Chapter XXVII The Song of the Woods
“Das ist ein Klingen und Dröhnen
Bon Pauken und Schalmei’n
Dazwischen schluchzen und stöhnen
Die guten Engelein.”
HEINE.
Sidonia slipped away alone to a shadowed window-recess. Under the insult of her aunt’s words, the insult of Jerome’s gaze, pain and anger had so burned within her as to exclude all other feelings. But in the “solitude of the crowd,” her brain gradually cleared; and, as she reviewed the situation, a new feeling, a dread unnamed but overwhelming, began to take possession of her. With wits naturally alert, and to-night abnormally stimulated, she began to notice strange things about her. She was in danger—in danger of what, she knew not, but something horrible, unspeakable. The looks the King and d’Albignac had cast upon her, the glance of intelligence they had then exchanged, her uncle’s obsequious haste to disclaim her marriage, and her aunt’s public affront to her, were as many lightning flashes that showed the precipice yawning at her feet. Not a friend had she in the world to whom she could turn, save the man who did not love her, and a poor, wandering musician, now probably far away on some Thuringian road, playing gay tunes to the rhythm of his own incurable melancholy.
Unavowed, even to her own heart, these two days the thought had haunted her that perhaps—nay, doubtless—Steven would take the opportunity of meeting her, which the royal function afforded him this night. She knew enough of the ways of Jerome’s court already to be aware that there would be no difficulty in his being present at the palace concert should he wish it. The Upstart loved to parade his magnificence before strangers; and to a Waldorff-Kielmansegg the palace doors would be open à double battants.
But, search the throng as she might, there was no sign of the young disdainful head. The vision of it, pale and passionate, had lived in her memory even as she had seen it at their parting. He would have towered above these squat Westphalians, these popinjays of Frenchmen and Corsicans; his presence would have shone out among them. Nay, she would have marked his glance upon her among a thousand starers. She knew well, poor Sidonia, that she would have felt it in every leaping pulse! Her heart turned faint: had he cared, he would have come. Had he cared even only for her honour, according to those fine words of his yesterday, he must have been here to watch, to guard, his wife. She pressed her hands against her eyeballs, for the brilliancy of the lights became unbearable. And as she stood between the parted curtains in the recess, the orchestra, half hidden behind a bank of flowers, at the end of the room, struck up a gay French air which added to her sense of misery.
Her uncle’s words, “the annulment deed is already drawn out,” seemed to jig in her brain in time to the measure. It was almost the same phrase that she herself had flung at Steven—but now it bore a sound of cruel reality quite novel to her. And when a couple of horns took up the fiddles’ theme, they seemed to be blaring to the world her unutterable shame: “A quixotic piece of nonsense, half-hearted, soon repented... at least, on one side.... Count Kielmansegg’s signature will be quickly affixed....”
How was it possible for any one to be so abandoned, so helpless? Even the small furry things of the forest at home had their holes to which they could run and hide when they were hurt.... The forest at home! With what longing did her soul yearn to the thought of the green shelter, the pine-alleys with their long shadows cutting the yellow glades; of the great, sombre thickets, where not the most practised huntsman of the Revier could have tracked a startled hind.... Dawn in the woods, with pipe of birds waking up... violets, blinking dew in the moss, and clean, tart breezes blowing free.... Eventide in the forest: the mild sun setting at the end of the valley, through the clearings, and the thrush chanting his last anthem on the topmost bough of the stone pine.... The scent of the wood-smoke from the forest house, where Forest-Mother Friedel was preparing supper for her hungry lads, where all was so wholesome, so honest, so homelike; where at this moment—who knows?—Geiger-Hans might be seated in the ingleglow, his music, lilt of joy and sorrow mingled, of humour and tenderness, floating out through the open door into the forest-aisle.... Sidonia’s thoughts began to wander from her own sorrow. She saw the sunrise in the forest, she felt the evening peace.
All at once, in her lonely corner, she started and opened her eyes; she brushed her hands across her wet lips. She was dreaming, surely! And yet she could swear that the actual thrill of the vagabond’s violin was in the air, that its piercing sweetness and incomparable depth of sound were ringing in her ears.
“Allons voir danser la grande Jeanne....” The orchestra was braying the trivial French tune no more. The jigging and twiddling of fiddles, the mock laughter of hautboys, the infectious rhythm of flute and drum, had all given place to a stealing melody, infinitely apart:—yes, even that mountain song which had been known between her and the wanderer as “Sidonia’s air”! Surely if she were not dreaming, then she was mad!
She stood, holding her breath. The strain went on. Above those clamours of laughter and voices, yes, it was true... her song, Sidonia’s air, was calling her, unmistakable, insistent, with all the urgency of a whispered message.
Scarcely aware of what she was doing, she left her hiding-place and went swiftly through the indifferent throng towards the call. With one exception the men of the orchestra had left their platform: behind a high group of palms, a solitary musician plied his bow softly, secretly, as if rehearsing to himself.
Sidonia pushed some branches apart. The player looked up. Their eyes met. Then she forgot to be astonished. She thought she had known it all along. He had come to save her. True friend!
“I knew it was you,” she said. She laughed at him through the green palm-stems, her eyes sparkled. How could she ever have thought Geiger-Hans would fail her? She had need of him, and of course he had come!
But Geiger-Hans did not smile back. His face—so dark under powdered hair, so odd over the mulberry uniform, bechained and besilvered, of Jerome’s Court Orchestra—was very grave.
“Little Madam Sidonia,” he said, “what are you doing here?” He spoke sadly; and under his unconscious fingers his violin gave a sad accompaniment to the words.
Sidonia looked at him with her innocent gaze. She was hurt that he should find fault with her—the Geiger-Onkel who hitherto had always thought all she did perfect! Yet she was pleased that he should dub her “madam” instead of the whilom “mamzell.”
“Do you know what sort of a place this is?” pursued the fiddler, with ever-increasing severity. “Do you know with what people you are surrounded? Have you not heard the common saying, that if it be doubtful whether an honest woman—save the unhappy Queen—ever crossed these palace doors, to a certainty no honest woman ever went forth from them? Why are you not with your husband?—with your husband,” he repeated sharply.
Sidonia, who had hung her head, ashamed—for in truth she felt the evil about her in every fibre—reared it on the last words.
“Geiger-Onkel,” she cried, “I have no husband, and you know it. That is past and done with.” Then her heart began to beat very fast and the smarting tears gathered in her eyes. “From what motives I was married, I know not; but that it was all a cheat, I do know. He does not want me. He never cared for me. First it was pity, perhaps, I think; now it is pride with him. On such terms I will be no man’s wife. I will have none of it—rather death!”
“Oh, death!” said the fiddler, and struck his strings, “death is the least of evils. Nay, the release of a clean, proud soul... that is joy. The worst end of life is not death. Beware, little madam!” He had another change of tone: never had Sidonia been rated with such sternness. “Why, what a child you are! Yet none so childish but that you know full well this is no child’s mischief, but woman’s danger! With what anxiety am I here to save you from yourself; at what trouble!... Only that the rats are flying already from the falling house; only that I happened to meet the second violin of Jerome’s orchestra, an acquaintance of old—a musical rat in full scuttle!—I might still be racking my brains for means to come near you! Here am I this hour, wearing the livery of the Upstart, not knowing if I shall be given the necessary minute for speech. The prisons are stuffed full to-night, and Jerome always was afraid of me. Let but his eye, or that of his spies, turn this way and recognize me, and it is to the lock-up with Geiger-Hans! Oh, then, what of Madam Sidonia? Home to your husband! Home, I say! You know where to find him. You toss your head at me? It was through pride the angel fell—and he was Star of the Morning!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Sidonia.
“Nay,” said Geiger-Hans; “you know too much already. Fie, what a dance will there be here before the house falls! Even now Jerome is plotting his last gratification. Did not his eye fall upon you? Your husband’s name, his sacred Austrian nationality—that is your only safeguard. And that name you are not to keep long. You are to become Madame d’Albignac.”
“D’Albignac!” cried Sidonia. “I—Madame d’Albignac? You are mad, Geiger-Onkel!”
But, even as she spoke, she felt a cold sweat upon her.
“And d’Albignac will not be for a long engagement,” pursued the fiddler, relentlessly. “The puppet King has very little time left, as his lieutenant knows, and he, d’Albignac, will be but too eager to save something out of the ruins—and, besides, they are amicably agreed already.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sidonia again. She went white, then red, trembled, and caught at the prickly stem of the palm.
“Take me away with you,” she broke out of a sudden, piteously. “Save me!”
“I cannot save you,” answered the wanderer. His voice was harsh, yet it faltered. “No one can save you but your husband. Go home to him.”
Then he began to tune his fiddle with fury, for his fellow-players were straggling back. Some of them looked curiously at the fine lady who was speaking to their unknown comrade so familiarly. Sidonia turned. Many of the great company were looking at her, too. Right across the room she saw Jerome and his equerry talking together; and, as they talked, their eyes (or so she fancied) ever and anon sought her.
Panic seized her. But, even in panic, Sidonia was loyal. She must not speak again to Geiger-Hans, lest she bring him into deeper danger. Geiger-Hans her friend, the wild wanderer, in prison! In prison for her! That would be terrible.
She wheeled round; and then, like a hunted thing, pushed her way blindly through the throng, determined to retire to the Burgravine’s apartment. People nudged each other as she passed. At the door, an old lady, with white hair and a soft, pink-and-white face, detained her by the skirt:
“Who are you, my dear, and whither so fast?”
“Oh, please,” panted the girl, “let me go! I am Sidonia of Kielmansegg.” Even in her agitation she did not forget the name that was her shield. “I must go back to my aunt, the Burgravine of Wellenshausen.”
The old lady nodded. “That is all right,” she said. “But you seem frightened, child. There is nothing to be frightened at. And if you want any advice, my dear, or help, you have only to ask for Madame la Grande Maréchale de la Cour—that is myself. I am very fond of girls.”
Her voice was purring, her smile was comfortable. As Sidonia moved away, she felt vaguely reassured. If her own kindred failed her, there might yet be salvation—salvation other than the inadmissible humiliation of that return to the man she loved but who did not love her... all that Geiger-Hans (so suddenly, unaccountably unkind!) would devise for her.
In the Chancellor’s apartment she found bustle and confusion. A footman staggered past her, bringing in trunks. A couple of the new Cassel maids were running to and fro with folded packets of lace and silk.
For a second Sidonia stared amazed; then her heart leaped with sudden joy. These preparations for departure could have but one significance: the Chancellor had got wind of the infamous plot against his niece,... by his orders Betty was already preparing to take her into safety. Ah, how could she have doubted her kinsman’s sense of family honour? Had not even his desperate intention, in the matter of the oubliette, shown him a true Wellenshausen? She had ceased to blame him since she had understood: rather slay than be dishonoured! Cassel was no place for honest women; in his decision to keep his wife away from it, he had been right, a thousand times! And who, better than Sidonia, knew how his hand had been forced before he consented to bring them thither? But, in this emergency, he would be master once more—and she was safe.
She burst into the room: yes, there was her aunt, already engaged in donning a travelling garb, and ever and anon clapping jewels into their cases with fervid haste. Betty looked up and her olive face grew thunder-dark as she recognized her niece.
“Geiger-Hans has told me all!” cried the-girl from the door. “Did you look for me? How horrible it all is. But I shall be ready in a minute! Where are we going?”
The Burgravine was silent for a second, fixing her with cold eyes. Then she spoke, with an acid composure:
“I am going back to Austria. I have done with Westphalia and all that belongs to it. I do not know what your plans may be, but they concern me no longer.”
She closed the case she held in her hand; the snap seemed to give final emphasis to her words. Sidonia stood, aghast.
“I have done with your Westphalia, my love,” pursued the Burgravine: “done with your uncle, my Bluebeard, en premier lieu, and with Jerome, that plebeian, that upstart!”
Intense was the scorn with which she spoke the words.
Apart from this, the irredeemable wound that her vanity had received to-night from the “little Corsican,” Betty had another reason for her sudden determination. Flighty she might be, but she was a woman of business instincts where her self-esteem was concerned. She had met a countryman of hers at the concert, an elderly diplomat, a man of standing. He had breathed certain information into her little ear.... He had received a courier. Napoleon had been finally vanquished at Leipzig. The news had not yet reached Jerome, but it spelt “the End” this time! Himself intended to take the high-road, sans tambour ni trompette, the very next morning. He was getting on in years, and he would prefer not to be caught in the débandade. And, as he had parted from her, he had pressed her hand, and discreetly trusted that she might soon be paying her relatives in Vienna a visit, and that they might meet again there.
The obvious hint had not been wasted. Excellent M. de Puffendorff—he would be toiling his elderly, quiet way homewards by the next sunshine. What was to keep Betty from starting that very night? The Burgrave had put it out of his own power to resent anything she did. And, whatever should betide between them, she was sure of a comfortable pension. To leave at once was certainly her best course, since this ludicrous Cassel had nothing to offer her but the discomfort of a révolution pour rire. To be involved in the stampede of the Westphalian court would for ever cover her with ridicule. She shuddered as she thought of her escape from the unpardonable absurdity, from the madness she had actually contemplated—a liaison with M. Jérome Buonaparte!
As for Wellenshausen, the horses were not foaled (she swore) that would take her back to that prison. It was hey for Vienna this time, and in earnest!
She laughed out loud now, as her eye rested upon Sidonia’s bewildered face. Here, in sooth, was Fate avenging her with unexpected completeness.
“Fortunately, I have my own people to go to,” she remarked airily. “You will, I think, see pretty things before long in your Cassel. But, there, you have a feeling heart, my dear. You can wipe your little monarch’s tears first, and make up to M. d’Albignac for the loss of his pension afterwards. C’est un beau rôle, and you have your uncle’s blessing upon it.”
D’Albignac again! An odious, open threat. Yet, though it inspired horror, Sidonia scarcely felt fear of its execution. No one could force her into such a marriage. But the other allusion, because of its very mystery, brought the former anguished sense of approaching evil upon the girl; a dread of something unspeakable, and so secret that she knew not where it might lurk for her, or at what moment it might seize her.
“You are a wicked woman,” she said, dropping her words slowly.
Betty laughed. In the forcing-house atmosphere of Jerome’s mock Versailles, it had not required long for the flowers of Betty’s nature to develop in strange luxuriance.
“Ecoutez, ma chère,” said she, brazen, “the only act of virtue I ever perpetrated (and, by the way, you were my instrument in it) I have regretted ever since. Bah! the oubliette would have opened its old jaws in vain, for Kielmansegg and I would have been far away, on the wings of love, before my amiable husband had had time to set the ancient machinery in motion. Of course you stood haranguing each other, for poor Steven could not believe that I meant to fail him. Anyhow,” pursued the speaker, with her inimitable logic, “there is no reason why I should have been killed any more than you. I suppose Steven could have nursed me in his arms all night as safely as he did you. (Poor boy, it might have made the time seem shorter to him.) So much for virtue.... How you stare, my love! It is one comfort that to repent of being good is so much easier than to repent of being wicked—and so much more successful, as a rule! My journey back to Vienna has only been postponed, you see.”
Countess Kielmansegg stood stonily. The Burgravine, running from place to place like a mouse, halted now in the middle of the room. Their eyes met, and their thoughts flashed at each other.
“And do you go alone?” asked Sidonia.
In her own ears her voice sounded strange; her heart was gripped as by iron fingers. Oh, if Betty would only not laugh like that!
The Burgravine suddenly ceased laughing. An idea had struck her. Why should she go alone, indeed, if there was a chance of the excellent company of a well-favoured, rich, and noble youth? What a magnificent culmination to her dull career as Burgravine von Wellenshausen! And what a double vengeance! It seemed as if it must have been predestined, so perfect was it. It was worth trying for; and, at any rate, the pleasure of tormenting Sidonia was worth a fib or two. Betty laughed again.
“Who knows?” she answered. “I may perchance find an escort. Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg will have signed by now a certain precious document of yours, which I hear they bring him to-night. Then it will be ‘Hop-la, postilion!’ with him also, I suppose.—He is my cousin,” giggled pretty Betty. “So, if I accept his protection, it will be perfectly right and proper.”
Sidonia gave a quiver like a startled hind. Then she turned and fled, even as flies the hind with the hunt on her traces, and Betty’s laugh pursued her like to the note of the horn.