Delphi Collected Works of Ouida

by Ouida

  ‘He cares nothing at all about those,’ said the Princess, sharply. ‘If he had the position of Egon he would come. His political prospects! Do you pretend to be ignorant that he only went to the Chamber as he went to Romaris, because you recommended ambition and activity?’

  ‘If that be the case he is most wise not to come,’ answered, with some coldness, the châtelaine of Hohenszalras; and she went to visit the stables, which would be more important in the eyes of her Imperial mistress than any other part of the castle.

  ‘She will like Cadiga,’ she thought, as she stroked the graceful throat of an Arab mare which she had had over from Africa three months before, a pure bred daughter of the desert ‘shod with lightning.’

  She conversed long with her stallmeister Ulrich, and gave him various directions.

  ‘We are all grown very rustic and old-fashioned here,’ she said with a smile. ‘But the horses at least will not disgrace us.’

  Ulrich asked his most high countess if the Margraf von Sabran would be of the house party, and when she answered ‘No,’ said, with regret, that no one had ever looked so well on Siegfried as he had done.

  ‘He did ride very well,’ she said, and turned to the stall where the sorrel Siegfried stood. She sighed unconsciously as she drew the tufted hair hanging over-the horse’s forehead through her fingers with tenderness. What if she were to make Siegfried and all else his, if it were true that he loved her? She thrust the thought away almost before it took any real shape.

  ‘I do not even believe it,’ she said half aloud, and yet in her innermost heart she did believe it.

  The Imperial visit was made and became a thing of the past.

  The state apartments were opened, the servants wore their state liveries, the lake had its banners and flags, its decorated landing-stairs and velvet-cushioned boats; the stately and silent place was full for three days and nights of animated and brilliant life, and great hunting parties rejoiced the soul of old Otto, and made the forests ring with sound of horn and rifle. The culverins on the keep fired their salutes, the chimes of the island monastery echoed the bells of the clock tower of the Schloss, the schools sang with clear fresh voices the Kaiser’s Hymn, the sun shone, the jäger were in full glory, the castle was filled with guests and their servants,’ the long-unused theatre had a troop of Viennese to play comedies on its bijou stage, the ball-room, lined with its Venetian mirrors and its Reseiner gilding, was lit up once more after many years of gloom; the nobles of the provinces came from far and wide at the summons of the lady of Hohenszalras, and the greater nobles who formed the house-party were well amused and well content, whilst the Imperial guests were frankly charmed with all things, and honestly reluctant to depart.

  When she accompanied them to the foot of the terrace stairs, and there took leave of them, she could feel that their visit had been one of unfeigned enjoyment, and her farewell gift to her Kaiserin was Cadiga. They had left early on the morning of the fourth day, and the remainder of the day was filled till sunset by the departure of the other guests; it was fatiguing and crowded. When the last visitor had gone she dropped down on a great chair in the Rittersäal, and gave a long-drawn sigh of relief.

  ‘What a long strain on one’s powers of courtesy!’ she murmured. ‘It is more exhausting than to climb Gross Glöckner!’

  ‘It has been perfectly successful!’ said the Princess, whose cheeks were warm and whose eyes were bright with triumph.

  ‘It has been only a matter of money,’ said the Countess von Szalras, with some contempt. ‘Nothing makes one feel so bourgeoise as a thing like this. Any merchant or banker could do the same. It is impossible to put any originality into it. It is like diamonds. Any one only heard of yesterday could do as much if they had only the money to do it with; you do not seem to see what I mean?’

  ‘I see that, as usual, you are discontented when any other woman would be in paradise,’ answered the Princess, a little tartly. ‘Pray, could the bourgeoise have a residence ten centuries old?’

  ‘I am afraid she could buy one easily,’

  ‘Would that be the same thing?’

  ‘Certainly not, but it would enable her to do all I have done for the last three days, if she had only money enough; she could even give away Cadiga.’

  ‘She could not get Cadiga accepted!’ said Mme. Ottilie, drily. ‘You are tired, my love, and so do not appreciate your own triumphs. It has been a very great success.’

  ‘They were very kind; they are always so kind. But all the time I could not help thinking, were they not horribly fatigued. It wearied me so myself, I could not believe that they were otherwise than weary too.’

  ‘It has been a great success,’ repeated the Princess. ‘But you are always discontented.’

  Wanda did not reply; she leaned back against the Cordovan leather back of the chair, crushing her chestnut hair against the emblazoned scutcheon of her house; she was very fatigued, and her face was pale. For three whole days and evenings to preserve an incessant vigilance of courtesy, a continual assumption of interest, an unremitting appearance of enjoyment, a perpetual smile of welcome, is very tedious work: those in love with social successes are sustained by the consciousness of them, but she was not. An Imperial visit more or less could add not one hair’s breadth to the greatness of the house of Szalras.

  And there was a dull, half conscious pain at the bottom of her heart. She was thinking of Egon Vàsàrhely, who had said he could not leave his regiment; of Réné de Sabran, who had said he could not leave his country. Even to those who care nothing for society, and dislike the stir and noise of the world about them, there is still always a vague sense of depression in the dispersion of a great party; the house seems so strangely silent, the rooms seem so strangely empty, servants flitting noiselessly here and there, a dropped flower, a fallen jewel, an oppressive scent from multitudes of fading blossoms, a broken vase perhaps, or perhaps a snapped fan — these are all that are left of the teeming life crowded here one little moment ago. Though one may be glad they are all gone, yet there is a certain sadness in it. ‘Le lendemain de la fête’ keeps its pathos, even though the fête itself has possessed no poetry and no power to amuse.

  The Princess, who was very fatigued too, though she would not confess that social duties could ever exhaust anyone, went softly away to her own room, and Wanda sat alone in the great Rittersäal, with the afternoon light pouring through the painted casements on to the damascened armour, and the Flemish tapestries, and the great dais at the end of the hall, with its two-headed eagle that Dante cursed, its draperies of gold-coloured velvet, its escutcheons in beaten and enamelled metal.

  Discontented! The Princess had left that truthful word behind her like a little asp creeping upon a marble floor. It stung her conscience with a certain reproach, her pride with a certain impatience. Discontented! She who had always been so equable of temper, so enamoured of solitude, so honestly loyal to her people and her duties, so entirely grateful to the placid days that came and went as calmly as the breathing of her breast!

  Was it possible she was discontented?

  How all the great world that had just left her would have laughed at her, and asked what doubled rose-leaf made her misery?

  No one hardly on earth could be more entirely free than she was, more covered with all good gifts of fortune and of circumstances; and she had always been so grateful to her life until now. Would she never cease to miss the coming of the little boat across from the Holy Isle? She was angry that this memory should have so much power to pursue her thought and spoil the present hours. Had he but been there, she knew very well that the pageantry of the past three days would not have been the mere empty formalities, the mere gilded tedium that they had appeared to be to her.

  On natures thoughtful and profound, silence has sometimes a much greater power than speech. Now and then she surprised herself in the act of thinking how artificial human life had become, when the mere accident of a greater or lesser fortune determined whether
a man who respected himself could declare his feeling for a woman he loved. It seemed lamentably conventional and unreal, and yet had he not been fettered by silence he would have been no gentleman.

  Life resumed its placid even tenor at Hohenszalras after this momentary disturbance. Autumn comes early in the Glöckner and Venediger groups. Madame Ottilie with a shiver heard the north winds sweep through the yellowing forests, and watched the white mantle descend lower and lower down the mountain sides. Another winter was approaching, a winter in which she would see no one, hear nothing, sit all day by her wood fire, half asleep for sheer want of interest to keep her awake; the very postboy was sometimes detained by the snowfall for whole days together in his passage to and from Matrey.

  ‘It is all very well for you,’ she said pettishly to her niece. ‘You have youth, you have strength, you like to have four mad horses put in your sleigh and drive them like demoniacs through howling deserts of frozen pine forests, and come home when the great stars are all out, with your eyes shining like the planets, and the beasts all white with foam and icicles. You like that; you can do it; you prefer it before anything, but I — what have I to do? One cannot eat nougats for ever, nor yet read one’s missal. Even you will allow that the evenings are horribly long. Your horses cannot help you there. You embroider very artistically, but they would do that all for you at any convent; and to be sure you write your letters and audit your accounts, but you might just as well leave it all to your lawyers. Olga Brancka is quite right, though I do not approve of her mode of expression, but she is quite right — you should be in the world.’

  But she failed to move Wanda by a hair’s breadth, and soon the hush of winter settled down on Hohenszalras, and when the first frost had hardened the ground the four black horses were brought out in the sleigh, and their mistress, wrapped in furs to the eyes, began those headlong gallops through the silent forests which stirred her to a greater exhilaration than any pleasures of the world could have raised in her. To guide those high-mettled, half-broken, high-bred creatures, fresh from freedom on the plains of the Danube, was like holding the reins of the winds.

  One day at dusk as she returned from one of these drives, and went to see the Princess Ottilie before changing her dress, the Princess received her with a little smile and a demure air of triumph, of smiling triumph. In her hand was an open letter which she held out to her niece.

  ‘Read!’ she said with much self-satisfaction. ‘See what miracles you and the Holy Isle can work.’

  Wanda took the letter, which she saw at a glance was in the writing of Sabran. After some graceful phrases of homage to the Princess, he proceeded in it to say that he had taken his seat in the French Chamber, as deputy for his department.

  ‘I do not deceive myself,’ he continued. ‘The trust is placed in me for the sake of the memories of the dead Sabran, not because I am anything in the sight of these people; but I will endeavour to be worthy of it. I am a sorry idler and of little purpose and strength in life, but I will endeavour to make my future more serious and more deserving of the goodness which was showered on me at Hohenszalras. It grieved me to be unable to profit by the permission so graciously extended to me at the time of their Imperial Majesties’ sojourn with you, but it was impossible for me to come. My thoughts were with you, as they are indeed every hour. Offer my homage to the Countess von Szalras, with the renewal of my thanks.’

  Then, with some more phrases of reverence and compliment blent in one to the venerable lady whom he addressed, he ended an epistle which brought as much pleasure to the recipient as though she had been seventeen instead of seventy.

  She watched the face of Wanda during the perusal of these lines, but she did not learn anything from its expression.

  ‘He writes admirably,’ she said, when she had read it through; ‘and I think he is well fitted for a political career. They say that it is always best in politics not to be burdened with convictions, and he will be singularly free from such impediments, for he has none!’

  ‘You are very harsh and unjust,’ said the Princess, angrily. ‘No person can pay you a more delicate compliment than lies in following your counsels, and yet you have nothing better to say about it than to insinuate an unscrupulous immorality.’

  ‘Politics are always immoral.’

  ‘Why did you recommend them to him, then?’ said the Princess, sharply.

  ‘They are better than some other things — than rouge et noir, for instance; but I did not perhaps do right in advising a mere man of pleasure to use the nation as his larger gaming-table.’

  ‘You are beyond my comprehension! Your wire drawing is too fine for my dull eyesight. One thing is certainly quite clear to me, dull as I am; you live alone until you grow dissatisfied with everything. There is no possibility of pleasing a woman who disapproves of the whole living world!’

  ‘The world sees few unmixed motives,’ said Wanda, to which the Princess replied by an impatient movement.

  ‘The post has brought fifty letters for you. I have been looking over the journals,’ she answered. ‘There is something you may also perhaps deign to read.’

  She held out a French newspaper and pointed to a column in it.

  Wanda took it and read it, standing. It was a report of a debate in the French Chamber.

  She read in silence and attentively, leaning against the great carved chimney-piece. ‘I was not aware he was so good an orator,’ she said simply, when she had finished reading.

  ‘You grant that it is a very fine speech, a very noble speech?’ said Madame Otillie, eagerly and with impatience. ‘You perceive the sensation it caused; it is evidently the first time he has spoken. You will see in another portion of the print how they praise him.’

  ‘He has acquired his convictions with rapidity. He was a Socialist when here.’

  ‘The idea! A man of his descent has always the instincts of his order: he may pretend to resist them, but they are always stronger than he. You might at least commend him, Wanda, since your words turned him towards public life.’

  ‘He is no doubt eloquent,’ she answered, with ‘some reluctance. ‘That we could see here. If he be equally sincere he will be a great gain to the nobility of France.’

  ‘Why should you doubt his sincerity?’

  ‘Is mere ambition ever sincere?’

  ‘I really cannot understand you. You censured his waste of ability and accession; you seem equally disposed to cavil at his exertions and use of his talent. Your prejudices are most cruelly tenacious.’

  ‘How can I applaud your friend’s action until I am sure of his motive?’

  ‘His motive is to please you,’ thought the Princess, but she was too wary to say so.

  She merely replied:

  ‘No motive is ever altogether unmixed, as you cruelly observed; but I should say that his must be on the whole sufficiently pure. He wishes to relieve the inaction and triviality of a useless life.’

  ‘To embrace a hopeless cause is always in a manner noble,’ assented her niece. ‘And I grant you that he has spoken very well.’

  Then she went to her own room to dress for dinner.

  In the evening she read the reported speech again, with closer attention. It was eloquent, ironical, stately, closely reasoned, and rose in its peroration to a caustic and withering eloquence of retort and invective. It was the speech of a born orator, but it was also the speech of a strongly conservative partisan.

  ‘How much of what he says does he believe?’ she thought, with a doubt that saddened her and made her wonder why it came to her. And whether he believed or not, whether he were true or false in his political warfare, whether he were selfish or unselfish in his ambitions, what did it matter to her?

  He had stayed there a few weeks, and he had played so well that the echoes of his music still seemed to linger after him, and that was all. It was not likely they would ever meet again.

  CHAPTER X.

  With the New Year Madame Ottilie received another letter from
him. It was brief, grateful, and touching. It concluded with a message of ceremonious homage to the châtelaine of Hohenszalras. Of his entrance into political life it said nothing. With the letter came a screen of gilded leather which he had painted himself, with passages from the history of S. Julian Hospitador.

  ‘It will seem worthless,’ he said, ‘where every chamber is a museum of art; but accept it as a sign of my grateful and imperishable remembrance.’

  The Princess was deeply touched and sensibly flattered.

  ‘You will admit, at least,’ she said, with innocent triumph, ‘that he knows how to make gratitude graceful.’

  ‘It is an ex-voto, and you are his patron saint, dear mother,’ said the Countess Wanda, with a smile but the smile was one of approval. She thought his silence on his own successes and on her name was in good taste. And the screen was so admirably painted that the Venetian masters might have signed it without discredit.

  ‘May I give him no message from you,’ said the Princess, as she was about to write her reply.

  Her niece hesitated.

  ‘Say we have read his first speech, and are glad of his success,’ she said, after a few moments’ reflection.

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘What else should I say?’ replied Wanda, with some irritation.

  The Princess was too honourable a woman to depart from the text of the congratulation, but she contrived to throw a little more warmth into the spirit of it; and she did not show her letter to the mistress of Hohenszalras. She set the screen near her favourite chair in the blue-room.

  ‘If only there were any one to appreciate it!’ she said, with a sigh. ‘Like everything else in this house, it might as well be packed up in a chest for aught people see of it. This place is not a museum; the world goes to a museum: it is a crypt!’

  ‘Would it be improved by a crowd of sightseers at ten kreutzers a head?’