CHAPTER XXXII.
A POOR GUERDON.
I had slept scantily the night before, and the excitement of the lasttwenty-four hours had worn me out. I was grieved for the gallant lifeso swiftly ebbing, and miserable on my lady's account; but sorrow ofthis kind is a sleepy thing, and the day was hot. I did not feel aboutthe Waldgrave as I had about Marie; and gradually my head nodded, andnodded again, until I fell fast asleep, on the seat within the door.
A man's voice, clear and penetrating, awoke me. 'Let him be,' it said.'Hark you, fellow, let him be. He was up last night; I will announcemyself.'
I was drowsy and understood only half of what I heard; and I shouldhave taken the speaker at his word, and turning over dropped offagain, if Steve had not kicked me and brought me to my feet with a cryof pain. I stood an instant, bewildered, dazzled by the sunlight,nursing my ankle in my hand. Then I made out where I was, and sawthrough the arch of the entrance Count Leuchtenstein dismounting inthe street. As I looked, he threw the reins to a trooper whoaccompanied him, and turned to come in.
'Ah, my friend,' he said, nodding pleasantly, 'you are awake. I willsee your mistress.'
I was not quite myself, and his presence took me aback. I stoodlooking at him awkwardly. 'If your excellency will wait a moment,' Ifaltered at last, 'I will take her pleasure.'
He glanced at me a moment, as if surprised. Then he laughed. 'Go,' hesaid. 'I am not often kept waiting.'
I was glad to get away, and I ran upstairs; and knocking hurriedly atthe parlour door, went in. My lady, pale and frowning, with a littlebook in her hand, got up hastily--from her knees, I thought. MarieWort, with tears on her cheeks, and Fraulein Max, looking scared,stood behind her.
The Countess looked at me, her eyes flashing. 'What is it?' she askedsharply.
'Count Leuchtenstein is below,' I said.
'Well?'
'He wishes to see your excellency.'
'Did I not say that I would see no one?'
'But Count Leuchtenstein?'
She laughed a shrill laugh full of pain--a laugh that had somethinghysterical in it. 'You thought that I would see _him?_' she cried.'Him, I suppose, of all people? Go down, fool, and tell him that evenhere, in this poor house, my doors are open to my friends and to themonly! Not to those who profess much and do nothing! Or to those whobark and do not bite! Count Leuchtenstein? Pah, tell him---- Silence,woman!' This to Marie, who would have interrupted her. 'Tell him whatI have told you, man, word for word. Or no'--and she caught herself upwith a mocking smile, such as I had never seen on her face before.'Tell him this instead--that the Countess Rotha is engaged with theWaldgrave Rupert, and wants no other company! Yes, tell him that--itwill bite home, if he has a conscience! He might have saved him, andhe would not! Now, when I would pray, which is all women can do, hecomes here! Oh, I am sick! I am sick!'
I saw that she was almost beside herself with grief; and I stoodirresolute, my heart aching for her. What I dared not do, Marie did.She sprang forward, and seizing the Countess's hand, knelt beside her,covering it with kisses.
'Oh, my lady!' she cried through her tears. 'Don't be so hard. Seehim. See him. Even at this last moment.'
With an inarticulate cry the Countess flung her off so forcibly thatthe girl fell to the ground. 'Be silent!' my lady cried, her eyes onfire. 'Or go to your prayers, wench. To your prayers! And do youbegone! Begone, and on your peril give my message, word for word!'
I saw nothing for it but to obey; and I went down full of dismay. Icould understand my lady's grief, and that I had come upon her at aninopportune moment. But the self-control which she had exhibitedbefore the Court rendered the violence of her rage now the moresurprising. I had never seen her in this mood, and her hardnessshocked me. I felt myself equally bewildered and grieved.
I found Count Leuchtenstein waiting on the step, with his face to thestreet. He turned as I descended. 'Well?' he said, smiling. 'Am I togo up, my friend?'
I saw that he had not the slightest doubt of my answer, and hischeerfulness kindled a sort of resentment in my breast. He seemed tobe so well content, so certain of his reception, so calm andstrong--and, at this very moment--for the sunshine had left the streetand was creeping up the tiles--they might be leading out theWaldgrave! I had liked my lady's message very little when she gave itto me; now I rejoiced that I could sting him with it.
'My lady is not very well,' I said. 'The sentence on the Waldgrave hasupset her.'
He smiled. 'But she will receive me?' he said.
'Craving your excellency's indulgence, I do not think that she willreceive any one.'
'You told her that I was here?'
'Yes, your excellency. And she said----'
His face fell. 'Tut! tut!' he exclaimed. 'But I come on purposeto---- What did she say, man?'
The smile was gone from his lips, but I caught it lurking in his eyes;and it hardened me to do her bidding. 'I was to tell your excellencythat she could not receive you,' I said, 'that she was engaged withthe Waldgrave.'
He started and stared at me, his expression slowly passing fromamazement to anger. 'What!' he exclaimed at last, in a cutting tone.'Already?' And his lip curled with a kind of disgust. 'You have givenme the message exactly, have you?'
'Yes, your excellency,' I said, quailing a little. But servants knowwhen to be stupid, and I affected stupidity, fixing my eyes on hisbreast and pretending to see nothing. He turned, and for a moment Ithought that he was going without a word. Then on the steps he turnedagain. 'You have heard the news, then?' he said sourly. He had alreadyregained his self-control.
'Yes, my lord.'
'Ah! Well, you lose no time in your house,' he replied grimly. 'Callmy horse!'
I called the man, who had wandered a little way up the street, and hebrought it. As I held the Count's stirrup for him to mount, I noticedhow heavily he climbed to his saddle, and that he settled himself intoit with a sigh; but the next moment he laughed, as at himself. I stoodback expecting him to say something more, or to leave some message,but he did not even look at me again; he touched his horse with thespur, and walked away steadily. I stood and watched him until hereached the end of the street--until he turned the corner anddisappeared.
Even then I still stood looking after him, partly sorry and partlypuzzled, for quite a long time. It was only when I turned to go inthat I missed Steve and the men, and began to wonder what had becomeof them. I had left them with the Count at the door--they were gonenow. I looked up and down, I could see them nowhere. I went in andasked the women; but they were not with them. The sunset gun had justgone off, and one of the girls was crying hysterically, while theothers sat round her, white and frightened. This did not cheer me, norenliven the house. I came out again, vowing vengeance on the truants;and there in the entrance, facing me, standing where the Count hadstood a few minutes before, I saw the last man I looked to see!
I gasped and gave back a step. The sun was gone, the evening light wasbehind the man, and his face was in the shadow. His figure showed darkagainst the street. 'Ach Gott!' I cried, and stood still, stricken. Itwas the Waldgrave!
'Martin!' he said.
I gave back another step. The street was quiet, the house like thegrave. For a moment the figure did not move, but stood there gazing atme. Then--
'Why, Martin!' he cried. 'Don't you know me?'
Then, not until then, I did--for a man and not a ghost; and I caughthis hand with a cry of joy. 'Welcome, my lord, welcome!' I said, grownhot all over. 'Thank God that you have escaped!'
'Yes,' he said, and his tone was his own old tone, 'thank God; Himfirst, and then my friends. Steve and Ernst I have seen already; theyheard the news from the Count's man, and came to meet me, and I havesent them on an errand, by your leave. And now, where is my cousin?'
'Above,' I answered. 'But----'
'But what?' he said quickly.
'I think that I had better prepare her.'
'She does not know?'<
br />
'No, your excellency. Nor did I, until I saw you.'
'But Count Leuchtenstein has been here. Did he not tell you?' he askedin surprise.
'Not a word!' I answered. And then I stopped, conscience-stricken.'Himmel! I remember now,' I said. 'He asked me if we had heard thenews; and I, like a dullard, dreaming that he meant other news, andthe worst, said yes!'
The Waldgrave shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, go to her now, and tellher,' he said. 'I want to see her; I want to thank her. I have ahundred things to say to her. Quick, Martin, for I am laden withdebts, and I choke to pay some of them.'
I ran upstairs, marvelling. On the lobby I met Fraulein Max comingdown. 'What is it?' she asked impatiently.
'The Waldgrave! He has been released! He is here!' I cried in abreath.
She stared at me while a man might count ten. Then to my astonishmentshe laughed aloud. 'Who released him?' she asked.
'The magistrates,' I said. 'I suppose so. I don't know.' I had notgiven the matter a thought.
'Not Count Leuchtenstein?'
I started. 'So!' I muttered, staring at her in my turn. 'It must havebeen he. The Waldgrave said something about him. And he must have comehere to tell us.'
'And you gave him my lady's message?'
'Alas! yes.'
Fraulein Max laughed again, and kept on laughing, until I grew hot allover, and could have struck her for her malice. She saw at last that Iwas angry, and she stopped. 'Tut! tut!' she said, 'it is nothing. Butthat disposes of the old man. Now for the young one. He is here?'
'Yes.'
'Then why do you not show him up?'
'She must be prepared,' I muttered.
She laughed again; this time after a different fashion. 'Oh you foolsof men!' she said. 'She must be prepared? Do you think that women aremade of glass and that a shock breaks them? That she will die of joy?Or would have died of grief? Send him up, gaby, and I will prepareher! Send him up.'
I supposed that she knew women's ways, and I gave in to her, and senthim up; and I do not know that any harm was done. But, as a result ofthis, I was not present when my lady and the Waldgrave met, and I onlylearned by hearsay what happened.
* * * * *
An hour or two later, when the bustle of shrieks and questions hadsubsided, and the excitement caused by his return had somewhat wornitself out, Marie slipped out to me on the stairs, and sat with me inthe darkness, talking. The gate of curious ironwork which guarded thehouse entrance was closed for the night; but the moon was up, and itslight, falling through the scrollwork, lay like a pale, reedy pool atour feet. The men were at supper, the house was quiet, the city wasfor a little while still. Not a foot sounded on the roadway; onlysometimes a skulking dog came ghost-like to the bars and sniffed, andsneaked noiselessly away.
I have said that we talked, but in truth we sat long silent, as lovershave sat these thousand years, I suppose, in such intervals of calm.The peace of the night lapped us round; after the perils and hurry,the storm and stress of many days, we were together and at rest, andcontent to be silent. All round us, under the covert of darkness,under the moonlight, the city lay quaking; dreading the future, tornby pangs in the present; sleepless, or dreaming of death and outrage,ridden by the nightmare of Wallenstein. But for the moment we reckednothing of this, nothing of the great camp round us, nothing of thecrash of nations. We were of none of these. We had one another, and itwas enough; loved one another, and the rest went by. For the moment wetasted perfect peace; and in the midst of the besieged city, were asmuch alone, as if the moonlight at our feet had been, indeed, a forestpool high in the hills over Heritzburg.
Does some old man smile? Do I smile myself now, though sadly? A briefmadness, was it? Nay; but what if then only we were sane, and for amoment saw things as they are--lost sight of the unreal and awoke tothe real? I once heard a wise man from Basle say something like thatat my lady's table. The men, I remember, stared; the women lookedthoughtful.
For all that, it was Marie who on this occasion broke the trance. Thetown clock struck ten, and at the sound hundreds, I dare swear, turnedon their pillows, thinking of the husbands and sons and lovers whomthe next light must imperil. My girl stirred.
'Ah!' she murmured, 'the poor Countess! Can we do nothing?'
'Do?' I said. 'What should, we do? The Waldgrave is back, and in hisright mind; which of all the things I have ever known, is the oddest.That a man should lose his senses under one blow, and recover themunder another, and remember nothing that has happened in theinterval--it almost passes belief.'
'Yet it is true.'
'I suppose so,' I answered. 'The Waldgrave was mad--I can bear witnessto it--and now he is sane. There is no more to be said.'
'But the Countess, Martin?'
'Well, I do not know that she is the worse,' I answered stupidly. 'Shesent off the Count with a flea in his ear, and a poor return it was.But she can explain it to him, and after all, she has got theWaldgrave back, safe and sound. That is the main thing.'
Marie sighed, and moved restlessly. 'Is it?' she said. 'I wish Iknew.'
'What?' I asked, drawing her little head on to my shoulder.
'What my lady wishes?'
'Eh?'
'Which?'
My jaw fell. I stared into the darkness open-mouthed. 'Why,' Iexclaimed at last, 'he is sixty--or fifty-five at least, girl!'
Marie laughed softly, with her face on my breast. 'If she loves him,'she murmured. 'If she loves him.' And she hung on me.
I sat amazed, confounded, thinking no more of Marie, though my arm wasround her, than of a doll. 'But he is fifty five,' I said.
'And if you were fifty-five, do you think that I should not love you?'she whispered. 'When you are fifty-five, do you think that I shall notlove you? Besides, he is strong, brave, famous--a man; and she is nota girl, but a woman. If the Count be too old, is not the Waldgrave tooyoung?'
'Yes,' I said cunningly. 'But why either?'
'Because love is in the air,' Marie answered; and I knew that shesmiled, though the gloom hid her face. 'Because there is a change inher. Because she knows things and sees things and feels things ofwhich she was ignorant before. And because--because it is so, mylord.'
I whistled. This was beyond me. 'And yet you don't know which?' Isaid.
'No; I suspect.'
'Well--but the Waldgrave?' I exclaimed. 'Why, maedchen, he is one ofthe handsomest men I have ever seen. An Apollo! A Fairy Prince! It isnot possible that she should prefer the other.'
Marie laughed. 'Ah!' she said, 'if men chose all the husbands, therewould be few wives.'
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My Lady Rotha: A Romance Page 33
