My Lady Rotha: A Romance

'Soldiers are bad to starve,' the Waldgrave answered.

'Yes; they will see the townsfolk suffer first,' I rejoined, with a touch of bitterness. 'But look whichever way you please, it is a gloomy outlook, my lord, and I do not wonder that my lady is down-hearted.'

He nodded, but presently he said something that showed that he was not satisfied. 'The Countess used to be of a bolder spirit,' he muttered. 'I don't understand it.'

I did not know how to answer him, and fortunately, at that moment, Marie came down to say that my lady proposed to visit Count Leuchtenstein, and that I was to go to her. The Waldgrave heard, and raced up before me, crying out that he would go too. I followed. When I reached the parlour I found them confronting one another, my lady standing in the oriel with her back to the street.

'But would it not be more seemly?' the Waldgrave was saying as I entered. 'As your cousin, and-'

'I would rather go alone,' the Countess replied curtly.

'To the camp?' he exclaimed. 'He is not in his city quarters.'

'Yes, to the camp,' my lady answered, with, a spark of anger in her eyes.

On that he stood, fidgety and discomfited, and the Countess gave me her orders. But he could not believe that she did not need him, and the moment she was silent, he began again.

'You do not want me; but you do not object to my company, I suppose?' he said airily. 'I have to thank the Count, cousin, and I must go to-day or to-morrow. There is no time like the present, and if you are going now-'

'I should prefer to go alone,' my lady said stiffly.

His face fell; he stood looking foolish. 'Oh, I did not know,' he stammered at last; 'I thought-'

'What?' the Countess said.

'That you liked me well enough-to-to be glad of my company,' he answered, half offended, half in deprecation.

'I liked you well enough to abase myself for you!' my lady retorted cruelly. And I dare say that she said more, but I did not hear it. I had to go down and prepare for her visit.

When I next saw him, he was much subdued. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind, and by-and-by he asked me a question about Count Leuchtenstein. I saw which way his thoughts were tending, or fancied that I did; but it was not my business to interfere one way or the other, and I answered him and made no comment. The horses were at the door then, and in a moment my lady came down, looking pale and depressed. The Waldgrave went humbly to her, and put her into her saddle, touching her foot as if it had been glass; and I mounted Marie, who was to attend her. I expected that my lady-who had a very tender heart under her queenly manner-would say something to him before we started; but she seemed to be quite taken up with her thoughts, and to be barely conscious, if conscious at all, of his presence. She said 'Thank you,' but it was mechanically. And the next moment we were moving, Ernst making up the escort.

My eyes soon furnished me with other matter for thought than the Waldgrave. Throughout the city the summer drought had dried up the foliage of the trees; and the grass, where it had not been plucked by the poor and boiled for food, had been eaten to the roots by starving cattle. The whole city under the blaze of sunshine wore an arid, dusty, parched appearance, and seemed to reflect on its face the look of dreary endurance which was worn by too many of the countenances we observed in the streets. Pain creeps by instinct to some dark and solitary place; but here was a whole city in pain, gasping and suffering under the pitiless sunshine; and the contrast between the blue sky above and the scene below added indescribably to the gloom and dreariness of the latter. I know that I got a horror of sunshine there that lasted for many a month after.

Either twenty-four hours had aggravated the pinch of famine, which was possible, or I had a more open mind to perceive it. I marked more hollow cheeks than ever, more hungry eyes, more faces with the glare of brutes. And in the bearing of the crowd that filled the streets-though no business was done, no trade carried on-I thought that I saw a change. Wherever it was thickest, I noticed that men walked in one of two ways, either hurrying along feverishly and in haste, as if time were of the utmost value, or moving listlessly, with dragging feet and lacklustre eyes, as if nothing had any longer power to stir them. I even noticed that the same men went in both ways within the space of a minute, passing in a second and apparently without intention from feverish activity to the moodiness of despair.

And no wonder. Not only famine, but pestilence had tightened its grasp on the city; and from this the rich had as much to fear as the poor. As we drew near the walls the smell of carrion, which had hitherto but spoiled the air, filled the nostrils and sickened the whole man. In some places scores of horses lay unburied, while it was whispered that in obscure corners death had so far outstripped the grave-diggers that corpses lay in the houses and the living slept with the dead. There was fighting in front of the bakers' shops in more than one place-my lady had to throw money before we could pass; in the kennels women screamed and fought for offal; from the open doors of churches prayers and wailing poured forth; at the gates, where gibbets, laden with corpses, rose for a warning, multitudes stood waiting and listening for news. And on all, dead and living, the sun shone hotly, steadily, ruthlessly, so that men asked with one voice, 'How long? How long?'

In the camp, which had just received huge reinforcements of men and horses, we found order and discipline at least. Rows of kettles and piles of arms proclaimed it, and lines of pennons that stretched almost as far as the eye could reach. But here, too, were knitted brows, and gloomy looks, and loud murmurings, that grew and swelled as we passed. Count Leuchtenstein's quarters were on the border of the Swedish camp, near the Finland regiments, and not far from the King's. A knot of officers, who stood talking in front of them and knew my lady, came to place themselves at her service. But the offer proved to be abortive, for the first thing she learned was that the Count was absent. He had gone at dawn in the direction of Altdorf to cover the entrance of a convoy.

I felt that she was grievously disappointed, for whether she loved him or not, I could understand the humiliation under which she smarted, and would smart until she had set herself right with him. But she veiled her chagrin admirably, and, lightly refusing the offer of refreshment, turned her horse's head at once, so that in a twinkling we were on our road home again.

By the way, I saw only what I had seen before. But the Countess, whose figure began to droop, saw, I think, with other eyes than those through which she had looked on the outward journey. Her thoughts no longer occupied, she saw in their fulness the ravages which famine and plague were making in the town, once so prosperous. When she reached her lodgings her first act was to send money, of which we had no great store, to the magistrates, that a free meal in addition to the starvation rations might be given to the poor; and her next, to declare that henceforth she would keep the house.

Accordingly, instead of going again to the Count's, she sent me next day with a letter. I found the camp in an uproar, which was fast spreading to the city. A rumour had just got wind that the King was about to break up his camp and give battle to the enemy at all hazards; and so many were riding and running into the city with the news that I could scarcely make head against the current.

Arriving at last, however, I was fortunate enough to find the Count in his quarters and alone. My lady had charged me-with a blushing cheek but stern eyes-to deliver the letter with my own hands, and I dismounted. I thought that I had nothing to do but deliver it; I foresaw no trouble. But at the last moment, as a trooper led me through the antechamber, who should appear at my side but the Waldgrave!

'You did not expect to see me?' he said, nodding grimly.

'No, my lord,' I answered.

'So I thought,' he rejoined. 'But before you give the Count that letter, I have a word to say to him.'

I looked at him in astonishment. What had the letter to do with him? My first idea was that he had been drinking, for his colour was high and his eye bright. But a second glance showed that he was sober, though excited. And while I hesitated the trooper held up the curtain, and perforce I marched in.

Count Leuchtenstein, wearing his plain buff suit, sat writing at a table. His corselet, steel cap, and gauntlets lay beside him, and seemed to show that he had just come in from the field. He looked up and nodded to me; I had been announced before. Then he saw the Waldgrave and rose; reluctantly, I fancied. I thought, too, that a shade of gloom fell on his face; but as the table was laden with papers and despatches and maps and lists, and the sight reminded me that he bore on his shoulders all the affairs of Hesse, and the responsibility for the boldest course taken by any German prince in these troubles, I reflected that this might arise from a hundred causes.

He greeted the Waldgrave civilly nevertheless; then he turned to me. 'You have a letter for me, have you not, my friend?' he said.

'Yes, my lord,' I answered.

'But,' the Waldgrave interposed, 'before you read it, I have a word to say, by your leave, Count Leuchtenstein.'

I think I never saw a man more astonished than the Count. 'To me?' he said.

'By your leave, yes.'

'In regard to-this letter?'

'Yes.'

'But what do you know about this letter?'

'Too much, I am afraid,' the Waldgrave answered; and I am bound to say that, putting aside the extraordinary character of his interference, he bore himself well. I could detect nothing of wildness or delusion in his manner. His face glowed, and he threw back his head with a hint of defiance; but he seemed sane. 'Too much,' he continued rapidly, before the Count could stop him; 'and, before the matter goes farther, I will have my say.'

The Count stared at him. 'By what right?' he said at last.

'As the Countess Rotha's nearest kinsman,' the Waldgrave answered.

'Indeed?' I could see that the Count was hard put to it to keep his temper; that the old lion in him was stirring, and would soon have way. But for the moment he controlled himself. 'Say on,' he cried.

'I will, in a few words,' the Waldgrave answered. 'And what I have to say amounts to this: I have become aware-no matter how-of the bargain you have made, Count Leuchtenstein, and I will not have it.'

'The bargain!' the Count ejaculated; 'you will not have it!'

'The bargain; and I will not have it!' the Waldgrave rejoined.

Count Leuchtenstein drew a deep breath, and stared at him like a man demented. 'I think that you must be mad,' he said at last. 'If not, tell me what you mean.'

'What I say,' the Waldgrave answered stubbornly. 'I forbid the bargain to which I have no doubt that that letter relates.'

'In Heaven's name, what bargain?' the Count cried.

'You think that I do not know,' the Waldgrave replied, with a touch of bitterness; 'it did not require a Solomon to read the riddle. I found my cousin distrait, absent, moody, sad, preoccupied, unlike herself. She had moved heaven and earth, I was told, to save me; in the last resort, had come to you, and you saved me. Yet when she saw me safe, she met me as much in sorrow as in joy. The mere mention of your name clouded her face; and she must see you, and she must write to you, and all in a fever. I say, it does not require a Solomon to read this riddle, Count Leuchtenstein.'

'You think?' said the Count, bluntly. 'I do not yet know what you think.'

'I think that she sold herself to you to win my pardon,' the Waldgrave answered.