Changing verse and melody to a softrécitatif, she begged her hearers to give good favour to the evening's festivities. She reminded them that the merry company would soon disperse for many months; she wished them peace and happiness, and she prayed that another spring would find the company reunited once again. 'Mars, God of War, hold thy hand; touch not this fair country!'
In her singing she had struck that note of regret which never leaves an audience unmoved; she appealed to the sadness which lingers for ever in the heart of man, and, after the vapid brilliancies of La Fontaine's comedy, the strain had all the greater power to stir. Wilhelmine, an unseen spectator at many rehearsals of the theatricals, had calculated this to a nicety, with an artist's instinct for playing upon human nature and emotion.
There were women among the audience who knew that ere the following spring many of those they loved might be shot down by French bullets; there were men in the parterre whoknew this, and a wave of emotion swept over the whole audience. To the singer herself all this hardly mattered; the human hearts were merely instruments upon which she played a melody; yet her receptive, finely strung being thrilled in response to the feeling she evoked; a half-sob rose in her throat and flooded her flexible voice with a passion of sadness. When the song ended, there came a moment's breathless silence, then the applause broke forth, and Wilhelmine knew she had achieved a triumph.
In the banqueting-hall Duke Eberhard's guests were seated at a magnificent repast. Five hundred ladies and gentlemen at long tables on a raised platform, while in the lower portion of the hall the burghers of Stuttgart were regaled with wine and cake. Her Highness Johanna Elizabetha sat at one table with her retinue; Serenissimus at another with his suite and closest friends, at his right hand was Madame de Geyling. Stafforth was seated at this table, Madame de Ruth was there also, Monseigneur the Duke of Zollern, of course, and Prelate Osiander. The Geyling discussed the comedy. Lifting her glass she toasted Eberhard Ludwig: 'I drink to your Highness from la Coupe Enchantée,' she murmured; but the Duke answered absently, and Madame de Ruth smiled when he asked Stafforth, 'Where is the goddess of sound? Has she vanished with her divine song?' He was told that the lady had retired to rerobe herself. 'Robe herself, you mean!' said the Geyling sharply, 'she had, in truth, little to remove!' She spoke quickly to the Duke in an undertone, but his Highness turned away and commanded Stafforth to present the singer directly she appeared.
The Geyling bit her underlip—there was a pause in the talk at the Duke's table.
At length a door near the platform opened, and Wilhelmine appeared. No one noticed her at first, and she stood for a moment hesitating in the doorway; then Madame de Ruth espied her, and, craving the Duke's pardon, she rose and went to Wilhelmine and, taking her by the hand, led her towards the Duke. It was necessary to pass the Duchess's table; Wilhelmine immediately recognised her Highness, andas she passed she swept Johanna Elizabetha a deep courtesy. It was gracefully done, and the neglected lady, unaccustomed to be treated with even ordinary consideration, responded by an amiable smile. As they approached the Duke, his Highness rose and came forward to meet them. He had seen Wilhelmine's spontaneous good manners and was gratified thereby. Nothing gratifies a grand seigneur more than the grand manner, and in return to Wilhelmine's inclination his Highness bowed as though to a queen.
'Mademoiselle, I am deeply in your debt,' he said; 'it would be banal to thank you for your divine music, yet permit me to say that I would willingly keep you for ever as my creditor, if you would but promise to make my debt the greater by singing to me again—and soon.'
'Monseigneur, you do me too much honour,' she responded, sinking to the ground in another courtesy.
'To a feast of the gods you would be welcome, Mademoiselle; but as we are not in Olympus, let me, at least, lead the Goddess of Song to my poor table for refreshment.' So saying, his Highness offered his hand and led her to his table. He presented her to Madame de Geyling, who gave her a bitter-sweet smile and paid her the compliment of turning her back upon her. The Duke plied his guest with food and wine, declaring that ambrosia and nectar were better fitted for her; he toasted her; he praised her; he exhausted his knowledge of mythology in her honour, calling her Melpomene, the tragic Muse, for had she not made men weep with her song that very night? Song, did he say? nay, hymn it was! She was Polyhymnia, singer of sublimity. He named her Philomèle, and desired the lute of Orpheus that he might play an accompaniment to her wondrous singing. He asked her in which enchanted ocean she had lived. 'Mademoiselle Sirène, lurer of men's souls,' he called her.
Wilhelmine spoke little in answer to all this, but she acted her part well, smiling at him with glistening eyes. Indeed, she found no difficulty herein, for her heart had played a cleverer trick than ever her brain had devised—she was falling in love with Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg. When supper was over the Duke rose, and, in defiance of etiquette, desiredStafforth to accompany Madame de Geyling, while he himself led Mademoiselle de Grävenitz from the banqueting-hall. They passed on to the terrace, above the outer colonnade of the Lusthaus, and stood together looking down on the garden, and the strains from the instruments of the musicians hidden in the bowers floated up to them.
'I hardly dare propose it, Mademoiselle,' said the Duke after some moments' silence, 'but the garden is very fair to-night; would you honour me by accepting my arm and taking a short stroll towards the fountain? Only a few minutes, the night is so beautiful—come and look at the stars with me!'
She hesitated; but the man's face was so noble, so open. Why not? 'Monseigneur, I know not,' she whispered.
'Mademoiselle, I entreat. If you knew how I hate these crowded rooms. I am a soldier, and I love the memory of those nights encamped in the open, when I left my tent and wandered alone beneath the stars. Forstner—you know Forstner? No? Well—a good friend, yet always at my elbow with rebukes and etiquette! Well—old Forstner used to chide me, saying it was not fitting for a reigning Duke to wander alone "like a ridiculous poet-fellow philandering with the stars," as he called it. Ah! Mademoiselle, will you leave the Duke here on the balcony, and come and look at the stars with the ridiculous poet-fellow? will you?'
Who could resist him, this man with the pleading eyes and deep, strong voice? And Wilhelmine, coming from Mecklemburg to make a career, had begun it already, God knows! by falling in love with the Duke. They went down the steps leading to the garden, and in silence walked along the path towards the fountain. The moon played white over the flowers, and the sound of the violins, harps, and zithers faded away in the distance. They reached an old stone seat beneath a beech-tree and sat down. Before them the fountain rose, like some shimmering witch in the moonlight.
'Sing me a snatch of some song, Mademoiselle,' said Eberhard Ludwig. 'There is no one near; sing to me once, tome alone—to the silly poet-fellow!'
'Nay, Monseigneur,' she answered tremulously, 'I cannot sing—my heart is beating in my throat somehow.'
He looked at her in the moonlight.
'Mademoiselle de Grävenitz,' he said, 'I have never been so happy, yet so unutterably sad, as at this moment. I—I—Mademoiselle——' and his voice broke. He took her hand in his and, raising it to his lips, kissed it once, twice, then in a husky voice he said, 'We must go back.' He rose from the seat, offering her his arm. He led her up the dark garden-path and into the glitter of lights in the ante-hall of the Lusthaus, where Madame de Stafforth stood ready to depart, waiting for Wilhelmine. The Duke sent Stafforth for Mademoiselle's cloak, and when he brought it, his Highness himself wrapped it round her. As he did so, his hand involuntarily touched the soft skin of her shoulder, and Eberhard Ludwig flushed to the edge of his white curled peruke as he murmured: 'Au revoir, Philomèle!' and Wilhelmine daringly whispered back: 'Au revoir, gentil poète.'
'A queenly rose of sound, with tune for scent;A pause of shadow in a day of heat;A voice to make God weak as man,And at its pleadings take away the ban'Neath which so long our spirits have been bent—A voice to make death tender and life sweet!'Philip Bourke Marston.
'A queenly rose of sound, with tune for scent;A pause of shadow in a day of heat;A voice to make God weak as man,And at its pleadings take away the ban'Neath which so long our spirits have been bent—A voice to make death tender and life sweet!'
'A queenly rose of sound, with tune for scent;
A pause of shadow in a day of heat;
A voice to make God weak as man,
And at its pleadings take away the ban
'Neath which so long our spirits have been bent—
A voice to make death tender and life sweet!'
Philip Bourke Marston.
Philip Bourke Marston.
TheHofmarshall's house stood in the 'Graben,' a broad road which ran proudly past the old town ending at the ducal gardens on the west, while to the east began the fields and vineyards leading up to the royal hunting forest, the Rothwald. Stafforth's house was a fine stone building decorated with rococo masks. To the back lay a beautiful garden laid out on a plan of M. Lenôtre's, from whose book ofJardins MignonsStafforth had selected it. On the morning after the theatricals Wilhelmine was seated on one of the garden benches, and though her eyes were fixed on the pages of a French translation of Barclay's satirical novelArgenis, her thoughts were busy with the events of the previous evening. Her reverie was interrupted by Madame de Ruth who arrived, as usual, in a cloud of her own words. She embraced Wilhelmine affectionately, exclaiming: 'Never was there so great a victory! One battle and the country is ours! The hero at your feet, my dear! Did I not say that you had a great future before you? Ah! the Geyling! Ha! ha! ha! what a face she made when his Highness led you out on to the balcony, and I asked her if she thought it convenable for you! Ha! ha! ha! she looked sour indeed, and she screeched at me in her peahen voice: "Mademoiselle de Grävenitz seems to be a lady of experience; she can guard her own young virtue, I suppose!" "'Tis not hervirtue, Madame," I said, with a surprised look and the prim manner of a Pietist, "I knowthatis safe with so devoted a husband as Serenissimus, but I fear for her reputation! Ah! Madame, the evil tongues of older women! and already no one here to-night can speak of ought save Mademoiselle. But I assure you the theatricals are not even mentioned, Madame! They can remember nothing save the Envoi and its singer." O Wilhelmine! if you could have seen her face! I suffer, I expire with laughter, when I think of it.' And Madame de Ruth laughed till she really was almost suffocated, and was obliged to hold her hands over her heaving sides.
Wilhelmine leaned her head on her hands. 'Poor Madame de Geyling!' she said in a musing tone.
Madame de Ruth ceased laughing and looked at her piercingly. 'Poor Madame de Geyling?' she exclaimed. 'But, my child! Ah!' and she caught Wilhelmine by the wrist; 'you pity her? because she has lost the Duke's affection? Why?' She paused a moment—reflected. 'Girl! you have fallen in love with Serenissimus,' she whispered.
Wilhelmine sprang up—her cheeks aflame. It was true, and she knew it herself then for the first time. She was angry, and yet there was an immense gladness in her heart. Her eyes were wet, and she felt the pulses throbbing in her temples. She was ashamed and yet gloriously proud.
Madame de Ruth watched her; at first, with smiling curiosity, then the old woman's face softened, she took Wilhelmine's hand and said gently: 'God give you joy, my child. There, there—I am a foolish old woman—you make me weep.—Lord God! but hearts are the great intriguers, not brains!'
Wilhelmine turned to her and, bending, kissed the old courtesan on the brow.
'Madame,' she said, 'Madame, be my friend; I shall need one in the days to come.'
Madame de Ruth drew the girl down beside her on the bench, her face had grown suddenly old and infinitely sad. 'Yes,' she answered, 'I will be your friend. Do you know that I had a little girl twenty years ago? She would have been just your age now, had she lived, and perhaps I shouldhave been a different woman. Well, well—no sentiment, my dear; it is so unsuitable, isn't it? but I will be your friend.'
She kissed the young woman, and, rising hastily, took her way towards the house.
The days dragged slowly on in Stuttgart for Wilhelmine, and there came no message from his Highness, who had gone to Urach, they told her, to hunt. Though the court remained nominally in Stuttgart while her Highness Johanna Elizabetha resided at the castle, most of the courtiers had retired to the country and Stuttgart was more than usually dull. Stafforth had accompanied the Duke to Urach, so Wilhelmine remained alone with Madame de Stafforth. The heat was terrible in the town, which lay encircled by the vine-clad hills, as in a great caldron. The Stuttgarters told her that such heat was unusual at that time of year, but there was little consolation for her in that.
To some natures dullness becomes an insupportable suffering. Loneliness, all you will, they can bear, for they draw occupation and joy from the depth of their own souls; but that dreariness, which has been called dullness, is an almost tangible presence at moments, and seems to blight the beauty of all things. This Wilhelmine felt in those stifling days at Stuttgart. Madame de Stafforth's moth-like personality wearied her. Madame de Ruth, who had returned to Rottenburg, wrote constantly imploring her friend to visit her; yet something seemed to hold the girl, some mysterious sentiment, that if she left Stuttgart she would turn her back on her life.
Once or twice Wilhelmine accompanied Madame de Stafforth to the castle. The Duchess received her with amiable indifference, and the young woman stood silently by while the two dull women discussed their habitual uninteresting topics.
It was perfectly unreasonable, but she felt a hatred growing in her heart for the wife of Eberhard Ludwig.
One morning towards the end of June, Wilhelmine awoke to find the grey dawn creeping in at her window; she roseand opened the casement and leaned out. Her room looked on the formal garden. There was a solemn hush in the air, and she realised that even the birds were asleep. Far in the east, over the top of the one beech-tree which still stood in the garden in spite of M. Lenôtre, the rising sun was tingeing the horizon with a delicate rosy glow. A bird stirred—twittered—finally a clear note of welcome to the day rang out, and the world was awake. The radiance in the east grew brighter, long streaks of glorious colour invaded the soft grey of dawn. From the distant field roads came the rumble of a peasant's cart. Wilhelmine dressed herself hurriedly and tiptoed down the dark stair to the house door. The broad street, the Graben, was deserted and silent, save for an occasional rattle in the direction of the market-place, where the peasants were arriving from the country with their carts heaped up with fresh fruit and vegetables. She walked up the street, delighting in the coolness and the scent of the morning air after the long days of oppressive heat which she had endured. A fancy took her to wander in the Rothwald, and she walked briskly along, up the dusty country path which led to the wood on the hill. The sun had risen, and even at that early hour the heat was so great that once or twice Wilhelmine almost turned homewards; however, the thought of the cool shade of the beech-trees in the forest drew her, and she pressed onward. At length she reached the edge of the wood, and, turning, she contemplated the steep hill which she had climbed from the town. The rough country road wound like some white riband through the green vineyards which lay between Stuttgart and the Rothwald. A light breeze sprang up and stirred the long, lush grass of the field which bordered the shadow of the trees. There is no part of a forest more beautiful than the line where wood begins and meadow ends; it is as the lip of the forest breathing forth in a fragrant kiss of poesy some mystery of silent dells and fairy's haunts, which it hints of but does not quite betray. Wilhelmine mused on this; she was gifted with a delicate appreciation of each beauty-forming detail, and the accurate observation without which the enjoyment of beauty is a mere sensuous mood. She paused a while, drinking in thefreshness and revelling in the solitude; then she entered the wood and walked onward, her feet sinking deep into the rich moss. She inhaled the delicious smell of the beech-trees, that light odour of the northern forest which is almost imperceptible, and yet so fresh, so pungent. It is made up of the smell of earth, of moss, of fern, of grass and leaves, and the resinous health of young pine. As Wilhelmine walked, she whispered a melody half in greeting to the trees, half mechanically. She found a shallow bank, and, seating herself on the ground, she supported her shoulders against the slope. She leaned her head back and gazed up into Spring's wonderful tracery in the myriad beech-leaves, and the cool green fell like balsam on her eyes. A breeze stirred the tree-tops, and for a moment they swayed and leaned together whisperingly, then, like little children playing at some gentle teasing game, they drew back as the breeze passed.
Wilhelmine's thoughts wandered to Eberhard Ludwig; of a truth they knew the way, for how often had they sought his memory since that night in the castle garden? She pondered how she had been told his Highness loved to sleep in the forest. 'Ridiculous poet-fellow' he had called himself. She drew a deep breath. 'Au revoir, Philomèle,' he had said. Ah! but he had forgotten her! Madame de Ruth had been mistaken! The campaign was not won. Wilhelmine's cheeks glowed suddenly, she crushed a leaf of an overhanging beech-branch; it was intolerable. All those people would ridicule her! Leaning her head in her hand, she pressed her fingers against her eyes to shut out the sunlight, but it lingered in her eyeballs, and against the blackness she saw dancing rays of blinding light. A feeling of delightful drowsiness was coming over her—a far-away feeling. Presently she raised her head from her hands, and once more contemplated the peaceful wood. What did she care for those people who would mock her? She would return their malevolent stares with her evil look, which she knew would be eminently disagreeable to them. Her thoughts turned back to Güstrow now—Güstrow and Monsieur Gabriel. Almost unconsciously, as she thought of her old friend, she found herself humming an air. At first she but whispered it under her breath, thenshe was gradually carried away by the physical enjoyment of letting forth her powerful voice, and she burst into full song:
'Bois épais redouble ton ombre,Tu ne saurais être assez sombre.Tu ne peux trop cacherMon malheureux amour!Je sens un désespoir,Dont l'horreur est extrême.Je ne dois plus voirCe que j'aime—Je ne veux plus souffrir le jour!'
'Bois épais redouble ton ombre,Tu ne saurais être assez sombre.Tu ne peux trop cacherMon malheureux amour!Je sens un désespoir,Dont l'horreur est extrême.Je ne dois plus voirCe que j'aime—Je ne veux plus souffrir le jour!'
'Bois épais redouble ton ombre,
Tu ne saurais être assez sombre.
Tu ne peux trop cacher
Mon malheureux amour!
Je sens un désespoir,
Dont l'horreur est extrême.
Je ne dois plus voir
Ce que j'aime—
Je ne veux plus souffrir le jour!'
She sang the old French melody out into the trees, and the great notes thrilled and echoed through the wood till it was as though they had become an integrant part of the forest. Her voice was truly a woman's voice in the ineffable tenderness and the grand passion of it, but there lay in its tones a depth of strong uncompromising nobility which lives in an organ's notes or in the rich low chords of a violoncello. Truly, as Monsieur Gabriel had said, her voice belonged by right to the shadowy cathedrals, for each note seemed a sacred thing, a homage to God, and itself deserving to be worshipped in reverent devotion. During the song Wilhelmine had not heard the sound of approaching footsteps, nor did she observe how a hand pushed aside some branches not far from where she sat, and a man's head and shoulders appeared. She leaned back on the moss for a moment's rest, and then springing up recommenced to sing. She stood very straight and tall, her hands locked together behind her, like a schoolgirl reciting a lesson; somehow this childlike attitude added by its simplicity to the woman's dignity. Her head was held a little back, chin tilted upwards, and the eyes looked far away as though they beheld a whole world of dreams and lovely melody beyond all save the singer's ken. As she sang the colour mounted slowly to her cheeks, flooding her face with a divine flush; perhaps her very heart's blood rushed to adore the tones which fell from her lips. The man watching held his breath. She finished her song on a clear high note, and as she gave it forth, she flung back her head in an impulsive gesture, glorying in an ecstasy of sound, a magnificence of accomplishment.
When the echo of the last ringing note faded, the man sprang forward, and, throwing himself impetuously on his knees before Wilhelmine, he raised the hem of her gown to his lips in a passionate gesture, though with the adoring reverence that all poets give to great singers.
'Philomèle!' he murmured. 'Ah! Philomèle! Beloved!'
She looked down at him. How strangely natural, necessary, unsurprising it seemed to her that he should be kneeling there, and yet she thought herself in some oft-remembered dream.
'Gentil poète,' she whispered back, and her hand fell on his shoulder. His hand sought hers, he caught it and kissed it with a sort of piety.
'I love you.' He spoke the words like a prayer. She drew away from him.
'Monseigneur,' she said, 'I thought you had forgotten me!' He started at her gesture of repulsion and at the formal word.
'You are a woman no man can forget,' he answered. Then he told her how that evening in the castle garden he had known he loved her; how he had dreaded giving himself up to a passion which he divined would prove so absorbing as to turn him from his cherished military ambition. He poured out to her his life's history, all his dreams of brilliant feats of arms, the raising of his duchy to a kingdom; he told her of his bitter disappointment when he found these ambitions were incomprehensible to the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha; of how, gradually, he had awakened to the fact that he was tied to a woman who utterly lacked in sympathy, and thus wearied him and drove him to seek consolation and amusement in the light loves and fancies of court gallantry, and then how each lady's charms had palled inevitably.
'And now,' he paused, 'now I feel that all my life began when first I heard your voice! I have been fighting with my thoughts ever since. Beloved! I have nothing to offer you—you are too pure to take the only position I could give you—and I love you too well to ask you.'
She looked at him, and a smile touched her lips and vanished almost before it was born.
'Mon poète,' she whispered, and stretched out both handsto him; he took them in his, and drew her towards him. One thick curl of hair had fallen forward on her neck, he lifted it and buried his face in it, kissing it wildly, breathing in its fragrance.
'I love you,' he said again, and drew her, unresisting, into his arms. 'Philomèle! Ah!' and his lips met hers.
Overhead a bird burst forth into a rhapsody of song.
Nowbegan for Wilhelmine a time of strangely mixed and contending emotions. She loved Eberhard Ludwig with all that fervour and lavish freshness which we give to our first love; she longed to surrender to his passion, yet she held back with a modesty of maidenly reserve which her many jealous enemies ascribed to calculation, or else entirely denied, alleging that she was a mere adventuress plying her illicit trade according to her habit. Of a truth, there may have been a shade of strategy in her virtuous hesitation, for Madame de Ruth, who had returned to Stuttgart post-haste on hearing of his Highness's advent, constantly counselled her to hold back. Wilhelmine herself realised that a battle's importance is generally gauged by its difficulty, and the ultimate victory more highly prized if hardly won. Sometimes she wondered why she knew these things, and laughingly she told Madame de Ruth of this.
'Dear child,' said the old woman with her thin, satirical smile, 'we women come into the world knowing such things; whereas men—poor, beloved fools!—need experience, philosophy, and the Lord knows what, to teach them. Alas! by the time they have learned they no longer need their knowledge, for by that time cruel old age has got them in its grey, dull clutches.'
Another factor in Wilhelmine's life at that time was the Duke's friend Baron Forstner, a man of excellent and sterling qualities, but one of those unfortunate mortals cursed with a lugubrious manner which makes their goodness seem to be but one more irritating characteristic of a tiresome personality. Forstner was genuinely devoted to the Duke; he had been the companion of the Prince's childhood, had shared hisstudies, and had followed him on his travels to the various European courts and in the campaigns where Eberhard Ludwig had so mightily distinguished himself. How cruel it is that devotion may be so entirely masked by some wearisome trait, as to turn the whole affection into a source of irritation to its object! Forstner perpetually reminded his Highness of his duty.
Now Eberhard Ludwig was possessed of a high regard for that stern code of life which is called Duty; he had all a soldier's respect for rule, for obedience, all a gentleman's reverence for honour and truth; yet these things, as presented by Forstner, were to him odious, and his first impulse was to go counter to any advice proffered in the drab-coloured guise of Forstner's counsel, and by his deep, dreary voice.
'L'osseux,' the Bony One, Madame de Ruth dubbed him; and truly the sobriquet was justified, for the man was so long and thin as to give the impression of bones strung on strings. He walked in jerks: his flat, narrow feet posed precisely, the head held forward, like some gaunt bird seeking with its lengthy beak for any meagre grain which might chance in its way. Somehow one felt the grain he sought must be meagre. 'The good God wills that Forstner lives,' said Madame de Ruth, 'and God knows he lives according to God's rules; but oh! how more than usually tiresome he makes those rules, poor Bony One!'
Forstner naturally disapproved of Wilhelmine, and the two were for ever contradicting each other; but she often endeavoured to propitiate him, for she loathed disapproval, and preferred the open hostility of a real enemy to the presence of any merely disapproving person. Eberhard Ludwig suffered intensely in those weeks at Stuttgart; he was fiercely irritable to Forstner, resenting his comments on Wilhelmine, though he longed childishly for some appreciation of a new and much-prized toy.
Stafforth, who had returned with the Duke, assisted the intrigue to the best of his ability by constantly arranging meetings, feasts, picnics in the forest, music in the evenings, followed by gay suppers. But he offended Wilhelmine deeply, though she gave no sign thereof, for he treated the whole situation as an ordinary court intrigue, which indeed it was, though both people concerned were earnestly and deeply engaged in the one great love of their lives. Forstner sat like a grim, polite skeleton at these feasts, and Wilhelmine grew to hate him in those summer days. Her hatred was destined to wreak a terrible vengeance against him. Friedrich Grävenitz had also returned to Stuttgart, leaving his wife in Rottenburg awaiting the birth of their first child.
Duchess Johanna Elizabetha continued to reside at the castle, torturing herself with jealous fears. She appeared before the Duke with eyes reddened by sleepless nights and bitter tears, and her habitual dreariness of being was doubled.
Eberhard Ludwig himself, intent upon his love, gave the poor woman scarce a thought, though when he saw her he noted her tear-stained eyelids and her woebegone, reproachful ways with an irritation which, though it could not pierce the studied courtesy of his manner, made itself felt, and further wounded the unhappy woman. Madame de Stafforth was constantly with the Duchess, and thus her Highness was perfectly informed of the Duke's daily visits at the Stafforth house.
The days dragged on, and the heat grew to be almost unbearable. Each day the sun shone more gloriously, and the Duchess longed for one grey, overcast day. To her the sun seemed pitiless and cruel, the summer's amplitude seemed to mock her in her misery.
Each evening, at set of sun, she heard the rattle and rumble of Eberhard Ludwig's coach, which he drove himself with eight magnificent spirited horses. True, his Highness never failed to send his consort a courteous invitation to join the feast at some Jagd Schloss in the forest; but she invariably refused, alleging that she was weary, that her head ached, or that she would fain rest, for she guessed that Wilhelmine would be there.
Unrest was in Wilhelmine's heart also. She still held back from giving herself to Eberhard Ludwig, and the future seemed to her dark and difficult. She knew she loved his Highness, but both her sincere love and her indomitable pride revolted at the thought of becoming a mere toy, a mistress to be thrown aside whenever the Duke's whimdictated. A thousand times she told herself that this would never happen, that Eberhard Ludwig loved her with a true and lasting passion, yet a wave of haughty doubt swept over her and kept her back. One day it was announced from the castle that her Highness had commanded a famous troupe of Italian musicians to perform a series of madrigals before the court. The Duchess caused a summons to be issued to members of the court at Stuttgart, adding, however, that no foreign visitors could be invited, the concert being strictly private. This was a direct insult to Wilhelmine, for she was the only foreign visitor in Stuttgart. Stafforth announced this news to his Highness, Madame de Ruth, and Wilhelmine as they sat at supper beneath the beech-tree in the Stafforth garden. A silence fell upon the party. Madame de Ruth leaned back in her chair, fanning herself gently; Eberhard Ludwig turned to Wilhelmine, his face had flushed deeply, and it was with an unsteady voice that he said:
'Mademoiselle, I formally invite you to hear the music to-morrow evening at my castle of Stuttgart. Her Highness, my honoured wife, will gladly make an exception in her arrangements for so famous a musician as yourself.'
'Monseigneur,' broke in Stafforth hurriedly, 'I fear your Highness cannot——'
Eberhard Ludwig silenced him with a look, and turning to Wilhelmine he said, almost sternly: 'I await the honour, Mademoiselle, of your answer, which I shall carry myself to her Highness.'
Wilhelmine rose.
'Monseigneur,' she said, and her voice had a ring which caused Madame de Ruth to start,—'Monseigneur, I can refuse you nothing. To-morrow I will do as you desire.' The rich blood mantled to her cheeks. Eberhard Ludwig caught her hand; raising it to his lips he murmured 'To-morrow!' and turning quickly left the garden with hasty strides. Wilhelmine walked away down the garden-path, desiring apparently to commune with herself. Stafforth remained standing. Observing Madame de Ruth, who was laughing quietly to herself—
'Madame,' he said angrily, 'I see nothing to laugh at! This will be going too far. It is an insult to her Highness,and we shall have the whole court against us! She mustnotgo to this madrigal singing, I tell you!'
'Dear friend,' Madame answered, 'I am not laughing at that. I laugh because I see once more that a man may plead till his heart breaks, it is when a woman sees another woman absolutely denied for her sake, that she knows she is loved as she approves;thenshe capitulates and whispers—to-morrow!' The old woman laughed again.
'Well, Madame!' replied Stafforth, 'you will see what this "to-morrow" means!'
The Italian musicians were grouped together at one end of her Highness's own reception-room in the castle of Stuttgart. The invited audience was small, for only such ladies and gentlemen as were actually obliged, by the holding of important court charges, remained in the town during the hot summer months; thus it had been deemed more fitting for the madrigals to be performed in the castle itself instead of in the fine hall of the Lusthaus where the court festivities usually took place. Her Highness's reception-room gave out on to the Renaissance gallery of the inner courtyard. The room was hung with sombre tapestries heavy with the dust of centuries; a number of waxen tapers flamed in silver candlesticks; rows of seats were arranged in a half-circle behind the high gilt chairs placed for his Highness Eberhard Ludwig and his consort her Highness Johanna Elizabetha.
The musicians turned over the leaves of the manuscript music on the desks before them; sometimes the sound of a violin chord, struck to prove its correctness, broke on the air. The swish of silken skirts on the wooden floor of the gallery without announced the advent of the first guests, and gradually the room was filled by richly clad ladies and finely attired gentlemen.
The appointed hour was long passed for the music's commencement, but neither the Duke nor the Duchess had left their apartments, and the courtiers whispered that their Highnesses were closeted together, and that angry voices had been heard by one of the pages attendant in the antehall. The clock of the Stiftskirche tolled out nine strokes, and thecourtiers murmured angrily that they had been waiting an entire hour.
At length the door leading to her Highness's apartment was flung open, and Monsieur de Gemmingen, Controller of the Duchess's household, appeared, bowing deeply as Johanna Elizabetha entered, followed by Madame de Stafforth, who was in attendance on her Highness in the absence of Mademoiselle de Münsingen, the lady-in-waiting. The audience rose to greet the Duchess, and at that moment his Highness Eberhard Ludwig appeared from another door followed by Oberhofmarshall Stafforth, Reischach, and other gentlemen of the suite.
Her Highness bowed to right and left. Her face was deadly white and her eyes swollen with weeping; even her usual colourless amiability seemed to have deserted her, for, after the generally inclusive salute to the entire company, she swept towards her gilded chair without a word of direct greeting to any individual. Eberhard Ludwig, on the contrary, assumed an air of gaiety, as with his habitual grace of manner he passed down the lines of guests, finding a courteous word for each and all. Yet the courtiers remarked that his Highness's face was flushed, and that his eyes held a glitter of angry defiance; but he gave no other sign of disturbance, and did not respond to Stafforth's whispered inquiry if his Highness had heard news of serious import.
Johanna Elizabetha summoned the Oberhofmarshall and desired him to command the musicians to commence, and the courtiers watched how Eberhard Ludwig, seating himself beside her Highness, seemed to fix his mind upon the music. It was a matter of comment that Monsieur and Madame de Stafforth were present at the concert without their guest Mademoiselle de Grävenitz; and the well informed, delighted with their superior knowledge, whispered that the decree 'No Foreigners' was levelled at this lady alone. Under cover of the music the audience gossiped in whispers, while they noted the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha's demeanour with interest.
Her Highness sat beside the Duke in that attitude which, translated from court to market-place parlance, would havebeen 'turning her back upon him'; in more polite circles this attitude becomes a mere inclination of the shoulder. It is less satisfactory to the offended, though certainly not less abashing to the offender, than the ruder, more frankly human market-place manner. And it seemed as though his Highness felt it to be so, for he repeatedly endeavoured to address his spouse over this battlemented shoulder; but her Highness answered shortly, if at all, and the shoulder became each time more aggressively pointed.
The musicians meanwhile performed a series of madrigals accompanied by viole d'amore, violins, and viole da gamba. The candles flickered in the draught from the open windows. Madame de Ruth sat resignedly beside Monseigneur de Zollern, whose fine head had dropped forward on his breast. He was asleep; and Madame de Ruth realised, with a sigh, that her beloved had grown old; that her youth had vanished too, and even the joy of observing the tragi-comedy of human nature palled for her at that moment, and she felt herself to be old and lonely. At length the music ceased, and was followed by that insolent, half-hearted applause which it is the privilege of the truly cultured audience to offer to musicians or actors.
Her Highness intimated her approval, and desired the performers to rest a little after their exertions. At this moment a door, directly to the left of her Highness's seat, was flung open, and a bewildering vision of beauty stood framed in the doorway. It was Wilhelmine von Grävenitz, the expressly excluded foreign visitor. Johanna Elizabetha threw a glance towards this apparition and hastily averted her eyes, her face flaming from throat to brow.
His Highness half rose from his seat, but sinking back he endeavoured to attract the Duchess's attention to the late arrival, who stood on the threshold awaiting her Highness's greeting, without which it was impossible for her to join the court circle, as having entered by the wrong door, she must of necessity pass the Duchess in order to gain the ranks of the audience. There was a moment of intense embarrassment; Wilhelmine was as firmly fixed to her place in the doorway as though nails had been fastened through her satin-slippered feet to the boards beneath; for etiquette forbade her to advance without her Highness's greeting, and fear of ridicule barred her way back through the door. The Duchess remained immovable, her eyes upon the group of musicians; the Duke endeavoured nervously to draw her Highness's attention to Wilhelmine; the audience had fallen into one of those painful silences, with which an assembly invariably adds to the awkward moments of social life. Partly it is that curiosity rules all men and most women; partly that, however cultured and refined the individuals may be, amassof human beings is like some wild animal—awkward, ungainly, horribly cruel, ready to gloat over the discomfiture of friend or foe.
The flickering of the candles in the silver candlesticks seemed to become a noisy flaring, and through the large room the falling of a waxen flake on the polished table rang out distinctly; the string of a violin broke, and it sounded like a pistol-shot in the stillness. Her Highness remained unmoved, with eyes fixed upon the musicians. The tension was almost intolerable. The victory seemed to belong to the stern hostess, and yet it was upon Wilhelmine standing in the doorway that every eye was fixed. She stood perfectly motionless, one hand upon the lintel of the door, the other holding her fan; her head was poised imperiously, chin tilted as when she sang; her lips were parted in a half-smile, and her eyes were fixed upon her Highness with her strange compelling look. Was the Duchess victorious? surely not—the homage of the whole company was to the beauty of the woman on the threshold.
At length the Duke, in desperation, boldly touched her Highness's shoulder. 'Your Highness has not observed your Highness's newly appointed lady-in-waiting!'
He spoke so clearly that the audience heard each carefully pronounced syllable.
'Your Highness will remember summoning Mademoiselle de Grävenitz to attend upon your Highness this evening for the first time in her new capacity?'
Johanna Elizabetha turned. For a tick of the clock she deliberately measured her adversary with her protuberanteyes, then slowly she bent her head in formal greeting. Wilhelmine stepped forward, then sank to the ground in the elaborate court courtesy; rising, she walked a few steps, and again swept her Highness the usual obeisance, and calmly assumed her appointed place as lady-in-waiting behind the Duchess's chair.
The musicians recommenced to play; her Highness stared stonily before her; the Duke leaned back drumming with nervous fingers on the gilt arm of his chair; the audience murmured together conjectures and remarks. Wilhelmine was almost as motionless as her Highness; her eyes were fixed upon the musicians, and her face was inscrutable. The concert came to an end, and the Duchess rose; she turned towards Madame de Stafforth, summoning her as lady-in-waiting-extraordinary to accompany her, thereby entirely ignoring Wilhelmine, the newly appointed lady-in-waiting, whose office it should have been to attend her Highness. After saluting her guests collectively by one sweeping courtesy, Johanna Elizabetha walked towards her apartments. Eberhard Ludwig made a movement forward as though to stay the Duchess; but he stopped short, and turned to Wilhelmine, who was standing behind the Duchess's empty chair, uncertain whether to follow her Highness or no.
'Mademoiselle de Grävenitz,' he said, 'the Duchess is evidently indisposed, and thus will not be present at the supper this evening, therefore I take it your services as lady-in-waiting will be dispensed with. May I have the honour of leading you to supper?' and he offered Wilhelmine his hand in the graceful fashion of those days. The last thing her Highness Johanna Elizabetha saw, as once more she paused to bow from the doorway to her guests, was the Duke leading her new lady-in-waiting towards the supper-room.
The Duchess Johanna Elizabetha's guests were leaving the castle: a constant stream of coaches drew up, one by one, in the courtyard, and having taken up their owners rumbled away through the heavy archway and across the moat towards the town. Only Oberhofmarshall Stafforth, Madame de Ruth, his Grace of Zollern, and Friedrich Grävenitz lingered in the supper-room by his Highness's command. Stafforth was anxious and silent; Zollern sleepy; the voluble Madame de Ruth was talking rapidly, with the evident intention of making the scene appear unimportant to the flunkeys in attendance. Friedrich Grävenitz said nothing, but looked pompous, and drank ostentatiously with rounded forearm, showing off his fine muscles, in spite of the fact that no one paid any heed to him. He had been invaluable during supper itself, for he had roared out stories, under cover of whose noise those who had real things to discuss had been enabled to talk, while the outsiders imagined that his Highness's circle listened to the Kammerjunker. But now he had been silenced by a peremptory word from the Duke, and he was thus relegated to the position of onlooker, though, in truth, he evidently believed all eyes to be upon him, for he looked sulkily self-conscious and perfectly foolish.
At one of the windows stood Eberhard Ludwig, beside him Wilhelmine. They were speaking together in an undertone. Madame de Ruth sometimes cast an anxious glance towards them. She wished the conversation would end; already the servants must have made comment upon so long an interview, and though the opinion of menials was a matter of little importance, the wily dame did not desire Wilhelmine's business to become the talk of the town until the intrigue was fully developed.
'Monseigneur,' she whispered to Monsieur de Zollern, 'this must end. Believe me, her Highness has many virtue-loving spies who will report to her with the exaggeration of the respectable foul-minded, and we shall be accused of having had a nocturnal carousal.'
Monsieur de Zollern rose and hobbled across to the pair at the window. He had just reached them when the door opened, and Baron Forstner appeared on the threshold.
'Ah! Serenissimus!' exclaimed Zollern, 'that is indeed an excellent story! Your Highness must pardon an old invalid if he retires with the memory of that witty tale in his mind as a bonne bouche.' He bowed and took his leave, while Forstner, who had arrived on the scene hoping to find the lovers alone together, was entirely put off the scent;Zollern's quick ruse having made it appear as though the conversation had been general.
The company now took leave, Zollern offering Forstner a seat in his coach, which was accepted; thus the 'Representative of all the virtues' (another of Madame de Ruth's names for 'L'osseux') was safely removed from the scene, leaving Kammerjunker Grävenitz to attend his Highness. Madame de Ruth retired to her rooms in the castle. Stafforth escorted Wilhelmine to his coach, which waited to convey her to the house in the Graben. As he bowed gallantly over her hand he felt her fingers press a paper into his palm. She must have penned it ere she came to the concert, he reflected, for she could have found no opportunity for writing since. When he reached the deserted corridor outside the antehall, where two tall gentlemen-at-arms guarded the door of his Highness's sleeping apartment, he held the missive up to the light of one of the flickering wall-lamps: 'For his Highness's own hand alone,' he read.
'Ah——!' he murmured. Passing through the antehall, he gained admission to Eberhard Ludwig's apartment.
'Stafforth, my friend!' cried the Duke, when the Oberhofmarshall appeared, 'this is much courtesy,—you attend me with zeal!' and he laughed gaily.
Stafforth looked fixedly at him; he wished to convey to his Highness his desire to speak with him alone; but Friedrich Grävenitz also, unfortunately, had this impression, and being at once the most suspicious and the most tactless of mortals, he had evidently made up his mind to remain in attendance, as was indeed officially correct, though it was usual for the subordinate official to retire courteously when a person holding a superior court charge was present at the Duke's disrobing. It was impossible for Stafforth to give his Highness Wilhelmine's missive in her brother's presence, for the conspirators had long discovered that Friedrich Grävenitz either lost his temper and blustered, if he felt himself excluded from full knowledge of anything concerning his sister's affairs; or else, were he taken into their confidence, he compromised the situation by some gross tactlessness the which he himself considered, and represented, to be a master-stroke of diplomacy.
After some moments' conversation, Stafforth hit on a plan. He walked across the room and leaned out of the open window. 'What a glorious night!' he exclaimed. 'Ah, Monseigneur! I understand your Highness's love for the silent woods at night; even here, in the town, the summer night is full of mysterious poetry! Grävenitz, if his Highness permit you, come and look at the beauty of the far-off stars. You also have a vein of poetry in your soldier-nature.' This being exactly what Friedrich Grävenitz entirely lacked, it flattered him extremely to be credited with the quality. He craved his Highness's permission to look at the glorious night scenery, and repairing to the window leaned out beside Stafforth. The Oberhofmarshall immediately pressed close against him and encircled his shoulders with one arm, holding the dupe firmly away from the interior of the room; meanwhile Stafforth's other arm was round his own back, with Wilhelmine's letter held out in that hand towards the Duke. He remained thus expatiating on the beauty of the night, till he felt the Duke withdraw the missive from him. Having assured himself by hearing a faint rustle of paper that Eberhard Ludwig had read the missive, he finished his oration, and removed his strong arm from Grävenitz's shoulder.
Now it was the Duke who leaned out of the window. 'O Stafforth!' he cried, 'the night is too beautiful to sleep through! Gentlemen, I invite you to hunt with me to-morrow at break of day! We will meet at the edge of the Rothwald and follow the stag. Till dawn, then, farewell! I shall wander in the wood till then.'
His Highness dismissed Stafforth and Grävenitz. As the door closed upon the two courtiers, Eberhard Ludwig snatched a crumpled paper from his breast. It was the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha's formal command to her guests to appear at her private concert of madrigals:—
'Le Chambellan deSon Altesse
Madame la Duchesse de Wirtemberg
a l'honneur d'inviter Madame de Stafforth ce Lundi25 Juin à 8 heures du soir.
Je regrette de ne pas pouvoir inviter des voyageurs étrangers.—J. E.'
Signed and annotated, you will see, by her Highness's own hand. Beneath which, in strong, manlike characters, was written—
'Ce soir à onzes heures.—Philomèle.'
And it is a matter of history that his Highness Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg didnotkeep his tryst at dawn with Oberhofmarshall Stafforth and Friedrich Grävenitz in the Rothwald.
Thenew lady-in-waiting was installed in two rooms in the castle, very near the roof and hard by Madame de Ruth's apartment. Wilhelmine received a small income, also her food and the services of a waiting-woman of the ducal household. This person was a large, fair-skinned Swabian—a peasant, simple yet suspicious, loud-voiced, rough in manner, very tender of heart. During the first days of her service she feared and disliked her 'foreign' mistress, but, like every one whom Wilhelmine chose to charm, Maria adored her before the week was out with that whole-hearted devotion which servants sometimes give their employers, and which is often so unequal a bargain. But it was not to prove so in this case, for Wilhelmine responded readily to any genuine affection, and, proud as she was, she was too proud to imagine that her freedom of speech and her easy laughter could be met with undue familiarity, which indeed, as is usual with the woman of true breeding, it never was. Maria remained devoted and free spoken, though absolutely respectful. To her the 'Grävenitzin,' as people began to call Wilhelmine, poured out the story of the numerous petty annoyances which disturbed her, and the peasant girl learned to regard her as a persecuted angel. Though her mistress's violent temper flamed forth if the smallest detail of the toilet went amiss, and often, indeed, for no apparent cause, the next moment the impression was erased and the waiting-maid's heart soothed by some affectionate word or hasty, almost childlike, apology. Few know the extraordinary loyalty, the silence and forbearing, which many servants exercise; but those who do, and can prize it truly, have an added power in their hands and an immense aid to their ambition. Maria,while absolutely silent regarding her mistress's affairs, was fully informed concerning the rest of the inhabitants of the Stuttgart castle and of their various opinions of Wilhelmine, and all this she communicated while the latter lay abed drinking her chocolate of a morning. In this manner Wilhelmine learned many things of which she would otherwise have been ignorant.
One morning, about a month after the commencement of Wilhelmine's sojourn at the castle, she was dressing at her leisure, her Highness having commanded her presence at a later hour than usual. The window stood open, and she could hear the whirl of wings as the doves flew about from the roof of the inner courtyard or alighted on the stone balustrade below her window. The heat had abated, and a faint sighing breeze was wafted through the window. Maria had gone to the town to purchase a ribbon for Madame de Ruth's spaniel, and the Grävenitzin remained alone. She leaned back in a tall, carved chair, listening to the million sounds of silence. Ah! Silence!—quiet! how she loved it! With yearning she realised how she longed for the stillness of some deep wood or of some fragrant garden, with Eberhard Ludwig at her side. True, she saw him daily at court; drove with him on his fine coach drawn by eight horses; supped with him, sang to him, knew herself to be his acknowledged mistress. There were stolen interviews in her little room, moments of wondrous rapture and thrilling, passionate surrender. Yet, somehow, she never had the sensation of being entirely undisturbed, of enjoying the delight of solitude with him, safe from possible interruption. She knew that her genuine passion for the Duke was regarded by the court as an ordinary gallant adventure; her relation with him classed among the unlovely liaisons of princes; and, like each woman who considers her personal conduct, she imagined her own love to be a thing utterly different to the passions of other women—infinitely purer, absolutely apart. Also, she hated disapproval; it had the power to vilify her, drawing out the worst in her nature. Then the Duchess, who was possessed of all the harsh cruelty of the untempted virtuous woman, constantly slighted the lady-in-waiting, whose presence she,perforce, endured, while it afforded her a decided relief to vent her jealous, agonised spleen in the privacy of her apartment upon her victorious rival of public society. She little knew, poor soul, what a sinister list of 'affronts to be avenged' was being written in Wilhelmine's mind, nor could she gauge, she of the moth-coloured spite, the evil, relentless hatred which she was daily fostering in a heart strong to love and strong to hate.
Even Madame de Ruth was appalled at the dimensions of the affair which she herself had aided in creating. Wilhelmine fascinated her still, but she began to fear her, and though she laughed at those who murmured that 'the Grävenitzin had the evil eye,' a certain disquiet peeped into her mind at times. Wilhelmine had heard, through the maid Maria, that there were whispers of her being possessed of the evil eye; and it amused her to confront those who offended or irritated her with that strange look which she could command at will. Certainly she had a vast will-power, and the Duke was subjugated, not alone by love but by that marvellous dominion of mind which is exercised by certain beings over others. He told her often that she was a witch; being doubly a poet since he loved, he raved of the witchery of his mistress; yet had he dreamed for one moment that there could be anything mysterious in her fascination he would have been appalled. He was of his day, and could not explain glibly the mysteries and marvels of personal attraction and repulsion, of will-power and dominion, by the easy word magnetism. He would have called it 'witchcraft, magic, devilry,' and he did later on, and trembled. But all this was only beginning when Wilhelmine sat listening to the silence that summer morning. A heavy footfall on the balcony without aroused her from her reverie, and her window was darkened for a flash by a passing form. A rough knock came on her door, and she heard a voice informing her the Altesse Sérénissime the Duchess desired her presence immediately.
She sprang up. 'Tell her Highness I will come immediately; but that, as I was not commanded for so early an hour, I am unfortunately not quite ready,' she called after the lackey's retreating form. She flung off her morning gown andbegan hastily to don a silken bodice, but it took her longer to dress without Maria's help, and it was some time before she stood at the door of her Highness's anteroom. She was met by one of the tiring-women whom she particularly disliked, and whose mulish face and impertinent manners had often irritated her.
'Her Highness is waiting, Fräuleinle von Grävenitz,' said this person, while she treated Wilhelmine to an insolent stare.
'That has nothing to do with you,' answered Wilhelmine haughtily, her ready anger flaring at the covert insolence of the woman's manner and the familiar use of the word 'Fräuleinle.' As she passed she caught a grin of amusement on the woman's face. Ridicule from any one, but especially from the 'canaille,' as she termed most of the inmates of this world, was a thing which always raised the slumbering devil in Wilhelmine. She turned abruptly, confronting the tiring-woman with that fixed evil glance of hers. The smile died on the woman's lips, and she shrank back muttering.
'You will regret your insolence,' said Wilhelmine, thereby forging another link in that chain of the witchcraft theory which was destined to have such strange developments in her life and fate.
'I am accustomed to being attended immediately, Mademoiselle, when I send for my ladies,' said the Duchess icily as Wilhelmine entered.
'Your Highness will pardon me; it was an unexpected summons, and I was not dressed.'
'Ah! I suppose the so evidently recent attack of smallpox makes Mademoiselle a little delicate still?' replied Johanna Elizabetha, with a spiteful smile, and looking pointedly at her lady-in-waiting's face.
At this taunt, once more, though this time involuntarily, the snake look came into Wilhelmine's eyes. Her Highness did not shrink, but returned the gaze fully with a glance of quiet animosity. Johanna Elizabetha was a brave woman, of good blood, and it is remarkable that, through all her dealings with the Grävenitz, she never showed any of that fear, which to arouse was one of this mysterious woman's most potent weapons. 'Would it please you were I to giveyou permission to retire from court for a few months, Mademoiselle, in order to recoup your damaged—er—health?' She paused before the last word, and her adversary knew what she would have said. The lady-in-waiting still had the strength to command the wave of bitter anger which was surging within her, and she answered calmly:
'I thank your Highness for the offer; but,' here a note of insolent triumph pierced through the studied courtesy of her manner, 'but I find the climate of Stuttgart agrees vastly well with me, and I need no change. Your Highness must remember how much I am in the open air.'
This allusion to the constant drives with Eberhard Ludwig goaded Johanna Elizabetha past endurance.
'You will not be able to be abroad so much in future, Mademoiselle de Grävenitz,' she answered grimly; 'I intend to commence a large piece of embroidery, and the work will keep me more in the house. I shall require your services to read to me while I am working.'
Wilhelmine bowed.
'Fetch me that embroidery frame and the silks, Mademoiselle,' the Duchess said, in a tone of such imperious command that the other felt an angry blush flame in her cheeks; but she walked quietly across the room and brought the frame to her Highness, who at once busied herself in matching the coloured silks on the design. Seating herself near the window, and settling the frame on a small table before her, she worked steadily for some time in silence, Wilhelmine standing near, not having been granted permission to be seated. The silence became horrible, tense, gloomy; the air seemed quivering with the hatred which both women felt. At length the Duchess laid aside her work and, turning, faced her lady-in-waiting directly.
'Mademoiselle Wilhelmine von Grävenitz,' she said slowly, 'I will give you one chance of becoming an honest woman. You are unnecessary to me in your present capacity, and I have decided to remove you from my service.' She rose with the dignity she could assume at times. 'The reasons for my decision you know well enough, and, indeed, it were not fitting for me to discuss them with you. If you will resignyour charge, and leave the country to-day, promising never to return, I will announce that, to my regret, you have been called back to your home. As I know you came here penniless, I offer you a free present of ten thousand gulden, under the conditions I have named. If you will not accept this I shall have you driven from my house, and I shall command that no one in Wirtemberg shall shelter you under pain of loss of entry at court.'
Johanna Elizabetha was really impressive and dignified, infinitely pathetic too; for it was a futile assumption of an authority hers by right, and, in fact, absolutely non-existent. 'I await your answer,' she added, a little tremulously.
'And I give you my answer, here and now, for to-day and for as long as I choose. And my answer is—No!' She said it boldly, but her heart was beating violently; after all, she too was fighting for her life, for all she had found beautiful, for the man she loved, and for the ease and charm of existence, the 'fine linen and fair raiment, honour and power,' without which she could and would not live.
The Duchess looked at her curiously. Certainly she was very beautiful, standing straight, tall, and strong; radiant with health, magnificent in her proud decision of being; with head thrown back, hands clasped behind her like a child saying a lesson—the singing attitude, which the Duchess had often seen before with angry, grudging admiration.
'Is this your decision?' Johanna Elizabetha asked once more. 'God in Heaven! why did you come here? I offer you wealth and peace; cannot you go and leave me what is mine?'
'Yours?' broke out Wilhelmine impetuously. 'Yours? You know what you say is untrue! Yours!'
Such an accent of scorn, such an intolerable ridicule of the unbeautiful woman lay in Wilhelmine's voice, that the Duchess drew back as from a blow; she shrank, feeling herself thrust into the chill dreariness of the world of unloved, unlovable, undesired, undesirable women. Then the pride of race reasserted itself; after all, she was the mistress, and this, her tormentor, was her servant. For once, goaded out of her measured correctness, the Duchess became vital, vehement,agonisedly energetic and passionate. She swept past Wilhelmine to the door of her apartment; she flung it open, and called loudly to the sentry who stood below in the courtyard, bidding him summon the captain of the guard and a detachment of men-at-arms. The man's hurried steps rang out as he clattered across the courtyard. Then the silence was only broken by the heavy breathing of the maddened woman at the door, and once more Wilhelmine heard the swish and whirl of the wings as the doves flew about the balustrade. Then came the even tramp of men, and a captain of the guard, with drawn sword, stood in the doorway before her Highness, the yellow and silver of the men's uniforms making a picture of gay colours framed in the grey stonework of the balcony beyond.
'Remove that woman! She has insulted me! Take her across the moat, and close the castle door upon her. She shall not enter here again!' The Duchess's voice came short and sharp.
'But, your Highness——' began the captain.
'Do as I command!' broke in Johanna Elizabetha; and never had man or woman heard the 'Dull Duchess' speak in so proud a tone.
The captain approached Wilhelmine; he feared her and dreaded the Duke's indignation.
'Mademoiselle de Grävenitz,' he said hesitatingly, 'I must obey; believe me, I do not understand——'
'Nor need you,' answered Wilhelmine haughtily; 'I am ready to follow you. Your Highness,' and she bent in the usual courtesy; but the poor Duchess could not see it, for she had hidden her face in her hands, and, with convulsive sobs, she wept in a painful reaction of weakness after her outburst of passionate decision.
Wilhelmine found herself standing beyond the moat, with the iron gate leading to the castle courtyard grimly closed upon her. It was a perplexing moment; she knew not whither she might seek shelter, and she wished to avoid scandal as far as possible. The Duke had gone to Urach to inspect the coverts for the autumn hunting, and he would notreturn for several days. Madame de Ruth was in the castle, unconscious of the stirring events of the morning. Stafforth had accompanied the Duke, and she knew Madame de Stafforth would not receive her if she made known the cause of her departure from the castle. She realised, with dismay, that when she went to the Duchess she had, naturally, not taken money with her, so that she could not even seek the shelter of an inn. It was an awkward predicament, and yet so ridiculous to this woman, certain of the Duke-ruler's homage, that she laughed gently to herself as she walked slowly away through the castle gardens towards the town. The air was still and heavy, and the sound of cries and traffic from the market-place came to her distinctly. To her right lay the Duke's Jägerhaus and the kennels, from whence came an occasional bark from some of Eberhard Ludwig's numerous hounds.
Where should she go? The question was becoming urgent, for the heat of midday approached and already her head ached dully. She walked on, hardly noticing that she had passed beyond the garden gate, and it was with a start that she suddenly realised she had wandered to an unfamiliar part of the town. She was in a narrow street, where the overhanging higher stories of the houses approached each other so closely that the sky between them seemed to be but a distant blue streak. Instinctively she had turned into this shaded gangway to escape from the burning sun. To her horror she felt a curious weakness creeping over her, a booming sounded in her ears, and the veins of her throat seemed to have swelled as though the blood would burst through the skin. She put up her hand to the velvet ribbon which she wore round her neck, and her fingers pulled awkwardly, impatiently, impotently at it. She felt as if her eyeballs were pushed violently outwards by clumsy, heavy finger-tips. She leaned against the wall of one of the houses, and, with the idea of avoidance of scandal still working numbly in her brain, she turned her head this way and that to see if there were any observers of her pitiful plight; but the street lay to right and left, sordid, silent, and deserted. She reflected that, of course, the inhabitants must be sheltering from the heat—sleeping, perhaps—Ah! sleeping!—and she was so tired, so deathlyweary—and her feet were so heavy—so far away—and heavy——
Surely Monsieur Gabriel would be pleased with that melody? Wilhelmine turned towards him, then half-consciousness returning told her she was not in Güstrow. Where was she? She moved, tried to sit up; on her brow a hand, cool and soothing, pressed her backwards, closing her aching eyes. Once more her thoughts sank downwards—flickered, as it were. What did it signify where she was, after all? Everything was far off. What scent was that? Wonderful! She drew it in to her lungs, and it seemed to fill her breast with fragrant freshness. With a sigh, she came back from some dim world and opened her eyes. A strange face bent over her and she stared wonderingly at it. Surely she was dreaming still, for it was the face of a picture she knew. Remembrance came, ere full consciousness grasped sway of her—Savonarola, the Monk of San Marco. She had seen a wood-cut portrait of the inspired fanatic in a book of Eberhard Ludwig's library. She lay, scarcely returned from her unconsciousness, gazing at this face. Yes, Savonarola! The powerful, broken brow, the small, piercing eyes, the rugged cheeks, the whole face dominated by the huge nose. Then full consciousness returned to her, and she saw that this was no fanatic genius, no monk of Italy, but an old woman with an extraordinary physiognomy, who was watching her with patient, kindly eyes. Wilhelmine sat up, pushing from her brow a cloth soaked in some essence, from whence came the delicious pungent scent which had recalled her from her trance.
'Where am I?' she asked.
'You are safe, and, I pray you, rest,' answered a hoarse, weak voice.
'I thank you,' Wilhelmine said, 'I will rest; but, at least, tell me where I am and who you are?'
'I am the widow of Ishakar Ben Hazzim, and you fainted at my door, so I took you in.'
'A very Christian action from a Jew, and I thank you,' replied Wilhelmine haughtily. All the unreasoning hatred of the Jewish race lay in her withdrawal from even ordinary gratitude towards the woman who had rescued her.
The face above her darkened, and the kind eyes changed to flickering pin-points of anger.
'Christian? Nay, girl; it is Christian to be cruel! Christian? God of my fathers! it is Christian to murder and oppress! Did you not hear that I told you I am the widow of Ishakar Ben Hazzim, the son of Israel? and in my house, when I have anointed your head with rare essences to cool you from your sun-faint, you insult me, and you owe me no affront!' There was a pride in the woman's manner which appealed to Wilhelmine.
'Indeed, I meant none, and I thank you for your courtesy,' she said, and smiled.
'Well, rest you then,' replied the Jewess in a mollified tone; and again silence fell between the two women.
'Why do Jews hate the Christians?' Wilhelmine asked, after some time. She was interested, for this was a new and surprising view; partly, too, she asked the question from lazy curiosity.