astonished ego was forced to admit that there were conflicting egos in
the world which her stupid patron saint went to sleep and forgot. She
wept, she had hysterics, she bit several handkerchiefs to pieces, she
tormented herself with visions of Ordham’s sudden recall to England
before her husband’s return; finally, in a flash of blinding light, saw
him infatuated with Margarethe Styr. That cordial hand-shake, that
unstereotyped smile, had meant something from the woman who would have
the world believe that she dwelt on a pedestal—in a niche—with a
curtain in front of her. Ordham, true to his temperament, had not
mentioned his meeting with Styr at Neuschwanstein, but Hélène knew of
the visit, and leaped at conclusions not far from the truth. Of course
he was fascinated, no doubt was talking Wagner (they were sure to begin
on Wagner) with her at that very moment.
She sprang out of bed and ordered her victoria brought round in an hour.
She must have movement, diversion, or her mind would become so inflamed
that she could not plan, and a new plan was imperative, unless, indeed,
she found the self-control to await her husband’s return.
It was a cold spring with occasional warm days. Lotte, anxious to shake
out one of the new gowns, expatiated upon the weather. Frau von Wass,
soothed by the thought that she could always command the envy of Munich,
permitted herself to be arrayed in a gown and hat designed to make its
wearer look as like a butterfly as a mere mortal can. The parasol, the
slippers and stockings, the gloves and handkerchief, assisted to
transform her into at least the Parisian she loved to be mistaken for,
and she forgot her woes for an hour in the delight of showing herself.
But she by no means forgot Ordham and directed her coachman to drive in
the Englischergarten, where he occasionally strolled with Kilchberg and
other friends. The beautiful day had brought out all Munich, driving,
riding, walking; the great park was filled with good-natured saunterers,
many of whom stared in open admiration, amazement, or disapproval at the
dazzling vision behind the liveries of the excellent Geheimrath Wass.
But she saw nothing of the young Englishman. She ordered her coachman to
leave the park by the Schwabing entrance and drive to the tennis court
on the other side of the village. This was a sacred enclosure, which,
with all her social adroitness and her husband’s popularity, she had
never penetrated. Reserved in the first instance for the young and
active members of the House of Wittelsbach, poverty in numbers had
forced them to open the gates to the embassies and legations, as well as
to the older families of the Bavarian aristocracy. Ordham had been
admitted to this club as a matter of course, and tennis being the only
form of exercise that he tolerated, he was an expert player, and might
be seen at the courts four or five times a week.
To-day, the air being charged with the elixir of spring, he was frisking
about like a kitten; and the sight not only made Hélène Wass pale with
fury, but induced a spasm of bitter despair. It was manifest that
nothing in him but his youth, his incontrovertible youth, was sentient.
What cared this buoyant healthy young Englishman for the pleasures of
the intellect, for impending examinations, the momentous question of
career? What cared he for LIFE, its problems, its tragic females? They
were non-existent, as was proper at his age, and his blood was sweeping
from his heels to his head in exultant waves, his lungs were full of
oxygen, and he was winning his game.
He made her feel old, forlorn, remember that whether she captured and
held him or not there was one of life’s gates to which she had lost the
key. That belonged to other young people like himself. True, she could
play tennis, and a very good game, but she could not abandon herself to
it, and that was the whole point.
Then, for the first time, she lost her head. She had imposed a severe
strain upon her excitable spoilt temper in disciplining herself for a
week. The prospect of ten days more, during which she must still control
herself, play the rôle of the arch indulgent friend, when she was
devoured by at least four different passions, abruptly declared itself
beyond her powers of endurance. The game of tennis finished, she sent
her footman to Ordham with an imperious summons. He came reluctantly,
for he intended to play another game at once.
“Come with me!” she exclaimed below her breath. “You must! you must! The
most dreadful thing has happened, and you are my only friend. I must
talk to you.”
Wondering what dreadful fate could menace any one so carefully and
exquisitely arrayed, but recalling that he had practically engaged
himself to stand by her for a fortnight, he sent the footman for his
coat and entered the victoria. She waved her hand in the direction of
the Englischergarten, and ten minutes later, leaving the carriage at the
opening of a secluded path in the woods, she led Ordham along the
romantic windings of the Isar. When they were out of earshot, she
suddenly caught him by the shoulders and brought her morbid excited
little face close to his.
“Johann! Johann!” she gasped. (She spoke English perfectly.) “Take me
away! Fritz suspects—he threatened this morning to kill me. He has gone
to Berlin. It is only a ruse! He will return suddenly, hoping to entrap
me—”
“But he cannot.” Ordham recalled some of her recent lies, and felt the
necessity of keeping his head clear. “I will even stay away from your
house. Then, what danger?”
“Oh, you don’t understand! It is the knowledge of the sword that hangs
over my head. If he came back suddenly and discovered nothing immediate,
it would make him the more furious. He would ferret out other things.”
“I don’t think he could.” But his blood congealed, and he wondered if it
were the damp woodland after his hour of tennis. That this would be an
excellent excuse for illness on the morrow cheered him somewhat, and he
said with his exquisite gentle courtesy:
“I am sure that you are agitating yourself for nothing. But could we not
talk it over to-morrow? I feel that I am getting a chill—I have not had
a shower and rub down, you know, and this enchanting nook is rather like
a new-made grave. You know how easily I take cold.”
“I don’t believe you ever had a cold in your life,” she screamed. “In
those flannels you look like a pink baby that hasn’t cut its teeth. You
shall listen to me, and if you write me to-morrow that you are ill I’ll
go to the Legation.”
“Oh, for your own sake, don’t do that.”
“I’m beyond caring for appearances. If Fritz discovers that I love you,
will he not divorce me? What matter if Munich cut me first? I know now
that is what they expect Fritz to do. Some one of them has told him. My
life here is rushing to a climax. It is only a question of days when I
shall be cast out for every she-wolf—led by Princess Nachmeister—to
set her teeth in my flesh.”
Ordham, colder each moment, stared at the ground with blanching face. He
recalled the discreet hint of Excellenz. And if she knew, why not
others? He wondered somewhat at Munich’s sudden access of virtue, then
remembered its deathless intolerance of the outsider. Might it not be
true that this poor woman—he had never seen any one look so weak and
helpless, as she wrung her hands and stared into vacancy—was about to
be publicly disgraced on his account? He turned faint and sick at the
burden cast upon his unwilling shoulders, but he made up his mind to
temporize until the last moment.
Her eyes dismissed their fixed stare and met his in an agony of appeal.
So may martyrs have looked when beholding the torch approach the fagots.
“Ah!” she wailed softly. “If you but loved me! Then it would not matter.
My villa in Italy! We could be so happy. In Italy nothing matters. And
by and by all would be forgotten. You are of the elect, and to them all
things are forgiven. But you hate me! You hate me!”
“How can you say such a thing? You have taken away my breath. You
suggest enchanting possibilities, but we must both take more time to
think. And I really must leave this damp spot. It is dangerous for us
both. If you have not come to the conclusion by to-morrow that your
fears are exaggerated, we will talk it over. Shall we meet here?”
“Will you swear not to send me word that you are ill?”
“Of course.”
“Then come to the house. I shall receive you in the salon. If we sit in
the middle of the room no one can overhear a word we say, and did Fritz
return suddenly no situation could disconcert him more. Whereas, did we
meet here—and were followed—how do I not know that the footman was not
told to spy?—yes! Let us go—now—quickly!”
She hastened out of the grove, but at the end of the path paused
abruptly. “I must walk!” she announced. “I shall dismiss the carriage.
It is better, too, that you should walk.”
“Very well.” He resigned himself to another tête-à-tête. The park was
nearly deserted. They walked along the outer carriage drive. He
endeavoured to divert her mind. He might as well have attempted to dam a
flood with his hands. She had reached that pitch of nerves which must
find relief in a torrent of words or in hysterics. Her maid would soon
be methodically administering sedatives; and meanwhile Ordham was forced
to listen to a tirade against Wass, Munich, and her thrice unhappy fate
in loving a man who, for worldly reasons, would not permit himself to
return her love, hesitated to fly to a Paradise in Italy lest a few
ridiculous people cut him for six months. He was appalled at the
strength of the woman’s passion, and distracted at the thought of the
possible consequences. No longer could he cheat himself with the
delusion that she had transmuted her love into friendship, that she
would open her net after the fashion of sensible women of the world when
the captive began to flutter. For once his diplomatic instinct was at a
loss. Again he felt that events were rushing too quickly for him, and he
had not the least idea what to do.
Thus it happened that Margarethe Styr, seated in the curtained depths of
her tower, that she might amuse herself with glimpses of the world she
so seldom cared to enter, sat up suddenly and gazed hard at a voluble
white reckless woman dressed like a butterfly, and a dejected young
cavalier in flannels. She had heard no gossip of these two, but this
vision, linked with his similar appearance when leaving the house of the
same woman a few days before and his careless nod on the night of the
Nachmeister concert, told the story. Countess Tann concerned herself not
in the least with the affairs of others, and it is probable that if she
had not met Ordham a second time, she merely would have smiled half in
pity, half in scorn, at the eternal folly of young men, as manifested in
this moving tableau. But she had unbent to him even at Neuschwanstein,
far more on that night when he had leaped through this window to her
rescue. And to no one else in eight years had she given the least of
herself. That alone entitled him to a unique place in her regard; and to
refrain from some degree of personal interest in so sympathetic a
creature she had discovered to be impossible. Moreover, in spite of the
remodelling of character effected by that strong brain and will, there
was no lack of plain female in Margarethe Styr. She determined then and
there, not only to save this charming young man from the toils of an
unscrupulous siren, but to indulge in the pleasure of outwitting another
woman. She knew enough of Hélène Wass to conclude that her life had
reached a desperate climax which threatened danger to the man that had
magnetized the remnant of her youth. As she rose and went upstairs to
dress for supper, she felt even more stimulated than when about to
engage in a round with the opera-house cabal.
XIII
STYR, THE POTTER
It was on this night that he was to sup with her. The hour appointed was
seven, and, not knowing his habits, she dressed early. As she arrayed
herself in one of the loose Fedora tea-gowns that Bernhardt had made
fashionable, she congratulated herself upon the inspiration that had
bade him, as he swung down from her window, “not to dress.” After that
scene in the park she resolved definitely to make him understand at once
that although living alone, and an artist, about whom, no doubt, many
stories were current, she was not to be confounded with the cocottes of
society: she could picture the costumes in which Hélène Wass received
her admirers at tête-à-tête suppers! The Fedora gown, with its curved
but loosely fitting back, its straight panel in front that hung from
throat to slipper, unrevealing but by no means negligée, was the golden
mean betwixt the formal and the intimate in feminine attire. And no one
could carry such a garment with more dignity than Countess Tann. A
number of these Fedora gowns had come to her recently from Paris, and
she selected one to-night of which all save the ivory-white panel of
crêpe de chine was of mignonette-green velvet. The girdle, which hung
low, was composed of flexible silver links and had been picked up in one
of the antiquity shops of Munich. Only her beautiful throat was bare.
Her hair was arranged like a coronet. She had seldom lost her interest
in clothes, and once or twice a month entertained at supper Excellenz
Nachmeister, Possart, Lenbach, and a number of the older authors,
artists, and scientific men, who could talk, and who were content to
await her summons.
To-night she smiled at the unmistakable excitement of titivating once
more for a mere man, although he made no appeal whatever to her deeper
feminine instincts. Those had long been dead, and she stared down for a
moment at their graves, almost forgotten under the heavy mounds of
loathing and hatred for the sex for which they had been implanted. She
no longer hated men; she had not even the desire, common to the woman
that has been deeply wronged, to wreak vengeance upon them as a sex, now
that all the cards were in her hands; art had enchained every faculty
and left little room in her mind for the meaner interests of life. But
she was a woman still, or she would not have been the great artist she
was; and she sighed a little as she clasped her girdle, and even
experienced a fleeting envy of Hélène Wass, who was two years older than
herself. She was very happy, she dwelt upon serene heights, and one day
Wagner would conquer London and she would sing there and behold the
world at her feet. But Life, Life itself, had cheated her horribly; she
must die when her time came without one tender or beautiful memory. It
had gorged her with its knowledge, but its lessons had been hideous; and
only her strong will—perhaps the greatest of her gifts—banished their
memory when they rose and flitted, phosphorescent ghosts, across her
upper consciousness. She swept them aside to-night and went downstairs,
grateful that with the power to love had gone the power to suffer; for
she would go out that instant from the world and its music rather than
descend into those buried depths of her nature again.
Although it was ten minutes past seven her guest had not arrived, and
she went into the drawing-room to wait for him. She felt some vanity in
displaying her salon to one who she knew instinctively possessed a
cultivated and exacting taste. It was a large room on the right of the
entrance, with a row of alcoves on the garden side, each furnished to
represent one of the purple flowers. The woodwork was ivory-white; the
silk panels of the same shade were painted with violets or lilacs,
pansies, asters, orchids, or lilies, as if reflecting the alcoves. There
was but one picture, a full-length portrait of Styr as Brynhildr, by
Lenbach. The spindle-legged furniture was covered with pale brocades and
not aggressively of any period. It was distinctly a “Styr Room,” as her
admirers, who were admitted on the first Sunday of the month, had long
since agreed, while sealing it with their approval.
At half-past seven Ordham was shown in, exclaiming: “I am so sorry! But
my driver went to sleep. I am positive of it. I spent the entire time
between Barerstrasse and Schwabing crying ‘_Schnell!_’”
“They are always at least half asleep at this hour. They have reached
almost the limit of their day’s allowance of beer. For that matter, I
often see them asleep in the park three hours earlier, huddled down into
their meridians and trusting to their patient old nags to keep the road.
One drove up a tree in front of my window not long since. Shall we go in
to supper?”
The dining-room was across the hall, a stately little room fitted up in
brown and dull gold. The small table, with its delicate service of
porcelain and crystal, was perfectly appointed, and the simple supper of
_omelette aux fines herbes_, pigeons, salad, and American hot breads,
was so refreshing to Ordham, after the heavy English cooking of the
Legation, and the heavier of such of the Bavarian aristocracy as did not
employ chefs, that it diverted and comforted him. But he had looked pale
and harassed when he entered, and Styr bore her purpose in mind.
They talked, as Hélène had anticipated, of Wagner, and Margarethe
succeeded in interesting him deeply when she spoke of her early doubts
and fears, not of the difficulties of the music, but of the strange
women she must portray.
“I had never heard the rôles sung, you know,” she was saying, as they
entered the gallery by the river and she motioned him into the deepest
of the chairs. “Please sit still. I am given to prowling. And smoke.
Those are Russian cigarettes, and very good, but smoke your own, if you
prefer. I had read those operas over and over,—Heavens, but how
often!—imagining myself the heroine of each in turn; but when my voice
was ready for interpretation, I realized that thought—brain—as well as
imagination, was a prerequisite. Of course I had not long been in
Bayreuth before I heard how others interpreted them, but that conveyed
little to me. As soon as I had begun really to analyze and ponder upon
the characters of Brünhilde and Isolde, I chose to call them from their
graves into my own soul, divested of all the conventions which already
clung to them like barnacles. My ardour was so great that when roaming
alone in the woods of Eremetage, the old park of the Margraves on the
hill outside of the town, I really persuaded myself—and for hours at a
time—that I was one or other of those great women, torn with her
passions, delirious with her hopes, exalted with her despair. My God! my
God! What happiness! I lived the life of the imagination, the artistic
imagination on fire; I gave not a thought to my personal self. Nor was
there time for anything but study. Frau Cosima, regarding me as an
irresponsible genius, found me a lodging with a good creature who kept
me from starving—and the clothes on my back. Perhaps even The Master
laughed at my intoxication,—for it was far beyond enthusiasm,—but I
neither knew nor cared. I was quite mad. Of course such a time can never
come again, for I have learned all the great rôles, and who shall write
others? But at least I am happy while singing them, and throughout the
day preceding the night of a performance I live the part to myself. I
see the Rhine beneath my window, my tower is the Hall of the Gibichungs.
I hear the Atlantic in the Isar and fling myself face downward on that
divan and let the passions of all womankind tear my heart as they tore
Isolde’s when they transformed her into a fate and the avenger of her
sex.”
Ordham had forgotten Hélène Wass. He would rather have made no reply,
but when she paused, he took refuge, after his habit when excited, in
commonplace:
“That is perhaps your greatest acting—that first act of _Tristan_. But
of course there is no other in which you run the gamut of the
passions—although in _Götterdämmerung_—but really I am not up to
criticism. You are terribly real in all of your tragic rôles. I wonder
how real it all is—if you are capable of sweeping a man out into
eternity with you to-day? You must have been once.”
“I am capable of nothing but acting to-day; and of getting quite wrought
up in the novelty of talking to some one besides myself in this room. I
receive those I receive at all in the salon, but in this I live. Let me
show it to you.”
He followed her about the long room that reminded him of galleries in
certain old houses in England. It must have been very bright during the
day, for the side facing the river was made almost entirely of windows.
The other three walls were set thick with pictures, many of them
sketches laid at the feet of Die Styr by the devotees of another art; a
few old prints and etchings, and an infinite number of photographs.
Ordham wondered how a woman who made so few friends had managed to
collect so many signed presentments, until he examined the signatures
and found that they were all from celebrities or members of the royal
families of Bavaria and other German states. Ludwig had sent her no less
than twelve, ranging from the supreme if morbid beauty of his young
manhood to the pallid corpulence of the present, in which nothing lived
to remind the world of one of the most promising monarchs that ever had
ascended a throne but the deathless ideality of the eyes. Other members
of the royal and ducal Wittelsbachs, kindly and genuine people, who came
sometimes to drink a cup of tea with the great artist (whom they admired
with that true reverence for art that the centuries had bred in them)
had sent their photographs handsomely framed and affectionately
autographed. Ennobled though she was, the fact that she was of those
that received payment for services rendered debarred her from court
functions at the Residenz, but that was all. She had dined with the
Queen-mother more than once, and was invited to the routs at the other
palaces in common with the rest of the Bavarian aristocracy. Although
that strong brain could never turn, it must have admitted an occasional
wave of astonishment, perhaps exultation, at the significance of this
eccentric curve in her fortunes.
Some such thought flitted through Ordham’s mind, but he made no comment,
and admired the graceful crowded room in general. It looked as if the
disposition of the tables and chairs were changed daily, and although
the walls were of a delicate grey, there was colour somewhere, in what
he could not define, so perfect was the harmony, that gave the room
warmth and brightness. At one end a marble bust of Wagner stood alone on
a pedestal. The books were in the tower, opposite whose arch was the
divan with its many pillows.
“You should be very happy in such a room,” he said with a sigh, as he
returned to the deep comfort of his chair. “I can well imagine that here
you can conjure up any vision you wish. I have been here but half an
hour, and already it seems more like home to me than any room in Munich.
I cannot fancy anything disagreeable happening in it.”
“But there are so many beautiful rooms in Munich.” She took a chair
facing him, lit a cigarette, and prepared to draw him out.
“Beautiful, but not _gemütlich_—wonderful word! Either they are
magnificent, like Princess Nachmeister’s, or merely formal, with fine
things in them, or quite awful, with stuffy ancestral furniture that
should have been refilled seven generations ago. My room at the Legation
is done up in chintz and is very pretty and fresh, but it is not—well,
it does not shut out the world as this room does.”
“But your place is in the world. And it is very good to you.”
“Oh, sometimes.”
There being no fire to stare into, his gaze had wandered to the open
window near his chair. Suddenly he realized that the dark object beyond
was a bit of the Englischergarten, and the scene of the afternoon
flashed back to his mind. The vague sense of dissatisfaction that had
stolen over him at the last words of Countess Tann crystallized, and he
turned pale and drew in his breath sharply.
“Has Fraülein Lutz been scolding you? She gave me many unhappy quart
d’heures.”
“I can only be grateful to her—and to you.”
“That was a sort of gambler’s throw on my part—I am curious to see how
far you will go in the diplomatic career. Very far, I venture to
predict.”
“Oh!” He twisted about again and looked hard at the dark panel of the
window. His languid ambition gathered a sudden vehemence as he seemed to
behold a forking road in his future and a sinister pointing finger.
“What is the age limit for examinations?”
“Twenty-six.”