Clementina by A. E. W. Mason (rocket ebook reader txt) 📖

Count Philip von Königsmarck no doubt had to tell," said Wogan.

"Chevalier," said Count Otto, with a nod of approval, "Königsmarck had the like reticence, though he was not always so discreet, I fear. The Princess Sophia Dorothea was at that time on a visit to the Duke of Würtemberg at the palace in Stuttgart, but Königsmarck told me only that he had snatched a breathing space from the wars in the Low Countries and was bound thither again. Rumour told me afterwards of his fatal attachment. He sat where you sit, Chevalier, wounded as you are, a fugitive from pursuit. Even the stains and disorder of his plight could not disguise the singular beauty of the man or make one insensible to the charm of his manner. But I forget my duties," and he rose. "It would be as well, no doubt, if I did not wake my servants?" he suggested.

"Count Otto," returned Wogan, with a smile, "they have their day's work to-morrow."

The old man nodded, and taking a lamp from a table by the door went out of the room.

[pg 101]

Wogan remained alone; the dog nuzzled at his hand; but it seemed to Wogan that there was another in the room besides himself and the dog. The sleeplessness and tension of the last few days, the fatigue of his arduous journey, the fever of his wounds, no doubt, had their effect upon him. He felt that Königsmarck was at his side; his eyes could almost discern a shadowy and beautiful figure; his ears could almost hear a musical vibrating voice. And the voice warned him,—in some strange unaccountable way the voice warned and menaced him.

"I fought, I climbed that wall, I crossed the lawn, I took refuge here for love of a queen. For love of a queen all my short life I lived. For love of a queen I died most horribly; and the queen lives, though it would have gone better with her had she died as horribly."

Wogan had once seen the lonely castle of Ahlden where that queen was imprisoned; he had once caught a glimpse of her driving in the dusk across the heath surrounded by her guards with their flashing swords.

He sat chilled with apprehensions and forebodings. They crowded in upon his mind all the more terrible because he could not translate them into definite perils which beyond this and that corner of his life might await him. He was the victim of illusions, he assured himself, at which to-morrow safe in Schlestadt he would laugh. But to-night the illusions were real. Königsmarck was with [pg 102] him. Königsmarck was by some mysterious alchemy becoming incorporate with him. The voice which spoke and warned and menaced was as much his as Königsmarck's.

The old Count opened the door and heard Wogan muttering to himself as he crouched over the fire. The Count carried a basin of water in his hand and a sponge and some linen. He insisted upon washing Wogan's wounds and dressing them in a simple way.

"They are not deep," he said; "a few days' rest and a clever surgeon will restore you." He went from the room again and brought back a tray, on which were the remains of a pie, a loaf of bread, and some fruit.

"While you eat, Chevalier, I will mix you a cordial," said he, and he set about his hospitable work. "You ask me why I so readily opened my window to you. It was because I took you for Königsmarck himself come back as mysteriously as he disappeared. I did not think that if he came back now his hair would be as white, his shoulders as bent, as mine. Indeed, one cannot think of Königsmarck except as a youth. You had the very look of him as you stood in the light upon the lawn. You have, if I may say so, something of his gallant bearing and something of his grace."

Wogan could have heard no words more distressing to him at this moment.

"Oh, stop, sir. I pray you stop!" he cried out violently, and noting the instant he had spoken the [pg 103] surprise on Count Otto's face. "There, sir, I give you at once by my discourtesy an example of how little I merit a comparison with that courtly nobleman. Let me repair it by telling you, since you are willing to hear, of my night's adventure." And as he ate he told his story, omitting the precise object of his journey, the nature of the letter which he had burned, and any name which might give a clue to the secret of his enterprise.

The Count Otto listened with his eyes as well as his ears; he hung upon the words, shuddering at each danger that sprang upon Wogan, exclaiming in wonder at the shift by which he escaped from it, and at times he looked over towards his books with a glance of veritable dislike.

"To feel the blood run hot in one's veins, to be bedfellows with peril, to go gallantly forward hand in hand with endeavour," he mused and broke off. "See, I own a sword, being a gentleman. But it is a toy, an ornament; it stands over there in the corner from day to day, and my servants clean it from rust as they will. Now you, sir, I suppose—"

"My horse and my sword, Count," said Wogan, "when the pinch comes, they are one's only servants. It would be an ill business if I did not see to their wants."

The old man was silent for a while. Then he said timidly, "It was for a woman, no doubt, that you ran this hazard to-night?"

"For a woman, yes."

[pg 104]

The Count folded his hands and leaned forward.

"Sir, a woman is a strange inexplicable thing to me. Their words, their looks, their graceful, delicate shapes, the motives which persuade them, the thoughts which their eyes conceal,—all these qualities make them beings of another world to me. I do envy men at times who can stand beside them, talk with them without fear, be intimate with them, and understand their intricate thoughts."

"Are there such men?" asked Wogan.

"Men who love, such as Count Königsmarck and yourself."

Wogan held up his hand with a cry.

"Count, such men, we are told, are the blindest of all. Did not Königsmarck prove it? As for myself, not even in that respect can I be ranked with Königsmarck. I am a mere man-at-arms, whose love-making is a clash of steel."

"But to-night—this risk you ran; you told me it was for a woman."

"For a woman, yes. For love of a woman, no, no, no!" he exclaimed with surprising violence. Then he rose from his chair.

"But I have stayed my time," said he, "you have never had a more grateful guest. I beg you to believe it."

Count Otto barely heard the words. He was absorbed in the fanciful dreams born of many long solitary evenings, and like most timid and uncommunicative men he made his confidence in a momentary enthusiasm to a stranger.

[pg 105]

"Königsmarck spoke for an hour, mentioning no names, so that I who from my youth have lived apart could not make a guess. He spoke with a deal of passion; it seemed that one hour his life was paradise and the next a hell. Even as he spoke he was one instant all faith and the next all despair. One moment he was filled with his unworthiness and wonder that so noble a creature as a woman should bend her heart and lips from her heaven down to his earth. The next he could not conceive any man should be such a witless ass as to stake his happiness on the steadiness of so manifest a weathercock as a woman's favour. It was all very strange talk; it opened to me, just as when a fog lifts and rolls down again, a momentary vision of a world of colours in which I had no share; and to tell the truth it left me with a suspicion which has recurred again and again, that all my solitary years over my books, all the delights which the delicate turning of a phrase, or the chase and capture of an elusive idea, can bring to one may not be worth, after all, one single minute of living passion. Passion, Chevalier! There is a word of which I know the meaning only by hearsay. But I wonder at times, whatever harm it works, whether there can be any great thing without it. But you are anxious to go forward upon your way."

He again took up his lamp, and requesting Wogan to follow him, unlatched the window. Wogan, however, did not move.

"I am wondering," said he, "whether I might [pg 106] be yet deeper in your debt. I left behind me a sword."

Count Otto set his lamp down and took a sword from the corner of the room.

"I called it an ornament, and yet in other hands it might well prove a serviceable weapon. The blade is of Spanish steel. You will honour me by wearing it."

Wogan was in two minds with regard to the Count. On the one hand, he was most grateful; on the other he could not but think that over his books he had fallen into a sickly way of thought. He was quite ready, however, to wear his sword; moreover, when he had hooked the hanger to