Queen Gertrude

“ Yolanda, the Queen Mother, was a German; an energetic, politically-minded woman who had ruled her husband and bettered the condition of the country relentlessly, without ever winning anything from her adopted people but dislike. Her husband, and her elder son, and a daughter, had been assassinated seven or eight years before. I counted back. It was after I had seen Helena in Paris. Someone, how or why I could not remember, had thrown a bomb. Bela, the younger son, had become King, with his mother as Regent until he was eighteen. ”

“ The queen of the Amazons smiled.
[284] "Then shall it be said of thee," she replied, "that thou wert a valiant warrior who conquered the world, but was himself conquered by women. Is that to be your message to history?"
King Alexander was a man of learning and of wisdom, as well as a great soldier, but the words of the queen of the Amazons were such that he could not answer. He bowed low before the queen and with a gesture indicated that he had naught to say.
"Then it is to be peace," said the queen. "At least, before thy return, let me prepare for thee a banquet." ”

“ King Zuliman listened intently. This was a singular speech for a princess, but reason told him this was profoundest wisdom.
[265] "Oh, I am tired," burst out Princess Solima, in tears. "I have no desire for life if to be a ruler over men and women and children means that you must take no interest in their welfare. My father, hearken. I will not be queen in a land where the king thinks the people live only to make him great. I shall be proud and happy to reign where the king understands that it is his duty to make his people happy and his country prosperous and peaceful." ”

“ Queen Yolanda answered coldly, “You can surely leave that to us, Countess Waldek is our affair.”
John took a long breath. “Not altogether, your Majesty. She is Mr. Carvin’s cousin, and that makes her partly our affair.”
Maria Lalena jumped up from her chair. “Oh,” she cried, “then you are—now isn’t that splendid? I see now, you came straight from the Black Ghost’s den.” ”

“ In a hut made of logs and decorated with skins, a rough wooden table was placed before Alexander and on it was laid a loaf of gold.
"Do ye eat bread of gold?" asked the king, much surprised.
"Nay," replied the queen. "We are women of simple tastes, but thou art a mighty king. If thou didst but wish to eat ordinary bread in this land, why didst thou desire to conquer it? Is there no more bread in your own land that thou shouldst brave the dangers of the dark mountains to eat it here?" ”

“ The queen and the princess agreed with Reuel, who was their favorite, but Bilam would not allow the matter to pass lightly.
"I, Bilam, am chief of thy counselors," he said, "and deeply learned in the mysteries of signs and portents. There is a meaning in all [130] things. Remember, O King, this child is of the Hebrews, and escaped thy decree. This play of his hath a meaning. Should he be permitted to grow up, he will rebel against thee and seek to destroy thy rule. Let him be judged, O king." ”

“ I believe you gentlemen wish to go to Herrovosca to see Queen Yolanda. At least that is the way I interpreted the news of the ’ole between your room and that occupied by a certain lady. Now, it may be a surprise to you if I withdraw my objection to your going there. As prisoners, gentlemen, you are very troublesome. I think I would rather ’ave you for friends. If you will give me your word of honor to say nothing of what you ’ave learned of the politics of the Visichich family, or of the location of the castle in the mountains, you may go to Herrovosca. ”

“ John asked, though I saw he knew the answer.
“Fakat Zol, the Black Ghost,” the doctor said, simply. “If you do not keep quiet I cannot help hurting you. Our hetman has sent a message to him. He will come soon, I hope.”
“Do Alarian ghosts always come when they are sent for?” I asked.
“This is a live ghost,” the doctor answered, winding yards of bandage around John’s arm. “It is fortunate, too, for with a strange impostor in Herrovosca, to be crowned as Queen, and a prophet here, raising a mob, we need something more than police to keep order.” ”

“ Marie and the Queen. Helena is safer right here, I believe, than she would be anywhere. They aren’t afraid of her while she’s here, and they are afraid of the other two. It’s not normal to hurt people unless you are afraid of them. I think we ought to try to take that message to Yolanda, and try to get it there before anything breaks that the Black Ghost may consider an opportunity, and turn to his own advantage at their cost. ”

“ There isn’t a faction here that hasn’t at least one count against us. We’re messengers to the Queen, but we brought a regicide to town. We promised to be friendly toward the Black Ghost, but didn’t deliver the prophet to the gendarmes. We are friends of Helena’s, but she has disappeared, and we were about the last people to see her so far as anyone can prove. The Visichiches were nice to us, but we stole their car and took off their prisoner. We’re Americans, but we haven’t any good excuse for not having our passports, and, anyway, I rather think they thought you threw that bomb. ”

“ John said, “for there’s very likely to be a lot of trouble for someone here tonight unless something is done to stop it. Yolanda has played a trump, but now it’s Conrad’s turn, and he talked to the crowd as though he knew what he was about. If he wants the throne, and he isn’t assassinated, I’m betting on him, for all of Maria Lalena’s pretty, childish appeal.”
27
“Still,” I said, “if he wants the throne he’s gummed his own game a bit, presenting her to the world as the Queen. I don’t see how he can expect to eat his own words later and remain much of a favorite.” ”

“ She is a very lovely lady, but she is not a politician. If she were not a very loyal friend of the Queen she would not trouble ’erself about such things, and that would be right. She makes trouble for ’erself, talking, and she will make trouble also for Prince Conrad. It is because I wish to stop ’er talking that when the Queen’s car went through the Pass tonight, I put up the barricade, and waited for ’er to come back. ”

“ It was a desperate note, and Helena, of course, must be desperate. Whoever Maria Lalena might really be, she had been Helena’s daughter for eight years, anyway. And if she were Marie Waldek, she was in very great personal danger. This Black Ghost would not even consider her, and I couldn’t blame him very much. She had committed a serious offense. And she could not count on popular help. Mobs are never respecters of persons.
“‘Tell the Queen that the Black Ghost wears a ruby ring,’” John quoted. ”

“ If I ’ad refused to present Maria Lalena to a wondering people, she would ’ave done it ’erself. I agreed to sponsor ’er, not because I believed ’er a Princess; but because I knew that if I did not, Queen Yolanda would raise such a storm as our poor government would never be able to weather, even with the ’elp of my loyal small army from the mountains, and all my ’ocus-pocus. Speed was essential. The crown must be offered to someone, so its proper heir offered it to a usurper. ”

“ Our cousin, the ex-Queen Yolanda,” he fondled the ex lovingly, “is a determined and clever woman. She summoned me to the Palace, but only some hours after the news of Bela’s supposed death reached ’er. In the meantime she ’ad driven through the city as was her ’abit, and telephoned to ’er friend Countess von Waldek to send this young lady speeding across the country. When I arrived, very quickly, as you can imagine, on the ’eels of her message to me, she brought forward the little Princess Maria Lalena, whom I ’ad seen dead with my own eyes eight years before. ”

“ The Countess Waldek ’as been a most loyal friend. There is something magic in a personal friend who is also a queen, especially for a very democratic American.”
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“Americans are apt to be loyal friends,” I defended Helena almost automatically. I was beginning to feel she needed defense, which was a disloyal thought.
“It does not matter very seriously to me,” he went on, “if later you should reach Herrovosca. When Prince Conrad is in power ’e can show the American Minister very quickly that you were concerning yourselves in affairs that are outside the proper province of American citizens. ”

“ The poor old King was still in fear about his country; he did not believe, as many did, that Victoria was too delicate to live long, but he did think her too young to reign, for he knew that her general attitude was one of gentle obedience to her mother, and he thought that when he was dead the Duchess of Kent would be virtually Queen of England. ”

“ Now few witnesses are left anywhere of her fair happy childhood, or even of her girlhood, which was like a silvery crescent, holding the dim promise of full-orbed womanhood and Queenhood.
As the Princess grew older, she found loving and helpful companionship in her half-brother and sister, Prince Charles and the Princess Feodore of Leiningen, the three children and their mother forming a close family union, which years and separations and changes of fortune never destroyed. They are all gone from her now; the Queen, as daughter and sister, stands alone. ”

“ Gertrude went on. “What is the difference now? Is it because it is at night?”
“The difference, Gertrude,” said Felix, stopping in the path, “the difference is that I love you more—more than before!” And then they stood there, talking, in the warm stillness and in front of the closed dark house. “I have been talking to Charlotte—been trying to bespeak her interest with your father. She has a kind of sublime perversity; was ever a woman so bent upon cutting off her own head?”
“You are too careful,” said Gertrude; “you are too diplomatic.” ”

“ You failed to convince me that Gertrude can in any way be a drawback to the man who shall be so fortunate as to call her his. For my own part, I desire no better, no more truly aristocratic position in life than that to which she is so well entitled, and to which she would be one of the brightest ornaments—the aristocracy of true refinement, knowledge, grace, and beauty. You talk to me of wealth. Gertrude has no money in her purse, but her soul is the pure gold, tried in the furnace of sorrow and affliction, and thence come forth bright and unalloyed. ”

“ Greville had by no means delighted to honor. Ah, the good, brave Duchess had her reward for all her years of patient exile, all her loving labor and watchful care, and rich compensation for all criticisms, misrepresentations, and fault-finding, that June afternoon, the day of the Proclamation, when she rode from the Palace of St. James to Kensington with her daughter, who had behaved so well—her daughter and her Queen! ”

“ Gerard spoke and said, ‘What will you say to me now, O wife of an Emperor, as to the exchange I have made of you for a very inferior article?’ ‘Do not say that,’ answered the Queen; ‘say a worthy object, of high value, Sir. But it is true that through you I am become Queen, and that out of love for me you have taken my sister to wife. Be you my witnesses, Counts Gervais and Bertelais, and you also, my sister, and confidante of all my thoughts, and you, above all, Jesus, my Redeemer; know all that I have given my love to duke Gerard along with this ring and this flower. ”

“ Gertrude hastened to introduce her mother and sister to the old lady. There was no help for it--they were obliged to sit down again for a short time out of politeness. Mrs. Baumhagen, with a bored look, Jenny with scarcely concealed amusement at the wonderful little old lady.
"Gertrude," began Frank, "Aunt Rosa came to tell us that she expects company."
"I hope it won't put you out," said the old lady, turning to Gertrude. "My niece always visits me every year at this time. You have heard me say that the child is passionately fond of the woods and mountains and she cheers me up a little." ”

“ In one of the intervals, I walked under the King's stand, and saw Her Majesty the Queen, and the young Princess Victoria, very distinctly. They were leaning over the railing listening to a ballad-singer, and seeming as much interested and amused as any simple country-folk could be. The Queen is undoubtedly the plainest woman in her dominions, but the Princess is much better-looking than any picture of her in the shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of England, quite unnecessarily, pretty and interesting. She will be sold, poor thing! ”

“ By the time of William IV. the Duchess had become not simply a passive resister but an active agitator, and many scenes of anger took place between her and the King. Both George and William often renewed the threat of taking her child from her that the young Princess might be placed in the hands of someone more complacent to the Royal will. George would really have done this, but that the Duke of Wellington, who was his adviser, always temporised and put off the execution of the threat. When the Duchess became mother to the Queen of England, though things changed they were no better ”

“ The outriders appeared—the doors opened, I stepped out, the children close behind me; the band struck up 'Partant pour la Syrie,' the trumpets sounded, and the open carriage, with the Emperor and Empress, Albert sitting opposite them, drove up and they got out... I advanced and embraced the Emperor, who received two salutes on either cheek from me—having first kissed my hand." The English Queen did not do things by halves, any more than the English people. She then embraced the Empress, whom she describes as "very gentle and graceful, but evidently very nervous." ”

“ The old gentler man understood his business. He had had sleepless nights over it lately, it is true, but the menu was exquisite. The only pity was that he and Aunt Pauline and Arthur were the only ones who were capable of appreciating it, according to his ideas. The chilling mood still rested on the company, even through Uncle Henry's toasts, not even yielding to the champagne. The old egotist was almost in despair.
When the company adjourned to the drawing-room for coffee, Gertrude went to her room. A quarter of an hour later she came into the hall in her travelling dress. ”