The Great Court Scandal

A foul oath escaped him, and he turned from her to speak with Count Graesal, grand-marechal of the Court. Her face, however, betrayed nothing of his insult. At Court her countenance was always sphinx-like. Only in her private life, in that gorgeous suite of apartments on the opposite side of the palace, did she give way to her own bitter unhappiness and blank despair.

Chapter Seven

A Shameful Truth

When at last the brilliant company moved on into the great ballroom she had an opportunity of walking among those men and women who, though they bent before her, cringing and servile, were, she knew, eagerly seeking her ruin. The Ministers, Stuhlmann, Hoepfner, and Meyer, all three creatures of the King, bowed low to her, but she knew they were her worst enemies. The Countess Hupertz, a stout, fair-haired, masculine-looking woman, also bent before her and smiled – yet this woman had invented the foulest lies concerning her, and spread them everywhere. In all that brilliant assembly she had scarcely one single person whom she could term a friend. And for a very simple reason. Friendliness with the Crown Princess meant disfavour with the King, and none of those place-seekers and sycophants could afford to risk that.

Yet, knowing that they were like a pack of hungry wolves about her, seeking to tear her reputation to shreds and cast her out of the kingdom, she walked among them, speaking with them, and smiling as though she were perfectly happy.

Presently, when the splendid orchestra struck up and dancing commenced, she came across Hinckeldeym, the wily old President of the Council of Ministers, who, on many occasions, had showed that, unlike the others, he regarded her as an ill-used wife. A short, rather podgy, dark-haired man, in Court dress, he bowed, welcomed her back to Treysa, and inquired after her family in Vienna.

Then, as she strolled with him to the farther end of the room, lazily fanning herself with her great ostrich-feather fan, she said in a low voice, —

“Hinckeldeym, as you know, I have few friends here. I wonder whether you are one?”

The flabby-faced old Minister pursed his lips, and glanced at her quickly, for he was a wily man. Then, after a moment’s pause, he said, —

“I think that ever since your Imperial Highness came here as Crown Princess I have been your partisan. Indeed, I thought I had the honour of reckoning myself among your Highness’s friends.”

“Yes, yes,” she exclaimed quickly. “But I have so many enemies here,” and she glanced quickly around, “that it is really difficult for me to distinguish my friends.”

“Enemies!” echoed the tactful Minister in surprise. “What causes your Highness to suspect such a thing?”

“I do not suspect – I know,” was her firm answer as she stood aside with him. “I have learnt what these people are doing. Why? Tell me, Hinckeldeym – why is this struggling crowd plotting against me?”

He looked at her for a moment in silence. He was surprised that she knew the truth.

“Because, your Imperial Highness – because they fear you. They know too well what will probably occur when you are Queen.”

“Yes,” she said in a hard, determined voice. “When I am Queen I will sweep clear this Augean stable. There will be a change, depend upon it. This Court shall be an upright and honourable one, and not, as it now is, a replica of that of King Charles the Second of England. They hate me, Hinckeldeym – they hate me because I am a Hapsbourg; because I try and live uprightly and love my child, and when I am Queen I will show them that even a Court may be conducted with gaiety coupled with decorum.”

The Minister – who, though unknown to her, was, perhaps, her worst enemy, mainly through fear of the future – listened to all she said in discreet silence. It was a pity, he thought, that the conspiracy had been betrayed to her, for although posing as her friend he would have been the first to exult over her downfall. It would place him in a position of safety.

He noted her threat. It only confirmed what the Court had anticipated – namely, that upon the death of the infirm old monarch, all would be changed, and that brilliant aristocratic circle would be sent forth into obscurity – and by an Austrian Archduchess, too!

The Princess Claire unfortunately believed the crafty Hinckeldeym to be her friend, therefore she told him all that she had learnt; of course, not betraying the informer.

“From to-day,” she went on in a hard voice, “my attitude is changed. I will defend myself. Against those who have lied about me, and invented their vile scandals, I will stand as an enemy, and a bitter one. Hitherto I have been complacent and patient, suffering in silence, as so many defenceless women suffer. But for the sake of this kingdom, over which I shall one day be Queen, I will stand firm; and you, Hinckeldeym, must remain my friend.”

“Your Imperial Highness has but to command me,” replied the false old courtier, bowing low with the lie ever ready upon his lips. “I hope to continue as your friend.”

“From the day I first set foot in Treysa, these people have libelled me and plotted my ruin,” she went on. “I know it all. I can give the names of each of my enemies, and I am kept informed of all the scandalous tales whispered into my husband’s ears. Depend upon it that those liars and scandalmongers will in due time reap their reward.”

“I know very little of it,” the Minister declared in a low voice, so that he could not be overheard. “Perhaps, however, your Highness has been indiscreet – has, I mean, allowed these people some loophole through which to cast their shafts?”

“They speak of Leitolf,” she said quite frankly. “And they libel me, I know.”

“I hear to-day that Leitolf is recalled to Vienna, and is being sent as attaché to Rome,” he remarked. “Perhaps it is as well in the present circumstances.”

She looked him straight in the face as the amazing truth suddenly dawned upon her.

“Then you, too, Hinckeldeym, believe that what is said about us is true!” she exclaimed hoarsely, suspecting, for the first time, that the man with the heavy, flabby face might play her false.

And she had confessed to him, of all men, her intention of changing the whole Court entourage the instant her husband ascended the throne! She saw how terribly injudicious she had been.

But the cringing courtier exhibited his white palms, and with that clever exhibition of sympathy which had hitherto misled her, said, —

“Surely your Imperial Highness knows me sufficiently well to be aware that in addition to being a faithful servant to his Majesty the King, I am also a strong and staunch friend of yours. There may be a plot,” he said; “a vile, dastardly plot to cast you out from Marburg. Yet if you are only firm and judicious, you must vanquish them, for they are all cowards – all of them.” She believed him, little dreaming that the words she had spoken that night had sealed her fate. Heinrich Hinckeldeym was a far-seeing man, the friend of anybody who had future power in his hands – a man who was utterly unscrupulous, and who would betray his closest friend when necessity demanded. And yet, with his courtly manner, his fat yet serious face, his clever speech, and his marvellous tact, he had deceived more than one of the most eminent diplomatists in Europe, including even Bismarck himself.

He looked at her with his bright, ferret-like eyes, debating within himself when the end of her should be. He and his friends had already decided that the blow was soon to be struck, for every day’s delay increased their peril. The old King’s malady might terminate fatally at any moment, and once Queen, then to remove her would be impossible.

She had revealed to him openly her intention, therefore he was determined to use in secret her own words as a weapon against her, for he was utterly unscrupulous.

The intrigues of Court had a hundred different undercurrents, but it was part of his policy to keep well versed in them all. His finger was ever upon the pulse of that circle about the throne, while he was also one of the few men in Marburg who had the ear of the aristocratic old monarch with whom etiquette was as a religion.

“Your Imperial Highness is quite right in contemplating the Crown Prince’s accession to the throne,” he said ingeniously, in order to further humour her. “The doctors see the King daily, and the confidential reports made to us Ministers are the reverse of reassuring. In a few months at most the end must come – suddenly in all probability. Therefore the Crown Prince should prepare himself for the responsibilities of the throne, when your Highness will be able to repay your enemies for all their ill-nature.”

“I shall know the way, never fear,” she answered in a low, firm voice. “To-day their power is paramount, but to-morrow mine shall be. I shall then live only for my husband and my child. At present I am living for a third reason – to vindicate myself.”

“Then your Imperial Highness contemplates changing everything?” he asked simply, but with the ingenuity of a great diplomatist. Every word of her reply he determined to use in order to secure her overthrow.

“I shall change all Ministers of State, Chamberlains, every one, from the Chancellor of the Orders down to the Grand Master of the Ceremonies. They shall all go, and first of all the dames du palais– those women who have so cleverly plotted against me, but of whose conspiracy I am now quite well aware.” And she mentioned one or two names – names that had been revealed to her by the obscure functionary Steinbach.

The Minister saw that the situation was a grave, even desperate one. He was uncertain how much she knew concerning the plot, and was therefore undecided as to what line he should adopt. In order to speak in private they left the room, pacing the long, green-carpeted corridor that, enclosed in glass, ran the whole length of that wing of the palace. He tried by artful means to obtain from her further details, but she refused to satisfy him. She knew the truth, and that, she declared, was all sufficient.

Old Hinckeldeym was a power in Marburg. For eighteen years he had been the confidant of the King, and now fearing his favour on the wane, had wheedled himself into the good graces of the Crown Prince, who had given him to understand, by broad hints, that he would be only too pleased to rid himself of the Crown Princess. Therefore, if he could effect this, his future was assured. And what greater weapon could he have against her than her own declaration of her intention to sweep clear the Court of its present entourage?

He had assuredly played his cards wonderfully well. He was a past master in deception and double-dealing. The Princess, believing that he was at least her friend, had spoken frankly to him, never for one moment expecting a foul betrayal.

Yet, if the truth were told, it was that fat-faced, black-eyed man who had first started the wicked calumny which had coupled her name with Leitolf; he who had dropped scandalous hints to the Crown Prince of his beautiful wife’s penchant for the good-looking chef du cabinet; he who had secretly stirred up the hostility against the daughter of the Austrian Archduke, and whose fertile brain had invented lies which were so ingeniously concocted that they possessed every semblance of truth.

A woman of Imperial birth may be a diplomatist, versed in all the intricacies of Court etiquette and Court usages, but she can never be at the same time a woman of the world. Her education is not that of ordinary beings; therefore, as in the case of the Princess Claire, though shrewd and tactful, she was no match for the crafty old Minister who for eighteen years had directed the destiny of that most important kingdom of the German Empire.

The yellow-haired Countess Hupertz, one of Hinckeldeym’s puppets, watched the Princess and Minister walking in the corridor, and smiled grimly. While the orchestra played those dreamy waltzes, the tragedy of a throne was being enacted, and a woman – a sweet, good, lovable woman, upright and honest – was being condemned to her fate by those fierce, relentless enemies by which she was, alas! surrounded.

As she moved, her splendid diamonds flashed and glittered with a thousand fires, for no woman in all the Court could compare with her, either for beauty or for figure. And yet her husband, his mind poisoned by those place-hunters – a man whose birth was but as a mushroom as compared with that of Claire, who possessed an ancestry dating back a thousand years – blindly believed that which they told him to be the truth.

De Trauttenberg, in fear lest she might lose her own position, was in Hinckeldeym’s pay, and what she revealed was always exaggerated – most of it, indeed, absolutely false.

The Court of Marburg had condemned the Crown Princess Claire, and from their judgment there was no appeal. She was alone, defenceless – doomed as the victim of the jealousies and fears of others.

Returning to the ballroom, she left the Minister’s side; and, by reason of etiquette, returned to join that man in the dark-blue uniform who cursed her – the man who was her husband, and who ere long was to reign as sovereign.

Stories of his actions, many of them the reverse of creditable, had reached her ears, but she never gave credence to any of them. When people discussed him she refused to listen. He was her husband, the father of her little Ignatia, therefore she would hear nothing to his discredit.

Yes. Her disposition was quiet and sweet, and she was always loyal to him. He, however, entirely misjudged her.

An hour later, when she had gone to her room, her husband burst in angrily and ordered the two maids out, telling them that they would not be wanted further that night. Then, when the door was closed, he strode up to where she sat before the great mirror, lit by its waxen candles, for Henriette had been arranging her hair for the night.

“Well, woman!” he cried, standing before her, his brows knit, his eyes full of fire, “and what is your excuse to me this time?”

“Excuse?” she echoed, looking at him in surprise and very calmly. “For what, Ferdinand?”

“For your escapade in Vienna!” he said between his teeth. “The instant you had left, Leitolf received a telegram calling him to Wiesbaden, but instead of going there he followed you.”

“Not with my knowledge, I assure you,” she said quickly. “Why do you think so ill of me – why do you always suspect me?” she asked in a low, trembling voice of reproach.

“Why do I suspect you? You ask me that, woman, when you wrote to the man at his hotel, made an appointment, and actually visited him there? One of our agents watched you. Do you deny it?”

“No,” she answered boldly. “I do not deny going to the Count’s hotel. I had a reason for doing so.”

He laughed in her face.

“Of course you had – you, who pretend to be such a good and faithful wife, and such a model mother,” he sneered. “I suppose you would not have returned to Treysa so soon had he not have come back.”

“You insult me!” she cried, rising from her chair, her Imperial blood asserting itself.

“Ah!” he laughed, taunting her. “You don’t like to hear the truth, do you? It seems that the scandal concerning you has been discovered in Vienna, for De Lindenau has ordered the fellow to return to the diplomatic service, and is sending him away to Rome.”

She was silent. She saw how every word and every action of hers was being misconstrued.

“Speak, woman!” he cried, advancing towards her. “Confess to me that you love the fellow.”

“Why, Ferdinand, do you wish me to say what is untrue?” she asked in a low voice, quite calm again, notwithstanding his threatening attitude.

“Ah, you deny it! You lie to me, even when I know the truth – when all the Court discuss your affection for the fellow whom you yourself introduced among us. You have been with him in Paris. Deny that!”

“I deny nothing that is true,” she answered. “I only deny your right to charge me with what is false.”

“Oh yes,” he cried. “You and your brat are a pretty pair. You believe we are all blind; but, on the contrary, everything is known. Confess!” he muttered between his teeth. “Confess that you love that man.”

She was silent, standing before him, her beautiful eyes fixed upon the carpet.

He repeated his question in a harder tone than before, but still she uttered no word. She was determined not to repeat the denial she had already given, and she recognised that he had some ulterior motive in wringing from her a confession which was untrue.

“You refuse to speak!” he cried in a quick paroxysm of anger. “Then take that!” and he struck her with his fist a heavy blow full in the face, with such force, indeed, that she reeled, and fell backwards upon the floor.

“Another time perhaps you’ll speak when I order you to,” he said through his set teeth, as with his foot he kicked her savagely twice, the dull blows sounding through the big, gilt-ceilinged room.

Then with a hard laugh of scorn upon his evil lips the brute that was a Crown Prince, and heir to a European throne, turned and left with an oath upon his lips, as he slammed the door after him.

In the big, gorgeous room, where the silence was broken by the low ticking of the ormolu clock, poor, unhappy Claire lay there where she had fallen, motionless as one dead. Her beautiful face was white as death, yet horribly disfigured by the cowardly blow, while from the corner of her mouth there slowly trickled a thin red stream.

Chapter Eight

Is Mainly about the Count

Next morning, when she saw her reflection in the mirror, she sighed heavily, and hot tears sprang to her eyes.

Her beautiful countenance, bruised and swollen, was an ugly sight; her mouth was cut, and one of her even, pretty teeth had been broken by the cowardly blow.

Henriette, the faithful Frenchwoman, had crept back to her mistress’s room an hour after the Crown Prince had gone, in order to see if her Highness wanted anything, when to her horror she discovered her lying insensible where she had been struck down.

The woman was discreet. She had often overheard the Prince’s torrents of angry abuse, and in an instant grasped the situation. Instead of alarming the other servants, she quickly applied restoratives, bathed her mistress’s face tenderly in eau de Cologne, washing away the blood from the mouth, and after half an hour succeeded in getting her comfortably to bed.

She said nothing to any one, but locked the door and spent the remainder of the night upon the sofa near her Princess.

While Claire was seated in her wrap, taking her chocolate at eight o’clock next morning, the Countess de Trauttenberg, her husband’s spy, who probably knew all that had transpired, entered with the engagement-book.

She saw what a terrible sight the unhappy woman presented, yet affected not to notice it.

“Well, Trauttenberg?” asked the Princess in a soft, weary voice, hardly looking up at her, “what are our engagements to-day?”

The lady-in-waiting consulted the book, which upon its cover bore the royal crown above the cipher “C,” and replied, —

“At eleven, the unveiling of the monument to Schilling the sculptor in the Albert-Platz; at one, luncheon with the Princess Alexandrine, to meet the Duchess of Brunswick-Lunebourg; at four, the drive; and to-night, ‘Faust,’ at the Opera.”

Her Highness sighed. The people, the enthusiastic crowd who applauded her, little knew how wearying was that round of daily duties, how soul-killing to a woman with a broken heart. She was “their Claire,” the woman who was to be their Queen, and they believed her to be happy!

“Cancel all my engagements,” she said. “I shall not go out to-day. Tell the Court newsman that I am indisposed – a bad cold – anything.”

“As your Imperial Highness commands,” responded De Trauttenberg, bowing, and yet showing no sign that she observed the disfiguration of her poor face.

The woman’s cold formality irritated her.

“You see the reason?” she asked meaningly, looking into her face.

“I note that your Imperial Highness has – has met with a slight accident,” she said. “I trust it is not painful.”

That reply aroused the fire of the Hapsbourg blood within her veins. The woman was her bitter enemy. She had lied about her, and had poisoned her husband’s mind against her. And yet she was helpless. To dismiss her from her duties would only be a confirmation of what the woman had, no doubt, alleged.

It was upon the tip of her tongue to charge her openly as an enemy and a liar. It was that woman, no doubt, who had spied upon her when she had called upon Count Leitolf, and who on her return to Treysa had gone straight to the Crown Prince with a story that was full of vile and scandalous inventions.

“Oh, dear, no,” she said, managing to control her anger by dint of great effort. “It is not at all painful, I assure you. Perhaps, Trauttenberg, you had better go at once and tell the newsman, so that my absence at the Schilling unveiling will be accounted for.”

Thus dismissed, the woman, with her false smiles and pretended sympathy, went forth, and the journals through Germany that day reported, with regret, that the Crown Princess Claire of Marburg was confined to her room, having caught a severe chill on her journey from Vienna, and that she would probably remain indisposed for a week.

When her maids had dressed her she passed on into her gorgeous little blue-and-gold boudoir, her own sanctum, for in it were all the little nick-nacks, odds and ends which on her marriage she had brought from her own home at Wartenstein. Every object reminded her of those happy days of her youth, before she was called upon to assume the shams of royal place and power; before she entered that palace that was to her but a gilded prison.

The long windows of the room looked out upon the beautiful gardens and the great lake, with its playing fountains beyond, while the spring sunlight streaming in gave it an air of cheerfulness even though she was so despondent and heavy of heart. The apartment was gorgeously furnished, as indeed was the whole of the great palace. Upon the backs of the chairs, embroidered in gold upon the damask, was the royal crown and cipher, while the rich carpet was of pale pastel blue. For a long time she stood at the window, looking out across the park.

She saw her husband in his cavalry uniform riding out with an escort clattering behind him, and watched him sadly until he was out of sight. Then she turned and glanced around the cosy room which everywhere bore traces of her artistic taste and refinement. Upon the side-tables were many photographs, signed portraits of her friends, reigning sovereigns, and royal princes; upon the little centre-table a great old porcelain bowl of fresh tea-roses from the royal hot-houses. Her little buhl escritoire was littered with her private correspondence – most of it being in connection with charities in various parts of the kingdom in which she was interested, or was patroness.

Of money, or of the value of it, she knew scarcely anything. She was very wealthy, of course, for her family were one of the richest in Europe, while the royal house of Marburg was noted for its great wealth; yet she had never in her life held in her possession more than a few hundred marks at a time. Her bills all went to the official of the household whose duty it was to examine and pay them, and to charities she sent drafts through that same gold-spectacled official.

She often wondered what it was like to be poor, to work for a daily wage like the people she saw in the street and in the theatres. They seemed bright, contented, happy, and at least they had their freedom, and loved and married whom they chose.

Only the previous night, when she had entered her carriage at the station, a working-man had held his little child up to her for her to pat its head. She had done so, and then sighed to compare the difference between the royal father and that proud father of the people.

Little Ignatia, sweet and fresh, in her white frock and pale pink sash, was presently brought in by Allen to salute her mother, and the latter snatched up the child gladly in her arms and smothered its chubby face with fond kisses.

But the child noticed the disfigured countenance, and drew herself back to look at it.

“Mother is hurt,” she said in English, in her childish speech. “Poor mother!”

“Yes, I fell down, darling,” she answered. “Wasn’t that very unfortunate? Are you sorry?”