My father’s shadow bent its head.
‘And now, with your permission, I will go to my room.’
My father rang the bell, and when Bertha came, bade her light the Count von Rettel to his chamber.
Hearing them leave the room, I opened the door very softly and hesitatingly, scarce knowing whether to come out or not. I saw my father standing with his back towards me and his face still turned in the direction by which they had gone out. I saw him throw up his clenched hands, and shake them wildly above his head.
‘And it was for this! for this!’ he said fiercely. ‘A bribe! God of Heaven! He offered me Königsberg as a bribe! Oh, that I should have lived to be treated as an assassin!’
His voice broke into hoarse sobs. He dropped into a chair—he covered his face with his hands.
He had forgotten that I was in the next room, and now I dared not remind him of my presence. His emotion terrified me. It was the first time I had seen a man shed tears; and this alone, let the man be whom he might, would have seemed terrible to me at any time. How much more terrible when those tears were tears of outraged honour, and when the man who shed them was my father!
I trembled from head to foot. I had an instinctive feeling that I ought not to look upon his agony. I shrank back—closed the door—held my breath, and waited.
Presently the sound of sobbing ceased. Then he sighed heavily twice or thrice—got up abruptly—threw a couple of logs on the fire, and left the room. The next moment I heard him unlock the door under the stairs, and go into the cellar. I seized the opportunity to escape, and stole up to my own room as rapidly and noiselessly as my trembling knees would carry me.
I had my supper with Bertha that evening, and the count ate at my father’s table; but I afterwards learned that, though the Governor of Brühl himself waited ceremoniously upon his guest and served him the best, he neither broke bread nor drank wine with him.
I saw that unwelcome guest no more. I heard his voice under the window, and the clatter of his horse’s hoofs as he rode away in the early morning; but that was long enough before Bertha came to call me.
Chapter X
Herr Ludwig Hartmann
Weeks went by. Spring warmed, and ripened, and blossomed into summer. Gardens and terraces were ablaze once more with many-coloured flowers; fountains played and sparkled in the sunshine; and travellers bound for Cologne or Bonn put up again at Brühl in the midst of the day’s journey, to bait their horses and see the château on their way.
For in these years just following the Peace of Paris, the Continent was over-run by travellers, two thirds of whom were English. The diligence—the great, top-heavy, lumbering diligence of fifty years ago—used then to come lurching and thundering down the main street five times a week throughout the summer season; and as many as three and four travelling carriages a day would pass through in fine weather. The landlord of The Lion d’Or kept fifty horses in his stables in those days, and drove a thriving trade.
So the summer came, and brought the stir of outer life into the precincts of our sleepy château; but brought no better change in the fortunes of Monsieur Maurice. Ever since that fatal night, the terms of his imprisonment had been more rigorous than ever. Till then, he might, if he would, walk twice a week in the grounds with a solider at his heels; but now he was placed in strict confinement in his own two rooms, with one sentry always pacing the corridor outside his door, and another under his windows. And across each of those windows might now be seen a couple of bright new iron bars, thick as a man’s wrist, forged and fixed there by the village blacksmith.
I have no words to tell how the sight of those bars revolted me. If instead of being a little helpless girl, I had been a man like my father, and a servant of the state, I think they would have made a rebel of me.
Worse, however, than iron bars, locked doors, and guarded corridors, was Hartmann—Herr Ludwig Hartmann, as he was styled in the despatch that announced his coming—a pale, slight, silent man, with colourless grey eyes and white eye-lashes, who came direct from Berlin about a month later, to act as Monsieur Maurice’s ‘personal attendant’. Stealthy, watchful, secret, civil, he established himself in a room adjoining the prisoner’s apartment, and was as much at home in the course of a couple of hours as if he had been settled there from the first.
He brought with him a paper of instructions, and, having on his arrival submitted these instructions to my father, he at once took up a certain routine of duties that never varied. He brushed Monsieur Maurice’s clothes, waited upon him at table, attended him in his bedroom, was always within hearing, always on the alert, and haunted the prisoner like his shadow. Not even a housemaid could go in to sweep but he was present. Now the man’s perpetual presence was intolerable to Monsieur Maurice. He had borne all else with patience, but this last tyranny was more than he could endure without murmuring. He appealed to my father; but my father, though Governor of Brühl, was powerless to help him. Hartmann had presented his instructions as a minister presents his credentials, and those instructions emanated from Berlin. So the new comer, valet, gaoler, spy as he was, became an established fact, and was detested throughout the château—by no one more heartily than myself.
I still, however, saw Monsieur Maurice now and then. My father often took me with him in his rounds, and always when he visited his prisoner. Sometimes, too, he would leave me for an hour with my friend, and call for me again on his way back; so that we were not wholly parted even now. But Hartmann took care never to leave us alone. Before my father’s footsteps were out of hearing he would be in the room; silent, unobtrusive, perfectly civil, but watchful as a lynx. We could not talk before him freely. Nothing was as it used to be. It was better than total banishment; it was better than never hearing his voice; but the constraint was hard to bear, and the pain of these meetings was almost greater than the pleasure.
And now, as I approach that part of my narrative which possesses the deepest interest for myself, I hesitate—hesitate and draw back before the great mystery in which it is involved. I ask myself what interpretation the world will put upon facts for which I can vouch; upon events which I myself witnessed? I cannot prove those events. They happened over fifty years ago; but they are as vividly present to my memory as if they had taken place yesterday. I can only relate them in their order, knowing them to be true, and leaving each reader to judge of them according to his convictions. It was about the middle of the second week in June. Hartmann had been about six weeks at Brühl, and all was going on in the usual dull routine, when that routine was suddenly broken by the arrival of three mounted dragoons—an officer and two privates—whose errand, whatever it might be, had the effect of throwing the whole establishment into sudden and unwonted confusion.
I was out in the grounds when they arrived, and came back at mid-day to find no dinner on the table, no cook in the kitchen; but a full-dress parade going on in the courtyard, and all the interior of the château in a state of wild commotion. Here were peasants bringing in wood, gardeners laden with vegetables and flowers, women running to and fro with baskets full of linen, and all to the accompaniment of such a hammering, bell-ringing, and clattering of tongues as I had never heard before.
I stood bewildered, not knowing what to do, or where to go.
‘What is the matter? What has happened? What are you doing?’ I asked, first of one and then of another; but they were all too busy to answer.
‘Ach, lieber Gott!’ said one, ‘I’ve no time for talking!’
‘Don’t ask me, little Fräulein,’ said another. ‘I have eight windows to clean up yonder, and only one pair of hands to do them with!’
‘If you want to know what is to do,’ said a third impatiently, ‘you had better come and see.’
The head-gardener’s son came by with two pots of magnificent geraniums, one under each arm.
‘Where are you going with those flowers, Wilhelm?’ I asked, running after him.
‘They are for the state salon, Fräulein
Gretchen,’ he replied, and hurried on.
For the state salon! I ran round to the side of the grand entrance. There were soldiers putting up banners in the hall; others helping to carry furniture upstairs; carpenters with ladders; women with brooms and brushes; and Corporal Fritz bustling hither and thither, giving orders, and seeing after everything.
‘But, Corporal Fritz!’ I exclaimed, ‘what are all these people about?’
‘We are preparing the state apartments, dear little Fräulein,’ replied Corporal Fritz, rubbing his hands with an air of great enjoyment.
‘But why? For whom?’
‘For whom? Why, for the king, to be sure;’ and Corporal Fritz clapped his hand to the side of his hat like a loyal soldier. ‘Don’t you know, dear little Fräulein, that His Majesty sleeps here tonight, on his way to Ehrenbreitstein?’
This was news indeed! I ran upstairs—I was all excitement—I got in everybody’s way—I tormented everybody with questions. I saw the table being laid in the grand salon where the king was to sup, and the bedstead being put up in the little salon where he was to sleep, and the ante-room being prepared for his officers. All was being made ready as rapidly, and decorated as tastefully, as the scanty resources of the château would permit. I recognised much of the furniture from the attics above, and this, faded though it was, being helped out with flowers, flags, and greenery, made the great echoing rooms look gay and habitable.
By-and-by my father came round to see how the work was going on, and finding me in the midst of it, took me by the hand and led me away.
‘You are not wanted here, my little Gretchen,’ he said; ‘and, indeed, all the world is so busy today that I scarcely know what to do with thee.’
‘Take me to Monsieur Maurice!’ I said, coaxingly.
‘Ay—so I will,’ said my father; ‘with him at all events, you will be out of the way.’
So he took me round to Monsieur Maurice’s rooms, and told me as we went along that the king had only given him six hours’ notice, and that in order to furnish His Majesty’s bed and His Majesty’s supper, he had bought up all the poultry and eggs, and borrowed well-nigh all the silver, glass, and linen in the town.
By this time we were almost at Monsieur Maurice’s door. A sudden thought flashed upon me. I pulled him back, out of the sentry’s hearing.
‘Oh, father!’ I cried eagerly, ‘will you not ask the king to let Monsieur Maurice free?’
My father shook his head.
‘Nay,’ he said, ‘I must no do that, my little Mädchen. And look you—not a word that the king is coming here tonight. It would only make the prisoner restless, and could avail nothing. Promise me to be silent.’
So I promised, and he left me at the door without going in.
I spent all the afternoon with Monsieur Maurice. He divided his luncheon with me; he gave me a French lesson; he told me stories. I had not had such a happy day for months. Hartmann, it is true, was constantly in and out of the room, but even Hartmann was less in the way than usual. He seemed absent and pre-occupied, and was therefore not so watchful as at other times. In the meanwhile I could still hear, though faintly, the noises in the rooms below, but all became quiet about five o’clock in the evening, and Monsieur Maurice, who had been told they were only cleaning the state apartments, asked no questions.
Meanwhile the afternoon waned, and the sun bent westward, and still no one came to fetch me away. My father knew where I was; Bertha was probably too busy to think about me; and I was only too glad to stay as long as Monsieur Maurice was willing to keep me. By-and-by, about half-past six o’clock, the sky became overclouded, and we heard a loud muttering of very distant thunder. At seven it rained heavily.
Now it was Monsieur Maurice’s custom to dine late, and ours to dine early; but then, as his luncheon hour corresponded with our dinner-hour, and his dinner fell only a little later than our supper, it came to much the same thing, and did not therefore seem strange. So it happened that just as the storm came up, Hartmann began to prepare the table. Then, in the midst of the rain and the wind, my quick ear caught a sound of drums and bugles, and I knew the king was come. Monsieur Maurice evidently heard nothing; but I could see by Hartmann’s face (he was laying the cloth and making a noise with the glasses) that he knew all, and was listening.
After this I heard no more. The wind raved; the rain pattered; the gloom thickened; and at half-past seven, when the soup was brought to table, it was so dark that Monsieur Maurice called for lights. He would not, however, allow the curtains to be drawn. He liked, he said, to sit and watch the storm.
A cover was laid for me at his right hand; but my supper hour was past, and what with the storm without, the heaviness in the air, and the excitement of the day, I was no longer hungry. So, having eaten a little soup and sipped some wine from Monsieur Maurice’s glass, I went and curled myself up in an easy chair close to the window, and watched the driving mists as they swept across the park, and the tossing of the tree tops against the sky.
It was a wild evening, lit by lurid gleams and openings in the clouds; and it seemed all the wilder by contrast with the quiet room and the dim radiance of the wax lights on the table. There was a soft halo round each little flame, and a dreamy haze in the atmosphere, from the midst of which Monsieur Maurice’s pale face stood out against the shadowy background, like a head in a Dutch painting.
We were both very silent; partly because Hartmann was waiting, and partly, perhaps, because we had been talking all the afternoon. Monsieur Maurice ate slowly, and there were long intervals between courses, during which he leaned his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, looking across towards the window and the storm. Hartmann, meanwhile, seemed to be always listening. I could see that he was holding his breath, and trying to catch every faint echo from below.
It was a long, long dinner, and probably seemed all the longer to me because I did not partake of it. As for Monsieur Maurice, he tasted some dishes, and sent more away untouched.
‘I think it is getting lighter,’ he said by-and-by. ‘Does it still rain?’
‘Yes,’ I replied; ‘it is coming down steadily.’
‘We must open the window presently,’ he said. ‘I love the fresh smell that comes with the rain.’
Here the conversation dropped again, and Hartmann, having been gone for a moment, came back with a dish of stewed fruit.
Then, for the first time, I observed there was a second attendant in the room.
‘Will you not have some raspberries, Gretchen?’ said Monsieur Maurice.
I shook my head. I was too much startled by the sight of the strange man to answer him in words.
Who could he be? Where had he come from? He was standing behind Monsieur Maurice, far back in the gloom, near the door—a small dark man, apparently; but so placed with regard to the table and the lights, that it was impossible to make out his features with distinctness.
Monsieur Maurice just tasted the raspberries and sent his plate away.
‘How heavy the air of the room is!’ he said. ‘Give me some seltzer-water, and open that farthest window.’
Hartmann reversed the order. He opened the window first; and as he did so, I saw that his hand shook upon the hasp, and that his face was deadly pale. He then turned to the sideboard and opened a stone bottle that had been standing there since the beginning of dinner. He filled a tumbler with the sparkling water.
At the moment when he placed the tumbler on the salver—at the moment when he handed it to Monsieur Maurice—the other man glided quickly forward. I saw his bright eyes and his brown face in the full light. I saw two hands put out to take the glass; a brown hand and a white—his hand, and the hand of Monsieur Maurice. I saw—yes, before Heaven! as I live to remember and record it, I saw the brown hand grasp the tumbler and dash it to the ground!
‘Pshaw!’ said Monsieur Maurice, brushing the seltzer-water impatiently from his sleeve, ‘how came you to upset it?’
But Hartmann, livid and trembling
, stood speechless, staring at the door.
‘It was the other man!’ said I, starting with a strange kind of breathless terror upon me. ‘He threw it on the ground—I saw him do it—where is he gone? What has become of him?’
‘The other man! What other man?’ said Monsieur Maurice. ‘My little Gretchen, you are dreaming.’
‘No, no, I am not dreaming. There was another man—a brown man! Hartmann saw him——’
‘A brown man!’ echoed Monsieur Maurice. Then catching sight of Hartmann’s face, he pushed his chair back, looked at him steadily and sternly; and said, with a sudden change of voice and manner:
‘There is something wrong here. What does it mean? You saw a man—both of you? What was he like?’
‘A brown man,’ I said again. ‘A brown man with bright eyes.’
‘And you?’ said Monsieur Maurice, turning to Hartmann.
‘I—I thought I saw something,’ stammered the attendant, with a violent effort at composure. ‘But it was nothing.’
Monsieur Maurice looked at him as if he would look him through; got up, still looking at him; went to the sideboard, and, still looking at him, filled another tumbler with seltzer-water.
‘Drink that,’ he said, very quietly.
The man’s lips moved, but he uttered never a word.
‘Drink that,’ said Monsieur Maurice for the second time, and more sternly.
But Hartmann, instead of drinking it, instead of answering, threw up his hands in a wild way, and rushed out of the room.
Monsieur Maurice stood for a moment absorbed in thought; then wrote some words upon a card, and gave the card into my hand.
‘For thy father, little one,’ he said. ‘Give it to no one but himself, and give it to him the first moment thou seest him. There’s matter of life and death in it.’
THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Page 37
