“What is the matter? What has happened? What are you doing?” I asked, first
of one and then of another; but they were all too busy to answer.
“Ach, lieber Gott!” said one, “I've no time for talking!”
“Don't ask me, little Fräulein,” said another. “I have eight windows to
clean up yonder, and only one pair of hands to do them with!”
“If you want to know what is to do,” said a third impatiently, “you had
better come and see.”
The head-gardener's son came by with two pots of magnificent geraniums, one
under each arm.
“Where are you going with those flowers, Wilhelm?” I asked, running after
him.
“They are for the state salon, Fräulein Gretchen,” he replied, and hurried
on.
For the state salon! I ran round to the side of the grand entrance. There
were soldiers putting up banners in the hall; others helping to carry
furniture up stairs; carpenters with ladders; women with brooms and
brushes; and Corporal Fritz bustling hither and thither, giving orders, and
seeing after everything.
“But Corporal Fritz!” I exclaimed, “what are all these people about?”
“We are preparing the state apartments, dear little Fräulein,” replied
Corporal Fritz, rubbing his hands with an air of great enjoyment.
“But why? For whom?”
“For whom? Why, for the King, to be sure”; and Corporal Fritz clapped his
hand to the side of his hat like a loyal soldier. “Don't you know, dear
little Fräulein, that His Majesty sleeps here to-night, on his way to
Ehrenbreitstein?”
This was news indeed! I ran up stairs--I was all excitement--I got in
everybody's way--I tormented everybody with questions. I saw the table
being laid in the grand salon where the King was to sup, and the bedstead
being put up in the little salon where he was to sleep, and the ante-room
being prepared for his officers. All was being made ready as rapidly, and
decorated as tastefully, as the scanty resources of the Château would
permit. I recognised much of the furniture from the attics above, and
this, faded though it was, being helped out with flowers, flags, and
greenery, made the great echoing rooms look gay and habitable.
By and by, my father came round to see how the work was going on, and
finding me in the midst of it, took me by the hand and led me away.
“You are not wanted here, my little Gretchen,” he said; “and, indeed, all
the world is so busy to-day that I scarcely know what to do with thee.”
“Take me to Monsieur Maurice!” I said, coaxingly.
“Ay--so I will,” said my father; “with him, at all events, you will be out
of the way.”
So he took me round to Monsieur Maurice's rooms, and told me as we went
along that the King had only given him six hours' notice, and that in
order to furnish his Majesty's bed and his Majesty's supper, he had bought
up all the poultry and eggs, and borrowed well-nigh all the silver, glass,
and linen in the town.
By this time we were almost at Monsieur Maurice's door. A sudden thought
flashed upon me. I pulled him back, out of the sentry's hearing.
“Oh, father!” I cried eagerly, “will you not ask the King to let Monsieur
Maurice free?”
My father shook his head.
“Nay,” he said, “I must not do that, my little Mädchen. And look you--not a
word that the King is coming here to-night. It would only make the prisoner
restless, and could avail nothing. Promise me to be silent.”
So I promised, and he left me at the door without going in.
I spent all the afternoon with Monsieur Maurice. He divided his luncheon
with me; he gave me a French lesson, he told me stories. I had not had
such a happy day for months. Hartmann, it is true, was constantly in and
out of the room, but even Hartmann was less in the way than usual. He
seemed absent and preoccupied, and was therefore not so watchful as at
other times. In the meanwhile I could still hear, though faintly, the
noises in the rooms below; but all became quiet about five o'clock in the
evening, and Monsieur Maurice, who had been told they were only cleaning
the state apartments, asked no questions.
Meanwhile the afternoon waned, and the sun bent westward, and still no one
came to fetch me away. My father knew where I was; Bertha was probably too
busy to think about me; and I was only too glad to stay as long as
Monsieur Maurice was willing to keep me. By and by, about half-past six
o'clock, the sky became overclouded, and we heard a low muttering of very
distant thunder. At seven, it rained heavily.
Now it was Monsieur Maurice's custom to dine late, and ours to dine early;
but then, as his luncheon hour corresponded with our dinner-hour, and his
dinner fell only a little later than our supper, it came to much the same
thing, and did not therefore seem strange. So it happened that just as the
storm came up, Hartmann began to prepare the table. Then, in the midst of
the rain and the wind, my quick ear caught a sound of drums and bugles,
and I knew the King was come. Monsieur Maurice evidently heard nothing;
but I could see by Hartmann's face (he was laying the cloth and making a
noise with the glasses) that he knew all, and was listening.
After this I heard no more. The wind raved; the rain pattered; the gloom
thickened; and at half-past seven, when the soup was brought to table, it
was so dark that Monsieur Maurice called for lights. He would not, however,
allow the curtains to be drawn. He liked, he said, to sit and watch the
storm.
A cover was laid for me at his right hand; but my supper hour was past, and
what with the storm without, the heaviness in the air, and the excitement
of the day, I was no longer hungry. So, having eaten a little soup and
sipped some wine from Monsieur Maurice's glass, I went and curled myself up
in an easy chair close to the window, and watched the driving mists as they
swept across the park, and the tossing of the treetops against the sky.
It was a wild evening, lit by lurid gleams and openings in the clouds; and
it seemed all the wilder by contrast with the quiet room and the dim
radiance of the wax lights on the table. There was a soft halo round each
little flame, and a dreamy haze in the atmosphere, from the midst of which
Monsieur Maurice's pale face stood out against the shadowy background, like
a head in a Dutch painting.
We were both very silent; partly because Hartmann was waiting, and partly,
perhaps, because we had been talking all the afternoon. Monsieur Maurice
ate slowly, and there were long intervals between the courses, during which
he leaned his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, looking across
towards the window and the storm. Hartmann, meanwhile, seemed to be always
listening. I could see that he was holding his breath, and trying to catch
every faint echo from below.
It was a long, long dinner, and probably seemed all the longer to me
because I did not partake of it. As for Monsieur Maurice, he tasted some
dishes, and sent more away untouched.
“I think it is getting lighter,” he said by and by. “Does it still rain?”
“Yes,” I replied; “it is coming down steadily.”
“We must open the window presently,” he said. “I love the fresh smell that
comes with the rain.”
Here the conversation dropped again, and Hartmann, having been gone for a
moment, came back with a dish of stewed fruit.
Then, for the first time, I observed there was a second attendant in the
room.
“Will you not have some raspberries, Gretchen?” said Monsieur Maurice.
I shook my head. I was too much startled by the sight of the strange man,
to answer him in words.
Who could he be? Where had he come from? He was standing behind Monsieur
Maurice, far back in the gloom, near the door--a small, dark man,
apparently; but so placed with regard to the table and the lights, that it
was impossible to make out his features with distinctness.
Monsieur Maurice just tasted the raspberries and sent his plate away.
“How heavy the air of the room is!” he said. “Give me some Seltzer-water,
and open that farthest window.”
Hartmann reversed the order. He opened the window first; and as he did so,
I saw that his hand shook upon the hasp, and that his face was deadly
pale.
He then turned to the sideboard and opened a stone bottle that had been
standing there since the beginning of dinner. He filled a tumbler with the
sparkling water.
At the moment when he placed this tumbler on the salver--at the moment when
he handed it to Monsieur Maurice--the other man glided quickly forward. I
saw his bright eyes and his brown face in the full light. I saw _two
hands_ put out to take the glass; a brown hand and a white--his hand,
and the hand of Monsieur Maurice. I saw--yes, before Heaven! as I live to
remember and record it, I saw the brown hand grasp the tumbler and dash it
to the ground!
“Pshaw!” said Monsieur Maurice, brushing the Seltzer-water impatiently from
his sleeve, “how came you to upset it?”
But Hartmann, livid and trembling, stood speechless, staring at the door.
“It was the other man!” said I, starting up with a strange kind of
breathless terror upon me. “He threw it on the ground--I saw him do
it--where is he gone? what has become of him?”
“The other man! What other man?” said Monsieur Maurice. “My little
Gretchen, you are dreaming.”
“No, no, I am not dreaming. There was another man--a brown man! Hartmann
saw him--”
“A brown man!” echoed Monsieur Maurice. Then catching sight of Hartmann's
face, he pushed his chair back, looked at him steadily and sternly; and
said, with a sudden change of voice and manner:--
“There is something wrong here. What does it mean? You saw a man--both of
you? What was he like?”
“A brown man,” I said again. “A brown man with bright eyes.”
“And you?” said Monsieur Maurice, turning to Hartmann.
“I--I thought I saw something,” stammered the attendant, with a violent
effort at composure. “But it was nothing.”
Monsieur Maurice looked at him as if he would look him through; got up,
still looking at him; went to the sideboard, and, still looking at him,
filled another tumbler with Seltzer-water.
“Drink that,” he said, very quietly.
The man's lips moved, but he uttered never a word.
“Drink that,” said Monsieur Maurice for the second time, and more sternly.
But Hartmann, instead of drinking it, instead of answering, threw up his
hands in a wild way, and rushed out of the room.
Monsieur Maurice stood for a moment absorbed in thought; then wrote some
words upon a card, and gave the card into my hand.
“For thy father, little one,” he said. “Give it to no one but himself, and
give it to him the first moment thou seest him. There's matter of life and
death in it.”
11
How the King supped, how the King slept, and what he thought of his Château
of Augustenburg which he now saw for the first time, are matters respecting
which I have no information. I only know that I had fallen asleep on
Monsieur Maurice's sofa when Bertha came at ten o'clock that night to fetch
me home; that I was very drowsy and unwilling to be moved; and that I woke
in the morning dreaming of a brown man with bright eyes, and calling upon
Monsieur Maurice to make haste and come before he should again have time to
vanish away.
It was a lovely morning; bright and fresh, and sunshiny after the night's
storm. My first thought was of Monsieur Maurice, and the card he had
entrusted to my keeping. I had it still. My father was not at home when I
came back last night. He was in attendance on the King, and did not return
till long after I was asleep in my own little bed. This morning, early as I
awoke, he was gone again, on the same duty.
I jumped up. I bade Bertha dress me quickly. “I must go to papa,” I said.
“I have a card for him from Monsieur Maurice.”
“Nay, liebe Gretchen,” said Bertha, “he is with the King.”
But I told myself that I would find him, and see him, and give the card
into his own hands, though a dozen kings were in the way. I could not read
what was written on the card. I could read print easily and rapidly, but
handwriting not at all. I knew, however, that it was urgent. Had he not
said that it was matter of life or death?
I hurried to dress; I hurried to get out. I could not rest, I could not eat
till I had given up the card. As good fortune would have it, the first
person I met was Corporal Fritz. I asked him where I could find my father.
“Dear little Fräulein,” said Corporal Fritz, “you cannot see him just yet.
He is with the King.”
“But I must see him,” I said. “I must--indeed, I must. Go to him for
me--please go to him, dear, good Corporal Fritz, and tell him his little
Gretchen must speak to him, if only for one moment!”
“But dear little Fräulein”....
“Is the King at breakfast?” I interrupted.
“At breakfast! Eh, then, our gallant King hath a soldier's habits. His
Majesty breakfasted at six this morning, and is gone out betimes to visit
his hunting-lodge at Falkenlust.”
“And my father?”
“His Excellency the Governor is in attendance upon the King.”
“Then I will go to Falkenlust.”
Corporal Fritz shook his head; shrugged his shoulders; took a pinch of
snuff.
“'Tis a long road to Falkenlust, dear little Fräulein,” said he; “and His
Excellency, methinks, would be better pleased”....
I stayed to hear no more, but ran off at full speed down the terraces,
straight to the Round Point and the fountain, and along the great avenue
that led to Falkenlust. I ran till I was out of breath--then rested--then
ran again, on, and on, and on, till the road lengthened and narrowed behind
me, and the Château of Augustenburg looked almost as small in the distance
at one end as the Falkenlust Lodge at the other.
Then all at once, far, far away, I saw a moving group of figures. They grew
larger and more distinct--they were coming towards me! I had run till I
could run no farther. Panting and breathless, I leaned against a tree, and
waited.
And now, as they drew nearer, I saw that the group consisted of some eight
or ten officers, two of whom were walking somewhat in advance of the rest.
One of the two wore a plain cocked hat and an undress military frock; the
other was in full uniform, and wore two or three glittering medals on his
breast. This other was my father. I scarcely looked at the first. I never
even asked myself whether he was, or was not the King. I had no eyes, no
thought for any but my father.
So I stood, eager and breathless, on the verge of the gravel. So they every
moment drew nearer the spot where I was standing. As they came close, my
father's eyes met mine. He shook his head, and frowned. He thought I had
come there to stare at the King.
Nothing daunted, I took two steps forward. I had Monsieur Maurice's card in
my hand. I held it out to him.
“Read it,” I said. “It is from Monsieur Maurice.”
But he crushed it in his hand without looking at it, and waved me back
authoritatively.
“At once!” I cried; “at once!”
The gentleman in the blue frock stopped and smiled.
“Is this your little girl, Colonel Bernhard?” he asked.
My father replied by a low bow.
The strange gentleman beckoned me to draw nearer.
“A golden-haired little Mädchen!” said he. “Come hither, pretty one, and
tell me your name.”