Abroad with the Jimmies

by Lilian Bell

I don't know whether Von Engel had not then put two and two together, so that he knew that Mrs. Jimmie had her own husband in mind when she made that speech about love or not. I think not, for I happened to be looking at him, and for a moment I thought he was going to spring from his horse right into her lap.

To me the two loveliest women rulers of the world, the ones whose histories I most grieve over, and with whose temperaments I am most in sympathy, are the Empress Eugenie of the French and the Empress Elizabeth of Austria. The Empress Elizabeth was of such a high-strung, nervous, proud temperament that had there not been madness in her unfortunate family, all her apparently unbalanced acts could be accounted for by her imperious and imperial nature, and the stigma of a mind even partially unbalanced need never have been hers. Many a wife in the common walks of life has been driven to more insane acts in the eyes of an unfeeling and critical world than ever the unhappy Empress Elizabeth committed, and for the same causes. An inhumanly tyrannical mother-in-law, the most vicious of her vicious kind, whose chief delight was to torture the high-strung nature she was too small to comprehend; a husband, encouraged in his not-to-be-borne gallantries by his own mother, this same monstrous mother-in-law of the Empress; her children's love aborted by this same fiend in woman form—is it any marvel that the proud Empress broke away from her splendid torture and found a sad comfort in travel and study? The wonder of it is that she chose so mild a remedy. She might have murdered her husband's mother, and those who knew would have declared her justified. If she had done so she could scarcely have suffered in her mind more than she did.

When I expressed some of these opinions I discovered that both officers looked at me with undisguised sympathy. They themselves dared not put into words such incendiary thoughts, but they welcomed their expression from another. This was not the first time I had worded the inner thoughts of a company who dared not speak out themselves, but, as catspaws are invariably burned, I cannot lay to my soul the flattering unction that I have escaped their common lot. Bee says I am generally burned to a cinder.

We had just visited the last of the shrines, which were interesting only because erected by the Empress, when we were overtaken by a terrific mountain storm which broke over our heads without warning. The rain came down in torrents, but not even the officers got wet, for they instantly produced from some mysterious region rubber capes which completely enveloped their beautiful uniforms.

I was not sure, but, in the general confusion of closing the carriage top, I thought I saw Count Andreae whisper to Mrs. Jimmie. I am positive I heard Von Furzmann whisper to Bee. So, not to be outdone, I leaned over and whispered to Jimmie. I do so hate to be left out of a thing.

We had a gay little supper at the Kaiserin Elisabeth, but I could not see that Count Andreae "got any forrarder," as Jimmie would say, for he literally could not concentrate his attention on Mrs. Jimmie on account of Bee's attentions to him. Poor Von Furzmann had to content himself with Jimmie and me.

The next day being the Emperor's birthday, the whole town was gloriously illuminated, and the splendid old Franz Josef—splendid in spite of his past irregularities—appeared before his adoring people, with Bee the most adoring of all his subjects.

There were any number of little parties made up after that, for, of course, we returned the civility of the officers. But after awhile Ischl, in spite of the bracing air, and bewitching drives, and occasional glimpses of royalty, and daily meetings with our beloved officers, Jimmie and I began to think longingly of green fields and pastures new. It was a little hard on Bee, and even on Mrs. Jimmie, to drag them away from the morning promenade, where they always saw the rank and fashion of Austria. I wondered what Bee's feelings would be at parting with her loved ones, for most of our conversations lately had tended toward turning our journeyings aside from Vienna to go north to the September manoeuvres, in which our friends were to take part. We in turn combated this by begging them to meet us in Italy in three months. You should have seen their anguished faces when Jimmie and I mentioned three months! A week's separation was more than they could think of without tying crape on their arms. To our amazement they assured us that a leave was out of the question. Von Engel declared that he had not had a leave of absence for ten years and he doubted if he could obtain one on any excuse short of a death in the family.

At last, however, one fine day, with farewell notes and loaded with flowers, and with the prettiest of parting speeches, we tore ourselves away and were off for Vienna.

As Bee leaned back in the railway carriage with one glove missing, I looked to see her very low in her mind, but to my surprise she was smiling slowly.