CHAPTER II.
FIRING THE FIRST SHOT.
RETURNING to his hotel, Cyril found a letter awaiting him in the handwriting of his brother, Lord Caerleon.
“What’s up?” he said to himself, as he opened the envelope and drew out the closely written sheets. “Something must be wrong for Caerleon to favour me with such an imposing epistle. Probably some kind mischief-maker on this side of the Channel has told him that I have given myself over body and soul to the Jews, and he is trying to avert the catastrophe. It would save time to burn the letter and wire to him that the deed is done, but that might hurt his feelings, so here goes!”
He lit a cigar and sat down with the air of a martyr to read the letter, but his brow cleared when he found that it contained none of the anxious entreaties he had expected. His brother needed his help, it seemed, and the occasion of the request was curiously connected with the subject of his conversation with the Chevalier Goldberg.
“You may remember,” wrote Lord Caerleon, “a young fellow named Mansfield, who prepared Usk for college, and was staying with us when you were here two years ago. He is a thoroughly nice chap, and as we all took a fancy to him, Usk has brought him down again two or three times since he has been at Cambridge. That was all very well, but why should he take it into his head to fall in love with Phil? I suppose you will smile your superior smile when you read that sentence; but I give you my word that the thought of such a thing had never entered my mind. It’s only yesterday that Phil was about as high as the table, and running wild about the park with her hair flying loose. How is an unsuspecting parent to know that she has suddenly grown up, and is actually old enough to contemplate matrimony? I can tell you it was a frightful shock to Nadia and me. We sat looking at one another in consternation, until Nadia rallied sufficiently to remind me in a faint voice that the child will be twenty-one next month. Many girls are married before that, as she very truly added, but what comfort does that afford when one finds oneself all at once regarded as a stern and venerable elder? Well, as I said, we can have no possible objection to young Mansfield himself, except on the ground that he has nothing to do. He is a distant connection of Forfar’s, and has the promise of a private secretaryship when a vacancy occurs, but that may not be for years. He has been hanging on at Cambridge since he took his degree, writing prize essays and (at least this is my private idea) keeping Master Usk up to the mark; but he sees as clearly as I do that that can’t go on. He came to me very honourably when he first discovered the state of his feelings, and said that he did not dare ask me to sanction an engagement at present, but if he could get some settled employment, might he speak to Philippa? You know that desperation will make the most guileless of men artful, and therefore you won’t wonder that I resorted to a mean expedient in order to keep my daughter a little longer. I said that Phil was so very young for her age, and had seen so little of the world (this is absolutely true, you know), that I should prefer him not to speak to her for a year in any case. In the meantime he might be getting something to do, and she should have a London season, and pay a visit to her godmother in Germany. It was a bitter pill, I could see, but he took it very well, and left Llandiarmid without saying a word to Phil, so that she knows nothing about the business. At least, that is my contention; but Nadia is under the impression that Phil has her own ideas on the subject. Still, the child is not pining, or I should give way at once. No doubt she sees, like a sensible girl, that it is the best possible thing for the young fellow not to be at a loose end any longer. Well, old man, you see by this time what I want of you. Do you know any one among your acquaintances who would take an Englishman as secretary, who is nothing very great in the way of attainments, but has the memory of a second-class in Modern Languages to fall back upon? He has travelled a good deal, and is a thoroughly pleasant fellow, rather too literary for my taste, but there’s no harm in that. He has something of his own since his father’s death, so that a high salary is not an object; what he wants is to be set to regular work, and taught to run in harness. If you know of anything suitable, I will bless you for ever, for my conscience is pricking me (and I believe Nadia, in her secret thoughts, blames me too) for condemning Phil and this inconvenient youth to a lengthy separation just because I don’t want to lose the child.” ...
Long before he had reached this point, Cyril’s mind was made up, and his answer to his brother’s letter contained his response to the appeal made to him:—
“I want a second secretary, and your Mansfield is the very man for me. Please write to him at once, and let him meet me at the Hôtel Waldthier at Ludwigsbad this day week. We shall not haggle about terms, though Paschics will continue to do most of the work. By the bye, if association with me is likely to do your young friend harm in the future, don’t let him come, but if there is no risk of his suffering in that way, he may take my word for it that he will learn a good deal that will be of use to him.”
About two o’clock the next day Cyril presented himself at Count Temeszy’s house for his interview with the Hercynian Imperial Chancellor, who was paying a strictly private visit of twelve hours or so to his sister. When Cyril’s request was sprung upon him at the Opera, Gyula Temeszy had declared roundly that there was no prospect of his brother-in-law’s visiting Vindobona at present. When it appeared, however, that Cyril was well acquainted with the Baron’s movements, he not only promised him the desired interview, but invited him to lunch. This invitation Cyril refused, in view of the complications which might ensue when Baron de la Mothe von Elterthal had told his hosts of his discoveries at Czarigrad, and he had reason to congratulate himself upon his foresight. The Temeszy servants, who had hitherto bowed almost to the ground before him, received him on this occasion with a perfunctory civility that was little less than insulting; and when they turned him over to Baron de la Mothe von Elterthal’s personal attendant, the man’s manner showed a scarcely veiled insolence. Ushering Cyril into an unoccupied room, he promised to carry the noble Count’s name to his master, but added that his Excellency was very much engaged, and might not be able to see him. For a quarter of an hour Cyril waited impatiently, within earshot of the luncheon-room in which, to judge from the noise and laughter, the Baron was the life and soul of a jovial party, then he rose and rang the electric bell sharply.
“Present my compliments to his Excellency,” he said, watch in hand, when the servant appeared, “and tell him that as the fifteen minutes I was able to spare him have expired, I regret not to be able to see him.”
The man, taken aback by this turning of the tables, poured forth a torrent of apologies and entreaties, but Cyril waved them aside, and passed down the grand staircase with a calm hauteur of demeanour which compelled the respect of the servants in the hall. This time none of them failed in the due observances, and he left the house like an honoured guest. Before he had gone more than a few steps, Count Temeszy ran after him, bare-headed.
“Pray come back, Mortimer. I can’t think what the servants were doing, that they didn’t send in your name.”
“Sorry I have no time to spare.”
“Nonsense; come back. I can’t let Caerleon’s brother be turned away from my door like this.”
Count Temeszy spoke with evident embarrassment, and Cyril was quick to draw the inference that he was now only to be tolerated as Caerleon’s brother. He withdrew his arm from the Hungarian’s grasp.
“Thanks, Temeszy; but there are doors enough open to me without darkening those where I am unwelcome. I will tell Caerleon how faithful you are to your ideas of friendship.”
“But my brother-in-law is most anxious to see you. He is awaiting you at this moment with the greatest eagerness.”
“My dear Count Temeszy, you only increase my regret that I cannot possibly spare him another moment. I am lunching at the Café Viborg, and you must excuse me if I hurry away.”
Leaving Count Temeszy disconsolate on the pavement, Cyril disengaged himself with a ceremonious bow, and walked on. It was without any surprise that, when he was seated at his lunch a little later, he saw the Count and his brother-in-law enter the café. Glancing in his direction as if accidentally, they crossed the room to speak to him, and almost immediately a friend on the other side of the place claimed Count Temeszy’s attention. With a muttered apology, he joined him at his table, and Baron de la Mothe von Elterthal sat down casually opposite Cyril.
“You had something to say to me, I believe?” he remarked.
“Not that I know of,” was the disconcerting reply. “Hearing that you would be in Vindobona, I set aside a quarter of an hour for you for the sake of auld lang syne, but that was all.”
“My brother-in-law understood that you were most anxious to see me. In fact, he was lamenting all morning that you had refused his invitation to lunch, until I reminded him that it was perhaps just as well, for at such short notice it would be difficult to ensure that there should be no pork on the table.”
Cyril smiled. “You are in good spirits to-day, Baron. Still, I would advise you, as a friend, to let your jokes remain entirely between ourselves. Other people might fail to appreciate them.”
“That is as I please,” snapped the Baron. “Once more, have you anything to say to me?” as Cyril raised his eyebrows in well-bred surprise at his tone.
“Nothing whatever,” said Cyril, choosing a cigarette with care. “Allow me to offer you—— You will not? No?”
“Perhaps,” said the Baron darkly, leaning across the table, “you are not aware that I know all about your visit to Czarigrad, and the part you played there?”
“My dear Baron, this is ancient history. I am not aware that there is any reason why the whole world should not know as much.”
“You have no objection to the world’s knowing that you have sold yourself to the Jews, that you are the paid agent of the enemies of Christendom?”
“If it was true, I should probably object very much. As things are, I can only admire your simple faith, Baron.”
“At least,” said the Baron, changing his tactics suddenly, “neither you nor your new allies will benefit by your diplomacy on this occasion. I fancy I have put a spoke in your wheel, my dear Count.”
“What!”—there was unmistakable alarm in Cyril’s voice—“you have not been so unwise as to interfere? When it was suggested to me the other day that you might possibly do so, I laughed at the notion. ‘The Baron is my friend and a man of sense,’ I said, ‘he could not do such a foolish thing.’ And now you wish me to understand that you have done it? My dear Baron, I am deeply concerned. Is there no way in which we can release you from this very unfortunate impasse?”
“I don’t understand you,” with evident anxiety. “Surely you are confusing my position with your own?”
“Baron, this is not the time for joking. Is it possible that in the course of your researches at Czarigrad you never discovered that the Palestine scheme and your Anatolian concession stand or fall together?”
“Pray, what do you know about the Anatolian concession, Count?”
“Just as much as I need to know. I am aware that it is of a very far-reaching character, and that a high and illustrious personage in Hercynia is determined to obtain it. You could not imagine, Baron, that I, your friend, could remain ignorant of your troubles of the last few months? Do you think I don’t know of the immense difficulties you have had to encounter, and the fact that your Emperor is graciously pleased to believe that you are secretly opposing his will and encouraging the Grand Seignior to refuse to grant the concession? Your continuance in office depends upon your obtaining it, I am well aware, and now you have deliberately postponed it for an indefinite time. This is terrible!”
“The whole thing is your doing!” burst from the Chancellor. Cyril eyed him with mild reproof.
“This accusation is unworthy of you, Baron, when I am doing my best to extricate you from your deadlock.”
“Tell me exactly what your threats are worth. Whether you are a paid agent of the Children of Zion, or a Quixotic philanthropist,” sneeringly, “the trap is yours, I know that.”
“I have neither the power nor the necessity to threaten. I simply say that if our concession is refused, yours will be refused also, or if ours is merely delayed, yours will suffer in the same way. If ours is granted——”
“Yes?” with intense eagerness.
“Yours will also be granted when the time comes, and Baron de la Mothe von Elterthal will continue to be the chief ornament of the Hercynian bureaucracy and the favoured adviser of his sovereign.”
“What are they paying you for this?” broke out the Baron. “Thunder and lightning, man! if you are hard up, why not apply to us? We would have found some place for you, or screwed a decent subsistence out of ungrateful Thracia. Why accept the first offer, instead of waiting for a higher?”
“You are agitated, my dear Baron. Take one of these cigarettes, just to please me, and calm yourself. Did you ever, in the course of our former dealings together, find that any good came of trying to insult me?”
“Never; I always paid for it dearly. Yes, you are right, I am a fool. No doubt I am expiating at this moment the errors of my last interview with you. What?” as Cyril’s impassive face relaxed slightly, “I am right. Oh, pray consider all that I said about money withdrawn. You are taking your revenge upon Europe, I see. You would destroy the world, if you could, to punish the faults of mankind towards you.”
“This is very interesting, Baron, but not particularly practical.”
“No? Well, tell me, how can you and your Children of Zion, with their hoarded centimes and kopecks and piastres, hope to oppose yourselves to the power of the Hercynian empire? We can tire you out at Czarigrad, simply because we have a longer purse.”
“I will let you into a secret, Baron. Try your experiment, and oppose our concession. You will find that it is not you who will tire us out, but we you, and for this reason, that you will be pitting yourself against all the Jews in the world. The Children of Zion are backed by a syndicate composed of the capitalists of all nations, and Hercynia would scarcely be well advised to enter on a war with them. I don’t ask you to accept this merely on my authority. Make the experiment, and you will see whether the result bears out my warning.”
“This is a very serious matter, Count.” The Baron had sat lost in wonder, supporting his chin on his hand, for some minutes. “Do you see that you are practically declaring war on Europe?”
“Not quite, Baron. It is not necessary for all Europe to oppose itself to the United Nation. Think of the other side of the picture. What a future would lie before the country which had the support of all the Jews in the world!”
Baron de la Mothe von Elterthal drew a long breath. “You dazzle me, Count! Am I to understand this as an offer?”
“As a conditional offer,” said Cyril, rising; “conditional on your supporting us at Czarigrad. I will leave you to think it over, for I must get back to my hotel, unless I am to lose the train for Charlottenbad.”
“We part as—as friends, I hope? Gyula,” as Count Temeszy paused near them, in the course of an impatient promenade up and down the room, “I am venturing to ofter Count Mortimer a seat in your carriage. We might drive him to his hotel.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” said Count Temeszy, in hopeless bewilderment, and presently the servants were edified to behold Count Mortimer seated beside the Hercynian Chancellor in their master’s carriage, and not only escorted up the steps of the hotel by the man who had denounced him that morning as a pervert to Judaism, but fervently embraced at parting. As for Cyril himself, it did not surprise him in the least to receive, a week later, a cipher telegram from the Chevalier Goldberg to the following effect:—
“Hercynian opposition suddenly withdrawn, after various attempts to out-manœuvre us in matter of Anatolian concession. Fear secrecy is now at an end, for business has become known to English journalist. Suspect Hercynian Embassy at Czarigrad of communicating news, hoping to rouse Scythia to action.”
“So!” murmured Cyril to himself, in the long-drawn, meditative German fashion, as he translated the cipher. “Then the battle is beginning in earnest. That is a smart dodge of yours, my dear Baron, to set Scythia on our track, knowing that we can’t hope to bring the matter home to you. I suppose the English papers all revelled in a nice little sensation yesterday. Mr Mansfield!”
Cyril was sitting in the balcony belonging to his appartement in the Hôtel Waldthier at Ludwigsbad, and a young man came hurriedly to the window in answer to his summons. There was nothing in any way remarkable about the new secretary’s appearance—at least to an English eye. Brown-haired and hazel-eyed, tall, broad-shouldered, and carelessly dressed, he would have been passed over at home as “a most ordinary-looking man,” but on the Continent it was his fate to attract attention as a typical Englishman wherever he went.
“Have you found anything in the papers about our business?” Cyril asked him.
“I was just going to bring your Excellency this.” Mansfield tendered a Vindobona evening journal to his employer.
“Just read me the paragraph. And by the way, don’t ‘Excellency’ me in private. The King was good enough to continue me in the use of the title when I left Thracia, but it may be kept for state occasions. And don’t call me ‘sir,’ as you have done once or twice, or it will get about that I am arrogating to myself princely honours. I must ask you to address me as ‘Count,’ if your instinctive veneration for me demands the use of some epithet.”
The reproof was given so genially that it was impossible to take offence, and Mansfield, who had grown very red, returned gradually to his normal colour, and translated the paragraph with very fair fluency:—
“The London ‘Fleet Street Gazette’ publishes a telegram from its correspondent in Czarigrad which exposes a deep-laid conspiracy on the part of the Jews to possess themselves of Palestine. A concession is on the point of being obtained from the Grand Seignior which authorises the development of the whole country by a Hebrew syndicate, and its colonisation by Jewish immigrants. The intermediary at Czarigrad is understood to have been the Englishman Mortimer, of Thracian notoriety.”
Mansfield’s voice dropped when he came to the last word, and he glanced fearfully at Cyril, expecting to find him pained, possibly indignant; but seeing that he was smoking placidly, he took heart of grace.
“I expected this. Are you a thin-skinned person, Mansfield?”
“I don’t think so—I really don’t know,” stammered Mansfield.
“I mean, can you stand being generally cold-shouldered, if not actually cut? Do you yearn for constant communion with your kind?”
“I suppose I could stand being sent to Coventry without whining. Is that the sort of thing?”
“Exactly. If I am not mistaken, that is the fate which will be meted out to you and me for the next few days. If your spirits are liable to give way under it, you had better go home at once.”
“Count!” There was no mistaking the chagrin in the young man’s tone, and Cyril laughed encouragingly.
“That’s all right. I only wanted to prepare you for the worst. Well, shall we take a little stroll? If you are anxious to put my powers of prophecy to the proof, we might pay a few visits.”
The prospect of being turned from the doors of the persons visited did not commend itself to Mansfield, however, and Cyril and he strolled across the bridge and into the tree-shaded Neue Wiese or promenade. The stern regulations in vogue at Ludwigsbad permit an afternoon walk, but do not enforce it, and the gardens and the Königspark were not therefore crowded with Kurgäste, as would be the case a little later n the day. Still, there were a fair number of restless sufferers endeavouring to satisfy their consciences by a feverish activity in lounging up and down, or taking duty drives to points of interest, in company with the faithful relations who had attended them into exile, and Mansfield watched with a painful attention their demeanour towards his employer. He himself had arrived only the day before, and Cyril had carried him off almost immediately to an informal dinner-party at an open-air restaurant, where a little knot of men bearing historic names, and of women famous all over Europe for their beauty, had laughed and talked and jested, as they discussed the unappetising fare allowed them, like members of a very happy, simple-hearted, and united family. The novelty of the occasion had a little intoxicated him, and when the party broke up at nine o’clock it had needed a brisk walk along the Charlottenbad road, and an indulgence in thoughts of Philippa, such as he rarely allowed himself, to enable him to sleep at all. The unexpected friendliness of these great people had been astonishing enough, but it would be nothing compared with a sudden change to coolness, such as Cyril seemed to anticipate. Just as Mansfield, in his thoughts, had reached this point, he saw a carriage approaching in which sat the loveliest and friendliest of the ladies of the evening before. The Countess von Hohenthurm was a celebrated Pannonian beauty, and was commonly considered the haughtiest woman in the empire; but she had taken Mansfield under her wing at the dinner-party, explaining the half-veiled personal allusions with which the conversation was largely sprinkled, and confiding to him various indiscreet revelations respecting notable people then staying or expected at the baths. As she came towards him now, Mansfield raised his hand instinctively towards his hat, but Cyril’s voice at his side said, “Wait. It is possible that the lady has not the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
The idea seemed preposterous, for the Countess, in response to some remark made by the elderly lady who was driving with her, had turned her head in the direction of the two Englishmen, but there was no glance of recognition as her eyes met theirs. Without the movement of a muscle or the slightest change of colour, she looked through them both at the trees behind. It was beyond question that in the world of the Countess von Hohenthurm there existed no such persons as Count Mortimer and his secretary.
“Don’t look so utterly crushed,” said Cyril, giving Mansfield’s arm a gentle shake. “Didn’t I tell you how it would be?”
Mansfield walked on in silence, with compressed lips. Presently they met two of the gentlemen with whom they had dined, but these were so deeply engrossed in conversation as to be unable to recognise them. Next they passed a rustic seat, behind which rose a rock bearing an inscription to the effect that the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim desired to testify to the benefit he had derived from a course of the Ludwigsbad waters. Here there sat a hideous elderly man, of generous proportions, who was laying down the laws of fashion to two or three admiring disciples, with all the confidence to be expected in the recognised arbiter of taste at the baths. He also had been one of the guests of the night before, and Mansfield had conceived an instinctive dislike to him—a dislike which was not now lessened by his putting up an eyeglass, and wondering audibly, in terms of unnecessary emphasis, “Who those fellows might be that looked like Englishmen?”
“Well?” said Cyril, as they passed on; “was I a true prophet?”
“Yes; oh yes. But why—what does it all mean?”
“It means that they believe, or pretend to believe, that we are leagued with the Jews against them, and therefore, very naturally, they feel obliged to mark their disapproval of us.”
“But will it go on? How long will they keep it up?”
“Oh yes, it will go on, for exactly three days and a half. Remember that. Until then, I fear that you and I shall be confined to each other’s society. Pray talk as much as you like. I shall be delighted to listen.”
“I should like to say a word or two to that fellow,” muttered Mansfield, indicating by a backward glance the oracle of fashion.
“I earnestly hope you won’t. In the first place, he would not understand your German, and your righteous indignation would therefore be wasted. In the next, I would rather not kill him if I can help it.”
“Kill him? how?”
“With a sword, my dear youth. Excuse me, but you are really so refreshingly young. Is it beyond your powers of imagination to conceive that if you insulted him he would forthwith challenge me?”
“I can look after my own quarrels, Count,” very haughtily.
“In that case I should very soon have a funeral to look after in the British cemetery,” was the calm reply. “The man is a noted duellist, and you would be at his mercy in two minutes. With me as his antagonist, I will be conceited enough to say, things would be reversed. Since you are so kind as to propose to quarrel with him on my account, perhaps I may be allowed to intimate that I prefer a living secretary to a dead one.”
Mansfield, with an embarrassed laugh, yielded the point, although he did not succeed in arriving all at once at his employer’s pitch of philosophy. As they walked on, Cyril amused himself by detecting and commenting upon the shifts to which his acquaintances were reduced in order to escape seeing him. The ostracism was complete, and he pointed out to Mansfield that it must have been decreed only that morning—probably as soon as the Vindobona papers arrived. It so happened that there were no royal personages at the baths at present; but among the sojourners there was a large contingent of the Pannonian nobility, and it was from these, doubtless, that the fiat had gone forth which declared Count Mortimer to be from henceforth beyond the pale of society. A determined enemy, or even a mere busybody, could easily have found means to promulgate the news during those hours of the morning which were supposed to be devoted to rest, when authority had once spoken. It proved that no one was sufficiently courageous to disobey the edict but the officials of the place, who themselves saluted Cyril with an expression which said that this courtesy was not a reflection of their personal feelings, and that their sympathies were with his opponents. Matters were not improved on the arrival of the English papers, for it was discovered that the Vindobona journal which had done all the mischief had omitted one item of special interest in its quotation from the ‘Fleet Street Gazette.’ “The sudden collapse of the Hercynian opposition to Count Mortimer’s scheme,” wrote the correspondent at Czarigrad, “is thought here to be the result of the kind of business arrangement vulgarly known as a ‘deal.’ In other words, the Imperial Government has been bought off.” This was enough. The hatred always smouldering between the two Teutonic empires burst forth once more in the breasts of their representatives at Ludwigsbad, and the few Hercynians at the baths found themselves shunned almost as completely as Cyril, with whom their own convictions effectually forbade them to fraternise.