Majesty Part 21

"But where is Othomar?" said Herman.

Valerie said that she did not know....

Herman sipped his sherry-cobbler. Wanda wanted a taste, but Herman refused and told her to ring for a gla.s.s for herself. Wanda insisted; he seized her by the wrists.

"But Wanda!" Sofie repeated, reprovingly, languidly, drawing her hand over her forehead and laying down her brush.

Wanda laughed gaily:

"But Wanda!" she mimicked.

And they all laughed at Sofie, including Sofie herself:

"Did I speak like that?" she asked, with her languid voice. "I don't know: I get so sleepy here, so lazy...."

They were all making fun of Sofie, when voices sounded from the hall, shrill, old voices. It was the two dowagers, with Othomar; the old ladies were talking in a courtly, mincing way to the young prince, who brought them chairs. The aunts had had a siesta after lunch; they now made their reappearance, with tapestrywork in large reticules. All greeted them with great respect, beneath which lurked a spark of mischief.

"_Pardon, lieber Herzog_," murmured old Princess Elsa, the older of the two, "I would rather have that little chair...."

Princess Marianne also wanted a small, straight chair; the old ladies thanked Othomar with an obeisance for his gallantry, sat down stiffly and began their embroidery: great coats-of-arms for chair-backs. They were very stately, with clear-cut but wrinkled faces, grey _tours_ and black lace caps; they wore crackling watered-silk gowns, of old-fashioned cut. Now and then they exchanged a quick, sharp word, with a sudden crackling movement of their sharp c.o.c.katoo-profiles; they gazed thoughtfully for a moment out to sea, as though they were bound to see something important arriving out of the distance; then they resumed their work. Their old-fashioned, stately, tight-laced, shrivelled figures formed a strange contrast with the easiness of the young people in their simple serge summer suits: they made Princess Wanda's tangled hair and rumpled blouse look perfectly disreputable.

A third old lady came sailing up; she seemed as though she were related to the two dowagers, but was actually Countess von Altenburg, who used to be mistress of the household to Princess Elsa. Behind her were two footmen, carrying trays with coffee and pastry, the old princesses'

_gouter_. The countess made a stately curtsey before the young princes.

"The territory is occupied," whispered Herman to Valerie.

They had all sat down again and among themselves were teasing Othomar with his three Fates, as they called them, unheard by the aunts or the countess, who was rather deaf. A noisy babel of tongues ensued: the aunts spoke German and screamed, to make themselves heard, something about the calmness of the sea into the poor old ears of the countess, who poured out the coffee and nodded that she understood. The younger princes talked English for the most part; Herman sometimes spoke a word or two of Liparian to Othomar; and the children, who had gone to play on a lower terrace, chattered noisily in Gothlandic and French indifferently.

The footmen had brought out afternoon tea and placed it before Princess Sofie, when a lady-in-waiting appeared. She bowed to the young crown-princess and said, in Gothlandic:

"Her majesty requests your royal highness to come to her in the small drawing-room."

"Mamma has sent for me," said Princess Sofie, in English, rising from her chair. "Wanda, will you pour out the tea? Children, will you go upstairs and get dressed? Wanda, tell them again, will you?"

The crown-princess went through the hall, a great, round, dome-shaped apartment, full of stags' antlers, elks' heads, hunting-trophies, and then up a staircase. In the queen's anteroom the footman opened the door for her. Queen Olga was sitting alone; she was some years older than her sister, the Empress of Liparia, taller and more heavily built; her features, however, had much in common with Elizabeth's, but were more filled out.

"Sofie," she at once began, in German, "I have had a letter from Sigismundingen...."

The d.u.c.h.ess of Wendeholm had sat down:

"Anything to do with Valerie?" she asked, in alarm.

"Yes," the queen said, with a reflective glance. "Poor child!..."

"But what is it, Mamma?"

"There, read for yourself...."

The queen handed the letter to her daughter-in-law, who read it hurriedly. The letter was from the Archd.u.c.h.ess Eudoxie, Valerie's mother, written with a feverish, excited hand, and said, in phrases which tried to seem indifferent but which betrayed a great satisfaction, that Prince Leopold of Lohe-Obkowitz was at Nice with Estelle Desvaux, the well-known actress, that he was proposing to resign his t.i.tular rights in favour of his younger brother and that he would then marry his mistress. The letter requested the queen or the crown-princess to tell this to Valerie, in the hope that it would not prove too great a shock to her. Further, the letter ended with violent attacks upon Prince Leopold, who had caused such a scandal, but at the same time with manifest expressions of delight that now perhaps Valerie would no longer dream of becoming the lady of a domain measuring six yards square! The archduke added a postscript to say that this was not a vague report but a certainty and that Prince Leopold himself had told it to their own relations at Nice, who had written to Sigismundingen.

"Has Valerie ever spoken to you about Prince Lohe?" asked the queen.

"Only once in a way, mamma," replied the d.u.c.h.ess of Wendeholm, handing back the letter. "But we all know well enough that this news will be a great blow to her. Is she not in the least prepared for it?"

"Probably not: you see, we had none of us heard or read anything about it! Shall I tell her? Poor child!..."

"Shall I do so, mamma? As I told you, Valerie _has_ spoken to me...."

"Very well, you do it...."

The d.u.c.h.ess reflected, looked at the clock:

"It is so late now: I'll tell her after dinner; we are none of us dressed yet.... What do you think?"

"Very well then, after dinner...."

The crown-princess went out: it was time to hurry and dress. At seven o'clock a loud, long bell sounded. They a.s.sembled in the hall; the dining-room looked out with its large bow-windows upon the pine-forest.

It was a long table: King Siegfried, a hale old sovereign with a full, grey beard; Queen Olga; the Crown-prince Gunther, tall, fair, two-and-thirty; Princess Sofie and her children; Othomar, sitting between his aunt and Valerie; Herman and Wanda; Olaf and Christofel; the two dowagers with Countess von Altenburg; equerries, ladies-in-waiting, chamberlains, Princess Elizabeth's governess, the little princes'

tutors....

The conversation was cheerful and unconstrained. The ladies wore simple evening-frocks; the king was in dress-clothes, the younger princes and equerries in dinner-jackets. The young princesses wore light summer dresses of white serge or pink _mousseline-de-laine_; they had stuck a flower or two from the conservatory into their waist-bands.

Valerie talked merrily; Herman once more teased her about her cloud-sketches, but Othomar said that he admired them very much. Queen Olga and Princess Sofie exchanged a glance and were quieter than the others. The king also looked very thoughtfully at the young people.

After dinner the family dispersed; the crown-prince and Herman went for a row on the sea, with the younger princes and the children, in two boats. Wanda and Valerie, their arms wound around each other's waists, strolled up and down along the front-terrace; the awning was already drawn up for the night. The sea was still blue, the sky pearl-grey and no longer so bright; above the horizon the sun still burnt ragged rents in the widely scattered clouds.

The girls strolled about, laughed, looked at the two little boats on the sea and waved to them. Very far away, a steamer pa.s.sed, finely outlined, with a dirty little ribbon of smoke. The young princes shouted, "Hurrah!

Hurrah!" and hoisted their little flag.

"Do look at those papers of Herman's!" said Valerie. "Aunt Olga hates that untidiness...."

She pointed to all the magazines and newspapers which the servants had forgotten to clear away. They lay over the long wicker chair, on the table and on the ground.

"Shall I ring to have them cleared away?" asked Wanda.

"Oh, never mind!" said Valerie.

She herself picked up one or two papers, folded them, put them together; Wanda again waved to the boats with her handkerchief.

"My G.o.d!" she suddenly heard Valerie murmur, faintly.

She looked round: the young archd.u.c.h.ess had turned pale and sunk into a chair. She had dropped the papers again; one of them she held tight, crushing it convulsively; she looked down at it with eyes vacant with terror:

"It's not true," she stammered. "They always lie.... They lie!"

"What is it, Valerie?" cried Wanda, frightened.

At this moment the d.u.c.h.ess of Wendeholm came out through the hall: