IN THE PAVILION. COUNTESS LUKSTEIN EXPLAINS.
Of the horror which the next two hours brought to me, I find it
difficult to speak, even at this distance of time. 'Twas not the fear
of what might be in store for me that oppressed my mind, though God
knows I do not say this to make a boast of it; for doubtless some fear
upon that score would have argued me a better man; but in truth I
barely sent a thought that way. The savour of life had become brine
upon my lips, and I cared little what became of me, so that the ending
was quick.
For the moment the door closed I was filled with an appalling sense of
loneliness and isolation. Heart and brain it seized and possessed me.
'Twas the closing of a door upon all the hopes which had chattered and
laughed and nestled at my heart for so long; and into such a vacancy
of mind did I fall, that I did not trouble to speculate upon the
nature of the story which Countess Lukstein believed to be true. That
she had been led by I knew not what suspicions into some strange error
that she had got but a misshapen account of the duel between her
husband and myself, was, of course, plain to me. But since her former
kindliness and courtesy had been part of a deliberate and ordained
plan for securing me within her power, since, in a word, she had
cherished no favourable thoughts of me at any time, I deemed it idle
to consider of the matter.
Moreover, the remoteness of these parts made my helplessness yet more
bitter and overpowering; though, indeed, I was not like to forget my
helplessness in any case, for the cords about my ankles and wrists bit
into my flesh like coils of hot wire. "A sequestered nook of the
world," so I remembered, had Ilga called this corner of the Tyrol, and
for a second time that night my thoughts went back to my own distant
valley. I saw it pleasant with the domestic serenity which a man
discovers nowhere but in his native landscape.
And to crown, as it were, my loneliness, now and again a few stray
notes of music or a noise of laughter would drift through the chinks
into the pitch-dark hut, and tell of the lighted Hall and of Ilga,
now, maybe, dancing among her guests.
'Twas a little short of eleven when she returned to the pavilion. I am
able to fix the time from an incident which occurred shortly
afterwards. At first, the steps falling light as they approached, I
bethought me my visitor was either Otto or Groder coming stealthily
upon his toes to complete his work with me; for I never expected to
look upon her face again.
She carried no light with her, and paused on the sill of the door, her
slight figure outlined against the twilight. She bent her head
forward, peering into the gloom of the room, but she said no word;
neither did I address her. So she stood for a little, and then,
stepping again outside, she unbarred and opened the shutters of the
window. Returning, she latched the door, locked it from within, and,
fetching the stool from the corner, sat her down quietly before me.
The moon, which had previously shone into the room almost in a level
bar, now slanted its beams, so that the Countess was bathed in them
from head to foot, while I, being nearer to the window, lay half in
shadow, half on the edge of the light.
She sat with her chin propped upon her hands, and her eyes steadily
fixed upon mine, but she betrayed no resentment in her looks nor,
indeed, feeling of any kind. Then, in a low, absent voice, she began
to croon over to herself that odd, wailing elegy which I had once
heard her sing in London. The tune had often haunted me since that day
from its native melancholy, but now, as Ilga sang it in the moonlight,
her eyes very big and dark, and fastened quietly upon mine, it gained
a weird and eerie quality from her manner, and I felt my flesh begin
to creep.
I stirred uneasily upon the settle, and Ilga stopped. I must think she
mistook the reason of my restlessness, for a slow smile came upon her
face, and, reaching out a hand, she tried the knots wherewith I was
bound.
"It may well be," she suggested, "that you are better inclined to
speak the truth, since now you know to what falsehood has brought
you."
"Madame," I replied wearily, "I know not what you believe nor what you
would have me say. It matters little to me, nor can I see, since you
have reached the end for which you worked, that it need greatly
concern you. This only I know, that I have already told you the
truth."
"And the miniature you left behind you?" she asked, with an ironic
smile. "Am I to understand it has no bearing on the duel?"
"Nay, madame," said I; "'tis the key to the cause of our encounter."
"Ah!" she interrupted, with a satisfaction which I did not comprehend.
"You have drawn some profit from the reflection of these last hours."
"For," I continued, "it contained the likeness of my friend, Sir
Julian Harnwood, as, indeed, Otto must needs have told you. 'Twas in
his cause that I came to Lukstein."
"'Twas the likeness of a woman," she replied patiently.
I stared at her in amazement.
"Of a woman!" I exclaimed.
She laughed with a quiet scorn.
"Of a woman," she repeated. "I showed it you in my apartments at
London."
"The portrait of Lady Tracy? It is impossible!" I cried, starting up.
"Why, Marston gave it you. You told me so."
"Oh, is there no end to it?" She burst out into sudden passion,
beating her hands together as though to enforce her words. "Is there
no end to it? I never told you so. 'Twas you who pretended that. You
pretended you believed it, and like a weak fool, I let your cunning
deceive me. I was not sure then that you had killed the Count, and I
believed you had never seen the likeness till that day. But now I
know. You own you left the miniature behind you."
"But the case was locked," I said, "and I had not the key."
"I know not that."
I could have informed her who had possessed the key, but refrained,
bethinking me that the knowledge might only add to her distress and
yet do no real service to me.
"And so," I observed instead, "all your anxiety that I should not tax
Marston with the giving of it was on your own account, and not at all
on mine."
She was taken aback by the unexpected rejoinder. But to me 'twas no
more than a corollary of my original thought that the Countess had
been playing me like a silly fish during the entire period of our
acquaintance.
"I showed you the portrait as a test," she said hurriedly. "I believed
you guiltless, and I knew Mr. Marston and yourself had little liking
for each other. Any pretext would have served you for a quarrel.
Besides--besides----"
"Besides," I took her up, "you allowed me to believe that Marston had
given you the miniature, and had I spoken of the matter to him I
should have discovered you were playing me false."
"But you knew," she cried, whipping herself to anger, as it seemed to
me, to make up for having given ground. "You knew how the miniature
came into my hands. All the while you knew it, and you talk of my
playing you false!"
Suddenly she resumed her seat, and continued in a quieter voice:
"But the brother found out the shameful secret. You could overreach
me, but not the brother; and fresh from accounting to him for your
conduct, you must needs stumble into my presence with Lady Tracy's
name upon your lips, and doubtless some new explanation ready."
"Madame, that is not so. I came that evening to tell you what I have
told you to-night, but you would not hear me. You bade me come to
Lukstein. I know now why, and 'twas doubtless for the same reason that
you locked the door when I had swooned."
She started as I mentioned that incident.
"'Twas not on Lady Tracy's account, or because of any conduct of mine
towards her, that I fought Marston. Against his will I compelled him
to fight, as Lord Elmscott will bear out. He had learned by whose hand
Count Lukstein died, and rode after you to Bristol that he might be
the first to tell you; and I was minded to tell you the story myself."
"Or, at all events, to prevent him telling it," she added, with a
sneer. "But how came Mr. Marston to learn this fact?"
I was silent. I could not but understand that the Countess presumed
her husband, Lady Tracy, and myself to be bound together by some
vulgar intrigue, and I saw how my answer must needs strengthen her
suspicions.
"How did he find out?" she repeated. "Tell me that!"
"Lady Tracy informed him," I answered, in despair.
"Then you admit that Lady Tracy knew?"
"I told her of the duel myself, on the very morning that I first met
her--on the morning that I introduced her into your house."
"And why did she carry the news to her brother?"
Again I was silent, and again she pressed the question.
"She was afraid of you, and she sought her brother's protection,"
Every word I uttered seemed to plead against me. "I understand now why
she was afraid. I did not know her miniature was in that case, but
doubtless she did, and she was afraid you should connect her with
Count Lukstein's death."
"Whereas," replied the Countess, "she had nothing to do with it?"
I had made up my mind what answer I should make to this question when
it was put. Since I had plainly lost Ilga beyond all hope, I was
resolved to spare her the knowledge of her husband's treachery.
'Twould not better my case--for in truth I cared little what became of
me--to relate that disgraceful episode to her, and 'twould only add to
her unhappiness. So I answered boldly:
"She had nothing to do with it."
The Countess sat looking at me without a word, and I was bethinking me
of some excuse by which I might explain how it came about that Lady
Tracy's portrait and not Julian's was in the box, when she bent
forward, with her face quite close to mine, so that she might note
every change in my expression.
"And the footsteps in the snow; how do you account for them? The
woman's footsteps that kept side by side with yours from the parapet
to the window, and back again from the window to the parapet?"
I uttered a cry, and setting my feet to the ground, raised myself up
in the settle.
"The footsteps in the snow? They were your own."
The Countess stared at me vacantly, and then I saw the horror growing
in her eyes, and I knew that at last she believed me.
"They were your own," I went on. "I knew nothing of Count Lukstein's
marriage. I had never set eyes on him at all. I knew not 'twas your
wedding-day. I came hither hot-foot from Bristol to serve my friend
Sir Julian Harnwood. He had quarrelled with the Count, and since he
lay condemned to death as one of Monmouth's rebels, he charged me to
take the quarrel up. In furtherance of that charge, I forced Count
Lukstein to fight me. In the midst of the encounter you came down the
little staircase into the room. I saw you across the Count's shoulder.
The curtain by the window hangs now half-torn from the vallance. I
tore it clutching its folds in my horror. We started asunder, and you
passed between us. You walked out across the garden and to the Castle
wall. Madame, as God is my witness, when once I had seen you, I wished
for nothing so much as to leave the Count in peace. But--but----"
"Well?" she asked breathlessly.
"'Twas Count Lukstein's turn to compel me," I went on, recovering from
a momentary hesitation. I had indeed nearly blurted out the truth
about his final thrust. "And when you came back into the room, you
passed within a foot of the dead body of your husband, and of myself,
who was kneeling----"
She flung herself back, interrupting me with a shuddering cry. She
covered her face with her hands, and swayed to and fro upon the stool,
as though she would fall.
"Madame!" I exclaimed. "For God's sake! For if you swoon, alas! I
cannot help you."
She recovered herself in a moment, and taking her hands from before
her face, looked at me with a strangely softened expression. She rose
from her seat, and took a step or two thoughtfully towards the door.
Then she stopped and turned to me.
"Lady Tracy, you say, had nothing to do with this quarrel, and yet her
likeness was in the miniature case."
I had no doubt in my own mind as to how it came there. 'Twas the case
which Lady Tracy had given to Count Lukstein, and doubtless she had
substituted her portrait for that of Julian. But this I could not tell
to the Countess.
"'Twas a mistake of my friend," said I. "He gave me the case as a
warrant and proof, which I might show to Count Lukstein, that I came
on his part, telling me his portrait was within it. But 'twas on the
night before he was executed, and his thoughts may well have gone
astray."
"But since the case was locked, and you had not the key, who was to
open it?"
"Count Lukstein," I replied, being thrown for a moment off my guard.
"Count Lukstein?" she asked, coming back to me. "Then he possessed the
key. You fought for your friend, Sir Julian Harnwood. Lady Tracy was
betrothed to Sir Julian. The case was given to you as a warrant of the
cause in which you came. It contained Lady Tracy's likeness, and Count
Lukstein held the key."
She spoke with great slowness and deliberation, adding sentence to
sentence as links in a chain of testimony. I heard her with a great
fear, perceiving how near she was to the truth. There was, however,
one link missing to make the chain complete. She did not know that
Lady Tracy had owned the case and had given it to Count Lukstein, and
of that fact I was determined she should still remain ignorant.
"My husband loved me," she said quickly, with a curious challenge in
her voice.
"I believe most sincerely that he did," I answered with vehemence. I
was able to say so honestly, for I remembered how his face and tone
had softened when he made mention of his wife.
"Then tell me the cause of this quarrel that induced you to break into
this house at midnight, and, on a friend's behalf, force a stranger to
fight you without even a witness?"
There was a return of suspicion in her tone, and she came back into
the moonlight. The temptation to speak out grew upon me as I watched
her. I longed to assure her that I was bound to no other woman, but
pledged heart and soul to her, and the fear that if I kept silent she
would once more set this duel down to some rivalry in intrigue, urged
me well-nigh out of all restraint. Why should I be so careful of the
reputation of Count Lukstein? 'Twas an unworthy thought, and one that
promised to mislead me; for after all, 'twas not his good or ill
repute that I had to consider, but rather whether Ilga held his memory
in such esteem and respect that my disclosures would inflict great
misery upon her and a lasting distress. This postulate I could hardly
bring myself to question. Had I not, indeed, ample surety in the care
and perseverance wherewith she had sought to avenge his death?
However, being hard pressed by my inclinations, I determined to test
that point conclusively if by any means I might.
"Madame," I said, "last night, as I lay in my bed, bethinking me of
the morrow, and wondering what it held in store for me, I heard the
sound of a woman weeping. It rose from the little room beneath me;
from the room wherein I fought Count Lukstein. 'Twas the most desolate
sound that ever my ears have hearkened to--a woman weeping alone in
the black of the night. I stole down the staircase and opened the
door. I saw that the woman who wept was yourself."
"'Twas for my husband," she interposed, very sharp and quick, and my
heart sank.
Yet her words seemed to quicken my desire to reveal the truth. They
woke in me a strange and morbid jealousy of the man. I longed to cry
out: "He was a coward; false to you, false to his friend, false to
me."
"And in London?" I asked, temporising again. "The morning I came to
you unannounced. You were at the spinnet."
"'Twas for my husband," she repeated, with a certain stubbornness.
"But we will keep to the question we have in hand, if you please--the
cause of your dispute with Count Lukstein."
"I will not tell you it."
I spoke with no great firmness, and on that account most like I helped
to confirm her reawakened suspicions.
"Will not?" says she, her voice cold and sneering. "They are brave
words though unbravely spoken. You forget I have the advantage and can
compel you."
"Madame," I replied, "you overrate your powers. Your servants can bind
me hand and foot, but they cannot compel me to speak what I will not."
"Have you no lie ready? What? Does your invention fail?" and she
suddenly rose from the stool in a whirlwind of passion. "God forgive
me!" she cried. "For even now I believed you."
She ceased abruptly and pushed her head forward, listening. The creak
of wheels came faintly to our ears.
"You hear that? It is Mr. Buckler's carriage, and Mr. Buckler rides
within it. Do you understand? The carriage takes you to Meran; you
will not be the first traveller who has disappeared on the borders of
Italy. I am afraid your friend at Venice will wait for you in vain."
The carriage rumbled down the hill, and we both listened until the
sound died away.
"For the future you shall labour as my peasant on the hillside among
the woods, with my peasants for companionship, until your thoughts
grow coarse with your body, and your soul dwindles to the soul of a
peasant. So shall you live, and so shall you die, for the wrong which
you have done to me." She towered above me in her outburst, her eyes
flashing with anger. "And you dared to charge me with trickery! Why,
what else has your life been? From the night you went clothed as a
woman to Bristol Bridewell, what else has your life been? A woman! The
part fitted you well; you have all the cunning. You need but the
addition of a petticoat."
The bitterness of her speech stung me into a fury, and, forgetful of
the continence I owed to her:
"Madame!" I said, "I proved the contrary to your husband."
"Silence!" she cried, and with her open hand she struck me on the
face. And then a strange thing happened. It seemed as though we
changed places. For all my helplessness, I seemed to have won the
mastery over her. A feeling of power and domination, such as I had
never experienced before, grew stronger and stronger within me, and
ran tingling through every vein. I forgot my bonds; I forgot the
contempt which she had poured on me; I forgot the very diffidence with
which she had always inspired me. I felt somehow that I was her
master, and exulted in the feeling. Whatever happened to me in the
future, whether or no I was to labour as her bondslave for all my
days, for that one moment I was her master. She could never hold me in
lower esteem, in greater scorn than she did at this hour, and yet I
was her master. Something told me indeed that she would never hold me
in contempt at all again. She stood before me, her face dark with
shame, her attitude one of shrinking humiliation. Twice she strove to
raise her eyes to mine; twice she let them fall to the ground. She
began a sentence, and broke off at the second word. She pulled
fretfully at the laces of her gloves. Then she turned and walked to
the door. She walked slowly at first, constraining herself; she
quickened her pace, fumbled with the key in her hurry to unlock the
door, and once out of the pavilion, without pausing to latch or lock
it, fled like one pursued towards the house. And from the bottom of my
heart I pitied her.
In a little while Father Spaur, with the two Tyrolese, returned, and
they carried me quickly through the little parlour and up the
staircase to my bedroom. There they flung me on the bed and locked the
door and left me. Through the open window the dance-melodies rose to
my ears. It seemed to me that I could distinguish particular tunes
which I had heard when I crouched in the snow upon that November
night.
Que toutes joies et toutes honneurs
Viennent d'armes et d'amours.
Jack's refrain, which he had hummed so continually during our ride to
Austria, came into my head, and set itself to the lilt of the music.
Well, I had made essay of both arms and love, and I had got little joy
and less honour therefrom, unless it be joy to burn with anxieties,
and honour to labour as a peasant and be deemed a common trickster!
The music ceased; the guests went homewards down the hill, laughing
and singing as they went; the Castle gradually grew silent. The door
of my room was unlocked and flung open, and Groder entered, bearing a
candle in his hand. He set it down upon the table, and drew a long
knife from a sheath which projected out of his pocket. This he held
and flourished before my eyes, seeking like a child to terrify me with
his antics, until Father Spaur, following in upon his heels, bade him
desist from his buffoonery.
Groder cut the girdle which bound my ankles.
"March!" said he.
But my legs were so numbed with the tightness of the cord that they
refused their office. Father Spaur ordered him to chafe my limbs with
his hands, which he did very unwillingly, and after a little I was
able to walk, though with uncertain and wavering steps.
"Should you suffer at all at Groder's hands," said the priest
pleasantly, "I beg you to console yourself with certain reflections
which I shared with you one afternoon that we rode together."
We proceeded along the corridor and turned into the gallery which ran
round the hall. But at the head of the great staircase I stopped and
drew back. The priest's taunts and Groder's insolence I had endured in
silence. What they had bidden me do, that I had done; for in the
miscarriage of my fortunes I was minded to bear myself as a gentleman
should, without pettish complaints or an unavailing resistance which
could only entail upon me further indignities. But from this final
humiliation I shrank.
Below me the entire household of servants was ranged in the hall,
leaving a lane open from the foot of the stairs to the door. Every
face was turned towards me--except one. One face was held aside and
hidden in a handkerchief, and since that hour I have ever felt a
special friendliness and gratitude for the withered little
Frenchwoman, Clemence Durette. Alone of all that company she showed
some pity for my plight. None the less, however, my eyes went
wandering for another sight. What with the uncertain glare of the
torches, that sent waves of red light and shadow in succession
sweeping across the throng of faces, 'twas some while or ever I could
discover the Countess. That she was present I had no doubt, and at
last I saw her, standing by the door apart from her servants, her face
white, and her eyelids closed over her eyes.
Groder pushed me roughly in the small of the back, and I stumbled down
the topmost steps. There was no escape from the ordeal, and glancing
neither to the right nor to the left, I walked between the silent rows
of servants. I passed within a yard of Countess Lukstein, but she made
no movement; she never even raised her eyes. A carriage stood in the
courtyard, and I got into it, and was followed by Michael Groder and
Otto. As we drove off a hubbub arose within the hall, and it seemed to
me that a ring was formed about the doorway, as though some one had
fallen. But before I had time to take much note of it, a cloth was
bound over my eyes, and the carriage rolled down the hill.
At the bottom, where the track from Lukstein debouches upon the main
road, we turned eastwards in the direction of Meran, and thence again
to the left, ascending an incline; so that I gathered we were entering
a ravine parallel to the Senner Thal, but further east.
In a while the carriage stopped, and Otto, opening the door, told me
civilly enough to descend. Then he took me by the arm and led me
across a threshold into a room. A woman's voice was raised in
astonishment.
"Wait till he's plucked of his feathers!" laughed Groder, and bade her
close the shutters.
The bandage was removed from my eyes, and by the grey morning light
which pierced through the crevices of the window, I perceived that I
was in some rough cottage. An old woman stood gaping open-mouthed
before me. Groder sharply bade her go and prepare breakfast. Otto
unbound my wrists, and pointed to a heap of clothes which lay in a
corner, and so they left me to myself.
I had some difficulty in putting on these clothes, since my wrists
were swollen and well-nigh useless from their long confinement.
Indeed, but for a threat which Groder shouted through the door, saying
that he would come and assist me to make my toilet, I doubt whether I
should have succeeded at all.
For breakfast they brought me a pannikin full of a greasy steaming
gruel, which I constrained myself to swallow. Then they bound my hands
again. Groder wrapped up the clothes which I had taken off in a
bundle, and slung it on his back. Otto replaced the bandage on my
eyes, and we set out, mounting upwards by a rough mountain track,
along which they guided me. About noon Otto called a halt, and none
too soon, for I was ready to drop with fatigue and pain. There we made
a meal of some dry coarse bread, and washed it down with spirit of a
very bitter flavour. 'Twas new to me at the time, but I know now that
it was distilled from the gentian flower. Groder lit a fire and burned
the bundle of clothes which he had brought with him, the two men
sharing my jewels between them.
From that point we left the track and climbed up a grass slope,
winding this way and that in the ascent. 'Twas as much as I could do
to keep my feet, though Otto and Groder supported me upon either side.
At the top we dipped down again for a little, crossed a level field of
heather, but in what direction I know not, for by this I had lost all
sense of our bearings, mounted again, descended again, and towards
nightfall came to a hut. Groder thrust me inside, plucked the cloth
from my face, and unbound my hands.
"'Tis a long day's journey," said he; "but what matters that if you
make it only once?"