I had slept scantily the night before, and the excitement of the last twenty-four hours had worn me out. I was grieved for the gallant life so swiftly ebbing, and miserable on my lady's account; but sorrow of this kind is a sleepy thing, and the day was hot. I did not feel about the Waldgrave as I had about Marie; and gradually my head nodded, and nodded again, until I fell fast asleep, on the seat within the door.
A man's voice, clear and penetrating, awoke me. 'Let him be,' it said. 'Hark you, fellow, let him be. He was up last night; I will announce myself.'
I was drowsy and understood only half of what I heard; and I should have taken the speaker at his word, and turning over dropped off again, if Steve had not kicked me and brought me to my feet with a cry of pain. I stood an instant, bewildered, dazzled by the sunlight, nursing my ankle in my hand. Then I made out where I was, and saw through the arch of the entrance Count Leuchtenstein dismounting in the street. As I looked, he threw the reins to a trooper who accompanied him, and turned to come in.
'Ah, my friend,' he said, nodding pleasantly, 'you are awake. I will see your mistress.'
I was not quite myself, and his presence took me aback. I stood looking at him awkwardly. 'If your excellency will wait a moment,' I faltered at last, 'I will take her pleasure.'
He glanced at me a moment, as if surprised. Then he laughed. 'Go,' he said. 'I am not often kept waiting.'
I was glad to get away, and I ran upstairs; and knocking hurriedly at the parlour door, went in. My lady, pale and frowning, with a little book in her hand, got up hastily--from her knees, I thought. Marie Wort, with tears on her cheeks, and Fraulein Max, looking scared, stood behind her.
The Countess looked at me, her eyes flashing. 'What is it?' she asked sharply.
'Count Leuchtenstein is below,' I said.
'Well?'
'He wishes to see your excellency.'
'Did I not say that I would see no one?'
'But Count Leuchtenstein?'
She laughed a shrill laugh full of pain--a laugh that had something hysterical in it. 'You thought that I would seehim?' she cried. 'Him, I suppose, of all people? Go down, fool, and tell him that even here, in this poor house, my doors are open to my friends and to them only! Not to those who profess much and do nothing! Or to those who bark and do not bite! Count Leuchtenstein? Pah, tell him---- Silence, woman!' This to Marie, who would have interrupted her. 'Tell him what I have told you, man, word for word. Or no'--and she caught herself up with a mocking smile, such as I had never seen on her face before. 'Tell him this instead--that the Countess Rotha is engaged with the Waldgrave Rupert, and wants no other company! Yes, tell him that--it will bite home, if he has a conscience! He might have saved him, and he would not! Now, when I would pray, which is all women can do, he comes here! Oh, I am sick! I am sick!'
I saw that she was almost beside herself with grief; and I stood irresolute, my heart aching for her. What I dared not do, Marie did. She sprang forward, and seizing the Countess's hand, knelt beside her, covering it with kisses.
'Oh, my lady!' she cried through her tears. 'Don't be so hard. See him. See him. Even at this last moment.'
With an inarticulate cry the Countess flung her off so forcibly that the girl fell to the ground. 'Be silent!' my lady cried, her eyes on fire. 'Or go to your prayers, wench. To your prayers! And do you begone! Begone, and on your peril give my message, word for word!'
I saw nothing for it but to obey; and I went down full of dismay. I could understand my lady's grief, and that I had come upon her at an inopportune moment. But the self-control which she had exhibited before the Court rendered the violence of her rage now the more surprising. I had never seen her in this mood, and her hardness shocked me. I felt myself equally bewildered and grieved.
I found Count Leuchtenstein waiting on the step, with his face to the street. He turned as I descended. 'Well?' he said, smiling. 'Am I to go up, my friend?'
I saw that he had not the slightest doubt of my answer, and his cheerfulness kindled a sort of resentment in my breast. He seemed to be so well content, so certain of his reception, so calm and strong--and, at this very moment--for the sunshine had left the street and was creeping up the tiles--they might be leading out the Waldgrave! I had liked my lady's message very little when she gave it to me; now I rejoiced that I could sting him with it.
'My lady is not very well,' I said. 'The sentence on the Waldgrave has upset her.'
He smiled. 'But she will receive me?' he said.
'Craving your excellency's indulgence, I do not think that she will receive any one.'
'You told her that I was here?'
'Yes, your excellency. And she said----'
His face fell. 'Tut! tut!' he exclaimed. 'But I come on purpose to---- What did she say, man?'
The smile was gone from his lips, but I caught it lurking in his eyes; and it hardened me to do her bidding. 'I was to tell your excellency that she could not receive you,' I said, 'that she was engaged with the Waldgrave.'
He started and stared at me, his expression slowly passing from amazement to anger. 'What!' he exclaimed at last, in a cutting tone. 'Already?' And his lip curled with a kind of disgust. 'You have given me the message exactly, have you?'
'Yes, your excellency,' I said, quailing a little. But servants know when to be stupid, and I affected stupidity, fixing my eyes on his breast and pretending to see nothing. He turned, and for a moment I thought that he was going without a word. Then on the steps he turned again. 'You have heard the news, then?' he said sourly. He had already regained his self-control.
'Yes, my lord.'
'Ah! Well, you lose no time in your house,' he replied grimly. 'Call my horse!'
I called the man, who had wandered a little way up the street, and he brought it. As I held the Count's stirrup for him to mount, I noticed how heavily he climbed to his saddle, and that he settled himself into it with a sigh; but the next moment he laughed, as at himself. I stood back expecting him to say something more, or to leave some message, but he did not even look at me again; he touched his horse with the spur, and walked away steadily. I stood and watched him until he reached the end of the street--until he turned the corner and disappeared.
Even then I still stood looking after him, partly sorry and partly puzzled, for quite a long time. It was only when I turned to go in that I missed Steve and the men, and began to wonder what had become of them. I had left them with the Count at the door--they were gone now. I looked up and down, I could see them nowhere. I went in and asked the women; but they were not with them. The sunset gun had just gone off, and one of the girls was crying hysterically, while the others sat round her, white and frightened. This did not cheer me, nor enliven the house. I came out again, vowing vengeance on the truants; and there in the entrance, facing me, standing where the Count had stood a few minutes before, I saw the last man I looked to see!
I gasped and gave back a step. The sun was gone, the evening light was behind the man, and his face was in the shadow. His figure showed dark against the street. 'Ach Gott!' I cried, and stood still, stricken. It was the Waldgrave!
'Martin!' he said.
I gave back another step. The street was quiet, the house like the grave. For a moment the figure did not move, but stood there gazing at me. Then--
'Why, Martin!' he cried. 'Don't you know me?'
Then, not until then, I did--for a man and not a ghost; and I caught his hand with a cry of joy. 'Welcome, my lord, welcome!' I said, grown hot all over. 'Thank God that you have escaped!'
'Yes,' he said, and his tone was his own old tone, 'thank God; Him first, and then my friends. Steve and Ernst I have seen already; they heard the news from the Count's man, and came to meet me, and I have sent them on an errand, by your leave. And now, where is my cousin?'
'Above,' I answered. 'But----'
'But what?' he said quickly.
'I think that I had better prepare her.'
'She does not know?'
'No, your excellency. Nor did I, until I saw you.'
'But Count Leuchtenstein has been here. Did he not tell you?' he asked in surprise.
'Not a word!' I answered. And then I stopped, conscience-stricken. 'Himmel! I remember now,' I said. 'He asked me if we had heard the news; and I, like a dullard, dreaming that he meant other news, and the worst, said yes!'
The Waldgrave shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, go to her now, and tell her,' he said. 'I want to see her; I want to thank her. I have a hundred things to say to her. Quick, Martin, for I am laden with debts, and I choke to pay some of them.'
I ran upstairs, marvelling. On the lobby I met Fraulein Max coming down. 'What is it?' she asked impatiently.
'The Waldgrave! He has been released! He is here!' I cried in a breath.
She stared at me while a man might count ten. Then to my astonishment she laughed aloud. 'Who released him?' she asked.
'The magistrates,' I said. 'I suppose so. I don't know.' I had not given the matter a thought.
'Not Count Leuchtenstein?'
I started. 'So!' I muttered, staring at her in my turn. 'It must have been he. The Waldgrave said something about him. And he must have come here to tell us.'
'And you gave him my lady's message?'
'Alas! yes.'
Fraulein Max laughed again, and kept on laughing, until I grew hot all over, and could have struck her for her malice. She saw at last that I was angry, and she stopped. 'Tut! tut!' she said, 'it is nothing. But that disposes of the old man. Now for the young one. He is here?'
'Yes.'
'Then why do you not show him up?'
'She must be prepared,' I muttered.
She laughed again; this time after a different fashion. 'Oh you fools of men!' she said. 'She must be prepared? Do you think that women are made of glass and that a shock breaks them? That she will die of joy? Or would have died of grief? Send him up, gaby, and I will prepare her! Send him up.'
I supposed that she knew women's ways, and I gave in to her, and sent him up; and I do not know that any harm was done. But, as a result of this, I was not present when my lady and the Waldgrave met, and I only learned by hearsay what happened.
* * * * *
An hour or two later, when the bustle of shrieks and questions had subsided, and the excitement caused by his return had somewhat worn itself out, Marie slipped out to me on the stairs, and sat with me in the darkness, talking. The gate of curious ironwork which guarded the house entrance was closed for the night; but the moon was up, and its light, falling through the scrollwork, lay like a pale, reedy pool at our feet. The men were at supper, the house was quiet, the city was for a little while still. Not a foot sounded on the roadway; only sometimes a skulking dog came ghost-like to the bars and sniffed, and sneaked noiselessly away.
I have said that we talked, but in truth we sat long silent, as lovers have sat these thousand years, I suppose, in such intervals of calm. The peace of the night lapped us round; after the perils and hurry, the storm and stress of many days, we were together and at rest, and content to be silent. All round us, under the covert of darkness, under the moonlight, the city lay quaking; dreading the future, torn by pangs in the present; sleepless, or dreaming of death and outrage, ridden by the nightmare of Wallenstein. But for the moment we recked nothing of this, nothing of the great camp round us, nothing of the crash of nations. We were of none of these. We had one another, and it was enough; loved one another, and the rest went by. For the moment we tasted perfect peace; and in the midst of the besieged city, were as much alone, as if the moonlight at our feet had been, indeed, a forest pool high in the hills over Heritzburg.
Does some old man smile? Do I smile myself now, though sadly? A brief madness, was it? Nay; but what if then only we were sane, and for a moment saw things as they are--lost sight of the unreal and awoke to the real? I once heard a wise man from Basle say something like that at my lady's table. The men, I remember, stared; the women looked thoughtful.
For all that, it was Marie who on this occasion broke the trance. The town clock struck ten, and at the sound hundreds, I dare swear, turned on their pillows, thinking of the husbands and sons and lovers whom the next light must imperil. My girl stirred.
'Ah!' she murmured, 'the poor Countess! Can we do nothing?'
'Do?' I said. 'What should, we do? The Waldgrave is back, and in his right mind; which of all the things I have ever known, is the oddest. That a man should lose his senses under one blow, and recover them under another, and remember nothing that has happened in the interval--it almost passes belief.'
'Yet it is true.'
'I suppose so,' I answered. 'The Waldgrave was mad--I can bear witness to it--and now he is sane. There is no more to be said.'
'But the Countess, Martin?'
'Well, I do not know that she is the worse,' I answered stupidly. 'She sent off the Count with a flea in his ear, and a poor return it was. But she can explain it to him, and after all, she has got the Waldgrave back, safe and sound. That is the main thing.'
Marie sighed, and moved restlessly. 'Is it?' she said. 'I wish I knew.'
'What?' I asked, drawing her little head on to my shoulder.
'What my lady wishes?'
'Eh?'
'Which?'
My jaw fell. I stared into the darkness open-mouthed. 'Why,' I exclaimed at last, 'he is sixty--or fifty-five at least, girl!'
Marie laughed softly, with her face on my breast. 'If she loves him,' she murmured. 'If she loves him.' And she hung on me.
I sat amazed, confounded, thinking no more of Marie, though my arm was round her, than of a doll. 'But he is fifty five,' I said.
'And if you were fifty-five, do you think that I should not love you?' she whispered. 'When you are fifty-five, do you think that I shall not love you? Besides, he is strong, brave, famous--a man; and she is not a girl, but a woman. If the Count be too old, is not the Waldgrave too young?'
'Yes,' I said cunningly. 'But why either?'
'Because love is in the air,' Marie answered; and I knew that she smiled, though the gloom hid her face. 'Because there is a change in her. Because she knows things and sees things and feels things of which she was ignorant before. And because--because it is so, my lord.'
I whistled. This was beyond me. 'And yet you don't know which?' I said.
'No; I suspect.'
'Well--but the Waldgrave?' I exclaimed. 'Why, mädchen, he is one of the handsomest men I have ever seen. An Apollo! A Fairy Prince! It is not possible that she should prefer the other.'
Marie laughed. 'Ah!' she said, 'if men chose all the husbands, there would be few wives.'
* * * * *
The Waldgrave's return to his old self, and to the frankness and gaiety that, when we first knew him at Heritzburg, had surrounded him with a halo of youth, was perhaps the most noteworthy event of all within my experience. For the return proved permanent, the transformation was perfect. The moodiness, the crookedness, the crafty humours that for weeks had darkened and distorted the man's nature--so that another and a worse man seemed to look out of his eyes and speak with his mouth--were gone, leaving no cloud or remembrance. He had been mad; he was now as sane as the best. Only one peculiarity remained--and for a few days a little pallor and weakness--of all the things that had befallen him between his first wound and his second, he could remember nothing, not a jot or tittle; nor could any amount of allusion or questioning bring these things back to him. After many attempts we desisted; but there were always some who, from this date, regarded him with a certain degree of awe--as a man who had been for a time in the flesh, and yet not of it.
With sanity returned also all the wholesome ambitions and desires that had formerly moved the man; and amongst these his passion for my lady. He lay at our house that night, and spent the next two days there, recovering his strength; and I had more than one opportunity of marking the assiduity with which he followed all the Countess's movements with his eyes, the change which his voice underwent when he spoke to her, and his manner when he came into her presence. In a word, he seemed to take up his love where he had dropped it--at the point it had reached when he rode down into the green valley and secured his rival's victory at so great a cost; at the point at which Tzerclas' admiration and my lady's rebuff had at once strengthened and purified it.
Now Tzerclas was gone from the field--magically, as it seemed to the Waldgrave. And, magically also--for he knew nothing of its flight--time had passed; days and weeks running into months--a sufficiency of time, he hoped, to remove unfavourable impressions from her mind, to obliterate the memory of that unhappy banquet, and replace him on the pinnacle he had occupied at Heritzburg.
But he soon found that, though Tzerclas was gone and the field seemed open, all was not to be had for the asking. My lady was kind; she had a smile for him, and pleasant words, and a ready ear. But before he had been in the house twenty-four hours, he came and confided to me that something was wrong. The Countess was changed; was pettish as he had never seen her before; absent and thoughtful, traits equally new; restless--and placid dignity had been one of her chief characteristics.
'What is it, Martin?' he said, knitting his brows and striding to and fro in frank perplexity. 'It cannot be that, after all that has passed, she is fretting for that villain Tzerclas?'
'After risking her life to escape from him?' I answered dryly. 'No, I think not, my lord.'
'If I ever set eyes on him again I will end him!' the Waldgrave cried, still clinging, I think, to his idea, and exasperated by it. He strode up and down a time or two, and did not grow cooler. 'If it is not that, what is it?' he said at last.
'There are not many light hearts in Nuremberg,' I suggested. 'And of those, few are women's. There must be an end of this soon.'
'You think it is that?' he said.
'Why not?' I answered. 'I am told that the horses are dying by hundreds in the camp. The men will die next. In the end the King will have to march away, or see his army perish piecemeal. In either case the city will pay for all. Wallenstein will swoop down on it, and make of it another and greater Magdeburg. That is a poor prospect for the weak and helpless.'
'It is those rascally Croats!' the Waldgrave groaned. 'They cover the country like flies--are here and there and nowhere all in the same minute, and burn and harry and leave us nothing. We have no troops of that kind.'
'There was plundering in the Wert suburb last night,' I said. 'The King blames the Germans.'
'Soldiers are bad to starve,' the Waldgrave answered.
'Yes; they will see the townsfolk suffer first,' I rejoined, with a touch of bitterness. 'But look whichever way you please, it is a gloomy outlook, my lord, and I do not wonder that my lady is down-hearted.'
He nodded, but presently he said something that showed that he was not satisfied. 'The Countess used to be of a bolder spirit,' he muttered. 'I don't understand it.'
I did not know how to answer him, and fortunately, at that moment, Marie came down to say that my lady proposed to visit Count Leuchtenstein, and that I was to go to her. The Waldgrave heard, and raced up before me, crying out that he would go too. I followed. When I reached the parlour I found them confronting one another, my lady standing in the oriel with her back to the street.
'But would it not be more seemly?' the Waldgrave was saying as I entered. 'As your cousin, and----'
'I would rather go alone,' the Countess replied curtly.
'To the camp?' he exclaimed. 'He is not in his city quarters.'
'Yes, to the camp,' my lady answered, with, a spark of anger in her eyes.
On that he stood, fidgety and discomfited, and the Countess gave me her orders. But he could not believe that she did not need him, and the moment she was silent, he began again.
'You do not want me; but you do not object to my company, I suppose?' he said airily. 'I have to thank the Count, cousin, and I must go to-day or to-morrow. There is no time like the present, and if you are going now----'
'I should prefer to go alone,' my lady said stiffly.
His face fell; he stood looking foolish. 'Oh, I did not know,' he stammered at last; 'I thought----'
'What?' the Countess said.
'That you liked me well enough--to--to be glad of my company,' he answered, half offended, half in deprecation.
'I liked you well enough to abase myself for you!' my lady retorted cruelly. And I dare say that she said more, but I did not hear it. I had to go down and prepare for her visit.
When I next saw him, he was much subdued. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind, and by-and-by he asked me a question about Count Leuchtenstein. I saw which way his thoughts were tending, or fancied that I did; but it was not my business to interfere one way or the other, and I answered him and made no comment. The horses were at the door then, and in a moment my lady came down, looking pale and depressed. The Waldgrave went humbly to her, and put her into her saddle, touching her foot as if it had been glass; and I mounted Marie, who was to attend her. I expected that my lady--who had a very tender heart under her queenly manner--would say something to him before we started; but she seemed to be quite taken up with her thoughts, and to be barely conscious, if conscious at all, of his presence. She said 'Thank you,' but it was mechanically. And the next moment we were moving, Ernst making up the escort.
My eyes soon furnished me with other matter for thought than the Waldgrave. Throughout the city the summer drought had dried up the foliage of the trees; and the grass, where it had not been plucked by the poor and boiled for food, had been eaten to the roots by starving cattle. The whole city under the blaze of sunshine wore an arid, dusty, parched appearance, and seemed to reflect on its face the look of dreary endurance which was worn by too many of the countenances we observed in the streets. Pain creeps by instinct to some dark and solitary place; but here was a whole city in pain, gasping and suffering under the pitiless sunshine; and the contrast between the blue sky above and the scene below added indescribably to the gloom and dreariness of the latter. I know that I got a horror of sunshine there that lasted for many a month after.
Either twenty-four hours had aggravated the pinch of famine, which was possible, or I had a more open mind to perceive it. I marked more hollow cheeks than ever, more hungry eyes, more faces with the glare of brutes. And in the bearing of the crowd that filled the streets--though no business was done, no trade carried on--I thought that I saw a change. Wherever it was thickest, I noticed that men walked in one of two ways, either hurrying along feverishly and in haste, as if time were of the utmost value, or moving listlessly, with dragging feet and lacklustre eyes, as if nothing had any longer power to stir them. I even noticed that the same men went in both ways within the space of a minute, passing in a second and apparently without intention from feverish activity to the moodiness of despair.
And no wonder. Not only famine, but pestilence had tightened its grasp on the city; and from this the rich had as much to fear as the poor. As we drew near the walls the smell of carrion, which had hitherto but spoiled the air, filled the nostrils and sickened the whole man. In some places scores of horses lay unburied, while it was whispered that in obscure corners death had so far outstripped the grave-diggers that corpses lay in the houses and the living slept with the dead. There was fighting in front of the bakers' shops in more than one place--my lady had to throw money before we could pass; in the kennels women screamed and fought for offal; from the open doors of churches prayers and wailing poured forth; at the gates, where gibbets, laden with corpses, rose for a warning, multitudes stood waiting and listening for news. And on all, dead and living, the sun shone hotly, steadily, ruthlessly, so that men asked with one voice, 'How long? How long?'
In the camp, which had just received huge reinforcements of men and horses, we found order and discipline at least. Rows of kettles and piles of arms proclaimed it, and lines of pennons that stretched almost as far as the eye could reach. But here, too, were knitted brows, and gloomy looks, and loud murmurings, that grew and swelled as we passed. Count Leuchtenstein's quarters were on the border of the Swedish camp, near the Finland regiments, and not far from the King's. A knot of officers, who stood talking in front of them and knew my lady, came to place themselves at her service. But the offer proved to be abortive, for the first thing she learned was that the Count was absent. He had gone at dawn in the direction of Altdorf to cover the entrance of a convoy.
I felt that she was grievously disappointed, for whether she loved him or not, I could understand the humiliation under which she smarted, and would smart until she had set herself right with him. But she veiled her chagrin admirably, and, lightly refusing the offer of refreshment, turned her horse's head at once, so that in a twinkling we were on our road home again.
By the way, I saw only what I had seen before. But the Countess, whose figure began to droop, saw, I think, with other eyes than those through which she had looked on the outward journey. Her thoughts no longer occupied, she saw in their fulness the ravages which famine and plague were making in the town, once so prosperous. When she reached her lodgings her first act was to send money, of which we had no great store, to the magistrates, that a free meal in addition to the starvation rations might be given to the poor; and her next, to declare that henceforth she would keep the house.
Accordingly, instead of going again to the Count's, she sent me next day with a letter. I found the camp in an uproar, which was fast spreading to the city. A rumour had just got wind that the King was about to break up his camp and give battle to the enemy at all hazards; and so many were riding and running into the city with the news that I could scarcely make head against the current.
Arriving at last, however, I was fortunate enough to find the Count in his quarters and alone. My lady had charged me--with a blushing cheek but stern eyes--to deliver the letter with my own hands, and I dismounted. I thought that I had nothing to do but deliver it; I foresaw no trouble. But at the last moment, as a trooper led me through the antechamber, who should appear at my side but the Waldgrave!
'You did not expect to see me?' he said, nodding grimly.
'No, my lord,' I answered.
'So I thought,' he rejoined. 'But before you give the Count that letter, I have a word to say to him.'
I looked at him in astonishment. What had the letter to do with him? My first idea was that he had been drinking, for his colour was high and his eye bright. But a second glance showed that he was sober, though excited. And while I hesitated the trooper held up the curtain, and perforce I marched in.
Count Leuchtenstein, wearing his plain buff suit, sat writing at a table. His corselet, steel cap, and gauntlets lay beside him, and seemed to show that he had just come in from the field. He looked up and nodded to me; I had been announced before. Then he saw the Waldgrave and rose; reluctantly, I fancied. I thought, too, that a shade of gloom fell on his face; but as the table was laden with papers and despatches and maps and lists, and the sight reminded me that he bore on his shoulders all the affairs of Hesse, and the responsibility for the boldest course taken by any German prince in these troubles, I reflected that this might arise from a hundred causes.
He greeted the Waldgrave civilly nevertheless; then he turned to me. 'You have a letter for me, have you not, my friend?' he said.
'Yes, my lord,' I answered.
'But,' the Waldgrave interposed, 'before you read it, I have a word to say, by your leave, Count Leuchtenstein.'
I think I never saw a man more astonished than the Count. 'To me?' he said.
'By your leave, yes.'
'In regard to--this letter?'
'Yes.'
'But what do you know about this letter?'
'Too much, I am afraid,' the Waldgrave answered; and I am bound to say that, putting aside the extraordinary character of his interference, he bore himself well. I could detect nothing of wildness or delusion in his manner. His face glowed, and he threw back his head with a hint of defiance; but he seemed sane. 'Too much,' he continued rapidly, before the Count could stop him; 'and, before the matter goes farther, I will have my say.'
The Count stared at him. 'By what right?' he said at last.
'As the Countess Rotha's nearest kinsman,' the Waldgrave answered.
'Indeed?' I could see that the Count was hard put to it to keep his temper; that the old lion in him was stirring, and would soon have way. But for the moment he controlled himself. 'Say on,' he cried.
'I will, in a few words,' the Waldgrave answered. 'And what I have to say amounts to this: I have become aware--no matter how--of the bargain you have made, Count Leuchtenstein, and I will not have it.'
'The bargain!' the Count ejaculated; 'you will not have it!'
'The bargain; and I will not have it!' the Waldgrave rejoined.
Count Leuchtenstein drew a deep breath, and stared at him like a man demented. 'I think that you must be mad,' he said at last. 'If not, tell me what you mean.'
'What I say,' the Waldgrave answered stubbornly. 'I forbid the bargain to which I have no doubt that that letter relates.'
'In Heaven's name, what bargain?' the Count cried.
'You think that I do not know,' the Waldgrave replied, with a touch of bitterness; 'it did not require a Solomon to read the riddle. I found my cousin distrait, absent, moody, sad, preoccupied, unlike herself. She had moved heaven and earth, I was told, to save me; in the last resort, had come to you, and you saved me. Yet when she saw me safe, she met me as much in sorrow as in joy. The mere mention of your name clouded her face; and she must see you, and she must write to you, and all in a fever. I say, it does not require a Solomon to read this riddle, Count Leuchtenstein.'
'You think?' said the Count, bluntly. 'I do not yet know what you think.'
'I think that she sold herself to you to win my pardon,' the Waldgrave answered.
For a moment I did not know how Count Leuchtenstein would take it. He stood gazing at the Waldgrave, his hand on a chair, his face purple, his eyes starting. At length, to my relief and the Waldgrave's utter dismay and shame, he sank into the chair and broke into a hoarse shout of laughter--laughter that was not all merriment, but rolled, in its depths something stern and sardonic.
The Waldgrave changed colour, glared and fumed; but the Count was pitiless, and laughed on. At last: 'Thanks, Waldgrave, thanks,' he said. 'I am glad I let you go on to the end. But pardon me if I say that you seem to do the Lady Rotha something less than justice, and yourself something more.'
'How?' the Waldgrave stammered. He was quite out of countenance.
'By flattering yourself that she could rate you so highly,' Count Leuchtenstein retorted, 'or fall herself so low. Nay, do not threaten me,' he continued with grim severity. 'It was not I who brought her name into question. I never dreamed of, never heard of, never conceived such a bargain as you have described; nor, I may add, ever thought of the Lady Rotha except with reverence and chivalrous regard. Have I said enough?' he continued, rising, and speaking with growing indignation, with eyes that seemed to search the culprit; 'or must I say too, Waldgrave, that I do not traffic in men's lives, nor buy women's favours, nor sell pardons? That such power as God and my master have given me I use to their honour and not for my own pleasure? And, finally, that this, of which you accuse me, I would not do, though to do it were to prolong my race through a dozen centuries? For shame, boy, for shame!' he continued more calmly. 'If my mind has gone the way you trace it, I call it back to-day. I have done with love; I am too old for aught but duty, if love can lead even a young man's mind so far astray.'
The Waldgrave shivered; but the position was beyond words, and he essayed none. With a slight movement of his hand, as if he would have shielded himself, or deprecated the other's wrath, he turned towards the door. I saw his face for an instant; it was pale, despairing--and with reason. He had exposed my lady. He had exposed himself. He had invited such a chastisement as must for ever bring the blood to his cheeks. And his cousin: what would she say? He had lost her. She would never forgive him--never! He groped blindly for the opening in the curtain.
His hand was on it--and I think that, for all his manhood, the tears were very near his eyes--when the other called after him in an altered tone.
'Stay!' Count Leuchtenstein said. 'We will not part thus. I can see that you are sorry. Do not be so hasty another time, and do not be too quick to think evil. For the rest, our friend here will be silent, and I will be silent.'
The Waldgrave gazed at him, his lips quivering, his eyes full. At last: 'You will not tell--the Countess Rotha?' he said almost in a whisper.
The Count looked down at his table, and pettishly pushed some papers together. For an instant he did not answer. Then he said gruffly,--'No. Why should she know? If she chooses you, well and good; if not, why trouble her with tales?'
'Then!' the Waldgrave cried with a sob in his voice, 'you are a better man than I am!'
The Count shrugged his shoulders rather sadly. 'No,' he said, 'only an older one.'
For a little while after the Waldgrave had retired, Count Leuchtenstein stood turning my lady's letter over in his hands, his thoughts apparently busy. I had leisure during this time to compare the plainness of his dress with the greatness of his part, to which his conduct a moment before had called my attention; and the man with his reputation. No German had at this time so much influence with the King of Sweden as he; nor did the world ever doubt that it was at his instance that the Landgrave, first of all German princes, flung his sword into the Swedish scale. Yet no man could be more unlike the dark Wallenstein, the crafty Arnim, the imperious Oxenstierna, or the sleepless French cardinal, whose star has since risen--as I have heard these men described; for Leuchtenstein carried his credentials in his face. An honest, massive downrightness and a plain sagacity seemed to mark him, and commend him to all who loved the German blood.
My eyes presently wandered from him, and detected among the papers on the table the two stands I had seen in his town quarters--the one bearing his child's necklace, the other his wife's portrait. Doubtless they lay on the table wherever he went--among assessments and imposts, regimental tallies and state papers. I confess that my heart warmed at the sight; that I found something pleasing in it; greatness had not choked the man. And then my thoughts were diverted: he broke open my lady's letter, and turning his back on me began to read.
I waited, somewhat impatiently. He seemed to be a long time over it, and still he read, his eyes glued to the page. I heard the paper rustle in his hands. At last he turned, and I saw with a kind of shock that his face was dark and flushed. There was a strange gleam in his eyes as he looked at me. He struck the paper twice with his hand.
'Why was this kept from me?' he exclaimed. 'Why? Why?'
'My lord!' I said in astonishment. 'It was delivered to me only an hour ago.'
'Fool!' he answered harshly, bending his bushy eyebrows. 'When did that girl get free?'
'That girl?'
'Ay, that girl! Girl, I said. What is her name? Marie Wort?'
'This is Saturday. Wednesday night,' I said.
'Wednesday night? And she told you of the child then; of my child--that this villain has it yonder! And you kept it from me all Thursday and Friday--Thursday and Friday,' he repeated with a fierce gesture, 'when I might have done something, when I might have acted! Now you tell me of it, when we march out to-morrow, and it is too late. Ah! It was ungenerous of her--it was not like her!'
'The Countess came yesterday in person,' I muttered.
'Ay, but the day before!' he retorted. 'You saw me in the morning! You said nothing. In the evening I called at the Countess's lodgings; she would not see me. A mistake was it? Yes, but grant the mistake; was it kind, was it generous to withholdthis?If I had been as remiss as she thought me, as slack a friend--was it just, was it womanly? In Heaven's name, no! No!' he repeated fiercely.
'We were taken up with the Waldgrave's peril,' I muttered, conscience-stricken. 'And yesterday, my lady----'
'Ay, yesterday!' he retorted bitterly. 'She would have told me yesterday. But why not the day before? The truth is, you thought much of your own concerns and your lady's kin, but of mine and my child--nothing! Nothing!' he repeated sternly.
And I could not but feel that his anger was justified. For myself, I had clean forgotten the child; hence my silence at my former interview. For my lady, I think that at first the Waldgrave's danger and later, when she knew of his safety, remorse for the part she had played, occupied her wholly, yet, every allowance made, I felt that the thing had an evil appearance; and I did not know what to say to him.
He sighed, staring absently before him. At last, after a prolonged silence, 'Well, it is too late now,' he said. 'Too late. The King moves out to-morrow, and my hands are full, and God only knows the issue, or who of us will be living three days hence. So there is an end.'
'My lord!' I cried impulsively. 'God forgive me, I forgot.'
He shrugged his shoulders with a grand kind of patience. 'Just so,' he said. 'And now, go back to your mistress. If I live I will answer her letter. If not--it matters not.'
I was terribly afraid of him, but my love for Marie had taught me some things; and though he waved me to the door, I stood my ground a moment.
'To you, my lord, no,' I said. 'Nothing. But to her, if you fall without answering her letter----'
'What?'he said.
'You can best judge from the letter, my lord.'
'You think that she would suffer?' he answered harshly, his face growing red again. 'Well, what say you, man? Does she not deserve to suffer? Do you know what this delay may cost me? What it may mean for my child? Mein Gott,' he continued, raising his voice and striking his hand heavily on the table, 'you try me too far! Your mistress was angry. Have I no right to be angry? Have I no right to punish? Go! I have no more to say.'
And I had to go, then and there, enraged with myself, and fearful that I had said too much in my lady's behalf. I had invited this last rebuff, and I did not see how I should dare to tell her of it, or that I had exposed her to it. I had made things worse instead of better, and perhaps, after all, the message he had framed might not have hurt her much, or fallen far short of her expectations.
I should have troubled myself longer about this, but for the increasing bustle and stir of preparation that had spread by this time from the camp to the city; and filling the way with a throng of people whom the news affected in the most different ways, soon diverted my attention. While some, ready to welcome any change, shouted with joy, others wept and wrung their hands, crying out that the city was betrayed, and that the King was abandoning it. Others again anticipated an easy victory, looked on the frowning heights of the Alta Veste as already conquered, and divided Wallenstein's spoils. Everywhere I saw men laughing, wailing, or shaking hands; some eating of their private hoards, others buying and selling horses, others again whooping like lunatics.
In the city the shops, long shut, were being opened, orderlies were riding to and fro, crowds were hurrying to the churches to pray for the King's success; a general stir of relief and expectancy was abroad. The sunshine still fell hot on the streets, but under it life moved and throbbed. The apathy of suffering was gone, and with it the savage gloom that had darkened innumerable brows. From window and dormer, from low door-ways, from carven eaves and gables, gaunt faces looked down on the stir, and pale lips prayed, and dull eyes glowed with hope.
While I was still a long way off I saw my lady at the oriel watching for me. I saw her face light up when she caught sight of me; and if, after that, I could have found any excuse for loitering in the street, or putting off my report, I should have been thankful. But there was no escape. In a moment the animation of the street was behind me, the silence of the house 'fell round me, and I stood before her. She was alone. I think that Marie had been with her; if so, she had sent her away.
'Well?' she said, looking keenly at me, and doubtless drawing her conclusions from my face. 'The Count was away?'
'No, my lady.'
'Then--you saw him?' with surprise.
'Yes.'
'And gave him the letter?'
'Yes, my lady.'
'Well'--this with impatience, and her foot began to tap the floor--'did he give you no answer?'
'No, my lady.'
She looked astonished, offended, then troubled. 'Neither in writing nor by word of mouth?' she said faintly.
'Only--that the King was about to give battle,' I stammered; 'and that if he survived, he would answer your excellency.'
She started, and looked at me searchingly, her colour fading gradually. 'That was all!' she said at last, a quaver in her voice. 'Tell me all, Martin. Count Leuchtenstein was offended, was he not?'
'I think that he was hurt, your excellency,' I confessed. 'He thought that the news about his child--should have been sent to him sooner. That was all.'
'All!' she ejaculated; and for a moment she said no more, but with that word, which thrilled me, she began to pace the floor. 'All!' she repeated presently. 'But I--yes, I am justly punished. I cannot confess to him; I will confess to you. Your girl would have had me tell him this, or let her tell him this. She pressed me; she went on her knees to me that evening. But I hardened my heart, and now I am punished. I am justly punished.'
I was astonished. Not that she took it lightly, for there was that in her tone as well as in her face that forbade the thought; but that she took it with so little passion, without tears or anger, and having been schooled so seldom in her life bore this schooling so patiently. She stood for a time after she had spoken, looking from the window with a wistful air, and her head drooping; and I fancied that she had forgotten my presence. But by-and-by she began to ask questions about the camp, and the preparations, and what men thought of the issue, and whether Wallenstein would come down from his heights or the King be driven to the desperate task of assaulting them. I told her all that I had heard. Then she said quietly that she would go to church; and she sent me to call Fraulein Max to go with her.
I found the Dutch girl sitting in a corner with her back to the windows, through which Marie and the women were gazing at the bustle and uproar and growing excitement of the street. She was reading in a great dusty book, and did not look up when I entered. Seeing her so engrossed, I had the curiosity to ask her, before I gave her my lady's message, what the book was.
'"The Siege of Leyden,"' she said, lifting her pale face for an instant, and then returning to her reading. 'By Bor.'
I could not refrain from smiling. It seemed to me so whimsical that she could find interest in the printed page, in this second-hand account of a siege, and none in the actual thing, though she had only to go to the window to see it passing before her eyes. Doubtless she read in Bor how men and women thronged the streets of Leyden to hear each new rumour; how at every crisis the bells summoned the unarmed to church; how through long days and nights the citizens waited for relief--and she found these things of interest. But here were the same portents passing before her eyes, and she read Bor!
'You are busy, I am afraid,' I said.
'I am using my time,' she answered primly.
'I am sorry,' I rejoined; 'for my lady wants you to go to church with her.'
She shut up her book with peevish violence, and looked at me with her weak eyes. 'Why does not your Papist go with her?' she said spitefully. 'And then you could do without me. As you do without me when you have secrets to tell! But I suppose you have brought things to such a pass now that there is nothing for it but church. And so I am called in!'
'I have given my lady's message,' I said patiently.
'Oh, I know that you are a faithful messenger!' she replied mockingly. 'Who writes love letters grows thin; who carries them, fat. You are growing a big man, Master Martin.'