Henry Curties

“ Nivel was an advocate of "rough" shooting—and sitting round the great blazing fire of logs in the hall while Ethel poured out our tea.
I will admit that Ethel and I indulged in a mild flirtation; we always did when we met, especially when we had not seen one another for some time, which was the case in the present instance.
Still it was only a cousinly flirtation and never went beyond a pressure of the hand, or on very rare occasions a kiss, when we met by chance perhaps, in the gloaming of the evening, in one of the long, old world corridors, when no one was about. ”

“ He paused and placed his fingers together in deep thought.
"I place myself mentally," he continued, "in your position, and I try to think as you think—try to realise your feelings: the appeal you received from the old lady as she stood at the door of the house in Monmouth Street, your acceding to her request, your second visit, the discovery of the tragedy, the undeserved misfortunes that fell upon you in consequence, your fidelity to your promise to the lady who was at best a mere chance acquaintance, the impenetrable mystery which surrounds it all. ”

“ These stilted passages of Lord Hervey seem to have been put together with a double object; first to show his hatred for Prince Frederick; secondly to display his own learning. Though succeeding admirably in one, he seems to have failed in the other. No man of learning would ever commit himself to assertions which he was not in a position to substantiate, and Lord Hervey was certainly never in a position to prove any of the assertions he put forward against the Prince, or he most assuredly would have done so. ”

“ The anxious look faded into one of softness, and he commenced walking backwards and forwards in the room, without answering me.
Presently he stopped and faced me again, and in his old eyes, which were blue like his daughter's, there were tears.
"I will not conceal from you, Anstruther," he began, "the fact that your affection for Dolores has been apparent to me for some time past, and has given me cause for much thought. Not that I have distrusted you, remember," he added with a kind glance.
"I am not often deceived in a man, and I think I could trust my child to you." ”

“ As for Prince Frederick himself, there is little doubt that although he had never seen her, yet he had in a romantic way fallen in love with his cousin Wilhelmina. This was quite a natural phase of his sanguine, artistic character. One can quite understand that his aunt, the Queen of Prussia, had not neglected any of those little manœuvres by which the hearts of young men are moved. She was simply a match-making mother, and was quite cognizant of the fact that Frederick would, if he lived, inherit the Crown of England. ”

“ St. Nivel was in the smoking-room; Dolores and Ethel were in the state-room of the latter, holding one of those long important feminine conferences—most delightful, I understood, to themselves—in which dress was the pièce de résistance, with perhaps a little gossip about Ethel's conquests in Aquazilia; they were legion! Mrs. Darbyshire was asleep in her state-room, and as for the dear old man, Don Juan, whom I looked upon now as my future father-in-law, he was studying assiduously a book he had picked up in the ship's library, Reptiles of England, Scotland, and Wales.
Simple soul! ”

“ This further news was kept from the Queen altogether, and that evening a sad party sat down in the Palace of St. James’s to pretend to play cards, while every ear was strained to catch the least sound which might be the precursor of the news of the King’s death. In basset and cribbage was that Christmas night passed by the Queen, while Sir Robert Walpole, the Dukes of Grafton, Newcastle, Montagu, Devonshire and Richmond, with Lord Hervey, talked of everything they could think of, but the King’s danger, or walked moodily up and down in the shadows. ”

“ We arose silently, and went forth on to the sunlit terrace again, with its wealth of flowers and perfumed air. We walked without a word passing between us, and we came to the arbour in the shade overlooking a grand stretch of blue lake; here was the Comtesse, a table before her with coffee and liqueurs, amongst them a sparkling cut-glass decanter of yellow Chartreuse. A nun stood ready to pour out the coffee, the same that had written at the old lady's dictation and held her sunshade in the morning. ”

“ The public conveyance seems to have been of much the same description as that which one recollects in one’s youth in the shape of the ancient growler, musty and full of damp straw to keep the feet warm, but represented then by a rumbling old disused coach, very mouldy, with straw as above, and in which it must have been a great treat to traverse the irregular cobbles of the metropolitan streets. But with all its drawbacks London of 1728 rose immeasurably superior to London of the twentieth century in one respect, and one respect only. ”

“ The attendant nun had fixed the large white sunshade in a socket in the invalid chair; she was writing at the old lady's dictation. We came quite near before the Comtesse heard us approaching. Then she turned her head and looked at us, her kind old features breaking into a very sweet smile; her glance wandered from the Mother Superior to Dolores, then to me; there it stopped.
A little more frail, a little paler, yet with a bright colour in her cheeks, her still clear eyes gazing up to mine with an alarmed look in them; I knew her. ”

“ But other more stirring thoughts soon filled the young mother’s head than the frailties of her husband’s family, for when the sum of her nursery reached four and the little Prince Frederick was in his eighth year, the fruit of her hopes ripened, Queen Anne of England died, and a lucky turn of politics in favour of the Whigs, laid open to her the road to a throne. ”

“ Mrs. Darbyshire came shrieking out into the forepart of the car in which I had left her with Dolores.
"They have taken her," she shrieked, "they have taken her away from me as a hostage. It cannot be. Bring her back, bring her back, I implore you!" she cried in Spanish to the men who were passing the train, and who in return only laughed and jeered her.
"Mr. Anstruther," she cried, "save her!"
I made her no answer, for I knew it was useless, but I gripped the revolver I carried beneath my loose smock. ”

“ The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery and sleeps, as usual, between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline; Lord Grantham strolls from one room to another (as Dryden says) like some discontented ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak, and stirs himself about, as people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn brisker, which his lordship constantly does to no purpose, and yet tries as constantly as if he had ever once succeeded. ”

“ I thought of the man tearing along with the evening papers, the upsetting of Brooks, and the fussy lady and gentleman who had insisted on brushing me down. I saw it all now—a carefully prepared plan!
Then I roared with laughter, much to the astonishment of Ethel and St.
Nivel.
"They've had all their trouble for nothing," I gasped, simply stamping with delight; "the silly fools have got nothing!" But I was wrong; they had got my brand new cigar case given me by Ethel with my initials on it and full of St. Nivel's best Havannahs, placed there by her own fair hands for the railway journey. ”

“ Thoroughly to appreciate the nest into which this unfortunate little Prince was born and christened, it is necessary to turn for a moment to the habits and customs of his father and grandfather.
Taking the latter first, the Elector and future King of England was in the habit of retaining without any concealment whatever a minimum of three mistresses. These ladies, this considerate old father-in-law expected his son’s wife to receive and treat with civility, and strange to say Caroline the Princess Electoral did it. Poor soul! ”

“ Darbyshire was now quite resigned—I took her hand and pressed it.
"It is a very easy thing to be kind to you, Dolores," I said. "I should find the difficulty in being kind to the reptiles."
"But you will humour my father, won't you?" she asked, and then dropped her voice, "for both our sakes?"
The amount of interest dear old Sir Rupert Frampton took in distant scenery during this drive, and the many objects of interest he pointed out to Mrs. Darbyshire to divert her attention from us, made me his willing slave for life. ”

“ Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, thus speaks of him at this time:—
“There is a great deal of very good company goes to Norfolk House, but if I were to advise, I would have more play, to make more people easy by sitting down, as it used to be in all the Courts, that ever I knew, either by a basset-table, or at other games, letting people of quality go halves. But they begin, to my thinking, with the same forms the late Queen did, only to leave room to entertain a few of the town ladies, and I think it don’t lessen one’s greatness, but the contrary, to make everybody, one can, easy.” ”

“ I forgot that young ladies never fall in love with the persons they are expected to, but invariably go off on an unknown tangent of their own, in obedience to the same law of Nature, perhaps, which causes an unusually tall girl to lose her heart to a very diminutive—though generally very consequential—little man.
In the contemplation of the varied charms of Dolores d'Alta, I almost forgot my precious casket, confided in fear and trembling to the care of the captain, and locked up by him in the ship's strong room in my presence and in the presence of St. Nivel. ”

“ James’s Palace, and then being told, in answer to an enquiry, that the Princess was very well, concluded that nothing had happened. However, the Queen, to whom this whole affair must have been a great trial—for she was in very bad health—ascended the stairs to the Prince’s apartments, and Lord Hervey considerately promised to get her a fire and some chocolate in his own room. As she parted from him she made this most extraordinary remark, which can be taken as a sample of the unreasonable fear and hatred towards their son which had obsessed the minds of the King and Queen. ”

“ I took a good look round the room, and took stock of its contents. It was furnished very luxuriously in the European fashion and contained some beautiful pictures, but its principal ornaments were cases of stuffed reptiles of every sort, from a tiny lizard to a great boa-constrictor with red jaws agape.
There were four French windows opening to the ground, shaded by outside striped blinds similar to those used in England, but not low enough to hide a most splendid view of hill and dale and far-away mountains, which seemed to surround the city of Valoro, itself seeming to rest on a plateau. ”

“ I sat down again and thought deeply.
"Bill Anstruther," I said to myself, "you're in for it. You've consented to receive the confidences of that old lady, who, poor soul, was in the direst need of help and friendship without doubt when she called you in the night before last. You're bound in honour to go through with it, and try to help her, or at any rate carry out her wishes, be she dead or alive."
Thus I reasoned, and in this, it seemed to me, my duty lay. Obviously the first thing to do was to obtain possession of the packets again and ascertain their contents. ”

“ The story, as may be imagined, was very soon in everybody’s mouth, and Madame Walmoden was thoroughly alarmed; she knew there were plenty to carry the story to the King. But she took her courage in both hands, and did what every woman has done in similar circumstances and will no doubt continue to do as long as women exist on this earth, beloved by natures weaker than their own. She ordered her coach soon after daylight, and by six o’clock was on the road to Herrenhausen to be the first to tell her version of the story to her elderly royal lover. ”

“ We mounted up from garden to garden until we came to a large terrace full of flowers, which surrounded the conventual buildings and commanded a magnificent view of the lake.
Here the sister left us.
"Will monsieur and madame divert themselves here," she asked, "while I go fetch our Mother?"
Delighted with the beautiful surroundings and the glorious stretch of blue water below us, Dolores and I were quite content to enjoy the lovely scene by ourselves; our boatman had long since slunk off down a side alley to find his relative the lay sister. ”