CHAPTER X.
"PETITE REINE."
When a young Prussian had shot himself the night before for roulettelosses, the event had not thrilled, startled, and impressed the gayBaden gathering one tithe so gravely and so enduringly as did now theunaccountable failure of the great Guards' Crack.
Men could make nothing of it save the fact that there was "somethingdark" somewhere. The "painted quid" had done its work more thoroughlythan Willon and the welsher had intended; they had meant that the opiateshould be just sufficient to make the favorite off his speed, but not tomake effects so palpable as these. It was, however, so deftly preparedthat under examination no trace could be found of it, and the result ofveterinary investigation, while it left unremoved the conviction thatthe horse had been doctored, could not explain when or how, or by whatmedicines. Forest King had simply "broken down"; favorites do this onthe flat and over the furrow from an overstrain, from a railway journey,from a touch of cold, from a sudden decay of power, from spasm, or fromvertigo; those who lose by them may think what they will of "roping," or"painting," or "nobbling," but what can they prove?
Even in the great scandals that come before the autocrats of the JockeyClub, where the tampering is clearly known, can the matter ever bereally proved and sifted? Very rarely. The trainer affects stolidunconsciousness or unimpeachable respectability; the hapless stable-boyis cross-examined, to protest innocence and ignorance, and most likelyprotest them rightly; he is accused, dismissed, and ruined; or someyoung jock has a "caution" out everywhere against him, and never againcan get a mount even for the commonest handicap; but, as a rule, thereal criminals are never unearthed, and by consequence are never reachedand punished.
The Household, present and absent, were heavily hit. They cared littlefor the "crushers" they incurred, but their champion's failure, whenhe was in the face of Europe, cut them more terribly. The fame of theEnglish riding-men had been trusted to Forest King and his owner, andthey, who had never before betrayed the trust placed in them, had brokendown like any screw out of a livery stable; like any jockey bribed to"pull" at a suburban selling-race. It was fearfully bitter work; and,unanimous to a voice, the indignant murmur of "doctored" ran throughthe titled, fashionable crowds on the Baden course in deep and ominousanger.
The Seraph's grand wrath poured out fulminations against the wicked-doerwhosoever he was, or wheresoever he lurked; and threatened, with avengeance that would be no empty words, the direst chastisement of the"Club," of which both his father and himself were stewards, upon theunknown criminal. The Austrian and French nobles, while winners by theevent, were scarce in less angered excitement. It seemed to cast thefoulest slur upon their honor that, upon foreign ground, the renownedEnglish steeple-chaser should have been tampered with thus; and the fairladies of either world added the influence of their silver tongues, andwere eloquent in the vivacity of their sympathy and resentment with aunanimity women rarely show in savoring defeat, but usually reserve forthe fairer opportunity of swaying the censer before success.
Cecil alone, amid it all, was very quiet; he said scarcely a word,nor could the sharpest watcher have detected an alteration inhis countenance. Only once, when they talked around him of theinvestigations of the Club, and of the institution of inquiries todiscover the guilty traitor, he looked up with a sudden, dangerouslighting of his soft, dark, hazel eyes, under the womanish length oftheir lashes: "When you find him, leave him to me."
The light was gone again in an instant; but those who knew the wildstrain that ran in the Royallieu blood knew by it that, despite hisgentle temper, a terrible reckoning for the evil done his horse mightcome some day from the Quietist.
He said little or nothing else, and to the sympathy and indignationexpressed for him on all sides he answered with his old, listless calm.But, in truth, he barely knew what was saying or doing about him; hefelt like a man stunned and crushed with the violence of some tremendousfall; the excitation, the agitation, the angry amazement aroundhim (growing as near clamor as was possible in those fashionablebetting-circles, so free from roughs and almost free from bookmakers),the conflicting opinions clashing here and there--even, indeed, thegraceful condolence of the brilliant women--were insupportable to him.He longed to be out of this world which had so well amused him; helonged passionately, for the first time in his life, to be alone.
For he knew that with the failure of Forest King had gone the last plankthat saved him from ruin; perhaps the last chance that stood between himand dishonor. He had never looked on it as within the possibilities ofhazard that the horse could be defeated; now, little as those about himknew it, an absolute and irremediable disgrace fronted him. For, securein the issue of the Prix de Dames, and compelled to weight his chancesin it very heavily that his winnings might be wide enough to relievesome of the debt-pressure upon him, his losses now were great; and heknew no more how to raise the moneys to meet them than he would haveknown how to raise the dead.
The blow fell with crushing force; the fiercer because his indolence hadpersisted in ignoring his danger, and because his whole character was sonaturally careless and so habituated to ease and to enjoyment.
A bitter, heartsick misery fell on him; the tone of honor was high withhim; he might be reckless of everything else, but he could never bereckless in what infringed, or went nigh to infringe, a very stringentcode. Bertie never reasoned in that way; he simply followed theinstincts of his breeding without analyzing them; but these led himsafely and surely right in all his dealings with his fellow-men, howeveropen to censure his life might be in other matters. Careless as he was,and indifferent, to levity, in many things, his ideas of honor werereally very pure and elevated; he suffered proportionately now that,through the follies of his own imprudence, and the baseness of sometreachery he could neither sift nor avenge, he saw himself driven downinto as close a jeopardy of disgrace as ever befell a man who did notwillfully, and out of guilty coveting of its fruits, seek it.
For the first time in his life the society of his troops of acquaintancebecame intolerably oppressive; for the first time in his life he soughtrefuge from thought in the stimulus of drink, and dashed down neatCognac as though it were iced Badminton, as he drove with his set offthe disastrous plains of Iffesheim. He shook himself free of them assoon as he could; he felt the chatter round him insupportable; the menwere thoroughly good-hearted, and though they were sharply hit by theday's issue, never even by implication hinted at owing the disaster totheir faith in him, but the very cordiality and sympathy they showed cuthim the keenest--the very knowledge of their forbearance made his ownthoughts darkest.
Far worse to Cecil than the personal destruction the day's calamitybrought him was the knowledge of the entire faith these men had placedin him, and the losses which his own mistaken security had caused them.Granted he could neither guess nor avert the trickery which had broughtabout his failure; but none the less did he feel that he had failedthem; none the less did the very generosity and magnanimity they showedhim sting him like a scourge.
He got away from them at last, and wandered out alone into the gardensof the Stephanien, till the green trees of an alley shut him in insolitude, and the only echo of the gay world of Baden was the strain ofa band, the light mirth of a laugh, or the roll of a carriage soundingdown the summer air.
It was eight o'clock; the sun was slanting in the west in a cloudlesssplendor, bathing the bright scene in a rich golden glow, and tinging tobronze the dark masses of the Black Forest. In another hour he was theexpected guest of a Russian Prince at a dinner party, where all that washighest, fairest, greatest, most powerful, and most bewitching of everynationality represented there would meet; and in the midst of thisradiant whirlpool of extravagance and pleasure, where every man worthowning as such was his friend, and every woman whose smile he cared forwelcomed him, he knew himself as utterly alone, as utterly doomed, asthe lifeless Prussian lying in the dead-house. No aid could serve him,for it would have been but to sink lower yet to ask or to take it; nopower c
ould save him from the ruin which in a few days later at thefarthest would mark him out forever an exiled, beggared, perhapsdishonored man--a debtor and an alien.
Where he had thrown himself on a bench beneath a mountain-ash, tryingvainly to realize this thing which had come upon him--and to meet whichnot training, nor habit, nor a moment's grave reflection had ever donethe slightest to prepare him; gazing, blankly and unconsciously, at thedense pine woods and rugged glens of the Forest that sloped upward andaround above the green and leafy nest of Baden--he watched mechanicallythe toiling passage of a charcoal-burner going up the hillside indistance through the firs.
"Those poor devils envy us!" he thought. "Better be one of them tenthousand times than be trained for the Great Race, and started with thecracks, dead weighted with the penalty-shot of Poverty!"
A soft touch came on his arm as he sat there; he looked up, surprised.Before him stood a dainty, delicate little form, all gay with whitelace, and broideries, and rose ribbons, and floating hair fastenedbackward with a golden fillet; it was that of the little LadyVenetia,--the only daughter of the House of Lyonnesse, by a latemarriage of his Grace,--the eight-year-old sister of the colossalSeraph; the plaything of a young and lovely mother, who had flirtedin Belgravia with her future stepson before she fell sincerely andveritably in love with the gallant and still handsome Duke.
Cecil roused himself and smiled at her; he had been by months togetherat Lyonnesse most years of the child's life, and had been gentle to heras he was to every living thing, though he had noticed her seldom.
"Well, Petite Reine," he said kindly, bitter as his thoughts were;calling her by the name she generally bore. "All alone? Where are yourplaymates?"
"Petite Reine," who, to justify her sobriquet, was a grand, imperiallittle lady, bent her delicate head--a very delicate head, indeed,carrying itself royally, young though it was.
"Ah! you know I never care for children!"
It was said so disdainfully, yet so sincerely, without a touch ofaffectation, and so genuinely, as the expression of a matured andcontemptuous opinion, that even in that moment it amused him. She didnot wait an answer, but bent nearer, with an infinite pity and anxietyin her pretty eyes.
"I want to know--you are so vexed; are you not? They say you have lostall your money!"
"Do they? They are not far wrong then. Who are 'they,' Petite Reine?"
"Oh! Prince Alexis, and the Duc de Lorance, and mamma, and everybody. Isit true?"
"Very true, my little lady."
"Ah!" She gave a long sigh, looking pathetically at him, with her headon one side, and her lips parted; "I heard the Russian gentleman sayingthat you were ruined. Is that true, too?"
"Yes, dear," he answered wearily, thinking little of the child in thedesperate pass to which his life had come.
Petite Reine stood by him silent; her proud, imperial young ladyship hada very tender heart, and she was very sorry; she had understood whathad been said before her of him vaguely indeed, and with no sense ofits true meaning, yet still with the quick perception of a brilliantand petted child. Looking at her, he saw with astonishment that her eyeswere filled with tears. He put out his hand and drew her to him.
"Why, little one, what do you know of these things? How did you find meout here?"
She bent nearer to him, swaying her slender figure, with its brightgossamer muslins, like a dainty hare-bell, and lifting her face tohis--earnest, beseeching, and very eager.
"I came--I came--please don't be angry--because I heard them say youhad no money, and I want you to take mine. Do take it! Look, it is allbright gold, and it is my own, my very own. Papa gives it to me to dojust what I like with. Do take it; pray do!"
Coloring deeply, for the Petite Reine had that true instinct of generousnatures,--a most sensitive delicacy for others,--but growing ardent inher eloquence and imploring in her entreaty, she shook on to Cecil'sknee, out of a little enamel sweetmeat box, twenty bright Napoleons thatfell in a glittering shower on the grass.
He started, and looked at her in a silence that she mistook for offense.She leaned nearer, pale now with her excitement, and with her large eyesgleaming and melting with passionate entreaty.
"Don't be angry; pray take it; it is all my own, and you know I havebonbons, and books, and playthings, and ponies, and dogs till I am tiredof them; I never want the money; indeed I don't. Take it, please takeit; and if you will only let me ask Papa or Rock they will give youthousands and thousands of pounds, if that isn't enough. Do let me!"
Cecil, in silence still, stooped and drew her to him. When he spoke hisvoice shook ever so slightly, and he felt his eyes dim with an emotionthat he had not known in all his careless life; the child's words andaction touched him deeply, the caressing, generous innocence of theoffered gift, beside the enormous extravagance and hopeless bankruptcyof his career, smote him with a keen pang, yet moved him with a strangepleasure.
"Petite Reine," he murmured gently, striving vainly for his oldlightness, "Petite Reine, how some man will love you one day! Thank youfrom my heart, my little innocent friend."
Her face flushed with gladness; she smiled with all a child's unshadowedjoy.
"Ah! then you will take it! and if you want more only let me ask themfor it; papa and Philip never refuse me anything!"
His hand wandered gently over the shower of her hair, as he put back theNapoleons that he had gathered up into her azure bonbonniere.
"Petite Reine, you are a little angel; but I cannot take your money, mychild, and you must ask for none for my sake from your father or fromRock. Do not look so grieved, little one; I love you none the lessbecause I refuse it."
Petite Reine's face was very pale and grave; a delicate face, in itsminiature feminine childhood almost absurdly like the Seraph's; her eyeswere full of plaintive wonder and of pathetic reproach.
"Ah!" she said, drooping her head with a sigh; "it is no good to youbecause it is such a little; do let me ask for more!"
He smiled, but the smile was very weary.
"No, dear, you must not ask for more; I have been very foolish, mylittle friend, and I must take the fruits of my folly; all men must.I can accept no one's money, not even yours; when you are older andremember this, you will know why. But I do not thank you the less frommy heart."
She looked at him, pained and wistful.
"You will not take anything, Mr. Cecil?" she asked with a sigh, glancingat her rejected Napoleons.
He drew the enamel bonbonniere away.
"I will take that if you will give it me, Petite Reine, and keep it inmemory of you."
As he spoke, he stooped and kissed her very gently; the act hadmoved him more deeply than he thought he had it in him to be movedby anything, and the child's face turned upward to him was of a veryperfect and aristocratic loveliness, far beyond her years. She coloredas his lips touched hers, and swayed slightly from him. She was anextremely proud young sovereign, and never allowed caresses; yet shelingered by him, troubled, grave, with something intensely tender andpitiful in the musing look of her eyes. She had a perception that thiscalamity which smote him was one far beyond the ministering of herknowledge.
He took the pretty Palais Royal gold-rimmed sweetmeat box, and slippedit into his waistcoat pocket. It was only a child's gift, a tiny Paristoy; but it had been brought to him in a tender compassion, and he didkeep it; kept it through dark days and wild nights, through the scorchof the desert and the shadows of death, till the young eyes thatquestioned him now with such innocent wonder had gained the granderluster of their womanhood and had brought him a grief wider than he knewnow.
At that moment, as the child stood beside him under the drooping acaciaboughs, with the green, sloping lower valley seen at glimpses throughthe wall of leaves, one of the men of the Stephanien approached himwith an English letter, which, as it was marked "instant," they had laidapart from the rest of the visitors' pile of correspondence. Cecil tookit wearily--nothing but fresh embarrassments could come to him fromEngland--and looked
at the little Lady Venetia.
"Will you allow me?"
She bowed her graceful head; with all the naif unconsciousness of achild, she had all the manner of the veille cour; together they made herenchanting.
He broke the envelope and read--a blurred, scrawled, miserable letter;the words erased with passionate strokes, and blotted with hot tears,and scored out in impulsive misery. It was long, yet at a glance hescanned its message and its meaning; at the first few words he knew itswhole as well as though he had studied every line.
A strong tremor shook him from head to foot, a tremor at once ofpassionate rage and of as passionate pain; his face blanched to a deadlywhiteness; his teeth clinched as though he were restraining some bodilysuffering, and he tore the letter in two and stamped it down into theturf under his heel with a gesture as unlike his common serenity ofmanner as the fiery passion that darkened in his eyes was unlike thehabitual softness of his too pliant and too unresentful temper. Hecrushed the senseless paper again and again down into the grass beneathhis heel; his lips shook under the silky abundance of his beard; thenatural habit of long usage kept him from all utterance, and even in theviolence of its shock he remembered the young Venetia's presence; but,in that one fierce, unrestrained gesture the shame and suffering uponhim broke out, despite himself.
The child watched him, startled and awed. She touched his hand softly.
"What is it? Is it anything worse?"
He turned his eyes on her with a dry, hot, weary anguish in them; he wasscarcely conscious what he said or what he answered.
"Worse--worse?" he repeated mechanically, while his heel still grounddown in loathing the shattered paper into the grass. "There can benothing worse! It is the vilest, blackest shame."
He spoke to his thoughts, not to her; the words died in his throat; abitter agony was on him; all the golden summer evening, all the fairgreen world about him, were indistinct and unreal to his senses; he feltas if the whole earth were of a sudden changed; he could not realizethat this thing could come to him and his--that this foul dishonor couldcreep up and stain them--that this infamy could ever be of them and uponthem. All the ruin that before had fallen on him to-day was dwarfed andbanished; it looked nothing beside the unendurable horror that reachedhim now.
The gay laughter of children sounded down the air at that moment; theywere the children of a French Princess seeking their playmate Venetia,who had escaped from them and from their games to find her way to Cecil.He motioned her to them; he could not bear even the clear and pityingeyes of the Petite Reine to be upon him now.
She lingered wistfully; she did not like to leave him.
"Let me stay with you," she pleaded caressingly. "You are vexed atsomething; I cannot help you, but Rock will--the Duke will. Do let meask them?"
He laid his hand on her shoulder; his voice, as he answered, was hoarseand unsteady.
"No; go, dear. You will please me best by leaving me. Ask none--tellnone; I can trust you to be silent, Petite Reine."
She gave him a long, earnest look.
"Yes," she answered simply and gravely, as one who accepts, and notlightly, a trust.
Then she went slowly and lingeringly, with the sun on the gold filletbinding her hair, but the tears heavy on the shadow of her silkenlashes. When next they met again the luster of a warmer sun, that onceburned on the white walls of the palace of Phoenicia and the leapingflame of the Temple of the God of Healing, shone upon them; and throughthe veil of those sweeping lashes there gazed the resistless sovereigntyof a proud and patrician womanhood.
Alone, his head sank down upon his hands; he gave reins to the fieryscorn, the acute suffering which turn by turn seized him with everymoment that seared the words of the letter deeper and deeper down intohis brain. Until this he had never known what it was to suffer; untilthis his languid creeds had held that no wise man feels strongly, andthat to glide through life untroubled and unmoved is as possible as itis politic. Now he suffered, he suffered dumbly as a dog, passionatelyas a barbarian; now he was met by that which, in the moment of itsdealing, pierced his panoplies of indifference, and escaped his lightphilosophies.
"Oh, God!" he thought, "if it were anything--anything--except Disgrace!"