A German Pompadour Part 18

Thus the gist of the doc.u.ment which shattered Wilhelmine's hopes and interrupted her triumph at Urach. But to relinquish her ambition thus easily, instantly to render obedience to Father Vienna, this was not to be expected from so potent a lady, nor indeed from Eberhard Ludwig, who, besides being deeply enamoured, judged his prerogative as an independent reigning Prince to be threatened by this summary command. Then, too, all the parasites of the mock court advised resistance; urged it in every way, for their own existence depended upon the Countess of Urach and the continuance of her royal retinue.

His Highness penned a private letter to the Emperor, in which he set forth many arguments and added pa.s.sionate entreaties. In his reasoning he quoted historical examples of a Prince's right to discard a wife for causes of State necessity or convenience. Even Henry VIII. of England was held up as a pattern in this! One wonders whether the Emperor had sufficient historical learning to smile at this unfortunate reference.

Schutz was despatched with this private missive and other intricate legal doc.u.ments.

Meanwhile the life at Urach went its usual course: hunts, feasts, music, cards, love and laughter. Naturally those few members of the former Wirtemberg court who had suffered themselves to be drawn into the vortex of gaiety, now withdrew, and the Gravenitz circle grew to be more and more the refuge of the brilliant disreputable. Adventurers flocked in from all sides and, were they but entertaining, immediately became bright satellites revolving round the sun of Wilhelmine's magnificence. Of course, these personages were not welcomed by the older stars--the Sittmanns and company; but the favourite waxed more overbearing, more autocratic each day, and she permitted no censure of her will.

The d.u.c.h.ess Johanna Elizabetha was not idle; she had summoned her family from Baden-Durlach, and they were moving heaven and earth, or rather Vienna, in her cause.

Schutz wrote that things were going badly for the Gravenitz: the Emperor was obdurate, the Privy Council was stern, and public opinion strong against the double marriage.

Johanna Elizabetha at this crisis fell ill--'of a colic,' said the court of Urach scornfully; 'of poison,' said Stuttgart, Baden-Durlach, finally Vienna. This was serious, wrote Schutz. There were not wanting persons who hinted that other inconvenient wives had died of this same cla.s.s of colic, and that the illness had been caused by the rival mistress.

Eberhard Ludwig raged, Wilhelmine laughed, but Zollern looked grave, and spoke of the Prussian letter of royal protection, and of the beauty and safety of Schaffhausen.

Anger gave place to anxiety, when a private letter from the Emperor to Eberhard Ludwig arrived. It was really an unpleasant letter, and the court, to whom its contents were communicated, felt that it was the beginning of the end. His Majesty wrote that he gave Serenissimus one last chance of saving the lady of his heart. She must yield at once, or the law would proceed against her ruthlessly. The Emperor added that he had commissioned the Electors of Brunswick, Brunswick-Wolfenb.u.t.tel, and Hesse-Ca.s.sel to act as intermediaries in the matter. They were empowered to settle the dispute in his Majesty's name and in the interests of virtue, law, and order. Serenissimus was overwhelmed. He vowed he would abjure his allegiance to Austria, and as for the Protestant Church which had proved so inconveniently honest, that could go by the board and he would go over to Rome.

The Pope Clement XI. was unfriendly to Austria politically, and his Holiness would welcome the Duke of Wirtemberg to the fold. For the rest, Eberhard Ludwig talked wildly of approaching Louis XIV. and throwing in his lot and his army with his old adversaries. The Pope was indeed informed of the whole tangle, and had entered into secret negotiations with Zollern on the subject.

Hereupon Forstner reappeared, and by his reproaches, his tediousness, and his tactlessness nearly confirmed Serenissimus in his frantic decision.

Then arrived Osiander. He was a man of great strength of character and intellect, and he succeeded in demonstrating to the Duke the dishonourable nature of his intentions. Also he induced his Highness to comprehend that the Pope, though ready to gather all men, and especially princes, into the maw of Rome, could not make a double marriage legal where there was no feasible plea for annulment of the first union. To be politically hostile to Austria was one thing, to enter into open combat with her another. Wirtemberg was not a large enough bribe in any case.

At this juncture arrived the Electorial amba.s.sadors, and lengthy, tedious negotiations commenced. The deliberations seemed endless. Did the amba.s.sadors believe their task to be nearing completion, the other side had always a fresh plea, a new quibble; and the winter was far advanced before these unfortunate envoys declared that they could do no more.

'We have proved the so-called marriage to be illegal,' they wrote to the Emperor; 'we have offered lands and moneys to the favourite; we have been conciliatory, then threatening, but Serenissimus is as one blinded, and the woman remains in her preposterous position. We can do no more, save humbly to recommend your Majesty to enforce the rigours of the law against this bigamous female.' So Brunswick Brunswick-Wolfenb.u.t.tel, and Hesse-Ca.s.sel retired discomfited.

On the other side, Schutz in Vienna had made no headway. The mock court continued as before, sometimes at Urach, sometimes at Tubingen or Wildbad. Stuttgart was deserted, save for the mournful presence of the unhappy d.u.c.h.ess.

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 Gravenitz 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 grat.i.tude. 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 Tubingen with a troupe of strolling actors.

In Tubingen 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 Gravenitz, 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 d.u.c.h.ess, for Wilhelmine had a morbid curiosity to know each action of the woman she injured. The people whispered that Ferrari instructed the Gravenitz 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 d.u.c.h.ess'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 d.u.c.h.ess'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 n.o.ble 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 Judenga.s.se one dark night, soon after Ferrari's visit. Two masked bravos attacked him from behind, and it was only by the chance pa.s.sing 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 Gravenitz? the sender of this absurd powder, as the d.u.c.h.ess surmised. 'Poison!' said the d.u.c.h.ess, 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 Gravenitz 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 Gustrow. 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 coa.r.s.e 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 G.o.d.

One evening towards the middle of April, the d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 l.u.s.tgarten.

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 chateau 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 d.u.c.h.ess had caused to be painted black, the chairs and tables of her rooms were covered with black brocade, and the window curtains were fas.h.i.+oned 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 mediaeval times hid their lips from the sight of all men, in token of their bereavement and enforced chast.i.ty.

Her Highness looked anxiously round her sleeping apartment as she pa.s.sed through. To her overstrung nerves each darker shadow held an evil menace.

A breeze crept in through the open cas.e.m.e.nt, and swayed the heavy black curtains round her Highness's bed, and she started back, thinking that some hostile hand had moved the folds. In vain she told herself how baseless were her fears. She chid herself for a craven, but her heart still fluttered fearfully, and her lips were a-tremble when she reached the little room. She sank down in her chair with a sigh of relief. Here in this little room, she reasoned, there could be nothing to fear; here were no shadowy corners where a lurking enemy might hide.

'O G.o.d! O G.o.d!' she wailed suddenly aloud, 'am I going mad that I should tremble at a gust of wind, that I should suffer this insane consciousness of some haunting presence near me when I know I am, in truth, alone and safe?' She covered her face with her hands.

'Your Highness,' came a voice, and the unhappy woman started to her feet in renewed alarm--'Your Highness, have I permission to depart now?

Monsieur de Stafforth wishes me to a.s.sist at a supper he gives this evening. As your Highness knows, my husband is very harsh to me since the Duke dismissed him, and indeed I dare not be late.'

It was Madame de Stafforth who, having finished reading, had come to take leave of the d.u.c.h.ess.

'Alas!' said her Highness sadly, 'I am not permitted to bear my sorrow alone; my friends must suffer also.'

'Ah! Madame,' said the little moth-coloured woman tenderly, 'we would all suffer joyfully, could we ease your Highness; but think, Madame! you, at least, have one great happiness: to all women it is not given to bear a son, and the Erbprinz grows stronger each day.'

Poor little Madame de Stafforth! The tragedy of her life lay in her words. She was childless; and Stafforth reproached her--nay, taunted her daily with this, for he desired an heir to carry on his new n.o.bility.

'Forgive me, dear friend; indeed I am blessed. And my son grows stronger, you really think?'

Johanna Elizabeth's face lit with a mother's tenderness, and the two ladies plunged into a detailed discourse on the Erbprinz's health. At length Madame de Stafforth took her leave.

'Shall I send any one to your Highness?' she asked as she reached the door.

The d.u.c.h.ess's terrors had been allayed by the familiar discussion of the Erbprinz's ailments, but a thrill of nameless fear pa.s.sed through her when she remembered she would be alone again in her sombre apartment. But this was weakness! What had she read in the Swiss sermon? 'In the hands of G.o.d are all things. It is blasphemy to fear darkness, solitude, or the evil machinations of men. All is in the Great Grasp, and each happening is made and directed by G.o.d.' The solemn words came back to her now.

'Dear Madame de Stafforth, I can ring when I wish for any one. Good night, and G.o.d bless you!' she said, and laid her hand upon the small silver hand-bell which was on the bureau near her.

When the sound of Madame de Stafforth's footsteps ceased, her Highness turned to the books on the table and sought the volume of Swiss sermons; but it was not there; evidently Madame de Stafforth had forgotten to bring it from the salon. The d.u.c.h.ess decided to fetch it, but she lingered a moment, for it was unaccountably disagreeable to her to pa.s.s through the half-light of her sleeping apartment.

'In the hands of G.o.d are all things!' she murmured, and with firm step she moved towards the sombre chamber. Once more she thought she saw the bed-curtains sway; she fancied she heard a movement behind her. 'It is blasphemy to fear,' she said, but she felt her brow moisten with the sweat of terror.

She found the book, and resolutely re-entered the sleeping-room. She would not allow her eyes to wander to the bed-hangings, nor to search the dusky corners of the chamber. She pa.s.sed on, and, gaining the little study, laid the book open on the table, and, leaning her head on her hands, began to read; but she could not fix her attention on the page before her. She was tortured by faint stirrings, by scarcely perceptible sounds, by an eerie feeling of some lurking presence always behind her.

At length she could bear it no longer. She closed the book and rose, intending to ring the hand-bell and summon her attendants, but the words of the sermon echoed in her brain: 'It is blasphemy to fear,' and she felt ashamed of her impulse. She turned, and, going to the praying-stool, kneeled in prayer.

'Give me strength, O G.o.d! to resist this baseless terror,' she prayed.

'In thy hands are all things!' Yet her anxiety was unsoothed, and the dread of madness came to her, but with it grew a brave defiance: she would not go mad, she would not! She saw herself a prisoner in some castle, kept alive and well treated, perhaps, but a piteous object, a thing for all to point at--'the mad d.u.c.h.ess!' And the Gravenitz at Stuttgart a legal d.u.c.h.ess. She believed a Prince could put away an insane wife. 'Not madness, kind Jesus!' she prayed. Her heart was wrung in agony as she pictured her son, the Erbprinz, taunted perhaps by the mention of his mother's madness. 'All is in the Great Grasp, and each happening is made and directed by G.o.d.' 'O Christ,' she prayed, 'I believe, I trust, I will not blaspheme by fear; no madness can strike me down while I believe and pray.' She lifted her hot face from her hands, calmed, soothed, brave once more. She was rising from her knees, and the movement brought her eyes on a level with the mirror panel. As one turned to stone, she stood looking into the mirror, for it reflected one corner of her bed in the next room, and the fading light fell on something white which pushed aside the black brocade bed-curtain--a large yellow-white hand holding a small gleaming knife. The d.u.c.h.ess, still with the dread of insanity upon her, told herself that it was an hallucination, a delusion, the frenzied working of her overwrought brain. She gathered her courage and fixed her eyes on the mirror, which showed her what she conceived to be a phantom.

The hand was large, with hair growing hideously over it, and jagged, bitten nails--she could see this distinctly, for the light fell from the window full on the black curtain, and showed up the yellow hand.

Fascinated, she gazed into the mirror, wondering the while why, now that the horror actually confronted her, she felt so little fear, whereas before she had started and trembled at each gust of wind. Now the hand emerged further from out the hangings. An arm in a brown sleeve appeared.

Then the curtains parted, and her Highness saw a ferret-like face appear.

She knew that this was no phantom. Swiftly she calculated the distance between her and the hand-bell. She remembered that only her tiring-maid would come in answer to the usual daily summons. If this man was indeed an a.s.sa.s.sin, he would do his work immediately; kill her ere the woman could come, and the unsuspecting maid herself might easily be silenced with one stab from that pointed dagger. All this the d.u.c.h.ess realised in a flash. She had never thought so rapidly in her life. No! she must not ring; she must dupe the murderer! Her eyes met the a.s.sa.s.sin's in the mirror, but she had the strength to return the gaze in an abstracted fas.h.i.+on, so that the man should be uncertain whether she had seen him, or whether the mirror had failed, by some strange chance, to transmit his reflection. Instinctively she felt that her death-warrant would be signed did the man know her to be aware of his presence. She moved towards the table; thus she was out of the mirror's range, and she therefore could not see what the man was doing in the adjoining apartment. 'Dupe him!

escape by ruse! get out of the rooms to the ante-hall, let him think I am coming back!' Dully this thought struggled in her mind. With extraordinary calmness she commenced to move the books on the table, purposely rustling the pages. Then suddenly she knew her only way of escape.

'Curious!' she said aloud; 'I thought my other book was here. I have left it next door. I must find it and return to read and rest.' As she said the words she walked into the sleeping-room. 'G.o.d give me strength not to look towards the bed,' she prayed silently. 'Lord, in thy hands are all things. It is blasphemy to fear.'

Now she was in the shadowy bedroom; she moved slowly across, saying again aloud: 'I will fetch the volume and return.' As the words left her lips she realised she had spoken in French; her ruse was useless then! The murderer was probably some illiterate scoundrel; how should he comprehend? But her dogged, methodical nature stood her in good stead. If Johanna Elizabetha began anything, she invariably completed her task; so although she imagined her strategy spoiled through her use of the French language, she kept steadily moving across the large dark room. As she gained the door leading to the audience-chamber she heard the man's bitten, jagged nails sc.r.a.pe the silk brocade of the hangings. He had pushed aside the curtains, then--he was following her! 'G.o.d give me strength,' she prayed again. With unhurried step she pa.s.sed across the whole length of the long audience-chamber, and gently opened the door of the ante-hall. The page-in-waiting, a slight child of fourteen years, sprang to his feet, bowing deeply, as her Highness entered.

'Are you alone?' said the d.u.c.h.ess quietly. 'Is no lackey in waiting?'