Part 34 (1/2)

It was soon evident that the Princess Y---- had taken her new maid into her confidence to a certain extent.

She must have rung for Fauchette without my hearing anything, for presently the door opened again, and I heard my a.s.sistant's voice.

As the result of a hurried consultation between the two women, in which Fauchette played to perfection the part of a devoted maid who is only desirous to antic.i.p.ate the wishes of her mistress, it was decided to wheel the sofa on which I lay into the oratory, and to bring the wax dummy into the Princess's bedroom, to lie in state till the next day.

The arrangement did not take long to carry out.

Partly from what I was able to overhear, and partly from the report afterward furnished to me by Fauchette, I am able to relate succinctly what took place.

To begin with, I was left in the oratory, while the counterfeit corpse was duly arranged in the adjoining room.

Unable to lock me in the smaller apartment, Sophia declared her intention of locking both the outer doors of the bedroom, one of which gave on a corridor, while the other, as the reader is aware, opened into the boudoir where the previous scene had taken place.

The Princess retained one of these keys herself, entrusting the other to the maid, of course with the strictest injunctions as to its use.

To keep up appearances before the household, the Princess arranged to pa.s.s the next few nights in another room on the same floor, which usually served as a guest chamber.

It was explained to the servants that the death which had occurred had upset the nerves of their mistress, and rendered her own suite of rooms distasteful to her for the present.

Fauchette, who thus became my jailer, brought me a supply of cold food and wine during the night. I had part of this provision under the altar of the oratory, to serve me during the following day.

My cataleptic condition was supposed to endure for nearly twenty-four hours. The enforced seclusion was intensely irritating to a man of my temperament; but I could not evade it without revealing to Sophia that I had heard her confession, and thereby inflicting a deadly wound on a woman who loved me.

Meanwhile the arrangements for my funeral had been pressed on.

Already a telegram had appeared in the London papers announcing the sudden and unexpected death from heart-failure of the well-known English philanthropist, Mr. Melchisedak Sterling. One or two of the journals commented on the fact of Mr. Sterling's death having taken place while he was on a mission of peace to the Russian capital, and expressed a hope that his death would have a chastening effect on the War Party in Petersburg.

My friend, the editor of the Peace Review, very generously sent a wreath, which arrived too late for the funeral but was laid on my grave.

Unfortunately these newspaper announcements were taken seriously by my exalted employers, as well as by the enemies whom I wished to deceive, but this could not be helped.

By noon the undertaker's men had arrived with my coffin. The Princess played upon their ignorance of English customs and burial rites to pretend that the work of coffining must be done by women's hands. In this way she and Fauchette were able to enclose the dummy in its wooden sh.e.l.l, leaving to the men only the task of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down the lid.

The burial took place in the English cemetery. I am glad to say that the Princess contrived to avoid the mockery of a religious service by alleging that Mr. Sterling had belonged to a peculiar sect--the Quakers, I fancy--which holds such ceremonies to be worldly and unnecessary.

I may add that I have since visited my grave, which is still to be seen in a corner of the cemetery. It is marked by a stone slab with an inscription in English.

In the afternoon the faithful Fauchette persuaded her mistress to go out for a drive, to soothe her over-strained nerves.

Before quitting the house, the Princess came in to take a last look at me.

She lingered minute after minute, as though with some premonition that our next meeting would be under widely different circ.u.mstances.

To herself, I heard her whisper, sighing softly:

”Andreas! O Andreas! If I could sleep, or thou couldst never wake!”

She crept away, and the better to secure me locked both the bedroom doors herself, and carried off the keys.