THE LITTLE PLAYMATE SETTLES ACCOUNTS
But I admit that the smile discouraged me. Nevertheless I proceeded
gallantly.
"Ah, Jungfrau Texel," said I, "you cannot know how your presence
brightens our lives here in the Red Tower. Wherefore will you not come
oftener to our grim abode?"
I thought that, on the whole, pretty well; but, looking up at Helene, I
saw that her smile (so different from that of the Io-Cow Katrin) had
become a whole volume of scathing satire. God wot, it is not easy to make
love to a lass when your "Little Sister" is listening--especially to a
woman-mountain set on watch-springs like Katrin Texel.
But, after all, Katrin was no ways averse to love-making of any kind,
which, after all, is the main thing. And as for the Little Playmate, I
did not mind her a bonnet-tag. She had brought it upon herself.
Michael Texel indeed!
So I went on. It was excellent sport--such a jest as may not be played
every day. I would show Mistress Helene (so I said to myself) whether she
would like it any better if I made love to Katrin than if I went over on
an occasional wet day to clean pistolets and oil French musketoons in
Christian's guard-house.
So I began to tell Katrin how that woman was the sacredest influence on
the life of men, with other things as I could recollect them out of a
book of chivalry which I had been reading, the fine sentiments of which
it was a pity to waste. For our Helene would have stamped her foot and
boxed my ears for coming nigh her with such nonsense (that is, at this
time she would, doubtless--not, however, always). And as for the lass
over the way--Christian's Elsa--she knew no more of letters than her
father knew of the mathematics. Plain kissing was more in her way--as I
have been told.
So I aired my book of chivalry to Katrin Texel.
"Fair maid," said I, "have you heard the refrain of the song that I love
so well? It is like sweet music to me to hear it. I love sweet music.
This is the latest catch:
"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'
"How goes it, Helene?" I asked, turning to her as she stood smiling
bitterly by the window. For I knew that it would annoy her to be referred
to. "Goes it not something like this?"
And I hummed fairly enough:
"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'"
***
"And if it goes like that," said she, quickly, "it goeth like a tomcat
mollrowing on the tiles in the middle of the night."
Now this being manifestly only spiteful, I took no notice of her work.
"Helene does not love good music," said I; "'tis her only fault. But I
trust that you, dear Katrin, have a greater taste for angelic song?"
"And I trust you love to scratch upon the twangling zither as cats
sharpen their claws upon the bark of trees? You love such music, _dear_
Katrin, do you not?" cried Helene over her shoulder from the window.
But Katrin, the divine cow, knew not what to make of us. I think she was
of the opinion that Helene and I, with much study upon books, had
suddenly gone mad.
"I do indeed love music," she said at last, uncertainly, "but, Master
Hugo, not the kind of which my gossip, Helene, speaks. I love best of all
a ballad of love, sung sweetly and with a melting expression, as from a
lover by the wall to his mistress aloft in the balcony, like that of him
of Italy, who sings:
"'O words that fall like summer dew on me.'
"How goes it?
"'O breath more sweet than is the growing--the growing--'"
She paused, and waved her hand as if to summon the words from the
empty air.
"'_The growing garlic,'_ if it be a lover of Italy," cried Helene, still
more spitefully. "This is enough and to spare of chivalry, besides which
Hugo hath his lessons to learn for Friar Laurence, or else he will repent
it on the morrow. Come, sweetheart, let us be going. I will e'en convoy
thee home."
So she spoke, making great ostentation of her own superiority and
emancipation from learning, treating me as a lad that must learn his
horn-book at school.
But I was even with her for all that.
"And so farewell, then, dear Mistress Katrin," said I. "The delicate
pleasure of your presence shall be followed by the still more tender
remembrance which, when you are gone, my heart shall continue to
cherish of you."
That was indeed well-minded. A whole sentence out of my romance-book
without a single slip. Katrin bowed, with the airy grace of the Grand
Duke's monument out in the square. But the little Helene swept
majestically off, muttering to herself, but so that I could hear her: "'O
wondrous, most wondrous,' quoth our cat Mall, when she saw her Tom
betwixt her and the moon."
The application of which wise saw is indeed to seek.
So the two maids went away, and I betook me to the window to see if I
could catch a glimpse of Christian's Elsa.
But I only saw Katrin and Helene going gossiping down the street with
their heads very close together.
At first I smiled, well pleased to think how excellently I had played my
cards and how daintily I had worked in those gallant speeches out of the
book of chivalry. But by-and-by it struck me that the Little Playmate was
absent a most unconscionable time. Could it be--Michael Texel? No, that
at least was plainly impossible.
I got up and walked about. Then for a change I paused by the window.
I had stood a good while thus moodily looking out at the casement, when I
became aware of two that walked slowly up the street and halted together
before the great iron-studded door which led to the Red Tower.
By the thirty thousand virgins--Helene and Michael Texel!
And then, indeed, what a coil was I in; how blackly deceitful I called
her! How keenly I watched for any token of understanding and kindness
more than ordinary that might chance to pass between them. But I could
see none, for though the great soft lout of a ruddy beer-vat tried often
to look under the brim of her hat, yet she kept her eyes down--only once,
that I could observe, raising them, and that was more towards the Red
Tower than in the direction of Michael Texel.
I think she wished to see whether I was watching. And when she had noted
me it I wot well that she became much more animated, and laughed and
spoke quickly, with color in her cheeks and a flash of defiance on her
countenance, which were manifestly wasted on such a boastful, callow
blubber-tun as Michael Texel.
Then it was: "Adieu to you, Master Texel!" "Farewell to you, fair maid!"
And Helene dipped a courtesy to him, dainty and sweet enough to conquer
an angel, while the great jelly-bag shook himself almost to pieces in
his eagerness to achieve a masterly bow. All this made me angry, not
that I cared though Helene had coquetted with a dozen lads, an it had
liked her. It was only the poverty of taste shown in being seen in the
open High Street of Thorn along with such an oaf as Michael Texel. He
had first been my friend, it is true, but then at that time I had not
found him out.
By-and-by Helene came up the stairs, tripping light as a feather that the
wind blows. Perhaps, though, she had turned in the doorway, where I could
not see her, to throw the lout a kiss--so I thought within me, jealously.
"You have convoyed your gossip Katrin home in safety, I trust," said I,
sweetly, as she came in.
"Yes," said she; "but I fear she has left her heart behind her. So
wondrously rapid a courtship never did I see!"
"Save on the street," answered I; "and with a pale, soft jack-pudding
like Michael Texel! That was a sight, indeed."
At which Helene laughed a merry little laugh--well-pleased, too, the
minx, as I could see.
"What are courtships on the street to you, Sir Hugo," she returned,
"with your 'Twinkle-Twankle' singing-women over the way, and--Lord,
how went it?
"'My true love hath my heart and I have his.'
"Ha! ha! Sir Gallant, what need you with more? Would you have as many
loves as the Grand Turk, and invent new love-makings for each of them?
Shall we maidens petition Duke Casimir to banish the other lads of the
town and leave only Hugo Gottfried for all of us?"
And then she went on to other such silly talk that I think it not worth
reporting.
Whereupon I was about to leave the room in a transport of just
indignation, and that without speaking, when Helene called to me.
"Hugo!" she said, very softly, as she alone could speak, and that only
when it liked her to make friends.
I turned me about with some dignity, but knowing in my heart that it was
all over with me.
"Well, what may be your will, madam?" said I.
Helene came towards me with uplifted, petitionary eyes.
"You are not going to be angry with me, Hugo!" she said. And she lifted
her eyes again upon me--irresistible, compelling, solvent of dignities,
and able to break down all pride.
O all ye men who have never seen my Helene look up thus at you--but only
common other eyes, go and hang yourselves on high trees for very envy.
Well, as I say, Helene looked up at me. She kept on looking up at me.
And I--well, I hung a moment on my pride, and then--clasped her in my
arms.
"Dear minx, thrice wicked one!" I exclaimed, "wherefore do you torment
me--break my heart?"
"Because," said she, escaping as soon as she had gained her pretty,
rascal way, "you think yourself so clever, Hugo, such an irresistible
person, that you must be forever returning to this window and getting
this book of chivalry by heart. Now you are going to be cross again. Oh,
shame, and with your little sister--
"'That never did you any harm,
But killed the mice in your father's barn.'"
With such babyish words she talked the frowns off my face, or, when they
would not go fast enough, hastened them by reaching up and smoothing them
away with her finger.
"Now," she said, setting her head to the side, "what a nice sweet Great
Brother! Let him sit down here on the great chair."
So I sat down, well pleased enough, not knowing what mischief the
pranksome maid had now in her head, but judging that the matter might
turn out well for me.
Then Helene stole round to the back of the chair, and, taking me by the
ears, she gave first one and then the other of them a pull.
"That," she said, pulling the right, "is for listening to the little cat
over the way that squalls on the tiles! And _that_" (giving the other a
sound tug) "is for being a dandiprat when my gossip Katrin was here!"
She paused a moment as if to summon courage, and then she stooped quickly
and kissed me on the neck.
"And _that_ for Michael Texel!" she cried, and ran out of the room before
I could get clear of the wide arms of the chair, and so run after and
catch her.
She turned in the doorway and wafted me a kiss from her finger-tips,
airily and a little mockingly.
"That for Hugo Gottfried!" she said, and was off to her own chamber with
the _frou-frou_ of a light skirt, the slam of a door, and the shooting
of a bolt.
And after all this, it was heart's pity that ever anything should have
come between us again, even for a moment.
Though, indeed, it was but for a moment.