Chapter XXIV Portents
“Hüt bich, mein Freund, vor schwarzen, alten Kasen,
Doch schlimmer sind die weissen, jungen Käschen....!”
HEINE.
There was brilliant sunshine as Steven rode in at the gate of Cassel. The fiddler walked beside him; but, once within the town, he halted, waved his hand, and called out:
“Good-bye.”
“How?” cried Steven, drawing rein, his heart sinking at this unexpected parting.
“Ah, little bridegroom!” said Fiddler Hans, “it is even so. And a pretty figure,” he said, “should I be, to shadow your lordship’s magnificence in this fashionable city!”
He stepped across the cobbles, laid his hand on the horse’s neck, and looked up at the young man; all mockery fled out of his eyes.
“You are an honest lad,” he said, “and you love her—go, tell her the naked truth.”
In her pink-hung bed at the Bellevue Palace, Betty von Wellenshausen opened a sleepy eye upon her surroundings. She yawned and stretched herself. It was good to wake up in Cassel and feel the bustle of life about her, the gay and ceaseless movement, instead of the rarefied loneliness of Wellenshausen on the crags, where the morning might find her higher than the clouds themselves, with perhaps scarce the beat of a bird’s wing across the awful stillness.
Yes, it was du dernier agréable in the Residenz—Betty’s thoughts ran naturally to French—to be aroused to the prospect of a day full of the most new and diverting experience.... Positively, Jerome was a charming fellow!...
... It was, perhaps, a trifle strong to ask for a secret rendezvous on the strength of one meeting; but Betty did not regret her answer. Without being at all prepared to yield—gracious powers, was one not to enjoy oneself a little?... after three years of Wellenshausen!
In the midst of these gossamer resolves, the door creaked apart.
The Burgravine rubbed her eyes and thought she must be still dreaming, for through the aperture peered the heavy countenance, the bristling head of her husband—actually of the Burgrave of Wellenshausen himself!
She sat up, her lace cap awry upon the starting dark curls, her cherry mouth open, her eyes round, the very image of astonished indignation. With ponderous tip-toe tread, not unlike that of a wild boar stepping out of covert, the husband entered the room. He closed the door behind him and stood smiling, half timidly, half fatuously. Betty’s clenched hands flew up in the air and down again on the sheets.
“How dare you!” she gasped. “Did I not forbid you——?”
“Oh, come now, Betty, my little wife, my little dove, I’ve frightened you. You were asleep, angel? But when I got your letter, last night, I lost not an instant. His Majesty gave me leave—urgent private affair. Post haste I came from Heiligenstadt. In Cassel with the dawn—a mouthful of breakfast to while away the time—a little toilet, and here I am. Shaved, my treasure! Your dear little letter——”
“My... my dear little letter?” Betty shrieked, eyes rounder, curls more startled than ever. She sat rigid. “My dear little letter!” she repeated under her breath once more. Then, as she recalled the missive in question, she was shaken with an irresistible giggle. Her face dimpled. The Burgrave, gazing on her amorously, thought her the most ravishing, the most maddening being ever created for the delight or torment of man.
“Your letter, my Betty, to Heiligenstadt,” he murmured, drew a pink sheet from his breast pocket, and carried it to his lips. “What wonder that, upon receipt of this, I could not delay coming to my sweet Betty a minute longer!” He held the note at arm’s length. “Your wifely, your dutiful words: ‘I should indeed be disloyal to persist in rebellion against my lawful lord.’”
Now, at a flash, the situation was laid clear before her:—by some inconceivable carelessness she had put her correspondence of two days ago in the wrong covers!... A plague on this new-fangled French invention of envelopes!
She shut her lips with a snap and swallowed down the cry that rose to them. Rapidly she tried to recall that elegant reply to the royal importunities which had given her so much satisfaction; and then all other feelings were lost in a gush of gratitude to the Providence that had suggested those ambiguous terms which saved the situation—saved Betty, Burgrave of Wellenshausen, from premature discovery, irreparable disgrace.
She turned and smiled adorably on the Burgrave.
“Monster,” she murmured, “do you deserve forgiveness?”
Steven halted at the first inn on his way, at the sign of the Aigle Impérial—a new French sign upon an old and solidly Germanic house. Here he put up his horse and engaged a room.
The best he could obtain was on the second floor. The town was full of officers—a regular military citadel now, and Cassel, that used to be a quiet Residenz.... Honourable guests could no longer be entertained as was their due, mine host informed him with a shrug of the shoulders. Steven, however, was indifferent enough; it was not his purpose to remain an hour longer in Jerome’s capital than he could help. Indeed, he dropped some words concerning the equipage he would probably require—it might be that very evening—which gave the landlord an insight into a long purse and magnificent habits of travel.
This worthy, therefore, sped the stranger towards the Royal Palace with far greater urbanity than he had displayed on his arrival, and stood staring after him with some curiosity:—unattended, upon a bony old horse, and airs of a prince withal... a sable cloak than which the King himself wore no better... and we want, if you please, a travelling carriage and four of the best horses obtainable. We don’t mind buying if they are not to be hired.... Oho, ei, ei!
“The town is turned into a citadel.” The words recurred to Steven as he swung down the ill-paved street. The very air throbbed to military rhythm. In the fields, without the walls and on the new ramparts, everywhere, levies were being exercised, to judge by the tramp of feet, the calls and counter calls of bugles, the distant blare of marching bands, the beat of drums, cries of command, rattle of sham fire. The little brown town itself was filled with the most heterogeneous throng—Hanoverian and Westphalian hangers-on of the Court; French and Corsican adventurers; soldiers of as varied nationalities as were the uniforms of Jerome’s fretful fancy; grenadiers, late of his brother, briefly royal of Holland, in their red coatees; wonderful blue hussars (French most of them) very gallant, with a wealth of jangle, whether ahorse or afoot—these same wonderful blue hussars, some of whom Steven had seen driven by the sheep-skin Cossacks like wrack before the storm; dragons d’Espagne, in green and orange, stern, lean and war-worn (unscrupulously intercepted, these, on their way to rejoin their imperial leader, and here disdainful of pinchbeck king and petty service); stolid Westphalian recruits lounging along the cobbles with the slouch of discontent; astounding diplomats driving about, clad in astounding embroideries; academicians, too, with the green palm on coat-tail and cuff, for “Little Brother Jerome” played at being as like big brother Napoleon as might be.
Market boors plodded by, blue-stockinged, crimson-waistcoated and wide-hatted; shapeless country wenches tramped, and fair ladies, reclining in coaches, flashed past Steven; and quite a swarm of lackeys, postilions, chasseurs, with all the insolence of the servants of dissolute masters, elbowed him aside, or appraised him with open comment. Had he not been so absorbed in his private anxiety, he might have noted, in spite of the air of gaiety, the bustle and the extravagance, certain ominous signs of impending cataclysm around him—the swift passage here and there of an urgent courier; the grave countenances of some officials; the little groups, whispering together in by-streets, dissolving at the first hint of approaching police; the singing defiance of the students; the sullenness of the poorer burghers; and, above all, the febrile, over-strained note in the very merriment of the ruling class itself. There was a tinkling of madcap-bells at the Palace of Jerome that rang into the town; no one within those walls had a mind to hearken to the reverberating echoes of Berlin and Hamburg and Dresden.
Heartily as he despised the sovereign and his army; careless as he was, in the absorption of his own vexed affairs, of the dire threat that hung upon the land, Steven could not but find something inspiriting in the martial sounds and sights. Unconsciously his step fell to the measure of some distant drums. He had a valiant sense of marching upon victory as he turned into the palace courtyard. On the strength of his splendid air, the sentries saluted him without challenging. A huge green-uniformed Swiss porter bowed before him.
The first check—and it was a slight one—was that no such person as the Gräfin Waldorff-Kielmansegg was known at the Palace. She had to be explained as the niece of Chancellor Wellenshausen, as the young Baroness Sidonia, before her identity could be established. Then, once more, all was smiles and bows. Nothing could be easier than to see the gracious Fräulein. He was passed from Swiss porter to royal French lackey; conducted by the royal French lackey through several corridors and up a flight of stairs, then delivered to no less a person than dapper Kurtz, the Burgrave’s own Jäger. This latter gave him first a stare, then a sharp, meaning look, but, nevertheless, introduced him without demur to a kind of ante-room. Here Steven was left; and here he had to wait a length of time, which seemed to him first ill-omened, then positively insulting.
It was a quaint room, painted with impossible nosegays of flowers and cornucopias running over with gargantuan fruit. It gave, as did the whole apartment, on the Bellevue Gardens; and, through the yellowing trees, he could see distant gleams of the Fulda, blue under a blue sky. A merry party was playing bowls on the boulingrin; and, though it was screened from sight by sundry formal clipped hedges, Steven could hear the interchange of voices, ladies’ laughter, the banter of men.
As the minutes passed and there came to him no sound from within the apartment, the tinkling, irresponsible gaiety without grew to be a personal irritation. The very sunshine that had cheered him on his way was now a mockery; the distant tunefulness of trumpets, a boding. More than once he lifted his hands impatiently towards the bell-rope, but each time refrained: so much hung in the balance, he must be patient. Patient! He ground his teeth as he paced the bright, absurd room.
Kurtz brought the message intended for Sidonia straight to the Burgravine. He was an astute young man, and knew the most likely quarter for promotion. Betty was at the moment engaged with the contents of a milliner’s box, choosing a hat to wear with a certain new green redingote at the review to be held that afternoon. Something it must have of the military cock, without offending the feminine graces. It was matter of the deepest moment. But Betty, it has been hinted, had a capable mind—a facility for grasping several issues at the same time. She rose promptly to the new situation.
“Bid Baroness Sidonia come to me,” she ordered. Then, tartly recalling her maid, who was edging towards the door: “Eliza, where are you going?” she cried.
“Mon Dieu,” said Eliza, innocently, “but to inform mademoiselle that some one is waiting for her. And, indeed,” she added, seeing by the flash of her lady’s eye that her good-natured intention was frustrated—“indeed, madam, it is strange what a foolish habit we have all got into of calling madam’s niece Mademoiselle. It is the young countess, I should say.”
She clasped her hands, and was about to wax eloquent on the subject of her pleasure at M. le Comte Kielmansegg’s reappearance and of her rooted conviction that they were un bien gentil couple, divinely destined for each other, when her mistress peremptorily reduced her to silence. Kurtz thereupon vanished in his brisk soldier way.
Betty selected another hat and set it on her curly head. It had an adorably impudent tilt and a bunch of orange cock-feathers.
“That, madame,” said the French milliner, her thin elbows akimbo, her bright, familiar eyes fixed admiringly on her client—“that, madame, we call the Shako à la Saxonne—it is everything that is new—an inspiration after the battle of Lützen. And there is not another lady in Cassel will have anything like it.”
Betty twisted her figure from side to side, and surveyed herself in the long mirror. She had donned the long narrow redingote to be sure of her effect, and the rich dark green of the velvet threw her face into charming relief. The orange note of the feather was the perfecting touch.
“I really think—I really think I will have it.” She spoke lingeringly: these things do not decide themselves without reflection.
Sidonia came in slowly. Betty ran a keen eye over the girl; the fair hair was rough, and that was a dreadful little garment of Wellenshausen manufacture... pale face, heavy eyes! Betty broke into a laugh. Life was really very amusing at times.
“You sent for me, aunt?”
“Yes, my dear. Somebody has called to see you, it seems.”
“To see me?” Sidonia drew her breath quickly. Crimson rushed to her face.
“Dear child,” said the Burgravine, in her most cooing voice, “do not agitate yourself; you need not see him unless you wish. Yes, my love, it is that tiresome man again—my wretched cousin Kielmansegg.”
Sidonia swayed a little, but caught herself up, fiercely erect; then the blood began to ebb from her cheeks.
“I will go to him,” she said under her voice. “Where is he?”
“Perhaps it would be just as well,” said the Burgravine, carelessly. “You can hurry matters on about the annulment. Truly, it is fortunate,” she laughed, “that we shall not now have to hunt for him God knows where, in order to free you, my poor little Sidonia, from this absurd business.”
“Aunt!” cried the girl, indignantly, with a glance at the milliner.—How could Aunt Betty laugh so heartlessly, how dared she discuss these most intimate affairs, before a stranger!
“Calm yourself,” said the elder lady, “she does not understand one word of our savage language—too true a Frenchwoman for that, my dear! Now, about this traitor. (There you go white and red, you silly thing.)... Everything can be settled by Yes or No! Either he wants to carry off his heiress, or he is content with your decision. He has, of course, received your letter. Heavens, my dear, did we not discuss it all before? And, anyhow, it is not a matter for heroics. Lord knows, I don’t want to interfere; it is entirely for you to decide whether you are on or off with the bargain. For I will lay forty wagers he is here to protest. Ah, I know my young Viennese gentlemen; they cannot have too much gold at their back.—Decidedly, Madame Athenaïs, I keep this hat.”
It was too adorable to be taken off her head even for a moment.
Sidonia stood, clasping and unclasping her hands. Every word her aunt spoke, dropped apparently with such heedlessness, but in reality with such subtle intent, stabbed her to her sore heart.
“Approach, my dear,” said Betty, maternally, “and let me, for heaven’s sake, run a comb through your hair. Mercy on us, child, what a gown! Had you not better change it?”
“No,” said Sidonia, sullenly. She went, on leaden foot, to her aunt’s toilet table and gave an unseeing touch to her hair.
Betty looked over her shoulder; the two faces were reflected side by side. Sidonia’s reflection in the glass looked positively ugly—in her own eyes. In Betty’s, too, apparently, for she cried, with an air of great generosity and wisdom:
“I would offer to go with you, to support you, my angel; but after what has passed—I think it were wiser he should not see me. After all, who knows? You may patch it up. But, Sidonia, you really ought to make yourself a little tidy.”
Madame Athenaïs, who, if she had that ignorance of the German language attributed to her ultra-Parisian nature, had contrived nevertheless to follow the dialogue pretty closely, here interposed with the unctuous familiarity of her kind:
“Oh, if the young lady is going to have an interview of importance, it is certain she should make some toilet. See, if mademoiselle permits, I will show her a hat that is the very thing for the occasion. Something young, young, quite virginal, yet, coquet, alluring!—something no gentleman of taste could resist on mademoiselle’s head!”
Sidonia—she was but seventeen, after all—stamped her foot.
“Leave me in peace, all of you!” she cried, and made for the door.
The keenest of all Betty’s stabs she carried away in her heart; that was the vision of Betty herself, so fair, so distracting in her plumed hat, beside Sidonia, plain, awkward, ill-dressed—poor Sidonia whom Steven had married... without love! Betty’s words: “It were wiser he should not see me,” sang in her ears to the fierce accompaniment of her own jealous blood. She recalled the smile and the glance at her own reflection in the mirror, with which Betty had pointed her concession to wisdom. Hot-tempered by nature, Sidonia had yet never even suspected the existence of such passion as now rent her.