My Lady Rotha Part 37

'Not an hour, he said,' Marie answered, indicating by a gesture that the door was open, and that Fraulein Max was listening. 'He was--different,' she whispered.

'How?' my lady muttered.

'He swore at me,' Marie answered in the same tone. 'And he spoke of you--somehow differently.'

The Countess laughed, but far from joyously. 'I suppose to-night--I must see him?' she said. She tried as she spoke to press herself more deeply into the pillows, as if she might escape that way. Her flesh crept, and she shivered though she was as hot as fire.

Once or twice in the hours which followed she was almost beside herself. Sometimes she prayed. More often she walked up and down the room like one in a fever. She did not know on what she was trusting, and she could have struck Marie when the girl, appealed to again and again, would explain nothing, and name no quarter from which help might come. All the afternoon the camp lay grilling in the sunshine, and in the shuttered room in the middle of it my lady suffered. Had the house lain by the river she might have tried to escape; but the camp girdled it on three sides, and on the fourth, where a swampy inlet guarded one flank of the village, a deep ditch as well as the mora.s.s forbade all pa.s.sage.

She remained in her room until she heard the unwelcome sounds which told of the general's return. Then she came into the outer room, her eyes glittering, a red spot on either cheek, all pretence at an end.

Her glance withered Fraulein Max, who sat blinking in a corner with a very evil conscience. And to Marie Wort, when the girl came near her on the pretence of adjusting her lace sleeves, she had only one word to say.

'You s.l.u.t!' she hissed, her breath hot on the girl's cheek. 'If you fail me I will kill you. Begone out of my sight!'

The child, excited before, broke down at that, and, bursting into a fit of weeping, ran out. Her sobs were still in the air when General Tzerclas entered.

The Countess's face was flushed, and her bearing, full of pa.s.sion and defiance, must have warned him what to expect, if he felt any doubt before. The sun was just setting, the room growing dusk. He stood awhile, after saluting her, in doubt how he should come to the point, or in admiration; for her scorn and anger only increased her beauty and his feeling for her. At length he pointed lightly to the women, who kept their places by the door.

'Is it your wish, fair cousin,' he said slowly, 'that I should speak before these, or will you see me alone?'

'Your spy, that cat there,' my lady answered, carried away by her temper, 'may go! The women will stay.'

Fraulein Max, singled out by that merciless finger, sprang forward, her face mottled with surprise and terror. For a second she hesitated.

Then she rushed towards her friend, as if she would embrace her.

'Countess!' she cried. 'Rotha! Surely you are mad! You cannot think that I would----'

My lady turned, and in a flash struck her fiercely on the cheek with her open hand. 'Liar!' she cried; 'go to your master, you whipped hound!'

The Dutch woman recoiled with a cry of pain, and sobbing wildly went back to her place. The general laughed harshly.

'You hold with me, sweetheart,' he said. 'Discipline before everything. But you have not my patience.'

She looked at him--angry with him, angry with herself, her hand to her bosom--but she did not answer.

'For you must allow,' he continued--his tone and his eyes still bantered her--'that I have been patient. I have been like a man athirst in the desert; but I have waited day after day, until now I can wait no longer, sweetheart.'

'So you tamper with my--with that woman!' she said scornfully.

The general shrugged his shoulders and laughed grimly. 'Why not?' he said. 'What are waiting-women and the like made for, if not to be bribed--or slapped?'

She hated him for that sly hit--if never before; but she controlled herself. She would throw the burden on him.

He read the thought, and it led him to change his tone. There was a gloomy fire in his eyes, and smouldering pa.s.sion in his voice, when he spoke again.

'Well, Countess,' he said, 'I am here for your answer.'

'To what?'

'To the question I asked you some time ago,' he rejoined, dwelling on her with sullen eyes. 'I asked you to be my wife. Your answer?'

'Prythee!' she said proudly, 'this is a strange way of wooing.'

'It is not of my choice that I woo in company,' he answered, shrugging his shoulders. 'My answer; that is all I want--and you.'

'Then you shall have the first, and not the last,' she exclaimed on a sudden impulse. 'No, no--a hundred times no! If you do not see that by pressing me now,' she continued impetuously, 'when I am alone, friendless, and unprotected, you insult me, you should see it, and I do.'

For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed; but his voice, notwithstanding his mastery over it and in spite of that laugh, shook with rage and resentment. 'As I expected,' he said. 'I knew last night that you hated me. You have been playing a part throughout. You loathe me. Yes, madam, you may wince,' he continued bitterly, 'for you shall still be my wife; and when you are my wife we will talk of that.'

'Never!' she said, with a brave face; but her heart beat wildly, and a mist rose before her eyes.

He laughed. 'My legions are round me,' he said. 'Where are yours?'

'You are a gentleman,' she answered with an effort. 'You will let me go.'

'If I do not?'

'There are those who will know how to avenge me.'

He laughed again. 'I do not know them, Countess,' he said contemptuously. 'For Hesse Ca.s.sel, he has his hands full at Nuremberg, and will be likely, when Wallenstein has done with him, to need help himself. The King of Sweden--the brightest morning ends soonest in rain--and he will end at Nuremberg. Bernhard of Weimar, Leuchtenstein, all the fanatics fall with him. Only the banner of the Free Companies stands and waves ever the wider. Be advised,' he continued grimly.

'Bend, Countess, or I have the means to break you.'

'Never!' she said.

'So you say now,' he answered slowly. 'You will not say so in five minutes. If you care nothing for yourself, have a care for your friends.'

'You said I had none,' she retorted hoa.r.s.ely.

'None that can help you,' he replied; 'some that you can help.'

She started and looked at him wildly, her lips apart, her eyes wide with hope, fear, expectation. What did he mean? What could he mean by this new turn? Ha!

She had her face towards the window, and dark as the room was growing--outside the light was failing fast--he read the thought in her eyes, and nodded.

'The Waldgrave?' he said lightly. 'Yes, he is alive, Countess, at present; and your steward also.'

'They are prisoners?' she whispered, her cheeks grown white.

'Prisoners; and under sentence of death.'

'Where?'

'In my camp.'

'Why?' she muttered. But alas! she knew; she knew already.

'They are hostages for your good behaviour,' he answered in his cold, mocking tone. 'If their princ.i.p.al satisfies me, good; they will go free. If not, they die--to-morrow.'