No doubt I should have shared his enthusiasm, like Kraftstein, who was hanging on every word, and looking like a ruptured bullock. But all I could think to myself was, God, I wish John Gully had really set to work on you. What I said aloud was:
"Herr Bismarck, I am much moved. And now, with your permission, I intend to get as drunk as possible. Afterwards, tomorrow, I shall be at your service, since I can't do anything else. But if I'm to shape the destiny of Europe, I'll need a good skinful of liquor inside me to set me off. So will you kindly oblige me with the bottle, and a cigar, and as many dirty drinking songs as you and your friends can remember? And if this seems to you a coarse and pagan spirit in which to approach our glorious adventure for the Fatherland, well—you've made your preparations; let me now make mine."
7
As a result of the night's excesses, which Bismarck didn't discourage, I had a raging headache and a heaving stomach on the morning of my departure from Schönhausen. So I remember very little of it, which is no loss. For that matter my recollections of the journey north to Strackenz are hazy, too; I've travelled too far in my time to be anything but bored by it, and there was nothing to see that I recall except flat snowy fields, the occasional village, and bleak woodlands of bare black trees.
Rudi was full of spirits as usual, and de Gautet was his smooth, civil self, but I knew he wouldn't forget or forgive that schlager-thrust in the guts. I hadn't forgotten the two cuts I owed him, either, so we were even there. He never referred to our encounter, but now and then in the coach I would catch his dark eyes on me, and then they would slide away, looking anywhere but at me. He was one who wouldn't be sorry of the excuse to draw a bead on my back if I tried to run for it.
Following Bismarck's lead, both of them had dropped the pretence of calling me "highness"—Bersonin's "theory", as Bismarck had called it, being well enough in my training period, I suppose, but now considered unnecessary. But they lost no chance of lecturing me on such subjects as the geography of Strackenz, the ceremonial forms of its court, and the details of the wedding ceremony. I suppose I took it all in, for there was nothing else to do, but it has all gone now.
We were three days on the road, and the last afternoon of the journey took us deep into forest-country, all ghostly and silent under the snow. It was very beautiful and solemn, with never a soul to be seen along the rough track winding among the trees, until about four in the afternoon we stopped in a little clearing where a small hut stood, with thin smoke wreathing up from its chimney into the steely sky.
There were two or three brisk-looking fellows in peasant clothes to rub down the horses and usher us into the cottage—not that I took them for peasants, for I heard two of them in talk with Rudi. They were gentlemen, by German standards, but tough, active customers for all that—the kind who'll cut your throat and send back the wine at dinner afterwards.
We had a meal, Rudi and I, while de Gautet paced up and down and peered out at the darkening sky and consulted his watch and fidgeted generally until Rudi told him to leave off, and made him sit down and have a glass of wine with us. I was getting fairly twitchy myself as the hours passed, and Rudi gave me a stiff brandy to steady me.
"Three hours fiom now," says he, "and you'll be tucked up in a silk night-gown with C.G. embroidered on it. God! I wish I was in your shoes. How many commoners have the chance to be royalty!"
"I'll show you one who's ready to resign his crown any time," says I. The shivers were beginning to run up my spine.
"Nonsense. Give you two days, and you'll be behaving as though you'd been born to the purple. Issuing royal decrees against virginity, probably. What time is it, de Gautet?"
"We should be moving." I heard the strain in his voice.
"Heigh-ho," says Rudi, stretching; he was as cool as though he was off for an evening stroll. "Come along, then."
There was a slight altercation just before setting out when de Gautet, officiously helping me into my cloak, discovered my pistols in the pockets. I'd had them concealed in a pair of boots in my baggage at Schönhausen, and was determined that they were going with me. Rudi shook his head.
"Royalty don't carry side-arms, except for ceremony."
"I do," says I. "Either they go with me, or I don't go at all."
"What good d'you suppose they'll be, man?"
"None, I hope. But if the worst happens they'll perhaps buy me a little elbow-room."
De Gautet was in a sweat to be off, so in the end Rudi cursed and grinned and let me keep them. He knew I wouldn't be fool enough to make a bolt for it now.
With de Gautet leading, Rudi and I behind, and two of the others in the rear, we struck out through the trees, plodding ankle-deep through the snow. It was still as death all round, and hellish dark, but de Gautet led on unerringly for perhaps quarter of an hour, when we came to a high stone wall running across our front. There was a wicket, and then we were skirting past a thicket of high bushes which, by their regular spacing, must be in the garden of some great estate, Even in the darkness I could make out the level sweep of lawn under the snow, and then ahead of us were the blazing lights of a huge mansion, surrounded by terraces, and hedged about by avenues of clipped bushes.
De Gautet strode noiselessly up one of these, with us hard on his heels. There were stone steps rising to a wing of the house that seemed to be in darkness, and then we were clustered round a small doorway under a great stone lintel, and Rudi was softly whistling (of all things) "Marlbroug s'en va-t'en guerre". For a few seconds we waited, breathing hoarsely like schoolboys who have robbed an orchard, and then the door opened.
"Detchard?"
De Gautet went in, and we followed. There was a man in a frock-coat in the dimly-lit passage; he closed the door quickly behind us—the other two were still outside somewhere-and motioned us to silence. He was a tall, distinguished old file with a beaky nose and heavy lower lip; he had grey hair and a beard like a muffler round his jaw-line. He glanced keenly at me, muttered "Donner!", and turned to Rudi.
"A complication. His highness has retired early. He is already in his apartments."
Aha, thinks I, clever little Bismarck's bandobast[28] didn't allow for this; oh, Jesus, we're done for… .
"No matter," says Rudi easily. "He has three rooms; he can't be in all of them at once."
This was gibberish to me, but it seemed to reassure Detchard. Without another word he led us along the passage, up a stair, into a well-lighted and carpeted corridor, and round a corner to a large double-door. He paused, listening, cautiously turned the handle, and peered in. A moment later we were all inside.
Detchard stood for a moment, and I could hear my heart thumping like a paddle-wheel. The sound of voices came softly through an adjoining door from the next room.
"His highness is in his bed-chamber," whispers Detchard.
Rudi nodded. "Strip," says he to me, and de Gautet bundled up my gear as I tore it off. He knotted it all in my cloak—I had just sense enough to remember my pistols, and thrust them hurriedly under a cushion—and then I was standing there, mother-naked, while Detchard listened with his ear to the panels of the communicating door.
"Lucky little Duchess Irma," murmurs Rudi, and I saw him grinning at me. "Let's hope the real prince is as royally endowed." He tipped me a mock salute, very debonair. "Bonne chance, your highness. Ready, de Gautet?"