God keep and bless you, my daughter.--RÉGNIER.
Monkey, paroquets, combs, and ribbons, all were ready to receive
Lieutenant Frederic. His mother had sent, at great expense, for the
famous Scudéry’s latest novel. By her order it had been richly bound,
with silvergilt clasps, and placed, with the bottles of perfume and
boxes of patches, upon the elegant toilet-table, with gilded feet, and
richly inlaid, with which she had furnished her dear son Frederic’s
future sitting-room. When she had thus fulfilled the careful round of
petty maternal cares which had for a moment caused her to forget her
hate, she remembered that she had now nothing else to do but to injure
Schumacker and Ethel. General Levin’s departure left them at her mercy.
So many things had happened recently at Munkholm of which she could
learn but little! Who was the serf, vassal, or peasant, who, if she was
to credit Frederic’s very ambiguous and embarrassed phrases, had won the
love of the ex-chancellor’s daughter? What were Baron Ordener’s
relations with the prisoners of Munkholm? What were the incomprehensible
motives for Ordener’s most peculiar absence at a time when both kingdoms
were given over to preparations for his marriage to that Ulrica
d’Ahlefeld whom he seemed to disdain? And lastly, what had occurred
between Levin de Knud and Schumacker? The countess was lost in
conjectures. She finally resolved, in order to clear up all these
mysteries, to risk a descent upon Munkholm,--a step to which she was
counselled both by her curiosity as a woman and her interests as an
enemy.
One evening, as Ethel, alone in the donjon garden, had just written, for
the sixth time, with a diamond ring, some mysterious monogram upon the
dusty window in the postern gate through which her Ordener had
disappeared, it opened. The young girl started. It was the first time
that this gate had been opened since it closed upon him.
A tall, pale woman, dressed in white, stood before her. She gave Ethel a
smile as sweet as poisoned honey, and behind her mask of quiet
friendliness there lurked an expression of hatred, spite, and
involuntary admiration.
Ethel looked at her in astonishment, almost fear. Except her old nurse,
who had died in her arms, this was the first woman she had seen within
the gloomy walls of Munkholm.
“My child,” gently asked the stranger, “are you the daughter of the
prisoner of Munkholm?”
Ethel could not help turning away her head; she instinctively shrank
from the stranger, and she felt as if there were venom in the breath
which uttered such sweet tones. She answered: “I am Ethel Schumacker. My
father tells me that in my cradle I was called Countess of Tönsberg and
Princess of Wollin.”
“Your father tells you so!” exclaimed the tall woman, with a sneer which
she at once repressed. Then she added: “You have had many misfortunes!”
“Misfortune received me, at my birth, in its cruel arms,” replied the
youthful captive; “my noble father says that it will never leave me
while I live.”
A smile flitted across the lips of the stranger, as she rejoined in a
pitying tone: “And do you never murmur against those who flung you into
this cell? Do you not curse the authors of your misery?”
“No, for fear that our curse might draw down upon their heads evils like
those which they make us endure.”
“And,” continued the pale woman, with unmoved face, “do you know the
authors of these evils of which you complain?”
Ethel considered a moment, and said: “All that has happened to us is by
the will of Heaven.”
“Does your father never speak to you of the king?”
“The king? I pray for him every morning and evening, although I do not
know him.”
Ethel did not understand why the stranger bit her lip at this reply.
“Does your unhappy father never, in his anger, mention his relentless
foes, General Arensdorf, Bishop Spolleyson, and Chancellor d’Ahlefeld?”
“I don’t know whom you mean.”
“And do you know the name of Levin de Knud?”
The recollection of the scene which had occurred but two days before,
between Schumacker and the governor of Throndhjem, was so fresh in
Ethel’s mind that she could not but be struck by the name of Levin de
Knud.
“Levin de Knud?” said she; “I think that he is the man for whom my
father feels so much esteem, almost affection.”
“What!” cried the tall woman.
“Yes,” resumed the girl; “it was Levin de Knud whom my father defended
so warmly, day before yesterday, against the governor of Throndhjem.”
These words increased her hearer’s surprise.
“Against the governor of Throndhjem! Do not trifle with me, girl. I am
here in your interests. Your father took General Levin de Knud’s part
against the governor of Throndhjem, you say?”
“General! I thought he was a captain. But no; you are right. My father,”
added Ethel, “seemed to feel as much attachment for this General Levin
de Knud as dislike for the governor of Throndhjem.”
“Here is a strange mystery indeed!” thought the tall, pale woman, whose
curiosity increased momentarily. “My dear child, what happened between
your father and the governor?”
All these questions wearied poor Ethel, who looked fixedly at the tall
woman, saying: “Am I a criminal, that you should cross-examine me thus?”
At these simple words the stranger seemed thunderstruck, as if she saw
the reward of her skill slipping through her fingers. She replied,
nevertheless, in a tremulous voice: “You would not speak to me so if you
knew why and for whom I come.”
“What!” said Ethel; “do you come from him? Do you bring me a message
from him?” And all the blood in her body rushed to her fair face; her
heart throbbed in her bosom with impatience and alarm.
“From whom?” asked the stranger.
The young girl hesitated as she was about to utter the adored name. She
saw a flash of wicked joy gleam in the stranger’s eye like a ray from
hell. She said sadly:--
“You do not know the person whom I mean.”
An expression of disappointment again appeared upon the stranger’s
apparently friendly face.
“Poor young girl!” she cried; “what can I do to help you?”
Ethel did not hear her. Her thoughts were beyond the mountains of the
North, in quest of the daring traveller. Her head sank upon her breast,
and her hands were unconsciously clasped.
“Does your father hope to escape from this prison?”
This question, twice repeated by the stranger, brought Ethel to herself.
“Yes,” said she, and tears sparkled on her cheek.
The stranger’s eyes flashed.
“He does! Tell me how; by what means; when!”
“He hopes to escape from this prison because he hopes ere long to die.”
There is sometimes a power in the very simplicity of a gentle young
spirit which outwits the artifices of a heart grown old in wickedness.
This thought seemed to occur to the great lady, for her expression
suddenly changed, and laying her cold hand on Ethel’s arm, she said in a
tone which was almost sincere: “Tell me, have you heard that your
father’s life is again threatened by a fresh judicial inquiry? That he
is suspected of having stirred up a revolt among the miners of the
North?”
The words “revolt” and “inquiry” conveyed no clear idea to Ethel’s mind.
She raised her great dark eyes to the stranger’s face as she asked:
“What do you mean?”
“That your father is conspiring against the State; that his crime is all
but discovered; that this crime will be punished with death.”
“Death! crime!” cried the poor girl.
“Crime and death,” said the strange lady, seriously.
“My father! my noble father!” continued Ethel. “Alas! he spends his days
in hearing me read the Edda and the Gospel! He conspire! What has he
done to you?”
“Do not look at me so fiercely. I tell you again I am not your enemy.
Your father is suspected of a grave crime; I am here to warn you of it.
Perhaps, instead of such a show of dislike, I might lay claim to your
gratitude.”
This reproach touched Ethel.
“Oh, forgive me, noble lady, forgive me! What human being have I ever
seen who was not an enemy? I have doubted you. You will forgive me, will
you not?”
The stranger smiled.
“What, my girl! have you never met a friend until to-day?”
A hot blush mantled Ethel’s brow. She hesitated an instant.
“Yes. God knows the truth, we have found a friend, noble lady,--one
only!”
“One only!” said the great lady, hastily. “His name, I implore. You do
not know how important it is; it is for your father’s safety. Who is
this friend?”
“I do not know,” said Ethel.
The stranger turned pale.
“Is it because I wish to serve you that you trifle with me? Consider
that your father’s life is at stake. Tell me, who is this friend of whom
you speak?”
“Heaven knows, noble lady, that I know nothing of him but his name,
which is Ordener.”
Ethel uttered these words with that difficulty which we all feel in
pronouncing before an indifferent person the sacred name which wakes
within us every emotion of love.
“Ordener! Ordener!” repeated the stranger, with singular agitation,
while her hands crumpled the white embroideries of her veil. “And what
is his father’s name?” she asked in a troubled voice.
“I do not know,” replied the girl. “What are his family and his father
to me? This Ordener, noble lady, is the most generous of men.”
Alas! the accent with which these words were spoken revealed Ethel’s
secret to the sharp-sighted stranger.
She assumed an air of calm composure, and asked, without taking her eyes
from the girl’s face: “Have you heard of the approaching marriage of the
viceroy’s son to the daughter of the present lord chancellor,
d’Ahlefeld?”
She was obliged to repeat her question before Ethel’s mind could grasp
an idea which did not interest her.
“I believe I have,” was her answer.
Her calmness, and her indifferent manner, seemed to surprise the
stranger.
“Well, what do you think of this marriage?”
It was impossible to note the slightest change in Ethel’s large eyes as
she replied: “Nothing, truly. May their union be a happy one!”
“Counts Guldenlew and d’Ahlefeld, the fathers of the young couple, are
both bitter enemies of your father.”
“May their marriage be blessed!” gently repeated Ethel.
“I have an idea,” continued the crafty stranger. “If your father’s life
be really threatened, you might obtain his pardon through the viceroy’s
son upon the occasion of this great marriage.”
“May the saints reward you for your kind thought for us, noble lady; but
how should my petition reach the viceroy’s son?”
These words were spoken in such good faith that they drew a gesture of
surprise from the stranger.
“What! do you not know him?”
“That powerful lord!” cried Ethel. “You forget that I have never been
outside the walls of this fortress.”
“Truly,” muttered the tall woman between her teeth. “What did that old
fool of a Levin tell me? She does not know him. Still, that is
impossible,” said she; then, raising her voice: “You must have seen the
viceroy’s son; he has been here.”
“That may be, noble lady; of all the men who have been here, I have
never seen but one,--my Ordener.”
“Your Ordener!” interrupted the stranger. She added, without seeming to
notice Ethel’s blushes: “Do you know a young man with noble face,
elegant figure, grave and dignified bearing? His expression is gentle,
yet firm; his complexion fresh as that of a maiden; his hair chestnut.”
“Oh!” cried poor Ethel, “that is he; it is my betrothed, my adored
Ordener! Where did you meet him? He told you that he loved me, did he
not? He told you that he has my whole heart. Alas! a poor prisoner has
nothing but her love to give. My noble friend! It was but a week ago,--I
can see him still on this very spot, with his green mantle, beneath
which beats so generous a heart, and that black plume, which waved so
gracefully above his broad brow.”
She did not finish her sentence. The tall stranger tottered, turned
pale, then red, and cried in her ears in tones of thunder: “Wretched
girl, you love Ordener Guldenlew, the betrothed of Ulrica d’Ahlefeld,
the son of your father’s deadly foe, the viceroy of Norway!”
Ethel fell fainting on the ground.