COUNTESS LUKSTEIN IS CONVINCED.
One detail of this mischancy episode occasioned me considerable
perplexity. Conjecture as I might, I could hit upon no cause or
explanation of it that seemed in any degree feasible. The astonishment
of Otto Krax I attributed, and as I afterwards discovered rightly
attributed, to the appearance of Lady Tracy so pat upon the discussion
of her picture, and to my expressed desire to present her to the
Countess within a few minutes of strenuously denying her acquaintance;
and I deemed it not extravagant. That he recognised her as the object
of his master's capricious fancy at Bristol, I considered most
improbable. For I remembered how successfully the intrigue had been
concealed; so that even Julian himself came over-late to the knowledge
of it. His second exclamation on the stairs I set down to the
probability that he had perceived Lady Tracy was on the point of
swooning.
It was indeed the fact of the lady's swoon which troubled me. Her
natural repugnance to meeting the Countess was not motive enough. Nor
did I believe her sufficiently sensible to shame for that feeling to
work on her to such purpose. It seemed of a piece with the terror
which she had subsequently shown on her recovery. The miniature, I
conjectured, had something, if not everything to do with it. Resolving
wisely that I had best ascertain the top and bottom of the matter, I
called upon Marston at his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, close to the
new college of Franciscans, and asked where his sister stayed, on the
plea that I would fain pay my respects to her, and assure myself of
her convalescence.
"I can satisfy you on the latter point," he returned cordially, "but
at the cost of denying you the pleasure of a visit. For my sister left
London on the next day, and has gone down into the country."
"So soon?" I asked in some surprise. For Lady Tracy hardly impressed
me as likely to find much enjoyment in the felicities of a rural life.
"Her illness left her weak, and she thought the country air would give
her health."
For a moment I was in two minds whether to inquire more precisely of
her whereabouts and follow her; but I reflected that I might encounter
some difficulty in compassing an interview, for it was evident that
she had fled from London in order to avoid further trouble and concern
in the matter. And even if I succeeded so far, I saw no means of
eliciting the explanation I needed, without revealing to her the
unscrupulous use which her brother had made of her miniature; and that
I had not the heart to do. The business seemed of insufficient
importance to warrant it. There was besides a final and convincing
argument which decided me to remain in London. If I journeyed into the
West, I should leave an open field for my rival, and no ally with the
Countess to guard against his insinuations; and I reflected further
that there were few possible insinuations from which he would refrain.
On this point of his conduct, however, I was minded to teach him a
lesson, which would make him more discreet in the future, and at the
same time effect the purpose I had in view when Lady Tracy
inopportunely swooned. For when I came to think over the events of
that morning, I recollected that after all Lady Tracy had not spoken
as I asked her, and though the last words Ilga had said to me as I
left the house seemed to show me that she no longer believed the
calumny, I was none the less anxious to compel Marston to disavow it.
Now it was the fashion at the time of which I write for the fine
ladies and gentlemen of the town to take the air of a morning in the
Piazza, of Covent Garden; and choosing an occasion when Marston was
lounging there in the company of the Countess and her attendant,
Mdlle. Durette, I inquired of him pointedly concerning his sister's
health, meaning to lead him from that starting-point to an admission
that Lady Tracy was until that chance meeting a complete stranger to
me.
But or ever he could reply, Ilga broke in with an air of flurry, and
calling to Lord Culverton, who was approaching, engaged him in a rapid
conversation. She was afraid, I supposed, that I meant to break the
promise which I had given her upon the stairs, and tax Marston with
his treachery; and I was confirmed in the supposition when I repeated
the question. For she shot at me a look of reproach, and said quickly:
"I was telling your friend when you joined us," she said, "of my home
in the Tyrol." She laid some stress upon the word "friend." "'Twere
hard, I think, at any season to find a spot more beautiful."
"'Twere impossible," rejoined Culverton, with his most elegant bow.
"For no spot can be more beautiful than that which owns Beauty for its
queen."
"The compliment," replied Ilga, with a bow, "is worthy of the
playhouse."
"Nay, nay," smirked my lord, mightily gratified; "the truth, madame,
the truth extorted from me, let me die! And yet it hath some wit. I
cannot help it, wit will out, the more certainly when it is truth as
well."
"Lady Tracy, then----" I began to Marston.
"But at this time of the year," interrupted the Countess immediately,
"Lukstein has no rival. Cornfields redden below it, beeches are
marshalled green up the hillside behind it, gentian picks out a mosaic
on the grass, and night and day waterfalls tumble their music through
the air. Yet even in winter, when the ice binds it and gags its
voices, it has a quiet charm of silence whereof the memory makes one
homesick."
As she proceeded the anxiety died out of her face, and she grew
absorbed in the picture which her memories painted.
"Madame," said Marston, "I should appreciate the description better if
it spoke less of a longing to return."
"It is my kingdom, you see," she replied. "Barbarous no doubt, with a
turbulent populace, but still it is my kingdom, and very loyal to me."
Culverton paid her the obvious flattery, but she took no heed of it.
"The tiniest, compactest kingdom," she went on in a musing tone,
"sequestered in a nook of the world." She seated herself on a chair
which stood at the edge of the Piazza. "Indeed, I shall return there,
and that, I fancy, soon."
"Countess!" replied Culverton. "That were too heartless. 'Twould
decimate London, let me perish! For never a gallant but would drink
himself to death. Oh, fie!"
Marston joined eagerly in the other's protestations. For my part,
however, I remained silent, well content with what she had said. For I
recollected the evening when I first had talk with her, and the
construction which I had placed upon her words; how she would never
return to Lukstein until she was eased of the pain which her husband's
disaster had caused her. The notion that her memories had lost their
sting thrilled me to the heart, and woke my vanity to conjecture of a
cause.
"Then," said the Countess, "would my friends be proved heartless. For
it is their turn to visit me, and I would not be baulked of requiting
them for their kindness to me here. 'Tis not so tedious a journey
after all."
"I can warrant the truth of that," said Culverton. "For I have been as
far as Innspruck myself."
"Indeed?" said the Countess. She looked hard at him for a second, and
then laughed to herself. "When was that?" she asked.
"Some six years ago. I was on the grand tour with a tutor--a most
obnoxious person, who was ever poring over statues and cold marble
figures, but as for a fine woman, rabbit me if he ever knew one when
he saw her. He dragged me with him from Italy to Innspruck to view
some figures in the Cathedral."
"Then you must needs have passed beneath Lukstein," said the Countess,
"for it hangs just above the high-road from Italy."
Culverton would not admit the statement. Some instinct, some angelic
warning, he declared, would surely have bidden him stop and climb to
the Castle as to a holy shrine. The Countess laughingly assured him
that nevertheless he had passed her home, and with a fond minuteness
she described to him its aspect and position.
Then the strangest thing occurred. She leaned forward in her chair,
and with the tip of the stick she carried, drew a line on the gravel
at the edge of the pavement.
"That represents the road from Meran," she explained. "The stone
yonder is the Lukstein rock, on which the Castle stands." She briefly
described the character of the village, and marked out the windings of
the road from the gates at the back of the Castle down the hillside,
until she had well-nigh completed a diagram in all essentials similar
to that which Julian had sketched for me in my Horace.
"From the village," she said, "the road runs in a zigzag to join the
highway."
She traced two long, distinct lines, but stopped of a sudden at the
apex of the second angle, where the coppice runs to a point, with her
face puckered up in a great perplexity. Culverton asked her what
troubled her.
"I was forgetting," she said. "I was forgetting how often the road
twisted," and very slowly she drew the final line to join with that
which she had marked to represent the highway in the bed of the
valley.
It struck me as peculiar for the moment, that with her great affection
for Lukstein, she should forget so simple and prominent a detail as
the number of angles which the road made in its descent. But I gave
little thought to the matter, being rather engrossed in the strange
coincidence of the diagram. It brought home to me with greater
poignancy than ever before the deceit which I was practising upon my
mistress. For I compared the use to which I had put my plan of the
Castle with the motive which had led her unconsciously to reproduce
it, I mean her desire that her friends should appreciate the home in
which she took such manifest delight.
But while I was thus uneasily reproaching myself I perceived Marston
separate from the group, and being obstinately determined that he
should admit before Ilga the tenuity of my acquaintance with his
sister, I called him back and asked him at what period Lady Tracy
might be expected again in town.
This time the Countess made no effort to divert me. Indeed, she seemed
barely to notice that I had put the question, but sat with her chin
propped on the palms of her hands gazing with a thoughtful frown at
the outline which she had drawn; and I believed her to be engrossed in
the picture which it evoked in her imagination.
"It appears that you feel great interest in my sister, Mr. Buckler,"
said Marston curiously. Doubtless my question was a clumsy one, for I
was never an adept at finesse; but this was the last answer which I
desired to hear. "Nay, nay," I said hurriedly, and stopped at a loss,
idly adding with my cane a line here and there to Countess Lukstein's
diagram.
To my surprise, however, Ilga herself came to my rescue, and in a
careless tone brought the matter to an issue.
"Perhaps Mr. Buckler," she remarked, "is an old friend of Lady
Tracy's."
I raised my eyes from the Countess, fixing them upon Marston to note
how he took the thrust, and with a quick sweep of her stick she
smoothed the gravel, obliterating the lines. That I expected to see
Marston disconcerted and in a pother to evade the question, I need not
say, and 'twas with an amazement which fell little short of
stupefaction that I heard him answer forthwith in a brusque, curt
tone.
"That can hardly be. For my sister has been abroad all this year, and
Mr. Buckler in the same case until this year."
I turned to Ilga. But she seemed more interested in Lady Tracy than in
the fact of the admission.
"Ah! Lady Tracy was abroad," she said. "When did she leave England?"
"In September."
"The very month that I returned," I exclaimed triumphantly.
The Countess turned quickly towards me. "I fancied you only returned
this spring."
"I was in England for a short while in September," said I, regretting
the haste with which I had spoken.
"September of last year?"
"Of last year."
"Anno Domini 1685," laughed Culverton. "There seems to be some doubt
about the date."
"September, 1685," repeated the Countess with a curious insistency.
"There is no doubt," returned Marston hotly. "I could wish for Betty's
sake we had not such cause to remember it. She was betrothed to one of
Monmouth's rebels, curse him! and Betty was so distressed by his
capture that her health gave way."
I was upon tenterhooks lest Ilga should inquire the name of the rebel.
But she merely remarked in an absent way, as though she attached no
significance to his words:
"'Tis a sad story."
"In truth it is, and the only consolation we got from it was that the
rebel swung for his treachery. Betty was ordered forthwith abroad, and
she left England on the fourteenth of September. I remember the day
particularly since it was her birthday."
"September the fourteenth!" said the Countess; and I, thinking to make
out my case beyond dispute, cried triumphantly:
"The very day whereon I bade good-bye to Leyden."
The words were barely off my lips when Ilga rose to her feet. She
stood for a moment with her eyes very wide and her bosom heaving.
"I am convinced," she whispered to me with an odd smile. "I ought not
to have needed the proof. I am convinced."
With that she turned a little on one side, and Marston resumed:
"That proves how little Mr. Buckler is acquainted with Lady Tracy."
He spoke as though I had been endeavouring to persuade the company
that I was intimate with his sister; he almost challenged me to
contradict him. I could not but admire the effrontery of the man in
carrying off the exposure of his falsity with so high a head, and I
surmised that he had some new contrivance in his mind whereby he might
subsequently set himself right with Ilga. One thing, however, was
apparent to me: that he had no suspicion of his sister's acquaintance
with Count Lukstein.
"It was on the fourteenth that Betty set out for France," he once more
declared, and so walked away.
"Where she married most happily three months later," sniggered
Culverton. "As you say, madame, it is a very sad story."
The Countess laughed.
"She was not over-constant to her rebel."
"In the matter of the affections," replied Culverton, "Lady Tracy was
ever my Lady Bountiful."
It seemed to me that the Countess turned a shade paler, but any
inference which I might have drawn adverse to myself from that was
prevented by a proposal which she presently mooted. For some other of
our friends joining us about this time, she proposed for a frolic that
the party should take chairs and immediately invade my lodgings.
Needless to say, I most heartily seconded the proposition, apologising
at the same time for the poor hospitality which the suddenness of the
invitation compelled me to offer.
Since by chance I had the key in my pocket, we entered from the Park
by the little door in the wall of the garden. I mention this because I
was waked up about the middle of the night by the sound of this door
banging to and fro against the jambs, and I believed that I must have
failed to lock it after I had let my friends into the garden, the door
having neither latch nor bolt, but was secured only by the lock. For
awhile I lay in bed striving to shut my ears to the sound. But the
wind was high, and, moreover, blew straight into the room through the
open window, so that I could not but listen, and in the end grew very
wakeful. The sounds were irregularly spaced according to the lulls of
the wind. Now the door would flap to three or four times in quick
succession, short and sharp as the crack of a pistol; now it would
stand noiseless for a time while I waited and waited for it to slam.
At last I could endure the worry of it no longer, and hastily donning
some clothes, I clattered downstairs.
The moon was shining fitfully through a scurrying rack of clouds, but
as I always placed the key of the door upon the mantel-shelf of the
larger parlour, and thus knew exactly where to lay my hand on it, I
did not trouble to strike a light, to which omission I owed my life,
and, indeed, more than my life. I stumbled past the furniture, crossed
the garden, locked the door, and got me back to bed.
In a few moments I fell asleep, but by a chance association of
ideas--for I think that the banging of the postern must have set my
thoughts that way--I began, for the first time since I came to London,
to dream once more of the door in Lukstein Castle, and to see it open,
and open noiselessly across the world. For the first time in the
history of my nightmare fancies, that door swung back against the
wall. It swung heavily, and the sound of the collision shook me to the
centre. I woke trembling in every limb. It was early morning, the sun
being risen, and, to my amazement, through the open window I heard the
postern bang against the jamb.