Kitabı oku: «My Lady Rotha: A Romance», sayfa 26
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A WINGLESS CUPID
That was a dreary procession that a little before noon on the 25th of August wound its way back into Nuremberg. The King, repulsed but not defeated, remained in his camp beyond the Rednitz, and with trumpets sounding and banners displayed, strove vainly to tempt his wily antagonist into the plain. Those who returned on this day, therefore, carrying with them the certain news of ill-fortune, were the wounded and the useless, a few prisoners, two or three envoys, half a dozen horse-dealers, and a train of waggons bearing crippled and dying men to the hospital.
Of this company I made one, and I doubt if there were six others who bore in their breasts hearts as light, or who could look on the sunny roofs and peaked gables of the city with eyes as cheerful. Prince Bernard had spoken kindly to me; the King had sent for me to inquire where I last saw General Torstensohn; I had stood up a man amongst men; and I deemed these things cheaply bought at the cost of a little blood. On the other hand, the horrors of the day were still so fresh in my mind that my heart overflowed with thankfulness and the love of life; feelings which welled up anew whenever I looked abroad and saw the Rednitz flowing gently between the willows, or looked within and pictured the Werra rippling swiftly down the shallows under cool shade of oak and birch and alder.
Add to all these things one more. I had just learned that Count Leuchtenstein lived and was unhurt, and on the saddle before me under a cloak I bore his son. More than one asked me what booty I had taken, where others had found only lead or steel, that I hugged my treasure so closely and smiled to myself. But I gave them no answer. I only held the child the tighter, and pushing on more quickly, reached the city a little after twelve.
I say nothing of the gloomy looks and sad faces that I encountered at the gate, of the sullen press that would hardly give way, or of the thousand questions I had to parry. I hardened my heart, and, disengaging myself as quickly as I could, I rode straight to my lady's lodgings; and it was fortunate that I did so. For I was only just in time. As I dismounted at the door-receiving such a welcome from Steve and the other men as almost discovered my treasure, whether I would or no-I saw Count Leuchtenstein turn into the street by the other end and ride slowly towards me, a trooper behind him.
The men would have detained me. They wanted to hear the news and the details of the battle, and where I had been. But I thrust my way through them and darted in.
Quick as I was, one was still quicker, and as I went out of the light into the cool darkness of the entrance, flew down the stairs to meet me, and, before I could see, was in my arms, covering me with tears and laughter and little cries of thanksgiving. How the child fared between us I do not know, for for a minute I forgot it, my lady, the Count, everything, in the sweetness of that greeting; in the clinging of those slender arms round my neck, and the joy of the little face given up to my kisses.
But in a moment, the child, being, I suppose, half choked between us, uttered a feeble cry; and Marie sprang back, startled and scared, and perhaps something more.
'What is it?' she cried, beginning to tremble. 'What have you got?'
I did not know how to tell her on the instant, and I had no time to prepare her, and I stood stammering.
Suddenly,'Give it to me!' she cried in a strange voice.
But I thought that in the fulness of her joy and surprise she might swoon or something, and I held back. 'You won't drop it,' I said feebly, 'when you know what it is?'
Her eyes flashed in the half light. 'Fool!' she cried-yes, though I could scarcely believe my ears. 'Give it to me.'
I was so taken aback that I gave it up meekly on the spot. She flew off with it into a corner, and jealously turned her back on me before she uncovered the child; then all in a moment she fell to crying, and laughing, crooning over it and making strange noises. I heard the Count's horse at the door, and I stepped to her.
'You are sure that it is your child?' I said.
'Sure?' she cried; and she darted a glance at me that for scorn outdid all my lady's.
After that I had no doubt left. 'Then bring it to the Countess, my girl,' I said. 'He is here. And it is she who should give it to him.'
'Who is here?' she cried sharply.
'Count Leuchtenstein.'
She stared at me for a moment, and then suddenly quailed and broke down, as it were. She blushed crimson; her eyes looked at me piteously, like those of a beaten dog.
'Oh,' she said, 'I forgot that it was you!'
'Never mind that,' I said. 'Take the child to my lady.'
She nodded, in quick comprehension. As the Count crossed the threshold below, she sped up the stairs, and I after her. My lady was in the parlour, walking the length of it impatiently, with a set face; but whether the impatience was on my account, because I had delayed below so long, or on the Count's, whose arrival she had probably seen from the window, I will not say, for as I entered and before she could speak, Marie ran to her with the child and placed it in her arms.
My lady turned for a moment quite pale. 'What is it?' she said faintly, holding it from her awkwardly.
Marie cried out between laughing and crying, 'The child! The child, my lady.'
'And Count Leuchtenstein is on the stairs,' I said.
The colour swept back into the Countess's face in a flood and covered it from brow to neck. For a moment, taken by surprise, she forgot her pride and looked at us shyly, timidly. 'Where-where did you recover it?' she murmured.
'The Waldgrave recovered it,' I answered hurriedly, 'and sent it to your excellency, that you might give it to Count Leuchtenstein.'
'The Waldgrave!' she cried.
'Yes, my lady, with that message,' I answered strenuously.
The Countess looked to Marie for help. I could hear steps on the stairs-at the door; and I suppose that the two women settled it with their eyes. For no words passed, but in a twinkling Marie snatched the child, which was just beginning to cry, from the Countess and ran away with it through an inner door. As that door fell to, the other opened, and Ernst announced Count Leuchtenstein.
He came in, looking embarrassed, and a little stiff. His buff coat showed marks of the corselet-he had not changed it-and his boots were dusty. It seemed to me that he brought in a faint reek of powder with him, but I forgot this the next moment in the look of melancholy kindness I espied in his eyes-a look that enabled me for the first time to see him as my lady saw him.
She met him very quietly, with a heightened colour, but the most perfect self-possession. I marvelled to see how in a moment she was herself again.
'I rejoice to see you safe, Count Leuchtenstein,' she said. 'I heard early this morning that you were unhurt.'
'Yes,' he answered. 'I have not a scratch, where so many younger men have fallen.'
'Alas! there will be tears on many hearths,' my lady said.
'Yes. Poor Germany!' he answered. 'Poor Germany! It is a fearful thing. God forgive us who have to do with the making of war. Yet we may hope, as long as our young men show such valour and courage as some showed yesterday; and none more conspicuously than the Waldgrave Rupert.'
'I am glad,' my lady said, colouring, 'that he justified your interference on his behalf, Count Leuchtenstein. It was right that he should; and right that I should do more-ask your pardon for the miserable ingratitude of which my passion made me guilty a while ago.'
'Countess!' he cried.
'No,' she said, stopping him with a gesture full of dignity. 'You must hear me out, for now that I have confessed, we are quits. I behaved ill-so ill that I deserved a heavy punishment. You thought so-and inflicted it!'
Her voice dropped with the last words. He turned very red, and looked at her wistfully; but I suppose that he dared not draw conclusions. For he remained silent, and she resumed, more lightly.
'So Rupert did well yesterday?' she said. 'I am glad, for he will be pleased.'
'He did more than well!' Count Leuchtenstein answered, with awkward warmth. 'He distinguished himself in the face of the whole army. His courage and coolness were above praise. As we have-' The Count paused, then blundered on hastily-'quarrelled, dare I say, Countess, over him, I am anxious to make him the ground of our reconciliation also. I have formed the highest opinion of him; and I hope to advance his interests in every way.'
My lady raised her eyebrows. 'With me?' she said quaintly.
The Count fidgeted, and looked very ill at ease. 'May I speak quite plainly?' he said at last.
'Surely,' the Countess answered.
'Then it can be no secret to you that he has-formed an attachment to you. It would be strange if he had not,' the Count added gallantly.
'And he has asked you to speak for him?' my lady exclaimed, in an odd tone.
'No, not exactly. But-'
'You think that it-it would be a good match for me,' she said, her voice trembling, but whether with tears or laughter, I could not tell. 'You think that, being a woman, and for the present houseless, and almost friendless, I should do well to marry him?'
'He is a brave and honest man,' the Count muttered, looking all ways-and looking very miserable. 'And he loves you!' he added with an effort.
'And you think that I should marry him?' my lady persisted mercilessly. 'Answer me, if you please, Count Leuchtenstein, or you are a poor ambassador.'
'I am not an ambassador,' he replied, thus goaded. 'But I thought-'
'That I ought to marry him?'
'If you love him,' the Count muttered.
My lady took a turn to the window, looked out, and came back. When she spoke at last, I could not tell whether the harshness in her voice was real or assumed.
'I see how it is,' she said, 'very clearly, Count Leuchtenstein. I have confessed, and I have been punished; but I am not forgiven. I must do something more, it seems. Wait!'
He was going to protest, to remonstrate, to deny; but she was gone, out through the door, to return on the instant with something in her arms. She took it to the Count and held it out to him.
'See!' she said, her voice broken by sobs; 'it is your child. God has given it back again. God has given it to you, because you trusted in Him. It is your child.'
He stood as if turned to stone. 'Is it?' he said at last, in a low, strained voice. 'Is it? Then thank God for His mercy to my house. But how-shall I know it?'
'The girl knows it. Marie knows it,' my lady cried; 'and the child knows her. And Martin-Martin will tell you how it was found-how the Waldgrave found it.'
'The Waldgrave?' the Count cried.
'Yes, the Waldgrave,' she answered; 'and he sent it to me to give to you.'
Then I went to him and told him all I knew; and Marie, who, like my lady, was laughing through her tears, took the child, and showed him how it knew her, and remembered my name and my lady's, and had this mark and that mark, and so forth, until he was convinced; and while in that hour all Nuremberg outside our house mourned and lamented, within, I think, there were as thankful hearts as anywhere in the world, so that even Steve, when he came peeping through the door to see what was the matter, went blubbering down again.
Presently Count Leuchtenstein said something handsome to Marie about her care of the child, and slipping off a gold chain that he was wearing, threw it round her neck, with a pleasant word to me. Marie, covered with blushes, took this as a signal to go, and would have left the child with his father; but the boy objected strongly, and the Count, with a laugh, bade her take him.
'If he were a little older!' he said. 'But I have not much accommodation for a child in my quarters. Next week I am going to Cassel, and then-'
'You will take him with you?' my lady said.
The Count looked at the closing door, as it fell to behind Marie, and when the latch dropped, he spoke. 'Countess,' he said bluntly, 'have I misunderstood you?'
My lady's eyes fell. 'I do not know,' she said softly. 'I should think not. I have spoken very plainly.'
'I am almost an old man,' he said, looking at her kindly, 'and you are a young woman. Have you been amusing yourself at my expense?'
The Countess shook her head. 'No,' she said, with a gleam of laughter in her eyes; 'I have done with that. I began to amuse myself with General Tzerclas, and I found it so perilous a pleasure that I determined to forswear it. Though,' she added, looking down and playing with her bracelet, 'why I should tell you this, I do not know.'
'Because-henceforth I hope that you will tell me everything,' the Count said suddenly.
'Very well,' my lady answered, colouring deeply.
'And will be my wife?'
'I will-if you desire it.'
The Count walked to the window and returned. 'That is not enough,' he said, looking at her with a smile of infinite tenderness. 'It must not be unless you desire it; for I have all to gain, you little or nothing. Consider, child,' he went on, laying his hand gently on her shoulder as she sat, but not now looking at her. 'Consider; I am a man past middle age. I have been married already, and the portrait of my child's mother stands always on my table. Even of the life left to me-a soldier's life-I can offer you only a part; the rest I owe to my country, to the poor and the peasant who cry for peace, to my master, than whom God has given no State a better ruler, to God Himself, who places power in my hands. All these I cannot and will not desert. Countess, I love you, and men can still love when youth is past. But I would far rather never feel the touch of your hand or of your lips than I would give up these things. Do you understand?'
'Perfectly,' my lady said, looking steadfastly before her, though her heaving breast betrayed her emotion. 'And I desire to be your wife, and to help you in these things as the greatest happiness God can give me.'
The Count stooped gently and kissed her forehead. 'Thank you,' he said.
* * * * *
I have very little to add. All the world knows that the King of Sweden, unable to entice Wallenstein from his lines, remained in his camp before Nuremberg for fifteen days longer, during which period the city and the army suffered all the extremities of famine and plague. After that, satisfied that he had so far reduced the Duke of Friedland's strength that it no longer menaced the city, he marched away with his army into Thuringia; and there, two months later, on the immortal field of Lutzen, defeated his enemy, and fell, some say by a traitor's hand, in the moment of victory; leaving to all who ever looked upon his face the memory of a sovereign and soldier without a rival, modest in sunshine and undaunted in storm. I saw him seven times and I say this.
And all the world knows in what a welter of war and battles and sieges and famines we have since lain, so that no man foresees the end, and many suppose that happiness has quite fled from the earth, or at least from German soil. Yet this is not so. It is true in comparison with the old days, when my lady kept her maiden Court at Heritzburg, and our greatest excitement was a visit from Count Tilly, we lead a troubled life. My lady's eyes are often grave, and the days when she goes with her two brave boys to the summit of the Schloss and looks southward with a wistful face, are many; many, for the Count, though he verges on seventy, still keeps the field and is a tower in the councils of the north. But with all that, the life is a full one-full of worthy things and help given to others, and a great example greatly set, and peace honestly if vainly pursued. And for this and for other reasons, I believe that my lady, doing her duty, hoping and praying and training her children, is happy; perhaps as happy as in the old days when Fraulein Anna prosed of virtue and felicity and Voetius.
The Waldgrave Rupert, still the handsomest of men, but sobered by the stress of war, comes to see us in the intervals of battles and sieges. On these occasions the children flock round him, and he tells tales-of Nordlingen, and Leipzig, and the leaguer of Breysach; and blue eyes grow stern, and chubby faces grim, and shell-white teeth are ground together, while Marie sits pale and quaking, devouring her boys with hungry mother's eyes. But they do not laugh at her now; they have not since the day when the Waldgrave bade them guess who was the bravest person he had ever known.
'Father!' my lady's sons cried. And Marie's, not to be outdone, cried the same.
But the Waldgrave shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'try again.'
My youngest guessed the King of Sweden.
'No,' the Waldgrave answered him. 'Your mother.'
