THE CROSSING OF A "T"
Yolanda and her stepmother remained on the divan in silence for fully an hour after the duke had left. The duchess was first to speak.
"Be resigned, sweet one, to your fate. It is one common to women. It was my hard fate to be compelled to marry your father. It was your mother's, poor woman, and it killed her. God wills our slavery, and we must submit. We but make our fate harder by fighting against it."
Yolanda answered with convulsive sobs, but after a while she grew more calm.
"Is there nothing I can do to save myself?" she asked.
"No, sweet one," answered the duchess.
"Has God put a curse upon women, mother?" asked Yolanda.
"Alas! I fear He has," answered Margaret. "The Holy Church teaches us that He punishes us for the sin of our mother Eve, but though He punishes us, He loves us, and we are His children. He knows what is best for us here and hereafter."
"He certainly is looking to my future good, if at all," sighed Yolanda. "But I do believe in God's goodness, mother, and I am sure He will save me. Holy Virgin! how helpless a woman is." She began to weep afresh, and the duchess tried to soothe her.
"I believe I will pray to the Virgin. She may help us," said the girl, in a voice that was plaintively childlike.
"It is a pious thought, Mary," answered the duchess.
Yolanda slipped from the divan to the floor, and, kneeling, buried her face in her mother's lap. She prayed aloud:--
"Blessed Virgin, Thou seest my dire need. Help me. My prayer is short, but Thou, Blessed Lady, knowest how fervent it is." The duchess crossed herself, bowed her head, and murmured a fervent "Amen."
Yolanda rose from her prayer with a brighter face, and exclaimed almost joyfully:--
"It was impious in me to doubt God's love, mother. I do believe I heard the Blessed Virgin say, 'Help is at hand.' At least, I felt her words, mother."
Yolanda moved about the room aimlessly for several minutes and by chance stopped at the table. She started to take up the quill and ink-well to carry them back to her parlor, which was in Darius (Darius was the name of the tower that rose from the castle battlements immediately above Castleman's House under the Wall), and her eyes rested on the small iron box in which the letter to King Louis had been deposited. An unconscious motive, perhaps it was childish curiosity, prompted her to examine the missive. She took the pouch from the box and found it unsealed. She listlessly drew out the missive and began to read, when suddenly her face grew radiant with joy. She ran excitedly to her mother, who was sitting on the divan, and exclaimed:--
"Oh! mother, the sweet Blessed Virgin has sent help!"
"In what manner, child?" asked the duchess, fondling Yolanda's hair while the girl knelt beside her.
"Here, mother, here! Here is help; here in this very letter that was intended to be my undoing. I cannot wait to thank the Holy Mother." She crossed herself and buried her face in her mother's lap while she thanked the Virgin.
"What is it, Mary, and where is the help?" asked Margaret, fearing the girl's mind had been touched by her troubles.
"Listen!" cried Yolanda.
Her excitement was so great that she could hardly see the words the bishop's scrivener had written.
"Listen, listen! Father in this letter first tells the king that he--that is, father, you understand--is going to war with Lorraine--no, with Bourbon. I am wrong again. Father is so constantly warring with some one that I cannot keep track of his enemies--against the Swiss. See, mother, it is the Swiss. He says he will go--will start--will begin the war--no, I am wrong again. I can hardly see the words. He says he will march at the head of a Burgundian army--poor soldiers, I pity them--within three weeks. Ah, how short that time seemed when I heard the letter read an hour ago. How long it is now! I wish he would march to-morrow. Three long weeks!"
"But, my dear, how will that help you?" asked the duchess. "In what manner will--"
"Do not interrupt me, mother, but hear what follows. Father says he will march in three weeks and 'begs that His Majesty of France will now move toward the immediate consummation of the treaty existing between Burgundy and France looking to the marriage of the Princess, Mademoiselle de Burgundy, with the princely Dauphin, son to King Louis.' In that word 'now,' mother, lies my help."
"In what manner does help lie in the word 'now,' child?" asked the duchess.
"In this, mother. 'Now' is a little word of three letters, n-o-v. See, mother, the letter 'v' is not perfectly made. We will extend the first prong upward, cross it and make 't' of it, using the second prong as a flourish. Then the letter will read, 'begs that His Majesty of France will not move toward the immediate consummation of the treaty.' What could be more natural than that my father should wish nothing of importance to occur until after this war with Switzerland is over? The French king, of course, will answer that he will not move in the matter, and his letter will throw father into a delightful frenzy of rage. It may even induce him to declare war against France, and to break off the treaty of marriage when he returns from Switzerland. He has often done battle for a lesser cause. It will at least prevent the marriage for the present. It may prevent it forever."
"Surely that cannot be; King Louis will immediately explain the mistake to your father," suggested Margaret.
"But father, you know, will not listen to an explanation if he fears it may avert blows," returned Yolanda; "and he will be sure not to believe King Louis whose every word he doubts. I shall enjoy King Louis' efforts to explain. 'Hypocrite,' 'liar,' 'coward,' 'villain,' will be among father's most endearing terms when speaking of His Majesty. If by chance the error of 'not' for 'now' be discovered, the Bishop of Cambrai and father will swear it is King Louis who has committed the forgery. But should the worst come, our 't' will have answered its purpose, at least for the present. The bishop may suffer, but I care not. He did his part in bringing about this marriage treaty, bribed, doubtless, by King Louis' gold. In any case, we have no reason to constitute ourselves the bishop's guardians. We have all we can do to care for ourselves--and more."
She sprang to her feet and danced about the room, ardently kissing the letter she had so recently dreaded.
"Mary, you frighten me," said the duchess. "If we should be discovered in changing this letter, I do believe your father would kill us. I do not know that it would be right to make the alteration. It would be forgery, and that, you know, is a crime punishable by death."
"We shall not be discovered," said Mary. "You must have no part in this transaction, mother. Father would not kill me; I am too valuable as a chattel of trade. With my poor little self he can buy the good-will of kings and princes. I am more potent than all his gold. This alteration can be no sin; it is self-defence. Think how small it is, mother. It is only a matter of the crossing of a 't.' But I care not how great the crime may be; I believe, mother, I would commit murder to save myself from the fate father wishes to put upon me."
"You frighten me, child," said Margaret. "I tremble in terror at what you propose to do."
"I, too, am trembling, mother," sighed Yolanda, "but you must now leave the room. You must know nothing of this great crime."
The girl laughed nervously and tried to push her mother from the room.
"No, I will remain," said the duchess. "I almost believe that you are right, and that the Virgin has prompted you to do this to save yourself."
"I know she has," answered Yolanda, crossing herself. "Now leave me. I must waste no more time."
"I will remain with you, Mary," said Margaret, "and I will myself make the alteration. Then I'll take all the blame in case we are discovered."
Margaret rose, walked over to the table, and took up the quill. She trembled so violently that she could not control her hand.
"No, mother, you shall not touch it," cried Yolanda, snatching the parchment from the countess and holding it behind her. "If I would let you, you could not make the alteration; see, your hand trembles! You would blot the parchment and spoil all this fine plan of mine. Give me the quill, mother! Give me the quill!"
She took the quill from Margaret's passive hand and sat down at the table. Spreading the missive before her, she dipped the quill in the ink-well, and when she lifted it, a drop of ink fell upon the table within a hair's breadth of the parchment.
"Ah, Blessed Virgin!" cried Yolanda, snatching the missive away from the ink blot. "If the ink had fallen on the parchment, we surely had been lost. I, too, am trembling, and I dare not try to make the alteration now. What a poor, helpless creature I am, when I cannot even cross a 't' to save myself. Blessed Virgin, help me once more!"
But help did not come. Yolanda's excitement grew instead of subsiding, and she was so wrought upon by a nameless fear that she began to weep. Margaret seated herself on the divan and covered her face with her hands. Yolanda walked the floor like a caged wild thing, uttering ejaculatory prayers to the Virgin. Again she took up the quill, but again put it down, exclaiming:--
"I have it, mother! There is a friend of whom I have often told you--Sir Karl. He will help us if I can bring him here in time. If father has left the castle, I'll take the letter to my parlor and fetch Sir Karl. He is a brave, strong old man and his hand will not tremble."
Yolanda left the room and soon returned.
"Father has gone to the marshes," she whispered excitedly. "We have ample time if I can find Sir Karl."
She took the missive, the ink, and the quill to her parlor in Darius Tower, and hurried to Castleman's house. How she got there I will soon tell you.
She found Twonette sewing, and hastily explained her wishes.
"Run, Twonette, to The Mitre, and fetch me Sir Karl. I don't want Sir Max to know that I am sending. I think Sir Max has gone falconing with father; I pray God he has gone, and I pray that Sir Karl has not. Tell Sir Karl to come to me at once. If he is not at the inn send for him. If you love me, Twonette, make all haste. Run! Run!"
Twonette's haste was really wonderful. When she found me her cheeks were like red roses, and she could hardly speak for lack of breath. For the first and last time I saw Twonette shorn of her serenity.
The duke had not invited me to go hawking, and fortunately I had stayed at home cuddling the thought that Yolanda was the Princess Mary, and that my fair Prince Max had found rare favor in her eyes.
"Yolanda wants you at my father's house immediately," said Twonette, when I stepped outside the inn door. "The need is urgent beyond measure." Whereupon she courtesied and turned away. Twonette held that words were not made to be wasted, so I asked no questions. I almost ran to Castleman's house, and was taken at once to a large room in the second story. It was on the west side of the house immediately against the castle wall. The walls of the room were sealed with broad oak panels, beautifully carved, and the west end of the apartment--that next the castle wall--was hung with silk tapestries. When I entered the room I found Yolanda alone. She hurriedly closed the door after me and spoke excitedly:--
"I am so glad Twonette found you, Sir Karl. I am in dire need. Will you help me?"
"I will help you if it is in my power, Yolanda," I answered. "You can ask nothing which I will not at least try to do."
"Even at the risk of your life?" she asked, placing her hand upon my arm.
"Even to the loss of my life, Yolanda," I replied.
"Would you commit an act which the law calls a crime?" she asked, trembling in voice and limb.
"I would do that which is really a crime, if I might thereby serve you to great purpose," I answered. "God often does apparent evil that good may come of it. An act must be judged as a whole, by its conception, its execution, and its result. Tell me what you wish me to do, and I will do it without an 'if'--God giving me the power."
"Then come with me."
She took my hand and led me to the end of the room next the castle wall. There she held the draperies to one side while she pushed back one of the oak panels. Through this opening we passed, and the draperies fell together behind us. After Yolanda had opened the panel a moment of light revealed to me a flight of stone steps built in the heart of the castle wall, which at that point was sixteen feet thick. When Yolanda closed the panel, we were in total darkness. She took my left hand in her left and with her right arm at my back guided me up the long, dark stairway. While mounting the steps, she said:--"Now, Sir Karl, you have all my great secrets--at least, they are very great to me. You know who I am, and you know of this stairway. No one knows of it but my mother, uncle, aunt, Twonette, and my faithful tire-woman, Anne. Even my father does not know of its existence. If he knew, he would soon close it. My grandfather, Duke Philip the Good, built it in the wall to connect his bedroom with the house of his true friend, burgher Castleman. Some day I'll tell you the story of the stairway, and how I discovered it. My bedroom is the one my grandfather occupied."
The stairway explained to me all the strange occurrences relating to Yolanda's appearances and disappearances at Castleman's house, and it will do the same for you.
After we had climbed until I felt that surely we must be among the clouds, I said:--
"Yolanda, you must be leading me to heaven."
"I should like to do that, Sir Karl," she responded, laughing softly.
"I would gladly give my life to lead you and Max to heaven," said I.
"Ah, Sir Karl," she answered gently, pressing my hand and caressingly placing her cheek against my arm. "I dare not even think on that. If he could and would take me, believing me to be a burgher girl, he would truly lead me to heaven."
After a pause, while we rested to take a breath, I said: "What is it you want me to do, Yolanda? I am unarmed."
"I shall not ask you to do murder, Sir Karl," she said, laughing nervously. I fancied I could see a sparkle of mirth in her eyes as she continued: "It is not so bad as that. Neither is there a dragon for you to overthrow. But I shall soon enlighten you--here we are at the top of the steps."
At the moment she spoke I collided with a heavy oak partition, in which Yolanda quickly found a moving panel, and we entered a dimly lighted room. I noticed among the furniture a gorgeously tapestried bed. A rich rug, the like of which I had seen in Damascus, covered the floor. The stone walls were draped with silk tapestry, and a jewelled lamp was pendant from the vaulted ceiling. This was Yolanda's bedroom, and truly it was a resting-place worthy of the richest princess in Christendom. I felt that I was in the holy of holies. I found difficulty in believing that the childlike Yolanda could be so important a personage in the politics of Europe. She seemed almost to belong to me, so much at that time did she lean on my strength.
Out of her sleeping apartment she led me to another and a larger room, lighted by broad windows cut through the inner wall of the castle, which at that point was not more than three or four feet thick. This was Yolanda's parlor. The floor, like that of the bedroom, was covered with a Damascus rug. The windows were closed by glass of crystal purity, and the furniture was richer than any I had seen in the emperor's palace.
Yolanda led me to a table, pointed to a chair for me, and drew up one for herself. At that moment a lady entered, whom Yolanda ran to meet. The princess took the lady's hand and led her to me:--
"Sir Karl, this is my mother. As you already know, she is my stepmother, but I forget that in the love I bear her, and in the sweet love she gives to me."
I bent my knee before the duchess, who gave me her hand to kiss, saying:--
"The princess has often spoken to me of you, Sir Karl. I see she has crept into your heart. She wins all who know her."
"My devotion to Her Highness is self-evident and needs no avowal," I answered, "but I take pleasure in declaring it. I am ready to aid her at whatever cost."
"Has the princess told you what she wants you to do?" asked the duchess.
I answered that she had not, but that I was glad to pledge myself unenlightened. I then placed a chair for the duchess, but, of course, remained standing. Yolanda resumed her chair, and said:--
"Fetch a chair, Sir Karl. We are glad to have you sit, are we not, mother?"
"Indeed we are," said Margaret. "Please sit by the table, and the princess will explain why she brought you here."
"I believe I can now do it myself, mother," said Yolanda, taking a folded parchment from its pouch.
"See, my hand is perfectly steady. Sir Karl has given me strength."
She spread the parchment before her, and, taking a quill from the table, dipped it in the ink-well.
"I'll not need you after all, Sir Karl. I find I can commit my own crime," she said, much to my disappointment. I was, you see, eager to sin for her. I longed to kill some one or to do some other deed of valiant and perilous villany.
Yolanda bent over the missive, quill in hand, but hesitated. She changed her position on the chair, squaring herself before the parchment, and tried again, but she seemed unable to use the quill. She placed it on the table and laughed nervously.
"I surely am a great fool," she said. "When I take the quill in my hand, I tremble like a squire on his quintain trial. I'll wait a moment, and grow calm again," she added, with a fluttering little laugh peculiar to her when she was excited. But she did not grow calm, and after she had vainly taken up the quill again and again, her mother said:--
"Poor child! Tell Sir Karl what you wish him to do."
Yolanda did so, and then read the missive. I did not know the English language perfectly, but Yolanda, who spoke it as if it were her mother tongue, translated as she read. I had always considered the island language harsh till I heard Yolanda speak it. Even the hissing "th" was music on her lips. Had I been a young man I would doubtless have made a fool of myself for the sake of this beautiful child-woman. When she had finished reading the missive, she left her chair and came to my side. She bent over my shoulder, holding the parchment before me.
"What I want to do, but can't--what I want you to do is so small and simple a matter that it is almost amusing. I grow angry when I think that I cannot do so little a thing to help myself; but you see, Sir Karl, I tremble and my hand shakes to that extent I fear to mar the page. I simply want to make the letter 't' on this parchment and I can't. Will you do it for me?"
"Ay, gladly," I responded, "but where and why?" Then she pointed out to me the word "nov" in the manuscript and said:--
"A letter 't,' if deftly done, will make 'not' instead of 'nov.' Do you understand, Sir Karl?"
I sprang to my feet as if I had been touched by a sword-point. The thought was so ingenious, the thing itself was so small and the result was so tremendous that I stood in wonder before the daring girl who had conceived it. I made no answer. I placed the parchment on the table, unceremoniously reached in front of the duchess for the quill, and in less time than one can count three I made a tiny ink mark not the sixteenth part of an inch long that changed the destinies of nations for all time to come.
I placed the quill on the table and turned to Yolanda, just in time to catch her as she was about to fall. I was frightened at the sight of her pale face and cried out:--
"Yolanda! Yolanda!"
Margaret quickly brought a small goblet of wine, and I held the princess while I opened her lips and poured a portion of the drink into her mouth. I had in my life seen, without a tremor, hundreds of men killed, but I had never seen a woman faint, and the sight almost unmanned me.
Stimulated by the wine Yolanda soon revived; and when she opened her eyes and smiled up into my face, I was so joyful that I fell to kissing her hands and could utter no word save "Yolanda, Yolanda." She did not at once rise from my arms, but lay there smiling into my face as if she were a child. When she did rise she laughed softly and said, turning to the duchess:--
"'Yolanda' is the name by which Sir Karl knows me. You see, mother, I was not mistaken in deeming him my friend."
Then she turned suddenly to me, and taking my rough old hand in hers, lifted it to her lips. That simple act of childish gratitude threw me into a fever of ecstasy so great that death itself could have had no terrors for me. He might have come when he chose. I had lived through that one moment, and even God could not rob me of it.
Yolanda moved away from me and took up the parchment.
"Don't touch it till the ink dries," I cried sharply.
She dropped it as if it were hot, and the duchess came to me, and graciously offered her hand:--
"I thank you with my whole heart, not only for what you have done, but for the love you bear the princess. She is the one I love above all others, and I know she loves me. I love those who love her. As the French say, 'Les amies de mes amies sont mes amies.' I am a poor helpless woman, more to be pitied than the world can believe. I have only my gratitude to offer you, Sir Karl, but that shall be yours so long as I live."
"Your Grace's reward is far too great for the small service I have rendered," I replied, dropping to my knee. I was really beginning to live in my sixtieth year. I was late in starting, but my zest for life was none the less, now that I had at last learned its sweetness through these two gracious women.
When we had grown more composed, Yolanda explained to me her hopes regarding the French king's answer to the altered missive, and the whole marvellous possibilities of the letter "t" dawned upon my mind. The princess bent over the parchment, watching our mighty "t" while the ink was drying, but the process was too slow for her, so she filled her cheeks and breathed upon the writing. The color returned to her face while I watched her, and I felt that committing a forgery was a small price to pay for witnessing so beautiful a sight. Yolanda's breath soon dried the ink, and then we examined my work. I had performed wonders. The keenest eye could not detect the alteration. Yolanda, as usual, sprang from the deepest purgatory of trouble to the seventh heaven of joy. She ran about the room, singing, dancing, and laughing, until the duchess warned her to be quiet. Then she placed her hand over her mouth, shrugged her shoulders, walked on tiptoe, and spoke only in whispers. Margaret smiled affectionately at Yolanda's childish antics and said:--
"I think the conspirators should disperse. I hope, Sir Karl, that I may soon meet you in due form. Meantime, of course, it is best that we do not know each other."
After examining the missive for the twentieth time, Yolanda placed it in its pouch and turned to the duchess.
"Take it, mother, to the iron box, and I will lead Sir Karl back to Uncle Castleman's," she said.
The duchess graciously offered me a goblet of wine, and after I had drunk, Yolanda led me down the stairway to the House under the Wall. While descending Yolanda called my attention to a loose stone in the wall of the staircase.
"The other end of this stone," she said, "penetrates the wall of the room that you and Sir Max occupied the night before you were liberated. The mortar has fallen away, and it was here that I spoke to you and told you not to fear."
Here was another supernatural marvel all too easily explained.