The Prisoner of Zenda | Page 5

I can speak for her as confidently as for myself; for when, after a night's rest in Dresden, I continued my journey, she got into the same train. Understanding that she wished to be let alone, I avoided her carefully, but I saw that she went the same way as I did to the very end of my journey, and I took opportunities of having a good look at her, when I could do so unobserved.
As soon as we reached the Ruritanian frontier (where the old officer who presided over the Custom House favoured me with such a stare that I felt surer than before of my Elphberg physiognomy), I bought the papers, and found in them news which affected my movements. For some reason, which was not clearly explained, and seemed to be something of a mystery, the date of the coronation had been suddenly advanced, and the ceremony was to take place on the next day but one. The whole country seemed in a stir about it, and it was evident that Strelsau was thronged. Rooms were all let and hotels overflowing; there would be very little chance of my obtaining a lodging, and I should certainly have to pay an exorbitant charge for it. I made up my mind to stop at Zenda, a small town fifty miles short of the capital, and about ten from the frontier. My train reached there in the evening; I would spend the next day, Tuesday, in a wander over the hills, which were said to be very fine, and in taking a glance at the famous Castle, and go over by train to Strelsau on the Wednesday morning, returning at night to sleep at Zenda.
Accordingly at Zenda I got out, and as the train passed where I stood on the platform, I saw my friend Madame de Mauban in her place; clearly she was going through to Strelsau, having, with more providence than I could boast, secured apartments there. I smiled to think how surprised George Featherly would have been to know that she and I had been fellow travellers for so long.
I was very kindly received at the hotel--it was really no more than an inn--kept by a fat old lady and her two daughters. They were good, quiet people, and seemed very little interested in the great doings at Strelsau. The old lady's hero was the duke, for he was now, under the late King's will, master of the Zenda estates and of the Castle, which rose grandly on its steep hill at the end of the valley a mile or so from the inn. The old lady, indeed, did not hesitate to express regret that the duke was not on the throne, instead of his brother.
"We know Duke Michael," said she. "He has always lived among us; every Ruritanian knows Duke Michael. But the King is almost a stranger; he has been so much abroad, not one in ten knows him even by sight."
"And now," chimed in one of the young women, "they say he has shaved off his beard, so that no one at all knows him."
"Shaved his beard!" exclaimed her mother. "Who says so?"
"Johann, the duke's keeper. He has seen the King."
"Ah, yes. The King, sir, is now at the duke's hunting-lodge in the forest here; from here he goes to Strelsau to be crowned on Wednesday morning."
I was interested to hear this, and made up my mind to walk next day in the direction of the lodge, on the chance of coming across the King. The old lady ran on garrulously:
"Ah, and I wish he would stay at his hunting--that and wine (and one thing more) are all he loves, they say--and suffer our duke to be crowned on Wednesday. That I wish, and I don't care who knows it."
"Hush, mother!" urged the daughters.
"Oh, there's many to think as I do!" cried the old woman stubbornly.
I threw myself back in my deep armchair, and laughed at her zeal.
"For my part," said the younger and prettier of the two daughters, a fair, buxom, smiling wench, "I hate Black Michael! A red Elphberg for me, mother! The King, they say, is as red as a fox or as--"
And she laughed mischievously as she cast a glance at me, and tossed her head at her sister's reproving face.
"Many a man has cursed their red hair before now," muttered the old lady--and I remembered James, fifth Earl of Burlesdon.
"But never a woman!" cried the girl.
"Ay, and women, when it was too late," was the stern answer, reducing the girl to silence and blushes.
"How comes the King here?" I asked, to break an embarrassed silence. "It is the duke's land here, you say."
"The duke invited him, sir, to rest here till Wednesday. The duke is at Strelsau, preparing the