The Prisoner of Zenda Read online

  Produced by Judith Boss and David Widger

  THE PRISONER OF ZENDA

  by Anthony Hope

  CONTENTS

  1 The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs 2 Concerning the Colour of Men's Hair 3 A Merry Evening with a Distant Relative 4 The King Keeps his Appointment 5 The Adventures of an Understudy 6 The Secret of a Cellar 7 His Majesty Sleeps in Strelsau 8 A Fair Cousin and a Dark Brother 9 A New Use for a Tea-Table 10 A Great Chance for a Villain 11 Hunting a Very Big Boar 12 I Receive a Visitor and Bait a Hook 13 An Improvement on Jacob's Ladder 14 A Night Outside the Castle 15 I Talk with a Tempter 16 A Desperate Plan 17 Young Rupert's Midnight Diversions 18 The Forcing of the Trap 19 Face to Face in the Forest 20 The Prisoner and the King 21 If Love Were All! 22 Present, Past--and Future?

  CHAPTER 1

  The Rassendylls--With a Word on the Elphbergs

  "I wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf?" saidmy brother's wife.

  "My dear Rose," I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, "why in the worldshould I do anything? My position is a comfortable one. I have anincome nearly sufficient for my wants (no one's income is ever quitesufficient, you know), I enjoy an enviable social position: I ambrother to Lord Burlesdon, and brother-in-law to that charming lady, hiscountess. 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 (andtherefore there can be no harm in referring to the fact) that, prettyand accomplished as she herself is, her family is hardly of the samestanding as the Rassendylls. Besides her attractions, she possessed alarge fortune, and my brother Robert was wise enough not to mind abouther ancestry. Ancestry is, in fact, a matter concerning which the nextobservation 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; hepatted it caressingly.

  "What's the matter, my dear?" he asked.

  "She objects to my doing nothing and having red hair," said I, in aninjured tone.

  "Oh! of course he can't help his hair," admitted Rose.

  "It generally crops out once in a generation," said my brother. "So doesthe 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 theportrait 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 questionof what (if anything) I ought to do. And, by way of closing thediscussion--and also, I must admit, of exasperating my strict littlesister-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 towrite one, I find that I must have an explanation. For it is manifestthat I must explain why my sister-in-law was vexed with my nose andhair, and why I ventured to call myself an Elphberg. For eminent as,I must protest, the Rassendylls have been for many generations, yetparticipation in their blood of course does not, at first sight, justifythe boast of a connection with the grander stock of the Elphbergs ora claim to be one of that Royal House. For what relationship is therebetween Ruritania and Burlesdon, between the Palace at Strelsau or theCastle of Zenda and Number 305 Park Lane, W.?

  Well then--and I must premise that I am going, perforce, to rake up thevery scandal which my dear Lady Burlesdon wishes forgotten--in the year1733, George II. sitting then on the throne, peace reigning forthe moment, and the King and the Prince of Wales being not yet atloggerheads, there came on a visit to the English Court a certainprince, who was afterwards known to history as Rudolf the Third ofRuritania. The prince was a tall, handsome young fellow, marked (maybemarred, it is not for me to say) by a somewhat unusually long, sharp andstraight nose, and a mass of dark-red hair--in fact, the nose and thehair which have stamped the Elphbergs time out of mind. He stayed somemonths in England, where he was most courteously received; yet, inthe end, he left rather under a cloud. For he fought a duel (it wasconsidered 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 hisown merits, but as the husband of a very beautiful wife. In that duelPrince Rudolf received a severe wound, and, recovering therefrom, wasadroitly smuggled off by the Ruritanian ambassador, who had found hima pretty handful. The nobleman was not wounded in the duel; but themorning being raw and damp on the occasion of the meeting, he contracteda severe chill, and, failing to throw it off, he died some six monthsafter the departure of Prince Rudolf, without having found leisure toadjust his relations with his wife--who, after another two months, borean heir to the title and estates of the family of Burlesdon. This ladywas the Countess Amelia, whose picture my sister-in-law wished to removefrom the drawing-room in Park Lane; and her husband was James, fifthEarl of Burlesdon and twenty-second Baron Rassendyll, both in thepeerage of England, and a Knight of the Garter. As for Rudolf, he wentback to Ruritania, married a wife, and ascended the throne, whereon hisprogeny in the direct line have sat from then till this very hour--withone short interval. And, finally, if you walk through the picturegalleries at Burlesdon, among the fifty portraits or so of the lastcentury and a half, you will find five or six, including that of thesixth earl, distinguished by long, sharp, straight noses and a quantityof dark-red hair; these five or six have also blue eyes, whereas amongthe Rassendylls dark eyes are the commoner.

  That is the explanation, and I am glad to have finished it: theblemishes on honourable lineage are a delicate subject, and certainlythis heredity we hear so much about is the finest scandalmonger in theworld; it laughs at discretion, and writes strange entries between thelines of the "Peerages".

  It will be observed that my sister-in-law, with a want of logic thatmust have been peculiar to herself (since we are no longer allowed tolay it to the charge of her sex), treated my complexion almost as anoffence for which I was responsible, hastening to assume from thatexternal sign inward qualities of which I protest my entire innocence;and this unjust inference she sought to buttress by pointing to theuselessness of the life I had led. Well, be that as it may, I had pickedup a good deal of pleasure and a good deal of knowledge. I had been toa German school and a German university, and spoke German as readilyand perfectly as English; I was thoroughly at home in French; I had asmattering of Italian and enough Spanish to swear by. I was, I believe,a strong, though hardly fine swordsman and a good shot. I could rideanything that had a back to sit on; and my head was as cool a one as youcould find, for all its flaming cover. If you say that I ought to havespent my time in useful labour, I am out of Court and have nothingto say, save that my parents had no business to leave me two thousandpounds a year and a roving disposition.

  "The difference between you and Robert," said my sister-in-law, whooften (bless her!) speaks on a platf
orm, and oftener still as if shewere on one, "is that he recognizes the duties of his position, and yousee the opportunities of yours."

  "To a man of spirit, my dear Rose," I answered, "opportunities areduties."

  "Nonsense!" said she, tossing her head; and after a moment she went on:"Now, here's Sir Jacob Borrodaile offering you exactly what you might beequal to."

  "A thousand thanks!" I murmured.

  "He's to have an Embassy in six months, and Robert says he is sure thathe'll take you as an attache. Do take it, Rudolf--to please me."

  Now, when my sister-in-law puts the matter in that way, wrinkling herpretty brows, twisting her little hands, and growing wistful in theeyes, all on account of an idle scamp like myself, for whom she hasno natural responsibility, I am visited with compunction. Moreover, Ithought it possible that I could pass the time in the position suggestedwith some tolerable amusement. Therefore I said:

  "My dear sister, if in six months' time no unforeseen obstacle hasarisen, and Sir Jacob invites me, hang me if I don't go with Sir Jacob!"

  "Oh, Rudolf, how good of you! I am glad!"

  "Where's he going to?"

  "He doesn't know yet; but it's sure to be a good Embassy."

  "Madame," said I, "for your sake I'll go, if it's no more than abeggarly Legation. When I do a thing, I don't do it by halves."

  My promise, then, was given; but six months are six months, and seem aneternity, and, inasmuch as they stretched between me and my prospectiveindustry (I suppose attaches are industrious; but I know not, for Inever became attache to Sir Jacob or anybody else), I cast about forsome desirable mode of spending them. And it occurred to me suddenlythat I would visit Ruritania. It may seem strange that I had nevervisited that country yet; but my father (in spite of a sneaking fondnessfor the Elphbergs, which led him to give me, his second son, the famousElphberg name of Rudolf) had always been averse from my going, and,since his death, my brother, prompted by Rose, had accepted the familytradition which taught that a wide berth was to be given to thatcountry. But the moment Ruritania had come into my head I was eaten upwith a curiosity to see it. After all, red hair and long noses arenot confined to the House of Elphberg, and the old story seemeda preposterously insufficient reason for debarring myself fromacquaintance with a highly interesting and important kingdom, one whichhad played no small part in European history, and might do the likeagain under the sway of a young and vigorous ruler, such as the newKing was rumoured to be. My determination was clinched by reading in _TheTimes_ that Rudolf the Fifth was to be crowned at Strelsau in the courseof the next three weeks, and that great magnificence was to markthe occasion. At once I made up my mind to be present, and began mypreparations. But, inasmuch as it has never been my practice to furnishmy relatives with an itinerary of my journeys and in this case Ianticipated opposition to my wishes, I gave out that I was going for aramble in the Tyrol--an old haunt of mine--and propitiated Rose's wrathby declaring that I intended to study the political and social problemsof the interesting community which dwells in that neighbourhood.

  "Perhaps," I hinted darkly, "there may be an outcome of the expedition."

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Well," said I carelessly, "there seems a gap that might be filled by anexhaustive work on--"

  "Oh! will you write a book?" she cried, clapping her hands. "That wouldbe splendid, wouldn't it, Robert?"

  "It's the best of introductions to political life nowadays," observed mybrother, who has, by the way, introduced himself in this manner severaltimes over. _Burlesdon on Ancient Theories and Modern Facts_ and _TheUltimate Outcome, by a Political Student_, are both works of recognizedeminence.

  "I believe you are right, Bob, my boy," said I.

  "Now promise you'll do it," said Rose earnestly.

  "No, I won't promise; but if I find enough material, I will."

  "That's fair enough," said Robert.

  "Oh, material doesn't matter!" she said, pouting.

  But this time she could get no more than a qualified promise out of me.To tell the truth, I would have wagered a handsome sum that the storyof my expedition that summer would stain no paper and spoil not a singlepen. And that shows how little we know what the future holds; for here Iam, fulfilling my qualified promise, and writing, as I never thoughtto write, a book--though it will hardly serve as an introduction topolitical life, and has not a jot to do with the Tyrol.

  Neither would it, I fear, please Lady Burlesdon, if I were to submit itto her critical eye--a step which I have no intention of taking.