The Daltons Volume II Part 13

Madame de Heidendorf held a levee, and none would absent themselves from so interesting an occasion.

It was the eve of a wonderful moment in Europe--it was the little lull that preceded the most terrific storm that ever overturned thrones and scattered dynasties--as these ill.u.s.trious personages were met together, to interchange compliments, to lisp soft phrases of flattery, and discuss the high claims of some aspirant for a ribbon or a cross, a "Red Eagle," or a "Black" one. A few, more far-sighted than the rest, saw the cloud, not bigger than a man's hand, in the distance. A few could hear the low rumblings that denoted the brooding hurricane; but even they thought "the thing would last their time." And thus, with many a pleasant jest, they chatted over the events of the hour, praised the wisdom of kings, and laughed to scorn those vulgar teachers whose democratic theories were just beginning to be whispered about. Some were young, buoyant, and hopeful, ready to shed the last drop for the principles they professed; others were old gray-headed men, tried servants of Monarchy for half a century. But all were like-minded, and self-gratulation and compliment was the order of the day. Leaving them thus to such pleasant converse, where the clank of jewelled swords or the tap of a diamond snuff-box formed the meet accompaniments of the themes, we turn once more to her in whose fate we are more deeply interested.

Twice had she rung the bell to ask if the messenger had not returned.

At last he came; but there was "no answer to her note." Her impatience became extreme. She ordered the servant who carried the note to appear before her; questioned him closely as to whether he had taken it, and the reply he had received. A soldier had said, "Gut!" and shut the door.

Poor Kate! It was her first lesson in "soldier laconics," and to say truly, she did not take it well. The "Princesse de Midchekoff" might have been treated with more deference. She was pa.s.sing a mirror as the thought struck her, and her mien and air gave support to the belief; nor could she restrain the sense of admiration, half tinged with shame, her own beauty evoked.

"There is a soldier here, Madame," said a servant, "who has a letter he will not deliver except into your own hands."

"Admit him--at once," said she, impatiently; and as she spoke the soldier stepped forward, and drawing himself up, carried his hand to the salute, while, presenting a letter, he said, "From the Field-Marshal von Auersberg."

Kate scarcely looked at the bearer, but hastily tore open the square-shaped epistle.

"You need not wait," said she to the servant; and then turning to the letter, read,----

"'Madame la Princesse and beloved Niece,--It was with--to me of late years----a rare satisfaction that I read the not the less affectionate that they were polite lines you vouchsafed to inscribe to me, an old and useless but not forgotten servant of an Imperial master. Immediately on perusing the aforesaid so-called note, I despatched my adjutant to the head-quarters of the Franz Carl, to obtain----no service rules to the contrary forbidding, nor any default's punition in any wise preventing----a day's furlough for the Cadet von Dalton--"

"What regiment is yours?" said Kate, hastily, to the soldier.

"Franz Carl Infanterie, Highness," said the youth, respectfully, using the t.i.tle he had heard a.s.sumed by the servant.

"Do you know many of your comrades,----among the cadets, I mean?"

"There are but seven in the battalion, Highness, and I know them all."

"Is Von Dalton an acquaintance of yours?"

"I am Von Dalton, Highness," said the youth, while a flush of surprise and pleasure lighted up his handsome features.

"Frank! Frank!" cried she, springing towards him with open arms; and ere he could recognize her, clasping him round the neck.

"Is this real? Is this a dream? Are you my own sister Kate?" cried the boy, almost choked with emotion. "And how are you here? and how thus?"

and he touched the robe of costly velvet as he spoke.

"You shall know all, dear, dear Frank. You shall hear everything when the joy of this meeting will let me speak."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 099]

"They call you Highness; and how handsome you've grown!"

"Have I, Frank?" said she, pressing him down to a seat beside her, while, with hands interclasped, they sat gazing on each other.

"I am only beginning to remember you," said he, slowly. "You never used to wear your hair in long ringlets thus. Even your figure is changed; you are taller, Kate."

"It is the mere difference of dress, Frank," said she, blushing with conscious pride.

"No, no; you are quite changed. Even as I sit here beside you, I feel I know not what of shame at my daring to be so near----"

"So great a lady, you would say, dear Frank," said she, laughing. "Poor boy, if you knew--" She stopped, and then, throwing her arms around his neck, went on rapidly: "But, my own dear brother, tell me of yourself: are you happy; do you like the service; are they kind to you; is Uncle Stephen as we hoped he should be?"

"My story is soon told, Kate," said he; "I am where I was the day I entered the army. I should have been made a corporal--"

"A corporal!" cried Kate, laughing.

"A good thing it is, too," said the youth. "No guards to mount, no fatigue duty, neither night patrol nor watch, and four kreutzers extra pay."

"Poor dear boy!" cried she, kissing his forehead, while she gazed on him with a compa.s.sionate affection that spoke a whole world of emotion.

"But tell me of yourself, Kate. Why do they call you the Princess?"

"Because I am married, Frank,----that is, I am betrothed, and will soon be married."

"And when did this occur? Tell me everything," cried he, impatiently.

"You shall know all, dearest Frank. Yoo have heard how Lady Hester Onslow carried me away with her to Italy. Nelly has told you how we were living in Florence,--in what splendor and festivity; our palace frequented by all the great and distinguished of every country,--French and German, and Spanish and Russian."

"I hate the Russians; but go on," said the boy, hastily.

"But why hate the Russians, Frank?" asked she, reddening as she spoke.

"They are false-hearted and treacherous. See how they have driven the Circa.s.sians into a war, to ma.s.sacre them; look how they are goading on the Poles to insurrection. Ay, they say that they have emissaries at this moment in Hungary on the same errand. I detest them."

"This may be their state policy, Frank; but individually----"

"They are no better; Walstein knows them well."

"And who is Walstein, Frank?"

"The finest fellow in the service; the one I would have wished you married to, Kate, above all the world. Think of a colonel of hussars at eight-and-twenty, so handsome, so brave, and such a rider. You shall see him, Kate!"

"But it's too late, Frank," said she, laughing; "You forget it's too late!"

"Ah! so it is," sighed the boy, seriously. "I often feared this,"

muttered he, after a pause. "Nelly's letters told me as much, and I said to myself, 'It will be too late.'"

"Then Nelly has told you all, perhaps?" said she.

"Not everything, nor, indeed, anything at all very distinctly. I could only make out what seemed to be her own impressions, for they appeared mere surmises."

"And of what sort were they?" asked Kate, curiously.

"Just what you would suspect from her. Everlasting fears about temptations and trials, and so forth, continually praying that your heart might resist all the flatteries about you. The old story about humility. I thought to myself, 'If the lesson be not more needful to Kate than to me, she runs no great risk, after all!' for I was also warned about the seductions of the world! a poor cadet, with a few kreutzers a day, told not to be a Sybarite! Returning wet through from a five hours' patrol, to burnish accoutrements in a cold, damp barrack, and then exhorted against the contamination of low society, when all around me were cursing the hardships they lived in, and execrating the slavery of the service!"

"Our dearest Nelly knows so little of the world," said Kate, as she threw a pa.s.sing glance at herself in the mirror, and arranged the fall of a deep fringe of gold lace which was fastened in her hair.

"She knows nothing of it," said the boy, adjusting his sword-knot. "She thought our hussars wore white dolmans, and carried straight swords like the cuira.s.siers."

"And the dear, simple creature asked me, in one of her letters, if I ever wore wild-flowers in my hair now, as I used to do long ago," said Kate, stealing another glance at the gla.s.s. "Flowers are pretty things in the head when rubies make the pinks, and the dewdrops are all diamonds."