GREEK AND GREEK.
What my lady's thoughts were during her long ride back to the camp, I
do not know. But I have heard her say that when she rode into the
village, a day and a half in advance of the dusty, lumbering convoy,
she could scarcely believe that it was the place she had left, the
place in which she had lived for a fortnight. And this, though all
remained the same. So much does the point from which we look at things
alter their aspect.
The general had sent on the news of the Waldgrave's loss by messenger,
that she might be spared the pain of telling it; and Fraulein Max and
Marie Wort were waiting on the wooden platform before the house when
she rode wearily in. The sight of those two gave her a certain sense
of relief and home coming, merely because they were women and wore
petticoats. But that was all. The village, the reeking camp, the
squalid soldiery, the whining beggars filled her--now that her eyes
were opened and she saw this ugly face of war stripped of the glamour
with which her fancy had invested it--with fear and repulsion. She
wondered that she could ever have liked the place and been gay in it,
or drawn pleasure from the amusements which now seemed poor and
tawdry.
Fraulein Max ran down into the road to meet her, and when she had
dismounted, covered her with tearful caresses. But the Countess, after
receiving her greetings, still looked round wistfully as if she missed
some one; and then in a moment moved from her, and mounting the steps
went swiftly to the dark corner by the porch whither Marie Wort had
run, and where she now stood leaning against the house with her face
to the wall.
My lady, whom few had ever seen unbend, took the girl in her arms, and
laid her head on her shoulder and stroked her hair pitifully.
'Hush, hush, child!' she murmured, her eyes wet with tears. 'Poor
child, poor child! Is it so very bad?'
But Marie could only sob.
They went into the house in a moment after that, those three, with the
waiting-women. And then a change came over the Countess. Fraulein Max
blinked to see it. My lady who, outside, had been so tender, began,
before her riding cloak was off, to walk up and down like a caged
wolf, with hard eyes and cheeks burning with indignation. Fraulein Max
spoke to her timidly--said that the meal was ready, that my lady's
woman was waiting, that my lady must be tired. But the Countess put
her by almost with an oath. For hours she had been playing a part, a
thing her proud soul loathed. For hours she had hidden, not her sorrow
only and her anger, but her anxieties, her fears, her terrors. Now she
must be herself or die.
Besides, the thing pressed! She had her woman's wits, and might stave
off the general's offer for a few days, for a week. But a week--what
was that? No wonder that she looked on the four helpless women round
her, and realised that these were her only helpers now, her only
protection; no wonder that she cried out.
'I have been a fool!' she said, looking at them with burning eyes. 'A
fool! When Martin warned me, I would not listen; when the Waldgrave
hinted, I laughed at him. I was bewitched, like a silly fool in her
teens! Don't contradict me!' And she stamped her foot impatiently.
Fraulein Max had raised her hand.
'I don't,' the Fraulein answered. 'I don't understand you.'
'Do you understand that empty, chair?' my lady answered bitterly. 'Or
that empty stool?'
Fraulein Anna blinked more and more. 'But war,' she said mildly--'a
necessary evil, Voetius calls it--war, Countess----'
'Oh!' my lady cried in a fury. 'As carried on by these, it is a
horror, a fiendish thing! I did not know before. Now I have seen it.
Wait, wait, girl, until it takes those you love, and threatens your
own safety, and then talk to me of war!'
But Fraulein Anna set her face mutinously. 'Still, I do not
understand,' she said slowly, winking her short-sighted eyes like
an owl in the daylight. 'You talk as if we had cause not only to
grieve--as we have, indeed--but to fear. Are we not safe here? General
Tzerclas----'
'Bah!' the Countess cried, trembling with emotion. 'Don't let me hear
his name! I hate him. He is false. False, girl. I do not trust him; I
do not believe him; and I would to Heaven we were out of his hands!'
Even Marie Wort, sitting white and quiet in a corner, looked up at
that. As for Fraulein Max, she passed her tongue slowly over her lips,
but did not answer; and for a moment there was silence in the room.
Then Marie said very softly, 'Thank God!'
My lady turned to her roughly. 'Why do you say that?' she said.
'Because of what I have learned since you left us,' the girl answered,
in a frightened whisper. 'There was a man who lived in this house, my
lady.'
'Yes, yes,' the Countess muttered eagerly. 'I remember he begged of
me, and General Tzerclas gave him money. That was one of the things
that blinded me.'
'He hung him afterwards,' the girl whispered in a shaking voice. 'By
the river, in the south-east corner of the camp.'
The Countess stared at her incredulously, rage and horror in her face.
'That man whom I saw?' she cried. 'It is not possible! You have been
deceived.'
But Marie Wort shook her head. 'It is true,' she said simply.
'Then Heaven help us all!' the Countess whispered in a thrilling tone.
'For we are in that man's power!'
There was a stricken silence after that, which lasted some minutes.
The room seemed to grow darker, the house more silent, the road on
which they looked through the unglazed window more dusty, squalid,
dreary--dreary with the summer dreariness of drought. One of the
waiting-women began to cry. The other stood bolt upright, looking out
with startled eyes, and lips half open.
'Yes, all,' the Countess presently went on, her voice hard and
composed. 'He has asked me to be his wife. He has honoured me so far.'
She laughed a thin, mirthless laugh. 'If I am willing, therefore,
well. If I am not--still he will wed me. After that he will keep us
here in the midst of these horrors. Or he will march to Heritzburg,
and then God help Heritzburg and my people!'
Fraulein Anna passed her tongue over her lips again, and shifted her
hands in her lap. She was paler than usual. But she did not speak.
'The child?' the Countess said presently, in a different tone. 'Has it
been recovered?'
Marie shook her head; and a moment later threw her kerchief over her
face and went out. They heard her sobs as she went along the passage.
My lady frowned. 'If we could get a message to Count Leuchtenstein,'
she murmured thoughtfully. 'But I do not know where he is. He may
return to seek the child, however; and that is our best chance, I
think.'
They brought food in after that, and the council broke up. It is to be
feared that the Countess found herself little the better for its
advice.
In the evening the general called to learn whether she was much
fatigued; and she fancied she detected in his manner a masterfulness
and a familiarity from which it had been free. But her suspicions
rendered her so prone to read between the lines, that it is possible
that she saw some things that were not there. Her own feelings she
succeeded in masking, except in one matter. He brought Count Waska
with him; and it occurred to her, in her fear and helplessness, that
she might enlist the Bohemian on her side. Such schemes come to women,
even to proud women; and though Waska, half sportsman and half sot,
and in body a mountain of flesh, was an unlikely knight-errant, she
plied him so craftily, that when the two were gone she sat for an hour
in a state of exaltation, believing that here a new and unexpected way
to safety might open. The Bohemian was second in command, though at a
great interval. He was popular, and in some points a gentleman. Could
she excite in him jealousy, discontent, even passion, her position was
such that she was in no mood to stand on scruples.
But when the general came next day, _he did not bring Waska_; nor the
day after. And he showed so plainly that he saw through the design,
and suspected her, that he left her white and furious. Indeed it was a
question who was left by this interview the more excited, my lady, who
saw the circle growing ever narrower round her, and read with growing
clearness the man's determination to win her at all costs and by all
means; or the general, whose passion every day augmented, who saw in
her both the woman he desired and the heiress, and would fain, if he
could, have won her heart as well as her person.
The possession of power tempts to the use of it, and he began to lose
patience. He had a screw in readiness, he fancied, that would bend
even that proud neck and humble those knees. A day or two more he
would give her, and then he would turn it. Hate itself is not more
cruel than love despised!
But he did not count on her influence over him. The day or two passed,
and another day or two, and still she kept him amused and kept him at
bay. Sometimes he saw through her wiles, and came near to vowing that
he would not give her another hour. Will she, nill she, she should wed
him. But then the glamour of her presence and her beauty blinded him
again. And so a week went slowly by; each day won, at what a cost of
pride, of courage, of self-respect!
At the end of that time my lady's face had grown so white and drawn
under the strain, that when she sat alone she looked years older than
her age. The light still flashed in her eyes; they had grown only the
larger. But her cheeks and her lips had lost their colour, her hair
its gloss. When no one was watching her, she glanced round her like a
hunted animal. When anything crossed her, she flew into fearful rages
with her women. They were so useless, so helpless! She was like a
scorpion I have heard of, that, ringed round with fire, stings all
within its reach.
How many nights she tossed, sleepless; how often she went over the
odds against her; grasped at this idea or that; thought of horses and
roads, ways and means, the distance to Cassel, or the chances of
Leuchtenstein's return, I cannot say; but I can guess. At last, during
one of these night vigils, something happened. She was lying,
torturing herself with the thought that to this constant putting off
there could only be one end, when she heard sneaking footsteps moving
in the passage. The wall which divided it from her room ran beside her
bed, and, lying still, she heard the rustling of garments against the
boards.
Something like this she had feared in her worst moments; and on the
instant she sat up and listened, her heart beating wildly. Since her
return the two waiting-women had lain in her room. She could hear them
breathing now. But beside and above that, she could hear the stealthy
rustling sound she had heard before. Then it ceased.
She rose trembling. The windows were shuttered, and the lamp which
commonly burned in a basin had gone out. The room, therefore, was
quite dark. Without awaking the women she stole across the floor to
the door, and there set her ear to the panels and listened. But she
heard nothing except the distant shout of a reveller, and the mournful
howling of one of the pack of curs that infested the camp; all was
still.
Still she crouched there listening, and presently her patience was
rewarded. Some one entered by the outer door, and went quickly along
the passage, the boards creaking so loudly that it was a wonder the
women were not aroused. The footsteps went straight to the room where
Fraulein Max and Marie Wort slept. Some one had been out and returned!
There was a hint of treachery here, and my lady stood up, her face
growing hard. Which of the two was it? In a moment she had her answer.
A dozen times in the last week Marie had puzzled her; a dozen times
the Papist girl's easy resignation had angered her. She had caught her
more than once smiling--smiling childish smiles that would not be
repressed. This was the secret, then!
The Countess grew hot, and in a moment was out of her room and at the
door of that other room. A taper still burned there; its light showed
through the cracks. Without hesitation she thrust the door open, and
entering surprised Marie Wort in the very act. The girl was standing
in the middle of the floor taking off a cloak. Guilt and fear were
written on her face.
'You wicked girl!' the Countess cried, her eyes blazing.
Then she stopped. For Marie, instead of retreating before her, pointed
with a warning finger to a second empty pallet; and my lady looking
round saw with astonishment that Fraulein Max was missing.
'What does this mean?' the Countess muttered in a different tone.
Marie, trembling and listening, put her finger to her lips. 'Hush,
hush, my lady,' she whispered. 'She must not find you here! She must
not, indeed. I heard her go out, and I followed. I have heard all.'
'All?' the Countess stammered, and she began to tremble.
'Yes,' the girl answered. Then 'Go, go! my lady,' she cried. She was
shaking with agitation, and looked round as if for a way of escape.
But there was no second door to the room. 'If she finds you here we
are lost. Go back, and in the morning----'
She stopped abruptly, and her eyes grew wide. The Countess listening
too, and catching the infection of her fear, heard a board creak
below.
For a moment the two stood in the middle of the floor, gazing into one
another's eyes. Then Marie, with a sudden movement, thrust my lady
down on her pallet, and with the other hand put out the light.
They lay, scarcely daring to breathe, and heard Fraulein Anna grope
her way in, and stand awhile, silent and listening, as if she found
something suspicious in the extinction of the light. But the taper--it
was a mere rushlight--had done this before, and Marie stirred so
naturally, that Fraulein Max's doubts passed away. She put off her
cloak quickly, and presently--but not, as it seemed to the Countess,
until an hour had elapsed--they heard her begin to breathe regularly.
A few minutes more and they had no doubt she slept. Then Marie touched
my lady's arm, and the latter, rising softly, stole out of the room.
The adventure left the Countess's thoughts in a whirl. She hated
double-dealing as much as any one, and she could scarcely contain
herself before Fraulein Max. It was as much as she could do to wear a
smooth face for an hour, until a chance occasion, which fortunately
came early in the day, left her alone with Marie. Then she turned,
almost fiercely, on the girl.
'What is this?' she said. 'What does it all mean? Himmel! Tell me!
Tell me quickly!'
Marie Wort looked at her with tears in her eyes. 'You should be able
to guess, my lady,' she said sadly. 'There is a traitor among us.'
'Fraulein Anna?'
Marie nodded. 'She is in his pay,' she said simply.
'His? The general's?'
'Yes,' Marie answered, speaking quickly, with her eyes on the door.
'She met him last night, and told him what you feel about him.'
The Countess drew a deep breath. Her face turned a shade paler. She
sat up straight in her chair. 'All?' she said huskily.
Marie nodded.
'And he?'
'He said he would have an answer to-day. Then I left. I did not hear
any more.'
The Countess sat for a minute as if turned to stone. Here was an end
of putting off--of smiles, and pleasant words, and the little
craftinesses which had hitherto served her. Stern necessity, hard fate
were before her. She was of a high courage, but terror was fast
mastering her, when Marie touched her on the arm.
'If you can put him off, until this evening,' the girl muttered, 'I
think something may be done.'
'What?'
'Something. I do not know what,' the girl answered in a troubled tone.
The Countess rose suddenly. 'Ah! I would like to choke her!' she cried
hoarsely. She stretched out her arms.
'Hush, hush, my lady!' Marie whispered. The Countess's violence
frightened her. 'I think, if you can put him off until to-night, we
may contrive something.'
'We? You and I?' my lady said in scorn. But as she looked at the
other's pale, earnest face, her own softened, her tone changed. 'Well,
it shall be as you wish,' she said, letting her arms drop. 'You are a
better plotter than I am. But I fear Fraulein Cat, Fraulein Snake,
Fraulein Fox will prove the best of all!'
Marie's frightened face showed that she thought this possible, but she
said no more, and would give my lady no explanation, though the
Countess pressed for it. It was decided in the end that the Countess
should plead sudden illness, and use that pretext both to avoid
Fraulein Max, and postpone her interview with the general until the
evening.
He came at noon, and the Countess heard his horses pawing and fretting
in the road, and she sat up in her darkened room with a white face.
What if he would not accept the excuse? If he would see her? What if
the moment had come in which his will and hers must decide the
struggle? She rose and stood listening, as fierce in her beauty as any
trapped savage creature. Her heartbeat wildly, her bosom heaved. But
in a moment she heard the horses move away, and presently Marie came
in to tell her that he would wait till evening.
'No longer?' the Countess asked, hiding her face in the pillow.
'Not an hour, he said,' Marie answered, indicating by a gesture
that the door was open, and that Fraulein Max was listening. 'He
was--different,' she whispered.
'How?' my lady muttered.
'He swore at me,' Marie answered in the same tone. 'And he spoke of
you--somehow differently.'
The Countess laughed, but far from joyously. 'I suppose to-night--I
must see him?' she said. She tried as she spoke to press herself more
deeply into the pillows, as if she might escape that way. Her flesh
crept, and she shivered though she was as hot as fire.
Once or twice in the hours which followed she was almost beside
herself. Sometimes she prayed. More often she walked up and down the
room like one in a fever. She did not know on what she was trusting,
and she could have struck Marie when the girl, appealed to again and
again, would explain nothing, and name no quarter from which help
might come. All the afternoon the camp lay grilling in the sunshine,
and in the shuttered room in the middle of it my lady suffered. Had
the house lain by the river she might have tried to escape; but the
camp girdled it on three sides, and on the fourth, where a swampy
inlet guarded one flank of the village, a deep ditch as well as the
morass forbade all passage.
She remained in her room until she heard the unwelcome sounds which
told of the general's return. Then she came into the outer room, her
eyes glittering, a red spot on either cheek, all pretence at an end.
Her glance withered Fraulein Max, who sat blinking in a corner with a
very evil conscience. And to Marie Wort, when the girl came near her
on the pretence of adjusting her lace sleeves, she had only one word
to say.
'You slut!' she hissed, her breath hot on the girl's cheek. 'If you
fail me I will kill you. Begone out of my sight!'
The child, excited before, broke down at that, and, bursting into a
fit of weeping, ran out. Her sobs were still in the air when General
Tzerclas entered.
The Countess's face was flushed, and her bearing, full of passion and
defiance, must have warned him what to expect, if he felt any doubt
before. The sun was just setting, the room growing dusk. He stood
awhile, after saluting her, in doubt how he should come to the point,
or in admiration; for her scorn and anger only increased her beauty
and his feeling for her. At length he pointed lightly to the women,
who kept their places by the door.
'Is it your wish, fair cousin,' he said slowly, 'that I should speak
before these, or will you see me alone?'
'Your spy, that cat there,' my lady answered, carried away by her
temper, 'may go! The women will stay.'
Fraulein Max, singled out by that merciless finger, sprang forward,
her face mottled with surprise and terror. For a second she hesitated.
Then she rushed towards her friend, as if she would embrace her.
'Countess!' she cried. 'Rotha! Surely you are mad! You cannot think
that I would----'
My lady turned, and in a flash struck her fiercely on the cheek with
her open hand. 'Liar!' she cried; 'go to your master, you whipped
hound!'
The Dutch woman recoiled with a cry of pain, and sobbing wildly went
back to her place. The general laughed harshly.
'You hold with me, sweetheart,' he said. 'Discipline before
everything. But you have not my patience.'
She looked at him--angry with him, angry with herself, her hand to her
bosom--but she did not answer.
'For you must allow,' he continued--his tone and his eyes still
bantered her--'that I have been patient. I have been like a man
athirst in the desert; but I have waited day after day, until now I
can wait no longer, sweetheart.'
'So you tamper with my--with that woman!' she said scornfully.
The general shrugged his shoulders and laughed grimly. 'Why not?' he
said. 'What are waiting-women and the like made for, if not to be
bribed--or slapped?'
She hated him for that sly hit--if never before; but she controlled
herself. She would throw the burden on him.
He read the thought, and it led him to change his tone. There was a
gloomy fire in his eyes, and smouldering passion in his voice, when he
spoke again.
'Well, Countess,' he said, 'I am here for your answer.'
'To what?'
'To the question I asked you some time ago,' he rejoined, dwelling on
her with sullen eyes. 'I asked you to be my wife. Your answer?'
'Prythee!' she said proudly, 'this is a strange way of wooing.'
'It is not of my choice that I woo in company,' he answered, shrugging
his shoulders. 'My answer; that is all I want--and you.'
'Then you shall have the first, and not the last,' she exclaimed on a
sudden impulse. 'No, no--a hundred times no! If you do not see that by
pressing me now,' she continued impetuously, 'when I am alone,
friendless, and unprotected, you insult me, you should see it, and I
do.'
For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed; but his voice,
notwithstanding his mastery over it and in spite of that laugh, shook
with rage and resentment. 'As I expected,' he said. 'I knew last night
that you hated me. You have been playing a part throughout. You loathe
me. Yes, madam, you may wince,' he continued bitterly, 'for you shall
still be my wife; and when you are my wife we will talk of that.'
'Never!' she said, with a brave face; but her heart beat wildly, and a
mist rose before her eyes.
He laughed. 'My legions are round me,' he said. 'Where are yours?'
'You are a gentleman,' she answered with an effort. 'You will let me
go.'
'If I do not?'
'There are those who will know how to avenge me.'
He laughed again. 'I do not know them, Countess,' he said
contemptuously. 'For Hesse Cassel, he has his hands full at Nuremberg,
and will be likely, when Wallenstein has done with him, to need help
himself. The King of Sweden--the brightest morning ends soonest in
rain--and he will end at Nuremberg. Bernhard of Weimar, Leuchtenstein,
all the fanatics fall with him. Only the banner of the Free Companies
stands and waves ever the wider. Be advised,' he continued grimly.
'Bend, Countess, or I have the means to break you.'
'Never!' she said.
'So you say now,' he answered slowly. 'You will not say so in five
minutes. If you care nothing for yourself, have a care for your
friends.'
'You said I had none,' she retorted hoarsely.
'None that can help you,' he replied; 'some that you can help.'
She started and looked at him wildly, her lips apart, her eyes wide
with hope, fear, expectation. What did he mean? What could he mean by
this new turn? Ha!
She had her face towards the window, and dark as the room was
growing--outside the light was failing fast--he read the thought in
her eyes, and nodded.
'The Waldgrave?' he said lightly. 'Yes, he is alive, Countess, at
present; and your steward also.'
'They are prisoners?' she whispered, her cheeks grown white.
'Prisoners; and under sentence of death.'
'Where?'
'In my camp.'
'Why?' she muttered. But alas! she knew; she knew already.
'They are hostages for your good behaviour,' he answered in his cold,
mocking tone. 'If their principal satisfies me, good; they will go
free. If not, they die--to-morrow.'
'To-morrow?' she gasped.
'To-morrow,' he answered ruthlessly. 'Now I think we understand one
another.'
She threw up her hand suddenly, as if she were about to vent on him
all the passions which consumed her--the terror, rage, and shame which
swelled in her breast. But something in his gibing tone, something in
the set lines of his figure--she could not see his face--checked her.
She let her hand fall in a gesture of despair, and shrank into
herself, shuddering. She looked at him as at a serpent--that
fascinated her. At last she murmured--
'You will not dare. What have they done to you?'
'Nothing,' he answered. 'It is not their affair; it is yours.'
For a moment after that they stood confronting one another while the
sound of the women sobbing in a corner, and the occasional jingle of a
bridle outside, alone broke the silence. Behind her the room was dark;
behind him, through the open windows, lay the road, glimmering pale
through the dusk. Suddenly the door at her back opened, and a bright
light flashed on his face. It was Marie Wort bringing in a lamp. No
one spoke, and she set the lamp on the table, and going by him began
to close the shutters. Still the Countess stood as if turned to stone,
and he stood watching her.
'Where are they?' she moaned at last, though he had already told her.
'In the camp,' he said.
'Can I--can I see them?' she panted.
'Afterwards,' he answered, with the smile of a fiend; 'when you are my
wife.'
That added the last straw. She took two steps to the table, and
sitting down blindly, covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders
began to tremble, her head sank lower and lower on the table. Her
pride was gone.
'Heaven help us!' she whispered in a passion of grief. 'Heaven help
us, for there is no help here!'
'That is better,' he said, eyeing her coldly. 'We shall soon come to
terms now.'
In his exultation he went a step nearer to her. He was about to touch
her--to lay his hand on her hair, believing his evil victory won, when
suddenly two dark figures rose like shadows behind her chair. He
recoiled, dropping his hand. In a moment a pistol barrel was thrust
into his face. He fell back another step.
'One word and you are a dead man!' a stern voice hissed in his ear.
Then he saw another barrel gleam in the lamplight, and he stood still.
'What is this?' he said, looking from one to the other, his voice
trembling with rage.
'Justice!' the same speaker answered harshly. 'But stand still and be
silent, and you shall have your life. Give the alarm, and you die,
general, though we die the next minute. Sit down in that chair.'
He hesitated. But the two shining barrels converging on his head, the
two grim faces behind them, were convincing; in a moment he obeyed.