Chapter X The Discovery
Can this be true? an arch observer cries,—
Yes, rather moved, I saw it with these eyes.
Sir! I believe it on that ground alone;
I could not had I seen it with my own.
—Cowper: Conversation.
In spite of his recent flirtation with Princess Teskla, being a roomy-hearted youth, Nick could not refrain from casting his eyes in the direction of Solonika’s summer-house when we passed Dhalmatia that afternoon about four o’clock. She was seated at her accustomed place by the window, and smiled at us in recognition of our friendly bows.
I looked around for the strange horsemen of the morning, but they were nowhere to be seen. You may believe that I had not forgotten my promise to meet Solonika in her little den. And I flattered myself that she was there waiting for me.
“Stop the car, Nick,” I said, “and I will find out when the Prince intends to go on his boar hunt. He will be glad to know that you also accept his invitation.”
“Don’t be late for dinner, young man,” cautioned the General, whose worst fault, perhaps, was his worship of promptness. I promised to be on hand at seven o’clock and stepped into the road. A few yards brought me in sight of the summer-house, but, when I knocked for admittance, no one responded. Solonika’s chair was empty and the den deserted. Seeing me pass in the automobile, she had imagined that I would not return and had evidently gone back to the castle.
I hurried along the driveway toward the castle, keeping a sharp lookout for the Princess, but she was not to be seen standing or walking on the lawn. I stopped at the clearing just before you reach the top of the hill, thinking I had missed her among the trees below and knowing that she must soon come in view on her way home, but, although I tarried there long enough to consume two cigarettes, Solonika did not appear. How she escaped me was a mystery, but, since my fancied excuse for the visit had to do with the Prince, I determined to go to the castle directly.
Dajerak, the old butler, greeted me with a smile and bowed me through the door. I dispensed with his willing but slow services, and made my way to the apartments of the Prince without standing on ceremony. Satisfied as to my destination, he went about his business and left me to my own devices. The Red Fox might not have been pleased had he known it.
The Prince was not in his apartments. Neither was he in the room beyond, whither I ventured to go, calling his name. I retraced my steps to the hallway, but Dajerak was nowhere in sight and I did not know where to find the Red Fox. Clearly, if I wanted to see the Prince, I would have to search for him myself. Perhaps the butler had gone to tell him? I returned to the reception room and sat down in his highback chair to wait. Then I heard a voice singing a little French love song. It came faintly to my ears as if the singer were in a room beyond the Prince’s dressing chamber. Entering that apartment I heard the singing more distinctly and made sure that it was either the Prince or his sister—their voices as you know were much alike.
“Your Highness,” I called, using the title which applied to both, but the singing went on uninterrupted.
Surely the youth was playing with me, and, for aught I knew, might even now be laughing behind a curtain. I was positive that the voice came more particularly from behind a portière in front of me. Possibly it screened a door. I pulled it aside and came upon nothing but the panelled woodwork which formed the walls. The singer in the room beyond seemed now to be at my very elbow. I was not long in determining the cause—the centre panel of the wall was on a hinge; the automatic lock had failed to catch, and the perfectly fitting secret door was partly ajar.
I stood on the borderland of a great discovery, hesitating to continue my search. What right had I, a foreigner, to inquire into the secrets of these Bharbazonians? With Byron, I, too, “loathed that low vice, curiosity.” Trouble walks hand in hand with those unfortunates who have not acquired the art of minding their own business. Besides, I owed something to the clear-eyed girl by whose favour I had been received as a friend within the castle. At the remembrance of her trust in me I formed my resolution. Dropping the curtain I retired to the outer room and again seated myself in the Prince’s chair to wait until he found me.
Can you go back to the time when you were a child playing the game of hide and seek with other children of your age? Do you recall how difficult it was for you to refrain from “peeping” through your little fingers when you were “hiding your eyes,” being that important individual known as “it?” How you blindly faced the wall, your ears alert to catch the direction of the sound when one of your playmates should shrilly pipe “all out?” So it was with me. With a recurrence of those childish feelings I sat holding the arms of the chair, listening to the voice as it came faintly to my ears. Truly men are but children of a larger growth. I found it difficult to maintain my place. Except for the singer the castle seemed deserted. My desire to know what lay behind that curtain grew and grew.
Like the mariners who steer their boat upon the hidden rocks, charmed into carelessness of their danger by a siren voice, I was irresistibly drawn again toward the secret door. It was so tantalizingly near; the singer surely was Solonika. An invisible power unloosed my grip upon the chair, I threw diffidence to the winds, crossed the room with swift strides, pulled the curtain aside, opened the inviting panel and stepped through.
But once inside I regretted my rashness and would have given all I possessed to be back in the Prince’s chair. The unexpected sight that met my astonished eyes brought me to an abrupt standstill. One swift glance around the room was sufficient to tell me that I had come into Solonika’s little boudoir, where the day before I found her engaged in fancy needlework. There were the familiar gobelin tapestries, the pendent chandeliers, the red satin hand-painted chairs. Beside the window was the same easy chair in which she sat while entertaining me, and in front of it on the window sill was the very piece of embroidery upon which she had been working. I recognized it by the centre piece, held tightly as the head of a drum with the little wooden ring beneath.
On the couch against the wall in front of the portières lay Solonika’s large French hat and red parasol; beside them was the long tailor-made coat she wore in the summer-house. In the centre of the floor was the skirt crumpled in a circular heap just as she had stepped out of it.
In front of the dressing table, close to the window, with her back toward me stood Solonika herself!
Or was it the Prince?
For a moment I was puzzled as to the identity of the figure before the mirror. There were the same black silk stockings and black satin knee breeches which I recognized as belonging to the Prince. Tucked into the trousers was the white shirt with cuffs attached which Solonika wore under her tailor-made coat. Her white collar and smoke-coloured four-in-hand necktie completed the nondescript costume.
Although she had only to slip on her black coat and buckle shoes and fasten her sword to her side to be dressed as the Prince, I knew that the person before me was not the Prince but Solonika. For the long red hair, gathered in the familiar psyche knot at the back, was still upon her head, making her look absurdly, but daintily, feminine, like a pretty woman upon the stage who is acting a boy’s part without sacrificing her hair. But the Princess I suppose had long since cut off her beautiful locks, and had her luxuriant schoolgirl tresses made into a wig. The short hair of the Prince was all she had left.
So this was the secret of Dhalmatia? The General had been right after all. Only one child had been born to the Red Fox, and the old nurse had forfeited her life for telling the truth. This was why the Duke had attempted to exclude Nick and myself from the castle; this was why he appeared so anxious when I tried to examine his son upon the couch in the hallway after the accident, and why he strove to remind her of her sex by his prolonged cry of “My son! my son!” so that, recovering consciousness, she might not betray herself. This was why the Duke hated the General, knowing him to be suspicious.
A great pity welled up in my heart for this slip of a girl with the big, brown, loving eyes, who had been compelled to live such a life of deception through the long years of the past; a life in which every act must be studied and every moment filled with fear; a life in which the womanhood, in which I knew she gloried, must be put aside for the mock manhood of the boy.
But I would not do anything to render her burden heavier. My only hope was to retreat as silently as possible, so that she might not know she was discovered. And I would keep my own counsel. But even as my mind reverted to the secret panel, I saw Solonika bend forward and gaze deeply into the mirror. Her face became reflected upon the glass and her eyes were wide open with horror. I saw that my presence in her room was known.
What must have been her feelings when she saw me? Naturally her first thought must have been that I was a spy sent by General Palmora to do the work which I had done. Her own doors were locked, as I soon found out, and she knew that I had come stealthily in through the panel door. If I should escape by the same means and carry the news of my discovery to my friends, Bharbazonia would be ringing with her shame in the morning. Was this to be the end of her years of work? Perhaps she thought of her father’s sorrow at missing the great ambition of his life on the eve of its fulfilment. God knows what terrible pictures rushed before her mind in those few swift seconds. One thing only must have been clear to her. The intruder must not leave the palace. But how was she to stop me? If she came forward I had but to step backward one step to be in the other room, and then my way lay unobstructed to the castle door. Once on the lawn I would be able to escape before her father’s servants could run me down.
She was quick-witted as she was clever, and she had much at stake. She withdrew her face from the mirror and steadied herself against the dressing-table while she rapidly thought out a plan to get between me and the secret door. She could not see me now, but I knew she was listening to the slightest sound which would indicate that I was retreating.
“Therese,” she called to her maid, who no doubt was in one of the rooms beyond; the control she had over her voice was wonderful. But the maid did not reply. Solonika waited, and spoke aloud as if to herself, but it was for my benefit.
“Where is the girl? Why doesn’t she come and dress me? I suppose I shall have to pick up my own skirt.”
With her eyes turned toward the skirt, lying between us, she came toward me as if to pick it up; but, as she reached for it, she suddenly straightened up and sprang between me and the panel. There she stood defiantly at bay, guarding the passage like a magnificent young lioness defending her cubs. Her eyes gleamed with hatred as she faced me, and I saw that she held in her hand the long-bladed hunting knife which served as a letter opener upon her dressing-table.
I watched her fascinated, temporarily unable to lift hand or foot in my own defence. Her face was working with a passion so terrible that she no longer looked herself, but like some deeply moved insane person wrought up to such a pitch of excitement that murder becomes easy. Her lips were tightly compressed and her eyes blazed with an intensity of feeling.
With a half articulate cry of a wild beast she flung herself suddenly upon me, grasping her knife in both hands and raising it high above her head to give more power to her blow, aimed at my heart.
Had I not been warned by the expression upon her face when she saw me in the mirror, and been thus partially prepared for her swift attack, I might have died there at her feet.