A German Pompadour Part 11

Forstner, of course, urged patience; the missing one would return or communicate, he said; but the Duke greeted the word patience with such an outburst of anger that the 'Bony One' retired discomfited and gave orders for the search with apparent zeal.

Evening fell on the sun-baked streets of Stuttgart, and a faint breeze wafted a recollection of field and wood through the open windows of the castle. Eberhard Ludwig paced up and down, near the fountain in the castle gardens, where he had been with Wilhelmine on the moonlit night of the theatricals three months ago. He flung himself down upon the stone bench where they had sat together. He covered his eyes with his hands, he was tortured with memories, thrilled again to past raptures; his desire was aroused, increased a hundred-fold by the anguish of absence. Could it be true that such pa.s.sion's enchantments were never to be his again? he asked himself. His memory conjured up a thousand charms of his beloved, her voice, her laugh, her touch. 'Wilhelmine, Wilhelmine!'

He sprang up. 'G.o.d! it is awful! Wilhelmine, my love, my mistress!' he said aloud. Ridiculous poet-fellow! he listened as though he expected an answer.

In the distance there was a rumble of thunder, and the restless breeze rioted suddenly in the tree-branches for a moment, pa.s.sed onward, then swept back again rustling, then came a roll of thunder closer than the last. Another pause--fateful it seemed, as though the garden trembled before the coming storm. A white flash played intermittently upon the fountain, followed by a thunderclap directly overhead, and a torrent of rain poured down. The Duke stood still a moment, the rain beating upon him. The storm delighted him, it answered to his tempestuous mood. He turned away from the castle and walked in the direction of the garden boundary on the south side, pa.s.sing the drawbridge over the disused and flower-filled moat of the castle wall. What would have been his emotions had he known that his fancy led him to wander whither Wilhelmine had pa.s.sed but three days before? He came to the garden's limit and stood looking towards the dimly discernible openings of several narrow streets, the oldest and most ill-famed gangways of the town. Of a sudden he descried a small form m.u.f.fled in a sombre cloak. The street was utterly deserted save for Eberhard Ludwig himself and this forlorn little figure, and the Duke's attention was thus arrested. The pouring rain had not extinguished the light of the two dilapidated hanging lamps, which were fixed upon the walls of the street from whence had issued the diminutive night-wanderer, whom the Duke saw was now making for the castle.

The true Wirtemberger vanishes like smoke before the first drop of rain, and the Duke therefore concluded that any errand undertaken, and continued, in a downpour must be for a purpose of paramount importance.

So he watched with curiosity the approaching figure, observing with surprise that it was a child of some ten years old.

'Ha, young person,' called the Duke, as the child reached him; 'whither away so fast, and what may he want in the castle gardens at this time of night?'

Thus apostrophised, the figure hesitated; then apparently alarmed by the sight of the Duke's military cloak, and probably taking him for a sentry or a garden guard, the child ducked forward and would have made a bolt past his interrogator. But the Duke, who was amused and half-suspicious of the boy's errand, caught the figure by his heavy cloak, and dragged him, a trifle roughly, under the light of the lantern at the opposite street corner.

'Now he shall tell me where he was going,' Serenissimus said laughing.

The disdainful use of the third person singular seemed to anger the boy, who stood silent and sullen, with bent head. 'But he _shall_ tell me,'

repeated the Duke, enforcing his command by a rough shake.

'I will not tell you! What concern is it of yours?' the boy replied at length.

The Duke bent a puzzled look upon his prisoner, whose voice was refined, and whose German was guiltless of the rude Swabian accent. He did not speak like a gutter child, and the face which he turned upon Eberhard was startlingly beautiful. Still the Duke was suspicious. Why should this boy be slinking to the castle by night? His Highness disliked mysteries, or thought he did; though, as a matter of fact, he was always attracted by the mysterious, afraid of it, yet anxious to unravel. He gave the boy another shake. It was a physical relief to shake some one after the long hours of anxiety, and the control he had been forced to exercise upon his longing to shake the d.u.c.h.ess--no new wish on his part, and the only desire that estimable lady had inspired in his breast for many years. So the Duke shook his little prisoner again and again.

The boy remained pa.s.sive; he was breathless, but he met the Duke's half-laughing, half-angry eyes with a bold look of defiance.

His Highness ceased shaking the child, feeling distinctly ashamed. 'Will he tell me now?' he asked more gently.

As he said the words, something caught the uncertain light of the lamps--a little jewel which glittered in the boy's coat. It was exposed to view by the disarrangement of the cloak caused by the rough handling.

'Lord G.o.d!' exclaimed the Duke, catching the boy by the arm once more, 'where in the devil's name did you get that?'

The boy clasped his free hand over the jewel, and proceeded to kick Eberhard Ludwig's s.h.i.+ns with all the violence he could muster. 'A lady gave it to me, and you shall never have it! I will kill you sooner!' he cried grandiloquently.

'Be quiet, boy. I am a friend; tell me your errand. If it concerns the lady who gave you that jewel, I alone can be of a.s.sistance.' In his voice lay so pure a note of truth that the boy instinctively turned to him trustfully.

'I have a message for the Duke from the lady. If you are a friend to her, you can tell me how to find him. The lady says I am to go to the castle and ask for Madame de Ruth, who will take me to his Highness if he has come back from hunting; then she said all would be well.'

To the boy's astonishment his big questioner suddenly let go his arm, and, leaning against the house wall, covered his face with his hands, s.h.i.+vered as though from an ague fit. When the man took his hands from before his face, the child saw that his eyes were full of tears. The boy wondered why so many grown-up people were so foolish.

'Quick, boy! take me to her!' he cried.

'No; that is just what I am not to do,' was the reply. 'I am to tell her where the Duke will meet her to-morrow morning early.'

'To-morrow morning! A million leaden moments! a century to pa.s.s! No! Boy, take me to her! I am the Duke; take me to her, I order you.'

'No; you may be the Duke, but she has given me her commands, and they mean more to me than yours.' The boy threw up his head proudly. Even in his pa.s.sionate impatience Serenissimus was struck by the boy's manner, amused by this small gentleman.

'Preux Chevalier!' he said laughing; then bowing gravely to the little m.u.f.fled figure, 'you are perfectly correct, and I stand reproved; but at least do me the honour to carry this ring to the lady, and tell her that I await either her or her sovereign commands.'

The boy took the ring and vanished into the blackness of the side street.

Eberhard Ludwig remained looking after him into the gloom. A bitter thought came to him of the superiority of this child of the back streets over the Erbprinz of Wirtemberg--that poor, sickly, excitable boy, whose disappointing personality was a source of constant irritation and humiliation to his father. Eberhard Ludwig loved personal vitality, and that vigorous manliness which he himself possessed, and which he saw daily in the sons of his poorest subjects; and he suffered intensely when he was brought into contact with his puny, unwholesome son. The d.u.c.h.ess's pa.s.sionate spoiling and injudicious love made matters worse; the boy's health was in nowise benefited thereby, and it but served to accentuate the fact that his father had little else save impatient pity to bestow upon his disappointing offspring. This was in Eberhard Ludwig's mind as his eyes rested absently upon the street opening whither had vanished the erect little form of Joseph Suss--'preux chevalier,' as the Duke had dubbed him. The summer storm had pa.s.sed, leaving a delicious freshness in the air and a fragrance which penetrated from the gardens to the Duke. Eberhard Ludwig stood waiting near the entrance to the narrow street or gangway, where the overhanging roofs dripped large splas.h.i.+ng drops upon the unpaved earth below. Now that realisation was in all probability so near, his wild desire for Wilhelmine seemed to have pa.s.sed; a curious anxiety had taken its place. How strange, the Duke reflected, that loss or absence should enhance the value of the beloved.

He tried to conjure up his agony of longing for his mistress. What mad rapture, could he have clasped her at the moment of tremendous desire which had been his half an hour earlier in the castle garden! Are we really only children crying for the moon? and if the moon were given to us, should we but throw it away into the nearest ditch--merely another broken toy? he thought. These moods of Eberhard Ludwig's were frequent.

Like all poets, he had a vein of melancholy, a tendency to indulge himself in a half-sensuous sadness, and these dreamings of his, which had never been received with ought save uncomprehending impatience by the d.u.c.h.ess, Wilhelmine had known so well how to a.s.suage--not entirely to dissipate, for she would have robbed him of a certain joy had she done so; but she humoured him, understood him, wandered with him in the paths of his enchanted melancholy, then suddenly brought him back to gaiety by some witty word, some tender pleasantry. It was part of her immense power over him, and indeed, it was no thing of the senses, but rather her womanly genius, her innate knowledge of loving. As he stood awaiting her, his heart cried for her; he was no longer stirred by physical desire, but he craved the consolation of her presence as a child wearies for its mother's love. Indeed, in most pa.s.sions which have outlasted the flash of sheer animal attraction, there has ever been that touch of mother-love in the affection given by the woman to the man. And it is this which eternally makes the entirely desirable woman older than the man she loves.

The minutes pa.s.sed slowly as Eberhard Ludwig stood waiting for some sign from Wilhelmine. At length his Highness heard an approaching footstep. He turned quickly, in his excitement not noting that the steps came from the direction of the castle garden. He started forward with outstretched arms. Forstner stood before him, a ridiculous figure as usual; his large, tiresome nose shadowed on the wall by the uncertain light of the hanging lanterns.

'Really, Monsieur de Forstner!' broke out the Duke angrily, 'it is intolerable to be thus followed! Am I not at liberty to take a stroll unquestioned?'

The astonished courtier attempted to explain that he had not known his Highness to be wandering near the Judenga.s.se, but Eberhard Ludwig cut him short and desired him to go on his way. Forstner begged to be permitted to accompany his Highness. 'This is not a part of the town where it is fitting your Highness should be alone at night.' The reproving tone of the schoolmaster (that inextinguishable dweller of the innermost which abides for ever in the breast of every honest German) crept into the words, and Eberhard Ludwig's irritation was the more aroused.

'Will you go and leave me to myself, Forstner, you insufferable a.s.s!' The words broke forth half fiercely, half humorously.

Forstner drew himself up with a certain stiff dignity. 'Were that term applied to me by any but my Prince, I should answer with the sword,' he said.

The Duke laughed impatiently. 'I retract--I apologise--I beg your forgiveness; you are an excellent fellow, a dear friend--only for G.o.d's sake, man, go away!'

'But your Highness--I beg you to consider----' the other began.

'Look here, Forstner,' the Duke interrupted, 'if you don't go--now, at once, and leave me alone, upon my soul I will run you through!' He half-drew his sword.

'Really, Monseigneur,' replied Forstner, 'I am ready to obey your Highness, but----'

'Well, then, _go_!' The Duke was getting beyond himself; each moment he feared Wilhelmine would appear, and Forstner was not a person he desired as witness either to his meeting with his beloved, or to her advent from the lowest part of the town.

The estimable Forstner had at length commenced his departure, but he was distant only a few paces when the Duke heard a laugh coming from the gloom of the shadowed Judenga.s.se. It was a laugh which, though low-pitched and quiet, had a resonant distinctness which caused it to carry a long way.

'Wait, for Heaven's sake, till he is gone,' his Highness whispered over his shoulder into the darkness, observing to his dismay that Forstner had halted.

'Did your Highness call me?' asked the too-devoted friend, and made as though to return.

'No; I coughed. Do go away!' shouted the Duke in return, and set himself to cough vigorously, for behind him from the darkened street there came the unmistakable sound of Wilhelmine's irrepressible laughter.

At length the angular figure vanished, and the Duke sprang round with arms outstretched, and into them he received the stately form of his mistress, who lay upon his breast; for once unresponsive to his pa.s.sionate kisses, while she laughed in a very agony of mirth.

'Forgive me, Monseigneur,' she said at last, her voice still shaking with laughter; 'but you know the scene was really beyond me. I heard all, and oh! Forstner was so droll, and you too.' She began to laugh again. 'Oh, how delightfully undignified, mon Prince--when you coughed to hide my laughter.'

Once more she leaned against Eberhard Ludwig's shoulder and rocked with merriment. The Duke also laughed, but a trifle ruefully; that meddler Forstner had destroyed the rapture of his meeting with Wilhelmine, had broken the charm of his pensive mood; and besides, the Duke knew from experience that when Wilhelmine began to laugh like that he would probably hear no serious word from her during the evening. Even in their pa.s.sion's transports he had known his mistress suddenly go off into a series of 'fous rires,' and no man enjoys the most harmless laughter at such moments.

'Wilhelmine, for G.o.d's sake stop laughing, and tell me where you have been since the d.u.c.h.ess--since the d.u.c.h.ess----' he hesitated, not knowing how to express the summary ejection from the castle.

'Since her Highness had the goodness to turn me out.' Wilhelmine was serious now, though her lips still twitched with mirth, and her eyes were mischievous and teasing. 'Nay, your Highness, that is my secret. I have always a hiding-place whither I can vanish when you are not good to me.

Shall I disappear again? I have but to say a mystic word and your Highness will clasp empty air.' She was play-acting, as she often did, and she looked up at him with such dazzling eyes that he caught her to him with masterful pa.s.sion.

'Witch! enchantress!' he murmured. 'What matters it where you were; you are here now with me, and never to part again!'

'Till death us do part,' she answered. 'Nay, those are the words men say to their wives, not to their----' A note of bitterness pierced the mockery of her tone.

'Ah! heart of mine,' he broke in vehemently, 'would that I could make you d.u.c.h.ess! You are my wife by all laws of fairest nature and love! This is a more holy thing than marriage--nay, this is true marriage!' It was the eternal lie of lovers: the old futile, pathetic, impossible pleading of those whose love cannot be sanctioned by law. Wilhelmine's face darkened.

'Monseigneur, if you could make Forstner and his sort believe that, I should not be taunted and insulted. But come, now, we cannot discuss this here. Will you tell me where you propose to lodge me this night, or shall I vanish again?' Her gaiety had returned.