THE SILVER DIAL.
BY
MARY C. ROWSELL.
AUTHOR OF
“ST. NICOLAS’ EVE,” “LOVE LOYAL,” “TRAITOR OR PATRIOT,” &c., &c.
* * * * *
“AS MANY LINES CLOSE IN THE DIAL’S CENTRE;
SO MANY A THOUSAND ACTIONS, ONCE AFOOT,
END IN ONE PURPOSE.”—_Henry V._
* * * * *
VOL. II.
[Illustration]
LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LE BAS & LOWREY, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
* * * * *
1886.
* * * * *
THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.
CONTENTS.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER PAGE
XVIII.—Dagger and Poison Cup 1
XIX.—“Were all thy Letters Suns, I could not see” 18
XX.—A Noisy Committee 30
XXI.—A Chilly Greeting 38
XXII.—Unjust Suspicions 47
XXIII.—“The Times are out of Joint” 59
XXIV.—“What’s she worried about?” 71
XXV.—Nine Days’ Wonder 83
XXVI.—“Mere Hearsay” 97
XXVII.—A Moonlight Meeting 109
XXVIII.—“Affinities” 124
XXIX.—“Worse than Silence” 137
XXX.—A Cause Célèbre 148
XXXI.—“Quo fata Vocant” 172
XXXII.—Otto’s Little Difficulties 187
XXXIII.—“Give up the Plans!” 197
XXXIV.—“Inter alia” 209
XXXV.—“Dolce far Niente!” 222
XXXVI.—“Under the Shade of Melancholy Boughs” 233
XXXVII.—“The Old Love or the New?” 252
XXXVIII.—Time’s Changes 266
XXXIX.—A Visit to the Dial 278
XL.—Gretchen 296
XLI.—A Clean Confession 310
XLII.—Otto finds Consolation 332
XLIII.—“Making Night hideous” 340
XLIV.—Vox Populi 353
XLV.—Old Friends 363
XLVI.—How Extremes meet 374
XLVII.—“Homo Sum” 387
THE SILVER DIAL.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVIII.
DAGGER AND POISON CUP.
By the time Sabina and her father had bidden adieu to Radegund, the
grey wintry twilight had deepened into blackness, and the artist found
it was too dark to seal up and direct Sabina’s letter. Merely folding
it, therefore, she laid it on the ledge of her easel, and turned to
take up her old brooding attitude in the flickering firelight, until a
message was brought that the Bishop waited below to speak with her on
some question concerning the Horologe.
She hurried down, and my lord, who always enjoyed a chat with her,
prolonged his interview for some time after Radegund had heard her
brother Otto striding impatiently to and fro in the adjoining
room—sign unmistakable that he was waiting for her to come to supper.
Indeed it was already past the usual hour for the meal, and Radegund
was not sorry when at last her august visitor took his departure.
“The poor boy must be famished! he has been waiting this half-hour,”
thought she, with the strong motherly solicitude she had for him.
To many, despite his handsome face, Otto was not an agreeable young
man. Well-born and reared, he yet had about him a touch of that
ill-breeding which is conceit’s unfailing attendant. Of firmness of
character and self-reliance he had little; and his weak nature had
allowed a natural jealousy of disposition to become an uncontrollable
passion. He was impulsive, and not destitute of generosity. People
were apt to mistake his transient fits of ardour for real deep-seated
enthusiasm, but this quality for good and for evil belonged to his
sister, and not at all to him. He was, however, quick-witted and to
a degree clever, as who of the race of von Steinbach was not? but
genius he utterly lacked; and his mediocre talents ran small chance
of increase, since he had never been able to grasp the practical
meaning of mental application. Compared with Radegund’s intellectual
qualifications, his were as pinchbeck to gold, but that is in no way to
refuse recognition to the qualities of pinchbeck.
Radegund, however, whose perception of people’s shortcomings was
ordinarily acute, saw few faults in Otto; or if she did, never
admitted their existence, and if it pleased her to tell him of his
little failings now and again, that was her affair; but other folks,
marriageable maidens notably, were to be filled with admiration and
sighs for her Adonis-faced brother, and when first she heard that
Sabina, instead of jumping down the irresistible creature’s throat, had
dared “little chit of a thing!”—to refuse the offer of his delectable
self, she could hardly credit her own ears, until—until she came to
understand who was the favoured suitor.
Otto, when he could spare a thought from the consideration of his own
perfections, would say that he admired Radegund, and that those who
sought her favour were not so far wrong, and in his own rather shallow
way he loved her. He always found her a patient listener, when he
poured forth, as he very often did, a list of his numerous individual
grievances. Sometimes, it must be confessed, he did not escape a sound
rating for his pains, on account of his weak vacillating ways; and
Radegund would declare that he ought to have been the woman and she the
man; but oftener she would pity him, and even join in denouncing the
unappreciating world he was thrown upon.
All this Radegund would do; but one thing she never did, and that was
to confide in return, her own hopes and fears and joys and sorrows to
him. “Poor child! no”—she always cheated herself into saying. “Why
should I worry him with my vexations? He has enough of his own.”
But she knew that was a self-deception; and had Otto been of her
own calibre, she would have been glad to make a friend of him, this
proud-hearted friendless woman. As it was, however, the two rubbed on
their somewhat gloomy lives together in the magnificent old ancestral
mansion, and people would point them out as a model brother and sister;
which perhaps, as far as imperfect human nature let them be, they were.
At zero though Otto’s love affairs of late had been, he had not lost
the rare appetite with which Providence had blessed him; and if he
were kept waiting for his meals for even three little minutes, he
considered himself very criminally dealt by; and on this particular
evening he had come in, and found his sister not waiting for him as
usual, and as he considered it behoved her to do. Otto always regarded
Radegund’s absence from the guest-room at this hour of the evening as a
personal affront; and the worst of it was that lately she had got into
a trick of doing so, especially while the Saint Laurence picture had
been on her easel.
Had there been, however, any shadow of an excuse for it then, there
could be none now that the Saint Laurence was safe on the cathedral
wall, and Otto did not mean Radegund to get into that aggravating way
of neglecting him for pictures and things. Seizing a lamp therefore, he
tore, three steps at a time? up the wide oaken staircase, and in his
own privileged way, burst open the studio door.
“Aller Teufel!” he cried. “I’ve been in ever so long—I’m famished,
Radegund, and it’s an abominable shame——”
But no Radegund was to be seen. Raising his lamp aloft, he peered among
the shadows it cast, and called her by her name, knowing that it was
perfectly possible for his sister to be within half-a-yard of him, and
yet for her not to reply. It was another of her tiresome whims; and one
which of late had much grown upon her, to pay not the slightest heed
when spoken to; and you might as well be a wooden stick at once, for
all the notice Radegund would sometimes take of you for hours together.
Now, however, not even her bodily presence was there; and since Otto
had no fancy for being alone in that great dark chamber, he turned to
go downstairs again, when suddenly the flare of his lamp caught the
picture on Radegund’s easel.
“What termagant creature is she putting on her canvas now?” he muttered
to himself, as he approached the picture. “I never can, for the life of
me, see any beauty in these viragos myself. One of your soft dove-eyed
women now, is worth a dozen of ’em,” sighed poor Otto. “By Jupiter!
didn’t I say it? Some she-demon or other!”
And he recoiled a step, as a pair of fierce eyes, more ghastly from
their vagueness, glared out at him from the canvas.
“A Cassandra,” he went on, out of his little Latin, and less Greek
which he had contrived to drum into his brains during his schoolboy
years, “or is it Medea? Anyhow she’s pointing down at some piece of
devilry she’s been at,” and involuntarily Otto’s eyes fell to the
base of the picture whither the figure’s shadowy finger pointed. On
the ledge of the easel lay a piece of folded parchment. Bringing his
lamp-light closer to it, Otto saw that it was addressed in Radegund’s
handwriting to Conrad Dasipodius.
“Now, what can she be having to say to him?” he mused, and as he stood
considering it with wide open eyes, a cunning smile gathered about his
lips. “Ah ha! sister mine!” he muttered, “I have you at last, have I?”
Then he took the letter, and fingered it laughingly.
For long past Otto had had his suspicions that Radegund’s admiration
for the stately Professor Dasipodius was not an exclusively artistic
one. That Nature broke the mould after having created him, Radegund
took a delight in declaring; especially in the hearing of those
among her admirers who chanced to be insignificant in stature or of
physiognomy; and this very plain-spoken avowal set those interested
to find out the truth completely off the right scent. “For no woman,”
as they argued, “ever blazons abroad such open admiration for a man
she is in love with.” Shallow arguing! and the ways of woman, when
she so chooses, are past man’s finding out; unless, possibly, to a
disinterested man like Otto von Steinbach.
Disinterested indeed, as far as Radegund was concerned, Otto might
be, since so long as she would one day settle quietly down with a
decently wealthy and well-born suitor—the wealthier of course so much
the better, because then he might rather help than hinder Otto’s own
worldly prospects; the young man cared little enough who might be the
favoured one. Otto, however, did care very much to arrive at any means
which might compass the breaking of Dasipodius’ love plighting with
Sabina von Steinbach. That once achieved, he had no fear whatever of
making his own way with her. Why not?
And so when Otto’s eyes fell on this letter addressed to the
mathematician in his sister’s own handwriting, he fancied himself quite
on the right tack, or at least hope whispered very encouragingly to
him. Still he could not quite see how he was going to bring things
into train, and he stood and pondered, until his thoughts assumed an
exceedingly definite shape. The letter was unsealed, could be opened
and read as easily as looked at almost—and why—why should he not read
it? What hindered?
Honour did for full two minutes, nearly three, and then the meaner
spirit of him whispered that there must be no further shilly-shally,
that such scruples were absurdly, fastidiously delicate, when in all
probability, that letter contained nothing but Horologe business;
and supposing, after all, it did touch on extraneous but interesting
matter, was it not right and proper that he, Otto von Steinbach, as
master of that house, should know what was going on under his own
roof? Was he not guardian of his sister’s honour? and was it not high
time that he should set about acquainting himself with some of those
proceedings of hers which she kept so mysteriously to herself? Then
too, there was his cousin Sabina’s imperilled happiness to be borne in
mind. Yes, the sudden clearness with which Otto now saw these points
utterly extinguished any intrusive little scruples, and anxiety on
that score being thus quite set at rest, he set his lamp on the table,
opened the letter—not without many glances first round the dark still
chamber, and began to spell it carefully through. Otto, as already
hinted, being rather a ten o’clock scholar, had some difficulty
in mastering the hard words, but finding the contents interesting,
it seemed to him worth while to persevere; and something over a
quarter-of-an-hour left him in possession of as much as the missive
had to tell; but to grasp all at once its full meaning was too great a
tax on his brain, and for some moments his countenance wore an utterly
dazed expression, and there, as though rooted to the spot, he stood,
striving to set a little in order the bewildering suggestions it had
called up within him. “Blind!” gasped he. “Now, who would have guessed
that? And yet—ha! ha! so much for friend Conrad’s inspiration, as the
fools call his star-gazing. Inspiration? Magic perhaps! What do I say?
Perhaps? Why it must be. Seeing without eyes indeed! Oh! it’s horrible
to think of—horrible! Why, the cleverest person, ever so clever—I
myself can’t tie even a shoestring with shut eyes; and you mean to tell
me—no, it won’t do. Besides, aren’t his eyes as good-looking—almost,
as mine? Impossible.” Then with forefinger pressed against the corner
of his wrinkling brow, and demonstrating the hollowness of his own
proposition, since he shut his eyes fast in order to see the better
into his own mind, he stood lost in meditation.
At last, carefully folding the letter, he replaced it where he had
found it; then catching up his lamp, hurried with a light heart
downstairs, and as he went, “Blind!” was the refrain of his pæan.
“Dasipodius blind!—blind!”
This knowledge of the master’s affliction appeared certainly to have
put his pupil into a charmingly good humour; he had not felt so pleased
with himself and all the world for quite a long time, and went so far
out of his ordinary way as to tell his sister, who now awaited him in
the dining hall, that she was a splendid creature, by Venus! “And upon
my honour, I don’t wonder at all the fellows being mad about you, my
girl. Such a knack, too, as you have of putting on your clothes. You
make a rare picture yourself, Radegund.”
And Radegund, standing there beside the supper-table, freighted with
its costly silver-gilt and shining Venice glass, did look rarely
handsome. Unlike so many sisters of her craft, artist inconsistencies,
who drape their figures in graceful robes of happily-blended colouring,
while they render real life hideous by dingy dress, crumpled lace,
and disordered hair, Radegund well understood the value of personal
adornment.
To-night her dress, whose sheeny folds swept the oaken floor, was of
some dark tawny-coloured brocaded stuff, cut slightly open at the neck,
and squared about the throat, and finished there by a band of dead gold
passementerie. The sleeves puffed and slashed with velvet a shade or
two lighter than the dress, and reaching to her shapely wrists, were
edged with a narrow band of the same rich trimming, while a narrow
frill of fine Flemish lace shaded the white, rather transparent hands.
A broader ruff also of this same lace set off, more than concealed,
the rounded outlines of her beautiful throat. This same ruff of the
artist’s had afforded food for much discussion in certain circles. The
feminine fashionable craze of the city vowed it was excessively absurd
and antiquated of Radegund to persist in wearing such a stupid mimping
scrap of lace; positively not four inches wide, and certainly, all
unplaited, not above an ell long! But there, that always was Radegund
von Steinbach—to go choosing to be different from everybody else, she
did so dearly love anything that made her peculiar. Dispassionately
regarded, one would have held the accusation of peculiarity to lie
rather on the side of the existing fashion, than on that of the
old-world frill to which Radegund was pleased to remain faithful.
The ruffs of the really modish dames of that day were miracles of
building-up, and had to be “under-propped round their goodly necks,” as
an irate chronicler of the period has it, “and pinned up to their ears,
or else let fluttering, like windmill sails in the wind”.
Now the ridiculous part of all this was, that the male sex, with
that proverbial ignorance and ill-taste which invariably marks it in
questions of the sort, took a positive delight in abusing the charming
new fashion, and stuck so obstinately to their opinion that Radegund’s
ruff was a thousand times more decent and becoming, that certain weak
young Strassburg female minds began to entertain serious thoughts of
going back again to the older style, in spite of such romantic nonsense
being pooh-poohed by the stronger spirits.
“Decent and becoming! Radegund von Steinbach! Who’s she, pray, that
she’s to set the fashions?” contended these. “Decent and becoming! A
good joke!” and then the huffy outraged matrons at once became more
ruffy and stiffly-starched than ever. Then, too, Radegund was possessed
with “ideas” about her hair, and scorned to lend herself to the wearing
of wigs of many colours, or to gold-powderings, or dyeings, or any
other abominations of the sort practised in that unenlightened age, but
gathered it all up, and wound it in coils about her beautiful head,
and fastened it with a golden dagger-headed spillone, she had brought
from Italy; and altogether there was a distinctiveness and magnificence
about Radegund von Steinbach which made her a pleasant sight to eyes
dazzled and wearied by the glitter of beads and bangles and gewgaws.
But to-night, notwithstanding, Radegund’s face wears a haggard look,
and the crimson spot burning on either cheek, renders its paleness
still more deathlike.
“You have kept me waiting,” is her sole response to her brother’s
gallant little speeches. “Where have you been?”
“I—I was home rather late,” stammered he.
“Nay,” persisted Radegund, “but I heard you stamping about in here
more than half-an-hour ago.”
“When a man’s ravenous,” says Otto, seating himself at the table, and
commencing operations without further loss of time, “he’s apt to stamp
about. It saves him from doing some awful mischief or other; and I’m so
starving, I could eat a board to-night. But this capon is first-rate.
You’ve found a decent cook at last—eh, old girl?” hurried on Otto
nervously. “Do have a slice of this bird, Radegund.”
“No!” said Radegund. “I’m not hungry, Otto. Did I not hear you go
upstairs to my studio?”
“Yes,” replied Otto. “I went to look for you; but you weren’t there;
and—and so I came down again.”
“But not directly,” she said, fixing her eyes upon him with languid
curiosity.
“No,” admitted the truthful Otto. “I—I stayed to look at your new
sketch, Radegund. She’s an awful woman. Who is she?”
“Eleanor of England,” absently answered the artist.
“And what may she be pointing down at so savagely?”
“Ah! At fair Rosamond, while she drinks the poison.”
“A nice cheerful subject!” said Otto, fortifying his nerves with a
brimming beaker of Burgundy. “But who is fair Rosamond?”
“That is too long a tale,” yawned Radegund; then with a sudden fierce
energy she added: “Rosamond wronged Eleanor.”
“Oh! a love affair was it?” said Otto, with something of unfeigned
interest. “And this Eleanor, she was jealous—eh?”
“Perhaps—I don’t know. I do wish you’d eat your supper, and not worry
about the stupid picture. I thought you were so hungry.”
Otto stared at his sister. This was the first time within living memory
that he had ever found her unwilling to talk about her art.
“I’m so tired to-night,” she went on more gently. “Tell me, Otto, did
you notice a letter lying about up there?”
“A letter?—a letter?” said Otto, knitting his brows. “Yes, I—I think I
saw something of the sort. Have you tasted the new bin of Burgundy yet,
Radegund? By St. Laurence! what a bloom it has. Drink, my girl,” and
he brimmed a goblet with the blood-red wine. “’Twill do you worlds of
good.”
Radegund drank it thirstily. “It was addressed to the Professor
Dasipodius,” she said.
“Oh, the letter. Ah, yes, it might have been for aught I know,” said
Otto, nervously twiddling a spoon. It seemed to him that her eyes were
reading him through and through.
“It was not sealed,” she said.
“Oh, h’m—was it not. Do you wish it sealed?” enquired the accommodating
Otto. “I will fetch it down, and do it for you.”
“Nay, I will go myself presently.”
And after supper Radegund fetched the letter, and tying it with a
silken thread, lighted a taper and sealed it fast.
“After all,” she said with a contemptuous weary smile, “it is nothing
particular,” as though it were a trifle there had already been too much
talk about.
“Ah, really!” said Otto in sleepy tones.
“It has to do with Horologe affairs.”
“Just so,” gravely assented he.
“And you are to give it yourself to Conrad Dasipodius.”
“Oh, certainly. Into his own hands.”