A German Pompadour Part 14

'Answer me now if you are indeed there, Mademoiselle; I am alone,' he called, and he heard Wilhelmine's voice from within, but owing to the rushing waters her words were indistinguishable.

Meanwhile Wilhelmine was struggling to draw back the lever, for she could not leave the grotto before the water subsided. It was no easy matter to turn the heavy bar, though the resistance was not so great as when she had turned on the defending streams, still it lasted several minutes ere she accomplished her task and heard the splashing and gurgling of the water subside. Thus Zollern concluded he had been mistaken when he had fancied he heard her voice within, and when Wilhelmine reached the doorway of the grotto he was preparing to depart.

She called him softly: 'Oh, my friend, help me home,' and there was a tone of appeal in her voice. Zollern came to her quickly, and raising her torn and bleeding hands to his lips, kissed them tenderly. 'Guard me, protect me, Monseigneur. I am very lonely,' she said.

'Until death takes me I will be your friend,' he replied, and Madame de Ruth would have suffered a jealous pang had she heard.

With a feeling of unreality, as though she were just awakened from an evil dream, Wilhelmine found herself once more in her pretty yellow-hung saloon. Maria, the maid, kneeled beside her, bathing the wounds in her palms made by the rough surface of the grotto walls. Slime from the moss-grown stones was on Wilhelmine's dress, and deep red marks of rust from the waterworks' lever had stained the breast of her gown where she had pressed on the bar.

Zollern stood before her. He was urging her immediate departure from Stuttgart; the place was unsafe for her in the Duke's absence, he averred. The Gravenitz responded wearily. She was willing to depart--indeed it was impossible for her to remain--but whither? Gustrow?

Zollern reflected. He owned a small castle at Schaffhausen in Switzerland, and he begged her to accept it as a refuge. 'And I pray you,' he added, 'keep it always if it pleases you; we never know when a humble refuge may not be welcome.' And so it was decided that Wilhelmine was to depart immediately, accompanied to the frontier by a hundred guards commanded by a certain Captain Schrader, whom Zollern knew he could trust, because this officer was anxious to make his way at court by pleasing the Duke.

The dawn was breaking through the deep blue of the night sky when Wilhelmine started on her journey to Schaffhausen. The cavalcade rattled down the Graben, Wilhelmine's heavy coach in the midst of the famous Silver Guard. They pa.s.sed out of the town-gate and gained the open country, where the fields sent forth a fragrant breath, and the woods were pungent, sweet, and fresh from the cool night. It reminded Wilhelmine of that May morning a twelvemonth since, when she had entered Wirtemberg, and yet, though Nature smiled then as on that day, how different it had seemed to her. Then everything had been radiant with Spring happiness, and her heart had responded gladly, though she was but a solitary stranger venturing into an unknown country. Now she felt half angry with the woods and fields for their peaceful joyousness, and her soul gave forth no answering note of gladness, though she rode at ease in a fine coach surrounded by a brilliant escort as though she were a queen.

Her thoughts were bitter, poisoned with disgust, for she realised that, in spite of her great prosperity, she was in truth a fugitive before 'la canaille,' and, as she journeyed, she took no pleasure in the gracious loveliness around her. Her mind was busy with plans for revenge upon the brutal mob and the hostile burghers who thus drove her forth, and she vowed to herself that her enemies should repent their insolence, that the canaille should weep tears of blood and tremble before her they had insulted.

CHAPTER XI

THE MOCK MARRIAGE

MAReCHAL LE DUC DE VILLARS was no brilliant, victorious hero, judged by the standard of a century which had seen such military geniuses as Turenne, as the great Conde, as Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy. Villars was essentially a wily tactician, and his exploits were useful, but he lacked the dash, the verve which characterise the great commanders of that epoch. It was his system to overrun an invaded country, skilfully avoiding actual combat with the defending army, which pursued him impotently along the ghastly trail of ravage. Thus Villars, with no loss to his troops, spread famine through the land, for he plundered and devastated wherever he pa.s.sed. He conducted the brief invasion of Wirtemberg in 1707 on these lines. Crossing the Rhine during the night of May 21st, he plunged unopposed into the very heart of the Swabian land.

Eberhard Ludwig, who, along with the Elector of Hanover, commanded one portion of the Imperial army, executed a turning movement mighty like a retreat, but Villars had so overpowering a majority of men that an attack upon their united strength would have been more than hazardous. Thus the whole country lay at the Frenchmen's mercy, and they swarmed over town, village, and farm, harrying, burning, pillaging, and always disappearing ere the would-be defenders came up. Eberhard Ludwig followed hotly, hoping to engage separate columns of the huge army, but it was too late, and after a futile pursuit round the entire country, he had the chagrin of seeing the French enter Stuttgart. Here Villars remained but a few days. Wilhelmine said afterwards that 'l'ennui de Stuttgard' had proved a greater defence than the entire Imperial army! Be this as it may, Villars evacuated Stuttgart in an amazingly short time, and retired eastwards to the ancient town of Schorndorf. Now the d.u.c.h.ess-mother emerged from her dower-house at Stetten, and craved a meeting with the Duc de Villars, who, as a gentleman, could not refuse the ancient dame's request.

There is a popular tradition that they met in a field between Schorndorf and Stetten, neither being willing to accept the hospitality of the other, and that here they discussed and settled the terms of the evacuation of Wirtemberg and the sum of the indemnity, all of which was afterwards solemnly ratified by the Geheimraths of Stuttgart, who, willingly, permitted the d.u.c.h.ess-mother to bear nearly the entire cost of the indemnity, a matter of some two hundred thousand gulden. Villars, upon payment of this sum, half of which he is reported by German historians to have retained for his own uses, now left Wirtemberg, and marched towards the French frontier, leaving, however, six thousand men under General Vivant in the country.

The Imperial army under command of the Elector of Hanover was at Heilbronn in Wirtemberg, a mediaeval Imperial free town. Eberhard Ludwig, in command of the Wirtemberg contingent, was with the army. His Highness had taken up his quarters in the ancient Abbey of Maulbronn, between which and Heilbronn spread the encampment of the Imperial army. Eberhard Ludwig had chosen Maulbronn for his quarters, thinking that the peace of the Monastery, with its shadowy, highly vaulted cloisters, and its old-world garden, might soothe the restlessness which had devoured his being since his absence from Wilhelmine. In Maulbronn's garden stands the haunted tower where legend says that Doctor Faustus, the frenzied searcher for the elixir of eternal life, bartered his soul to Satan in return for a span of youth and love. The Faust tower faces the great cloister, and they say the Doctor, when sealing his pact with the devil, was disturbed by the monks' chanting.

Eberhard Ludwig revelled in the garden and its fantastic legends, but his yearning for Wilhelmine only grew the stronger. Why was she not with him to dream in the cool silence of the cloister? How she would love the garden with its luxuriance of old-world flowers--the fragrant roses planted by some long-dead monk--the huge tree-peonies. The very breezes seemed legend-laden. Wilhelmine! beloved! It was a futile thing indeed for this poet-prince to endeavour to forget the woman he loved! In a garden so wondrous beautiful, in this place of dreaming, he could but dream the more. So, when the news came that Villars had retired, his Highness decided he must follow Wilhelmine to Switzerland forthwith.

Forstner was summoned, and the Wirtemberg troops placed under his command. Of course he protested he was not efficient, but, as usual, Eberhard Ludwig the impetuous overruled him.

The news of his Highness's departure caused angry consternation in Stuttgart. Johanna Elizabetha wept, but the d.u.c.h.ess-mother raged. She had fancied that her son, deeply obliged to her for her generous action of the war indemnity, would listen to her reasonable voice as a reward.

'Ridiculous!' _he_ argued. 'I never asked her to pay the indemnity; if she chooses to do so, well and good, but it does not bind me to obedience.'

There is a pathetic letter from the d.u.c.h.ess-mother to her son, a dignified epistle with a very human postscriptum, wherein bubbles over a mother's hatred for her son's seducer, the honest woman's furious disdain of the triumphant charm of an adventuress.

'MON FILS,--Si j'ai delivre le pays du fleau francois j'attends que vous delivriez la Cour du fleau de votre peche. Revenez a Stuttgard et faites votre devoir de mari, de pere, de fils et de Prince Chretien. Vous redonnerez la paix a votre mere,

'MAGDALeNE SYBILLE, PRINCESSE DE HESSE DARMSTADT, 'd.u.c.h.eSSE DOUAIRIeRE DE WIRTEMBERG.

'Cette Gravenitz est une p----! J'aurois des preuves si je voulois les donner; je vous prie de me croire qu'elle ne merite pas votre faveur!'

Possibly, had the d.u.c.h.ess-mother denied herself the satisfaction of writing this postscriptum, Eberhard Ludwig might indeed have returned to Stuttgart for a time, and who can tell how a man's fancy may vary in a few months? But being a lover and a chivalrous gentleman, the unfortunate paragraph roused him to a white heat of championship for his mistress. What! she 'une p----?' Ah! how evil was the world! No man, and, above all, no woman, could understand Wilhelmine. She was grossly misjudged, cruelly persecuted. Thus, when he read this letter from his mother (which reached him when he was starting for Switzerland), he only shrugged his shoulders angrily, and crushing the missive into his saddle holster, spurred his horse forward, and galloped southward to the calumniated lady of his heart.

Wilhelmine had pa.s.sed a solitary two months at Schaffhausen. Zollern's castle stood on the left bank of the Rhine, overlooking the great waterfall, whose delicious thunder had soothed her to calmer thoughts.

She pa.s.sed the long hours in reading and making music, and the peaceful days had added brilliancy to her splendid healthfulness. Thus, when Eberhard Ludwig came to Schaffhausen, he found her an even more forceful, vital, fresh-skinned woman than had been the beautiful girl he left at Stuttgart.

She met him with pa.s.sionate happiness, and for a few days their intercourse was a prolonged rhapsody of the senses. At length, however, their dream was broken by the unwelcome advent of a messenger with despatches from Vienna to Field-Marshal of the Imperial Army, Commander of the Swabian Army Corps, Monseigneur le Duc de Wirtemberg. His Highness was furious, also anxious. Why had the fool Forstner not attended to these despatches? They were important commands concerning the army, and needed immediate attention, and now, having been all the way to Heilbronn, here they were sent to Switzerland! His Highness fumed, cursed Forstner; it was exceedingly awkward, orders from Vienna, and Eberhard Ludwig in Switzerland. He had given full power to Forstner to transact all business in his name.

'Of course, a plot,' said Wilhelmine, 'a plot to separate us again!'

His Highness was anxious, but she soothed him as usual, and he sent the despatches back with orders to Forstner to attend to the business. Peace again for a day or so, then Forstner arrived at Schaffhausen.

'Why in h.e.l.l's name do you follow me, M. de Forstner?' was the Duke's greeting.

'I come because it is my duty, Monseigneur!'

'Your duty? Let me remind you that your duty lies where I left you--with the army. But now that you have come, kindly tell me your errand.' It was harshly said, and Forstner was deeply wounded. Could this be the n.o.ble, courteous prince he had served for many years, the friend of his childhood, the gallant companion in arms? Poor Forstner, he had yet to discover that the tiresome friend is always ill-treated eventually.

'My errand, Monseigneur, will be unwelcome to you, I know, for I have come to urge you to return to the army immediately. The Elector of Hanover is furious at your Highness's sudden departure. He says openly that it is contrary to both military discipline and, I regret, mon Prince, to honour. He says if all his generals permitted themselves to run after their mistresses when it suited them, the army would be in a parlous state.' Indeed the Elector of Hanover had expressed himself in less measured words.

'I am a Prince commanding my own troops allied with the Imperial army, and I am at liberty to go and come without permission from M.

l'Electeur,' said Eberhard Ludwig haughtily.

'I implore your Highness to listen to reason,' cried Forstner; 'you are jeopardising your reputation as a soldier for the sake of a ----'

The epithet he used was forcible, and Eberhard Ludwig started forward angrily.

'Yes, it is the task of a true friend to speak the truth without reserve'

(alas, Forstner!), 'and Mademoiselle de Gravenitz is an abandoned woman.'

As he uttered these words Wilhelmine entered the apartment.

'Mon Prince, is it thus you permit your friends to speak of me?' she said in a low voice.

'A thousand times no!' cried his Highness. 'Forstner, you leave my service for ever. Go!' He pointed dramatically to the door, but Forstner had not concluded his peroration, and he had no intention of being silenced this time; he was a diligent, persistent friend, poor soul.

'Mademoiselle de Gravenitz, I appeal to you; his Highness is playing a ridiculous role in the sight of Europe! Give him up, send him back to duty, to honour, to his great military career!'

'Monsieur, you come here to dictate to his Highness, it seems! Since when is that your right?' She spoke sneeringly, and Eberhard Ludwig felt that her taunt was directed in part at himself. She did not deem him capable of resisting Forstner, perhaps? she considered him as a being whose conduct could be dictated.

'I know my duty, sir,' he said; 'you have no need to teach it me.'

'Indeed, Monseigneur, you have forgotten it since yonder lady's advent!'

Forstner was getting beyond himself.

'I have not forgotten how to defend from insult the lady whom I love and honour,' said Eberhard Ludwig coldly, 'and I request you, Forstner, to withdraw immediately.'

'Mademoiselle de Gravenitz, you have ruined his Highness!' shouted Forstner; 'he is untrue to all his vows: you are a ----'; but his words are unrepeatable, even Wilhelmine shrank back. Eberhard Ludwig drew his sword and forced his over-zealous friend through the door.

A moment afterwards his Highness returned and, flinging himself upon his knees before the Gravenitz, poured forth a torrent of adoring words, but the lady remained impervious to his pleading.

'I cannot suffer such treatment,' she answered; 'I can but beg your Highness to depart from me for ever. I shall reside here, drag out a solitary existence in this refuge which my friend Monseigneur de Zollern has given me! Your Highness cannot defend me from insult, and I do not choose to be flaunted as a wanton.'

'Alas, what can I do? I will give you all, but I have not the power to legalise your position.'

'So I see, Monseigneur, and therefore I beg you to depart.'