For Monsieur Maurice, whatever his present adversities, had travelled far and wide at some foregone period of his life—in Syria, and Persia; in northernmost Tartary and the Siberian steppes; in Egypt and the Nubian desert, and among the perilous wilds of central Arabia. He spoke and wrote with facility some ten or twelve languages. He drew admirably, and had a profound knowledge of the Italian schools of art; and his memory was a rich storehouse of adventure and anecdote, legend and song.
I am an old woman now, and Monsieur Maurice must have passed away many a year ago upon his last long journey; but even at this distance of time, my eyes are dimmed with tears when I remember how he used to unlock that storehouse for my pleasure, and ransack his memory for stories either of his own personal perils by flood and field, or of the hairbreadth ’scapes of earlier travellers. For it was his amusement to amuse me; his happiness to make me happy. And I in return loved him with all my childish heart. Nay, with something deeper and more romantic than a childish love—say rather with that kind of passionate hero-worship which is an attribute more of youth than of childhood, and, like the quality of mercy, blesseth him that gives even more than him that takes.
‘What dreadful places you have travelled in, Monsieur Maurice!’ I exclaimed on day. ‘What dangers you have seen!’
He had been showing me a little sketchbook full of Eastern jottings, and had just explained how a certain boat therein depicted had upset with him on a part of the Upper Nile so swarming with alligators that he had to swim for his life, and even so, barely scrambled up the slimy bank in time.
‘He who travels far courts many kinds of death,’ replied Monsieur Maurice; ‘but he escapes that which is worst—death from ennui.’
‘Suppose they had dragged you back, when you were half-way up the bank!’ said I, shuddering.
And as I spoke, I felt myself turn pale; for I could see the brown monsters crowding to shore, and the red glitter of their cruel eyes, and the hot breath steaming from their open jaws.
‘Then they would have eaten me up as easily as you might swallow an oyster,’ laughed Monsieur Maurice. ‘Nay, my child, why that serious face? I should have escaped a world of trouble, and been missed by no one—except poor Ali.’
‘Who was Ali?’ I asked quickly.
‘Ali was my Nubian servant—my only friend then; as you, little Gretchen, are my only friend now,’ replied Monsieur Maurice, sadly. ‘Aye, my only little friend in the wide world—and I think a true one.’
I did not know what to say; but I nestled closer to his side; and pressed my cheek fondly against his shoulder.
‘Tell me more about him, Monsieur Maurice,’ I whispered. ‘I am so glad he loved you dearly.’
‘He loved me very dearly,’ said Monsieur Maurice, ‘so dearly that he gave his life for me.’
‘But is Ali dead?’
‘Ay—Ali is dead. Nay, his story is brief enough, petite. I bought him in the slave market at Cairo—a poor, sickly, soulless lad, half stupid from ill-treatment. I gave him good food, good clothes, and liberty. I taught him to read. I made him my own servant; and his soul and his strength came back to him as if by a miracle. He became stalwart and intelligent, and so faithful that he was ten times more my slave than if I had held him to his bondage. I took him with me through all my Eastern pilgrimage. He was my bodyguard; my cook; my dragoman; everything. He slept on a mat at the foot of my bed every night, like a dog. So he lived with me for nearly four years—till I lost him.’
He paused.
I did not dare to ask, ‘what more?’ but waited breathlessly.
‘The rest is soon told,’ he said presently; but in an altered voice. ‘It happened in Ceylon. Our way lay along a bridle-path overhanging a steep gorge on the one hand and skirting the jungle on the other. Do you know what the jungle is, little Gretchen? Fancy an untrodden wilderness where huge trees, matted together by trailing creepers of gigantic size, shut out the sun and make a green roof of inextricable shade—where the very grass grows taller than the tallest man—where apes chatter, and parrots scream, and deadly reptiles swarm; and where nature has run wild since ever the world began. Well, so we went—I on my horse; Ali at my bridle; two porters following with food and baggage; the precipice below; the forest above; the morning sun just risen over all. On a sudden, Ali held his breath and listened. His practised ear had caught a sound that mine could not detect. He seized my rein—forced my horse back upon his haunches—drew his hunting knife, and ran forward to reconnoitre. The turn of the road hid him for a moment from my sight. The next instant, I had sprung from the saddle, pistol in hand, and run after him to share the sport or the danger. My little Gretchen—he was gone.’
‘Gone!’ I echoed.
Monsieur Maurice shook his head, and turned his face away.
‘I heard a crashing and crackling of the underwood,’ he said; ‘a faint moan dying on the sultry air. I saw a space of dusty road trampled over with prints of an enormous paw—a tiny trail of blood—a shred of silken fringe—and nothing more. He was gone.’
‘What was it?’ I asked presently, in an awe-struck whisper.
Monsieur Maurice, instead of answering my question, opened the sketch-book at a page full of little outlines of animals and birds, and laid his finger silently on the figure of a sleeping tiger.
I shuddered.
‘Pauvre petite!’ he said, shutting up the book, ‘it is too terrible a story. I ought not to have told it to you. Try to forget it.’
‘Ah, no!’ I said. ‘I shall never forget it, Monsieur Maurice. Poor Ali! Have you still the piece of fringe you found lying in the road?’
He unlocked his desk and touched a secret spring; whereupon a small drawer flew out from a recess just under the lock.
‘Here it is,’ he said, taking out a piece of folded paper.
It contained the thing he had described—a scrap of fringe composed of crimson and yellow twist, about two inches in length.
‘And those other things?’ I said, peering into the secret drawer with a child’s inquisitiveness. ‘Have they a history, too?’
Monsieur Maurice hesitated—took them out—sighed—and said, somewhat reluctantly:
‘You may see them, little Gretchen, if you will. Yes; they, too have their history—but let it be. We have had enough sad stories for today.’
Those other things, as I had called them, were a withered rose in a little cardboard box, and a miniature of a lady in a purple morocco case.
Chapter V
‘I Don’t Understand It’
It so happened that the winter this year was unusually severe, not only at Brühl and the parts about Cologne, but throughout all the Rhine country. Heavy snows fell at Christmas and lay unmelted for weeks upon the ground. Long forgotten sleighs were dragged out from their hiding-places and put upon the road, not only for the transport of goods, but for the conveyance of passengers. The ponds in every direction and all the smaller streams were fast frozen. Great masses of dirty ice, too, came floating down the Rhine, and there were rumours of the great river being quite frozen somewhere up in Switzerland, many hundred miles nearer its source.
For myself, I enjoyed it all—the bitter cold, the short days, the rapid exercise, the blazing fires within, and the glittering snow without. I made snow-men and snow-castles to my heart’s content. I learned to skate with my father on the frozen ponds. I was never weary of admiring the wintry landscape—the wide plains sheeted with silver; the purple mountains peeping through brown vistas of bare forest; the nearer trees standing out in feather-like tracery against the blue-green sky. To me it was all beautiful; even more beautiful than in the radiant summer-time.
Not so, however, was it with Monsieur Maurice. Racked by a severe cough and unable to leave the house for weeks together, he suffered intensely all the winter through. He suffered in body, and he suffered also in mind. I could see that he was very sad, and that there were times when the burden of life was almost more then he knew how to bear. He had brought
with him, as I have shown, certain things wherewith to alleviate the weariness of captivity—books, music, drawing materials, and the like; but I soon discovered that the books were his only solace, and that he never took up pencil or guitar, unless for my amusement.
He wrote a great deal, however, and so consumed many a weary hour of the twenty-four. He used a thick yellowish paper cut quite square, and wrote a very small, neat, upright hand, as clear and legible as print. Every time I found him at his desk and saw those closely covered pages multiplying under his hand, I used to wonder what he could have to write about, and for whose eyes that elaborate manuscript was intended.
‘How cold you are, Monsieur Maurice!’ I used to say. ‘You are as cold as my snow-man in the courtyard! Won’t you come out today for half-an-hour?’
And his hands, in truth, were always ice-like, even though the hearth was heaped with blazing logs.
‘Not today, petite,’ he would reply. ‘It is too bleak for me—and besides, you see, I am writing.’
It was his invariable reply. He was always writing—or if not writing, reading; or brooding listlessly over the fire. And so he grew paler every day.
‘But the writing can wait, Monsieur Maurice,’ I urged one morning, ‘and you can’t always be reading the same old books over and over again!’
‘Some books never grow old, little Gretchen,’ he replied ‘This, for instance, is quite new; and yet it was written by one Horatius Flaccus somewhere about eighteen hundred years ago.’
‘But the sun is really shining this morning, Monsieur Maurice!’
‘Comment!’ he said, smiling. ‘Do you think to persuade me that yonder is the sun—the great, golden, glorious, bountiful sun? No, no, my child! Where I come from, we have the only true sun, and believe in no other!’
‘But you come from France, don’t you, Monsieur Maurice?’ I asked quickly.
‘From the south of France, petite—from the France of palms, and orange-groves, and olives; where the myrtle flowers at Christmas, and the roses bloom all the year round!’
‘But that must be where Paradise was, Monsieur Maurice!’ I exclaimed.
‘Ay! it was Paradise once—for me,’ he said, with a sigh.
Thus, after a moment’s pause, he went on:
‘The house in which I was born stands on a low cliff above the sea. It is an old, old house, with all kinds of quaint little turrets, and gable ends, and picturesque nooks and corners about it—such as one sees in most French châteaux of that period; and it lies back somewhat, with a great rambling garden stretching out between it and the edge of the cliff. Three berceaux of orange trees lead straight away from the paved terrace on which the salon windows open, to another terrace overhanging the beach and the sea. The cliff is overgrown from top to bottom with shrubs and wild flowers, and a flight of steps cut in the living rock leads down to a little cove and a strip of yellow sand a hundred feet below. Ah, petite, I fancy I can see myself scrambling up and down those steps—a child younger than yourself; watching the sun go down into that purple sea; counting the sails in the offing at early morn; and building castles with that yellow sand, just as you build castles out yonder with the snow!’
I clasped my hands and listened breathlessly.
‘Oh, Monsieur Maurice,’ I said, ‘I did not think there was such a beautiful place in the world! It sounds like a fairy tale.’
He smiled, sighed, and—being seated at his desk with the pen in his hand—took up a blank sheet of paper, and began sketching the château and the cliff.
‘Tell me more about it, Monsieur Maurice,’ I pleaded coaxingly.
‘What more can I tell you, little one? See—this window in the turret to the left was my bedroom window, and here, just below, was my study, where as a boy I prepared my lessons for my tutor. That large Gothic window under the gable was the window of the library.’
‘And is it all just like that still?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said dreamily. ‘I suppose so.’
He was now putting in the rocks, and the rough steps leading down to the beach.
‘Had you any little brothers and sisters, Monsieur Maurice?’ I asked next; for my interest and curiosity were unbounded.
He shook his head.
‘None,’ he said, ‘none whatever. I was an only child; and I am the last of my name.’
I longed to question him further, but did not dare to do so.
‘You will go back there some day, Monsieur Maurice,’ I said hesitatingly, ‘when—when——’
‘When I am free, little Gretchen? Ah! who can tell? Besides, the old place is no longer mine. They have taken it from me, and given it to a stranger.’
‘Taken it from you, Monsieur Maurice!’ I exclaimed, indignantly.
‘Ah! but—who knows? We see strange changes. Where a king reigns today, an emperor, or a mob, may rule tomorrow.’
He spoke more to himself than to me, but I had some dim understanding, nevertheless, of what he meant.
He had by this time drawn the cliff, and the strip of sand, and the waste of sea beyond; and now he was blotting in some boats and figures—figures of men wading through the surf and dragging the boats in shore; and other figures making for the steps. Last of all, close under the cliff, in advance of all the rest, he drew a tiny man standing alone—a tiny man scarce an eighth of an inch in height, struck out with three or four touches of the pen, and yet so full of character that one knew at a glance he was the leader of the others. I saw the outstretched arm in act of command—I recognised the well-known cocked hat—the general outline of a figure already familiar to me in a hundred prints, and I exclaimed, almost involuntarily:
‘Bonaparte!’
Monsieur Maurice started; shot a quick, half apprehensive glance at me; crumpled the drawing up in his hand, and flung it into the fire.
‘Oh, Monsieur Maurice!’ I cried, ‘what have you done?’
‘It was a mere scrawl,’ he said impatiently.
‘No, no—it was beautiful. I would have given anything for it!’
Monsieur Maurice laughed, and patted me on the cheek.
‘Nonsense, petite, nonsense!’ he said. ‘It was only fit for the fire. I will make you a better drawing, if you remind me of it, tomorrow.’
When I told this to my father—and I used to prattle to him a good deal about Monsieur Maurice at supper, in those days—he tugged at his mustache, and shook his head, and looked very grave indeed.
‘The south of France!’ he muttered, ‘the south of France! Sacré coeur d’une bombe! Why, the usurper, when he came from Elba, landed on that coast somewhere near Cannes!’
‘And went to Monsieur Maurice’s house, father!’ I cried, ‘and that is why the King of France has taken Monsieur Maurice’s house away from him, and given it to a stranger! I am sure that’s it! I see it all now!’
But my father only shook his head again, and looked still more grave.
‘No, no, no,’ he said, ‘neither all—nor half—nor a quarter! There’s more behind. I don’t understand it—I don’t understand it. Thunder and Mars! Why don’t we hand him over to the French Government? That’s what puzzles me.’
Chapter VI
An Unpleasant Task
The severity of the winter had, I think, in some degree abated, and the snowdrops were already above ground, when again a mounted orderly rode in from Cologne, bringing another official letter for the Governor of Brühl.
Now my father’s duties as Governor of Brühl were very light—so light that he had not found it necessary to set apart any special room, or bureau, for the transaction of such business as might be connected therewith. When, therefore, letters had to be written or accounts made up, he wrote those letters and made up those accounts at a certain large writing-table, fitted with drawers, pigeon-holes, and shelf for account books, that stood in a corner of our sitting-room. Here also, if any persons had to be received, he received them. To this day, whenever I go back in imagination to those bygone ti
mes, I seem to see my father sitting at that writing-table nibbling the end of his pen, and one of the sergeants off guard perched on the edge of a chair close against the door, with his hat on his knees, waiting for orders.
There being, as I have said, no especial room set apart for business purposes, the orderly was shown straight to our own room, and there delivered his despatch. It was about a quarter past one. We had dined, and my father had just brought out his pipe. The door leading into our little dining-room was, indeed, standing wide open, and the dishes were still upon the table.
My father took the despatch, turned it over, broke the seals one by one (there were five of them, as before) and read it slowly through. As he read, a dark cloud seemed to settle on his brow.
Then he looked up, frowning—seemed about to speak—checked himself—and read the despatch over again.
‘From whose hands did you receive this?’ he said abruptly.
‘From General Berndorf, Excellency,’ stammered the orderly, carrying his hand to his cap.
‘Is his Excellency the Baron von Bulow at Cologne?’
‘I have not heard so, Excellency.’
‘Then this despatch came direct from Berlin, and has been forwarded from Cologne?’
‘Yes, Excellency.’
‘How did it come from Berlin? By mail, or by special messenger?’
‘By special messenger, Excellency.’
Now General Berndorf was the officer in command of the garrison at Cologne, and the Baron von Bulow, as I well knew, was His Majesty’s Minister of War at Berlin.
Having received these answers, my father stood silent, as if revolving some difficult matter in his thoughts. Then, his mind being made up, he turned again to the orderly and said:
‘Dine—feed your horse—and come back in an hour for the answer.’
Thankful to be dismissed, the man saluted and vanished. My father had a rapid, stern way of speaking to subordinates, that had in general the effect of making them glad to get out of his presence as quickly as possible.
THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Page 34
