Chapter Twenty. The Hermit of Hammersmith.

Guy Bourne, in his shirt sleeves, was sitting back in a long cane lounge-chair in the little front parlour when the Princess and her companion entered. He had just finished his frugal supper.

He jumped up confusedly, threw the evening paper aside, and apologised that her Highness had discovered him without a coat.

“Please don’t apologise, Mr Bourne. This is rather an unusual hour for a visit, is it not? But pray forgive me,” she said in English, with scarcely any trace of a German accent.

“Your Highness is always welcome—at any hour,” he laughed, struggling into his coat and ordering his landlady to clear away the remnants of the meal. “Leucha was here yesterday, and she told me how you were faring. I am sorry that circumstances over which I, unfortunately, have no control have not permitted my calling at the Savoy. At present I can only go out after midnight for a breath of air, and time passes rather slowly, I can assure you. As Leucha has probably told you, certain persons are making rather eager inquiries about me just now.”

“I understand perfectly,” she laughed. “It was to obtain your advice as to the best way to efface myself that I came to see you this evening. Leucha tells me you are an expert in disappearing.”

“Well, Princess,” he smiled, offering her a chair, “you see it’s part of my profession to show myself as little as possible, though self-imprisonment is always very irksome. This house is one among many in London which afford accommodation for such as myself. The landlady is a person who knows how to keep her mouth shut, and who asks no questions. She is, as most of them are, the widow of a person who was a social outcast like myself.”

“And this is one of your harbours of refuge,” her Highness exclaimed, looking around curiously upon the cheaply furnished but comfortable room. There was linoleum in lieu of carpet, and to the Londoner the cheap walnut overmantel and plush-covered drawing-room suite spoke mutely of the Tottenham Court Road and the “easy-payment” system.

The Princess was shrewd enough to notice the looks which passed between Leucha and the man to whom she was so much indebted. She detected that a passion of love existed between them. Indeed, the girl had almost admitted as much to her, and had on several occasions begged to be allowed to visit him and ascertain whether he was in want of anything.

It was an interesting and a unique study, she found, the affection between a pair of the criminal class.

What would the world say had it known that she, a reigning Queen, was there upon a visit to a man wanted by the police for half a dozen of the most daring jewel robberies of the past half-century?

She saw a box of cheap cigarettes upon the table, and begged one, saying,—

“I hope, Mr Bourne, you will not be shocked, but I dearly love a cigarette. You will join me, of course?”

“Most willingly, your Highness,” he said, springing to his feet and holding the lighted match for her. She was so charmingly unconventional that people of lower station were always fascinated by her.

“You know,” she exclaimed, laughing, “I used to shock them very much at Court because I smoked. And sometimes,” she added mischievously, “I smoked at certain functions in order purposely to shock the prudes. Oh, I’ve had the most delightful fun very often, I assure you. My husband, when we were first married, used to enter into the spirit of the thing, and once dared me to smoke a cigarette in the Throne Room in the presence of the King and Queen. I did so—and imagine the result!”

“Ah!” he cried, “that reminds me. Pray pardon me for my breach of etiquette, but you have come upon me so very unexpectedly. I’ve seen in the Mail the account of his Majesty’s death, and that you are now Queen. In future I must call you ‘your Majesty.’ You are a reigning sovereign, and I am a thief. A strange contrast, is it not?”

“Better call me your friend, Mr Bourne,” she said, in a calm, changed voice. “Here is no place for titles. Recollect that I am now only an ordinary citizen, one of the people—a mere woman whose only desire is peace.”

Then continuing, she explained her daily fear lest she might be recognised at the Savoy, and asked his advice as to the best means of hiding herself.

“Well, your Majesty,” said the past master of deception, after some thought, “you see you are a foreigner, and as such will be remarked in England everywhere. You speak French like a Parisienne. Why not pass as French under a French name? I should suggest that you go to some small, quiet South Coast town—say to Worthing. Many French people go there as they cross from Dieppe. There are several good hotels; or you might, if you wished to be more private, obtain apartments.”

“Yes,” she exclaimed excitedly; “apartments in an English house would be such great fun. I will go to this place Worthing. Is it nice?”

“Quiet—with good sea air.”

“I was once at Hastings—when I was a child. Is it anything like that?”

“Smaller, more select, and quieter.”

“Then I will go there to-morrow and call myself Madame Bernard,” she said decisively. “Leucha will go with me in search of apartments.”

Having gained her freedom, she now wanted to see what an English middle-class house was like. She had heard much of English home life from Allen and from the English notabilities who had come to Court, and she desired to see it for herself. Hotel life is the same all the world over, and it already bored her.

“Certainly. Your Majesty will be much quieter and far more comfortable in apartments, and passing as an ordinary member of the public,” Leucha said. “I happen to know a very nice house where one can obtain furnished apartments. It faces the sea near the pier, and is kept by a Mrs Blake, the widow of an Army surgeon. When I was in service with Lady Porthkerry we stayed there for a month.”

“Then we will most certainly go there; and perhaps you, Mr Bourne, will find it possible to take the sea air at Worthing instead of being cooped up here. You might come down by a night train—that is, if you know a place where you would be safe.”

He shook his head dubiously.

“I know a place in Brighton—where I’ve stayed several times. It is not far from Worthing, certainly. But we will see afterwards. Does your Majesty intend to leave London to-morrow?”

“Yes; but please not ‘your Majesty,’” she said, in mild reproach, and with a sweet smile. “Remember, I am in future plain Madame Bernard, of Bordeaux, shall we say? The landlady—as I think you call her in English—must not know who I am, or there will soon be paragraphs in the papers, and those seaside snap-shotters will be busy. I should quickly find myself upon picture postcards, as I’ve done, to my annoyance, on several previous occasions when I’ve wanted to be quiet and remain incognito.”

And so it was arranged that she should establish herself at Mrs Blake’s, in Worthing, which she did about six o’clock on the following evening.

The rooms, she found, were rather frowzy, as are those of most seaside lodgings, the furniture early Victorian, and on the marble-topped whatnot was that ornament in which our grandmothers so delighted—a case of stuffed birds beneath a glass dome. The two windows of the first-floor sitting-room opened out upon a balcony before which was the promenade and the sea beyond—one of the best positions in Worthing, without a doubt.

Mrs Blake recognised Leucha at once, terms were quickly fixed, and the maid—as is usual in such cases—received a small commission for bringing her mistress there.

When they were duly installed, Leucha, in confidence, told the inquisitive landlady that her mistress was one of the old French aristocracy, while at the same moment “Madame” was sitting out upon the balcony watching the sun disappear into the grey waters of the Channel.

In the promenade a few people were still passing up and down, the majority having gone in to dinner. But among them was one man, who, though unnoticed, lounged past and glanced upward—the tall, thin, grey-haired man who had on the previous night watched her enter the house in Hammersmith.

He wore a light grey suit, and presented the appearance of an idler from London, like most of the other promenaders, yet the quick, crafty look he darted in her direction was distinctly an evil one.

Yet in ignorance she sat there, in full view of him, enjoying the calm sundown, her eyes turned pensively away into the grey, distant haze of the coming night.

Her thoughts were away there, across the sea. She wondered how her husband fared, now that he was King. Did he ever think of her save with angry recollections; or did he ever experience that remorse that sooner or later must come to every man who wrongs a faithful woman?

That morning, before leaving the Savoy, she had received two letters, forwarded to her in secret from Brussels. One was from Treysa, and the other bore the postmark “Roma.”

The letter from Treysa had been written by Steinbach three days after the King’s death. It was on plain paper, and without a signature. But she knew his handwriting well. It ran:—

“Your Majesty will have heard the news, no doubt, through the newspapers. Two days ago our King George was, after luncheon, walking on the terrace with General Scheibe, when he was suddenly seized by paralysis. He cried, ‘I am dying, Scheibe. Help me indoors!’ and fell to the ground. He was carried into the palace, where he lingered until nine o’clock in the evening, and then, in spite of all the physicians could do, he expired. The Crown Prince was immediately proclaimed Sovereign, and at this moment I have just returned from the funeral, whereat the greatest pomp has been displayed. All the Sovereigns of Europe were represented, and your Majesty’s absence from Court was much remarked and commented upon. The general opinion is that you will return—that your difference with the King will now be settled; and I am glad to tell you that those who were your Majesty’s bitterest enemies a week ago are now modifying their views, possibly because they fear what may happen to them if you really do return. At this moment the Court is divided into two sets—those who hope that you will take your place as Queen, and those who are still exerting every effort to prevent it. The latter are still crying out that you left Treysa in company with Count Leitolf, and urging his Majesty to sue for a divorce—especially now that the Emperor of Austria has degraded you by withdrawing your Imperial privileges and your right to bear the Imperial arms of Austria, and by decree striking you off the roll of the Dames de la Croix Etoilée. From what I have gathered, a spy of Hinckeldeym’s must have followed your Majesty to Vienna and seen you meet the Count. At present, however, although every effort is being made to find you, the secret agents have, it is said, been unsuccessful. I have heard that you are in Italy, to be near Leitolf; evidently a report spread by Hinckeldeym and his friends.

“The people are clamouring loudly for you. They demand that ‘their Claire’ shall be brought back to them as Queen. Great demonstrations have been made in the Dom Platz, and inflammatory speeches have been delivered against Hinckeldeym, who is denounced as your arch-enemy. The mob on two occasions assumed an attitude so threatening that it had to be dispelled by the police. The situation is serious for the Government, inasmuch as the Socialists have resolved to champion your cause, and declare that when the time is ripe they will expose the plots of your enemies, and cause Hinckeldeym’s downfall.

“I am in a position to know that this is no mere idle talk. One of the spies has betrayed his employers; hence the whole Court is trembling. What will the King do? we are all asking. On the one hand the people declare you are innocent and ill-judged, while on the other the Court still declares with dastardly motive that your friendship with Leitolf was more than platonic. And, unfortunately, his Majesty believes the latter.

“My own opinion is that your Majesty’s best course is still to remain in concealment. A squadron of spies have been sent to the various capitals, and photographs are being purposely published in the illustrated press in order that you may be identified. I hope, however, that just at present you will not be discovered, for if so I fear that in order to stem the Socialistic wave even your friends must appear to be against you. Your Majesty knows too well the thousand and one intrigues which form the undercurrent of life at our Court, and my suggestion is based upon what I have been able to gather in various quarters. All tends to show that the King, now that he has taken the reins of government, is keenly alive to his responsibility towards the nation. His first speech, delivered to-day, has shown it. He appears to be a changed man, and I can only hope and pray that he has become changed towards yourself.

“If you are in Paris or in London, beware of secret agents, for both capitals swarm with them. Remain silent, patient and watchful; but, above all, be very careful not to allow your enemies any further food for gossip. If they start another scandal at this moment, it would be fatal to all your Majesty’s interests; for I fear that even the people, faithful to your cause up to the present, would then turn against you. In conclusion, I beg to assure your Majesty of my loyalty, and that what ever there is to report in confidence I will do so instantly through this present channel. I would also humbly express a hope that both your Majesty and the Princess Ignatia are in perfect health.”

The second letter—the one bearing the Rome postmark—was headed, “Imperial Embassy of Austria-Hungary, Palazzo Chigi,” and was signed “Carl.”