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Clementina written by A.E.W. Mason

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"There has been no mysterious visitor," said he.

"There will be one to-night," answered Wogan. "I shall need you."

"I am ready," said O'Toole.

The two friends walked back to the Pilgrim Inn. They were joined by
Maria Vittoria, and they then proceeded to the little house among the
trees. Outside the door in the garden wall Wogan posted O'Toole.

"Let no one pass," said he, "till we return."

He knocked on the door, and after a little delay--for the night had
fallen, and there was no longer a porter at the gate--a little hatch was
opened, and a servant inquired his business.

"I come with a message of the utmost importance," said Wogan. "I beg you
to inform her Highness that the Chevalier Wogan prays for two words with
her."

The hatch was closed, and the servant's footsteps were heard to retreat.
Wogan's anxieties had been increasing with every mile of that homeward
journey. On his ride to Rome he had been sensible of but one
obstacle,--the difficulty of persuading the real Vittoria to return with
him. But once that had been removed, others sprang to view, and each
hour enlarged them. There was but this one night, this one interview!
Upon the upshot of it depended whether a woman, destined by nature for a
queen, should set her foot upon the throne-steps, whether a cause should
suffer its worst of many eclipses, whether Europe should laugh or
applaud. These five minutes while he waited outside the door threw him
into a fever. "You will be friendly," he implored Mlle. de Caprara. "Oh,
you cannot but be! She must marry the King. I plead for him, not the
least bit in the world for her. For his sake she must complete the work
she has begun. She is not obstinate; she has her pride as a woman
should. You will tell her just the truth,--of the King's loyalty and
yours. Hearts cannot be commanded. Alas, mademoiselle, it is a hard
world at the end of it. It is mortised with the blood of broken hearts.
But duty, mademoiselle, duty, a consciousness of rectitude,--these are
very noble qualities. It will be a high consolation, mademoiselle, one
of these days, when the King sits upon his throne in England, to think
that your self-sacrifice had set him there." And Mr. Wogan hopped like a
bear on hot bricks, twittering irreproachable sentiments until the
garden door was opened.

Beyond the door stretched a level space of grass intersected by a gravel
path. Along this path the servant led Wogan and his companion into the
house. There were lights in the windows on the upper floor, and a small
lamp illuminated the hall. But the lower rooms were dark. The servant
mounted the stairs, and opening the door of a little library, announced
the Chevalier Wogan. Wogan led his companion in by the hand.

"Your Highness," said he, "I have the honour to present to you the
Princess Maria Vittoria Caprara." He left the two women standing
opposite to and measuring each other silently; he closed the door and
went down stairs into the hall. A door in the hall opened on to a small
parlour, with windows giving on to the garden. There once before Lady
Featherstone and Harry Whittington had spoken of Wogan's love for the
Princess Clementina and speculated upon its consequences. Now Wogan sat
there alone in the dark, listening to the women's voices overhead. He
had come to the end of his efforts and could only wait. At all events,
the women were talking, that was something; if he could only hear them
weeping! The sound of tears would have been very comforting to Wogan at
that moment, but he only heard the low voices talking, talking. He
assured himself over and over again that this meeting could not fail of
its due result. That Maria Vittoria had exacted some promise which held
his King in Spain he was now aware. She would say what that promise was,
the condition of their parting. She had come prepared to say it--and the
thread of Wogan's reasonings was abruptly cut. It seemed to him that he
heard something more than the night breeze through the trees,--a sound
of feet upon the gravel path, a whispering of voices.

The windows were closed, but not shuttered. Wogan pressed his eyes to
the pane and looked out. The night was dark, and the sky overclouded.
But he had been sitting for some minutes in the darkness, and his eyes
were able to prove that his ears had not deceived him. For he saw the
dim figures of two men standing on the lawn before the window. They
appeared to be looking at the lighted windows on the upper floor, then
one of them waved to his companion to stand still, and himself walked
towards the door. Wogan noticed that he made no attempt at secrecy; he
walked with a firm tread, careless whether he set his foot on gravel or
on grass. As this man approached the door, Wogan slipped into the hall
and opened it. But he blocked the doorway, wondering whether these men
had climbed the wall or whether O'Toole had deserted his post.

O'Toole had not deserted his post, but he had none the less admitted
these two men. For Wogan and Maria Vittoria had barely been ten minutes
within the house when O'Toole heard the sound of horses' hoofs in the
entrance of the alley. They stopped just within the entrance. O'Toole
distinguished three horses, he saw the three riders dismount; and while
one of the three held the horses, the other two walked on foot towards
the postern-door.

O'Toole eased his sword in its scabbard.

"The little fellows thought to catch Charles Wogan napping," he said to
himself with a smile, and he let them come quite close to him. He was
standing motionless in the embrasure of the door, nor did he move when
the two men stopped and whispered together, nor when they advanced
again, one behind the other. But he remarked that they held their cloaks
to their faces. At last they came to a halt just in front of O'Toole.
The leader produced a key.

"You stand in my way, my friend," said he, pleasantly, and he pushed by
O'Toole to the lock of the door. O'Toole put out a hand, caught him by
the shoulder, and sent him spinning into the road. The man came back,
however, and though out of breath, spoke no less pleasantly than before.

"I wish to enter," said he. "I have important business."

O'Toole bowed with the utmost dignity.

"_Romanus civis sum_," said he. "_Sum_ senator too. _Dic Latinam
linguam, amicus meus_."

O'Toole drew a breath; he could not but feel that he had acquitted
himself with credit. He half began to regret that there was to be a
learned professor to act as proxy on that famous day at the Capitol. His
antagonist drew back a little and spoke no longer pleasantly.

"Here's tomfoolery that would be as seasonable at a funeral," said he,
and he advanced again, still hiding his face. "Sir, you are blocking my
way. I have authority to pass through that door in the wall."

"_Murus?_" asked O'Toole. He shook his head in refusal.

"And by what right do you refuse me?"

O'Toole had an inspiration. He swept his arm proudly round and gave the
reason of his refusal.

"_Balbus aedificabat murum_," said he; and a voice that made O'Toole
start cried, "Enough of this! Stand aside, whoever you may be."

It was the second of the two men who spoke, and he dropped the cloak
from his face. "The King!" exclaimed O'Toole, and he stood aside. The
two men passed into the garden, and Wogan saw them from the window.

Just as O'Toole had blocked the King's entrance into the garden, so did
Wogan bar his way into the house.

"Who, in Heaven's name, are you?" cried the Chevalier.

"Nay, there's a question for me to ask," said Wogan.

"Wogan!" cried the Chevalier, and "The King!" cried Wogan in one breath.

Wogan fell back; the Chevalier pushed into the hall and turned.

"So it is true. I could not, did not, believe it. I came from Spain to
prove it false. I find it true," he said in a low voice. "You whom I so
trusted! God help me, where shall I look for honour?"

"Here, your Majesty," answered Wogan, without an instant's
hesitation,--"here, in this hall. There, in the rooms above."

He had seized the truth in the same second when he recognised his King,
and the King's first words had left him in no doubt. He knew now why he
had never found Harry Whittington in any corner of Bologna. Harry
Whittington had been riding to Spain.

The Chevalier laughed harshly.

"Sir, I suspect honour which needs such barriers to protect it. You are
here, in this house, at this hour, with a sentinel to forbid intrusion
at the garden door. Explain me this honourably."

"I had the honour to escort a visitor to her Highness, and I wait until
the visit is at an end."

"What? Can you not better that excuse?" said the Chevalier. "A visitor!
We will make acquaintance, Mr. Wogan, with your visitor, unless you have
another sentinel to bar my way;" and he put his foot upon the step of
the stairs.

"I beg your Majesty to pause," said Wogan, firmly. "Your thoughts wrong
me, and not only me."

"Prove me that!"

"I say boldly, 'Here is a servant who loves his Queen!' What then?"

"This! That you should say, 'Here is a man who loves a woman,--loves her
so well he gives his friends the slip, and with the woman comes alone to
Peri.'"

"Ah. To Peri! So I thought," began Wogan, and the Chevalier whispered,--

"Silence! You raise your voice too high. You no doubt are anxious in
your great respect that there should be some intimation of my coming.
But I dispense with ceremony. I will meet this fine visitor of yours at
once;" and he ran lightly up the stairs.

Then Wogan did a bold thing. He followed, he sprang past the King, he
turned at the stair-top and barred the way.

"Sir, I beg you to listen to me," he said quietly.

"Beg!" said the Chevalier, leaning back against the wall with his dark
eyes blazing from a white face; "you insist."

"Your Majesty will yet thank me for my insistence." He drew a
pocket-book out of his coat. "At Peri in Italy we were attacked by five
soldiers sent over the border by the Governor of Trent. Who guided those
five soldiers? Your Majesty's confidant and friend, who is now, I thank
God, waiting in the garden. Here is the written confession of the leader
of the five. I pray your Majesty to read it."

Wogan held out the paper. The Chevalier hesitated and took it. Then he
read it once and glanced at it again. He passed his hand over his
forehead.

"Whom shall I trust?" said he, in a voice of weariness.

"What honest errand was taking Whittington to Peri?" asked Wogan, and
again the Chevalier read a piece here and there of the confession. Wogan
pressed his advantage. "Whittington is not the only one of Walpole's men
who has hoodwinked us the while he filled his pockets. There are others,
one, at all events, who did not need to travel to Spain for an ear to
poison;" and he leaned forward towards the Chevalier.

"What do you mean?" asked the Chevalier, in a startled voice.

"Why, sir, that the same sort of venomous story breathed to you in Spain
has been spoken here in Bologna, only with altered names. I told your
Majesty I brought a visitor to this house to-night. I did; there was no
need I should, since the marriage is fixed for to-morrow. I brought her
all the way from Rome."

"From Rome?" exclaimed the Chevalier.

"Yes;" and Wogan flung open the door of the library, and drawing himself
up announced in his loudest voice, "The King!"

A loud cry came through the opening. It was not Clementina's voice which
uttered it. The Chevalier recognised the cry. He stood for a moment or
two looking at Wogan. Then he stepped over the threshold, and Wogan
closed the door behind him. But as he closed it he heard Maria Vittoria
speak. She said,--

"Your Majesty, a long while ago, when you bade me farewell, I demanded
of you a promise, which I have but this moment explained to the
Princess, who now deigns to call me friend. Your Majesty has broken the
promise. I had no right to demand it. I am very glad."

Wogan went downstairs. He could leave the three of them shut up in that
room to come by a fitting understanding. Besides, there was other work
for him below,--work of a simple kind, to which he had now for some
weeks looked forward. He crept down the stairs very stealthily. The hall
door was still open. He could see dimly the figure of a man standing on
the grass.

* * * * *

When the Chevalier came down into the garden an hour afterwards, a man
was still standing on the grass. The man advanced to him. "Who is it?"
asked the Chevalier, drawing back. The voice which answered him was
Wogan's.

"And Whittington?"

"He has gone," replied Wogan.

"You have sent him away?"

"I took so much upon myself."

The Chevalier held out his hand to Wogan. "I have good reason to thank
you," said he, and before he could say another word, a door shut above,
and Maria Vittoria came down the stairs towards them. O'Toole was still
standing sentry at the postern-door, and the three men escorted the
Princess Caprara to the Pilgrim Inn. She had spoken no word during the
walk, but as she turned in the doorway of the inn, the light struck upon
her face and showed that her eyes glistened. To the Chevalier she said,
"I wish you, my lord, all happiness, and the boon of a great love. With
all my heart I wish it;" and as he bowed over her hand, she looked
across his shoulder to Wogan.

"I will bid you farewell to-morrow," she said with a smile, and the
Chevalier explained her saying afterwards as they accompanied him to his
lodging.

"Mlle. de Caprara will honour us with her presence to-morrow. You will
still act as my proxy, Wogan. I am not yet returned from Spain. I wish
no questions or talk about this evening's doings. Your friend will
remember that?"

"My friend, sir," said Wogan, "who was with me at Innspruck, is Captain
Lucius O'Toole of Dillon's regiment."

"_Et_ senator too," said the Chevalier, with a laugh; and he added a
friendly word or two which sent O'Toole back to his lodging in a high
pleasure. Wogan walked thither with him and held out his hand at the
door.

"But you will come up with me," said O'Toole. "We will drink a glass
together, for God knows when we speak together again. I go back to
Schlestadt to-morrow."

"Ah, you go back," said Wogan; and he came in at the door and mounted
the stairs. At the first landing he stopped.

"Let me rouse Gaydon."

"Gaydon went three days ago."

"Ah! And Misset is with his wife. Here are we all once more scattered,
and, as you say, God knows when we shall speak together again;" and he
went on to the upper storey.

O'Toole remarked that he dragged in his walk and that his voice had a
strange, sad note of melancholy.

"My friend," said he, "you have the black fit upon you; you are plainly
discouraged. Yet to-night sees the labour of many months brought to its
due close;" and as he lit the candles on his chimney, he was quite
amazed by the white, tired face which the light showed to him. Wogan,
indeed, harassed by misgivings, and worn with many vigils, presented a
sufficiently woe-begone picture. The effect was heightened by the
disorder of his clothes, which were all daubed with clay in a manner
quite surprising to O'Toole, who knew the ground to be dry underfoot.

"True," answered Wogan, "the work ends to-night. Months ago I rode down
this street in the early morning, and with what high hopes! The work
ends to-night, and may God forgive me for a meddlesome fellow. Cup and
ball's a fine game, but it is ill playing it with women's hearts;" and
he broke off suddenly. "I'll give you a toast, Lucius! Here's to the
Princess Clementina!" and draining his glass he stood for a while, lost
in the recollecting of that flight from Innspruck; he was far away from
Bologna thundering down the Brenner through the night, with the sparks
striking from the wheels of the berlin, and all about him a glimmering,
shapeless waste of snow.

"To the Princess--no, to the Queen she was born to be," cried O'Toole,
and Wogan sprang at him.

"You saw that," he exclaimed, his eyes lighting, his face transfigured
in the intensity of this moment's relief. "Aye,--to love a nation,--that
is her high destiny. For others, a husband, a man; for her, a nation.
And you saw it! It is evident, to be sure. Yet this or that thing she
did, this or that word she spoke, assured you, eh? Tell me what proved
to you here was no mere woman, but a queen!"

The morning had dawned before Wogan had had his fill. O'Toole was very
well content to see his friend's face once more quivering like a boy's
with pleasure, to hear him laugh, to watch the despondency vanish from
his aspect. "There's another piece of good news," he said at the end,
"which I had almost forgotten to tell you. Jenny and the Princess's
mother are happily set free. It seems Jenny swore from daybreak to
daybreak, and the Pope used his kindliest offices, and for those two
reasons the Emperor was glad to let them go. But there's a question I
would like to ask you. One little matter puzzles me."

"Ask your question," said Wogan.

"To-night through that door in the garden wall which I guarded, there
went in yourself and a lady,--the King and a companion he had with
him,--four people. Out of that door there came yourself, the lady, and
the King,--three people."

"Ah," said Wogan, as he stood up with a strange smile upon his lips, "I
have a deal of clay upon my clothes."

O'Toole nodded his head wisely once or twice. "I am answered," he said.
"Is it indeed so?" He understood, however, nothing except that the room
had suddenly grown cold.




CHAPTER XXV


An account remains of the marriage ceremony, which took place the next
morning in Cardinal Origo's house. It was of the simplest kind and was
witnessed by few. Murray, Misset and his wife, and Maria Vittoria de
Caprara made the public part of the company; Wogan stood for the King;
and the Marquis of Monti Boulorois for James Sobieski, the bride's
father. Bride and bridegroom played their parts bravely and well, one
must believe, for the chronicler speaks of their grace and modesty of
bearing. Clementina rose at five in the morning, dressed in a robe of
white, tied a white ribbon about her hair, and for her only ornament
fixed a white collar of pearls about her neck. In this garb she went at
once to the church of San Domenico, where she made her confession, and
from the church to the Cardinal's Palace. There the Cardinal, with one
Maas, an English priest from Rome, at his elbow, was already waiting for
her. Mr. Wogan thereupon read the procuration, for which he had ridden
to Rome in haste so many months before, and pronounced the consent of
the King his master to its terms. Origo asked the Princess whether she
likewise consented, and the manner in which she spoke her one word,
"Yes," seems to have stirred the historian to paeans. It seems that all
the virtues launched that one little word, and were clearly expressed in
it. The graces, too, for once in a way went hand in hand with the
virtues. Never was a "Yes" so sweetly spoken since the earth rose out of
the sea. In a word, there was no ruffle of the great passion which these
two, man and woman, had trodden beneath their feet. She did not hint of
Iphigenia; he borrowed no plumes from Don Quixote. Nor need one fancy
that their contentment was all counterfeit. They were neither of them
grumblers, and "fate" and "destiny" were words seldom upon their lips.

One incident, indeed, is related which the chronicler thought to be
curious, though he did not comprehend it. The Princess Clementina
brought from her confessional box a wisp of straw which clung to her
dress at the knee. Until Wogan had placed the King's ring upon her
finger, she did not apparently remark it; but no sooner had that office
been performed than she stooped, and with a friendly smile at her
makeshift bridegroom, she plucked it from her skirt and let it fall
beneath her foot.

And that was all. No words passed between them after the ceremony, for
her Royal Highness went straight back to the little house in the garden,
and that same forenoon set out for Rome.

She was not the only witness of the ceremony to take that road that day.
For some three hours later, to be precise, at half-past two, Maria
Vittoria stepped into her coach before the Pilgrim Inn. Wogan held the
carriage door open for her. He was still in the bravery of his wedding
clothes, and Maria Vittoria looked him over whimsically from the top of
his peruke to his shoe-buckles.

"I came to see a fool-woman," said she, "and I saw a fool-man. Well,
well!" and she suddenly lowered her voice to a passionate whisper. "Why,
oh, why did you not take your fortunes in your hands at Peri?"

Wogan leaned forward to her. "Do you know so much?"

She answered him quickly. "I will never forgive you. Yes, I know." She
forced her lips into a smile. "I suppose you are content. You have your
black horse."

"You know of the horse, too," said Wogan, colouring to the edge of his
peruke. "You know I have no further use for it."

"Say that again, and I will beg it of you."

"Nay, it is yours, then. I will send him after you to Rome."

"Will you?" said Maria Vittoria. "Why, then, I accept. There's my
hand;" and she thrust it through the window to him. "If ever you come to
Rome, the Caprara Palace stands where it did at your last visit. I do
not say you will be welcome. No, I do not forgive you, but you may come.
Having your horse, I could hardly bar the door against you. So you may
come."

Wogan raised her hand to his lips.

"Aye," said she, with a touch of bitterness, "kiss my hand. You have had
your way. Here are two people crossmated, and two others not mated at
all. You have made four people entirely unhappy, and a kiss on the glove
sets all right."

"Nay, not four," protested Wogan.

"Your manners," she continued remorselessly, ticking off the names upon
her fingers, "will hinder you from telling me to my face the King is
happy. And the Princess?"

"She was born to be a queen," replied Wogan, stubbornly. "Happiness,
mademoiselle! It does not come by the striving after it. That's the
royal road to miss it. You may build up your house of happiness with all
your care through years, and you will find you have only built it up to
draw down the blinds and hang out the hatchment above the door, for the
tenant to inhabit it is dead."

Maria Vittoria listened very seriously till he came to the end. Then she
made a pouting grimace. "That is very fine, moral, and poetical. Your
Princess was born to be a queen. But what if her throne is set up only
in your city of dreams? Well, it is some consolation to know that you
are one of the four."

"Nay, I will make a shift not to plague myself upon the way the world
treats you."

"Ah, but because it treats you well," cried she. "There will be work for
you, hurryings to and fro, the opportunities of excelling, nights in the
saddle, and perhaps again the quick red life of battlefields. It is well
with you, but what of me, Mr. Wogan? What of me?" and she leaned back in
her carriage and drove away. Wogan had no answer to that despairing
question. He stood with his head bared till the carriage passed round a
corner and disappeared, but the voice rang for a long while in his ears.
And for a long while the dark eyes abrim with tears, and the tortured
face, kept him company at nights. He walked slowly back to his lodging,
and mounting a horse rode out of Bologna, and towards the Apennines.

On one of the lower slopes he came upon a villa just beyond a curve of
the road, and reined in his horse. The villa nestled on the hillside
below him in a terraced garden of oleander and magnolias, very pretty to
the eye. Cypress hedges enclosed it; the spring had made it a bower of
rose blossoms, and depths of shade out of whose green darkness glowed
here and there a red statue like a tutelary god. Wogan dismounted and
led his horse down the path to the door. He inquired for Lady
Featherstone, and was shown into a room from the windows of which he
looked down on Bologna, that city of colonnades. Lady Featherstone,
however, had heard the tramp of his horse; she came running up from the
garden, and without waiting to hear any particulars of her visitor,
burst eagerly into the room.

"Well?" she said, and stopped and swayed upon the threshold. Wogan
turned from the window towards her.

"Your Ladyship was wise, I think, to leave Bologna. The little house in
the trees there had no such wide prospect as this."

He spoke rather to give her time than out of any sarcasm. She set a
hand against the jamb of the door, and even so barely sustained her
trifling weight. Her knees shook, her childlike face grew white as
paper, a great terror glittered in her eyes.

"I am not the visitor whom you expect," continued Wogan, "nor do I bring
the news which you would wish to hear;" and at that she raised a
trembling hand. "I beg you--a moment's silence. Then I will hear you,
Mr. Warner." She made a sort of stumbling run and reached a couch. Wogan
shut the door and waited. He was glad that she had used the name of
Warner. It recalled to him that evening at Ohlau when she had stood
behind the curtain with a stiletto in her hand, and the three last days
of his perilous ride to Schlestadt. He needed his most vivid
recollections to steel his heart against her; for he was beginning to
think it was his weary lot to go up and down the world causing pain to
women. After a while she said, "Now your news;" and she held her hand
lightly to her heart to await the blow.