Part 18

The connubial migration to Cassel, consent to which had been wrung from him at the expense of so much mental agony, now became a project which could not be soon enough, to please him, put into execution. For would it not mean the prompt legal annulment of Sidonia's most inopportune alliance? His original jealousy of Beau Cousin would seem to have been the one thing really murdered in the _oubliette_; yet, perhaps, somewhere deep down in his consciousness, there faintly stirred, beneath all the other reasons for relief, a satisfaction at the thought that Cousin Kielmansegg could never again be made welcome to the house that had sheltered his divorced wife.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

*THE WAYS OF LITTLE COURTS*

"_Thinkest thou there is no tyranny but that_ _Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice--_ _The weakness and the wickedness of luxury--_ _Of sensual sloth--produce ten thousand tyrants._" BYRON.

Betty came thoughtfully into her husband's presence. The review had not been a success. In spite of velvet _redingote_ and yellow plumes, she could not flatter herself that Jerome had singled her out. She began to have qualms as to the results of that unexplained and inexplicable mistake in her correspondence. She had fully promised herself that the first glance between her and the King would delicately give him to understand that her rigour was not as eternal as the uncompromising "_Never_" might have led him to believe.

Indeed, with natural optimism, under the rosy atmosphere evolved between her mirror and the _shako a la Saxonne_, she had come to tell herself that the unintended rebuff was, perhaps, not a thing to be regretted after all. Kings or chancellors, or simple Viennese lieutenants, men were much the same, she took it. And, as the experienced French have it, _tenir la dragee haute_, was none too bad a way to make the creatures yearn for it. Was not her own Burgrave a telling proof?

But the fact remained that Jerome had not even seemed aware of her existence that afternoon. Something had gone wrong about the review. At the last moment it had been found wiser to leave a certain regiment in barracks, information having transpired about a leaven of disloyalty. Jerome's brow had been thunder black. There had been a vast amount of discussion between him and five or six generals. And finally the King had left the field in high displeasure, before the programme of evolutions had been half concluded. And it was a painful fact that none of the populace cheered him as he went.

Certainly, if he had not looked at her, he had, at least, looked at no other fair one. Still, the day had been a failure for the Burgravine; and, as she drove back to the Palace, she had actually some doubts as to the shako. In her own apartment a new trouble confronted her. Sidonia, who had locked herself up alone after that momentous interview, now came very calmly to greet her. She had a smile on her lips, and--thus do we cherish vipers in our bosom!--Eliza's fingers had obviously been busy on the yellow head. The child was positively _coiffee_! Yes, and she was dressed, too: a fashionable creature. And pretty--undeniably pretty, in a singular, girlish way of her own. And not a word could the most insidious question draw from her lips. Betty was forced, in the end, to apply to Eliza. The tirewoman shrugged her shoulders. She knew well enough what had passed, but it was too much to expect her to gratify her mistress.

"Cannot _madame_ see? Ah, it will not be long before those two are together again! If she coquets a little, _certes_, it will not be _madame_ who will blame her! Oh, it is not for nothing that _mademoiselle_ is making herself beautiful! Who knows if she will not meet him to-morrow night!"

"Heavens!" exclaimed the Burgravine, disagreeably struck, "you do not mean that she intends to go to the fete!"

"But, yes, madame; she has been choosing her dress. And oh, I know some one who will look pretty."

"But the deeds are actually drawn up. The marriage is as good as annulled already," cried Betty.

Eliza clacked her tongue contemptuously. "Until people are divorced, they are still married," she remarked sagely. "And it is not the young gentleman who wants a divorce, I can tell madame. 'Oh, how he is enamoured!' says Kurtz to me. 'He came in like a lion roaring,' says Kurtz. 'That is love,' he says to me. 'Beautiful!' he says."

Betty snapped herself out of her maid's hands, flung herself into a wrapper and went to seek the Burgrave.

As matters stood, the storm-wind of injured vanity and jealousy blowing very strong, she actually would rather give up her conquest of Jerome than, she thought, the sweets of revenge. In the Burgrave she had an ally--she never paused to wonder why, so little did she heed the flight of her arrows.

Before they parted, the sagacious couple, for once warmly united, were agreed that until Sidonia were provided with another husband, they could scarcely feel themselves safe from Kielmansegg's persecution. Now, in the court of Jerome, husbands had been known to be provided for people at the shortest notice ... things had generally to be done at short notice at the court of Jerome.

Sidonia was still quite sufficiently an heiress for the Chancellor (he knew his court) to be quite sure of being able to find some excellent person who would take her thankfully from his hands without daring to request, much less to stipulate, for an exhibition of figures.

* * * * *

There was a Court-concert the next night at the Royal Palace, and it was in the music-room that Sidonia was, by command, presented to Jerome.

She dropped her curtsey. Here was a King for whose royalty, in her sturdy patriotism and her inherited race tradition, she felt neither allegiance nor respect. As she drew herself up from the perfunctory obeisance, she looked him in the face and met the well-remembered glance, with its hateful gleam and flicker. Turning aside she became conscious of the gaze of the King's Master of the Horse, General d'Albignac, as he towered over his dapper little sovereign. Steady enough this, something like the glare with which the beast of prey regards his quarry. The girl's heart sank with a double terror.

"I am charmed," said the King, "to behold at last with my own eyes the young heiress of Wellenshausen, in whose lovely person, I am told, is vested so much of my territory."

This was spoken in German, with a pronounced Italian accent. Then Jerome slid into French to say caressingly:

"_Mademoiselle de Wellenshausen_ is welcome at my Court."

Betty von Wellenshausen, at Sidonia's side, stood twittering, awaiting her moment. Jerome was once more in high good humour; all trace of the gloom that had weighted his brow through yesterday's afternoon was gone. Betty felt sure of triumph. Her entrance had created quite a flutter in the assembly. Women had whispered together behind their fans. Men's eyes had followed her with bold, curious looks. Her Bluebeard shadowed her with a fierce anxiety which to-night Betty accepted cheerfully as a further tribute, confident that she and his sovereign could elude it when the critical time came.

What, therefore, were her feelings when she found Jerome's eyes glinting past her--ay, past Betty von Wellenshausen at her fairest--to rest with marked interest (if ever the word "rest" could be applied to Jerome's eyes) upon Sidonia, the gawky child. There could be no mistake about it, she could not soothe herself with the thought that pique was the cause of his neglect. His attention swept by her with no deliberate indifference; she simply did not exist for him, his interest was vividly enkindled elsewhere. In the blasting disillusion of the experience, the Burgravine turned livid. Through the buzzing in her ears she could scarce catch Sidonia's reply to the King's gracious words.

The child, however, was speaking in clear, deliberate tones, and what she was saying was sufficiently remarkable:

"Your Majesty mistakes. I am the Countess Waldorff-Kielmansegg."

Outward decorum is the rule even at the most amateur court, yet the sensation created by the announcement Sidonia could feel to her innermost nerve. The countenance of Jerome became as suddenly and threateningly overcast as that of a spoilt urchin thwarted. He flung a look of anger at his Chancellor. The veins swelled on the crimsoning forehead of General d'Albignac.

* * * * *

The rumour that old Wellenshausen had a rich _niece a marier_ had spread very quickly through the Palace. D'Albignac remembered her quite well; it was she who had struck him over the eyes with her plaits--that added something to the zest with which the King's Master of the Horse had sought an interview that morning with the young lady's guardian. It was not unsatisfactory in its results. Ere they parted, indeed, the two thoroughly understood each other. The _ex-chouan_ was hardly a match, perhaps, for a Wellenshausen; but then there was the coming scandal of the annulment! Her fortune, on the other hand, might not be now what it had been on her father's death, but it was considerable. And, again, times were bad. The Burgrave could guarantee, at any rate, that the broad lands were intact. One must make up one's mind to give and take in this world; and every one, from King downwards, was more or less in debt at the Court of Jerome--d'Albignac distinctly more than less. Besides, a pretty wife was always a good speculation at Cassel. And when d'Albignac saw Jerome fix his future bride with a well-known look, he knew that she might prove a very profitable speculation indeed. A prolonged course of "_Pompadourettes_" had begun to satiate the royal palate; here was a wild, high-born thing that carried her head like a stag, and looked out upon them all with fire in her eyes. By the side of the ogling, mincing bit of plumpness that the Burgrave had provided himself with, with all her stage tricks and fireworks, even to the chouan renegade (who was no eclectic) the contrast was grateful. And now there was this nonsense about a previous marriage to spoil all! What a pity he had not been allowed quietly to finish off the impertinent interloper that night in the forest!

* * * * *

Betty's voice broke shrilly upon the brooding pause:

"Your Majesty," she cried, "has, I believe, already received information of the true position of affairs. The marriage was no marriage. A quixotic piece of nonsense, half-hearted, soon repented, at least on one side. The deeds of annulment are actually drawn up. Count Kielmansegg's signature--or I am very much mistaken--will be promptly affixed now, and it is not to be imagined, as your Majesty will well believe, that my husband's niece will then withhold hers. It would be against all feminine delicacy, all proper pride."

She shot a look of fury at her niece; then she nudged the Burgrave, who instantly reasseverated in his deep bass:

"The deed of annulment is drawn up, sire."

Jerome's good humour returned. He rubbed his hands. In spite of all his royal assumption, much of the exuberant gesture of the Corsican had stuck to him, to the distaste of his stolid subjects.

"_Il faut aller vite, vite, alors_. We must make haste," he averred.

To make haste and enjoy was, indeed, the rule of his existence. Now, a Lent of unexampled rigour seemed inevitably drawing near him, and all the more vertiginous was his carnival. So vertiginous indeed, that, willingly blind though she was, the Queen, true German daughter of Wuertemberg, had withdrawn from the whirl, giddy and panting, to take refuge at Napoleonshoehe till such time as her spouse would come to sober sense again.

Jerome considered the girl a moment longer in silence. That she should flush and pale beneath his glance, look anger at him from her deep eyes and then avert her head with an insulted turn of the neck, all added so much fuel to his easily kindled flame. He wished to go quick, quick; but if she gave him a bit of a chase, so much the better. And now he found a smile for Betty, and a gracious word, ere he passed on, taking the Burgrave by the arm. Betty might do very well for an idle hour, by-and-by, perhaps; but, heavens, how many Betties had he not known!

The Burgravine's self-esteem was at once too profound and too sensitive not to realize the completeness of her failure. But vanity has its heroines. None could have guessed, as she paired off merrily with d'Albignac, the extent of her mortification. Yet it was something very little short of torture that she was enduring as she smiled and coquetted and fanned herself, and babbled her pretty babble.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

*THE SONG OF THE WOODS*

"Das ist ein Klingen und Droehnen Bon Pauken und Schalmei'n Dazwischen schluchzen und stoehnen Die guten Engelein." HEINE.

Sidonia slipped away alone to a shadowed window-recess. Under the insult of her aunt's words, the insult of Jerome's gaze, pain and anger had so burned within her as to exclude all other feelings. But in the "solitude of the crowd," her brain gradually cleared; and, as she reviewed the situation, a new feeling, a dread unnamed but overwhelming, began to take possession of her. With wits naturally alert, and to-night abnormally stimulated, she began to notice strange things about her. She was in danger--in danger of what, she knew not, but something horrible, unspeakable. The looks the King and d'Albignac had cast upon her, the glance of intelligence they had then exchanged, her uncle's obsequious haste to disclaim her marriage, and her aunt's public affront to her, were as many lightning flashes that showed the precipice yawning at her feet. Not a friend had she in the world to whom she could turn, save the man who did not love her, and a poor, wandering musician, now probably far away on some Thuringian road, playing gay tunes to the rhythm of his own incurable melancholy.

Unavowed, even to her own heart, these two days the thought had haunted her that perhaps--nay, doubtless--Steven would take the opportunity of meeting her, which the royal function afforded him this night. She knew enough of the ways of Jerome's court already to be aware that there would be no difficulty in his being present at the palace concert should he wish it. The Upstart loved to parade his magnificence before strangers; and to a Waldorff-Kielmansegg the palace doors would be open _a double battants_.

But, search the throng as she might, there was no sign of the young disdainful head. The vision of it, pale and passionate, had lived in her memory even as she had seen it at their parting. He would have towered above these squat Westphalians, these popinjays of Frenchmen and Corsicans; his presence would have shone out among them. Nay, she would have marked his glance upon her among a thousand starers. She knew well, poor Sidonia, that she would have felt it in every leaping pulse! Her heart turned faint: had he cared, he would have come. Had he cared even only for her honour, according to those fine words of his yesterday, he must have been here to watch, to guard, his wife. She pressed her hands against her eyeballs, for the brilliancy of the lights became unbearable. And as she stood between the parted curtains in the recess, the orchestra, half hidden behind a bank of flowers, at the end of the room, struck up a gay French air which added to her sense of misery.

Her uncle's words, "the annulment deed is already drawn out," seemed to jig in her brain in time to the measure. It was almost the same phrase that she herself had flung at Steven--but now it bore a sound of cruel reality quite novel to her. And when a couple of horns took up the fiddles' theme, they seemed to be blaring to the world her unutterable shame: "A quixotic piece of nonsense, half-hearted, soon repented ... at least, on one side.... Count Kielmansegg's signature will be quickly affixed...."

How was it possible for any one to be so abandoned, so helpless? Even the small furry things of the forest at home had their holes to which they could run and hide when they were hurt.... The forest at home! With what longing did her soul yearn to the thought of the green shelter, the pine-alleys with their long shadows cutting the yellow glades; of the great, sombre thickets, where not the most practised huntsman of the _Revier_ could have tracked a startled hind.... Dawn in the woods, with pipe of birds waking up ... violets, blinking dew in the moss, and clean, tart breezes blowing free.... Eventide in the forest: the mild sun setting at the end of the valley, through the clearings, and the thrush chanting his last anthem on the topmost bough of the stone pine.... The scent of the wood-smoke from the forest house, where Forest-Mother Friedel was preparing supper for her hungry lads, where all was so wholesome, so honest, so homelike; where at this moment--who knows?--Geiger-Hans might be seated in the ingleglow, his music, lilt of joy and sorrow mingled, of humour and tenderness, floating out through the open door into the forest-aisle.... Sidonia's thoughts began to wander from her own sorrow. She saw the sunrise in the forest, she felt the evening peace.

All at once, in her lonely corner, she started and opened her eyes; she brushed her hands across her wet lips. She was dreaming, surely! And yet she could swear that the actual thrill of the vagabond's violin was in the air, that its piercing sweetness and incomparable depth of sound were ringing in her ears.

"_Allons voir danser la grande Jeanne_...." The orchestra was braying the trivial French tune no more. The jigging and twiddling of fiddles, the mock laughter of hautboys, the infectious rhythm of flute and drum, had all given place to a stealing melody, infinitely apart:--yes, even that mountain song which had been known between her and the wanderer as "Sidonia's air"! Surely if she were not dreaming, then she was mad!

She stood, holding her breath. The strain went on. Above those clamours of laughter and voices, yes, it was true ... her song, Sidonia's air, was calling her, unmistakable, insistent, with all the urgency of a whispered message.

Scarcely aware of what she was doing, she left her hiding-place and went swiftly through the indifferent throng towards the call. With one exception the men of the orchestra had left their platform: behind a high group of palms, a solitary musician plied his bow softly, secretly, as if rehearsing to himself.

Sidonia pushed some branches apart. The player looked up. Their eyes met. Then she forgot to be astonished. She thought she had known it all along. He had come to save her. True friend!

"I knew it was you," she said. She laughed at him through the green palm-stems, her eyes sparkled. How could she ever have thought Geiger-Hans would fail her? She had need of him, and of course he had come!

But Geiger-Hans did not smile back. His face--so dark under powdered hair, so odd over the mulberry uniform, bechained and besilvered, of Jerome's Court Orchestra--was very grave.

"Little Madam Sidonia," he said, "what are you doing here?" He spoke sadly; and under his unconscious fingers his violin gave a sad accompaniment to the words.

Sidonia looked at him with her innocent gaze. She was hurt that he should find fault with her--the Geiger-Onkel who hitherto had always thought all she did perfect! Yet she was pleased that he should dub her "madam" instead of the whilom "mamzell."

"Do you know what sort of a place this is?" pursued the fiddler, with ever-increasing severity. "Do you know with what people you are surrounded? Have you not heard the common saying, that if it be doubtful whether an honest woman--save the unhappy Queen--ever crossed these palace doors, to a certainty no honest woman ever went forth from them? Why are you not with your husband?--with your husband," he repeated sharply.

Sidonia, who had hung her head, ashamed--for in truth she felt the evil about her in every fibre--reared it on the last words.

"Geiger-Onkel," she cried, "I have no husband, and you know it. That is past and done with." Then her heart began to beat very fast and the smarting tears gathered in her eyes. "From what motives I was married, I know not; but that it was all a cheat, I do know. He does not want me. He never cared for me. First it was pity, perhaps, I think; now it is pride with him. On such terms I will be no man's wife. I will have none of it--rather death!"

"Oh, death!" said the fiddler, and struck his strings, "death is the least of evils. Nay, the release of a clean, proud soul ... that is joy. The worst end of life is not death. Beware, little madam!" He had another change of tone: never had Sidonia been rated with such sternness. "Why, what a child you are! Yet none so childish but that you know full well this is no child's mischief, but woman's danger! With what anxiety am I here to save you from yourself; at what trouble! ... Only that the rats are flying already from the falling house; only that I happened to meet the second violin of Jerome's orchestra, an acquaintance of old--a musical rat in full scuttle!--I might still be racking my brains for means to come near you! Here am I this hour, wearing the livery of the Upstart, not knowing if I shall be given the necessary minute for speech. The prisons are stuffed full to-night, and Jerome always was afraid of me. Let but his eye, or that of his spies, turn this way and recognize me, and it is to the lock-up with Geiger-Hans! Oh, then, what of Madam Sidonia? Home to your husband! Home, I say! You know where to find him. You toss your head at me? It was through pride the angel fell--and he was Star of the Morning!"

"I don't know what you mean," said Sidonia.

"Nay," said Geiger-Hans; "you know too much already. Fie, what a dance will there be here before the house falls! Even now Jerome is plotting his last gratification. Did not his eye fall upon you? Your husband's name, his sacred Austrian nationality--that is your only safeguard. And that name you are not to keep long. You are to become Madame d'Albignac."

"D'Albignac!" cried Sidonia. "I--Madame d'Albignac? You are mad, Geiger-Onkel!"

But, even as she spoke, she felt a cold sweat upon her.

"And d'Albignac will not be for a long engagement," pursued the fiddler, relentlessly. "The puppet King has very little time left, as his lieutenant knows, and he, d'Albignac, will be but too eager to save something out of the ruins--and, besides, they are amicably agreed already."

"I don't understand," said Sidonia again. She went white, then red, trembled, and caught at the prickly stem of the palm.

"Take me away with you," she broke out of a sudden, piteously. "Save me!"

"I cannot save you," answered the wanderer. His voice was harsh, yet it faltered. "No one can save you but your husband. Go home to him."

Then he began to tune his fiddle with fury, for his fellow-players were straggling back. Some of them looked curiously at the fine lady who was speaking to their unknown comrade so familiarly. Sidonia turned. Many of the great company were looking at her, too. Right across the room she saw Jerome and his equerry talking together; and, as they talked, their eyes (or so she fancied) ever and anon sought her.

Panic seized her. But, even in panic, Sidonia was loyal. She must not speak again to Geiger-Hans, lest she bring him into deeper danger. Geiger-Hans her friend, the wild wanderer, in prison! In prison for her! That would be terrible.