemies – has been betrayed! You are shrewd, cautious, and far-seeing. I will reveal the whole ghastly truth to you – for you must help me. I rely upon you, for though I am King of Italy you are, I know, my friend, and will help me through the most critical crisis that has occurred since my accession to the throne. Listen,” he urged, “and I will relate the whole of the remarkable circumstances.”