Her feet once on the firm sand of the alley, she girded up her impeding skirts. The dim stone figures on each side seemed, to her excited fancy, to move their heads and bend over to stare in wonder, to bid her haste away, wise in old knowledge of the guilty secrets of such a court. Somehow, these silent figures were company to her and she missed their presence when she plunged into the first turning which, she trusted, would lead towards the town. Yet, the darkness of the trees closing about her brought a new sense of protection. She was not of those who feel the night-horror of the woods; the trees were her friends from childhood; they knew her and she them. The softness and damp smell of the autumn leaves beneath her tread were grateful to her senses. The sound of the Kleine-Fulda on her stony bed guided her way to a narrow Chinese bridge over the ribbon of water. Soon she had to advance more slowly once again and feel her way: here the ground began to ascend, the trees to give place to shrubs; the path doubled and twisted suddenly. A blank wall sprang at her out of the gloom. She drew a quick breath. An illumined window-pane blinked:—it was the hoped-for gate of her escape, could she now but elude the sentry's challenge or carry herself with such assurance as to be allowed a passage.
But in Jerome's kingdom it was the unexpected that usually happened. By the gate stood, indeed, the inevitable sentry-box; but as, with her heart beating in her throat, Sidonia approached tiptoe with endless precautions, behold, it was empty! The gate itself was open. From within the guardian's lodge, behind that blinking window, came a merry burst of song and laughter. Clearly it was "like master like man." If Jerome thought that the enjoyment of the hour was the most urgent business of existence, so did his servants, including his park sentries. There was no doubt of the wholeheartedness of the entertainment in the side lodge of the royal garden that night.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE HOMING BIRD
"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee...."
(The Taming of the Shrew).
The street into which she stepped was ill-lighted, and contained but a few poor houses facing the park walls. It seemed to lead downwards to the open country and upwards to the heart of the town.
Lifting her torn and draggled skirts as neatly as she could, and pulling the folds of her hood and cloak more closely about her, she started with decision on the upward way. Here she must go sedately, though the hammering of her own pulses seemed like the footsteps of pursuers and a mad impulse, ever and anon, seized her to run. The gloom of the park had been infinitely less terrible than the town with its staring belated wayfarers, its circles of light under the hanging oil lamps, its nauseous strips of darkness where the miserable houses seemed to touch each other above her head, and where gutters mingled in noisomeness down the middle of the street. She looked back on the solitude, with its clean pine breath, as a haven of shelter. But she tramped unfalteringly the maze of dirty streets, only pausing twice to inquire the way.
The first time she was kindly answered by the poor faded woman she had stopped.... The Hôtel de l'Aigle Impérial was in the Koenig's Platz. To reach it one must take to the left, then to the right, till one crossed the Friedrich's Platz; then, keeping along the Obere Koenig's Gasse, one would find herself by the Hotel.... The woman wrapped her thin shawl closer about her shoulders, smiled vaguely in response to Sidonia's thanks and sped on—God knows to what miserable home. Trying to follow her instructions, Sidonia, chilled, fatigued and bewildered, soon began to doubt again, and requested the help of the next reputable-looking being of her sex on her path. This was a stout, red-faced dame, followed by a serving wench with a lantern; some excellent business woman on the way to fetch her man from the beerhouse, doubtless. She measured Sidonia from head to foot, caught the gleam of the muddied satin of her skirts, of the pearls at her throat, and suddenly, instead of replying to the meek question, began to rate her in round dialect for a trollop and a strumpet: "Du, mein Jott, and she so young, too!"
Most of the epithets were meaningless to Sidonia; but voice and eye were not. And when the virtuous dame proceeded to threats of night-watch and lock-up, the girl fairly took to her heels and ran blindly.
When labouring heart and panting lungs forced a halt upon her, she found herself in the very region of her seeking. By the wide space around her, the better lighting, the statue dominating in the centre of the tree-planted square, this could be no other than the Friedrich's Platz. But even as she paused to draw a quieter breath, before proceeding again, a new alarm was upon her.