PART IICHAPTER IMemoir of Captain Basil Jennico (a portion, written early in the year 1772, in his rooms at Griffin’s, Curzon Street)Homein England once again, if home it can be called, this set of hired chambers, so dreary within, with outside the lowering fog and the unfamiliar sounds that were once so familiar. It is all strange, after eight years’ exile; and the grime, the noise, the narrow limits, the bustle of this great city, weary me after the noble silence, the wide life, at Tollendhal.It was with no lightening of my thoughts that I saw the white cliffs of old England break the sullen grey of the horizon, with no patriotic joy that I set foot on my native soil again, but rather with a heavy, heavy heart. What can this land be to me now but a land of exile? All that makes home to a man I have left behind me.I hardly know why I have resumed the thread of this miserable story. God knows that I have no good thing to narrate, and that this setting forth, this storing, as it were, of my bitter harvest of disappointments, can bring no solace with it. And yet man must hope as long as life lasts; and the hope keeps springing up again, in defiance of all reason, that, somehow, some day, we shall meet again. Therefore I write, in order that, should such a day come, she may read for herself and learn how the thought of her filled each moment of my life since our parting; that she may read how I have sought her, how I have mourned for her; that she may know that my love has never failed her.This it is that heartens me to my task. Moreover, all else is so savourless that I know not how otherwise to fill the time. I have been here five weeks; there are many houses where I am welcome, many friends who would gladly lend me their company, many places where young men can find distraction of divers kinds and degrees; but I have not succeeded in bringing myself to take up the new life with any zest: I had rather dwell upon the past in spite of all its bitterness, than face the desolation of the present.It was on the third day of the great storm that the pen fell from my hand at Tollendhal, and for four and twenty hours more that self-same storm raged in violence. One word of my old servant’s had brought me on a sudden to a definite purpose. I was full of eager hope of tracing her, of finding her, once it were possible to start upon the quest. For the gale which kept me prisoner must have retarded her likewise; and even with two days’ start, I told myself, she could not have gone far upon her road.But I reckoned without the difficulties which the first great snowfall of the year, before the hard frost comes to make it passable for sledging, was creating for us in these heights where the drifts fill to such depth. Day and night my fellows worked to cut a way for me down to the imperial road; and I worked with them, watched, encouraged them, and all, it seemed, to so little purpose that I thought I should have gone mad outright. The cruel heavens now smiled, now frowned, upon our work, so that, between frost and thaw and thaw and frost, the task was doubled, and my prison bars seemed to grow stronger instead of less.In this way it came to pass that it was full ten days from the time that she had left Tollendhalthat I was at length able to start forth in pursuit.My first stage was of course to the castle of the old Countess Schreckendorf, where I found the place well-nigh deserted, its mistress having been, even as I had been informed, a fortnight dead and buried. But there was a servant in charge of the empty, desolate house, and from her I gleaned tidings both precise and sufficient.The Princess had remained quietly at Schreckendorf during the weeks which had followed upon my marriage, but on the day previous to our return to Tollendhal from the shooting-lodge, a couple of couriers had arrived at the Countess’s gates close one upon the other, bringing, it would seem, important letters for the Princess, who had been greatly agitated upon receipt of them. She had hastily despatched a mounted messenger to my wife, whether with a private communication from herself or merely to forward missives addressed to her from her own home I know not; but at any rate the papers which Ottilie had hidden from me that fatal day were brought her by this man. After she left Tollendhal a few hours later, my wife had arrived at Schreckendorf in a peasant’s cart. That same evening two travelling coaches, bringing ladies, officers,and servants, had made their appearance at the castle; it was one of these coaches which went to the stronghouse next morning and bore away Ottilie’s belongings. In the afternoon the whole party, including my wife, had set forth in great haste for the north, despite universal warning of the gathering storm. There could be no doubt but that their destination was Lausitz, most probably the Residence itself, Budissin.When I had ascertained all this I promptly decided upon my course. Taking with me János only, I instantly started for the next post-town, where we were able to secure fresh horses, and whence we pushed on the same night some twenty miles farther.Not until the sixth evening, however, despite our extraordinarily hard travelling, did we, mounted upon a pair of sorry and worn-out nags, find ourselves crossing the bridge under the towered gates of Budissin. That was then the sixteenth day from the date of my wife’s flight.It seemed a singularly deserted town as we stumbled over the cobbles of the streets, with the early dusk of the November day closing in upon us—so few people passed us as we went, so few windows cast a light into the gloom, so many houses and shops presented but blank closedshutter-fronts. János knew his way, having ridden with my uncle in all this district during the late war. There was a very good inn, he told me, on the Burg Platz, in the shadow of the palace; and as nothing could suit my purpose better, to the “Silver Lion of Lusatia” we therefore turned our horses’ heads.It was cheering, after our long wayfaring, and the dismal nightmare-like impression of our passage through the empty town, to see the casements of that same “Silver Lion” shine afar off ruddily; and my heart leaped within me to discern, dimly sketched behind it, the towering outline of the palace, wherein, no doubt, my lost bird had found refuge.The voice of the red-faced host who, at sound of clattering hoofs before his door, came bustling to greet us as fast as his goodly bulk would allow, struck on my ear with cheering omen.“God greet ye, my lords!” he cried, as he lent a shoulder for my descent; “you are welcome this bitter night to fireside and supper. Enter, my lords; I have good wine, good beds, good supper, for your lordships, and the best beer that is brewed between Munich and Berlin. Joseph, thou rag, see to his lordship’s horses; wife, come greet our worshipful visitors!”I write down the jargon much as I heard it, for, as I write, I am back again at that moment and feel once more the glow of hope which crept into my heart, even as the genial warmth of the room unbent my frozen limbs. I had reached my journey’s end, and the old rhyme in the play, “journeys end in lovers meeting,” rang a merry burden in my thoughts.I marvel now that my hopes should have been so forward; that I should have reckoned so much more upon her woman’s love than upon her woman’s pride. Indeed, I had not deemed my sin so great but that my penitence would amply atone. So I was all eagerness to satisfy my hungering heart by tidings of her, and could hardly sit still to my supper—though we had ridden hard and I was famished—till I had induced mine host to sit beside me and crack a bottle of his most recommended Rhenish, which should unloose a tongue that scarcely needed such inducement. For her sake, that no scandal might be bruited about her fair name, I had determined to proceed cautiously.“You have a fine town here, friend,” said I, “so far as I can judge this dark night.”“Truly, your lordship may say so,” said he, and smacked his lips that I might understandhow great a relish this fruit of his cellar left on a man’s palate.“But it has a deserted look,” said I idly, just to encourage him in talk; “so many houses shut up—so few people about.”He rolled the wine round his mouth in a reflective manner, then swallowed it with a gulp, and threw an uneasy look at me. At the same instant there flashed upon my mind what, strange as it may seem, I had clean forgotten in the turmoil of my thoughts and the hurry of my pursuit: the reason for the very state of affairs I was commenting on—the plague of smallpox, the malady that had driven the Princess to my land! Ay, in very truth the town had a plague-stricken look, and I felt myself turn pale to think my wife had come back to this nest of infection.“The sickness,” said I then quickly,—“has it abated here? Nay, I know all about it, man, and have no fear of it. But how fares it in the town and in the palace?”“Oh, the sickness!” quoth mine host with a great awkward laugh. “His lordship means these few little cases of smallpox. Na, it had been nothing, and is all over now; only folk were such cowards and frightened themselves sick, and families fled because of this same foolishfear. Now myself, as his lordship sees, myself and my family and my servants, we have not known a day’s ill-health, because we kept our hearts up and drank good stuff. ’It is,’ as I said to his Highness himself, who never left the place, but went out in our midst, the noble prince, and spat at fear (besides that he had already had it, like myself),—’it is the wine,’ said I, ’or the beer, if you know where to get it, that keeps a man sound.’ And his Highness says to me——”But here I interrupted the speaker in a voice the trembling of which I could not control.“Is the Duke at the palace now, then, with all his household?”“He has been so, my lord,” said the man eagerly, “up to the last week; so long, indeed, as there was a suspicion of illness among us. But now he is at the summer castle, Ottilienruhe, near Rothenburg. ’Tis but three leagues from the town. The Princess, sir, is always fond of Ottilienruhe, even in this cold weather. And as she has but just returned from visiting at another Court, his Highness, her father, has gone to join her thither. Our Princess, sir, is a most beautiful young lady; nay, if you will allow me, I will show you a portrait of her, which we have framed in my wife’s room. A beautiful young lady, sir! Therewill be rare festivities when she weds her cousin, the Margrave of Liegnitz-Rothenburg. We have his portrait, too—a very noble gentleman! I would show you these pictures; I think you would admire them.”But I arrested him with a gesture, as, in the hopes of distracting my attention from an awkward topic, he was about to roll his bulk in quest of these treasures.I had no wish, indeed, to feast my eyes upon that face, the lineaments of which, with all their beauty, I could not bear to recall. What was it to me whomthatOttilie married? If they had had a portrait of my Ottilie, indeed!... But, sweet soul, she had told me herself of her obscurity and unimportance.“And so,” said I, “they are at the summer palace, your reigning family?”And though I had hugged the thought of her dear living presence so close to me this night, behind yonder palace walls, I nevertheless rejoiced to learn that she was safer harboured.“The Princess has her retinue with her, I suppose?”“Oh, ay,” said the innkeeper, rising as he spoke and clacking his tongue again over the last drop of his wine. “Though our Princess is so simple alass, if I may say so without disrespect, and loves not Court fashions. But she has one favourite companion, and they are as sisters together, so that when one sees her Highness, one may be sure the Fräulein is not far distant. Oh, ay, sir, they have returned from their travels together, though I have heard it rumoured that one or two of her Highness’s attendants have been left behind, dead or ailing. Na, it is better to stay at home: strange places are unwholesome!”He opened the stove door and shoved in two or three great logs, and I turned and stretched my limbs to the warmth with lazy content, and, for the first time for many a long day and night, a restful heart.To-morrow I should see her. When I slept that night I dreamed golden dreams.The next day dawned upon a world all involved in creeping grizzling mist, that seemed to ooze even into the comfortable rooms of the “Silver Lion”; that wrapped from my view the lofty towers of the palace beyond my window, and damped even my buoyant confidence. My good János had the toothache, and though it was not in him to complain, the sight of his swollen, suffering face did not further encourage me to cheer.A little before noon we mounted to ride forth to Ottilienruhe in the dismal weather. Our garments, despite the heiduck’s endless brushing, bore many traces of our hard journey. We cut but a poor figure, I thought, in these stained, rusty clothes; and the young lord of Tollendhal was ill-mounted upon the wretched jade, which had, nevertheless, faithfully served him upon his last cruel stage. The poor nag was yet full weary, and stumbled and drooped her head, while János’s white-faced bay might have stood for the very image of starving antiquity.I winced as I thought of Ottilie’s mocking glance; but the haste to see her overcame even my delicate vanity.Following my host’s directions, who marvelled greatly at our eccentricity that we should leave a warm stove door and good cheer from mere travellers’ curiosity on such a day, we pattered forth through the town again—through streets yet more ghost-like in their daylight emptiness than they had seemed yestereven; pattered once more across the wood of the bridge beneath which the sullen waters ran, without appearing to run, as grey and leaden as the heavens above.And after two hours’ dreary tramp along a poplar-bordered, deserted road, we saw before usthe gilded iron gateway of Ottilienruhe. Beyond there was a vision of French gardens; of bowling-greens all drenched; of flat terraces whereon the yews, fantastically cut, stood about like the pieces of a chessboard. Beyond that again rose the odd Grecian porticos and colonnades, the Chinese cupolas, appertaining to the summer pleasaunce of the reigning house.It might have looked fair enough under bright skies in summer weather, with roses on the empty beds and sunshine on the little yellow spires; but it seemed a most desolate place as it lay beneath my eyes that noon. I told myself I should find sunshine enough within, yet my heart lay heavy in my breast.A sentry, with his pointed fur cap drawn down over his eyes, with the collar of his great-coat drawn up above his ears, so that of his countenance only the end of a red nose was visible to the world, marched up and down before the gates, and, as we made ready to halt, challenged us roughly.At the sound of his call two more sentries appeared at different points, and tramped towards us with suspicion in their bearing.Evidently the Duke was well guarded. I rode a few steps forward, when, to my astonishment,it being full peace-time, the fellow brought his musket to the ready, and again cautioned me to pass on my way.“But my way is to the palace,” I bawled to him defiantly, despite the consciousness that the doubtful impression I must myself create could not be mitigated by the sight of János behind me. For I am bound to say that in the plain garb I had insisted on his donning, now much disordered, as I have said, by our travels, with the natural grimness of his countenance enhanced by a screw of pain, a more truculent-looking ruffian it would have been hard to find.But so far I did not anticipate any more serious difficulty than what a few arguments could remove: and I carried a heavy purse. So I added boldly:“I have business at the palace.”The man lowered his weapon and came a step nearer.“Whence come you?” he asked more civilly.“From Budissin,” said I.The musket instantly went up again, and its bearer retreated hastily a couple of paces.“‘Tis against orders,” he said, “because of the sickness; no one from Budissin may pass the gates.”The sickness again! I had, then, by my impetuosity, my haste to follow in her traces, but raised a new barrier between us.I dismounted, threw my reins to János, and advanced upon the soldier.“But, friend,” said I——The fellow covered me with his weapon.“Stand!” he cried roughly; “stand, or I fire!”I stood back stock-still. Here was a quandary indeed!“But, my God!” I cried to him, “I am a traveller. I have but passed through the town. I have come these eighty leagues upon urgent business, and I must see some one who I am told is in the palace.”So saying I drew forth a louis d’or, a stock of which I kept loose for such emergencies in my side pocket, and tossed it to the rascal.“Now get me speech with a person in authority,” said I.With one hand, and without lowering his fire-lock, he nimbly caught the coin on the fling and placed it in his mouth, after which he shook his head and remarked indistinctly:“‘Tis no use.”And then at last my sorely-tried patience broke down, impotent otherwise in front of his menacingbarrel. I cursed him long and loud with that choiceness and variety of epithet of which my own squadron-life experience as well as my apprenticeship to my great-uncle had given me a command.The clamour we made first drew the other soldiers, and next a little dapper officer from the guard-room behind the inner gate, who ran out towards us, and at the utmost pitch of his naturally piping voice demanded in the name of all gods, thunders, and lightning-blasts what the matter was.My particular sentinel’s utterance was something impeded by the louis d’or in his cheek, and I was consequently able to offer an explanation before him. Uncovering my head and bowing, I introduced myself in elegant phraseology, though of necessity, for the distance between us, in tones more suited to the parade ground than to a polite ceremony, and laid bare my unfortunate position. I bewailed that through my brief halt in Budissin, ignorant of the infection, I had evidently made myself amenable to quarantine, and requested his courteous assistance in the matter.My name was evidently quite unfamiliar to his ears, but, perceiving that he had to deal with an equal, the little officer at once returned my salutewith an extra flourish, and my civility by ordering the sentry to stand aside. Then, advancing gingerly in the mud to a more reasonable interval for conversation, he informed me, with another sweeping bow, that he was Captain Freiherr von Krappitz, and that, while it would be his pleasure to serve me in every possible manner, he regretted deeply that his orders were such that he could only ratify the sentry’s conduct.“And are there no means, then,” cried I “by which I can communicate in person with any resident of the palace?”“In person,” said the officer “I regret, none. His Serene Highness’s orders are stringent, and when I tell you that our Princess is actually behind these walls, you will understand the necessity. The sickness has been appalling,” he added.He must have seen the blank dismay upon my countenance, for his own sharp visage expressed a comical mixture of sympathy and curiosity, and again approaching two steps he proceeded:“I could perhaps convey some message. I shall soon be relieved from duty here. The person you wish to see is——?”“It is a lady,” said I, flushing.This was what the little gentleman had evidently expected. Suppressing a grin of satisfaction,he gave another salute and placed himself quite at my disposal. But I had an unsurmountable objection to announce my real relationship to the woman who had fled from my protection. Courteous as my interlocutor was, and honourable and kind as he seemed to be, I could send no message to my wife through him.“If you will see to the safe delivery of a letter,” said I, “I should be grateful indeed.”His face fell.“It is possible, perhaps,” he said dubiously, “but less easy of accomplishment. There will be the necessity of disinfection. If you think your billet-doux—forgive me for supposing you to be a sufferer from the tender passion, and believe me I speak with sympathy” (here he thumped his little chest and heaved from its restricted depths a noisy sigh)—“if you think your billet-doux will not lose of its sweetness by a prolonged immersion in vinegar, I will do what I can. Nay, I think I can promise you that your letter will be delivered, if you will kindly inform me who the fair recipient is to be.”Again I hesitated. I would not call her by her maiden name; to speak of her as my wife, to bawl my strange story on the high road, was not only intolerable to my pride, but seemed inadvisableand certainly imprudent in my ignorance of her attitude at the Court.“It is,” said I, “one of your Princess’s Court ladies.” And here his volubility spared me further circumlocution.“It can certainly not be,” he cried, “that you have formed an unhappy attachment for the Frau Gräfin von Kornstein? There remains then only the young Comtesse d’Assier, Fräulein von Auerbach and her sister, and Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen—these are all of our fair circle that are now in attendance at the palace.”“It is the last lady,” I said, and was at once glad of my own circumspection and troubled in my mind that she should be keeping her secret so well.“Mes compliments,” said he with a smirk, but I thought also with a shade of patronage, as if by mentioning her last he had also shown her to be the last in his worldly esteem. Once, doubtless, this would have galled me.“Then if I write now,” I cried, “and you, according to your kind offer, take charge of my letter, how soon can it be in her hands?”“But as soon as the guard has relieved me, good sir, am I free to act the gallant Mercury—pity it is that these sordid details of sicknessand quarantine should come to spoil so pretty an errand. This was a fair Court for Cupid before the ugly plague came on us. Yes,” he added, “I have seen days!”I had already drawn out my tablets, and, thanking him hurriedly (without, I fear, evincing much interest in his sentimental reflections), turned and, making a standing desk of my horse, with the sheet spread upon the saddle, began, all in the dreary drizzle, to trace with fingers stiffened from the cold the few lines which were to bring my wife back to me.I had little time for composition, and so wrote the words as they welled up from my heart.“Dear love,” said I, in the French which had been the language of our happiest moments, “your poor scholar has learnt his lesson so well that he cannot live without his teacher. Forget what has come between us. Remember only all that unites us, and forgive. I have, it seems, involved myself in difficulty by passing through Budissin, and so will, I fear, have to endure delay before being permitted sight of your sweet face again. But let me have a word which may help me to bear the separation, let me know that I may carry home my wife.” I signed it, “Your poor scholar and loving husband.” Then I folded it, fastened itwith a wafer, and after a minute’s pause decided to burn my ships and address it by the right name of her to whom I destined it—“Madame Ottilie de Jennico, Dame d’honneur de S. A. S. la Princesse Marie Ottilie de Lusace.”Bending over the living desk,—the poor patient brute never budged but for his heaving flanks,—I laid for a second, unperceived I thought, my lips upon that name which haunted me, sleeping and waking, and turning, with the letter in my hand, found the Freiherr watching me, with his head upon one side and so comic an air of sympathy that, at another moment, I should have burst out laughing.“It is mille dommages,” quoth he as, bending his supple spine again, he drew his sword with a charming gesture of courtesy, “that this chaste salute should have to pass through the bitter waves of the Court doctor’s vinegar basin before reaching the virginal lips for which it is intended.”“Then I may rely upon your countenance?” said I, unmindful of his mock Versailles floweriness as I fixed my missive to the point of the sword extended towards me for that purpose by the longest arm the little fellow could make. I knew he would not read the tell-tale inscription until the unpoetic process he had so feelinglylamented should have been gone through, and I wondered something anxiously whether it would not prove another complication, my wife in her wounded pride having thus chosen to conceal our marriage—in truth, I might have known it: had she not shaken off my ring? Seeing upon what grounds we had parted, however, I dared not have addressed her otherwise, and so could see no way but to run some risk.“When may I hope to receive an answer?—you will forgive my impatience,” said I, with a somewhat rueful smile, “for you have some knowledge of the human heart, I see, and so I venture further to trespass on your great courtesy. I will meet here any messenger you may depute at any hour you name this afternoon.”“Myself, sir, myself,” said the good-natured gentleman, “and in as short a space as possible. Shall we say three o’clock?”There were then a few minutes wanting to noon by my uncle’s famous chronometer. Three hours seemed long, but, as we must ever learn to do in life, I had to be content with a slice where I wanted the loaf. (Now I have not even a crumb for my starving heart, and yet I live.)As I had surmised, my messenger continued to hold the missive at the extreme length of hisweapon and arm, while we made our divers congees and compliments. Thus we parted, he to withdraw to his guard-house, and I, with my attendant, to ride back to the nearest village, with what appetite we might for our noonday meal.I rode alone again to the rendezvous, full early, poor fool! János I had sent on to find lodgings for me in the neighbourhood, out of range of infection, so that my time of purgatory need not be an hour prolonged.The sky had cleared somewhat and it rained no more, but there was now a penetrating and moisture-charged wind. A little after the stroke of three my friend of the morning came forth, waved aside the sentry as before, and halted within the former distance, while I dismounted. His countenance was far from bearing the beaming cordiality with which he had last surveyed me, nor had his bow anything like its previous depth and roundness. He drew a folded paper from his pocket, attached it to the point of his sword, according to the process I had already witnessed, and presented it to me, observing drily:“I regret, sir, that there seems to be some mistake about this matter. The Court doctor, who duly delivered the letter at the palace, informs me that none of her Highness’s ladies-in-waiting willconsent to receive it, it being indeed addressed to some person unknown among them. There is no lady of the name of Jennico among her Highness’s attendants.”I felt myself blanching.“Am I to understand,” said I, “that Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen has repudiated this letter?”“My good sir,” said he, looking at me, I thought, with a sort of compassion, as if he feared I was weak in my head, “I understand from the Court doctor that Mademoiselle Pahlen was the lady to whom the letter was at once offered, according to my request and yours. There is perhaps some mystery?”—here his interest seemed to flicker up again, and he smiled as who would say, “confide in me”; but I could not bring my tongue to this humiliation, less than ever then.I flicked the poor, vinegar-sodden, despised epistle from the point of his sword, and, spreading it out once again, added to it in a sort of frenzy this appeal:“For God’s sake forgive me! You cannot mean to send me away like this. Ottilie, write me one line, for from my soul I love you.”Then I pasted the sheet again, and, drawing a line through the title, wrote above it in great letters:“Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen,” and then I said to the officer:“You will be doing a deed of truer kindness than you can imagine, Captain von Krappitz, if you will have this letter placed again in the hands of Fräulein Pahlen. More I cannot say now, but some day, if my fortune is not more evil than I dare reflect upon, I will explain.”“Wait here half an hour,” he responded with a return of his good nature; “I am off duty and free for the rest of the day. If I can induce the Court doctor to attend to me—in truth, he is of a very surly mood this afternoon—I trust you may see me return a messenger of better tidings.”Besides a very bubbling heat of curiosity there was real amiability in this readiness to help me.The half hour sped and half an hour beyond it—why do I linger upon such details? From sheer cowardly reluctance, I believe, to describe those moments of my great despair.And then a cockscomb of a servant fellow, in gorgeous livery and ribboned cue, stepped forth from the gates, sniffing a bunch of stinking herbs, and stood and surveyed me for a second from head to foot, grinning all over his insolent visage, till I wonder how I kept my riding-whip from searing it across.“Well, sir?” said I sternly.He felt, maybe, the note of master in my voice, for he cringed a little, and, more civilly than his countenance suggested, requested to know if I was the gentleman with whom Captain the Freiherr von Krappitz had recently been conversing. Upon my reply he gingerly held up a filthy rag of paper, in which I recognised, with a failing of the heart such as I cannot set forth in words, my own letter once more. And in sight of my discomfiture, resuming his native impudence, he proceeded in loud tones:“My master bids me inform you that he can no longer be the means of annoying a young lady whom he respects so much as Mademoiselle Pahlen. She has requested that your letter may be returned to you again, and declares that she knows no such person as yourself, and is quite at a loss why she should be made the object of this strange persecution.”The rogue sang out the words as one repeating a lesson in which he has been well drilled.As I stood staring at him, all other feelings swallowed up in the overwhelming tide of my disappointment, I saw him, as in a dream, toss the much-travelled note in the mud between us, turn on his heel, exchange a grin with the nearestsentry, jerk his thumb over his shoulder in my direction, tap his forehead significantly, and finally swagger out of sight behind the little wicket.And still I stood immovable, unable to formulate a single thought in my paralysed brain, the whole world before me a dull blank, yet knowing that, when I should begin to feel again, it would be hell indeed.A shout from the sentry suddenly aroused me.“‘Tis better,” he called, “that you should move on.”And in good sooth what had I more to do before those gates? I mounted my horse and rode backwards and forwards upon that wretched scrap of paper that had been charged with all the dearest longings of my heart, until it lay indistinguishable in the mud around it. Then I set spurs to my jade, and we rode, a well-matched couple, away towards the strange village where I was to meet János.With the memory of that bitterest hour of his life burning so hot within him that he could continue his sedentary task no longer, but must rise and pace the room after the sullen way now well known to János as betokening his master’s worst moments, Basil Jennico laughed aloud. Pridemust have a fall! God knows his pride had had falls enough to kill the most robust of vices.Had ever man been so humiliated, so contemned as he? Had ever poor soul been made to suffer more relentlessly where it had sinned?“I have been brought low, very low,” said he to himself, and thought of the early days at Tollendhal when its young lord had deemed the whole earth created for his use. Yet, even as he spoke, he knew in his heart that the pride that was born in him would die with him only, and that if it had been mastered awhile it was only but because love had been stronger still.When he had taken the roturière unreservedly to his heart; when he had returned from the mountains to seek reconciliation; when he had followed her upon her flight, had twice besought her to return to him; when he had made his third and last futile appeal in the face of a slashing rebuff, pride had lain beneath the heel of love. He had been beaten, after all, by a pride greater than his own; and he knew that were she to call him even now, he would come to her bidding in spite of all and through all.The boards of the narrow, irregular room creaked beneath his impatient tread. Outside, the sounds of traffic were dying away. The last belatedcoaches had clattered down the streets, the tall running footman had extinguished his link. Basil Jennico turned instinctively towards the south, like the restless compass-needle, a way that had grown into a habit of late as his spirit strove to bridge across the leagues of sea and land that lay between him and his wife.Was she thinking of him now? What was his curse was at the same time his triumph: he defied her to forget him any more than he could forget her! Those hours, had she not shared them with him? Come what would, no man could lay claim to be to her what he had been.No man—that way madness lay!...He looked round at the pages scored with his writings and gave a heart-sick sigh, and then at the door of the room beyond, wherein stood that huge four-post bed where he had tossed through such sleepless hours and dreamed such dreams that the waking moment held the bitterness of death. Next he thought of the town beyond, so full, yet to him so empty.How to pass the time that went by with such leaden feet? The days were bad enough, but the nights—the nights were terrible! Should he don his most brilliant suit and hie him out into the throng of men of fashion? Some of the Woschutzskigold would not come amiss at the dicing-table of my Lady Brambury, or at the Cocoa-tree, or yet the Hummums, where (his head being as strong as the best of them) he could crack a few bottles in good company. Good company, forsooth! What could all the world be to him for want of that one small being? He might drink himself into oblivion, perhaps, a few hours’ oblivion, and be carried home in the early morning and wake at midday with a new headache and the old heartache. Pah!Of three evils choose the least: since the great feather bed would hold no sleep yet awhile; since to drag his misery into company was to add fire to its fever, Mr. Jennico sat down again to his task, hoping so to weary his brain that it would grant him a few hours’ dreamless rest.
PART IICHAPTER IMemoir of Captain Basil Jennico (a portion, written early in the year 1772, in his rooms at Griffin’s, Curzon Street)Homein England once again, if home it can be called, this set of hired chambers, so dreary within, with outside the lowering fog and the unfamiliar sounds that were once so familiar. It is all strange, after eight years’ exile; and the grime, the noise, the narrow limits, the bustle of this great city, weary me after the noble silence, the wide life, at Tollendhal.It was with no lightening of my thoughts that I saw the white cliffs of old England break the sullen grey of the horizon, with no patriotic joy that I set foot on my native soil again, but rather with a heavy, heavy heart. What can this land be to me now but a land of exile? All that makes home to a man I have left behind me.I hardly know why I have resumed the thread of this miserable story. God knows that I have no good thing to narrate, and that this setting forth, this storing, as it were, of my bitter harvest of disappointments, can bring no solace with it. And yet man must hope as long as life lasts; and the hope keeps springing up again, in defiance of all reason, that, somehow, some day, we shall meet again. Therefore I write, in order that, should such a day come, she may read for herself and learn how the thought of her filled each moment of my life since our parting; that she may read how I have sought her, how I have mourned for her; that she may know that my love has never failed her.This it is that heartens me to my task. Moreover, all else is so savourless that I know not how otherwise to fill the time. I have been here five weeks; there are many houses where I am welcome, many friends who would gladly lend me their company, many places where young men can find distraction of divers kinds and degrees; but I have not succeeded in bringing myself to take up the new life with any zest: I had rather dwell upon the past in spite of all its bitterness, than face the desolation of the present.It was on the third day of the great storm that the pen fell from my hand at Tollendhal, and for four and twenty hours more that self-same storm raged in violence. One word of my old servant’s had brought me on a sudden to a definite purpose. I was full of eager hope of tracing her, of finding her, once it were possible to start upon the quest. For the gale which kept me prisoner must have retarded her likewise; and even with two days’ start, I told myself, she could not have gone far upon her road.But I reckoned without the difficulties which the first great snowfall of the year, before the hard frost comes to make it passable for sledging, was creating for us in these heights where the drifts fill to such depth. Day and night my fellows worked to cut a way for me down to the imperial road; and I worked with them, watched, encouraged them, and all, it seemed, to so little purpose that I thought I should have gone mad outright. The cruel heavens now smiled, now frowned, upon our work, so that, between frost and thaw and thaw and frost, the task was doubled, and my prison bars seemed to grow stronger instead of less.In this way it came to pass that it was full ten days from the time that she had left Tollendhalthat I was at length able to start forth in pursuit.My first stage was of course to the castle of the old Countess Schreckendorf, where I found the place well-nigh deserted, its mistress having been, even as I had been informed, a fortnight dead and buried. But there was a servant in charge of the empty, desolate house, and from her I gleaned tidings both precise and sufficient.The Princess had remained quietly at Schreckendorf during the weeks which had followed upon my marriage, but on the day previous to our return to Tollendhal from the shooting-lodge, a couple of couriers had arrived at the Countess’s gates close one upon the other, bringing, it would seem, important letters for the Princess, who had been greatly agitated upon receipt of them. She had hastily despatched a mounted messenger to my wife, whether with a private communication from herself or merely to forward missives addressed to her from her own home I know not; but at any rate the papers which Ottilie had hidden from me that fatal day were brought her by this man. After she left Tollendhal a few hours later, my wife had arrived at Schreckendorf in a peasant’s cart. That same evening two travelling coaches, bringing ladies, officers,and servants, had made their appearance at the castle; it was one of these coaches which went to the stronghouse next morning and bore away Ottilie’s belongings. In the afternoon the whole party, including my wife, had set forth in great haste for the north, despite universal warning of the gathering storm. There could be no doubt but that their destination was Lausitz, most probably the Residence itself, Budissin.When I had ascertained all this I promptly decided upon my course. Taking with me János only, I instantly started for the next post-town, where we were able to secure fresh horses, and whence we pushed on the same night some twenty miles farther.Not until the sixth evening, however, despite our extraordinarily hard travelling, did we, mounted upon a pair of sorry and worn-out nags, find ourselves crossing the bridge under the towered gates of Budissin. That was then the sixteenth day from the date of my wife’s flight.It seemed a singularly deserted town as we stumbled over the cobbles of the streets, with the early dusk of the November day closing in upon us—so few people passed us as we went, so few windows cast a light into the gloom, so many houses and shops presented but blank closedshutter-fronts. János knew his way, having ridden with my uncle in all this district during the late war. There was a very good inn, he told me, on the Burg Platz, in the shadow of the palace; and as nothing could suit my purpose better, to the “Silver Lion of Lusatia” we therefore turned our horses’ heads.It was cheering, after our long wayfaring, and the dismal nightmare-like impression of our passage through the empty town, to see the casements of that same “Silver Lion” shine afar off ruddily; and my heart leaped within me to discern, dimly sketched behind it, the towering outline of the palace, wherein, no doubt, my lost bird had found refuge.The voice of the red-faced host who, at sound of clattering hoofs before his door, came bustling to greet us as fast as his goodly bulk would allow, struck on my ear with cheering omen.“God greet ye, my lords!” he cried, as he lent a shoulder for my descent; “you are welcome this bitter night to fireside and supper. Enter, my lords; I have good wine, good beds, good supper, for your lordships, and the best beer that is brewed between Munich and Berlin. Joseph, thou rag, see to his lordship’s horses; wife, come greet our worshipful visitors!”I write down the jargon much as I heard it, for, as I write, I am back again at that moment and feel once more the glow of hope which crept into my heart, even as the genial warmth of the room unbent my frozen limbs. I had reached my journey’s end, and the old rhyme in the play, “journeys end in lovers meeting,” rang a merry burden in my thoughts.I marvel now that my hopes should have been so forward; that I should have reckoned so much more upon her woman’s love than upon her woman’s pride. Indeed, I had not deemed my sin so great but that my penitence would amply atone. So I was all eagerness to satisfy my hungering heart by tidings of her, and could hardly sit still to my supper—though we had ridden hard and I was famished—till I had induced mine host to sit beside me and crack a bottle of his most recommended Rhenish, which should unloose a tongue that scarcely needed such inducement. For her sake, that no scandal might be bruited about her fair name, I had determined to proceed cautiously.“You have a fine town here, friend,” said I, “so far as I can judge this dark night.”“Truly, your lordship may say so,” said he, and smacked his lips that I might understandhow great a relish this fruit of his cellar left on a man’s palate.“But it has a deserted look,” said I idly, just to encourage him in talk; “so many houses shut up—so few people about.”He rolled the wine round his mouth in a reflective manner, then swallowed it with a gulp, and threw an uneasy look at me. At the same instant there flashed upon my mind what, strange as it may seem, I had clean forgotten in the turmoil of my thoughts and the hurry of my pursuit: the reason for the very state of affairs I was commenting on—the plague of smallpox, the malady that had driven the Princess to my land! Ay, in very truth the town had a plague-stricken look, and I felt myself turn pale to think my wife had come back to this nest of infection.“The sickness,” said I then quickly,—“has it abated here? Nay, I know all about it, man, and have no fear of it. But how fares it in the town and in the palace?”“Oh, the sickness!” quoth mine host with a great awkward laugh. “His lordship means these few little cases of smallpox. Na, it had been nothing, and is all over now; only folk were such cowards and frightened themselves sick, and families fled because of this same foolishfear. Now myself, as his lordship sees, myself and my family and my servants, we have not known a day’s ill-health, because we kept our hearts up and drank good stuff. ’It is,’ as I said to his Highness himself, who never left the place, but went out in our midst, the noble prince, and spat at fear (besides that he had already had it, like myself),—’it is the wine,’ said I, ’or the beer, if you know where to get it, that keeps a man sound.’ And his Highness says to me——”But here I interrupted the speaker in a voice the trembling of which I could not control.“Is the Duke at the palace now, then, with all his household?”“He has been so, my lord,” said the man eagerly, “up to the last week; so long, indeed, as there was a suspicion of illness among us. But now he is at the summer castle, Ottilienruhe, near Rothenburg. ’Tis but three leagues from the town. The Princess, sir, is always fond of Ottilienruhe, even in this cold weather. And as she has but just returned from visiting at another Court, his Highness, her father, has gone to join her thither. Our Princess, sir, is a most beautiful young lady; nay, if you will allow me, I will show you a portrait of her, which we have framed in my wife’s room. A beautiful young lady, sir! Therewill be rare festivities when she weds her cousin, the Margrave of Liegnitz-Rothenburg. We have his portrait, too—a very noble gentleman! I would show you these pictures; I think you would admire them.”But I arrested him with a gesture, as, in the hopes of distracting my attention from an awkward topic, he was about to roll his bulk in quest of these treasures.I had no wish, indeed, to feast my eyes upon that face, the lineaments of which, with all their beauty, I could not bear to recall. What was it to me whomthatOttilie married? If they had had a portrait of my Ottilie, indeed!... But, sweet soul, she had told me herself of her obscurity and unimportance.“And so,” said I, “they are at the summer palace, your reigning family?”And though I had hugged the thought of her dear living presence so close to me this night, behind yonder palace walls, I nevertheless rejoiced to learn that she was safer harboured.“The Princess has her retinue with her, I suppose?”“Oh, ay,” said the innkeeper, rising as he spoke and clacking his tongue again over the last drop of his wine. “Though our Princess is so simple alass, if I may say so without disrespect, and loves not Court fashions. But she has one favourite companion, and they are as sisters together, so that when one sees her Highness, one may be sure the Fräulein is not far distant. Oh, ay, sir, they have returned from their travels together, though I have heard it rumoured that one or two of her Highness’s attendants have been left behind, dead or ailing. Na, it is better to stay at home: strange places are unwholesome!”He opened the stove door and shoved in two or three great logs, and I turned and stretched my limbs to the warmth with lazy content, and, for the first time for many a long day and night, a restful heart.To-morrow I should see her. When I slept that night I dreamed golden dreams.The next day dawned upon a world all involved in creeping grizzling mist, that seemed to ooze even into the comfortable rooms of the “Silver Lion”; that wrapped from my view the lofty towers of the palace beyond my window, and damped even my buoyant confidence. My good János had the toothache, and though it was not in him to complain, the sight of his swollen, suffering face did not further encourage me to cheer.A little before noon we mounted to ride forth to Ottilienruhe in the dismal weather. Our garments, despite the heiduck’s endless brushing, bore many traces of our hard journey. We cut but a poor figure, I thought, in these stained, rusty clothes; and the young lord of Tollendhal was ill-mounted upon the wretched jade, which had, nevertheless, faithfully served him upon his last cruel stage. The poor nag was yet full weary, and stumbled and drooped her head, while János’s white-faced bay might have stood for the very image of starving antiquity.I winced as I thought of Ottilie’s mocking glance; but the haste to see her overcame even my delicate vanity.Following my host’s directions, who marvelled greatly at our eccentricity that we should leave a warm stove door and good cheer from mere travellers’ curiosity on such a day, we pattered forth through the town again—through streets yet more ghost-like in their daylight emptiness than they had seemed yestereven; pattered once more across the wood of the bridge beneath which the sullen waters ran, without appearing to run, as grey and leaden as the heavens above.And after two hours’ dreary tramp along a poplar-bordered, deserted road, we saw before usthe gilded iron gateway of Ottilienruhe. Beyond there was a vision of French gardens; of bowling-greens all drenched; of flat terraces whereon the yews, fantastically cut, stood about like the pieces of a chessboard. Beyond that again rose the odd Grecian porticos and colonnades, the Chinese cupolas, appertaining to the summer pleasaunce of the reigning house.It might have looked fair enough under bright skies in summer weather, with roses on the empty beds and sunshine on the little yellow spires; but it seemed a most desolate place as it lay beneath my eyes that noon. I told myself I should find sunshine enough within, yet my heart lay heavy in my breast.A sentry, with his pointed fur cap drawn down over his eyes, with the collar of his great-coat drawn up above his ears, so that of his countenance only the end of a red nose was visible to the world, marched up and down before the gates, and, as we made ready to halt, challenged us roughly.At the sound of his call two more sentries appeared at different points, and tramped towards us with suspicion in their bearing.Evidently the Duke was well guarded. I rode a few steps forward, when, to my astonishment,it being full peace-time, the fellow brought his musket to the ready, and again cautioned me to pass on my way.“But my way is to the palace,” I bawled to him defiantly, despite the consciousness that the doubtful impression I must myself create could not be mitigated by the sight of János behind me. For I am bound to say that in the plain garb I had insisted on his donning, now much disordered, as I have said, by our travels, with the natural grimness of his countenance enhanced by a screw of pain, a more truculent-looking ruffian it would have been hard to find.But so far I did not anticipate any more serious difficulty than what a few arguments could remove: and I carried a heavy purse. So I added boldly:“I have business at the palace.”The man lowered his weapon and came a step nearer.“Whence come you?” he asked more civilly.“From Budissin,” said I.The musket instantly went up again, and its bearer retreated hastily a couple of paces.“‘Tis against orders,” he said, “because of the sickness; no one from Budissin may pass the gates.”The sickness again! I had, then, by my impetuosity, my haste to follow in her traces, but raised a new barrier between us.I dismounted, threw my reins to János, and advanced upon the soldier.“But, friend,” said I——The fellow covered me with his weapon.“Stand!” he cried roughly; “stand, or I fire!”I stood back stock-still. Here was a quandary indeed!“But, my God!” I cried to him, “I am a traveller. I have but passed through the town. I have come these eighty leagues upon urgent business, and I must see some one who I am told is in the palace.”So saying I drew forth a louis d’or, a stock of which I kept loose for such emergencies in my side pocket, and tossed it to the rascal.“Now get me speech with a person in authority,” said I.With one hand, and without lowering his fire-lock, he nimbly caught the coin on the fling and placed it in his mouth, after which he shook his head and remarked indistinctly:“‘Tis no use.”And then at last my sorely-tried patience broke down, impotent otherwise in front of his menacingbarrel. I cursed him long and loud with that choiceness and variety of epithet of which my own squadron-life experience as well as my apprenticeship to my great-uncle had given me a command.The clamour we made first drew the other soldiers, and next a little dapper officer from the guard-room behind the inner gate, who ran out towards us, and at the utmost pitch of his naturally piping voice demanded in the name of all gods, thunders, and lightning-blasts what the matter was.My particular sentinel’s utterance was something impeded by the louis d’or in his cheek, and I was consequently able to offer an explanation before him. Uncovering my head and bowing, I introduced myself in elegant phraseology, though of necessity, for the distance between us, in tones more suited to the parade ground than to a polite ceremony, and laid bare my unfortunate position. I bewailed that through my brief halt in Budissin, ignorant of the infection, I had evidently made myself amenable to quarantine, and requested his courteous assistance in the matter.My name was evidently quite unfamiliar to his ears, but, perceiving that he had to deal with an equal, the little officer at once returned my salutewith an extra flourish, and my civility by ordering the sentry to stand aside. Then, advancing gingerly in the mud to a more reasonable interval for conversation, he informed me, with another sweeping bow, that he was Captain Freiherr von Krappitz, and that, while it would be his pleasure to serve me in every possible manner, he regretted deeply that his orders were such that he could only ratify the sentry’s conduct.“And are there no means, then,” cried I “by which I can communicate in person with any resident of the palace?”“In person,” said the officer “I regret, none. His Serene Highness’s orders are stringent, and when I tell you that our Princess is actually behind these walls, you will understand the necessity. The sickness has been appalling,” he added.He must have seen the blank dismay upon my countenance, for his own sharp visage expressed a comical mixture of sympathy and curiosity, and again approaching two steps he proceeded:“I could perhaps convey some message. I shall soon be relieved from duty here. The person you wish to see is——?”“It is a lady,” said I, flushing.This was what the little gentleman had evidently expected. Suppressing a grin of satisfaction,he gave another salute and placed himself quite at my disposal. But I had an unsurmountable objection to announce my real relationship to the woman who had fled from my protection. Courteous as my interlocutor was, and honourable and kind as he seemed to be, I could send no message to my wife through him.“If you will see to the safe delivery of a letter,” said I, “I should be grateful indeed.”His face fell.“It is possible, perhaps,” he said dubiously, “but less easy of accomplishment. There will be the necessity of disinfection. If you think your billet-doux—forgive me for supposing you to be a sufferer from the tender passion, and believe me I speak with sympathy” (here he thumped his little chest and heaved from its restricted depths a noisy sigh)—“if you think your billet-doux will not lose of its sweetness by a prolonged immersion in vinegar, I will do what I can. Nay, I think I can promise you that your letter will be delivered, if you will kindly inform me who the fair recipient is to be.”Again I hesitated. I would not call her by her maiden name; to speak of her as my wife, to bawl my strange story on the high road, was not only intolerable to my pride, but seemed inadvisableand certainly imprudent in my ignorance of her attitude at the Court.“It is,” said I, “one of your Princess’s Court ladies.” And here his volubility spared me further circumlocution.“It can certainly not be,” he cried, “that you have formed an unhappy attachment for the Frau Gräfin von Kornstein? There remains then only the young Comtesse d’Assier, Fräulein von Auerbach and her sister, and Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen—these are all of our fair circle that are now in attendance at the palace.”“It is the last lady,” I said, and was at once glad of my own circumspection and troubled in my mind that she should be keeping her secret so well.“Mes compliments,” said he with a smirk, but I thought also with a shade of patronage, as if by mentioning her last he had also shown her to be the last in his worldly esteem. Once, doubtless, this would have galled me.“Then if I write now,” I cried, “and you, according to your kind offer, take charge of my letter, how soon can it be in her hands?”“But as soon as the guard has relieved me, good sir, am I free to act the gallant Mercury—pity it is that these sordid details of sicknessand quarantine should come to spoil so pretty an errand. This was a fair Court for Cupid before the ugly plague came on us. Yes,” he added, “I have seen days!”I had already drawn out my tablets, and, thanking him hurriedly (without, I fear, evincing much interest in his sentimental reflections), turned and, making a standing desk of my horse, with the sheet spread upon the saddle, began, all in the dreary drizzle, to trace with fingers stiffened from the cold the few lines which were to bring my wife back to me.I had little time for composition, and so wrote the words as they welled up from my heart.“Dear love,” said I, in the French which had been the language of our happiest moments, “your poor scholar has learnt his lesson so well that he cannot live without his teacher. Forget what has come between us. Remember only all that unites us, and forgive. I have, it seems, involved myself in difficulty by passing through Budissin, and so will, I fear, have to endure delay before being permitted sight of your sweet face again. But let me have a word which may help me to bear the separation, let me know that I may carry home my wife.” I signed it, “Your poor scholar and loving husband.” Then I folded it, fastened itwith a wafer, and after a minute’s pause decided to burn my ships and address it by the right name of her to whom I destined it—“Madame Ottilie de Jennico, Dame d’honneur de S. A. S. la Princesse Marie Ottilie de Lusace.”Bending over the living desk,—the poor patient brute never budged but for his heaving flanks,—I laid for a second, unperceived I thought, my lips upon that name which haunted me, sleeping and waking, and turning, with the letter in my hand, found the Freiherr watching me, with his head upon one side and so comic an air of sympathy that, at another moment, I should have burst out laughing.“It is mille dommages,” quoth he as, bending his supple spine again, he drew his sword with a charming gesture of courtesy, “that this chaste salute should have to pass through the bitter waves of the Court doctor’s vinegar basin before reaching the virginal lips for which it is intended.”“Then I may rely upon your countenance?” said I, unmindful of his mock Versailles floweriness as I fixed my missive to the point of the sword extended towards me for that purpose by the longest arm the little fellow could make. I knew he would not read the tell-tale inscription until the unpoetic process he had so feelinglylamented should have been gone through, and I wondered something anxiously whether it would not prove another complication, my wife in her wounded pride having thus chosen to conceal our marriage—in truth, I might have known it: had she not shaken off my ring? Seeing upon what grounds we had parted, however, I dared not have addressed her otherwise, and so could see no way but to run some risk.“When may I hope to receive an answer?—you will forgive my impatience,” said I, with a somewhat rueful smile, “for you have some knowledge of the human heart, I see, and so I venture further to trespass on your great courtesy. I will meet here any messenger you may depute at any hour you name this afternoon.”“Myself, sir, myself,” said the good-natured gentleman, “and in as short a space as possible. Shall we say three o’clock?”There were then a few minutes wanting to noon by my uncle’s famous chronometer. Three hours seemed long, but, as we must ever learn to do in life, I had to be content with a slice where I wanted the loaf. (Now I have not even a crumb for my starving heart, and yet I live.)As I had surmised, my messenger continued to hold the missive at the extreme length of hisweapon and arm, while we made our divers congees and compliments. Thus we parted, he to withdraw to his guard-house, and I, with my attendant, to ride back to the nearest village, with what appetite we might for our noonday meal.I rode alone again to the rendezvous, full early, poor fool! János I had sent on to find lodgings for me in the neighbourhood, out of range of infection, so that my time of purgatory need not be an hour prolonged.The sky had cleared somewhat and it rained no more, but there was now a penetrating and moisture-charged wind. A little after the stroke of three my friend of the morning came forth, waved aside the sentry as before, and halted within the former distance, while I dismounted. His countenance was far from bearing the beaming cordiality with which he had last surveyed me, nor had his bow anything like its previous depth and roundness. He drew a folded paper from his pocket, attached it to the point of his sword, according to the process I had already witnessed, and presented it to me, observing drily:“I regret, sir, that there seems to be some mistake about this matter. The Court doctor, who duly delivered the letter at the palace, informs me that none of her Highness’s ladies-in-waiting willconsent to receive it, it being indeed addressed to some person unknown among them. There is no lady of the name of Jennico among her Highness’s attendants.”I felt myself blanching.“Am I to understand,” said I, “that Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen has repudiated this letter?”“My good sir,” said he, looking at me, I thought, with a sort of compassion, as if he feared I was weak in my head, “I understand from the Court doctor that Mademoiselle Pahlen was the lady to whom the letter was at once offered, according to my request and yours. There is perhaps some mystery?”—here his interest seemed to flicker up again, and he smiled as who would say, “confide in me”; but I could not bring my tongue to this humiliation, less than ever then.I flicked the poor, vinegar-sodden, despised epistle from the point of his sword, and, spreading it out once again, added to it in a sort of frenzy this appeal:“For God’s sake forgive me! You cannot mean to send me away like this. Ottilie, write me one line, for from my soul I love you.”Then I pasted the sheet again, and, drawing a line through the title, wrote above it in great letters:“Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen,” and then I said to the officer:“You will be doing a deed of truer kindness than you can imagine, Captain von Krappitz, if you will have this letter placed again in the hands of Fräulein Pahlen. More I cannot say now, but some day, if my fortune is not more evil than I dare reflect upon, I will explain.”“Wait here half an hour,” he responded with a return of his good nature; “I am off duty and free for the rest of the day. If I can induce the Court doctor to attend to me—in truth, he is of a very surly mood this afternoon—I trust you may see me return a messenger of better tidings.”Besides a very bubbling heat of curiosity there was real amiability in this readiness to help me.The half hour sped and half an hour beyond it—why do I linger upon such details? From sheer cowardly reluctance, I believe, to describe those moments of my great despair.And then a cockscomb of a servant fellow, in gorgeous livery and ribboned cue, stepped forth from the gates, sniffing a bunch of stinking herbs, and stood and surveyed me for a second from head to foot, grinning all over his insolent visage, till I wonder how I kept my riding-whip from searing it across.“Well, sir?” said I sternly.He felt, maybe, the note of master in my voice, for he cringed a little, and, more civilly than his countenance suggested, requested to know if I was the gentleman with whom Captain the Freiherr von Krappitz had recently been conversing. Upon my reply he gingerly held up a filthy rag of paper, in which I recognised, with a failing of the heart such as I cannot set forth in words, my own letter once more. And in sight of my discomfiture, resuming his native impudence, he proceeded in loud tones:“My master bids me inform you that he can no longer be the means of annoying a young lady whom he respects so much as Mademoiselle Pahlen. She has requested that your letter may be returned to you again, and declares that she knows no such person as yourself, and is quite at a loss why she should be made the object of this strange persecution.”The rogue sang out the words as one repeating a lesson in which he has been well drilled.As I stood staring at him, all other feelings swallowed up in the overwhelming tide of my disappointment, I saw him, as in a dream, toss the much-travelled note in the mud between us, turn on his heel, exchange a grin with the nearestsentry, jerk his thumb over his shoulder in my direction, tap his forehead significantly, and finally swagger out of sight behind the little wicket.And still I stood immovable, unable to formulate a single thought in my paralysed brain, the whole world before me a dull blank, yet knowing that, when I should begin to feel again, it would be hell indeed.A shout from the sentry suddenly aroused me.“‘Tis better,” he called, “that you should move on.”And in good sooth what had I more to do before those gates? I mounted my horse and rode backwards and forwards upon that wretched scrap of paper that had been charged with all the dearest longings of my heart, until it lay indistinguishable in the mud around it. Then I set spurs to my jade, and we rode, a well-matched couple, away towards the strange village where I was to meet János.With the memory of that bitterest hour of his life burning so hot within him that he could continue his sedentary task no longer, but must rise and pace the room after the sullen way now well known to János as betokening his master’s worst moments, Basil Jennico laughed aloud. Pridemust have a fall! God knows his pride had had falls enough to kill the most robust of vices.Had ever man been so humiliated, so contemned as he? Had ever poor soul been made to suffer more relentlessly where it had sinned?“I have been brought low, very low,” said he to himself, and thought of the early days at Tollendhal when its young lord had deemed the whole earth created for his use. Yet, even as he spoke, he knew in his heart that the pride that was born in him would die with him only, and that if it had been mastered awhile it was only but because love had been stronger still.When he had taken the roturière unreservedly to his heart; when he had returned from the mountains to seek reconciliation; when he had followed her upon her flight, had twice besought her to return to him; when he had made his third and last futile appeal in the face of a slashing rebuff, pride had lain beneath the heel of love. He had been beaten, after all, by a pride greater than his own; and he knew that were she to call him even now, he would come to her bidding in spite of all and through all.The boards of the narrow, irregular room creaked beneath his impatient tread. Outside, the sounds of traffic were dying away. The last belatedcoaches had clattered down the streets, the tall running footman had extinguished his link. Basil Jennico turned instinctively towards the south, like the restless compass-needle, a way that had grown into a habit of late as his spirit strove to bridge across the leagues of sea and land that lay between him and his wife.Was she thinking of him now? What was his curse was at the same time his triumph: he defied her to forget him any more than he could forget her! Those hours, had she not shared them with him? Come what would, no man could lay claim to be to her what he had been.No man—that way madness lay!...He looked round at the pages scored with his writings and gave a heart-sick sigh, and then at the door of the room beyond, wherein stood that huge four-post bed where he had tossed through such sleepless hours and dreamed such dreams that the waking moment held the bitterness of death. Next he thought of the town beyond, so full, yet to him so empty.How to pass the time that went by with such leaden feet? The days were bad enough, but the nights—the nights were terrible! Should he don his most brilliant suit and hie him out into the throng of men of fashion? Some of the Woschutzskigold would not come amiss at the dicing-table of my Lady Brambury, or at the Cocoa-tree, or yet the Hummums, where (his head being as strong as the best of them) he could crack a few bottles in good company. Good company, forsooth! What could all the world be to him for want of that one small being? He might drink himself into oblivion, perhaps, a few hours’ oblivion, and be carried home in the early morning and wake at midday with a new headache and the old heartache. Pah!Of three evils choose the least: since the great feather bed would hold no sleep yet awhile; since to drag his misery into company was to add fire to its fever, Mr. Jennico sat down again to his task, hoping so to weary his brain that it would grant him a few hours’ dreamless rest.
PART II
Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico (a portion, written early in the year 1772, in his rooms at Griffin’s, Curzon Street)
Homein England once again, if home it can be called, this set of hired chambers, so dreary within, with outside the lowering fog and the unfamiliar sounds that were once so familiar. It is all strange, after eight years’ exile; and the grime, the noise, the narrow limits, the bustle of this great city, weary me after the noble silence, the wide life, at Tollendhal.
It was with no lightening of my thoughts that I saw the white cliffs of old England break the sullen grey of the horizon, with no patriotic joy that I set foot on my native soil again, but rather with a heavy, heavy heart. What can this land be to me now but a land of exile? All that makes home to a man I have left behind me.
I hardly know why I have resumed the thread of this miserable story. God knows that I have no good thing to narrate, and that this setting forth, this storing, as it were, of my bitter harvest of disappointments, can bring no solace with it. And yet man must hope as long as life lasts; and the hope keeps springing up again, in defiance of all reason, that, somehow, some day, we shall meet again. Therefore I write, in order that, should such a day come, she may read for herself and learn how the thought of her filled each moment of my life since our parting; that she may read how I have sought her, how I have mourned for her; that she may know that my love has never failed her.
This it is that heartens me to my task. Moreover, all else is so savourless that I know not how otherwise to fill the time. I have been here five weeks; there are many houses where I am welcome, many friends who would gladly lend me their company, many places where young men can find distraction of divers kinds and degrees; but I have not succeeded in bringing myself to take up the new life with any zest: I had rather dwell upon the past in spite of all its bitterness, than face the desolation of the present.
It was on the third day of the great storm that the pen fell from my hand at Tollendhal, and for four and twenty hours more that self-same storm raged in violence. One word of my old servant’s had brought me on a sudden to a definite purpose. I was full of eager hope of tracing her, of finding her, once it were possible to start upon the quest. For the gale which kept me prisoner must have retarded her likewise; and even with two days’ start, I told myself, she could not have gone far upon her road.
But I reckoned without the difficulties which the first great snowfall of the year, before the hard frost comes to make it passable for sledging, was creating for us in these heights where the drifts fill to such depth. Day and night my fellows worked to cut a way for me down to the imperial road; and I worked with them, watched, encouraged them, and all, it seemed, to so little purpose that I thought I should have gone mad outright. The cruel heavens now smiled, now frowned, upon our work, so that, between frost and thaw and thaw and frost, the task was doubled, and my prison bars seemed to grow stronger instead of less.
In this way it came to pass that it was full ten days from the time that she had left Tollendhalthat I was at length able to start forth in pursuit.
My first stage was of course to the castle of the old Countess Schreckendorf, where I found the place well-nigh deserted, its mistress having been, even as I had been informed, a fortnight dead and buried. But there was a servant in charge of the empty, desolate house, and from her I gleaned tidings both precise and sufficient.
The Princess had remained quietly at Schreckendorf during the weeks which had followed upon my marriage, but on the day previous to our return to Tollendhal from the shooting-lodge, a couple of couriers had arrived at the Countess’s gates close one upon the other, bringing, it would seem, important letters for the Princess, who had been greatly agitated upon receipt of them. She had hastily despatched a mounted messenger to my wife, whether with a private communication from herself or merely to forward missives addressed to her from her own home I know not; but at any rate the papers which Ottilie had hidden from me that fatal day were brought her by this man. After she left Tollendhal a few hours later, my wife had arrived at Schreckendorf in a peasant’s cart. That same evening two travelling coaches, bringing ladies, officers,and servants, had made their appearance at the castle; it was one of these coaches which went to the stronghouse next morning and bore away Ottilie’s belongings. In the afternoon the whole party, including my wife, had set forth in great haste for the north, despite universal warning of the gathering storm. There could be no doubt but that their destination was Lausitz, most probably the Residence itself, Budissin.
When I had ascertained all this I promptly decided upon my course. Taking with me János only, I instantly started for the next post-town, where we were able to secure fresh horses, and whence we pushed on the same night some twenty miles farther.
Not until the sixth evening, however, despite our extraordinarily hard travelling, did we, mounted upon a pair of sorry and worn-out nags, find ourselves crossing the bridge under the towered gates of Budissin. That was then the sixteenth day from the date of my wife’s flight.
It seemed a singularly deserted town as we stumbled over the cobbles of the streets, with the early dusk of the November day closing in upon us—so few people passed us as we went, so few windows cast a light into the gloom, so many houses and shops presented but blank closedshutter-fronts. János knew his way, having ridden with my uncle in all this district during the late war. There was a very good inn, he told me, on the Burg Platz, in the shadow of the palace; and as nothing could suit my purpose better, to the “Silver Lion of Lusatia” we therefore turned our horses’ heads.
It was cheering, after our long wayfaring, and the dismal nightmare-like impression of our passage through the empty town, to see the casements of that same “Silver Lion” shine afar off ruddily; and my heart leaped within me to discern, dimly sketched behind it, the towering outline of the palace, wherein, no doubt, my lost bird had found refuge.
The voice of the red-faced host who, at sound of clattering hoofs before his door, came bustling to greet us as fast as his goodly bulk would allow, struck on my ear with cheering omen.
“God greet ye, my lords!” he cried, as he lent a shoulder for my descent; “you are welcome this bitter night to fireside and supper. Enter, my lords; I have good wine, good beds, good supper, for your lordships, and the best beer that is brewed between Munich and Berlin. Joseph, thou rag, see to his lordship’s horses; wife, come greet our worshipful visitors!”
I write down the jargon much as I heard it, for, as I write, I am back again at that moment and feel once more the glow of hope which crept into my heart, even as the genial warmth of the room unbent my frozen limbs. I had reached my journey’s end, and the old rhyme in the play, “journeys end in lovers meeting,” rang a merry burden in my thoughts.
I marvel now that my hopes should have been so forward; that I should have reckoned so much more upon her woman’s love than upon her woman’s pride. Indeed, I had not deemed my sin so great but that my penitence would amply atone. So I was all eagerness to satisfy my hungering heart by tidings of her, and could hardly sit still to my supper—though we had ridden hard and I was famished—till I had induced mine host to sit beside me and crack a bottle of his most recommended Rhenish, which should unloose a tongue that scarcely needed such inducement. For her sake, that no scandal might be bruited about her fair name, I had determined to proceed cautiously.
“You have a fine town here, friend,” said I, “so far as I can judge this dark night.”
“Truly, your lordship may say so,” said he, and smacked his lips that I might understandhow great a relish this fruit of his cellar left on a man’s palate.
“But it has a deserted look,” said I idly, just to encourage him in talk; “so many houses shut up—so few people about.”
He rolled the wine round his mouth in a reflective manner, then swallowed it with a gulp, and threw an uneasy look at me. At the same instant there flashed upon my mind what, strange as it may seem, I had clean forgotten in the turmoil of my thoughts and the hurry of my pursuit: the reason for the very state of affairs I was commenting on—the plague of smallpox, the malady that had driven the Princess to my land! Ay, in very truth the town had a plague-stricken look, and I felt myself turn pale to think my wife had come back to this nest of infection.
“The sickness,” said I then quickly,—“has it abated here? Nay, I know all about it, man, and have no fear of it. But how fares it in the town and in the palace?”
“Oh, the sickness!” quoth mine host with a great awkward laugh. “His lordship means these few little cases of smallpox. Na, it had been nothing, and is all over now; only folk were such cowards and frightened themselves sick, and families fled because of this same foolishfear. Now myself, as his lordship sees, myself and my family and my servants, we have not known a day’s ill-health, because we kept our hearts up and drank good stuff. ’It is,’ as I said to his Highness himself, who never left the place, but went out in our midst, the noble prince, and spat at fear (besides that he had already had it, like myself),—’it is the wine,’ said I, ’or the beer, if you know where to get it, that keeps a man sound.’ And his Highness says to me——”
But here I interrupted the speaker in a voice the trembling of which I could not control.
“Is the Duke at the palace now, then, with all his household?”
“He has been so, my lord,” said the man eagerly, “up to the last week; so long, indeed, as there was a suspicion of illness among us. But now he is at the summer castle, Ottilienruhe, near Rothenburg. ’Tis but three leagues from the town. The Princess, sir, is always fond of Ottilienruhe, even in this cold weather. And as she has but just returned from visiting at another Court, his Highness, her father, has gone to join her thither. Our Princess, sir, is a most beautiful young lady; nay, if you will allow me, I will show you a portrait of her, which we have framed in my wife’s room. A beautiful young lady, sir! Therewill be rare festivities when she weds her cousin, the Margrave of Liegnitz-Rothenburg. We have his portrait, too—a very noble gentleman! I would show you these pictures; I think you would admire them.”
But I arrested him with a gesture, as, in the hopes of distracting my attention from an awkward topic, he was about to roll his bulk in quest of these treasures.
I had no wish, indeed, to feast my eyes upon that face, the lineaments of which, with all their beauty, I could not bear to recall. What was it to me whomthatOttilie married? If they had had a portrait of my Ottilie, indeed!... But, sweet soul, she had told me herself of her obscurity and unimportance.
“And so,” said I, “they are at the summer palace, your reigning family?”
And though I had hugged the thought of her dear living presence so close to me this night, behind yonder palace walls, I nevertheless rejoiced to learn that she was safer harboured.
“The Princess has her retinue with her, I suppose?”
“Oh, ay,” said the innkeeper, rising as he spoke and clacking his tongue again over the last drop of his wine. “Though our Princess is so simple alass, if I may say so without disrespect, and loves not Court fashions. But she has one favourite companion, and they are as sisters together, so that when one sees her Highness, one may be sure the Fräulein is not far distant. Oh, ay, sir, they have returned from their travels together, though I have heard it rumoured that one or two of her Highness’s attendants have been left behind, dead or ailing. Na, it is better to stay at home: strange places are unwholesome!”
He opened the stove door and shoved in two or three great logs, and I turned and stretched my limbs to the warmth with lazy content, and, for the first time for many a long day and night, a restful heart.
To-morrow I should see her. When I slept that night I dreamed golden dreams.
The next day dawned upon a world all involved in creeping grizzling mist, that seemed to ooze even into the comfortable rooms of the “Silver Lion”; that wrapped from my view the lofty towers of the palace beyond my window, and damped even my buoyant confidence. My good János had the toothache, and though it was not in him to complain, the sight of his swollen, suffering face did not further encourage me to cheer.A little before noon we mounted to ride forth to Ottilienruhe in the dismal weather. Our garments, despite the heiduck’s endless brushing, bore many traces of our hard journey. We cut but a poor figure, I thought, in these stained, rusty clothes; and the young lord of Tollendhal was ill-mounted upon the wretched jade, which had, nevertheless, faithfully served him upon his last cruel stage. The poor nag was yet full weary, and stumbled and drooped her head, while János’s white-faced bay might have stood for the very image of starving antiquity.
I winced as I thought of Ottilie’s mocking glance; but the haste to see her overcame even my delicate vanity.
Following my host’s directions, who marvelled greatly at our eccentricity that we should leave a warm stove door and good cheer from mere travellers’ curiosity on such a day, we pattered forth through the town again—through streets yet more ghost-like in their daylight emptiness than they had seemed yestereven; pattered once more across the wood of the bridge beneath which the sullen waters ran, without appearing to run, as grey and leaden as the heavens above.
And after two hours’ dreary tramp along a poplar-bordered, deserted road, we saw before usthe gilded iron gateway of Ottilienruhe. Beyond there was a vision of French gardens; of bowling-greens all drenched; of flat terraces whereon the yews, fantastically cut, stood about like the pieces of a chessboard. Beyond that again rose the odd Grecian porticos and colonnades, the Chinese cupolas, appertaining to the summer pleasaunce of the reigning house.
It might have looked fair enough under bright skies in summer weather, with roses on the empty beds and sunshine on the little yellow spires; but it seemed a most desolate place as it lay beneath my eyes that noon. I told myself I should find sunshine enough within, yet my heart lay heavy in my breast.
A sentry, with his pointed fur cap drawn down over his eyes, with the collar of his great-coat drawn up above his ears, so that of his countenance only the end of a red nose was visible to the world, marched up and down before the gates, and, as we made ready to halt, challenged us roughly.
At the sound of his call two more sentries appeared at different points, and tramped towards us with suspicion in their bearing.
Evidently the Duke was well guarded. I rode a few steps forward, when, to my astonishment,it being full peace-time, the fellow brought his musket to the ready, and again cautioned me to pass on my way.
“But my way is to the palace,” I bawled to him defiantly, despite the consciousness that the doubtful impression I must myself create could not be mitigated by the sight of János behind me. For I am bound to say that in the plain garb I had insisted on his donning, now much disordered, as I have said, by our travels, with the natural grimness of his countenance enhanced by a screw of pain, a more truculent-looking ruffian it would have been hard to find.
But so far I did not anticipate any more serious difficulty than what a few arguments could remove: and I carried a heavy purse. So I added boldly:
“I have business at the palace.”
The man lowered his weapon and came a step nearer.
“Whence come you?” he asked more civilly.
“From Budissin,” said I.
The musket instantly went up again, and its bearer retreated hastily a couple of paces.
“‘Tis against orders,” he said, “because of the sickness; no one from Budissin may pass the gates.”
The sickness again! I had, then, by my impetuosity, my haste to follow in her traces, but raised a new barrier between us.
I dismounted, threw my reins to János, and advanced upon the soldier.
“But, friend,” said I——
The fellow covered me with his weapon.
“Stand!” he cried roughly; “stand, or I fire!”
I stood back stock-still. Here was a quandary indeed!
“But, my God!” I cried to him, “I am a traveller. I have but passed through the town. I have come these eighty leagues upon urgent business, and I must see some one who I am told is in the palace.”
So saying I drew forth a louis d’or, a stock of which I kept loose for such emergencies in my side pocket, and tossed it to the rascal.
“Now get me speech with a person in authority,” said I.
With one hand, and without lowering his fire-lock, he nimbly caught the coin on the fling and placed it in his mouth, after which he shook his head and remarked indistinctly:
“‘Tis no use.”
And then at last my sorely-tried patience broke down, impotent otherwise in front of his menacingbarrel. I cursed him long and loud with that choiceness and variety of epithet of which my own squadron-life experience as well as my apprenticeship to my great-uncle had given me a command.
The clamour we made first drew the other soldiers, and next a little dapper officer from the guard-room behind the inner gate, who ran out towards us, and at the utmost pitch of his naturally piping voice demanded in the name of all gods, thunders, and lightning-blasts what the matter was.
My particular sentinel’s utterance was something impeded by the louis d’or in his cheek, and I was consequently able to offer an explanation before him. Uncovering my head and bowing, I introduced myself in elegant phraseology, though of necessity, for the distance between us, in tones more suited to the parade ground than to a polite ceremony, and laid bare my unfortunate position. I bewailed that through my brief halt in Budissin, ignorant of the infection, I had evidently made myself amenable to quarantine, and requested his courteous assistance in the matter.
My name was evidently quite unfamiliar to his ears, but, perceiving that he had to deal with an equal, the little officer at once returned my salutewith an extra flourish, and my civility by ordering the sentry to stand aside. Then, advancing gingerly in the mud to a more reasonable interval for conversation, he informed me, with another sweeping bow, that he was Captain Freiherr von Krappitz, and that, while it would be his pleasure to serve me in every possible manner, he regretted deeply that his orders were such that he could only ratify the sentry’s conduct.
“And are there no means, then,” cried I “by which I can communicate in person with any resident of the palace?”
“In person,” said the officer “I regret, none. His Serene Highness’s orders are stringent, and when I tell you that our Princess is actually behind these walls, you will understand the necessity. The sickness has been appalling,” he added.
He must have seen the blank dismay upon my countenance, for his own sharp visage expressed a comical mixture of sympathy and curiosity, and again approaching two steps he proceeded:
“I could perhaps convey some message. I shall soon be relieved from duty here. The person you wish to see is——?”
“It is a lady,” said I, flushing.
This was what the little gentleman had evidently expected. Suppressing a grin of satisfaction,he gave another salute and placed himself quite at my disposal. But I had an unsurmountable objection to announce my real relationship to the woman who had fled from my protection. Courteous as my interlocutor was, and honourable and kind as he seemed to be, I could send no message to my wife through him.
“If you will see to the safe delivery of a letter,” said I, “I should be grateful indeed.”
His face fell.
“It is possible, perhaps,” he said dubiously, “but less easy of accomplishment. There will be the necessity of disinfection. If you think your billet-doux—forgive me for supposing you to be a sufferer from the tender passion, and believe me I speak with sympathy” (here he thumped his little chest and heaved from its restricted depths a noisy sigh)—“if you think your billet-doux will not lose of its sweetness by a prolonged immersion in vinegar, I will do what I can. Nay, I think I can promise you that your letter will be delivered, if you will kindly inform me who the fair recipient is to be.”
Again I hesitated. I would not call her by her maiden name; to speak of her as my wife, to bawl my strange story on the high road, was not only intolerable to my pride, but seemed inadvisableand certainly imprudent in my ignorance of her attitude at the Court.
“It is,” said I, “one of your Princess’s Court ladies.” And here his volubility spared me further circumlocution.
“It can certainly not be,” he cried, “that you have formed an unhappy attachment for the Frau Gräfin von Kornstein? There remains then only the young Comtesse d’Assier, Fräulein von Auerbach and her sister, and Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen—these are all of our fair circle that are now in attendance at the palace.”
“It is the last lady,” I said, and was at once glad of my own circumspection and troubled in my mind that she should be keeping her secret so well.
“Mes compliments,” said he with a smirk, but I thought also with a shade of patronage, as if by mentioning her last he had also shown her to be the last in his worldly esteem. Once, doubtless, this would have galled me.
“Then if I write now,” I cried, “and you, according to your kind offer, take charge of my letter, how soon can it be in her hands?”
“But as soon as the guard has relieved me, good sir, am I free to act the gallant Mercury—pity it is that these sordid details of sicknessand quarantine should come to spoil so pretty an errand. This was a fair Court for Cupid before the ugly plague came on us. Yes,” he added, “I have seen days!”
I had already drawn out my tablets, and, thanking him hurriedly (without, I fear, evincing much interest in his sentimental reflections), turned and, making a standing desk of my horse, with the sheet spread upon the saddle, began, all in the dreary drizzle, to trace with fingers stiffened from the cold the few lines which were to bring my wife back to me.
I had little time for composition, and so wrote the words as they welled up from my heart.
“Dear love,” said I, in the French which had been the language of our happiest moments, “your poor scholar has learnt his lesson so well that he cannot live without his teacher. Forget what has come between us. Remember only all that unites us, and forgive. I have, it seems, involved myself in difficulty by passing through Budissin, and so will, I fear, have to endure delay before being permitted sight of your sweet face again. But let me have a word which may help me to bear the separation, let me know that I may carry home my wife.” I signed it, “Your poor scholar and loving husband.” Then I folded it, fastened itwith a wafer, and after a minute’s pause decided to burn my ships and address it by the right name of her to whom I destined it—“Madame Ottilie de Jennico, Dame d’honneur de S. A. S. la Princesse Marie Ottilie de Lusace.”
Bending over the living desk,—the poor patient brute never budged but for his heaving flanks,—I laid for a second, unperceived I thought, my lips upon that name which haunted me, sleeping and waking, and turning, with the letter in my hand, found the Freiherr watching me, with his head upon one side and so comic an air of sympathy that, at another moment, I should have burst out laughing.
“It is mille dommages,” quoth he as, bending his supple spine again, he drew his sword with a charming gesture of courtesy, “that this chaste salute should have to pass through the bitter waves of the Court doctor’s vinegar basin before reaching the virginal lips for which it is intended.”
“Then I may rely upon your countenance?” said I, unmindful of his mock Versailles floweriness as I fixed my missive to the point of the sword extended towards me for that purpose by the longest arm the little fellow could make. I knew he would not read the tell-tale inscription until the unpoetic process he had so feelinglylamented should have been gone through, and I wondered something anxiously whether it would not prove another complication, my wife in her wounded pride having thus chosen to conceal our marriage—in truth, I might have known it: had she not shaken off my ring? Seeing upon what grounds we had parted, however, I dared not have addressed her otherwise, and so could see no way but to run some risk.
“When may I hope to receive an answer?—you will forgive my impatience,” said I, with a somewhat rueful smile, “for you have some knowledge of the human heart, I see, and so I venture further to trespass on your great courtesy. I will meet here any messenger you may depute at any hour you name this afternoon.”
“Myself, sir, myself,” said the good-natured gentleman, “and in as short a space as possible. Shall we say three o’clock?”
There were then a few minutes wanting to noon by my uncle’s famous chronometer. Three hours seemed long, but, as we must ever learn to do in life, I had to be content with a slice where I wanted the loaf. (Now I have not even a crumb for my starving heart, and yet I live.)
As I had surmised, my messenger continued to hold the missive at the extreme length of hisweapon and arm, while we made our divers congees and compliments. Thus we parted, he to withdraw to his guard-house, and I, with my attendant, to ride back to the nearest village, with what appetite we might for our noonday meal.
I rode alone again to the rendezvous, full early, poor fool! János I had sent on to find lodgings for me in the neighbourhood, out of range of infection, so that my time of purgatory need not be an hour prolonged.
The sky had cleared somewhat and it rained no more, but there was now a penetrating and moisture-charged wind. A little after the stroke of three my friend of the morning came forth, waved aside the sentry as before, and halted within the former distance, while I dismounted. His countenance was far from bearing the beaming cordiality with which he had last surveyed me, nor had his bow anything like its previous depth and roundness. He drew a folded paper from his pocket, attached it to the point of his sword, according to the process I had already witnessed, and presented it to me, observing drily:
“I regret, sir, that there seems to be some mistake about this matter. The Court doctor, who duly delivered the letter at the palace, informs me that none of her Highness’s ladies-in-waiting willconsent to receive it, it being indeed addressed to some person unknown among them. There is no lady of the name of Jennico among her Highness’s attendants.”
I felt myself blanching.
“Am I to understand,” said I, “that Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen has repudiated this letter?”
“My good sir,” said he, looking at me, I thought, with a sort of compassion, as if he feared I was weak in my head, “I understand from the Court doctor that Mademoiselle Pahlen was the lady to whom the letter was at once offered, according to my request and yours. There is perhaps some mystery?”—here his interest seemed to flicker up again, and he smiled as who would say, “confide in me”; but I could not bring my tongue to this humiliation, less than ever then.
I flicked the poor, vinegar-sodden, despised epistle from the point of his sword, and, spreading it out once again, added to it in a sort of frenzy this appeal:
“For God’s sake forgive me! You cannot mean to send me away like this. Ottilie, write me one line, for from my soul I love you.”
Then I pasted the sheet again, and, drawing a line through the title, wrote above it in great letters:
“Fräulein Ottilie Pahlen,” and then I said to the officer:
“You will be doing a deed of truer kindness than you can imagine, Captain von Krappitz, if you will have this letter placed again in the hands of Fräulein Pahlen. More I cannot say now, but some day, if my fortune is not more evil than I dare reflect upon, I will explain.”
“Wait here half an hour,” he responded with a return of his good nature; “I am off duty and free for the rest of the day. If I can induce the Court doctor to attend to me—in truth, he is of a very surly mood this afternoon—I trust you may see me return a messenger of better tidings.”
Besides a very bubbling heat of curiosity there was real amiability in this readiness to help me.
The half hour sped and half an hour beyond it—why do I linger upon such details? From sheer cowardly reluctance, I believe, to describe those moments of my great despair.
And then a cockscomb of a servant fellow, in gorgeous livery and ribboned cue, stepped forth from the gates, sniffing a bunch of stinking herbs, and stood and surveyed me for a second from head to foot, grinning all over his insolent visage, till I wonder how I kept my riding-whip from searing it across.
“Well, sir?” said I sternly.
He felt, maybe, the note of master in my voice, for he cringed a little, and, more civilly than his countenance suggested, requested to know if I was the gentleman with whom Captain the Freiherr von Krappitz had recently been conversing. Upon my reply he gingerly held up a filthy rag of paper, in which I recognised, with a failing of the heart such as I cannot set forth in words, my own letter once more. And in sight of my discomfiture, resuming his native impudence, he proceeded in loud tones:
“My master bids me inform you that he can no longer be the means of annoying a young lady whom he respects so much as Mademoiselle Pahlen. She has requested that your letter may be returned to you again, and declares that she knows no such person as yourself, and is quite at a loss why she should be made the object of this strange persecution.”
The rogue sang out the words as one repeating a lesson in which he has been well drilled.
As I stood staring at him, all other feelings swallowed up in the overwhelming tide of my disappointment, I saw him, as in a dream, toss the much-travelled note in the mud between us, turn on his heel, exchange a grin with the nearestsentry, jerk his thumb over his shoulder in my direction, tap his forehead significantly, and finally swagger out of sight behind the little wicket.
And still I stood immovable, unable to formulate a single thought in my paralysed brain, the whole world before me a dull blank, yet knowing that, when I should begin to feel again, it would be hell indeed.
A shout from the sentry suddenly aroused me.
“‘Tis better,” he called, “that you should move on.”
And in good sooth what had I more to do before those gates? I mounted my horse and rode backwards and forwards upon that wretched scrap of paper that had been charged with all the dearest longings of my heart, until it lay indistinguishable in the mud around it. Then I set spurs to my jade, and we rode, a well-matched couple, away towards the strange village where I was to meet János.
With the memory of that bitterest hour of his life burning so hot within him that he could continue his sedentary task no longer, but must rise and pace the room after the sullen way now well known to János as betokening his master’s worst moments, Basil Jennico laughed aloud. Pridemust have a fall! God knows his pride had had falls enough to kill the most robust of vices.
Had ever man been so humiliated, so contemned as he? Had ever poor soul been made to suffer more relentlessly where it had sinned?
“I have been brought low, very low,” said he to himself, and thought of the early days at Tollendhal when its young lord had deemed the whole earth created for his use. Yet, even as he spoke, he knew in his heart that the pride that was born in him would die with him only, and that if it had been mastered awhile it was only but because love had been stronger still.
When he had taken the roturière unreservedly to his heart; when he had returned from the mountains to seek reconciliation; when he had followed her upon her flight, had twice besought her to return to him; when he had made his third and last futile appeal in the face of a slashing rebuff, pride had lain beneath the heel of love. He had been beaten, after all, by a pride greater than his own; and he knew that were she to call him even now, he would come to her bidding in spite of all and through all.
The boards of the narrow, irregular room creaked beneath his impatient tread. Outside, the sounds of traffic were dying away. The last belatedcoaches had clattered down the streets, the tall running footman had extinguished his link. Basil Jennico turned instinctively towards the south, like the restless compass-needle, a way that had grown into a habit of late as his spirit strove to bridge across the leagues of sea and land that lay between him and his wife.
Was she thinking of him now? What was his curse was at the same time his triumph: he defied her to forget him any more than he could forget her! Those hours, had she not shared them with him? Come what would, no man could lay claim to be to her what he had been.No man—that way madness lay!...
He looked round at the pages scored with his writings and gave a heart-sick sigh, and then at the door of the room beyond, wherein stood that huge four-post bed where he had tossed through such sleepless hours and dreamed such dreams that the waking moment held the bitterness of death. Next he thought of the town beyond, so full, yet to him so empty.
How to pass the time that went by with such leaden feet? The days were bad enough, but the nights—the nights were terrible! Should he don his most brilliant suit and hie him out into the throng of men of fashion? Some of the Woschutzskigold would not come amiss at the dicing-table of my Lady Brambury, or at the Cocoa-tree, or yet the Hummums, where (his head being as strong as the best of them) he could crack a few bottles in good company. Good company, forsooth! What could all the world be to him for want of that one small being? He might drink himself into oblivion, perhaps, a few hours’ oblivion, and be carried home in the early morning and wake at midday with a new headache and the old heartache. Pah!
Of three evils choose the least: since the great feather bed would hold no sleep yet awhile; since to drag his misery into company was to add fire to its fever, Mr. Jennico sat down again to his task, hoping so to weary his brain that it would grant him a few hours’ dreamless rest.