A WOMAN SCORNED
At nine I was at the door of the dark, silent house by the Weiss Thor. I
sounded the knocker loudly, and with the end of the reverberations I
heard a foot come through the long passages. The panel behind slid
noiselessly in its grooves, and I was conscious that a pair of eyes
looked out at me.
"You are the servant of the strange Doctor?" said the voice of the
servitor, Sir Respectable.
"That I am, as by this time you may have seen!" answered I, for I was
in no mood of mere politeness. I was venturing my life in the house of
mine enemy, and, at least, it would be no harm if I put a bold face on
the matter.
He opened the door, and again the same curious perfume was wafted down
the passages--something that I had never felt either in the Wolfsberg nor
yet even in the women's chambers of the Palace of Plassenburg.
At the door of the little room in which she had first received me so long
ago, the Lady Ysolinde was waiting for me.
She did not shut the door till Sir Respectable had betaken him down again
to his own place. Then quite frankly and undisguisedly she took my hand,
like one who had come to the end of make-believe.
"I knew you to-day in your disguise," she said; "it is an excellent one,
and might deceive all save a woman who loves. Ah, you start. It might
deceive the woman you love, but not the woman that loves you. I am not
the Princess to-night; I am Ysolinde, the Woman. I have no restraints, no
conventions, no laws, no religions to-night--save the law of a woman's
need and the religion of a woman's passion."
I stood before her, scarce knowing what to say.
"Sit down," she said; "it is a long story, and yet I will not weary you,
Hugo--so much I promise you."
I made answer to her, still standing up.
"To-night, my lady, after what you know, you will not be surprised that I
can think of only one thing. You know that to-day--"
"I know," she said, cutting me short, as if she did not wish to
listen to that which I might say next; "I know--I was present in the
Judgment Hall."
"Then, being Master Gerard's daughter, you knew also the sentence before
it was pronounced!" I said, bitterly, being certain as that I lived that
the paper from which the Duke Otho read had been penned at this very
house of the Weiss Thor in which I now sat.
Ysolinde reached a slender hand to me, as was often her wont instead
of speech.
"Be patient to-night," she said; "I am trying hard to do that which is
best--for myself first, as a woman must in a woman's affairs. But, as God
sees me, for others also! You are a man, but I pray you think with
fairness of the fight I, a lonely, unloved woman, have to fight."
"Will they carry out the terrible sentence?" said I, eagerly. For I
judged that she must be in her father's counsels.
"Be patient," she said; "we will come to that presently."
Ysolinde sat silent a while, and when I would have spoken further
she moved her hand a little impatiently aside, in sign that I was
not to interrupt. Yet even this was not done in her old imperious
manner, but rather sadly and with a certain wistful gentleness which
went to my heart.
When she spoke again it was in the same even voice with which she had
formerly told my fortune in that very room.
"That which I have to say to you is a thing strange--as it may seem
unwomanly. But then, I did not ask God to make me a woman, and
certainly he did not make me as other women. I have never had a true
mate, never won the love which God owes to every man and woman He
brings into the world.
"Then I mot you, not by any seeking of mine. Next, equally against my
will, I loved you. Nay, do not start to-night. It is as well to put the
matter plainly."
"You did not _love_ me," said I; "you were but kind to me, the unworthy
son of the Executioner of Thorn. Out of your good heart you did it."
I acknowledge that I spoke like a paltering knave, but in truth knew not
what to say.
"I loved you--yes, and I love you!" she said, serenely, as though my
words had been the twittering of a bird on the roof. "And I am not
ashamed. There was indeed no reason for my folly--no beauty, no
desirableness in you. But--I loved you. Pass! Let it be. We will begin
from there. You loved, or thought you loved, a maid--your Little
Playmate. Pshaw, you loved her not! Or not as I count love. I was proud,
accustomed to command, and, besides, a Prince's wife. The last,
doubtless, should have held me apart. Yet my Princessdom was but as straw
bands cast into the fire to bind the flame. As for you, Hugo Gottfried,
you were in love with your success, your future, and, most of all, with
your confident, insolently dullard self."
She smiled bitterly, and, because the thing she spoke was partly true, I
had still nothing to answer her.
"Hugo Gottfried," she said, "try to remember if, when we rode to
Plassenburg in the pleasant weather of that old spring, you loved this
girl whom now you love?"
"Aye," said I, "loved her then, even as I love her now."
"You lie," she answered, calmly, not like one in anger, but as one who
makes a necessary correction, "you loved her not. You were ready to love
me--glad, too, that I should love you. And since you knew not then of my
rank, it was not done for the sake of any advancement in Plassenburg."
I felt again the great disadvantage I was under in speaking to the Lady
Ysolinde. I never had a word to say but she could put three to it. My
best speeches sounded empty, selfish, vain beside hers. And so was it
ever. By deeds alone could I vanquish her, and perhaps by a certain
dogged masculine persistence.
"Princess," I said to her, "you have asked me to meet you here. It is not
of the past, nor yet of likings, imaginings, recriminations that I must
speak. My love, my sister, my playmate, bound to me by a thousand ancient
tendernesses, lies in prison in this city of Thorn, under sentence of a
cruel death. Will you help me to release her? I think that with your
father, and therefore with you, is the power to open her prison doors!"
"And what is there then for me?" cried the Lady Ysolinde, instantly,
bending her head forward, her emerald eyes so great and clear that their
shining seemed to cover all her face as a wave covers a rock at
flood-tide.
"What for me?" she repeated, in the silence which followed.
"For you," said I, "the gladness to have saved an innocent life."
"Tush!" she cried, with a gesture of extravagant contempt. "You mistake;
I am no good-deeds monger, to give my bread and butter to the next
beggar-lass. I tell you I am the woman who came first out of the womb of
Mother-earth. I will yield only that which is snatched from me. What is
mine is more mine than another's, because I would suffer, dare, sin, defy
a world of men and women in order to keep it, to possess it, to have it
all alone to myself!"
"But," I answered, "who am I, that so great a lady should love me? What
am I to you, Princess, more than another?"
"_That_ I know not!" she answered, swiftly. "Only God knows that. Perhaps
my curse, my punishment. My husband is a far better, truer, nobler man
than you, Hugo. I know it; but what of that, when I love him not? Love
goes not by the rungs in a ladder, stands not with the most noble on the
highest step, is not bestowed, like the rewards in a child's school, to
the most deserving. I love you, Hugo Gottfried, it is true. But I wish a
thousand times that I did not. Nevertheless--I do! Therefore make your
reckoning with that, and put aside puling shams and whimpering
subterfuges."
This set me all on edge, and I asked a question.
"What, then, do you propose? Where, shall this comedy end?"
"End!" she said--"end! Aye, of course, men must ever look to an end.
Women are content with a continuance. That you should love me and keep on
loving me, that is all I want!"
"But," I began, "I love--"
"Ah, do not say it!" she cried, pitifully, clasping her hands with a
certain swift appeal in her voice--"do not say it! For God's sake, for
the sake of innocent blood, do not say that you love me not!"
She paused a moment, and grew more pensive as she looked stilly and
solemnly at me.
"I will tell you the end that I see; only be patient and answer not
before I have done. I have seen a vision--thrice have I seen it. Karl of
Plassenburg, my husband, shall die. I have seen the Black Cloak thrice
envelop him. It is the sign. No man hath ever escaped that omen--aye, and
if I choose, it shall wrap him about speedily. More, I have seen you sit
on the throne of Plassenburg and of the Mark, with a Princess by your
side. It is _not_ only my fancy. Even as in the old time I read your
present fortune, so, for good or ill, this thing also is coming to you."
She never took her eyes from my face.
"Now listen well and be slow to speak. The Princedom and the power shall
both fall to me when my husband dies. There are none other hands capable.
So also is it arranged in his will. Here"--she broke off suddenly, as
with a gesture of infinite surrender she thrust out her white hands
towards me--"here is my kingdom and me. Take us both, for we are
yours--yours--yours!"
I took her hands gently in mine and kissed them.
"Lady, Lady Ysolinde," I said, "you honor me, you overwhelm me, I know
not what to say. But think! The Prince is well, full of health and the
hope of years. This thought of yours is but a vision, a delusion--how can
we speak of the thing that is not?"
"I wait your answer," she said, leaving her hands still in mine, but now,
as it were, on sufferance. Then, indeed, I was torn between the love that
I had in my heart for my dear and the need of pleasing the Lady
Ysolinde--between the truth and my desire to save Helene. Almost it was
in my heart to declare that I loved the Lady Ysolinde, and to promise
that I should do all she asked. But though, when need hath been, I have
lied back and forth in my time, and thought no shame, something stuck in
my throat now; and I felt that if I denied my love, who lay prison-bound
that night, I should never come within the mercy of God, but be forever
alien and outcast from any commonwealth of honorable men.
"I cannot, Lady Ysolinde," I answered, at last. "The love of the maid
hath so grown into my heart that I cannot root it out at a word. It is
here, and it fills all my life!"
Again she interrupted me.
"See," she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, "they tell me this your
Helene is an angel of mercy to the sick. If she is spared she will be
content to give her life to works of good intent among the poor. This
cannot be life and death to her as it is to me. Her love is not as the
love of a woman like Ysolinde. It is not for any one man to possess in
monopoly. Though you may deceive yourself and think that it will be fixed
and centred on you. But she will never love you as I love you. See, I
would knee to you, pray to you on my knees, make myself a suppliant--I,
Ysolinde that am a princess! With you, Hugo, I have no pride, no shame. I
would take your love by violence, as a strong man surpriseth and taketh
the heart of a maid."
She was now all trembling and distract, her lips red, her eyes bright,
her hands clasped and trembling as they were strained palm to palm.
"Lady Ysolinde, I would that this were not so," I began.
A new quick spasm passed over her face. I think it came across her that
my heart was wavering. "God knows that I, Hugo Gottfried, am not worth
all this!"
"Nay," she said, with a kind of joy in her voice and in her eyes, "that
matters not. Ysolinde of Plassenburg is as a child that must have its toy
or die. Worthiness has no more to do with love than creeds and dogmas.
Love me--Hugo--love me even a little. Put me not away. I will be so true,
so willing. I will run your errands, wait on you, stand behind you in
battle, in council lead you to fame and great glory. For you, Hugo, I
will watch the faces of others, detect your enemies, unite your
well-wishers, mark the failing favor of your friends. What heart so
strong, what eye so keen as mine--for the greater the love the sharper
the eye to mark, prevent, countermine. And this maid, so cold and icy, so
full of good works and the abounding fame of saintliness, let her live
for the healing of the people, for the love of God and man both, and it
liketh her. She shall be abbess of our greatest convent. She shall indeed
be the Saint Helena of the North. Even now I will save her from death and
give her refuge. I promise it. I have the power in my hands. Only do you,
Hugo Gottfried, give me your love, your life, yourself!"
She was standing before me now, and had her arms about my neck. I felt
them quiver upon my shoulders. Her eyes looked directly up into mine, and
whether they were the eyes of an angel or of a tempting fiend I could not
tell. Very lovely, at any rate, they were, and might have tempted even
Saint Anthony to sin.
"Ysolinde," I said, at last, "it is small wonder that I am strongly
moved; you have offered me great things to-night. I feel my heart very
humble and unworthy. I deserve not your love. I am but a man, a soldier,
dull and slow. Were it not for one man and one woman it should be as you
say. But Karl of Plassenburg is my good master, my loyal friend. Helene
is my true love. I beseech you put this thought from you, dear lady, and
be once more my true Princess, I your liege subject--faithful, full of
reverence and devotion till life shall end!"
As I spoke she drew herself away from me. My hand had unconsciously
rested on her hair, for at first she had leaned her head towards me. When
I had finished she took my hand by the wrist and gripped it as if she
would choke a snake ere she dropped it at arm's-length. I knew that our
interview was at an end.
"Go!" she commanded, pointing to the door. "One day you shall know how
precious is the love you have so lightly cast aside. In a dark, dread
hour, you, Hugo Gottfried, shall sue as a suppliant. And I shall deny
you. There shall come a day when you shall abase yourself--even as you
have seen Ysolinde the Princess abase herself to Hugo, the son of the Red
Axe of the Wolf mark. Go, I tell you! Go--ere I slay you with my knife!"
And she flashed a keen double-edged blade from some recess of her silken
serpentine dress.
"My lady, hear me," I pleaded. "Out of the depths of my heart I
protest to you--"
"Bah!" she cried, with a sudden uprising of tigerish fierceness in her
eyes, quick and chill as the glitter of her steel. "Go, I tell you, ere I
be tempted to strike! _Your heart!_ Why, man, there is nothing in your
heart but empty words out of monks' copy-books and proverbs dry and
rotten as last year's leaves. Ye have seen me abased. By the lords of
hell, I will abase you, Executioner's son! Aye, and you yourself, Hugo
Gottfried, shall work out in flowing blood and bitter tears the doom of
the pale trembling girl for whom you have rejected and despised Ysolinde,
Princess of Plassenburg!"