An Uncrowned King Chapter 3 Part 1

Leaving his brother to contemplate the beauties of nature under the shade of the pines, Caerleon walked on, finding his progress much more rapid than it had been when Cyril was his companion, and arrived before very long at a point from which he was able to descry the huntsman’s cottage, built under the shelter of a towering crag. Pausing for a moment to determine which of two paths now before him would be more likely to lead him directly towards it, he heard footsteps above him, and presently a lady came in sight round a turning in the right-hand path. Tall and slight, she wore a plain tweed dress and felt hat, and the trim neatness of her appearance struck Caerleon as most refreshing after the alternate dowdiness and magnificence of many of the Austrian belles he had come across. It did not occur to him at first that this stately lady could be the hoydenish little Scythian schoolgirl of whom he was in search, but presently it struck him as unlikely that two young ladies would be wandering alone in the mountains on the same day, and he advanced to meet the girl.

“Excuse me,” he said, taking off his cap, “but have I the honour of speaking to Mdlle. O’Malachy?”

“I am Nadia O’Malachy,” she replied, looking at him with an expression in which he read surprise not wholly unmixed with resentment. He noticed that her eyes were large and grey, and that her wavy dark hair grew low on her brow. She spoke English readily, but with a slight foreign accent.

“I must ask you to forgive me for stopping you in this way,” said Caerleon, wishing to disarm her evident suspicion, “but the fact is that Madame O’Malachy was very anxious about you, and I promised to see you safely back to the hotel.”

“My mother sent you after me?” she said quickly. “It was quite unnecessary. Pray continue your walk.”

“The object of my walk is achieved,” said Caerleon. “I have only to return.”

“I have told you,” said the girl, with angry dignity, “that I do not desire your company.”

Caerleon laughed inwardly. The walk seemed to promise some amusement. “And I regret, mademoiselle,” he said, “that having promised to see you home, I must do it. I will walk behind you, if you prefer it.”

“Oh no,” said Mdlle. O’Malachy, pointing to the path beside her with an imperious gesture, “I do not wish to insult you. You consider yourself a gentleman. I took you for one.”

She walked on by his side, apparently expecting a retort, but he maintained a resolute silence, although secretly convulsed by the contrast between the intention she expressed and the words which followed it. Suddenly, to his surprise, she turned to him.

“I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. I was wrong.”

“Pray don’t apologise,” said Caerleon. “I am here only as your mother’s messenger, and I quite understand that you find my presence disagreeable, and that I can’t expect you to consider my feelings.”

“I do not consider them,” she retorted. “I apologised because it was right to do it when I had been rude.”

“As a punishment to yourself?” asked Caerleon, much amused.

“Certainly not,” she answered. “As a means of self-discipline.”

“I see—and a punishment to me?”

“By no means. Why should I punish you? What you do has no interest for me. Oh, I beg your pardon. That was rude again.”

“Not at all. But I am interested in your self-disciplinary system. Do you mind explaining it a little more fully? I think I ought to hear something about it, you know, since I have to suffer from it.”

“Now she’s going to flare up again,” he thought, as his companion turned and glared at him, but the anger faded out of her eyes as he looked at her in calm expectancy.

“It is a just rebuke,” she said, in a low voice. “I will tell you, although I do not care to speak of myself, but it will be a good punishment for me, as you say. My godmother, with whom I have always lived until lately, used to encourage me to self-denial when I was a child, saying that one could never rise to the height of a great renunciation unless one trained oneself for it by means of constant smaller ones. As I grew older, the principle seemed to me so excellent that I have followed it in other things.—When you were little, did you never hold your hand in the flame of the candle to try and find out whether you could be a martyr?”

“No,” said Caerleon; “I have often done it, but I am afraid it was because I was told not to.”

“Well, I have done it—often. And so with other things. I discovered in myself a strong tendency to insincerity, and fearing to yield to it, I made it a duty never to let politeness or the desire to please keep me from saying what I thought. How dreadful it would be to fail in truthfulness at some great crisis on account of a long course of petty hypocrisies! But I found that this made me appear rude, and I am very proud, and did not like to confess myself in the wrong. So here was another opportunity for self-discipline, and I resolved to let nothing prevent me from instantly asking pardon of any one I had offended in this way.”

“I see—without regard to that person’s feelings. And may I ask whether Madame—your godmother—pursues the same system?”

“My godmother is Princess Soudaroff. No; she does not need it, she is too good. Her life is given up to working among the poor. Her house is an asylum for the wretched. She loves every one, is kind to every one.”