Rupert of Hentzau: From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim<br />Sequel to The Prisoner of Zenda, Anthony Hope [top 10 most read books in the world TXT] 📗
- Author: Anthony Hope
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“I may as well go in now,” said Rudolf, and in he sprang. There was a merry smile on his face as he ran forward to meet Helga, who leant against the table, pale and agitated.
“They saw you?” she gasped.
“Undoubtedly,” said he. Then his sense of amusement conquered everything else, and he sat down in a chair, laughing.
“I’d give my life,” said he, “to hear the story that the chancellor will be waked up to hear in a minute or two from now!”
But a moment’s thought made him grave again. For whether he were the king or Rudolf Rassendyll, he knew that my wife’s name was in equal peril. Knowing this, he stood at nothing to serve her. He turned to her and spoke quickly.
“You must rouse one of the servants at once. Send him round to the chancellor’s and tell the chancellor to come here directly. No, write a note. Say the king has come by appointment to see Fritz on some private business, but that Fritz has not kept the appointment, and that the king must now see the chancellor at once. Say there’s not a moment to lose.”
She was looking at him with wondering eyes.
“Don’t you see,” he said, “if I can impose on Helsing, I may stop those women’s tongues? If nothing’s done, how long do you suppose it’ll be before all Strelsau knows that Fritz von Tarlenheim’s wife let the king in at the window at five o’clock in the morning?”
“I don’t understand,” murmured poor Helga in bewilderment.
“No, my dear lady, but for Heaven’s sake do what I ask of you. It’s the only chance now.”
“I’ll do it,” she said, and sat down to write.
Thus it was that, hard on the marvelous tidings which, as I conjecture, the Baroness von Helsing poured into her husband’s drowsy ears, came an imperative summons that the chancellor should wait on the king at the house of Fritz von Tarlenheim.
Truly we had tempted fate too far by bringing Rudolf Rassendyll again to Strelsau.
CHAPTER XII. BEFORE THEM ALL!
GREAT as was the risk and immense as were the difficulties created by the course which Mr. Rassendyll adopted, I cannot doubt that he acted for the best in the light of the information which he possessed. His plan was to disclose himself in the character of the king to Helsing, to bind him to secrecy, and make him impose the same obligation on his wife, daughter, and servants. The chancellor was to be quieted with the excuse of urgent business, and conciliated by a promise that he should know its nature in the course of a few hours; meanwhile an appeal to his loyalty must suffice to insure obedience. If all went well in the day that had now dawned, by the evening of it the letter would be destroyed, the queen’s peril past, and Rudolf once more far away from Strelsau. Then enough of the truth—no more—must be disclosed. Helsing would be told the story of Rudolf Rassendyll and persuaded to hold his tongue about the harum-scarum Englishman (we are ready to believe much of an Englishman) having been audacious enough again to play the king in Strelsau. The old chancellor was a very good fellow, and I do not think that Rudolf did wrong in relying upon him. Where he miscalculated was, of course, just where he was ignorant. The whole of what the queen’s friends, ay, and the queen herself, did in Strelsau, became useless and mischievous by reason of the king’s death; their action must have been utterly different, had they been aware of that catastrophe; but their wisdom must be judged only according to their knowledge.
In the first place, the chancellor himself showed much good sense. Even before he obeyed the king’s summons he sent for the two servants and charged them, on pain of instant dismissal and worse things to follow, to say nothing of what they had seen. His commands to his wife and daughter were more polite, doubtless, but no less peremptory. He may well have supposed that the king’s business was private as well as important when it led his Majesty to be roaming the streets of Strelsau at a moment when he was supposed to be at the Castle of Zenda, and to enter a friend’s house by the window at such untimely hours. The mere facts were eloquent of secrecy. Moreover, the king had shaved his beard—the ladies were sure of it—and this, again, though it might be merely an accidental coincidence, was also capable of signifying a very urgent desire to be unknown. So the chancellor, having given his orders, and being himself aflame with the liveliest curiosity, lost no time in obeying the king’s commands, and arrived at my house before six o’clock.
When the visitor was announced Rudolf was upstairs, having a bath and some breakfast. Helga had learnt her lesson well enough to entertain the visitor until Rudolf appeared. She was full of apologies for my absence, protesting that she could in no way explain it; neither could she so much as conjecture what was the king’s business with her husband. She played the dutiful wife whose virtue was obedience, whose greatest sin would be an indiscreet prying into what it was not her part to know.
“I know no more,” she said, “than that Fritz wrote to me to expect the king and him at about five o’clock, and to be ready to let them in by the window, as the king did not wish the servants to be aware of his presence.”
The king came and greeted Helsing most graciously. The tragedy and comedy of these busy days were strangely mingled; even now I can hardly help smiling when I picture Rudolf, with grave lips, but that distant twinkle in his eye (I swear he enjoyed the sport), sitting down by the old chancellor in the darkest corner of the room, covering him with flattery, hinting at most strange things, deploring a secret obstacle to immediate confidence, promising that to-morrow, at latest, he would seek the advice of the wisest and most tried of his counselors, appealing to the chancellor’s loyalty to trust him till then. Helsing, blinking through his spectacles, followed with devout attention the long narrative that told nothing, and the urgent exhortation that masked a trick. His accents were almost broken with emotion as he put himself absolutely at the king’s disposal, and declared that he could answer for the discretion of his family and household as completely as for his own.
“Then you’re a very lucky man, my dear chancellor,” said Rudolf, with a sigh which seemed to hint that the king in his palace was not so fortunate. Helsing was immensely pleased. He was all agog to go and tell his wife how entirely the king trusted to her honor and silence.
There was nothing that Rudolf more desired than to be relieved of the excellent old fellow’s presence; but, well aware of the supreme importance of keeping him in a good temper, he would not
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