'Hate them? Would not you?' returned the woman harshly.
'Why should you?' the girl asked.
'Do you know anything of the story of our race, you who ask? No? Well, I will tell you. For centuries we have been outcasts, treated like beggars, like scum; for ages we have suffered for the acts of our ancestors of hundreds of generations past, and always the Christian has sought to profit by our misfortunes; and have we been credulous of their promises, they have returned us jibes and disdain.'
'But the Jews committed a terrible wrong,' Wilhelmine interrupted; 'they crucified the——'
'Crucified! crucified!' broke in the Jewess angrily, 'we are weary of the very word! We crucified Him as you hang rebels, and He happened to be a Charmer who inspired a new religion—yours! and for ever since you Christians who rant of pardon, tenderness, moderation, love of all the world—you have oppressed us with a vengeance so terrible, so relentless, that we in our turn have learnt to hate and contrive vengeance.'
'But can you?' Wilhelmine smiled mockingly.
'Ah! but wait! Some day we, who have no heritage—we shall inherit the earth!' The old Jewess's voice trailed, and into its muttered tones thrilled the accent of the mystic belief of race destiny which lives so strongly in the children of Israel. Wilhelmine, upon whom no hint of power, of fate, or of belief in the unknown, ever failed to work, listened with growing interest. She questioned the old crone, and succeeded in drawing from her a long and impassioned tirade upon the wrongs of the race of Israel.
No one could charm people as could Wilhelmine; her vitality, her sonorous voice, the quick sympathy which drew confidences from the most reserved—in fine, her magnetic force, made her, when she chose, the most irresistible of beings. And she exerted herself to exercise her attraction upon the Jewess, for her curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and also with her strange instinct for power she scented a possible use to her, if she could count upon the adherence of a silent, secret force like the Jews. The old Jewess told how her people were constantly in communication with their fellow Jews of every land; she said that one who did a service to a Jew was always sure of finding support from the whole race; and Wilhelmine's quick brain and vivid imagination wove a romantic web, herself the centre thereof, holding in one hand the power of Wirtemberg's court, and in the other the secret thread commanding the commercial enterprises undertaken by freed and grateful Israelites. Romantic certainly, but very lucrative to the heroine of this self-woven romance!
'Well, Widow Hazzim,' she said at length, 'destiny has brought me to you. Some day I may have power to help your race, will you vouch me gratitude and support in return?' She spoke lightly, but her eyes were serious and watchful, and her hands gripped the essence-soaked kerchief which she had taken from her brow.
The Jewess laughed. 'Do us a service and you will see!' she answered.
At this moment the door, which led to some inner room, opened, and a boy appeared on the threshold.
'My great-nephew, lady,' said the Jewess; 'his mother is my niece. He can sing like the heavenly seraphim, and greatbeauty of body is his as well.' She whispered the last statement in that fatal whisper wherewith the aged often give conceited self-consciousness to children.
The boy advanced: graceful, perfect in line, glowing in his Jewish youthful beauty, which is usually over-bold, a trifle insolent and hard. He approached Wilhelmine, and bent before her in a salute so ceremonious that it was at once strangely appealing from a child, and yet unctuous and unnatural. Wilhelmine gave him her hand and inquired his name.
'Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, musician,' he replied gravely.
'Indeed? Musician!' she said, laughing. 'Thy profession already fixed and entitled.'
'My father is a musician; he sings before courts, and I shall do the same,' he added proudly.
Wilhelmine laughed. The boy's calm assurance of success pleased her, and his unusual beauty attracted her, as all personal comeliness invariably did.
'He knows what he wants, this Joseph Süss,' she said; 'and to know what one wants, to know it decidedly, is the first step to achievement. Grasp success firmly and it is yours!'
The boy looked at her, fascinated by her loveliness, dominated by her voice and the creed which she enunciated. The old Jewess sent the boy to fetch his guitar, and when he returned she desired him to sing for her guest's entertainment.
Joseph Süss, with the too precocious manner of the Jewish child, inquired with another elaborate bow if Wilhelmine would care to hear his voice. She begged him to let her hear the seraphim sing. The boy caught the note of irony in her phrase; flushing deeply, he laid aside his guitar and would have run away had not Wilhelmine, with her easy self-indulgent kindness of heart to those who did not get in her way, called him back and propitiated him with smiling reassurances. The boy seated himself near her and sang. His voice was deliciously fresh and clear, and Wilhelmine, delightedly, made him sing again and again till the child's repertory was exhausted. She praised him and fondled him, and takingfrom her breast a small jewelled pin, engraved with her initials, she fastened it in his coat.
'A remembrance, dear musician,' she said laughing. She was destined to see that jewel again after long years, when humiliation and defeat came to her, striking her down at the zenith of her brilliant career.
Eberhard Ludwigstood before his dull Duchess, his eyes fixed on her heavy, handsome face with a look of such stern anger, that the unhappy woman felt herself to be a criminal before some harsh, implacable judge. The phrases she had prepared in her mind during the two days since she had expelled her rival from the castle faded away, and seemed to falter from proud statements to a mere apology, an anxious pleading.
The Duke remained standing, one hand leant upon the back of a chair, the other hung at his side, and Johanna Elizabetha could see that his fingers were clenched and reclenched with such force that the knuckles showed bluey white; otherwise the man might have been made of stone and his eyes of metal, so motionless and rigid was the whole figure. He had entered her apartment, and had demanded in a voice of controlled passion, deep with the effort he made to render it cold and courteous, 'Madame, where is your Highness's lady-in-waiting?'
She met the question with a tremulous torrent of words. 'I have dismissed Mademoiselle de Grävenitz. I required her services no longer; she did not please me; she has left the castle, probably the town. I do not know where she is.'
'I ask again, Madame la Duchesse, whither you have sent Mademoiselle de Grävenitz? You must have been aware of her destination before you permitted a young lady to leave the shelter of our castle,' he said. And the Duchess replied by an angry outburst, a hailstorm of reproaches, before which Eberhard Ludwig remained silent, cold, rigidly self-contained. The Duchess paused; it was like beating one's hand against some adamantine barrier. She had the sensation that all she said, felt, suffered, passed unnoticed; the man before her waswaiting for information, that was all. It was intolerable, and the hopelessness of any pleading came to her.
'My husband,' she said in another tone, calm and cold as his, 'I have endured enough. I have the right to dismiss my lady-in-waiting if I think fit. I have done so, and the lady will not enter my apartments again, nor will she be admitted to any court festivities wherein I take part.' She turned away; her despairing consciousness of ultimate humiliation seemed to choke her, though her very defeat was transformed to a moral victory by her resigned dignity. The Duke moved forward. 'At least tell me what has occurred,' he said hurriedly. 'When I left you three days ago there was no word of any dispute. I thought I left peace,' he added in a puzzled tone.
The Duchess came towards him. She held out her hands in a gesture of appeal: 'Eberhard, be just to me! I bore it as long as I could, but that woman's presence was a daily torture to me. Have a mistress, if need be,' this last bitterly, 'but at least do not cause her to be my companion. It is not fitting.' The blood rushed to the Duke's face. 'Mademoiselle de Grävenitz is fit to be the companion of saints, of angels!' he retorted angrily. 'She will return to court, I warn your Highness.' He turned abruptly and left the Duchess's apartment.
If the Duke, with the blindness of the enamoured, really had imagined peace to reign in his palace prior to his sojourn at Urach, on his return even love and anxiety could not hide the excitement and unrest which the departure of the favourite had caused in the castle of Stuttgart. Madame de Ruth, flinging etiquette to the winds, had met his Highness in the courtyard when he rode in from Urach, and had greeted him with the news of Wilhelmine's flight. The good lady was genuinely distressed, and had made unceasing search in the town, but naturally no one had thought of seeking in the Judengasse behind the Leonards Kirche. Wilhelmine seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, and there were not wanting murmurers among the Duchess's servitors who averred that witches had ever been able to vanish at will, and that probably 'the Grävenitzin' would return in the form of a black cat or a serpent, and suddenly change into a woman againwhen it suited her. They were all in a flutter of superstitious excitement; and Maria the maid, who loved Wilhelmine, went about with reddened eyes, and was much questioned below stairs.
The Duke, on hearing the news from Madame de Ruth, had repaired immediately to the Duchess, but, as we have seen, he had extracted no information from the lady, she having none to give. When his Highness left the Duchess's apartment he stormed up to Madame de Ruth's dwelling-room, and after some deliberation summoned Forstner and charged him with the unpleasant duty of leading a search party which was supplied with a ducal warrant to enter all houses of every grade in Stuttgart. Forstner, of course, urged patience; the missing one would return or communicate, he said; but the Duke greeted the word patience with such an outburst of anger that the 'Bony One' retired discomfited and gave orders for the search with apparent zeal.
Evening fell on the sun-baked streets of Stuttgart, and a faint breeze wafted a recollection of field and wood through the open windows of the castle. Eberhard Ludwig paced up and down, near the fountain in the castle gardens, where he had been with Wilhelmine on the moonlit night of the theatricals three months ago. He flung himself down upon the stone bench where they had sat together. He covered his eyes with his hands, he was tortured with memories, thrilled again to past raptures; his desire was aroused, increased a hundred-fold by the anguish of absence. Could it be true that such passion's enchantments were never to be his again? he asked himself. His memory conjured up a thousand charms of his beloved, her voice, her laugh, her touch. 'Wilhelmine, Wilhelmine!'
He sprang up. 'God! it is awful! Wilhelmine, my love, my mistress!' he said aloud. Ridiculous poet-fellow! he listened as though he expected an answer.
In the distance there was a rumble of thunder, and the restless breeze rioted suddenly in the tree-branches for a moment, passed onward, then swept back again rustling, then came a roll of thunder closer than the last. Another pause—fateful it seemed, as though the garden trembled before thecoming storm. A white flash played intermittently upon the fountain, followed by a thunderclap directly overhead, and a torrent of rain poured down. The Duke stood still a moment, the rain beating upon him. The storm delighted him, it answered to his tempestuous mood. He turned away from the castle and walked in the direction of the garden boundary on the south side, passing the drawbridge over the disused and flower-filled moat of the castle wall. What would have been his emotions had he known that his fancy led him to wander whither Wilhelmine had passed but three days before? He came to the garden's limit and stood looking towards the dimly discernible openings of several narrow streets, the oldest and most ill-famed gangways of the town. Of a sudden he descried a small form muffled in a sombre cloak. The street was utterly deserted save for Eberhard Ludwig himself and this forlorn little figure, and the Duke's attention was thus arrested. The pouring rain had not extinguished the light of the two dilapidated hanging lamps, which were fixed upon the walls of the street from whence had issued the diminutive night-wanderer, whom the Duke saw was now making for the castle.
The true Wirtemberger vanishes like smoke before the first drop of rain, and the Duke therefore concluded that any errand undertaken, and continued, in a downpour must be for a purpose of paramount importance. So he watched with curiosity the approaching figure, observing with surprise that it was a child of some ten years old.
'Ha, young person,' called the Duke, as the child reached him; 'whither away so fast, and what may he want in the castle gardens at this time of night?'
Thus apostrophised, the figure hesitated; then apparently alarmed by the sight of the Duke's military cloak, and probably taking him for a sentry or a garden guard, the child ducked forward and would have made a bolt past his interrogator. But the Duke, who was amused and half-suspicious of the boy's errand, caught the figure by his heavy cloak, and dragged him, a trifle roughly, under the light of the lantern at the opposite street corner.
'Now he shall tell me where he was going,' Serenissimussaid laughing. The disdainful use of the third person singular seemed to anger the boy, who stood silent and sullen, with bent head. 'But heshalltell me,' repeated the Duke, enforcing his command by a rough shake.
'I will not tell you! What concern is it of yours?' the boy replied at length.
The Duke bent a puzzled look upon his prisoner, whose voice was refined, and whose German was guiltless of the rude Swabian accent. He did not speak like a gutter child, and the face which he turned upon Eberhard was startlingly beautiful. Still the Duke was suspicious. Why should this boy be slinking to the castle by night? His Highness disliked mysteries, or thought he did; though, as a matter of fact, he was always attracted by the mysterious, afraid of it, yet anxious to unravel. He gave the boy another shake. It was a physical relief to shake some one after the long hours of anxiety, and the control he had been forced to exercise upon his longing to shake the Duchess—no new wish on his part, and the only desire that estimable lady had inspired in his breast for many years. So the Duke shook his little prisoner again and again.
The boy remained passive; he was breathless, but he met the Duke's half-laughing, half-angry eyes with a bold look of defiance.
His Highness ceased shaking the child, feeling distinctly ashamed. 'Will he tell me now?' he asked more gently.
As he said the words, something caught the uncertain light of the lamps—a little jewel which glittered in the boy's coat. It was exposed to view by the disarrangement of the cloak caused by the rough handling.
'Lord God!' exclaimed the Duke, catching the boy by the arm once more, 'where in the devil's name did you get that?'
The boy clasped his free hand over the jewel, and proceeded to kick Eberhard Ludwig's shins with all the violence he could muster. 'A lady gave it to me, and you shall never have it! I will kill you sooner!' he cried grandiloquently.
'Be quiet, boy. I am a friend; tell me your errand. If it concerns the lady who gave you that jewel, I alone can be ofassistance.' In his voice lay so pure a note of truth that the boy instinctively turned to him trustfully.
'I have a message for the Duke from the lady. If you are a friend to her, you can tell me how to find him. The lady says I am to go to the castle and ask for Madame de Ruth, who will take me to his Highness if he has come back from hunting; then she said all would be well.'
To the boy's astonishment his big questioner suddenly let go his arm, and, leaning against the house wall, covered his face with his hands, shivered as though from an ague fit. When the man took his hands from before his face, the child saw that his eyes were full of tears. The boy wondered why so many grown-up people were so foolish.
'Quick, boy! take me to her!' he cried.
'No; that is just what I am not to do,' was the reply. 'I am to tell her where the Duke will meet her to-morrow morning early.'
'To-morrow morning! A million leaden moments! a century to pass! No! Boy, take me to her! I am the Duke; take me to her, I order you.'
'No; you may be the Duke, but she has given me her commands, and they mean more to me than yours.' The boy threw up his head proudly. Even in his passionate impatience Serenissimus was struck by the boy's manner, amused by this small gentleman.
'Preux Chevalier!' he said laughing; then bowing gravely to the little muffled figure, 'you are perfectly correct, and I stand reproved; but at least do me the honour to carry this ring to the lady, and tell her that I await either her or her sovereign commands.'
The boy took the ring and vanished into the blackness of the side street. Eberhard Ludwig remained looking after him into the gloom. A bitter thought came to him of the superiority of this child of the back streets over the Erbprinz of Wirtemberg—that poor, sickly, excitable boy, whose disappointing personality was a source of constant irritation and humiliation to his father. Eberhard Ludwig loved personal vitality, and that vigorous manliness which he himself possessed, and which he saw daily in the sons of hispoorest subjects; and he suffered intensely when he was brought into contact with his puny, unwholesome son. The Duchess's passionate spoiling and injudicious love made matters worse; the boy's health was in nowise benefited thereby, and it but served to accentuate the fact that his father had little else save impatient pity to bestow upon his disappointing offspring. This was in Eberhard Ludwig's mind as his eyes rested absently upon the street opening whither had vanished the erect little form of Joseph Süss—'preux chevalier,' as the Duke had dubbed him. The summer storm had passed, leaving a delicious freshness in the air and a fragrance which penetrated from the gardens to the Duke. Eberhard Ludwig stood waiting near the entrance to the narrow street or gangway, where the overhanging roofs dripped large splashing drops upon the unpaved earth below. Now that realisation was in all probability so near, his wild desire for Wilhelmine seemed to have passed; a curious anxiety had taken its place. How strange, the Duke reflected, that loss or absence should enhance the value of the beloved. He tried to conjure up his agony of longing for his mistress. What mad rapture, could he have clasped her at the moment of tremendous desire which had been his half an hour earlier in the castle garden! Are we really only children crying for the moon? and if the moon were given to us, should we but throw it away into the nearest ditch—merely another broken toy? he thought. These moods of Eberhard Ludwig's were frequent. Like all poets, he had a vein of melancholy, a tendency to indulge himself in a half-sensuous sadness, and these dreamings of his, which had never been received with ought save uncomprehending impatience by the Duchess, Wilhelmine had known so well how to assuage—not entirely to dissipate, for she would have robbed him of a certain joy had she done so; but she humoured him, understood him, wandered with him in the paths of his enchanted melancholy, then suddenly brought him back to gaiety by some witty word, some tender pleasantry. It was part of her immense power over him, and indeed, it was no thing of the senses, but rather her womanly genius, her innate knowledge of loving. As he stood awaiting her, his heart cried for her; hewas no longer stirred by physical desire, but he craved the consolation of her presence as a child wearies for its mother's love. Indeed, in most passions which have outlasted the flash of sheer animal attraction, there has ever been that touch of mother-love in the affection given by the woman to the man. And it is this which eternally makes the entirely desirable woman older than the man she loves.
The minutes passed slowly as Eberhard Ludwig stood waiting for some sign from Wilhelmine. At length his Highness heard an approaching footstep. He turned quickly, in his excitement not noting that the steps came from the direction of the castle garden. He started forward with outstretched arms. Forstner stood before him, a ridiculous figure as usual; his large, tiresome nose shadowed on the wall by the uncertain light of the hanging lanterns.
'Really, Monsieur de Forstner!' broke out the Duke angrily, 'it is intolerable to be thus followed! Am I not at liberty to take a stroll unquestioned?'
The astonished courtier attempted to explain that he had not known his Highness to be wandering near the Judengasse, but Eberhard Ludwig cut him short and desired him to go on his way. Forstner begged to be permitted to accompany his Highness. 'This is not a part of the town where it is fitting your Highness should be alone at night.' The reproving tone of the schoolmaster (that inextinguishable dweller of the innermost which abides for ever in the breast of every honest German) crept into the words, and Eberhard Ludwig's irritation was the more aroused.
'Will you go and leave me to myself, Forstner, you insufferable ass!' The words broke forth half fiercely, half humorously.
Forstner drew himself up with a certain stiff dignity. 'Were that term applied to me by any but my Prince, I should answer with the sword,' he said.
The Duke laughed impatiently. 'I retract—I apologise—I beg your forgiveness; you are an excellent fellow, a dear friend—only for God's sake, man, go away!'
'But your Highness—I beg you to consider——' the other began.
'Look here, Forstner,' the Duke interrupted, 'if you don't go—now, at once, and leave me alone, upon my soul I will run you through!' He half-drew his sword.
'Really, Monseigneur,' replied Forstner, 'I am ready to obey your Highness, but——'
'Well, then,go!' The Duke was getting beyond himself; each moment he feared Wilhelmine would appear, and Forstner was not a person he desired as witness either to his meeting with his beloved, or to her advent from the lowest part of the town.
The estimable Forstner had at length commenced his departure, but he was distant only a few paces when the Duke heard a laugh coming from the gloom of the shadowed Judengasse. It was a laugh which, though low-pitched and quiet, had a resonant distinctness which caused it to carry a long way.
'Wait, for Heaven's sake, till he is gone,' his Highness whispered over his shoulder into the darkness, observing to his dismay that Forstner had halted.
'Did your Highness call me?' asked the too-devoted friend, and made as though to return.
'No; I coughed. Do go away!' shouted the Duke in return, and set himself to cough vigorously, for behind him from the darkened street there came the unmistakable sound of Wilhelmine's irrepressible laughter.
At length the angular figure vanished, and the Duke sprang round with arms outstretched, and into them he received the stately form of his mistress, who lay upon his breast; for once unresponsive to his passionate kisses, while she laughed in a very agony of mirth.
'Forgive me, Monseigneur,' she said at last, her voice still shaking with laughter; 'but you know the scene was really beyond me. I heard all, and oh! Forstner was so droll, and you too.' She began to laugh again. 'Oh, how delightfully undignified, mon Prince—when you coughed to hide my laughter.'
Once more she leaned against Eberhard Ludwig's shoulder and rocked with merriment. The Duke also laughed, but a trifle ruefully; that meddler Forstner had destroyed the raptureof his meeting with Wilhelmine, had broken the charm of his pensive mood; and besides, the Duke knew from experience that when Wilhelmine began to laugh like that he would probably hear no serious word from her during the evening. Even in their passion's transports he had known his mistress suddenly go off into a series of 'fous rires,' and no man enjoys the most harmless laughter at such moments.
'Wilhelmine, for God's sake stop laughing, and tell me where you have been since the Duchess—since the Duchess——' he hesitated, not knowing how to express the summary ejection from the castle.
'Since her Highness had the goodness to turn me out.' Wilhelmine was serious now, though her lips still twitched with mirth, and her eyes were mischievous and teasing. 'Nay, your Highness, that is my secret. I have always a hiding-place whither I can vanish when you are not good to me. Shall I disappear again? I have but to say a mystic word and your Highness will clasp empty air.' She was play-acting, as she often did, and she looked up at him with such dazzling eyes that he caught her to him with masterful passion.
'Witch! enchantress!' he murmured. 'What matters it where you were; you are here now with me, and never to part again!'
'Till death us do part,' she answered. 'Nay, those are the words men say to their wives, not to their——' A note of bitterness pierced the mockery of her tone.
'Ah! heart of mine,' he broke in vehemently, 'would that I could make you Duchess! You are my wife by all laws of fairest nature and love! This is a more holy thing than marriage—nay, this is true marriage!' It was the eternal lie of lovers: the old futile, pathetic, impossible pleading of those whose love cannot be sanctioned by law. Wilhelmine's face darkened.
'Monseigneur, if you could make Forstner and his sort believe that, I should not be taunted and insulted. But come, now, we cannot discuss this here. Will you tell me where you propose to lodge me this night, or shall I vanish again?' Her gaiety had returned.
'I must ask you to accept the hospitality of my roofto-night,' he said gravely; 'to-morrow I will seek a fitting abode for you.'
'Ah! a mistress's separate establishment.' Her voice was bitter again. Was there ever such a difficult woman for lover to deal with? But that was half her charm.
'Wilhelmine, do not torture me. I will do all I can, and I pray you, never call your house a mistress's establishment—call it rather the palace of my heart's queen.'
'Prettily put, and meaning exactly the same!'
She was laughing once more; she loved when Eberhard Ludwig spoke in this chivalrous tone, as every woman does, thinking it a tribute to her own especial dignity when it is often only a deft trick of speech. Laughing and talking and teasing her beloved, she allowed him to lead her away through the gardens.
Within the castle commotion prevailed. Serving-men and maids ran hither and thither in an excited and aimless fashion; they started back in surprise and dismay when they perceived Wilhelmine's tall figure beside the Duke, but neither his Highness nor the lady stopped to question the servants on the cause of the disturbance. When they reached the first floor, where dwelt the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha, and would have passed on to gain Wilhelmine's apartments, they found themselves confronted by a group of persons talking in excited whispers. Prelate Osiander, certainly not one whom Eberhard Ludwig desired as a witness to Wilhelmine's re-entry; Madame de Stafforth, the Countess Gemmingen, one of the Duchess's ladies; Dr. Mürger, second court physician; two of her Highness's waiting-women. Madame de Ruth was also there, and it struck Wilhelmine as ominous that the lady of many words and ready wit stood silent and constrained.
'What is this?' queried Eberhard Ludwig angrily in a loud tone. The assembled persons turned in startled surprise. Osiander came forward.
'Your Highness's wife, the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha, is sick unto death, and your Highness was not to be found for all our search,' he said sternly, and without deigning to cast a glance upon Wilhelmine.
'What ails the Duchess?' asked Eberhard Ludwig, turning to Dr. Mürger.
'It would seem to be a stroke of blood to the brain, your Highness—a dangerous thing to one of the Duchess's robust physique. Dr. Schubart is occupied in bleeding her Highness. My assistance was dispensed with,' he added in an offended tone.
At this moment the door of the Duchess's chamber opened, and Monsieur le Docteur Schubart, first doctor to the court and a very pompous person, appeared.
'I am relieved to be able to declare her Highness the Duchess to be returned from her strange swoon. I have the honour to announce that her Highness's cherished life will be spared to her devoted subjects.'
The man was odiously unctuous and self-satisfied. Madame de Stafforth burst into weak weeping, while Osiander gravely offered his congratulations to Eberhard Ludwig upon the recovery of 'his noble and devoted wife.' There lay something of true dignity and sober goodness in the Prelate's whole being which never failed to impress Wilhelmine, and she felt his entire ignoring of her to be a heavy public reproof from a competent judge. There was a moment's awkward silence when the Prelate ceased speaking, and every eye was turned to the pair of handsome lovers as they stood side by side, framed in the oaken panelling of the doorway leading to the stairs. Madame de Ruth, who hated pauses, came forward and held out her hand to Wilhelmine.
'My dear, I am glad to see you,' she said kindly.
Wilhelmine, whom Osiander's disapproval had irritated, replied calmly: 'Yes, I have returned, and to stay this time!' It was said defiantly.
Now it is well known that love makes the wisest of mankind foolish, and that the poet in love is a perfectly unaccountable being. Eberhard Ludwig was poet and lover, and he lost his head on this occasion.
'Returned to stay, dear lady, as long as my poor court can harbour and amuse so fair a visitant!' he said; then, turning to Madame de Ruth, he added in a lower tone, which was yet perfectly audible to most of the assembled company: 'Therain-cloud brought back sunshine to us. A flash of lightning carried her from Elysium to earth once more. A mysterious Black Cupid led her to me! but we must be very careful, for she can vanish at will, this beautiful enchantress.'
It was said in extravagant homage, half in pleasantry, but several of those present, and notably the Duchess's waiting-women, heard the unwise words. When Wilhelmine swept past them on her way to her chamber they drew back in superstitious awe, and she heard them murmur, 'Witch and sorceress! we must not offend her.'
Thecourt of Stuttgart soon saw to its cost that Wilhelmine had of a truth 'come to stay this time,' as she herself had announced on the evening of her return from the Judengasse. After a few days spent in her old quarters in the castle, she removed to a hastily improvised abode on the first floor of the Duke's Jägerhaus. Here had been the official residence of his Highness's Grand Maître de la Meute, and this personage, who was relegated to a small and inconvenient dwelling-place, naturally resented his eviction. Public disapproval was excited by the summary commandeering of a well-known official residence; and when, following upon their keeper's ejection, the stag-hounds and hare-coursers were removed from the Jägerhaus, the Stuttgarters murmured ominously. It had long been a highly prized privilege of the townsfolk to repair, each Sunday and Feast-day, to view the hounds—in fact, this custom had become one of their social entertainments. The burghers and their families were wont to meet together in the stretch of garden which bordered the open rails of the enclosure, where the hounds took their afternoon airing on idle, non-hunting days. The citizens loved to watch the dogs' antics, and regarded it as their recognised Sunday afternoon amusement. In the Graben, or disused town moat, turned road, stood the Jägerhaus—a long, barn-like building, the entire ground-floor whereof was occupied by the dog-kennels, which opened to the back on paddocks. On the first floor were many spacious apartments, hitherto used for the administration of the affairs of his Highness's hunt, and for lodgingthe Jägermasters of distant posts in the forests, who came to Stuttgart on official business; and here, too, was the residence of the Grand Master of the Hunt and hounds. On the third floor, beneath the high sloping roof, were a few garrets and several large lofts filled with the straw destined for the dog-kennels. The mingled odours of hounds and straw displeased Wilhelmine's acute sense of smell, and one of her first commands upon entering her new abode was that hounds and straw should be removed instantly. She declared that therefrom the whole house was infested with fleas, and when the Duke, wishful to propitiate the angry lady, proposed to send for the late occupant of the Jägerhaus to inquire if he had been aware of his neighbours, the fleas, she remarked angrily that fleas were dainty feeders and, like Jews, were not in the habit of selecting pigskin for food. This remark was evidently heard by some unfriendly person, for on the morrow it was the common talk of the town. A few days later the hounds were seen progressing through Stuttgart on their way to temporary kennels hastily arranged in the Rothwald. The populace followed this cortège shouting, 'They are taking away our beautiful hounds, and leaving an accursed bitch in the old kennels!' And that day when Serenissimus drove out, accompanied as usual by Wilhelmine, he was met by an angry murmuring crowd. Here was the beginning of that unpopularity of Wilhelmine's which gave the lie to the devotion of her friends, and notably her personal attendants and servants. This unpopularity which had so terrible an effect on her character, hardening her heart, accentuating the underlying cruelty, the indifference to aught save her own pleasure and power. Feeling herself accounted evil, she became so. It was this, taken together with her magnificent success and her extraordinary prosperity, which caused her to become a cruel and self-seeking woman. Monsieur Gabriel, in the far-off days at Güstrow, had feared this development, had trembled before the world-hardness which would mar the being he loved. How many have trembled at the same thought, and in sadness and loneliness have realised that their dread has become a cruel reality! We can face Death for those we love, mourning them in agony and tears, but wecan find no beauty in that bitter and hideous grief which comes to us when those we loved, we trusted, we admired, change to us—worst of all, change in themselves. This is the inexorable Death in Life, and in this Death we cannot dream of a fair consoling Hereafter. The thing we loved has not only perished—alas! we realise that it has never existed! What we worshipped was the shadow of our own making, a mirage conjured up by our heart's desire. To those who love most, love best, this tragedy comes.
Wilhelmine, who arrived in Wirtemberg a strong, passionate creature, generous, vital, was too responsive to remain unaltered by the alchemising touch of the world. Had she been met with tenderness and purity, and by noble men and women, she might have become a power for good; as it was, she was received by intrigue, contending interests, disapproval, distrust, the lust of love. As a good woman there was no place for her at Wirtemberg's court, so all the evil, lying dormant in every human heart, rose up in her, and she became a Queen of Wickedness. Monsieur Gabriel would have mourned another lost illusion, had not Death taken him from this world a few months after Wilhelmine's departure from Güstrow. He bequeathed to her his well-worn books,Les Pensées de Pascal,Le Roman de la Rose, the poems of the singers of La Pleïade, and the few other volumes wherefrom he had instructed his beloved pupil. He left, besides, a little sealed packet, in which she was surprised to find several beautiful jewels, among them a white enamel cross, in the centre whereof was the image of a dove with outspread wings.
Eberhard Ludwig told her these were the insignia of a high order in France, and she was thereby confirmed in her notion that her beloved old schoolmaster's great air and immense refinement were those of a grand seigneur. She often pondered on why a Huguenot had been permitted to bear the holy order of the St. Esprit upon his breast, but she remembered that Monsieur Gabriel had spoken of the court festivities with that sure accent which told that he had been of the caste which took part in those scenes. She never learnt his secret; to her credit, she never sought to unravel it. The Grävenitzwas what the world calls wicked, but vulgarity and vulgarity's attendant, curiosity, could not touch her, and she respected the silence of her friends, though she ever spied upon her enemies. The news of Monsieur Gabriel's death was brought to Wilhelmine soon after her advent at the Jägerhaus, and for many days the favourite refused to see any one save Eberhard Ludwig. She mourned her old friend sincerely, and wept bitterly when she saw the worn volumes he had bequeathed to her. The cross she fastened round her neck on a thin gold chain, and this badge of a sacred order rested for many years on the heart of the strange, evil woman. You can see the tiny line of this chain in the few known portraits of Wilhelmine von Grävenitz. These pictures are very rare, Time and Hatred have hidden them but too well. Indeed, it is as though all the Swabian virtue had conspired together to obliterate the memory, with the portraits, of the abhorred 'Grävenitzin.'
For the nonce, life was very peaceful for Wilhelmine in the Jägerhaus; and the Duke, entirely enthralled by his mistress, humoured her every whim. Madame de Ruth said mockingly to Zollern that a more exemplary young married couple than 'Monsieur et Madame Eberhard Ludwig' she had never seen. But the feeling against the favourite in Stuttgart grew each day, and the fact that his Highness had caused much that was of beauty and value in the castle to be removed to the Jägerhaus gave umbrage to the courtiers. Even Zollern remonstrated, but in vain. Meanwhile the Jägerhaus had become a splendid abode: rich yellow silken hangings hid the bare whitewashed walls of the chamber Wilhelmine had selected for her reception-room; the old wooden floors had been polished till they appeared to be the finest parquet; gilt chairs deeply cushioned, and also of that delicate yellow colour which the favourite loved, had been brought from Paris; a spinet with a beautifully painted case stood near the window; a quaint sixteenth-century stove which had been in the state room at the castle had been chosen by her as harmonising well with the yellow hangings, being made of light blue tiles. In an alcove, especially constructed by grumbling, slow-handed Stuttgart workmen for the 'Duke's Witch,' was the pick ofthe ducal library. The court ladies heard with jealous rage, that the Grävenitzin had a dressing-room entirely panelled with mirrors, that her bed was hung with light blue silk, that she had a silver bath surrounded by mirror screens. How had the MecklemburgFräuleinlearnt such things? they asked. How indeed, but in her inborn genius for luxury! The favourite's servants were magnificently attired in ducal liveries. The lady had her own carriage with painted panels and yellow satin cushions. She gave rich entertainments, and the invitations were coveted, of course, by the good people who were so horrified at their hostess. The Duchess Johanna Elizabetha would not be present at a court feast where the Grävenitz appeared? Very well! therewereno court feasts! All the gaiety of the autumn of 1706 and the winter of 1707 took place at the Jägerhaus.
The Duchess-mother, from her dower-house of Stetten, descended periodically upon Stuttgart, rated her son, condoled with Johanna Elizabetha, and returned utterly unsuccessful to Stetten.
Forstner's warning voice was never silent. Osiander failed to return Wilhelmine's salutation when she encountered him in the Lustgarten. It was open war between virtue and the Grävenitz.
Stuttgart in the winter is a vastly different place to the smiling, gay Stuttgart of spring and summer days, and Wilhelmine often wondered whither had vanished the charm, the delight of Southern Germany. That winter there fell but little snow, a cruel black frost was over the whole valley; sometimes the frost relaxed his iron grip, and then came torrents of rain. The frost returned when the rain ceased, and taking the wet earth into his gaunt hands turned everything into dirty sheet ice. In Wilhelmine's yellow room at the Jägerhaus the blue stove radiated a pleasant warmth, and, if a feeble sunray struggled through the gloomy, leaden sky, the yellow hangings caught it like a lover, and seemed to treasure it, filling the whole room with a hint of spring sunshine. In the castle the Duchess sat in her sombre apartments which she had made as dull, as dreary, as charmless as herself. Eberhard Ludwig seldom visited her, and she spenther time in cosseting the sickly Erbprinz, or bemoaning her fate to Madame de Stafforth.
Slowly the winter left the land, but the spring that year was a meagre starveling, niggardly of smiles. He seemed to have borrowed winter's breath, and the pale young leaves shuddered in the unfriendly blasts. The fruit blossom struggled into a nipped existence, and fell like thin snow to the ground. An eerie spring, and men said there was a spell upon the country, and looked towards the Jägerhaus as they spoke.
During the winter the French army under Maréchal Villars had again threatened Wirtemberg. On a cheerless day towards the end of April Eberhard Ludwig arrived as usual in the early morning to visit his beloved at the Jägerhaus. For several days she had noticed a cloud upon his brow, he had answered her absently, and she knew instinctively that there was something on his mind, which he desired to tell her. Too wise to question him, she watched him closely. When he entered the yellow-hung salon that cheerless April morning, he greeted her almost coldly, and began to play roughly with his huge black wolf-hound, Mélac. This animal was the Duke's constant companion—an extraordinarily sagacious beast, whom Wilhelmine declared to be a hater of dullness because he had ever been surly towards Johanna Elizabetha. For the favourite the dog had a marked affection; he would lie near her with his large head resting on her foot, while his patient eyes looked up at her with that strange, unblinking gaze which is characteristic of the wolf-hound.
There was something brutal in the way Eberhard Ludwig teased the dog that morning; he hurt the poor brute, pulling his short, sensitive ears, drawing Mélac roughly back then flinging him away. It was a cruel game, more like a combat between man and hound; and Mélac, good, generous beast though he was, began to get angry. The Duke's hand had been scratched by the dog's sharp teeth, and the wolf-hound tasting blood, grew ferocious. With a growl Mélac suddenly reared up on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the Duke's breast, his teeth bared in an ugly snarl. Eberhard Ludwig laughed, but the dog's fangs were dangerously nearhis Highness's throat; and indeed it was no laughing matter, for a wolf-hound, once his teeth are fastened in a man's throat, does not leave his prey alive. It was a grim comedy. Wilhelmine rose from her chair near the window and came forward.
'Leave him to me!' shouted the Duke, at length aware of his danger. He gripped Mélac by the ears and held the beast from him; but the hound was thoroughly aroused, and Eberhard Ludwig felt that it was an unequal contest in spite of his strength.
Wilhelmine advanced fearlessly, and laying her hand upon the dog's head, she leaned round till she faced the snarling brute.
'What are you doing, Wilhelmine?' panted the Duke. 'For God's sake do not put your face so close to his teeth!'
'I know what I am doing, mon Prince,' she said calmly.
As at Güstrow, when Müller had attacked her, she now narrowed her lids and forced her will into her eyes. Gradually she felt her mastery working on Mélac; his jaws dropped, no longer fiercely baring the teeth but as though he had run a long distance, the whole mouth became weak, the red tongue protruding. With a whine the dog fell, his front paws slipping from the Duke's shoulders. Shuddering, the great animal crouched on the floor, his eyes still resting on Wilhelmine with an expression of abject terror.
'Lie quiet, Mélac! There—good dog!' She stroked his head, and the hound fawned upon her, dragging himself round her feet, crawling, abased.
Eberhard Ludwig caught her hand, and his own trembled a little. 'What an extraordinary thing! Did you put a spell upon Mélac? I have never seen him thus cowed! Beloved, I believe I owe my life to you this morning,' he said.
Wilhelmine passed her hand across her eyes. 'So may all your enemies be defeated!' she said, laughing.
'Could you make me tremble like that with your wonderful eyes?' he asked. He was fascinated, yet there was something terrible to him in this woman's power.
'Mon Prince, you are my master always,' she returned; and the subtle flattery of being the avowed ruler of so potent abeing delighted him, as it pleases all men, who are obviously slaves, to be called master by the woman who controls them.
'Alas! but I am not the master of destiny,' he said sadly, 'and I come this morning to prove it. Wilhelmine, beloved, I must return to the army. We have information that Villars is to invade Wirtemberg once more, and I must be with the forces.'
'Is our happiness over then?' she queried.
'Ah! no, no, beloved of my life! You will wait for me here, I shall return in a few months.'
'Months! Months of Stuttgart without you? Ah! Eberhard, you cannot ask it!' She pleaded long, but for once the Duke was obdurate: he must go, he said; honour demanded it.
On the day fixed for Eberhard Ludwig's departure there was much stir in Stuttgart, and the people crowded the streets to show honour to their Duke, whose popularity was suddenly reawakened by his reassumption of the rôle of military hero. Johanna Elizabetha was to accompany the Duke out of the town; once again she was to be permitted to play her part as wife and Duchess. Forstner had achieved this, with the help of Osiander, who was to pronounce a blessing on the Duke and his body-guard on the market-place ere they set forth. The Prelate declared he would refuse his benediction were the Duchess not accorded her fitting place in the ceremony. Wilhelmine was enraged. It is hard for a woman to see another recognised as the beloved's wife, besides she regarded this as a slight to herself. It was terrible to her, and she stormed and raged and reproached the Duke, demanding what was to be her place in the ceremony. Then, in tears, she caressed him.
Of course, the Duke blamed Johanna Elizabetha for this scene. When do we ever blame the right person for the disagreeable happenings of our lives?
At length Serenissimus tore himself away from his mistress, carrying in his heart her picture in her yellow, sunlit room, crying bitterly with face hidden in her hands. He hated tears, but Wilhelmine's weeping was so different from that of other women, he reflected, as he wended his way through the gardens towards the castle to mount his charger and head the procession to the market-place, and thence away to the Frenchfrontier. He had taken leave of Johanna Elizabetha that morning, for though she was to assist in the ceremony of departure, he had granted her request for a previous farewell in private. The Duchess had met him with tear-swollen lids, and had wept incessantly during the short interview. The poor soul had shown her grief in a most unbecoming way; her mouth grimaced ridiculously when she cried, 'like a squalling brat's,' his Highness had reflected bitterly.
Ah! the difference when Wilhelmine wept—her head bowed down with sadness, her face hidden. It was so graceful, so poetic; of course the secret was, that when she wept she hid her face. A really clever woman of the world would never show the grimace of sorrow: she may weep, but she hides her face, well knowing that a weeping woman is a hideous sight; but all this Eberhard Ludwig did not know.
Meanwhile Wilhelmine sat in her yellow salon listening to the sounds from the market-place which floated to her across the gardens behind the Jägerhaus. She heard the flare of trumpets which greeted the Duke, the roar of the enthusiastic people acclaiming their warlike sovereign; then followed silence, Osiander must be pronouncing his benediction, she thought. Again a flourish of trumpets, men shouting, and then she heard the grand hymn, 'Ein' Feste Burg ist unser Gott,' sung by thousands of voices and brayed out by the brass instruments. The sound came nearer: she could hear the tramp of feet, the clatter of horses, the cries of the people. The musicians played a march: it seemed to Wilhelmine that it became more triumphant, more blatant, as the cortège passed near the Jägerhaus; yet the boisterous military music held a note of pathos, something infinitely moving at this terrible farewell hour, and the listening woman wept bitterly, and, God knows! she forgot to hide her sorrow-distorted mouth at that moment.
The days dragged on. May came cold and unfriendly, as April had been, and Wilhelmine thought that all the warmth of the world must have departed when Eberhard Ludwig went to the frontier to do battle. The lilacs came to a tardy bloom, and even on the cold ungenial air there floated a divinefragrance. News came from the Duke—dull news, all detail of the organising and improvement of troops. Passionate words intermingled in these letters to Wilhelmine, old faded yellow curiosities now. Madame de Ruth, Zollern, and Stafforth often visited the favourite at the Jägerhaus, and Wilhelmine's innate desire to please—that impulse which must ever belong to the 'charmeurs' and especially to the 'charmeuses' of the world—taught her to forget her sadness when she was with her friends, and thus some brighter hours were passed. She sang, and if her singing were more truthfully passionate and more sad than of yore, it was surely love which had taught her greater depth. Only Madame de Ruth, the old courtesan, realised that not love but love's sadness had given that tone to the glorious voice; and Madame de Ruth looked at Zollern, her eyes full of tears, but Zollern leaned his chin on the mythologically ornamented china handle of his stick and revelled in a thrill, a spark of youth's desire, which the younger woman's voice had rekindled. Men are promiscuous to the end of their lives. Why blame them? God made them so.
Towards the beginning of May, shortly after his Highness's departure, Madame de Ruth arrived one morning at the Jägerhaus brimming over with words and gossip. 'Imagine, ma chère,' she cried, as she rustled into Wilhelmine's yellow salon, 'Osiander is in disgrace with the Duchess! I heard it was coming, but did not believe it. As you know, her Highness has given orders that, being in spiritual mourning in the absence of her dear spouse at the war, she will see none save her personal attendants and Madame de Stafforth. Well, well, it is quite contrary to every etiquette; but, indeed, the court of Stuttgart has ceased to exist nowadays, and her Highness can do as she likes.'
'Yes, yes; I know all that. Tell me what the news is!' broke in Wilhelmine impatiently. The Duchess's entire seclusion was well known to her, she heard it discussed by her friends daily.
'Let me tell you my story in my own way, or I shall not tell it at all! Well, I live in the castle.'—'I know that too,' said Wilhelmine, laughing.—'Certainly you do—I live in thecastle, and really it is ridiculous if I never see the Duchess, considering that I am her resident Maîtresse du Palais; so at last I wrote to the Duchess saying I begged an audience, as really being of no use to her Highness I wished for leave of absence, but must crave a moment's conversation with her before I left.'
'Are you going to leave?' said Wilhelmine anxiously.
'Jamais de la vie, ma chère! but I wanted to see the Duchess, and this was the only way. Well, she consented to see me, so I went to her yesterday evening, found her with la Stafforth sewing shirts for the poor—very estimable! She was far from amiable to me; asked me if I meant to cease being Maîtresse du Palais, and become Dame de Déshonneur to Fräulein von Grävenitz. Upon my word, I had not credited her with wit enough for so cutting a saying; then I told her I should be obliged to resign, and had written to Serenissimus saying her Highness's refusals to see me made my position ridiculous. She replied that I could do as I wished, and just as I was preparing to take leave of her Highness, Osiander was announced. It amused me to hear, so I drew back into the shadow—you know the Duchess's rooms have always much shadow. Well, Osiander declared he had given his best attention to her Highness's demand, but regretted to be unable to accede to her request. The Duchess seemed much annoyed, and said that in this case she would invite the Pietist to preach to her in the castle itself. Osiander told her that this, of course, was as her Highness willed, but that Pietists being members of a sect not recognised by the State, he could not permit a sermon to be preached in the Duke's chapel or in the Stiftskirche by a travelling Pietist preacher. The Duchess bowed to him in dismissal, and remarked that this Müller was a saint she had heard, and inspired by God——'
'Müller?' cried Wilhelmine—'Müller? a preacher? Where does he come from?'
'My dear, that is just the strange thing. Of course, directly Osiander departed, I made my courtesy to her Highness—she didn't try to keep me, you may be sure!—and I hurried after the Prelate. I found him on the stairs in great distress, poor man, for it appears her Highness has tried to have someof these Pietists to preach in church before. She is filled with curiosity, which she calls sympathy with the simple, stern religion; and this Müller, who goes about preaching, is now at Tübingen. La Stafforth heard about him from some servant, and has filled her Highness's head with foolish notions, amongst others, that he is sent by God to console her!
'It appears, my dear, and this is the disagreeable part, that he preaches directly against you—naming you by name, and saying you are a walking contamination; that you are a witch, and that in Mecklemburg it was well known! He can vouch for it, as he was pastor at Güstrow before God called him—which means before he became a wandering Pietist preacher. All this Osiander told me, and, to do him justice, he was horrified at the whole thing and very angry with her Highness. I suppose Müller is a madman, a fanatic; but, Wilhelmine, I think we had best journey to the Neuhaus together and stay there till the Duke's return, for I do not trust the people here. There is a strong feeling against you, and if they are to be stirred up by this preaching rascal, it might really be disagreeable.' She paused breathless.
'He is a terrible man, a devil, and I am convinced he has followed me to Wirtemberg for revenge,' said Wilhelmine; and then she told Madame de Ruth of Müller's behaviour at Güstrow, and of how she had interrupted his sermon. Madame de Ruth laughed, though she was anxious and distressed that this dangerous enemy was working against Wilhelmine in the Duke's absence, especially when she heard that Müller was a powerful preacher gifted with the fanatic's vivid eloquence.
'One thing perplexes me,' said the Grävenitz, 'why does Osiander oppose this man? Surely to harm me any means would be welcome!'
'Yes, doubtless!' replied Madame de Ruth, 'but of the two evils in the land he considers you the lesser; for you, my dear, are frankly of the devil, and the Church can abhor you, but Pietism is a wolf in sheep's clothing which might eat up the Church! All these Churchmen fear that the Pietists should get hold of the people—above all, in this case, of the Duchess and her tiresome court. It is simply, as usual, onefaction against the other. Though, of course, Osiander as a gentleman and a scholar is naturally opposed to ranting preachers and religion vulgarised.'
It was settled that Madame de Ruth and Wilhelmine were to start for the Neuhaus as soon as fitting arrangements could be made, and the Grävenitz looked forward with pleasure to the quiet summer hours she would spend reading beneath the beech-trees of the Neuhaus garden. But Fate was too strong for her; the very morning fixed for their departure Madame de Ruth slipped upon the castle staircase and broke her ankle.
Wilhelmine was informed of the accident by Zollern, who was both distressed for the sake of his old friend's pain, and much disturbed that the projected departure could not take place, for he did not consider Wilhelmine safe in Stuttgart. He knew that the feeling against her increased each day, owing chiefly to the gossip concerning her witch practices. It was her habit to read late at night, and the people believed she was occupied in brewing magic philters and composing incantations. They vowed they had seen two shadows on her window-blinds, which of a truth they may have seen, for often old Frau Hazzim came to visit her secretly at night. The Jewess was entirely under the spell of Wilhelmine's attraction, and the Grävenitz was learning many things from her nocturnal visitor, who had a vast knowledge of herbs and medicaments, the traditional code of doctoring handed down in her family. Strict Jewess though she was, she had many receipts for love potions, and she knew much of various poisons. Thus the Stuttgarters were not mistaken when they averred they had seen a second shadow on the blind, and considering Frau Hazzim's grotesque features, it is hardly surprising that the superstitious and fearful observers believed that this second shadow was the witch's familiar spirit.
Wilhelmine's servants were questioned at the market, and they replied that their mistress received no visitors in the dead of night, for Wilhelmine was naturally careful that even her servants should not be aware of Frau Hazzim's visits, which, considering the ill fame of the Jews in those days, was absolutely necessary. She therefore was wont herself to admit her visitor by a small door which opened on to thegarden at the back of the Jägerhaus. So the terrified, fascinated watchers saw, with horror, this mysterious second shadow on the closed blind, and it was said that by incantations the witch summoned this evil being, for her own servants must know had any person from the mortal world been in the house!
Of this story Zollern was not aware, but he knew enough to recognise the dangerous reputation which his friend enjoyed. Wilhelmine herself was perfectly conscious that there was an element of danger for her, and she was disturbed that by Madame de Ruth's untoward accident she was obliged to remain in Stuttgart. That she was a reputed witch she knew, but far from being alarmed she was slightly flattered and amused at the notion, and deeming herself secure in the Duke's powerful protection she had no fear of any serious annoyance. Her only apprehension was that some murderous attack might be made upon her when she drove out, so she remained more than ever secluded and hidden in the Jägerhaus and the walled-in Lustgarten, her one amusement being Frau Hazzim's nightly visits.
Wilhelmine was half dupe of her own magical practices, and she was arduous in her studies of old black-letter books on the subject of spirit-raising, love potions, spells, and the rest of those meddlings with the unknown forces which have fascinated mankind for countless ages under various forms.
Towards the end of May the weather changed, and sultry heat reigned over Wirtemberg. Stuttgart lies deep in a valley, sheltered by hills, and the heat in the town is often terrible. The sudden change from the chill spring to glowing summer was unbearable to Wilhelmine, immured in the Jägerhaus, and she longed for the cool freshness of the Rothwald where she had been accustomed to drive, but Zollern so strongly advised her not to show herself in the town, that she consented to forego this pleasure while Müller was in Stuttgart. He had preached before the Duchess, upon whom his passionate eloquence, the Biblical turn of his phrases, and his denunciations of all things joyful, had made a deep and pleasing impression. She caused the Pietist to visit her dailyand instruct her in the stern belief. Müller told her Highness the story of his conversion: how he had been a worldly, but he hoped a pure, pastor of the State religion; how that an evil and lustful woman had sought to seduce him, and he mentioned Güstrow as the place where his temptation had been offered him. The stroke told: her Highness started visibly. He continued by indicating that this abandoned woman was a witch, and finally let the Duchess understand that, having triumphantly resisted the temptress's sinful wiles, he had sought and found strength in the Pietist movement. Even a slower intellect than that of Johanna Elizabetha could not have failed to associate Wilhelmine von Grävenitz with the temptress of Güstrow; and when in answer to her Highness's query, whether the evil woman had been punished for her wickedness, Müller threw himself at the Duchess's feet and told her openly that the contaminating female was the Grävenitz, whom he had followed from Güstrow—he, the poor instrument of God's righteous wrath, her Highness indeed felt that here was the vengeance of the Almighty coming upon her enemy. Müller was sincere enough in his abhorrence of the woman who had resisted and then insulted him. The fanatical practices of the Pietists had inflamed his mind, and he really believed God had chosen him to humble the wanton. Old Frau von Grävenitz had talked freely of the favours and honours showered upon her daughter at Stuttgart, and Müller's mad physical jealousy was aroused, for he at once realised that Wilhelmine had become Eberhard Ludwig's mistress. This, together with his fierce fanatical Pietism, had sufficed to turn the man's brain. Thus mixed and contending motives, as is so often the case, formed a fixed and single purpose, and Müller had preached his way to Stuttgart, where he meant to accomplish his object of vengeance upon Wilhelmine or die in the attempt. He knew that to gain an extensive hearing from the crowd in Stuttgart he must earn a reputation as preacher in the neighbourhood, so he began his campaign by lecturing in the open air at many towns and villages of Wirtemberg. Pietism was rife all over the country, and the preacher was received with enthusiasm, and his fame, as we have seen, spread rapidly, even reaching atlength the Duchess. Müller had never dreamed of gaining so great a personage as her Highness, and he was astounded when he received her command to preach at the castle; but this gave him renewed confidence in himself, and it seemed to his half-crazy mind to be a confirmation of his divine mission of revenge on the sinful. At present he had formed no definite plan as to how his vengeance was to be accomplished; he merely meant, if possible, to inflame public opinion against Wilhelmine to such an extent as to cause her to be driven from Wirtemberg. With unfailing energy Müller preached sometimes four or five sermons daily, whenever and wherever he managed to attract a crowd. At first he contented himself with pronouncing violent diatribes against sin: the term conveyed to him only one species of human weakness, and all his sermons were on the subject of bodily lust. He had named Wilhelmine 'a sinner, an instigator of wickedness,' at Tübingen, and he had quickly noted the approval on his hearers' faces. Now in Stuttgart he went further, and actually accused her of witchcraft as well. His zeal grew, each day increased by his own words, till he preached openly a religious crusade against her. Osiander, informed of these sayings, caused him to be warned that the Church could not countenance a religious preacher who thus instigated the people to revolutionary acts. The better sort of Pietists—sober burghers, for the most part—deserted their idol, and his congregations were now chiefly composed of the worst characters of the town. It certainly was unfortunate that the Grävenitz had been unable to seek the shelter of Neuhaus, yet Zollern and Stafforth reflected there could be little actual danger if she remained at the Jägerhaus, only taking the air in the walled-in Lustgarten; but they urged her not to venture out of this shelter for a few weeks, after the expiration of which time they argued the popular excitement would have died out, or if it had not, they would make arrangements for her residence in some safe place across the frontier of Switzerland. Neuhaus they considered to be too near to Tübingen, where, they heard, there was much hostility against Wilhelmine.
Meanwhile each day the heat became more intense, andthe Favourite grew more impatient of being forbidden to drive out. One evening, as she sat disconsolately in her salon, a faint, fresh breeze floated in through the open window. It was fragrant and delightful after the long, stifling hours, and it seemed to her like an invitation from the outer world, that world of tree and flower for which she yearned. How she longed to drive away out of the reeking, low-lying town, and wander in the cool Red Wood! Still the Lustgarten was a resource, and its quaint sixteenth- and seventeenth-century embellishments delighted her. She rose, and taking a lace mantilla, arranged it round her head. She passed out of the small door at the back of the Jägerhaus, and strolled slowly along in the direction of the grotto. As she passed the gates leading from the garden to the high-road, she called to the sentry, telling him that should Monseigneur de Zollern seek her before she returned, he should be informed that she had gone to the Duke Christopher's Grotto. At first the soldier pretended not to hear, and the Grävenitz was obliged to approach him and give her message.
She asked, angrily, if he was deaf, and was informed in the usual peasant idiom that he 'could hear as well as another.'
'Well, give my message to any one who inquires for me,' she said haughtily, and walked on.
The man frowned evilly at her, and she recollected that the maid Maria, once when she had accompanied her mistress on a stroll in the Lustgarten, and they had passed the same sentry, had told her that he was the lover of Johanna Elizabetha's waiting-maid, the woman who had always been so insolent to Wilhelmine at the castle. 'He would do me harm, that lout, if he could,' Wilhelmine reflected as she walked on, and the man's frowning face haunted her for a time, but soon the freshness of the evening breeze and the garden's beauty drove all unquiet thoughts from her mind.
She wandered slowly through the trees of the pheasant garden, pausing a moment to look at the gorgeous plumage of the birds in their gilded cages. Then she came to the rosery shut off from the rest of the garden by tall beech-trees, where splashed the fountain near the marble seat on which the lovers had sat together after the theatricals, and whereEberhard Ludwig had agonised when she was hidden in the Judengasse. She passed the new Lusthaus, and looked up with a sigh at the balcony where Serenissimus and she had stood together, and he had told her Forstner called him a ridiculous poet fellow, because he loved the starlit woods at night. She came to the famous fourteenth-century maze, where the cypress-trees had grown so high and dense that it was really a place to lose oneself in, did one not possess the clue to the intricate windings. She walked outside the maze, breathing in the fragrance of the sun-kissed cypress, and turned into the orangery, and here she lingered a while in the alleys of formally cut trees. Then she walked on, and finally gained the wilderness which surrounded the famous grotto; this was a long construction of rocks and shells, very quaint, no doubt, in the days when it was built, yet Time had further enchanted it, adding melancholy and mystery to the half-ruined place. There was a deep, stagnant tank before the grotto, covered with weeds and growing things. In the centre of this tank, among lusty nymphs and playful dolphins, a huge Triton sat on his rocky throne, and from his trident a few drops of water still oozed slowly.
The elaborate waterworks and strange devices could not be quite unhinged, Wilhelmine reflected idly. She recollected how Eberhard Ludwig had shown her the grotto's marvellous springs and tricks; she recalled how, after much heaving and turning at an iron lever, the whole grotto had suddenly been converted into a place of living waters. She wondered if the works were still more rusty now; how sad a waste that this curious old-world pleasantry should be allowed to rust to destruction. Wilhelmine fell into a dream: if she were Duchess, she would have the grotto repaired, not Time's handiwork disturbed; the ferns, the lichen, the twining ivy should remain; the wilderness should not be formalised; only the waterworks should be renewed, and the old devices made perfect. There should be water-fêtes by moonlight, with lamps shimmering through the playing fountains, and music, faint and fitful, from unseen players. And she would be mistress of all this.