Part 15 (1/2)
Sylvia grew as cold as ice. She could think of but one explanation.
Otto von Markstein had not been the only spy. Somehow, news of what had happened in the garden had reached the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, reducing her to this extremity. The Princess was scarcely conscious of hearing the door close after the banished Josephine, yet instinctively she waited for the click of the latch. ”How did you know?” she asked dully.
”How did I know? I had a telegram. A most alarming, disconcerting telegram. The question is, how did _you_ know that I knew, and how did you--did I--oh, I am so distressed, I hardly know _anything_!”
The word ”telegram” showed Sylvia that somehow, somewhere, misunderstanding had entered in. Her mother's fretful complaints pried among her nerves like hot wires; yet could she have believed it, the new pain was the best of counter-irritants.
”Are you suffering still, dear?” she questioned, carefully controlling her voice. With the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, it was always best to go back to the beginning, not to attempt picking up loose ends in the middle; thus, one sooner reached the end of a tangle.
”Yes, I am ill; very ill _indeed_. Did no one tell you, no one send you to me, as I asked?”
”I have seen no one since I left you--no one, that is, who could tell me anything. Won't _you_ tell--now?”
The Grand d.u.c.h.ess pointed a plump, dimpled forefinger toward a sixteenth-century writing-table. ”The telegram's there, if you care to see it,” she remarked crossly. She did not often lose her temper, or at least, not for long; but she had really borne a great deal of late, and, as she had observed, it was all Sylvia's fault, therefore it was Sylvia's turn to suffer now.
On the desk lay a crumpled piece of paper. Sylvia picked it up and read, written in English:
”Somebody making inquiries here about De Courcys. Beg to advise you immediately to explain all, or leave present place of residence; avoid almost certain unpleasantness. Have just heard of complications.-- WEST.”
”Well, what do you think of that?” irritably demanded the d.u.c.h.ess, vexed at Sylvia's calmness. ”Isn't it enough to make any one faint?
That I--_I_, a woman in my position should be forced to appear a--er-- an _adventuress_! If it were not so dreadful, it would be absurd. You might show a _little_ feeling, since it is for you that I have done it all.”
”I have plenty of feeling, mother,” said Sylvia. ”Only I--seem somehow rather stunned just now. I suppose Lady West means that busy bodies have been trying to find out things about the De Courcys. We have provided for most contingencies, but we had not thought of spies--_till to-night_.”
”I allowed myself to be led by you,” declared the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, ”when I ought to have controlled you, as my child. I should never have allowed myself to be placed in such an ignominious plight. But here I am, in it; and here you are also--which is quite as bad, if not worse.
You have brought us into this trouble, Sylvia; the least you can do is to get us out. And, after all”--brightening a little--”there is, thank goodness, a way to do that. It ought not to be so _very_ difficult.”
”What way--do you mean?”
”I wonder you ask--since there is only one. Stop this foolish child's game that you have deluded me into playing; explain everything to the Emperor and to Baroness von Lynar, and be prepared to turn the tables on our enemy whoever that may be. Your dear father always said that I had a head for emergencies, once I could get the upper hand of my nerves, and I hope--I _think_, he was right.”
”But what you propose is impossible, mother.”
Sylvia spoke in a low, constrained voice, and the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, rising from among her pillows, suddenly observed for the first time that there was something strange in the girl's manner and appearance.
She admired her daughter, as a bewildered hen-mother might admire the beautiful, incomprehensible ball of golden fluff that sails calmly away beyond her control in a terrifying expanse of water, while she herself can only cluck protest from the bank. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess had almost invariably yielded her will to Sylvia's in the end; but she told herself that she had done so once too often, and the weaknesses of her past b.u.t.tressed her obstinacy in the present.
”I tell you it isn't impossible,” she exclaimed. ”It can't be impossible, when it's the only way left to save our dignity. We mustn't let our enemies have the first move. You meant to make a sort of dramatic revelation, sooner or later. Well, it must be sooner, that is all, my dear.”
”Ah, I meant--I meant!” echoed Sylvia, the sound of a sob in her voice. ”Nothing has happened as I meant, mother. You were right; I was wrong. We ought never to have come to Rhaetia.”
The Grand d.u.c.h.ess's heart gave a thump. If Sylvia were thus ready to admit herself in the wrong, without a struggle, then matters must indeed have reached an alarming pa.s.s. Not a jest; not a single flippancy! The poor lady was seriously distressed.
”Not--come--to--Rhaetia?” she repeated as incredulously as if she had not herself lately made the same a.s.sertion. ”Why--why--what--”
”I scarcely know how to tell you,” said Sylvia, with lowered lashes.
”But I suppose I must.”
”Of course you must. I thought you looked upset. You were with _him_-- in the music-room. Yes; I remember. Did you try to explain, and he-- was it as I feared, only this evening before dinner? Wouldn't he forgive the decep----”
”He knows nothing about it.”