THE HOUSE IN THE CHURCHYARD.
The heat which Count Leuchtenstein had thrown into the matter
surprised me somewhat when I came to think of it, but I was soon to be
more surprised. I did not go to my lady at once on coming in, for on
the landing the sound of voices and laughter met me, and I learned
that there were still two or three young officers sitting with her who
had outstayed Count Hugo. I waited until they were gone--clanking and
jingling down the stairs; and then, about the hour at which I usually
went to take orders before retiring, I knocked at the door.
Commonly one of the women opened to me. To-night the door remained
closed. I waited, knocked again, and then went in. I could see no one,
but the lamps were flickering, and I saw that the window was open.
At that moment, while I stood uncertain, she came in through it; and
blinded, I suppose, by the lights, did not see me. For at the first
chair she reached just within the window, she sat down suddenly and
burst into tears!
'Mein Gott!' I cried clumsily. I should have known better; but the
laughter of the young fellows as they trooped down the stairs was
still in my ears, and I was dumfounded.
She sprang up on the instant, and glared at me through her tears. 'Who
are--how dare you? How dare you come into the room without knocking?'
she cried violently.
'I did knock, my lady,' I stammered, 'asking your pardon.'
'Then now go! Go out, do you hear?' she cried, stamping her foot with
passion. 'I want nothing. Go!'
I turned and crept towards the door like a beaten hound. But I was not
to go; when my hand was on the latch, her mood changed.
'No, stay,' she said in a different tone. 'You may come back. After
all, Martin, I had rather it was you than any one else.'
She dried her tears as she spoke, standing up very straight and proud,
and hiding nothing. I felt a pang as I looked at her. I had neglected
her of late. I had been thinking more of others.
'It is nothing, Martin,' she said after a pause, and when she had
quite composed her face. 'You need not be frightened. All women cry a
little sometimes, as men swear,' she added, smiling.
'You have been looking at that thing outside,' I said, grumbling.
'Perhaps it did upset me,' she replied. 'But I think it was that I
felt--a little lonely.'
That sounded so strange a complaint on her lips, seeing that the echo
of the young sparks' laughter was barely dead in the room, that I
stared. But I took it, on second thoughts, to refer to Fraulein Max,
whom she had kept at a distance since our escape, never sitting down
with her, or speaking to her except on formal occasions; and I said
bluntly--
'You need a woman friend, my lady.'
She looked at me keenly, and I fancied her colour rose. But she only
answered, 'Yes, Martin. But you see I have not one. I am alone.'
'And lonely, my lady?'
'Sometimes,' she answered, smiling sadly.
'But this evening?' I replied, feeling that there was still something
I did not understand. 'I should not have thought you would be feeling
that way. I have not been here, but when I came in, my lady----'
'Pshaw!' she answered with a laugh of disdain. 'Those boys, Martin?
They can laugh, fight, and ride; but for the rest, pouf! They are not
company. However, it is bedtime, and you must go. I think you have
done me good. Good night. I wish--I wish I could do you good,' she
added kindly, almost timidly.
To some extent she had. I went away feeling that mine was not the only
trouble in the world, nor my loneliness the only loneliness. She was a
stranger in a besieged city, a woman among men, exposed, despite her
rank, to many of a woman's perils; and doubtless she had felt Fraulein
Max's defection and the Waldgrave's strange conduct more deeply than
any one watching her daily bearing would have supposed. So much the
greater reason was there that I should do my duty loyally, and putting
her first to whom I owed so much, let no sorrow of my own taint my
service.
But God knows there is one passion that defies argument. The house
next Herr Krapp's had a fascination for me which I could not resist;
and though I did not again leave my lady unguarded, but arranged that
Steve should stop at home and watch the door, four o'clock the next
afternoon saw me sneaking away in search of St. Austin's. Of course I
soon found it; but there I came to a check. Round the churchyard stood
a number of quiet family houses, many-gabled and shaded by limes, and
doubtless once occupied by reverend canons and prebendaries. But no
one of these held such a position that it could shoulder Herr Krapp's,
or be by any possibility the house I wanted. The churchyard lay too
far from the street for that.
I walked up the row twice before I would admit this; but at last I
made it certain. Still Herr Krapp must know his own premises, and not
much cast down, I was going to knock at a chance door and put the
question, when my eyes fell on a man who sat at work in the
churchyard. He wore a mason's apron, and was busily deepening the
inscription on a tablet let into the church wall. He seemed to be the
very man to know, and I went to him.
'I want a house which looks into the Neu Strasse,' I said. 'It is the
next house to Herr Krapp's. Can you direct me to the door?'
He looked at me for a moment, his hammer suspended. Then he pointed to
the farther end of the row. 'There is an alley,' he said in a hoarse,
croaking voice. 'The door is at the end.'
I thought his occupation an odd one, considering the state of the
city; but I had other things to dwell on, and hastened off to the
place he indicated. Here, sure enough, I found the mouth of a very
narrow passage which, starting between the last house and a blind
wall, ran in the required direction. It was a queer place, scarcely
wider than my shoulders, and with two turns so sharp that I remember
wondering how they brought their dead out. In one part it wound under
the timbers of a house; it was dark and somewhat foul, and altogether
so ill-favoured a path that I was glad I had brought my arms.
In the end it ran into a small, paved court, damp but clean, and by
comparison light. Here I saw the door I wanted facing me. Above it the
house, with its narrow front of one window on each floor, and every
floor jutting out a little, gave a strange impression of gloomy
height. The windows were barred and dusty, the plaster was mildewed,
the beams were dark with age. Whatever secrets, innocent or the
reverse, lay within, one thing was plain--this front gave the lie to
the other.
I liked the aspect of things so little that it was with a secret
tremor I knocked, and heard the hollow sound go echoing through the
house. So certain did I feel that something was wrong, that I wondered
what the inmates would do, and whether they would lie quiet and refuse
to answer, or show force and baffle me that way. No foreign windows
looked into the little court in which I stood; three of the walls were
blind. The longer I gazed about me, the more I misdoubted the place.
Yet I turned to knock again; but did not, being anticipated. The door
slid open under my hand, slowly wide open, and brought me face to face
with an old toothless hag, whose bleared eyes winked at me like a
bat's in sunshine. I was so surprised both by her appearance and the
opening of the door, that I stood tongue-tied, staring at her and at
the bare, dusty, unswept hall behind her.
'Who lives here?' I blurted out at last.
If I had stopped to choose my words I had done no better. She shook
her head and pointed first to her ears, and then to her lips. The
woman was deaf and dumb!
I would not believe it at the first blush. I tried her again. 'Who
lives here, mother?' I cried more loudly.
She smiled vacuously, showing her toothless gums. And that was all.
Still I tried again, shouting and making signs to her to fetch whoever
was in the house. The sign she seemed to understand, for she shook her
head violently. But that helped me no farther.
All the time the door stood wide open. I could see the hall, and that
it contained no furniture or traces of habitation. The woman was
alone, therefore a mere caretaker. Why should I not enter and satisfy
myself?
I made as if I would do so. But the moment I set my foot across the
threshold the old crone began to mow and gibber so horribly, putting
herself in my way, that I fell back cowed. I had not the heart to use
force to her, alone as she was, and in her duty. Besides, what right
had I to thrust myself in? I should be putting myself in the wrong if
I did. I retired.
She did not at once shut the door, but continued to tremble and make
faces at me awhile as if she were cursing me. Then with her old hand
pressed to her side, she slowly but with evident passion clanged the
door home.
I stood a moment outside, and then I retreated. I had been driven to
believe Herr Krapp. Why should I not believe this old creature? Here
was an empty house, and so an end. And yet--and yet I was puzzled.
As I went through the churchyard, I passed my friend the mason, and
saw he had a companion. If he had looked up I should have asked him a
question or two. But he did not, and the other's back was towards me.
I walked on.
In the silent street, however, three minutes later, a sudden thought
brought me to a stand. An empty house? Was there not something odd in
this empty house, when quarters were so scarce in Nuremberg, and even
my lady had got lodgings assigned to her as a favour and at a price?
The town swarmed with people who had taken refuge behind its walls.
Where one had lain two lay now. Yet here was an empty house!
In a twinkling I was walking briskly towards the Neu Strasse,
determined to look farther into the matter. It was again the hour of
evening drill; the ways were crowded, the bells of the churches were
ringing. Using some little care as I approached Herr Krapp's, I
slipped into a doorway, which commanded it from a distance, and thence
began to watch the fatal window.
If the old hag had not lied with her dumb lips I should see no one; or
at best should only see her.
Half an hour passed; an hour passed. Hundreds of people passed, among
them the man I had seen talking with the mason in the churchyard. I
noticed him, because he went by twice. But the window remained blank.
Then on a sudden, as the light began to fail, I saw the Waldgrave at
it.
The Waldgrave?
'Gott im Himmel!' I muttered, the blood rushing to my face. What was
the meaning of this? What was the magic of this cursed window? First I
had seen my love at it. Then the Waldgrave.
While I stood thunderstruck, he was gone again, leaving the window
blank and black. The crowd passed below, chattering thoughtlessly.
Groups of men with pikes and muskets went by. All seemed unchanged.
But my mind was in a whirl. Rage, jealousy, and wonder played with it.
What did it all mean? First Marie, then the Waldgrave! Marie, whom we
had left thirty leagues away in the forest; the Waldgrave, whom I had
seen that morning.
I stood gaping at the window, as if it could speak, and gradually my
mind regained its balance. My jealousy died out, hope took its place.
I did not think so ill of the Waldgrave as to believe that knowing of
Marie's existence he would hide it from me, and for that reason I
could not explain or understand how he came to be in the same house
with her. But it was undeniable that his presence there encouraged me.
There must be some middle link between them; perhaps some one
controlling both. And then I thought of Tzerclas.
The Waldgrave had seen him in the town, and had even spoken to him.
What if it were he who occupied this house close by the New Gate, with
a convenient secretive entrance, and used it for his machinations?
Marie might well have fallen into his hands. She might be in his power
now, behind the very walls on which I gazed.
From that moment I breathed and lived only to see the inside of that
house. Nothing else would satisfy me. I scanned it with greedy eyes,
its steep gable, its four windows one above another, its carved
weather-boards. I might attack it on this side; or by way of the alley
and door. But I quickly discarded the latter idea. Though I had seen
only the old woman, I judged that there were defenders in the
background, and in the solitude of the alley I might be easily
despatched. It remained to enter from the front, or by way of the
roof. I pondered a moment, and then I went across to Herr Krapp's and
knocked.
He opened the door himself. I almost pushed my way in. 'What do you
want, my friend?' he said, recoiling before me, and looking somewhat
astonished.
'To get into your neighbour's house,' I answered bluntly.