The Prisoner of Zenda

The Prisoner of Zenda

The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs

“I wonder when in the world you’re going to do anything, Rudolf?” said my brother’s wife.

“My dear Rose,” I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, “why in the world should I do anything? My position is a comfortable one. I have an income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one’s income is ever quite sufficient, you know), I enjoy an enviable social position: I am brother to Lord Burlesdon, and brother-in-law to that charming lady, his countess. Behold, it is enough!”

“You are nine-and-twenty,” she observed, “and you’ve done nothing but--”

“Knock about? It is true. Our family doesn’t need to do things.”

This remark of mine rather annoyed Rose, for everybody knows (and therefore there can be no harm in referring to the fact) that, pretty and accomplished as she herself is, her family is hardly of the same standing as the Rassendylls. Besides her attractions, she possessed a large fortune, and my brother Robert was wise enough not to mind about her ancestry. Ancestry is, in fact, a matter concerning which the next observation of Rose’s has some truth.

“Good families are generally worse than any others,” she said.

Upon this I stroked my hair: I knew quite well what she meant.

“I’m so glad Robert’s is black!” she cried.

At this moment Robert (who rises at seven and works before breakfast) came in. He glanced at his wife: her cheek was slightly flushed; he patted it caressingly.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” he asked.

“She objects to my doing nothing and having red hair,” said I, in an injured tone.

“Oh! of course he can’t help his hair,” admitted Rose.

“It generally crops out once in a generation,” said my brother. “So does the nose. Rudolf has got them both.”

“I wish they didn’t crop out,” said Rose, still flushed.

“I rather like them myself,” said I, and, rising, I bowed to the portrait of Countess Amelia.

My brother’s wife uttered an exclamation of impatience.

“I wish you’d take that picture away, Robert,” said she.

“My dear!” he cried.

“Good heavens!” I added.

“Then it might be forgotten,” she continued.

“Hardly--with Rudolf about,” said Robert, shaking his head.

“Why should it be forgotten?” I asked.

“Rudolf!” exclaimed my brother’s wife, blushing very prettily.

I laughed, and went on with my egg. At least I had shelved the question of what (if anything) I ought to do. And, by way of closing the discussion--and also, I must admit, of exasperating my strict little sister-in-law a trifle more--I observed:

“I rather like being an Elphberg myself.”

When I read a story, I skip the explanations; yet the moment I begin to write one, I find that I must have an explanation. For it is manifest that I must explain why my sister-in-law was vexed with my nose and hair, and why I ventured to call myself an Elphberg. For eminent as, I must protest, the Rassendylls have been for many generations, yet participation in their blood of course does not, at first sight, justify the boast of a connection with the grander stock of the Elphbergs or a claim to be one of that Royal House. For what relationship is there between Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the Palace at Strelsau or the Castle of Zenda and Number 305 Park Lane, W.?

Well then--and I must premise that I am going, perforce, to rake up the very scandal which my dear Lady Burlesdon wishes forgotten--in the year 1733, George II. sitting then on the throne, peace reigning for the moment, and the King and the Prince of Wales being not yet at loggerheads, there came on a visit to the English Court a certain prince, who was afterwards known to history as Rudolf the Third of Ruritania. The prince was a tall, handsome young fellow, marked (maybe marred, it is not for me to say) by a somewhat unusually long, sharp and straight nose, and a mass of dark-red hair--in fact, the nose and the hair which have stamped the Elphbergs time out of mind. He stayed some months in England, where he was most courteously received; yet, in the end, he left rather under a cloud. For he fought a duel (it was considered highly well bred of him to waive all question of his rank) with a nobleman, well known in the society of the day, not only for his own merits, but as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that duel Prince Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom, was adroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who had found him a pretty handful. The nobleman was not wounded in the duel; but the morning being raw and damp on the occasion of the meeting, he contracted a severe chill, and, failing to throw it off, he died some six months after the departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure to adjust his relations with his wife--who, after another two months, bore an heir to the title and estates of the family of Burlesdon. This lady was the Countess Amelia, whose picture my sister-in-law wished to remove from the drawing-room in Park Lane; and her husband was James, fifth Earl of Burlesdon and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll, both in the peerage of England, and a Knight of the Garter. As for Rudolf, he went back to Ruritania, married a wife, and ascended the throne, whereon his progeny in the direct line have sat from then till this very hour--with one short interval. And, finally, if you walk through the picture galleries at Burlesdon, among the fifty portraits or so of the last century and a half, you will find five or six, including that of the sixth earl, distinguished by long, sharp, straight noses and a quantity of dark-red hair; these five or six have also blue eyes, whereas among the Rassendylls dark eyes are the commoner.

Concerning the Colour of Men’s Hair

It was a maxim of my Uncle William’s that no man should pass through Paris without spending four-and-twenty hours there. My uncle spoke out of a ripe experience of the world, and I honoured his advice by putting up for a day and a night at “The Continental” on my way to--the Tyrol. I called on George Featherly at the Embassy, and we had a bit of dinner together at Durand’s, and afterwards dropped in to the Opera; and after that we had a little supper, and after that we called on Bertram Bertrand, a versifier of some repute and Paris correspondent to _The Critic_. He had a very comfortable suite of rooms, and we found some pleasant fellows smoking and talking. It struck me, however, that Bertram himself was absent and in low spirits, and when everybody except ourselves had gone, I rallied him on his moping preoccupation. He fenced with me for a while, but at last, flinging himself on a sofa, he exclaimed:

“Very well; have it your own way. I am in love--infernally in love!”

“Oh, you’ll write the better poetry,” said I, by way of consolation.

He ruffled his hair with his hand and smoked furiously. George Featherly, standing with his back to the mantelpiece, smiled unkindly.

“If it’s the old affair,” said he, “you may as well throw it up, Bert. She’s leaving Paris tomorrow.”

“I know that,” snapped Bertram.

“Not that it would make any difference if she stayed,” pursued the relentless George. “She flies higher than the paper trade, my boy!”

“Hang her!” said Bertram.

“It would make it more interesting for me,” I ventured to observe, “if I knew who you were talking about.”

“Antoinette Mauban,” said George.

“De Mauban,” growled Bertram.

“Oho!” said I, passing by the question of the `de’. “You don’t mean to say, Bert--?”

“Can’t you let me alone?”

“Where’s she going to?” I asked, for the lady was something of a celebrity.

George jingled his money, smiled cruelly at poor Bertram, and answered pleasantly:

“Nobody knows. By the way, Bert, I met a great man at her house the other night--at least, about a month ago. Did you ever meet him--the Duke of Strelsau?”

“Yes, I did,” growled Bertram.

“An extremely accomplished man, I thought him.”

It was not hard to see that George’s references to the duke were intended to aggravate poor Bertram’s sufferings, so that I drew the inference that the duke had distinguished Madame de Mauban by his attentions. She was a widow, rich, handsome, and, according to repute, ambitious. It was quite possible that she, as George put it, was flying as high as a personage who was everything he could be, short of enjoying strictly royal rank: for the duke was the son of the late King of Ruritania by a second and morganatic marriage, and half-brother to the new King. He had been his father’s favourite, and it had occasioned some unfavourable comment when he had been created a duke, with a title derived from no less a city than the capital itself. His mother had been of good, but not exalted, birth.

“He’s not in Paris now, is he?” I asked.

“Oh no! He’s gone back to be present at the King’s coronation; a ceremony which, I should say, he’ll not enjoy much. But, Bert, old man, don’t despair! He won’t marry the fair Antoinette--at least, not unless another plan comes to nothing. Still perhaps she--” He paused and added, with a laugh: “Royal attentions are hard to resist--you know that, don’t you, Rudolf?”

“Confound you!” said I; and rising, I left the hapless Bertram in George’s hands and went home to bed.

The next day George Featherly went with me to the station, where I took a ticket for Dresden.