Now it is well known that love makes the wisest of mankind foolish, and that the poet in love is a perfectly unaccountable being. Eberhard Ludwig was poet and lover, and he lost his head on this occasion.
'Returned to stay, dear lady, as long as my poor court can harbour and amuse so fair a visitant!' he said; then, turning to Madame de Ruth, he added in a lower tone, which was yet perfectly audible to most of the assembled company: 'The rain-cloud brought back sunshine to us. A flash of lightning carried her from Elysium to earth once more. A mysterious Black Cupid led her to me! but we must be very careful, for she can vanish at will, this beautiful enchantress.'
It was said in extravagant homage, half in pleasantry, but several of those present, and notably the Duchess's waiting-women, heard the unwise words. When Wilhelmine swept past them on her way to her chamber they drew back in superstitious awe, and she heard them murmur, 'Witch and sorceress! we must not offend her.'
CHAPTER X
THE ATTACK IN THE GROTTO
The court of Stuttgart soon saw to its cost that Wilhelmine had of a truth 'come to stay this time,' as she herself had announced on the evening of her return from the Judengasse. After a few days spent in her old quarters in the castle, she removed to a hastily improvised abode on the first floor of the Duke's Jägerhaus. Here had been the official residence of his Highness's Grand Maître de la Meute, and this personage, who was relegated to a small and inconvenient dwelling-place, naturally resented his eviction. Public disapproval was excited by the summary commandeering of a well-known official residence; and when, following upon their keeper's ejection, the stag-hounds and hare-coursers were removed from the Jägerhaus, the Stuttgarters murmured ominously. It had long been a highly prized privilege of the townsfolk to repair, each Sunday and Feast-day, to view the hounds—in fact, this custom had become one of their social entertainments. The burghers and their families were wont to meet together in the stretch of garden which bordered the open rails of the enclosure, where the hounds took their afternoon airing on idle, non-hunting days. The citizens loved to watch the dogs' antics, and regarded it as their recognised Sunday afternoon amusement. In the Graben, or disused town moat, turned road, stood the Jägerhaus—a long, barn-like building, the entire ground-floor whereof was occupied by the dog-kennels, which opened to the back on paddocks. On the first floor were many spacious apartments, hitherto used for the administration of the affairs of his Highness's hunt, and for lodging the Jägermasters of distant posts in the forests, who came to Stuttgart on official business; and here, too, was the residence of the Grand Master of the Hunt and hounds. On the third floor, beneath the high sloping roof, were a few garrets and several large lofts filled with the straw destined for the dog-kennels. The mingled odours of hounds and straw displeased Wilhelmine's acute sense of smell, and one of her first commands upon entering her new abode was that hounds and straw should be removed instantly. She declared that therefrom the whole house was infested with fleas, and when the Duke, wishful to propitiate the angry lady, proposed to send for the late occupant of the Jägerhaus to inquire if he had been aware of his neighbours, the fleas, she remarked angrily that fleas were dainty feeders and, like Jews, were not in the habit of selecting pigskin for food. This remark was evidently heard by some unfriendly person, for on the morrow it was the common talk of the town. A few days later the hounds were seen progressing through Stuttgart on their way to temporary kennels hastily arranged in the Rothwald. The populace followed this cortège shouting, 'They are taking away our beautiful hounds, and leaving an accursed bitch in the old kennels!' And that day when Serenissimus drove out, accompanied as usual by Wilhelmine, he was met by an angry murmuring crowd. Here was the beginning of that unpopularity of Wilhelmine's which gave the lie to the devotion of her friends, and notably her personal attendants and servants. This unpopularity which had so terrible an effect on her character, hardening her heart, accentuating the underlying cruelty, the indifference to aught save her own pleasure and power. Feeling herself accounted evil, she became so. It was this, taken together with her magnificent success and her extraordinary prosperity, which caused her to become a cruel and self-seeking woman. Monsieur Gabriel, in the far-off days at Güstrow, had feared this development, had trembled before the world-hardness which would mar the being he loved. How many have trembled at the same thought, and in sadness and loneliness have realised that their dread has become a cruel reality! We can face Death for those we love, mourning them in agony and tears, but we can find no beauty in that bitter and hideous grief which comes to us when those we loved, we trusted, we admired, change to us—worst of all, change in themselves. This is the inexorable Death in Life, and in this Death we cannot dream of a fair consoling Hereafter. The thing we loved has not only perished—alas! we realise that it has never existed! What we worshipped was the shadow of our own making, a mirage conjured up by our heart's desire. To those who love most, love best, this tragedy comes.
Wilhelmine, who arrived in Wirtemberg a strong, passionate creature, generous, vital, was too responsive to remain unaltered by the alchemising touch of the world. Had she been met with tenderness and purity, and by noble men and women, she might have become a power for good; as it was, she was received by intrigue, contending interests, disapproval, distrust, the lust of love. As a good woman there was no place for her at Wirtemberg's court, so all the evil, lying dormant in every human heart, rose up in her, and she became a Queen of Wickedness. Monsieur Gabriel would have mourned another lost illusion, had not Death taken him from this world a few months after Wilhelmine's departure from Güstrow. He bequeathed to her his well-worn books, Les Pensées de Pascal, Le Roman de la Rose, the poems of the singers of La Pleïade, and the few other volumes wherefrom he had instructed his beloved pupil. He left, besides, a little sealed packet, in which she was surprised to find several beautiful jewels, among them a white enamel cross, in the centre whereof was the image of a dove with outspread wings.
Eberhard Ludwig told her these were the insignia of a high order in France, and she was thereby confirmed in her notion that her beloved old schoolmaster's great air and immense refinement were those of a grand seigneur. She often pondered on why a Huguenot had been permitted to bear the holy order of the St. Esprit upon his breast, but she remembered that Monsieur Gabriel had spoken of the court festivities with that sure accent which told that he had been of the caste which took part in those scenes. She never learnt his secret; to her credit, she never sought to unravel it. The Grävenitz was what the world calls wicked, but vulgarity and vulgarity's attendant, curiosity, could not touch her, and she respected the silence of her friends, though she ever spied upon her enemies. The news of Monsieur Gabriel's death was brought to Wilhelmine soon after her advent at the Jägerhaus, and for many days the favourite refused to see any one save Eberhard Ludwig. She mourned her old friend sincerely, and wept bitterly when she saw the worn volumes he had bequeathed to her. The cross she fastened round her neck on a thin gold chain, and this badge of a sacred order rested for many years on the heart of the strange, evil woman. You can see the tiny line of this chain in the few known portraits of Wilhelmine von Grävenitz. These pictures are very rare, Time and Hatred have hidden them but too well. Indeed, it is as though all the Swabian virtue had conspired together to obliterate the memory, with the portraits, of the abhorred 'Grävenitzin.'
