She bent over my shoulder, holding the parchment before me.
"What I want to do, but can"t--what I want you to do is so small and simple a matter that it is almost amusing. I grow angry when I think that I cannot do so little a thing to help myself; but you see, Sir Karl, I tremble and my hand shakes to that extent I fear to mar the page. I simply want to make the letter "t" on this parchment and I can"t. Will you do it for me?"
"Ay, gladly," I responded, "but where and why?" Then she pointed out to me the word "nov" in the ma.n.u.script and said:--
"A letter "t," if deftly done, will make "not" instead of "nov." Do you understand, Sir Karl?"
I sprang to my feet as if I had been touched by a sword-point. The thought was so ingenious, the thing itself was so small and the result was so tremendous that I stood in wonder before the daring girl who had conceived it. I made no answer. I placed the parchment on the table, unceremoniously reached in front of the d.u.c.h.ess for the quill, and in less time than one can count three I made a tiny ink mark not the sixteenth part of an inch long that changed the destinies of nations for all time to come.
I placed the quill on the table and turned to Yolanda, just in time to catch her as she was about to fall. I was frightened at the sight of her pale face and cried out:--
"Yolanda! Yolanda!"
Margaret quickly brought a small goblet of wine, and I held the princess while I opened her lips and poured a portion of the drink into her mouth. I had in my life seen, without a tremor, hundreds of men killed, but I had never seen a woman faint, and the sight almost unmanned me.
Stimulated by the wine Yolanda soon revived; and when she opened her eyes and smiled up into my face, I was so joyful that I fell to kissing her hands and could utter no word save "Yolanda, Yolanda." She did not at once rise from my arms, but lay there smiling into my face as if she were a child. When she did rise she laughed softly and said, turning to the d.u.c.h.ess:--
""Yolanda" is the name by which Sir Karl knows me. You see, mother, I was not mistaken in deeming him my friend."
Then she turned suddenly to me, and taking my rough old hand in hers, lifted it to her lips. That simple act of childish grat.i.tude threw me into a fever of ecstasy so great that death itself could have had no terrors for me. He might have come when he chose. I had lived through that one moment, and even G.o.d could not rob me of it.
Yolanda moved away from me and took up the parchment.
"Don"t touch it till the ink dries," I cried sharply.
She dropped it as if it were hot, and the d.u.c.h.ess came to me, and graciously offered her hand:--
"I thank you with my whole heart, not only for what you have done, but for the love you bear the princess. She is the one I love above all others, and I know she loves me. I love those who love her. As the French say, "_Les amies de mes amies sont mes amies."_ I am a poor helpless woman, more to be pitied than the world can believe. I have only my grat.i.tude to offer you, Sir Karl, but that shall be yours so long as I live."
"Your Grace"s reward is far too great for the small service I have rendered," I replied, dropping to my knee. I was really beginning to live in my sixtieth year. I was late in starting, but my zest for life was none the less, now that I had at last learned its sweetness through these two gracious women.
When we had grown more composed, Yolanda explained to me her hopes regarding the French king"s answer to the altered missive, and the whole marvellous possibilities of the letter "t" dawned upon my mind. The princess bent over the parchment, watching our mighty "t" while the ink was drying, but the process was too slow for her, so she filled her cheeks and breathed upon the writing. The color returned to her face while I watched her, and I felt that committing a forgery was a small price to pay for witnessing so beautiful a sight. Yolanda"s breath soon dried the ink, and then we examined my work. I had performed wonders.
The keenest eye could not detect the alteration. Yolanda, as usual, sprang from the deepest purgatory of trouble to the seventh heaven of joy. She ran about the room, singing, dancing, and laughing, until the d.u.c.h.ess warned her to be quiet. Then she placed her hand over her mouth, shrugged her shoulders, walked on tiptoe, and spoke only in whispers.
Margaret smiled affectionately at Yolanda"s childish antics and said:--
"I think the conspirators should disperse. I hope, Sir Karl, that I may soon meet you in due form. Meantime, of course, it is best that we do not know each other."
After examining the missive for the twentieth time, Yolanda placed it in its pouch and turned to the d.u.c.h.ess.
"Take it, mother, to the iron box, and I will lead Sir Karl back to Uncle Castleman"s," she said.
The d.u.c.h.ess graciously offered me a goblet of wine, and after I had drunk, Yolanda led me down the stairway to the House under the Wall.
While descending Yolanda called my attention to a loose stone in the wall of the staircase.
"The other end of this stone," she said, "penetrates the wall of the room that you and Sir Max occupied the night before you were liberated.
The mortar has fallen away, and it was here that I spoke to you and told you not to fear."
Here was another supernatural marvel all too easily explained.
CHAPTER XVI
PARTICEPS CRIMINIS
That evening after supper Max and I walked over to Castleman"s. The evening was cool, and we were sitting in the great parlor talking with Castleman and Twonette when Yolanda entered. The room was fully fifty feet long, and extended across the entire front of the house. A huge chimney was built at the east end of the room, and on either side of the fireplace was a cushioned bench. A similar bench extended across the entire west end of the room. When Yolanda entered she ran to me and took my hand.
"Come, Sir Karl, I want to speak with you," she said.
She led me to the west end of the room, sat down on the cushioned bench, and drew in her skirts that I might sit close beside her.
"I want to tell you about the missive, Sir Karl," she whispered, laughing and shrugging her shoulders in great glee. "Mother returned it to the box, and when I left you I hurried back and haunted the room, fearing that some one might meddle with the parchment. Near the hour of six o"clock father entered. I was sitting on the divan, and he sat down in his great chair, of course taking no notice of me--I am too insignificant for so great a person to notice, except when he is compelled to do so. I was joyful in my heart, but I conjured up all my troubles that I might make myself weep. I feared to show any change in myself, so I sobbed aloud now and then, and soon father turned angrily toward me. "Are you still there?" he asked. "Yes, father," I answered, as if trying to stifle my sobs. "Are you really going to send that cruel letter to King Louis?""
"Cruel, indeed," I interrupted.
"Ah, yes! Well, father made no reply, and I went over to him and began to plead. I should have wanted to cut my tongue out had I succeeded, but I had little fear. Father is not easily touched by another"s suffering, and my tears only hardened his heart. Well, of course, he repulsed me; and soon a page announced Byron the herald and the Bishop of Cambrai.
Father took the packet from the iron box, and put his fingers in the pouch, as if he were going to take out the letter. He hesitated, and during that moment of halting I was by turns cold as ice and hot as fire. Finally his resolution took form, and he drew out the missive. I thought I should die then and there, when he began to look it over. But after a careless glance he put it back in the pouch, and threw it on the table in front of the bishop. I could hardly keep from shouting for joy. He had failed to see the alteration, and in case of its discovery, he might now be his own witness against King Louis, should that crafty monarch dare to alter my father"s missive by so much as the crossing of a "t". If father hereafter discovers anything wrong in the letter, he will be able to swear that King Louis was the evil doer, since father himself put the letter in the pouch with his own hands. Father will never suspect that a friend came to me out of far-away Styria to commit this crime."
"I rejoice that I came," I said.
"And I," she answered. "I feared the bishop would read the letter, but he did not. He tied the ribbon, softened the lead wafer over the lamp flame, and placed it on the bow-knot; then he stamped it with father"s small seal. When it was finished I did not want to laugh for joy--when one is very happy one wants to weep. That I could safely do, and I did.
The bishop handed the letter to Byron, and father spoke commandingly: "Deliver the missive to the French king before you sleep or eat, unless he has left Paris. If he has gone to Tours, follow him and loiter not."
"And if he is not in Tours, Your Grace?" asked Byron. "Follow him till you find him," answered father, "if you must cross the seas." "Shall I do all this without eating or sleeping?" asked Byron. Father rose angrily, and Byron said: "If Your Grace will watch from the donjon battlements, in five minutes you will see me riding on your mission.
When Your Grace sees me riding back, it will be, I fear, the ghost of Byron."
"It was a wearisome task for me to climb the donjon stairs, but I knew father would not be there to watch Byron set out, and I felt that one of the family should give him G.o.d-speed; so alone, and frightened almost out of my wits, I climbed those dark steps to the battlements, and gazed after Byron till he was a mere speck on the horizon down toward Paris. I pray G.o.d there may be a great plenty of trouble grow out of the crossing of this "t". Father is always saying that women were put on earth to make trouble, so I"ll do what little I can to make true His Lordship"s words." She threw back her head, laughing softly. "Is it not glorious, Sir Karl?"
"Indeed, Princess--" I began, but she clapped her hand over my mouth and I continued, "Indeed, Yolanda, the plan is so adroit and so effective that it fills me with admiration and awe."
"I like the name Yolanda," said she, looking toward Max, who was sitting with Twonette on one of the benches by the chimney.
"And I, too, like it," I responded. "I cannot think of you as the greatest and richest princess in Europe."
"Ah, I wish I, too, could forget it, but I can"t," she answered with a sigh, glancing from under her preposterously long lashes toward Max and Twonette.
"How came you to take the name Yolanda?" I asked.
"Grandfather wished to give me the name in baptism," she answered, "but Mary fell to my lot. I like the present arrangement. Mary is the name of the princess--the unhappy, faulty princess. Yolanda is my name. Almost every happy hour I have ever spent has been as Yolanda. You cannot know the wide difference between me and the Princess Mary. It is, Sir Karl, as if we were two persons."
She spoke very earnestly, and I could see that there was no mirth in her heart when she thought of herself as the Princess Mary; she was not jesting.
"I don"t know the princess," I said laughingly, "but I know Yolanda."
"Yes; I"ll tell you a great secret, Sir Karl. The Princess Mary is not at all an agreeable person. She is morose, revengeful, haughty, cold--"
here her voice dropped to a whisper, "and, Sir Karl, she lies--she lies.
While Yolanda--well, Yolanda at least is not cold, and I--I think she is a very delightful person. Don"t you?"
There was a troubled, eager expression in her eyes that told plainly she was in earnest. To Yolanda the princess was another person.