IN THE PAVILION. I EXPLAIN.
The marriage, with its odd customs of the Ehrengang and Ehrentanz,
might at another time have afforded me the entertainment which Father
Spaur promised; but, to speak the truth, the whole ceremony wearied me
beyond expression. My thoughts were set in a tide towards the evening,
and I watched the sun loiter idly down the length of the valley in a
burning fever of impatience.
'Twas about seven of the clock when the villagers flocked up to the
Castle and began their antic dances in the Hall and in the ball-room
which fronted the terrace. They aimed at a display of agility rather
than of elegance, leaping into the air and falling crack upon their
knees, slapping their thighs and the soles of their feet, with many
other barbaric gambols; and all the while they kept up such a noise of
shouting, whistling, and singing, as fairly deafened one.
Ilga, I observed with some heart-sinking, had once more robed herself
in black, and very simply; but the colour so set off the brightness of
her hair, which was coiled in a coronal upon her head, and the white
beauty of her arms, that for all my fears I could not but think she
had never looked so exquisitely fair. However, I had thought the same
upon so many different occasions that I would not now assert it as an
indisputable fact.
As you may be certain, I had not copied Ilga's simplicity, but had
rather dressed in the opposite extreme. 'Twas no part of my policy to
show her the disrespect of plain apparel. I had so little to offer
that I must needs trick that little out to the best of advantage;
indeed, even at this distance of time, I fairly laugh when I recall
the extraordinary pains I spent that evening upon my adornment. My
Lord Culverton could never have bettered them. A coat of white
brocaded velvet, ruffles that reached to the tips of my fingers, a
cravat of the finest Mechlin, pink breeches, silk stockings rolled
above the knees, with gold clocks and garters, white Spanish leather
shoes with red heels and Elmscott's buckles, a new heavy black peruke;
so I attired myself for this momentous interview.
Father Spaur greeted me with a sour smile and a sneering compliment;
but 'twas not his favour that I sought, and I cared little that he
showed so plainly his resentment.
"A carriage," he added, "will be in waiting for you at eleven, if you
are still minded to leave us."
I thanked him shortly, and passed on to Ilga, but for some while I
could get no private speech with her. For though she took no part in
the dancing, even when a quieter measure made a break in the
boisterous revelry, she moved continually from one to the other of her
villagers with a kindly smile and affable word for each in a spirit of
so sweet a condescension, that I had no doubt that she had vaunted
their loyalty most truthfully. 'Twould have been strange, indeed, if
they had not greatly worshipped her.
In the midst of the clatter, however, and near upon the hour of nine,
a man burst wildly into the room, faltering out that the "Wildthurm"
bell was even now ringing its message to Lukstein.
On the instant the music was stopped; a great awe fell upon the noisy
throng; women clung in fear to men, and men crossed themselves with a
muttering of tremulous prayers; and then Ilga led the way through the
Hall into the courtyard of the Castle.
The ice-fields of the mountain glittered like silver in the moonlight,
and we gazed upwards towards them with our ears strained to catch the
sound. Many, I know, will scoff at and question what I relate. Many
have already done so, attributing it to a delusion of the senses, a
heated imagination, or any other of the causes which are held to
absolve the spirits of the air from participation in men's affairs.
Against such unholy disbelief it is not for me to argue or dispute,
nor is this the fitting place and opportunity. But this I do attest,
and to it I do solemnly put my name. 'Twas not I alone who heard the
bell; every man and woman who danced that night at Lukstein Castle
heard it. The sound was faint, but wonderfully pure and clear, the
strokes of the hammer coming briskly one upon the other as though the
bell was tossed from side to side by willing hands.
"It speaks of happiness for Lukstein," said Father Spaur with an evil
glance towards me.
For my part I just looked at Ilga.
"Come!" she said.
And we walked back through the empty echoing Hall, and across the lawn
to the terrace.
A light wind was blowing from the south, but there were no clouds in
the sky, and the valley lay beneath us with all its landmarks merged
by the grey, tender light, so that it seemed to have widened to double
its breadth.
The terrace, however, was for the most part in shadow, since the moon,
hanging behind a cluster of trees at the east corner of the wall, only
sprinkled its radiance through a tracery of boughs, and drew a dancing
pattern about our feet. As I leaned upon the parapet there came before
my eyes, raised by I know not what chance suggestion, a vivid picture
of my little far-away hamlet in the country of the English lakes.
"You are thoughtful, Mr. Buckler!" said Ilga.
"I was thinking of the valley of Wastdale," I replied, "and of a
carrier's cart stuck in a snowdrift on Hard Knot."
"Of your home? 'Twas of your home that you were thinking?" she asked
curiously, and yet with something more than curiosity in her voice,
with something of regret, something almost of pity.
"Not so much of my home," I replied, "but rather from what distant
points our two lives have drawn together." I was emboldened to the
words by the tone in which she had spoken. "A few weeks ago you were
here at Lukstein in the Tyrol, I was at the Hall in Cumberland, and we
had never spoken to one another. How strange it all seems!"
"Nay," she answered simply; "it was certain you and I should meet. Is
not God in His heaven?"
My heart gave a great leap. We had come now to the pavilion, which
leaned against the Castle wall, and Ilga opened the door and entered
it. I followed her, and closed the latch behind me.
In the side of the room there was a square window with shutters, but
no glass. The shutters were open, and through a gap of the trees the
moonlight poured into the pavilion.
We stood facing one another silently. The time had come for me to
speak.
"Well," said she, and her voice was very calm, "what is it, Mr.
Buckler?"
All my fine arguments and protestations flew out of my head like birds
startled from a nest. I forgot even the confession I had to make to
her, and
"I love you!" I said humbly, looking down on the floor.
She gave me no answer. My heart fainted within me; I feared that it
would stop. But in a little I dared to raise my eyes to her face. She
stood in the pillar of moonlight, her eyes glistening, but with no
expression on her face which could give me a clue to her thoughts, and
she softly opened and shut her fan, which hung on a girdle about her
waist.
"How I do love you!" I cried, and I made a step towards her. "But you
know that."
She nodded her head.
"I took good care you should," she said.
I did not stop to consider the strangeness of the speech. My desire
construed it without seeking help from the dictionary of thought.
"Then you wished it," I cried joyfully, and I threw myself down on my
knee at her feet, and buried my face in my hands. "Ilga! Ilga!"
She made no movement, but replied in a low voice:
"With all my heart I wished it. How else could I have brought you to
the Tyrol?"
I felt the tears gathering into my eyes and my throat choking. I
lifted my face to hers, and, taking courage from her words, clipped my
arms about her waist.
She gave a little trembling cry, and plucked at my fingers. I but
tightened my clasp.
"Ilga!" I murmured. 'Twas the only word which came to my lips, but it
summed the whole world for me then--ay, and has done ever since.
"Ilga!"
Again she plucked at my fingers, and for all the calmness which she
had shown, I could feel her hands burning through her gloves. Then a
shadow darkened for an instant across the window, the moonlight faded,
and her face was lost to me. 'Twas for no longer than an instant. I
looked towards the window, but Ilga bent her head down between it and
me.
"Tis only the branches swinging in the wind," she said softly.
I rose to my feet and drew her towards me. She set her palms against
my chest as if to repulse me, but she said no word, and I saw the
necklace about her throat flashing and sparkling with the heave of her
bosom.
It seemed to me that a light step sounded without the pavilion, and I
turned my head aside to listen.
"Tis only the leaves blowing along the terrace," she whispered, and I
looked again at her and drew her closer.
For a time she resisted; then I heard her sigh, and her hand stole
across my shoulder. Her head drooped forward until her hair touched my
lips. I could feel her heart beating on my breast. Gently I turned her
face upwards, and then with a loud clap the shutters were flung to and
the room was plunged in darkness.
Ilga started away from me, drawing a deep breath as for some release.
I groped my way to the window. The shutters opened outwards, and I
pushed against them. They were held close and fast.
A wooden settle stood against the wall just beneath the window, and I
knelt on it and drove at the shutters with my shoulder. They gave a
little at first, and I heard a whispered call for help. The pressure
from without was redoubled; I was forced back; a bar fell across them
outside and was fitted into a socket. Thrust as I might I could not
break it; the window was securely barricadoed.
Meanwhile Ilga had not spoken. "Ilga!" I called.
She did not answer me, nor in the blackness of the pavilion could I
discover where she stood.
"Ilga!"
The same empty silence. I could not even hear her breathing, and yet
she was in the pavilion, within a few feet of me. There was something
horrible in her quietude, and a great fear of I knew not what caught
at my heart and turned my blood cold.
"This is the priest's doing," I cried, and I drew my sword and made
towards the door.
A startled cry burst from the gloom behind me.
"Stop! If you open it, you will be killed."
I stopped as she bade me, body and brain numbed in a common inaction.
I could hear her breathing now plainly enough.
"This is not the priest's doing," she said, at length. "It is the
wife's." Her voice steadied and became even as she spoke. "From the
hour I found Count Lukstein dead I have lived only for this night."
I let my sword slip from my grasp, and it clattered and rang on the
floor.
'Twas not surprise that I felt; ever since the shutters had been
slammed I seemed to have known that she would speak those words. And
'twas no longer fear. Nor did I as yet wonder how she came by her
knowledge. Indeed, I had but one thought, one thought of overwhelming
sadness, and I voiced it in utter despondency.
"So all this time--in London, here, a minute ago, you were tricking
me! Tricking me into loving you; then tricking my love for you!"
"A minute ago!" she caught me up, and there was a quiver in her voice
of some deep feeling. Then she broke off, and said, in a hard, clear
tone: "I was a woman, and alone. I used a woman's weapons."
Again she paused, but I made no answer. I had none to make. She
resumed, with a flash of anger, as though my silence accused her:
"And was there no trickery on your side, too?"
They were almost the same words as those which Marston had levelled at
me, and I imagined that they conveyed the same charge. However, it
seemed of little use or profit to defend myself at length, and I
answered:
"I have played no part. It might have fared better with me if I had.
What deceit I have practised may be set down to love's account. 'Twas
my fear of losing you that locked my lips. Had I not loved you, what
need to tell you my secret? 'Twas no crime that I committed. But since
I loved you, I was bound in very truth to speak. I have known that
from the first, and I pledged myself to speak at the moment that I
told you of my love. I dared not disclose the matter before. There was
so little chance that I should win your favour, even had every
circumstance seconded my suit. But this very night I should have told
you the truth."
"No doubt! no doubt!" she answered, with the bitterest irony, and I
understood what a fatal mistake I had made in pleading my passion
before disclosing the story of the duel. I should have begun from the
other end. "And no doubt you meant also to tell me, with the same open
frankness, of the woman for whose sake you killed my--my husband?"
"I fought for no woman, but for my friend."
She laughed; surely the hardest, most biting laugh that ever man
heard.
"Tell me your fine story now."
I sank down on the settle, feeling strangely helpless in the face of
her contempt.
"This is the priest's doing," I repeated, more to myself than to her.
"It is my doing," she said again; "my doing from first to last"
"Then what was it?" I asked, with a dull, involuntary curiosity. "What
was it you had neither the weakness to yield to nor the strength to
resist?"
She did not answer me, but it seemed as though she suddenly put out a
hand and steadied herself against the wall.
"Tell me your story," she said briefly; and sitting there in the
darkness, unable to see my mistress, I began the history of that
November night.
"It is true that I killed Count Lukstein; but I killed him in open
encounter. I fought him fairly and honourably."
"At midnight!" she interrupted. "Without witnesses, upon his
wedding-day."
"There was blood upon Count Lukstein's sword," I went on doggedly,
"and that blood was mine. I fought him fairly and honourably. I own I
compelled him to fight me."
"You and your--companion."
She stressed the word with an extraordinary contempt.
"My companion!" I repeated in surprise. "What know you of my
companion? My companion watched our horses in the valley."
"You dare to tell me that?" she cried, ceasing from her contempt, and
suddenly lifting her voice in an inexplicable passion.
"It is the truth."
"The truth! The truth!" she exclaimed, and then, with a stamp of her
foot, and in a ringing tone of decision, "Otto!"
The door was flung open. Otto Krax and Michael Groder blocked the
opening, and behind them stood Father Spaur, holding a lighted torch
above his head. The Tyrolese servants carried hangers in their hands.
I can see their blades flashing in the red light now!
Silently they filed into the pavilion. Father Spaur lifted his torch
into a bracket, latched the door, and leaned his back against the
panels. All three looked at the Countess, waiting her orders. 'Twas
plain, from the priest's demeanour, that Ilga had spoken no more than
truth. In this matter she was the mistress and the priest the
servitor.
I turned and gazed at her. She stood erect against the wall opposite
to me, meeting my gaze, her face stern and set, as though carven out
of white marble, her eyes dark and glittering with menace.
For my part, I rose from the settle and stood with folded arms. I did
not even stoop to pick up my rapier; it seemed to me not worth while.
"The proper attitude of heroical endurance," sneered Father Spaur.
"Perhaps a little more humility might become 'a true son of the
Church.' Was not that the phrase?"
The Countess nodded to Otto. He took Groder's sword and stood it with
his own, by a low stool in the corner near the door.
"'Tis your own fault," she said sternly. "Even now I would have spared
you had you told me the truth. But you presume too much upon my
folly."
The next moment the two men sprang at me. The manner of their attack
took me by surprise, and in a twinkling they had me down upon the
bench. Then, however, a savage fury flamed up within me. 'Twas one
thing to be run through at the command of Ilga, and so perish decently
by the sword; 'twas quite another to be handled by her servants, and I
fought against the indignity with all my strength. But the struggle
was too unequal. I should have proved no match for Otto had he stood
alone, and I before him, fairly planted on my legs. With the pair of
them to master me I was well-nigh as powerless as a child. Moreover,
they had already forced me down by the shoulders, so that the edge of
the settle cut across my back just below the shoulder-blades, and I
could get no more purchase or support than the soles of my feet on the
rough flooring gave me.
My single chance lay in regaining possession of my rapier. It lay just
within my reach, and struggling violently with my left arm, in order
to the better conceal my design, I stretched out the other cautiously
towards it.
My fingers were actually on the pommel, I was working it nearer to me
so that I might grasp the blade short, before Groder perceived my
intention. With an oath he kicked it behind him. Otto set a huge knee
calmly upon my chest, and pressed his weight upon it until I thought
my spine would snap. Then he seized my arms, jerked them upwards, and
held them outstretched above my head, keeping his knee the while
jammed down upon my ribs. Groder drew a cord from his pocket, and
turning back my sleeves with an ironic deliberation, bound my wrists
tightly together.
"'Twas not for nothing Groder went a-valeting," laughed Father Spaur;
and then, seeing that I was assisted in my struggle by the pressure
which I got from the floor, "Twere wise to repeat the ceremony with
his ankles."
"You, Groder!" said Otto.
"I have no more cord," growled Michael, as he tied the knots viciously
about my wrists.
Something rattled lightly on the ground. 'Twas the girdle of the
Countess, with the fan attached to the end of it.
Groder plucked the fan off, struck my heels from under me, and bound
the girdle round and round my ankles until they jarred together and I
felt the bones cracking.
Otto took his knee from my chest, and the two men went back to their
former stations by the door.
Father Spaur came over to where I lay, rubbing his hands gently
together.
"Really, really!" said he in a silky voice, "so the cockatoo has been
caged after all."
The words, recalling that morning in London when first I allowed
myself to take heart in my hopes, so stung me that, tied as I was, I
struggled on to my feet, and so stood tottering. Father Spaur drew
back a pace and glanced quickly about him.
"Michael!" he called. But the next instant I fell heavily forward upon
his breast. He burst into a loud laugh of relief, and flung me back
upon the settle.
I looked towards Ilga.
"What have you not told him?" I asked.
"Nothing!" she said coldly. "I, at all events, had nothing to
conceal."
She motioned Father Spaur to fall back. Otto and Groder picked up
their swords. Father Spaur unlatched the door, rubbed out the torch
upon the boards, and one after another they stepped from the pavilion.
Ilga followed last, but she did not turn her head as she went out.
Through the open doorway I could see the shadows dancing on the
terrace, I could hear the music pouring from the Castle in a lilting
measure. The door closed, the pavilion became black once more, and I
heard their footsteps recede across the pavement and grow silent upon
the grass.