One hot August morning Lilly, with her arms full of dewy roses, herself
besprinkled with dew from head to toe, entered the dining-room where
Anna was making tea, looking lean and tall in her simple blue-grey
linen gown. Her manner and greeting were the same as usual, yet Lilly
divined instantly that something out of the ordinary had happened. She
also noticed that Kaete, the maid who helped old Ferdinand with the
waiting, had red eyes, and was biting her lips till they bled almost as
she laid the table. Kaete was pretty and superior to the average
servant-girl, also better educated, her father having been a
schoolmaster. For this reason Fraeulein von Schwertfeger had chosen her
from among the other maids to help Lilly with her toilette.
When she had gone out of the room, Lilly began to ask questions.
Anna von Schwertfeger kissed her with redoubled tenderness and
affection.
"My darling," she said, "why sully your pure mind with disagreeable
matters? When people are bent on breaking their necks, what is the good
of trying to prevent them?"
"If it's a question of breaking necks," thought Lilly, "Walter von
Prell must have something to do with it."
Then she said aloud that she thought as mistress of the house she ought
to know what was going on, especially as in future she intended to do
the housekeeping herself.
The modesty of her "in future" impressed Fraeulein von Schwertfeger
favourably, and she yielded.
"I am sure it will give you pain," she said, "because I know you like
him."
"Him!" echoed Lilly; and she was conscious that she blushed.
"Indeed, we all like him," she went on in an excusing tone; "the
colonel is extremely fond of him. So long as he carried on his little
games at a distance I kept my eyes shut and refused to listen to
gossip; but when it comes to his breaking into the castle, it's a
little too much, and time to stop it."
"What has he done, then?" Lilly asked, shocked.
"There has been a great deal to excite suspicion lately. At several
places the creepers on your balcony appear broken off and withered."
"On my balcony?" She drew a step nearer the speaker, overwhelmed by an
unutterable fear, and taking hold of her arm said, "What _can_ my
balcony have to do with Herr von Prell, Anna?"
"Calm yourself, dearest," said the speaker, unable to meet her eyes.
"People in my position are bound to keep their eyes open; it is part of
their duties. And what I have done has been solely for your sake....
Then, how easily could anyone who doesn't know you as I know you
misinterpret this climbing on to your balcony----"
Lilly began to cry. "Oh! it's too low--too low!" she sobbed.
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger drew her down into the corner of the sofa and
stroked her forehead.
"I have experienced worse things than that, dear," she said. "Anyhow, I
was determined to get on the right scent, and although it is needless
to say I didn't suspect you"--again she averted her eyes--"I took the
precaution of watching in the dark outside your door for several
nights."
Lilly bounded up. While she had been sleeping innocently unsuspicious,
close by, someone had been lurking and keeping watch on her. So much
was she a prisoner.
"And this morning at about one o'clock I caught him red-handed. To
think of his dare-devilry! He had the audacity to place one of
Haberland's ladders against your balcony--that accounts for the broken
vine-shoots--and to get in through the glass door of your sitting-room.
By the way, dearest, glass doors should never be left open at night. He
slunk past your bedroom door into the corridor, without seeing me, of
course, Kaete is the only one who sleeps anywhere near, and this
morning, early, when I taxed her with it she denied nothing.... I
acted, as I always do in these cases, with every kindness and
consideration. I told Kaete that she might be the first to give warning,
and that nothing would be said.... But what is to be done about the
young man? This is his only chance for the future. If the colonel sacks
him it will be his ruin. On the other hand, I cannot very well keep
silence to the colonel on a point that concerns, in a way, his wife's
honour----"
"How do Herr von Prell's intrigues with the housemaids concern my
honour?" Lilly ventured to interrupt, hoping, by playing the innocent a
little, to gain time for thought as to how her friend was to be helped
out of this scrape.
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger was beginning to enlighten her on what all
the disastrous results might be of such profligate conduct, when the
tea-things rattled at the approaching footsteps of the colonel.
"Say nothing ... yet," implored Lilly; and to hide her fears and
confusion she rushed into his arms.
He did not notice that anything was wrong. His once ever-wakeful and
easily irritated suspicion had slumbered since he had confided his
young wife to the vigilant care of the duenna.
In these days he was no longer the zealous lover, aping the gallantry
of youth, who had wished to be master of her every look and word. The
playful patronage with which he now regarded the antics of this lovely,
gentle-souled child gave him quite a paternal air that became him well.
His expeditions to the casino in the nearest garrison town, at first
rare, had become more and more frequent. He often went by the afternoon
train, but as a rule started after the evening meal, when he did not
come home till two or three in the morning, as there were no trains
back earlier.
To-day he told them good-humouredly at breakfast that he had to go to
town on business, to get rid of the barley crop to the Jews.
A happy thought struck Lilly, filling her with infinite satisfaction.
The colonel's absence must be utilised to save _him_. How it was to be
done she didn't know. But save him she would. If she did not intervene
on his behalf, who else was there to steer this stormy petrel into safe
harbour?
When the colonel had retired to his room, she took heart and made her
cautious plea to Anna, who, however, declined to relent.
"He will only be worse next time," she said, "and then the disgrace
will be greater for all of us."
"Oh no!" said Lilly, "he will not get worse; he will reform. Just give
him a lecture."
"I am of an age to do it, certainly," said Fraeulein von Schwertfeger,
with a sour old-maidish smile, "and I have the authority; but, to speak
frankly, the subject is too delicate. I would rather not be mixed up
any more in such unpleasant affairs."
The pale eyes, almost hidden under their heavy lids, gazed with that
sphinx-like fixity which Lilly had often noticed before--it seemed like
the resurrection within her of an old and bitter hate. But she returned
to the topic voluntarily. All she would commit herself to was that, if
he came of his own free will and apologised, she might listen to him.
That was the most she could do without playing a double part.
"But how can he apologise when he has no idea that he has been
discovered?" put in Lilly timidly.
"I wouldn't mind betting," replied Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, "that
Kaete will run over to him the first moment she is free."
"But if she doesn't, what then?" asked Lilly, unable to control her
eagerness.
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger took her face between her hands.
"If I didn't know, my pet, what a dear, ingenuous young creature you
were, I might think there was something rather suspicious in your being
so keenly interested in this young rake. No, no; you needn't blush. Of
course I know there is nothing behind, and, at all events, I will wait
till to-morrow afternoon before taking steps--simply because you
intercede for him, darling."
Thereupon the conversation ended. Nothing more was to be hoped for from
that quarter.
"If I don't save him, he'll be dismissed; and if he is dismissed, he'll
inevitably go to the dogs; and if he goes to the dogs, I shall be to
blame."
Lilly's thoughts thus revolved in a circle till she felt quite
exhausted and giddy.
The most straightforward course would have been to interview Kaete, but
that would have been beneath her dignity. Besides, it was evident that
the poor girl had no thought of running over to warn him. She glided
about in a spiritless fashion, and finally had to be put to bed with an
attack of colic.
At four o'clock the colonel drove off to the station. He had stuffed a
packet of blue banknotes in his pocket-book first, a sign that he would
not be coming back till dawn.
Evening approached. The wheels of the returning manure carts rang on
the flags of the yard. The bellow of oxen and the cracking of whips
announced that the days' work was over.
Lilly crouched in ambush behind her creeper-covered trellis and watched
the bailiff's lodge. At last the ne'er-do-well appeared from his gable
end, dragging the unfortunate red foxy dog at the end of a taut chain.
He had on a greenish-grey tweed jacket with innumerable pockets, each
of which seemed to have something sticking out of it. He looked quite
bulky. But, all the same, he was a dear smart little fellow, worth
taking some trouble for.
Should she make him a sign, and throw down a note which later he could
pick up unobserved? She went into her rooms and scribbled in pencil the
following lines.
"Everything is discovered. Fraeulein von S---- promises to say nothing
provided you----"
Here she paused. This would never do. The stupidest fool who chanced to
get hold of the note could only interpret it in one way, _i.e_., as a
confession of guilt.
"I'll speak to him instead," she decided, as the bell sounded for
supper.
How curiously the Schwertfeger eyes regarded her, just as if they could
read at the bottom of her soul what her bold intention was. But no
reference whatever was made to the miscreant, and when they rose from
the table she put her arm into Lilly's arm, just as she did when she
wanted to keep Lilly from visiting her Polish friends.
"She won't let go the whole evening," thought Lilly, gnashing her teeth
inwardly.
At that moment someone came to say Kaete was much worse, and should they
send for the doctor?
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger left the room reluctantly, saying as she
went, "I shall be back before long."
In the flash of a moment Lilly had opened the verandah door and was
slipping down the terrace steps into the dusky park. The intense
silence was only broken by a faint splashing from behind the cypresses,
where old Haberland was filling his cans, as he had not finished
watering the rose-trees. She walked straight towards the gable end of
the lodge, wondering how she should attract his attention and bring him
to the window. She was spared the trouble, however, for he was lying
full length on the green bench outside the house, puffing serenely at
the end of a cigarette. The red dog, whose chain he had twisted round
his wrist, was asleep at his feet. None of his colleagues were to be
seen. She could scarcely breathe, her heart beat so violently.
"Herr von Prell!"
He started up, the dog with him.
"Herr von Prell, I've something to say to you."
He grabbed at his head to take off the cap which wasn't there.
"At your service, gracious baroness."
"Will you come and take a little stroll with me?"
"If the gracious baroness wishes, certainly."
He threw away the end of his cigarette, cast a rapid look round for his
missing cap, and then walked beside her, bareheaded, as stiff and
correct in his bearing as an automaton.
Lilly led the way into the middle of the park, where groups of trees
and grassy clearings melted into purple-fringed darkness. She had
recovered her calmness. The desire to save him endowed her with a
strength of will of which she had never dreamed herself capable.
"You must not misunderstand what I am doing," she began.
"Oh, of course not, gracious baroness," he answered with a polite bow.
"It is such a charming evening, and old acquaintances enjoy a chat."
"If that was my object in wishing to see you," Lilly said, unable to
conceal that she was hurt, "I should have asked you to the castle. You
may conclude from my coming that the matter is something of
importance."
"What could be of more importance to me, baroness, than walking here
with you?" he replied.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, Herr von Prell, if only you knew the
scrape you were in, you would hardly use such empty figures of speech!"
Lilly was amazed at her own haughty tone.
"A scrape, gracious baroness, more or less, what can it matter?" he
said, raising his eyebrows. "To be doomed to live so near and yet so
far from a certain fair lady is all that matters. The question is
whether Tommy and I have enough moral fibre to endure such a trial with
patience--Tommy, don't be an ass! Our gracious baroness has no
objection to you as long as you don't chew her train." And he began
tugging the wilful little dog off his forelegs as if he were some
mechanical toy.
"You'll throttle the poor animal if you don't take care," said Lilly,
glad to revert momentarily to less personal topics.
"Then he will suffer like his master," he retorted, catching at his
throat to illustrate his meaning and gasping horribly.
Such conduct must not be tolerated a moment longer. She owed it to
herself and her position.
"I suppose that you are quite unaware, Herr von Prell, that probably by
this time to-morrow you will have been dismissed?" she said loftily.
At last he seemed impressed. He scowled and twirled the fine ends of
his young moustache. Then, knitting his brows, he said:
"However bad things may be going, there is some satisfaction to be
derived from the fact that the gracious baroness seems to take not a
little interest in my affairs."
Now Lilly was really angry. "I wonder you are not ashamed, Herr von
Prell!" she exclaimed. "Here am I running great risks to help you, and
giving myself a lot of trouble, and yet you persist in talking
nonsense."
"We must be careful, Tommy--careful," he said, lifting the fox-like dog
in his arms. "First, we are flayed alive, then kicked. But we ought to
find comfort in the consciousness that we are innocent, my poor Tommy."
"Please don't try to excuse yourself," she scolded. "Fraeulein von
Schwertfeger has found out everything ... about your connection with
... you know--your nocturnal excursions to my balcony and entrance
through my sitting-room. Everything! Do you suppose that it is any
pleasure to me to have to treat you, whom I have always liked, as a
criminal? Do you suppose I wouldn't much rather have reason to be proud
of you than to see you sent away in disgrace? If you can say anything
in your own defence so much the better. I shall be pleased to hear it."
She had worked herself up into such a fever of righteous indignation
that she quite overlooked the impropriety of her present proceedings.
Now she was enacting a _role_ that enchanted her. She was the
benevolent chatelaine, doing her best to rescue an inferior, and her
breast swelled with a sense of her exalted virtue. They had emerged
from the dusky shadows of the ancient avenue of limes, a ray of light
from the afterglow in the west pierced the boughs and suffused his thin
freckled face with a deep flush. He appeared to be absolutely crushed
and penitent, and Lilly was already regretting that she had been too
hard on him.
"I quite see," he began after a pause, and his voice trembled with
suppressed emotion, "that I ought to clear myself from such a grave
imputation. I am asked to set up a defence, and I can; but in so doing
I am forced to reveal a secret ... and I am not sure whether it would
be fair to your gracious baroness to enlighten you on the awful failing
that has shipwrecked my whole life."
"Tell me at once what it is," urged Lilly, burning with curiosity.
"Well, if you must know, it is this. From childhood I have been pursued
by a ghastly fate, which overcomes me at moments when I am most
powerless, and fastens on me the responsibility for crimes of which I
am utterly innocent. Be prepared, therefore, to hear something
terrible. I am--I am a somnambulist."
As he glanced sideways at Lilly, there was such a droll, wicked twinkle
playing under the light lashes that she burst into a fit of light
laughter. He joined in with his dear old noiseless giggle that shook
him like an earthquake. So they stood still and both laughed till they
cried; and Lilly forgot all about her exalted duties as chatelaine and
her mission of salvation. Then, instinctively, their footsteps turned
together into the most deserted and overgrown part of the park, where
its bounds were lost in a dense thicket of birches. It grew darker at
every step. The foxy little dog had abandoned himself to his fate and
trotted obediently after his master.
"The truth is, my dear friend," said he, when they had recovered
partially from their levity--"why should I make any false pretences?--I
am a poor fish here floundering out of water. Can you imagine what it
is to have to lead a vegetable existence in the society of plebeians,
and from morning to night practise the arts of virtue and seriousness?
I can assure you it's often as bitter as a dose of aloes. Tommy helps
me over the worst hours, but even Tommy is sometimes a disappointment....
May I take this opportunity, by-the-by, of asking you a very interesting
question, my gracious baroness?"
Delighted at his returning gravity Lilly assented.
"Can you move your ears up and down?"
She was again seized with laughter as with an illness. She leaned
against the trunk of a tree, and struggled in vain with her merriment,
while he continued in a tone of profound despondency.
"I mastered this modest accomplishment, of which I am not in the least
proud, when I was in the Quinta at school. There it was considered the
very acme of attainments, and I thought it would be a nice trick to
teach my Tommy, who, however, declined to be taught it, though I have
wasted hours and expended a lot of mental effort in trying to make him.
But one day, by accident, I found out that he could do it much better
than I ever could. I came to the conclusion, too, that he had been able
to do it all along when _he_ liked, but not when _I_ liked. Is that not
very depressing, a symbol of the utter fruitlessness of all human
endeavour? Indeed, my dearest baroness, I believe I shall be compelled
to become philosopher, out of sheer unutterable boredom."
Lilly could see nothing now but the outline of his figure, behind which
the eyes of the foxy one glowed like balls of fire. Not since her
schooldays had she enjoyed such a bout of pure fun, and she had to wait
for a break in her laughter to remind him that it was time to be going
home. He turned obediently, changing Tommy's chain from one hand to the
other.
The danger that threatened him seemed to be totally forgotten. As time
was precious, Lilly took the bull by the horns and told him what
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's conditions were for keeping silence. But
she could not regain the dignified pose of a Lady Bountiful holding out
the rescuing hand with an air of sublime superiority, and every now and
then she broke off in what she was saying to giggle.
"I know that good lady's unquenchable penchant for treading on other
people's toes," he said; "but since we have got into her bad graces,
dear little Tommy and I will have to wriggle out. I am grateful to you,
my dear and gracious friend. I will take your hint and put myself on
the right road to absolution. I'll polish up my vocabulary of
repentance. I'll be more than repentant. I'll be cheeky. That works on
these respectable spinsters like magic; and I'll kill two birds with
one stone, and take care, while I am about it, to improve our future
chances of intercourse--always supposing that your majesty is
agreeable."
Oh, how very agreeable she was! "But how will you manage it?" she asked
anxiously.
"Leave it to me," he answered. "Your duenna is a clever old girl, but I
am even cleverer. I shan't be surprised if after to-morrow I am
honoured with warm invitations to supper at the castle, which will be
very convenient; and I shall, I warrant, succeed in looking into the
eyes of my queen unobserved by the two mighty watchdogs."
There was much in this speech that jarred on her. He might make fun of
Fraeulein von Schwertfeger if he liked--she was fair game; but of the
colonel he ought to speak with respect. And now that she had satisfied
herself that he was out of danger did she first fully realise how
atrocious his conduct had been, and how weak it was of her to be
strolling about with him in the dark, tolerating his silly jokes.
"Allow me to remind you, Herr von Prell," she said, "that it is only
owing to our former friendship I have warned you. Having done it, we
had better be strangers in future. I must go now. Good-night."
Whereupon she began to run away from him. But, as she sprang along the
dark woodland path without looking round, suddenly something warm,
soft, and alive slipped between her feet. She cried out shrilly, and
turned back to seek Prell's help; at the same moment the chain got
twisted round her ankle and held her fast.
The foxy little dog in his eager desire to get home had taken her
flight as a signal to break loose from his master's restraining hold,
and had run under her skirts. The more she pressed forward the more
painfully did the chain cut into her flesh. It was all over now with
her anger.
Herr von Prell had to kneel down and hold the little rascal in his arms
till she had released her foot from its chain trap.
"Tommy, Tommy, what mischief have we done? We have hurt our mistress's
august foot. That comes of straining on our chains and getting under
ladies' skirts. A grave offence. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, you
scoundrel?"
And then he imprinted a kiss on the dog's sharp-pointed little nose.
"Doesn't he ever bite you?" she asked, interested.
"He has had the advantage of a rigorous military training," he replied,
"and consequently he is used to kisses."
She burst out into a new fit of merriment, and he held out to her the
struggling woolly little animal, asking her if she would like to kiss
Tommy too.
Laughing, she declined; laughing, she walked on in his company. "Weak
as ever," she told herself.
Still in fits of silvery laughter, she came into the lighted hall,
where Fraeulein von Schwertfeger met her, with large reproachful eyes.
"Where have you been, child?" she asked, prepared on the spot to
subject her to a calm and judicial cross-questioning.
"Oh, he's such fun!" was all Lilly could gurgle forth as she buried her
face, flushed from laughing, on her duenna's shoulder. "Such fun!"
"You don't mean to say----?"
"Yes, I do. Do you think I would leave him in the lurch, my charming
little old pal?"
The Schwertfeger countenance froze into rigidity.
Lilly, with a whoop of joy, freed herself from the elder woman's arm,
flew to her room, nestled her head in the pillows, and laughed herself
to sleep.