Behind her clattered the hoofs of her cavalry escort, and beside the carriage were two agents of police on bicycles. Wherever she moved in her husband"s kingdom she was always under escort, because of anarchist threats and socialistic rumours.
Marburg was one of the most beautiful and wealthiest of the kingdoms and duchies comprised in the German Empire. The fine capital of Treysa was one of the show cities of Germany, always bright, gay, and brilliant, with splendid streets, wide, tree-lined promenades, a great opera house, numerous theatres, gay restaurants, and an ever-increasing commerce.
Frequented much by English and Americans, there were fine hotels, delightful public gardens, and pleasant suburbs. In no other part of the Empire were the n.o.bility so wealthy or so exclusive, and certainly no Court in Europe was so difficult of access as that of Marburg.
The kingdom, which possessed an area of nearly seven thousand square miles and a population of over fifteen millions, was rich in manufactures and in minerals, besides being a smiling country in a high state of cultivation, with beautiful mountainous and wooded districts, where in the valleys were situated many delightful summer resorts.
Through its length and breadth, and far beyond the frontiers, the name of the Crown Princess Claire was synonymous of all that was good and affable, generous to the poor, and ever interested in the welfare of the people.
The big electric globes were already shining white in the streets as she drove back to the beautiful royal palace that was, alas! to her a prison. Her few days of liberty in Vienna were over, and when presently, after traversing many great thoroughfares full of life and movement, the carriage swung out into a broader tree-lined avenue, at the end of which were the great gates of the royal gardens, her brave heart fell within her.
Beyond was the house of her enemies, the house in which she was compelled to live friendless, yet surrounded by those who were daily whispering of her overthrow.
The great gates swung open to allow the cavalcade to pa.s.s, then closed again with a clang that, reaching her ear, caused her to shudder.
The Countess noticed it, and asked whether she felt cold. To this she gave a negative reply, and still remained silent, until the carriage, pa.s.sing up through the beautiful park, at last drew up before the magnificent palace.
Descending, she allowed the gorgeously-dressed man in the royal livery to take her cloak from her shoulders; and then, without a word, hastened along the great marble hall, up the grand staircase and along corridor after corridor--those richly-carpeted corridors of her prison that she knew so well--to her own splendid suite of apartments.
The servants she met at every turn bowed to her, until she opened the door of a large, airy, well-furnished room, where a middle-aged woman, in cap and ap.r.o.n, sat reading by a shaded lamp.
In an instant, on recognising the newcomer, she sprang to her feet. But at the same moment the Princess rushed to the dainty little cot in the corner and sank down beside the sleeping curly-haired child--her child-- the little Princess Ignatia.
So pa.s.sionately did she kiss the sweet chubby little face of the sleeping child that she awoke, and recognising who it was, put out her little hands around her mother"s neck.
"Ah, my little pet!" cried the Princess. "And how are you? It seems so long, so very long, since we parted." And her voice trembled, for tears stood in her eyes. The child was all she had in the world to love and cherish. She was her first thought always. The glare and glitter of the brilliant Court were all hateful to her, and she spent all the time she dared in the nursery with little Ignatia.
The English nurse, Allen, standing at her side, said, with that formality which was bound to be observed within those walls,--
"The Princess is in most excellent health, your Imperial Highness. I have carried out your Highness"s instructions, and taken her each day for a walk in the park."
"That"s right, Allen," responded the mother, also in English. "Where is the Crown Prince?"
"I have not seen him, your Highness, since you left. He has not been in to see Ignatia."
Claire sighed within herself, but made no outward sign. "Ah, I expect he has been away--to Berlin, perhaps. Is there any function to-night, have you heard?"
"A State ball, your Highness. At least they said so in the servants"
hall."
The Princess glanced at the little silver timepiece, for she feared that her presence was imperative, even though she detested all such functions, where she knew she would meet that brilliant crowd of men and women, all of them her sworn enemies. What Steinbach had told her in confidence had lifted the scales from her eyes. There was a wide and cleverly-contrived conspiracy against her.
She took her fair-haired child in her arms, while Allen, with deft fingers, took off her hat and veil. Her maids were awaiting her in her own room, but she preferred to see Ignatia before it was too late to disturb the little one"s sleep. With the pretty, blue-eyed little thing clinging around her neck, she paced the room with it, speaking, in German, as every fond mother will speak to the one she adores.
Though born to the purple, an Imperial Princess, Claire was very human after all. She regretted always that she was not as other women were, allowed to be her own mistress, and to see and to tend to her child"s wants instead of being compelled so often to leave her in the hands of others, who, though excellent servants, were never as a mother.
She sent Allen upon a message to the other end of the palace in order to be alone with the child, and when the door closed she kissed its soft little face fondly again and again, and then burst into tears. Those Court sycophants were conspiring, to drive her away--perhaps even to part her from the only one for whom she entertained a spark of affection. Many of her enemies were women. Could any of them really know all that was meant by a mother"s heart?
Prince Ferdinand-Leopold-Joseph-Marie, her husband, seldom, if ever, saw the child. For weeks he never mentioned its existence, and when he did it was generally with an oath, in regret that it was not a son and an heir to the throne.
In his paroxysms of anger he had cursed her and his little daughter, and declared openly that he hated the sight of them both. But she was ever patient. Seldom she responded to his taunts or his sarcasm, or resented his brutal treatment. She was philosophic enough to know that she had a heavy burden to bear, and for the sake of her position as future Queen of Marburg she must bear it bravely.
Allen was absent fully a quarter of an hour, during which time she spoke continually to little Ignatia, pacing up and down the room with her.
The child, seeing her mother"s tears, stared at her with her big, wide-open eyes.
"Why does mother cry?" she asked in her childish voice, stroking her cheek.
"Because mother is not happy, darling," was the Princess"s sad answer.
"But," she added, brightening up, "you are happy, aren"t you? Allen has bought you such a beautiful doll, she tells me."
"Yes, mother," the child answered. "And to-morrow, Allen promises, if I am very good, that we will go to buy a perambulator for my dolly to ride in. Won"t that be nice?"
"Oh, it will! But you must be very, very good--and never cry, like mother, will you?"
"No," answered the little one. "I"ll never cry, like mother does."
And the unhappy woman, hearing the child"s lisping words, swallowed the great lump that arose in her throat. It was surely pathetic, that admission of a heart-broken mother to her child. It showed that even though an Imperial Princess, she was still a womanly woman, just as any good woman of the people.
A few moments later Allen returned with the reply to the message she had sent to the aged King.
"His Majesty says that, though regretting your Imperial Highness is tired after her journey, yet your presence with the Crown Prince at the ball is imperative." Claire sighed with a heavy heart, saying,--
"Very well, Allen. Then we will put Ignatia to bed, for I must go at once and dress," and she pa.s.sed her hand across her hot, wearied brow.
Again and again she kissed the child, and then, having put her back into her cot, over which was the royal crown of Marburg in gold, she bade the infant Princess goodnight, and went along to eat a hasty dinner--for she was hungry after her eighteen-hour journey--and afterwards to put herself in the charge of her quick-handed maids, to prepare her for the brilliant function of that evening.
Two hours later, when she swept into the magnificent Throne Room, a brilliant, beautiful figure in her Court gown of cream, and wearing her wonderful tiara, her face was as stern and haughty as any of those members of the royal family present. With her long train rustling behind her, and with her orders and ribbons giving the necessary touch of colour to her bodice, she took up her position beside her husband, a fair-headed, round-faced, slight-moustached man, in a dark-blue uniform, and wearing a number of orders. His face was flat and expressionless.
Though they had not met for a week, no word of greeting escaped him.
They stood side by side, as though they were strangers. He eyed her quickly, and his countenance turned slightly pale, as though displeased at her presence.
Yet the whole a.s.sembly, even though hating her, could not but admire her neat waist, her splendid figure, and matchless beauty. In the whole of the Courts of Europe there was no prettier woman than the Crown Princess Claire; her figure was perfect, and her gait always free--the gait of a princess. Even when dressed in her maid"s dresses, as she had done on occasion, her walk betrayed her. Imperial blood can seldom be disguised.
The hundred women, those German princesses, d.u.c.h.esses, countesses, baronesses, to each of whom attached their own particular scandal--the brilliant little world that circled around the throne--looked at her standing there with her husband, her hands clasped before her, and envied her looks, figure, position--everything. She was a marked woman.
The proud, haughty expression upon her face as she regarded the a.s.sembly was only a.s.sumed. It was the mask she was compelled to wear at Court at the old King"s command. Her nature was the reverse of haughty, yet the artificiality of palace life made it necessary for the Crown Princess to be as unapproachable as the Queen herself.
The guests were filing before the white-haired King, the hide-bound old martyr to etiquette, when the Crown Prince spoke to his wife in an undertone, saying roughly, with bitter sarcasm,--
"So you are back? Couldn"t stay away from us longer, I suppose?"
"I remained in Vienna as long as I said I should," was the sweet-faced woman"s calm reply.
"A pity you didn"t stay there altogether," he muttered. "You are neither use nor ornament here."
"You have told me that several times before. Much as I regret it, Ferdinand, my place is here."
"Yes, at my side--to annoy me," he said, frowning.