Frau von Sigmundskron was not really much past middle age, though the
people in the village generally called her the old baroness. Her hair
was very white and she was thin and pale; her bold features, almost
emaciated, displayed the framework of departed beauty, and if her high
white forehead and waxen face were free from lines and wrinkles, it must
have been because time and grief could find no plastic material there in
which to trace their story. She was a very tall woman, too, and carried
her head erect and high, walking with a firmness and elasticity of step
such as would not have been expected in one whose outward appearance
conveyed so little impression of strength. It is true that she had never
been ill in her life and that her leanness was due to the most natural
of all causes; but these facts were not patent to the observer, and for
reasons which will presently appear she herself would have been the last
to mention them. There was something, too, in the look of her blue
eyes, shaded by long brown lashes which had retained their colour, that
forbade any expression of sympathy. The least experienced of mankind
would have seen at a glance that she was the proudest of women, and
would have guessed that she must be one of the most reticent. She moved
and spoke as though Sigmundskron were still what it had been in former
days, and she had brought up her only child to be as much like herself,
as it was possible that anything so young and fair could resemble what
was already a type of age and gravity.
Poverty is too insignificant a word to describe the state in which the
mother and daughter lived, and had lived for many years. They had no
means of subsistence whatever beyond the pension accorded to the widow
of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron, ‘fallen on the field of honour,’ as the
official report had expressed it, in the murderous war with France.
He had been the last of his name and at the time of his death had no
relations living; two years earlier he had married a girl as penniless
and as noble as himself, and had lived to see a daughter born, destined
to inherit his nobility, his penury, and the bare walls of his ancestral
home.
Sigmundskron had been a very grand castle in its day, and the
half-ruined walls of the old stronghold still rose majestically from the
summit of the crag. Indeed the ruin was more apparent than real as yet,
and a few thousands judiciously expended upon the masonry would have
sufficed to restore the buildings to their original completeness. Many
a newly enriched merchant or banker would have paid a handsome price for
the place, though the land was gone and the government owned the forest
up to the very foot of the rock. But the Lady of Sigmundskron would
rather have starved to death in her vaulted chamber than have taken half
the gold in Swabia to sign away her dead husband’s home. Moreover, there
was Greif, and Greif was to marry Hilda, after which all would be well
again. Greif, with his money, would build and restore and furnish the
old castle, and bring back the breath of life into the ancient halls and
corridors. But in order that Greif might marry Hilda, it was necessary
that Hilda should grow up beautiful, and to grow up at all, it was
necessary that Hilda should be fed.
It had come to that, to the very question of food, of mere bread to eat.
There was not enough for two, but Hilda must not starve. That was the
secret which no one, not even Hilda herself must ever understand. During
the first years, it had not been so hard to live. There had been a
few poor jewels to sell, a few odds and ends that had brought a little
money. While Hilda was a little child it had been easier, for she had
needed but few clothes and, being little, had needed to eat less. But at
last there had come a day when Frau von Sigmundskron, not so thin nor
so pale as now, had seen a hungry look stealing into the eyes of the
fair-haired girl. It was little enough that they had between them, but
the mother said to herself that she could keep alive with less. The
careful economy which bought nothing not capable of sustaining life and
strength could go no further. There were but so many pence a day for
food, and to expend more to-day was to starve tomorrow. From that moment
Frau von Sigmundskron began to complain of headache, and especially of
loss of appetite. She could not eat, she said. She did not think there
was anything the matter, and she would doubtless be better in a few
days. But the days ran on to weeks, the weeks to months, and the
months to years, and Hilda grew tall and fair, unconsciously eating her
mother’s portion of the daily bread. No hermit ever lived upon so little
as sufficed for the baroness; no perishing, shipwrecked wretch ever
measured out so carefully the ounce of biscuit that must maintain life
from day to day; no martyr ever submitted more patiently and silently to
his sufferings. But Hilda grew, and the years sped on, and Greif would
come in time.
Greif, upon whom such great hopes were centred, was a distant cousin as
well as a neighbour. The relationship was on the side of Hilda’s mother,
whose grandfather had been a Greifenstein, and who might have been
expected to accept some assistance from her rich connexions, especially
as she was quite willing that her daughter should marry their only son.
But the baroness was a woman whose pride forbade her to accept under the
pressure of necessity what had not been offered freely in other times.
It must be admitted also that the Greifensteins, though well aware that
the Sigmundskrons were extremely poor, were far from suspecting that
they were in need of bread. They knew that the castle was still the
unhampered property of the two ladies, and they supposed that if things
were really in a bad state, the baroness would raise money upon it.
She never alluded to her affairs when she was with her relations, and
excused herself from asking them to stay with her, on the ground of her
poor health. On rare occasions Greifenstein and his wife drove over to
the castle, and were invariably admitted by the same soberly-dressed,
middle-aged woman, who showed them into the same old-fashioned room,
whence, having made their visit, they returned to the outer gate by the
way they had come. That is all they ever saw of Sigmundskron. Twice in
the year, also, Hilda and her mother were invited to stay a fortnight at
Greifenstein, but no one would have supposed from their behaviour that
the luxury of the latter place surprised them, or seemed in any way
preferable to what they enjoyed at home. Hilda’s education had not been
neglected. Among her earliest recollections was her mother’s constant
injunction never to make remarks upon what she saw in other houses. The
child was not long in learning what the warning meant, and as she
had inherited a plentiful share of her mother’s pride she almost
unconsciously imitated her mother’s behaviour. Greif himself was the
only person who might have known something of the true state of the
case; but as he had been accustomed to be in love with his cousin ever
since they had been children he would have feared to hurt her feelings
by asking questions. For Hilda was reticent even with him, not from any
shame at the idea of being thought poor, but because she was too proud
to have it thought that either she or her mother could ever need the
help of the Greifensteins.
Furthermore, if the baroness’s reluctance to ask for assistance has not
been sufficiently explained, there is one more consideration which might
alone have sufficed to account for her conduct. Between her and Greif’s
mother there existed a great and wholly insurmountable antipathy. She
could not understand how Greifenstein could have married such a woman.
There was a mystery about it which she had never fathomed. Greifenstein
himself was a stern, silent man of military appearance, a mighty hunter
in the depths of the forest, a sort of grizzled monument of aristocratic
strength, tough as leather, courteous in his manner, with that stiff
courtesy that never changes under any circumstances, rigid in his views,
religious, loyal, full of the prejudices that make the best subjects in
a kingdom and the bitterest opponents of all change.
In appearance and manner Frau von Greifenstein presented the most
complete contrast to her husband. She had been pretty, fair and
sprightly in her youth, she was now a faded blonde, full of strange
affectations and stilted sentiments. Possessing but indifferent taste,
she nevertheless devoted much time to the adornment of her person. She
was small of stature, but delicately made, and if her nervous desire to
please had granted to her outward personality a moment’s repose during
the day, she might still have passed muster as a fairly good-looking
woman. Unfortunately she was animated by an unceasing activity in
trivial matters, and was rarely silent. Some women make one think of a
printed page in which there are too many italics, and too many useless
marks of exclamation. At first, their constant cries of admiration
and outbursts of enthusiasm produce a vague sense of uneasiness in the
listener, which soon develops to a feeling of positive distress and
generally ends in a real and deep-rooted dislike. At the beginning one
looks about anxiously for the object which could produce so grotesque a
smile. There is nothing, for the conversation has been as lead, but the
smile does not subside; it only passes through the endless variations
that succeed each other from the inane grin to the affected simper which
is meant to be tender. The whole face moves perpetually, as the facial
muscles of a corpse, excited by an electric current, seem to parody all
the expression of living human sentiment.
But Frau von Greifenstein was not in reality so foolish as might have
been thought. Her silliness was superficial. One part of her life had
been full of strange circumstances, and if the whole truth were told
it would appear that she had known how to extract a large amount of
personal advantage from situations which to many persons would have
seemed hopeless. She and her husband rarely left their castle in the
Black Forest, and it might naturally be supposed that their life
there was exceedingly dull and monotonous. In her own heart Clara von
Greifenstein recognised that her present luxurious retirement was a
paradise compared with the existence she must have led if she had not
known how to help herself at the right moment. During the earlier years
of her marriage, the recollection of her antecedents had been so painful
as to cause her constant anxiety, and at one time she had even gone so
far as to keep a sum of money about her, as though expecting to make a
sudden and unexpected journey. But five and twenty years and more had
passed, without bringing any untoward incident, and she felt herself
very secure in her position. Moreover a son had been born to her and was
growing up to be very like his father. Without Greif there is no
knowing what turn affairs might have taken, for although Clara’s husband
maintained towards her the same stiffly considerate behaviour which had
always characterised him in their relations to each other, he certainly
admitted to himself that she was not growing old gracefully; and it
is even possible that, in some remote glen of the forest, his grave
features may have occasionally allowed themselves a look of sorrowful
regret, or even of actual repugnance, when he thought of his wife’s
spasmodic smiles and foolish talk. Possibly, too, he may have sometimes
speculated upon her probable condition before she had married her first
husband, for he himself had found her a widow of apparently little
more than five and twenty years of age. But if any suggestion at all
derogatory to Greifenstein had presented itself to his mind, his pride
would assuredly have lost no time in smothering the thought. Was she not
the mother of Greif? And besides, if all were to be told, was there
not an unpleasantly dark spot in his own family, in the shape of his
half-brother, Kuno von Rieseneck? Indeed the existence of Kuno von
Rieseneck, concerning whom Clara knew nothing, was the reason why
Greifenstein had lived for so many years in the country, only travelling
outside of Germany when he travelled at all. He wondered that his wife,
being ignorant of the story, should be willing to share the solitude
of the Black Forest without a murmur, and her submission in itself
suggested that she, too, might have some good cause for preferring a
retired life. But if he had been satisfied with what he knew of her
five and twenty years ago, he was not the man to allow himself any
dissatisfaction now that Clara was the mother of that stalwart young
fellow who was heir to all the Greifenstein property.
In the month of July Greif was to come home from the University, and
immediately afterwards Hilda and her mother were to come over for their
half-yearly visit. The ancient place where this family meeting was
convened was so unlike most castles as to deserve a word of description.
The Swabian Black Forest is literally black, save when the winter snow
is heavy on the branches of the huge trees and lies in drifts beneath
them, covering the soft carpet of fir needles to the depth of many feet.
The landscape is extremely melancholy and in many parts is absolutely
monotonous. At intervals of several miles the rock juts suddenly out of
the forest, generally at places where the Nagold, more a torrent than
a river, makes a sharp bend. Many of these steep and stony promontories
are crowned by ancient strongholds, chiefly in ruins, though a very
few are still in repair and are inhabited by their owners. The name of
Greifenstein will not be found on any map of the district, but those
who know that wild and unfrequented country will recognise the spot. The
tumbling stream turns upon itself at a sharp angle, swirling round the
base of a precipitous and wedge-like cliff. So steep are the sides that
they who chose the summit for a fortress saw no need of building any
protection, save one gigantic wall which bestrides the wedge of rock,
thus cutting off a triangular platform, between the massive bulwark
and the two precipices that meet at the apex of the figure. This single
fortification is a solid piece of masonry, enormously thick and of
great height; its two extremities being surmounted by pointed towers,
connected by a covered walk along the top of the wall, which, even at
that height, is fully six feet wide and nearly a hundred in length. This
was the rampart behind which the Greifensteins had dwelt in security
through many generations, in the stormy days of the robber barons. So
sure were they of their safety, that they had built their dwelling-place
on the other side of the bulwark in a manner that offered no suggestion
of war or danger. The house was Gothic in style, full of windows
and ornamented with spacious balconies and much fine stonework. The
three-cornered platform was converted into a flower-garden, surrounded
by a parapet. Protected on the north side by the huge wall, and fully
exposed to the southern sun, the plants throve in an almost artificial
spring, and in the summer jets of water played in the marble basins and
cooled the hot, pine-scented air.
One narrow gate, barely wide enough for two persons to pass abreast,
gave access to this paradise through the grey, window-less mass of
masonry by which it was separated from the melancholy forest without.
One small building only was visible on the side of the woods, scarcely
fifty yards from the gate. This was a small, square, stone tower, half
overgrown with brush and creepers, and evidently abandoned to decay.
It was known in the family and neighbourhood as the ‘Hunger-Thurm,’ or
Hunger Tower, as having been used as a place for starving prisoners to
death, in the fine old days when the lords of Greifenstein did as
they judged good in their own eyes. Frau von Sigmundskron used to look
curiously at the grey building when she was staying with her relations.
She could have described the sufferings of the poor wretches who had
perished there as well as any one of themselves or better. Not twenty
miles from all the luxury that dwelt behind that lofty bulwark, she had
been starving herself for years in order that her only child might live.
And yet the well-fed woodmen touched their caps and their rosy wives and
daughters curtsied to the ‘Lady Baroness’ who, as they told each other,
spent her life in the towers of Sigmundskron hoarding untold wealth
which would one day belong to the golden-haired Lady Hilda. They knew,
for the knowledge could not be kept from them and their kind, how very
few were the silver pieces which were ever seen in the hands of old
Berbel, when she came down to the village market to buy food, and they
naturally concluded that the baroness was a miser even like some of
themselves, keeping her store of gold in a broken teapot somewhere among
those turrets in a spot known only to the owls. It is also possible that
Berbel--her name was Barbara--encouraged the idea, thinking it better
that her beloved mistresses should be thought avaricious than poor. The
burgomaster of the hamlet, who had to take off his coat in order to
sign his name when that momentous operation was unavoidable, but who was
supposed to know vastly more than the schoolmaster, used to talk about
certain mines in Silesia, owned by the Sigmundskrons; and once or twice
he went so far as to assure his hearers that gold and even diamonds
were found there in solid blocks as big as his own Maass-Krug,
that portentous jug from which he derived inspiring thoughts for
conversation, or peaceful satisfaction in solitude, as the case might
be. All, however, agreed in predicting that things would go much better
when the young gentleman of Greifenstein was married to the young lady
of Sigmundskron.
On that warm afternoon in July when Greif was expected, his father took
his gun, though there was little to shoot at that season, and sallied
forth on foot along the broad road that led to the distant railway
station. The portly gatekeeper smiled pleasantly as he stood looking
after his master. For many years, whenever the student was to come home,
old Greifenstein had gone down that road, in the same way, without a
word to any one, but having that same twinkle of happy anticipation in
his eyes, which was never seen there at any other time. Very generally,
too, the laden carriage came rumbling up to the gate with Greif’s
belongings, and an hour or two passed before father and son emerged on
foot from the first trees of the forest. To-day also, the master had
started betimes and it would be long before he heard the horses’ bells
below him in the valley. He walked quickly, as active men do when they
are alone, and there is no one to hinder them, stopping now and then
to see which way a hare sprang, or pausing to listen when his quick ear
caught the distant tread of a buck. He knew that he might walk for miles
without meeting a human being. The road was his, the land was his, the
trees were his. There was no felling to be done in the neighbourhood,
and no one but himself or his men had any right to be prowling about the
woods. In the perfect solitude his features relaxed a little and their
expression changed. The glad anticipation of the meeting with his son
was still in his eyes, but in the rest of his face there was a weary
look which those who knew him best would not have recognised. He was
thinking how different life would seem if Greif and he were to be the
only inhabitants of the old home during the next dozen years. Then he
stiffened his neck suddenly and strode on.
At last the far off tinkling of bells came up to him from the depths of
the forest, with the dull thud of horses’ hoofs that echoed among the
trees. He quickened his pace, knowing at how great a distance the sounds
could be heard. Ten minutes elapsed before the carriage came in sight,
and then almost instantly a loud shout rang through the woods, followed
by an answer from old Greifenstein, deeper, but quite as strong.
‘Father!’
‘Greif!’
Greif had leaped down from his place and was running up the hill at a
pace that would have tried the horses. In a moment more the two tall men
were in each other’s arms, kissing each other on the cheek.
At three and twenty the student looked as much like his father as a
young and fair man can look like an elderly dark one. Their features
were the same, both had the same sinewy firmness of build and the same
eyes; but Greif’s close-cut golden hair and delicate moustache gave
him a brilliancy his father had never possessed. He seemed to bring
the light with him into the deep shade of the glen where they met. One
looking at him would have felt instinctively that he was made to wear
the gleaming uniform of a Prussian Lifeguard, rather than the sober
garments of a civilian. As a matter of fact, he was dressed like an
Englishman, and would probably have been taken for one, to his own
intense disgust, in any European crowd.
‘And how is the mother?’ he asked in a somewhat formal tone, as soon as
the first embrace was over. He had been brought up with dutiful ideas.
‘Your mother is exceedingly well,’ answered Greifenstein, whose manner
also stiffened perceptibly. There was a moment’s pause.
Perhaps it was in the hope of dissipating that awkward feeling
which somehow or other always made itself apparent when the Lady of
Greifenstein was mentioned, that her husband pulled out his case and
offered Greif a cigar.
‘I have brought you a pipe,’ said the latter, and as the carriage came
up to where they were standing he snatched his bag off the back seat.
‘It will make you feel young again,’ he laughed, as he took a paper
parcel from the receptacle. ‘It is a “Korps” pipe, colours and tassels
and all.’
Greifenstein, one of whose favourite hobbies was the advantage of
pipes in general, was as delighted as a boy with the little gift, and
instantly produced a huge silver tobacco box out of the depths of his
shooting coat, from which he began to fill the china bowl.
‘Thank you, my boy,’ he said as he drew the air through the unlighted
pipe to assure himself that there was no obstruction.
Then he took out an old-fashioned flint and steel, lighted a bit of
tinder with a practised hand and laid it upon the tobacco. He made a
sign to the coachman, who urged his sturdy Mecklenburg horses up the
hill and was soon out of sight. The two men walked slowly forwards and
smoked in silence for a few minutes.
‘When is Hilda coming?’ asked Greif at last, when he thought he had
allowed a decent interval to elapse before putting the question which
chiefly interested him.
‘She will come to-morrow, with her mother,’ replied Greifenstein, not
noticing, or pretending not to notice, the faint blush that rose in his
son’s face.
‘I suppose we must wait another year,’ remarked Greif with a sigh. ‘It
seems absurd that at my age I should not have finished my education.’
‘You will be glad, when you are married, that you have your military
service behind you.’
‘I do not know,’ answered the young man absently.
‘You do not know!’ exclaimed his father in surprise. ‘Would you like to
go and live with Hilda in a garrison town while you served your year as
a volunteer?’
‘I was not thinking of that. I have thought lately that, after all, I
had better take active service. Would you object?’
Greifenstein was taken by surprise and would possibly have uttered a
loud exclamation if he had not long ago schooled himself to be incapable
of any such breach of gravity. But he did not answer the question.
‘Father,’ began Greif again after a pause, ‘is it true that you ever had
a brother?’
Greifenstein’s tough face turned slowly grey.
‘A half-brother,’ he answered with an effort. ‘My mother married again.’
Greif glanced sideways at his father and saw that he was oddly affected
by the inquiry. But the young man had his own reasons for wishing to
know the truth.
‘Why have you never told me that I had an uncle?’ he asked.
‘He is no uncle of yours, my boy, nor brother of mine!’ answered
Greifenstein bitterly.
‘I fought about him the other day. That is all,’ said Greif.
‘He is not worth fighting for.’
‘Then the story is true?’
‘What story?’ Greifenstein stopped short in his walk and fixed his sharp
eyes on his son’s face. ‘What story? What do you know?’
‘A man told me that your brother had been discharged from the army with
infamy--_infam cassirt_--and condemned to imprisonment, for betraying
some arsenal or armoury into the hands of the rebels in 1848. I told
him--well--that he lied. What else could I say? I had never heard of the
scoundrel.’
‘You were quite right,’ answered Greifenstein, who was very pale. ‘I
never meant that you should know, any more than your mother. That is the
reason why we live in the country all the year. But I thought it would
come--I feared that some one would tell you!’
‘I do not think that any one will repeat the experiment,’ observed
Greif, turning away and looking down at the torrent, which was visible
between the trees. ‘And what has become of this Herr von Rieseneck, if
that was his name?’
‘He is alive and well. Rich, for anything I know to the contrary. He
escaped from the fortress where he was confined and made his way to
South America. I had not seen him for some time before that disgraceful
affair. We had quarrelled about other matters, and he had entered the
Prussian service.’ ‘I wish you had told me about him before.’
‘Why should I? Do you think it is a pleasant subject for conversation?
As his name was not mine, thank God, there was a chance that you might
never know nor hear of him.’
‘I see why you do not wish me to enter the army.’
‘Yes,’ answered Greifenstein laconically, and he once more walked
forward.
For some time neither spoke. Greifenstein’s profound hatred of his
dishonoured brother was too deeply stirred to allow of his continuing
the conversation, and in a different way the younger man was quite as
much affected as his father. When the student with whom he had fought
had cast in his teeth the evil deeds of Kuno von Rieseneck, he had
unhesitatingly denied the story, thinking it a merely gratuitous
insult invented on the spur of the moment. No one present during the
altercation had thought fit to confirm the tale, and Greif had wreaked
his vengeance upon his enemy in the most approved fashion, in the
presence of the assembled ‘Korps.’ But the words had taken effect and
he had determined to learn from his father’s lips whether they had any
foundation in fact. Being satisfied of the truth of the story, however,
his mood changed. No one who has not studied the character of the German
gentleman--the old-fashioned Edelmann--will readily understand how
directly he feels himself injured by the disgrace of a relative even
very distantly removed. He has often little enough in the world but his
name and his pride of caste, but as compared with the former he holds
his life as of no value whatsoever, and where the latter is concerned
he will suffer much rather than offend the exclusiveness of his class
by derogating from the most insignificant of its prejudices. He is not
afraid of poverty. No one can maintain the position of a gentleman with
more exiguous resources than often fall to his share. Rather than leave
the smallest debt of honour unpaid, he will unhesitatingly take his own
life. That a man should suffer himself to live after doing such a deed
as had broken Kuno von Rieseneck’s career seems to him a crime against
humanity. He is often called avaricious, because, like Frau von
Sigmundskron, he is often very, very poor; but he has never been called
a coward, nor a traitor, by any man, or class of men, who knew him. All
gentlemen throughout the world are brothers, it is true, for to be a
gentleman is to be brave, honest, courteous, and nothing more. But the
gentlemen of different nations are like brothers brought up in different
schools. An Englishman who should demand satisfaction by arms, of
another Englishman, for a hasty word spoken in jest, would be considered
a lunatic in the clubs, and if he carried his warlike intentions into
effect with the consent of his adversary, and killed his man, the law
would hang him without mercy as a common murderer. On the other hand, a
German who should refuse a duel, or not demand one if insulted, would
be dismissed from the army and made an outcast from society. And these
things do not depend upon civilisation, since modern Germany is probably
more civilised than modern England. They depend upon national character.
When Greif heard of his uncle’s existence, and, at the same time, of
his disgrace, it seemed to him that a cloud had descended upon his own
brilliant future. He had long nursed in secret his desire for a military
life, and had often wondered at his father’s unwillingness to discuss
the matter. He now suddenly understood the true state of the case and
realised, by the measure of his disappointment, the magnitude to which
his hopes had grown. But there was something more than this in the
despondency which seized upon him so quickly and would not be thrown
off.
‘Does Hilda know this?’ he asked, at length giving expression to his
thoughts.
Greifenstein did not answer at once.
‘I do not think her mother would have told her,’ he said after a time.
‘But her mother knows.’
‘And my mother does not?’
‘No, nor never shall, if I can help it.’
If the two men spoke little on their homeward walk it was not for lack
of sympathy between them. On the contrary, if anything could strengthen
the strong bond that united them, it was the knowledge that they had a
secret in common which they must keep together.