On the other side, Schütz in Vienna had made no headway. The mock court continued as before, sometimes at Urach, sometimes at Tübingen or Wildbad. Stuttgart was deserted, save for the mournful presence of the unhappy Duchess.
The Countess of Urach's circle widened considerably, constantly enlarged by inquisitive travellers, and it was marvellous how many of these persons lingered and took root in the easy, evil soil of this unhallowed, unlawful court. The very servants were for the most part of doubtful character, and it is remarkable how successfully the Grävenitz ruled her strangely composed household. She had the power to win hearts when she chose, and she did choose where her domestics were concerned. Her method was based on the human point of view. 'If I take this rascal into my service and treat him well, he will respond by gratitude. At least, he will be bound to me and to my interests. Should he betray me I can punish him; but he is too disreputable for any one else to defend, therefore he is mine, my creature.' These theories she expounded to Madame de Ruth, never to Serenissimus. He, poor deluded one, thought his mistress a very charitable lady, and loved her the more for her kindness to sinners. Among this motley crew of her choosing was an Italian of the name of Ferrari, who had come to Tübingen with a troupe of strolling actors.
In Tübingen the man had fallen ill, and Wilhelmine, hearing through the maid Maria of the Italian's misery, caused him to be nursed back to life. Then, when the grateful rascal came to thank his benefactress, she took him into her service. The man proved himself useful; he was quick and intelligent, and conceived a dog-like affection for the Grävenitz, who rewarded him by employing him in any secret message she desired to be conveyed. He it was who procured for her the various ingredients she used in her magic brewings. He who spied upon the Duchess, for Wilhelmine had a morbid curiosity to know each action of the woman she injured. The people whispered that Ferrari instructed the Grävenitz in the mysterious and terrible secrets of Italian poisons. This gossip reached the ears of Johanna Elizabetha and she trembled, fearing poison in all she ate, in all she touched, in the petals of the roses of the castle garden, in the dust which lay on the road.
An ugly story leaked out. The Duchess's head cook, Glaser by name, recounted how Ferrari had visited him and offered him a purse of gold and a little phial which contained a greyish white powder. This, Ferrari had told him, was a rare medicine known in Italy alone; it would cause a barren woman to become fruitful. The Italian told Glaser that this precious physic was sent for her Highness Johanna Elizabetha by one who loved her well and would fain serve her. Glaser was desired to sprinkle it on the Duchess's food, but her Highness must be unaware of its presence, for such knowledge would destroy the medicine's efficacy. Glaser replied that he would willingly serve so noble and unfortunate a lady as Johanna Elizabetha, but he refused to take the responsibility of administering the powder. If, however, Ferrari first showed it to the court doctor, Schubart, Glaser would undertake to mix the stuff into some dish for her Highness. At mention of the physician, Ferrari disappeared and did not return. Then Glaser averred he had been set upon near the Judengasse one dark night, soon after Ferrari's visit. Two masked bravos attacked him from behind, and it was only by the chance passing of the town guard that he had escaped with his life. Her Highness heard this story and she smiled bitterly, knowing that her barren state proceeded from a very important omission, and that no powder could be efficacious. And who should know this better than the Grävenitz? the sender of this absurd powder, as the Duchess surmised. 'Poison!' said the Duchess, and despatched a broken-hearted letter to Vienna telling of her bodily peril.
The days lengthened, bright April came with the calling and rustling of Spring in all the air. There were mighty gay doings again at Urach, but Stuttgart held aloof. Things had gone too far; the story of the white powder had played the Grävenitz an evil turn, and people were genuinely horrified at her wickedness. Not a jot cared Wilhelmine. 'The Stuttgarters were such provincials, such shabby, heavy, rude louts,' said the lady from Güstrow. There were no festivities at the castle in Stuttgart. How should there be with the agonised, deserted woman as hostess?
It was her Highness's custom to pray and meditate in solitude for an hour when the day waned. She led a busy, if sedentary, life; sewing her eternal garments of coarse flannel for the poor while Madame de Stafforth read aloud from books of piety. A number of poor people came to the castle, and her Highness was ever ready—nay, eager, to listen to their tales of misery and to distribute alms to these her only courtiers. Then there were the legal reports of the learned doctors-at-law engaged upon her matrimonial business. Johanna Elizabetha welcomed the twilight hour's solitary musing. Poor soul! often she spent this hour on her knees, mourning her sorrow before God.
One evening towards the middle of April, the Duchess had withdrawn as usual to her own apartments leaving Madame de Stafforth in the chief salon reading a sermon by an eminent Swiss divine. The two ladies had felt strangely nervous and anxious during the afternoon, and several times it had seemed to her Highness that she heard stealthy footsteps on the inner gallery of the courtyard, but when she questioned the page-in-waiting whose duty it was to watch at the door of the ante-hall leading to her Highness's rooms, the youth replied that he had seen and heard nothing. The Duchess told herself she was becoming a fearsome, anxious old woman, and she endeavoured to smile down the haunting feeling of some unseen, creeping presence. Still it was with a sense of trepidation that she entered the small room where she was wont to meditate each evening when the day's wearisome, self-imposed labours were ended. This room lay beyond her Highness's sleeping chamber and had a small balcony looking over the Lustgarten.
This apartment was plainly furnished, almost monastic in its simplicity: one chair, a small bureau, a table on which lay a few books of sermons and volumes of theological treatises, and a praying-stool stood against the wall. The only thing recalling the vanities of the world was a mirror let into the panel above the praying-stool. Indeed, this mirror was a relic of one of poor Johanna Elizabetha's few happy hours. Eberhard Ludwig had ordered the whole room to be panelled with mirrors, having seen some such conceit in a château in France during his travels. He had thought to please her Highness by this attention, but the dull, awkward woman had forbidden the completion of the plan: it was a wrongful waste of money, she averred, and a French vanity! So Eberhard Ludwig had angrily commanded the workmen to desist, and, wounded and offended, he had reflected on his wife's lack of appreciation of the little elegancies of life. True, she had seemed pleased by his thought of her, she had thanked him—but she had declined his present!
The only alteration in the castle which Johanna Elizabetha had ever been known to order had been done, to the surprise of all, some time after the Duke's desertion of his wife and son. The entire suite of apartments which her Highness occupied had been redecorated. The panelling, which was of time-mellowed oak, the Duchess had caused to be painted black, the chairs and tables of her rooms were covered with black brocade, and the window curtains were fashioned of the same sombre material. It was a strange fancy, the exaggeration of a brain strung up, taut and strained to a quivering line on the border of insanity. Yet the Duchess was not mad, only sad to desperation, utterly humiliated, shuddering with despair and shame. Possibly the unhappy woman, shut into the silence of her dumb personality, had here sought to give expression to her voiceless agony.
The effect of these black walls, black furniture, black hangings, was odiously funereal. Some one said that her Highness should complete the picture of mourning by donning the sinister trappings of the Swabian widow—the bound brow, the nunlike hood, the swathing band with which South German widows of mediæval times hid their lips from the sight of all men, in token of their bereavement and enforced chastity.