Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Fraulein Max looked scared, but my lady’s face forbade argument or reply; and for my part I was not a whit unwilling. I turned and gave the order to Jacob. While he was away the Countess remained standing, tapping the floor with her foot.

  ‘On this day — on this day they might have abstained!’ she muttered wrathfully, as the chorus of riot and laughter grew each moment louder and wilder.

  I thought so too, and was glad besides of anything which might work a breach between her and the general. But I little knew what was going to happen. It came upon us while we waited, with no more warning than I have described. The door by which we had left the banqueting chamber flew suddenly open, and three men, borne in on a wave of cheering and uproar, staggered in upon us, the leader reeling under the blows which his applauding followers rained upon his shoulders.

  ‘There! Said I not so?’ he cried thickly, lurching to one side to escape them, and almost falling. ‘Where ish your Waska. Your Waska now I’d like to know! Waska is great, but I am — greater — greater, you see. I can shoot, drink, fight, and make love better than any man here! Eh! Who shays I can’t? Eh? Itsh the Countesh! My cousin the Countesh! Ah!’

  Alas, it was the Waldgrave! And yet not the Waldgrave. This man’s face was pale and swollen and covered with perspiration. His eyes were heavy and sodden, and his hair strayed over them. His collar and his coat were open at the neck, and his sash and the front of his dress were stained and reeking with wine. His hands trembled, his legs reeled, his tongue was too large for his mouth. He smiled fatuously at us. Yet it was the Waldgrave — drunk!

  My lady’s face froze as she looked at him. She raised her hand, and the men behind him fell back abashed and left him standing there, propping himself uncertainly against the wall.

  ‘Well, your excellenshy,’ he stuttered with a hiccough — the sudden silence surprised him— ‘you don’t congratulatsh me! Waska is under table. Under table, I shay!’

  My lady looked at him, her eyes blazing with scorn. But she said nothing; only her fingers opened and closed convulsively. I turned to see if Jacob had come back. He entered at that moment and General Tzerclas with him.

  ‘Your excellency’s horses are coming,’ the general said in his usual tone. Then he saw the Waldgrave and the open door, and he started with surprise. ‘What is this?’ he said. His face was flushed and his eyes were bright. But he was sober.

  The drunken man tried to straighten himself. ‘Ashk Waska!’ he said. Alas! his good looks were gone. I regarded him with horror, I knew what he had done.

  ‘The horses?’ the general muttered.

  My lady drew a deep breath, as a person recovering consciousness does, and turned slowly towards him. ‘Yes,’ she said, shuddering from head to foot, ‘if you please. I wish to go.’

  The young lord heard the horses come to the door, and staggered forward. ‘Yesh, letsh go. I’ll go too,’ he stuttered with a foolish laugh. ‘Letsh all go. Except Waska! He is under the table. Letsh all go, I say! Eh? Whatsh thish?’

  I pushed him back and held him against the wall while the general led my lady out. But, oh the pity of it, the wrath, the disappointment that filled my breast as I did so! This was the end of my duel! This was the stay to which I had trusted! The Waldgrave’s influence with my lady? It was gone — gone as if it had never been. A spider’s web, a rope of sand, a straw were after this a stronger thing to depend upon, a more sure safeguard, a stouter holdfast for a man in peril!

  * * * * *

  He came to my lady next morning about two hours after sunrise, when the dew was still on the grass and the birds — such as had lost their first broods or were mating late — were in full song. The camp was sleeping off its debauch, and the village street was bright and empty, with a dog here and there gnawing a bone, or sneaking round the corner of a building. My lady had gone out early to the fallen tree with her psalm book; and was sitting there in the freshness of the morning, with her back to the house and the street, when his shadow fell across the page and she looked up and saw him.

  She said ‘good morning’ very coldly, and he for a moment said nothing, but stood, sullenly making a hole in the dust with his toe and looking down at it. His face was pale, where it was not red with shame, and his eyes were heavy and dull; but otherwise the wine he had taken had left no mark on his vigorous youth.

  My lady after speaking looked down at her book again, and he continued to stand before her like a whipped schoolboy, stealing every now and then a furtive look at her. At length she looked up again.

  ‘Do you want anything?’ she said.

  This time he returned her gaze, with his face on fire, trying to melt her. And I think that there were not many more unhappy men at that moment than he. His fancy, liking, love were centred in the woman before him; in a mad freak he had outraged, insulted, estranged her. He did not know what to do, how to begin, what plan to put forward. He could for the moment only look, with shame and misery in his face.

  It was a plea that would have melted many, but my lady only grew harder. ‘Did you hear me?’ she said proudly. ‘Do you want anything?’

  ‘You know!’ he cried impetuously, and his voice broke out fiercely and seemed to beat against her impassiveness as a bird against the bars of its cage. ‘I was a beast last night. But, oh, Rotha, forgive me.’

  ‘I think that we had better not talk about it,’ my lady answered him stonily. ‘It is past, and we need not quarrel over it. I shall be wiser next time,’ she added. ‘That is all.’

  ‘Wiser?’ he muttered.

  ‘Yes; wiser than to trust myself to your protection,’ she replied ruthlessly.

  He shrank back as if she had struck him, and for a moment pain and rage brought the blood surging to his cheeks. He even took a step as if to leave her; but when love and pride struggle in a young man, love commonly has it, and he turned again and stood hesitating, the picture of misery.

  ‘Is that all you will say to me?’ he muttered, his voice unsteady.

  My lady moved her feet uneasily. Then she shut her book, and looked round as if she would have willingly escaped. But she was not stone; and when at length she turned to him, her face was changed.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ she asked gently.

  ‘That some day you will forgive me.’

  ‘I forgive you now,’ she rejoined firmly. ‘But I cannot forget. I do not think I ever can,’ she went on. ‘Last night I was in your charge among strangers. If danger had arisen, whose arm was to shield me, if not yours? If any had insulted me, to whom was I to look, if not to you? Yes, you may well hide your face,’ my lady continued, waxing bitter, despite herself. ‘I am not at Heritzburg now, and you should have remembered that. I am here with scanty protection, with few means to exact respect, a refugee, if you like, a mark for scandal, and your kinswoman. And you? for shame, Rupert!’

  He fell on his knees and seized her hand. ‘You are killing me!’ he cried in a choking voice, his face pale, his breath coming quickly. ‘For I love you, Rotha, I love you! And every word of reproach you utter is death to me.’

  ‘Hush, Rupert!’ she said quickly. And she tried to withdraw her hand. He had taken her by surprise.

  But he was not to be silenced; he kept her hand, though he rose to his feet. ‘It is true,’ he answered. ‘I have waited long enough. I must speak now, or it may be too late. I tell you, I love you!’

  The Countess’s face was crimson, her brow dark with vexation. ‘Hush!’ she said again, and more imperatively. ‘I have heard enough. It is useless.’

  ‘You have not heard me!’ he answered. ‘Don’t say so until you have heard me.’ And he sat down suddenly on the tree beside her, and looked into her face with pleading eyes. ‘You are letting last night weigh against me,’ he went on. ‘If that be all, I will never drink more than three cups of wine at a time as long as I live. I swear it.’

  She shook her head rather sadly. ‘That is not all, Rupert,’ she said.

  ‘Then what will you h
ave?’ he answered eagerly. He saw the change in her, and his eyes began to burn with hope as he looked. Her milder tone, her downcast head, her altered aspect, all encouraged him. ‘I love you, Rotha!’ he cried, raising her hand to his lips. ‘What more will you have? Tell me. All I have, and all I ever shall have — and I am young and may do great things — are yours. I have been riding behind you day by day, until I know every turn of your head, and every note of your voice. I know your step when you walk, and the rustle of your skirt among a hundred! And there is no other woman in the world for me! What if I am the youngest cadet of my house?’ he continued, leaning towards her; ‘this war will last many a year yet, and I will carve you a second county with my sword. Wallenstein did. Who was he? A simple gentleman. Now he is Duke of Friedland. And that Englishman who married a king’s sister? They succeeded, why should not I? Only give me your love, Rotha! Trust me; trust me once more and always, and I will not fail you.’

  He tried to draw her nearer to him, but the Countess shook her head, and looked at him with tears in her eyes. ‘Poor boy,’ she said slowly. ‘Poor boy! I am sorry, but it cannot be. It can never be.’

  ‘Why?’ he cried, starting as if she had stung him.

  ‘Because I do not love you,’ she said.

  He dropped her hand and sat glaring at her. ‘You are thinking of last night!’ he muttered.

  She shook her head. ‘I am not,’ she said simply. ‘I suppose that if I loved you, that and worse would go for nothing. But I do not.’

  Her calmness, her even tone went to his heart and chilled it. He winced, and uttering a low cry turned from her and hid his face in his hands.

  ‘Why not?’ he said thickly, after an interval. ‘Why can you not love me?’

  ‘Why does the swallow nest here and not there?’ the Countess answered gently. ‘I do not know. Why did my father love a foreigner and not one of his own people? I do not know. Neither do I know why I do not love you. Unless,’ she added, with rising colour, ‘it is that you are young, younger than I am; and a woman turns naturally to one older than herself.’

  Her words seemed to point so surely to General Tzerclas that the young man ground his teeth together. But he had not spirit to turn and reproach her then; and after remaining silent for some minutes, he rose.

  ‘Good-bye,’ he said in a broken voice. And he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  The Countess started. The words, the action impressed her disagreeably. ‘You are not going — away I mean?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he answered slowly. ‘But things are — changed. When we meet again it will be as — —’

  ‘Friends!’ she cried, her voice tender almost to yearning. ‘Say it shall be so. Let it be so always. You will not leave me alone here?’

  ‘No,’ he said simply, and with dignity. ‘I shall not.’

  Then he went away, quite quietly; and if the beginning of the interview had shown him to small advantage, the same could not be said of the end. He went down the street and through the camp with his head on his breast and a mist before his eyes. The light was gone out of the sunshine, the greenness from the trees. The day was grey and dreary and miserable. The blight was on all he saw. So it is with men. When they cannot have that which seems to them the best and fairest and most desirable thing in the world, nothing is good or pleasant or to be desired any longer.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  STALHANSKE’S FINNS.

  It was my ill luck, on that day which began so inauspiciously, to see two shadows: one on a man’s face, the Waldgrave’s, and of that I need say no more; the other, the shadow of a man’s body, an odd, sinister outline, crooked and strange and tremulous, that I came upon in a remote corner of the camp, to which I had wandered in my perplexity; a place where a few stunted trees ran down a steep bank to the river. I had never been to this place before, and, after a glance which showed me that it was the common sink and rubbish-bed of the camp, I was turning moodily away, when first this shadow and then the body which cast it caught my eye. The latter hung from the branch of an old gnarled thorn, the feet a few inches from the ground. A shuddering kind of curiosity led me to go up and look at the dead man’s face, which was doubled up on his breast; and then the desire to test the nerves, which is common to most men, induced me to stand staring at him.

  The time was two hours after noon, and there were few persons moving. The camp was half asleep. Heat, and flies, and dust were everywhere — and this gruesome thing. The body was stripped, and the features were swollen and disfigured; but, after a moment’s thought, I recognized them, and saw that I had before me the poor wretch who had appealed to my lady’s compassion after the shooting-match, and to whom the general had opened his hand so freely. The grim remarks I had then heard recurred now, and set me shuddering. If any doubt still remained in my mind, it was dissipated a moment later by a placard which had once hung round the dead man’s neck, but now lay in the dust at his feet. I turned it over. Chalked on it in large letters were the words ‘Beggars, beware!’

  I felt at first, on making the discovery, only horror and indignation, and a violent loathing of the camp. But these feelings soon passed, and left me free to consider how the deed touched us. Could I prove it? Could I bring it home to the general to my lady’s satisfaction, beyond denial or escape, and so open her eyes? And if I could, would it be wise, by doing so, to rouse his anger while she remained in the camp and in General Tzerclas’ power? I might only hasten the catastrophe.

  I found this a hard nut to crack, and was still puzzling over it, with my eyes on the senseless form which was already so far out of my thoughts, when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder and a harsh voice grated on my ear.

  ‘Well, Master Steward, a penny for your thoughts! They should be worth having, to judge by the way you rub your chin.’

  I started and looked round. The speaker was Captain Ludwig, who, with two of his fellows, had come up behind me while I mused. Something in his tone rather than his words — a note of menace — warned me to be careful; while the glum looks of his companions, as they glanced from me to the dead man, added point to the hint, and filled my mind with a sudden sense of danger. I had learned more than I had been intended to learn; I had found out something I had not been intended to find out. The very quietness and sunshine and the solitude of the place added horror to the moment. It was all I could do to hide my discomfiture and face them without flinching.

  ‘My thoughts?’ I said, forcing a grin. ‘They were not very difficult to guess. A sharp shrift, and a short rope? What else should a man think here?’

  ‘Ay?’ Ludwig said, watching me closely with his eyes half closed and his lips parted.

  He would say no more, and I was forced to go on. ‘It is not the first time I have seen a man dancing on nothing!’ I said recklessly; ‘but it gave me a turn.’

  He kicked the placard. ‘You are a scholar,’ he said. ‘What is this?’

  My face grew hot. I dared not deny my learning, for I did not know how much he knew; but, for the nonce, I wished heartily that I had never been taught to read.

  ‘That?’ I said, affecting a jovial tone to cover my momentary hesitation. ‘A seasonable warning. They are as thick here as nuts in autumn. We could spare a few more, for the matter of that.’

  ‘Ay, but this one?’ he retorted, coolly tapping the dead man with a little stick he carried, and then turning to look me in the face. ‘You have seen him before.’

  I made a great show of staring at the body, but I suppose I played my part ill, for before I could speak Ludwig broke in with a brutal laugh.

  ‘Chut, man!’ he said, with a sneer of contempt; ‘you know him; I see you do. And knew him all along. Well, if fools will poke their noses into things that do not concern them, it is not my affair. I must trouble you for your company awhile.’

  ‘Whither?’ I said, setting my teeth together and frowning at him.

  ‘To my master,’ he replied, with a curt nod. ‘Don’t say you won’t,’ he
continued with meaning, ‘for he is not one to be denied.’

  I looked from one to another of the three men, and for a moment the desperate clinging to liberty, which makes even the craven bold, set my hands tingling and sent the blood surging to my head. But reason spoke in time. I saw that the contest was too unequal, the advantage of a few minutes’ freedom too trivial, since the general must sooner or later lay his hand on me; and I crushed down the impulse to resist.

  ‘What scares you, comrades?’ I said, laughing savagely. They had recoiled a foot. ‘Do you see a ghost or a Swede, that you look so pale? Your general wants me? Then let him have me. Lead on! I won’t run away, I warrant you.’

  Ludwig nodded as he placed himself by my side. ‘That is the right way to take it,’ he said. ‘I thought that you might be going to be a fool, comrade.’

  ‘Like our friend there,’ I said dryly, pointing to the senseless form we were leaving. ‘He made a fuss, I suppose?’

  Ludwig shrugged his shoulders. ‘No,’ he answered, ‘not he so much; but his wife. Donner! I think I hear her screams now. And she cursed us! Ah!’

  I shuddered, and after that was silent. But more than once before we reached the general’s quarters the frantic desire to escape seized me, and had to be repressed. I felt that this was the beginning of the end, the first proof of the strong grasp which held us all helpless. I thought of my lady, I thought of Marie Wort, and I could have shrieked like a woman; for I was powerless like a woman — gripped in a hand I could not resist.

  The camp grilling and festering in the sunshine — how I hated it! It seemed an age I had lived in its dusty brightness, an age of vague fears and anxieties. I passed through it now in a feverish dream, until an exclamation, uttered by my companion as we turned into the street, aroused me. The street was full of loiterers, all standing in groups, and all staring at a little band of horsemen who sat motionless in their saddles in front of the general’s quarters. For a moment I took these to be the general’s staff. Then I saw that they were dressed all alike, that their broad, ruddy faces were alike, that they held themselves with the same unbending precision, and seemed, in a word, to be ten copies of one stalwart man. Near them, a servant on foot was leading two horses up and down, and they and he had the air of being on show.