Austrian home, bade me hasten to the great salon and pour out coffee for
the gentleman from Hanover who had come to buy our horses--little did I
think what lay in store for me! 'You must smile on him, child,' said my
mother; 'he is an old nobleman, very rich; and if your father sells
well, it may mean a month in Vienna for you!' Ach, heavens!" said the
Burgravine, "think of me, my Sidonia, smiling, in my innocence, on
him--on him! And who was bought and sold? It was poor Betty!"
"I think it is very wrong of Uncle Ludo," asserted Sidonia, severely, a
flush rising to her sunburnt cheek. "Why, since he has married you,
will he not trust you?"
"Why? Because, having spent most of his life studying our sex, the man
now flatters himself upon a wide experience of our frailties. Because,
having so often proved how easy it is to break the marriage vow, he can
put no confidence in another's keeping it. Because," and her bosom
heaved with indignation, "Cassel is the most amusing spot at this moment
in the whole of Europe--they say it is gayer than Paris itself--and no
husband who respects himself can take his pleasure with any comfort, if
he does not feel that his wife is correspondingly bored."
"But uncle has his Chancellor's duty," resumed Sidonia, after pondering
upon these enlightening remarks.
"Chancellor's duties!" The lady drummed on the diamond panes. "Oh,
yes, my love, King Jerome requires onerous duties of his ministers, and
I've no doubt that Ludovic performs his _con amore_.--How soon will you
be eighteen?" she cried suddenly.
"In four months," said Sidonia.
"Four months--an eternity! Alas, my love, long before that I shall have
been laid in that hateful chapel of yours; in that very vault, no doubt,
where lies my predecessor--that fool of a woman who resisted such a life
as this for twenty years, and yet had the inconceivable want of tact to
die at the very moment when I was ripe to fall a prey to the monster."
"Poor Aunt Hedwige!" said Sidonia, reflectively; "she was very fat and
never unkind, and I don't think she was unhappy."
"Ha!" muttered the Burgravine, vindictively, "I'll warrant he might have
brought her to Cassel with impunity."
"He didn't, though," said Sidonia.
"No, child," pursued the other, with much rancour, "woman's place is at
home, you see, while the man is abroad--aha!" She set her teeth and
growled behind them like an angry Persian kitten. Then she snapped at
her niece: "And you haven't even the intelligence to be eighteen yet,
and be of some use for once in your life! Yes, never look so
astonished; you're not a fool, child; you know that when you are
eighteen, you will be free, and the richest woman in Thuringia--owner of
half the wretched little province; free, girl, free to do as you like,
to live where you like, to have your own establishment, to spend your
own money--and then there'd be a chance for me! Ah, but you would not
give it to me. You would let dear uncle manage as he's always managed,
and dole you out a thaler here and a louis there, and let him choose you
a nice husband ... who would not look too much into the accounts, I'll
warrant."
"Aunt Betty!" panted Sidonia. The Burgravine stopped, slightly abashed
by the fire that flashed in the child's glance. "If you can't forgive
Uncle Ludo for being your husband, don't forget that he is a man of
honour...."
"Oh, patatata!" said the lady, with a shrug, "here's mighty fine talk!
Manage your own affairs, my dear. I'll say no more."
She leaned her plump arms on the window-sill again and turned her back
on her niece with an air of determined sullenness.
Sidonia was very angry. She sat down on the high-backed chair and set
the ancient spinning wheel whirring with a hand that trembled.
"One thing is certain," she resumed in a choked voice, "if I ever do
marry, Aunt Betty, I shall choose my own husband."
"Of course, among the crowds that besiege the gay Burg of Wellenshausen,
up in the clouds, my sweet creature," said the Burgravine, without
turning her head, "you will have only _l'embarras du choix_ and
then----" But here she interrupted herself with a sharp ejaculation.
Her fingers ceased their angry tune. She swung back the window a trifle
wider and leaned out further than she had ventured upon her threat of
suicide. "Look, look!" she cried in altered tones. "Do you see? There
are two men coming up the road with a pack-horse. No, 'tis a donkey!"
[Illustration: "_Look, look, do you see? ... There are two men coming up
the road with a pack-horse. No, 'tis a donkey._"]
Sidonia sprang up and leaned out eagerly across her aunt's shoulder.
They were but a pair of children of different ages, when all was said
and done.
"It can only be the miller's boy and the gardener ... or the shepherd,"
opined she.
"Oh, yes, the very outline of humpback John and the swing of bandy
Peperl!" (This was sarcastic.) "To the hangman with these evening mists!
Now, now, see! a gentleman, or I'm a goose-girl ... a young man, or I'm
a grandmother! Poor things, how they toil!"
"Why, 'tis Geiger-Hans!" exclaimed the lady's niece, in amazement. But
it was not, surely, the sight of Geiger-Hans which brought such crimson
to her cheek.
"And who may Geiger-Hans be?" cried the Burgravine.
"My dear friend, everybody's friend, Geiger-Hans the roadside player,"
said the girl. "Why, you have heard me speak of him many a time. If he
were young and wore a plume and a dagger, people would call him a
minnesinger. And his music--ah! it moves the heart like----"
"Why, the creature's a beggar, child!" interrupted the lady, peering
down. "But the other----"
She drew back from the window in great fluster. "It's quite clear that
you and I have company at last. Oh, for once I will be mistress here!
They shall be admitted, _maugre_ my ogre! Call Eliza! Get you into a
decent gown, for Heaven's sake! My rose taffeta--it shall be my rose
taffeta. And you?--Wear anything but white at your peril!"
*CHAPTER VII*
*GUESTS OF CHANCE*
"_'Twould be a wildish destiny_
_If we, who thus together roam_
_In a strange land and far from home,_
_Were in this place the Guests of Chance!_
_Yet who would stop or fear to advance...?_"
WORDSWORTH.
"The Lord Burgrave is not at the castle. The gracious Lady Burgravine
never receives visitors."--Thus Martin the gatekeeper, thrusting his
ugly head out of the _vasistas_ of the great nail-studded door.
The last of the sunlight had faded. Grey and sheer rose the Burg walls
and turrets above the visitors' heads; sheer and grey fell the
mountainside away at their feet.
"Mark now, comrade, for here are we back in the Middle Ages," whispered
Geiger-Hans to his companion. Aloud he cried to the porter, who was
slowly withdrawing his countenance: "Half a minute, friend, and let us
examine your statement. That the Lord Burgrave is away, I am aware; but
that your lady does not receive has still to be proved. How if we two
come upon the invitation of His Excellency himself? Consider me that."
Through the gathering gloom Steven peered at the musician's mocking
features. Martin the doorward stared in silence for a moment; then,
with a great groaning of bars and grinding of keys, set the heavy door
ajar--not to admit them, indeed, but that he might stare the closer.
"Martin," pursued the fiddler, gravely, "your name had better have been
Thomas: you were born an unbeliever."
"My orders are," said Martin, in surly tones, "to admit no one."
"Fellow," said the fiddler, "a servant's orders, I take it, are not like
the Ten Commandments, but subject to variations according to another's
pleasure. What if I tell you that, knowing your master----"
"You? Know my master!" The doorward's teeth showed like an old dog's
in a grin, half scorn, half doubt.
"Aye, we have but recently parted. By the same token, friend, he is now
at Halberstadt and may be here to-morrow. Meanwhile, as it is damp and
night falls, admit us to your stone hall and let us sit, for you will be
wise to gaze at us a while longer before you take upon yourself to drive
off the lord Burgrave's friend and the lady Burgravine's kinsman from
doors to which they have been invited. Look at that gentleman. There is
a gentleman for you, from the crown of his noble head to the sole of his
high-born foot! And look at me! Ah, you know me! Geiger-Hans, am I
not? Beware, Martin, great people have their disguises."
Martin showed signs of agitation and yielding. Geiger-Hans, keeping him
under the raillery of his glance, pursued his argumentative advantage:
"Now, cease scratching that grey stubble, and I will tell thee what to
do to save thee from a false step. Go thou to the gracious lady, and
ask her if her lord has not advised her of the probable visit of two
travellers, and request of her whether (these two gentlemen having
presented themselves) it is not her wish, in obedience to her lord, that
they should be admitted. Meanwhile, we shall sit on this bench, and I
shall beguile my noble companion's weariness with a little air of
music."
The porter withdrew slowly, without another word, but not without
casting backward glances of doubt upon the new-comers.
"How do you dare?" asked Steven, fixing almost awestruck eyes upon
Geiger-Hans, who, nursing his instrument upon one knee, was coolly
winding up the strings.
"Dare, I?" He twanged the cord, shook his head, and fell to screwing
again. "Why should I not dare? What have I to fear? What have I to
lose? We are sure of a welcome, I tell you--of a supper, and of a good
joke."
"Your magnificent audacity!" said Steven, sitting gingerly down at the
end of the bench, and looking at the other's lean figure as if it had
been that of the Prince of Lies himself. "Positively, I myself could
hardly believe you were not speaking the truth."
"And so I was," said the other, composedly. "Not one word but was solemn
verity."
"Oh, but stay! How come I to be kinsman to the Burgravine?"
"You are Austrian," quoth the musician. "So is she, as I happen to
know. Both the finest flower of the Empire's aristocracy. If you're
not related somewhere ... I'll eat my fiddle."
"Upon my word!" ejaculated Steven, opening his eyes very wide. "I
suppose it is on the same kind of plea that you have your acquaintance
with the Burgrave. An intimate acquaintance?"
"Intimate. I have said so. The Burgrave of Wellenshausen is a type
that is true to itself."
"And he has invited us to visit the Burg?" Steven's tones broke into
mirth.
"Indubitably." The player raised his fiddle and drew a long note from
it that was a musical mockery of the young man's high key. "The husband
who locks up a light-hearted wife alone in a solitary tower invites in
terms most positive every gentleman of heart and spirit in the country
to come and console her. M. de Wellenshausen is at Halberstadt, on the
King's business--I was playing at the Crown Hotel. He will be here
to-morrow. And he said to me: 'Friend'--mark you, _friend_ (the
Burgrave had dined satisfactorily; the wine is excellent at the Crown),
'you must come and play that tune at my castle.' He's fond of music,
you see. 'Twas a promise. And the only person who will lie in the
whole matter to-day is the noble lady Burgravine. She is dying by inches
of _ennui_, and she will--be quite certain of it!--she will assure the
porter that our visit has indeed been announced to her. 'Tis to be
regretted, but such is the way of women who eat their hearts away in
lonely strong houses."
He caught his fiddle to his breast: liquid melody flowed out into the
empty hall, and went echoing down long passages and up into vaulted
roofs. Like rabbits from a warren, now a scullion popped a head out of
some dark corner, now a rosy wench half opened a side door and peeped,
smiling. There awoke all about the sleepy castle a sound of skirmishing
and tittering; now a patter of bare feet; now the tramp of boots that no
precautions could hush. At length the majestic form of the major-domo
himself appeared before the vagrants, magnificent in his silver chain
and silk stockings and buckle shoes. Geiger-Hans hushed his music and
leaned over to Steven to whisper in his ear:
"See, he has been putting on his grand garb of ceremony to deliver his
lady's little lie."
"The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow,"
said the butler, with a deep bow to Steven. He cast a fish-like eye of
astonishment upon the fiddler, but, nevertheless, pursued: "Will your
honour follow me to your apartment?" Again he stared at the musician,
who nimbly rose and bowed.
[Illustration: "_The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before
to-morrow,_" _said the butler, with a deep bow to Steven._]
"My honour will also follow," he said blandly. "Our valise is on the
donkey's back, at the door; see to it, my man."
* * * * *
If Geiger-Hans were surprised at his own success, it was only the
humorous twitch of his eyebrows that betrayed the fact. He was of
those, apparently, whose talent for seizing opportunities generally
evoke the belief that they have created them.
"Comrades should share and share alike," said he presently, laying down
Steven's brush, which he had been wielding dexterously on his own
locks--"lend me a black ribbon for my queue--it is out of mode, but I am
of the old stock. I have been shaved _a velours_ to-day--'twas an
inspiration! A cloud of powder would complete me, but you new-century
bucks know not of these refinements. Nay, but here is a pot of the
finest Parma, as I live! For the chin and cheek of _milord_ after the
razor, no doubt? Now shall you see how it became the countenance of a
better-looking generation.--I think that black suit of yours so neatly
folded in the corner of our valise is, perhaps, what would best grace my
gravity. Yes. And a ruffle shirt.... Thank you. Ah! ... And those
violet silk stockings."
Steven stood hypnotized.
"Your eyes will positively drop out," said the fiddler, "if you stare
any more." He drew a snuff-box from his discarded coat, and tapped it
with his finger. "A pinch is but a poor thing, if a man has not a frill
to his wrist," he said. And he was apparently not ill-pleased to see
how Steven marvelled at the grace with which he swung his borrowed
laces, the air with which he flipped an invisible atom from his cuff.
He took a step, as though his legs had never known but silk. Steven's
suit, if a little large, hung on his figure with a notable fitness.
"As I live!" cried Count Waldorff-Kielmansegg, with a loud laugh of
discovery, "a gentleman, after all!"
Geiger-Hans drew his black brows together with his swift frown.
"Your equal, you mean, doubtless?" said he, dryly. "You do me too great
honour." Then his eyes softened again, as in his turn he surveyed his
companion. "Come," said he, "I would give all my superior years for
some of your youthful disabilities. I cherish no illusions as to which
of us the fair Burgravine will deem the better worth her notice."
And, indeed, when the two were ushered into the long, dim, tapestry-hung
saloon, the bright eyes of the lady of the castle merely swept
Geiger-Hans, amazingly distinguished as he was in his borrowed plumes,
to rest with complacency on the youth who followed him.
Steven held his head high, after the fashion of your shy, self-conscious
fellow. But his head being one upon which Nature had set a noble stamp,
this became it well. If there was pride in the arch of his eyebrow and
the curl of his lip, there was, likewise, race to justify it. Betty,
the Burgravine, could note as much between two flickers of her long
eyelashes; note, too, that (thank goodness!) he wore none of those new,
odious Cossack trousers, but kept to the fashion which made it worth
while for a man to have a good line to his limb; note, furthermore, that
plum-colour frac, maize waistcoat, and dove-grey kerseymeres make
excellent harmony with rose taffeta. The lady had been created for
courts, and even now, perched like a humming bird in the eyrie of a
mountain eagle, moved in a gay, trifling atmosphere of her own. And, as
he returned her gaze, Count Steven, who had also been constructed for
the high places of life, felt that he was in his element once more.
"The--the gentlemen!" announced Niklaus, with a nervous giggle. He knew
Geiger-Hans--as who did not that belonged to the country-side? But
familiarity had not so far bred contempt, and neither he nor his
compeers would have ventured to question anything the mysterious being
chose to do. Had the fiddler desired himself to be announced as the
Archangel Michael, or Prince Lucifer, or the Emperor Napoleon, or the
Wandering Jew, Niklaus would scarcely have been surprised.
The rose-red lady advanced a sweet little sandal and made a profound
curtsey. Her classic top-knot of curls was richly dark, and so was the
olive velvet of her cheek; but as she looked up slowly from her
inclination, Steven was quite startled to find that her eyes opened blue
as forget-me-nots.
"Gentlemen!" ejaculated she, translating Niklaus' clumsy Saxon German
into tripping French--it being the tone of German Courts to speak
French. The blue flowers of her eyes widened in surprise upon
Geiger-Hans. She had not known there were two _gentlemen_ when she
looked forth from the window; only the goodly youth and his roadside
guide. But this elderly person was a gentleman, no doubt about that, and
a fine one, too.... Only, so old!
And now he took the lead, as became his years.
"Madame la Comtesse," responded he; and even Steven, in spite of his
Anglo-Austrian ear, could note the exquisite purity of his Gallic
accent, "permit two travellers to express their gratitude for the
generous alacrity with which you have granted them hospitality. We had
lost our way----"
"Lost your way!" interrupted the lady; and an irrepressible smile curved
her lips upwards.
"Yes, madam," pursued the other, imperturbably; "and, with the night
coming on, in this wild and mountainous district, Heaven knows what
might not have happened to us!"
"I know not what your destination may be, sir," answered she, drawing
back with a faint air of haughtiness, "but surely yours is a strange
itinerary that took an isolated crag on the road."
"Madame," said he, "we gave ourselves infinite pains to attain this
height."
The glance towards herself, the touch at his heart, the bow, made of
these words a delicate compliment. The line of her mouth began once more
to waver.
"To have gone down again, madam, would have been impossible. Our
itinerary, as you say, is perhaps difficult to explain. If I were to
tell you that we took a wrong turning, my friend here would correct me,
for he is convinced, madam, it was the right turning, since it brought
him to your feet."
Here Steven could do nothing but bow in his turn. This he did, however,
with such youthful grace and so ardent a look, that his hostess melted
outright into smiles.
"Sir--!" said she, coyly; and the young man felt he had been eloquent
indeed.
"Count Steven Lee zu Waldorff-Kielmansegg," introduced Geiger-Hans, with
a wave of his arm.
"Lee? ... Waldorff?" quoth she, surprised.
"Steven Lee in England, Waldorff-Kielmansegg in Austria," said the
fiddler, blandly.
"_O du mein lieber Oesterreich!_" she exclaimed, singing; and the
forget-me-not eyes became suffused with the tear of sensibility.
"Waldorff-Kielmansegg of Waldeck," enumerated the master of ceremonies;
while Steven stood in dignity, conscious of his honours.
"Then we are cousins!" She clapped her soft palms; the rising emotion
was forgotten in laughter. "Positively we are cousins. I am
Schwartzenberg--Betty von Schwartzenberg--and my mother's second cousin,
Rezy Luetzow, married Tony Kielmansegg. You are welcome, my cousin."
She held out her hand. He kissed it ceremoniously; and she, bending
forward, sketched a butterfly salute on his forehead. It was the custom
in his father's country; but he had lived long enough in England for it
to have grown unfamiliar. His heart contracted with a delicious spasm,
and the blood sang in his ears. Before he knew what he was doing, he
found himself holding the taper fingers close, found his lips upon them
again.
Perhaps the lady was displeased; but, if so, she cloaked the fact with a
very pretty blush, and, as they drew apart, there could be no doubt but
that the young visitor's position was established. She now looked
expectantly towards the elder of her guests.
He stood watching them with quizzical gaze, tapping his snuff-box, one
leg becomingly advanced. She waited to hear a no less fine-sounding
introduction. But as the waiting was prolonged to almost a hint of
awkwardness:
"Will you not," said she, "Cousin Kielmansegg, return Monsieur's good
offices?"
It was Count Steven's turn to blush.
"My friend," said the fiddler, after enjoying the poor youth's agony
with a relentless eye for a second or two, "has been content to accept
my companionship as entertaining and useful to himself without inquiring
into my ancestry. But such indulgence, my gracious hostess, I cannot
claim of you. Through all the noble blood that flows in your veins,
there mingles, of course, still a drop of Mother Eve's. Permit me to
make myself known to you as Jean, Seigneur de la Viole, Marquis de
Grand-Chemin.... I lay but a couple of my poor titles at your feet."
She pondered awhile, nibbling her little finger, her delicate eyebrows
wrought as if in effort of memory. Then she said with gravity:
"Your name, sir, has an ancient sound."
"Madam," he responded, "I would not boast, but there is none more
ancient in our world."
Over again she pondered, looking down at the tip of her sandal. The
blue eyes took stock afresh, and, thereupon, sunshine chased the
gathering cloud from her face. With the air of one making up her mind
to be amused without questioning:
"You are welcome, too," she said, "Monsieur My Guest."
"Ah, madam," responded he, "pity that this, the fairest of my titles,
must needs be the most fleeting!"
Tying a blue riband into a hasty knot as she came, entered Sidonia,
almost at a run. All this time she had been striving to turn her heavy
fair tresses into the fashionable top-knot, as demonstrated by Countess
Betty--with what result her aunt's first glance of pity told her but too
clearly. She halted in her rapid advance, and stood, blushing like a
school-girl, unable to lift her eyes.
"Child," said the Burgravine, "here is my cousin, Count Kielmansegg, who
could not pass by his kinswoman in exile without personally inquiring
after her well-being." When Sidonia ventured a stealthy look, it was to
find--oh, bitter moment!--that she was unrecognized. "And this
gentleman----" pursued her aunt, with a small, sarcastic smile.
The girl, bewildered, had begun her second curtsey, when she stopped
herself with a cry of utter amazement--
"Thou, Geiger-Onkel!"
"Madam," intervened the fiddler, gravely, addressing the Burgravine,
"that is yet another of my honours--to young people who love my music, I
am the Geiger-Onkel."
"We are decidedly _en famille_ to-night," said the Burgravine, with a
trace of acidity. "But here, child," she proceeded in a meaning tone,
"your friend had better be known as Monsieur de la Viole."
"Marquis de Grand-Chemin," insistently added the vagrant, with his
courtly bow.
"Marquis de Grand-Chemin," admitted the lady. Nevertheless, it was the
arm of her cousin, the mere Count, that she took to conduct her to the
dining apartment.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*ROSES OF TRIANON*
"_As for the girl, she turned to her new being--_
_Loved, if you will: she never named it so:_
_Love comes unseen--we only see it go._"
AUSTIN DOBSON.
The servants had retired: Master Geiger-Hans' promised supper-party was
over. It had been to the full as succulent and as elegant as he had
foretold. And now, holding the stem of a long cut-glass beaker between
his second and third fingers, he was gazing abstractedly at the noble
wine. Where were his thoughts, and why was he so dull all at once, with
flower and silver before him, crystal and fine porcelain? With the ruby
waiting in his cup, too--the ruby of that noble "Clos Vougeot" before
which Bonaparte, the republican, on his way to Italy, had made his
soldiers halt and present arms as to the prince of vintages!
Geiger-Hans, who could sing over a hard crust by the dusty roadside and
give thanks for the water of the mountain stream, had he had his violin
in his hand now, its music would have been of tears.