Monsieur Maurice Part 10

"But why? For whom?"

"For whom? Why, for the King, to be sure"; and Corporal Fritz clapped his hand to the side of his hat like a loyal soldier. "Don't you know, dear little Fraulein, that His Majesty sleeps here to-night, on his way to Ehrenbreitstein?"

This was news indeed! I ran up stairs--I was all excitement--I got in everybody's way--I tormented everybody with questions. I saw the table being laid in the grand salon where the King was to sup, and the bedstead being put up in the little salon where he was to sleep, and the ante-room being prepared for his officers. All was being made ready as rapidly, and decorated as tastefully, as the scanty resources of the Chateau would permit. I recognised much of the furniture from the attics above, and this, faded though it was, being helped out with flowers, flags, and greenery, made the great echoing rooms look gay and habitable.

By and by, my father came round to see how the work was going on, and finding me in the midst of it, took me by the hand and led me away.

"You are not wanted here, my little Gretchen," he said; "and, indeed, all the world is so busy to-day that I scarcely know what to do with thee."

"Take me to Monsieur Maurice!" I said, coaxingly.

"Ay--so I will," said my father; "with him, at all events, you will be out of the way."

So he took me round to Monsieur Maurice's rooms, and told me as we went along that the King had only given him six hours' notice, and that in order to furnish his Majesty's bed and his Majesty's supper, he had bought up all the poultry and eggs, and borrowed well-nigh all the silver, gla.s.s, and linen in the town.

By this time we were almost at Monsieur Maurice's door. A sudden thought flashed upon me. I pulled him back, out of the sentry's hearing.

"Oh, father!" I cried eagerly, "will you not ask the King to let Monsieur Maurice free?"

My father shook his head.

"Nay," he said, "I must not do that, my little Madchen. And look you--not a word that the King is coming here to-night. It would only make the prisoner restless, and could avail nothing. Promise me to be silent."

So I promised, and he left me at the door without going in.

I spent all the afternoon with Monsieur Maurice. He divided his luncheon with me; he gave me a French lesson, he told me stories. I had not had such a happy day for months. Hartmann, it is true, was constantly in and out of the room, but even Hartmann was less in the way than usual. He seemed absent and preoccupied, and was therefore not so watchful as at other times. In the meanwhile I could still hear, though faintly, the noises in the rooms below; but all became quiet about five o'clock in the evening, and Monsieur Maurice, who had been told they were only cleaning the state apartments, asked no questions.

Meanwhile the afternoon waned, and the sun bent westward, and still no one came to fetch me away. My father knew where I was; Bertha was probably too busy to think about me; and I was only too glad to stay as long as Monsieur Maurice was willing to keep me. By and by, about half-past six o'clock, the sky became overclouded, and we heard a low muttering of very distant thunder. At seven, it rained heavily.

Now it was Monsieur Maurice's custom to dine late, and ours to dine early; but then, as his luncheon hour corresponded with our dinner-hour, and his dinner fell only a little later than our supper, it came to much the same thing, and did not therefore seem strange. So it happened that just as the storm came up, Hartmann began to prepare the table. Then, in the midst of the rain and the wind, my quick ear caught a sound of drums and bugles, and I knew the King was come. Monsieur Maurice evidently heard nothing; but I could see by Hartmann's face (he was laying the cloth and making a noise with the gla.s.ses) that he knew all, and was listening.

After this I heard no more. The wind raved; the rain pattered; the gloom thickened; and at half-past seven, when the soup was brought to table, it was so dark that Monsieur Maurice called for lights. He would not, however, allow the curtains to be drawn. He liked, he said, to sit and watch the storm.

A cover was laid for me at his right hand; but my supper hour was past, and what with the storm without, the heaviness in the air, and the excitement of the day, I was no longer hungry. So, having eaten a little soup and sipped some wine from Monsieur Maurice's gla.s.s, I went and curled myself up in an easy chair close to the window, and watched the driving mists as they swept across the park, and the tossing of the treetops against the sky.

It was a wild evening, lit by lurid gleams and openings in the clouds; and it seemed all the wilder by contrast with the quiet room and the dim radiance of the wax lights on the table. There was a soft halo round each little flame, and a dreamy haze in the atmosphere, from the midst of which Monsieur Maurice's pale face stood out against the shadowy background, like a head in a Dutch painting.

We were both very silent; partly because Hartmann was waiting, and partly, perhaps, because we had been talking all the afternoon. Monsieur Maurice ate slowly, and there were long intervals between the courses, during which he leaned his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, looking across towards the window and the storm. Hartmann, meanwhile, seemed to be always listening. I could see that he was holding his breath, and trying to catch every faint echo from below.

It was a long, long dinner, and probably seemed all the longer to me because I did not partake of it. As for Monsieur Maurice, he tasted some dishes, and sent more away untouched.

"I think it is getting lighter," he said by and by. "Does it still rain?"

"Yes," I replied; "it is coming down steadily."

"We must open the window presently," he said. "I love the fresh smell that comes with the rain."

Here the conversation dropped again, and Hartmann, having been gone for a moment, came back with a dish of stewed fruit.

Then, for the first time, I observed there was a second attendant in the room.

"Will you not have some raspberries, Gretchen?" said Monsieur Maurice.

I shook my head. I was too much startled by the sight of the strange man, to answer him in words.

Who could he be? Where had he come from? He was standing behind Monsieur Maurice, far back in the gloom, near the door--a small, dark man, apparently; but so placed with regard to the table and the lights, that it was impossible to make out his features with distinctness.

Monsieur Maurice just tasted the raspberries and sent his plate away.

"How heavy the air of the room is!" he said. "Give me some Seltzer-water, and open that farthest window."

Hartmann reversed the order. He opened the window first; and as he did so, I saw that his hand shook upon the hasp, and that his face was deadly pale.

He then turned to the sideboard and opened a stone bottle that had been standing there since the beginning of dinner. He filled a tumbler with the sparkling water.

At the moment when he placed this tumbler on the salver--at the moment when he handed it to Monsieur Maurice--the other man glided quickly forward. I saw his bright eyes and his brown face in the full light. I saw _two hands_ put out to take the gla.s.s; a brown hand and a white--his hand, and the hand of Monsieur Maurice. I saw--yes, before Heaven! as I live to remember and record it, I saw the brown hand grasp the tumbler and dash it to the ground!

"Pshaw!" said Monsieur Maurice, brus.h.i.+ng the Seltzer-water impatiently from his sleeve, "how came you to upset it?"

But Hartmann, livid and trembling, stood speechless, staring at the door.

"It was the other man!" said I, starting up with a strange kind of breathless terror upon me. "He threw it on the ground--I saw him do it--where is he gone? what has become of him?"

"The other man! What other man?" said Monsieur Maurice. "My little Gretchen, you are dreaming."

"No, no, I am not dreaming. There was another man--a brown man! Hartmann saw him--"

"A brown man!" echoed Monsieur Maurice. Then catching sight of Hartmann's face, he pushed his chair back, looked at him steadily and sternly; and said, with a sudden change of voice and manner:--

"There is something wrong here. What does it mean? You saw a man--both of you? What was he like?"

"A brown man," I said again. "A brown man with bright eyes."

"And you?" said Monsieur Maurice, turning to Hartmann.

"I--I thought I saw something," stammered the attendant, with a violent effort at composure. "But it was nothing."

Monsieur Maurice looked at him as if he would look him through; got up, still looking at him; went to the sideboard, and, still looking at him, filled another tumbler with Seltzer-water.

"Drink that," he said, very quietly.

The man's lips moved, but he uttered never a word.

"Drink that," said Monsieur Maurice for the second time, and more sternly.

But Hartmann, instead of drinking it, instead of answering, threw up his hands in a wild way, and rushed out of the room.

Monsieur Maurice stood for a moment absorbed in thought; then wrote some words upon a card, and gave the card into my hand.