My Lady Rotha Part 29

But Marie was so wrapped up in her sudden loss that she answered him without thought, listening the while. 'Yes,' she said mechanically, 'it had.'

'Where did you find it, then--the child?' he asked eagerly.

'In the forest by Vach,' she replied, in the same indifferent tone.

'Was it alone?'

'It was with a dead woman,' she answered. She was listening still, with a strained face--listening for the pattering of the little feet, the shrill music of the piping voice. Only half of her mind was with us. Her hands opened and closed continually with anxiety; she held her head on one side, her ear to the door. When the Count went to put another question, she turned upon him so fiercely, I hardly knew her.

'Hush!' she said, 'will you? They are here, but they have not found him. They have not found him!' And she was right; though I, whose ears were not sharpened by love, did not discern this until two men, who had been left at home with her, and who had been out to search, came in empty-handed and with scared looks. They had hunted on all sides and found no trace of the child, and, certain that it could not have strayed far itself, p.r.o.nounced positively that it had been kidnapped.

Marie at that burst into weeping so pitiful, that I was glad to send the men out, bidding them make a larger circuit and inquire in the camp. When they were gone, I turned to Count Leuchtenstein to see how he took it. I found him leaning against the wall, his face grave, dark, and thoughtful.

'There seems a fatality in it!' he muttered, meeting my eyes, but speaking to himself. 'That it should be lost again--at this moment!

Yet, G.o.d's will be done. He who sent the chain to my hands can still take care of the child.'

He paused a moment in deep thought, and then, advancing to Marie Wort, who had thrown herself into a chair and was sobbing pa.s.sionately with her face on the table, he touched her on the shoulder.

'Good girl!' he said kindly. 'Good girl! But doubtless the child is safe. Before night it will be found.'

She sprang up and faced him, her cheeks flaming with anger. I suppose the questions he had put to her had made no distinct impression on her mind.

'Oh,' she cried, in the voice of a shrew, 'how you prate! By night it will be found, will it? How do you know? But the child is nothing to you--nothing!'

'Girl,' he said solemnly, yet gently, 'the child is my child--my only child, and the hope of my house.'

She looked at him wildly. 'Who are you, then?' she said, her voice sinking almost to a whisper.

'I am his father,' he answered; when I looked to hear him state his name and t.i.tles. 'And as his father, I thank and bless you for all that you have done for him.'

'His mother?' she whispered, open-eyed with awe.

'His mother is dead. She died three years ago,' he answered gravely.

'And now tell me your name, for I must go.'

'You must go!' she exclaimed. 'You will go--you can go--and your child lost and wandering?'

'Yes,' he replied, with a dignity which silenced her, 'I can, for I have other and greater interests to guard than those of my house, and I dare not be negligent. He may be found to-morrow, but what I have to do to-day cannot be done to-morrow. See, take that,' he continued more gently, laying a heavy purse on the table before her. 'It is for you, for your own use--for your dowry, if you have a lover. And remember always that, in the house of Hugo of Leuchtenstein, at Ca.s.sel, or Marburg, or at the Schloss by Leuchtenstein, you will find a home and shelter, and stout friends whenever you need them. Now give me your name.'

She stared at him dumfounded and was silent. I told him Marie Wort of Munich, at present in attendance on the Countess of Heritzburg; and he set it down in his tablets.

'Good,' he said. And then in his stern, grave fashion he turned to me.

'Master Steward,' he said, in a measured tone which nevertheless stirred my blood, 'are you an ambitious man? If so, search for my child, and bring him to Ca.s.sel or Marburg, or my house, and I will fulfil your ambition. Would you have a command, I will see to it; or a farm, it shall be yours. You can do for me, my friend' he continued strenuously, laying his hand on my arm, 'what in this stress of war and statecraft I cannot do for myself. I have a hundred at my call, but they are not here; and by to-night I must be ten leagues hence, by to-morrow night beyond the Main. Yet G.o.d, I believe,' he went on, uncovering himself and speaking with reverent earnestness, 'who brought me to this place, and permitted me to hear again of my son, will not let His purpose fail because He calls me elsewhere.'

And he maintained this grave composure to the last. A man more worthy of his high repute, not in Hesse only, but in the Swedish camp, at Dresden, and Vienna, I thought that I had never seen. Yet still under the mask I discerned the workings of a human heart. His eye, as he turned to go, wandered round the room; I knew that it was seeking some trace of his boy's presence. On the threshold he halted suddenly; I knew that he was listening. But no sound rewarded him. He nodded sternly to me and went out.

I followed to hold his stirrup. The Finland riders, sitting upright in their saddles, looked as if they had not moved an eyelash in our absence. As I had left them so I found them. He gave a short, sharp word of command; a sudden jingling of bridles followed; the troop walked forward, broke into a trot, and in a twinkling disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.

Then, and not till then, I remembered that I had not said a word to him about my lady's position. His personality and the loss of the child had driven it from my mind. Now it recurred to me; but it was too late, and after stamping up and down in vexation for a while, I turned and went into the house.

Marie Wort had fallen back into the old position at the table, and was sitting with her face on her arms, sobbing bitterly. I went up to her and saw the purse lying by her side.

'Come,' I said, trying awkwardly to cheer her, 'the child will be found, never fear. When my lady returns she will send to the general, and he will have it cried through the camp. It is sure to be found.

And you have made a powerful friend.'

But she took no heed of me. She continued to weep; and her sobs hurt me. She seemed so small and lonely and helpless that I had not the heart to leave her by herself in the house and go out into the sunshine to search. And so--I scarcely know how it came about--in a moment she was sobbing out her grief on my shoulder and I was whispering in her ear.

Of love? of our love? No, for to have spoken of that while she wept for the child, would have seemed to me no better than sacrilege. And, besides, I think that we took it for granted. For when her sobs presently ceased, and she lay quiet, listening, and I found her soft dark hair on my shoulder, I kissed it a hundred times; and still she lay silent, her cheek against my rough coat. Our eyes had spoken morning and evening, at dawn when we met, and at night when we parted; and now that this matter of the chain was settled, it seemed fitting that she should come to me for comfort--without words.

At length she drew herself away from me, her cheek dark and her eyes downcast. 'Not now,' she said, gently stopping me--for then I think I should have spoken. 'Will you please to go out and search? No, I will not grieve.'

'But your purse!' I reminded her. She was leaving it on the table, and it was not safe there. 'You should put it in a place of safety, Marie.'

She took it up and very simply placed it in my hands. 'He said it was for my--dowry,' she whispered, blushing. And then she fled away shamefaced to her room.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A SUDDEN EXPEDITION.

I did not after that suffer the gra.s.s to grow under my feet. I went out, and with my own eyes searched the fields at the back, and every ditch and water-hole. I had the loss cried in the camp, my lady on her return offered a reward, we sent even to the nearer villages, we patrolled the roads, we omitted nothing that could by any chance avail us. Yet evening fell, and night, and found us still searching; and no nearer, as far as we could see, to success. The child was gone mysteriously. Left to play alone for two minutes in the stillness of the afternoon, he had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.

Baffled, we began to ask, while Marie sat pale and brooding in a corner, or now and again stole to the door to listen, who could have taken him and with what motive? There were men and women in the camp capable of anything. It seemed probable to some that these had stolen the child for the sake of his clothes. Others suggested witchcraft.

But in my own mind, I leaned to neither of these theories. I suspected, though I dared not utter the thought, that the general had done it. Without knowing how much of the story Count Hugo had confided to him, I took it as certain that the father had said enough to apprise him of the boy's value. And this being so, what more probable than that the general, whom I was prepared to credit with any atrocity, had taken instant steps to possess himself of the child?

My lady said and did all that was kind on the occasion, and for a few hours it occupied all our thoughts. At the end of that time, however, about sunset, General Tzerclas rode to the door, and with him, to my surprise, the Waldgrave. They would see her, and detained her so long that when she sent for me on their departure, I was sore on Marie's, account, and inclined to blame her as indifferent to our loss. But a single glance at her face put another colour on the matter. I saw that something had occurred to excite and disturb her.

'Martin,' she said earnestly, 'I am going to employ you on an errand of importance. Listen to me and do not interrupt me. General Tzerclas starts to-morrow with the larger part of his forces to intercept one of Wallenstein's convoys, which is expected to pa.s.s twelve leagues to the south of this. There will be sharp fighting, I am told, and my cousin, the Waldgrave Rupert, is going. He is not at present--I mean, I am afraid he may do something rash. He is young,' my lady continued with dignity and a heightened colour, 'and I wish he would stay here.

But he will not.'

I guessed at once that this affair of the convoy was the business which had brought Count Hugo to the camp. And I was beginning to consider what advantage we might make of it, and whether the general's absence might not afford us both a pretext for departure and the opportunity, when my lady's next words dispelled my visions.

'I want you,' she said slowly, 'to go with him. He has a high opinion of you, and will listen to you.'

'The general?' I cried in amazement.

'Who spoke of him?' she exclaimed angrily. 'I said the Waldgrave Rupert. I wish you to go with him to see that he does not run any unnecessary risk.'

I coughed dryly, and stood silent.

'Well?' my lady said with a frown. 'Do you understand?'

'I understand, my lady,' I answered firmly; 'but I cannot go.'

'_You cannot go!_ when I send you!' she murmured, unable, I think, to believe her ears. 'Why not, sirrah? Why not, if you please?'