Chapter VIII The Twins of Dhalmatia
The flying rumours father’d as they rolled,
Scarce any tale was sooner heard than told;
And all who told it added something new,
And all who heard it made enlargements too;
In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew.
—Pope: Temple of Fame.
When I awoke the next morning Nick’s side of the bed was empty. In answer to my ring the butler served breakfast in my room. Mr. Nicholas and General Palmora he said had eaten before dawn and gone out in the wonderful machine, leaving word that they would return for dinner in the evening. He knew not where they had gone. For once in my life I was thankful I knew French, else I might have starved.
There was no reason why I should arise, so I lay in bed thinking of this curious country, trying to imagine what secret business would have caused Nick to leave me without explanation. The face of Solonika came repeatedly uppermost in my thoughts. Could one so beautiful, so gentle, so feminine, be a party to such a terrible deception as my fanciful suspicions made necessary for her? Those steadfast, honest eyes could not belong to one who carried within her breast a secret so grave.
Nicholas’s talk of sacrilege opened a new line of conjecture. If the Red Fox were playing so huge a joke upon his countrymen, he was laughing in the face of a danger most appalling. I had seen him once and I knew that he was crafty. If his ambition were equal to it, he might not hesitate even at sacrilege. The very danger might add zest.
Always there recurred to me the memory of Solonika’s pain when I took her hand. Here I was travelling in my endless circle. If I could go over to Dhalmatia and see the Prince and Princess together all doubts would be at rest. This vain pursuit of garbled rumour, garnished and re-garnished in the telling, was worse than useless.
Time hung heavily on my hands during the morning. Castle Framkor seemed deserted without Nicholas and the General. By lunch time my loneliness became unbearable and I went for a walk. Subconsciously my feet carried me toward Dhalmatia, and I came out of my musings on the steps of the summer-house.
No one answered my knock and I could see through the glass partitions that the cosy den was vacant. Should I go to the castle? I took to the driveway, but, when I emerged from the trees and came in sight of the turrets, my resolution failed me. I remembered the Red Fox’s discourteous treatment and did not care to brave the animal in his lair. I retreated to the steps of the summer-house and sat down to think.
To be sure Solonika had invited us to renew our visit. She had promised to have an interview with her father, and from her assurance she led us to believe that she could not fail. Doubtless if I knocked at the castle door I would be admitted, but I could not forget my pride. On the other hand, if I did not go to Dhalmatia, how was I to solve the mystery which was baffling me? How was I to see the Prince and Princess together?
“Please, sir,” said a woman’s voice at my elbow, “the mistress desires to see you at the castle.”
It was Therese, the maid. Solonika had seen me a moment before standing in full view of the castle; had watched my retreat, and guessed the cause. Opportunity lay ready to my hand.
“Thank you; I will go,” I said.
“To the porte-cochère, and knock upon the door,” she said, as she vanished behind the summer-house.
Evidently the persuasive Solonika had been at work and won her expected victory, for the grim, old butler smiled graciously and bade me enter.
“Would Monsieur the physician desire to see the Prince?” he asked.
Somewhere in the castle the Princess was waiting, expecting my coming. Why not first see the Prince and then call upon her? Thus might I satisfy my great desire without arousing suspicion.
“Yes, I would see the Prince,” I answered.
The old man bent his back in a half bow and smilingly led me with all the dignity and speed of a turtle to the Prince’s quarters, which fortunately were but a short distance from the reception hall. If the ways of those who love the darkness are evil, the Red Fox’s ways must certainly be evil, for the interior of his castle was very dark. The windows were screened with heavy curtains, permitting little daylight to enter. My eyes, fresh from the sunlight, had to become accustomed to the lack of light before I could see my way about. I hung close upon the heels of my slow guide until he paused in a doorway and announced in a stately manner:
“Monsieur le doctaire for the Prince.”
There was the sound of a chair being moved back as if some one arose. I bowed upon the threshold, looking swiftly about. The Duke and the Prince were before me, but Solonika was nowhere to be seen. The Duke was standing beside a table acknowledging my bow. He was dressed in the same quaint manner as when I had seen him two days before.
His son, the Prince, remained seated on the opposite side of the table. His back was toward me, and he did not turn. He was attired in a long, full-skirted coat of black, black knee breeches with buckles at the knee, black silk stockings and silver-buckled, low black shoes. Leaning against the arm of his high-backed carved chair was his sword. It had evidently been uncomfortable, and was laid aside belt and all. The Prince’s right arm was in a sling.
The two had been interested in a game of cards when I interrupted them. Judging from the formation of the pasteboards upon the green cloth, they were playing “double solitaire,” that paradoxical game for one which two or three can play. It is also one of the few games of cards which can be played with one hand.
The Duke placed a chair at the table beside him and waved me into it with a gracious smile. When I was seated, the Prince ceased scanning the cards on the table and looked at me as one would at a stranger. He was so like Solonika, and yet acted so unlike her, that I was uncomfortable.
“Raoul, permit me to present Dr. Wharton who took such good care of you when you were thrown,” said the Duke in London English.
The young man and I nodded coldly. Above all things I desired to hear his voice.
“Do not permit me to interrupt the game,” I said, lightly, but it was the Duke who replied.
“I am more than pleased to see you, Dr. Wharton, if only to extend my apologies for the affair of yesterday. Servants make sad mistakes sometimes.”
Servants and Grand Dukes were somewhat alike in that respect, I thought, but I ventured no remark.
“When you were gone, I gave orders to Dajerak, the butler, never to permit General Palmora to enter this house again. He understood it to apply to the General’s party. I did not know of his action until my daughter told me of it.”
So Solonika had kept her promise to give the old gentleman a talking to. I was secretly amused at the hard work the Fox was making of it.
“I am pleased you overlooked my boorishness and returned,” he concluded.
“It is nothing,” I assured him.
“We have few visitors at Dhalmatia,” he sighed, “and we would be most happy to entertain you and that other—American.”
Was there just the shadow of a pause mere and a slight narrowing about the eyelids as he said this? Solonika’s efforts were not confined alone to me. She desired to have the handsome Nicholas call upon her as well.
“Perhaps, in your professional capacity, you will look at the Prince’s wounds,” he said.
“If the Prince has no objections,” I said.
He was idly toying with his cards, listening with a half smile to the conversation. When I pointedly addressed him he looked straight at me with Solonika’s eyes. My heart thumped against my ribs, but, when he spoke in a voice like, yet unlike, his sister’s, and in halting broken English where hers had run smoothly, the illusion was spoiled, and I was more than half convinced that my quest was a fool’s errand.
“I have objections,” he said, drawing away.
The Prince, I could see, still suffered considerable pain when he moved his right arm, which was to be expected. The slight contusions on the head were healing nicely; and the Duke said that no complications or internal injuries showed signs of developing.
“Your son will suffer no inconvenience at the coronation,” I said in reply to the Duke’s anxious question. “He will be entirely recovered by that time, I should think, if he remains perfectly quiet.”
“You hear, Raoul, you must not run about so much,” cried the father.
“I hear,” said the boy, with one of Solonika’s brightest smiles.
The Duke, seeing that the Prince replied only in monosyllables, became talkative. He could not do enough for me. He served his best wines and insisted that I accept several packages of his Turkish cigarettes, because I happened to praise them. The Prince so far unbent as to accept a light for his cigarette from my hand. As the blue rings ascended we became more sociable, and I ventured to ask why the Duke disliked the General, a character whom I thought all men should admire.
“Palmora,” said the Duke, affably, “belongs to the Old Party of Bharbazonia. In fact he and the Duke of Marbosa are its leaders. They believe that the safety and future of the Balkans lie in the aid which Russia can give. Of course they are not blind to the fact that their benefactor is acting from a selfish motive; that, year by year, Russia wrests principality after principality from the Turkish domain so that one day she may absorb the city of Constantinople and so gain control of the Bosphorus and a southern way to the sea. But they do not seem to understand that when that day comes Russia will also absorb the little kingdoms she has set up as her cats-paws to pull her chestnuts from the fire.
“That will be a sad day for Bharbazonia. I do not look to Russia for future peace and prosperity, but rather do I reach out toward a Germo-Austrian alliance. And there is where the Old Party and the New Party find their point of difference. In attempting to break down what little influence I had with the people they tell them I have ‘Turkish tendencies,’ but that is not true.”
It flashed through my mind, as I compared the General’s statements with the Duke’s, that there were two sides to the shield. Perhaps there was something to admire in the Fox after all.
“But the rock upon which we split is the Church,” continued the Duke. “Russia is of our religion—the Greek Church—while Germany and Hungary are Lutheran and Roman Catholic. I can assure you, Dr. Wharton, that the Church Patriarch of Bharbazonia does not look with favour upon the ascension of my son to the throne. Rest assured he would do anything in his power to prevent it. Hence you understand why I remain within my castle, seeing no one and being seen by few. But you, sir, are a foreigner, an American; it does me good to speak with you.”
He led me on to talk of the United States, its wealth, resources and activities. Even the Prince showed signs of interest at my description of the Great American game of baseball. He said he was familiar with cricket, having seen it played in England when he was at school. Fox-hunting was not new; although boar-hunting was the Bharbazonian pastime. Would I care to go boar-hunting some time with him? I expressed my delight. He would be happy to have me and also my friend Fremsted join his party in the last hunt he would have before he was crowned.
I told him that I would broach the matter to Nicholas, but that I knew he would gladly accompany the expedition. Would the Princess be of the party?
“Oh, no,” exclaimed the Prince, “women do not hunt the boar. It is much too dangerous.”
During this conversation with the Duke and his son I had not forgotten the real purpose of my visit. If I did not permit myself to be put off with subterfuge, now was the time to have the laugh on the General. I remembered, too, that somewhere in the castle Solonika was waiting, expecting Therese to bring me to her. “Faint heart ne’er won fair lady,” I thought and I boldly attacked the citadel.
“I should like very much to see your daughter, sir,” I said as innocently as I could. I was watching them closely when I spoke. Not a movement escaped me. But, if I expected any hesitation or other evidence that I had trapped them, I was disappointed. There was no quick look between them; not even the lifting of an eyebrow. Had my request been the most ordinary in the world they could not have acted more naturally.
“Raoul, where is your sister now?” said the Duke.
“In her apartment, I think,” he replied.
“Do not disturb her,” I said, to see if they would accept a loophole of escape.
“Not at all,” returned the Red Fox, “Dajerak will escort you. She would be disappointed at not seeing you.”
In the Bharbazonian dialect he gave the butler the necessary orders and I arose to follow him.
“We will await your return here,” said the Duke.
At the Prince’s doorway we turned from the main entrance and continued into the heart of the castle through darkened corridors. We were going to the other side of the building, as far as I could judge. From the number of rooms and archways we passed I fancied that the Princess lived a long way from the Prince.
Why she wished to seclude herself from the family I could not imagine. Perhaps my conception of distance was lengthened by the lack of haste on the part of my guide. Old Dajerak plodded along at his top speed, which would not have caused a competing snail the least inconvenience, and at last knocked upon a panelled door. Therese’s voice bade us enter.
“Mistress is expecting you,” she said as she took my card, and disappeared through a far door to announce me. Dajerak bowed and retired, and I listened to his footsteps dragging over the velvet carpets.
Solonika’s reception parlor was totally different from her den in the summer-house. It was strictly a French room of the Empire period. Red satin, hand-painted chairs and rococo furniture, heavy and shining with gilt, gave the prevailing note of elegance. The high walls were decorated with priceless gobelin tapestries and overhead hung two glass pendent chandeliers.
I found myself trembling with suppressed excitement. Here was I upon the eve of a discovery. If there were only one child, that one was now seated at the far end of the castle playing cards with his father. But perhaps, after a show of searching for the other, Therese would reluctantly bring back word that Solonika was out, or indisposed. If, on the other hand, there were two children Solonika would see me.
The maid was scarcely gone a minute when she returned with my card still in her hand. The Princess was out, then?
“Mademoiselle bids you enter, monsieur,” she said with a bow and a smile.
My heart leaped as I made ready to follow. She led me into a cosy little dressing room. There, quietly sewing on some fancy needlework beside the window, sat Solonika.
In her pale blue, loose-fitting house gown, lazily dangling one fairy-like slipper from one tiny foot crossed above the other, she looked more beautiful than ever. It takes laces and loose things to bring out a woman’s femininity. She was looking up at me laughingly, mockingly I thought. My feelings overcame me for the moment and I found no words to greet her.
“Ah, Dr. Wharton,” she cried gaily, “welcome to my little boudoir. You must pardon the informality. But I found myself too lazy to dress when Therese brought your card.”
Her pure, perfect English fell upon my ear in marked contrast with the heavy halting phrases of the Prince’s. Could this be the girl, so light hearted and happy, whom I accused in my thoughts of contemplating a terrible sacrilege against her church? No, no, no! I was content; aye even happy to find that I was mistaken. But a moment ago I had seen the Prince on the other side of the Castle, and now I saw her here before me calmly sewing. General Palmora was a fool. I could only stare at her, my joy shining from my eyes.
“Come, come, Dr. Wharton,” she laughed, “have you lost your tongue? Sit down and tell me what you have been doing since last we met.”
“I am so glad,” I said, “so happy at finding you here.”
“Why,” she laughed, “where did you expect to find me?”
“No, no,” I said, “it’s not that. I didn’t expect to find you anywhere—” I paused fearing that I was making a bungle.
“Perhaps I should not have let you come here,” she said, the smile fading. “But somehow I cannot make a stranger of you. I seem to have known you a long time. But if you prefer that I entertain you in the drawing room—”
“Please do not,” I hastened to say. “I like it very well here.”
“You were a long time coming,” she pouted.
“Yes,” I said, “the butler took me into the Prince’s apartments instead of yours, and your father talked me to death.”
Even while the Princess laughed at my expression I fancied I heard the sound of a cough. Could it be that the Duke himself was listening behind one of the many doors? I must be more guarded in my conversation. Then again, a man’s imagination will play him many tricks in a strange castle.
“He apologized, did he not?” asked the girl.
“Handsomely,” I said.
“What did the Prince have to say?”
“Nothing much. He is so different from you.”
“Is that so? Most people find us very much alike.”
“In appearance, yes. But not in dispositions. I think I should know you were you even in his clothes.”
“Do you?” said she. “Some day I shall put them on and try you.”
“I wish you would,” I said. “You will see that you cannot fool me.”
“Where is your Jonathan to-day, David?” she asked.
“Nicholas? He went off somewhere with General Palmora. Perhaps to Nischon to see Princess Teskla. The General is quite a match-maker. I verily believe he would like to see Nick married to that young woman.”
“You interest me. But since when did Americans hope to mate with Princesses of the blood?”
“But Nick—” I began—and checked myself just in time. Then another thought struck me and perhaps came to the surface in the look which I gave her. “Americans never hope to mate with Princesses of the blood. They mate with the woman they love. If she happens to be a princess, that is her misfortune, not his fault.”
“The woman they love,” she echoed, turning the phrase over in her mind. Then she flew away on a new tack. “Have you ever met Princess Teskla?”
“No, but I expect to, shortly.”
“The Prince will be interested to hear this,” she said. “Do you know, the king, her father, is most anxious to marry his daughter to Raoul?”
“Why, they are first cousins!”
“True, but that makes no difference in marriages of state. His object is to unite the two houses and keep the throne in his own. When he made Raoul and me Prince and Princess he had that in his mind, I do believe, for he did nothing for his own brother, my father. Does Teskla favour this friend of yours?”
“I cannot say as to that, never having seen them. But Nick has known her for a number of years.”
“Raoul will be pleased, for he detests her.”
Therese brought the tea and we chatted away with our small talk until I remembered that the Duke and the Prince were awaiting my return. I arose to go.
“When will you be in the summer-house again?” I asked.
“I will be there to-morrow afternoon,” she replied. “Will you come?”
“Yes,” I almost whispered, and she dropped her gaze before mine.
Therese acted as guide on the return trip and the way did not seem so long, following her light steps. The Prince and the Duke were still seated at the table engaged in their game of cards. While I made my adieus the young man, who looked so much like Solonika that I could not forbear staring at him, lit his cigarette with his uninjured hand and returned my stare coldly, almost insolently. His face was wreathed in smoke as it curled gently upward and vanished in the air.
“Do not forget my invitation to the hunt,” he said in his bad English. Once more I remarked the great contrast.
“We will be glad to see you soon again,” said the Red Fox. His smile was positively warming. If he had been a victorious commander surveying the wreck his guns had wrought, he could not have appeared more genial.
I thanked them both and found my way to the open air with my illusions gone. How silently and swiftly had my house of cards come tumbling about my head. I thought of Solonika, and Nick’s fingers coiling about an imaginary throat, and I was glad; oh, I was glad to find myself mistaken.