AT LUKSTEIN.
In accordance, then, with the suggestion of Ilga, I despatched Udal to
Venice, bearing a letter wherein I requested Jack to bide there until
such time as I arrived. To supply my servant's place Father Spaur
offered me one, Michael Groder, whose assistance at the first sight I
was strongly in a mind to decline; for he was more than common uncouth
even for those parts, and with his scarred knees, tangled black hair,
and gaunt, weather-roughened face, seemed more fitted for hewing wood
upon the hillside than for the neater functions of a valet. The
priest, however, pressed his services upon me with so importunate a
courtesy that I thought it ungracious to persist in a refusal. Indeed,
Michael Groder, though of a slight and wiry build, was the unhandiest
man with his fingers that ever I had met with. There was not a servant
in the Castle who could not have done the work better; and I came
speedily to the conclusion that Father Spaur had selected him
particularly out of some motive very different from a desire to oblige
me; I mean, in order that he might keep a watch upon my actions, and
see that I gained no secret advantage with the Countess.
However, had I entertained any such design, the hunting expedition
would have effectually prevented its fulfilment. It lasted the greater
part of the week, and we did not return to Lukstein until the eve of
my departure. By this time my anxiety as to the answer which Ilga
would make to my suit when she knew all that I had to tell her, had
well-nigh worked me into a fever. I was for ever rehearsing and
picturing the scene, inventing all sorts of womanly objections for her
to urge, and disproving them succinctly to her satisfaction by
Barbara, Celarent and all the rules of logic.
Under these speculations, bolster them up as I might, there lurked
none the less a heavy and disheartening fear. 'Twas all vain labour to
reckon up, as I did again and again, the few good qualities which I
possessed, and to add to them those others which my friends attributed
to me. I could not shut my eyes to the disparity between us; I could
not believe but that she must be sensible of it herself. Such a woman,
I conceived, should wed a warrior and hero; though, indeed, 'twas
doubtful whether you could find even amongst them one whose deserts
made him a fit mate for her. As for me, 'twas as though a clown should
run a-wooing after a princess.
'Twill be readily understood that I had in consequence no great
inclination for the hearty fellowship of the neighbours who joined in
the hunt; and since my anxiety grew with every hour, by the time we
came back to Lukstein--for many of them returned thither instead of to
their own homes, meaning to stay over until the following night--'twas
as much as I could do to answer with attention any civil question that
was addressed to me.
The Countess, I found, was in an agitation no whit inferior to my own.
I observed her that afternoon at dinner. At times she talked with a
feverish excitement, at times she relapsed into long silences; but
even during these pauses I noticed that her fingers were never still,
but continually twitched and plucked at the cloth. I inferred from her
manner that she had not yet decided on the course she would take, the
more particularly because she sedulously avoided speech with me. If I
spoke to her she replied politely enough, but at once drew those about
her into the conversation, and herself withdrew from it; and if by
accident our eyes met, she hastily turned her head away. I knew not
what to make of these signs, and as soon as the company was risen from
table I slipped away out of the Castle that I might con them over
quietly and weigh whether they boded me good or ill.
The Castle, as I have said, stood upon a headland at the mouth of the
Senner Thal, and turning a corner of this bluff, I wandered by a rough
track some way along the side of the ravine, and flung myself down on
my back on the turf. The sun had already sunk below the crest of the
mountains, and the glow was fast fading out of the sky. The pines on
the hillside opposite grew black in the deepening twilight; a star
peeped over the shoulder of the Wildthurm; and here and there a grey
scarf of cloud lay trailed along the slopes. From a hut high above
came clear and sweet the voice of a woman singing a Tyrolese melody,
and so softly did the evening droop upon the mountains, shutting as it
were the very peace of the heavens into the valleys, that the brooks
seemed to laugh louder and louder as they raced among the stones. The
air itself never stirred, save when some bat came flapping blindly
about my face. I became the more curious, therefore, concerning a bush
some twenty yards below me, which now and again shivered and bent as
though with a gust of wind. I had been lying on the grass some ten
minutes before I noticed this movement. The dwarf oaks and beeches
which studded the slopes about me were as still and noiseless as
though their leaves had been carved from metal; only this one bush
rustled and shook. In a direct line with it, and within reach of my
foot, a small boulder hung insecurely on the turf. I stretched out my
foot and pushed it; the stone rocked a little on its base. I pushed
again and harder; the stone tilted forwards and stuck. I brought my
other foot to help, set them both flat against the stone, slid down on
my back until my legs were doubled, and then kicked with all my
strength. The boulder flew from the soles of my feet, rolled over and
over, bounded into the air, dropped on to the slope about ten yards
from the bush, and then sprang at it like a dog at the throat. I heard
a startled cry; I saw the figure of a man leap up from the centre of
the bush. The stone took him full in the pit of the stomach, and
toppled him backwards like a ninepin. He fell on the far side of the
shrub, and I heard the boulder go crash-crashing down the whole length
of the incline. Who the man was I had not the time to perceive, and I
made no effort to discover. The Countess had retired a few moments
before I slipped away from the Hall, and I judged that he was no more
than a spy sent by Father Spaur to ascertain whether I had some tryst
with her. So deeming that he had got no more than his deserts, I left
him lying where he fell and loitered back to the Castle.
The company I found gathered about a huge fire of logs at the end of
the Great Hall. Beyond the glow of the flames the Hall was lost in
shadow, and now and again from some corner would come a soft scuffling
sound, as a dog moved lazily across the flags. Thereupon with one
movement the heads would huddle closer together, and for a moment the
voices would sink to a whisper. They were speaking, as men will who
are girt with more of God's handiwork than of man's, concerning the
spirits that haunted the countryside, and told many stories of the
warnings they had vouchsafed to unheeding ears. In particular, they
dwelt much upon a bell, which they declared rang out from the
Wildthurm when good or ill-fortune approached the House of Lukstein,
tolling as the presage of disaster, pealing joyously in the forefront
of prosperity. One, indeed--with frequent glances across his shoulder
into the gloom--averred that he had heard it tolling on the eve of
Count Lukstein's marriage, and from that beginning the talk slid to
the manner of his death. 'Twas altogether an eerie experience, and one
that I would not willingly repeat, to listen to them debating that
question in hushed whispers, with the darkness closing in around us,
and the firelight playing upon mature, weather-hardened faces grown
timorous with the awe of children. For this I remarked with some
wonder, that no one made mention either of the things which I had left
behind me, or of the track which I had flogged in the snow about the
rim of the precipice. 'Twas evident that these details of the story
had been kept carefully secret, though with what object I could not
understand.
That evening I had no Michael Groder to assist me in my toilet, and so
got me to bed with the saving of half an hour. I cannot say, however,
that I gained half an hour's sleep thereby, for the thought of the
morrow, and all that hung upon it, kept me tossing from side to side
in a turmoil of unrest. It must have been near upon two hours that I
lay thus uneasily cushioned upon disquiet, before a faint sound came
to my ears, and made me start up in the darkness with my heart racing.
'Twas the sound that a man can never forget or mistake when once he
has heard it--the sound of a woman sobbing. It rose from the little
sitting-room immediately beneath me. The staircase door was close to
my bedside, and I reached out my hand and, turning the handle
cautiously, opened it. The sound was louder now, but still muffled,
and I knew that the door at the bottom of the staircase was closed.
For a little I remained propped on my elbow, and straining my ears to
listen. The mourner must be either Clemence Durette or Ilga, and I
could not doubt which of them it was. Why she wept, I did not
consider. 'Twas the noise of her weeping, made yet more lonesome and
sad by the black dead of night, that occupied my senses and filled me
with an unbearable pain.
I got quietly out of my bed, and slipping on some clothes crept down
the staircase in my stockings. 'Twas pitch dark in this passage, and I
felt before me with my hands as I descended, fearing lest I might
unawares stumble against the door. At the last step I paused and
listened again. Then very gently I groped for the handle. I had good
reason to know how noiselessly it turned, and I opened the door for
the space of an inch. A feeble light flickered on the wall of the room
at my side. I waited with my fingers on the handle, but there was no
check in the sobbing. I pushed the door wider open; the light upon the
wall wavered and shook, as though a draught took the flame of a
candle. But that was all. So I stepped silently forward and looked
into the room.
The sight made my heart bleed. Ilga lay face downwards and prone upon
the floor, her arms outstretched, her hair unbound and rippling about
her shoulders. From head to foot she was robed in black. It broke upon
me suddenly that I had never seen her so clad before, and I remembered
a remark that Elmscott had passed in London upon that very score.
The window was open, and from the garden a light wind brought the
soughing of trees into the room. A single candle guttered on the
mantelshelf and heightened its general aspect of neglect. Thus Ilga
lay, abandoned to--what? Grief for her husband, or remorse at
forgetting him? That black dress might well be the fitting symbol of
either sentiment. 'Twas for neither of these reasons that she wept, as
I learned long afterwards, but for another of which I had no suspicion
then.
I closed the door softly and sat me down in the darkness on the
stairs, hearkening to that desolate sound of tears and praying for the
morning to come and for the day to pass into night, that I might say
my say and either bring her such rest and happiness as a man's love
can bring to a woman, or slip out of her life and so trouble her no
more.
'Twas a long while before she ceased from her distress, and to me it
seemed far longer than it was. As soon as I heard her move I got me
back to my room. The dawn was just breaking when, from a corner of my
window, I saw her walk out across the lawn, and the dew was white upon
the grass like a hoar-frost. With a weary, dragging step, and a head
adroop like a broken flower, she walked to the parapet of the terrace,
and hung on it for a little, gazing down upon the roofs of her
sleeping village. Then she turned and fixed her eyes upon my window. I
was hidden in the curtains so that she could not see me. For some
minutes she gazed at it, her face very tired and sad. 'Twas her bridal
chamber, or rather, would have been but for me, and I wondered much
whether she was thinking of the husband or the guest. She turned away
again, looked out across the valley paved with a grey floor of mist,
and so walked back to the main wing of the Castle.
The light broadened out; starlings began to twitter in the trees, and
far away a white peak blushed rosy at the kiss of the sun. The one day
of my life had come. By this time to-morrow, I thought, the world
would have changed its colours for me, one way or another; and tired
out with my vigil, I tumbled into bed and slept dreamlessly until
Michael Groder roused me.
I asked him why he had failed me the night before.
"I was unwell," he replied.
"True!" said I, with great friendliness. "You got a heavier load upon
your stomach than it would stand."
The which was as unwise a remark as I could have made; for Groder's
ill-will towards me needed no stimulus to provoke it.