'I grow fond of it,' he said. 'It is more fortunate in its weather than Brussels or Paris. The people are kind, the ladies clever as well as beautiful . . .' This last was an attempt to win another smile from her, but she made no sign.'. . . In their dancing as well as their looks,' he stumbled on. 'At the Prince's ball early this summer I saw a dance performed by the ladies alone. It reminded me very much of my home in the countryside of Brabant, which was where I last saw such a thing. I hope we will see more of it this season.'
'Oh, you mean the Lightstep?' she asked.
'I believe that was its name here, yes. In Brabant it was one of the May dances. The country women dance it as a charm . . .' He broke off, realizing that it would probably not be delicate to say what the charm was supposed to do.
She was looking at him. There was a mischievous smile on her lips. 'That is strange,' she said. 'For so do we.'
His heart thumped. Anna Poppenstahl, loudly clearing her throat, might never have existed.
'And it is apt, is it not?' she went on. 'To play with a man, after all, is to play with fire.'
'So . . . so it is sometimes said. Although I have felt it apt in another way. A dance has moves. It is a process. The dancers turn this way, turn that, but the end is already determined. The end of a courtship is of course not determined, but there is nevertheless an inevitability about it. The partners are expected to surrender to one another. If they do not, the onlookers would say that the courtship had gone wrong.'
Her eyes watched him pick his way along the very fringes of the impermissible. Why had he not seen before how pale they were? (Hey, Michel – have you ever looked at somebody?) They were pale and blue and clear. And why had he thought her jaw too heavy? It was beautiful and full, curving to the throat. He was beginning to blush. He knew it. 'Shall I . . .' he stammered. 'Er . . . Shall I see you dance it soon?'
Her eyes dropped at once. 'When I am out of mourning, of course.'
'Oh.' Idiot! Damned idiot! 'Of course. Forgive me.'
'There is nothing to forgive,' she sighed.
Her eyes strayed around the barrack room, recalling to her where she was, and why. 'Captain, you have been most kind . . .'
And now she was rising, and he was rising with her.
The women stopped in the door for Poppenstahl to rearrange Maria's cape. Poppenstahl bustled anxiously about her charge, as if by folding and patting the thing neatly enough into shape she might erase any trace of the conversation they had just had, with all its unfortunate trespasses. The girl exclaimed, 'It is all right, Anna. Really it is quite warm enough . . .' mingling amusement and exasperation. And Wéry remembered Albrecht's hand on his own shoulder, that first evening in Balcke's quarters, and his own voice gasping, 'I'm all right, I'm all right' as he stood still dripping with Rhine water among the ring of officers.
He felt no resentment towards Poppenstahl. She was only doing her duty as she should. He could even be sorry, now, that he had become angry with her at all. There was no harm in the woman, and much good. The very clumsiness with which she had offered her bribe showed that. And whatever influence the mother had had in the education of the young Albrecht and Maria, it would not be to Lady Adelsheim that they owed whatever humanity they had learned in their childhoods.
He followed them to the doorway and stood there as they stepped out into the sunlight of the yard. And for an instant the girl looked back, and caught his eye. She was smiling as she dropped her veil.
I'm a fool, he thought.
A fool, he thought again, as he paced the room where she had spent all those minutes in his company. And he was a traitor, too, to all the men who counted him a comrade.
He did not feel foolish. He felt . . . light. Lucky, perhaps: as if some hope or opportunity had opened somewhere, even if he could not quite think what it was or why his circumstances could suddenly be so much more promising than they appeared to be. His mind grappled cheerfully with the impossibilities of extracting a passport for an enemy officer from the palace. And – heaven willing – he might even have solved the problem of communicating with the Rhineland. A devil's bargain. Yes, but a good one, surely . . .
Baron Altmantz put his head around the door, learned that it had been 'about her brother mostly' and left muttering, 'Yes, of course, a good man. Such a waste . . .'
At last Wéry made his way up to his office. It was a narrow room of bare and dusty boards. The walls were plain whitewash. There were two small windows, a fireplace and the doorway to an even smaller room where he slept. The only furniture was his desk, his chair, and the cabinet in which he kept his unimportant papers.
The only decoration was a painting of the head of Christ, in agony upon the cross. It was small, in a plain frame, but in that sparsely-furnished room with the white walls the image jumped forcefully to the eye of anyone who came in.
In coarse strokes the artist had shown a face twisted in horrible pain. The mouth hung open in a silent howl, missing teeth and dribbling a dark fluid. The eyes rolled, and the whites showed strongly whenever the light outside began to fail. Wéry did not need telling that the artist had seen death for himself, or knew what it was to suffer agony. It was stamped on the canvas for anyone to see.
He walked up to it and peered at it closely. The background showed a landscape, peopled with allegorical figures, none of which seemed at all remarkable beside the tormented head. He studied them carefully, but in vain. There was nothing there that he had not found already.
XIII
Ways and Means
The rustle of paper, the scratch of a pen, were loud in the Prince's antechamber at dawn.
'This is your promotion to Major,' said Bergesrode tersely, holding out a letter.
'Congratulations,' added Fernhausen.
Wéry raised an eyebrow. 'Promotion? For one report?'
Less than half the captains in the hussar regiment would ever reach the rank of Major. Those that did would mostly be in their forties.
'No,' said Bergesrode. 'It's because he likes officers who think more about what they do than about who they are. And we've too few.'
'Thank you.'
'Don't thank me. If you must thank anyone, thank yourself. He's had his eye on you for a while.'
Wéry took the letter, opened it, and glanced down the page. He was conscious of the two secretaries watching him, in the fading glow of their lamps and the growing light from the windows. He was conscious, too, of the silent, closed doors to the inner room where the Prince himself had his office. It was a strange feeling, to think that he could rise from his place, walk over and throw open the doors to reveal the man who had elevated him, there at his desk.
It would be perfectly possible. It was only a matter of will and muscle. He had heard that the walls and ceilings of the Prince's chamber were covered with a great trompe l'oeil painting of Heaven. It was supposed to be famous. He was curious to see what it looked like, and what the Prince looked like too, heavy eyed in the early morning with scattered papers before him.
And yet he could not do it. All the barriers of thought and habit and expectation, in his own mind and in those of the men before him, kept him fast in his chair, and his eyes on the paper before him.
The commission was lengthy, flowery, and as full of unnecessary words as Erzberg's army was of unnecessary officers. It did not make him feel any different.
'Thank you,' he said at length. 'I have just one question.'
'What is it?'
'Does a major in His Highness's service merit a clerk . . . ? No, it matters!' he insisted, reading the secretaries' expressions. 'I am spending too much time copying reports. It is keeping me from important work. And there must be someone to receive them and pass them on if I am occupied.'
'We have a hundred clerks,' sighed Fernhausen. 'The problem is to find the right one.'
The problem was to find a clerk who would work, who could understand what was important and yet would not blab about it, who would not drink or gamble. Anyone that g
ood would be jealously guarded by the man he was already working for.
'I had thought, if we could not find the right man at once, that I might borrow one from the Office of the First Minister to begin with,' said Wéry gently. 'For one or two days a week, only. He could attend to his normal duties the rest of the time.'
The idea had come in the small hours of the night. Rather than try to persuade a man in Gianovi's office to give him a passport, why not persuade someone else to give him the man? Then the clerk could be in one office one day, in another the next, and no one would notice or care which papers he signed where. Only let him have a week to learn to know the fellow and then . . .
The two secretaries were looking at each other doubtfully. But they would rather pick a fight with the First Minister than part with one of their own.
'We'll do our best,' said Bergesrode.
'Thank you.'
If it did not work, he would have to try something else.
'I only said we would do our best. Now, important matters. What do you know about this coup in Paris?'
'Coup? Nothing at all. Has there been one?'
Bergesrode's mouth twitched in a rare sign of amusement. He enjoyed knowing more than his intelligence officer. 'The news came in overnight. A General Augereau took his troops into the city. Two of the Directory have been purged.'
'Have they! Which ones?'
'Barthélemy has been arrested. And Carnot has fled across the Rhine.'
'Has he!'
'Well? What does it mean?'
(What did it mean? It could mean a thousand things!)
'Are they more likely to attack us, or less?'
Wéry eased himself back in his chair. A coup by the army, against the Directors of France? In the past such news would have filled him with excitement. The fall of the Girondins he had thought would be the beginning of the end. Then Thermidor, and the fall of Robespierre – surely, this time, it would be the beginning of the end! But there had been so many twists and turns in France over the years. There was an awful stability in the way the Revolution devoured its leaders. He could no longer believe in a dawn that rose from Paris.
'Augereau is Bonaparte's man – or was, in Italy,' he mused.
'So?'
'It is hard to say. Yes, I suppose it makes an attack more likely.'
'Do not suppose. Find out! It's what we keep you for, isn't it?'
Bergesrode was glaring at him. Any congratulation in the priest's manner had vanished. They were back to the cold stare, the atmosphere of demand and urgency that surrounded the man like the air he breathed.
'I'll do my best,' said Wéry smoothly, borrowing Bergesrode's phrase from moments before. 'But . . . as you know, I came to talk about other matters.'
'About the Illuminati?'
Wéry shrugged. He was no more ready to talk about the Illuminati than he was to talk about coups. If the Prince's treasury could not afford the cost of an agent in Paris, he was damned if he was going to spend what it could afford on agents in Erzberg.
'About the defence of the city, principally.'
'Very well, tell me.'
'It is possible – with enough determination.'
'Tell me how.'
The priest's eyes betrayed not a wink of emotion as Wéry outlined the enormity of what must be done.
Lady Adelsheim, surrounded in the green satin of her dress that spread widely upon the settee, broke off from her other conversation to stare at her daughter.
'Anna – to Mainz?' she repeated.
'She is much concerned, Mother,' said Maria humbly. 'It would be a kindness to let her go.'
'She has not spoken to me of it.'
Behind Lady Adelsheim, the poet Icht stood patiently at the fireplace, waiting for her attention to swing back to him.
'Of course she will not, Mother. You know Anna. And if we press her of course she will deny it. But it is plain, nonetheless. You yourself have remarked,' she went on, appealing with her eyes to Icht,'how much she is anxious to visit her cousins, if only there were truly peace.'
'I recall it, my Lady,' said Icht dutifully.
'I recall it too,' said Lady Adelsheim. 'I was speaking with the Knight von Uhnen in this very room. My purpose was to expose the perfidy of the Emperor and the Prince concerning the status of the Rhineland. But that question is not settled yet. Besides, Maria, so long as you are here in Erzberg you must have a companion. You are too wilful, and too ready to forget you are in mourning.'
Her brow arched as she spoke, as if it were only too pitifully obvious that Maria was more interested in winning freedom for herself than in relieving Anna's concerns.
Maria dropped her eyes, feigning confusion.
'Icht?' said Mother, resuming her other conversation.
'Oh, I agree with you, my Lady. The chief fault of the Lutherans is that they do not admit private confession. Therefore they throw too much on the conscience of the individual.'
'Precisely what I said,' said Mother.
'Perhaps, then,' murmured Maria. 'Perhaps it would be best if I were to accompany Anna when she goes. I – would be willing to, Mother.'
'Really! Why this?'
'She is . . . dear to me. I knew I would miss her when she went.' Maria knew that she must talk as if it were absolutely settled that Anna should go and that the only question remaining was how Anna was to chaperon her at the same time. 'And it would keep me occupied, Mother.'
'I do not see how. There is almost no one left, west of the Rhine.'
Maria hesitated.
'I think there must be some people left, Mother,' she said. 'Indeed we know that Anna's cousins are there, and they cannot be the only ones!'
'You are impertinent, Maria. Of course I meant that there is no one of quality there – for the very good reason that they all seem to have fled to us! I do not doubt that Anna's cousins are honest enough, but they are not of our rank. In any case you will find little frivolity in the poor Rhineland at present. Although . . .' She put her head on one side and looked penetratingly at her daughter. 'Although for that reason it might be good for you, indeed. You are too wont to run simpering to the young men.'
'Indeed I do not think so, Mother!'
'Oh, you may say it. Perhaps you even believe it. But I saw you today at the levee, looking and looking among them. Whoever it was you were seeking was not there. Was it that man Wéry perhaps? Now he is Major Wéry, we understand! Really! So swift a promotion, one dreads to think what the man will yet become! It was very improper of you to have called on him in his barracks, Maria, and thoughtless for the memory of Albrecht too.'
'Indeed, Mother, it is not true . . .'
(How had she known? Dear Virgin – how had she known?)
'Not true? I may sometimes be mistaken, but I do not think so.' And with that she turned back to Icht and in almost the same breath she said, 'Yet I do not see why confession must be made to a priest.'
'My Lady! Absolution is a sacrament and must be properly administered.'
'Indeed it must. But one does not need to be a member of the Guild of Ironworkers to have the ability to work iron. One needs to be a member only so that other members will permit one to do so. Why must one be a member of the priesthood to be able to hear confession? I am sure I could do as well as any of them.'
She looked back to Maria and lifted an inquiring eyebrow.
'Mother,' said Maria, rallying from her surprise. 'It is true that I accompanied Anna to the hussar barracks. You will recall that you asked Anna to obtain a passport for Major Lanard. And we did not know which way to turn . . .'
'Many women, and all men, may be led,' said her mother simply. 'Anna is no different. It would be a simple thing to speak of Wéry in such a way as to make her think she should go to him. That is plain. You are learning to direct others. It is what I expect of you . . .'
Johann, one of the footmen had entered softly. Lady Adelsheim waved him forward with one finger even as she continued speaking.
'. .
. But the ends to which you manage them should not be your own gratification. We have serious business to attend to. This morning I am awaiting . . .' she examined the card that Johann produced for her. 'Löhm!' she cried. 'And behold, he is here.'
'He claims he has an appointment with you, my Lady.'
'Indeed he has,' said Lady Adelsheim. 'But he must wait a moment longer, while I find some papers. We have finished, Maria. You may go now.'
'Am I then to accompany Anna, mother?'
'I have not yet said that she should go. I do not see how your father could afford it at present. But yes, when she does, I believe you should.'
Maria found she was shaken – trembling, even – as she closed the door of her mother's study. How had Mother known about the visit to the barracks? Anna had promised she would not speak of it. Anna did not break her promises willingly, whatever misgivings she might have.
No, it would have come from the coachman or possibly gossip from someone acquainted with the hussars. But that she should have found out so quickly! Sometimes her ability to detect the thoughts of others was like witchcraft.
Tell me. Whom do you suppose that I may hate?
Yesterday Michel Wéry had looked her in the eye and talked of hatred. In that instant she had assumed he was talking of Mother. He had not been. Yet even so he too seemed to have read her thoughts. He had recognized in her something she had barely known herself, and had spoken to it. It had been strange, and awful.
Did she hate Balcke-Horneswerden? She supposed so. She could hate anyone who robbed her of Albrecht.
You did not love him as I did!
But she had not been defeated, this time. Not altogether. Mother had said that 'when' Anna went, Maria would go too. Of course Mother had not yet consented to think about when 'when' might be. She would make difficulties about money and such until she had decided for herself that it was necessary. And she would be suspicious if Maria approached her again. So Anna would have to be coaxed (and coached) into doing it. That would take time. Maria did not know how much time she had.
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