AT GRATZ
The next morning I came upon our Hanska in Speisendorf street, hands in
pockets, whistling (as ever) at the crucifix on the mountain. This knit
little chit of a man had a pride in his cylinders and some flea of
flight in his brain; he and his car were well ready for me, and we
reached Gratz in the early afternoon after a charming ride.
I had no hope that affairs would go flyingly with me in Gratz, and
thought to myself, "this will be a matter of some days"; but it was
three weeks before I left the town.
Whether those were trying weeks for me will be divined: I was afraid for
Dees, afraid for Langler up there alone in the mountains, and afraid to
open the letters from Swandale which he forwarded on to me. Miss Emily
had, in truth, become awfully eager and anxious! all too eager and
anxious, I thought. _Why_ the delay, she wished to know! I had begged
Langler to write her fully of everything as it happened, but no, he
chose to be general and vague, and this only enlarged, instead of
lulling, her fears. She was now back in Swandale, living partly with the
Misses Chambers, and was quite well, she said. But something in me
boded that she was not so well as she said.
Hence those weeks in Gratz were rather to me like three years. Among
Langler's letters of introduction was one to a Herr Müller, a
grain-merchant in the Holz Platz, upon whom I first called; he received
me heartily, and introduced me to a certain Herr von Dungern, a lawyer,
who said to me in his office on the morning after my arrival: "I'm
afraid that that letter of yours written from England to Public
Safety--_foh! foh!_--unsupported by evidence as it was, will now be
against you." He was a fine, soldierly man, but afflicted with something
which caused him to mix in all his talk this _foh! foh!_ flung sideways
with venom. "But," said I, "that old letter of ours must be forgotten by
now." "Oh no," he answered; "there it still lies in the Evidenz-bureau,
and you know that interest in a question once dead is not easily
revived." "That may be," said I, "but I can now take oath that I have
seen the Pater Dees in his dungeon, and here is Mr Langler's written
statement, which you will duly formalise for me." "True, true," said he,
"very true. Well, it is a matter--_foh! foh!_--for the Blessed Virgin
and Herr Oberpolizeirath."
I now know that this Herr von Dungern was a tenant of land under Baron
Kolár, but still, I can't accuse him of untrustiness to me, only of
slowness--of intentional slowness, I think. It was not till the
following morning that I was brought to the bureaux with the affidavits,
and then it was from bureau to bureau, each interview somehow filling up
the better part of a day, and everyone as it were laying his hand over
his mouth at the high scandal which I was so bold as to air. "But," said
I to Herr von Dungern as we drove away on the fourth evening, "_some_one
must be the final authority! I have now been referred up and up from a
common Sicherheits-wache-serjeant to two Polizeiraths, and still no end
to it." "Lands, manners," said he, with a shrug--"every country has its
usages." "Just so," said I, "but I am still at a loss to know why I have
spent my afternoon with Herr Polizeirath of Central Inquiry in a case
where there is nothing to inquire into." "Well," said he, hardly very
honestly, "one, of course, must see Herr Polizeirath before one can see
Herr Oberpolizeirath." "Yes," said I, "Herr Polizeirath of Safety, but
why, after all, Herr Polizeirath of Inquiry? the interview seems to have
been as needless as it was long!" "You do not--_foh! foh!_--understand,"
said he. "No," said I, "I do not, and it is very trying." "I am grieved
from the heart," said he, "for I foresee that your patience is about to
be tried; but you must amuse yourself, since everyone in our city is
eager to entertain you, and the good Lord, thank God, does not grudge us
any innocent gaieties; my wife and daughters in especial look forward
with keenness to seeing you at our birthday-ball." "But that is a week
hence!" said I: "do you anticipate that I shall still be in Gratz?" "Ah,
it may be!" said he, "we shall see: to-morrow at eleven we appear before
Herr Oberpolizeirath of Safety himself...."
This Herr Oberpolizeirath, whose name was Tiarks, was a gross old man,
all slashed and epauletted, with a nose like a bunch of blackberries in
August. I was received by him in a chamber which brought back to my mind
the scented answer which he had sent to our letter from Swandale, and
from the first I had little hope in this old man. "But what, sir," he
asked me, "is your motive in this affair?" "A motive of humanity," I
answered: "a bird sent out by the captive with a note bound about its
leg came to the house of my friend; we felt bound to investigate the
matter; we have done so; and we now place it with confidence in your
hands." "But," said he, "in order to see this captive, you must have
entered upon Schweinstein Castle by stealth?" "Yes," I answered
cuttingly, "but that, I take it, is not a point which will distract your
Honour's attention from the proved fact of an outrage committed within
the scope of your jurisdiction." "But," said he, his face flushing
purpler, "perhaps you will find, sir, that the Austrian authorities are
not inclined to allow themselves to be pleased with chords (pretensions)
strung too high." "I have already found it, Herr Oberpolizeirath," said
I. "Ach, it is an affair, this!" sighed he faintly to himself, with a
waved hand, and eyes cast upward.
In the greater part of the interview I had no share, but sat staring at
the apple-green walls, while Tiarks and von Dungern laid their heads
together apart. Such shrugs, such spreadings of both palms, and gazings
over the rims of spectacles, one never saw! Then came the proposal that
I should drop my plaint for a time, till the baron should be given a
chance to set free his captive; to which I answered angrily: "But is
Baron Kolár to be forewarned by those who should be his judges? He will
never of himself set free this captive, and if he be given hints and
nudges in the dark I shall consider that both justice and myself have
been betrayed." "Eh, eh, we know that the English hold no leaf before
the mouth!" cried Herr Oberpolizeirath, with a waved hand: "but do you
imagine, sir, that the baron does not already know what is being done?
Poh, he knows; all Gratz knows. And would you not prefer to withdraw the
plaint a little, rather than see it referred to the President at Vienna,
and then perhaps up to the Provincial Diet itself after several months?
Come, take your lawyer's advice; and meantime, if you stay on in
Gratz--why, we know that every young man craves for the society of the
opposite sex--saving the claims of religion, mind you, saving the claims
of religion; but between us three here, you can't beat Gratz for female
loveliness: what, von Dungern? Yes, sir, drop the plaint a little, and
on the 7th of the month you have the Statthalterei Ball, on the 8th
Count Attem's, on the 9th the Prince-bishop of Seckau comes into
residence, with street-processions, church-rites"--and more of this
sort. In this way this old fogey thought to stroke my beard with honey,
as the Germans say. Of course, I did not drop the plaint, and it was
formally heard the next day before a lower commissary: but I might as
well have dropped it! From the tenth day I began to despair, for I had
by then been put through even the formality of giving the date of my
mother's birth, had interviewed at the rathhaus, land-hause, Schlossberg
people whose relation with the affair seemed to be as remote and
entangled as possible; and I said then to myself: "Max Dees was right:
they don't mean to interfere."
Meantime I wrote daily to, and heard from, Langler, and enclosed in his
letters came some from Swandale which made the delays of the authorities
maddening to me, because of a panting for our return which those letters
now appeared to reveal. Alas, at the bottom of her heart Miss Emily did
not believe that we should ever return to her, I think; but mixed with
this under-despair was that hope which is common to all the living, and
I believe that it was this hope battling for breath against this despair
which gave rise to this sort of fierce haste that now possessed and
hissed in her to see our faces yet once again.
Gratz, meantime, was as lively a town, both in a social and religious
way, as it is ever a charming one. I saw the fête of the Visitation of
the Blessed Virgin, and that of the Precious Blood on the Sunday
following, and each time I peeped into St Ægidius it was full of people
praying, with a priest or two pacing among them, like well-satisfied
shepherds, while in the lesser churches also was much the same sight. I
had nothing to do at night, and to escape from myself went to two balls,
at the first of which a little German monk, who reminded me of Luther,
gave a homily on the lawfulness of innocent amusements. But I was sick
of Gratz by the eleventh day, and was wrought to throw up everything,
when something gave me a new thought.
On that eleventh day I was strolling in an alley of the Stadt Park when
I saw coming towards me a girl whom I had long known--a particularly
pretty little girl named Rosie, who for some years had been in the
service of my sister, Lady Burney, but now was in the service of the
Duchess of St Albans. When I expressed my surprise at seeing her, her
answer was: "the duchess is on the way to Vienna, but stopped at Gratz
to have an interview with Baron Kolár; she understood in London that the
baron is at Schweinstein, but he isn't, as it turns out, and no one
seems to know where he is somehow, so I don't know what our next move
will be."
We sat under a tree within sound of the band, and had a long talk that
afternoon, for this servant-girl seemed to know everybody of any
importance in Europe and the secret history of all that was going on, so
she not only kept me amused, but posted me anew as to things and men in
an astonishing way. Her mistress was, of course, the great lady in
English politics, and had a habit, Rosie said, of making her her
messenger, and even of "consulting her opinion"! Speaking of Ambrose
Rivers, she said that he had now won a following of over eight hundred,
and had opened a church in Kensington, to which she had once gone: "it
is a kind of a cross between a theatre and a gymnasium," said she, "but
the duchess regards him more as a crank than as a serious force in
religious politics, and he only owes it to Dr Burton's illness that he
has not been already brought under the consistory court. Ah!" she added
in her bright way, "I saw that fit of Dr Burton's!" "What, you were
present?" said I. "I alone," said she: "I was even the cause of it."
"How do you mean--the cause of it?" I asked. "I'll tell you," said she,
"but, of course, it is between us, sir. Never was so frightened in my
life! It was about nine in the evening, at the palace, the duchess had
sent me with a note, I was to wait for an answer, and was led into a
room in that Blore part. The Archbishop, who was at a table covered
with papers, laid the note by his side, said 'take a chair' to me, and
went on writing. I noticed that he was not looking well: every two
minutes he heaved a sigh, twice got up to look for something, but seemed
to forget what, and sat down again without, and he would press his hand
to his brow, as if he had a headache. Presently he sprang up, and began
to pace about: all this time, mind you, he hadn't opened the duchess's
note, nor seemed to be aware that I was anywhere, and I, of course, sat
quite mum, taking stock of my archbishop. But, all at once, he saw me,
looked at me--didn't say anything, went on pacing, but I noticed that he
turned pale, and several times after that he looked at me, growing paler
and paler, till at last, making up his mind, he came to me: I never saw
anyone so ghastly gaunt! he frightened me! And what do you think his
Grace said, sir? 'Well, pretty, do you love me?'"
"Dr Burton? said _that_? 'well, pretty, do you love me?'"
"Yes, he said it--in such a secret voice; and he was pale, pale...."
"But--what did _you_ say?"
"My answer was a scream, sir, for the words had hardly passed his lips
when he was on the ground in a fit. The doctors say, by the way, that if
ever he has another, he will slip his cable."
Some of Rosie's phrases were not utterly pretty, and her anecdotes so
numerous that one doubted whether they could be all quite true; but,
assuming this of Dr Burton to have at least some truth, I was very
shocked, very deeply moved, and I got from her a promise not again to
mention it during the doctor's lifetime.
When I asked her what was the big thing at the moment in England, "Oh,
still Education," she answered in her off-hand manner: "it is nearly
through the Commons now, but the Church isn't going to hear of it. This
bill puts an Eton education within the reach of every boy, as in France
and elsewhere, and it does seem hard that the Church should stand in the
way when anyone can see that England is perishing for lack of just this
thing: but that is the Church all over--the old enemy of light." "Why,
Rosie, you are not a good Catholic!" I said. "Oh, well," said she, "one
must submit one's reason to God, of course; but still, one's private
thoughts will peep through. However, the Church was defeated over
Diseased Persons, and she may be over Education, too: Mr Edwards, I
know, means fight, and so does the duchess." "But Diseased Persons was
won through the discovery of that body and cross in Bayeux," said I: "do
people, by the way, still discuss that discovery?" "Nothing has ever
been made of it that I know of," she answered: "but some queer things
were said, as some queer things were said of the disappearance of Dr
Todhunter, and it gave a shock to the Church somehow, till two more of
the visions were seen, and that turned people's minds away."
On the whole, the girl proved a mine of modernity: but what causes me to
mention her here is a criticism of some of her words made by Langler,
and a meditation which occurred in my mind in consequence of that
criticism, not without definite result.
On the night of our meeting I mentioned her in my usual letter to
Langler, and in his next to me were the following words:--"This Rosie,
you tell me, says that Baron Kolár is not at Schweinstein: but you and I
believe differently! That voice and those two English words which you
heard on the night when we were saved from drowning, and that light in
(?) the castle laboratory on the night when we saw Max Dees--these,
indeed, are hardly proofs; yet we do _have a feeling_ that he is there:
and I have asked myself what can be his reason for hiding his presence
there, if he is there, even from political people like the Duchess of St
Albans. The reason suggested to my mind is that he may really mean to do
Max Dees some harm, with the odium of which he does not wish to be
afterwards pestered. Dees, it seems, has somehow wronged him, and
vengeance is to be taken. But why, then, one might ask, does the man not
take his vengeance and be done? It seems to be because Dees is being
reserved till something else first happens, till (according to Dees
himself) 'the downfall of the Church.' But, in that case, why is the
baron _at present_ lurking in Schweinstein? Perhaps it is in order to
hurt Dees _prematurely_, before 'the downfall,' in case you and I should
make serious headway in the matter of effecting Dees' release. But if
this be so, it would seem to show that the baron must have some real
fear of our power to release Dees. Indeed, he _has_ such a fear: why
else did he hurry hither the moment he saw that we could no longer be
kept away from Styria? How sensitive he must be of the least chance of
Dees' escaping him! Yet he is not a nervous man; one would imagine that
he might securely have left Dees to the care of the watch-dog Tschudi!
But no, he flies to the spot in person. And those two outrages upon the
innocent hands--how sensitive, how frightfully in earnest he must have
been to keep us from meddling! But that earnestness certainly implies a
fear of our power--of our power, which seems to be nil. It must be,
then, that the baron perceives that we have some power of which we
ourselves are not aware."
There Langler's discernment seems to have stopped short; but his words
so struck me, that I could not forget them, and after a sleepless night,
which I shall ever remember, towards morning this thought was born in my
head: "but Max Dees is a _churchman_! this is the heyday of the Church,
so it is through the Church perhaps that his release may be wrought; and
the baron, more far-seeing than we, has long seen this, and has feared
our power, because it seemed certain to him that we, too, must see it!
Here have I been tossed from Herr to Herr and from pillar to post; but
the Prince-bishop of Seckau is in Gratz, and it is to him perhaps that I
should have gone."
Thus oddly, one might say awfully, do things come off: if I had not met
that girl in the Stadt Park I might never have come at this meditation,
and everything, in the end, would have been otherwise than it was.