Royal Highness Part 20

The Countess too was there, also busy writing. She sat some way off under the palms, where Klaus Heinrich had first conversed with her, and wrote sitting upright with her head on one side, a pile of closely scribbled note-paper lying at her side. The clank of Klaus Heinrich's spurs made her look up. She looked at him with half-closed eyes for two seconds, the long pen poised in her hand, then rose and curtseyed.

"Imma," she said, "his Royal Highness Prince Klaus Heinrich is here."

Miss Spoelmann turned quickly round in her basket chair, shook her hair back and gazed without speaking at the intruder with big, startled eyes, until Klaus Heinrich had bid the ladies good-morning with a military salute. Then she said in her broken voice: "Good-morning to you too, Prince. But you are too late for breakfast. We've finished long ago."

Klaus Heinrich laughed.

"Well, it's lucky," he said, "that both parties have had breakfast, for now we can start at once for a ride."

"A ride?"

"Yes, as we agreed."

"We agreed?"

"No, don't say that you've forgotten!" he said pleadingly. "Didn't I promise to show you the country round? Weren't we going for a ride together when it was fine? Well, to-day it's glorious. Just look out ..."

"It's not a bad day," she said, "but you go too fast, Prince. I remember that there was some suggestion of a ride at some future time--but surely not so soon as this? Might I not at least have expected some sort of notification, if your Highness will allow the word? You must allow that I can't ride like this about here."

And she stood up to show her morning dress, which consisted of a loose gown of many-coloured silk and an open green-velvet jacket.

"No," he said, "unfortunately you cannot. But I'll wait here while you both change. It's quite early...."

"Uncommonly early. But in the second place I am rather busy with my innocent studies, as you saw. I've got a lecture at eleven o'clock."

"No," he cried, "to-day you must not grind at algebra, Miss Imma; you must not play in the vacuum, as you put it! Look at the sun!... May I?..." And he went to the table and took up the notebook.

What he saw made his head swim. A fantastic hocus-pocus, a witches'

sabbath of abbreviated symbols, written in a childish round hand which was the obvious result of Miss Spoelmann's peculiar way of holding her pen, covered the pages. There were Greek and Latin letters of various heights, crossed and cancelled, arranged above and below cross lines, covered by other lines, enclosed in round brackets, formulated in square brackets. Single letters, pushed forward like sentries, kept guard above the main bodies. Cabalistic signs, quite unintelligible to the lay mind, cast their arms round letters and ciphers, while fractions stood in front of them and ciphers and letters hovered round their tops and bottoms. Strange syllables, abbreviations of mysterious words, were scattered everywhere, and between the columns were written sentences and remarks in ordinary language, whose sense was equally beyond the normal intelligence, and conveyed no more to the reader than an incantation.

Klaus Heinrich looked at the slight form, which stood by him in the shimmering frock, becurtained by her dark hair, and in whose little head all this lived and meant something. He said, "Can you really waste a lovely morning over all this G.o.d-forsaken stuff?"

A glance of anger met him from her big eyes. Then she answered with a pout:

"Your Highness seems to wish to excuse yourself for the want of intelligence you recently displayed with regard to your own exalted calling."

"No," he said, "not so! I give you my word that I respect your studies most highly. I grant that they bother me, I could never understand anything of that sort. I also grant that to-day I feel some resentment against them, as they seem likely to prevent us from going for a ride."

"Oh, I'm not the only one to interfere with your wish for exercise, Prince. There's the Countess too. She was writing--chronicling the experiences of her life, not for the world, but for private circulation, and I guarantee that the result will be a work which will teach you as well as me a good deal."

"I am quite sure of it. But I am equally sure that the Countess is incapable of refusing a request from you."

"And my father? There's the next stumbling-block. You know his temper.

Will he consent?"

"He has consented. If you ride, you ride. Those were his words...."

"You have made sure of him beforehand, then? I'm really beginning to admire your circ.u.mspection. You have a.s.sumed the role of a Field Marshal, although you are not really a soldier, only a make-believe one, as you told us long ago. But there's yet one more obstacle, and that is decisive. It's going to rain."

"No, that's a very weak one. The sun is shining...."

"It's going to rain. The air is much too soft. I made sure of it when we were in the Spa-Gardens before breakfast. Come and look at the barometer if you don't believe me. It's hanging in the hall...."

They went out into the tapestry hall, where a big weather-gla.s.s hung near the marble fireplace. The Countess went with them. Klaus Heinrich said: "It's gone up."

"Your Highness is pleased to deceive yourself," answered Miss Spoelmann.

"The refraction misleads you."

"That's beyond me."

"The refraction misleads you."

"I don't know what that is, Miss Spoelmann. It's the same as with the Adirondacks. I've not had much schooling, that's a necessary result of my kind of existence. You must make allowances for me."

"Oh, I humbly beg pardon. I ought to have remembered that one must use ordinary words when talking to your Highness. You are standing crooked to the hand and that makes it look to you as if it had risen. If you would bring yourself to stand straight in front of the gla.s.s, you would see that the black has not risen above the gold hand, but has actually dropped a little below it."

"I really believe you are right," said Klaus Heinrich sadly.

"The atmospheric pressure there is higher than I thought!"

"It is lower than you thought."

"But how about the falling quicksilver?"

"The quicksilver falls at low pressure, not at high, Royal Highness."

"Now I'm absolutely lost."

"I think, Prince, that you're exaggerating your ignorance by way of a joke, so as to hide what its extent really is. But as the atmospheric pressure is so high that the quicksilver drops, thus showing an absolute disregard for the laws of nature, let's go for a ride, Countess--shall we? I cannot a.s.sume the responsibility of sending the Prince back home again now that he has once come. He can wait in there till we're ready...."

When Imma Spoelmann and the Countess came back to the winter garden they were dressed for riding, Imma in a close-fitting black habit with breast-pockets and a three-cornered felt hat, the Countess in black cloth with a man's starched shirt and high hat. They went together down the steps, through the mosaic hall, and out into the open air, where between the colonnade and the big basin two grooms were waiting with the horses. But they had not yet mounted when with a loud barking, which was the expression of his wild excitement, Percival, the collie, prancing and leaping about, tore out of the Schloss and began a frenzied dance round the horses, who tossed their heads uneasily....

"I thought so," said Imma, patting her favourite Fatma's head, "there was no hiding it from him. He found it all out at the last moment. Now he intends to come with us and make a fine to-do about it too. Shall we drop the whole thing, Prince?"

But although Klaus Heinrich understood that he might just as well have allowed the groom to ride in front with the silver trumpet, so far as calling public attention to their expedition was concerned, yet he said cheerfully that Percival must come too; he was a member of the family and must learn the neighbourhood like the rest.

"Well, where shall we go?" asked Imma as they rode at a walk down the chestnut avenue. She rode between Klaus Heinrich and the Countess.

Percival barked in the van. The English groom, in c.o.c.kaded hat and yellow boot-tops, rode at a respectful distance behind.

"The Court Kennels are fine," answered Klaus Heinrich, "but it is a bit farther to the 'Pheasantry,' and we have time before lunch. I should like to show you the Schloss. I spent three years there as a boy. It was a seminary, you know, with tutors and other boys of my age. That's where I got to know my friend Ueberbein, Doctor Ueberbein, my favourite tutor."

"You have a friend?" asked Miss Spoelmann, with some surprise, and gazed at him. "You must tell me about him some time. And you were educated at the 'Pheasantry,' were you? Then we must see it, because you're obviously set on it. Trot!" she said as they turned into a loose riding-path. "There lies your hermitage, Prince. There's plenty for the ducks to eat in your pond. Let's give a wide berth to the Spa-Gardens, if that does not take us far out of our way."

Klaus Heinrich agreed, so they left the park and trotted across country to reach the high-road which led to their goal to the north-west. In the town gardens they were greeted with surprise by a few promenaders, whose greetings Klaus Heinrich acknowledged by raising his hand to his cap, Imma Spoelmann with a grave and rather embarra.s.sed inclination of her dark head in the three-cornered hat. By now they had reached the open country, and were no longer likely to meet people. Now and then a peasant's cart rolled along the road, or a crouching bicyclist ploughed his way along it. But they turned aside from the road when they reached the meadow-land, which provided better going for their horses. Percival danced backwards in front of them, feverish and restless as ever, turning, springing, and wagging his tail--his breath came fast, his tongue hung far out of his foaming jaws, and he vented his nervous exaltation in a succession of short, sobbing yelps. Farther on he dashed off, following some scent with p.r.i.c.ked ears and short springs, while his wild barking echoed through the air.

They discussed Fatma, which Klaus Heinrich had not yet seen close, and which he admired immensely. Fatma had a long, muscular neck and small, nodding head with fiery eyes; she had the slender legs of the Arab type, and a bushy tail. She was white as the moonlight, and saddled, girt, and bridled with white leather. Florian, a rather sleepy brown, with a short back, hogged mane, and yellow stockings, looked as homely as a donkey by the side of the distinguished foreigner, although he was carefully groomed. Countess Lowenjoul rode a big cream called Isabeau. She had an excellent seat, with her tall, straight figure, but she held her small head in its huge hat on one side, and her lids were half closed and twitched. Klaus Heinrich addressed some remarks to her behind Miss Spoelmann's back, but she did not answer, and went riding on with half-shut eyes, gazing in front of her with a Madonna-like expression, and Imma said:

"Don't let's bother the Countess, Prince, her thoughts are wandering."