My Lady Rotha: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

CHAPTER XV.

[THE DUEL CONTINUED.]

I fell to wondering, as we rode home, whether we should find all safe; for we had left Marie Wort and my lady's woman to keep house with two only of the men. From that, again, I strayed into thoughts of the chain, and of Marie herself, so that the very head of what happened when we reached the house escaped me. The first I knew of it, Fraulein Anna's horse backed suddenly into mine, and brought us all up short with a deal of jostling and plunging. When I looked forward to learn what was amiss, I saw a man lying on his face under my lady's horse, and so near it that the beast's feet were touching his head. The man was crying out something in a pitiful tone, and two or three of the general's officers who were riding abreast of me were swearing roundly, and there was great confusion.

General Tzerclas said something, but my lady overbore him. 'What is it?' I heard her cry. 'Get up, man, and speak. Don't lie there. What is it?'

The man rose to his knees, and cried out, 'Justice, justice, lady!' in a wild sort of way, adding something--which I could not understand, for he spoke in a vile patois--about a house. He was in a miserable plight, and looked scarcely human. His face was sallow, his eyes shone with famine, his shrunken limbs peered through mud-stained rags that only half covered him.

'Which is your house?' my lady asked gently. And when one of the officers who had ridden up abreast of her would have intervened, she raised her hand with a gesture there was no mistaking. 'Which is your house?' she repeated.

The man pointed to the one in which we had our quarters.

'What! That one?' my lady cried incredulously. 'Then what has brought you to this?' For the creature looked the veriest scarecrow that ever hung about a church-porch. His head and feet had no covering, his hair was foully matted. He was filthy, hideous, famine-stricken.

And desperate. For, half-cringing, half-defiant, he pointed his accusing finger at the general. 'He has! He and his army!; he cried. 'That house was mine. Those fields were mine. I had cattle, they have eaten them. I had wood, they have burned it. I had meat, they have taken it. I was rich, and I am this! I had, and I have not--only a wife and babes, and they are dying in a ditch. May the curse of God----'

'Hush!' my lady cried, in an unsteady voice. And, without adding a word, she turned to General Tzerclas and looked at him; as if this were Heritzburg, and she the judge, he the criminal.

Doubtless the position was an awkward one. But he showed himself equal to it. 'There has been foul play here,' he said firmly. 'I think I remember the man's face.' Then he turned and raised his hand. 'Let all stand back,' he said in a stern, curt tone.

We fell back out of hearing, leaving him and my lady with the man. For some time the general seemed to be putting questions to the fellow, speaking to my mistress between whiles. Presently he called sharply for Ludwig. The captain went forward to them, and then it was very plain what was going on, for the general raised his voice, and made the rating he administered to his subaltern audible even by us. Back Ludwig came by-and-by, with a dark sneer on his face, and we saw the general hand money to the man.

'Teufel!' one of the fellows who rode beside me muttered, surprise in his voice. 'When the general gives, look to your necks. It will cost some one dear, this! I would not be in that clod's shoes for his booty ten times told!'

Possibly. But I was not so much interested on the clown's account as on my lady's; and one needed only half an eye to see what the general's liberality had effected with her. She was all smiles again, speaking to him with the utmost animation, leaning towards him as she rode. She forgot the Waldgrave, who had fallen back with the rest of us; she forgot all but the general. He went with her to the door of the house, gave his hand to help her to dismount, lingered talking to her on the threshold. And my heart sank. I could have gnashed my teeth with anger as I stood aside uncovered, waiting for him to go.

For how could we combat the man? Such an episode as this, which should have opened my lady's eyes to his true character, served only to restore him to favour and blind her more effectually. It had undone all the good of the afternoon; it had effaced alike the Waldgrave's success and the general's remissness; it had given Tzerclas, who all day had been losing slowly, the upper hand once more. I felt the disappointment keenly.

I suppose it was that which made me think of consulting Fraulein Anna, and begging her to use her influence with my lady to get out of the camp. At any rate, the idea occurred to me. I could not catch her then; but later in the evening, when some acrobats, whom the general had sent for the Countess's diversion, were performing outside, and my lady had gone out to the fallen tree to see them the better, I found the Fraulein alone in the outer room. She looked up at my entrance.

'Who is it?' she said sharply, peering at me with her white, short-sighted face. 'Oh, it is you, Mr. Thickhead, is it? I know whom you have sneaked in to see!' she added spitefully.

'That is well,' I answered civilly. 'For I came in to see you, Fraulein.'

'Oh!' she retorted, nodding her head in a very unpleasant manner. 'Then you want something. I can guess what it is. But go on.'

'If I want something,' I answered, 'and I do, it is in your own behalf, Fraulein. You heard what I said to my lady last night? I did not persuade her. Can you persuade her--to leave the camp and its commander?'

Fraulein Max shook her head. 'Why should I?' she said, smoothing out her skirt with her hands, and looking at me with a cunning smile. 'What have I to gain by persuading her, Master Schwartz?'

'Safety,' I said.

'Oh!' she cried ironically. 'Then let me remind you of something. When we were all safe and comfortable at Heritzburg--safe, mind you--who was it disturbed us? Who was it stirred up my lady to make trouble--more improbi anseris--and though I warned him what would come of it, persisted in it until we had all to flee at night like so many vagrants? Ay, and have never had a quiet night since! Who was that, Master Martin?'

'Fraulein,' I answered patiently, forbearing to remind her how much she had been herself in fault, 'I may have been wrong then. It does not alter the situation now.'

'Does it not?' she replied. 'But I think it does. You had your way at Heritzburg, and what came of it? Trouble and misery. You want your way now, but I shall not help you to it. I have had enough of your way, and I do not like it.'

She laughed triumphantly, seeing me silenced; and I stood looking at her, wondering what argument I could use. Doubtless she had had a comfortless time on the journey from Heritzburg, jogging through fords and over ruts, and along steep places, wet, tired, and scared, deprived of her books and all her home pleasures. She had had time and to spare to lay up many a grudge against me. Now it was her turn, and I read in her face her determination to make the most of it.

I might frighten her; and that seemed my only chance. 'Well, Fraulein,' I said after a pause, 'you may have been right then, and you may be right now. But I hope you have counted the cost. If my lady shows herself determined to leave, to-morrow and perhaps the next day the power of going will remain in her hands. Later it will have passed from her. Familiarity breeds contempt, and even the Countess of Heritzburg cannot stay long in such a camp as this, where nothing is respected, without losing that respect which for the moment protects her. In a day or two, in a few days, the hedge will fall. And then, Fraulein, we may all look to ourselves.'

But Fraulein Anna laughed shrilly. 'O tu anser!' she cried contemptuously. 'Open your eyes! Cannot you see that the general is knee-deep in love with her? In a week he will be head over ears, and her slave!'

I stared at her. Doubtless she knew; she was a woman. I drew a deep breath. 'Well,' I said, 'and what of that?'

She looked at me spitefully. 'Ask my lady!' she said. 'How should I know?'

I returned her gaze, and thought awhile. Then I said coldly, 'I think it is you who are the fool, Fraulein. Take it for granted that what you tell me is true. Have you considered what will happen should my lady repulse him? What will happen to her and to us?'

'She will not,' Fraulein Max answered.

But I saw that the shaft had gone home. She fidgeted on her seat. And I persisted. 'Still, if she does?' I said. 'What then?'

'She will not!' she answered. 'She must not!'

'By Heaven!' I cried, 'you are on his side!'

She blinked at me with her short-sighted eyes. 'And why not?' she said slowly. 'On whose side should I be? My Lord Waldgrave's? He never gives me a word, and seldom recognises my existence. On yours? If you want help, go to the black-eyed puling girl you have brought in, who is always creeping and crawling round us, and would oust me if she and you could manage it and she had the breeding. Chut! don't talk to me,' she continued maliciously, the colour rising to her pale cheeks. 'I wonder that you dare to come to me with such proposals! Is my lady to be ruled by her servants? Has she no judgment of her own? Why, you fool, I have but to tell her, and you are disgraced!'

'As you please, Fraulein,' I said sullenly, stung to anger by one part of her harangue. 'But as to Marie Wort----'

'Marie Wort?' she cried, catching me up and mocking my tone. 'Who said anything about her, I should like to know? Though for my part, had I my way, the popish chit should be whipped!'

'Fraulein!' I cried.

She laughed bitterly. 'Oh, you are fools, you men!' she said. 'But I have made you angry, and that is enough. Go! Yes, go. I have supped on folly. Go, before your mistress comes in; or I must out with all, and lose a power over you.'

I went sullenly. While we had been talking the room had been growing dark. Then it had grown light again with a smoky, dancing glare that played fantastically on the walls and seemed to rise and sink with the murmur of applause outside. They had brought torches made of pine-knots that my lady might see the longer, and in the yellow circle of light which these shed, the mountebanks, monstrously dressed and casting weird shadows, were wrestling and leaping and writhing. The light reached, but fitfully and by flashes, the log on which my lady sat enthroned, with General Tzerclas and the Waldgrave at her side. Still farther away the crowd surged and laughed and gibed in the darkness.

I looked at my lady and found one look enough. I read the utter hopelessness of the attempt I had just made. She was enjoying herself. Fear was not natural to her, and she saw nothing to fear either in the man beside her or the crowd beyond. Suspicion was no part of her character, and she saw nothing to suspect. Had I won Fraulein Max over to my side, as I felt sure that the general had bought her to his, I should equally have had my trouble for my pains, and no more.

My only hope lay in the Waldgrave. He alone, could he once warm into flower the love that hung trembling in the bud, might move her as I would have her moved. But, then, the time? Every hour we remained where we were, every day that rose and found us in the camp, rendered retreat more difficult, the general's plans more definite. He might not yet have made up his mind; he might not yet have hardened his heart to the point of employing force; his passion might be still in the bud, his ambition unshaped. But how long dared I give him?

Assured that here lay the stress, I watched the young lord's progress with an anxiety scarcely less than his own. And the longer I watched the higher rose my hopes. It seemed to me that he went steadily forward in favour, while the general stood still. More than once during the next two days the latter showed himself irritable or capricious. The iron hand began to push through the silken glove. And though, on every one of these occasions, Tzerclas covered his mistake with the dexterity of a man of the world, and my lady's eyes could scarcely be said to be opened, a little coolness resulted, of which the Waldgrave had the benefit.

He, on his part, seemed imperturbable. Love had to all appearance changed his nature. A dozen times in the two days the impulse to fly at his rival's throat must have been strong upon him, yet through all he remained calm, pleasant, and courteous, and carried an old head on young shoulders.

I wondered at last why he did not speak, for I marked the cloud on the general's brow growing darker and darker, and I found the forced inaction and suspense intolerable. Then I gathered, I cannot say why, that the Waldgrave would not speak until after the great banquet to which the general had bidden my lady. It had been deferred a day or two, but on the third day after the shooting-match it took place.