Then he read the despatch for the third time; turned to his writing-table; dropped into his chair; and prepared to write.
But the task, apparently, was not easy. Watching him from the fireside corner where I was sitting on a low stool with an open story-book upon my lap, I saw him begin and tear up three separate attempts. The fourth, however, seemed to be more successful. Once written, he read it over, copied it carefully, called to me for a light, sealed his letter, and addressed it to ‘His Excellency the Baron von Bulow’.
This done, he enclosed it under cover to ‘General Berndorf, Cologne’; and had just sealed the outer cover when the orderly came back. My father gave it to him with scarcely a word, and two minutes after we heard him clattering out of the courtyard at a hand-gallop.
Then my father came back to his chair by the fireside, lit his pipe, and sat thinking silently. I looked up in his face, but felt, somehow, that I must not speak to him; for the cloud was still there, and his thoughts were far away. Presently his pipe went out; but he held it still, unconscious and absorbed. In all the months we had been living at Brühl I had never seen him look so troubled.
So he sat, and so he looked for a long time—for perhaps the greater part of an hour—during which I could think of nothing but the despatch, and Monsieur Maurice, and the Minister of War; for that it all had to do with Monsieur Maurice I never doubted for an instant.
By just such another despatch, sealed and sent in precisely the same way, and from the same person, his coming hither had been heralded. How, then, should not this one concern him? And in what way would he be affected by it? Seeing that dark look in my father’s face, I knew not what to think or what to fear.
At length, after what had seemed to me an interval of interminable silence, the time-piece in the corner struck half-past three—the hour at which Monsieur Maurice was accustomed to give me the daily French lesson; so I got up quietly and stole towards the door, knowing that I was expected upstairs.
‘Where are you going, Gretchen?’ said my father, sharply.
It was the first time he had opened his lips since the orderly had clattered out of the courtyard.
‘I am going up to Monsieur Maurice,’ I replied.
My father shook his head. ‘Not today, my child,’ he said, ‘not today. I have business with Monsieur Maurice this afternoon. Stay here till I come back.’
And with this he got up, took his hat, and went quickly out of the room.
So I waited and waited—as it seemed to me for hours. The waning daylight faded and became dusk; the dusk thickened into dark; the fire burned red and dull; and still I crouched there in the chimney-corner. I had no heart to read, work, or fan the logs into a blaze. I just watched the clock, and waited. When the room became so dark that I could see the hands no longer, I counted the strokes of the pendulum, and told the quarters off upon my fingers.
When at length my father came back, it was past five o’clock, and dark as midnight.
‘Quick, quick, little Gretchen,’ he said, pulling off his hat and gloves, and unbuckling his sword. ‘A glass of kirsch, and more logs on the fire! I am cold through and through, and wet into the bargain.’
‘But—but, father, have you not been with Monsieur Maurice?’ I said, anxiously.
‘Yes, of course; but that was an hour ago, and more. I have been over to Kierberg since then, in the rain.’
He had left Monsieur Maurice an hour ago—a whole, wretched, dismal hour, during which I might have been so happy!
‘You told me to stay here till you came back,’ I said, scarce able to keep down the tears that started to my eyes.
‘Well, my little Mädchen?’
‘And—and I might have gone up to Monsieur Maurice, after all?’
My father looked at me gravely—poured out a second glass of kirsch—drew his chair to the front of the fire, and said:
‘I don’t know about that, Gretchen.’
I had felt all along that there was something wrong, and now I was certain of it.
‘What do you mean, father?’ I said, my heart beating so that I could scarcely speak. ‘What is the matter?’
‘May the devil make broth of my bones, if I know!’ said my father, tugging savagely at his mustache.
‘But there is something!’
He nodded grimly.
‘Monsieur Maurice, it seems, is not to have so much liberty,’ he said, after a moment. ‘He is not to walk in the grounds oftener than twice a week; and then only with a solider at his heels. And he is not to go beyond half a mile from the château in any direction. And he is to hold no communication whatever with any person, or persons, either in-doors or out-of-doors, except such as are in direct charge of his rooms or his person. And—and heaven knows what other confounded regulations besides! I wish the Baron von Bulow had been in Sptizbergen before he put it into the king’s head to send him here at all!’
‘But—but he is not to be locked up?’ I faltered, almost in a whisper.
‘Well, no—not exactly that; but I am to post a sentry in the corridor, outside his door.’
‘Then the king is afraid that Monsieur Maurice will run away?’
‘I don’t know—I suppose so,’ groaned my father.
I sat silent for a moment, and then burst into a flood of tears.
‘Poor Monsieur Maurice!’ I cried. ‘He has coughed so all the winter, and he was longing for the spring! We were to have gathered primroses in the woods when the warm days came back again—and—and—and I suppose the king doesn’t mean that I am not to speak to him any more!’
My sobs choked me, and I could say no more.
My father took me on his knee, and tried to comfort me.
‘Don’t cry, my little Gretchen,’ he said tenderly; ‘don’t cry! Tears can help neither the prisoner nor thee.’
‘But I may go to him all the same, father?’ I pleaded.
‘By my sword, I don’t know,’ stammered my father. ‘If it were a breach of orders . . . and yet for a baby like thee . . . thou’rt no more than a mouse about the room, after all!’
‘I have read of a poor prisoner who broke his heart because the gaoler killed a spider he loved,’ said I, through my tears.
My father’s features relaxed into a smile.
‘But do you flatter yourself that Monsieur Maurice loves my little Mädchen as much as that poor prisoner loved his spider?’ he said, taking me by the ear.
‘Of course he does—and a hundred thousand times better!’ I exclaimed, not without a touch of indignation.
My father laughed outright.
‘Thunder and Mars!’ said he, ‘is the case so serious? Then Monsieur Maurice, I suppose, must be allowed sometimes to see his little pet spider.’
He took me up himself next morning to the prisoner’s room, and then for the first time I found a sentry in occupation of the corridor. He grounded his musket and saluted as we passed.
‘I bring you a visitor, Monsieur Maurice,’ said my father.
He was leaning over the fire in a moody attitude when we went in, with his arms on the chimney-piece, but turned at the first sound of my father’s voice.
‘Colonel Bernhard,’ he said, with a look of glad surprise, ‘this is kind, I—I had scarcely dared to hope——’
He said no more, but took me by both hands, and kissed me on the forehead.
‘I trust I’m not doing wrong,’ said my father gruffly. ‘I hope it’s not a breach of orders.’
‘I am sure it is not,’ replied Monsieur Maurice, still holding my hands. ‘Were your instructions twice as strict, they could not be supposed to apply to this little maiden.’
‘They are strict enough, Monsieur Maurice,’ said my father, drily.
A faint flush rose to the prisoner’s cheek.
‘I know it,’ he said. ‘And they are as unnecessary as they are strict. I had given you my parole, Colonel Bernhard.’
My father pulled at his mustache, and looked uncomfortable.
; ‘I’m sure you would have kept it, Monsieur Maurice,’ he said.
Monsieur Maurice bowed.
‘I wish it, however, to be distinctly understood,’ he said, ‘that I withdrew that parole from the moment when a sentry was stationed at my door.’
‘Naturally—naturally.’
‘And, for my papers——’
‘I wish to heaven they had said nothing about them!’ interrupted my father, impatiently.
‘Thanks. ’Tis a petty tyranny; but it cannot be helped. Since, however, you are instructed to seize them, here they are. They contain neither political nor private matter—as you will see.’
‘I shall see nothing of the kind, Monsieur Maurice,’ said my father. ‘I would not read a line of them for a marshal’s bâton. The king must make a gaoler of me, if it so pleases him; but not a spy. I shall seal up the papers and send them to Berlin.’
‘And I shall never see my manuscript again!’ said Monsieur Maurice, with a sigh. ‘Well—it was my first attempt at authorship—perhaps my last—and there is an end to it!’
My father ground some new and tremendous oath between his teeth.
‘I hate to take it, Monsieur Maurice,’ he said. ‘’Tis an odious office.’
‘The office alone is yours, Colonel Bernhard,’ said the prisoner, with all a Frenchman’s grace. ‘The odium rests with those who impose it on you.’
Hereupon they exchanged formal salutations; and my father, having warned me not to be late for our mid-day meal, put the papers in his pocket, and left me to take my daily French lesson.
Chapter VII
The Marguerite’s Answer
The winter lingered long, but the spring came at last in a burst of sunshine. The grey mists were rent away, as if by magic. The cold hues vanished from the landscape. The earth became all freshness; the air all warmth; the sky all light. The hedgerows caught a tint of tender green. The crocuses came up in a single night. The woods which till now had remained bare and brown, flushed suddenly, as if the coming summer were imprisoned in their glowing buds. The birds began to try their little voices here and there. Never once, in all the years that have gone by since then, have I seen so startling a transition. It was as if the prince in the dear old fairy tale had just kissed the Sleeping Beauty, and all that enchanted world had sprung into life at the meeting of their lips.
But the spring, with its sudden beauty and brightness, seems to have no charm for Monsieur Maurice. He has permission to walk in the grounds twice a week—with a sentry at his heels; but of that permission he sternly refuses to take advantage. It was not wonderful that he preferred his fireside and his books, while the sleet and snow, and bitter east winds lasted; but it seems too cruel that he should stay there now, cutting himself off from all the warmth and sweetness of the opening season. In vain I come to him with my hands full of dewy crocuses. In vain I hang about him, pleading for just a turn or two on the terrace where the sunshine falls hottest. He shakes his head, and is immovable.
‘No, petite,’ he says. ‘Not today.’
‘That is just what you said yesterday, Monsieur Maurice.’
‘And it is just what I shall say tomorrow, Gretchen, if you ask me again.’
‘But you won’t stay in forever, Monsieur Maurice!’
‘Nay—“forever” is a big word, little Gretchen.’
‘I don’t believe you know how brightly the sun is shining!’ I say coaxingly. ‘Just come to the window and see.’
Unwillingly enough, he lets himself be dragged across the room —unwillingly he looks out upon the glittering slopes and budding avenues beyond.
‘Yes, yes—I see it,’ he replies with an impatient sigh; ‘but the shadow of that fellow in the corridor would hide the brightest sun that ever shone! I am not a galley-slave, that I should walk about with a garde-chiourme behind me.’
‘What do you mean, Monsieur Maurice?’ I ask, startled by his unusual vehemence.
‘I mean that I go free, petite—or not at all.’
‘Then—then you will fall ill!’ I falter, amid fast-gathering tears.
‘No, no—not I, Gretchen. What can have put that idea into your wise little head?’
‘It was papa, Monsieur Maurice. . . . he said you were——’
Then, thinking suddenly how pale and wasted he had become of late, I hesitated.
‘He said I was—what?’
‘I—I don’t like to tell!’
‘But if I insist on being told? Come, Gretchen, I must know what Colonel Bernhard said.’
‘He said it was wrong to stay in like this week after week, and month after month. He—he said you were killing yourself by inches, Monsieur Maurice.’
Monsieur Maurice laughed a short bitter laugh.
‘Killing myself!’ he repeated. ‘Well, I hope not; for weary as I am of it, I would sooner go on bearing the burden of life than do my enemies the favour of dying out of their way.’
The words, the look, the accent made me tremble. I never forgot them.
How could I forget that Monsieur Maurice had enemies—enemies who longed for his death?
So the first blush of early spring went by; and the crocuses lived their little life and passed away; and the primroses came in their turn, yellowing every shady nook in the scented woods; and the larches put on their crimson tassels, and the laburnum its mantle of golden fringe, and the almond tree burst into a leafless bloom of pink—and still Monsieur Maurice, adhering to his resolve, refused to stir one step beyond the threshold of his rooms.
Sad and monotonous now to the last degree, his life dragged heavily on. He wrote no more. He read, or seemed to read, nearly the whole day through; but I often observed that his eye ceased travelling along the lines, and that sometimes, for an hour and more together, he never turned a page.
‘My little Gretchen,’ he said to me one day, ‘you are too much in these close rooms with me, and too little in the open air and sunshine.’
‘I had rather be here, Monsieur Maurice,’ I replied.
‘But it is not good for you. You are losing all your roses.’
‘I don’t think it is good for me to be out when you are always indoors,’ I said, simply. ‘I don’t care to run about, and—and I don’t enjoy it.’
He looked at me—opened his lips as if about to speak—then checked himself; walked to the window; and looked out silently.
The next morning, as soon as I made my appearance, he said:
‘The French lesson can wait awhile, petite. Shall we go out for a walk instead?’
I clapped my hands for joy.
‘Oh, Monsieur Maurice!’ I cried, ‘are you in earnest?’
For in truth it seemed almost too good to be true. But Monsieur Maurice was in earnest, and we went—closely followed by the sentry.
It was a beautiful sunny April day. We went down the terraces and slopes; and in and out of the flower-beds, now gaudy with spring flowers; and on to the great central point whence the avenue diverged. Here we rested on a bench under a lime-tree, not far from the huge stone basin where the fountain played every Sunday throughout the summer, and the sleepy water-lilies rocked to and fro in the sunshine.
All was very quiet. A gardener went by now and then, with his wheelbarrow, or a gamekeeper followed by his dogs; a blackbird whistled low in the bushes; a cow-bell tinkled in the far distance; the wood-pigeons murmured softly in the plantations. Other passers-by, other sounds there were none—save when a noisy party of flaxen-haired, bare-footed children came whooping and racing along, but turned suddenly shy and silent at sight of Monsieur Maurice sitting under the lime-tree.
The sentry, meanwhile, took up his position against the pedestal of a mutilated statue close by, and leaned upon his musket.
Monsieur Maurice was at first very silent. Once or twice he closed his eyes, as if listening to the gentle sounds upon the air—once or twice he cast an uneasy glance in the direction of the sentry; but for a long time he scarcely moved or spoke.
At
length, as if following up a train of previous thought, he said suddenly:
‘There is no liberty. There are comparative degrees of captivity and comparative degrees of slavery; but of liberty, our social system knows nothing but the name. That sentry, if you asked him, would tell you that he is free. He pities me, perhaps, for being a prisoner. Yet he is even less free than myself. He is the slave of discipline. He must walk, hold up his head, wear his hair, dress, eat, and sleep according to the will of his superiors. If he disobeys, he is flogged. If he runs away, he is shot. At the present moment, he dares not lose sight of me for his life. I have done him no wrong; yet if I try to escape, it is his duty to shoot me. What is there in my captivity to equal the slavery of his condition? I cannot, it is true, go where I please; but, at least, I am not obliged to walk up and down a certain corridor, or in front of a certain sentry-box, for so many hours a day; and no power on earth could compel me to kill an innocent man who had never harmed me in his life.’
In an instant I had the whole scene before my eyes—Monsieur Maurice flying—pursued—shot down—brought back to die!
‘But—but you won’t try to run away, Monsieur Maurice!’ I cried, terrified at the picture my own fancy had drawn.
He darted a scrutinising glance at me, and said, after a moment’s hesitation:
‘If I intended to do so, petite, I should hardly tell Colonel Bernhard’s little daughter beforehand. Besides, why should I care now for liberty? What should I do with it? Have I not lost all that made it worth possessing—the hero I worshipped, the cause I honoured, the home I loved, the woman I adored? What better place for me than a prison—unless the grave?’
He roused himself. He had been thinking aloud, unconscious of my presence; but seeing my startled eyes fixed full upon his face, he smiled, and said with a sudden change of voice and manner:
‘Go pluck me that namesake of yours over yonder—the big white Marguerite on the edge of the grass plat. Thanks, petite. Now I’ll be sworn you guess what I am going to do with it? No? Well, I am going to question these little sibylline leaves, and make the Marguerite tell me whether I am destined to a prison all the days of my life. What! you never heard of the old flower sortilege? Why, Gretchen, I thought every little German maiden learned it in the cradle with her mother tongue!’
THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Page 35