My Lady Rotha: A Romance

Twice that night when I awoke I heard a light footstep, and turned to see the girl, moving to and fro among the rusty locks and ancient chests in attendance on Steve. He mended but slowly. She did not come near me at these times, and after a glance I pretended to fall asleep that I might listen unnoticed to her movements, and she be more free to do her will. But whenever I heard her and opened my eyes to see her slender figure moving in that dingy place, I felt the warmth about my heart again. I forgot the gold necklace; I thought no more of the rosary, only of the girl. For what is there which so well becomes a woman as tending the sick; an office which in a lover's eyes should set off his mistress beyond velvet and Flanders lace.

CHAPTER VI.

RUPERT THE GREAT

I have known a man very strong and very confident, whom the muzzle of a loaded pistol, set fairly against his head, has reduced to reason marvellously. So it fared with Heritzburg on this occasion. My lady's cannon, which I went up to the roof at daybreak to see-and did see, to my great astonishment, trained one on the Market Square, and one down the High Street-formed the pistol, under the cooling influence of which the town had so far come to its senses, that the game was now in my lady's hands. Peter assured me that the place was in a panic, that the Countess could hardly ask any amends that would not be made, and that as a preliminary the Burgomaster and Minister were to go to the castle before noon to sue for pardon. He suggested that I and the girl should accompany them.

'But does Hofman know that we are here?' I asked.

'Since yesterday morning,' the locksmith answered, with a grin. 'And no one more pleased to hear it! If he had not you to present as a peace-offering, I doubt he would have fled the town before he would have gone up. As it is, they had fine work with him at the town-council yesterday.'

'He is in a panic? Serve him right!' I said.

'I am told that his cheeks shake like jelly,' Peter answered.

'Two of the Waldgrave's men are dead, you know, and some say that the Countess will hang him out of hand. But you will go up with him?'

'Yes,' I said. 'I see no objection.'

Some one else objected, however. When the plan was broached to the girl, she looked troubled. For a moment she did not speak, but stood before us silent and confused. Then she pointed to Steve.

'When is he going, if you please?' she asked, in a troubled voice.

'He must go in a litter by the road,' I answered. 'Peter here will see to it this morning.'

'Could I not go with him?' she said.

I looked at Peter, and he at me. He nodded.

'I see no reason why you should not, if you prefer it,' I said. 'Either way you will be safe.'

'I should prefer it,' she muttered, in a low tone. And then she went out to get something for Steve, and we saw her no more.

'Drunken Steve is in luck,' Peter said, looking after her with a smile. 'She is wonderfully taken with him. She is a-she is a good girl, Papist or no Papist,' he added thoughtfully.

I am not sure that he would have indorsed that later in the day. At the last moment, when I was about to leave the house to go up to the castle my way, and Steve and his party were on the point of starting by the West Gate and the road, something happened which gave both of us a kind of shock, though neither said a word to the other. Marie had brought down the little boy, a brave-eyed, fair-haired child about three years old, and she was standing with us in the forge waiting with the child clinging to her skirt, when on a sudden she turned to Peter and began to thank him. A word and she broke down.

'Pooh, child!' Peter said kindly, patting her on the shoulder. 'It was little enough, and I am glad I did it. No thank's.'

She answered between her sobs that it was beyond thanks, and called on Heaven to reward him.

'If I had anything,' she continued, looking at him timidly, 'if I had anything I could give you to prove my gratitude, I would so gladly give it. But I am alone, and I have nothing worth your acceptance. I have nothing in the world, unless,' she added with an effort, 'you would like my rosary.'

'No,' Peter said almost roughly. I noticed that he avoided my eye. 'I do not want it. It is not a thing I use.'

She said she had nothing; and we knew she had that chain! Yet Heaven knows her face as she said it was fair enough to convert a Beza! She said she had nothing; we knew she had. Yet if ever genuine gratitude and thankfulness seemed to shine out of wet human eyes, they shone out of hers then.

What I could not stomach was the ingratitude. The fraud was too gross, too gratuitous, since she need have offered nothing. I turned away and went out of the forge without waiting for her to recover herself. I dreaded lest she should thank me in the same way.

I knew Peter, and knew he could have no motive for traducing her. He was old enough to be her grandfather, and a quiet good man. Therefore I was sure that she had the chain, three or four links of which should be worth his shop of old iron.

But besides I had the evidence of my own eyes. There was a crinkle, a crease in her kerchief, for which the presence of the necklace would account; it was such a crease as a necklace of that size would cause. I had marked it when she brought the child into the room in her arms. The boy's right arm had been round her neck, and I had seen him relax his hold of her hair and steady himself by placing his little palm on that wrinkle, as on a sure and certain and familiar stay. So I knew that she had the necklace, and that she had lied about it.

But after all it was nothing to me. The girl was a Papist, a Bavarian, the daughter of a roistering freebooting rider, versed in camp life. If with a fair outside she proved to be at heart what every reasonable man would expect to find her, what then? I had no need to trouble my head. I had affairs enough of my own on my hands.

Yet the affair did trouble me. The false innocence of the child's face haunted and perplexed me, and would not leave me, though I tried to think of other things and had other things to think of. I was to meet the Burgomaster in the market-place, and go thence with him, and I had promised myself that I would make good use of my opportunities; that I would lose no point of the town's behaviour, that not a lowering face should escape me, nor a quarter whence danger might arise in the future. But the girl's eyes made havoc of all my resolutions, and I had fairly reached the market-place before I remembered what I was doing.

There indeed a sight, which in a moment swept the cobwebs from my brain, awaited me. The square was full of people, not closely packed, but standing in loose groups, and all talking in voices so low as to produce a dull sullen sound more striking than silence. The Mayor and four or five Councillors occupied the steps of the market-house. Raised a head and shoulders above the throng, and glancing at it askance from time to time with scarcely disguised apprehension, they wore an air of irresolution it was impossible to mistake. Hofman in particular looked like a man with the rope already round his neck. His face was pale, his fat cheeks hung pendulous, his eyes never rested on anything for more than a second. They presently lit on me, and then if farther proof of the state of his mind was needed, I found it in the relief with which he hailed my appearance; relief, not the less genuine because he hastened to veil it from the jealous eyes that from every part of the square watched his proceedings.

The crowd made way for me silently. One in every two, perhaps, greeted me, and some who did not greet me, smiled at me fatuously. On the other hand, I was struck by the air of gloomy expectation which prevailed. I discerned that a very little would turn it into desperation, and saw, or thought I saw, that cannon, or no cannon, this was a case for delicate and skilful handling. The town was panic-stricken, partly at the thought of what it had done, partly at the sight of the danger which threatened it. But panic is a double-edged weapon. It takes little to turn it into fury.

I made for the opening into the High Street, and the Burgomaster, coming down the steps, passed through the crowd and met me there.

'This is a bad business, Master Martin,' he said, facing me with an odd mixture of shamefacedness and bravado. 'We must do our best to patch it up.'

'You had your warning,' I answered coldly, turning with him up the street, every window and doorway in which had its occupant. Dietz and two or three Councillors followed us, the Minister's face looking flushed and angry, and as spiteful as a cat's. 'Two lives have been lost,' I continued, 'and some one must pay for them.'

Hofman mopped his face. 'Surely,' he said, 'the three lead on our side, Master Martin-'

'I do not see what they have to do with it,' I answered, maintaining a cold and uninterested air, which was torture to him. 'It is your affair, however, not mine.'

'But, my dear friend-Martin,' he stammered, plucking my sleeve, 'you are not revengeful. You will not make it worse? You won't do that?'

'Worse?' I retorted. 'It is bad enough already. And I am afraid you will find it so.'

He winced and looked at me askance, his eyes rolling in a fever of apprehension. For a moment I really thought that he would turn and go back. But the crowd was behind; he was on the horns of a dilemma, and with a groan of misery he moved on, looking from time to time at the terrace above us. 'Those cursed cannon,' I heard him mutter, as he wiped his brow.

'Ay,' I said, sharply, 'if it had not been for the cannon you would have seen our throats cut before you would have moved. I quite understand that. But you see it is our turn now.'

We were on the steps and he did not answer. I looked up, expecting to see the wall by the wicket-gate well-manned; but I was mistaken. No row of faces looked down from it. All was silent. A single man, on guard at the wicket, alone appeared. He bade us stand, and passed the word to another. He in his turn disappeared and presently old Jacob, with a half-pike on his shoulder, and a couple of men at his back, came stiffly out to receive us with all the formality and discipline of a garrison in time of war. He acknowledged my presence by a wink, but saluted my companions in the coldest manner possible, proceeding at once to march us without a word spoken to the door of the house, where we were again bidden to stand.

All this filled me with satisfaction. I knew what effect it would have on Hofman, and how it would send his soul into his shoes. At the same time my satisfaction was not unmixed. I felt a degree of strangeness myself. The place seemed changed, the men, moving stiffly, had an unfamiliar air. I missed the respect I had enjoyed in the house. For the moment I was nobody; a prisoner, an alien person admitted grudgingly, and on sufferance.

I comforted myself with the reflection that all would be well when I reached the presence. But I was mistaken. I saw indeed my lady's colour come and go when I entered, and her eyes fell. But she kept her seat, she looked no more at me than at my companions, she uttered no greeting or word of acknowledgment. It was the Waldgrave who spoke-the Waldgrave who acted. In a second there came over me a bitter feeling that all was changed; that the old state of things at Heritzburg was past, and a rule to which I was a stranger set in its place.

Three or four of my lady's women were grouped behind her, while Franz and Ernst stood like statues at the farther door. Fraulein Anna sat on a stool in the window-bay, and my lady's own presence was, as at all times, marked by a stateliness and dignity which seemed to render it impossible that she should pass for second in any company. But for all that the Waldgrave, standing up straight and tall behind her, with his comeliness, his youth, and his manhood and the red light from the coat of arms in the stained window just touching his fair hair, did seem to me to efface her. It was he who stood there to pardon or punish, praise or blame, and not my lady. And I resented it.

Not that his first words to me were not words of kindness.

'Ha, Martin,' he cried, his face lighting up, 'I hear you fought like an ancient Trojan, and broke as many heads as Hector. And that your own proved too hard for them! Welcome back. In a moment I may want a word with you; but you must wait.'

I stood aside, obeying his gesture; and he apologised, but with a very stern aspect, to Hofman and his companions for addressing me first.

'The Countess Rotha, however, Master Burgomaster,' he continued, with grim suavity, 'much as she desires to treat your office with respect, cannot but discern between the innocent and the guilty.'

'The guilty, my lord?' Hofman cried, in such a hurry and trepidation, I could have laughed. 'I trust that there are none here.'

'At any rate you represent them,' the Waldgrave retorted.