DOROTHEA’S CHOICE
FRANZ GITTEN sat on a wooden seat at the side of his cottage porch, and
puffed discontentedly at the long pipe with the china bowl. Through
the open door of the lodge came an occasional sound of the rattling of
crockery, and the clashing of knives and forks. It was the hour after
the midday meal, and his daughter was busy in the kitchen.
Franz smoked and listened, and over his face there deepened a look of
resentment. It was the look of a man who feels that he has been hardly
used. He had worn the same look all day, and whenever his eye had
caught Dorothea’s, he had thrown a reproachful expression into it, as
of a father who had striven hard for his child’s welfare, and had been
rewarded by that child with ingratitude.
Nothing had passed between the two on the subject which was uppermost
in both their minds. Since Johann’s stunning revelation of the day
before, a barrier had for the first time sprung up between them.
Dorothea’s trustful confidence in her father had apparently gone
forever, but whether out of a lingering respect for him, or from a
forlorn wish not to have her suspicions of him turned into certainties,
she had refrained from seeking any explanation of his conduct with
regard to the King’s visits.
Franz, on his side, did not venture to broach the topic first. He
perceived the shock which had been given to Dorothea’s mind, and he
dared not risk making the breach wider. But his watchful eyes noted
that the King’s gift had disappeared from its place, and he drew the
augury that things were not going altogether favourably, and that his
promotion to the post of ranger of the forest was further out of reach
than it had seemed the day before.
Not daring to quarrel openly with his daughter, he was endeavouring to
wear down her obstinacy by an attitude of sulky aloofness. In the mean
time his bitterest wrath was reserved for the person whom he looked
upon as the author of all the trouble, his nephew Johann.
It was while he was thus brooding sullenly over his grievances that he
heard the click of the gate-latch, and looked round to see the enemy
coming boldly towards him.
Instantly he rose from his seat, and pulled-to the door of the cottage.
“Now, sir, what have you come here again for?” he demanded, as soon as
his nephew came up.
The other gave him a look, half contemptuous, half angry.
“I wonder you dare to look me in the face,” he said. “You, with your
miserable cunning; what have you been expecting as the result of these
secret visits of the King?”
“That is not your business. What right had you to thrust your oar in,
and terrify that silly girl with your blustering talk?”
“It is my business, as long as Dorothea is my cousin. You had better
speak plainly; did you wish to see your daughter ruined?”
“Don’t talk like that to me. Do you suppose I don’t know what I am
about? If you had only left things alone a little longer, his Majesty
might have made her a countess--think of that! The Countess von Gitten!”
Johann replied with a look of loathing, beneath which the old man
fairly shrank.
“You wretched, shameless--bah! I am ashamed to bandy words with you.
You may thank your stars that Dorothea’s simple innocence has done
more for her than all your hateful scheming. If you will only leave
well alone, if you would only go and bury yourself for the next six
months, there would be a chance of her becoming something higher than a
countess.”
The old forester drew back astonished. He hardly grasped the full
import of his nephew’s words, but he gathered enough to feel his hopes
rapidly reviving within him.
“How? What do you mean? Why do you say that?” he asked eagerly.
“I say it because I have had the honour of talking on the subject with
King Maximilian himself.”
“You! With King Maximilian!” The forester’s manner suddenly became
deferential.
“Yes. Since yesterday I have been staying in the Castle as the
King’s guest. He has taken me into his confidence, and as it will be
impossible to keep you in ignorance, I may as well tell you--but beware
how you repeat it--that it is possible that he may make Dorothea his
Queen.”
Franz lifted his hands in utter bewilderment.
“God in heaven! I always thought he was queer in the head; but I never
thought he was so mad as that!”
Johann started. He heard the voice of public opinion, coming from the
mouth of a knave.
“Remember,” he said sternly, “on your life you are not to say a word
about this.”
“My dear nephew,” exclaimed the delighted Franz, “you may trust me
absolutely. But I suppose I may tell Dorothea. Let us go inside.”
And he laid his hand on the knob of the door, inwardly resolving to
persuade Dorothea that this was what he had foreseen all along.
“Stop!” cried Johann. “That is the very thing you are not to do. The
King wishes her to be absolutely free, and he has sent me here to sound
her feelings without letting her know of his intentions.”
The forester’s face fell. Forbidden to bring his parental authority to
bear, he felt less confident of the issue.
“The King will be here later on,” added Johann, “and, if you take my
advice, you will let him see as little of yourself as possible. You are
not exactly a father-in-law for King Maximilian to be proud of.”
“For all that he shall make me a count when he marries Dorothea,”
muttered Franz, as his nephew brushed past him into the cottage.
On consideration, however, he thought there was wisdom in Johann’s
remark; and instead of lying in wait as usual to welcome the King, when
he arrived, he threw a gun over his shoulder, and made off into another
quarter of the forest.
Johann walked straight into the kitchen, where he found his little
cousin in the act of polishing a large metal dish-cover. Something
seemed to have changed in her since yesterday, for, instead of running
to embrace him, she stood still and received his kiss with a slight air
of constraint.
“I have come to have a quiet talk with you,” remarked Johann, dropping
on to an old-fashioned settee which ran along one of the walls of the
kitchen. “You can leave that cover alone.”
But Dorothea seemed to have developed a vein of obstinacy since
yesterday.
“I can do this, and listen to you at the same time,” she retorted,
rubbing away vigorously.
“Ah, you will soon leave off that when you hear my news,” remarked
Johann, complacently. “Where do you think I spent last night?”
“At the Castle.”
“What! Who told you? Have you been listening?”
“I was told so by the Princess Hermengarde. She said the King and you
were great friends.”
Johann sprang half out of his seat with surprise.
“The Princess Hermengarde! Where did you see her?”
“She came here last night. She was exceedingly kind. After all, there
is no reason why you should be the only one to have friends at the
Castle.”
The young man scarcely heeded this gentle sarcasm. He was greatly
perplexed by the news of Hermengarde’s intervention. It was true he
knew very little about the Princess; but he felt sure that she was not
the kind of woman to act from mere benevolence. He could only suppose
that she had fathomed the King’s ulterior design, and was proceeding to
ingratiate herself with the future Queen of Franconia. Where the King
goes, the courtiers will soon follow.
“Well, do not trust her too far,” he said at length. “Be civil to her,
but do not have too much to say to her.”
“Why do you say that?” demanded Dorothea.
“Because I know more about her than you. You do not understand these
people as I do.”
“Oh!”
Dorothea turned away to the dish-cover with renewed energy. The young
man tried to attract her attention.
“Dorothea! Listen. Yesterday I spoke to you rather harshly about King
Maximilian. You told me he had been coming here day after day to see
you, and I naturally put a bad construction on his conduct. Now I find
I was unjust. I have found out more than I can say at present, but
enough to convince me that he is one of the noblest and sincerest of
men.”
“I am glad to hear that, because I always liked him.” She said this
quite calmly, and without ceasing from her occupation. “Perhaps you
will find out you have been unjust to the Princess as well.”
“My dear girl! What has come over you? Do you doubt my word when I tell
you that I distrust the Princess? I only warn you for your good.”
“Thank you, Johann.” And she gave him a bow over the dish-cover.
“Now, there is a thing I want to ask you. The King has been coming here
a good deal, and you have had plenty of opportunities to understand
him. Have you guessed how he feels towards you?”
Silence for a time. The polishing continued more earnestly than ever.
Then, in a low voice--
“I think I guessed yesterday.”
“That he loved you?” Johann spoke triumphantly. “Well, then, what do
you think of it? Supposing he were not the King, should you be willing
to accept him?”
Silence. That cover seemed to require a great deal of brightening.
There must even have been spots on it, for Dorothea’s face was bent
so closely down to it that Johann could not see how she received his
question.
The clumsy ambassador thought he could take silence for consent.
Stepping a little outside the bounds of his instructions in his
confidence, he said--
“Well, perhaps before very long you may find that he will ask you to be
his wife!”
He spoke in the tone of one who expects to produce a sensation. But he
was destined to be disappointed. Dorothea received his intimation with
strange calmness, and did not even interrupt her labours for more than
an instant.
He felt driven to remonstrate with her.
“Come, you take it very coolly. Do you mean to say that you anticipated
this?”
“I hardly know. But it makes no difference. I shall not marry the King.”
“What! What do you say?” His astonishment passed into rebuke. “Be
serious. Put down that miserable thing, and consider what you are
saying. You do not seem to understand. He will make you Queen of
Franconia.”
She left off her work for a moment, and looked him full in the face.
“I do not want to be Queen of Franconia. I am not fit for it. I am only
a peasant girl, and I should be miserable if I had to spend my life in
a Court.”
“Nonsense! This is absurd. If I am not miserable there, why should
you be? Is it because you are too young to understand what you are
refusing, or because you do not love the King after all?”
The polishing still went on, but more fitfully, as if the arm of the
polisher were getting tired.
“I did not think that you attached so much importance to rank, Johann.
You used to be a republican.”
He flushed angrily.
“So I am still. It is not the rank I think of, but the influence
it will give you for good. Do you know that the King is already
half-converted to my ideas? He has asked me to stay with him and assist
in reforming his government. And think what it would be to have you,
a daughter of the people, on the throne, always by the King’s side to
persuade him to the right course! No woman ever had a more glorious
opportunity. We should work together like one family. Do not let any
girlish folly hold you back, when your marriage with the King is the
one thing I rely on, the foundation stone on which everything rests.
What is there to prevent you, really? You do not dislike the King?”
“No, I do not dislike the King.”
“Then why should you hesitate? Come, Dorothea, you and I have always
been good friends ever since we were children, but I do not think I
could forgive you, if you refused to help me in this. Think it over
before the King comes, and at all events do not break off with him
altogether. Promise me that?”
The polishing had grown feebler. It ceased.
“Very well. I will promise not to break off with him yet.”
And then Johann thought it prudent to get up and go out of reach; and
no sooner was he gone than Dorothea laid down the gleaming cover right
in a pool of water, so that all the polishing would have to be done
over again.
After which she went quietly out of the kitchen and upstairs to her own
room, to prepare for the visit of the King.
On this afternoon Maximilian came by himself, only attended as far as
the forest by his favourite Karl.
He came along with beating heart, murmuring to himself the fragment of
an old German song:--
“Ill for the man who loves a child;
Better to woo the wood-bird wild,
Flying free in the middle air.”
Over and over again he reckoned up all the smiles he had ever received
from Dorothea, and every look and word which could betoken the secret
growth of love. And as he thought, and as he counted, his heart grew
great within him, and his step grew buoyant, and the old earth seemed
to bend and swing beneath him, and all the branches of the trees to
wave salutes, and every leaf and blade to toss for joy, as he strode
onward to meet his bride.
And ever and anon, from the very bottom of his heart there crept up a
cold doubt like a mist, and blotted out all his tender pictures one by
one; and his spirit wavered and went down like the flame of a fire when
the rain falls on it; and bitterly he reproached his fortune that had
done so much for him, but yet could not do this one last thing--like
the mighty roaring Nasmyth hammer, that can crush a cannon-ball and
stroke an eggshell, but yet cannot give a new curve to the stalk of the
tiniest flower.
So he came on, impatiently, and yet dreading to reach his journey’s end.
When he arrived at the forester’s lodge, he found no one waiting to
receive him. He passed through the gate and took his way to the arbour,
where he sat down alone.
But Dorothea had watched for his coming, and when she saw him she set
the flagon and the unbroken glass on a tray, and brought them out to
him.
He rose up at her entrance, and looked at her steadfastly, but he
did not venture to embrace her as of old. She greeted him with a new
deference, which had taken the place of her former shy friendliness,
and poured out the cider for him to drink, and waited.
“Sit down, my child,” he said gravely, setting her the example. “So
they have told you who I am at last?”
“Yes, Sire.”
She sat down, but not on the same seat with him, nor did he seem to
expect it.
“No, Dorothea, you are not to call me that. Let me still be the Herr
Maurice when I am here, at least.”
There followed a pause which it was difficult for either of them to
break. At last Maximilian said--
“Do you remember what you said to me yesterday about sinking through
the earth if the poor King caught sight of you? You won’t feel like
that any more, will you?”
And he gazed at her with a look at once so beseeching and so
desponding, that her heart melted towards him, and she suddenly made up
her mind what to do, and dropped her eyes and fell on her knees beside
him, and caught his hand and cried--
“My King! Forgive me, I am young and ignorant, and I am not worthy of
your love.”
Then an infinite tenderness, which was the greatest happiness he had
ever known, filled Maximilian’s soul, and he stooped and lifted her up,
and clasped her to him once, and kissed her on the forehead and on the
lips, and set her down beside him.
“My darling, I have loved you all this time, and never dared to tell
you, for fear I might frighten you and lose your confidence. And I did
not mean you to know who I was till I had won your love in return. And
now, what do you say? Do you think you can bring yourself to love me
after all?”
“I will try.”
She said it in a whisper so low and faint that only the ear of a lover
could have caught the words. But he was satisfied. And they sat on
there together for more than an hour, while he talked to her, and tried
to diminish the gulf that lay between them, and to soothe her into
security. And every now and then he ventured to put in a word of love,
and watched her colour rise, or saw her shyly droop her head, and felt
that he could wish for no greater joy than to sit on like that forever.
But at last he felt that he must leave her, and began to say farewell.
And it occurred to him to give her a warning.
“All this is our secret, is it not, little one?” he said gently. “No
one but our two selves need know anything of what has passed between
us, as yet. When the time comes that you have conquered your doubts,
and can look me in the face, and tell me that you feel towards me as I
feel towards you, then the world shall hear of it. In the mean time, if
any strangers should come here to satisfy their curiosity or to make
their court to you because they think you have influence with me, have
nothing to do with them. You will remember this, will you not?”
Dorothea nodded, with a troubled look. Already the meshes of Court
intrigue were beginning to close around her, already the simple peasant
girl was beginning to draw her breath with difficulty in a courtly
atmosphere. Ought she to tell Maximilian of his aunt’s invitation?
Or ought she rather to be guided by the Princess’s warnings against
bestowing too much confidence on any one not of her own sex?
Before she could make up her mind between these conflicting appeals the
King had given her a parting embrace, and was gone.
She had left her seat and accompanied him as far as the garden gate,
and when he turned back he saw her looking after him with a sweet,
pathetic smile.
She stayed in the same attitude for many minutes. But when her cousin,
seeing from a distance that the King had gone, came up to her, eager to
find out how matters stood, she received him with an outburst of temper
quite foreign to her gentle character, refused to answer a single
question, and rushed from him into the house, where she took refuge in
her own room.
Much puzzled, Johann turned his steps into the park, where he happened
to come across his uncle.
“Well, Johann, what has happened?” demanded Franz, anxiously. “Has the
King been to see her?”
“Yes, he has been and gone; and that is all I can tell you,” was the
ill-tempered answer, as Johann strode onward in the direction of the
Castle.
Franz was alarmed by his nephew’s words and manner. He hastened towards
the cottage, determined to have it out with his daughter.
On his arrival, however, she was still upstairs, and by the time
she had come downstairs he had had time for reflection. Her serious
air somewhat intimidated him, and contributed to make him delay his
parental inquiries. He therefore left her alone till supper-time,
consoling himself for the violence to his feelings thus caused, by
numerous applications to a bottle, containing something which he
considered more wholesome than the cider for which his cottage was
famed.
By this means he at last brought himself up to the requisite pitch of
courage, and bluntly attacked his daughter.
“Now, Dorothea, I am not going to stand any more of this nonsense. I
am your father and your best friend, and I have a right to know what is
going on.”
The girl directed a glance at him in which he thought he detected
alarm, but she made no other answer. He assumed a more determined tone.
“I insist on your telling me exactly what has happened. The King has
been here--you know he is the King now--and I want to know exactly what
he said.”
“I am sorry I cannot tell you, father. His Majesty forbade me to talk
about it.”
The forester snapped his fingers.
“That for his Majesty! What right has he to give orders to my daughter?
I will teach you that I am the authority here; and I will teach him
too, if he tries that game on.”
Dorothea looked at him gravely, and rose from her seat.
“Where are you going? Sit down. You can talk to Johann fast enough when
he comes here; but when your own father is speaking to you, you want
to run away. I won’t have that fellow coming to my house; do you hear?
It is my belief he would like to marry you himself; but you have got a
better tune to sing to than that.”
“You are wrong, father; indeed, you are,” broke out the girl,
indignantly. “I don’t believe he has ever thought of such a thing. He
is not--he does not care for me in that way at all.”
“Never mind whether he does or not. It’s not him I am talking about,
but King Maximilian. Now, is he going to marry you, or not? That’s what
I want to know.”
Dorothea gave a shiver of discomfort, and turned to the door.
Her father sprang at her and seized her by the wrist.
“Now, are you going to answer me or not?”
“I cannot.” And though her lips were quivering, she returned his angry
look with one so firm that he dropped her arm, and with a muttered oath
returned to his seat.
Dorothea escaped from the room, and did not come back. The forester
finished his supper, growling all the time to himself, and then
fastened up the house and went to bed earlier than usual.
An hour after he had fallen asleep, Dorothea softly opened her bedroom
door and crept out. She was dressed for walking, and in her hand she
carried a small bundle. Tiptoeing past her father’s door, she went
softly down the stairs and approached the front door. It was easy work
to draw the bolts and open it, and as soon as this was done she stole
outside, and pulled the door gently after her.
Then she ran rapidly down the garden path and out through the gate, and
plunged into the thickness of the forest.
Dorothea had made up her mind to accept the invitation of the Princess
Hermengarde.