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Pride of Jennico

[287] <h2 class="p4">CHAPTER IV</h2> I rushed out into the street, treading as if on air, my cloak floating behind me, my head thrown back, all warnings unheeded in the first overpowering tide of this joy which had come upon me at the darkest hour of all. I had told myself that I must act, and act at once. But till I had had a moment’s breathing time to realise the extraordinary revelations by which the whole face of the past and of the future was changed to me, I could form no coherent thought, much less could I form plans. I wanted space for this—space and solitude. And so I hurried along as I have described, looking neither to the right nor to the left, when I was seized upon from behind, and by no means gentle hands brought me first to a standstill, and next threw the folds of my cloak around me in such a fashion as once more to cover my face. “Are you mad?” said János, with a fiercer display of anger than I had ever known him show to me, though he had marshalled me pretty rigidly through my illness. “I have been following[288] you these five minutes, and all the town stares at your honour. ’Tis lucky you took a side turning just now or you would have been straight into the great place, perhaps into the main guard. If you want to look for death, you can go to the wars like my old master, but ’tis an ill thing to find it in the assassin’s blade, as I thought you had learned by now. Do you forget,” continued János, scolding more vehemently, “that they are all leagued against you in this country? Do you forget how they packed you out of the land last year, and warned you never to return? ’Tis very well to risk one’s life, but ’tis ill to throw it away.” “Oh, János, true soul,” said I, as soon as I could get air to speak with, for his grasp upon the folds of my cloak was like an iron clamp, “all is changed, all is explained. You saw me last the most miserable of men: you see me now the happiest!” We had paused in a deserted alley leading into the gardens on the ramparts. As I looked round I saw that the sky had grown darkly overcast, and by János’s pinched face, as well as by the bowing and bending of the trees, that the wind had risen strong and cold. To me it might have been the softest breeze of spring. I drew the man over to a bench all frosted already by tiny flakes which fell persistently, yet sparsely, and there I told him my[289] tale of joy. He listened, blinking and grinning. At length when it was duly borne in upon him that the wife I was seeking was really and actually the Princess of the land, he clasped his hands and cried with a certain savage enthusiasm: “Oh, that my old master had lived to see the day!” But the next instant the bristling difficulties of the situation began to oppress his aged heart. He pondered with a falling face. “Then your honour is in even greater danger than I had thought,” said he, “and every second he passes in this town of cut-throats adds to the risk.” “Even so,” said I, clapping him on the shoulders, my spirits rising higher, it seemed, with every fresh attempt to depress them,—“Even so, my good fellow; and therefore since my wife I mean to have, and since I mean to live to be happy with her, what say you to our carrying her off this very night?” He made no outcry: he knew the breed (he himself had said it) too well. As you may see a dog watch his master’s signal to dash after the prey, wagging his tail faintly the while, so the fellow turned and fixed me. “And how will your honour do it?” said he without a protest. [290] “How?” said I, and laughed aloud; “by my soul I know not! I know nothing yet, but we will home to the inn and deliberate. There is nought so difficult but love will find the way, and Romeos will scale walls to reach their Juliets so long as this old world lasts.” I rose as I spoke, and so did János, shaking the snow from his bent shoulders. “I know nothing of the gentlemen your honour speaks of, nor of the ladies, but my old master, your honour’s uncle, did things in his days.... God forgive me that I should remember them against a holy soul in heaven! There was a time when he kept a whole siege (it was before Reichenberg in ’59)—a whole siege waiting, ordered a cessation of fire for a night, that he might visit some lady in the town. He was the general of the besieging army, and he could order as he pleased. By Saint Stephen, he got into the town somehow ... and I with him ... and next morning we got out again! No one knew where we had been but himself, and myself, and herself—he, he!—and before midday we had that town.” “Fie, fie, János,” said I, “these are sad tales of a field-marshal; let us hope my good aunt never heard them.” “Her Excellency,” said János, and crossed himself,[291] “would have gloried in the deed. But, your honour, we have the heavens against us to-night; I have not seen a sky look blacker, even in England, since the great storm at Tollendhal.... Ah, your honour remembers when.” “All the better,” said I, as we turned the corner; “a stormy night is the best of nights for a bold deed.” And I thought within myself: “I lost her in the storm; in the storm shall I find her again.” Thus does a glad heart frame his own omen. It was all very fine to talk of carrying off my wife in such fashion; but when, seated together near the fire in my room, talking in whispers so that not even the great stove door could catch the meaning of our conclave, János and I discussed our plans, we found that everything fell before the insuperable difficulty of our ignorance of the topography of the palace. There seemed nothing for it but to endeavour to interview Anna once more, dangerous as the process might be. And we were already discussing in what character János should present himself, when Fortune—that jade that had long turned so cold a shoulder upon me—came to the rescue in the person of the good woman herself. There was a hard knock at the door, which made us both, conspirators as we[292] were, jump apart, and I involuntarily felt for the pistol in my coat skirts, whilst János stalked to open. And there stood the lank black figure which had once seemed to cast a sort of shadow on my young delight, but which now I greeted as that of an angel of deliverance. She loved her mistress, her mistress loved me—what could she do me then but good? I sprang forward and drew her in by both hands. She threw back the folds of her hood and looked round upon us, and her grim anxious countenance relaxed into something like a smile. Then she dropped me a stiff curtsey, and coming close to my ear: “I gave my mistress the gracious master’s letter,” she said, and paused. I seized upon her hand again. “Oh, Anna, dear Anna, how is she? How did she take it? Was she much concerned? Was she ...” I hesitated, “was she glad to learn I am not dead?” The woman’s eyes looked as if they would fain speak volumes, but her taciturn tongue gave utterance to few words. “My mistress,” she said, “wept much, and thanked God.” That was all, but I was satisfied. [293] “She is in much fear for you,” the messenger went on after a pause. “She bade me say she dared not write because of the danger to you; she bade me say that the danger is greater than you know of; that your enemies are other than you think. Now they believe you dead, but you may be recognised. And you were out to-day again!” said Anna, suddenly dropping the sing-song whisper of her recitation and turning upon me sternly with uplifted finger. “Out, in spite of my warning! I know, for I came to the inn to find you. All this is foolish.” “And this is the end of your message?” said I, who had been drinking in every word my wife’s sweet lips had so sweetly spoken for me. “Was there nothing else?” said I again, for my soul hungered for a further sign of love. “There was one thing more,” said Anna in her stolid way: “she bade me say she would contrive to see you somehow soon, but that as you love her you must keep hidden.” I shut my eyes for a second to taste in the secret of my heart the honeyed savour of that little phrase that meant so much: “as you love me!” for there rang the unmistakable appeal of love to love! And I smiled to think that she still reserved the telling of her secret. I guessed it[294] was because she was pleased that I should want her for herself, and not for the vain pride that had been our undoing. And then, with my bold resolve a thousandfold strengthened, I caught Anna by the arm. “Now listen,” said I, and stooped to bring my lips to her ear. “When I went out this afternoon it was to good purpose. I have seen Frau Lothner.... I know all.” “Lord God!” cried Anna, and snatched her hand from mine and threw her arms to heaven, her long brown face overspread with pallor; “and she has seen you, has recognised you—the Court doctor’s wife! Then God help us all! If the secret is not out to-day it will be to-morrow. Oh, my poor child, my poor child!” She rocked herself to and fro in a paroxysm of indignant grief. “But,” said I, trying to soothe her that she might listen to my plan, “Madam Lothner is an old friend of mine, she is devoted to the Princess, she has a kind heart, she has promised me discretion.” “She!” said Anna, and paused to throw me a look of unutterable scorn. “She, the sheep-head! in the hands of such an one as the Court doctor! My lord, I give you but to midnight to[295] escape! for as it happens—and God is merciful that it happens so—the Margrave has sent for the doctor at his camp of Liegnitz, and he will not return until after supper.” “So be it,” said I gaily; “escape I shall, Anna, but not alone.” The woman’s sallow face grew paler yet. The depth of the love for the child she had nursed at her breast gave her perspicacity. Her eye sought mine with fearful anticipation. I drew her to the furthest end of the room and rapidly expounded my project, which developed itself in my mind even as I spoke. Outside the snow was falling fast. All good citizens were within doors; there was as yet no suspicion of my presence in the town; the palace was quiet and my bitterest enemy was absent; to delay would be to lose our only chance. The passion of my arguments, none the less forcible, perhaps, because of the stress of circumstances which kept my voice at whisper pitch, bore down Anna’s protests, her peasant’s fears. I had, I believe, a powerful auxiliary in the woman’s knowledge of all that her beloved mistress might be made to suffer upon the discovery of my reappearance. She felt the convincing truth of my statement, that if the attempt was to be made at all it must[296] be made this very night, and she saw too that I said true when I told her I would only give up such attempt with my life. Moreover (joy as yet hardly realised!) she knew that my wife’s happiness lay in me alone; and so she agreed, with unexpected heartiness, to every detail of my scheme. She was to meet me at the end of the palace garden lane before the stroke of eight, two hours hence, and admit me through a side postern into the garden itself. We were obliged to fix so early an hour to avoid the necessity of running twice past sentries, who, it seemed, were doubled around the palace after eight o’clock. The Princess’s apartments were upon the first floor on the garden side, and from the terrace below it was quite possible, it appeared, for an active man to climb up to her balcony. I would bring a rope-ladder—János should make it, for he had no doubt some knowledge of that scaling implement. As soon as she had shown me the way, Anna was to endeavour to prepare her mistress for my coming. János in his turn was to be waiting with my carriage and post-horses as near the garden gate as he dared. The Princess, the nurse told me, was wont to retire about nine, it might be a little earlier or later, and liked then to be left in solitude,[297] Anna herself being the only person admitted to her chamber. Among the many risks there was one inevitable, the danger of being discovered by my wife lurking on her balcony before Anna had had time to carry her message: for it was impossible, the woman warned me, that she should now see her mistress before the latter descended to meet the Duke at supper. I was, however, gaily prepared to face this risk, and even, foolhardy as it may seem, desired in my inmost soul that there should be no intermediary on this occasion, and that my lips only should woo her back to me; that this first meeting after our hard parting should be sacred to ourselves alone. I reckoned besides upon the fact that since Ottilie knew I was in the town, she would not be surprised at my boldness, however desperate; that she would ascertain with her own eyes who it was who dared climb so high, before she called for help. At length, when everything was clear,—and the woman showed after all a wonderful mother wit,—Anna departed in the storm, and I and János were left to our own plans and preparations. As for me, my heart had never ridden so high; never for a second did I pause or hesitate. In a few minutes[298] we had devised half a dozen alternate schemes of flight, all equally good—all equally precarious. “Will your honour leave it to me,” said the old campaigner at last, as he sat beginning to plait and knot various lengths of our luggage ropes into an escape ladder,—“the settlement of the inn account, the post-horses, and the choice of the road?” With this I was content. The wind had abated a little, but the snow was still falling steadily when I set forth at length. The streets were, as I expected, very empty, and the few wayfarers whom I chanced to meet were so enveloped and so plastered with white, the chief thought of every one was so obviously how best to keep himself warm, how soonest to get within shelter, that I hugged myself again upon my luck. There was a glow within me which defied the elements. At the corner of the garden lane, at the appointed place, even as the tower clock began the quarter chimes, I saw a woman’s figure rapidly approaching the trysting spot from the opposite direction. I hesitated for a moment, uncertain as to its identity, but it made straight for me, and I saw it was Anna. As we turned into the lane itself she suddenly whispered: “Put your arm round my waist,” and the next[299] instant, from the very midst of my amazement, I realised her meaning: we had to pass close by a sentry-box. Woman’s wits are ever sharper than man’s. The sentry was stamping to and fro, beating his breast with his disengaged hand, but ceased his bear dance to stare at us, as we came within the light of the postern lamp, and launched at the dim couple so lovingly embraced some rude witticism in his peasant tongue, accompanied by a grunt of good-natured laughter. My supposed sweetheart pulled her hood further over her face, answered back tartly with a couple of words in the country dialect; and, followed by an ironical blessing from the churl, we were free to pursue our way unchallenged. This was the only obstacle we encountered; the lane was quite deserted. We stopped before a little postern door half buried in ivy, which Anna, producing a key from her pocket, unlocked after some difficulty. At last it rolled back on its rusty hinges with what sounded in my ears as an exultant creak. An ancient bird’s nest fell upon my head as we passed through into the garden. Anna carefully pushed the door to once more, but without locking it, and we hastened towards the distant gleaming front of the palace, stumbling as we went, for the soft snow concealed the irregularities[300] of the path. Without hesitation, however, my guide led me between two fantastically carved hedges of box and yew till we came to a statue, rearing a blurred outline, ghostly white in the faint snowlight. Here she stood still and pointing to the south wing: “There,” she said, while all the blood in my body leaped, “there are my mistress’s apartments; see you those three windows above the terrace? The middle window with the balcony is that of her Highness’s bedroom. You cannot mistake it. The ivy is as thick as a man’s arm, and you may climb by it in safety. Now that I have done what you bade me I will go to the palace. God see us through this mad night’s work!” With these words she left me. I ventured to the foot of the terrace wall, and creeping alongside soon found the terrace steps, which I ascended with a tread as noiseless as the fall of the thick snowflakes all around me. I stood under her balcony. I groped for the ivy-stems, and found them indeed as thick as cables. It was a plant of centenarian growth, and it clasped the old palace walls with a hundred arms, as close as welded iron: as strong and commodious a ladder as my purpose required. I swung myself up (I tremble now to think how recklessly, when one false step[301] might have ended the life that had grown so dear), and next I found myself upon the balcony—Ottilie’s balcony!—and through the parted curtains could peer into her lighted room. Then for the first time I paused, hesitating to pry upon her retirement like a thief in the night. For a moment I knelt upon the snow and cried in my heart for pardon to her. Then, drawing cautiously aside from the shaft of light, I looked in. It was a large lofty apartment with much gilding, tarnished it seemed by time, and with faded paintings and medallions on the walls. In an alcove curtained off I divined in the shadow a great carved bed, whose gilt curves caught now and again a gleam of ruby light from the open door of an immense rose china stove. My eyes lingered tenderly over every detail of the sanctuary sacred to my lady. Outside upon the balcony, all in the darkness, the cold, and the snow, my whole being began to swim in a dreamy warmth of love. It is like enough that had not something come to rouse me, I might have been found next morning, stiff, frozen upon my perch, with a smile upon my lips—a very sweet and easy death! But from this dangerous dreaminess I was presently aroused to vivid watchfulness and energy.[302] My wandering gaze had been for a little while uncomprehendingly fixed upon a shining wing of flowered satin stuff that trailed on one side of a great armchair, the back of which was turned towards me. This wing of brocade caught the full illumination of the candles on the wall and showed hues of pink and green as dainty as the monthly roses in the garden of my old home in England. Now as I gazed the roses began to move as if a breeze had shaken them, and lo! the next moment, a little hand as white as milk fluttered down like a dove upon them and drew them out of sight. For a second my heart stood still, and then beat against my breast like a frantic wild thing of the woods against the bars of its cage. She was there, there already, my beloved! What kept me from breaking in upon her, I cannot say—a sort of fear of looking upon her face again in the midst of my great longing—or maybe my good angel! Anyhow I paused, and pausing was saved. For in a second more a door opposite to me opened, and an elderly lady, followed by two servants carrying a table spread for a repast, entered the room. The lady came towards the armchair and curtsied. I saw her lips move and caught the murmur of her voice, and listened next in vain for the music of those[303] tones for which my ear had hungered so many days and nights. I saw the white hand cleave the air again as if with an impatient gesture. The lady curtsied, the lackeys deposited the table near the chair, and all three withdrew. I had trusted to fate to be kind to me this night, but I had not dared expect from fate more than neutrality; and now it was clear that it was taking sides for me, and that my wife had been strangely well inspired to sup in her chamber alone, instead of in public with her father, as I had been told was her wont. No sooner had the attendants retired than I beheld her light figure spring up with the old bounding impetuosity I had loved and laughed at, fling herself against the door, and I heard the snap of the key. Now was my opportunity! And yet again I hesitated and watched. My face was pressed against the glass in the full glare of the light, without a thought of caution, forgetting that, were she to look up and see me, the woman alone might well scream at the wild, eager face watching her with burning eyes from out of the black night. But she did not look up. Wheeling round at the door itself as if she could not even wait to get back to her chair, Ottilie—my[304] Ottilie—drew from beneath the lace folds that crossed upon her young bosom a folded letter, which I recognized, by the coarse grey paper, as that which my own hand had scored in the little provision shop a few hours ago. An extraordinary mixture of emotions seized upon my soul: a sort of shame of myself again for spying upon her private life, and an unutterable rapture. I could have knelt once more in the snow as before a sacred shrine, and I could have broken down a fortress to get to her. From the very strength of the conflict I was motionless, with all my life still in my eyes. When she had finished reading she lifted her face for a moment, and then for the first time I saw it. Oh, dear face, paled with many tears and dark thoughts, but beautiful, beyond even my heated fancy, with a new beauty, rarer and more exquisite than it is given me to describe! The same, yet not the same! The wife I had left had been a wilful and wayward child, a mocking sprite—the wife I here found again was a gracious, a ripe and tender woman, upon whose lips and eyes sat the seal of a noble, sorrowful endurance. She lifted the letter to her lips and kissed it, looked up again, and then our eyes met! Then I[305] hardly remember what I did. I was unconscious of any deliberate thought; I only knew that there was my wife, and that not another second should pass before I had her in my arms. I suppose I must have hurled myself against the casement; the lock yielded, and the window flew open. Enveloped in a whirl of floating snow I leaped into the warm room. With dilated, fixed eyes, with parted lips, she stood, terror-stricken, at first, yet erect and undaunted. I had counted all along on her courage, and it did not fail me! But before I had even time to speak, such a change came over her as is like the first upspring of sunlight upon the colourless world of dawn. As you may see a wave gather itself aloft to break upon the shore, so she drew herself up and flung herself, melting into tears, body and soul, as it were, upon my heart. And the next moment her lips sought mine. Never before had she so come to me—never before had life held for me such a moment! Oh, my God! it was worth the suffering! <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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