Chapter II: Part 2

When the curtain had fallen behind Bertha the Baroness turned a white, severe face upon Franz. Then, abandoning all pretence of loyalty to the Grand War Lord, she told the terrible secrets long locked in her bosom, secrets imparted by her late husband or gathered from his lips during long, sleepless nights while he tossed on his pillow.

"It's the Frankenstein we have to fight," she said, "the pitiless, heartless, soul-less Evil One, intent upon setting the world afire through my child's inheritance. The plotting has been going on ever since the crowned monster was enthroned. Almost the first communication he made to Frederick, as head of the Empire, was: 'Now we must bend all energies to get ready. And when we are, I will set my foot upon the neck of the universe, Charlemagne redivivus!'

"Previous to that, Frederick and myself had agreed gradually to drop cannon- and ammunition-making. The Krupps were to create, instead of facilitating destruction. No longer was Essen to be a place upon which a merciful God looked with abhorrence. Engines of death had made us rich and powerful; henceforth the coined results of war were to be employed to make waste land arable, to drain morasses, to dig canals, to prosecute every peaceful endeavour promising to enhance the German people's chances of happiness and prosperity. The old saw of turning swords into ploughshares was to be enacted by the firm that had made war thrice deadly. Then the tempter came. 'I rely upon you, Frederick! You are the Fatherland's only hope, for Germany can achieve its destinies only through blood and iron.'

"'One more supreme effort, Frederick, then the War Lord will turn husbandman, making you manager-general of his great farm stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to Siberia.'

"As you know, the War Lord is an insinuating talker," continued Frau Krupp, "and his autocratic manner, enhanced by occasional flurries of condescension and persuading Frederick to join in his social relaxations. Ah!" she cried, striking the table with her hand, "it was these that forged the bullet which killed my husband!"

There was a shrill tone of rage and defiance in the last words. Then emotion mastered Frau Krupp's strength. She tottered, swayed, and would have fallen had not Franz caught her. He knew what she had suffered through her husband's intimacy with the War Lord and his cronies, and shuddered.

"Mother," he said unconsciously, as her head touched his breast. The Baroness let it rest there a moment; here was a tower of strength, of reserve force.

"Alas!" she continued, after a tense silence, "in the long run they ensnared Frederick. He succumbed to their ensnaring wiles as a foolish man might to the flatteries of a flirt. My counsel was no longer sought; the promises he had made--which I had exacted in happier days--were forgotten or denied. The very ploughs and ploughshares we were manufacturing then were thrown into the melting-pot for guns."

She picked up a book lying on the mantel. "'Vital Statistics of the German Empire,'" she read aloud; "'Steady Increase of Population.'" She flung the volume on the hearth. "Multiply like the Biblical sands; it only means that Essen works the harder to put you under the sod."

Frau Krupp dropped her voice and went on in a whisper: "Do you understand now what your threatened retirement would mean? It would mean that, excepting France and Great Britain, the whole of the world, all the smaller nations, would be practically at the War Lord's mercy, because their guns wouldn't shoot, their swords and lances wouldn't pierce.

"Such is the goal he has been striving for, the goal he wants to attain through my little girl. 'Have them all inadequately armed, and it will be a walk-over for German arms,' he calculates."

"And how can I prevent the world's debacle?"

"By fighting fire with fire. You cannot fight the War Lord openly--pretend obedience, fall in with his plans apparently, be an enthusiastic faker, as far as he can see; but don't smirch my little girl's business honour and submerge the world under a tidal wave of blood by making other nations defenceless. I have your promise, Franz?"

"It's a vast prospect," answered the young engineer, "but I have sworn to stand by Bertha----"

"I thank you," said the Baroness, as the portieres were noisily pushed aside and a child's voice cried: "Supper's ready."

*CHAPTER IV*

*BERTHA KRUPP, WAR LADY, ASSERTS HERSELF*

Science Steps In--Franz Incurs the Kaiser's Wrath

Six months of feverish activity in the Essen works, of tests and measuring velocities, of experimenting with ingots, hardening processes, chilled iron castings and compound steel--who knows or cares for the technique of murder machinery save generals of the staff? As Mark Twain at one time labelled a book, "There is no weather in this," so the present author will not burden his pages with figures and statistics of any sort. It would be a tantalising undertaking at best, for the War Lord himself was directing, and insisted that his every misunderstood, mis-stated and often wholly untenable whim be immediately gratified by the ready servility of Krupp employes--"his people."

Up to the time under discussion the Emperor Wilhelm had devoted nearly all his energies to drill, political intrigue and uttering platitudes. To dabble in formulary details, with nobody to dispute his opinion or correct his errors, flattered him in the proportion as his judgment about ordnance construction became more and more fantastic.

He was always going about with a half-dozen professors at his heels, losing no opportunity of propounding nebulous and remarkable theories to their startled but complaisant ears.

At the beginning of the present century the German professor was a hundred years behind the times in his dress, manners and social habits. The German Punch had rudely caricatured him into a new habitat, where soap and water, clean collars, unfrayed trousers and non-Cromwellian headgear held sway. Up to that period, he had bathed occasionally, had curled his hair now and then, and thereafter relapsed into that state of slovenliness which is labelled scientific preoccupation by the German mob, and stands in awe of learning, be it ever so badly digested and wrongfully applied.

The War Lord had an English mother; he is a Barbarian fond of the tub. He perceived that professors might be made useful to him. But how make them presentable?

A visit to England gave him the clue.

And forthwith the new order of Court dress was launched: short clothes and pumps, silk stockings and jabot-shirts; and the official Press rudely informed those "entitled to the uniform" that bathing was imperative before getting into it.

The brotherhood of science furthermore received hints to patronise the War Lord's own barber in regard to their flowing beards. "But Admiral von Tirpitz wears a forked beard too," pleaded some. "No precedent, Herr Professor, his Excellency has Majesty's special permit!"

With the superfluous hair, the professors likewise had to shed their accustomed hyperbole.

"Don't speak until spoken to." "Answer in as few informatory words as can be managed." "Invariably make your answer meet the Imperial wishes." "Never contradict," were the Grand Master's instructions, and the scientific men abiding by them soon found themselves in clover, because they were "useful," while the rest were discarded.

In particular, experts in chemistry were exploited by the War Lord. "They must help to feed my army and people"--in case war lasts longer than expected. "They must invent new weapons of destruction"--for while powder and lead are well enough in their way, they do not spell the end of things.

German scientific men are very fond of power and have an enormous idea of their own importance, but their notions are subject to fits of extravagant humility if policy, or personal advantage, can be served by Uriah Heepisms. The keener ones in the Imperial entourage found that it would pay to cater to the mobility in the War Lord's ideas while there was a certain degree of logic. And if, perchance, he happened to drop into incoherency or extravagance, was it the professor's business to set him right? Court usage registered an emphatic negative.

Such were the beginnings of the partnership between War Lordism and the perversion of German science into an instrument of destruction. "Science to the rescue of the lame and halt"--an out-of-date notion. Science makes them by the hundreds of thousands.

The professors were powerful assistants to the War Lord in maintaining his grip on the Krupp throat and acquiring further business concessions from the firm; but, of course, as to realising the technical chimeras of the War Lord's mind with respect to new-fangled war machinery, there was more pretence than activity, for dividends had to be considered, and the War Lord would have been the first to make an outcry if his earnings were reduced by the fraction of a per cent.

Franz maintained his position as chief experimenter, and, his expert judgment in gunmaking as well as in electricity being unquestioned, he was able openly to frustrate some of the War Lord's most bloodthirsty plans by proving them impracticable to the satisfaction of the board of directors, which put a stop to their execution for the time at least.

"Uncle Majesty is very wroth with you," said Bertha to her relative one evening, when the War Lord had returned to Berlin after one of his unofficial visits to the Ruhr metropolis. He was in the habit of coming to Essen every little while now, unheralded and incog. Likewise in mufti; and what discarding of regimentals and associated fripperies meant to him few people can imagine.

His uniforms are built to make him appear taller and more imposing, while affording a ready background for all sorts of decorative material--ribbons, scarfs, stars, crosses and medals galore.

"Wroth with me?" queried Franz.

"Yes, with you," replied the child; "and I heard him dictate a long letter, giving you a terrible talking to. I just signed it," added Bertha with a satisfied grin.

"And why am I hauled over the coals?" asked Franz.

"I'm sure I don't know," replied the child. "'One of the things little girls cannot understand,' said Uncle Majesty. But I do know that you must--I said _must_--not do it again. I won't let you, do you hear? I mean Uncle Majesty won't."

Franz raised his hat and knocked his heels together, military fashion. He was about to withdraw when Bertha caught him by the arm. "You are not angry with me, Franz?" she pleaded.

"No, my chief."

"Say 'no, _liebe_ Bertha.'"

"No, _liebe_ Bertha."

At this moment a messenger caught up with the two young people on the road to Villa Huegel and handed Franz an official-looking envelope. The engineer looked inquiringly at Bertha. "May I?"

Instead of answer the Krupp heiress picked up her skirts with both hands and ran towards the house.

Her letter informed Franz that the task of completing the Belgian guns had been entrusted to other hands. Secondly, that, in future, communications about experiments ordered by the War Lord must be addressed to the heiress direct, not to the board of directors.

*CHAPTER V*

*HOW THE WAR LADY WAS CAJOLED*

An Intoxication of Vanity--Barbara's Plain Words--A Shameful
Memory

The Imperial Chief-Court-and-House Marshal, Count Eulenburg, has
the honour to command Fraulein Bertha Krupp to attend upon their
Imperial and Royal Majesties, His Majesty the Emperor and King,
and Her Majesty the Empress and Queen, during the Christmas and
New Year's festivities at the Schloss, Berlin.

A royal equipage will await Fraulein Krupp's pleasure at the
station, meeting the early morning train of December 22nd.

_Dress_: Silks, Velvets and Laces.

_Attendance_: Wardrobe mistress and maid; A footman.

The invitation, copperplated on an immense sheet of rather cheap paper and sent through the mail free, created much excitement in Villa Huegel, the more so as it was wholly unexpected, the War Lord never having intimated that an honour of that kind was in store for his godchild.

In the meantime Bertha had risen to the dignity of opening her own letters and using her discretion as to divulging their contents, or not, as she saw fit, or rather as the War Lord saw fit. This was strictly opposed to native custom; but isn't the King above the law? And certain reports, such as those ordered to be addressed to Bertha direct--Franz's for instance--All-Highest wouldn't have communicated to any save himself, not even to Frau Krupp. Hence his command that the Krupp heiress keep her own counsel in regard to her correspondence.

Bertha broke the great seal of the Court Marshal's office and her eyes became luminous as she read the printed words and angular script. She sat staring at the latter for a minute or two, while the Baroness, chafing under her impotency, pretended to be busy with an orange. Finally Barbara tiptoed behind her sister's chair and looked over her shoulder. The fourteen-year-old girl being well up in Court lore--having seen dozens of such letters addressed to her late father--applied herself to the essentials, skipping the merely decorative lines.

"Christmas and New Year's festivities at the _Schloss_, Berlin," she read aloud. Then higher up: "Fraulein Bertha Krupp."

"Oh, Mamma!" she cried, "we are not invited, you and I. Isn't that mean of Uncle Majesty?" She stamped her foot. "But he shan't kiss me when he comes again--see if I let him kiss me."

"Hold your tongue, naughty child."

Bertha spoke with an air of unwonted authority. She folded up her letter.

"Just see how high and mighty we are!" mimicked Barbara. "'Naughty child,' and what are you? I shouldn't wonder if Uncle Majesty spanked you sometimes, when you are alone with him; you always come away full of humility to him and of arro--arro--" (she couldn't find the word) "the other thing to us--to Mamma and me, I mean."

The Baroness put out her arm as if she expected the children to resort to fisticuffs. "Barbara," she called half pleadingly.

"She will go to her room," insisted Bertha, ringing. The butler responded so promptly that there was no doubt he had been listening behind the portieres.

"Fraulein Barbara's governess," Bertha ordered. And as the man was going out: "My secretary shall report at once in my council room."

"Are you mad?" cried Frau Krupp, when the curtains had dropped behind the servant. Bertha seemed so unlike herself--unlike what her child ought to be.

The Krupp heiress disdained to answer.

"Since I am to be their Imperial and Royal Majesties' guest, I must prepare for the honour," she deigned after a little while; "in half an hour I'll leave for Cologne. You may accompany me, if you like, Mother."

The Baroness grew white under the lash of Bertha's patronising tone. "You shall not go," she said hotly.

"If you will come to the council room you can see in black and white my authority to go where and when I please," replied Bertha, going out.

Barbara and her mother looked at each other in blank amazement, the child not understanding, the mother understanding but too well. Bertha was lost to her; the supreme egotist had gained a strangle-hold on her flesh and blood.

With the strange intuition that often moves children to do the right thing at the right time when grown-ups are at their wits' end, Barbara seemed to divine what passed in her mother's mind and, burying her face in the Baroness's lap, she sobbed out convulsively words of consolation, of endearment and unbounded affection. Frau Krupp bent over the child's head and kissed her again and again. "My little girl, my Barbara, won't discard Mother, will she?" she said in broken tones.

"Not for ten thousand Uncle Majesties," cried Barbara fiercely; and, as if the words had freed her from a spell, she rose of a sudden and planted herself in front of Frau Krupp.

"---- Uncle Majesty," she said, clenching her little fists.

Then, overcome by her breach of the conventions, she ran out of the room and into the arms of her governess.

Frau Krupp would not have had the heart to scold Barbara even if she had not run away. "---- him!"--her own sentiments. With such reflections she leaned back in her great arm-chair, undecided whether she should follow Bertha to the council room or not. Her motherly dignity said "No," while anxiety for her child urged her to go to her.

"To think of him playing the bully in my own house," she deliberated; "the coward, setting a child against her mother! But I know what it's done for. He wants her like wax in his hand--the hand getting ready to choke the world into submission."

The butler entered with soft step.

"Fraulein begs to say that she will leave for Cologne at 10.30 sharp, and she desires your ladyship to get ready."

"Thank you, my maid shall lay out the new black silk costume. Did you order the horses?"

"Fraulein's secretary is attending to everything," said the butler in a hurt voice. "I don't know by what authority he assumes my duties," he added.

"He shall not do so again, Christian," promised the Baroness.

Three hours later Frau Krupp and Bertha were going the rounds of Cologne's most exclusive shops. The Hochstrasse is too narrow to permit the use of a carriage; the ladies were followed, then, by a train of commissionaires laden with boxes, for Bertha was buying everything in the line of frocks, costumes and millinery that was pretty and expensive. Consult her mother? Not a bit of it. The Court Marshal's instructions were silk, velvet, laces; nothing else mattered.

The shopkeepers, of course, knew Frau Krupp; they had known Bertha familiarly ever since she was in short frocks. The girl of seventeen had blossomed into the richest heiress of the world, yet it would have been almost indecent not to consider the elder woman first.

So the best chair was pushed forward for the Baroness, and man-milliners and _mannequins_ fell over each other trying to win her applause for the goods offered. The widow of the Ironmaster smiled and talked vaguely about their merits, but announced that Bertha was to do her own choosing.

Bertha went about her task like an inexperienced country lass suddenly fallen into a pot of money. The girl seemed to be working under a sense of assertiveness, tempered by responsibility to a higher power. That higher power regarded her mother of no consequence. Though of a naturally dutiful and kindly nature, Bertha assumed an air of independence unbecoming to so young a woman.

Indeed her want of respect was of a piece with her "Uncle Majesty's" behaviour in a little Italian town, when his father lay dying there. The War Lord, then a junior Prince, had crossed the Alps as the representative of his grandsire, head of the State, and instantly presumed to lord over his mother, who was the Princess Royal of an Empire, compared with which his own patrimony is a petty _Seigneurie_.

He arrived on a Saturday night, and at once ordered divine service for seven o'clock next morning, an hour suiting his restlessness and most unsuited to his parent, worn out with night vigils and anxieties.

However, to humour him, and also to gain more time to spend with her ailing husband, the Imperial Mother acquiesced in the arrangement; but imagine her surprise when in the morning she learned at the last moment that, at her son's behest, the House Marshal had not provided carriages as usual, and that she was expected to walk three-quarters of a mile to the chapel.

Meanwhile the official procession of church-goers had started. At the head a platoon of cuirassiers, followed by the Prince's Marshal and staff. Next, his adjutants and a deputation of officers from his regiment; his personal servants in gala livery; finally, himself, walking alone, the observed of all observers.

The father's own household was commanded to fall behind. So were his mother and sisters; the Prince was not at all interested in them. His Royal Mother might lean on the arm of a footman for all he cared.

Here we have an exaggeration of the most repulsive traits of egotism, self-indulgence, callousness, coarseness, cruelty and deceitfulness, for, as intimated, Wilhelm had been careful to keep his parent in ignorance of the affront to be put upon her.

Small wonder that a person so constituted, having vested himself with full charge of a girl's soul and mind as she approached mental and physical puberty, upset her filial equilibrium, while her actions reflected the impress of his own arrogance.

*CHAPTER VI*

*FRAULEIN KRUPP INVITED TO COURT*

The Virtue of a Defect--Bertha's Reception--A Disappointment

There is a streak of malignity in the best of women. Maybe the younger girl has nothing but praise for another a few years her senior, but she will add that naturally "age" inspires respect. Helen has the most beauteous eyes, the daintiest figure, the most transparent complexion, the softest colour, the most exquisite feet, the sweetest smile and the most delightful air of superiority, and when her friend tenders her a box at the Play she will invite some girl conspicuously deficient in most of these excellences--human nature, or just plain, ordinary devilry. So Bertha's mother took a sort of grim satisfaction in the poor taste Bertha displayed in selecting her Court gowns.

"He taught her to ignore her mother even in matters of dress; serves him right if her appearance jars on his sense of beauty," she said to herself more than once when superintending the packing of Bertha's many trunks.

The Baroness had never visited the Berlin Court, and her conception of its splendours resided in her own imagination.

As a matter of fact, the Berlin Court is the home of bad taste; plenty of fine shoulders, but draped with ugly and inappropriate material. Some few _petite_ feet against an overwhelming majority too large and clumsily shod. Some fine arms and hands, since such are subjects of the War-Lord's appreciation, but faces broad, plain and uninteresting.

The taste of a man who allows his wife to keep a bow-legged attendant is necessarily deplorable; a king permitting that sort of thing, despite prevailing fashions, is inexcusable.

An anecdote in point.

When, in the 'nineties, the Medical Congress sat in Berlin, the learned gentlemen were commanded to a reception at the Palace, and in their honour the whole contingent of Court beauties was put on exhibition.

"Did you ever see an uglier lot of women?" asked a Russian professor afterwards, addressing a table full of colleagues. All shook their heads sadly, depressed by the remembrance of what they had witnessed.

Into this _milieu_ of hallowed ugliness and organised _ennui_ dropped the Krupp heiress like a pink-cheeked apple among a lot of windfalls.

As we know, she was not pretty from the stand-point of the English-speaking races. Her complexion was good, but it lacked the Scottish maid's transparency; her hair was fair to look upon, but there are a thousand English girls travelling on the Underground daily whose glossy tresses are to be preferred; her figure was a little too full, like that of Jerome Napoleon's Queen, Catherine of Wuertemberg, whose finely chiselled bosoms scandalised the Tuileries when she was scarcely sixteen. She had the heavy gait of the German woman, and the vocabulary of them all: "_Oh Himmel_," "_Ach Gott_," "_Verdammt_," and so forth, a dreadful inheritance, which even the "Semiramis of the North" could not shake off after fifty and more years' residence in Imperial Russia.

Her Majesty's maid of honour, Countess von Bassewitz, went to the station with Count Keller, a minor gold stick, to receive and welcome Bertha. Bassewitz was young and pretty--"the only happy isle in an ocean of inelegancy," as Duke Gonthier of Schleswig used to say. Her sole perceptible defect was indifferent hands, but, strange to say, this very blemish got her the position at Court.

The War Lord had declared that he wouldn't have more of the "hideous baggage" (meaning Her Majesty's ladies) that "made his house a nightmare," and that the next Dame du Palais to be appointed was to be good-looking, or must wear a bell, so that he could keep out of her way. His Queen, who regards all women through the jaundiced lorgnette of jealousy, was in despair. In her mind's eye she saw the Schloss peopled with Pompadours, Du Barrys and Dianes de Poitiers.

The War Lord had instructed the Court Marshal to demand photographs of applicants for the vacant post, and Countess von Bassewitz's he considered the most promising. "Wire her to report to-morrow morning at eight," he ordered. She arrived while the War Lord was busy lecturing his Council of Ministers on international law, and Her Majesty saw the candidate first. She couldn't help admitting to herself that Ina was comely in the extreme, and that it would require a vast deal of intrigue to induce her husband not to appoint the young girl forthwith. Then a happy thought struck her. "You may remove your gloves," she said condescendingly.

Countess Ina blushed and grew pale in turn; conscious of her weak point, she was afraid it would work her undoing.

But, instead, Her Majesty smiled benignly upon those unlovely hands.

"His Majesty!" announced the valet de chambre.

"Be gloved, my child; hurry."

The War Lord didn't know what to make of it when "Dona" approved of his selection.

"She is mysteriously confiding," he said to his crony, Maxchen (the Prince of Fuerstenberg). But he changed his mind when, a week or two later, he had induced Ina to take off her gloves in his presence.

The War Lord had instructed Bassewitz and Keller to treat Bertha "like a raw egg," saying: "Her income is bigger per minute than that of all you Prussian Junkers per annum"--a gratuitous slap, the more ungenerous since the old Kings of Prussia gobbled up a goodly part of their landed possessions, as Bismarck once pointed out to Frederick William IV.

Berlin pomp and circumstance! Three flags, paper flowers on lanterns, a much-worn red carpet leading from the spot where Bertha's saloon carriage was to draw up to the royal reception room in the station.

As Bertha, though Grand-Lady-Armouress-of-the-World, has no place in the Army List, she must be content with walking through lines of royal footmen in black and silver, on which account the War Lord sincerely pitied the girl. "Twenty marks for a precedent to endow her with a uniform," but even the obsequious Eulenburg failed to discover an excuse.

Inside the Royal waiting-room: red-plush furniture, with covers removed, in garish glory; a bouquet of flowers from the Potsdam hothouses; a silver teapot steaming; on a silver platter four bits of pastry, one for each person and one over to show that we are not at all niggardly--oh, dear, no!

The stationmaster enters in some kind of uniform, a cocked and plumed hat above a red face, toy sword on thigh. "The train is about to draw into the station, Herr Graf, and may it please Her Ladyship."

Countess von Bassewitz starts for the door. "One moment, pray," admonishes gold stick, "the noblesse doesn't run its feet off to greet a commoner even if she is laden with money."

Courtiers suit their vocabulary to their lord and master. Countess Bassewitz is young and hearty. Never before had she reflected on the sad fact that Bertha lacked birth, but now that a gold stick had mentioned it, a mere maid of honour must needs bow to superior judgment.

So the richest girl in the world was left standing in the doorway of her saloon carriage for a good half-minute before their Majesties' titled servants deigned to approach. "Will take some of the purse-pride out of her," observed Count Keller.

Then, hat in hand and held aloft, three bows, well measured, not too low, for high-born personages' privileges must not be encroached upon.

"Aham, Aham" (several courtly grunts, supposed to be exquisitely _recherche_), "Fraulein Krupp, I have the honour--Count Keller--Countess von Bassewitz, dame to Her Majesty. Had a pleasant journey I hope," delivered in nasal accents. In Germany, you must know, it is considered most aristocratic to trumpet one's speech through the nose after the fashion of bad French tenors chanting arias.

Countess von Bassewitz, amiable and enthusiastic, spouted genuine civilities. "Fraulein looks charming!" "What a pretty frock!" "I will show you all around the shops," and more compliments and promises of that kind.

Childlike, Bertha had expected a coach-and-four. Another disappointment! The carriage at the royal entrance was of the most ordinary kind--a landau and pair of blacks, such as are driven about Berlin by the dozen.

"If you please," said Count Keller, bowing her into the coach. She planted herself boldly in the right-hand corner, facing the horses. Bassewitz looked horror-stricken at the heiress's cool assumption of the gold stick's place, and to smooth him over attempted to take the rear seat; but Bertha pulled her to her side. "Don't leave me," she whispered, with a look upon the ruffled face of the Count, who marvelled that there was no earthquake or rain of meteors because he was obliged to ride backwards, with a "mechanic's daughter" in the seat of honour.

*CHAPTER VII*

*IN THE CROWN PRINCE'S PRIVATE ROOM*

A Talk with the Crown Prince--Matrimonial Affairs--Bertha
Discussed--The Empress and Her Sons

The War Lord had not taken any notice of Frederick the Great's injunction against "useless beggar princes." At the time of Bertha's visit six of them, ranging from twenty-one to thirteen years of age, were roaming the palace, and there was a little girl of eleven besides. Only the eldest boy was provided for, by the Crown Prince's Endowment Fund; the rest were booked to live by the grace of their father's munificence and such moneys as could be squeezed out of the public in the shape of military and administrative perquisites, unless they contracted advantageous marriages; for while the Prussian allows himself to be heavily taxed for the Civil List, that jolly institution, grants for His Majesty's sisters, cousins and aunts has no place in his catalogue of loyalty.

Talking one day to his heir, the War Lord broached the subject of a money-marriage.

"But mother didn't have any money," the _bete noire_, Crown Prince William, had the temerity to interpose.

"No cash, it's true; but our marriage quasi-legitimatised our acquisition of Schleswig-Holstein, and those provinces are worth something."

"Perhaps I had better marry Alexandra or Olga Cumberland," suggested young William, "so that the possession of Hanover can no longer be disputed. These girls have coin besides."

"Don't speak of them--there are reasons."

"Or a Hesse girl of the Electoral Branch."

"And turn Catholic like Princess Anna," cried the War Lord furiously. "Shut up about that Danish baggage. I myself will get you a wife. Trust father to find you the _comme il faut_ wife--_comme il faut_ in every respect: politics, family, religion and personal attractiveness, for we want no ugly women in our family."

The Crown Prince opened his mouth for a pert reply, but William forestalled him by an imperious gesture.

"I am preparing a message for the Ministerial Council."

In the evening William invited his younger brothers--Eitel, Albert, Augustus and Oscar--to his rooms, providing a bottle of beer and two cigarettes per head. Having attained his majority and consequently succeeded to the Dukedom of Oels, the Brunswick inheritance, he might have offered the boys a real treat, champagne and tobacco _ad lib._, but such would have been against Prussian tradition, which stands for parsimony at home and display where it spells cheap glory.

"Joachim wanted to be of the party," said Augustus.

"And tell Mamma all--not if I know myself. It's time the kid was in bed anyhow," said the Crown Prince with fine scorn, for Joachim was only thirteen years old at the time.

"He will tell all the same," suggested Albert.

"And will get a thrashing for his pains. Besides, I shall withdraw my allowance of three marks per week. Tell him so; that will settle the mamma-child."

"He shall have it straight from the shoulder; you can rely on that, Duke of Oels," said Eitel.

"Oels," repeated Eitel, "why didn't you inherit Sibyllenort too? The idea, giving Sibyllenort to those sanctimonious Saxons."

"Rotten, to be sure. But old William was eccentric, you know, like his brother, the Diamond Duke," said the Crown Prince.

"The Diamond Duke; wasn't he the chap who made some Swiss town erect him a monument, omitting the proviso that it must not tumble down?" asked Albert, who sets up as a scholar.

"Precisely so, and the monument is dust."

Prince William shook with laughter. "But that's not the question before the house." Willy assumed the oratorical pose favoured by Herr Liebknecht, the Socialist. "Boys," he continued, actually using the German equivalent for the familiar term, "what do you think? Father presumed to find me a wife--me!"

He repeated the personal pronoun three or four times with increasing emphasis, while beating the board with his clenched fist--a very good imitation of the War Lord himself.

"I am not beholden to him financially like you, not at all," cried the Crown Prince. "He can keep his miserable fifteen thousand thalers per annum.

"No," he added quickly, after reflection; "it will be the greater punishment to take his money."

The Crown Prince continued: "And if father dares propose wife-finding for _me_, what will he do to you, boys? If he has his way, you won't marry the girl of your choice, but some political or military possibility. There is only one way to prevent it," insisted the Crown Prince. "We must all stand together, declaring our firm determination to do our own wooing without interference from father. He will plead politics, interests of the Fatherland. But for my part, I won't have father impose a wife on me, even if the alliance gained us half of Africa or Persia."

"And I won't marry a Schleswig," said Eitel.

"Nor I a Lippe, no matter how much Aunt Vicky cracks up Adolph's family."

"Now then, all together," declaimed the Crown Prince. "We, Princes Wilhelm, Eitel, Albert, Augustus and Oscar of Prussia, solemnly swear not to have wives imposed upon us for reasons of State or politics, father's threats, entreaties and personal interests notwithstanding."

The boys repeated the impromptu troth word for word. "Shake on that," said Wilhelm, holding out his hand. And the agreement was so ratified. Then another round of beer on the Duke of Oels.

As the Princes were draining their _Seidels_--conspicuous for the emblem of the Borussia Students' Club of Bonn University on the cover--a low whistle was heard outside.

"The mater," whispered Oscar.

"Push the _Seidels_ into the centre," commanded the Crown Prince, helping vigorously. He pushed a concealed button and the centre of the table with its contents disappeared through an opening in the floor, while another set with glasses of lemonade and cakes shot into its place, the floor likewise filling up again.

The Princes were petrified with amazement. "Duplicate of the Barbarina _table de confiance_," explained the big brother; "had it secretly copied and installed without my Grand Master being the wiser."

This sort of table was invented by Frederick the Great for _tete-a-tete_ confidences with Barbarina, the famous Italian beauty.

The sight of the lemonade made the Empress radiant. "And I had been told that you were up to all sorts of tricks," she said apologetically. And to the Crown Prince: "I am so glad you are setting your younger brothers a good example."

"Always, mother, always," vowed Wilhelm. "Believe me, if these boys were as abstemious as I, they would save fortunes out of their lieutenant's allowance."

"I came to prepare you for our visitor, Fraulein Bertha Krupp," began the Empress.

"A mere kid, isn't she?" cried Eitel in his most blase air.

"Don't let your father hear that," said the Empress severely; and again addressing the Crown Prince, she continued: "She is quite a young lady, well educated and excellently well brought up. Father wants us all to be particularly nice to his ward--treat her as one of the family."

"I say, mother," interrupted Eitel, "is there to be anything in the way of a matrimonial alliance between a Hohenzollern and the granddaughter of the Essen blacksmith? If so, mark me for the sacrifice. Judged by her photos, Bertha is a bonnie girl, with plenty of life; wouldn't I have a thousand and one uses for her money. To begin with, I would buy myself a hundred saddle horses and a gold wrist-watch, such as English officers wear, also a yacht."

"Not a word about _mesalliance_!" The Empress had grown red in the face, and Eitel made haste to apologise. Putting his arm around his mother's shoulders, he kissed her on the cheek and pleaded: "Mother, fancy his Royal Highness, Prince Eitel Frederick of Prussia, marrying anyone not of the blood royal! Of course I was joking. Just tell us, Willy and me, what ought to be done about that little commoner due to-morrow, and big brother and I will see to it that your commands are obeyed to the letter." This with a threatening look upon the younger boys.

"I thought father's injunction to treat her like one of the family would suffice. It means that you must not let her see the gulf between such as she is and Royalty. Show her the sights, but don't boast of anything we've got. Father says she can duplicate the Schloss and Neues Palais, all our palaces with all they contain, without considerable damage to her purse."

"But if none of us is going to marry the little-big gold mine, and as papa is her guardian and can do as he likes with Bertha, what's the use of truckling to her?" asked Augustus, who has a logical mind.

The Empress who, as a rule, is not good at repartee, immediately replied as if she had foreseen the question. As a matter of fact, the War Lord had thoroughly coached her in what to say.

"Augustus," she replied, "of course your father's will is law with Bertha as with everybody else; but in this case he would rather coax than otherwise, for in a few years, you see, she will attain her majority, and might insist upon taking the bit between her teeth, if in the interval she had been driven too hard."

"Eminently correct," said the Crown Prince. "I endorse every word you say, Mother, and if these youngsters don't want to understand they needn't. They will be made to do as you suggest."

*CHAPTER VIII*

*STORIES OF COURT LIFE*

Musical Honours for Bertha--Bertha in a Temper--Luncheon at
Court--A Tantalizing Procedure--A British Experience

"Call out the guards when Fraulein Krupp drives up," 'phoned the War Lord to the officer _du jour_ from the Council Room between writing a treatise on a scrap-of-paper policy and making an outline of his speech, "An Appeal to Royalism," later delivered at Koenigsberg.

To have fifty men under a lieutenant exercise their feet on a given spot to the tune of fife and drum for the benefit of a person not born to the purple seems to William the highest honour conferable, a delusion bred by militarism. In the same spirit, the War Lord of Bismarck's time sent his Chancellor the patent of lieutenant-general. "That won't buy me a postage stamp," remarked Bismarck.

The Iron One would have preferred a pipe of tobacco, while his War Lord went about for three days patting himself on the back for his act of generosity and telling everybody within reach of the good fortune which, thanks to his grace, had befallen Bismarck, "really a mere civilian."

Bertha was too young to see the absurdity of the gratuitous manoeuvre, "the sausage intended to knock the side of bacon off the hook," as they say in Hamburg. It cost the War Lord nothing, made healthy exercise for the soldiers, and Bertha, still a child in experience and mode of thought, was impressed when Count Keller, pricking up his ears at the sound of the drum like an old army horse in a tinker's cart, shot out of his seat, raised his hat and bowed low.

"Signal honour, upon word, Fraulein; unprecedented--almost," he added in an undertone.

And Countess von Bassewitz, rolling her eyes in loyal ecstasy, squeezed Bertha's arm. "Majesty must be exceeding fond of his godchild to treat you like an equal--almost," she too added.

Drum and fife still made for ear-splitting discord when Count Keller handed Bertha out of the carriage. His lordship, by the way, was now congratulating himself on having been deprived of the seat of honour. Small doubt, if he had taken it, it would have been reported to the War Lord, and Majesty, bent on showering Royal honours on the commoner, would have been furious.

Two lackeys at the door, more at the bottom of the stairs, still more on the first landing--men-servants seem to be the only commodity lavishly provided at the Berlin Court.

"_Kammerherr_, the Noble Lord von ----" (mentioning some Masurian village) "commanded to the sublime honour--Fraulein Krupp's service" (long intervals between half-sentences to show that the speaker was really a Simon-pure Prussian aristocrat) "beg to submit--with Fraulein's permission--I will conduct Fraulein to her apartments."

Bertha did not understand half the titled personage trumpeted in nasal cacophony, but a word or two from little Bassewitz explained. Then ceremonious leave-taking, as if it was for years; assurances of "unexampled pleasure experienced," of "more in store," and "Majesty is so graciously fond of Fraulein--she ought to be so happy"; in fact, there wasn't a girl "in the wide, wide world so favoured," and more polite fiction of the sort.

Up two flights of stairs; corridor thinly and shiningly carpeted; electric bulbs few and far between. Ante-room, saloon and bedchamber. In the first threadbare, red plush furniture. The bedchamber was hung in cretonne of doubtful freshness.

"I trust Fraulein's slightest wishes are anticipated. Princess von Itzenplitz last had these apartments, and was graciously pleased to express her highest satisfaction," boasted the _kammerherr_.

Her Grace of Itzenplitz may have done so, but the richest girl in the world was not inclined to put up with such third-class hotel accommodation!

When the _kammerherr_ had bowed himself out Bertha sat down on the edge of the bed and had a good cry. Received like a princess, and housed like a charwoman! But she wasn't going to stand it, not she, Bertha Krupp.

Her assertiveness, newly acquired, but all the stronger for that, made her give a vicious pull to the bell-rope. She hardly noticed that it came off in her hand when a lackey, scenting baksheesh, responded.

"My servants, quick!" she ordered.

"Beg Fraulein's pardon, they haven't yet arrived from the station."

"Didn't Count Keller provide a conveyance for them?" she demanded peremptorily, hoping that her words would reach that worthy. "They must be sent for instantly."

There were sounds of carriage wheels in the courtyard below.

"Wait," cried Bertha; "there they are at last!" She handed the servant a small gold coin. "For the driver; let him keep the change."

The footman withdrew with a broad smile. No doubt he robbed the cabman of half the generous tip.

Torrents of "Ohs!" and "_Ach Gotts!_" when the Essen contingent came in. They had waited more than half an hour for the expected royal carriage, and then in despair took the only public vehicle available.

Bertha's tirewoman inspected the apartment while giving vent to her outraged feelings. "Darling Fraulein can never sleep in that bed. It's as hard as rocks."

"I know," said Bertha. "But what is to be done?"

"I will send Fritz to fetch in the car your own bed, all except the frame," decided the tirewoman after reflection.

"But wouldn't that be an insult to my hosts?" Bertha asked.

"Rubbish! The late Queen Victoria always carried her bed along, even when she came to visit her own daughter in Berlin. Besides, we can plead doctor's orders," said Frau Martha; and when the heiress still seemed doubtful she added: "On my own responsibility, of course; you don't know anything about it. The Baroness will back me up, I'm sure."

The Krupp footman was accordingly dispatched, and returned two hours later with the bed-furnishings.

Meanwhile Bertha, all in white silk--according to the Court Marshal's command--was waiting upon Her Majesty, who fondly kissed her and inquired most affably after her mother--a regular set of questions afterwards repeated by the War Lord, all his sons, and daughter. They are not very original, these Hohenzollerns.

The Krupp heiress, who, as intimated, was first inclined to be rather proud that the guards were called out in her honour, loathed herself for that weakness ten minutes after penetrating the Imperial circle, for the incessant reference about that piece of pomp made by the royal family and their titled attendants was simply maddening. "Unheard-of honour"; "Must remember it to the end of your days"; "Most unique spectacle in Europe"; "How thoughtful of Majesty"; "Too bad madame, your mother, didn't witness it," were among the least stupid comments assailing Bertha's ears on all sides. The War Lord himself went into raptures of delight, being as pleased with his surprise, as he called it, as a schoolboy with a new top, and then forestalled possible further speculations on the matter of his dispensations of honour by announcing that, in honour of Bertha, he would partake of the family luncheon.

More effusions of delight, more congratulations showered on Bertha: "He must love his godchild very dearly"; "He wouldn't have done that for the Emperor of China." ...

Luncheon at Court! Bertha had pictured to herself a grand function: courtiers in gold lace, swords at their side; ladies in grand toilettes; swarms of servants in showy liveries; a dozen or more courses, under the direction of the Lord Steward of the Household; golden dinner service a la American multi-millionaire; "heavenly music," and so forth.

Alas! And Bertha had brought her appetite along, the appetite of a growing, young, country lass from a food-worshipping household!

The ladies were dowdy, the gentlemen in ordinary uniform or dressed in abominable Berlin taste; over-loud music, with which the War Lord persistently found fault with both time and execution. The average _Kapellmeister_ "had not the shadow of a perception" of the composer's artistic intentions. His views were "plebeian, necessarily--maybe his mother was a washerwoman, poor wench"; and, after all, the War Lord himself must conduct to "get proper results." Of course, everybody was "convinced" of that.

"Majesty" was too "lenient." It was "truly heartrending" to hear music so "butchered," etc.

"_En famille_," they called it, and Bertha sat at the end of the table between two cadets, younger sons of a principality not much larger than Richmond Park.

"Fraulein," whispered one, forgetting, under the impetus of youthful confidences, to speak through his nose; "Fraulein has dined beforehand, of course?"

"Why, no," she replied innocently, "and I am powerfully hungry."

"Then you will stay so"--this from the loquacious petty prince.

At that moment the soup was put before the War Lord, and he fell to demolishing it at starving bricklayer's rate. When he had about half finished, the family and guests were served, and when he was through, his plate was removed and so were the rest. Bertha had had two spoonfuls, and the petty prince, who had gulped down four or five, grinned broadly.

Fish, entree and fowl were offered, and ruthlessly yanked away in the same rapid gunfire fashion. To an empty stomach this teasing with coveted food was uncanny!

"I hope you have dined well," said the Empress, after the party adjourned to the "Cup Room" for coffee. "Was the service satisfactory?"

"Excellent," lied Bertha.

The coffee had an abominable oily taste. "From my colonies," explained the War Lord. "Mighty good, when one gets used to it."

But Bertha noticed that while his guests were served _en bloc_, he brewed coffee for himself and wife in a silver Vienna machine.

Desultory conversation: church building, social reform, Bismarck, orphans, knitting socks for soldiers' children. Ill-concealed yawns. The War-Lord would have a game of billiards, and then off to the park on Extase (his favourite saddle-horse).

"Ride or drive, which do you prefer, Bertha?" he said to the Krupp heiress, going out.

"As Uncle Majesty commands," lisped the young girl, very much embarrassed.

"I promised Louise a sleigh ride. Perhaps she would like to go with her," suggested the Empress.

"All right. Two horses and outrider."

An outrider--something, to be sure, but going to the park "with that kid."

Princess Victoria Louise was eleven then, and intellectually no more advanced than a child of four. Poor child! her father's ear trouble seemed only one of the dreadful inheritances that stamped her a sufferer from Hohenzollern disease. And Bertha had fondly imagined that she was to be classed with grown-ups!

"Did Fraulein enjoy her lunch?" asked the motherly Frau Martha, when summoned to help her young mistress change for the outing.

"Plenty to eat, but no chance to eat it," replied the Krupp heiress sullenly. "Get me a sandwich or two, or I shall faint."

"We were told," wailed Frau Martha, "that lunch was dinner for servants, and this was the menu: half-bottle of small beer each, yellow peas in the husks, three inches of terribly salt boiled beef, three potatoes each, two carrots, and no bread."

The Krupp servants, it seems, were no better treated than those of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward) and the untitled attendants of other royal highnesses and majesties, those of the King and Queen of Italy, for instance.

In the 'nineties it was common report in Berlin diplomatic circles that the Prince of Wales kept away from Berlin because he "could not induce any of his favourite servants to be of the party," these favourite servants being the same whom the then Court Marshal, von Liebenau--a drill sergeant with a gold stick--designated "as the hungriest and most impudent set of menials" he ever had the misfortune to encounter in the exercise of his duties.

Why the epithets?

His Royal Highness's valet and his grooms had politely asked for eggs and bacon for breakfast, and they would not have cold pork and potato salad for supper, even though that be the Empress's favourite menu to go to sleep on.

And those "impudent Englishmen" had the temerity to ridicule the solitary bottle of small beer graciously allowed them by His Prussian Majesty; and about this and more the first groom of His Britannic Highness and the Berlin excellency had an exciting passage of words, memorised, rightfully or wrongfully, as follows:

The Englishman: "The other attendants and myself cannot possibly worry along on the breakfasts furnished, rolls and bad tea; and salt pork and lentils for dinner is not what we are used to."

The Prussian Bully: "Nor do you seem to be used to household discipline. But I will have no more of your English impudence. I will inform the Prince of his servants' unruly behaviour."

The Chief Groom: "Thank you. His Royal Highness will then engage board for us at a hotel, and there will be an end to starvation diet."

On another occasion pease pudding, pork, roast potatoes and beer were sent to the rooms of Queen Marguerite's chief tirewoman for dinner, at the Neues Palais, a couple of hours before she was expected to dress Her Majesty for a State banquet. The dame refused it, and sent for the Empress's chief titled servant, Baroness von Hahnke, stating in plain terms that, unless she were furnished with food suitable to her rank and station, she would drive into town to dine, even at the risk of being late for Her Majesty's service.

The Baroness, frightened out of her wits, told the Empress the facts, and the Imperial lady gave Count Puckler (responsible for the sins of the kitchen) a terrible talking-to before her other titled servants. At the same time she ordered a suitable dinner for the Italian lady from her own cuisine--a dinner the extras of which upset the budget for some weeks to come.

*CHAPTER IX*

*WHAT THE MAID SAW AND HEARD*

Revelations--Sauerkraut and Turnips--What the Dachshunds Did

FRAU MARTHA to FRAU KRUPP, _nee_ BARONESS VON ENDE.

BERLIN, SCHLOSS, _Christmas_.

GRACIOUS LADY,--May it please the Gracious Lady, we arrived safely and sound, and Fraulein just started off on a sleigh ride with the little Princess, who is as foolish as the poor Mueller orphan in our hospital, but, mind, she had something warm before I let her go.

Fraulein don't want me to say nothing, but duty compels me. Gracious Lady, I must tell you that Fraulein got up still hungry from table and ate four ham sandwiches, three doughnuts and a cream tart, which I bought for her with my own money (no matter about that) ere I let her go. After I made her warm inside, I made her warm underneath, and put on her the beautiful sables the late Gracious Gentleman, God rest his soul, got given to him in Russia. With all respects to Majesty, the little Princess, in her cheap _iltiz_ (_patois_) garment, looked like a mere rag doll compared with our Bertha, please excuse me, Gracious Lady.

Gracious Lady will forgive an ignorant girl, but the three of us, Fritz and Lenchen and me, call the Schloss Starvation Hall.

Except Fraulein and Fritz and Lenchen, I haven't heard a decent word since we left home. They just snarl and hiss. Because Fraulein is called the richest girl in the world, they fetch and carry for her, like the mealy-mouthed menials they are; but if it wasn't for the tips, I don't think they'd do a thing for her.