Chapter XV Furens quid Femina Possit
“Et, dans leurs jalousies, vous trouverez toujours
Leurs vanités blessées plutôt que leurs amours.”
DESTOUCHES.
The mind of Burgravine Betty was a weather-vane, gilt and fantastically wrought, that veered in ever contrary directions, as blew the wind of her mood. Of constant purposes she knew but one, that of her own pleasure. But what course of action would best minister to this was a matter of perpetual indecision. She had amused herself with rare gusto, after months of enraging dulness, with the handsome stranger who had so impertinently sought the hospitality of Wellenshausen. And though a sermon from that crazy person the fiddler—no doubt a gentleman in masquerade, or Betty was no judge of such point—had left her momentarily abashed, sentimental over rocking cradles and wifely duty and such-like unprofitable conventions, the next morning the little shining vane was setting straight for the soft west of dalliance, and she fully meant to cheat her Bluebeard by as complete an affaire de coeur as circumstances would permit. Nay, while apparently taking virtuous farewell over night of the unexpected kinsman, she had already planned heaven knows what secret assignations, palpitating meetings in the shadow of the ruins, descents into the forest-land and green picnics in discreet glades, yea, even excursions into the deepest of the woods. But the secret departure of the degenerate Kielmansegg and the unwelcome appearance of a tactless husband had shattered these agreeable projects. And Betty’s vane had flown to north again: cold virtue in an injured wife, most wrongfully suspected. Next, by her husband’s odious tricks of suspicion, thrown once again into the company of good looks and young manhood, what a succession of small hot and cold breezes kept the weather-cock shifting east, south-east and south, back to west again! Positively driven to elope, by sheer dread of the fate of Desdemona under her own cushions, what better choice could be made than this Steven von Waldorff-Kielmansegg—rich, high-born, and so vastly personable? And in Vienna, these times, people scarcely could look askance at a divorcée.
Yet, a rainy night, and some more of that ubiquitous fantastic musician’s nonsense, and hey for a new quarter of the compass again! She could scarcely, however, regret the chill wind of reason that had shifted her purpose at the last hour—a night in the oubliette, even with a charming companion, coincided by no means with Betty’s ideas of enjoyment. And then, not having the knowledge of the murderous locality acquired by that climbing kid Sidonia, she and Count Steven might well be swirling, this sunny moment, in undesired comradeship under the black waters of the pit. Betty shuddered in every fibre of her ease-loving body.
Now, during these days of Sidonia’s brief betrothal, the Burgravine was in a more than usually undecided and dissatisfied frame of mind. Nevertheless, her mood pointed steadily for Cassel. As a Bluebeard, there could be no doubt of it, the Burgrave’s occupation was gone. He was abject under his Betty’s sandal. And Betty’s foot, for so little a one, could stamp curiously hard. Henceforth the husband who would have compassed her murder had (the Burgravine fondly believed) no choice but to be his wife’s slave. Dared he but thwart the smallest of her wishes, she knew well now how to reduce him to obedience. Cassel it was to be. Cassel, so soon as this absurd wedding was over.
A very sulky shoulder did the Burgravine turn upon the whole ridiculous affair. An errant squire of dames, dull, undiscriminating, ill-mannered youth, who, when a Betty was within the same horizon, could have the poor taste even to look at a Sidonia; to take up a hoyden, sun-burnt as a peasant child, and with as much idea of the refinements of life as the village chits with whom she was wont to make so free! A pretty show would she make of herself in Vienna!
The Burgravine had a curious glitter in those eyes of hers, that generally astonished the stranger by their flower-blue in her olive face; yet, withal, she was full of smiles. Was it not the wedding-day of the Baroness Sidonia, her husband’s niece?
Never had the Burg, on its dominating height, seen a bride go forth from its “honour gate” to the ancestral chapel with so little ceremony. Great carouse had there been at the castle on similar occasion, loud ringing of joy bells, and belching of powder smoke from the ramparts, wide flaunting of the old blue and yellow banner over the belfry. High folk, thickly gathered in Wellenshausen’s Burg, had drunk deep on the height; low folk in Wellenshausen Dorf, on the plain, had vied successfully with their betters. The glories of the weddings at Wellenshausen had been retailed from father to son. Yet this last bride of the house, heiress as she was to most of its honours, slipped from her chamber to the altar-steps with scarce the tinkling of the chapel-bell to mark her passage, and only the cries of one or two village children, hot from their scramble up the crag, to acclaim her, the smiles, tearful, motherly and portentous, of the forest-mother to brace her for the great plunge into the unknown. Such was the haste and privacy with which the compact was carried out. The imperious bridegroom had willed it so. Nevertheless, if ungraced by pomp and unwitnessed by honoured guests, the ceremony was impressive enough in the simplicity and earnestness of the two chiefly concerned.
So thought the musician, who knelt hidden, all in the dust, between the tomb of the greatest of the old Wellenshausens and the chapel wall. He had refused the post of honoured guest, the prominent seat prepared by Sidonia herself, the proffer of Steven’s dark suit and purple stockings.
“I shall be with you all the same, my children,” he had promised them. And from his place of concealment nothing escaped his watchful anxiety. It did his heart good to catch a glimpse of the bridegroom’s face as it was turned upon the bride. Never, it seemed to him, had Sidonia looked more completely the child. She went through the ordeal with a blithe serenity; he knew that the music he had made for her that morning, at the misty dawn, was singing in her heart.
At the sight of her golden head under the bridal veil, the vagabond closed his restless eyes for a minute. An inner vision of poignant tenderness rose upon him. “O Love, O Death, how the wheel turns with us!”
To the bowing snuff-coloured notary from Helmstadt, the Burgrave in his glittering Chancellor’s uniform was a very awe-inspiring person: he quailed under the unblinking gaze of His Excellency, beneath the jealous eyebrows. Far indeed was he from suspecting that the merest glint of the Burgravine’s blue orbs—so youthful, so affable an apparition to the dusty man of law—sufficed to make Wellenshausen, the terrible, quail in his tall boots.
Kurtz the Jäger whistled between his teeth, with an impudent eye on the wedding procession, as, in company with Mademoiselle Eliza, he beheld it pass out.
“It is your mistress whose little game has fallen through,” said he, tauntingly, to the French girl.
“Ah, no, par exemple,” retorted she. “It is your master, mon bel oiseau, who wears the fool’s cap this time. Oh!”—she clapped her sallow hands together—“how we shall amuse ourselves at Cassel!”
It could hardly be said that the wedding repast was a convivial event. Steven took upon himself a great air of condescension over this first breaking of bread at the table of his would-be executioner. His politeness was something quite overpowering. The Burgrave, after a bumper of Sillery to the health of the happy pair, essayed to carry matters with a high-handed joviality; the effect of it, against Steven’s glacial indulgence, was ghastly. But, when bridegroom and bride conferred together, were it upon the merest trifle, the irresponsible youth and joy of them was not to be hidden. And Burgravine Betty watched with a glance that grew ever more steely.
She had sat down to the board in a fairly good humour, for her amber gown was becoming, and the water gardens, the statued alleys of Cassel Palace, were growing into nearer perspective. But Cousin Kielmansegg positively treated her in much the same high-horse manner as he treated his host. The most alluring twists of her shoulder, the most killing ogles, were received with odious civility; nay—and her vanity was pierced to the core—she actually caught in him a look of boredom, when he had perforce to turn and give his attention to a delicate whisper, reminiscent innuendo, sigh for the might-have-been.
Fury rose in her, sudden as a mountain whirlwind. She gripped her wineglass: the sweetness turned acid on her lips. Loud rang her laugh; and the Burgrave, glancing at her, felt a satisfaction in the ever-doubtful growling depth of his heart that his Betty should be so merry at her Beau Cousin’s wedding. But Sidonia flung her aunt a startled look. The Burgravine sprang to her feet with a peremptory gesture:
“Come with me,” she said.
She was in a prodigious hurry, all at once, to get the new Countess Kielmansegg away from the table into the privacy of her own turret apartment, ostensibly to robe her for the journey. The bridegroom followed his bride with a long glance; noting which, the Burgravine tossed her head.
“You must have a little patience,” she cried to him insolently. “She will be ready in an hour.”
Once alone with the girl, she whisked the bridal veil from her head with such feverish and ungentle hands that Sidonia turned round to look upon her in amazement, only to meet a positive glare.
“Why, Aunt Betty!”
“Why, Sidonia!—forgive, I should say: Most High Lady Countess!”
“What is the matter with you?” cried Sidonia.
She was never one to take hostility in meekness. The colour sprang to her cheek.
“Why do you look at me like that? What has vexed you?” she insisted.
“Vexed?—I?” quoth the lady. Here they were interrupted by Eliza, all flounce and bounce and smile, with pink bows to her apron and a jaunty new cap. Her mistress turned upon her fiercely. “Get out of this! When you are wanted you shall be called,” she cried. Then: “Nay, my love,” she proceeded, once more addressing her niece, now in a biting tone of sweetness (a diabolic inspiration had come to her: if Satan can never unmake, he can at least mar) “nay, wherefore should I be vexed? I may be ashamed for my sex; I am still, I must confess, under the shock of the recent scandal, which has rendered necessary this humiliating marriage, but——”
Sidonia went white to the lips. “I don’t understand——” she cried boldly; but there was horror gathering in her eyes.
“Do you need to be told, then,” asked the other, clapping her plump hands together in exasperation, “that if a young girl spends a night in a cave alone with a young man, her reputation is not worth a silver groat?”
The blood raced back to the bride’s cheeks. “Do you taunt me for having saved your life, Aunt Betty? What say I?—saved your reputation.... But what does it matter; how does this concern me now? My husband loves me; he has my faith.”
The Burgravine broke into shrill laughter. Then, with a sudden change of tactics, she folded her niece to her heart with hysterical tenderness.
“Nay, my poor lamb, I am wrong! Go, go in your touching confidence; I will say no further word. It would be cruel to enlighten you a day sooner than necessary, and——”
“I think you’re mad,” interrupted the bride. “I cannot imagine what you mean.” With steady fingers she removed the myrtle wreath from her head, then approached her aunt with a countenance singularly altered. “You must explain yourself, Aunt Betty,” she said.
The Burgravine rushed again into passion. “Were you the innocent you pretend to be,” retorted she, panting, “it would be no kindness to let you depart in ignorance of the true state of your affairs. But, for all your baby pose, you cannot make me believe, my love, that you are blind to the fact that this poor, chivalrous young man has only wedded you, all said and done, to save your name, your honour. A—ah, he has vowed, and you believe him, that he loves you?” (It is well to lash oneself into blind anger when it is difficult to strike in cold blood.) “Ten days ago, on that very turret platform,” she dramatically pointed through the window to the silhouette of the east tower, “only ten days ago he held me to his heart—this devoted lover of yours—and consecrated his life to me!”
“I do not believe you,” said Sidonia, again. But her soft, young face seemed suddenly turned to marble. “If he loves you, what does he want with me?” The girl spoke slowly. She had been shaken, but she was not convinced. “I don’t believe it, Aunt Betty,” she resumed. “Nobody would have said any harm of me. Every one knows me here! Wellenshausen,” cried the child, in angry common-sense, “is not Vienna, nor yet Cassel!”
Betty, who possessed the faculty of changing her mind with ease, had no bashfulness at all in eating her own words when occasion offered. Indeed, so accommodating was her disposition that she was quite ready to believe her own hasty concoctions, however contradictory, at a moment’s notice. Shrewish blew the gusts of the jealous temper.
“Well, mon coeur, is it not better to think him an excellent chivalrous person than to try and seek for less noble motives? ’Tis granted, isn’t it, that since he loved me at nine o’clock in the evening, loved me to the point of elopement, he could hardly be ready to love you very devotedly at eight the next morning? We will not think that my Bluebeard dropped him a hint of your money bags.... The situation was delicate, you see, and if the Burgrave, who is fond of you after all, my dear, and who, no doubt, wanted to repair the damage he had wrought, failed to move the young gentleman by one plea, he may have succeeded in another. There are compensations about you: that is a fact. It was after their private conversation, remember, my little angel, that Beau Cousin proposed....”
Sidonia set her teeth in her trembling lip. Every word was a dagger wound to pride and love and maidenliness. Then all her loyalty revolted. Her knight of the forest, so base? Never! And if the Burgravine was false in the one instance, why not in all?
“Aunt Betty,” she said deliberately, “this is all a lie.”
“Fool,” snapped Betty. She ran from the room like a fury, to return with incredible quickness. She shook a crumpled note before the bride’s eyes, then spread it with frenzied fingers upon the table.
“See here! Read! read what he writes to me—to me! Ah, you know his handwriting by this time! Read, read! He asks me to meet him among the ruins. ‘All will be ready!’ What does that mean, think you? Why, that his coach was waiting ready for us at the foot of the hill, to whirl us two to our own land, to safety, to happiness!”
The girl reeled and pressed her hands to her eyes.
“Why, my dear,” cried the other, pursuing her advantage mercilessly, “did he ever blink at you, I ask, before that disgraceful night in the dark? And indeed, how could fine young men such as he, I should like to know, find anything to fall in love with in you, you poor little country, weather-beaten thing? No, my poor child, no, you had best take it that he’s just doing the recognized high-born, gentlemanly thing by you; but it will do you no harm to remember that it was me, me, that he wanted to take away from Wellenshausen, not you!”
“Then why did you not go—why did you send me to him, with your good-bye?” asked Sidonia at last, almost voiceless.
“Because I was a fool,” exploded the Burgravine, in all the inconsequence of her envy.
At this particular moment it seemed to her that in her virtuous decision she had indeed missed the opportunity of her life. And she set her teeth upon such savage accents of truth that, at last, Sidonia believed.
She took the crumpled bit of paper from the table. Stunned amid the ruins of her fair edifice of happiness, she had as yet hardly realized her aunt’s position, even though so shamelessly trumpeted. Now, with this proof of Steven’s real feelings in her hand, Betty’s guilt suddenly leaped, hideous, into shape before her.... The Burgravine von Wellenshausen, a married woman, ready to break her marriage vows, listening to words of love from the guest under her husband’s roof! The bride was very innocent, but innocence is perhaps the severest judge of all. She turned eyes of horror upon her uncle’s wife.
“It is well,” she said, after a pause. “Leave me; I must think out what I have to do.”
As she spoke she thrust the note into the bosom of her bridal frock.
To be thoroughly successful in revenge is always slightly alarming. So thought the Burgravine as she closed the door upon this unknown, this strange Sidonia. But, having gone too far to retreat, spite now resolved to reap the final gratification.