I suppose I stood so for half a minute, waiting, with the blood racing from my heart to my head, and every pulse in my body beating. But she did not reappear. The door of the house did not open. Nothing happened.
Yet I had certainly seen her; for I remembered particulars — the expression of her face, the surprise that had leapt into her eyes as they met mine, the opening of the lips in an exclamation.
And still I stood gazing at the window and nothing happened.
At last I came to myself, and I scanned the house. It was a large house of four stories, three gables in width. The upper stories jutted out; the beams on which they rested were finely carved, the gables were finished off with rich, wooden pinnacles. In each story, the lowest excepted, were three long, low windows of the common Nuremberg type, and the whole had a substantial and reputable air.
The window at which I had seen Marie was farthest from the door, on the first floor. To go to the door I had to lose sight of it, and perhaps for that reason I stood the longer. At last I went and knocked, and waited in a fever for some one to come. The street was a thoroughfare. There were a number of people passing. I thought that all the town would go by before a dragging foot at last sounded inside, and the great nail-studded door was opened on the chain. A stout, red-faced woman showed herself in the aperture.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘You have a girl in this house, named Marie Wort,’ I answered breathlessly. ‘I saw her a moment ago at the window. I know her, and I wish to speak to her.’
The woman’s little eyes dwelt on me stolidly for a space. Then she made as if she would shut the door. ‘For shame!’ she said spitefully. ‘We have no girls here. Begone with you!’
But I put my foot against the door. ‘Whose house is this?’ I said.
‘Herr Krapp’s,’ she answered crustily.
‘Is he at home?’
‘No, he is not,’ she retorted; ‘and if he were, we have no baggages here.’ And again she tried to shut the door, but I prevented her.
‘Where is he?’ I asked sternly.
‘He is at morning drill, if you must know,’ she snapped; ‘and his two sons. Now, will you let me shut my door? Or must I cry out?’
‘Nonsense, mother!’ I said. ‘Who is in the house besides yourself?’
‘What is that to you?’ she replied, breathing short.
‘I have told you,’ I said, trying to control my anger. ‘I — —’
But, quick as lightning, the door slammed to and cut me short. I had thoughtlessly moved my foot. I heard the woman chuckle and go slipshod down the passage, and though I knocked again in a rage, the door remained closed.
I fell back and looked at the house. An elderly man in a grave, sober dress was passing, among others, and I caught his eye.
‘Whose house is that?’ I asked him.
‘Herr Krapp’s,’ he answered.
‘I am a stranger,’ I said. ‘Is he a man of substance?’
The person I addressed smiled. ‘He is a member of the Council of Safety,’ he said dryly. ‘His brother is prefect of this ward. But here is Herr Krapp. Doubtless he has been at St. Sebald’s drilling.’
I thanked him, and made but two steps to Herr Krapp’s side. He was the other’s twin — elderly, soberly dressed, his only distinction a sword and pistol in his girdle and a white shoulder sash.
‘Herr Krapp?’ I said.
‘The same,’ he answered, eying me gravely.
‘I am the Countess of Heritzburg’s steward,’ I said. I began to see the need of explanation. ‘Doubtless you have heard that she is in the city?’
‘Certainly,’ he answered. ‘In the Ritter Strasse.’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘A fortnight ago she missed a young woman, one of her attendants. She was lost in a night adventure,’ I continued, my throat dry and husky. ‘A few minutes ago I saw her looking from one of your windows.’
‘From one of my windows?’ he exclaimed in a tone of surprise.
‘Yes,’ I said stiffly.
He opened his eyes wide. ‘Here?’ he said. He pointed to his house.
I nodded.
‘Impossible!’ he replied, shutting his lips suddenly. ‘Quite impossible, my friend. My household consists of my two sons and myself. We have a housekeeper only, and two lads. I have no young women in the house.’
‘Yet I saw her face, Herr Krapp, at your window,’ I answered obstinately.
‘Wait,’ he said; ‘I will ask.’
But when the old housekeeper came she had only the same tale to tell. She was alone. No young woman had crossed the threshold for a week past. There was no other woman there, young or old.
‘You will have it that I have a young man in the house next!’ she grumbled, shooting scorn at me.
‘I can assure you that there is no one here,’ Herr Krapp said civilly. ‘Dorcas has been with me many years, and I can trust her. Still if you like you can walk through the rooms.’
But I hesitated to do that. The man’s manner evidenced his sincerity, and in face of it my belief wavered. Fancy, I began to think, had played me a trick. It was no great wonder if the features which were often before me in my dreams, and sometimes painted themselves on the darkness while I lay wakeful, had for once taken shape in the daylight, and so vividly as to deceive me. I apologised. I said what was proper, and, with a heavy sigh, went from the door.
Ay, and with bent head. The passing crowd and the sunshine and the distant music of drum and trumpet grated on me. For there was yet another explanation. And I feared that Marie was dead.
I was still brooding sadly over the matter when I reached home. Steve met me at the door, but, feeling in no mood for small talk just then, I would have passed him by and gone in, if he had not stopped me.
‘I have a message for you, lieutenant,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ I asked without curiosity.
‘A little boy gave it to me at the door,’ he answered. ‘I was to ask you to be in the street opposite Herr Krapp’s half an hour after sunset this evening.’
I gasped. ‘Herr Krapp’s!’ I exclaimed.
Steve nodded, looking at me queerly. ‘Yes; do you know him?’ he said.
‘I do now,’ I muttered, gulping down my amazement. But my face was as red as fire, the blood drummed in my ears. I had to turn away to hide my emotion. ‘What was the boy like?’ I asked.
But it seemed that the lad had made off the moment he had done his errand, and Steve had not noticed him particularly. ‘I called after him to know who sent him,’ he added, ‘but he had gone too far.’
I nodded and mumbled something, and went on into the house. Perhaps I was still a little sore on my girl’s account, and resented the easy way in which she had dropped out of others’ lives. At any rate, my instinct was to keep the thing to myself. The face at the window, and then this strange assignation, could have only one meaning; but, good or bad, it was for me. And I hugged myself on it, and said nothing even to my lady.
The day seemed long, but at length the evening came, and when the men had gone to drill and the house was quiet, I slipped out. The streets were full at this hour of men passing to and fro to their drill-stations, and of women who had been out to see the camp, and were returning before the gates closed. The bells of many of the churches were ringing; some had services. I had to push my way to reach Herr Krapp’s house in time; but once there the crowd of passers served my purpose by screening me, as I loitered, from farther remark; while I took care, by posting myself in a doorway opposite the window, to make it easy for any one who expected me to find me.
And then I waited with my heart beating. The clocks were striking a half after seven when I took my place, and for a time I stood in a ferment of excitement, now staring with bated breath at the casement, where I had seen Marie, now scanning all the neighbouring doorways, and then again letting my eyes rove from window to window both of Krapp’s house and the next one on either side. As the latter were built with many quaint oriels, and tiny dormers,
and had lattices in side-nooks, where one least looked to find them, I was kept expecting and employed. I was never quite sure, look where I would, what eyes were upon me.
But little by little, as time passed and nothing happened, and the strollers all went by without accosting me, and no faces save strange ones showed at the windows, the heat of expectation left me. The chill of disappointment took its place. I began to doubt and fear. The clocks struck eight. The sun had been down an hour. Half that time I had been waiting.
To remain passive was no longer bearable, and sick of caution, I stepped out and began to walk up and down the street, courting rather than avoiding notice. The traffic was beginning to slacken. I could see farther and mark people at a distance; but still no one spoke to me, no one came to me. Here and there lights began to shine in the houses, on gleaming oak ceilings and carved mantels. The roofs were growing black against the paling sky. In nooks and corners it was dark. The half-hour sounded, and still I walked, fighting down doubt, clinging to hope.
But when another quarter had gone by, doubt became conviction. I had been fooled! Either some one who had seen me loitering at Krapp’s in the morning and heard my tale had gone straight off, and played me this trick; or — Gott im Himmel! — or I had been lured here that I might be out of the way at home.
That thought, which should have entered my thick head an hour before, sped me from the street, as if it had been a very catapult. Before I reached the corner I was running; and I ran through street after street, sweating with fear. But quickly as I went, my thoughts outpaced me. My lady was alone save for her women. The men were drilling, the Waldgrave was in the camp. The crowded state of the streets at sunset, and the number of strangers who thronged the city favoured certain kinds of crime; in a great crowd, as in a great solitude, everything is possible.
I had this in my mind. Judge, then, of my horror, when, as I approached the Ritter Strasse, I became aware of a dull, roaring sound; and hastening to turn the corner, saw a large mob gathered in front of our house, and filling the street from wall to wall. The glare of torches shone on a thousand upturned faces, and flamed from a hundred casements. At the windows, on the roofs, peering over balconies and coping-stones and gables, and looking out of doorways were more faces, all red in the torchlight. And all the time as the smoking light rose and fell, the yelling, as it seemed to me, rose and fell with it — now swelling into a stern roar of exultation, now sinking into an ugly, snarling noise, above which a man might hear his neighbour speak.
I seized the first I came to — a man standing on the skirts of the mob, and rather looking on than taking part. ‘What is it?’ I said, shaking him roughly by the arm. ‘What is the matter here?’
‘Hallo!’ he answered, starting as he turned to me. ‘Is it you again, my friend?’
I had hit on Herr Krapp!’ Yes!’ I cried breathlessly. ‘What is it? what is amiss?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘They are hanging a spy,’ he answered. ‘Nothing more. Irregular, but wholesome.’
I drew a deep breath. ‘Is that all?’ I said.
He eyed me curiously. ‘To be sure,’ he said. ‘What did you think it was?’
‘I feared that there might be something wrong at my lady’s,’ I said, beginning to get my breath again. ‘I left her alone at sunset. And when I saw this crowd before the house I — I could almost have cut off my hand. Thank God, I was mistaken!’
He looked at me again and seemed to reflect a moment. Then he said, ‘You have not found the young woman you were seeking?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, it occurred to me afterwards — but at which window did you see her?’
‘At a window on the first floor; the farthest from the door,’ I answered.
‘The second from the door end of the house?’ he asked.
‘No, the third.’
He nodded with an air of quiet triumph. ‘Just so!’ he said. ‘I thought so afterwards. But the fact is, my friend, my house ends with the second gable. The third gable-end does not belong to it, though doubtless it once did.’
‘No?’ I exclaimed. And for a moment I stood taken aback, cursing my carelessness. Then I stammered, ‘But this third gable — I saw no door in it, Herr Krapp.’
‘No, the door is in another street,’ he answered. ‘Or rather it opens on the churchyard at the back of St. Austin’s. So you may have seen her after all. Well, I wish you well,’ he continued. ‘I must be going.’
The crowd was beginning to separate, moving away by twos and threes, talking loudly. The lights were dying down. He nodded and was gone; while I still stood gaping. For how did the matter stand? If I had really seen Marie at the window — as seemed possible now — and if nothing turned out to be amiss at home, then I had not been tricked after all, and the message was genuine. True she had not kept her appointment. But she might be in durance, or one of a hundred things might have frustrated her intention.
Still I could do nothing now except go home, and cutting short my speculations, I forced myself through the press, and with some labour managed to reach the door. As I did so I turned to look back, and the sight, though the people were moving away fast, was sufficiently striking. Almost opposite us in a beetling archway, the bowed head and shoulders of a man stood up above the common level. There was a little space round him, whence men held back; and the red glow of the smouldering links which the executioners had cast on the ground at his feet, shone upwards on his swollen lips and starting eyeballs. As I looked, the body seemed to writhe in its bonds; but it was only the wind swayed it. I went in shuddering.
On the stairs I met Count Hugo coming down, and knew the moment I saw him that there was something wrong. He stopped me, his eyes full of wrath.
‘My man,’ he said sternly, ‘I thought that you were to be trusted! Where have you been? What have you been doing? Donner! Is your lady to be left at dark with no one to man this door?’
Conscience-stricken, I muttered that I hoped nothing had gone amiss.
‘No, but something easily might!’ he answered grimly. ‘When I came here I found three as ugly looking rogues whispering and peering in your doorway as man could wish to see! Yes, Master Martin, and if I had not ridden up at that moment I will not answer for it, that they would not have been in! It is a pity a few more knaves are not where that one is,’ he continued sourly, pointing through the open door. ‘We could spare them. But do you see and have more care for the future. Or, mein Gott, I will take other measures, my friend!’
So it had been a ruse after all! I went up sick at heart.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE HOUSE IN THE CHURCHYARD.
The heat which Count Leuchtenstein had thrown into the matter surprised me somewhat when I came to think of it, but I was soon to be more surprised. I did not go to my lady at once on coming in, for on the landing the sound of voices and laughter met me, and I learned that there were still two or three young officers sitting with her who had outstayed Count Hugo. I waited until they were gone — clanking and jingling down the stairs; and then, about the hour at which I usually went to take orders before retiring, I knocked at the door.
Commonly one of the women opened to me. To-night the door remained closed. I waited, knocked again, and then went in. I could see no one, but the lamps were flickering, and I saw that the window was open.
At that moment, while I stood uncertain, she came in through it; and blinded, I suppose, by the lights, did not see me. For at the first chair she reached just within the window, she sat down suddenly and burst into tears!
‘Mein Gott!’ I cried clumsily. I should have known better; but the laughter of the young fellows as they trooped down the stairs was still in my ears, and I was dumfounded.
She sprang up on the instant, and glared at me through her tears. ‘Who are — how dare you? How dare you come into the room without knocking?’ she cried violently.
‘I did knock, my lady,’ I stammered, ‘asking your pardon.’
�
��Then now go! Go out, do you hear?’ she cried, stamping her foot with passion. ‘I want nothing. Go!’
I turned and crept towards the door like a beaten hound. But I was not to go; when my hand was on the latch, her mood changed.
‘No, stay,’ she said in a different tone. ‘You may come back. After all, Martin, I had rather it was you than any one else.’
She dried her tears as she spoke, standing up very straight and proud, and hiding nothing. I felt a pang as I looked at her. I had neglected her of late. I had been thinking more of others.
‘It is nothing, Martin,’ she said after a pause, and when she had quite composed her face. ‘You need not be frightened. All women cry a little sometimes, as men swear,’ she added, smiling.
‘You have been looking at that thing outside,’ I said, grumbling.
‘Perhaps it did upset me,’ she replied. ‘But I think it was that I felt — a little lonely.’
That sounded so strange a complaint on her lips, seeing that the echo of the young sparks’ laughter was barely dead in the room, that I stared. But I took it, on second thoughts, to refer to Fraulein Max, whom she had kept at a distance since our escape, never sitting down with her, or speaking to her except on formal occasions; and I said bluntly —
‘You need a woman friend, my lady.’
She looked at me keenly, and I fancied her colour rose. But she only answered, ‘Yes, Martin. But you see I have not one. I am alone.’
‘And lonely, my lady?’
‘Sometimes,’ she answered, smiling sadly.
‘But this evening?’ I replied, feeling that there was still something I did not understand. ‘I should not have thought you would be feeling that way. I have not been here, but when I came in, my lady — —’
‘Pshaw!’ she answered with a laugh of disdain. ‘Those boys, Martin? They can laugh, fight, and ride; but for the rest, pouf! They are not company. However, it is bedtime, and you must go. I think you have done me good. Good night. I wish — I wish I could do you good,’ she added kindly, almost timidly.
To some extent she had. I went away feeling that mine was not the only trouble in the world, nor my loneliness the only loneliness. She was a stranger in a besieged city, a woman among men, exposed, despite her rank, to many of a woman’s perils; and doubtless she had felt Fraulein Max’s defection and the Waldgrave’s strange conduct more deeply than any one watching her daily bearing would have supposed. So much the greater reason was there that I should do my duty loyally, and putting her first to whom I owed so much, let no sorrow of my own taint my service.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 154
