Part 22

“The young couple had now been established at Waldemora for about three years, with their one son, whom they idolized. The sweet temper of the baroness had modified the slight harshness of her husband’s disposition, which arose from his uncompromising independence and integrity of character. They were beloved and appreciated; and both the retainers of the family and the neighbors were beginning to forget all about Olaus, notwithstanding the letters that he frequently wrote, so as to have the pleasure of signing himself ‘The poor exile!’ Pastor Mickelson, the minister of the parish, whose church you probably saw about half a league from here, was Olaus’s most faithful adherent. Olaus had always made a great display of piety; while Adelstan’s toleration was excessively vexatious to the pastor, who was somewhat fanatical in his Lutheranism. The baron, moreover, had exerted his influence to have a certain ceremony of the divine service discontinued: namely, the employment of a certain staff which the beadle used in his official duty of awakening those who fell asleep during the sermon. The question was brought before the bishop, who decided upon a compromise; the beadle was to be allowed to tickle the noses of the sleepers with a switch, but not to rap them over the head with the stick. The pastor never forgave Baron Adelstan for this assault upon his authority, and still less the young baroness, who was said to have laughed at this Dalecarlian method of enforcing devotion by blows with a staff. He never ceased annoying the young iarl and his wife, and was always stirring up against them the country people; themselves very prone to religious intolerance.

“In the meanwhile, the young couple persevered in trying to promote improvements on their estate. The baron was severe in dealing with abuses, and drove off without pity all persons of disreputable character; he also put an end to the shameful practice of inflicting stripes on servants, and to the humiliating relics of the past serfage of the country people. The Dalecarlian peasant is usually well disposed, but he is as far as possible from being a friend of progress. Many of them were loath to part with the old abuses, and found it difficult to reconcile themselves to asserting their personal dignity.

“One day--truly a most unhappy day--the baron was obliged to go to Stockholm on business; and as it was the time of the autumn rains, which made travelling difficult, and often impracticable, he was obliged to leave his wife behind at the chateau. As he was returning to his home in about a fortnight from this time, Baron Adelstan was assassinated in the gorges of Falun. He had travelled on horseback; and, in his impatience to see his beloved Hilda, had ridden on in advance, leaving his people to finish a meal which seemed to him rather too protracted. He was then thirty-three years old, and his widow twenty-four.

“This murder made a great excitement, and astounded the whole country. In many districts the Dalecarlians are fierce and passionate, and among these mountains the Norwegian duel, with knives, is still in vogue, but such a thing as a cowardly and secret assassination is almost unexampled. The people in the vicinity did not venture to accuse any one, and indeed they had no grounds for doing so. Certain foreign miners disappeared suddenly from Falun, but they could not be traced. Baron Adelstan had not been robbed, and there was but one person in the world for whose interest it was to get rid of him. Some whispered cautiously the name of Baron Olaus; but the majority rejected such a suspicion with horror, and my father first of all.

“Baron Olaus appeared overwhelmed with despair at his brother’s death. He hastened into the country, weeping and lamenting rather too ostentatiously, perhaps, and testifying the most disinterested devotion to his sister-in-law. Every one was very much edified by his conduct, except the baroness herself, who received him with extreme coldness, and, after several hours, requested him to leave her alone with her grief; for which she could not be consoled. The baron accordingly left, to the great regret of the retainers of the family, whom he had quite overpowered with gifts and kindness. On the very evening of his departure, little Harold, the son of the baroness, was taken with convulsions, and died before morning.

“Driven quite to despair by this final blow, the unhappy mother lost all prudence, and loudly accused Olaus of having first caused the assassination of her husband, and then of poisoning her child, so as to get possession of their fortune. But her cries were unanswered--they did not even reach the outer world. There was no skilful physician within reach, to verify the nature of the child’s death, and none of her domestics chose to run the risk of seeking for proofs against Baron Olaus. Pastor Mickelson, who practised as a physician in his parish, declared that Harold had died as children often do, from the effects of teething, and that the poor baroness was unjust and insane; which, unfortunately, was very possible.

“Baron Olaus had not gone far when word reached him of his nephew’s death; upon which he at once returned, apparently as full of grief as the baroness herself. She, however, overwhelmed him with maledictions, to which he only replied by sad and heart-rending smiles. Every one lamented her misfortunes; as a widow, a mother, even as an insane person, she was a worthy object of compassion; but no one thought of accusing the generous, the patient, the sensible Olaus. Perhaps he was thought even more to be pitied than she, as being doomed to endure suspicions so outrageous. He was admired, moreover, for not allowing himself to be irritated; his very complaints were uttered in a tone full of tenderness, and he begged Hilda to continue to reside at the chateau, and to live with him as a sister with a brother. For my part, I am quite convinced that the baron is a great knave, and that he did not regret his nephew’s death, and yet I am far from considering him an actual monster; he has never seemed to me to be a man of sufficient boldness to commit great crimes. The baroness had suffered too much, and was in a state of too much mental excitement to be able to judge coolly. She charged him with having killed father, brother, and nephew; and all at once she formed a singular resolution, which I think was an act of vengeance and despair, and altogether an ill-judged measure.

“She called together the magistrates and civic authorities of the province, and declared to them, in presence of all her own household, that she was pregnant, and that she intended to maintain all the hereditary rights of the child whose natural guardian she was. She made this declaration with great energy, and announced that she should proceed to Stockholm, in order to have her condition fully authenticated, and to ascertain her legal rights until the birth of her child.

“Baron Olaus listened to this declaration with great calmness, and replied, in substance, thus:

“‘It is perfectly unnecessary to expose yourself to the fatigues and risks of this journey. The hope that my dear brother’s lineage will be revived fills me with satisfaction, nor will I consent to a renewal of any controversies. It is evident that my presence annoys and irritates you, and never shall it be said that the disturbed state of your mind was aggravated by any voluntary act of mine. I will myself withdraw, therefore, and will not return here until after the birth of your child--always, supposing that you are not deceived as to your condition.’

“Olaus did, in fact, depart, saying to everybody that he did not believe a word of this story of pregnancy, but that he was in no haste to enter into his inheritance.

“‘For the sake of propriety, and in consideration of my sister-in-law’s unhappy state of excitement,’ he added, ‘I prefer to wait, and can very well afford to do so for a year, if necessary, so that the truth may be established.’

“These were the views he expressed to my father at Stockholm, whither he now immediately returned, and my father, I remember, blamed him for being too confiding, and over-delicate. He thought Baroness Hilda had invented this posthumous child, and intimated that it would not be the first time that a widow had brought forward a supposititious heir so as to despoil the rightful inheritor. The baron, however, replied with infinite mildness:

“‘What would you have me do? I am tired of the hateful suspicions which this exasperated woman is trying to fasten upon me, and can best refute them by proving the disinterestedness of my own conduct. And furthermore, to provide against being pursued by her hatred even here, I think it will be best for me to travel until my affairs can be settled.’

“Shortly after this Baron Olaus went to Russia, where he was received by the czarina with much attention, and where he began to construct that web of intrigues whose result has been to make him one of the most tenacious and dangerous of the cap-party of the Diet. It has been asserted that his character developed very rapidly during his stay at the Russian court, and that, at his return, he had acquired such views, manners, and principles, as caused him, from that time, to appear totally changed. He was still always tranquil and smiling, but there was something terrible in his tranquillity, something sinister in his smile. He was still friendly and caressing in his manner to inferiors, but his friendliness was contemptuous, and his caresses the soft touch of the covered claw. In short, he was precisely what he is to-day--except so far as advancing years and ill-health have intensified his more gloomy traits--a problematic being, who is either the most consummate of villains or the victim of a most strange combination of terrible circumstances. He now entered upon a career of intrigue and crime, which the czarina has shown great skill in turning to her own advantage, and of which the virtuous baron himself was very soon heard to speak with complaisant admiration; and it was at this time that, he began to be called ‘The Snow Man,’ either to signify that his heart had been frozen during his residence in Russia, or that his reputation had, as it were, thawed in the clearer and warmer sunshine of his own country. The surname was made the more appropriate by his physical characteristics, for, in the course of time, a livid paleness became the habitual color of his face, his hair turned prematurely gray, his carriage was stiff, and his bloated hands were invariably as cold as death.

“But I must not anticipate. This change in the baron, which was, perhaps, only the effect of an exhausting struggle against unjust suspicions, did not become thus striking until after the death or disappearance of all the persons whose existence might have been disadvantageous to him. While still in Russia he caused it to be reported in Sweden that he was mortally ill, and it was believed by many that this was one of the first proofs of his accomplishments as an intriguer. This report was said to be totally unfounded; and when it was afterwards asked what reason he could have had for the strange whim of declaring that he was dying at St. Petersburg, his enemies alleged that it was to relieve Baroness Hilda from her fear of him, and thus prevent her from coming to have her child born at Stockholm. Unfortunately--I am stating the views of the enemies of Olaus--the baroness fell into this snare. She remained at Waldemora during the summer, and, when her pregnancy was so far advanced that it was impossible for her to travel (she had become quite feeble in consequence of her many afflictions), Baron Olaus suddenly reappeared, as well and active as ever, in the neighborhood of the chateau.

“There, Christian, that is all I can tell you of the story as it is generally current. The sequel is a secret history. What the facts are, can only be conjectured or imagined, until the proofs shall be discovered, if any such exist, and shall ever come to light.

“The baroness was so frightened at learning that the baron was staying at Pastor Mickelson’s, that she resolved to shut herself up in the old chateau, which was so very limited in extent--for the new _gaard_ had not then been built--that it could easily be defended by a small number of faithful servants. At the head of these were Adam Stenson, already grown old in the service at the chateau, and a confidential female attendant, whose name I have forgotten.

“Now, what took place after that? It has been said that the baron succeeded in corrupting all the guardians of Stollborg, even the confidential waiting-woman and the incorruptible Stenson. But I would risk my right hand on the faith of Stenson; and, indeed, the continued good understanding between this excellent man and the baron, is to me almost conclusive proof of the innocence of the latter. There are two versions of the conclusion of this tragedy: one is that the baron imprisoned his sister-in-law so closely, and made her so unhappy in Stollborg, that she actually died of sorrow and chagrin; the other is, that she was already insane when she took up her abode there, that she soon became liable to dreadful fits of mania, and died amidst transports of impious fury, cursing the evangelical religion, and proclaiming the kingdom of Satan.

“Amid all these varying rumors there is, however, one fact certain, and that is that her pregnancy was a simulated one. Ten months after her husband’s death, in the last days of the year 1746, the baroness died at Stollborg, where she had been living for three months in a state of bodily languor and mental disorder. On her death-bed, she formally acknowledged to Pastor Mickelson and the baron, that she had not been pregnant, but had intended to bring forward a counterfeit child, who was to have been a boy, in order to retain the control of her husband’s property, and to gratify her hatred of Baron Olaus. There is still a third version, which I really only mention with reluctance. It is that the baroness actually died of starvation in this donjon, but this Stenson has always emphatically denied. Whatever the facts are, the last moments of Hilda are enveloped in mystery. None of her own relatives were living, and her husband’s family, frightened at the reports that prevailed about her religious opinions, shut their eyes to the whole business, and did not move in her behalf. They had, in fact, always liked the compliant Olaus, who flattered their prejudices, better than the high-spirited Adelstan, who was constantly offending them. It is said that this story came to the ears of the king, and that he had meant to investigate it, but that the senate, in which Olaus had powerful friends, requested his majesty to attend to his own business--that is, to attend to nothing at all.

“My father was in very ill-health when Baron Olaus came to tell him his own version of his sister-in-law’s death. For the first time my father manifested some surprise, and even a disposition to blame the baron. He told him he had done wrong to expose himself to such grave suspicions, and that if proceedings should be commenced against him his defence would be difficult. The baron, on this, showed him the declaration of Pastor Mickelson, in his double capacity of clergyman and physician, in which he testified to the feigned pregnancy of the baroness, and to her death, in consequence of an illness of which he had made a careful diagnosis, and had treated in a skilful and judicious manner, as all the physicians who had since been consulted on the subject had agreed. Moreover, he produced the declaration of the baroness, signed by her own hand, affirming that she had made a false representation of her condition. This paper my father examined rigorously, and even caused it to be scrutinized by experts in handwriting, but he found it impregnable. Still, I remember that he blamed the baron for not having called in ten physicians, instead of one only, for authenticating the facts for his own defence in so weighty a matter. But he never suspected him of any crime or imposture, and in this belief he died, a short time afterwards.

“After a time, murmurs were heard against the baron, whose conduct began to make him hated, but he very soon made himself feared also; there was no one whose direct interest it was to avenge his supposed victims, and no one came forward generous and bold enough to defy him. I myself would have done this, although then young at the bar, as I should be ready to do this moment if my suspicions were sufficiently aroused. But I was naturally influenced by my father’s opinion, and he had never gone further than to find fault with Olaus for not being prudent enough in his own behalf. Besides, my father’s death took place just about that time, and you can readily imagine that my sorrow, which was very keen, diverted my mind from other objects.

“I inherited the management of the baron’s law business, and, as I have said, notwithstanding the increasing dislike with which his political conduct and his personal manners have inspired me, I have never from that day to this been able to find the least proof of the crimes with which he is charged, or even to get hold of any probable or reliable evidence on the subject. Among his tenantry and retainers there has been a reaction in opinion about him, as might well have been expected; for as soon as he no longer needed their sympathy, he took no further pains to make himself popular. His domestics are all strangers, persons whom he substituted for the old servants immediately upon taking possession of the estate, and he pays them in a manner to secure from them blind obedience and absolute discretion. Stenson is the only one of the old household whom he has retained; he employed him for a long time as steward, but at last allowed him to retire, on account of his great age. He provides him with a suitable retreat, an honorable pension, and has always treated him with great respect, and even with marked friendliness. This has been supposed to indicate that Stenson was his accomplice; but, Christian, it is this very fact that satisfies me as to the truth of the matter, and which makes my own conscience easy; for Stenson is actually a holy man, a model of all the Christian virtues.”

VIII.

CHRISTIAN had listened attentively to the lawyer’s narrative, and, after a few moments’ reflection, he observed:

“There is a great deal in this history that seems to me extremely ambiguous. I feel sorry for that poor Baroness Hilda; of all the persons of this drama, she is the one who interests me the most. Who knows whether she did not really die of starvation in this horrible chamber, as so many believe.”

“Ah! that is entirely out of the question!” cried M. Goefle. “The idea really tormented me, so much has been said about it; but Stenson, who assuredly would never have allowed such a thing to happen, gave me his word of honor that he had served and waited upon the baroness to the last, and was with her during her last moments. She did really die of inanition, but it was because her stomach refused to retain food. The baron spared no pains to furnish her with whatever she desired.”

“No doubt,” replied Christian; “if he is as adroit as your story indicates, he would be unlikely to commit a useless murder. All that he needed was to kill the poor lady with fear or grief. But there is still another explanation, M. Goefle; my own version!”

“What is that?”

“That she is not dead.”

“That is impossible. And still, no one ever knew what was done with her body.”

“There--you see!”

“The pastor refused it burial in the parish cemetery. There is no Catholic cemetery here, and it would seem that she must have been buried by night in Stenson’s orchard, or elsewhere.”

“Why, did Stenson never tell you?”

“Stenson will not be questioned on this point. The memory of the baroness is at once dear and awful to him. He loved her sincerely, and served her zealously; but he refuses to say anything about her religious belief, whatever it may have been, and it both terrifies and distresses him to have the subject even referred to.”

“Very well; but what does he say of the baron?”

“Nothing.”

“That perhaps is saying a great deal.”

“Very true; but still, silence is not a charge of murder.”

“Then we need discuss it no further, if you are satisfied, M. Goefle. And after all, what does it matter to us? The past is past. Only, you said that the sight of that spectre had filled your mind with strange doubts.”

“That was only because it is a weakness of our profession to turn everything into a subject of investigation--though I have always tried to guard myself against it. We have enough to do to arrive at the facts of the different cases with which we are intrusted, without volunteering to batter our brains over those that do not concern us. Beyond a doubt, it is because I have been idle for a few days that my mind keeps at work in spite of myself, and that I have summoned up from the shades of the forgotten past, the form of the Baroness Hilda--”

“Particularly,” said Christian, “as the being who appeared to you was not perhaps a vision, but quite simply some living person, whose costume happened to be like that of the old picture.”

“I should be glad to think so, but people who pass through walls are none other than the sad inhabitants of the land of gloomy imaginations.”

“Wait a moment, M. Goefle; you saw the phantom enter; but you have not told me which way it disappeared.”

“I could not, since I do not know. I should say on the same side where it came in.”

“By the secret door, then.”

“Is there one?”

“Did you not know it?”

“No, I did not, really.”

“Well, then, come and see it.”

Christian took the candle and lighted M. Goefle to the spot; but the secret door was shut from the outside. It was so accurately fitted into the wood-work that it was impossible to distinguish it from the other panels, which were all ornamented with a similar raised moulding, and so thick that it gave back the same dull sound as the rest of the oak wainscot. Besides, it was strongly fastened behind by the large bolts that Christian had noticed the evening before. He had left them unfastened, but they had now been bolted, probably by the same hand that had padlocked the outer door at the foot of the secret staircase. Christian mentioned all this to M. Goefle, who was obliged to take his word for it, as he had no means of going to certify the facts.

“Believe me, M. Goefle,” said Christian, “either some old servant of M. Stenson’s came in here yesterday to put the room in order, without knowing that it had been invaded, or the Baroness Hilda is kept a prisoner somewhere in the building, either under our feet or over our heads; in the walled-up rooms above, for aught that I know. And by the way, how about that built-up door--you did not tell me where it led to, nor why it was closed. And yet that seems to me a rather interesting circumstance.”

“A very ordinary one. Stenson told me all about it. The room over this was for a long time completely out of repair. When the Baroness Hilda took refuge at Stollborg, she had the door closed up because it let in the wind and the cold. After her death, Stenson had it opened, to make repairs in the masonry of the upper part of the building. But as it would have cost more than it was worth to make the place habitable, and as nobody would have ventured to occupy rooms that were regarded as the devil’s very head-quarters, on account of the Catholic chapel that was supposed to have been erected there, Stenson, with the baron’s permission--as he himself told me--built it up solid again with his own hands. He did this both out of economy--there being no further use for the door--and to put a stop to the superstitious stories in circulation about the old building.”