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"Painted Angel," Herbert Jenkins, London, 1938
"Painted Angel," Herbert Jenkins, London, 1938
"Painted Angel," Herbert Jenkins, London, 1938
A traveller going from Berlin to Hamburg disappeared at a small Prussian frontier town under extraordinary circumstances. The search for him, the various accounts of his possible fate given by various people, and the effect of his disappearance on his wife and his friends make up the story that passes from one incident to another in Germany, England and Italy.... Painted Angel, following closely in the tradition of George Preedy's most successful work, reveals a remarkable picture of England and the Continent during the early part of the nineteenth century.
THIS story is based on an historical incident of which there are many varying accounts and that has never been satisfactorily explained. The novel is, however, a work of fiction, all the characters are imaginary and do not refer to real people, save when an historic name is used for one of the minor personages.
The mystery that is the foundation of the story will be familiar to most readers. The solution offered here is the invention of the author. No reference is intended to actual happening nor to the famous family that was involved in this extraordinary occurrence.
George R. Preedy.
Richmond, October, 1937.
The City of Rommel.
ON a cold, windy afternoon, of Saturday, November 25th, 1809, the post-chaise from Berlin to Hamburg stopped to change horses at Rommel, a small town close to the frontiers of Prussia and Mecklenburg. It was a little late and the postmaster greeted it with an impatient grumble; he had little to do save grumble, for Jacob Scharre was an old decayed fellow who left his work to his wife Elizabeth, his son Anton and his servant Louise Mendel, who between them looked after the post-station and the small tavern adjoining it. The younger Scharre now went out to see if there were letters or travellers for Rommel. There were two passengers in the coach and Anton, an idle gambling fellow of a bad reputation, noted with greed and surprise the cloaks that they wore, sable, one lined and faced with purple velvet, the other with yellow satin. Why did not gentlemen so richly attired travel with their own retinue instead of in the public coach?
This seemed to Anton a most surprising question and he eagerly asked the strangers their destination and plans.
One of the travellers replied that they would proceed later to Hamburg and made enquiries about the hire of a carriage and horses; a servant descended from the box and with the help of Anton took several valises and cases from the coach; these were carried into the tavern where the two travellers had already proceeded.
Frau Scharre kept the one room clean and cheerful; a strong heat came from the earthenware stove and, from the little kitchen at the back, a smell of cooking; Louise Mendel was serving wine, chicken and soup to two Jews in fur caps who sat at the table near the stove.
She looked up as the strangers entered, bringing cold air with them, curtsied and asked what she should serve. She was as astonished as Anton had been by the appearance of the travellers and eyed the sable cloaks with the same kind of greed and amazement. She was a stout girl who often acted as letter carrier; her small eyes, sand-coloured hair and loose mouth gave her a disagreeable expression, but she was fresh and healthy-looking and seemed eager to please.
The Jews, who appeared to be respectable merchants saluted the newcomers very civilly and returned to their meal, while, drawing out account books, they discussed gains and losses in low tones.
Old Scharre himself, who had caught a glimpse of the travellers from the windows of the post-house, came hobbling in, curious and a little suspicious; only recently had Prussia been freed from the domination of the all-conquering French, who still held the fortresses of the country and what had been the Holy Roman Empire was honeycombed with the agents and spies of Napoleon. Scharre had been a sergeant in the army of King Frederic Henry and knew a thing or two, he flattered himself; these men were foreigners he was sure, though they were talking German together.
In reply to his enquiries the younger traveller said abruptly, "We are merchants, travelling to Hamburg—we will have a little food, if you please, and presently a carriage with four horses, as I have already told the ostler."
"Gentlemen," said Scharre, "this is a poor place for you. I make no pretensions. The gentry go to The Three Crowns in the market-place."
"It will do very well," replied the stranger. "We shall not stay long."
He seemed nervous and exhausted, and, sinking into the wooden chair by the fire, rested his head in his hand; his companion was silent and appeared engrossed in the study of a folding pocket map.
Elizabeth Scharre, a robust woman and Jacob's second wife, came in to set another table in the warm circle near the stove, and she too had her quick, inquisitive stare at the travellers. The short day was coming to an end and the oil-lamps were lit by Louise; the two women went to and from the kitchen and the dining-room. Scharre loitered by the stove; in the kitchen Anton tried to get some information from the manservant who sat with the baggage by his side, drinking beer. He was, however, a taciturn Swiss fellow, and knew nothing, or would say nothing beyond that his master, the younger traveller, had engaged him in Vienna to travel to Hamburg; he added: "And what is our business to do with you?"
"Well," said Anton Scharre, "the police are very active, now we've got rid of the French, and the new government is trying to clean things up a bit after so many years of war; and Rommel being nearly a frontier town, we here at the post-station have been asked to keep our eye on the travellers who pass through."
"I suppose," replied the Swiss stolidly, "you get a lot of scum and rabble of all sorts, on a highway between a capital and a big port, eh?"
"We do. There are scoundrels of every kind abroad—old soldiers too," he winked heavily. "I wonder that your master thinks it safe to travel without a guard—why those cloaks he and his friend are wearing—"
The servant did not answer and Anton started on another tack.
"There's some queer places even in Rommel, that the police have got an eye on, believe me. The new Governor says we've got a bad name and he's going to—well, clean it up a bit. That place opposite, The Great Bear, well, the daughters of the house aren't ugly. The French used to go there."
The words conveyed a sly, half-menacing warning as well as curiosity, as if the man was demanding the help of the servant in some design on the master, or, at least, trying to probe into the reason for this foolish kind of travelling in such times as these; but the Swiss merely looked down at the handsome luggage beside him and was silent.
Anton then went into the dining-room; the Jews who had come across country and were taking the night coach to Hamburg were still sitting over their coffee, conversing in gentle voices; the two travellers were by the stove, the younger talking to Jacob Scharre.
"Who is the Governor of Rommel?"
"Captain the Graf Von Alten, sir."
" Where could I find him?"
"The Governor's house is in the market-square, he lodges near The Three Crowns, sir."
Perceiving Anton enter the room, the young man interrupted the postmaster and said quickly, "The ostler—he shall take me. I must see the Governor."
"That's my son, sir. He will show you the way."
With a nod to his friend, the traveller flung the purple velvet-faced sables over his shoulder, pulled on his peaked cap and with an authoritative gesture motioned Anton to precede him. As they stepped into the cold dusk he said abruptly:
"I am armed, I carry a brace of pistols."
"Wisely, sir," replied the other with a wry smile. "I was telling your man these were dangerous times."
It was now about half-past four o'clock; the post-station was on the outskirts of the town, on the high road at the junction of the road to Rommel; the traveller went, therefore, along this branch road, and after passing along a road bordered by pine-trees, saw before him the mediaeval turrets of the old town rising dark against the dim sky. Lights showed in doors and windows and there were a good many people about among whom showed here and there the uniforms of the Prussian army and those of Mecklenburgers and Imperialists. The King of Prussia was expected to return soon to Koenigsberg and there was every kind of activity in the state just released from the complete dominion of a conqueror and striving to reconstruct after the disastrous war. At Saalfeld, at Jena, and at Averstadt the strength of Prussia had been broken, her King forced to flee to the confines of his dominions and to beg for peace. This had been granted at Tilsit, but on terms that left Frederic William III ruling over a kingdom reduced to the size and significance of a small German state. The recent disaster of Austerlitz had forced the Emperor into a peace as humiliating as that of Tilsit.
The patriotic and able measures of the King of Prussia and his ministers, Herr Stein and Herr Von Hardenberg, had, however, not only set the country up again but instilled new life into the people, and there was no sign of misery or depression in the town of Rommel some eighteen months after Tilsit had degraded the Brandenburger.
Anton Scharre remarked on this to his silent companion, adding slyly:
"You're not French, sir?"
"No, Austrian."
"Ah, well, we don't like the French." Anton, who was a squat, swart man with heavy features, grinned. "And we're afraid of them—spies, sir, spies everywhere."
The traveller did not answer. They had now reached the market-place; this was a large square that seemed too vast for the size of the town; the buildings that surrounded it were in the old German style, with overhanging gabled fronts, or blunt hip roofs, save for one notable exception, an imposing building on classic lines, at the far angle of the square. This consisted of three storeys, each with straight rows of french windows; the façade was plaster and beneath each window was a relief of a laurel wreath and swag; a fine arch led into the coach-yard and an entrance in the centre had doors flung open on a noble staircase. This house was brilliantly lit, the gleam of lamps and candles showing like clusters of stars at all the windows; a board above the door had Gasthaus in scrolling Gothic letters, but it was obvious that the pretentious mansion had originally been built for a nobleman; and there was another entrance in a side street that led to the shoe market.
"That's where you should have stayed, sir," said Anton. "The Three Crowns: it's lit up because they are giving a big ball there to-night—all the nobility, sir."
"Where is the government house?" demanded the traveller with a casual glance at the hotel. Scharre took him to a modest building that housed the offices and apartment of the new governor or Commandant of Rommel. Leaving Scharre in the street, the stranger entered and demanded Graf Von Alten; he was, however, absent. A Lieutenant Wulf received the visitor in a small, dull office; the soldier looked up from his desk, prepared for routine business, and remained staring, his quill in his fingers, at the person of the traveller, as the people in the post-house had stared.
"My name is Bacher. I am an Austrian merchant, travelling to Hamburg; here is my passport." So saying the traveller put his hand into his bosom and drew out a document that he handed to the officer.
As that person read this slowly he was making a furtive scrutiny of Herr Bacher, the officer's attention being first attracted to the sable cloak that was so unusually handsome; but the wearer was more remarkable than his garments. He was about twenty-five years of age, tall and slender, though wide in the shoulders; his features were regular and straight, his complexion fair, his eyes large and blue grey, his hair bright brown, closely curling and growing into small whiskers in front of his ears; his expression was thoughtful, self-absorbed, yet disturbed by spasms of apparent anxiety and distress.
He wore a handsome grey travelling suit, a coat and loose pantaloons or overalls frogged with black braid, a shirt of extremely fine cambric, a black silk stock and a peaked cap of grey cloth with a black tassel; the sables were clasped across his bosom by a cord of knotted silver, a gold seal on an elaborate ribbon of pearls hung from his fob pocket.
Lieutenant Wulf noted that the hand that held out the passport was of singular beauty and adorned by a massive sapphire intaglio. Altogether the impression made by the young man and his attire was of splendour, wealth, uncommon good looks, breeding and brilliancy, all in contrast to that grave, preoccupied air, occasionally shot by wildness or apprehension. The passport—an Austrian one countersigned in Berlin—was in order; looking up from it, the officer asked:
"Well, Herr Bacher, what can I do for you?"
"I am staying for a few hours at the post-station. I should like a guard—at least a couple of men."
"You carry valuables—you are afraid of something?"
"Both. I travel with a friend, Herr Bisschop, and a Swiss servant only. We trade in jewels. I have some varieties with me. I believe that we have been watched, followed—"
The young man spoke rapidly and with so odd an accent that the soldier cocked an eye at the passport. Austrian, eh?
The traveller continued to dwell on the dangers of roads, the disorders and confusion subsequent to the terrible defeat at Austerlitz—the difficulties of travelling at all.
"Prussia is well policed," returned Lieutenant Wulf. "We cannot always prevent beggars and vagabonds from coming across the frontiers but we have few robberies. You shall have your safeguard."
The young man thanked the lieutenant warmly, and the latter, not ill pleased to show his efficiency, called in his orderly and gave his instructions; a quarter of an hour later the traveller returned to Scharre with two stout Prussian carbineers and a corporal behind him, to the amazement and dismay of the ostler.
"I have valuables with me," said Bacher briefly, and Scharre said cunningly that it was a good idea to have the soldiers.
He felt, however, very uneasy; he had a bad reputation and had been in one or two scrapes: the girl Mendel, too, had been in trouble; it was said that the new governor was a severe man. Anton Scharre hoped that this stranger had not been warned against them—it was very odd to ask for a safeguard; if there were complaints of pilferings, old Scharre's job would be lost and with it all their opportunities of gain.
The house where the governor lodged was on the same side of the square as The Three Crowns. Opposite were the Cathedral and the Town Hall, beneath which was a beer-cellar. At the side of this was the street that led to the high road and the post-station.
Instead, however, of crossing the square to return the way that he had come, Herr Bacher told Scharre that he had other business in the town, and passing in front of The Three Crowns, turned round the angle of the hotel, so that Scharre thought that he was going in by the side entrance, perhaps to see the governor who might be there. But Herr Bacher passed on to the shoe market where was a decent hostelry called the Dutch Coffee House. Opposite, the other side of the square, stood a small house a little apart from the others; it was modern, with mansard windows in the high roof and a door with a fan-light, reached by circular steps that opened directly on to the road; the lower windows were shuttered, a bright light showed in those of the second storey. The attention of the little party was attracted to this house because loud music and voices were coming from it, and, as they passed, the door was flung open and two men came out, shouting and pulling at one another's collars. The soldiers moved forward and at the same time a woman hurried out of the house and spoke sharply to the disputants, who returned quickly through the door where the woman stood for a second, the light of the hall full on her pretty, flushed and sensual face that was set off by a little veil with silver stars tied under her chin.
Her alert, bold eyes defied the soldiers, then glanced at the young traveller; she shut the door.
"That's a bad house, sir," said the corporal as they went on their way; "kept by a man who calls himself Baron Weber. Gambling goes on there and worse things. It'll be shut up soon."
The episode had been over in a moment or so, and the young man had appeared to take no notice of it, though he had stared for a second, with his wild look, at the fair, luscious woman, who had appeared so abruptly out of the murk and who had, before she disappeared into it again, made a quick gesture that might have been a beckoning one.
At the corner of the shoe market, by a little alley where there was a cobbler's shop, the traveller hesitated and put his hand to his brow as if he had changed his mind or forgotten his destination.
On Scharre's asking him where he wished to go, he said that he thought he would, after all, return to the post-house. It was only a small purchase he had wished to make, and that could wait until he reached Hamburg.
The little party then retraced their steps from the shoe market, round the angle of The Three Crowns, across the market-square diagonally, by the Town Hall, down the open and then the pine-bordered road to the post-house.
Merrymaking was going on in the tavern that stood opposite, at the other angle of the road; the light from the upper, unshuttered windows fell on the swinging sign of The Great Bear; behind were beer gardens that sloped down to the Steppenitz, a tributary of the Elbe that ran under a bridge on the Berlin road to a mill-race beyond.
The traveller asked about this tavern that was the only house beside the post-station in sight, and Scharre repeated what he had said to the servant that the host's daughters were not ugly and that French soldiers had much frequented the place when they had domination in Prussia.
The little party then re-entered the yard of the post-station. The soldiers were given a silently hostile reception by the Scharres and their servant; it was the first time that a guard had been put over the post-house.
The carriage ordered by the travellers was ready; Elizabeth Scharre stood beside it, gossiping with the post-boy. Herr Bacher countermanded the carriage, which was taken away by the grumbling postilion, and returned to the kitchen where his friend, Herr Bisschop, was still studying his map.
The two Jews had been joined by a third; they were reproaching him with being so late that they had missed the afternoon coach to Hamburg, now they would have to wait until the night mail. The three sat over the stove discussing their affairs; the newcomer was a young, vigorous man in a half-Eastern dress such as the Prussians wore, and Herr Bisschop looked at him very sharply over the top of his map.
In the kitchen the Swiss still sat over the baggage, the soldiers were stationed at the door and the Scharres withdrew into an outhouse where Anton gave his account of the traveller's call at the government house, his purposeless journey up the side street and his return with the escort.
Everything was quiet until about seven o'clock, when Herr Bacher and his friend came into the kitchen and asked Louise Mendel, who was putting some dried beans on the fire for soup, to order the carriage again in about an hour's time; they would like, first, they said, some rest, and they asked if there was a bed or sofa.
Herr Bacher seemed ill and agitated and pressed the servant as to the possibility of obtaining a bed.
The girl said no, only those belonging to the family that were not fit, but in a closet off the tavern room there was a large table on which travellers sometimes rested—"but not people of your quality," she added shyly.
"That will do," he said, and Anton, coming then into the kitchen, the gentleman asked him to go for the carriage, and, upon a grumble that the ostlers and postboys complained about keeping the horses standing about and the work of bringing the carriage up for nothing, the traveller pulled out a long blue silk purse and said:
"I have plenty of money. Everyone shall be fee'd."
Anton and the servant exchanged glances; they could see the gold shining through the meshes of the knitting. With equal carelessness the gentleman, after he had put the purse away, pulled out his watch; this was also gold, and several jewels hung from the seals.
The Swiss, who had risen in his master's presence, now asked if he should take the luggage to the carriage; the answer was—"in an hour or so."
There was a knock at the door; the servant went and came back with a note that she gave to the younger traveller; Herr Bacher was written on the envelope.
"Who brought it?" asked Herr Bisschop, and the girl answered that it was a stout fellow with his hat over his eyes; she added pertly that she supposed it must be from the Governor, "or who would know you are here, sir, unless you are being followed?"
"Of course," replied the traveller, opening the letter with trembling fingers, "it must be so—"
He read the note, crushed it in his hand and threw it on the kitchen fire.
"What I expected," he said to his companion. "The same as in Berlin."
"It is of no importance," smiled the other and left the kitchen.
Herr Bacher then remained by the fire, and taking out a handsome set of tablets scribbled and effaced some words on them.
The young man then followed Louise Mendel to the closet where the table sometimes used for billiards stood; he asked her to fetch his friend and to leave a light. She saw him fold up the sables for a pillow and put the case of pistols ready to his hand, and she noted the beauty of the little weapons as he took them out of the flap pocket of his pantaloons.
In the dining-room the Jews were walking about with the bored fatigue of men tired of waiting in idleness; they had remarked with satisfaction on the presence of the safeguard; they too had valuables, they declared, and the roads were in a bad state. They made casual conversation with the other two travellers.
Herr Bisschop went into the little closet now lit by one small lamp; the other traveller was stretched on the table.
"I will try to sleep," he said.
Speaking for the first time the other asked: "Can you sleep? I cannot."
He was a dark, elegant man, a few years older than his companion and with a cool, alert manner in keen contrast to the agitation betrayed by the other; though he had been silent, save for a few words with the Jews, and inactive since his arrival at the post-station he gave an impression of energy, authority and courage.
"I will stay by you," he said. "You should not have gone to the town without me."
"I took the ostler."
"I trust none of them."
Herr Bacher sighed.
"Hold my hand, and then perhaps I shall sleep."
The other did so and remained seated on the one chair while his companion stretched on the table fell, for a while, into an uneasy sleep; then Herr Bisschop gently disengaged his hand and returned to the tavern dining-room.
An hour passed; the carriage was waiting, the postboys had returned to the stables and the Scharre family took it in turn to mind the horses, finally wearying of this and leaving the animals in charge of Louise Mendel.
"I cannot disturb my friend," said Herr Bisschop dryly. "He has not slept for nights."
Old Scharre then questioned him as to the journey and his nationality.
"I am Dutch," replied Herr Bisschop coolly. "We are merchants."
He then discharged the reckoning while Jacob Scharre remarked that the gentleman spoke excellent German for a foreigner—"but your friend now, I should have thought he was a foreigner."
"You have a good deal of curiosity and a good deal of impertinence for the office of postmaster," replied the traveller coolly.
At nine o'clock he ordered the Swiss to put the baggage in the boot of the coach and then dismissed the soldiers, saying that he and his friend were leaving Rommel and had no need for further protection; his friend was either still asleep in the closet or had left the tavern; no one saw him.
It was a cold night and sleet was falling, but the weather was not severe for the time of year; the lamps in the carriage were lit, the coachman on the box and still the two travellers lingered.
The three Jews slept by the stove and the Scharres sat over the kitchen fire while Louise Mendel helped the Swiss with the luggage. When all the arrangements were made Herr Bacher appeared; his sleep had not refreshed him for he looked pale and disordered; he woke the Jews by calling for pen and paper; when these were brought he scribbled a note, hesitated, then thrust it into the pocket of his pantaloons.
The Swiss fetched the sables from the table in the closet and put them in the carriage where the other gentleman had left his cloak. It seemed as if the long-delayed equipage was about to start at last—the gentlemen had pulled on their peaked, tasselled caps and thick gloves—when Herr Bacher said that he would go to the town and thank Captain Von Alten for sending the guards.
"No need," his friend objected. "Besides, he will probably be at the ball held at The Three Crowns."
But the younger man insisted that he wished to go to find Captain Von Alten.
The Scharres and the post-boys were now becoming exceedingly impatient; it was past nine o'clock and the rain was increasing. The three Jews had come out on to the road to stretch their limbs and to get a little fresh air; they looked curiously at the waiting equipage, then wandered up the road, regardless of the weather and well wrapped in their heavy coats. The Swiss servant got on to the box beside the coachman and Herr Bisschop and his friend packed their sables in the interior of the carriage. Elizabeth Scharre and Louise Mendel stood with lanterns at the door of the post-house. Sounds of music came from behind the closed shutters of The Great Bear opposite.
"I have forgotten my gloves," said the elder of the travellers. He returned to the dining-room and came out again with the gloves in his hand; when he opened the door of the carriage he asked: "Where is my friend?"
No one knew; they thought that the gentleman was in the carriage, but, no, that was empty. He must have alighted by the other door, that on the side of the road towards the tavern; no one had seen him; the two women went up and down waving their lantern, the post-boys, sick of the long delay, shouted.
There was no response.
The three Jews returned, shaking the water from their caftans, said no, they had not seen the traveller.
Herr Bisschop got into the carriage and again began studying his folding map; after half an hour or so he alighted and joined in a thorough search for his friend. The first place he looked in was The Great Bear, but the landlord declared no one had been there.
At this he again countermanded the carriage, feeing the postilions for their trouble and ordering the luggage to be again placed in the hotel.
The night mail to Hamburg then came up, and the three Jews went off in it. Herr Bisschop, with Anton as a guide, then went to The Three Crowns, where the ball was being held, and asked for the commandant, to whom he reported the absence of his friend, who had then been missing about two hours.
Captain Von Alten acted promptly; he ordered the traveller and the servant to come to The Three Crowns and, after closely questioning them, ordered them to remain in custody in a decent apartment with a guard at the door.
Then he sent for the missing man's baggage and opened it; there was nothing but clothes—lavish, expensive—in the valises, no papers of any kind, no clue to the owner's identity; there were several articles of jewellery that bore coats of arms—all the same and quite unknown to the Prussian noble—and the cipher or monogram W.B. These initials were on the linen. Lieutenant Wulf undertook investigations.
Herr Bisschop answered all enquiries civilly; there was little to say save that they were two merchants travelling to Hamburg; he showed his passport—given at the Hague—in perfect order.
The name of the Swiss was Christian Möller; his papers were, too, quite correct; neither of the detained men could throw any light whatever on the disappearance of the third traveller. Anton Scharre suggested that he might have gone to the gambling hell kept by Baron Weber or to The Great Bear, and Herr Bisschop asked for the two sable cloaks that had not been sent with the baggage.
Captain Von Alten at once ordered out a search-party of soldiers. By the time the wet dawn had broken Rommel and the surrounding country had been thoroughly combed, but neither at the gambling hell, nor at The Great Bear nor anywhere else was there any trace of the missing man. One of the sable cloaks had disappeared, too; no one had seen it.
The police then took the matter up. For the next week Rommel was in a state of commotion over this curious episode; then the missing sables were discovered hidden in a barn near the post-house; the girl Mendel and the woman Scharre were arrested for the theft, but Anton Scharre, believed to be an accomplice, could not be found. It was not unusual for him to leave home for weeks or even months.
The Steppenitz that flowed near the town and some lakes in the nearby woods were dragged without result.
No one came forward to make enquiries about the missing man, who seemed to be without family or friends; this, the police thought, seemed very strange in the case of one so obviously wealthy. The civil authorities were also much impressed by Lieutenant Wulf's description of Herr Bacher and his earnest demand for a safeguard. Why? There were, after all, no valuables in the baggage.
Herr Bisschop could throw no light on this or any other mystery connected with his fellow-traveller, who was, he declared, only a chance acquaintance, picked up at Berlin; some dispute arose between the civil and military authorities as to the investigation. The Swiss had no information to offer either; he had been engaged in Vienna a few weeks before and knew nothing of his master. The Scharres spoke of the note, but no one knew who had sent that or what was in it.
Baffled and exasperated the Burgomaster of Rommel at last acceded to the young Dutchman's insistent and rather haughty request backed by the Governor to be allowed to continue on his way. There was no excuse for detaining him; Holland, like Prussia, was at present neutral in the European conflict and there was nothing against Herr Bisschop, who answered all enquiries with suave civility and in excellent German.
A week after his friend's disappearance, therefore, he left Rommel by the mail coach for Hamburg, taking the Swiss with him. The other traveller's luggage was detained by the police; this included the sable cloak lined with purple velvet for the theft of which Louise Mendel and Elizabeth Scharre received each a sentence of six months' imprisonment.
Suspicion pointed to the male Scharres as the accomplices in this crime, and the old man was deprived of his post, leaving with his wife for Westphalia, soon after.
The affair had also attracted the attention of the police to the establishment kept by the man calling himself Baron Weber, and in order to avoid unpleasant notoriety he accepted the Burgomaster's suggestion that he should close his house and depart from Rommel. Soon after the landlord of The Great Bear also left Prussia.
The search for the missing man continued with great thoroughness, but there was no clue to the manner of his fate, nor was anything heard or seen of him again save this:
Six weeks after his disappearance an old woman, Caroline Vischer, was gathering cones at the edge of a pine-wood when she was frightened by a large black dog that barked loudly at her, then ran into the forest.
She was so impressed by this incident that when returning the next day on the same errand she took her grandson with her; the dog did not appear, but on the ground covered with pine-needles lay a pair of grey pantaloons or overalls, quite clean and dry and neatly spread out.
The boy at once thought of the missing traveller of whom all Rommel had been talking and eagerly searched in the pockets of the trousers. He found nothing but a scrap of paper on which were a few lines written in a foreign language.
Hoping for a reward the boy took the overalls to the Burgomaster, who paid him liberally. Lieutenant Wulf and the two soldiers who had acted as guards at the post-station identified the garment as belonging to the missing man; they were of a peculiar fine grey cloth, and the three Germans had particularly noticed the traveller's clothes were costly looking and appeared foreign.
Lieutenant Wulf had indeed preserved a very good recollection of the appearance of Herr Bacher that he had related carefully to Captain Von Alten and to the police.
The piece of paper was eagerly scrutinised; it was written in English and in a delicate script; the Burgomaster could read it easily.
'I am surrounded by dangers and doubt if I shall ever reach home. In the event of my death do not hesitate to marry again. If any harm befalls me it will be the result of the intrigues of the Comte de Véfour.'
That was all; there was neither beginning nor end nor any superscription.
The pantaloons could only have lain a short time on the spot where they were found, for the weather had been wet and the overalls were dry and the paper unspoiled.
The Burgomaster made a neat dossier of the queer case and filed it; he put on foot enquiries into the personalities concerned in it and in particular tried to trace Comte Véfour. But in a country convulsed by war—overrun by enemies, with Vienna in the hands of the French and most of Europe under a military dictator, it proved impossible to pursue enquiries to a satisfactory solution. The Burgomaster was obliged to lock up his dossier and to try to forget an affair as exasperating as it was mysterious; then about three months after the traveller had disappeared, information about him that caused the Prussian Police the greatest possible surprise and alarm, reached Rommel.
TWO foreign ladies and a maid arrived at The Three Crowns, Rommel, and proceeded at once to the first floor, the whole of which had been engaged for them by an advance courier. It was a cold January evening, but a few townspeople lingered about in the hope of seeing the strangers whose arrival had been for long expected and discussed.
There had not been much of interest to reward the loiterers for their patience; the carriage was good, but had been hired in Berlin, as had the coachman and groom; the luggage was ordinary and the two ladies themselves who had passed very quickly into the hotel were dressed in fashionable travelling pelisses and hats no better than the inhabitants of the frontier town had seen often enough before, while the elderly maid was as impersonal as the valises she carried.
The host himself, Herr Kichner, received the ladies with much respect and some disquiet; he had the air of a man braced for an unpleasant experience. It was with reserve that he asked if the apartments—two bedrooms, two closets, a salon and a dining-room—were to the taste of the guests.
The answers were hasty, indifferent, after a mere glance round the large, clean, bare rooms; one lady asked if a gentleman had yet called for them, and the other if this suite was where the balls were held when there was one at the hotel.
Herr Kichner replied precisely, using French, the language employed, with a good deal of fluency, by the ladies.
"Madame, a gentleman came here an hour ago. He is staying at the Dutch Coffee House—near the post-station. He left this note." Herr Kichner presented it and bowed to the other lady. "No, the balls are held on the ground floor, where usually we have the restaurant. Here we have the refreshment and toilette rooms—unless the suite is let."
"Thank you." The lady who had spoken first gave the landlord a direct stare. "You know who we are, of course, and why we are here. We are using common, easy names, Mrs. Day and Mrs. Clark. We travel on Swedish passports and a French laisser-aller, given us by M. de Châteaurenne, the French Ambassador at Berlin. We are under the protection of your police and if you wish to know anything further of us, go, pray, to them, and leave us in peace."
"I have, madame, already understood as much," replied Herr Kichner. He was a heavy man with harsh iron grey hair and whiskers; his manner hardened, and beneath the deference due to his guests was a growing hostility; his small, yellowish eyes turned uneasily to the other lady who, seated on a striped satin settee, was resting her face in her hand in an attitude of fatigue, as she said:
"Pray, when this gentleman arrives, conduct him here at once. He is our escort, and has travelled with us from London. He was detained in Berlin by formalities. It is very difficult for women to travel in time of war, and on such an errand as ours!"
"You have, madame, my most respectful sympathy and that of every citizen of Rommel."
The lady who remained standing replied:
"We must try to discover that for ourselves. Will you serve supper here? At once? Nothing gross or heavy. My companion is not well."
"At once, madame."
"Call me Mrs. Day—remember—and my friend is Mrs. Clark. Another gentleman has been appointed to meet us here—a Herr Leermann. He may arrive to-morrow, the day after, in a month's time—I don't know. He too will stay at the Dutch Coffee House, us know when he calls here."
While the lady was speaking the landlord furtively regarded her and then the weary traveller on the stiff sofa; he was wondering which of the two was the heroine of the drama that had for two years excited and exasperated Rommel and which was the mere friend or companion. He had the impression that both were equally and passionately concerned in the mystery that they had come to investigate; he noticed that there was little difference in age between them and that they were much alike, though she who went under the incognita of Mrs. Clark was no more than pleasing, graceful and attractive while the so-called Mrs. Day was an uncommonly beautiful woman.
As soon as they were alone the sisters took off their bonnets and pelisses with little sighs of fatigue; the elderly maid unstrapped the valises and laid out wraps and slippers, bottles of eau-de-Cologne and smelling salts. The tall windows were shuttered, neither the lavish candles in the sconces, nor the large fire on the hearth could give any air of cheerfulness to the high-ceilinged room with the pale walls and the scant elegant furniture. Mrs. Clark protested that the suite was gloomy and that they did not need so many rooms; Mrs. Day reminded her that they could not have endured the presence of strangers on the same floor.
They spoke no more to one another; in silence they adjusted their toilets, in silence ate the meal sent up. The maid dined also in the suite that she told the waiter she had no intention of leaving while she remained in Rommel.
In silence the ladies had read the note given them by the landlord; Mrs. Day then placed it in a portfolio, full of papers, that she kept locked in one of the valises.
The supper was just removed when the landlord appeared to announce that the Commandant of Rommel, Captain the Graf Von Alten, was below and wished to wait on the ladies.
"Admit him at once," said Mrs. Day, "and the other gentleman, as soon as he comes."
There was an air of melancholy and uneasiness in the trim blank elegance of the hotel room as the Commandant entered. He was acutely conscious of this, and of the fact that it emanated from the intense suppressed nervous emotionalism of the two women, at whom he looked with a similar mingling of curiosity, deference and hostility as that felt by the landlord, while he, like Herr Kichner, had the air of a man braced to confront an unpleasant experience. Yet what he saw was essentially charming; by the fire sat Mrs. Clark, in a graceful, musing attitude. The firelight lay in golden glimmers on her tight-fitting blue silk dress, gave warmth to her violet robe that was high collared and edged with sable, and set off with radiance her brown hair that was swathed round her head in a Grecian style.
She was about twenty-five years of age, delicately formed, small-boned and plump in a comely fashion, her features were precise, her hazel eyes tired and slightly bloodshot. By the exercise of a little trouble and a little coquetry she might have passed for a very pretty woman, but at present she was clouded by sorrow, lassitude and indifference to everything but a painful task and a thwarted passion. Her sister who stood the other side of the hearth, leaning on the low, formal marble mantel-shelf, was about two years younger and her resplendent freshness was scarcely marred by anxiety or fatigue. She was also dressed in the classical style, a long grey silk gown being girdled under her full bosom and a straight overcoat of black satin fastened over it with golden clasps. Her hair was gathered into careless plaits, curls and tresses that formed a coronet for a proudly carried head. She had beauty of line, colour and graceful movement, light grey eyes, dark brows; a slight flattening of the cheek-bones and a mole on the short upper lip, together with an expression of energy and passion, gave her an attraction beyond that of insipidness. The Commandant looked at her twice and steadily, while he gave the lady on the sofa a slight glance only.
"Which is Lady William Bracebridge?" he asked carefully, with a stiff bow.
The seated lady responded.
"I am that unfortunate creature," she said, in a low voice. "I call myself Mrs. Clark. My sister, Miss Lydia Ardress, passes as Mrs. Day."
Heavily and without emotion the Commandant condoled with the speaker, whose position, he admitted, was worse than that of a widow; gravely he assured her of the sympathy of himself, his country, his government, with her and her family, in her terrible distress.
"And I admire, madame, the courage that prompted you to undertake this tedious and dangerous journey."
"I was not able to endure inaction," replied the Englishwoman. "I had the company of my dear sister and of my old nurse, now my maid. Sir Francis Lisle, who was my husband's nearest friend, escorted me. He is staying at another hotel in Rommel."
Captain Von Alten bowed again at the conclusion of this stiff speech; before he could reply, Lydia Ardress spoke, the richness of her voice tempering the severity of her words.
"Pray, sir, leave aside all comments on my sister's frightful position. Before we undertook this journey we promised one another to be entirely practical. We dare not indulge in emotion. We ask all whom we have to meet to help us by being—impersonal—"
She then seated herself beside her sister and asked the Commandant to take a chair. He narrowed his eyes and lips; he was a handsome man of middle age, his features refined by suffering and heavy thoughts; the precision of his braided uniform, his sword, belt and thigh-boots emphasised the sparse masculinity of his figure.
"Very well, madame," he said, slightly raising his deep voice. "I understand that you have come to Rommel to enquire into the disappearance of Lord William Bracebridge in this town, two years ago, exactly, last November."
Miss Ardress inclined her head.
"I can offer you facilities for your search," continued Captain Von Alten. "But I cannot really help you. I believe that your quest is hopeless—you asked for sincerity—here it is. Two years have passed since that night of November 25th 1809—the affair has become world famous and given Rommel, unfortunately, a melancholy celebrity. Governments—police—private detectives have all worked in vain to solve this mystery. Every possible clue has been followed up—every solution considered, tested. Exhaustive searches have been made all over the continent, high rewards offered. I advise resignation."
"You tell us what we know," rebuked Lydia Ardress. "It is true that the case has been gone into most thoroughly and that it remains completely mysterious. But we refuse to lose hope."
"On what grounds?" demanded the Commandant. "I fear that you are misled by the sad delusions of affection, by the excitement—perhaps the fascination—of an obsession."
Rosa Bracebridge rose suddenly.
"What do you think was my husband's fate?"
"It is not for me to give an opinion. I cannot go beyond my duty. I am commanded to assist you in this—to me—hopeless search. What do you wish me to do?"
He turned to Lydia Ardress who seemed to be the spokeswoman, and she answered:
"We are scarcely ready to tell you. We have only just arrived. We want to make close enquiries in Rommel, to learn from you personally all your activities in the case."
"I suppose he might have come into this very room," interrupted Rosa abruptly, staring across the pale, bare chamber.
"He did not come to the ball," replied the Commandant, who had risen from the dainty chair where he had sat stiffly.
"That is not yet proved," said Lydia.
The landlord, still grave, preoccupied, now entered, and held the tall, handsome door open for Sir Francis Lisle, the fourth of the English travellers. He then withdrew, after a narrow look of sympathy at Graf Von Alten.
It was Lydia who made the presentations; Sir Francis was as easy as the Prussian was cold and reserved.
"We deeply value this courtesy, sir," he exclaimed. We had not thought to trouble you until the morning."
"Day or night I am at your service, day or night there is nothing that I can do," replied the Commandant as he viewed the Englishman with a dislike even more pronounced than that he had allowed himself to show towards the women.
"I admit," said Sir Francis, "extraordinary difficulties—but I refuse to be disheartened." He seemed, however, fatigued and to be forcing his air of confidence as he turned to the fire and stood, with a half smile on his face, looking at the others. He was a man of remarkable charm and comeliness, no more than thirty years of age, finely bred, courteous to softness, but with an air of being, if need arose, equal to any circumstances or events; the elaboration of his travelling clothes amounted to foppishness; for all his amiability, he appeared to the sharp scrutiny of the Prussian officer to be a peculiarly offensive example of a rich, haughty, secretly insolent English lord.
Graf Von Alten disliked all of them and particularly the man who was looking at him with cool, handsome tired eyes, and he said, with subdued anger, as he turned towards the door:
"I shall be in my office to-morrow if you have any commands for me. I wish, mesdames, I could have given you a more cordial welcome to Rommel. You will understand, perhaps, how this dreadful affair has galled us all in Prussia—particularly here."
"I do appreciate that," said Sir Francis softly.
Something in his tone made the dull colour creep into the Commandant's smooth shaven cheeks; with rising violence he added:
"There is hardly anyone in Rommel who has not been suspected of murder, kidnapping, espionage, treachery—who knows what vileness? The most odious rumours have been abroad. They are not silenced yet. Indeed your visit has stirred them all up again. The whole town has been as if under a curse ever since the disappearance of Lord William."
"One understands," smiled the Englishman. Either side of him Rosa and Lydia stood in drooping elegance, and, as the Commandant thought, disdain; on the younger woman's face at least was surely mockery.
"The young man's own folly was at the bottom of the trouble," concluded the angry officer as he opened the door. "Why did he, a British Plenipotentiary, travel under a false name? Without an escort or attendants? Dressed so extravagantly? With a false passport? Perhaps if you can answer all these questions you will come a step nearer to solving the mystery."
"We have, possibly, already answered them," said Sir Francis softly. "The ladies are fatigued. I came only to see if they were comfortable. We will leave everything until the morning. Good night, Lydia. Good night, Rosa."
He pressed their hands and turned to join the officer at the door, who, however, stayed him with an abrupt gesture.
"There is something I must deliver to you all." He called sharply down the corridor, and an orderly appeared carrying a magnificent sable cloak edged and faced with violet velvet. "This is the mantle that Lord William was wearing, that the Scharres and the woman Mendel stole. As it was impossible to send anything so costly to England, I have kept it safely."
The soldier placed the sables carefully over the settee; both the women recoiled with a movement that was little less than a shudder; Sir Francis, without comment beyond, "We heard of this," signed the receipt that Graf Von Alten produced.
There was a second's pause; everyone looked at the superb garment that had belonged to the missing man, as if another silent, formidable personality had entered that bare cheerless room.
Then Sir Francis swept up the glossy sables and said, "I will keep these. Good night, my dears."
"Good night, Frank, good night." The feminine voices fell softly with, to the Prussian's ear, an insufferable accent of affected refinement as the door closed on the pale salon.
"Now they will cry a little, and Mrs. Prosser will make tea, then Rosa will fall asleep on Lydia's shoulder and they will sit so, on that hard sofa, until the fire is out," said Sir Francis with his soft smile. The Prussian stared in disgust at this sentimentality, but the other only added, "Oh, don't you see how they suffer? What hardships they have undergone?"
"Suffer? I suppose there have been a great many widows in the last twenty odd years."
"But the circumstances are so atrocious."
The two men went slowly down the wide stairs. Sir Francis trailed the sables that hung carelessly on the frogged sleeve of his travelling coat; the Prussian's dislike of him increased, he noticed jewels on finger and fob, in the folds of the prim, exquisitely laundered cravat, he was exasperated by seeing a sleek, pig-eyed, purple satin snow-jowled English lackey waiting in the hall—so there were five English people for him to cope with. He said harshly as his orderly fell into step behind him:
"Really, you know, your friend must have been too young and inexperienced for his mission. I suppose if his uncle had not been your Prime Minister, he would never have obtained it—see what distress, what scandal, what trouble such folly leads to."
He saluted, without waiting for a reply, and passed out into the wet, cold night. Sir Francis did not look after him; he summoned the landlord, waiting at the foot of the stairs, by a crook of his raised finger.
"The ladies are to receive every attention. You will bring your accounts to me. We may stay several weeks."
The man assented, with forced civility. Sir Francis lingered, looking at him slightly.
"The least inattention may have disagreeable consequences," he added pleasantly.
Then, followed by the silent servant, the Englishman too passed into the rainy street of Rommel.
The little town was full of rumours, suspicions and an eager, furtive curiosity. People walked up and down, past the statue of Roland in the public square, past The Three Crowns and the house in the corner where the Commandant lodged, in the hopes of seeing one of the English travellers whose arrival had caused so much resentment and commotion not only in Rommel but in Prussia.
In every beer-shop, coffee-house, in every parlour and kitchen the mystery was discussed and always with uneasiness as if the speakers feared to find themselves involved in something sinister. Prussia was again virtually under French domination and the system of espionage employed by that government was known to be efficient and unscrupulous, so distrust and dread were sown everywhere and there were few who did not see in every stranger, and even in their own friends or relations, a spy of Napoleon's.
There was a more tangible fear caused by the presence throughout Germany of the detested douaniers montés, French troops heavily armed and well mounted, who under the pretence of inspecting and protecting the customs scoured the country and were believed to be responsible for many outrages, arrests, murders and robberies that had never been brought home to them. Those who lingered in the wet market-place of Rommel on the 30th January 1811, were rewarded by seeing the traveller whom they termed the 'English lord' arrive at The Three Crowns, and, after half an hour, leave the hotel and proceed to the much older, step-gabled house where the Commandant lodged above the rooms that served him as an office; he used this place as the barracks were without the town, inconveniently situated.
The citizens of Rommel marked with envy and spite the handsome clothes of the Englishman, his easy carriage, his soft smile that seemed to place him above the possibility of taking offence, his complete self-assurance that was so deep seated as to be almost imperceptible beneath his charming manners.
"They are insolent, boastful fools, these English," said the Burgomaster, Herr Wendt, who did not disdain to call at The Three Crowns for a glass of punch and to satisfy his curiosity. "They do crazy things, and then a whole country must be upset for years. I suppose, Herr Kichner, these travellers incline to treat us all as if we were murderers, or, at best, paid spies of Napoleon's?"
"Yes," agreed the landlord in a discreetly low voice. "They are very haughty and suspicious. I have not seen the ladies since they arrived last night. The servant, Mrs. Prosser, acts as intermediary with my staff. She speaks a little bad French. The lord is always accompanied by the fellow whom he calls Burton and who is quite unapproachable."
"Well," said Herr Wendt with malicious satisfaction, "I saw him—the lord—going to the Commandant's quarters, but if he really wants to know anything he will have to come to me. After all, it was a police affair and I succeeded in taking it out of the hands of the military."
"What can anyone tell him, Herr Burgomaster? What does anyone in Rommel know of the disappearance of the mad Englishman?"
"What indeed?" Herr Wendt sipped his punch and looked out of the tall window of the parlour at the gigantic statue of Roland, blurred by rain.
Sir Francis Lisle sat opposite the Commandant, who, upright in a stiff chair, had his desk, loaded with files and packages of papers, before him; the Englishman's hand rested on a large green portfolio, bulging with documents.
"I will put, very briefly, the outlines of this extraordinary and mysterious affair," he said.
"I already know them too well."
"Forgive me, I do not think that you have ever heard them as they appear to an Englishman, a friend of Lord William's."
Herr Von Alten was forced to agree; staring at the raindrops sliding down the panes of the tall uncurtained windows, he listened, his stern melancholy face impassive, his finger-tips joined.
"Bracebridge and I were at Eton and Worcester College together. We both chose the diplomatic profession. I went to the Hague, he to Stockholm where I afterwards followed him. He was recalled to London, while I remained in Sweden. He was appointed Envoy Plenipotentiary to Vienna and entrusted with a secret mission to the Emperor Francis, who had just been driven into a new war with France."
"Lord William's uncle is your Premier?"
"Not his uncle, his father's cousin, Lord Clinton, but family influence was, of course, used. Bracebridge was—is—the second son of the Earl of Castledown, an old peerage, but a small fortune. He married Rosa Ardress, daughter of the Bishop of Winchester—brilliant, sensitive, ambitious, my friend wished to play a notable part in defeating the schemes of Napoleon—the appointment to this important, secret mission filled him with great pleasure. He took it up in the spring of 1807."
"How old was he? We have different accounts."
"In his twenty-fifth year. He wrote to me from Pesth, and from Vienna, he had high hopes—it was before Austerlitz—that he would be successful in his mission."
"What was it?"
"My dear Commandant, as you said last night, I cannot go beyond my duty—my instructions. Bracebridge was sanguine—even to the extent of thinking of asking his wife to join him in Vienna when Austerlitz brought him the sharpest chagrin. There was nothing for him to do but to return home. He had a French safe conduct. He was in communication with his family by means of a courier, one Hoffman, who took his letters—and even parcels—to and fro. His last was written from Vienna, shortly before he left the capital. During the entire month of December his family anxiously expected his arrival—every knock on the door raised hope."
"Why this apprehension?" interrupted the Commandant harshly.
"They knew the dangers of Europe in a state of war, they feared the violence, the treachery of the French Government—the length, the perils of the journey. In early January Lord Clinton sent for Lord Castledown and advised him of the disappearance of his son, at Rommel, on the night of Saturday, the 25th of November 1809."
"All this is perfectly well known to me."
"But hardly the distress, the anguish, the dreadful uncertainty in which the family—the friends, and they were many—of this brilliant young man—are involved—have been—since two years ago. His mother refuses to give up hope—his father does not believe that he is dead."
"Hence this romantic resolve on the part of these ladies to explore Europe?"
"Does that resolve appear strange to you? Consider the position—my unhappy friend had been married barely a year—nothing could allay his wife's distress. Her sister, always her affectionate friend, offered to accompany her. This decision was only known to Lady William's parents, to her parents-in-law and to me."
"You had—in the present state of European affairs, after the alliance of Napoleon and the Emperor Francis—the leisure for this knight-errantry?"
Sir Francis was untouched by the taunt.
"I obtained leave of absence from the Stockholm Legation, where I was chargé d'affaires, to investigate this mystery. The British Government is most wishful to see it solved."
"I know, they have offered a reward of a thousand pounds for any information—the like amount, I think, was offered by the Bracebridge family. Surely the fact that neither sum has been claimed should prove to you that your quest is hopeless?" Graf Von Alten dropped his chin into one of his hands, the weariness on his fine face deepened. "Forgive me, but to me—concerned by the state of my country—of Europe—this case seems to me trivial. Thousands of young, brilliant, beloved men have lost their lives since this conflict began. Lady William should resign herself; she has youth—and many advantages."
"Forgive me," replied Sir Francis quietly, "but that sounds like an attempt to hush up the whole affair. Your attitude has from the first been hostile, Captain Von Alten. What! Do you expect the representative of His Britannic Majesty to disappear on his journey from Vienna to Hamburg—in a frontier town where he stops for rest and refreshment, and no hue and cry to be made? A man belonging by birth and marriage to influential families, with French, Austrian and Prussian diplomatic passports?"
"Sir, the hue and cry has already been made. We have had two years of it." The soldier's face and words were stern. "Not only Rommel, but the Kingdom—the Empire—has been combed. Allow me to tell you once more that your friend's own folly is responsible for the tragedy. Remember he travelled without escort or attendants, under an assumed name, and making an ostentatious display of wealth."
Sir Francis picked one word out of these remarks.
"Tragedy? You think that Lord William is dead? Murdered? By French spies or robbers?"
"I think," answered the Commandant stubbornly, "whatever his fate, he brought it on himself."
The Englishman laid his portfolio on the desk.
"We have heard, Captain Von Alten, many contradictory stories of that fatal—as you think it—night. Prussian, French and Austrian papers have all published different accounts. By word of mouth we have heard others. Even if we were convinced that Lord William is dead, we could not endure this uncertainty as to his fate. We want to know how—and why—he died."
"The French Government is helping you?" asked the Commandant with a faint smile.
"They have treated us in an open manner."
"And you put faith in that?"
"I did not say so. Lady William wrote to Napoleon for passports to seek for her husband, desiring that they might be sent to Lord Clinton. But I advised her not to wait, as if they were refused we could not risk going—"
"So eager to persuade a fond woman to undertake a dubious adventure?"
"So eager!" smiled Sir Francis. "As, perhaps, had you been in my place, you would have been. Lady William was reckless of life itself. I obtained passports from the Swedish Minister in London and we sailed to Gothenburg, got into Russia before the French arrived and so through Pomerania to Prussia."
"It is a long way round by the Baltic."
"Our voyage was tedious, but not adventurous. When we arrived in Berlin, we waited on the French Minister. M. de Châteaurenne is, unfortunately, of great influence in Prussia."
"More so than the King," replied the Commandant grimly, "but perhaps we shall soon alter that."
"Doubtless. M. de Châteaurenne was charming. He said that he already had our passports, signed by the Emperor himself. Lady William replied that as she had asked for the passports to be sent to London and had left for the Baltic without anyone save a few members of her own family knowing; it was very surprising to find the passports waiting in Berlin."
"It merely shows that the French spies are better than yours."
"That is precisely what Lady William said, and M. de Châteaurenne admitted it. However, we have our passports, and they will take us all over Europe free of annoyance."
"If you have sufficient money," said Captain Von Alten sharply. "You said that Lord Castledown's means were moderate. He has other children, so, I believe, has Doctor Ardress. Such a search as you propose will cost more than I can calculate."
"I am a wealthy man," said Sir Francis, as if he spoke of quite indifferent matters. "And my government will help meet these expenses."
The table was strewn with papers, maps, plans, sketches, as with rigid impassivity the Prussian explained what he had done to try to find the missing Englishman; this was his narrative that he gave as dryly as possible and that Sir Francis listened to attentively, without comment.
"I was at the ball given at The Three Crowns when a Swiss servant came to look for me. I interviewed him in the hall. He told me that his master was missing, and all the circumstances. I at once acquainted the police. The missing man's property was sequestered, his companion and the Swiss I put into rooms in the hotel with a guard of cuirassiers over them. A fur cloak was missing; the police went in search of this. Our newly organised Town Police, under the orders of the district magistrates, were extremely scrupulous and able. We had been threatened by the French that unless we kept severe order and cleared the roads of vagabonds, deserters and dispersed soldiers, they would send mobile columns of their troops to do so. You may imagine then that we were very alert. Rommel was, and is, excellently policed. The same night that the traveller disappeared, the police searched the post-house, the taverns and all likely places; four magistrates called on me before the ball was over and I told them of the missing cloaks. My lieutenant told me that this traveller had asked for, then sent away, a safeguard. I had to leave Rommel on the Monday morning; when I returned I found that the police had taken a description of the fur cloaks from the Swiss servant—fetching him away from the hotel with beadles. I protested at this infringement of my authority; the Burgomaster, Herr Wendt, took the part of the police. There was a good deal of disputing and justifying of themselves on the part of the civilians. I, a noble, a governor of a frontier town, a soldier, was indignant at the way I was treated by small shopkeepers. On Wednesday, November 29th, the fur cloak was found, concealed in a wood house belonging to the Scharres. These people declared that they thought that the sables belonged to one of the Jews who had stopped at the post-house on the Saturday night and that they were waiting an opportunity to send it to him; the woman Scharre and the servant girl were found guilty of the theft and received a sentence of imprisonment; her son fled. I sent a report of the whole affair to the Supreme Court at Berlin. My government bade me make every effort to find the missing traveller. I charged the magistrate to take these means of searching—all gamekeepers and huntsmen in the surrounding country to have the whole ground tracked by hounds. Experienced people to investigate all ditches and hollows, caves and woods. This was done, without results. I then ordered the river Steppenitz to be let off during two days by the millmaster and the bed searched. The good repute of the town as well as prestige of myself and the police being now at stake, the river-bed, every copse and ditch, every wood and field, was searched with hounds and sticks until the beginning of December. All houses and gardens were also searched. Particular attention was paid to the haunts of the younger Scharre, who had a bad character. Cellars and lofts were inspected, boxes and chests opened, all loose earth turned over. I paid all expenses and offered a reward of ten thalers for the least scrap of information. Meanwhile the other traveller and the Swiss became tired of waiting under guard in The Three Crowns and requested me to give them passports for Berlin, as they had decided not to continue their journey to Hamburg. This I did and they left Rommel on December 10th. In this I acted under instructions from Berlin. There was nothing against them, although they excited the suspicions of the Burgomaster. Six weeks after the disappearance of the traveller a pair of overalls were found by an old woman near the fir wood at Quitzow. In the watch pocket was a scrap of paper. The trousers were dry, the paper clean, and so they must have been placed there shortly before they were discovered, as it had been raining for three weeks previously. The Quitzow fir wood was then searched thoroughly by huntsmen, peasants, hounds and police. I rewarded the zealous inhabitants of Quitzow with a barrel of beer and ten quarts of brandy. Nothing was found. I then received information that the family of the missing man had deposited 500 thalers with the Bankers Schickler, that were to be paid to anyone giving a clue as to the fate of the lost traveller. This reward promise was published all over the country, together with a promise of full pardon for any complicity in any crime. There was no result. At the end of March 1810 a stranger arrived in Rommel and, after interviewing me, gave a sum of 208 thalers to the Burgomaster to satisfy those who had spent money on this search. He obtained a receipt for the satisfaction of the family of the missing man. This is all that I know as to the affair. A year after the disappearance a judicial commission was sent from Berlin to investigate the case, without result. All the documents relating to the disappearance I sent to Berlin, keeping copies."
Sir Francis thanked the Governor, complimenting him on his zeal and accomplishments, well worthy of the post he held as the commandant of a frontier town.
"I will not weary you further now. I will only ask you a few questions that can be very briefly answered. When did you discover the identity of the traveller?"
"Only when the stranger arrived to pay the expenses of the search."
"Yet French, British and German papers had been, since the end of December, full of the disappearance of the English Envoy."
"It was not my business to take any notice of that. The Moniteur and other Napoleonic journals definitely described Lord William as insane and stated that he had committed suicide. I believed nothing until officially informed."
"You allowed the other traveller and the servant to leave Rommel, without investigating their story? You believed that these two men were merchants?"
"It was not my business to enquire into their bona fides; their passports were in order. My government ordered me to allow them to depart."
Sir Francis put together with a careful hand the piles of documents that the Governor had shown him in corroboration of his story, replaced them on the bureau and rose. The rain was still falling, the plain room was close from the fumes of the tiled stove in the corner. Both men looked weary. The Englishman thanked the Prussian, but added in his habitual tone of soft courtesy:
"You realise that your mistakes have made this enquiry very difficult?"
"My mistakes, sir?" The repetition was a challenge. The Governor stood erect before his chair, all his uneasiness, his hostility suddenly unveiled.
"Yes. Your disputes with the civil authorities, your sudden absence from Rommel caused grave delays. You allowed the Swiss servant to go—he has never been traced since. In the same way you permitted the keeper of the gambling house, Weber, the Scharres, the landlord of The Great Bear, the servant girl, all to disappear. The three Jews were not sought for—how impossible, after two years, to find all these people!"
"I am only answerable to my government."
"Doubtless. But this is a matter of international importance."
"Permit me, on my side, one question. Who was the second traveller, who called himself Herr Bisschop?"
"Surely you know that?"
"Perhaps. I want your confirmation."
"He was Baron Kassel, the Austrian diplomat," smiled Sir Francis, "who was sent with Bracebridge as far as Hamburg—by the order of the Emperor Francis."
"Can he tell you nothing?"
"We have his full story, of course; it throws no light on the disappearance of Bracebridge."
The Governor slightly lifted his epauletted shoulders.
"There then, I must leave the matter."
His manner was a dismissal; Sir Francis put his portfolio under his arm, gathered up his beaver and gloves, then asked:
"Could I, for one moment, speak to Lieutenant Wulf, if he is still in Rommel?"
"Certainly." The Governor struck a bell, gave a command to the orderly who appeared, and Lieutenant Wulf was shortly in the room; his Captain explained to him the errand and identity of the stranger and Sir Francis produced from his breast pocket a small purple leather case that he opened. It contained a miniature portrait of a young man wearing a blue velvet coat; the texture of this material, the pure complexion and glossy hair of the youth were rendered with a rich, dainty touch that gave the portrait a romantic bloom and lustre far removed from realism.
"Is this the gentleman who called on you and asked for the safeguard?"
"Yes—there can be no mistake. It is Lord Bracebridge?"
"Lord William Bracebridge, yes."
The Governor glanced curiously at the portrait of the missing man that was, he said, the first likeness of him that he had seen, though a description of the unfortunate traveller had been for nearly two years circulated throughout Prussia. This agreed with the miniature; everyone who had seen the traveller had remarked on his good looks, elegance, his blond colouring and youth.
"When he called here," volunteered Lieutenant Wulf, who now had this account by rote, "he seemed much disordered. He appeared nervous, weary and excited. He wore dark grey trousers, a coat with braid, a tasselled cap and carried a sable coat worth at least 300 thalers. Not that the night was very cold, only wet."
"It is curious," remarked Sir Francis, "what importance seems to be attached to that sable coat and how everyone seems to have remarked it. I should have thought that so near the Baltic furs would have been common enough."
Neither of the soldiers replied to this comment and the Englishman, again thanking them, left the house and turned again into the large square. He was at once conscious of several groups of loiterers, all of whom were furtively observing him; he noticed that a guard of cuirassiers had been placed outside The Three Crowns and a policeman was moving on some knots of idlers who were gazing up at the windows and at the reflection of the fire on the ceiling of the rooms on the first floor of the hotel that was all they could see of the apartments now occupied by the English ladies.
The Englishman felt discouraged, and as if he were surrounded by suspicion, malice and resentment; the whole town had to him a sinister aspect. It seemed to be full of secret enemies, of abominable mysteries, of traps and spies, his task seemed almost hopeless and he dreaded the prospect of the approaching winter; the weather had already broken and soon travelling would be difficult; they should have left England earlier—but the plan had been to start next spring; it was Rosa's impatience that had made them start in the late summer, and the journey had been full of delays.
He glanced up at the stone statue of Roland that rose gigantic and dark above the market-square; even this ancient hero seemed to have an air of menace. Sir Francis smiled at his own fancies; he had often regretted that he was too sensitive for his profession and suffered much, therefore, under his urbane exterior, from melancholies and moods that did not trouble many other men of his position and gifts.
Ignoring the whisperings, the glances, the nudgings on the part of the lingering citizens of Rommel, Sir Francis walked to the residence of the Burgomaster, Herr Wendt.
His servant did not accompany his master; he had been sent off on other business.
After dinner Sir Francis related to Rosa and Lydia what he had done during the day.
"The Governor is hostile. I am convinced that he knows more than he admits. He is intelligent and patriotic, zealous and efficient; he dislikes us very much."
The women did not answer; the confinement to the strange hotel room, the wet day, the oddness of their errand had sapped their spirits. The sight of the soldiers and police before the doors, of the lingering crowds had made them feel that they were in prison, perhaps awaiting some more severe fate. They had written and torn up several letters home; how write when there was nothing, really nothing, to say to those who waited with such desperate anxiety for news?
"The Burgomaster agrees with me," said Sir Francis; "he is inflamed beyond caution against the Governor. I almost brought him to admit that he suspected Von Alten of knowing a great deal. The Burgomaster complains of the Governor's sudden departure—directly after the ball—without going to bed—from Rommel—and of his absence, and then of his protest against the zeal of the police."
"Where did the Governor go?" asked Rosa, with her hand to her aching head.
"The Burgomaster does not know. He complains, too, that the Scharres and the other prisoners were released, under an amnesty, by the Governor, and that he allowed them, and several other people, important to our purpose, to leave Rommel and disappear. The messenger who brought the note cannot be traced."
Lydia spoke; she looked down at her sister's hand that she held tightly in her own.
"What could this Governor do or be? He is a Prussian, a gentleman, a soldier, as they told us in Berlin, of a fine record."
"He might be a French spy. The Prussian Government might even have given him orders—acting under French coercion. King Frederic I and his Ministers are hardly—since Austerlitz—free agents. Their position is nearly as humiliating as that of the Emperor Francis."
"Orders—for what?" Rosa leaned against her sister.
"For the secret removal of William—to some fortress occupied by the French. Von Alten, if he wished, would be able to contrive that. The Burgomaster insists there is a strong rumour in the town that William called on Von Alten before he disappeared, but this the Commandant has always resolutely denied."
"We come back to the first opinion," said Lydia, "that William was seized by the French because of the papers he carried. They could easily have done that."
Though this statement was put in childish words, it had an undefined air of terror and resignation. Lydia added sharply:
"Rosa, don't look so frightened! Did we not promise one another that we would have courage? Frank, have you discovered anything from either the Governor or the Burgomaster that helps us?"
"Nothing. Save a confirmation of my suspicion that the affair was muddled from the first, there was this dispute between the civil and military authorities, the carelessness that allowed so many witnesses to disappear. But that they—the Prussian police—are really efficient and made exhaustive searches—is proved. I saw all the documents. Leermann has not arrived yet?"
"We have heard nothing," said Rosa. She leaned forward into the circle of the firelight. "Frank, I don't like this hotel. It is too large and pretentious—at least, could they take the guards away?"
"There is not another place fit for you," replied Sir Francis. "I do not think that the guards are necessary. I will speak to the Governor about that."
The sense of disquiet increased among the three people; it was Lydia who, with an effort over rising agitation, said:
"What are we going to do?"
Not looking at either of the women, Sir Francis replied: "We must wait for Leermann's report and for Kassel, who promised to be here no later than the end of the month."
"Meanwhile," said Rosa, "how are we to investigate—again, what are we going to do?"
He did not immediately answer and she added bitterly:
"It seems all useless! I am sure that these people do not mean us to discover anything. They will handicap and block us at every turn. Everything, everything is against us."
"Let us," said Sir Francis, still looking into the fire, "review the position—as I did last night when I was alone in my inn room. There are only a few ways in which William could have disappeared."
"Suicide may, must be ruled out," said Rosa quickly. "That tale was spread by the French. We know that he was not insane; besides, his body would have been found. He was an excellent swimmer and could not have drowned himself. Besides, a man doesn't throw himself into the water when he carries a case of pistols. You know," she added, looking from her sister to her friend, "that Lord Clinton said, always, the only consolation was that it would never be supposed that it was by his own hand."
"What reason should he have to destroy himself?" murmured Lydia, as if she questioned her own heart.
"He might," suggested Sir Francis, "have felt that he had failed in his mission, been overwhelmed by Austerlitz, harassed by the sensation that he was spied upon and hunted, yet I cannot suppose that he took his own life. But everyone to whom I have spoken in Prussia insists on his extreme folly in travelling as he did and his obvious agitation."
"Baron Kassel should be able to throw some light on that."
"He is not very satisfactory—at least in his letters. Perhaps when we meet him we shall learn more."
"No, no, William did not destroy himself," insisted Rosa. "He is alive somewhere—in some French prison."
"Do you really believe that?" asked her sister sombrely.
"I must. But I want more than this desperate hope."
"We must," interrupted Lydia, "have proof that he is dead or alive, and if the former, how he died. What do you think, Frank?"
"I think that it was as likely that he was—murdered—for the purpose of robbery as that he was seized by French spies. Either of these things may have happened to him."
"Yes, yes," interrupted Rosa eagerly. "Put it all to me again, clearly. I have thought of it so much that my head is confused."
Lydia murmured, "It is all clear to me—all the possibilities."
But Sir Francis, in low, anxious tones and still looking away from his listeners, said:
"Von Alten may have betrayed him to the French—General d'Estroques was then in Berlin—the douaniers montés may have seized him outside the post-house. The man who kept The Great Bear was suspected—a French spy—and he might have contrived a kidnapping. There is also a chance that William—decoyed by Heaven knows what means—visited the gambling hell kept by Weber, and was there murdered for his money and jewels. Or, again, this Scharre who had the fur cloak in his possession might have been the criminal. All these possibilities I shall investigate."
"Until his body is found I shall believe that he is alive," said Lydia. "The search began a few hours after his disappearance, and how could a murdered man have been disposed of in that time?"
She turned to the lofty inner door. Her tall figure and her bright face were so expressive of distress that they seemed as if they were darkened by mourning veils; neither of the others spoke, and it seemed as if Lydia would leave the bare salon—it had a chill look for all the large fire on the marble hearth—in silence. But on the threshold of the inner room she paused and looked from her sister to her friend with an emotion that she could scarcely control.
"I am going to write to his mother—an account of our travels for all his friends. Promise me, both of you, not to weary, not to sicken—however terrible it is going to be!"
"Why should you suppose that we should?" asked Rosa swiftly. "Have I not done all a wretched woman could? Do you think that I should flinch from anything?"
"Forgive me, I am very tired."
Lydia left them and they were silent until the door had closed behind them, then Rosa whispered: "Poor girl—this hideous business is ruining her health. She often cries out in her sleep."
Without replying to this, Sir Francis said, under his breath, without moving or looking at the young woman:
"Be careful, my dear, be very careful. We are watched, spied upon. And I don't know by whom. Not the least indiscretion!"
"Have you anything to complain of, Frank?"
"Hardly—no. But I am afraid for you. Remember Stockholm. There were mistakes there. One never realises the hostility that surrounds one when one is in an extraordinary position."
Rosa put her hand to her mouth; her eyes were frightened; the young man turned his head and saw her, cowering thus in the corner of the stiff settee; he made a movement towards her that he checked; her hand fell, she whispered:
"We must find out, we must."
"You know," he said, very low, as he passed her on his way from the room, "that you can trust me completely—need you force me to say so?"
He was gone and Rosa sunk down on to the hard striped bolster, too weary to weep, to sleep, to move; the rain trickled down the long grey window-panes, the fire sunk to ashes. Lydia remained enclosed in the bedchamber.
Mrs. Prosser approached the bed of her young mistress and told her that a woman wanted to see her and was very insistent.
Rosa looked forlorn in the large prim bed with the long curtain falling straight from the wooden coronal upheld by the gilt cherubs; the day was colourless and cold and the reflection of this bleak greyness was in the high-ceilinged room that had a striped greenish wallpaper and furniture covered with brocade of a dead pink hue. Rosa was wrapped in a white woollen shawl and wore a little lace cap with lappets tied under her chin; she had the bedclothes huddled round her, and sat up, propped by pillows.
"Why me?" she asked in agitation. "Why not Lydia, who is so much more sensible than I am? Or Sir Francis—he will be here presently, or I could send for him at once."
"No, madame, she was clear—it was the wife of the missing gentleman whom she wanted to see—and alone. She seemed very timid. Of course, I couldn't understand her."
"You saw her?"
"Yes—the waiter who speaks a little English translated for me."
"Oh, I don't know so much German, Prossy, do I? But let her come up—that is better than losing her. Then the others can see her afterwards."
"Would you like me to stay in the room with you, my lady? Miss Lydia isn't up yet."
"Yes, please do—and near the bell. You know I never feel at ease in this country."
Rosa got out of bed and put on a cashmere wrap made from a valuable shawl that had been one of her wedding presents, and, shuddering from chilliness and nerves, seated herself by the stove that she never allowed to go out. She was scarcely warmed when Mrs. Prosser returned with an ordinary young woman of the servant class, such as Rosa had seen in every inn and hotel in Prussia at which she had stayed.
Wearing a homespun mantle over a peasant costume, the girl stood stockily and dropped her curtsy, eyeing the while Mrs. Prosser, who regarded her, in return, with grim suspicion.
"Please speak frankly." Rosa's soft pretty voice halted on the German words. "My maid knows only English. I am the wife of the missing traveller. Have you, ah, have you anything to tell me?"
Suddenly, as if in a great hurry and under a considerable fear, the girl began to speak. Her name was Emma Mintern, she had been employed as maid to the housekeeper in the house where the Governor had apartments.
"Speak slowly and clearly," implored Rosa. "Come closer, in case we are overheard."
The girl obeyed; this was her story.
'About ten o'clock on Saturday evening, November 25th, 1809, I was looking out of the window of my room to see the grand people coming and going from the ball that was being held at this hotel, which was lit so that I could see all that was going on in the square where so many carriages waited, with footmen and linkboys, for it was raining and no moon. I saw my master, who was at the ball, leave the hotel and come towards his house. There was another gentleman with him. They came into our house and soon after my master rang the bell. I went down to him in his parlour and he had lit candles and put more wood on the stove. The Governor said that his friend was cold and asked me to make some hot tea. I had meant to make some for myself before I went to bed, so I had the kettle boiling on the kitchen stove and the tea soon ready. I took it up. The stranger was in a lamentable state, exhausted and agitated, he could scarcely lift up his hand to take the cup. The Governor was hoarse, said he had a sore throat and kept on his outdoor cloak muffled round his chest and neck. The stranger spoke to me in German, said he was thankful for the tea, that he was much cast down and must be off to the post-house as his carriage was waiting. He was a particularly fine young man, of distinguished manners; he wore a diamond brooch, light trousers and a magnificent fur cloak. He told me that I was a good child and gave me a piece of English money that I at once changed, the next day. I left him with my master, but I had hardly reached the front door before he had followed me, so I crossed the hall and held the door open for him. I looked after him and saw him, to my surprise, turn round the corner. The way to the post-house was across the square. I was minded to run after him, then I thought that perhaps he was going to the ball at The Three Crowns and entering by the side door, as some did, so I thought no more of it and went up to bed. If my master returned to the ball or not, I do not know. I could not sleep, wondering about the stranger and if I should have put him on his right way as he seemed in such a hurry. There was soon another knocking. I went down. It was the letter-carrier and ostler, the younger Scharre, from the post-house; he asked about the lord, and I pointed out in what direction he went. Scharre went the same way, round the hotel to the shoe-market. There was quiet until, I think, about two o'clock in the morning, when the housekeeper came and roused me to make up the stoves, warm some punch and so on. I got up and found two people with my master in the parlour, a gentleman and a servant. They enquired after the first visitor and seemed very uneasy. And so was the whole town soon after. The Governor took the two travellers to The Three Crowns and put a guard over them. Early the next morning, though he had a sore throat, he went away. When he returned he sent for me and said that I was not to speak of anything that had happened on that Saturday night. He gave me some money and sent me to my parents at Prienitz for the Christmas-time. Afterwards I came back to Rommel and the Governor found me a place with his doctor, Herr Vinike, where I am now. I was frightened because of the trouble there was about the missing traveller and meant to keep my mouth shut. I thought that he had been followed and murdered by Scharre for the fur cloak, and that Scharre would have confessed what he had done with the body if he had been pressed, but the Governor told me that there were great things behind all this and said that Napoleon was master of the country and his everywhere. So for two years I have been quiet, but my heart melted when I heard of the wife of the poor gentleman coming so far and undergoing so many perils, so I decided to tell all I knew.'
Rosa tried nervously to understand the importance of this story; the point that the girl seemed to want to make was that the younger Scharre was probably guilty of the murder of Lord William, but it seemed to Rosa to be of more moment to learn that her husband had visited the Governor who had lied about this; her suspicions, therefore, fell on Von Alten, whom she already disliked and whom Sir Francis had taught her to doubt.
"Did you hear of my husband's visit to the Governor's house, earlier in the evening, with Scharre as guide, to ask for a safeguard?"
"No." The girl edged towards the door with uneasy looks towards Mrs. Prosser. "I only know what I've said. I beg you to say nothing to the Governor. I should lose my job and be beaten. He is a very severe man and he had Louise Mendel, who was the servant at the post-station, beaten because she wouldn't say what she knew about the fur cloak."
"I will protect you, of course," cried Rosa hastily, "but you don't help me, if I can't use your evidence!"
The servant's flat face flushed; she protested the danger that she was in, the risks that she had run, all out of pure pity. She had come early in order to escape observation, and she had only got through the guards and the hotel people because she had pretended that she came from her master.
'This is a craven, self-interested, ignorant creature,' thought Rosa. 'I must reassure her.'
So she got up and quickly fetched a valise from which she took a purse of English sovereigns; five of these she put into the girl's coarse hand and was pleased to see the greedy eagerness with which they were clutched.
Stammering promises and gratitude, the servant hurried away, putting the money into the bosom of her woollen bodice.
"I don't like the look of her, my lady," said Mrs. Prosser; Rosa was used to the suspicions of her old nurse, who was a scrupulous, faithful, intelligent woman, but stern, censorious and melancholy; her mistress regarded her with no great affection and the sight of her smooth, bloodless face, covered with pale freckles, often depressed and even intimidated the desperate lady.
"Help me to dress, Prossy, and don't scold. That girl knows something that may be very useful—no, I will dress myself while you fetch Miss Lydia."
Rosa's tremulous satisfaction in her cleverness in dealing with the girl was soon dashed by her sister; Lydia Ardress was already dressed in walking attire and came at once to Rosa's room and listened with great uneasiness to her excited talk.
"Why do you look so severe, Lydia? Have I done wrong?"
"Oh, I am afraid so, dear; you should never have given her money and never let her go—even if you had had to hold her by force—Prossy would have dealt with her until I got help."
"Everything I do is wrong," complained Rosa, with feeble tears; Lydia hardly listened to this commonplace lament of inefficiency, she kissed her sister, comforted her in a few words and returned to the salon that she so disliked.
Not for the first time did Lydia Ardress find her sex a handicap; she was naturally bold and enterprising, but she recognised in herself that timid self-consciousness inevitable in a Bishop's daughter, narrowly bred and leading a carefully secluded life, that cast a restraint over her actions and even sometimes over her thoughts.
She was most passionately concerned in the attempt to solve the mystery of her brother-in-law's disappearance and she wished to go at once after the servant girl and to interview her without loss of time, also to question her present master, the doctor, and the Governor's housekeeper. But she realised that such activity on her behalf would attract curious comment, hostility and censure that would damage her cause; so she had to content herself with sending Burton, who was constantly on duty in the entrance hall of The Three Crowns, for his master.
When Sir Francis arrived in the ladies' salon, Rosa was already dressed and had recovered her composure; seated near the crackling fire, she was drinking coffee; in low, apologetic tones she related her story.
"I was foolish, I was taken by surprise. You must forgive me, Frank."
"Forgive you! Your situation is frightful—anything may be excused."
He turned aside and, taking a pad from his pocket, drew an outline of the town to illustrate Emma Mintern's story.
The market-square was large and in the centre of the town; in the middle was the large stone statue of Roland.
Arriving as Lord William and Baron Kassel had arrived by the Berlin stage and stopping at the post-station, a traveller would find the road to Hamburg stretching ahead of him through woods, behind him a bridge that spanned the river Steppenitz that flowed on the left towards the mill-race and on the right to the Elbe. At right angles to the post-house, and to the right hand was a road that led directly to the market-square; it came out by the town hall, with the cathedral on a line with this, to the left, and opposite, across the square, the hotel, The Three Crowns, and the house beside it where the Governor lived.
On this road from the post-station to the market-square there were no houses, only, opposite the post-halt was an inn, or coffee house, of no good repute, much frequented by French soldiers and run by the man 'whose daughters were not ugly' and who was believed to be a spy. During the investigations into the disappearance of the Englishman, this person had been sent out of Prussia. His house, that still bore the name of 'the evil house,' stood towards the bridge, and the grounds, used in summer as beer-gardens, sloped down to the river.
The Three Crowns, a large mansion, was situate at the corner of the market-place; it had an entrance in a side-street that ran out of the market-place opposite to the cathedral, this led to the much smaller shoe market, and, through it, out of the town into the woods that ran towards Quitzow, where the great forest began.
Situate in the shoe market was, to the right, the house once occupied by Weber, the reputed gambling den, directly opposite the Dutch Coffee House where Sir Francis was staying.
"So you see," he said, showing the sketch-plan to the two women, "what the girl says is to a point correct. If William had returned to the post-house, he would have had to cross the entire market-place diagonally. As the servant says she saw him, he would go past The Three Crowns and turn to his right."
"It is all completely mysterious," said Lydia, staring at the plan. "Why should he have called on the Governor? Where was he going when he went towards the shoe market? Why did the ostler follow him? Frank, the most astounding part of the whole dreadful thing is to me William's own behaviour."
"Why do you keep dwelling on that?" asked Rosa nervously. "He had good reason to be agitated."
"But not to behave as he did," protested Lydia firmly. "Then that fragment of letter to you found in the trousers Why should he write that he was afraid he would never reach England, and who is this Comte Véfour of whom he was in dread?"
"A French spy, doubtless. The fact that we are not able to trace him, simply means that he was passing under some alias," said Sir Francis, looking anxiously at Rosa, who seemed sunk in deep distress. With her lace cap tied under her chin, her blue wrap edged with white fur, and her flushed, tremulous face, she looked like some unhappy, pretty child.
"Who put the trousers there—six weeks afterwards?" frowned Lydia. "Have you seen them, Frank? Or the people who found them?"
"No. They have been sent to Berlin. We are certainly hampered in every direction. I have seen the depositions. The trousers were inside out, damp on the right side, as if someone had been lying down in them."
"I am not satisfied that they were belonging to William," said Lydia. "Nor even that he wrote that letter—whoever seized him must have obtained many specimens of his handwriting among his papers."
"No! No!" cried Rosa. "He wrote those lines—how can you be so cruel!"
She sprang up, and, putting aside her sister and her friend, hurried into her bedchamber.
"Lydia, do not agitate her," said Sir Francis eagerly. I fear that she may not be able to endure much of this—and with the winter coming on—it will, perhaps, be impossible for her to travel without risking a severe illness."
"Do you think of turning back?" asked Lydia, and she murmured:
"If life were on it, wouldst thou turn again,
For the wind blowing, or a little rain."
"We do not deal with life, but with death," replied Sir Francis, deeply troubled. "William no longer lives, of that I am convinced."
"Convinced?"
"Yes. I do really feel certain that he is dead. AnD that this search will become an obsession that will overwhelm us all."
"But you will not give up?"
"No—no, not until Rosa tells me to. But the utmost that I hope to discover is—how he died."
"This is a melancholy place!" cried Lydia passionately. "How it depresses me! I suppose that in these very rooms Baron Kassel was confined—with the Swiss? Oh, why doesn't he or Herr Leermann come?"
You must have some of the patience that you advise me to use, dear," said Sir Francis gently. "It is very difficult for any traveller in Europe now to keep his appointments, especially when there are frontiers to be crossed."
"I must have some occupation. Can I come with you to try to interview this servant girl? Poor Rosa never even showed her William's portrait."
"No, I had better do that alone. Even by myself I seem to attract attention. If you go out, take Burton; he too is bored; besides, I cannot feel that you are safe here—from unpleasantness, at least."
But half an hour later Lydia, without advising anyone, passed unobserved out of the hotel by the side-door through which Emma Mintern had thought that the traveller might be entering the ball. The Englishwoman had dressed herself as soberly as possible, in her plain green pelisse and cap, without jewels or fur; her money and passport she carried in her bosom, and fastened by a chain to her wrist was a silver whistle. Even with these precautions her action in going out alone in a Prussian frontier town would have been considered reckless by most of her country people. The disappearance of the British Envoy at Rommel had, even in the midst of a European war, caused an immense stir over the whole world, and no English people travelled without armed escorts when they were forced to travel at all on the Continent, while even professional couriers and guides formerly well trusted complained that they had lost their livelihoods, since no foreigner would employ them for fear that they might be French spies or even the mysterious Swiss who had disappeared so soon after his master and who had never come forward to clear his character.
Even Lydia felt her heart beating fast as she stepped into the street; she had never been abroad before and the scene was strange to her. Six months' travelling had not assuaged her home-sickness nor her sense of being an alien in these still unfamiliar places.
Yet Rommel looked ordinary enough, even to her apprehensive and hostile gaze. It was a fine dry day with high clouds, the streets were clean, housewives and servants could be seen going about their tasks at windows and at doorways, hawkers were abroad with their wares, the painted signs of ancient heroes showed brightly on their elaborate iron stanchions.
Lydia walked to the shoe market; everyone looked after her, furtively, unsmiling, silently, but she knew that a stream of comment would be released as soon as she had passed.
The shoe market was an ordinary, even cheerful square, with step-gabled houses with painted shutters, green and white, fastened back against the brick fronts, and in the corner a small, apparently official building with a cupola like a dried lily bulb. The Dutch Coffee House was a clean, spruce place with a flat façade and windows and a large centre entrance to a spacious coaching yard and stables.
Lydia glanced up at the windows of the first floor, now occupied by Sir Francis, and then at the substantial-looking house opposite, which, standing detached between meaner dwellings, must be, she supposed, that formerly occupied by Weber. It now appeared respectable enough, with shining glass in the windows, and gleaming brass knocker. But Lydia shivered, and when she saw a face peering at her between the trim dimity curtains, she hastily retraced her steps to the market-square, though she supposed that she had been watched only by an inquisitive servant girl.
Retracing her steps and taking a diagonal line across the square and passing the statue of Roland, Lydia, quickening her pace, took the street that Sir Francis had drawn as that leading to the post-station.
For a while she was between houses, then on a country road bordered by fir trees, sandy banks, bracken and heather, then suddenly she was in sight of the post-house, the obscure building that had been, for two years, famous throughout Europe.
Lydia forced herself to go on, though the sight of the place affected her with a deeper agitation than she had thought possible. When she had entered Rommel it had been dark and wet and they had passed without seeing this spot that had for long been in her mind as an accursed place, surrounded by a nightmare horror.
It was ordinary enough: the station, the house, the tavern, the stables for the relays, and at the back the wood-shed where the fur cloak had been found and some outbuildings, all neat, simple and well kept.
The coffee house on the other side of the road was slightly more pretentious; a sign with a large brown bear on it hung in front of the closed door. The windows were shuttered, the place appeared empty. There were no benches nor tables in the garden that was overgrown with dead grass and coarse rotting weeds.
Lydia turned past this house on to the high road that stretched, wide and straight, towards the forest and went as far as the bridge over the Steppenitz.
Here she paused and, leaning on the stone balustrade, stared into the water that, agate-brown, flowed through the sand towards the mill-race.
A cloud passed over the sun, a shadow fell over the autumn landscape that appeared to the lonely woman on the bridge unearthly, sinister and dreadful.
To her heated imagination that had so long dwelt waking and in dreams on this scene, an unutterable horror hung over heath, wood and river, and even tinged with the lurid hues of doom the distant clouds that veiled the upper air.
When she gazed down into the water she seemed to see it flecked with blood; the dry reeds and rushes seemed to rise from the shallow grave of a murdered man, the encroaching woods with their dark-boughed firs appeared heavy with menace; everywhere she looked Lydia could picture the missing man, distressed, dying or dead against the bleak background of the alien landscape.
"I can understand how people come to believe that they are haunted by a phantom," she said, speaking out loud to encourage herself. "I have thought of him so much, his appearance on that fatal night has been described to me so continuously, that he seems ever beside me."
Her haunting was not simple; she was not pursued by the horror of one known, hideous deed, but by several possible tragedies. She imagined intermingled nightmares in which the young man in the grey travelling costume and the sable cloak was being decoyed in a gaming house and murdered, dragged by the ostler into a cellar and knifed, seized in the dark by French spies and shot in the pine forest, lured into the coffee house opposite the post-station, stifled, dragged across the beer-garden and thrown into the river. She could not deny any of these possibilities, for so many contradictory tales had been told of that horrible night; some ghastly details had been given her that she could not cast out of her mind. A suggestion had been made that as he had stepped across from the post-station to the carriage he had been seized and a pitch plaster clapped over his mouth; so she saw him in her fancy, with staring eyes above a black mess that disfigured his lower face.
She had fought against morbid dwellings on such odious details, such vile products of a disordered fancy, but they often attacked and defeated her; and now, by coming alone to this place that had been familiar to her brooding and her distempered dreams for more than two years, she had invited their chill terrors.
Trying not to walk fast lest she should begin to run in panic flight, she returned to the post-station. There was a group of people at the gate, watching for the next coach, she supposed, or, perhaps, for her; they looked kindly and respectable. She approached them and spoke to the stout woman who stood in front and who was smiling pleasantly.
"Can you give me a cup of coffee?"
"Yes, indeed, my lady. Though there is nothing good enough here for you."
"You know, perhaps, who I am?"
"All Rommel knows that, my lady."
Lydia passed the knot of men, an ostler, the postilions, the letter-carrier who had taken the place of Louise Mendel. 'So,' she thought, 'it must have looked when he came here.'
The postmistress was a widow, she explained, who ran the station with the help of her son; full of importance, she was delighted to talk of the lost Englishman, though she had to concede regretfully that she really knew nothing of the matter, having taken the station over from the Scharres, with whom she had never been acquainted and who had left before she had been installed. She was from Westphalia, had rusty eyebrows, chestnut hair and full bosom and hips; her name was Ruth Kohl. She had much to say, the town had been full of rumours, of course, and she had turned them all over, but her loquacity failed before Lydia's sad silence and austere, impressive beauty, and the landlady left her visitor alone at last, while she waddled into the kitchen to make the coffee and to discuss this excitement with her gaping maid.
Lydia sat down by the stove and looked round; how often she had imagined this room! Never, of course, correctly; she had to readjust her nightmares to this new setting.
Here the Jews must have lingered over their meal. There the two travellers had waited; what had they talked of, how acted? She had heard so many different accounts. Baron Kassel, at least, would be able to give her all those details, but could he be trusted? His behaviour had been odd. Frau Kohl returned with the coffee and some cakes and laid out this refreshment with careful attention.
"Is there no one here who saw them?" asked Lydia desperately.
The woman said that there was the young postilion Hans, who had waited with the carriage, but he remembered very little; the night had been cold and wet and he had been eager to get into the warm kitchen. Lydia had this boy brought in to her and questioned him in the German that she had been studying eagerly for months.
But the loutish youth could recall nothing save the long wait and countermanding of the carriage and a vague impression of the splendour of the two travellers and the hubbub there had been caused when one of them was missed.
He was more voluble on the subject of the Scharres, to whom he gave the worst of characters; he seemed to consider them capable of any crime. The younger Scharre, in particular, was always haunting gambling dens and low taverns, he was often away for weeks on mysterious travels, and he was very intimate with the inmates of the evil house opposite, and with the French soldiers.
"Indeed," added Frau Kohl, "was it not proved that he stole the fur cloak?"
"But," said Lydia, "that proves he was not a French spy. Napoleon does not employ men like that. All this was gone into at the time; nothing but the theft could be proved against this man."
She gave the boy a small sum from some petty cash that she kept in the palm of her loose glove, not wishing to make any display of wealth before anyone in Rommel, and drank her coffee. Frau Kohl pointed out, with the air of one repeating a tale learnt by rote, where hearsay had placed the actors in the drama of that dreadful night.
"The missing gentleman sat in that chair, my lady—and in that closet he lay on the table to rest, his friend holding his hand. The Swiss sat in the kitchen all the time, by the baggage. The Jews were by the stove. Ah, I shouldn't have trusted them, if I had been the lord your husband, my lady."
"He was not my husband," said Lydia; "my brother-in-law. My sister is in the hotel, she is not well enough to come out. Indeed, I should not have come."
She rose and placed her hand lightly on the heavy wooden chair with arms that the woman had indicated, then glanced into the dark closet in which the postilions' coats, hats and whips were now hanging, so that the cabinet was dark and stuffy with the odour of damp, dusty cloth. A dingy cover was spread over the table that was of considerable size.
Lydia sighed deeply and turned away.
"Your ladyship is very fond of your sister," said the woman inquisitively, "to come so far, to take so much trouble, even to risk danger."
"Two families were ruined in health and peace of mind—all their happiness gone—through this," replied Lydia simply. "We are very united, his mother is as dear to me as my own. My sister was determined to make this journey—I could not allow her to go alone." She checked herself. 'Why am I giving this woman an explanation? What does it matter what she thinks?'
As she paid for her coffee she said, on an impulse that had come, been dismissed, and then succumbed to: "Could I see over the house opposite? It seems empty."
The woman was surprised, rather pleased; yes, the house was empty, no one wanted to take it after the bad name the last landlord had given it; there was really no legitimate need for an inn at this lonely place, for the post-station was well equipped to supply the needs of all travellers. Oh, yes, she had the keys of the house. She had once thought of taking it herself for the sake of the beer-garden in summer.
"I should like to see it," said Lydia. "And I have very little time."
She stood inside the building that was named the evil house; thin sunshine streamed through the windows.
"There is nothing here," Lydia told herself, "beyond what my fancy paints; it is an ordinary house, in which ordinary people lived, and most likely he never came here at all."
But despite this attempt at reassuring herself, Lydia felt shivers of fright and dismay as she gazed round the empty rooms in which, possibly, the missing man had been murdered. Frau Kohl was at her ear, telling her of the bad character of the people who had lived here, of the gambling and vice for which The Great Bear was infamous, and of the numbers of French soldiers who had frequented this spot.
The rooms on the ground floor were large and had been used for eating and card-playing; dust lay on the floor, on the window-sills and on the fragments of rubbish in the corners. In the wall a panel had been taken out of the woodwork, in the floor a board had been lifted.
"The police did that, when they were searching for the missing lord. They ought to have put them back."
Lydia pressed her hands together; her excited fancy showed her what might have been found—the body of a murdered man crushed behind the panels, or beneath the floor-boards.
"But they found nothing," she sighed.
"No, my lady, and the police soon cleared out the whole nasty crew of them."
Lydia went upstairs; another large room that had probably been used for gambling, smaller rooms, closets, cupboards, all bare and all snowing signs of having been thoroughly searched. Lydia went to the windows, from which Frau Kohl had unlatched the shutters, and peered out at the garden, neglected, unwholesome-looking, that sloped down to the river. She recalled how this had been drained by the miller and that nothing had been found in the sandy bed, yet it seemed to her that it would have been easy to bury a corpse in that ever-changing sand that shifted with every storm and wind; would not, on such ground, one night's rain suffice to efface all traces of a grave? And could the most energetic of police dig over every inch of those winding banks and shallows?
Lydia leaned her sick head against the window-frame and thought of old tales that she had read with a pleasurable shudder when she had been safe and happy. Tales of murdered men who had risen from their graves to confront their slayers, or to demand vengeance from those who had loved them.
The girl remembered the ballad where the foully slain lover had come to his lady's bed at midnight, showing his dabbled hair and gaping wounds. This picture was no longer one of terror to Lydia; she would have welcomed the most frightful spectre rather than this blank, this empty uncertainty.
"You see, my lady, that there is nothing here," said the stout postmistress, uneasy at Lydia's pale silence and fixed gaze across the garden to the river. "Indeed, the police and the soldiers, too, searched pretty thoroughly; why, the whole town joined in."
"Yes, yes," said Lydia hurriedly. "I must go. My sister will be anxious."
She began nervously to wonder if she had done wrong by this visit, roused hindering curiosity, even, perhaps, hostility; but no, surely she had done nothing to interfere with any efforts that Francis might be making.
She gave the postmistress some money and went her way, saying to herself: "I have seen the chair he sat in, the table where he sat, the house where they searched for his body, the river where he may have perished."
* * * * *
When Lydia returned to the hotel she was so absorbed in her thoughts that she opened the door of the salon and walked into a conversation between Francis and Rosa without hardly noticing what she was doing, and scarcely hearing her sister's shrill cry:
"You must get rid of her, Frank. I can't go on like this."
Then, seeing her sister's dismay and a movement of surprise—slight but unmistakable—even from Frank, she collected her wandering fancies and said: "Did I startle you? Who must be got rid of, dear?"
"I mean Prossy," cried Rosa defiantly. "I meant to tell you before."
"Prossy?" Lydia had thought the reference must be to the servant girl, Emma Mintern. "I am astonished—why, Prossy is invaluable."
"No, she isn't," answered Rosa eagerly. "We can look after ourselves, or we could easily get a German maid. Prossy hates all this, really; it wasn't kind to bring her. She is ill at ease, and hostile to everyone, and makes us enemies. And she never will learn more than a few words of French."
"Why, Rosa, I never heard you talk like this before." Lydia sat down, feeling exhausted and wretched. "What do you think, Frank?"
"I'm afraid that it is impossible to send Mrs. Prosser back. She couldn't travel alone; it's not to be thought of."
"But, Frank, you don't even contemplate it, do you? Prossy is a wonderful help and support, and Mother would never have let us come without her."
"It costs so much, travelling with servants," complained Rosa. "Our expenses are very heavy."
"You never worried about that before, Rosa."
"No, Lydia, I was far too distracted and reckless, but now I must begin to think sensibly."
The younger sister interrupted firmly.
"It isn't sensible to talk of sending Prossy back. She's been with us all our lives and is quite faithful and resolute."
"She could stay with English people in Berlin or Vienna," argued Rosa. "I know of one or two families who would be glad to have a nice English maid. And then she could go home later on, when someone is going to England."
Lydia looked at Sir Francis; he had an air of effacing himself from the conversation between the two sisters, of having himself, even more than usual, well in hand. Lydia considered him with cool detachment; how charming, how attractive he was! How well his perfect good breeding controlled those sensuous features into an expression of amiable urbanity! Rosa spoke, nervously.
"If Prossy must stay, Lydia, you must tell her to leave me alone more; she is over me like a guard, like a spy."
"Rosa!" exclaimed Sir Francis, and Rosa began to weep.
"I know that I should not have said that. I am unnerved. But she was our nurse, and she makes me feel as if I were in her charge again and had to be careful that I was not—naughty."
Lydia did not attempt to comfort her sister; she turned to Sir Francis.
"Did you find out anything about the servant girl, Frank?"
"Yes. She has a bad character, was dismissed from the Governor's house for theft. She is not with the doctor as she said, but has not been seen in Rommel for above a year. She probably came in one of the farm-carts—there is a market here to-morrow."
"You did not see her, then?" asked Lydia, deeply disappointed.
"No. She cannot be found. I had to tell the whole tale to the Governor. He says she was lying. He had a friend in his lodging that night, whom he can produce. The girl wanted only money."
"And I gave it," sobbed Rosa, "like a meddlesome fool! But how exactly she described William!"
"His description has been circulated widely enough," said Lydia, "but the girl must be found and questioned further."
"I have asked for a warrant for her arrest—and for that of the younger Scharre. He has been seen, the police think, in Pomerania." Sir Francis smiled with that peculiar grace that Lydia knew he employed when he was uneasy or distressed. He added: "Where have you been? You should not go out save with Burton."
"I took a walk about the town," said Lydia. "I am so used to an active life, I do not know how to endure enclosed idleness."
"Yes, it is dreadful, dreadful," agreed Rosa passionately. "Sitting here in these dreary rooms, watched by all these strangers, wondering, puzzling—with all these horrible associations, knowing that this was the very place."
"Hush!" said Lydia sternly, taking her sister's wrist. "You insisted on this journey. You knew what it entailed. You must endure all this misery—you must."
Rosa dried her tears and gave Lydia a long look, then said, quite composedly:
"Of course, you are right, dear, and, after all, there is something to look forward to—Baron Kassel's courier arrived while you were out; his master will be here to-morrow."
The young Austrian seemed to wish to do his best to be friendly, helpful and candid, but the two English ladies did not like him or find it easy to converse with him. He was about the age of Sir Francis, was elegant, well bred and spoke English well.
Lydia's instant impression was that he was acting, but she blamed herself for unfairness, for what seemed to her artificial in his manner might have been due, she knew, to the facts that he was a stranger and a foreigner. In one detail she had to commend his tact; he was not wearing the superb sable cloak that would have reminded them of that other rich garment found in the wood-shed.
He was dark, with a very clear complexion, fine eyes, a long nose and a slightly jutting under-lip; although he was obviously making an effort to be amiable, he could not alter his naturally haughty, rather repellent expression.
His condolences to Rosa were graceful, if a little hollow, and he was fluent in conventional expressions of regret and horror at the mysterious disappearance of the British Envoy.
"You," said Sir Francis, "are the one man who can throw any light on the odd happenings of that fatal day, since you were Bracebridge's constant companion from the moment that he left Vienna."
"How deeply I deplore the fact that I shall not be able to tell you anything of interest!" replied the Baron.
"Surely," broke from Lydia, "that is impossible!"
The Austrian looked at her with narrowed eyes, as if coolly appraising, with the air of a slightly indifferent connoisseur, her rich and impressive beauty, set off by her dark purple travelling coat and small blue hat with blue plumes.
The travellers had received the Baron formally in the public parlour that the landlord had reserved for them. It had been the reception-room of the mansion and was scantily furnished with some large pieces of classic design; the effect was cold, tasteless and dreary.
The group of four people sat close to the large window. Through the muslin curtains they could see the Cathedral at the other side of the square and the stone statue of Roland with the flowing hair and raised horn.
Baron Kassel dropped his glance from Lydia to her sister; Rosa sat in the shadow between the two windows and had her hand to her face. She, too, wore walking attire.
Beside her stood Sir Francis, imperturbable as usual, smiling, perhaps, too frequently, and too suave in his dealings with the Austrian who surveyed this group of questioners very much at his ease.
This was his story.
'I met Lord William Bracebridge several times while he was in Vienna. I had always been an intimate at the Imperial Court. I was, as a boy, page to the Emperor Francis. I served in the Imperial Guard until I was severely wounded at Jena, and then I was employed in the diplomatic profession. No need to tell you the work that I did for my unhappy country. Lord William arrived in Vienna in April and I in the following June. I understood that he was on a secret mission from the British Government to his Imperial Majesty. He lived quietly and seemed quite absorbed in his work. I was sent to him with dispatches and to conduct him to the Emperor or the Ministers on several occasions, and I found him enthusiastic, but anxious and moody. He passed several severe criticisms on the Austrian conduct of affairs, allowing us, indeed, no virtue save that of courage. And he frequently expressed agitation as to what would become of him if his mission failed. He said that his future was uncertain, but that he supposed that his relatives would do something for him. A courier named Hoffman went to and from England with his letters and even brought him clothes from London. After Austerlitz he fell into great despondency and increased agitation. He declared that his mission was now useless and that there was nothing for him to do but return home. He had several private interviews with our Ministers. I was asked to travel with him as far as Hamburg, the route that he had decided upon. We had a coach and four, another carriage and a baggage wagon and ten servants, all armed. Bracebridge told me that he had lately dismissed his valet, an Italian, and engaged the Swiss then in his employ. Hoffman went with us. We reached Berlin without any incidents, though I noticed that my companion was in a state of excitement. He frequently expressed fears of Napoleon's spies and even his doubts as to the fidelity of our attendants, and he mentioned the kidnapping and murder of the Duc d'Enghien a few years ago.
'The French Government, he declared, was all-powerful and completely unscrupulous.
'I tried to reassure him by reminding him that we were too unimportant to attract the attention of Napoleon, but, though he did not confess as much in so many words, he gave me the impression that he was carrying dispatches that would be very valuable to the French if they were to seize them, and that he feared that spies might have discovered that he was carrying them—on his person, as I understood. His conversation was incoherent and inconsistent, and I formed the impression that he was not the right person for the position that he held and that, I believed, he had obtained through family influence.
'At Berlin I remained in the hotel, the Brandenburger Arms, while Bracebridge went to call on the Ministers. Despite the shock of Austerlitz, Prussia was fairly tranquil, the country having enjoyed a nominal independence for nearly two years, while both the King and Von Hardenberg had been zealous in restoring the country to order and even some prosperity. I found that Berlin was very well policed, and as I had nothing to fear and nothing to do beyond seeing Bracebridge to the coast, I took no interest in his business. He told me that he had received an anonymous letter of warning, but did not show it.
'After we had stayed a day in Berlin, my body-servant, Lichtmann, fell ill, and I had to leave him at the hospital. The same evening Bracebridge told me that he had been warned by the Prussian Ministers that French spies were on our heels and that it would be wiser for us to travel under assumed names. To this end he had been given two forged passports made out in the names of two merchants travelling to the Baltic on the fur trade; he said that we were to dismiss our attendants and to take the common stage with the Swiss Möller only, whom I could take back with me on my return from Hamburg.
'Bracebridge seemed much agitated, said that more than his life was on his safety, and it was most urgent that we should leave Berlin at once under these new conditions. I had been sent to be at his service and was, in a sense, at his commands. I had no time to communicate with my government; the period was one of strife, terror and confusion. I agreed, suggesting only that we should keep Hoffman, the courier; but Bracebridge refused. We paid off, therefore, and sent back the servants to Vienna, and I sent back the carriage that was mine. We took the stage as far as Rommel, where we had to change for Hamburg. I bought all the seats in the coach that we might be undisturbed. I intended to hire a private carriage at Rommel.
'We arrived at that town about five in the evening. Bracebridge's agitation increased. He remarked on the loneliness of the situation, woods and river so near, but I pointed out the tavern opposite where a fair number of people seemed to be coming and going.
'The postmaster, his wife, servant and son seemed ordinary people; they were curious but civil. I do not think that we should have attracted any attention except for Bracebridge's manner, that became almost wild. He went with the ostler to Rommel and returned with a safeguard.
'There were two Jews in the dining-room where we waited; they were afterwards joined by a third who had come up in a local stage. I noticed nothing peculiar about these people, who idled away the time sitting at a table near the stove and talking over their affairs. I ordered the carriage and a meal. The Swiss sat in the kitchen with the luggage. It was a wet, unpleasant evening and I was anxious to be on the way.
'Bracebridge, however, pleaded fatigue and kept making delays. I knew that he had not slept well for several nights and I persuaded him to rest on a large table in a closet. He asked me to hold his hand while he slept. When he woke he went out and, without consulting me, countermanded the carriage. It was then nearly nine o'clock, but he still delayed. Then the carriage was ordered again, and the safeguard dismissed. Still he kept the carriage waiting, though everyone was grumbling. I lost sight of him several times; I do not know where he went. Finally the travelling cloaks were packed in the carriage, the luggage strapped on, the Swiss on the box, and I got on the vehicle. I must add that a note was brought him by a person who has never been traced. He burnt it at once.
'I last saw Bracebridge at the window of the carriage; he then seemed to step up the road. It was then quite dark. I never saw him again. After waiting half an hour, we began to search for him. As he could not be found, I took the Swiss and went to find the military authorities. I was directed to the Governor's lodgings, but learnt he attended the ball being given at the hotel, The Three Crowns, that was almost next door. So I went there, and Captain Von Alten came down to see me in the passage. When he heard my story he at once sent some soldiers to sequester the baggage, and he put me and the servant in a suite of apartments in this same hotel, setting a guard over us.
'I remembered the cloaks and asked for them. An orderly was sent for them, but the postmaster only gave him one that chanced to be mine. I heard that the three Jews had left by the night mail to Hamburg. There was no clue to their identity. I did not reveal myself to the Governor, nor did he ask any questions. I was treated with every courtesy, but asked not to leave the hotel. Next day the lieutenant waited on me, told me of the exhaustive searches taking place, and that Von Alten had been called to Berlin. Soon the Swiss was taken away to identify the cloak that had been found in the wood-shed adjoining the post-house. This action on the part of the police irritated the Governor, and on his return there was a quarrel between the civil and military authorities. I kept myself quiet, waiting for possible instructions from Berlin or Vienna, but none came. At the end of a fortnight, when no clue had been discovered as to what had become of Bracebridge, I asked permission to return to Berlin. It was now, of course, useless for me to go to Hamburg. The Swiss, too, was anxious to find another post. As I wished to avoid the notoriety attaching to this affair, I asked Von Alten for a passport in another name. This he gave me without demur. Unfortunately, the Berlin papers published my arrival in the hotel lists, and the Burgomaster of Rommel wrote to say that no traveller of that name had been in Rommel. I suppose he thought that I was Bracebridge. The Governor rebuked him for his interference and I returned to Berlin, where I gave a full account of the affair to my government, and afterwards to a M. Leermann, who represented, I was told, the family of Bracebridge. I saw the trousers found in the Quitzow woods and sent to Berlin, and I identified them as those worn by Bracebridge. I have no light whatever to throw on this strange disappearance. I can only suppose that Bracebridge was murdered for his money by a common criminal, or seized and disposed of by French spies. I do not know how much money he carried. I had a considerable sum with me and paid everything in German coin, but I saw him sometimes bring out English gold.'
The three English people had listened very carefully to this recital, that differed hardly at all from the written relations that Baron Kassel had given to the press and to the Bracebridge family.
The sisters could not have named the number of times they had gone over this story, discussing every point. Now that they heard it from the Austrian's own lips, the tale represented the same strange features that had always puzzled them; these were vividly in their minds, but they left Sir Francis to be their spokesman. First he expressed his gratitude to the Baron, then added:
"We cannot, of course, presume to question you. What you have told us has been purely out of courtesy, and you have satisfied your own government and the Prussian police."
"Yes," interjected Rosa, "we do appreciate what an annoyance this terrible affair must have been to you. We are most grateful for your help."
The Baron inclined his head, and, ignoring Rosa, said to Sir Francis:
"Despite your amiability, sir, I perceive that you do wish to question me. I am willing to answer you, but I fear that I can tell you little more than I have done already."
'You mean,' thought Lydia, ' you are resolved not to depart one iota from a story that you have already prepared.' Then she rebuked herself for this cynicism; how did she know that Kassel was not perfectly honest and telling the bare, if unlikely, truth?
Sir Francis spoke rather dryly.
"Forgive me if I tell you, Baron, that when we first heard your account—it was naturally much discussed among us—we all found two points that we could not understand. Even after hearing this story from your own lips they still remain—almost incredible."
"Indeed?" The young Austrian sat stiffly, but seemed much at his ease.
"Yes. First—how could you, a diplomat, an experienced man of the world, agree to that crazy proposal to travel incognito, without attendants—and secondly, having done so, how could you permit this journey in a common stage, with one servant, without altering your clothes or disguising that you had money and jewels? Everyone in Prussia to whom I have spoken of the case says that Bracebridge's folly was responsible for the disaster. Surely, my dear Baron, if Bracebridge lost his head, it was the more reason for you to keep yours."
"I have already explained why I acquiesced in the scheme of travelling incognito. It is one often resorted to by persons of importance. Really, I have nothing to add about that. As for your other question"—the Baron gave his quick smile—"I assure you that there was nothing remarkable about our appearance."
"Everyone who saw Bracebridge noticed his expensive clothes, his jewellery, the display he made of gold—two superb sable cloaks were observed, of such value that the theft of one of them was supposed to be sufficient motive for murder."
"Of course," said the Baron, rising, "all these fantastic stories arise after something extraordinary has happened. We were no better dressed than many travellers. It is impossible to travel this time of the year, towards the Baltic, without furs."
And Bracebridge's diamond brooch, gold watch and seals, purse of English sovereigns?"
"I did not take any notice of such commonplace details."
"You speak," smiled Sir Francis, "en grand seigneur, not as an experienced diplomat. Forgive me, if I say that I think that you, as well as Bracebridge, must have been too young and careless for your mission."
Even this thrust did not move the Baron.
'He was prepared for it,' thought Rosa, looking at his cool expression as he bowed and said:
"I am sorry. I satisfied my superiors. I really have nothing to add."
Lydia rose, too; it seemed to her intolerable that this important witness should escape without further examination. She stepped between the Baron and the door that he seemed determined to pass through.
"If you knew how strange, how incredible all this seems to us," she said quickly. "William was not a man to be ostentatious, to lose his head, to show fear—have you no idea what caused his extraordinary behaviour?"
"None, beyond what I have told you, madame. I deeply regret that I must disappoint you."
"One tale says that he read and tore up a quantity of papers while he was in the station-house."
"Not in my presence, madame. The courier Hoffman had brought him letters from England shortly before we left Vienna and he continually re-read these; they seemed to cause him much agitation and distress."
"They must have been diplomatic letters," put in Rosa nervously. "Nothing we sent from home could have given him a moment's uneasiness."
"So I supposed, madame. You will forgive me if I am on my way? I have business to attend to for my unfortunate country."
"You are not staying the night even in Rommel?" asked Sir Francis.
"No, I am sorry. I have come out of my way to visit Rommel."
"Then," said the Englishman firmly, "one more question—if I may so trespass on your patience. After the disappearance of Bracebridge and your appeal to Von Alten, did nothing occur to reveal your identity?"
"Nothing. Our papers were in order."
"And the Governor—of a frontier town like Rommel—was not considered important enough for you to confide in him?"
"I saw no object in doing so. Whatever he may have suspected, he asked nothing."
"And the Swiss?"
"I know nothing of him. He was engaged by Bracebridge in Vienna—presumably he had good credentials. I understood that the former servant had had to be dismissed hurriedly. He was an Italian. You know, of course, that he was one of the suspects? Some people thought that he might have murdered his former master out of revenge. He never came forward, though extensively advertised for—neither did the Swiss."
"We move in a dark labyrinth," said Lydia. Emotion gave her voice a broken music as she made a direct appeal to the stern young Austrian. "I am sure, sir, that you must have realised the anguish this tragedy has caused to many people—my brother-in-law was greatly beloved. Can I ask you, as a personal favour, to tell me your own opinion—as to this mystery?"
Baron Kassel looked with casual admiration at the lady; his tribute seemed more to her spirit than to her beauty.
"I fear that my answer would give pain—especially to Lady William."
"No, no, speak, speak!" implored Rosa.
"I think, then, that the French press was correct. I think that Bracebridge was not quite sane. My theory is that he ran—that night—to the river, not the Steppenitz, but the Elbe from which it flows—and drowned himself."
Rosa repeated the objection that she always raised when it was suggested that her husband had committed suicide.
"He was a strong swimmer," she sighed, "and who drowns himself when he has pistols?"
"One who wants to disappear utterly, madame. He could easily have filled his pockets with stones—the current of the Elbe is strong, it was a dark, cold, stormy night."
"But the overalls found at Quitzow?" asked Lydia quickly.
"I think he wanted a letter to his wife to be delivered. Distracted as he was, he could think of no other way. He took off these pantaloons and put the letter in the pocket together with a covering note to the finder and some money, or possibly, his watch, or possibly, his pistols. Making a bundle of this, he buried it under some brushwood, or in a hollow tree or some such place. It was almost immediately found by some ignorant person who seized the valuables and tore up the letters—that were in a language he could not read—or supposing the covering note was in German—then the finder was illiterate. As the hue and cry grew this person was afraid of being accused of robbery and murder, yet his conscience troubled him; he thought the letter might be important. So he went to the Quitzow woods, spread out the overalls with the torn pieces of paper in the pocket—and held his peace."
Baron Kassel spoke rapidly, as if he was delivering a long-considered judgment, and his statement impressed dismally the three listeners—his supposition seemed horribly feasible save for one thing.
"What possible trouble," asked Lydia passionately, "could have induced William to take such a desperate step?"
"Ah, I do not know, madame! He was a stranger to me. As I say, I thought he was deeply agitated by his last mail from London. Perhaps he was in trouble with his government."
"No, no," said Lydia. "The Foreign Office has assured us of that."
But Sir Francis was silent and Rosa cried: "Oh, we don't know, we really don't know! They wouldn't tell us that, would they, Frank? It is all an abominable mystery!"
The Austrian had gone in his smart equipage—four horses, four servants—rattling out of Rommel along the Berlin road, and the English people discussed his evidence—that amounted to so little.
Sir Francis declared his disbelief in the candour of the young diplomat.
"He is neither a youth nor a fool. And his manner was not in accordance with the tale he told of his own behaviour. He is not a man to do a stupid, reckless thing. He is very sure of himself, very well protected; why, he hardly disguised his hostility to us."
"He may be sick of the subject," argued Lydia. "I suppose that he has been over and over it again and again. After all, it is of no personal interest to him." She smiled at herself. "I am saying that only because I am trying to be fair. I didn't like him at all."
"What could he be concealing?" asked Rosa uneasily. "I -suppose that he is above suspicion?"
"No one is—these times," said Sir Francis. "He might easily be in the pay of Napoleon. I'd sooner believe that than that he is the fool he pretends to be."
"Well," said Lydia, "it is clear that we shall get no more out of him. I take him to be tolerably resolute."
"I want to leave this place!" cried Rosa, going up to her sister and resting her cheek against the other's shoulder. "Please, Lyddy darling, let us go to Berlin—or to Vienna. This town is haunted."
"Frank must decide," returned the younger girl quietly. "And you must be patient, Rosa."
The travellers had been in Rommel nearly a fortnight, the weather had hardened down, making travelling difficult, but Rosa continued to press for a return to Berlin; her health began to fail, she spent most of her time in bed, and, as she had taken such an unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Prosser, Lydia was much tied to her, for the nervous, excited young woman wanted continuous company and consolation.
The investigations therefore fell entirely on Sir Francis. He had several unpleasant interviews with the Governor, who was deeply offended by the Emma Mintern episode. The girl had been found, arrested and confronted with Sir Francis. She had taken back her story, and when the miniature of Lord William had been produced she had completely denied all knowledge of having seen such a person before. On the other hand, Von Alten brought forward a friend, Graf Hermann de Soucy, who had called on him on important business that night and on whom Emma Mintern had waited. The housekeeper confirmed the story, and the girl, who confessed that she had lied in the hope of a reward, was sent to the House of Correction.
Francis Lisle could do no more in this direction, but he was not satisfied; he would as soon have believed the girl as the Governor, and his sense of a hostile power behind all these incidents increased.
Was it France?
The very suavity with which the French Government had facilitated their search was suspicious. Had Napoleon himself signed the passports that had awaited them in Berlin because he knew that all searchings were hopeless?
Francis dare not ask himself these questions; he had to concentrate on his task, to keep his head cool, his nerves calm, his senses alert. His life had not been, in any sense of the word, adventurous; well born, wealthy, his days had been spent in easy, pleasant places; he had a fine estate in Suffolk, a town house in St. James's Square, an assured place in London society. A wish for some activity in an existence that was too languidly elegant for his taste and a dislike for the obvious choice—the army—had made him, on his father's death, give up a captaincy in the Life Guards and ask for a Residency. He had obtained that in Würtemberg and held it until that kingdom fell to the French, then had been moved to Stockholm, where his fellow attaché had been his friend of Eton and Worcester College, Oxford, William Bracebridge, who had been in residence there with his bride, the former Rosa Ardress. Her father, the Bishop of Winchester, had his seat not far from that of Francis, near the dunes of Southwold Bay.
The return of the Bracebridges to England and Lord William's subsequent appointment to Vienna had coincided with the leave that Sir Francis had spent travelling in Europe; he had hardly settled again in Stockholm—with a promise of the Residency on the retirement of his chief, or of the more exciting post at Naples—when he heard of the disappearance of his friend at Rommel.
He had then been recalled to London and consulted as the person—after his own family—likely to know the most about Lord William Bracebridge.
In the result he had undertaken this strange quest that was tacitly approved and helped by the British Foreign Office, and that had been urged on him with such passionate insistency by the family of the missing man.
Yet, though he tried to look upon his present work in the soberest light, and though he was well trained and equipped for delicate negotiations of delicate situations, he could not free himself of the feeling that he was doing something horrible, useless and remarkable, something that jolted the routine of his agreeable life into an ugly chaos. He had a great deal at stake and a false step might mean ruin.
This amiable, attractive gentleman had besides his deep private anxieties and troubles that weighed on him heavily enough and clouded his enterprise with sombre reflections.
He went about his business very diligently; accompanied by the police, he visited all the haunts that the younger Scharre had frequented, including the beer-cellar under the Town Hall, the post-station, the empty tavern called 'the evil house' opposite, the house that was once kept by the man Weber, and even the banks of the Steppenitz and the Elbe and the forest of Quitzow.
Sir Francis was not a man of a lively imagination and he possessed a rather sceptical turn of mind, nor was he of a romantic disposition, but he was impressed by the wild gloom of this spot.
On sandy ground that sloped from the distant banks of the Elbe, the vast pine forest spread for miles, traversed by but a few paths soon lost in the darkness cast by the mighty trees and one carriage road.
No one, the Englishman was informed, dwelt in the forest, save a few woodmen and charcoal-burners, and they not in the winter. The peasantry from the village of Quitzow seldom ventured farther than the edge of the forest, where they gathered brushwood and fir cones for their fires.
Not only had the forest the reputation of being the resort of robbers and vagabonds, several crimes having been committed in these sombre woods, but the rustics fairly believed in the existence of appalling phantoms and supernatural creatures who haunted Quitzow and lay in wait for the destruction of travellers. And as Sir Francis stood on the lonely spot where the overalls had been found and listened to the winter wind soughing in the pine-woods, laden with a dark and withered foliage, and gazed down the gloomy vistas that opened between the thick straight trunks, he could easily understand how these dismal superstitions had arisen.
Even someone educated out of a belief in fairy-tales might, when passing this way after nightfall, have allowed a half-credence to the malice of the evil king who flew from branch to branch of the black pines, pursuing the lonely traveller, and to the awful wraiths of murdered men and betrayed maidens who were said to haunt these bleak shades.
Sir Francis smiled at his own superstitious shiver and blamed his overburdened mind, so full of sad problems and bitter troubles, for this stir of fancy, while the Burgomaster, who had insisted on accompanying him, pointed out with ludicrous precision the exact spot where the pantaloons had been found, and recounted with gusto the story of the black dog that had frightened the old woman away from the spot.
"Do you think my poor friend has been changed into the brute?" asked Sir Francis, smiling above the collar of his overcoat.
"No, no, the dog was thought to be the evil spirit that had destroyed him."
The words, spoken flatly by the pompous, zealous man, struck sharply on the mind of Francis Lisle.
"The evil spirit that destroyed him," he repeated, and he turned his handsome eyes towards the darkling depths of the wood, where the shadows overlay one another as far as he could see. "Yes, if despair, or anger, or hate inspired his end, truly one could say that an evil spirit destroyed him."
"The affair was never properly tackled," commented the Burgomaster, with the deep vexation of a practical man at sound opportunities wasted. "The military interfered, the Governor made it all difficult."
"But even so," interrupted the Englishman, looking up at the sky that was dappled like a grey goose's breast above the blue-black boughs of the pines, "it remains most extraordinary that a man can vanish in so short a time—for he was being searched for within a few hours of his disappearance. He might have been murdered, yes—but the body hidden without a trace—"
"He wasn't murdered," said the Burgomaster, his pasty face pursed up seriously, his brow wrinkled under his fur cap. "No, he was whisked away—clapped into a carriage and taken off—he was seized on the road, in the dark, gagged, taken on to the highway where a carriage was waiting—and hola!"
"You think, then, the French...?"
"I don't say any more than that, sir, except that someone knew what was up—someone in Rommel—and that's what made it so hard to work on the case; clues were covered up, aye, and false ones put in the way, I believe. Witnesses were got rid of:"
The Burgomaster was suddenly and obstinately silent. Sir Francis knew that he longed to talk, but dare not, and that he strongly suspected the Governor of complicity in some political plot to get rid of Bracebridge. It was clear that he was an honest and zealous magistrate, justifiably proud of his efficiency and sincerely vexed that such an exasperating mystery had taken place when he was in office in Rommel.
"Come," said Sir Francis, "there is no good turn served by remaining at this dismal spot."
He got into the Burgomaster's carriage and they drove down the sandy road, through the outskirts of the forest, towards the town. The Englishman put his head out of the window and looked back at the wood that seemed to lie under the enchantment of a thousand legends; how often, in old tales, had the hero paused at the edge of such a wood, to take one last look at the world of men, and then ridden on, never to be seen again, or after years only, and changed by unspeakable adventures.
"What did you think of Baron Kassel, the Austrian?" he asked, as he settled himself back in the carriage again.
The Burgomaster was flattered by this appeal to his opinion, and not troubled with scruples as to discussing this foreigner and stranger—the second mysterious traveller.
"It is only lately, sir, that we have known who he was—a Dutch merchant, on his way to the Baltic, if you please! He remained a fortnight shut up in his rooms in The Three Crowns, never came out to help look for his friend—showed no concern, the servants there said. He used to write and to play the 'cello, if you please! The Governor lent him the instrument. Then he cleared off with another false passport! I saw that in the Berliner Tageblatt, a Herr Fischer arrives in Berlin from Rommel! No, I said, and I took the news to the Governor."
"Who was angry at your interference," smiled Sir Francis, wishing to stop the loquacious official. "So you really didn't think well of the Baron? He might have been, say, a French spy, or in the pay of France?"
"I didn't like his behaviour. We felt there was something odd behind the whole thing. We thought they were Englishmen flying from the French—how was it the Governor didn't guess that? He's no fool. And why"—the Burgomaster leaned forward impressively and placed his large hand on the knee of the Englishman's pearl-coloured trousers—"did this Baron, with all his experience, allow your friend to do such a crazy thing as to dismiss all his people at Berlin, and to travel under false names in the common stage, dressed like lords?"
"Exactly what I asked him," replied Sir Francis, "and he had no satisfactory answer."
The Englishman returned, tired and disheartened, to his rooms at the Dutch Coffee House and at once sent Burton, who was waiting for him in the hall, to enquire after the ladies, and in particular after Lady William, whom the doctor had visited that afternoon.
Armed, suspicious, Burton went out into the streets that were just being lit by means of scanty oil-lamps; the servant, a heavy, taciturn man, greatly incensed the natives by always walking in the middle of the streets as if he feared to be dragged into every doorway that he passed, and by regarding all the townspeople as potential murderers.
He soon returned; he never liked to be away long from his master unless he was guarding the ladies, and they gave him less concern than did Sir Francis, for the sentries remained outside the hotel day and night; he was really an outdoor servant and had been a groom, but Sir Francis said he had chosen him for this difficult journey because of his fidelity, strength and almost ferocious prudence. He was intelligent and dextrous and had soon learnt the simple duties that Sir Francis required of a body-servant.
"My lady is asleep, sir. Miss Ardress said not to concern yourself, sir, as the doctor found my lady quite well, it was only the fatigue and the excitement, as can well be understood."
Burton hesitated, then asked:
"Will you be going round to-night, sir?"
"No—I shall be only in their way. I will have supper served up here, Burton."
The Dutch Coffee House was an older building than The Three Crowns, less pretentious and more cheerful; the rooms occupied by Sir Francis were low-ceilinged, dark-panelled with simple comfortable furniture and mullioned windows that looked on to the street. Directly opposite, across the shoe market, was the house once occupied by Weber, the gambler.
Sir Francis went to the window, drew the curtains and gazed, as he had so often gazed, at 'the suspicious house,' where so many people thought that Lord William had been decoyed and murdered.
The young man looked with distaste at this prim little mansion that he had thoroughly inspected and that was now in the possession of quite respectable people.
He was becoming fretted by his task, particularly, he thought, by his position as escort to three women. It had been a mistake for all of them to have come.
What was the use of a nice, squeamish propriety when so much was at stake, when so extraordinary an adventure was being undertaken? One man, one woman, with a male servant, could have travelled so much more easily; they might have passed as brother and sister.
But this—these endless feminine consultations, these feminine moods, illnesses and whims, Lydia's cool resolution, Mrs. Prosser's continual watchfulness, the necessity of finding safety, comfort for three women travelling in luxury—the irking curiosity caused by the beauty and elegance of the ladies, the grim manners of the maid—all these things had proved a handicap, a fret to his mind and temper. Beneath his habitual suavity he was often depressed and exasperated. His despondency was increased by the hopelessness of his quest; it was now six months since they had left England—like a glimpse into another world was that memory of a June day in Suffolk when he had stood with Rosa on the silver dunes where the blue grass and sea-lavender grew, and they had decided on this wild journey—and nothing had as yet been achieved, while he had spent large sums of money, his own, the Bracebridges', and the government secret allowance on expenses that had proved useless.
He was vexed that Leermann delayed his coming, for he had put a good deal of faith in that able, eccentric man, whom he regarded with a strong affection.
Nicolaus Leermann was a cosmopolitan of strong character and remarkable gifts, a classical scholar, an antiquary, a connoisseur with a peculiar knowledge of numismatics. Possessed seemingly of a small private fortune, he had spent most of his life travelling; he resided now and then, for months at a stretch, in all the capitals of Europe; occasionally he took a position with a prince or great nobleman as librarian or secretary, now and then he accompanied young gentlemen on the grand tour. Though the long war that had begun in 1789 had deprived him of this kind of work, he had found other opportunities of indulging his restless zest for travel, change and adventure. For months together he had disappeared from the knowledge of his friends and it was believed that he acted as courier, as guide, and even perhaps as spy. He was, at any rate, always willing to undertake difficult and perilous missions such as were often required during a war that covered the entire continent of Europe.
In these he was generally successful; though he spoke very little of his activities, he had the air of a man who had suffered and accomplished much.
He never spoke of his family and many thought that the name he passed under was assumed; it was certain that he took many aliases during his travels, but it was thought that he came of a noble Transylvanian family ruined by war and revolution, and had been a wanderer from his youth.
Sir Francis had made the acquaintance of this curious person in his childhood when he had come to Lisle Park to classify the valuable collection of Roman coins that Sir Robert Lisle had brought from Italy in his youth.
He had resided longer in the Suffolk mansion than was usual with him, and continually visited it, even after his work was done. Some of the most agreeable recollections of Sir Francis's early days were the sudden appearances of the person who had seemed to the boy, wonderful, mysterious and completely trustworthy, who was always serene and who had always curiosities in his pockets and fascinating anecdotes on his tongue.
Sir Francis believed that his father had employed Leermann on several confidential missions abroad in connection with the purchase of antiquities, and it had seemed very natural for him to suggest that this experienced, scrupulous and extremely able man should be asked to undertake the preliminary enquiries into the fate of Lord William Bracebridge. Leermann had been in Germany at the time and Sir Francis had communicated with him by means of the diligent courier, Hoffman, who had been employed by Lord William. It was Leermann who had gone to Rommel to settle, on behalf of the Bracebridge family, the expenses of the extensive search for the missing man. He had executed this duty faithfully and skilfully, though he had not been lavish enough to avoid some complaints from those who had spent time and money searching for the missing Englishman. His reserve, uncommon appearance and quick departure from Rommel once his business was done had earned him the name of 'the third mysterious stranger.'
Sir Francis, as he stared with obstinate fascination at the house opposite, thought with longing of this firm, cool and able man, in whose very presence there was comfort.
How much he would prefer half an hour's plain talk with him to hours of discussion with the women!
Sir Francis relied greatly on Leermann's judgment; he was impatient to hear what this man, who knew Europe under Napoleon as few did, and who, for all Sir Francis could tell, might have been a spy, had to say on the subject of the missing Englishman. If he declared his conviction that Bracebridge had been seized either by the douaniers montés or by spies and murdered for the papers he carried, his body probably being taken by carriage far from Rommel, he, Sir Francis, would be very inclined to believe him and to call the chase ended. So, he looked for Leermann's arrival eagerly, for he hoped that it would end a grievous tension.
As he gazed into the street, outwardly idle, yet busy with his thoughts, he saw Lydia pass under the oil-lamp in front of the coffee house, pause a second, then turn into the hotel.
"Rosa is seriously ill. She has sent for me," he thought, and he turned into the middle of the room, for once completely at a loss, as if his heart and his mind had stopped together, like a clock struck violently.
The round-faced waiter brought Lydia up. She glanced at Francis and said quietly:
"Rosa is better. I am sorry if I alarmed you."
"No, of course, you didn't alarm me." Sir Francis was composed again. "But you should not come through the streets alone after dark."
"And should not call on you alone?" ended Lydia, seating herself. "Seriously, Frank, I think we cannot trouble ourselves as to what these people think of us. I believe that they suppose we are affianced or even secretly married."
"Do they?" smiled Sir Francis. "Let me arrange these cushions for your head, and here is a footstool."
"Yes," said Lydia, looking at him steadily. "No one can credit such devotion as yours—to a mere friend. Rosa being out of the question, they think your motive is love of me."
"It certainly, my dear, as you remark, does not matter what they say. Do you want me? I would have come at once had I known—could you not have sent a messenger?"
"I wanted to see you. Rosa asked me to come. We have had a visit from another servant girl."
"Ah, Rosa's reckless generosity! Half the rogues in Prussia will hear that we are throwing money about."
"No, this girl could not have heard. She has only just arrived here; she is of a different class, too—almost a child—well, about seventeen years old, and certainly not wanting money or reward, for she would take nothing."
Sir Francis waited, without comment. He knew that Lydia would speak clearly and briefly, without emotionalism. He never had to complain of her intelligence.
Burton came in and lit the lamp and asked the lady if she would like some refreshment.
"No, Burton, but perhaps your master would like you to hear what I have to say; I know that you are as anxious as any of us, and it will save Sir Francis the tedium of repeating it if you hear now."
"Yes, Burton, stay," said Sir Francis, not looking at Lydia, and the servant, without speaking, took up his position behind his master's chair.
"The girl is a Pomeranian—she was employed by a man, one Richter, living miles away from Rommel, on the sea coast, about fifty miles away, near Wismar. This man acts as a kind of British consul, he was not very clear as to his actual position. One night, in November 1809—she doesn't know the exact date, but the end of the month—she was alone with an old woman in the house, her master being away on business. There was a knock on the door, and she went down with a lighted candle in her hand. She opened the door, and put her hand across her forehead and looked up, in order to see who stood there. She says she had only one glimpse because it was a dark, night and the candle was blown out almost at once. It was a young man—well, she described William—and recognised the portrait—Rosa's miniature. She says he was pale, had a fur cap and a sort of roquelaure wrapped round him. He asked if her master were at home, and when she said no, and asked who she was to say had called, he said, 'Never mind that. Tell your master an English traveller wishes to see him next morning at the post-house.' With this he went away at once. In the morning the consul went to the post-house and found that such a traveller had called there but that he had left no message. It was thought that he had got into a ship to cross to Sweden—there were two ships that went about this time. They were both lost at sea."
A moment's silence fell when Lydia finished her relation; Burton glanced at his master, whose handsome face was shadowed.
"Shall I," he asked at length, "go to this place and make enquiries?"
"What would be the use? We could never prove that it was William. And if we could we are left in as deep a mystery. But I thought that I should tell you."
"You trusted the girl?"
"Yes, she is simple and sincere. She obviously thinks she is telling the truth—but how easily she may be mistaken! All these tales cannot be true. Some of these people are in error, or lying."
"Is she in Rommel, now?"
"Yes. She has an aunt who lives here, and she's staying here on her way to Berlin where she has a place. She says that she sent an account of this episode in to the Governor here, but that no notice was taken of it. Her master, she believes, came into Rommel to report to the police."
"They told us nothing," remarked Sir Francis. "There is certainly a good deal of secrecy going on."
"Well, that is all," said Lydia in a tired voice. "I must go. You can interview the girl yourself if you wish. She is staying at the sign of the Swan; her name is Gerta Veit."
Burton, at a sign from his master, left the room.
"He will accompany you back," said Sir Francis, but Lydia did not move; she lay back in an attitude of fatigue in the worn easy chair of gilt stamped leather, her purple velvet hat and plumes crushed into the rubbed velvet cushions.
"I wish that Herr Leermann would come," said Sir Francis.
"I wish! I wish! How many things I wish!" sighed Lydia. "Frank, we are no nearer the truth than when we left London—after the most minute enquiries."
She sat up suddenly, flushed and beautiful in the yellow lamplight.
I shall go to Paris; I will go to Paris and interview Napoleon himself, or, if that is impossible, the Duc de Cambacérès, who is supposed to have taken an interest in this case."
"That would come better from Rosa, don't you think?"
"Wouldn't you like candour—at last? Wouldn't it be a relief to you if we were quite open with one another?"
"It might be distressing," he replied quietly, "if we—so curiously situated as we are—were to unveil our thoughts—one to the other."
"I wonder."
"You are in the grip of an obsession, Lydia—this mystery is beginning to overwhelm you, to absorb all your spirit. You should not have come."
"You think," asked Lydia carefully, "that Rosa could have come alone?"
"Perhaps. But possibly it would have been better for neither of you to have come."
"It would have been impossible for us to have stayed away."
She rose and was silent, with the air of one who has too much to say; her tall figure in the handsome dress was vivid in the pleasant light. The man who looked at her with admiration and compassion knew that she was thinking of words whereby to clothe emotions that could not be decently expressed and thoughts that were unspeakable.
Did she know that he had guessed her secret? Had she guessed his?
They were at the most delicate cross-purposes. He believed that she suspected a little of the truth, but had no knowledge of the whole of it, and that she was quite unaware that he had guessed her tragedy that was unknown even to Rosa.
"Why are we trying to find William, Frank?"
To this crude challenge he replied with soft ease:
"Isn't it the most obvious thing to do?"
"For Rosa, perhaps. Not for you or me, Frank—no, nor for Burton and Mrs. Prosser."
"They are paid servants."
"Something more. There must be a great power of love, Frank, somewhere among us."
"Surely—yes."
"Nothing else would inspire us to do what we do, would it, Frank?"
"Not unless it was hate."
"I hope I shall never hate anyone."
"One cannot always control either hatred or love, Lydia."
She turned away; she was deeply moved and he was grateful to her self-control; good breeding only had saved them so far from words that could never be recalled and actions that could never be forgotten.
Lydia picked up her gloves.
"Well, that's the story of Gerta Veit."
He came with her to the door.
"I will escort you, then. But I am sure that you would rather have Burton."
"You think that I dislike you?" She was on the verge of that dangerous frankness that hitherto they had so carefully avoided. She smiled at him steadily. "Pray don't think so. Let us trust one another all that we can."
"You could leave this dismal search, you know, Lydia. You could pass the winter in Vienna or Berlin with friends."
If there was a trace of malice in his words his smiling eyes denied it.
"I shall not give up."
"And I shall accompany you to The Three Crowns and perhaps you can persuade Mrs. Prosser to step down to me in the hall with news of Rosa."
Muffled against the winter cold, the two English people walked along the street that led from the shoe-market to the large market. The evening was clear and cold; a few stars were out, glittering like drips of ice above the dark outlines of the house, step-gabled, turreted, that rose against the deep blue sky. From still unshuttered windows, from doors opened quickly as people returned home, from the tall windows of the Cathedral facing them at the end of the street, fell lines and showed squares of glowing light, warm, rosy and orange tinted.
Lydia stepped quickly, holding up her skirts along the cobbles. Her thoughts were far away on an imagined waste land where the white crests of a stormy sea broke in surly lines of foam, the cold wind shook the pines' black boughs against a darkening sky and a lonely traveller knocked at a lonely house. At whose face had the girl looked before the opening of the door blew out the candle? Always, in Lydia's fancy, it would be that of the missing man.
To her involved and dreadful phantoms she had to add another, that of a traveller wrapped in a roquelaure, standing in the wind and darkness, seen for a second only before the child's little taper blew out. She could picture, too, the ship, going out across the tempestuous waters, with the mysterious traveller, self-absorbed, sombre, on deck amid strangers, and then the storm overwhelming ship and crew and the secret of the man who had knocked in the night at the Consul's door.
"I would not give a penny for your thoughts because I know them," said Sir Francis as they entered the handsome doorway of The Three Crowns. "Believe me, I am haunted too."
Lydia looked at him, hardly hearing what he said and quite unconscious of the furtive, curious glances of those townsmen of Rommel who were passing through to the public rooms for hot punch or coffee.
"My thoughts are harsh and horrid," she whispered. "I hope that you do not guess what they are."
She raised her hand in farewell and went up the wide stairs to her apartments, nor did she neglect to send down Mrs. Prosser to assure Sir Francis that my lady was much better, nay, quite recovered.
Sir Francis looked out of half-closed eyes at the figure of the elderly woman, in her white dress, kerchief and cap, with her pale face covered with light freckles. She was always the same and had been, ever since the young man could remember her, in those stiff white clothes that in the half-light gave her a spectral appearance; he had always thought her face dismal—those eyes that appeared almost white when she removed the steel-rimmed spectacles, those sandy brows and flat features.
"Mrs. Prosser," he said, careless of the public place, for he spoke English. "Would you not like to stay in Berlin or Vienna with friends for a few months? The winter is coming on, remember, and our plans are very uncertain." He thought that a deeper and colder shadow passed over the woman's repellent features.
"I couldn't think of doing that, sir. I'm bound to stay by the ladies."
"Not bound, you know, Mrs. Prosser. The ladies could find foreign maids."
"I am bound, sir," replied the woman obstinately, "and what my mistress can endure, I can. I'm strong and well, sir, and have never made any complaint."
"I know. But there really is no occasion for you to make these sacrifices."
"I didn't use the word, sir."
She refused to be intimidated by his steady gaze, by his splendour or authority; she put her large white hand, that had a curdled look and was glazed with freckles, on the newel-post as she said coolly:
"I promised Miss Lydia, sir. I made a vow to her, not to leave my lady."
"A vow! That was hardly necessary. Miss Lydia is very romantic."
"I should hardly have thought so, sir. Mrs. Ardress always called Miss Rosa the romantic one, though they were both full of fancies."
"She is, at least," smiled Sir Francis, "daring and wayward. And I see that she means to have her way. And so, too, do you, Mrs. Prosser. So good night to you."
He turned away, raising his beaver, then replacing it on his close curls; then he was gone into the square that looked cold and flat as a crude painting in the harsh shadows and lights thrown by the street lamps.
Mrs. Prosser went slowly upstairs and attended the ladies during their evening toilets. Rosa took the opiate that the doctor had left and was soon asleep. Lydia lay, propped up by pillows in her bed, with the table-lamp alight and a book that she could not read on the coverlet. She had left the shutters open so that she could look across the square at the Cathedral, the sight of which gave her comfort; a soft scratching at the inner doors that led to the salon, a 'come in' from Lydia, and Mrs. Prosser entered and came quietly to the bedside.
"He wants me to go away, Miss Lydia; he was at me to go away."
Lydia gazed at the old nurse with a dreadful qualm of dismay.
"But it was no use, Miss Lyddy," added the servant, turning her large calm face towards her mistress, "and he saw it was no use and that's that."
"You must never give way," said Lydia in a low voice, and looking down at her quilt as if she stared through that and through the floor. "Remember that you promised me, Prossy. And that he has no power to insist."
"I'll never forget, Miss Lyddy."
"I know, Prossy, I just say these words to comfort myself, as much as to remind you—we must remember, both of us, that Rosa needs us. And never leave her, alone, for as much as an hour—unless—well, you know, Prossy."
"Unless she is really alone, and no one can get at her, you mean, Miss Lyddy."
"Yes, that is what I mean."
"Shall I leave the candle, miss?"
"Yes—I am pretending to read; I can't sleep and I don't love the dark."
Lydia gave the old nurse a wild and melancholy look and sunk back into her pillows. When she was alone she rose with a restless movement and, going to the window, stared across the square, past the statue of Roland, at the ornate facade of the Cathedral; she resolved to enter it the next day and was surprised at herself that she had not done so before.
To Lydia, brought up in an atmosphere—not strict nor gloomy, for hers was a happy, warm-hearted family—of Anglican piety, the Lutheran cathedral seemed over-decorated. The paintings and carvings, those crude, bright colours and lavish gildings savoured to her unquestioning orthodoxy of those of Romish practices that she had been—almost tacitly—taught to regard as an abomination.
Some mediaeval splendours had survived; amid the more tawdry and childish decorations of the eighteenth century were, here and there, beautiful, if faded and defaced, objects that had survived from more sumptuous days. A prince lay beside his wife on a tomb richly adorned with grotesque symbols that had once, in the eyes of heralds, meant alliances with the proudest blood in Europe. A window showed the holy rose in vivid colours of crimson, azure and purple; the cover of the font, suspended by a chain from the high ceiling, was a pinnacle of fine carving and delicate painting, the shape of it like a miniature cathedral itself as it rose against the dusky shadows.
Lydia sat down on one of the rush-bottomed chairs, and for a moment was lost in a tranquil cessation of active thought. Then, with a pang, the shocking sense of the horrible reality returned so poignantly that she gave a start and looked over her shoulder with a glance almost wild, as if she expected to see there the apparition of the missing traveller.
She found that she was much more nervous though not less courageous than formerly and she had to summon all her naturally bold, almost fierce and defiant spirit to overcome her fright. For she thought that she beheld some supernatural being in the shadows behind her, with arm raised, ready to strike.
This was her first sight of the painted angel.
She soon perceived that what had alarmed her was a large wooden figure that had probably been removed from some high position and was now resting against the wall in a niche where another statue or an altar had once been. It was that of an angel wearing armour, with large, half-furled wings inset with glimmering fragments of broken glass that served to represent plumage gleaming with celestial jewels. Beneath the links of the armour touched with tarnished gilding, showed the folds of the short tunic and buskined legs striding forward; probably this heavenly creature was intended to represent Saint Michael, but the dragon was missing.
These details Lydia grasped in one hurried glance; it was the face that held her with a horrid fascination. If the inhabitants of heaven gazed with countenances like these on sinful mortals, all the terrors of which humanity was warned by preachers had a real foundation. The visage was full, oval and had been browned and polished by age, only a trace of colour remained on lips and cheeks. The eyes, fashioned of some dark stone, slanted obliquely and in a sinister fashion that seemed to condemn and threaten with a livid intensity. Its evil expression was emphasised by a slight contortion about the full lips. So, though, from the point of view of a careless glance this might have been no more than a wooden mask clumsily carved by a hand long since dust, yet to one in Lydia's disturbed and excited state it seemed a visage full of unimaginable bitterness and fury, like a symbol of her dismal fate and deep unhappiness, her evil genius or demon; so strong was this impression that Lydia pressed her gloved hand to her lips and remained motionless for a second.
Her intelligence soon asserted itself and she knew that she looked on a wooden image coarsely painted, and carved without much skill. Yet the figure had great power and she wondered what had been in the mind of the man who had created it—surely some ferocious, ungovernable impulse.
She was no longer in a tranquil mood, nor able to pray, nor to concentrate on her problems. She rose, and, in order to escape the painted angel's dark glare of fury, moved aimlessly away. She was profoundly stirred and thought of the angel as, in its evil way, a holy thing, a power in some dark religion, worshipped at some dark rites. Then, as she turned, she saw that the thing was hollow; it had been carved from the trunk of a huge tree and set up in some position where the back was never visible and it appeared solid. Now, taken down and leaning in that slightly backward curve, against the stone alcove, a sideway view showed the rough wood, beginning to rot and dusty with cobwebs.
Doubtless it had been rescued by some would-be antiquary or some simple believer from the limbo of loft or vault and afterwards neglected.
This discovery of the hollowness of so much of the bold painted front and dark decaying back, added to the dreadful horror of the image to Lydia. Its appositeness as a symbol of her own destiny was increased to the fanciful young woman. She saw her own story, those of the people with whom she was most intimately associated, as just such an image, gilded, painted, imposing to the first view and, on a closer inspection, hollow with the ugliness of decay—of putrefaction, for the scooped-out tree was the length of a tall man's coffin and might have been shaped for that purpose.
When Rosa recovered from her slight illness a horse was hired for her and she rode about the environs of Rommel on such days as were fine enough, with Sir Francis and Burton as escort, or sometimes alone with Lydia.
On one of these occasions, when riding with Sir Francis, with the groom behind, Rosa noticed a large ugly building beside the road and drew rein in order to look at it more closely. She had never been in this quarter of Rommel—one of the outskirts of the town and away from the Hamburg-Berlin road—before.
"What is that grim-looking place?" she asked with a faint, sick excitement.
"It is the House of Correction," he replied, "where they send minor offenders. Do not let us linger, Rosa."
But Lady William, holding the hat that was already tied by a veil under her chin, for the wind was rising, gazed, fascinated, at the prison, for from behind the bars of one of the lower windows she could see a woman, wearing a plain cotton cap and looking at her with mournful fixity.
"Come, Rosa," insisted Sir Francis, taking her bridle and turning her horse's head, "that is one of the female prisoners. You need not grieve over her, over any of them. They have done nothing very wrong and are quite lightly punished."
"She looked at me as if she wished to speak to me," said Rosa with a little shiver as they rode back to The Three Crowns through the waning afternoon.
Rosa's intuition was correct. A few days after she had noticed the woman at the window of the House of Correction a stranger called at the hotel and begged most earnestly to see the widow—she used that word—of the missing traveller. She made no disguise of her identity—she was a released prisoner who had passed under several names, but who truly was, she declared, one Julia Hackmann, who had just served a sentence of a few months for disorderly conduct.
Lydia went down to her where she sat in the public parlour, in a touching attitude of humility and resignation, and begged her to place any information that she might possess at the disposal of the judicial authorities.
"You know," said Lydia gently, though her shadowed eyes showed something of the wild thoughts that were breaking and tumbling in her brain, "that anything that you might tell us would be more or less useless, only a torment and a distress—"
"I said something before," replied the woman with submissiveness, yet with obstinacy, "and they wouldn't listen to me because I've a bad reputation. And I don't want to get involved with the police again. I want to get back to Holstein where my husband has a little property."
"Do you want us to give you money?" asked Lydia sternly.
"If you like. I've nothing. But that doesn't alter what I want to say. It's the truth—of course it doesn't matter," added Julia Hackmann with a painful smile. "I was sorry for the lady—your sister, you say—and I suppose that was your brother with her. I thought—that must be love. She's come all that way, through all those dangers, just in the hopes of tracing her husband."
"You were sorry for Lady William?"
"Yes—she is so young and pretty, too."
"Will you say what you know before my friend—the gentleman whom you saw?"
"No!" The woman shrank together. "I won't be cross-examined. I know what the men are. But if your sister likes to hear my story, I'll tell it."
"Come upstairs," said Lydia, rising. "Would you like some coffee? You seem cold."
"They don't send you out of prison well clothed against the winter," replied the woman, glancing aside with her pale subdued look; "these are the clothes that I was wearing when I was arrested, months ago."
In the high-ceilinged, dreary salon that no firelight, candle or lamp glow could render homely and cheerful, Julia Hackmann faced the two ladies who, elegant in their plain silks, sat side by side on the stiff settee. Although they had gone about little genteel errands of charity in their father's diocese and interested themselves, rather vaguely, in the miseries of sin and poverty as these came within their sphere, they had never spoken intimately with one who would have been described by Mrs. Ardress, with a shudder, as 'a fallen woman.'
A few years before the sisters would have regarded Julia Hackmann with the same pity, dismay and horror as their mother felt towards such creatures, but now they each had a keen reason for being interested in this outcast whom their religion and their position taught them to regard as a creature utterly lost and branded. This unavowed curiosity and even sympathy that the ladies felt towards Julia Hackmann was due to the fact that they regarded her—with the romantic simplicity of well-bred young women who had been kept from the sordid side of life—as a victim of passion, as a creature who, however soiled and degraded now, had once had the daring, if sinful courage, to put love before every other consideration.
Both of them thought of her as having been once innocent, trusting and passionately in love in an illicit fashion. She was a woman of about forty years of age, comely with a hollowed face and dark brown hair; she coughed continually and seemed both ill and full of energy; her plain grey dress and shawl and her brown poke-bonnet were not unbecoming, and her hands, though roughened by prison work, were shapely.
This was her story:
'A few weeks after Christmas, 1808, she had been journeying from Holstein to Rommel and she had stopped at a little town, a few miles outside Hamburg, intending to spend the night there. The name of this place was Klitzberg. She had gone at once to a dance hall that she knew, situate in a cellar near the town hall, and there she had stayed, making merry with some old cronies of hers whom she met there. Well on into the evening this party was joined by a fellow well known to Julia Hackmann, one Johann Voss. She had met him frequently in the dance halls of Rommel, and in particular in that which was under the town hall. He was an idle, good-for-nothing fellow who had had several brushes with the police, by trade a shoemaker, but seldom working. He was stoutly built, about twenty-eight years of age—Julia Hackmann could describe him perfectly, even to the birth-mark like spilt wine that he had across his left cheek.
'She noticed at once that he was much better dressed than usual and he told her that he had made some money—escorting some traveller to Hamburg, as he knew the way very well and many people were afraid of crossing the woods and waste lands towards the Baltic without a stout guide, well armed and knowledgeable as to the respectable inns.
'Julia Hackmann knew Voss too well to believe this tale for a moment. They drank and danced together and she noticed that he wore a chain of hair, most beautifully plaited with seed pearls, hanging from his watch pocket, and that attached to this were a golden key and several seals. The woman felt uneasy at this, for she feared that he had been robbing a lord or gentleman and she did not wish to be implicated. He became very drunk and pulled out a blue silk purse full of gold—some of the pieces were Prussian louis d'or, some a strange coinage.
'She pulled him into an alcove—by then the people were all drunk or shouting or dancing and the music was playing loudly. There were the mechanical figures that kept on clapping cymbals, rolling their eyes and turning their heads and this novelty caused much laughter and excitement so that no one noticed Julia and Voss.
'Full of curiosity she looked at one of the seals, taking it in her hand, and she saw that it had had one name on it and another scratched over that. She in asked Voss how he came by these valuables and so much money and he began to boast of what he could do for her and asked her to go away with him across to Sweden, where they could live without working for the rest of their lives. When she asked how that might be, he said that he had five hundred thalers and the watch and jewels that she saw and he whispered in her ear:
'"I came by it when the Englishman, the foreigner, was killed. I had this not to say anything about it."
'She did not believe a word of this and pushed him away and then she saw the landlady of the place standing by, who had half-overheard and who said:
'"What's this about a killing?"
'Julia Hackmann had replied that it was a lot of rubbish and that Voss was drunk. She had not then heard of the disappearance of the Englishman and really thought that Voss boasted in his cups. But she believed that he had robbed some traveller so she got away from him.
'Soon afterwards her sister, Katherine Werder, had told her of the great trouble there had been about the lost traveller and she had repeated Voss's story, but her sister had warned her to be quiet about it as it was a great lie and would only bring them under the notice of the police. So she was silent, but being arrested herself about six months afterwards, she asked to see one of the magistrates and told him the story, but he made nothing of it and told her
'"Don't you know that the English lord was hunted by the French as far as Rommel and then the Governor helped him to escape, sending him off in a carriage by night? He is probably in India."
'Julia Hackmann had not known what to believe. She could not get what Voss had told her out of her mind, especially as she frequently saw him at Klitzberg, when she went there, and finally, being sent again to the House of Correction, she had seen the lady in such great trouble and had spoken her mind.'
Rosa listened with a fluttering excitement to this recital. Lydia moved into a corner of the settee and shaded her face with her hand; she did not speak when the woman, who had spoken rapidly, using few words, was silent, but Rosa broke out with an objection that had been for some time on the tip of her tongue.
"My husband had no such chain; he wore one of plaited gold or a black watered silk ribbon."
"That was the chain, madame. When I pulled it a fine watch showed out of the pocket and a case, like one one puts miniatures in—also set with pearls and with two letters twined on it in blue enamel."
"What were the letters?" asked Rosa briskly, "and what were the arms—the device or design—you saw on the seal?"
"I could not be sure of the letters—one was W, I believe. The device looked like three stars and above, an arm in mail, holding a dart."
Rosa pressed her handkerchief to her lips, then said steadily:
"My husband's arms are something like that—a description of them and his name have been sent all over Germany, so anyone who wished could say they had seen them."
"If you think I lie," said Julia Hackmann sadly, "you may question the landlady of the dancing place in Klitzberg who will surely remember overhearing what Voss said. And cannot you ask for the arrest and examination of this man, who is still about?"
"No doubt," said Rosa. "What do you want from us?"
After a slight hesitation the woman admitted that there were other charges against her, as a frequenter of disorderly houses and that she hoped for the influence of the ladies to send her back to Hamburg, as a free woman.
"What you have told us," said Rosa passionately,"is horrible and clears up nothing! Lydia, why don't you speak?" She looked with surprise at her sister, who was usually the spokeswoman, and was not only silent, but who seemed to have lost all her vivacity. When Rosa spoke Lydia roused herself and said in a low, hesitant voice:
"I was thinking—about the chain—William might have bought such a one, or had it given him."
"And the portrait?" smiled Rosa wanly. "I never gave him such a miniature or one that could fit into such a case. The only likeness that he had of me was in a blue velvet case—square and too large for a watch pocket."
"Still," said Lydia with increasing firmness, "this story must be investigated."
Although the ladies did their best for the woman, Julia Hackmann was too well known to the police to be able to leave Rommel unnoticed, and as soon as Sir Francis told her story to the Burgomaster, she was re-arrested and minutely examined before the magistrates while the English travellers were put in possession of her dossier.
Her antecedents were not such as to induce any confidence in what she said. She was the illegitimate daughter of a woman of bad character but had in her youth passed herself off as the daughter of a rich Hamburg merchant named Opp. Under this fraudulent name she had married Hackmann, a farmer and brandy distiller, himself of no good fame. The cheat being discovered, she was sent to the House of Correction for six months. When released she set about finding a father by the name of Opp, her husband having, she declared, threatened to break all her bones unless she did so, and also to divorce her. Leaving Rommel, where they ran a dubious business, the Hackmanns went to Holstein, where they bought a farm. Julia succeeded in finding a man, who, for five thalers, declared before a notary that his name was Opp and that he was her father. This declaration was signed by the man and the notary and verified by the magistrate. Armed with this document the couple then tried to file a suit against the Court of Justice in Rommel for false imprisonment, hoping to obtain a reinstatement of reputation, costs and an indemnity. This stupid fraud being at once discovered, the couple were sent to prison again. A general amnesty brought about their release and they were next heard of when a blacksmith's wife brought a charge of fraud against them. This woman had been at one time persuaded by Julia to dress as a man and to pose as her father in order that she might obtain credit as the daughter of a wealthy merchant.
When examined as to the tale she had told the ladies, Julia Hackmann at first stuck to it in every detail. She was then confronted with Voss and the landlady from Klitzberg. Both of these denied her allegations, the man demanding vehemently how any reliance could be placed on the word of a woman who was a convicted swindler and cheat besides one of the best-known prostitutes in Prussia?
After a severe handling by the magistrates Julia Hackmann suddenly declared:
"My whole deposition concerning the missing stranger is entirely false. I have invented it all, thinking the English people would have got me sent back to Hamburg and perhaps have given me some money."
At this she was returned to the House of Correction to serve a sentence for perjury. The shoemaker Voss was arrested, and his lodging searched, but as nothing found against him, he was released.
About the same time a report reached Rommel that the younger Scharre, against whom a warrant was out, on the request of Sir Francis, had died in a prison in Westphalia where he had been sent for picking pockets on market days; but this vagabond could be absolutely identified as Scharre.
Behind all these events Lydia seemed to see the dark face of the painted angel with slanting eyes full of menace and swelled lips slightly lifted in scorn. More than once she went into the Cathedral, but not to pray, rather to look into the face of her evil genius as if to gain some courage by confronting the full horror of her destiny.
After one of these visits and shortly after the Julia Hackmann affair had been disposed of and painful enquiries had resulted in nothing being discovered as to the mysterious traveller on the sea-coast, Lydia turned, not towards The Three Crowns where Rosa was reading the English mail that Hoffman, the courier, had brought in, but skirting the square, proceeded to the shoe-market.
It was late January; at last the Christmas festivities that Lydia had found so gloomy a travesty of well-remembered childhood's pleasures were over and the town had assumed its normal aspect, though sugar angels, tinsel stars and fir trees tied with ribbons and candles, still showed in the windows of some of the houses where there were children.
Lydia walked slowly, holding up her skirt carefully above the cobbles; under her arm was a small parcel. Before she stepped into the shoe-market that was full of clear, sharp-cut lights and shades, Lydia glanced up at the windows in the flat façade of The Dutch Coffee House; they were not shuttered, but the prim curtains were drawn and there was no shadow across them; but Lydia kept close to the walls of the houses lest by any chance Sir Francis or Burton might be looking into the street. Passing the house once owned by Weber, the gambler, Lydia turned down a passage and stopped outside a small shoe-maker's shop where, she knew, Johann Voss resided. With a half-proud, half-nervous smile, she entered the shop; the bell tinkled as she opened the door and a frightened-looking woman came forward, wiping her hands on her apron; she was the sister of Voss, who, deeply alarmed by the recent police investigations, was endeavouring, for a time at least, to lead an honest life working for his brother-in-law.
Lydia asked for the young man, adding in a gentle tone, "I don't mean him any harm, indeed I don't. I've heard that he is very skilful at fine work and I have brought him a pair of lady's shoes—evening shoes." And Lydia took the silver paper off her parcel and showed a pair of brocade shoes, blue and gold, with the soles slightly worn.
"Yes, Johann is clever, my lady," said the woman doubtfully, "but..."
"Please," said Lydia, with her bold, yet elegant air, "tell him not to be afraid. Indeed, how could I annoy or harm him? He has been put to a lot of vexation on our behalf and I should like to make him a recompense by giving him this work."
The woman turned to the inner room and Lydia seated herself on the high stool by the counter, polished by age, where the blue shoes glittered in the golden threads from the light of the cheap lamp.
Voss came in, awkward and defiant; Lydia had not seen him before and her narrowed glance disapproved of his small deep-set eyes, unhealthy complexion, shaggy hair and large ears. But he was a large, broad-shouldered young man, with, she could see, swaggering pretentions to masculine attractions. She looked at hands—broad and powerful they were, with short red hairs on the backs—and for a moment her gaze became fixed and she was silent as she looked backwards at some dreadful scene where such hands as these might have played a part. Voss stood uneasily before this proud young lady with the purple hat and azure feather, who sat so thoughtfully on the high stool and stared at his hands; he knew well enough who she was, for not only had he caught glimpses of her in the streets of Rommel, but he knew that there was no other creature like this in the whole town. But he was not quite sure if she were the wife or the sister, or the sister-in-law of the missing man.
Lydia recovered her complete self-control and explained in a low voice about the shoes.
"I brought them myself because I wanted to explain about them very carefully. They are valuable to me. I wore them last on an evening when I was very happy..."
She broke off and looked up directly into the sullen face that gazed down at her with defiant apprehension.
"How do you think that the English traveller disappeared?" she asked suddenly.
"I think he was crazy," replied the shoe-maker in quick tones. "I think he just ran away to the Elbe and drowned himself."
"You think that he could have found his way there—in the dark, through the woods? The country was strange to him. Would not he, flying in such disorder on an errand so terrible, have been remarked by someone? Or waylaid by vagabonds? Besides," added the lady with a peculiar smile, "why did he ask for a safeguard if he intended to take his own life?"
"I don't know, my lady. I don't know anything of the affair at all—why should I? I hope you believe, my lady, as the magistrates did, that that drab—saving your presence—lied."
"No doubt but that she lied. Yet it was an odd thing for her to invent. There might have been a germ of truth in it, though, of course, you were not the man."
"What do you mean, my lady?"
"Handsome rewards have been offered," said Lydia earnestly, "for the least scrap of information—but none has claimed them."
"No, none has claimed them."
Johann Voss tried to struggle with the agitation roused in him by the lady's presence; he took up the shoes and began murmuring over the exquisite quality of the French brocade—"Such stuff isn't made now."
"No! That is cut from an old gown that belonged to my mother." Lowering her voice still more, Lydia said impressively: "There was some truth in what Julia Hackmann said."
"You speak as if you knew."
"The ornamental chain—of pearls and hair—I have reason to believe that he possessed such a chain."
"Julia Hackmann invented the whole thing," said Johann Voss sharply.
"She could not have invented that. Somewhere she saw such a chain. I would pay very highly anyone who gave me any information about ..."
"Are you the lord's wife, madame?"
"No."
"Well, the other lady didn't identify the chain, did she?"
Voss was bewildered, hostile, fearful of a trap, yet fearful too of missing something that might turn out to his benefit.
"It might happen," replied Lydia, with her compelling glance full on the man's uneasy face, "that one member of a family could recall a certain article belonging to another, which others, perhaps quite near relations, might not. I can remember such a braid of pearls and hair—and my sister thinks that there may have been such a thing even though she took no particular heed of it."
"Well, my lady?"
"Well!—don't you understand? Julia Hackmann could not have invented her description of an article I know to have existed and to have been in the missing man's possession. It follows then, that she must have seen it."
"I don't know where," declared Voss obstinately. "Before God! I don't know where!"
"Don't you?" asked Lydia steadily. "I hoped that you might. I hoped that, quite innocent yourself, you perhaps knew something that you were afraid to tell."
As he did not answer but stood in a moody silence, staring down at the dainty pair of shoes, Lydia added:
"After all, you have moved in the underworld of Prussia and Holstein and on the borders of it, and it is not so easy for a man of doubtful character to come forward and say what he knows in a case like this."
Voss's uneasiness increased; he could not guess that this formidable lady knew not what powers were behind her. In his eyes she was more to be dreaded than the police, for the whole weight of a great foreign nation might be used for her support. He thought of her also as possessed of fabulous wealth, and his slow brain was working desperately to form some scheme whereby he might avert her wrath and obtain some of her money.
Lydia guessed what was in his mind, and waited patiently, gazing at the blue and gold shoes that had once danced so gaily across the shining floor of an English ballroom in the days when she was happy—or happy in comparison to her present misery.
Voss spoke at length; his hoarse voice was very low and he leaned forward so that his smoke- and beer-tainted breath was on her face. She did not draw back, but listened keenly.
"I'd like to help you, my lady. I'm sorry for you and the other lady—just as much as that drab was, when she saw you out of the prison window. I don't say I know anything. I don't. It's a mystery to me as much as it is to anyone else. Julia put it on me because we quarrelled over something we were in together. But I might find out something. I might know where to go. And if I did find something I'd rather tell one of the lord's relatives than the police—I don't want any more truck with them."
"That is what I want. You know that you can trust me. If I used any information that you gave me, I should keep the source secret. Nay, if you wished I would give you enough money to leave the country."
Satisfied by the greedy look in the man's small eyes that she had made an impression, Lydia rose.
"The shoes were an excuse," she smiled. "Use them for that; come and see me about them, say that you cannot match the brocade—"
On the worn counter in the circle of lamplight she placed a card on which she had written carefully her name and that of The Three Crowns.
"You can keep that openly while there is this transaction between us."
Voss gingerly fingered the card, spelt it out and put it in the pocket of his leather waistcoat.
"Folk would be wondering what you want with dancing shoes, my lady," he said with a grin that showed a flash of intuition she had not believed him capable of, "but, of course, he wasn't your husband and you're doing this for your sister's sake."
"Of course," replied Lydia. "My sister is quite overcome by her situation and others have to act for her."
She left the shop and turned into the shoe-market. The air was crisp and cold; a child's voice singing a carol came from an upper window; the shutters had been closed before the windows of The Dutch Coffee House. There was no one about save a young woman who stood on the step before the house that had once belonged to Weber, the gambler. The door was partly open behind her and she was pausing as if about to enter or leave the house. Lydia thought that she was staring at her, but it was difficult to tell as the girl was muffled in a woollen pelisse and scarf and the light from the door was behind her; Lydia passed on, her courage at ebb; it seemed to her that the squinting face of the painted angel was very near her and though she knew that it was but a self-created image of her own fatigue and discouragement, she shrank away as if a visible phantom pursued her grief.
Rosa was pacing up and down the private salon in a state of deep emotion; she held a sheaf of letters and papers that Hoffman, the courier, had brought, and these had roused in her profound home-sickness. All her life, all her interests, affections and hopes were reflected in these letters from her parents, her father-in-law and her friends; nostalgia for the never-returning days gripped her and the bare hotel room seemed abominable. In particular she had wept over the letters from her mother and mother-in-law that described the beauty and intelligence of her little son, now nearly three years of age. Stung to rebellion by her loss, Rosa raged against her fate. Why had so dreadful a destiny fallen to her lot? She had never been ambitious, she wanted only a loving partner, children, the serene joys of a well-ordered life such as her mother had led and that she herself had been bred to and always expected. Every other woman of her acquaintance had that easy, respected existence—why had it been denied to her? lamented the poor creature. Why for her had been reserved a fate so horrible from which there seemed no hope of escape?
She had always longed for children, and she had been given one, cut off from him and denied all hope of others. She was young, pretty and of a warm, affectionate temperament; she was, moreover, passionately in love, in the sensual meaning of the word, and here again she was cut off from her desires, forced to lead this unnatural life, full of terror, anxiety and the dull torture of continual suspense.
Lydia saw her mood and did not speak to her but picked up her share of the letters and read them slowly, with a tender interest but with no great pang. Her hopes of happiness had been long since lost and she remembered England as a place where she had suffered the pain and deprivation that Rosa was now undergoing in her exile.
"Do not distress yourself so, Rosa," she said at last, looking up from her papers, "everyone at home is well, and trusting in us—pray be still and rest awhile."
"Trusting in us!" repeated Rosa on a quick breath. "They should be here in our place—why are not William's brothers searching for him?"
"Rosa, you know that they have their own work and families to think of. George would have come, you know, however, at all costs, but he was so sure that the French Government knew the truth and would hoodwink us at every turn so that all researches would be useless."
"Perhaps he was right. I do indeed feel hopeless!"
"Do you? But perhaps we shall find him yet."
Rosa stared down at her sister.
"Find him? I can never lose him; he is there, always. I can never close my eyes but I see his wraith. I can never sit down but I think he is standing behind me, and at night..."
"Hush, Rosa, you must not think so. I know it is hard and that dreadful fancies come..." She caught her sister's fingers in her own firm, cool grasp and drew her down beside her. Rosa sank on her knees on the scattered letters from home and hid her face in her sister's silken skirts.
'So weak,' thought Lydia. 'So weak! So pitiful!'
Mrs. Prosser came from the inner room where she had been seated over her sewing—when there was nothing else for her to do she hemmed lengths of muslin for ruffles. To distract Rosa, Lydia asked if Hoffman had said anything of interest; they had not seen this faithful fellow for several months and perhaps he had, in his journeyings to and fro, learnt something or other....
Rosa sighed and sighed, then raised her face that was hot, flushed and clouded with grief. No! Hoffman had nothing new to say; she had told him what Baron Kassel had said about the stay in Berlin, but Hoffman could only repeat what he had said when he had been examined before on the mystery, that the gentleman had sent him back to Vienna with no explanation save that they wished to travel very quietly and that there was no need of a courier as they would go by the common stage.
"Oh, Lydia, we have heard it all before, we have gone over it again and again."
"I know—the accounts of Hoffman and Kassel agree really—"
"I asked Hoffman if William had really seemed so agitated; I begged him to recall every possible detail: alas, he saw very little of either of them—they were shut away in their rooms, he says, and whenever there was any business to be done, it was the Baron who did it, and Hoffman says that he seemed always very cool."
"And that Count Véfour—Hoffman has never heard of anyone of that name?"
"No. I asked him that; of course, it was an alias, a name that will probably never be used again."
"But, Rosa, the mystery of that is, that William should have used a name that he must have known meant nothing to us."
"The letter was torn, remember, the explanation may have been in the other half—"
"Rosa, do you think that he really wrote that letter? It was only a scrawl in pencil—"
"I think that he wrote it, Lydia."
The women fell silent out of sheer weariness of spirit; they had discussed this matter so often, been up and down, over and over every point in the story to which there was no end, the mystery to which there was no solution.
Rosa now began to speak of her child, a subject that she usually avoided; indeed, she spoke of him so little that many of those whom she met abroad did not know of his existence, nor did Lydia ever venture to speak of this heir of the missing man, knowing it to be a matter of the utmost delicacy.
"Frank thinks," said Rosa, gazing down at her locked hands, "that we are spending too much of Robert's money—the money that should be his—this search is very costly. And the Government are not paying very much towards it, as you know."
She hesitated and Lydia interposed, very quietly:
"Are these things for Frank to decide? Surely your family... and his..."
"Frank is here," said Rosa obstinately. "He knows how the money goes. I put all mine into his hands." She continued speaking rapidly with that constant emphasis that gave an air of feebleness to her speech, as if she was forcing her character to a strength and decision it did not naturally possess. "William was a third son only, and I do not think that his father is so very interested in Robert—seeing how many other grandsons he has—nor am I an only child."
"I know, however," said Lydia, "that Robert's grandparents are passionately interested in him and that they all think that he cannot be better served than by finding his father. And, pray, don't say 'William was.' We must think of him as alive."
"Do you mean that as a rebuke?" asked Rosa, tears shining in her eyes. "I think lately that you mean a great deal you say as a reproach—you are also very austere and aloof—oh, why?"
Lydia ignored these complaints; a sigh escaped from an overcharged heart as she said:
"What is the end of all this? What do you or Frank suggest? That we abandon the search?"
"No—but that I pursue it alone. You could return to England with Mrs. Prosser who could look after Robert—you know how good she is with babies. I could easily get a German maid."
Lydia had not expected this; she had not realised what random audacity weak, unprincipled people are capable of, had not realised, either, perhaps what a profound passion gnawed at poor Rosa's limited reserves of strength.
"You take a course that I was unprepared for, Rosa. I am not very well. I don't know what to say."
"There! You're not well! You'll be ruined if you stay here for the winter!"
"I am stronger than you," interrupted Lydia. "I've had no illness before. It was a sickly qualm; it has gone. Things have turned out different from what I hoped. I suppose it was a mistake, altogether."
"There have been many mistakes, Lyddy," said Rosa, but vaguely, as if the terms she used bore no very distinct meaning to her mind. "And it has all been dreadful and quite beyond what I ought to bear and I'm sure I don't know how I have borne it. And it's easy for you. Oh, if you only understood—but, of course, it is my duty to go on searching and I mean to—yes, if I have to go on my knees to Napoleon himself. Though really I'm not equal to it."
"But you'll go on?"
"Yes, Lyddy, I'll go on. I must know"—and there was the poignancy of real emotion in her voice—"if I am wife or widow."
"Do you think you can go alone?"
"Frank will come with me, of course."
Lydia's look was sharp and stern, but she was one of those resolute women who even when terribly agitated, never forget the sense of what is best to do; excited as she was now, she did not for a second lose her head.
"Did Frank suggest this?"
"We talked it over. We thought that Hoffman could take you back—through France; there is no need to return that horrible way we came, by the Baltic."
"And you and Frank?"
"We could stay in Berlin and prosecute the enquiries from there. What is the use of staying here? We have been over every inch of the ground and got no further, have we?"
"Would you stay with the British Minister in Berlin or with friends?"
"No. I couldn't endure that formal life—too much like the life we had in Stockholm, too... Oh, no! Besides, it would be expensive again. I could take a quiet apartment, with one maid—and Frank could stay at some hotel with Burton."
"So, you have thought it all out!"
"Yes, Lyddy, I have," replied Rosa with her air of forced resolution. "And I hope that you'll agree."
Lydia rose; more than ever the salon looked chill and dreary in the light of the candles on the centre table, and more clearly than usual did she see her own fancy impressed on the shadowed angel whose glance fixed on her as if in a horrid fascination. She thought: 'I used to have some courage, nothing seemed too difficult. But I never foresaw this.'
"I hope you'll agree," repeated Rosa anxiously. "It is not fair that you should spend your life and your health, yes, and your own money, too, for I know that you do spend it, Lyddy, on this awful business."
"Did Frank say that?"
"Frank? Why do you ask?"
"It seemed his thought, and almost his words," said Lydia with her hand shadowing her face. "Only he would say them in mockery, though, no doubt, Rosa, you repeat them in all seriousness."
"Mockery?" Rosa was bewildered, a little petulant.
"Oh, Frank understands me—and most things—pretty well."
"And I don't, I suppose?"
"I don't think so, Rosa."
Well, I can't think what you mean,"—with a languid hand Rosa began gathering up the letters from home—"and I wish that you would answer me—about what I've suggested."
"I must have time. I want rest and quiet thoughts."
Lydia went into her own room where there was nothing lit but the night-lamp and took that up in her hand and stared in the circular mirror beside the white, cold-looking bed. Her features were sharpened and hardened, the softness and bloom that were half their beauty were gone; the locks of hair on her forehead were damp and seemed colourless too.
She was thinking of her childhood, how happy she and Rosa had been, without jealousy or spite, and strange and even ghastly it was, that in a few years they should have secrets, one from the other, and be working, not together, but at cross-purposes.
Lydia put down the little lamp and went into Mrs. Prosser's room; that good woman was seated in a wicker chair, with a white shawl over her white hair, reading the Bible. She rose, but Lydia pressed her to sit down again and sat down herself looking round the trim closet that served for Mrs. Prosser's bedroom with a strange anxiety.
"You look tired, Miss Lyddy, and sorry. Shall I make you a cup of tea?"
"I've a heartache, Prossy, and am so tired I should like to sit silent—for ever, I think."
She glanced with a faint smile of self-mockery at the pallid freckled face of her old nurse and said:
"Who would ever have guessed that the world was such a fearful place?"
Mrs. Prosser closed and set aside her Bible.
"I told you often enough, Miss Lyddy, the lot of the sinner, the vexation of the spirit and the punishment of God." She took off her steel-rimmed spectacles, wiped them and put them back on her puckered nose, then drew towards her a neat wicker-basket full of mending.
"They want us both to go, Prossy—he is trying for that."
"You, to return to England and leave Miss Rosie here?"
"Yes. She isn't Miss Rosie now, you know, Prossy, and it is difficult to prevent her from having her own way." Lydia again raised her dilated eyes to the old woman's sad calm face. "And I don't know what to do."
"Should you speak to him?"
"I can't, without making open what is better, far better, kept hidden." Even to her one confidante, Lydia did not add that she thought that Sir Francis guessed a secret of her own, that even Rosa had no suspicion of, and he would certainly tax her with it if she were to charge him with her surmises. She could not bring herself to put this to the test—perhaps, after all, Frank did not guess—better not put the matter to a hazard.
Mrs. Prosser turned towards her a face crimped with lines of anxiety and suffering; her thoughts seemed to have led her to the same conclusion as that to which Lydia had come, but perhaps by different ways, for she said:
"Yes, Miss Lydia, no doubt it would be better not to say anything. They can't force you to return home if you don't want to go, or me either, as long as you keep me in your service."
Sir Francis entertained, at last, Herr Leermann in the large private parlour of The Dutch Coffee House. The guest was, as usual, at his ease and he seemed more interested in the case of rare medals he was showing to the Englishman than in the matter in hand. He was a stout, robust man of fifty or so, with a large head and a fine profile, not unlike one of those on the coins he so lovingly handled; his grey hair was slightly powdered and dressed in an old-fashioned queue; he wore a green-cloth coat heavily braided and across his chair lay a grey cloak lined with fur; his manner was polished, genial and showed a sincere liking for his host. With the case on his knee, he looked lovingly at his treasures while he made excuses for his delay in coming to Rommel; he had been employed in several important matters as well as the Bracebridge mystery—matters of which he could not speak even to his good friend, Sir Francis.
"Don't ask me the researches I have made," he smiled, showing small, sharp white teeth, and waving a plump wrinkled hand; "that would waste your time and mine. Is not that golden Tiberius a beauty? Well, I expect the ladies are impatient." He snapped to his case and locked it.
"More than that—heart-sick."
"And you?"
"The thing is in danger of becoming an obsession to all of us."
Herr Leermann looked shrewdly at the speaker; he thought that Sir Francis had aged ten years since he had last seen him, aye, he looked, even by candlelight, middle-aged, and yet he kept up that gracious smile of easy breeding, those serene manners, and still possessed all his charm.
"It is good of you," said the antiquary, "to undertake this odious business for your friend. Such a task falls more naturally on his brothers."
"What have you discovered—anything at all?" replied the Englishman, with his handsome eyes turned full on the other.
"Only this—and don't ask me how I came by it. I can vouch for its truth. And I don't know what use it is going to be to you." Herr Leermann put down his case of medals beside the wine-glasses on the little table near him and said clearly and slowly while the other listened to him with intent:
"The Governor of Magdeburg gave a ball—last autumn—some time in October—and the talk turned on the missing ambassador, as they call Lord William Bracebridge. One lady said she felt sure he was dead. The Governor laughed and answered: 'No, he is safe up there,' and he made a gesture towards the castle. This was heard by several people. When I got knowledge of it I went to Magdeburg and saw the Governor. He did not deny his words but said that it was a mistake. He had a spy—an Englishman who had been sent by Mr. Canning to plot (he said) against the French. He was taken up by the douaniers montés near Rommel and brought here, and I believed he was the English envoy. Afterwards I found out my mistake. He is one Thomas Elton. I begged to see this prisoner, but the Governor told me that he had been sent to Spain. I could do no more in this direction. I sent to the English Foreign Office and there—knowing on whose behalf I was working—they took the trouble to search the files for all the passports of 1809 and there was no such name nor any that could be that of this spy."
Herr Leermann paused.
"So," said Sir Francis carefully, "you think that he might be alive, after all, in Magdeburg fortress?"
"There seems a chance, at least, that he was there."
"But the situation is as exasperating as ever! How are we to get past the Governor's denial?"
"I don't know, indeed. Following your instructions and with the Emperor's permission, I advertised Lord William in all the Paris papers—even the Moniteur. No result!"
"And he has been missing," said Sir Francis, "two years. When might one presume he was dead?"
"Doubtless," smiled Herr Leermann, "those who love him will continue for ever to believe him alive. The women, I mean. The mother—the wife! These fine creatures never lose hope—it is really sublime. What rare devotion Lady William has shown!"
"Indeed—the woman who loves him will never cease to search for him, even though the rest of her life is spent on that quest—with her it will be an obsession, a religion, a curse."
"And she is so young, so charming! It is a tragedy!"
"It is also," said the Englishman harshly—and it was rare for him to speak thus, "a most extraordinary mystery. One tale not only contradicts but cancels out the other. The Governor of Rommel, the Burgomaster, Baron Kassel, the servant girls, two who swore they saw Lord William, the woman Julia Hackmann—all these people tell different tales. None can be relied upon nor utterly disbelieved. Have you heard anything more of Kassel?"
"Nothing to his discredit. I don't think he is in French pay, but one never knows, and certainly his behaviour was very extraordinary for a man who is far from being a fool."
"And the people who have disappeared!" exclaimed Sir Francis with a fine smile. "The Swiss—the Scharres—Weber—the man who ran The Great Bear—all these important witnesses spirited away—"
"It looks odd, perhaps sinister," admitted Herr Leermann. "But you must remember the state that Europe is in—a long war following a revolution that reduced France to chaos! It is as if an ant-hill had been turned over—people scurrying here and there in a hopeless confusion. Remember, too, that these people belong to a continental underworld and that they were alarmed by this mystery in which they were, or feared they might be, involved."
"Yes, yes, that is all very well, but I do think there is something sinister behind all this. I am inclined to think that your clue leads us to the truth—he is or was in some French fortress. The French captured him with the aid of some Prussians—probably the Governor, perhaps Kassel. I trust none of them."
"The letter in the pantaloons? The pantaloons themselves?"
"A false scent, I should say. He probably never wrote the letter."
"Even so, your theory leaves a good deal unexplained," said Leermann thoughtfully. "Why," he added, "did your government send so young a man on so important an errand?"
"Do you know it was important?"
"Yes. Mr. Canning confided in me before he left London. A scheme to rouse a revolt in the Tyrol. He had a list of names, ammunition and store-dumps with him. Rather crazy, but dangerous too."
"So you know that?" smiled Sir Francis. "Well, I never told you, did I?"
"No,"—the antiquary smiled, too, and leaned back in the worn leathern chair—"but I lead a roving life and find out a good many things."
The Englishman wondered if Leermann knew more about this mystery than he admitted; a distrust of everyone had possessed Sir Francis lately and though he had known and respected the antiquarian since he was a child, it occurred to him now that, after all, he had no sure knowledge that this adroit intriguer was not betraying him to some higher, hidden, or more heart-felt interest. Sir Francis did not know much about Leermann's real life or of his real sentiments, if, indeed, he had any.
The conversation petered into general channels; all that the antiquary could or would offer towards the solution of the Bracebridge mystery was the tale the Governor of Magdeburg, and with that Sir Francis had to content himself. Still, it was better that the antiquary should find out too little than too much.
That night the Englishman sat up late and alone in his bedroom in The Dutch Coffee House, by the light of a pair of wax candles, wrapped in his flowered bed-gown, with his hands clasped behind his head. The presence of Leermann had not brought the troubled man the news—that of the certainty of his friend's fate—that he had hoped for; there was something detached, even slightly sinister, about this solitary, homeless antiquary, whose real name and history no one knew, who went up and down Europe nosing out too many secrets, working, perhaps, for too many people.
"Bah!" he said to himself. "I'm getting fanciful—womanish. Leermann is a friend and I must trust him."
He looked absently about the room in which he had now slept for many weeks; it was a pleasant apartment, showing its age in the warped floor, the windows sunk slightly out of plumb, the low ceiling with a stucco relief. There was a massive oak press and other heavy furniture that had belonged to men long since dead. The chair in which Sir Francis sat was withered green and gold leather and the bed was a four-poster; each of these was carved and fluted in an urn shape and from them hung thick woollen curtains of faded needlework with a design of foxes and grapes, acorns and strawberries, worked by hands long ago mouldered away. One of the window curtains was slightly drawn; beyond showed the cold, radiant moonlight, falling on the snow.
Sir Francis had also received the English mail; the letters brought by Hoffman lay on the little table beside him; they reminded him of the life that he had left in so abrupt and fantastic a fashion. He had no near relative, but there were reminders from his friends that he was being missed, another from his steward posing several questions and hoping for his return, and another from Mr. Canning hinting that if Sir Francis wished to continue his diplomatic career, he had better bring to an end these continental wanderings that were costly and, as it seemed, hopeless. 'I must conclude,' wrote the minister, 'that Bracebridge is dead and the French responsible.' Sir Francis thought of that sentence now as he meditated on his strained, exasperating and almost dreadful position. He could not conceive of any further steps that could be taken to discover the fate of his lost friend. It was so clear that everyone's hand was against them; everywhere they turned the way was blocked, or else people lied to them for profit, like Julia Hackmann, if, indeed, she had lied.
Sir Francis roused himself and pressed the silver bell, in the shape of a tortoise, that stood among his papers. Burton appeared from the inner closet; he, too, had had his letters from home and his heavy face, with the flat, purple glazed jowl, was serious; he disliked every moment of his stay in this unfriendly country with the bitter climate, where he could not make himself understood.
Sir Francis spoke to the servant as confidentially as Lydia spoke to Mrs. Prosser, as freely as he used to speak of his boyish troubles when he would visit the stables at home and chatter to Burton while he groomed the bay mare, Queen Mab, but now the young man did not chatter but spoke slowly and gravely.
"I suppose you haven't been able to find anything out, Burton?"
Burton knew that his master only spoke formally, for, had the servant found out anything of importance, he would have at once disclosed it—as Sir Francis knew.
"It's hard for me, sir. Everyone knows me and I don't speak the language. I've nosed about a bit. That waiter Fritz, who used to be at The Great Bear, is the most useful person I've met. He speaks English, as I told you, sir, and I think he knows more than he'll say."
"That is a common complaint about here, Burton. But no doubt many of them affect a knowledgeable air to put their prices up."
"Yes, sir. But this man Fritz insists that an English gentleman came into The Great Bear that evening and passed into the room where they were gambling. Fritz says that he never saw this stranger go out."
"That house was searched thoroughly."
"Yes, sir."
"Why doesn't this Fritz come forward and give his tale to the magistrates?"
"The usual excuse, sir. His bad record. He deserted from one of their armies—Mecklenburg, I think it is, and he don't want it to come out."
"Snuff the candles, please, Burton. What of that other charge you had: to watch Miss Lydia—for her own safety—as she is so careless about going around?"
"I've done what I could, sir," replied the man earnestly, not looking at his master. "She slips out all times, sir; leaving Mrs. Prosser in charge of my lady. She often goes to the big church and prays there, under that horrid painted figure, sir, that's nothing but a hollow tree. And then she'll go all over the place walking and riding, to the post-house, the empty place opposite and the woods. You know, sir."
"Yes, going over all his last tracks. I hope she has not seen you shadowing her."
"I don't think so, sir. She has seen me once or twice, but I've always made it seem casual, like."
"It is only for her own safety, Burton."
Burton did not reply to this statement, but with a precise air that was at variance with his bucolic appearance, he continued:
"Miss Lydia has been at least once to the cobbler's where Voss works. She has taken him a pair of shoes."
"Herself?"
"Yes, sir. She did not know I saw her."
"So. She is undertaking a little investigation on her own, eh?"
"I think so, sir. I got Fritz on to this Voss and he tells me that he is really well known in the underworld and sends stolen goods to a Jew in Hamburg. Voss has left Rommel and Fritz thinks he has gone to Hamburg. It is likely, sir, that he has gone on Miss Lydia's instructions."
"She'll burn her fingers, Burton," said Sir Francis, with a cloud on his handsome features that gave them an unpleasant expression. "We ought to look after her, for her own sake—I don't believe that she would stop at anything to solve this mystery."
"I don't think that she would, sir. I've noticed her face when she's been kneeling in the church by that horrid image and I've been in the shadows, unnoticed—she don't look like the young lady I remember at home."
"How does she look?" mused Sir Francis, as if to himself. "Enchanted? Possessed?"
Sir Francis was right in supposing that Lydia did not know that she was being spied upon by Burton as closely as Rosa was being watched by Mrs. Prosser; the younger lady noticed that she met the manservant rather frequently in the streets of Rommel and in the woods beyond, where she was fond of wandering as the weather became milder and the ice and snow melted from the paths through the pines; but if in her self-absorption she gave any thought at all to these meetings, it was merely an indifferent acceptance of the fact that Sir Francis was concerned about her safety.
This matter gave her no uneasiness at all. She did not share in that general apprehension that caused most English travellers to regard these German frontier towns with a peculiar dread since the disappearance of the English ambassador.
Mot only was her whole being occupied by another passion, but she did not, when she called her reason into play, see how the fact of one mysterious disappearance from Rommel could mean that the town was unsafe for other passengers.
Often, when in the woods where the pantaloons had been found, she had penetrated some way into their depths, though she knew their sinister reputation. She had never met more than a few old women gathering driftwood and some charcoal-burners with sacks of faggots on their backs. No one molested her by as much as an uncouth word. Indeed, she thought she saw apathy in their looks and heard compassion in their muttered greetings. After a stay of some weeks, passing into months now with the coming of April, she was aware that she and her errand were well known in the entire district.
The swift activity of the first part of their stay had settled down into a routine that seemed to cause the monotonous days to pass quickly, if drearily, so that to the two ladies it was as if one day could not be distinguished from another. Their life at The Three Crowns had settled down into a dull regularity.
Rosa very seldom left her room and Mrs. Prosser seldom left her, serving her meals and waiting on her with a patient devotion, or what appeared at least to be a patient devotion, that irked Rosa extremely and against which now and then she passionately and in vain protested.
There was now no longer any reason for the five English people to stay in Rommel, but there seemed no object either in their going anywhere else. A return to England was not to be thought of until the weather was set fair. They had had enough of travelling through the cold last winter, and Sir Francis was still insistent that they should return as they had come—by the way of the Baltic—despite the passports signed by Napoleon himself that they now held. Sir Francis could not believe that it would be agreeable, though it might be safe, for them to return by way of France.
There had been one break in the monotony of the stay at The Three Crowns.
Rosa, accompanied by Sir Francis and Mrs. Prosser, had made the journey to Magdeburg and had interviewed the Governor, who had been previously so adroitly cross-examined by Herr Leermann.
Lydia remained alone in The Three Crowns with Peter Burton as watch-dog, and she was so used to disappointment and misfortune that it seemed to her an almost unbelievable piece of luck that while she was thus unobserved Johann Voss, the shoemaker, returned from Hamburg and, calling at the hotel, asked to see her.
As she had instructed, he had made the blue dancing-shoes an excuse for this visit. The message that he sent up by the chambermaid was that he thought he had been able to match the brocade: and if the stolid-looking girl thought that this was a curious time for the Englishwoman to be concerning herself about a pair of dancing-shoes, nothing of her astonishment showed in her demeanour, and the excuse served.
Lydia could not, she thought, venture to invite the man into the private salon, so she received him in the public parlour. That was empty, as it nearly always was about the middle of the afternoon.
Voss, who seemed to have learnt his part very well, brought the shoes out of silver paper and cardboard and showed the sample of brocade he had bought for mending them and talked of them to the lady as if there was no other matter between them but this.
Lydia stood with her back to the window. She was wearing a close grey dress; at the wrists and on the bosom were the dainty frilled ruffles that Mrs. Prosser was continually hemming. Her hair was bound back into a fine black silk net that she had knitted herself and that dimmed its lovely brightness. Her face was dim too in colour and sharpened in line, and she had lost much of that bright and emphatic beauty that had made her so noticeable when she had arrived at Rommel. The fatigue and hardship of her long journey had not quenched her radiance so effectively as these weeks of hopes deferred and useless waiting in the little town that to her was haunted now by endless phantoms of the same murdered man.
Seeing that the door was closed and the half-curtains drawn across the lower portion of the window so that they were quite unobserved, she said to the shoemaker:
"Have you anything else to show me?"
For answer, he took a parcel out of his bosom, undid the wrappings and disclosed an oblong box.
"I have been," he said harshly," to the man of whom I told you—my friend, the Jew in Hamburg. Never mind his name or address—"
"I shall not ask it," said Lydia swiftly.
"Well, my lady, this is all he had. And mind you, he doesn't know—or won't say—where these things came from. But they were got hold of honestly enough. If they've seen trouble or any crime or any bloodshed he'd no more to do with it than I had. But I told you I knew of him and that he might have something—"
Lydia raised her hand and let it fall—a gesture that stayed the man's loquacity.
"Surely you can see," she whispered, "that I am not concerned with any of that. I am not here to bring anyone to justice. Is not a large reward offered, even for the criminal, that he will come forward? My only concern is to solve this mystery."
Voss was impressed by her look and her tone. He had never before spoken to a creature of her breeding in this intimate fashion, and it was not entirely through self-interest, but a little because he was moved by her appeal to him, that he had exerted himself in her service.
Lydia opened the box and stared at the few trifles, none of them of much and most of them, of no value, that she saw within. It was, she knew, a miserable harvest from vice and crime and poverty—from houses of ill-fame, from gambling hells, from pawn-shops and from the pouches of criminals, these trifles had been gathered. Not sold, because they were of little value, but carefully hidden, because they might afford clues to many unpleasant episodes if they came into the hands of the police, and not destroyed, because possibly they might on some future occasion supply material for blackmail.
There were buttons, buckles, rings with the stones picked out, tablets, a few seals made of common agate or onyx, horn and tortoiseshell snuff-boxes from which the metal-rimmed insets had been torn away, and a smashed silver watch with the monogram obliterated by some sharp instrument.
Lydia turned these poor objects over with cold finger-tips.
"If there had been a portrait in a case, say, found in any of these ways it would, I suppose, have been destroyed?" she asked.
Voss muttered that he thought "Yes, they would destroy a portrait." Sometimes if a man pledged a watch or a case he did leave a portrait inside it, and if he never came back—Voss broke off in his speech. Or again, if a man's pockets were picked, or again, if a dead man was found—as dead men often were these times in the woods, and no one knew who killed them—if he had anything of value left on him, by chance, the murderers perhaps having been frightened away, and there was a portrait Well, then, it stood to reason that was destroyed.
"You see," said Lydia, "that braid of pearls and hair that Julia Hackmann spoke of, I think there was a portrait attached to that. And I think," she added firmly, forcing herself to an assumption of coolness, "the owner of that portrait would not have parted with it while he lived."
"Is there anything here you recognise, my lady?" Voss spoke earnestly. "This friend of mine is high up in his business, and clever at the game. He collects these things from all over the country. This is all he had left for the last three years. He keeps them—he never knows, he says, in these days of spying, well—what's coming in useful."
"You speak kindly," said Lydia. "I think you are trying to help. Let me sit down in the window-place and stand between me and the door so that anything I do will not be observed if anyone comes in, and I will go over these things carefully. I understand what you mean. If there is any trace, any little article or trifle belonging to this traveller in existence, it might be that it will be here."
"I think so," said Voss uneasily, "but believe me, my lady, the gentleman's at the bottom of the river with all that he had on him."
Then, as Lydia still turned over the trinkets, staring at them with eyes dilated with emotion, he added:
"Perhaps, my lady, your sister could identify something not known to you."
"I told you before that what that woman—what Julia Hackmann said she saw—she must have seen—"
Voss was silent, baffled, and slightly alarmed.
"Will you make haste, my lady, I want to take the things back? I am travelling to Hamburg with the night coach again. It is expensive, but you said that didn't matter."
"No, it doesn't matter. I have my own money and I shall pay you without asking anyone."
Her hands closed over one of the objects. She had sorted them all out now, taken them out in her fingers one by one, looked at them and put them back, but over this her fingers closed. It was a set of tablets in ivory leaves that had been framed, doubtless, in a case of precious metal, for this case had gone. There were only the leaves with the faint pencil marks where someone had written on them and rubbed out hastily, and the scarlet tassel like a drop of blood hanging from the top where the pencil had been attached. Poor battered trifle worth nothing, but Lydia grasped it tightly.
"I don't know," she said, "I don't know! But I'll keep this." She steadied herself, closed the box and handed it back. "Do you know—could you find out—what the cover of these tablets was? I think it should be gold with a ruby heart in the middle, looking, you know, like the ace of hearts, that would be made of precious metal."
"I don't know," muttered Voss uneasily; "all things come to my friend like this. If you've got all you want, my lady, I'll put up these."
"Yes, do. What shall I pay you for your trouble?"
The man, with a touch of sullenness, asked for ten thalers, which was less than Lydia had expected. She thought, under the circumstances, that it was a very modest demand.
"I will double it," she said. "I have the money here. I am prepared to pay that and more."
She took the money from the little embroidered satchel she carried and counted it out. The man took it greedily and hastily concealed it in an inner pocket of his coat.
"I'll try to find out what you want to know, my lady."
"And now you have stayed long enough," interrupted Lydia. "I don't want to cause any questions in the hotel. You will take the shoes back and try to match the pattern."
He was pleased. He went at once, glad to leave the hotel, where he felt that many critical eyes were on him because of his bad character and his connexion with the 'missing traveller' affair through the accusation of Julia Hackmann. It was true that she had been discredited and he exonerated, but he felt that he was observed, and not too favourably, by most of the inhabitants of Rommel and still an object of some suspicion to the police.
Lydia went upstairs at once and openly in order to show that she was not remaining closeted with the shoemaker.
But when in her own room she locked the door and, taking the broken tablets out of her satchel, she tried with straining eyes to read what had once been written there with a sharp lead and then hastily rubbed out.
There were four thin ivory leaves; there had been others, but these had been broken off when some brutal hand had dragged away the precious metal of the covers and pencil. On each of the leaves some words had been written, or rather, one word again and again. This pencilling, that seemed to have been hasty and nervous, for it had been done so deeply as to indent the ivory, remained like a phantom on the thin sheet. Perhaps a careless, or even a not so careless eye, would not have noticed more than a faint bruise or discoloration, but Lydia, sitting in the gaunt hotel bedroom, utterly alone, knew that she looked at her own name repeated—yes, she counted—repeated seven times—"Lydia— Lydia— Lydia— Lydia— Lydia— Lydia— Lydia."
The day before Rosa returned from Magdeburg, Lydia resolved to interview Martha Brander, a woman of a vile character, who, soon after Julia Hackmann's so-called confession, had called at The Three Crowns, declaring that she had valuable information to impart.
So bad was her reputation that the Burgomaster had instantly warned the English people to have nothing to do with the woman, who would make up any tale for the sake not only of money but even of notoriety or mischief.
"It will be dangerous for you," he warned Sir Francis, "to have anything to do with this creature, who has been in almost every House of Correction in the Empire. She was brought here by the French soldiers and has been deported, and I don't know how she had the audacity to return."
That had settled the matter in the opinion of Sir Francis, and though the women had been eager enough to interview Martha Brander he had told them, with his amiable air of authority, that he could not permit any such indiscretion.
"We should be overwhelmed by all the rogues, male and female, in the country. A fortune will slip through our fingers paying these creatures for false information. We shall be laughed at as fools and a prey to every scoundrel in Germany."
Rosa had acquiesced at once, but Lydia had resented this decision and now, when she was free of her companions and had settled with some measure of dismal success her business with Johann Voss, the shoemaker, she determined to see herself this Martha Brander. She thought it had been foolish, perhaps weak, not to do so before.
'After all, there is no need,' she said to herself, 'to pay these creatures money. One can interview them, and even though they do not tell the truth, one may find out something from the kind of lies they utter.'
Therefore she had, as soon as Rosa had left Rommel, spoken to the Burgomaster about Brander, and then to the Governor. But both these functionaries had told her the woman had left Rommel.
Lydia knew that this was not true, for she had seen the woman on several occasions—once when she was walking in the fir woods, once when she was kneeling beneath the painted angel, and several times when she had been passing the Dutch Coffee House and observing, with what seemed a negligent glance, the mansion once inhabited by the man Weber.
Lydia was sure that it was this woman, Martha Brander, who had paused at the door of the once-fine gambling hell and watched her when she had taken the blue brocade shoes to Johann Voss. She thought that the woman wanted to speak to her, but dared not do so. Probably the wretched creature was in Rommel in hiding or disguise, her whereabouts not even known to the police. And it was likely, too, that she was lingering there in the hopes of getting in touch at last with the English travellers and obtaining from them money in return for her information, real or false.
Her own tenacity in this business caused Lydia to consider rather bitterly the difference between the motive powers behind her and behind her companions.
They had, she knew full well, their passionate reasons for wishing to discover if William Bracebridge were alive or dead. But their motives were not so strong as hers. They did not urge them to such desperate expedients or such tireless exertions.
Lydia did not find it very difficult to get in touch with Martha Brander. Her one trouble was to escape the vigilance of Burton, who, under the plea that his master had entrusted him with her safety, was hardly to be shaken off whenever she went abroad, and who, when she was in the hotel, remained seated in the passage near the public door, waiting for her to go out. She still did not suspect that the man was set over her as a spy, and she was not always displeased with his company, especially on the long rides beyond the town.
Now the resolute lady got rid of the servant by a simple expedient. She told him that she was expecting some medicines and other articles for her sister's use by the evening mail from Berlin, and she asked him to go to the post-station and bring up this parcel himself; the contents were fragile and she did not wish? to trust it to one of the hotel servants.
Whether Burton believed her or not, he was bound to go on this errand, and as soon as Lydia was free of him she left The Three Crowns, turned along the side street to the shoe-market, and, thankful that the shutters were up in the rooms that Sir Francis used when in Rommel, knocked on the door of the house once inhabited by the man Weber and now let, as she believed, as a common lodging-house.
She supposed that her approach had been observed from one of the upper windows, for the door was opened instantly and she was allowed to slip inside with the least possible delay, as if whoever opened to her was aware of her desire for concealment.
It was an old woman who stood before her in the narrow passage, holding a lamp in her hand, and who looked at her with a keen and greedy scrutiny.
"Ah! the English lady!" she muttered.
"I suppose you thought I might come. I want to see the woman—Martha Brander, or her who calls herself by that name. I wanted to see her before, but my friends thought it unwise, as we were warned against it."
Lydia thought candour was best suited to her errand, as it certainly was best suited to her nature. And the old woman seemed to accept what she said without surprise or protest.
She was shown into a back-parlour, a dreary apartment, the walls covered with grey paint, heavy serge curtains at the window, the floor bare, warped and stained and the furniture poor and broken.
The old woman, who seemed clean and tidy, remarked that the house was respectable now and it was hard to make a living letting lodgings to decent people, as there was so much poverty since the war.
"It used to be a gambling house, did it not?" said Lydia, never thinking, in her intentness on her errand, in her absorption with her one passion, that, if these were people of ill-will, she had delivered herself completely into their power.
The old woman replied that the house had once been let to a very evil man, but that he had long since left the country.
"Martha Brander will be glad to see you, my lady," she said. "She has often spoken to me of you and of what she knew. You mustn't blame her; she has been unfortunate. She is a kind and generous creature. She keeps a crippled brother and an old mother in Westphalia."
Lydia smiled with that curious, sparkling strength that came from her intense concentration on her errand.
"I don't care who Martha Brander is or what she was. I don't know that I can even believe what she tells me. We have heard many different stories. Some of them, we are sure, are lies. But I want to hear what she says."
"She'll be paid, I suppose?" said the old woman, sidling to the door.
"Yes, she'll be paid, but don't expect anything lavish. We are not such rich people as you imagine."
As if from a matter of form the old woman asked:
"You are not here from the police? It wouldn't be wise, you know, for you to meddle in that sort of thing."
"You don't believe that," said Lydia, with a deepening of her smile. "Ask Martha Brander to come and speak to me."
The old woman left Lydia alone in the dark and dreary room that was only lit by one badly trimmed, dirty oil-lamp. On a side-table was a tattered Bible with torn leaves; on a cushion of rusty-coloured cloth a cat was asleep; soiled glasses were on the window-sill.
Lydia hardly noticed any of these details, or the sordid background they made, in her intense anxiety.
Martha Brander soon entered the room, and when she saw her face to face Lydia was sure that this was the woman who had watched her from the steps of this same house.
She belonged to the same class and was something the same type as Julia Hackmann. But she was younger, fresher and had a more impudent air. This, however, was subdued now, as was her attire.
She was plainly dressed in a peasant's linsey-woolsey, with a little shawl over her shoulder and a lace handkerchief tied round her head and knotted back under her hair. She wore, however, some cheap ornaments on her wrists, tied there with a red ribbon.
"You may tell your story to me," said Lydia at once. "I shall not be angry or shocked or repeat anything I hear. Don't let's waste time talking over those things, you know you may trust me. I will pay you something for your trouble, and a good deal if what you tell me is of use."
Martha Brander was, like everyone who saw Lydia, impressed by her lively beauty and her air of passionate courage. She had, in fact, observed the young lady much more frequently than Lydia knew, and had long since resolved to trust her entirely.
"I thought you would come," she said. "I thought you were waiting for the others to be out of the way. They suspect me, of course, and I don't blame them. No doubt you've all been told a lot of lies. But what I have to say isn't a lie. I don't know," she added carelessly, "that it will be much use either."
"You must leave me to decide that. Pray sit down."
Lydia took a chair herself, and so the two women faced one another in the wretched room with the feeble light of the miserable lamp upon them.
"I am sorry for you," said Martha Brander. "It is a terrible disaster to happen to anyone. I think about it a good deal. That Sunday morning or Saturday night I was here in this house that was run then as a gambling place by the man Weber—you know all that! I suppose, though you are a lady born, you've travelled enough by now to know what kind of place it was. Well, I was there—to amuse the gentlemen, and sell the drinks and keep the play high. And in the evening—still early—there was a quarrel and Herr Weber had to throw two of the men out: he was afraid the disturbance they were making would bring the police.
"Well, one of them had promised me some money—never mind for what—and I had no mind that he should go without paying, so I went after them and tried to make the peace. I whispered to Herr Weber that we were losing two of our best customers and that surely he knew how to gloss over the quarrel.
"He opened the door and pushed the men out and there was a dispute upon the step. Well, I saw a little posse of soldiers going by, three or four of them, with two men in the middle, and one I knew to be Anton Scharre from the post-house—he had often been to our place when he was in funds. Sometimes gambling, sometimes, when he had not so much money, acting as a kind of waiter. The man with him was the missing traveller, the man you are looking for."
"I suppose," interrupted Lydia, "you have already told this to the magistrate?"
"Yes, but I want to tell it again to you. So far it doesn't seem in the least important. But you see I looked at him, I marked him well. He had a remarkable sable coat on; he was a great lord, one could see, and even by that light there were the jewels at his neck—a cluster of diamonds. The sables themselves must have been worth, well, five hundred thalers, I suppose.
"The soldiers stopped and tried to pacify the two men. They gave us a warning. We knew, of course, that we had got the eye of the police on us. We went in and shut the door. But I gave the foreigner a smile; I hoped he'd come back. I told Weber about him and we wondered what he was doing with an escort of soldiers going through the shoe-market.
"I ran to an upper window and I saw that he hesitated and then turned back and I thought to myself 'Probably he's missed the way, he wants to go to the post-station, and I suppose he's carrying his valuables and he's asked for a safeguard.' But some other people came in and we had more high play.
"There was a ball on that evening at The Three Crowns. All the nobility and their ladies and the officers of the garrison, including the Governor, were there. I think it may have been rather dull, for some of the men came round to this house. Weber ran the place well, he made it entertaining. There were always pretty women and the play was high and the drinks were good. We had some excellent musicians, too, and a Frenchwoman singing. Of course, it wasn't open for anyone who passed to come in, but one gentleman introduced another.
"I don't know what time it was—it must have been about half-past ten or so—when the traveller did return."
Martha Brander paused; Lydia bit her nether lip and looked down steadily on the floor. She had resolved not to interrupt by as much as a gesture the woman's narrative.
"Yes, he came back. Weber himself was going to the door then and he said it was a traveller who was waiting for his carriage and wanted a little diversion. He came in, to the large room downstairs—that is shut up now, I think, for the old woman can't let it. It looked very gay that night—we had candles on the walls, a table in the middle and everyone standing about, and he came in and spoke to me, said he remembered seeing me on the doorstep. He seemed—you know—distracted, as if he wasn't quite sure why he was there, as if he was looking for something he couldn't find, or trying to think of something he couldn't remember.
"He sat down at the tables and played a little, at random, I thought. He took out some Brunswick louis d'or and a fine golden foreign coin which I suppose was English. He spoke German quite fluently, and there was something about him very remarkable. He wasn't wearing the sable cloak."
She paused again and Lydia, without looking up, asked:
"Could you describe him to me?" To herself: 'How hopeless this is! She could not have seen him clearly in the glimpse she had from the door, in the half-dark; she has heard him described many times.'
Still Martha Brander readily described the missing traveller.
"He was uncommonly tall and slender. He had very regular features, like those you see on old coins, with curly hair and little side-whiskers. He had very large grey eyes and very fine hands, like a woman's. Yet he wasn't weak or silly-looking, but a very splendid young man. He had a grey coat, frogged with braid and grey overalls.
"And I noticed, of course, all the jewels he had, and I thought that he was crazy or very inexperienced to be there alone, and I wondered if he had a friend or a servant with him. In fact, I wondered about him a good deal.
"I sat down beside him and he seemed to turn to me as if I were somebody he knew among a lot of strangers. And I asked him all these questions, and many more besides.
"He said he was a fur merchant on his way to the Baltic, and he was tired of sitting down at the post-house while the coach was got ready. He added it was a long time since he had had any entertainment or diversions.
"He threw coins about on the table in an absent way and people began to stare. And I spread out a fan that I had then—a present from Spain, and there was a bull-fight painted on it. And I said to him behind it: 'Don't make so much show of your money here, this is an evil place.'
"And he said: 'Yes, I heard that. They call it the suspicious house, an evil house.' Then he sighed, and added: 'But I am safer here than I should be at the post-station or out on the road.'
"We couldn't talk long because everyone was looking at us—they were all curious about him. There were a number of men there whom I didn't know or like. The women were mostly strangers to me, too—trollops who moved about with the French.
"Then he said he'd play no more and went and sat in an alcove. And still they all watched him. He asked me to drink with him. Then he wrote on a piece of paper he took out of his pocket: 'Are there French or Russian spies here?'—holding his hand round it so that no one should see. And I took the pencil and wrote underneath: 'I don't know! I wouldn't trust any of them.'
"He seemed very tired, or perhaps he had drunk too much, for he sighed and rested his head on my shoulder and I whispered to him that if he was afraid he had better go to the Governor, who would put him somewhere safe. And I asked him who the soldiers were that I had seen with him crossing the shoe-market a little while before. And he told me that they were a guard he had asked for from the Governor, but he had sent them away again as they were no use.
"I thought he seemed distracted and I was sorry for him and I wondered what to do. For I thought that if he left the house alone to go back to the post-station he might be followed and murdered, either by spy or a robber. So I asked him to come upstairs with me, to rest on my bed.
"He didn't object and we were leaving the room together, but Weber, I suppose, saw my design, for he put his hand on my wrist and told me that this was no victim for me. I whispered back that I'd go shares and I added: 'You fool! Do you want to cause another disturbance? The police noticed this house once this evening—let me do it, quietly.'
"At that Weber let us go upstairs and I saw that there were two men guarding the door in the hall.
"I was employed by Weber then, and I had my room in this house—not the one I have now, but a fine apartment in the front. I began to feel very frightened," continued Martha Brander. "I thought that a mischief was intended the traveller and I did not know how to prevent this.
"I tried to warn him of his danger. I suggested that he should stay up in my apartment till it was quiet downstairs, and the men with drinking and gambling and other women had perhaps forgotten him.
"He seemed very distressed and scarcely to comprehend what I said. In my alarm I began to get angry with him. I asked him who he really was, for I did not believe his tale of being a fur merchant, and why he was dressed in such a costly fashion and what he had done with his sable cloak.
"But to none of these questions did he give any answer, but sat on my bed with his head in his hands.
"I then asked him if he were armed, and at that he took some notice and said that he had pistols in a case in the pocket of his greatcoat. He took these out and showed them to me; they were small and very beautifully made, almost like those they design for putting in ladies' muffs.
"Again I tried to warn him of his danger and again he had no sense of this and scarcely what I said. In his turn he asked me questions of the neighbourhood, about the woods and the distance and the roads out to the coast, and the river. I satisfied him as best I could, but my mind was ever on our danger.
"I went out to the head of the stairs and listened and everything seemed quiet below. I was in a difficult position—"
The woman paused and Lydia, still looking on the ground, said quietly:
"Yes, I can understand that. You did not want to attract the attention of the police or soldiers, yet you wanted some sort of legal protection."
"That was my case exactly. Remember, too, that I was really afraid of the man Weber. He had employed me in various parts of the Empire, but he was mixed up in deeper mischief than I cared to meddle in.
"I wondered what I should do. I longed to creep out of the house, as I could easily have done, and run up to the post-station and warn the traveller's friend and his servants where he was and the strange manner in which he was behaving.
"Of course, it would have been nearer to go to the Governor, either at his house or The Three Crowns, where the ball was being held, but I did not like to do that for fear of involving us all with the military.
"While I was hesitating on the staircase, Weber came out and shouted up, called me down. I did not dare to disobey. Weber stood in the passage questioning me about the traveller.
I said that he was obviously a person of great distinction and a foreigner, and that it would be very foolish to meddle with him, even to the extent of taking his watch while he slept.
"Weber said that there was something behind all this, that the traveller and his companions were probably flying from the French. He added sharply that he was not such a fool as to interfere with such a person of distinction, but he wished he would leave his house: he wondered why he had come. He talked in this vein for a while, and I thought that Weber was on my side and only wished to wash his hands of the whole business. Yet I could not wholly trust him."
"You remember your movements and all you thought and said, very clearly," put in Lydia softly.
"Yes, I do," retorted Martha Brander. "I have had to go over it in my mind so often. I even wrote it down to get it all clear."
"Still, it is possible that you make a mistake. However, go on. What was the outcome of all this?"
"The outcome was that I went into the room where they were gambling. All of them seemed to have forgotten the traveller, and I became much easier. Weber whispered to me that there were one or two dangerous men there—I knew them, of course—and I was to keep these in play, giving them wine and laughing and talking with them.
"I did so, then I moved to another group. I had had a good deal of wine myself by then; I was excited and still frightened. I knew how many spies there were about and how severe the police were. Two women had been beaten not long before for being mixed up in such a business as this. But I swear I was not very long in the gambling room before I thought I would go and look at the traveller. So I slipped out and met Weber on the stairs and he said to me: 'The gentleman has gone.'
"So I ran up to look for myself. The room was empty and no trace of him save the dint on my bed where he had sat. I thought this was very extraordinary. Still, of course, it was possible that he had slipped down after me and gone out of the house. But I could not understand how it was that Weber had not seen him, for he seemed to have been on the stairs since I had parted from him at the door of the gambling room.
"However, he told me that he had gone into another room on the ground floor in order to see who might be there, and then upstairs, and that by then the traveller had gone."
Martha Brander came abruptly to an end.
Lydia said:
"Is that all you know?"
"That is absolutely all I know. The traveller disappeared from my room and this house. Weber said that he had no knowledge of it all, that when he had gone upstairs he had found the room as I found it—empty."
"Well, one must suppose, then, that the traveller had left the house unseen somehow by Weber. He had managed to close the door softly, creep across the shoe-market without anyone seeing him. It was a wet night, there were not many people abroad, and there was no moon. It is possible, and yet it is puzzling. Do you suspect Weber?" asked Lydia steadily.
And as steadily the other woman replied:
"I did, because of his character, because of the money and the jewels the traveller had. Yet I don't know how he could have done it. This house was searched almost at once by the police—we and The Great Bear were, of course, the first to be suspected. They had the floor up and the panelling taken out in some of the rooms—as if in that short time one could have hidden a body there! But they did—believe me, both the Governor and the Burgomaster were very thorough. There was a kind of rivalry between them as to who should find the traveller."
Lydia sat silent for a moment, withdrawn into herself, looking, as it were, inwards and backwards, visualising with a disturbing clarity the scene the woman had told her. Whether it was truth or fiction, it would always live in her mind as yet another horrid picture to add to that phantom gallery she already possessed. The exhausted traveller coming to this gambling hell, going upstairs with this wretched decoy, seated on her bed in agitation and misery, fingering the toy pistols small enough to go into a lady's muff.
Well, there was truth in that detail if all the rest was lies....
"I thank you for what you have told me," she said, almost surprised at her own self-command. "It does not help me! It adds, perhaps, to my suspense and torment, but I am glad to know of it. I am not a wealthy woman, but I will spend a good deal on this. What do you ask me?"
Strangely, Martha Brander seemed reluctant to put a price on her services. She pursed her lips and shrugged; she moved her feet uneasily. At length she asked for five thalers.
"It is not much. Is there anything I can do for you besides, perhaps, money?"
Still awkward and suddenly, as it seemed, hostile, the woman replied that the lady could say a good word for her if her name came before the police or the Governor.... As Lydia gave her the money she said: "You have taken some trouble over this. You have stayed behind in hiding in Rommel just to give me this tale. I wonder why—it can scarcely have been for profit?"
Martha Brander rose and replied, still uneasily and with a touch of defiance:
"I am sorry for you. The thing got on my mind, on my nerves, if you like. I have been in several queer transactions, but there was something odd about this. I don't know—I felt for him—and for you."
Lydia thought that this sounded genuine and believed Martha Brander had really seen the missing man. It was a queer reflection—in this house, with this woman....
"Why do you say for him and for me?" she asked, moistening her lips, for they had become stiff and dry. "You should think of his wife, of his child, of his family—he has a mother and a father living, you know."
Martha Brander smiled impatiently.
"That doesn't interest me. I was thinking of you—and of him—as I said. I was sorry for you. It is a ghastly fate. I was in love once, a good many years ago, and I don't suppose you believe it, for it is not a tale that you'd care to hear. But there it is—I understand."
"I don't understand you," said Lydia in cool self-defence. "I am acting for my sister, who is not well, who is distracted, and who has had to go to Magdeburg to follow up a clue there."
"As you like," replied Martha Brander with a touch of impudence. "I don't suppose you'd be frank with me. I've only my word to give you, and God knows, that's not worth much. I told you I didn't come forward before. I've no proof of what I said and, remember, Weber and all his gang would have been on my track, and that the magistrate would have suspected me of helping to do away with him. It sounds so likely, doesn't it? I was the decoy, and they were the murderers, and we shared the spoils. It might have happened, but it didn't."
Lydia was silent, and Martha Brander added suddenly: "Do you believe me?"
"Does it matter to you whether I do or not? I can't tell whether I believe—we have heard so many tales, all of them possible, even probable. You know where I am; if you hear anything else, if you want more money—come to me."
Lydia walked out of the grey-painted room, down the drab, narrow hall, out of the wide door on to the two steps and into the shoe-market, conscious with every yard she crossed that she might be treading in almost the exact footsteps of the missing man.
She left the house that had been so long known as the 'evil house' or the 'suspicious house' or the 'house of ill-fame' with no more thought of her own danger than she had had when she had entered it, and she went through the dark streets of Rommel witHout considering for a moment that she might possibly have been in some peril, that the whole story of Martha Brander might have been a trap.
When she returned to The Three Crowns Burton was waiting for her. There had been, of course, no parcel by the evening mail from Berlin.
"There must have been a mistake," said Lydia indifferently, and the man looked at her shrewdly.
"Yes, madame, a mistake."
She could not ignore the emphasis he gave the words.
"Well, Burton," she smiled, "perhaps I do want to get rid of you sometimes. You can know where I've been if you like. I've no doubt somebody saw me and that it will be reported to Sir Francis."
"Sir Francis told me to watch you, madame. I'm sorry you beguiled me into neglecting my duty."
"I'll take the blame, Burton. I went to the house that Weber used to keep in the shoe-market. I interviewed that woman Martha Brander."
"Miss Lydia, I wish you wouldn't," said the man earnestly. "If you go into these dangerous places these people will make a prey of you."
"I gave her very little money—only five thalers."
"Had she anything of interest to tell you, madame?" said the stout man, lowering his voice.
"It is only a tale, Burton. I don't know whether to believe it or not. She said that he—Lord William—went to that house. In many ways, her story's the same as that of the other people. She described his clothes and his appearance, but of course she could have got that from other sources. She said he was agitated, but she could have learnt that, too. Well, she said he was there and went upstairs and she came down, but when she went up he was gone."
"It is possible, madame," said Burton soberly. "You see, nobody knows what he did. When Baron Kassel left him at the post-station he might have got out by a back door and gone to that house and then come back again to the post-station, just as he might have spent that time in visiting the Governor. We've no evidence, madame, have we, as to where he was while Baron Kassel was waiting outside with the carriage?"
"I don't think he'd have had time to come up to Rommel and back, and spend as long as she said he spent in that house. But then, Baron Kassel is so uncertain as to the time. It all seems left purposely vague, Burton, as if they were trying to confuse us."
"The Austrian gentleman," said Burton sternly, "should have noted the time. He should have kept his eye on Lord William, too. I wish I'd been there—there wouldn't be this confusion. I don't think he'd be missing, either."
"I dare say not, Burton. He should have had a man like you with him instead of this mysterious Swiss who vanishes."
"Did it ever occur to you, Miss Lydia," said Burton, lapsing in his earnestness into the title he had used to her when she was a child, "that the Swiss may have been murdered, too?"
"Yes, I've thought of that. I think I've thought of everything. But now I'm tired, I'm going upstairs."
"You're comfortable here, Miss Lydia? Sir Francis told me I was to make sure of that."
"Oh, yes! They have given me a chambermaid to myself. It is lonely, of course, and I don't like the rooms, they are too chill and formal. But there, what's that—"
She lifted her hand and let it fall again and went up the stairs. Burton looked after her; he felt a heavy responsibility upon his shoulders. He would be glad, he thought, when his master returned. They were in a dangerous game together and Miss Lydia was too sharp for his liking.
Within twenty-four hours Sir Francis and Rosa were back in Rommel and had taken up their quarters in the Dutch Coffee House and The Three Crowns.
Rosa seemed exhausted and peevish. As might have been expected, she had had no success at all with the Governor of Magdeburg.
"I implored him, Lydia—I was on my knees. I threatened him with the wrath of God. But still he stuck to his tale. He had had a prisoner and he had spoken of him to the lady at the ball, but that it was all a mistake. He gave me the name of the spy, Thomas Elton, the same name as he gave Herr Leermann. As you know, Mr. Canning said that no passports had been issued to a man of that name. Well, there it is, Lydia," ended Rosa with an infinite weariness, "we are baffled again."
Lydia was forced to agree, if not in her heart, at least outwardly. As a matter of form she told Sir Francis of her interview with Martha Brander, and as a matter of form he himself called at the house where the gambler Weber had once lived, only to find, as Lydia suspected he would find, that Martha Brander had gone.
'She knew that I should betray her,' thought Lydia, 'and she took care to be out of the way.'
This gave her an odd and painful sense of the woman's sincerity. She had only taken five thalers for her information and taken that, Lydia believed, only because she was in real distress. 'If she did not tell me that tale to gain money or out of malice—she did not seem malicious—or to serve some other end—and I cannot think what end it could be—then the story was as true in the whole as I knew it to be true in at least one detail—that of the pistols, a fit size for a lady's muff.'
After the ill-success of the visit to Magdeburg, and Herr Leermann's assurance that he could do no more for them, the English people decided that it was useless to remain any longer in Germany.
Sir Francis admitted both to himself and to his companions that to delay longer in Rommel was but to induce melancholia, an exasperating sense of frustration, and to spend money that belonged truly to the missing man's son.
Rosa was frantic to leave. She was willing to spend the winter in Vienna or Berlin, but not in Rommel, and this seemed reasonable enough, since they had all exhausted the resources of the small provincial town and since, also, the atmosphere of enmity about them seemed to increase with the length of their stay, save only in the case of Lydia.
The Burgomaster still affected a certain friendliness, but the Governor, and most of the inhabitants of the place, regarded Rosa and Sir Francis, at least, with stiffness and suspicion, while the provincial nobility held themselves completely aloof. The travellers also felt themselves to be under the observation, indirect, perhaps, but nevertheless diligent, of the French.
Besides, there was really nothing more that they could do. They had been over the ground again and again. Imprinted on the minds of all of them, even on that of Mrs. Prosser, who so seldom went abroad but who had to listen to the ladies' talk so frequently, were the scenes of the river Steppenitz, the post-station, the two houses known as the 'suspicious houses —The Great Bear and that once inhabited by Weber, the Dutch Coffee House, the Quitzow woods, the mill, the Governor's house, the Cathedral, and the roads that linked up these three places—the post-house, the main square and the shoe-market.
Lydia would willingly have stayed. She had by no means relinquished her great object. This was to discover the missing man, or at least some certainty as to his fate. This course she would have been able to pursue more easily and more congenially in Rommel than anywhere else. She could not say that she disliked the place in the way that Rosa and Francis and even Mrs. Prosser asserted they disliked it.
She was quite indifferent to any hostility that might surround her; indeed, she did not, when she thought of the subject at all, believe that this existed. Whatever might be felt about her companions, she believed that she was regarded with a certain interest and compassion as in the instances of the man Johann Voss and the woman Martha Brander, where she had found help and understanding. And whenever she went on her sad pilgrimages she met with a certain passive respect and even, in some cases, sympathy.
The place held her; it seemed a fitting background to her desolation. Nowhere could she hope to be happy, but in this little town which she had so peopled with ghosts and dreams and hopes and terrors, she was perhaps more at home than she could be anywhere else.
The place had become very familiar to her; the aspect of it was printed like a map on her mind. The poignant melancholy of the dark woods and the river and its tributary fitted exactly into her mood.
She liked to be near the post-station, to visit it often; there, at least, there was no mystery. It was not denied by anyone that he had been there. She could see the chair in which he had sat, the table on which he had slept, the length of road on which he had paced up and down while waiting for the carriage to be ready. She could trace his steps, too, from the post-house to the market-square, to the Governor's house, where he had called, for that was not in dispute either. For the rest, she had scenes on which her fancy could run free. The desolate Great Bear with the beer-gardens behind sloping down to the mill-race, the tavern underneath the Stadthaus, the road from the great square to the shoe-market, the gambler's house, the Dutch Coffee House, the forest where the overalls and the note had been found. All these places she liked to traverse and to find there material that was sufficient for her avid passion to feed upon.
No, she had no wish to leave Rommel, for here she was nearer, she felt, to the missing man than she could hope to be anywhere.
But she had no valid excuse to remain, though she would eagerly have done so alone, living quite poorly and saving her own money to spend on her search. But she knew that no one would countenance such behaviour that would be considered eccentric and even insane and gradually draw upon her the discovery of her secret.
In every direction she was hampered by the peculiarity of her situation. She knew that Mrs. Prosser would willingly have remained with her in Rommel and shared all her vicissitudes, but then, it was impossible to remove Mrs. Prosser from her position of guardian over Rosa, it was impossible for Francis and Rosa to travel home alone together.
So Lydia acquiesced in the decision that they should leave Rommel.
Sir Francis went to Berlin and interviewed M. de Châteaurenne, who assured him once more, with a good deal of polite emphasis, that the French Government was entirely innocent of the disappearance of Lord William Bracebridge, and that must therefore be ascribed to the activities of private criminals.
The French Minister added that he was himself intensely interested in the case and that he had followed it in all its details. The evidence collected by the Berlin authorities when they went to Rommel to hold a Commission on the affair had been put before him.
"You must admit that it is very contradictory," said Sir Francis coolly.
M. de Châteaurenne admitted that it was, but repeated once more that it was no affair of his nor of the French Government.
"It is clear to me," he said, "that this young man, was much too inexperienced for his mission, allowed his nerves to get the better of him, and behaved in such a foolish way as to attract the attention of some criminals who murdered and robbed him and were skilful enough to dispose completely of the body. This has been supposed," added the Minister shrewdly, "to have been an impossible thing to do, but when you consider the long sandy reaches of the Elbe and how easy it would be to bury a body there and how impossible to find the exact spot underneath the continually shifting, moving sands—well, it does not seem to me a difficult thing to have accomplished."
"Do you," asked Sir Francis bluntly, "know what his mission was?"
The Frenchman smiled pleasantly. "How should I know for certain," he replied blandly, seeing that we never had his papers in our hands? But he was not very clever nor very prudent, and I can make a good guess that his mission was to foment a rebellion in the Tyrol."
"It would have been, then, very convenient for you, M. de Châteaurenne, if he had fallen into your hands!"
"Maybe," said the Frenchman, with a genial tone. "But it is useless, sir, for you to endeavour to gain any more information out of me—either directly or obliquely. I know nothing of the matter whatsoever. M. de Cambacérès and the Emperor himself have expressed their interest in and regret at this affair."
"What," asked Sir Francis, "do you think was on my friend's mind if it was not the knowledge that he was being pursued by French spies?"
"I should say, from Baron Kassel's evidence," replied the Frenchman, "that he was concerned with some private affair; probably some news contained in the last mail that Hoffman brought from England had greatly disturbed him."
Sir Francis was silent for a second and looked away. Then he said slowly:
"That would not account for Kassel's behaviour, which was as idiotic as that of Bracebridge himself."
"I can throw no light on the behaviour of M. Kassel," replied the French Minister. "No doubt you think he is in our employ, and it will be quite useless for me to assure you that that is not so."
Seeing he could obtain no more, Sir Francis asked for a reassurance that the safe-conduct already granted to his party would be respected. They intended to return to England by France as soon as the weather was settled fair, say at the end of May.
This request was readily granted. The French Minister renewed the passports and told Sir Francis that neither he nor any of his party would have need of the carte de santé with which most travellers had to provide themselves before going to Paris.
Sir Francis expressed himself as very grateful for this courtesy, though he knew, of course, that such bland amiability would be the best disguise the French Government could put over any criminal action of their own. Still, the courtesy, even if completely insincere, was useful.
Sir Francis had only two more questions to put to the Minister. One was about the prisoner in the fortress of Magdeburg. M. de Châteaurenne repeated the Governor's assurance that this man was not Lord William, but an English spy, or at least a man working for Mr. Canning of the English Foreign Office. It was not strange that a passport issued to him had not been found in the archives of the British passport office, since he had probably been travelling under another name.
"Besides," added M. de Châteaurenne with a smile, "it is quite likely that even to such dear and close friends as yourselves, Mr. Canning would deny the movements of his spies."
"Is it not possible," asked Sir Francis, "for me to see this man? My agent, M. Leermann, has already asked it. So has my sister-in-law, Lady William, on her knees."
"I deeply regret," replied the Ambassador, in formal and rather cold tones, "that, as you have already been informed, this spy has been sent to Spain, taking his wife and children with him."
"You can, then, give me no absolute proof that he is not the missing man?" asked Sir Francis with sudden force and emphasis.
His challenge was unsuccessful. The Minister merely repeated, with increasing coldness:
"I can give you no proof—only my word."
One more question Sir Francis put.
"Have you, I appeal to your kindness and courtesy, come across this name that was found on the scrap of paper in the pocket of the overalls—that of the Comte Véfour?"
The Minister assured the Englishman that this name was totally unknown to him.
When Sir Francis returned to Rommel he found that the ladies had packed all their effects into the large trunks that they had brought with them across the Baltic.
Rosa was inclined to be extravagant and to wish to travel with a good deal of paraphernalia, but Lydia, aided by Mrs. Prosser, had sternly kept all this within reasonable limits and so had cleverly contrived that there was but a modest amount of baggage to strap on the back of the stout hired berline that was to take them through Germany.
Burton had done much of Sir Francis's packing and many of the tedious preliminaries about engaging carriage, horses and so on, which he had contrived by the aid of Fritz, the waiter who spoke English.
The date for leaving Rommel was fixed for May 5th, and Rosa's spirits seemed to mount as this date of departure grew nearer. But over Lydia fell a sadness that approached panic.
She left her last visit to the painted angel until the day before their departure.
"If I go before, I shall go again," she said to herself, "and there will be no end to it."
Stating her intention openly, "I am going to the Cathedral to pray," she crossed the square from The Three Crowns, and entered the richly ornamented doorway into those quiet shadows that had become to her so familiar.
She was usually alone in the church, for she avoided the times of the ceremonies or services and usually peeped through the door first to see if there were many worshippers seeking consolation at the same time as she herself came there for comfort.
Usually the church was deserted, save at the formal times of services. The sacristan knew her now, she had fee'd him handsomely enough, and he looked at her with that half-reserve, respect and compassion to which she had grown accustomed in the inhabitants of Rommel.
Yes, the church was empty now. She went straight to her usual place. She always expected that they would remove the painted angel from its temporary position in the niche, built for some long-since destroyed tomb. But he was still there, brandishing the broken thorns, looking down with that squinting stare, that pouting smile—rigid, gaudy, menacing.
'It does not matter,' thought Lydia, 'if I ever see it again or not. I shall never forget it.'
She knelt on the wooden faldstool, wearing her dark-green travelling attire with the plain felt hat pulled down over her hair that she had dressed with such an indifferent hand.
The shadows seemed thicker to-day, although the weather was fair without, and the smell of damp and decay like that of a charnel-house was more noticeable.
'Why,' thought Lydia, 'do I come to this place? What is its horrible fascination for me? '
She asked herself these questions deliberately, trying to probe into the heart of her emotions.
From her beaded satchel she pulled out the tablets on which were the faint phantoms of her name written seven times. Coincidence! Was there such a thing? She had no proof, certainly, but her name was not a common one, even in England, and in Germany, as she believed, quite rare.
Ah, she knew, though she had no proof! The chain of hair and pearls, the mutilated tablets, the pistols fit for a lady's muff! Someone had seen him. Some of these people were telling, if not the truth, at least a half-truth.
She looked up over her shoulder swiftly, as she was wont to do when she knelt in front of the angel. She was conscious of him all the time and when she glanced round like this, it was because she felt as if he had moved, almost touched her or struck her with the upraised sword.
But now she struggled with her fancy, rose and left the church, gazing first steadily at the dark and dank hollow that was the back of the painted angel.
She did not return to The Three Crowns, but, crossing the square again, went to the shoe-market and farther on out through Rommel, to the edge of the great forest on the far side.
It was still light; she had several hours before she need return to the hotel. She was to see the Quitzow woods for the last time
'Or is it the last time? I think that I shall return to this place.'
She had outwitted Sir Francis and Burton and did not wish to stop to get her horse for fear of attracting their attention. She believed that the boys in the stable where her mount was kept were in the pay of Sir Francis and would let him know of her movements.
So on foot she walked towards Quitzow and reached the beginning of the vast wood while it was still broad daylight.
Without conscious volition she went directly to the spot where the overalls had been found, where the woman gathering brushwood had noticed the black dog.
The weather was calm, the skies colourless and the sunshine pale. Here, so far north, spring would be very late, she knew, and May might come and go without flowers. But there was the beginning of fresh green on the high fir-boughs among the blue-black needles and rusty withered foliage of last year.
The wood seemed immense. The carriage road ran at once into dark shadow on which there was only now and then a faint lozenge or bar of light. The side paths, too, were soon indistinguishable in the gloom.
Lydia wished that she could go into the wood and walk on and on, as they did in the evil fairy stories, until she met her fate, either in the fairy palace on the enchanted lake, where she could live for ever in an idle dream, or in the ferocious ogre who would slay her at once and end her misery.
These fancies were not to her, then, childish, but typified with desperate accuracy her feelings and her circumstances.
As she paused on the edge of the wood she saw an animal run out of it, and all her blood seemed to leap with the shock, when she realised that this was a black dog such as the old woman must have seen.
'Why, there's nothing odd in that,' she reassured herself. 'I am becoming a fool like these superstitious peasants. The dog belongs to some charcoal-burner.'
She moved forward through the first sparsely growing trees, and then she saw an old woman picking up sticks, with her back towards the road.
Lydia smiled bitterly at her own credulity. Why had she wildly hoped for something so much more than this?
The old peasant had a gaunt figure and was uncommonly tall. She was dressed in a miserable fashion, in many skirts of drab-coloured and faded cloth, a large apron tied round her waist and a coarse shawl over her shoulders, her head covered in a dirty white napkin over which she wore a faded hat.
Lydia would not have noticed her had it not been for the coincidence of the black dog. This inevitably took her mind to the circumstance of the finding of the pantaloons. She thought: 'If the dog belongs to the woman and the dog was here shortly before the overalls were discovered, it is possible that this old woman knows something about them.'
She therefore waited for an opportunity to speak to this wretched-looking creature, who seemed, however, entirely absorbed in her task of picking up the scant driftwood from under the pine trees.
When at length she turned, Lydia was startled to see that the lower half of her face was bandaged across as if she suffered from some wound, disease, or scar. The felt hat was drawn low over her brows and this left very little of her face visible and Lydia, whose nerves had been for some time in a state of tension and who had cultivated recently her powers of observation, felt at once that the woman was in disguise and did not wish to be recognised.
Yet this supposition seemed, on the face of it, nonsense. Lydia considered rapidly. 'What should this creature be doing in disguise in this wood, where no one is likely to come? How would she know that I should be here to-day? No, it is nonsense! She is merely the wife of some miserable charcoal-burner whose features are probably eaten away by some loathsome complaint.'
Lydia then spoke to the old woman, asking her a few commonplace questions as to where she lived and what her occupation was.
In a hoarse and broken voice that the Englishwoman could not help thinking was feigned, the old creature replied:
"My lady, I have no occupation and no home. I wander here and there. It doesn't take much to make the living of a poor broken creature like myself."
This was well enough, but Lydia still thought the voice, which had a distinctly foreign accent, was odd.
"Is this dog yours?" she asked, pointing to the sleek, nondescript animal that was snuffing round the pine-needles.
"No, he is not mine. He belongs to one of the charcoal-burners, but sometimes when I am out he follows me."
"I suppose that is the dog that was seen here when the missing traveller's overalls were discovered. Of course you have heard all about that?"
"I suppose I have," replied the old woman, her voice still coming muffled and harsh from behind the soiled kerchief, "seeing the whole district was out to hunt for him, and they broached three or four barrels of brandy as a reward."
"A reward for what?" asked Lydia sadly. "Nothing was found. Did you join in that search, good mother?"
"Aye, that I did, and had my drop at the end of it. As for the dog, he may very well have been here; his master lives not far away. What's odd about that?"
The old woman bent again to the ground and continued picking up the wide-open fir-cones of last year, which she was putting with her driftwood into a small basket she had on her back. Lydia noticed that she wore dirty cotton gloves.
"You must excuse me, my lady, if I'm not a pretty sight. I had the smallpox last year! Imagine that, at my age! The scars don't seem to heal and the charcoal-burners ask me to keep myself wrapped up; they say I frighten the children."
Lydia drew back a step. There was something extremely repulsive in this gaunt figure in the discoloured rags attended by the smooth, black, evil-looking dog.
"I suppose you know who I am?" she asked.
"Yes, I know who you are, my lady. Everyone knows that, of course. Well, you've wasted your time and your money. You've not found out anything, have you?"
"I've found out a few things," said Lydia. She believed that the old woman was listening to her very attentively, though she feigned to be occupied with the fir-cones. "We have one or two clues. Although we are going to-morrow, we shall come again."
The old woman repeated " Going to-morrow!" as if she was surprised.
"Yes, didn't you know that?" said Lydia. "You who gossip over all our affairs! I suppose even the charcoal-burners know all our movements pretty well!"
"Pretty well," replied the old woman, with a chuckle. "You speak German much better than you did when you came here."
"How do you know that?" Lydia was startled into the question.
"Oh, as you say—we discuss you. All the inhabitants of Quitzow are very interested in the affair. What do you suppose? There may be some more barrels of brandy to be had! Oh, yes, we know about all your interviews with the Governor and the Burgomaster, and all your rakings through the underworld of Prussia, and all those many tales that have been told you—and not one of them true."
"We would pay a great deal to know the truth—or even a little of the truth," said Lydia, moving in her earnestness nearer to the distasteful old creature.
"What do you suppose I could tell, my fine lady?"
"I don't know! I don't know what anyone could tell me! I don't know what to believe! As you said yourself, just now, so many tales have been told us!"
"Do you think he was murdered here and buried in the woods?" asked the old woman, straightening herself. She was nearly a head taller than Lydia and large-boned.
Lydia thought: 'I believe she is a French spy! I believe they employ such hags as these in these disguises. Perhaps even—as cook or washerwoman—she has been in The Three Crowns.'
But she still deliberately maintained her candour. It was, she knew, her best defence.
"I am not interested in politics, or the rights and wrongs of the war," she declared boldly. "I am reckless of life; I no longer remember that I am an Englishwoman. I care for nothing but to trace this missing traveller."
"You care! What about his wife?"
"I speak, of course, for my sister."
"Your sister!" The old woman folded her arms on her chest under the long grey fringed shawl. Her voice, coming through the folded scarf, had a firmer note as she said: "Does your sister want to find her husband alive or to prove that he is dead?"
Lydia did not answer: she stood rigid and alert.
"To prove that he is dead?" repeated the old woman.
"Why should she want to do that?" asked Lydia slowly, giving the expected challenge.
"In order that she might marry someone else," chuckled the hag. "That would be just human nature—poor human nature—wouldn't it?"
"What makes you talk so foolishly and so presumptuously, good mother?"
"Oh, I'm a wise woman and I live in the woods, and I study the sun and the moon and the stars and the simples that grow in the woods, and I know a thing or two!"
"You can't know that," replied Lydia, "it is nonsense!"
"Is it? If you mixed with the charcoal-burners and the peasants and the gamekeepers and the hunters and all the people that I mix with and hear their talk, you'd know that's what they all say. That pretty lady don't want to find her husband, unless it's his bones. She wants to know he's dead."
Lydia knew that she ought to go away and refuse to listen to this foul, wild talk. But she was fascinated, held despite her reason, despite the fact that the slow, northern dusk was blurring the forest and the road from Rommel along which she had come. It was the old woman who reminded her of the approach of night.
"You had better go back. You're without your faithful bulldog, aren't you! And so you're leaving to-morrow! Well, good-bye, and good luck to you."
"Can't you tell me," pleaded Lydia with a touch of panic, "anything at all? You who live here in the woods!"
"I said he might be killed and buried in the woods, didn't I? How could the police and the soldiers and the huntsmen, or the whole lot of them put together, have dug over every inch of the woods or every inch of the sands of the Elbe—come to that? Why don't you believe he's dead? Why don't she marry the other man?"
"You are not speaking like a peasant, but like an educated person," said Lydia. "Your face is disguised and your voice, too, I think. You had better be careful. Remember that I am under powerful protection and though I seem to be alone I have only to blow this whistle," she took it from her bosom, "and help will come immediately."
The old woman laughed; her voice had a mournful sound. Lydia thought there was youth in it, too, and that she was much younger than she affected to be.
"Well, my lady, I mean this seriously. I can assure you he's dead. He'll never come back, he'll never disturb his wife again. Go home and forget him."
"Do you know he's dead? Have you proof of it?"
"I suppose she would pay a good deal for that proof!"
"Never mind my sister—I am talking for myself. You are a woman—I suppose, some time or other, you were fond of someone or someone was fond of you and you knew the torments of losing them or being parted from them, or being thwarted in some way in your liking for them?"
"I know all that," interrupted the old woman contemptuously. "You can't teach me anything."
"You have then, some compassion?" asked Lydia.
The old creature replied harshly:
"You aren't searching for him because you hate him!"
"Who is doing that?" exclaimed the Englishwoman, taken aback. "Who would be searching for him because they hate him?"
"I've told you, haven't I—they want to find him dead. Hate him! yes, they hate him! He was in the way, he wouldn't make up his mind. They tortured each other!"
Lydia came swiftly over the pine needles until only a foot of them separated her from the old woman.
"You know something," she said; "you have found his papers."
"Ah! I've hit on the truth then. So true that you think I must have read his papers!"
"What had he got in those papers—I mean the last mail that the man Hoffman brought him from England? The letters!—what became of them? And how is it that you could read them—in English?"
"Maybe I couldn't! Maybe there were others who could! Maybe I didn't read them at all and it's just my knowledge of human nature. I told you I was a wise woman—a witch, if you like. Maybe they would have burnt me in the old days—and you, too, my pretty lady, with your bold ways. Coming alone into these dangerous parts at nightfall, looking for what? Searching for your lost lover, eh?"
Lydia did not blench and the increasing dark and the shadows of the black pine boughs hid her face in the shadow of the feathered hat.
"You are wrong," she said quietly. "Not my lover—my sister's husband. You have got this story confused. I am sorry to let you go without making you tell me more, but I am at your mercy. I cannot express to you what this means to me."
"Nor to me," said the old woman, with a harsh sound coming between a sob and a laugh.
She turned away and hobbled and limped through the shadows of the wood, the black dog at her heels.
Instinctively, Lydia followed, picking up her long skirts and hurrying between the straight reddish trunks. The old woman moved quicker and knew the way better. She left the path and disappeared behind some trailing undergrowth, briars with fox-red stems and a few of the first pale leaves underneath the thorns.
By the time that Lydia had made her way round these brambles the old woman and the dog had disappeared in the thickening shadows.
With an effort Lydia recalled herself to the commonplace. The old woman's appearance, manner, and the wild things she had said, the secret knowledge she seemed to possess had been like an enchantment to Lydia and caused her to forget everything.
Now she remembered where she was and the falling dark and the necessity of returning home before Sir Francis was seeking her and making a hue and cry in Rommel.
So she ran through the trees, and with her flight her fear increased. It seemed to her that a horde of phantoms were at her heels and goblins chattering in the dark boughs overhead.
When she gained the high road that glimmered pale in the dusk her native boldness returned. She walked, hurriedly but without panic, back to Rommel, her heart and mind in a tumult.
She had not been missed. Sir Francis was in the bleak pale salon that now looked even more chill and unfriendly than usual, for the few articles of personal property that the ladies had placed about had been removed and packed and the trunks stood ready in a corner and the valises were beside the long stiff settee where Rosa and Lydia had so often sat and talked and wept together.
Rosa was plainly agitated, her eyes moist, her cheeks flushed. She was seated one side of the fireplace and Sir Francis was standing at the other, staring down into the flames.
Lydia saw at once the reason for their air of restraint. The door to the adjoining bedroom was half-open and Mrs. Prosser, in her white shawl, white gown, white apron, could be seen within, hemming her yards of ruffles, her large tranquil pallid face with the steel-rimmed glasses and spectacles bent with an absorption over her work, while the candle that she had just lit beside her sent her shadow dancing monstrous on the plain wall behind.
"Where have you been, Lydia?" asked Rosa peevishly, not really wanting an answer, as Lydia saw, but eager to talk, to make a distraction after a moment of tension.
"To see the painted angel for the last time," sighed Lydia, taking off her hat and putting her fingers to her hair, shaking the curls into place, "you know how he fascinates me."
"There are painted angels at home, Lyddy," said Sir Francis; "have you forgotten those in St. Felix's on the cliffs?"
"No, I suppose that's why I feel drawn to this one!" Lydia's breath was coming painfully.
He continued with his amiable suavity:
"You have been hurrying. I shall be glad when we leave Rommel and there is no longer an excuse for you to take these lonely walks. You will discover nothing, and the whole business will gradually get on your mind, obsessing you."
"Hasn't it done that already?" exclaimed Rosa impatiently. "Do we, any of us, talk or think of anything else?"
"You can talk and think of other things now, Rosa," said Lydia, kneeling down before the fire, pulling off her gloves and holding out her chill fingers before the blaze. "We're going home, aren't we! You'll see little Robert again, and father and mother, and all our friends."
"That's weeks ahead," said Rosa; "there is a long journey first."
"But we're going by Paris this time, dear, not that tedious way by the Baltic."
Lydia looked up at Sir Francis. 'It's telling on him,' she thought to herself, 'although he does it very well.' Aloud she said:
"You'll be glad to go, won't you, Frank? It is a long strain. You must be sick of the sight of this place and of all the people in it, and of us."
"That sounds as if I've failed you," smiled Sir Francis. "No, I shan't be glad to go, Lyddy. I feel near to it here. I daresay you have had that sensation, too, as if, when we're on the actual spot, we're more likely to discover something!"
"Yes, yes," said Lydia, not looking at him, "I do feel that. It is foolish, of course, for if anything were discovered it would be sent to us at once. You have instructed Leermann, I suppose?"
"Yes. He's a queer fellow. He seems more interested in his medals and cuts than anything else. He thought of coming to Suffolk again to look at my collection. I'd give it to him gladly for the least scrap of information."
"It's horrible to go back, as it were, empty-handed, to all those expectant people," said Lydia. "Father and mother, his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, all of them. You know that it's got on their nerves, too. His mother, of course, will never believe that he is dead."
"No. The women who loved him will never believe that," said Sir Francis, slightly raising his voice.
Lydia looked up at him swiftly; his handsome profile, with the full chin that showed maturity, the dark-shadowed eyes and the delicately-turned nose and nostrils, was towards her. She felt, with a horrible sense of forlorn powerlessness, that he was her enemy and would be, if need arose, a merciless one. But she tried to banish this impression.
'It is Frank, after all,' she told herself, 'who played with us. He can't help what's happened. We were all children together; he can't hate me any more than I can hate him. It's just the way things have gone—'
Rosa came also to the hearth. Her hair, usually arranged with regularity, fell into a confusion on to her Andalusian shawl, the fringe of which trailed over her full skirt shot with blue and lilac taffeta.
"Our clothes are getting worn out," she complained wearily and irrelevantly; "we couldn't have stayed away from London much longer. I'm sure all my things are in rags; Prossy can't turn them about much more. That reminds me, Lyddy, the man called with your shoes while you were out. Why are you concerning yourself about a pair of old dance shoes here?"
"And why," asked Sir Francis casually, "did you take them to Voss, who has such an atrocious reputation?"
"It was interesting for me to do so," said Lydia, careful to keep the triumph or surprise out of her voice. "I was sorry for the fellow, too. After all, he was dragged through a lot of vexations because of us. And he has a reputation for being very skilful."
"You could have had them done at Fisher's, at home, much better," remarked Sir Francis. "I think you know it, Lydia!"
"Well, if she wants a whim," said Rosa, coming unexpectedly to her sister's defence, "why shouldn't she have it? It is so boring here, one snatches at anything. And I believe the man is very clever. He left the shoes and they looked to me as if they had just been made."
"Did he leave anything else?" asked Lydia, staring into the fire. "Any message, any note?"
"Nothing. I was just to tell you that the price would be two thalers, and that was all."
Lydia read what was behind these words. It meant that Voss had not discovered anything, or would not relate what he had discovered. There was an end of that matter; that channel was choked. No more was to be learnt there, any more than there was anything to be learnt through Martha Brander or Julia Hackmann, or the servant girls, all of whom now had left Rommel.
Continuing her thoughts, she said aloud:
"Have you noticed, Rosie, it is always women who have come to us? With Martha Brander that makes five—five different women have come to us with five different tales, but never a man!"
"What does that show, Frank?" asked Rosa, opening her wide, slightly bloodshot eyes in a staring fashion on her friend.
"Simply that your sex is slightly more artful than mine, I suppose, my dear Rosa. And now I must go. I must see that Burton has done everything. One can trust him, no doubt, but he still doesn't know much German, and if we rely on Fritz, the interpreter, we may be in confusion yet."
When he had gone Rosa cast herself into her sister's arms with a sudden burst of childish tears.
"Lyddy, I feel so wild and weak, so forlorn and deserted. Oh, Lyddy, I don't know how I can endure!"
"You're going home to your child, dear, and all those who love you," sighed Lydia. "Don't give way now! Come, I will ring for a little supper to be sent up, and then Prossy shall put you to bed."
"No, she shan't," protested Rosa lifting her face, blurred with tears. "I don't want her to come near me and when we get home I won't see her again. She can live with you if you like, Lyddy, but I've had enough of Mrs. Prosser. I hate her!—the very look of her! It is as if she spied on me!"
"Hush, dearest! She'll hear you, the door is open."
"Yes, I know the door is open; it is never shut! I don't get a moment to myself."
"You wouldn't want it, Rosa, would you?" asked Lydia sternly. "You know you can't be shut up with Frank for hours together."
"Why not? Why not? Isn't he our best friend? Hasn't he come here to look after us?"
"Don't talk foolishly, Rosa! What would these people think! They suppose either that he is betrothed to me or that you are more interested in him than you are in finding William."
Rosa shuddered against her sister's bosom and Lydia felt the slim body grow taut. It was the first time facts had been put so clearly between them.
"William said on that scrap of paper," whispered Rosa into her sister's breast, "that I might, if I wished, marry again."
"Are you sure he wrote that, Rosa? Do you want to take notice of it if he did?"
"Well, I'm young! I couldn't live for ever like this, could I? A widow—for ever! At twenty-five! Oh, that's cruel, Lydia!"
"It's all cruel and has been from the first! Don't let's talk of it, Rosa, or we'll say too much."
"But tell me this, Lyddy, I must speak of it to someone. You say I mustn't talk of it to Frank and I suppose father and mother and his parents would be hurt if I talked of it to them—how long have I got to wait before I really am a widow?"
"I don't know! I don't know! Who can tell you? What's the law in one country isn't in another. I think in England it's seven years."
"Seven years!" wailed Rosa. "And only two have gone!"
Lydia took her sister's small, hot hand from her own neck and placed the weak and trembling girl on the settee.
"Don't let's talk any more, Rosie. Perhaps it's as terrible for other people as it is for you. Don't hate Mrs. Prosser, she's a faithful servant, a good friend—she'll get you some tea."
On the following day the five English people left Rommel.
The Governor called on them formally to wish them 'bon voyage' and to express his regret that their investigations had proved so fruitless. He was, they all knew, glad to be rid of them. Their visit had been to the harassed Captain Von Alten nothing but a series of vexations, and even of humiliations. Whereas the Burgomaster had enjoyed the whole business, the Governor had found it most tedious, harassed as he was by the responsibility of his position and by the echoes of war ever coming nearer his frontier.
He had offered an escort of cuirassiers as far as the frontiers of Prussia, and this Sir Francis had accepted. Since the disappearance of the English Ambassador there were few who were bold enough to travel unprotected.
Lydia, Rosa and Mrs. Prosser were in the coach, with Burton on the box beside the driver. Another carriage followed with the German servant just hired, and the baggage. Sir Francis rode in front of the little detachment of cavalry.
And so, on a day of pallid sunshine, the English travellers left The Three Crowns and the town of Rommel, crossed the great Square by the statue of Roland, looked for the last time at the Cathedral, turned round by the Stadthaus, went down the side street and the road bordered with sandy banks and pines, passed between the post-station and the empty tavern of The Great Bear and took the high road to Berlin.
AFTER a stay of some weeks in Paris the travellers arrived home at the height of an English summer. There were glad, yet fearful greetings with their relatives and friends, numbers of conferences, interviews, explanations and exchanged bewilderments.
Sir Francis showed to the parents of the missing man, and to Dr. and Mrs. Ardress, all the information he had gathered during his travels, together with Herr Leermann's report. This made a large pile of papers and looked a formidable dossier sufficient to unravel any mystery, elucidate the ramifications of any crime. But, in sum, it amounted to very little.
Sir Francis waited on Mr. Canning and Lord Clinton, also, and told Lydia that the Ministers were of the opinion that Lord William had been seized by the French and taken to the fortress of Magdeburg, where he had probably been murdered.
While this routine business was going on, Rosa went with Mrs. Ardress and her little son to Bath. Her health was poor, she was sleeping badly, was frequently feverish, and her distressed mother often discovered her weeping forlornly. Her child failed to distract her. She refused entirely the companionship of Mrs. Prosser and, as far as she could, that of Lydia.
Lydia took Mrs. Prosser to Ardress Hall near the Suffolk coast. It was a fine house and modest estate that had been left to her father, the Bishop, by his elder brother, Sir Henry Ardress, and after his death, to her; a small fortune was already hers.
Lydia was very affectionate and had always kept on close terms with all the members of her family. She had had a peculiar regard for her bachelor uncle who had died shortly before the tragedy that had shattered her life.
She found, therefore, a certain consolation in coming to this place which was associated with him, his stately serene mode of life that seemed to belong to an older, more tranquil world—as the day before yesterday always seems more tranquil than to-day.
The Bishop had his cares and his work, and her brothers were soldiers; both of them were stationed abroad. Lydia, then, did not find it difficult to obtain the solitude that she desired. Her mother was absorbed in Rosa's tragedy and it was well understood by her other relatives and friends that she, as well as Lady William, had need of some repose after her months of arduous and painful investigations.
Ardress Hall was peaceful, but it was also, to Lydia, haunted; she carried her phantoms with her always. The trim mansion stood among a fine parkland and rich pasturages that undulated above the marshland and the river flats that ran to the sea-coast dunes through woods of oak and beech that were, for this county, on a high level.
Beyond the stone gates, guarded by slender unicorns that held on pointed shields the Ardress arms, was the large flint church built in the days when this strip of coast had been prosperous ship-building and fishing, but that now was deserted. The men who had erected this and many other churches in thanksgiving for their worldly prosperity and to the glory of God had lived in the lost port, and had been swept away by the sea tides; their bones, sucked out of their family graves by the encroaching waves, lay beneath the silver sands of the ocean-bed.
Beyond the church were the ruins of a Franciscan monastery, and beyond that again were the woods and fields that belonged to Sir Francis Lisle and surrounded his handsome mansion that his grandfather had rebuilt in the classic style that was so fashionable.
It was a clear, cloudless summer and the still weather and the solitude with these few people who respected her—for the servants had all known her since she was a child, and Mrs. Prosser was as familiar to her as her mother—soothed Lydia into a resigned acquiescence in her fate. Her anguish became tempered with a tender melancholy, and often when she wandered on the silver dunes between the clumps of wide blue grass, sea pinks and sea lavender, crisp and dry beneath her feet, she was in that mood that says: Time truly cures all and now it is curing me. Even then she no longer had any doubt but that he was dead.
In order that she might resign herself to this stroke and gain some courage, she wrote out on a sheet of fair white paper again and again: 'He is dead!'
Yes, at the age of twenty-four years, full, as people glibly say, of brilliant promise, happy in his life, his love, and his career, or so it seemed—the young Englishman had perished. The first, and commonplace solution was, no doubt, correct, though eager passion had refused to accept it; Lydia wrote down the story.
After the disaster of Austerlitz, the English envoy had still contrived to conclude with the Imperialists the secret scheme—the revolt in the Tyrol—with which he had been entrusted by Mr. Canning. He had had all the papers relative to this on his person. He had been warned that somehow news that he was carrying important documents had leaked out and that the French spies were in pursuit of him.
In ill-health, distracted and disturbed by news from home, harassed and alarmed, the young man had lost his nerve and had suggested to Baron Kassel the imprudent plan of travelling under a false name and with a false passport. And Kassel, either out of indifference or possibly because he had been bribed by the French, had acquiesced.
Then, perhaps, followed the flight—for it was little more—from Berlin to Rommel. At Rommel, the Englishman's nervousness increased. He might even have observed or been told of the people who were following him. These were the two notes unaccounted for. He knew that he was in danger from the douaniers montés, therefore he had asked for a safeguard. But afterwards he had thought that this would only attract attention to him and begged for them to be dismissed.
The Scharres had probably been in touch with French spies. They had, under cover of the dark, wet night and probably with the aid of the landlord of The Great Bear, set men about the posting-station and had seized the opportunity to drag the Englishman away, either stunning him or gagging him. He had probably been taken some distance in a carriage, either murdered at once and buried in the sandy banks of the Elbe or in the depths of the Quitzow woods, or else taken to some fortress and disposed of later. The papers, of course, had been seized and all his jewellery and clothes destroyed, with the exception of the pantaloons that had been spread out six weeks later at the edge of the woods in order to make the crime look like a common murder for robbery. By an odd oversight, or possibly from a whim of compassion, a fragment of the last letter he had written to his wife in the post-house had been left in the pocket of the pantaloons. The soldiers who had kidnapped him had probably stolen some of his personal effects. That would explain why both Julia Hackmann and Johann Voss knew of the braid of pearls and hair and were able to obtain possession of the mutilated tablets.
So Lydia forced herself to see the case in which she had been for nearly three years so intimately and so passionately concerned, desperately endeavouring to turn the cold light of reason on all those tangled emotions and desperate hauntings and disturbances.
There was no mystery then, as she tried to assure herself, only a crime, a political murder of which there had been so many in the past years of war that they were beyond count. True, it had been a daring assassination in that the man was an accredited envoy, travelling with a French safe conduct, but even such cases had been paralleled and it was only the high birth of the British envoy, his connexion with British ministers that had caused such an outcry over his disappearance. And even supposing that the word of the French Ministers might be accepted—that it was not owing to French treachery that the missing traveller had met his fate—the other alternative was commonplace too. He had lost his head, he had made a reckless display of money and jewels, and he had been murdered by some of the many vagabonds and scoundrels the wars had set upon the high roads of the Empire.
'So,' said Lydia firmly to herself, forcing herself to use all her native boldness, 'I must regard him as dead and must think that I have seen him laid in his coffin.'
And to habituate herself to this idea she went frequently to the large flint church and looked at the tombs behind the altar and in the chanceries beneath the broken stone lacework—nobles and bishops lying at their ease, one with the helm he had worn at Flodden hanging on the wall behind him. There were no memorials to the Bracebridge family here, they came from Essex, but she knew well the chapel where they had been for generations buried. She had often visited it with Rosa when she had stayed with her in the early days of her marriage at Bracebridge Hall.
So Lydia tried to think of him now as buried with his forefathers beneath a memorial that would have little to say beyond the date of his brief life and the high hopes that those who loved him had entertained of his gifts.
Her parents were concerned with Lydia's long stay in Ardress Hall, but they loved her and respected her wishes and even understood something of her mood, and if either of them thought that this was too long and passionate a grief to show for the loss of a sister's husband, their demeanour gave not a hint of any uneasiness such a suspicion might have caused.
Some of her friends visited Lydia, but her detached kindness soon showed them that her choice of solitude was a deliberate one and by the end of August she was left unmolested in the handsome, lonely house that she liked so well.
Every corner of it was known to her; since she Was a child she had been familiar with every room, With every inch of the garden, with every aspect of the park, with the home field, with the pond, with the chestnut walk, with the allée of clipped limes and wych-elms, with the sunk gardens where the water-flags grew out of the shallow pool, with the small maze that was supposed to represent the Siege of Troy and encircled the fish-pond out of which rose a bronze figure of Fortune, blindfolded and holding scales.
There Was nothing opulent nor fashionable about Ardress Hall. Everything was on a small scale, but for generations it had been carefully and proudly tended. Everything, from the china and silver in their respective closets, to the plums and peaches on the red brick walls of the kitchen garden, was looked after with careful skill.
This order, and the routine that upheld it, supported Lydia. She even experienced a ghostly happiness, that kind of faint felicity that says: Had things been different, this is the place in which I should have found joy.
She was content, too, to walk over the heath covered with gorse and bracken to those dunes of fine silver sand through which grew the flowers she had always preferred to inland blooms, the crinkled paper-like bells of thrift and sea-lavender, the pale yellow and glaucous leaves of the ocean poppy and those tufts of blue grass, broad as a lady's ribbon, that cut like a razor-blade.
Lydia found no added melancholy in these sandy stretches, nor in the solitary ruins, those broken walls where the fallen masonry enclosed fields now allowed to grow for hay, where scarlet poppies and ox-eyed daisies mingled with the tawny red of sorrel and the silver plumes of flowering grass. The only place among these familiar walks that increased Lydia's deep inner sadness was the church.
Once she had found pleasure and consolation in small troubles in kneeling in a church—in this church particularly. She could recall the contentment she had felt when she had looked up at the painted angels whose wings, some broken, some filled with lead from the muskets of Cromwell's soldiers, whose wide wings spread across the beams of the ceiling, who looked down on the worshippers beneath with smooth, benevolent faces. But that comfort was gone now and Lydia, when she gazed upwards, seemed to catch glances of menace and contempt from those oblique eyes that squinted at her, she thought, with the same malicious look the painted angel with the hollow back had turned on her in the dark Cathedral of Rommel.
Yet she could not altogether avoid the church, for she was drawn there, both by her desire to use herself to the idea that he was dead and so to turn her thoughts from this world to whatever hereafter there might be and by the fascination that those figures, carved by hands long ago dust, exercised over her.
When she was not employed in these long slow walks or rides about the countryside, between the hedges heavy with the wild-rose and eglantine that enclosed the ripening harvest or the flowering hay-fields or the low lush pastures where the cattle browsed, Lydia was seated in the room that had always been peculiarly her own when she visited her uncle.
It was termed the 'Bird Room' because the paper on the walls was covered with delicate representations of exotic birds, red, blue, black and white, perching on green boughs with wide-petalled flowers. A former Lady Ardress had had this room decorated thus and arranged the cabinet in the corner where porcelain and earthenware figures of birds brought from the East adorned the shelves. Lydia believed that this dead woman must have had a pleasant personality, for the little room that opened on to the lime-walk or pleasaunce was cheerful and tranquil and Lydia had never altered anything in it, not even the old-fashioned spinet or the mirror where the glass between the bands of inlaid tortoiseshell was so dark that to look in it was like gazing at one's reflection in a pool at evening.
There Lydia would sit, with the windows opened wide on the chequered light and shade of the path beneath the clipped limes and wych-elms. And beside the pleasaunce was a lawn with a small yew hedge on which the peacocks would sometimes wander, and beyond the maze and the fish-pond. Lydia could see almost over the whole of the small estate when she stepped from those open windows on to the warm stone of the terrace.
She knew that she was fortunate in having this interlude, in being able to sit like a lady in a tapestry, detached from everything but her own sorrow. Grief could have no fairer background.
Sometimes she tried to introduce realism into her melancholy dreams. She was a young woman, although her mind had matured early and her serious beauty was no longer that of a girl.
What was she to do with the rest of her life? She tried to remember all the bereaved women whom she had known—friends of hers who, while still young and little more than brides, had lost their husbands in the war. Some of them had married again, and almost at once, as if in terror, trying to hide up the unspeakable loss with a new happiness.
But Lydia knew that for her there could never be a substitute. She realised there were those who said there was no such thing as a deathless love, especially when one was young and comely and had money and a position. She knew that if she were to confess her case to many wise people they would tell her that she was deliberately fostering grief by shutting herself away from everything that might distract her from it, but even if this were true, Lydia preferred to do so.
She intended to indulge her passionate sorrow, dedicate the rest of her life to it. But how long should that life be?
As she sat at the open window and looked up at the pure sky on which there were faint wisps of clouds, this question was in her heart and almost hovered on her lips. She was working on a cloth for the altar of the church where the lordly tombs lay beneath the painted angels, and her needle almost traced the words—'How long shall it be?'
Should she live out her life, as she easily might, in lazy ease, refusing marriage, refusing all the duties of her position, a placid comrade to her mother and father till they died, and then perhaps to her brothers and their wives until she died? Perhaps fifty or sixty years ahead she might still be sitting in this same room, an old, old woman
'I couldn't bear to forget,' she thought. 'Anything but that! To grow old and indifferent!'
Well, it was in her own hands. Without scandal, with dignity, she could destroy herself. She could contrive so that an overdose of the opium that was freely to her hand and had always been used as a medicine for herself and Rosa, or an accident during her lonely walks, should dispose of her for ever.
She had no morbid desire to die, no feeling that life was worthless or a burden, but a wish to end it since it no longer had any meaning. And there her quick mind questioned her heart: What meaning would it have had if he had lived?—Rosa's husband!
Yes, she was at fault there. She must confess her wrong. She would have lived because he had been in the same world with her and she, though drawn ever so carefully and decorously apart, might have seen him, heard of him, known of everything that happened to him. And if Rosa had died—unlikely, but a possibility—it would not have helped her. A man might not marry his dead wife's sister.
She tried to turn the matter over in her mind and look at it from another angle. Perhaps it was thinking over his horrible fate that made her want to end the capacity for thought.
Those phantoms! The ghost of the man with the pitch-plaster over his mouth being dragged, with his hands pinioned behind him, back along the wet dark road. The man in the gambling-hell, sitting forlorn and distraught on the bed of Martha Brander. The man for whom the Governor's servant-maid had made the tea. And the man—worst of all, this picture—knocking wildly during the storm at the desolate house near the coast, embarking the next day and going down in the tempest.
All these pictures could not be true, but they mingled in one dull horror in her mind. Yes, one could not endure to live so many years thinking of them, though one hoped that with the years they would grow dimmer.
She let her sewing fall to her knees and stared down the long avenue of chequered light and shade.
Is there anything more dreadful in the world than waiting?—waiting for someone who will never return! Than the hopes that will not die, the agonised expectancy, the glance at every vacant chair and every door, at every path. Will the beloved one turn the handle? Is the beloved one sitting there? Will he come down that path, along that terrace?
'Wherever I go it will be the same!' she thought.
She stuck the needle into her finger, idly, and watched the little drop of blood well up.
Supposing they had defied what the world called honour, all the traditions of their class, and gone away together? She knew that in Europe in chaos there might have been some place where they could have hidden. Money? She had her own, a small income in consols left by the uncle in whose house she now sat. There was probably some work he could have done, too. He was clever, for instance, with watches.
She caught herself up... this was a foolish, nay more, a wicked fancy.
Yet if they had only had that amount of courage! People had done it before now! But one's sister's husband
She said to herself: 'It isn't as if Rosa loved him!'
At the thought of Rosa she gave another jolt to her meditations.
'If I destroy myself, who is to look after Rosa? I and Prossy are the only people who know. I could not, even if I had more evidence than I have, tell my parents or anyone.'
It seemed to her that she must continue to live for Rosa's sake.
But then again her tranquil mood would be broken by a wild and almost uncontrollable impulse to return to Rommel, to see again the painted angel in the Cathedral, to walk along the road that he had travelled—from the post-house to the market-square, across the market-square by the statue of Roland, past the Governor's house and The Three Crowns where she had lived so long, down to the shoe-market and the Dutch Coffee House and the house where she had sat to talk to Martha Brander....
It was Mrs. Prosser, with her flaccid, white freckled face and white shawl, cap and apron who came to Lydia in the Bird Room and told her that Sir Francis wanted to see her—merely for half an hour.
Lydia did not speak, she had great self-control, but she was entirely astonished. She had not thought of him as likely to seek her out. She did not even know that he was in England; when last she had seen him he had spoken of another diplomatic errand that would take him abroad.
"Ask him to come here, Prossy," she said carefully. She wanted to see him in the Bird Room—a feminine whim, she knew, but in that pleasant place she felt protected.
Sir Francis came almost immediately and approached at once the open window so that the sunlight was full upon him.
He had taken the usual extreme care with his appearance; she could not but admire his elegance and distinction. He was a man of her own world, and one whom, under other circumstances, she would have much admired.
He had lost, too, much of that air of nervous fatigue that had made him look so much older than his years when they were in Rommel, but his handsome eyes held an expression of resolution she did not much like.
Neither of them wasted time on commonplaces. Lydia said at once:
"I spend most of my time here. I did not know that you had come down to Suffolk."
"It was only last night," he said. "I have not troubled to open the house. There's only myself and Burton. I came on purpose to see you; I supposed that it would be some time before you returned to London."
"I don't know," said Lydia candidly. "I can't tell you anything. Rosa is safe with her mother and her boy in Bath."
"Yes, I suppose you consider that Rosa is safe," he smiled. "But what are you going to do?"
"What can I do? And what do you know about me?"
"As much, perhaps, as you know about me," he replied coolly. "You and I and Rosa, and Mrs. Prosser and Burton have all lived together in some intimacy and under strange circumstances. I suppose we got to know each other pretty well."
"I knew you pretty well before we went abroad and I suppose you realise that I did."
"Yes, I guessed that," he answered. "But now we must come to some sort of a conclusion."
"This affair can come to no conclusion. It is a tangled knot that must be cut and never can be unravelled."
"Are you never going to have any pity on Rosa?"
"Not in the sense that you mean! No! No! What," she added scornfully, "does it matter whether I have what you call pity on Rosa or no?"
She sighed, trying for her usual reserve and control. The situation was to her almost intolerable. She forgot her own passionate emotions in the horror of this moral problem. All her readings, her religion, her code, the tradition of her cast and her sex, were involved, and there was much austerity, something of the Puritan in the strictly-schooled Bishop's daughter.
"I think," said Sir Francis deliberately, "that William will never be found. I believe he is dead."
"How do you think he died?" asked Lydia, very quietly.
"I believe he was killed by Napoleonic spies. The whole thing fits together; I daresay you have put pieces of the puzzle together for yourself."
"I have. I think that what you say is quite reasonable. I suppose that he must be dead. The only possible alternative would be that he is still imprisoned in some fort like Magdeburg. It seems unlikely."
"Well that is the point that I wish to get clear with you. I shall take steps to have his death presumed and Rosa freed from fidelity to a dead husband. You may remember that the paper found in the overalls requested his wife, if he perished, to marry again?"
"Yes." Lydia rose, passed Sir Francis and went out on to the warm stone terrace. The familiar beauty, the peace of the sunny afternoon enveloped her; she looked down the quiet walk shaded with the clipped limes and wych-elms.
"When do you hope to marry her?"
"As soon as decorum allows. The present position is one of torment to us all."
"You risk," said Lydia on a quick sigh, "that William might be found after you are married. You risk the scandal that will arise, that you who were a companion in the search, will avow yourself as her lover."
"As her suitor," corrected Sir Francis. "The world is moving very quickly nowadays, Lydia, and men have a good deal to occupy their minds—the very existence of the country is threatened by a war that has grown out of all bounds. Rosa's sad haste may certainly cause a good deal of talk, but it is not to be considered unheard of that she, at her age, should marry again. Indeed," he added with the slight smile that Lydia found odious, "many people will consider that she is very prudent to accept the guardianship of a wealthy man for her child."
"I can do nothing," said Lydia, half turning away, the sunlight sending ripples of light down her gown of interchangeable gold and blue silk. "Perhaps it would be better, if William did not return, that you should marry her. But you should wait," she added with a touch of passion, "you should wait until there is not any possible hope."
"When will the time come when there is less hope than there is now?" he asked, with strong feeling in his charming voice. "Has not every clue been followed up, has not a great deal of money been spent, more perhaps than we ought to have spent, Lydia? What was the result of that expense in Rommel, those journeys to Berlin? We had a lot of tales from interested rogues and drabs who tried to pull the wool over our eyes for the sake of our money. We discovered nothing."
"I," said Lydia flatly, "discovered something. I never told you of it before, but there seems no sense in any concealment now. The day before we left I went to the Quitzow woods and I met there an old woman; she pretended to be diseased and was disguised, with a scarf over her face, and gloves. I'm sure she was a spy, someone in French pay. She had a black dog with her and that made a connection in my mind with the finding of the pantaloons."
"You were obsessed when we were in Rommel," said Sir Francis; "you saw a clue in everything."
"Perhaps I was. Sometimes people with obsessions get somewhere. I questioned this woman, about the dog, I think, to begin with. And what do you think she said, Frank?" Lydia looked over her shoulder. "She seemed to know everything, for she said—'the missing man's wife doesn't want to find him, she wants proof that he is dead.' She told me that she knew I was the only one among the party who really cared, who really wanted to find William."
"These people are damned observant," said Sir Francis, "and we were surrounded, of course, by spies—everyone was overlooking us. I suppose they thought it was strange that I should be there. I hoped I should pass as a pretender to your hand."
"Oh, yes, Frank, you would do that—use me! I suppose you would even have made love to me in public to save Rosa's reputation! At least that old woman knew!"
"She couldn't have known, we were far too careful. There was nothing to know, either," he added. "Besides, even if it were so, what's in it? Will Rosa be the first widow to have married again?"
"I don't think many women marry again when they are not sure what became of their first husband," said Lydia. "I've never heard of it, but my experience is not large and I have no authority over you or over Rosa."
"But you could, Lydia, cause a great deal of mischief. Rosa's in a very nervous state. I don't like it at all."
"People will excuse that; it is natural she should be in a nervous state."
"This marriage is to Rosa's advantage," insisted Sir Francis; "it is to Robert's advantage. If you love Rosa you will wish it for her."
She was so still, so silent that she seemed withdrawn from all he said, from his presence, and merged into the sweet tranquillity of the sunny afternoon, the formal gardens and the walk of clipped limes and wych-elms.
But he knew the passion beneath that stillness and he continued:
"Rosa has not been left well provided for, your parents are not wealthy. These worldly matters, my dear Lydia, however you may despise them, are important. It was to you that your uncle left his fortune."
"What do you intend your career to be?" she asked irrelevantly.
He humoured her.
"I have been offered a position by Mr. Canning at the Foreign Office. I have no fears as to the future. I may be appointed to Vienna when the Emperor settles there—or possibly sent to St. Petersburg. I should like Rosa to come with me."
"You would like that? You would like to go to Vienna with Rosa—where William was? You know he always wanted her to join him, planning for that to the very last."
"One must not let sentiment or the shadow of sentiment stand in the way of real things," replied Sir Francis coolly.
"I see your point. It certainly would be to Rosa's benefit to marry a man of your wealth, position and prospects. She has, as you say, nothing. You see, I have dwelt on the mystery so long that I am used to summing things up in a few plain terms. No," said Lydia, with a slight agitation breaking into her forced calm, "she has nothing. William was not able to leave her anything—a younger son! Did he know?" she asked abruptly, "about her? And you?"
"Does Rosa know," Sir Francis countered, "about you and William?"
"Not unless you have told her. Rosa had no suspicion. And, indeed, there was very little to suspect. I am not bound to open my heart to you, Frank, and of course you will use this for your own ends. You must have watched me very closely to have found out anything at all. It was between ourselves."
"Why didn't you marry him?" interrupted Sir Francis with a touch of impatience. "These foolish tangles!"
"I did not see him until he was betrothed to Rosa, and then I was not sure of him nor he of me. It was only after the marriage, when I went to stay with them at Bracebridge, that we found out."
She did not protest ignorance, nor the great courage and abnegation with which she had struggled not to frustrate her sister's chance of happiness. She knew that Sir Francis had observed her, as she said, very closely; it was useless to tell him what he must already know so well.
"Let that go. It can't hurt Rosa now. I doubt if it could ever have hurt her!" Lydia gave a half smile. "What did she care! I ask you again—did he know?"
Sir Francis would not answer. She saw his lips slightly compressed, his nostrils slightly dilated, and she thrust more boldly, turning her hand as if it held a weapon.
"Did he know or even suspect about the child?"
Then she had her bitter triumph for she saw that she had wounded, angered and astonished him; there was one secret that he had thought well guarded.
"Robert will be named my heir, Lydia!"
"You will find that difficult if you marry Rosa and have other sons."
"Leave those things to me. Rosa's future is in my hands. If you will help me, or at least not thwart me, her happiness is secure."
"What do you want me to do?" asked Lydia. "I have lost on every hazard. Why do you come to me, desolate and bankrupt as I am, and ask me to help you?"
"In this way," he said earnestly. "There may be more rumours. Leermann is still paid by William's family to search. Hoffman, too, is on the watch. One never knows!—something might turn up. I have said that I am convinced William is dead, but something might turn up. Do you understand, Lydia? Some false clue, some crazy alarm!"
"Well, if it does? What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to keep your head and I want you to stand firm, as I and Rosa and all the members of her family and mine, save you, will stand firm that William is dead. He must not be allowed to live!"
"Let me think over your meaning," said Lydia. "You mean that, once you have announced your intention to marry Rosa, we are to ignore anything we hear about the possibility of William's being still alive? We are to carry it, I think you mean, to such an extent that if someone were to come forward and say he was William we are to treat him—for Rosa's sake, and yours—as an impostor?"
"Yes, I do mean that," replied Sir Francis steadily. "For everyone's sake."
"It is incredible for anyone to come forward and say he is William!"
"But these things have happened. Look at the number of false Dauphins who have pestered public credulity. Never yet was a noted man lost but someone did come forward sooner or later to impersonate him."
"You need not say any more! What you mean is, Frank, that if William himself were to come forward he must be denied. Would you do that?" she said, urging and goading him.
"If some man came forward and could not actually prove that he were William I certainly should do it."
"He might not be able to prove it! He might have been long in some prison, he might have lost all means of proving his identity. He might be perhaps dazed in his wits, unsettled in his mind, uncertain of himself. And you would take advantage of that—to rob him of everything, not only of his wife and the child that he perhaps thought was his, but his name and his identity."
"I have not said so," replied Sir Francis coolly; "I am asking you merely to keep your head and to behave in a common-sense manner. For I think it quite possible, my dear Lydia, in the state you are and owing to the obsession under which you labour, that you might think anyone who came forward with a plausible enough tale was William, and I wish to prepare you against acknowledging an impostor."
Lydia moved suddenly into the room and he followed her. She sat down on the chintz-covered settee and looked at the birds on the wall, mechanically counting the feathers on their brilliantly coloured wings.
"I can't speak for the moment, Frank," she said. "I am thinking something out."
"You may have all the leisure for meditation you wish," he replied. He too was agitated and scarcely more clever at controlling his emotion than she was, for all his long experience.
He went to the old-fashioned spinet and sat down and played a little dance tune. But he could not endure the silent tension for long. Without looking at her he said:
"What do you want to say?"
"This, Frank! It has come to me that perhaps you know something that you haven't told us! Don't answer at once! That would fit in, wouldn't it? If you found out something you would keep it from me, even perhaps from Rosa—or does Rosa know, too? I can't see it clearly yet, but I suspect."
He turned round at that on the music stool and looked strangely at her where she sat, pressed back into the delicate cushions.
"You think I know, or at least suspect that William is alive—that I am hushing it up," he suggested.
"I thought it might be possible," said Lydia.
"I can swear to you that it is not so!" He rose and approached her. "I do not know what trust you have in me...."
"Little, or none," murmured Lydia.
"Then I do not know how I am to convince you. I will take any oath that you like that I know nothing more of William's fate than you do. Surely, Lydia," he argued, "that's an unfair suspicion on your part. You know that I have spent my own time, my own money on an extensive and what many people would term a ridiculous search."
"But you had to do it," protested Lydia defiantly. "And it kept you with Rosa."
"Kept me with Rosa! We were pretty well spied upon between you and Mrs. Prosser!"
She could see that he was sorry at once for these impulsive words.
"I regret that," he said. "You did what you felt you ought to do. But as for this horrible suspicion..."
"Very well then, Frank, I will dismiss it. I will take your word on that. Anything else would be too hideous. But it came into my mind and I thought how great the temptation might be and how he and I might be sacrificed to it."
"No," he said, "no, it is not that. I really believe that William is dead."
"I must admit that's a common-sense point of view," she replied. "I am trying to be reasonable, not to let my own emotions interfere. Everyone would say what you were saying—save only his poor mother, Frank."
"And yourself perhaps, Lydia."
"No. Even I! I go to the church and look at the tombs.—I try to habituate myself to the thought that he is dead and as surely dead as if I could stand by his grave."
"You will fall into a morbid melancholy with those thoughts if you stay here alone. Lydia, you must try to take up life again!"
"Why should I?" she asked. "That will not interfere with your plans, will it, if I choose to live solitary and cherish his memory?"
"It will interfere, not with my plans, but with my honour and happiness as well as Rosa's, if you, when I am married to her, continue to search for her first husband and on every false alarm start another chase."
Lydia was silent. She could see his point of view and that of Rosa clearly. She could even, by the light of her own passion, sympathise with him. Her hostility was for what these two had already done, not for what they were doing now. She said:
"There is another aspect to this endless involved affair. If William knew, and especially about Robert, it is likely he would have committed suicide. Those who dismiss such a theory as fantastic do not know the motive that he had."
"If you want to torture yourself with those doubts, Lydia, you must. I fear that I shall talk you to a stand, but I must try to keep you to the point."
"The point is that I shall serve your ends. I cannot promise. How can you suppose that I would? If anything whatever occurred that had the smallest ray of hope, I should investigate it."
"And what would you do if anything so fantastic happened—that you discovered William in some French or German fortress, that you were able to procure his release and perhaps in seven or ten years' time he returned and I was married to Rosa?"
"That would be your problem, not mine."
"He could never marry you, you know," said Sir Francis harshly, "even if a divorce were procured."
"Perhaps I should not be greatly concerned in the question of marriage. There is really no more to say, Frank. I suppose that we understand each other pretty well by now."
"I just want to tell you this." He sat on the music stool again; his fine fingers ran mechanically over the yellow keys. "I was travelling on the Continent in that same year—April to November—that William was in Vienna. I, too, had a secret mission from Mr. Canning, though I was supposed to be on holiday, so I know pretty well the difficulties and dangers. I know how all English people, or those who were supposed to be working in English interests, were spied upon. I know the importance the French Government attached to those plans for the rising in the Tyrol that William so imprudently carried with him. I can assure you, and I am speaking now without self-interest, whatever you may think of me, Lydia, that it was most likely that he would be overtaken by the French spies and disposed of...."
"I know. You need not seek to persuade me of that. Have I not told you that I am trying to use common sense. We go round in a circle, Frank. You must do what you wish; what could I say to restrain you?"
Lydia sat silent; she felt that he was as implacable in his purpose as she was in her own, and overburdened as she was with other emotions, yet she could not help wondering how it was that a woman like Rosa could hold a man like Frank. She knew her charming sister very well. Rosa had little besides grace and prettiness and affectionate ways and gaiety when all went well. It was strange that a man like this, who might have made a wide choice among so many types of women, should have chosen, at the cost of shame, scandal and dishonour, poor Rosa Ardress. Sir Francis would have been better matched with Lydia herself; yet they had never cared for each other, ought indeed to have hated each other. And sometimes she did hate him, yet she felt that he was wasted on Rosa.
Perhaps, however, he no longer was passionately enamoured of her sister; perhaps they were only bound together by a common dishonour and fear of discovery. Rosa had no great amount of fortitude, no strong self-control, and it might be that if Frank left her or advised her to wait longer for news of her missing husband, she would blurt abroad the whole wretched story.
"I see you are determined," said Lydia, rising, "and so am I. And there we must leave it. If you and Rosa can put through this ..." She checked the word she would have used, that was 'treachery.'
"I have told you what I intend to do," replied Sir Francis. She noted with some satisfaction that she had been able to shake him a little, implacable as he was, that his finely curved upper lip quivered slightly and the fingers of his right hand were clutched into his wrist, ruffled. "I am sorry for you, Lydia," he added. "It might all have been so different, yet it has gone so terribly awry."
Then, oddly, he gave her own reflection back to her reversed: "What could you, Lydia, have seen in a man like William?"
"You see nothing?" she asked harshly.
"I do not want to speak of him to you, Lydia. But I should not perhaps have thought he was a man to evoke so strong a sentiment."
"I know what you thought of him. You undervalued him, perhaps, purposely too. I suppose it is easier to betray those whom we despise!"
"Perhaps!" he admitted, with a slight smile.
There was one more ugly doubt to be debated. Lydia said, clasping her hands tightly on her bosom:
"Supposing you or Rosa were to hear news? It might come to you sooner than to me! What would you do then?"
Anguish sharpened her face as she considered this possibility. Why, after all, she was almost the last person who would hear of it. Leermann would tell the wife, the widow, he was employed by the Bracebridge family, and they, too, once Rosa was married, would hush things up. It might be possible that, for the sake of family honour and dignity and Rosa's peace of mind they would sacrifice William.
"I don't know what to say or what to do!" she added. "You have me, I think, defeated. But you haven't answered my question, Frank."
"You can guess it," he replied. "Good-bye, Lydia. I am sorry for you, that you will not take my good advice. Turn the page, end the chapter, close the book and begin again!"
A letter from Mrs. Ardress brought Lydia to town. Her mother had said that Rosa had refused to remain any longer in Bath and was now staying with her son in the Bishop's house in Green Street that they had hired for the coming winter.
This sudden resolve on Rosa's part had upset all their plans and the place had not even been made ready for their habitation. But her father having in vain endeavoured to calm Rosa, Mrs. Ardress wrote in despair to the sister.
Will you come and try to comfort the poor child? Her nerves become worse; nothing anyone can do will soothe her.
Lydia answered this appeal not only out of affection for her mother, but because she suspected the cause of Rosa's distress and her own spirits rose in consequence. 'Perhaps Rosa is not so infatuate, so wild and weak as I suspected. Perhaps it is Frank who is trying to force her hand and she who would rather wait. Perhaps she is ashamed and remorseful—I can strengthen her to do what is honourable!'
Then Lydia, as was her way, caught herself up: 'To do what is honourable. To do what I want her to do, wait for William and lose no opportunity of finding him!'
Rosa looked so wasted and sallow, was so petulant in her manner that again Lydia wondered that a man fastidious and experienced like Sir Francis, essentially heartless and sensual too, as Lydia suspected, should maintain his passion for a creature who had lost all bloom and much of her charm.
"Mother thought that I could help you," said Lydia, taking her sister into her arms. "She doesn't know, of course."
"What doesn't she know?" said Rosa, suddenly putting Lydia at arm's length. "What is there to know?"
"Don't play with me, Rosa! Frank has spoken to me very candidly. Besides, I guessed!"
Rosa hid her face in her hands for a moment, and then said between tears and defiance:
"Then I don't see how you and I can be friendly. I suppose you take William's side? You think that I alone was to blame. You always were friendly with him, weren't you?"
These words were spoken so simply, seemed so obviously devoid of everything but the surface meaning that Lydia realised with a shock of surprise that Rosa did not know the truth about her husband, and she felt gratitude towards Sir Francis who, while admitting his own secret, had preserved hers. It would have been so easy for him to tell Rosa, and might have helped him, too. But, even without being requested to do so, he had kept silent.
'It wouldn't help Rosa if I told her,' thought Lydia. 'She wouldn't understand it, either. She'd think that I was to William what she has been to Frank. Our love would be dragged down.'
She put her sister on the sofa and said:
"Frank wants to give it up, and I'll admit that's reasonable. Frank wants to marry you, Rosa—soon, I suppose. What does Father say—and Mother? Frank is a wealthy man, he has a position and a future, and that all makes a difference."
"Don't speak so coldly and mechanically, Lydia. You think it's terrible, no doubt. And I don't even know how the law stands. I can't think of it, indeed I can't!"
"I'm glad you say that, Rosa. I don't think you should think of it for a while yet. And I don't think you should see Frank. You should let him go to Vienna alone. Then, when a few years have passed..."
"A few years!" exclaimed Rosa frantically. "Nearly three years have passed already. Don't you think that I'm human? What do you think flesh and blood can endure?"
"A good deal," smiled Lydia, "even a long separation, perhaps an eternal separation from one whom one loves. Do you want me to stay in London, Rosa? I was content where I was."
"I want to tell you this," said the other sister, trying to control herself. "I haven't let anyone know, I was so distracted that way and this. I thought, you see, that if I spoke of it to Frank he'd laugh at it."
"Ah! You share my suspicions," said Lydia, gratefully and warmly pressing her sister's hands. "He wants to hush everything up, but you won't do it. And you're right, Rosa, of course you're right. Is there anything, any clue, any hope?"
"Only this. You know that there have been a good many letters sent to us from people who think they've heard something, or know something, or suspect something."
"Yes, yes," said Lydia, "but this is different?"
"Yes, it was different in that it was sent to me, not to Frank or to Herr Leermann. No, just to me—a letter with the London postmark without an address or a name, delivered in the ordinary way at our apartment in Bath. It merely said that the writer could give me a good deal of information about the fate of William and about this Comte de Véfour."
"It might be a trick!" exclaimed Lydia.
"Yes, of course, that's what I thought. I didn't even show it to Mother for fear of agitating her any more."
"What made you regard it, Rosa, take it seriously?"
"This!" replied the other sister wretchedly, hiding her tired eyes with her shaking hand, "that the writer knows something. He put, 'I am sure you will be glad to hear certain news of your husband's death.'"
Lydia was silent a second, then she said in a cool, almost businesslike tone:
"How are you to communicate with the writer?"
"He said that I was to put an advertisement in the Gazette making an appointment for me to see him. I thought at first of asking him to Bath and then I realised it would be very conspicuous there and I couldn't do it without Mother knowing."
"That was sensible of you, Rosa."
"Yes, I suppose when one is more or less desperate one does get a little sense, but I have never had very much. And then I suggested to Mother that she asked you here, for I thought that you and I between us might contrive to see him."
"It can't be here," said Lydia, "if we want to keep the thing quiet, and we'd better keep it quiet until we know who it is and what his business is. Put the advertisement in and ask him where we shall go to see him, and if it is a reasonable sort of address we will go together and no one need know about it."
"Will it be safe?" asked Rosa.
"As safe as many things I've done since I started on this!"
"Yes, I suppose so," replied Rosa. "It is a pity you gave William back those little muff pistols he presented you with. You know you said it was unlucky to have firearms as a gift."
"Yes, it is a pity I gave them back," said Lydia. "But I can get others. Uncle has some at Ardress Hall. But what am I talking of! Of course we needn't go armed. They wouldn't try to murder us or kidnap us or anything of that sort."
"Oh, one never knows," said Rosa. "It is enough to make one go lunatic, the whole thing. They say the country is full of spies. Mr. Canning called here the other day to tell me there was no more news of William. He said we must be sure that he had not destroyed himself, all the evidence was against that. It is the French, of course. That is why they were so pleasant to us and made everything so easy. They knew their crime was covered up and there was nothing we could possibly discover."
"We will put in the advertisement," said Lydia, "and you will be cool, Rosa, and wait patiently and try to get a little stronger, for Frank's sake, if not for mine or William's."
There was an immediate response to the advertisement. Another letter was received by Rosa at the Green Street address.
The writer said that he was glad his first letter had been taken seriously and that he was now ready to reveal his identity. He said that he was a Frenchman in England on a safe conduct, that his father had been an emigré of the old regime and that he had on occasion done work for the British Government who would, if need be, give him credentials. He was then living in a house on the Terrace, Barnes, with his wife, an Englishwoman, and he begged that he might be allowed to wait on Lady William Bracebridge, and tell her all he knew of her husband's fate.
There was an emphatic warning at the end that no information would be forthcoming if the transaction were divulged to anyone.
Lydia took the paper from her sister's feeble hand.
"See what it is signed, Rosa— Antoine Véfour'—and between inverted commas. Is this the man against whom William warned you, or he who was passing under that name?"
But it was useless for her to endeavour to debate the question with Rosa, who had now lost all courage and refused to go through the adventure by herself, or even with Lydia's aid.
"I must tell Frank," she kept on saying. "Frank ought to know about this. It might be a trap; we should find out more about this man before we even answer him. Mr. Canning would know, or Lord Clinton."
While she thus ran on with weak ejaculations and incoherent sentences, Lydia was withdrawn into her own thoughts. There was, on the surface, much reason in what Rosa said and the motives, Lydia knew, were both extravagant and selfish. Rosa, when it came to the point and she felt she was on the verge of discovering something about her husband's fate or even possibly of his continued existence, lost her courage and much of her presence of mind. She wished to throw the responsibility on to Sir Francis, knowing in her agitated heart that he would take good care that all such evidence was quashed.
So, at least, Lydia read the situation. She could do no more than soothe her sister and put her to bed with an opiate.
Lydia had no companion nor confidant, not even Mrs. Prosser. She bitterly regretted that she had left the faithful, quiet woman down at Ardress Hall. This humble, uneducated creature, with her loyalty, strong common sense and natural shrewdness, had often been a great support; she understood so much without having to be told, her sympathy was so sound, her sentiments so honest. But out of regard for Rosa's feelings she had been left behind and Lydia was quite alone.
'If Frank gets hold of this,' she thought, 'we shall hear no more of it.'
She then debated whether or no she should go to Mr. Canning or one of his agents or to Lord Clinton, or to her father. There were very many people who were interested in the fate of Lord William Bracebridge but to none of them could Lydia open her heart for fear of betraying a secret that was not hers and another that was too much her own. She might have relied upon the discretion and reserve of Mr. Canning or of Lord Clinton himself, but there was hardly time to go to these people, who were important men of affairs and not easily to be found for private appointments at a moment's notice.
Besides, no doubt the writer of the letter, Antoine de Véfour, was having her watched. Any indiscretion like that on her part and he would disappear, as so many people to do with this case had disappeared.
Yet, if she waited, Rosa in her passion and her weakness, in her infatuation and distraction, would certainly confide in Sir Francis, and he would see that there was good cause why M. Véfour did not open his mouth.
Lydia tried to steady herself. Of course there might be nothing in it; it might be a trap set by she knew not who, an attempt on the part of a French spy to obtain information, some trick on the part of a rogue to obtain money.
But her mind was soon made up on these conflicting doubts and agonies. Her natural boldness and her active mind asserted themselves.
She put on her quietest garment, a grey suit, a plain low-crowned hat with a buckle and no other ornament. She took her gauntlets and a small amount of money, not in her purse but in her bosom. And she took a hired carriage to Barnes, dismissing it by the church and then went on foot along the Mall.
It was a hazy day of mellow sunshine and the river flowed smoothly in broken tints of pearl, silver and amber. The tall poplars on the opposite bank were touched with gold, and gold too edged the long leaves of the grey willows that grew low down on the banks amid the mud, the broken reeds, the alders and the strong weeds beginning to grow rank with autumnal decay.
Lydia easily found the house. It was of some pretension, pleasantly situated, with balconies and a portico. There were fresh curtains at the window;, marigolds and Michaelmas daisies grew in the small trim garden in the front. It had probably, Lydia guessed, been hired ready furnished.
A man-servant answered her knock. He was a stout, foreign-looking fellow, fair, with a heavy expression and dressed in decent black.
Lydia asked for M. Véfour and added that she came on the behalf of Lady William Bracebridge.
The man admitted her at once and asked her to be seated in the sitting-room that looked out on the little garden and the river.
There was no air of mystery about the house, nothing sinister in the little room, that had, indeed, a gay air with the Chinese wallpaper, the muslin curtains, the chintz-covered chairs. Several French newspapers and books lay on a side table, there was a green and purple macaw in a cage of gilt wire and, elegantly enclosed in a white velvet case, a harp.
Lydia heard a woman's voice without, speaking broken English. It seemed familiar, but she reminded herself that there was a great similarity in foreign voices and accents and also that this could not be Madame Véfour if the man had told the truth in saying his wife was English.
Shortly afterwards a man entered the parlour and bowed formally. He appeared as ordinary as his house, a nondescript person of about forty years of age with the air of a gentleman and attired in a commonplace fashion.
"You are M. Véfour?" And anxious to get to the heart of her business and, as it were, make an onslaught into the enemy's camp, she said quickly: "You wrote to my sister. I read the first letter before you had enjoined silence. You may trust my prudence absolutely—
"I go under the name of the Comte Véfour," interrupted the man, "I do not say it is my own. You take me by surprise, Mademoiselle, I had thought to deal direct with Lady William."
"You must understand," said Lydia firmly, "that that would be impossible. This terrible business has made her an almost permanent invalid. She has, and it is but natural, lost much of her courage. I, who am not so nearly concerned, am better fitted to deal with you. I came to you, I may tell you, in order that she might not go to anyone else."
"To whom had she a mind to refer my letter?" asked M. Véfour.
"To her father, as I suppose, or her lawyer, or the agent she employed in Germany," said Lydia.
"Or perhaps to her great friend—Sir Francis Lisle!" said M. Véfour flatly.
"Possibly to him," replied Lydia. "Everyone knows he is deeply interested in the case since he accompanied her and myself and another woman to Germany."
"Yes. I heard a good deal about that expedition. It made a certain sensation in Europe."
"Meanwhile, Monsieur, we are merely fencing with the question. Will you please tell me what you know about the disappearance of Lord William, what your object is in offering this information so late, and what you require in return for your services?"
"You are a very practical young lady," replied the other.
Lydia felt a sickly qualm. She thought that he was going to be difficult, to play with her, to refuse her all information. His very commonplace air, his aspect and speech daunted her. She had no doubt that he was a spy, employed perhaps by the British, or even by the French or Russian Government. She felt like someone feeling their way blindfold in the dark. She made another eager, though on the surface quiet, attempt to force his guard.
"You may as well speak to me or you will have to deal with someone who will not be so easy. Perhaps Sir Francis Lisle himself," she said at random.
The man looked down and away and she took this opportunity to scrutinise him eagerly. She could not tell if he was French, English or German; his voice, like everything about him, was guarded, his accent careful.
"Perhaps, after all, you have acted wisely," he said, "and no doubt in the true interests of your sister. But I must confess that I am not able to tell you very much until I have investigated a little—forgive me, Mademoiselle—who you are."
"But you know who I am!"
"You said—your sister."
"Oh, perhaps I forgot to say that I am Lydia Ardress, the Bishop of Winchester's daughter. But no doubt you knew all that! I took it for granted that you did; I suppose you have had us all under your observation."
"Yes, it is certainly part of my business to keep people under observation. But when I said 'knew who you are' I meant in whose interests you are acting and why you take your sister's part?"
"I have told you—it is to spare her suffering."
"Would you be in a position to pay me well for any information I might give you?"
"I should," said Lydia, mentally reviewing her financial resources. She had spent a good deal on the German travel, but then she had spent nothing on anything else. And there was her uncle's legacy and several pieces of property that she could, at a pinch, sell.
"Well, I can tell you this. You can assure your sister that there is a good chance she is not a widow. The French Government resolved to obtain possession of those plans your brother-in-law most imprudently was carrying. He was watched by the French and followed, by the most intricate means. There were a great number of people in the plot. It had, of course, as you will understand, Mademoiselle, to be carried out very carefully because of your brother-in-law's rank and position as British Ambassador. I know that he was followed as far as Rommel by French spies. I had some hand in the matter myself."
"What happened after Rommel? Is the story of the Governor of Magdeburg true, then! Was Lord William, is he perhaps still, in that fortress?"
Lydia forced herself to be calm, but the effort was almost beyond her strength.
"I shall have to consider what I am going to tell you," replied M. Véfour carefully.
"Your name was that on the paper found in Lord William's overalls," said Lydia, closing her eyes for a second. "We were told that we were to beware of you. Can you explain that?"
"Other people besides myself have used this alias," replied the man dryly. "I put it on my letter to attract attention and to cause you to give a little importance to my communication. I daresay you receive a great many of the same nature. I do not know how much more to say."
"Can you not tell me everything?" pleaded Lydia. "How he was taken away, what his fate was? I happen to know that some personal jewels belonging to him were in the hands of a receiver of stolen goods in Hamburg, while a disreputable woman had seen the chain that I knew he wore. And I heard too, a description of some small lady's pistols—I know he carried those, I gave them to him myself."
"You gave him, perhaps, a chain of pearl and hair, a portrait that was attached as well?"
"Yes," said Lydia, "yes."
"And you identified certain tablets that were given to you by the man, Johann Voss? Those who stole them did not murder him."
"Have you proof of that?"
"Yes, indeed, I have proof," replied M. Véfour. "But I do not know if I should give it to you. I must write to France and get the necessary papers, too."
She asked, although she felt it was a hopeless question:
"Can you tell me who you are? Are you in the employment of the British Government? It is safe to tell me."
His smile told her that he thought this ridiculous.
"I must ask you," he said decisively, "to tell no one of my communication with Lady William, that is, if you wish for any further information from me. I shall be leaving the country shortly, and I need not tell you that my passport shall be made out in another name. If you intend to give any information about me, particularly to Mr. Canning or Sir Francis Lisle—"
"Why do you mention him?" put in Lydia.
"Because," replied the other instantly, "he is intimately connected with the British Government, in the Diplomatic Service and in the secret service, too. Are you sure," he added abruptly, "that you were not followed when you came here?"
"No. Who should follow me?"
"One can never tell! I must ask you to leave now, Mademoiselle. Pray, don't think me discourteous, but this is a business matter, and perhaps a dangerous one, too."
"You cannot suspect me of any treachery, surely?" asked Lydia wearily. "Need that difficulty be added to all the others?"
"No, I don't suspect you," he replied. "I know something about you, I made it my business to do so. But I think you might be betrayed, followed and spied upon."
As he spoke, M. Véfour went to the window and peeped from behind the prim muslin curtains. He seemed satisfied, as if he had seen no one on the river-bank, for he turned into the room and said in a cooler tone:
"I'll admit to you that my letter was just an attempt to draw Lady William, and possibly yourself."
"You have no proof, then, that Lord William is dead?"
"Perhaps I haven't! Perhaps, even, I have proof that he is alive. I have something important to tell you about him, anyhow. I know who followed him to Rommel—who wrote those notes—supposed of warning."
At those words, 'proof that he is alive,' Lydia was so shocked that she did not hear what else Antoine Véfour was saying. He noted her emotion and interrupting himself, he said abruptly:
"Will you please go home now? I don't know if you have told the whole truth to me! Perhaps you are here without Lady William's knowledge. You are playing, I think, an extremely dangerous game, but so am I. I don't think you were very wise to come here. I will write to you and appoint a rendezvous."
As he spoke he opened the door and his manner was so concise and at the same time so formidable that Lydia felt it would be hopeless to combat his decision. At the same time, it was almost intolerable to leave with so vital a matter still in debate and she made one last appeal.
"Cannot you give me just this one assurance—that he is dead or alive? Everywhere I turn I get lies, tricks!"
"Whatever I told you, you wouldn't believe it, so that wouldn't help you much," replied M. Véfour. "But I can tell you what happened to him. I can, I think, explain the finding of the overalls and the note in the pocket. I can fit into the puzzle the behaviour of the Swiss servant, the disappearance of Anton Scharre and the part the two women—Martha Brander and Julia Hackmann—played. But I cannot tell you any of these things now. You came without an appointment, I must remind you, Mademoiselle, and I am expecting someone else."
In face of this, Lydia could not remain. Her strong sense told her, even in that moment of anguish, that it would be better not to irritate this man who was clearly a mercenary fellow out for his own advantage. So, with a formal inclination of her head, she left the house.
The door was shut behind her almost immediately and she hurried away from the little garden with its bright display of autumn flowers and she did not pause until she had hurried some way along the river-bank.
'O God! What did this man know? What could he know? ' She was inclined to believe that he had some important information that he wished to sell at a high price. Very well, then, it should be to her, not to Rosa or to Francis!
As she was about to turn up the village street she was startled to see Burton ahead of her, standing outside the inn and talking to a farm labourer in a smock.
Was it possible that he had followed her? She dismissed the suspicion. Frank could not possibly have known of the letter from M. Véfour—why should he spy over her? It was possible, though unlikely, that Burton had some legitimate business in Barnes.
Her instinctive dislike of letting the manservant see that she had observed him caused her to hang back; she turned back to the rough pavement above the muddy flats that edged the river and crossed some fields and, skirting the village, gained the church and her carriage. Then she returned to Green Street.
The anxious deliberations of a sleepless night decided Lydia that unless she heard immediately from M. Véfour, she would go to her father, whom she loved and trusted, with this piece of news. It would be quite plausible to tell him that she did not wish to agitate Rosa with any false hopes. But she had decided that in any case she could not let this man and his accomplices—the wife and servant whom he had in the Barnes house—leave the country unless they had been thoroughly cross-examined by one more fitted to do it than herself.
She decided, however, to wait at least a few hours to see if M. Véfour communicated with her.
There was no letter by the morning post and no messenger came during the day.
Lydia waited until the evening and bought a copy of the Gazette in the hopes that there might possibly be an advertisement for her inserted there. There was none, but instead this news:
A foreigner, calling himself the Comte Antoine Véfour, his wife, and a servant were all shot dead late yesterday evening in their hired house on the Terrace, Barnes.
The lady had lately been indisposed and was stepping through the little garden to get into her carriage when the servant ran out after her and shot her through the head.
Upon this, Monsieur Véfour ran upstairs to get his pistol; the servant followed him. And upon the neighbours coming at the sound of this disturbance, the lady was found dying in the garden and the two men dead upstairs.
It is supposed that the servant shot his master and then committed suicide.
This Monsieur Véfour was a somewhat mysterious personage. He had been in residence in this hired house for only a few weeks. The servant is believed to be a German.
Perhaps some interesting particulars will be divulged at the inquest.
Lydia dropped the paper, flung her arms on the table and her head on her arms, and wept.
It was exactly as if a door through which she had hoped to get a glimpse of her beloved, had been partly opened, then slammed in her face.
When, however, Rosa heard the news she seemed relieved. After a few hysterical exclamations of conventional horror she said:
"You see, Lydia, it was as well we went no further in the business. The man was some sort of a horrible rogue and was only trying to deceive us for the sake of money. We should have told Father or Mr. Canning or Lord Clinton. They would have warned us to have nothing to do with this. It was easy for any rogue to play on our distress."
So indeed it might have seemed to Rosa on the strength of the two letters, but Lydia, with the memory of her visit in her mind, thought she knew better.
Dr. Ardress then returning opportunely to town, she put the matter before him, telling him of the two letters, but not of her own visit. And the Bishop agreed with her that the Government should be asked to allow the Bracebridge family to examine the dead man's papers.
The Bishop accordingly waited immediately on Mr. Canning, who received him very civilly but refused any permission to allow the so-called M. Véfour's papers to be examined by any members of the Bracebridge or Ardress family. They had all, he said, been sequestered by the Government and the house sealed up.
When the Bishop told this to Lydia and Rosa he added:
"I don't think there was much in the affair, my dears, anyway, for the man was a scoundrel. Canning admitted to me that he was a spy. He had been employed by Napoleon, but sold himself again to the British Government. They knew him as a Monsieur Roussel. The servant, his accomplice, passed as a Fleming by the name of Dufour. Canning, of course, wouldn't commit himself as to any theory about the murders, but he allowed me to think that Dufour was a French galley-slave who had been offered his freedom and his chance of life if he would come over here and murder the man Roussel and his wife—French spies who had betrayed their Government. Canning himself spent hours shut up in the house in Barnes Terrace, tearing up letters."
"It sounds fantastic," said Lydia; but Rosa thought it seemed likely enough.
"But the murder was so stupid!" protested Lydia. "The servant could have poisoned them, or murdered them in their bed and gone off at night. Why should he shoot the woman in the garden, with the husband a few paces away?—armed for all he knew!"
The Bishop sighed; he was so tormented with this dark affair that he could hardly bring himself to consider it coolly.
"I don't know, my dears, I really don't know. I should be sorry to have to give an opinion. It is fantastic, you say, but then, everything's seemed a little fantastic since William disappeared."
"Father," cried Rosa, "do you really think he knew anything? In his letter he said he had proof as to William's fate!"
"I don't see how he could have had much inside information. It is possible, of course. Canning admitted that he had been employed in Germany. The rogue might have been employed to shadow William for his own protection when he was travelling to Hamburg and so have known something. But his letters were probably merely an attempt to extort money."
"I suppose," said Lydia bitterly, "that as they were unknown and friendless people and have this cloud upon them, the whole thing will be hushed up!"
"So Canning gave me to understand," sighed the Bishop. "If anything is known about the two rascals, it will not be allowed to come out, one understands." His worried voice trailed off. "The Government can't take too many precautions, these dangerous times."
Lydia put her thoughts into quick words.
"I suppose these precautions could go to the length of—murdering these people, if they proved traitors?"
"What horrible suspicions you have, Lydia!" exclaimed Rosa with an air of distaste. "The servant murdered his master and mistress!"
"Do we know that?" asked her sister sombrely. "The crimes took place in the half light, there were no witnesses. Surely some strangers could have shot them all and run off."
"I should leave it alone if I were you, Lyddy," said the Bishop uneasily.
But this Lydia could not do; she went again to the Terrace at Barnes. The scene was exactly the same as when she had seen it before; a mellow sunshine lay over the elegant balconied houses; the bright autumn flowers showed violet, orange, yellow and purple in the little gardens; on the pearl-hued river, beneath the silver and amber of the trailing willows the swans moved lazily.
There were police agents before the house where Lydia had interviewed the drab, alert little man with the quick agate eyes who had called himself the Comte Véfour.
Lydia felt that mingled horror, amazement and compassion with which sensitive people consider the violent deaths, even of those to whom they are perfectly indifferent. She recalled so clearly the stolid, flat-faced servant in his quiet livery, the cool, quiet master, she remembered that voice speaking broken English in the passage. All these people had been full of some sort of eager nervous life, of plans, of schemes, of hopes and fears, and now they were lying in the mortuary of Barnes Church, silent for ever.
Lydia found these reflections none the less poignant for being commonplace.
There were several knots of people loitering about and looking at the house that was now invested with such a sinister interest, but Lydia did not like to speak to any of them for fear of attracting attention.
She had already felt a fearful suspicion that possibly her indiscreet visit to the spy had caused his sudden death by the hand of someone whom he was about to betray.
Leaving the Terrace, she went along the village street to the pond, the forge and the mill. Among the cottages there was one that had a little farm attached; Lydia stopped there and asked for a glass of milk. The woman who brought this was willing enough to talk about the Véfour murders that had greatly excited this quiet village.
Lydia sat on a log between the pond and the fence of the cottage garden, and watched the ducks slowly moving across the still water in which the poplars and elms were reflected as in a mirror.
She gathered some interesting particulars from the villager's gossip. Madame Véfour was a pretty woman, always fashionably dressed, dark, not very young, and speaking very little English. She did her own work, save for the assistance of a young girl who went daily for a few hours to the trim mansion. The Véfours had always been considered French emigrants of limited means. There were many such living in the villages round London. M. Véfour used to go to town every week in a hired carriage. The servant was a heavy, dull fellow who knew hardly a word of English.
He, too, used to go to town once in a while, to see a brother who was in service in a house in Westminster, the gossips understood.
"How should such a quiet fellow have committed so awful a crime?" asked Lydia. "And for what end?"
The woman had several theories to suggest; the man had overheard master and mistress discussing his dismissal, he had quarrelled with them about food and wages. They were all concerned in 'some nasty spying business, you could never trust Frenchies.'
A farm labourer in his quilted smock and high hat came up and joined in the discussion; all manners of rumours as to the truth behind the Véfour murders were being whispered round Barnes.
"Could an outsider have murdered all three?" asked Lydia, sipping her milk and staring across the pond. She longed desperately to be able to investigate this case, to cross-examine all concerned in it. Who found the bodies? What doctor attended them? Above all, what was in the papers Mr. Canning had burnt? But she had to content herself with the slow, though not stupid comments of the countryman, who could give a fairly coherent account of the tragedy, as his daughter was cook at the house next to that rented by M. Véfour.
The Countess was going up to town; the carriage had been hired to start at seven o'clock and told the journey was to be to Westminster; the lady had never been known to go to town so late. The evidence of the coachman was that he was told by the servant, Peter Heinz, to walk the horses up and down a little, as the lady was not ready. This he did; the twilight increasing, he got a boy passing by to hold the horses while he lit his lamps. While he did this, he heard a shot; two men came by, walking rapidly, one shouted out—"There's a bloody business at that house!" They then passed on in the direction of Kew; the coachman thought they went down the bank and got into a boat.
The coachman, the boy and the cook next door, who was alone in the house, ran into the Véfours' garden. The lady lay in the garden; when they lifted her up there was a knife to be seen in her back. They rushed into the house and there in the passage were the two men; both had been shot; they were still warm and breathing, but could not speak.
The village constable was called, then the doctor; there must have been someone in close watch on the house, for the London police were there within a few hours of the murder.
Lydia could get no more than this from the villagers. But she could see that even they were by no means satisfied, and thought there was ' something behind it.'
"Those two men who raised the alarm?" asked Lydia desperately.
"No account was made of them. It was thought they were passers-by who didn't want to be mixed up in trouble."
The cottage woman said that the servant had seemed to be watching the lady lately, and that doubtless he was afraid she was looking for another man. The cook next door had heard sounds of disputes the day of the murders. Probably the lady was going to town to find another servant while her husband turned the fellow out of doors. But Lydia thought there was another meaning than that in the tragedy.
As she returned through the autumn fields towards the church, where the shattered bodies of the strangers lay in the brick mortuary, she thought of a possible explanation of the crimes.
Supposing Véfour had resolved to sell his knowledge of the fate of Lord William to his family, thus disclosing information that someone influential—probably Mr. Canning himself—wished kept secret. The wife (if wife she was, accomplice at least) might have taken alarm and been on the point of disclosing her companion's treachery. Hence the proposed visit to London. But the two men had discovered her purpose and one stabbed her as she was about to leave the house. Before, however, they could escape they were shot by someone who had been watching the house, and so the secret had been preserved. Mr. Canning's swift visit to the house would suffice to destroy all traces of any business the trio might have been engaged in.
'But this is all pure fantasy!' thought Lydia, as she waited for the London stage at The Red Lion beyond Barnes Church, 'and what has it to do with me and my poor love?'
An inquest was held on the bodies of the three foreigners, and a verdict of murder and suicide returned. The sale of M. Véfour's effects procured him and his wife humble graves in the Roman Catholic burial ground, among the other French emigrés. The servant was buried at the Cross Roads, by Mill Hill, on Barnes Common, with a stake through his body.
When Sir Francis next called at Green Street, Lydia Ardress asked to see him. And to him, knowing that he could not betray her without grave risk to himself, she told the truth of her visit to the balconied house on the Barnes Terrace.
"You are a very bold and dangerous woman, Lyddy. I can see that there is nothing you will stop at. If this Véfour was a traitor to all causes, nothing he could have told you could have been likely to be the truth. You must see that it was another plausible trick to obtain money."
"I don't know. I have other thoughts. Is it not strange that they all three should have been wiped out—silent for ever!—so soon after I saw them? I heard the woman's voice on the stairs. He said she was English, but she was talking with a foreign accent."
"Perhaps it wasn't his wife," said Sir Francis. "You will become obsessed by fancies, my dear Lyddy."
"I don't know. I think there was something behind it—as even the villagers said. I think he was about to give me some information that it was in the interests of someone else to keep concealed for ever. I tell you, Frank, he told me that perhaps he had proof William was alive. I daresay he wanted to sell that proof pretty highly."
"Moonshine! My dear Lyddy, you really must try to keep your nerves under control. You never should have gone to that house. What Mr. Canning told your father was the correct story. I know enough of what's going on at the Foreign Office to assure you as much. The man was a well-known international spy; he was employed by Napoleon and then sold himself to the British Government. And the French set the servant—another spy—on him. He was a wretch already condemned to death and they gave him this chance."
"I don't believe it," said Lydia. "As I said before, if that was the case he would have committed his murders secretly. Who was this servant, anyhow? We know nothing about him; we know nothing about his master—neither their true names nor their nationality. Nor about the woman, even if she was his wife, as you say yourself. You can talk as you will, Frank, it is obvious that something has been hushed up!"
"My dear girl," he replied, turning his handsome eyes languidly towards her, "I really cannot help you. It certainly is an unpleasant and rather mysterious affair, and you were lucky to escape as you did. You might have found yourself involved in something quite dangerous in going to that house."
"I am already involved in something dangerous enough," she replied bitterly.
"Well, don't let anybody know of this interview. It will look bad. You soon will set everyone talking if you show this passionate interest in William's fate."
"They'll talk no louder than they do already about you and Rosa," replied Lydia sombrely. "Well, you'll soon be rid of me, I'm returning to Suffolk."
But before Lydia could complete her preparations to return to Ardress Hall, she was detained by a letter written by Herr Leermann to Rosa, in which the antiquary said that one of his agents, whom he had still kept working on the Bracebridge case, reported the discovery of a skeleton in what had always been known as the 'suspicious house'—the tavern called The Great Bear, opposite the post-house.
Although this tavern had been so thoroughly searched by the police, they had overlooked a double wall in one of the cellars. This had been opened by the new proprietor who, the house having such a bad name, had decided to rebuild it in the hopes of getting rid of its sinister reputation. It was also in a dilapidated condition through having stood empty so long.
The skeleton was that of a man who had met a violent death. The back of the skull was broken, as if by a blow from a hatchet. The damp had got into this cellar and it was in a noisome condition, but amidst the slime and fungus some clotted fragments of what appeared to be grey cloth had been discovered, as well as some metal buttons almost, however, entirely destroyed. Herr Leermann added in his report that the teeth of the skeleton were in excellent condition and some tufts of hair, that proved to be light brown when washed, still adhered to the skull.
On receipt of this report Dr. Ardress, greatly distressed, hastened to discuss it with the parents of the missing man. Although the two families had been so united in their search for Lord William, there seemed to have come, imperceptibly, a rift between them; Rosa had appeared most anxious not to be on warm terms with her parents-in-law, and even desirous of avoiding her husband's relations. All the good offices of the Bishop had not been able to heal this subtle estrangement that seemed to have no reason, he suspected, beyond as a nervous whim on the part of his poor daughter.
In consequence of this attitude on the part of Rosa, the two families were not living in much intimacy. The Bracebridges continued, at the ardent request of the missing man's mother, to make their own investigations; but Herr Leermann, the active and zealous agent, was employed by the Ardress family and Sir Francis Lisle.
However, Dr. Ardress felt that it was his duty to go at once and communicate this report to Lord Castledown, and his two daughters were, therefore, left alone with their mother in Green Street while the Bishop set off in his carriage to Berkeley Square.
Rosa was extremely excited by this news. Nothing would convince her that this was not what M. Véfour had wished to say before he was murdered. It was difficult to compare dates and to discover the exact time of the discovery of the skeleton because the posts were delayed and Herr Leermann gave scanty details in his report, which he had only received from one of his agents. He said that he was going to Rommel himself, when he would send a complete account of the discovery.
"This man who called himself Véfour, knew that this was coming to light," said Rosa rapidly, "and that was the information he wished to sell us."
Lydia was not convinced. The story seemed to her to run from fantasy to fantasy. Why suppose that this man, Véfour, living in England, should have had such rapid news of the discovery of a skeleton in Rommel? What would the information have been worth since it was bound within a short time to be made public property?
But it was useless to argue with Rosa. She had now entirely thrown over the theory that her husband had been kidnapped and imprisoned or murdered by French Government agents.
No, she declared eagerly, it was easy to understand now that he had crossed over in the darkness and rain to The Great Bear, asked for a cup of coffee or a drink of wine while he was waiting for the carriage and horses to be made ready. No doubt he did not care for the people at the post-station: no one liked the look of the Scharres. And there he had been murdered for the sake of his money and jewels, and buried at once in the wall of the cellar.
"It would have been quite easy," argued Rosa, for them to have piled sacks of firewood over the place and to have so rubbed down the wall that it would not appear that bricks or stones, whichever they were, had been moved, besides, they might have used quicklime."
It was horrible to Lydia that her sister could go coolly into these dreadful details, that she did not run shrieking—crazy at the very thought of that murder and the body dragged down the steps of the cellar, and thrust, still warm and bleeding, into the wall....
But Rosa, for all her weakness and hysteria, seemed very practical about this ugly discovery. She even talked of the bones being brought home and being given burial in the Bracebridge mausoleum.
"You must have been quite close to the place, Lydia," she said suddenly. "You used to go to that house, didn't you? You saw over it once."
"I never went down to the cellar," muttered Lydia. Then she roused herself to combat her sister. "There's no proof whatever that the bones are—what you think. They may be centuries old for all we can tell. They might even be those of a woman, who knows? That tavern will have passed through many hands, hundreds of travellers must have stayed there. It might have even been a man who died a natural death or was killed in a fight or a battle—a wounded soldier who crawled there to die. We have no proof whatever of anything, Rosa."
"How unreasonable you are," said the elder sister slowly. "You don't want to believe, do you, Lydia? Frank's right when he says you've got an obsession."
"Frank says that, does he?"
"Yes. It is not kind or generous of you, Lydia—you know how intolerable my situation is. I'm not going to endure it! I'm going to put on black and a mourning veil and call myself a widow."
"Yes, and before you've worn that long you're going to change it for gayer colours and marry Frank."
"Yes, I am, and you know it, and it's unfair of you to put all these obstacles in the way. Why, if these bones were brought home and buried, with his name above them, there would be no question."
"No, I suppose not," said Lydia, pale, and turning on her sister, "not even if he came home, not even if he claimed you! There'd be his name on his grave and you the wife of Frank!"
"He wouldn't come home," muttered Rosa. "Some impostor might. And I suppose you're capable of encouraging an impostor in this mad unreasonableness of yours."
Rosa put her little hand in front of her face for a moment and Lydia saw her slender figure shaken as if with dry sobs, but Lydia did not soften. Rosa looked up and saw her sister's stern, frowning gaze still upon her. Rosa was flushed, her full, pretty lips trembled.
"Very well, I didn't want to hurt you too much," she said, "but I have got proof. I believe you were very fond of William; I'm beginning to think strange things. Never mind, you shall see now."
She put her hand into the beaded reticule that hung by her side and took out a ring with an onyx stone in it, neatly engraved.
"This was found among the bones, Lydia, and it was cruel of you to make me show it to you."
Rosa began to sob violently, and throwing the ring with a shudder on to the couch, left the room.
Lydia picked the ring up and held it in the palm of her hand. It must have been very thoroughly cleaned if it was found between the walls of the cellars of The Great Bear, for it was without a speck of dirt or tarnish. She saw the Arms of the Bracebridges with the mark of cadency of the third son.
"His!" whispered Lydia. "But I never saw him wear it—and how easy for Rosa to pretend it was found in Rommel."
Lydia returned to Ardress Hall, and the autumn days were long and sweet over Suffolk, the air like run honey, the sea, milk-pale, running in delicate wavelets on to the silver dunes amid the tufts of blue grass and the low, dry mosses covered with drift, sea-poppies and sea-lavender now withering to grey-green foliage and dry blossoms; the last sheaves were being taken in from the cornfields. A poignant melancholia pinched Lydia's heart; she had written to Herr Leermann to an address—Il Cappello Nero, Venice—where he had told her letters might always be sent to him, and from thence they were quickly forwarded to wherever he might be.
She knew so little of this mysterious and secretive man, but she trusted him completely. She longed to speak to him, for she believed that he was the one person in the world who would give her not only help but some consolation and confidence. Much as she loved her parents, they were powerless in this case, and the division between herself and Rosa was widening with every month that passed.
Lydia had a sensation of more than physical loneliness while she remained in Ardress Hall with Mrs. Prosser and her uncle's old servants.
Her letter to the antiquary cost her some time and trouble to compose; it was difficult to think of an excuse for asking him to write more frankly to her than to her sister. She used her old plea of Rosa's health, and begged Herr Leermann—in order to spare her sister shock or distress—that any details of the finding of the bones and of the ring—and this she underlined—might be given to her, Lydia Ardress. She even asked that the bones might be sent to England, honourably placed in a coffin, and she said that she would be at all this expense if the Bracebridge family declined to attach any importance to the finding of the skeleton in the cellars of The Great Bear.
This was, indeed, the case, as she had learnt from her father. At first shocked and moved by the Bishop's story, Lord Castledown had afterwards declared that he disbelieved in these bones being those of his son, and this despite Rosa's production of the signet ring. The Earl wanted, he said, more evidence as to where exactly this object had been found; it might have been part of some booty wrested from his son and dropped in the cellar among rubbish; unless it had been found actually on one of the fingers of the skeleton, he thought it proved very little. And so used was he since his son had disappeared to mystery, deception and chicanery, that he declared even if the ring had been found on one of the bones of the fleshless hand, it would not have altogether convinced him that the remains were those of his missing son. And he wrote to Herr Leermann in his turn, demanding the height and measurement of the bones and an exact description of the shape of the skull.
'If it was he—lying there murdered a few yards from where I stood,' thought Lydia wearily, 'how many lies we have been told, how many false tales, how much remains completely unexplained!'
The sense of her own uselessness, the futility of her life weighed upon her. She, of all the actors in this drama, was the one left with her life empty on her hands; all her desires, ambitions and hopes were frustrated, and her role was one of nothing but resignation. Even her parents, even William's parents, and his brothers and sisters had their own lives and would in time forget this tragedy and go on with happy, useful lives. At least, if they did not forget the wound, it would scar over, if not heal. Rosa and Frank would indulge their sensual, tenacious love; they might live long and zestfully until the missing traveller of Rommel was but a tale to tell their children's children.
But for her—emptiness. Only the memory of a brief, unsatisfied, bewildering, devouring love.
Lydia Ardress brooded long over her sad, pinched destiny. She began to take again her solitary walks over the dunes, and along the lanes now hung with yellowing bryony and brilliant with the orange and scarlet of hips and haws. The harvest had been gathered in, the ploughshare was turning the rich soil in the lowland fields. She thought that the children whom she passed in the lanes, the women at the cottage doors and the men going to and from their work looked at her a little curiously, as if she already had her legend and, doomed and haunted, was set apart from the common ways of humanity.
And so, she admitted to herself, she was; she knew that she was becoming what her friends, even her own family, would, with a sigh, term, 'odd,' 'queer'; they would shake their heads over her, with whispers of 'poor Lyddy,' then begin to forget her and her unexplained strangeness.
She was in love with worse than death; she had no grave over which to mourn, no memories to dwell on. She was obsessed by a shadow, a wraith dimmer than any ghost of a living man.
She looked in her heart-shaped mirror and saw her beauty becoming pinched and dull, without bloom or radiance, and she was not concerned, though once she had taken a tender pride in the face he had loved. She sat too often alone in the Bird Room, her fingers straying over the keys of the old spinet, or standing at the french window, looking expectantly down the wych-elm avenue, down which no one came.
Mrs. Prosser could not rouse her from her lengthening reveries and every day left her more and more to herself.
Then, with the waning of the autumn gold and silver and the first blowing up of the winter storms, there came an answer to her letter; Herr Leermann had chanced to be in Venice when it was delivered by Hoffman, the courier, at Il Cappello Nero.
The antiquary wrote in formal fashion that he had always held Miss Lydia Ardress in high regard and esteem; he added that his intention was to have done with politics and that he intended to go to Africa, which mysterious continent he had long had a desire to explore; he particularly wished to investigate the remains of the Roman castles and villas there, and he hoped that he might be able to do some excavating, and make some important discoveries.
The war has not yet touched Africa, he wrote. I have accumulated considerable funds with which to indulge my passion for curiosities and antiquities.
Lydia's eye glanced hastily over the paragraphs in which the antiquary dwelt lovingly on his private interests, and dwelt eagerly on those in which he mentioned the case of the missing traveller.
Herr Leermann wrote her that he had not yet been able to go himself to Rommel to examine the skeleton found in the cellars of The Great Bear, but had had to be content with an agent's report.
As for the ring, he wrote, I know nothing of it. If one was found there, it was not reported to me. I understand that the Bracebridge family and their own German detective have the matter in hand. But I can understand your personal interest and if you have anyone whom you can trust, send him to me in this city when I will tell him much that I may not put on paper, since couriers are apt to be stopped and their letters read.
He added that he would be calling every few days until the middle of November at Il Cappello Nero hostelry in Venice, and that by that date he hoped to have finished all his affairs in Europe and to set sail for Africa.
When Lydia read this letter an intolerable restlessness took possession of her. She knew no one whom she could send to Venice, nor anyone on the Continent who could be asked to meet Herr Leermann. Useless to take this letter to her family, to Rosa, to Sir Francis, to the Bracebridges....
First, she would be rebuked and eyed with suspicion for having written direct to the antiquary; secondly, what he said would be regarded as of little importance. Then there was the matter of the ring. Rosa would be against Herr Leermann because he had said he had no knowledge of the ring, which she constantly quoted as proof that her husband was dead.
Lydia had heard that she was preparing a cenotaph in the church on the Bracebridge estates to her husband's memory, pending Lord Castledown's decision as to the removal of the bones. Yes, poor Rosa, whose fingers had never done anything more serious than trace a design for embroidery, was now drawing a sketch for a monument she wished her husband's family to put up to the memory of the missing traveller of Rommel.
The wide, peaceful landscape that had seemed to Lydia only a little while before as open and limitless as if it allowed her to see the confines of the earth, now seemed cramped about her like prison walls.
Lydia took her dilemma to Mrs. Prosser, to whom of late she had spoken even more openly than usual; the two women sat in the Bird Room, the precious sunshine of October streaming about them.
"The fact of it is, Prossy, that I don't think that ring was ever found in the bones, I think they—"she did not like to name Rosa directly—"only pretended that. One can understand it, can't one, Prossy!"
"Yes, one can understand it, Miss Lyddy. They want to put an end to the uncertainty. Of course, they want to get married."
"I think, Prossy, this Herr Leermann knows more than he likes to say."
"Why should that be, Miss Lyddy? He's paid to find things out, isn't he; why should he keep them back?"
"Oh, I couldn't tell you, Prossy, I am so tired. My mind's confused and I've thought about it too long."
"And cared too much, Miss Lyddy!"
"Yes, that, too! And now, I'm going to suggest to you that we go to Venice—you and I!"
The old woman turned her large white face towards her young mistress, her pale eyes sparkled behind the steel-rimmed glasses.
"Why not?" she said quietly. "I don't think we're much use here, either of us, Miss Lyddy. It's an empty sort of life that you're leading, and I'm doing no good sitting here and worrying about you."
"It isn't many people," said Lydia gratefully, "who would have said that. Most people would have made protests, wanted explanations."
"I was your nurse, dear," said Mrs. Prosser with an odd, stiff tenderness; "I think I understand you better than your own mother does. Why shouldn't you go? You've got Napoleon's safe-conduct, haven't you? That'll see you all over Europe. And you've got your own money."
"Hoffman's in London, now," said Lydia, flushing with eagerness. "He's quite safe and faithful. He could go with us. It wouldn't take so very long, either, if we went before the bad weather. We might be back again here before Christmas."
"I'll make your things ready."
"Oh, nothing like what we had before. Not all those clothes that Rosa would insist on taking. And we shan't travel with six horses, or even four, and servants. Just you and I, Prossy—as friends, not as mistress and maid. And we won't have any foreign servants and very little luggage. We'll keep our money, we may need it later for more important things."
"There's your parents, Miss Lyddy," remarked Mrs. Prosser, quietly folding away the grey shawl she was knitting.
"Yes, they will think it very strange, I suppose."
"They may suspect or guess more than you want them to, Miss Lyddy."
"I'll have to think of that, too, Prossy. It's a strange thing for a woman to do, no doubt, but my situation is strange. They have so many other children," she added wistfully, "they'd hardly miss me."
"Well, you've your own life and your own troubles, and your own money, Miss Lyddy," admitted Mrs. Prosser, rising, "and I think it's only reasonable that you should do as you wish."
"Make ready what we must have. I'm going to London to-morrow."
Lydia kissed Mrs. Prosser on her cold, smooth forehead and, leaving Ardress Hall, went through the fields that looked lonely under the dark sky, to the walls of the church where the painted angels stared with oblique glances down on those who prayed beneath.
Lydia and Mrs. Prosser went to London, to the house in Green Street, but Lydia did not divulge to her parents or relatives her plans for going abroad. She thought Sir Francis was suspicious of her movements and perhaps had even guessed her design. She believed, too, that Burton was watching her closely, if not actually spying on her; sometimes when she went abroad to do a few necessary purchases for her journey she would see the manservant somewhere in her neighbourhood.
Rosa was now in mourning and showed Lydia, with some excitement, a letter she had received from a friend then travelling in Hamburg.
I have been here several days and find many people employed to send messages to England, but one must always promise a perpetual and grave caution. They say they know nothing, but still I have got some intelligence which renders the business more complicated and more like a tragedy. Not the least proof exists of Lord William's having been either deranged, murdered, or detained prisoner.
The pantaloons were certainly stretched out in a public place on purpose to be seen, and this I know brought an eye-witness. And also that Lord William received a warning at Berlin, and another sent him at the post-house at Rommel, to be suspicious and beware of Baron Kassel. This proves he had reason to suspect him.
"You see," exclaimed Rosa, in great excitement, "Kassel, after all, might have been bribed to give him up. Altogether there is much appearance of that being a probability, you can judge for yourself!"
Sir Francis, who was present when this letter was shown to Lydia, remarked:
"Depend upon it, warning was either given to draw him into a snare by detaching him from Kassel, or really Kassel is the villain."
"But the ring?" asked Lydia quietly. "If you are convinced he was drawn into The Great Bear and there murdered, why need you concern yourself with these scraps of gossip?"
"I don't know," protested Rosa with a quick look. "Of course, I am convinced he is dead. But one must take some notice of these things."
"Have you heard any more of this Comte Véfour?" asked Lydia, looking steadily at Sir Francis.
"No, my dear Lyddy, except what I told you before. He was certainly a spy of the French or Russian Government, by whom we allowed ourselves to be gulled, and who was taking money from them and us at the same time. He was employed by Fouchet, the Chief of the French Police, a man who will not be troubled long with unprofitable servants."
"You think," asked Lydia, "he was murdered by order of the French Government?"
"So I suppose. The Government was provoked at his having betrayed the truth, which was that William had certainly perished by French means, and they gave some galley-slave a chance of his life if he would kill this man and woman—I do not know who she was. This is what Canning told you before, but you would not believe."
"Why won't the Government make this business clear—at least to you? Why will not Mr. Canning, knowing what this means to us, let us see this man's papers?"
"I couldn't tell you, my dear; I am not sufficiently in their confidence for that. They have certainly seemed to have hidden the papers, and I suppose they are ashamed of having been humbugged by the Frenchmen. However it may be, the three bodies are buried and the affair hushed up and that clue to William's fate is ended."
"This is surely conclusive," said Rosa, in a quick tone, "that my dear husband met his fate through this political catastrophe. I begin to think he was taken to Magdeburg and there murdered as Véfour said. Had he met his end by common robbers or suicide the high bribes I offered would have caused a betrayal. Had it been the latter, the remains must have been found, for no man, swimming as he did, and with a pistol in his pocket, would have attempted to drown himself."
Once more Lydia asked:
"What of the skeleton in The Great Bear?"
"I begin to think that that was not he, or—" Rosa hesitated. "I don't know! I'm confused! He might have been robbed before he was taken there—Magdeburg, I mean—and the ring taken from him then and thrown down with the corpse of someone else. I do not deny, from all I've picked up, that he was in a state of excitement. We do not know the reason for that excitement or what letters he had received to warn him of danger," she said, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushing.
"We do not know the reason," said Lydia quietly, "why he was crossing an enemy's country under an assumed name."
"I think," said Rosa, "he suspected Kassel and was trying to shake him off."
She felt in her reticule and brought out another letter.
"I must show you this, Lydia; it is written by an honest fellow. It throws no light on William's fate, but it might interest you."
Lydia looked with the utmost eagerness at the letter, which proved to be from a young sailor, a top-man in His Majesty's Ship Vulcan, which had taken Lord William from Portsmouth to Malta when he had gone to take up his appointment in Vienna.
After a civil preamble the young man wrote:
Lord William had with him but one servant, an Italian, a man in the middle age of life. More help was required in the cabin and I was sent occasionally to assist. Captain Mitcham's servant was a black, there was an impertinence in his manner that was disagreeable to Lord William and to that circumstance I was probably indebted for the kind notice he was pleased to take of me.
To the black he scarcely ever spoke, and the Italian was at times poorly and this circumstance brought me still more in communication with your husband. I heard him speak of Lady William and his little son.
One night a ship was seen, so near that the hands were passed to quarters with all haste. I was quartered at the after-gun, and in the battle your husband came on deck and Captain Mitcham, thinking it wrong, he being charged with a mission of consequence for the Government, said: "Lord William, may I beg of you to go below?" To which he replied: "Oh, no, Captain Mitcham, I will thank you to furnish me with a ship's musket and ammunition and to give my servant one also." Which, with a cartouche box, was brought him.
He slung it round him and loaded his musket, the Italian following his example. He then placed himself on the brig's poop, close to the after-gun where I was quartered. It was evident that the stranger had not seen us until she was within range of our guns and then within hail, when she suddenly let fly top-gallant sheets and let run her tops'l halyards.
Lord William, addressing the Captain, said: "Mitcham, she's a prize!"
But for some cause or other, perhaps having your husband on board and wishing to push on for Malta, or feeling satisfied with the stranger's answer, Captain Mitcham did not lower a boat to search her and directed her to proceed on her voyage.
I remarked Lord William as being a particularly fine young gentleman of tall, slender figure, complexion fair, high forehead, eyes more blue than grey, with the most beautiful hands that ever I saw on a man, his countenance thoughtful and calm. His eyes were remarkably large and when speaking to anyone they were fixed upon him with a gentle kindness in his look that would dispel any timidity in a moment such a person, however humble, might feel.
I never saw him smile but once. He was standing alone one evening between the two after-guns near the wheel—I was there at the wheel—and he was talking to the Captain. He left him for a few minutes and leaned his elbow on the bulwark, resting his cheek in his hand. In this position some pleasurable emotion caused him to smile repeatedly, after which he joined the Captain again in his quarter-deck walk. He always went below at sunset.
Of his supposed assassination, from my situation as a sailor, I could only hear from rumours which were current at the time. I remember well an English gentleman coming on board at Fiume and of such consequence that Captain Mitcham weighed and put out for his amusement.
I was at the wheel and consequently could, without intentional curiosity, hear that part of their conversation which took place as they walked aft. In answer to something said by the Captain the gentleman's words were: "Lord William's silence surprises me." As they turned to go forward I understood the gentleman to say: "His silence is most unaccountable."
I soon afterwards heard of his mysterious disappearance. It was stated that he had been murdered when travelling through a wood by his servant, who had robbed him and escaped. The master of an Imperial ship told me that an English gentleman had been shot by his servant, who had proved to be a French spy and who did it to get possession of his master's papers. Another report was that he was attacked by brigands and both master and servant fell. I afterwards heard that Lord William's clothes were found, but not the corpse, and no vestige of the servant-—either living or dead—was ever heard of. This had no weight for me—those who had destroyed the master could not more effectively fix suspicion on the servant than by removing every trace from the spot.
"There is nothing in the letter," remarked Sir Francis. "The fellow was civil to write."
Lydia folded the paper up mechanically and gave it to her sister, who was watching her closely.
"You see," said Rosa anxiously, "it proved that he was in a melancholia and great agitation. The mission was too much for him, and after all, though Lord Castledown and his wife hush it up, there is some strain of melancholia in the family, Lydia, it is useless to deny it. I have been reading again his letters, the last he wrote. They are full of gloomy forebodings. He speaks of being surrounded by 'nothing but duplicity and everything being low and mean,' of having an opportunity 'of viewing human nature in its most vile and abominable garb.' He says he begins 'to repent having selected this career,'that his 'inclination for politics and every connexion with active life has cooled,' It is easy to see that he began to dislike society, all form and etiquette, and to long for solitude and a life of meditation."
"Why do you trouble to endeavour to impress me with that now?" said Lydia. "Especially when you know that I know what good cause he had for this gloom, unrest and distaste for life."
Rosa did not answer, but sat silent, biting her full nether lip. She had placed on a table a packet of her husband's letters and Lydia's glance fell upon them and read portions of dead politics that seemed to her now so utterly without meaning.
....the last measure of the Court of Berlin has excited general indignation, not only as I understand through Europe, but even among the better part of the Prussians themselves, who perceive that the rotten policy of their Government has reduced their country to the miserable condition of a dependent federate ally of France. There is every reason to believe that this measure will be extended to the ports of the Baltic, that allurements and menaces will be resorted to to induce Denmark to close the Sound to the British flag.
I fear the cabinet of St. Petersburg has been cajoled by that of Berlin. The projects of Bonaparte towards them are hastening very fast to an issue. He is endeavouring in the meantime to detach the Porte from Russia and England....
Lydia made an effort to rouse herself from her melancholic lethargy; she was conscious that Sir Francis's handsome eyes were fixed upon her shrewdly. This increasing suspicion of her deepened her suspicion of him. She felt much that Lord William must have felt when he started for his mission to Vienna—doomed, harassed, watched upon by spies. As he must have felt when he left Vienna for Hamburg, distrusting everyone, warned, watched, his mind almost unbalanced with emotion.
If she could only get at the truth of that journey! She knew so much, but there was still so much to learn.
In that moment she resolved not to tell anyone of her intention to meet Herr Leermann in Venice. She would write to her parents from Italy. After all, they had many other interests, many other children. They could trust her, surely.
She feared to tell even her mother now, lest it should come to the ears of Sir Francis and he should in some way prevent her, for her feeling about him had gradually come to a realisation that he was her enemy.
So completely did this sudden resolve absorb her that she was leaving with no more than a formal farewell when Rosa, with a listless hand, put forward yet another letter, and in an indifferent tone said:
"Read this, too! It is the last I have, and, indeed, I desire to talk no more of the subject. But you shall not say that I kept anything from you. It is from that friend of father's—Captain Richard Shephard—whom he asked to send us what he could discover. This is what he says:—"
I was prisoner of war at Paris at the period of Lord William's disappearance—which was mentioned in the French papers—and it was generally regarded, not only by the few English who have permission to reside in Paris, but by the French themselves, as one of those crimes which the French Government have never been accustomed to hesitate to commit whenever it suited them.
I always believed he had been assassinated, until you wrote to me of the suspicions some members of his family, particularly his mother, had of his existence. This excited the greatest curiosity on my part, for in the hypocrisy of that dangerous character—Napoleon—I had the most complete belief.
On my return to the Continent, my lord, I sought everyone who, I thought, could give me any information that would tend to elucidate this extraordinary and mysterious affair. I had long desired to see Prussia and Saxony and this new inducement set me to making preparations to visit these countries when, about six weeks ago, Herr Leermann arrived in Paris, I being several times in company with him.
The result of all the information he had collected at Rommel is the conviction he feels that Lord William was robbed and murdered in that town. He believed the crime was perpetrated by the supposed Swiss servant or Anton Scharre, the son of the postmaster, and that the body was carried out and buried in the sands, by the nature of this soil all traces of its having been recently disturbed the next gust of wind or half-hour's rain would for ever obliterate. But though there was no positive evidence that this was the fact, such is his conviction. The pantaloons which were found several days afterwards between Rommel and the Elbe had not been laid on the spot twenty-four hours before they were found, for had they been longer there the letter found in the pocket would have been so completely macerated as to become utterly illegible, since it had rained incessantly for more than three weeks previously.
I asked Herr Leermann if it were probable that Lord William still existed as some of his family were disposed to hope, and he added that nothing could be more improbable.
How deeply I regret that this gifted young man was thus lost at an early age to his country and friends. At the age of five-and-twenty he had attained a prominent position as a diplomat and a distinguished career would probably have been his if he had been spared to his country and his friends. It does not seem that any satisfactory account will ever be read as to the causes of his sudden disappearance.
Lydia put the letter down; sentiment and reason alike counselled her to be cautious.
"Let us then consider it an end of this dreadful matter," she said. "I shall not speak of it to you again, Rosa, nor to you, Frank, unless you first broach it to me."
With Mrs. Prosser's help, Lydia prepared her baggage as if for a return to Suffolk. She engaged Hoffman, the courier, privately, to meet her at Dover. She obtained a visa on her passport, through the agency of Mr. Canning, from the Imperial Austrian and Prussian authorities in London. Her wish for secrecy was respected by those in whom she confided. She said that she was going to visit some English friends in Vienna, and she allowed it to be assumed that she was satisfied as to her brother-in-law's fate.
LYDIA reached Venice without more than the delays and difficulties usually attendant on the unsettled state of Europe. The war between France and Russia was occupying the minds of most people, but in Italy it was quiet enough and when Lydia arrived there in November—almost exactly to the day three years after Lord William had disappeared at Rommel—she found herself in an atmosphere of sad tranquillity amid the decayed glories of the once haughty and superb city.
The diligence and experience of Hoffman, qualities that had gone far to ensure Lydia and Mrs. Prosser so uneventful a journey, secured for them rooms in the inn, Il Cappello Nero, to which Herr Leermann had told his English friends to address his letters.
This was a modest hostelry on a waterway that flowed into the Grand Canal. It was clean, well kept, with spacious, airy rooms. The landlord was a Genoese and the inn was frequented by quiet cosmopolitan people who came and went without parade of any kind but who were, Lydia surmised, engaged in important business. Hoffman told her that Il Cappello Nero acted as a kind of clearing-house and that letters and messages from all parts of the world were received and passed on through the agency of the landlord, Sangallo, as he called himself.
There was no mystery made here about Herr Leermann, who was called 'the famous antiquary'; in conversation with Sangallo, a gaunt, red-headed, intelligent man who spoke several languages, Lydia learnt that it was quite true, as far as he, the Genoese, knew, that Leermann was giving up politics and secret service work.
"He grows a little old, you see, my lady. He has been troubled with ill-health, lately—indigestion and sleeplessness. He wants to escape, he told me when he was last here—get right away from all the turmoil that, as he says, amounts, after all, to very little."
"The war's been going on for a long time," sighed Lydia. "I suppose many serious-minded people are all getting sick of confusion and chaos. Herr Leermann is a strange creature. He has led a very restless and adventurous life and I can well understand that he longs for a little peace at last."
"So he does, my lady. He often comes here and stays for weeks together. It must be about a month since he last left Venice. He has got several affairs in which he was employed to settle, among them this of your brother-in-law."
"Do you really think he knows anything?" asked Lydia, unable to conceal her anxiety and throwing, she was afraid, too much feeling into the question.
The Italian raised his broad shoulders.
"Who can tell! Herr Leermann doesn't give me much of his confidence, though he knows, of course, I am to be trusted. He always seems to be more absorbed in his cases of medals, in the book he is writing on antique arts, than in any question of politics. I can show you, if you like, some of his collection one of these days; I keep some of his curios locked upstairs, they are worth a great deal of money. But I feel safe about them, since no one knows they are here."
"And is he really going to Africa?" asked Lydia. This continent seemed to her like another world, fabulous, inhabited by monstrous people and savage animals, by wonderful plants and trees. She thought of it as a gaudy map painted with hideous and beautiful curiosities, and she, too, longed to escape to that wild, strange place.
"Yes, he says so. He talks of sailing for Tunis and losing himself in Africa. He told me, my lady, that I was to assure you, when you arrived in Venice, that he would not fail to keep the appointment with you here."
"I don't think he will, do you?" asked Lydia.
"I don't, my lady, but I shouldn't trust too much to what he has to tell you. The last time he spoke to me of this matter he said it was an extraordinary mystery and that he only knew about half of it."
'He knows,' thought Lydia, 'more than he likes to say, like so many people in this business.' She did not wish to show too much eagerness before the landlord, for she was not supposed to be personally concerned in the discovery of her brother-in-law, but to be merely acting as an agent for the family, and as Lord William had a father, brothers-in-law and many friends and relatives, it must appear strange, she knew, that she—a woman—with only a servant and courier, should undertake this difficult task.
Lydia retained the services of Hoffman while she was in Venice, for not only did she think it wise to do this, but she liked the little man's company; he was so cheerful, loyal and good-humoured, so adroit at his business which he seemed thoroughly to enjoy. Besides, there was a stronger reason that she scarcely admitted even to herself. He had been familiar with Lord William, he must have been one of the last people—apart from those strangers in Rommel—to see him, and Lydia liked to make an opportunity to question him yet again as to how Lord William had looked and what he had said when he was in Berlin and Hoffman delivered him the last mail from England.
As to the warning letter that Lord William was supposed to have received there, Hoffman knew nothing of it, nor did Lydia believe that one had been received at Rommel, either. Still, the rumour was yet something more to puzzle over; evidence that two such letters had been received was strong. Who had sent them?
With increasing impatience, Lydia Ardress waited for the coming of Herr Leermann. The strange setting of her present life gave her a curious kind of courage; she wished that Sir Francis was in Venice, she felt that she could face him better here than in the Bird Chamber in Ardress Hall against the familiar Suffolk background. Here she felt released from everything; even the anxious letters from her father and mother did not move her; even the thought that her absence from England was causing talk, scandal, distress to Rosa, anxiety to Frank—these things no longer concerned her. She felt detached from her old life. Her obsession was gradually setting her entirely apart from all familiar things and ways; she lived only to dwell on the memory of the missing man. She could see herself years ahead still engaged on this quest, feeding herself with rumours and tales and dreams and broodings. She might as well have been a nun in a convent, so much she was shut away from the outer world. What was happening in Europe—wars and politics and tragedies—concerned her nothing, save as these should bear upon her obsession.
She asked no company beyond that of Mrs. Prosser, the large-faced, white-clad woman, resolute and bold as she was herself, who was always there—outwardly the respectable servant, inwardly the devoted friend.
The modest hostelry that was not frequented by the ordinary traveller suited Lydia far better than the chill formality of The Three Crowns in Rommel. Here she was accepted as someone on a strange mission, who must be allowed to come and go unquestioned. Her simple meals were served in her room that opened on to the canal and the painted posts where the gondolas were moored. Opposite was a disused landing-stage, a small empty house from the balcony of which hung drooping trails of fading creeper, a large-leafed plant unknown to Lydia, that sent a green reflection into the waters already darkened by the shadows of the houses.
That prospect, too, suited her circumstances and her mood; the house, like her life, was waiting for a tenant, empty of all but dreams, like her heart. Often she would sit alone with her shutters open, staring across through the dusk, through the dark, while the stars came out overhead and the sound of the music played by some happier lover came with a melancholy fall on the autumn air.
Mrs. Prosser never reproached her, nor tried to argue her out of her melancholy or her resolve. She wrote with mechanical duty to the people at home, assuring them of her good health and safety. But with every letter she felt farther away from them.
To Rosa she did not write, nor did her sister send her any message.
But Herr Leermann did not keep his appointment at Il Cappello Nero in Venice, nor was there any message from him. As the days passed into winter, Lydia became very sensitive to the sound of the wind and the fall of the rain. The silence of the antiquary caused her to withdraw more and more into herself. She questioned the landlord, she questioned Hoffman, but neither knew anything. No news had come from Herr Leermann to any of his acquaintances and agents. The courier declared that as long as he had known the antiquary he had never known him break an appointment before, and the Genoese hoped gloomily that his patron had not perished by the hands of the French Government spies, adding, however, that he thought Herr Leermann was far too adroit and fearless to fall a victim to any trap or any violence.
"He knows how to get on the right side of the French, too," added the Genoese cunningly. "If he doesn't sometimes work for them he makes them think he does."
Lydia lingered for a month in Venice, her body idle, her mind active.
Then one rainy evening, Hoffman, who was lodging at a cheap inn in the suburbs towards Chioggia, arrived in a state of agitation uncommon to his even, cheerful and cynical temper. He had with him a copy of the Roman Gazette, for he made it his business to get hold of as many European newspapers as he could, but often there was some delay in accomplishing this and the paper was two weeks old.
It recorded news older yet, but of startling significance to Lydia. There was a formal notice to say that the famous antiquary and traveller, Herr Nicolaus Leermann, had been found murdered shortly before the date of his intended departure for Africa.
According to the report, the circumstances of the crime were as mysterious as those that still darkened the disappearance of Lord William Bracebridge and the assassinations of the so-called Comte Véfour, his wife and servant.
Leermann had been living in the apartment that he kept always in Rome and where he stored many of his papers and a portion of his famous collection of antiquities and medals. The woman who came in daily to look after him had been told that he was shortly departing for Africa, first, however, visiting Venice, and she had helped him make some order in his possessions and pack away many of his treasures.
One morning when she arrived as usual she found the old man sprawled on the floor, stabbed through the back. His papers had either been seized and taken away or burnt, though his valuable collection had not been touched.
Lydia did not know what high hopes she had put on this interview with the antiquary until she learnt of his death. The disappointment and the horror were too much even for her strength. She shut herself into her room and a low fever made her helpless for days. Mrs. Prosser then suggested that she should return to England, but Lydia thought of her native land with dread.
"My heart tells me," she declared, "that I am exiled for ever! That is my doom, my destiny! But you need not share it, Prossy. If I can't go back you must."
"There's no need for me to tell you, Miss Lyddy, that where you go I do. What interest have I got in England when you're out of it?"
"Oh, Prossy, that was such a dreadful, dreadful thing to happen! Who killed him? I can't help thinking that someone knew he was coming to tell me.... Oh, Prossy, what shall I do? Everyone who knows or who might tell me is silenced in the most horrible way."
The old woman had nothing to offer but her simple philosophy. Crosses must be borne and burdens carried, especially by feminine shoulders; there was no escape from them. She said that if she had been in Miss Lyddy's place she would have wished to go home. And with this warning she told her the news that Hoffman had given her first—that in the last mail from England, which Hoffman had gone himself during Lydia's illness to fetch from the post-house, was an English newspaper with the announcement of the approaching marriage of Sir Francis Lisle and Lady William Bracebridge, conclusive proof of whose widowhood, the Gazette added, had been for some time in the hands of the Bracebridge family.
Lydia had been expecting this news; with the death of Leermann it shut her out entirely from the old life.
Even her father's letters, full of affectionate regret and yet of tender understanding, even her mother's half-bewildered appeals for her return, failed to move her, as did the more laconic notes from her soldier brothers on leave from the Peninsula.
In the mail had come drafts on Venetian bankers that she had requested her man of business to send.
They were for considerable sums of money, for the fortune her uncle had left her was larger than she had expected. Now that all the formalities attending his death had been completed she found that she was mistress of a considerable yearly revenue. On the death of her father Ardress Hall, too, was to be hers.
"But I don't think that I can go back to it, Prossy. They can have it—not Rosa, but one of my brothers. I don't know, I don't seem able to think."
Yet she had soon recovered her strength of mind and it was not much more than three weeks after the news of Nicolaus Leermann's assassination that with Mrs. Prosser and Hoffman, the courier, she set out for Vienna.
"There must be someone there who knows something," she said, "and I shall stay until I find out."
It was about Christmas-time and the weather was cold in North Italy. Lydia had to spend some of her money in purchasing furs for herself and her attendants, and travelling was slow, the horses only going short stages on the slippery, frost-bitten roads, while the police, at every town they stopped at, warned them not to travel after nightfall, as the country was still infested with brigands, disabled soldiers, deserters and all the riff-raff thrown up by a long, wide-spread war.
In Vienna Lydia lived under an assumed name in quiet apartments found by Hoffman. It was easy to be lost in the Imperial capital that had changed masters so frequently and so rapidly in the last few years. When Lydia had lived for some weeks in complete seclusion in Vienna she was surprised by a visit from the Baron Kassel. It was with an eagerness that she could scarcely disguise that she received him in her prim little salon, although when she saw him that sensation of dislike arose in her again. She felt, even after one look at his long, cool face, that there was no help to be had here, only more deceptions and disappointments.
The sombre young man seemed to guess her attitude, for he said at once:
"You dislike me and suspect me! Perhaps you have some cause. The affair of the lost envoy is becoming without interest politically and there is no reason that I should not now tell you a little more than I told you at Rommel."
"You know, then, something?" asked Lydia, on her guard.
"Yes, and I am disposed to disclose it to you because of your extraordinary devotion, mademoiselle."
Lydia shivered and, looking down, said:
"You know that my sister is marrying again?"
"Yes, but what I have to tell you, will put no obstacle in the way of the match. I must assure you at once that I have no proof that Lord William is alive."
She had been prepared for that and said steadily:
"You can, however, throw some light on his fate?"
"Yes. But remember," added the young Austrian with a touch of sternness, "that I give you the information out of pure compassion, mademoiselle; no political use whatever is to be made of it. Not that I should tell you anything that is of political importance. And if you, in any way, betray my confidence, such as it is, I shall have to resort to a complete denial of what I am telling you now."
"You need not warn or threaten me," replied Lydia quietly. "As you say, it is getting some time ago—nearly four years ago!—and international events move rapidly in time of war."
"I suppose that you suspected I knew something more than I told you at Rommel?"
"We all suspected that, but we could not prove that you told us less than the truth."
"Well, I can tell you this. I saw Lord William frequently when he was in Vienna; I was one of those appointed to keep an eye on him. His domestic affairs caused him such an agitation of mind that he was scarcely responsible for all his actions. He knew that his wife's affection was not his. I gather that he had realised the state of affairs when he was at Stockholm. He was now separated from her and in a most humiliating position. He was also himself in love with another woman and dare not move against his wife for fear this should come out, causing a twofold scandal."
"How long have you known all this, Baron Kassel?" asked Lydia, moving back into the shadow of the window-curtain.
"Some time. The Imperial Government, you see, used to open the British envoy's letters before he received them. To read them was part of my duty."
Lydia did not speak and Baron Kassel continued:
"After the disaster of Austerlitz and the ruin, as he thought, of his diplomatic career, Lord William's agitation increased. For some time he had been discreetly watched by a secret agent of Canning's—a man who passed under the name of the 'Comte Véfour.' This spy—if you like the name—had been in touch with Lord William, who knew his real identity but could not reveal it without betraying the secrets of his Government.
"This Monsieur Véfour had in his service a man named Christian Möller, a sturdy, reliable member of our secret police. Just before Lord William's departure from Vienna this Möller, who had long been watching for an opportunity to do so, entered his service as a body-servant. Véfour contrived that, I don't quite know how. I was given a commission by my Government, who suspected the capacity of Lord William, to accompany him safely to the frontier.
"I knew that the Swiss was a British agent. I knew that Lord William carried very important papers relative to the rising in the Tyrol. He was in a state of considerable agitation and alarm until we reached Berlin. There a letter was sent to him—the famous letter of warning which has been mentioned so often during the inquiries. It came from this Monsieur Véfour, who also had travelled to Berlin, to watch us and to outwit any possible French spies.
"Lord William showed me the letter and told me he was going to interview 'the Count.' He expressed great indignation that Mr. Canning should send someone to watch him. When he returned from his interview with this secret agent he suggested to me that he should travel under an assumed name. He said it was the advice of Monsieur Véfour, who had warned him that the French were following him.
"I demanded to see that gentleman myself, but Lord William told me it was impossible; that Véfour was hiding in Berlin under yet another name and that he, too, was under the observation of French spies. I had been advised of this by Möller, the Swiss, an exceedingly trusty and alert man. I consulted with him and then decided to accede to Lord William's suggestion. But I took from him when he slept all important political papers that he had, thinking that I was better qualified to look after them than he was. I filled his dispatch-cases with sealed blanks I had brought on purpose. Möller went through his luggage and took out all papers.
"Lord William then confided to me that this Comte Véfour (it being always understood that the name was to be used as a disguise for the English spy) had brought him grave news of his own personal affairs. But as it was expedient that we should all leave Berlin immediately, he was seeing this gentleman again in Rommel to settle both public and private matters."
Baron Kassel, who had spoken coldly and deliberately, here paused and Lydia whispered:
"Your matter is very complicated, Baron Kassel."
"I am trying to make it simple, mademoiselle," he replied, "also to tell you no more than I am allowed to tell. Still, anything concerning an insurrection in the Tyrol is vieux-jeu now.
"Well, we left Berlin in such haste that there was no time for us even to affect a disguise. I had, also, as I will tell you later, my own reasons for wishing to attract attention. You must remember the state of the country so soon after Austerlitz. I was sorry to part with the courier, Hoffman, but for the rest I thought that we were really safer by ourselves—I thoroughly trusted Möller—than with a number of attendants, any one of whom might have been bribed to betray us into the hands of the French.
"The three of us arrived at Rommel. I was acting, you must understand, under strict instructions from my own Government, which was working in close connexion with your Foreign Office. I knew that we had our agents at Rommel, an important frontier town. One of them was passing under the name of Weber and affected to keep a gambling hell, a position that gave him many opportunities of gathering information. Yet another was the man who ran The Great Bear and a third, Anton Scharre, was at the post-station. Of his fidelity there was some doubt, and I had been warned to be careful of him.
"As I had the important papers safely in my keeping, which were all that really concerned my Government, I gave Lord William his head, as I had been advised to do.
"A letter was brought in the evening from The Great Bear and, as Lord William told me, from this Monsieur Véfour. He had asked for a meeting with Lord William at the man Weber's house in the shoe-market. So much he told me. Véfour was staying at the tavern opposite.
"Without consulting me, however, he went to see the Governor, could not see him, found Lieutenant Wulf and got a safeguard. When he returned with this he told me that he would have opened himself to Count Von Alten if he had seen him, but could not do so to his subordinates. He had taken the safeguard and Anton Scharre, who went with him as a guide, along the shoe-market in order to mark Weber's house. By a coincidence his attention was attracted to this, because there was a quarrel and a woman came out as he passed.
"The rendezvous with Véfour was at about ten o'clock in the evening. I advised Lord William to take the Swiss with him, but he told me that his business was of so private a nature that he would have no one. But he said that he referred to his own affairs, in which this Véfour was so intimately concerned. And I said: 'Well, go at least to the Governor and make yourself known to him. That will ensure us a certain amount of protection.' But he came again, and very piteously represented to me his case. Not only was he pursued by the French spies, of whose cunning and malice neither he nor I had any doubt, but there was this business of his own. He did not disguise to me that it was a question of his wife's infidelity, and even the paternity of his child, or so at least I gathered from certain of his broken ejaculations and words that fell from him in his sleep when he rested on the table in the little closet.
"While the carriage was still waiting, as you know, Lord William went to Rommel and called on the Governor. I had persuaded him to leave his sables behind, as they were likely to attract a thief, also to put in his pocket, and not display, a certain braid of pearl and hair that he wore with the gold chains, seals and diamond brooch. This he did, but in an abstracted way, as if such details had no interest for him.
"He called on the Governor and the evidence of the servant-girl is in that respect quite correct. But when he left the Governor, instead of returning to the post-house, he went to the shoe-market to meet Comte Véfour at Weber's house. He did not find him. There you have the evidence of Martha Brander—also correct. Now," said Baron Kassel abruptly, "my tale ends. After that I know no more. I may swear to you any oath you please to put to me that what became of Lord William after he left Weber's house, or, indeed, if he ever did leave it alive, I cannot tell you."
Lydia put her hands over her eyes.
"What do you think happened?" she asked in a low voice.
"One of two things. Either Weber played us false and betrayed him to the French—in which case he was seized in the room in which Martha Brander left him, gagged or silenced with a pitch-plaster, carried out by the back way, murdered and buried in the sands of the Elbe—or he himself left the house, perhaps on some information he had, to find Comte Véfour at another rendezvous, and was there murdered by common thieves. Or, it is possible, seeing the state of his mind and his acute anguish and unbalanced emotionalism, that in some way he got down to the coast and tried to knock up the British Consul there—the other servant-girl's story—and did indeed try to take a boat to Sweden, and perished in the storm."
"Thank you," said Lydia, twisting her fingers one inside another. "You have certainly not betrayed Mr. Canning or your own master, Baron Kassel, for you have told me nothing that could concern anyone but myself. I suppose by now you have pieced my story together?"
"I was enabled to do that, mademoiselle, when I called to see you at The Three Crowns. I saw the whole drama then, and, believe me, it was interesting. The three principal actors—the wife, the other lady, the lover—were before me!"
"Yes," smiled Lydia, "how careful we were then. How we disguised ourselves one from another! What trouble we took to be delicate and careful about the situation! But now it does not matter. Rosa is marrying Frank."
"And he can be a father to the boy," smiled Baron Kassel. "It would be a pity, would it not, mademoiselle, if Lord William were found after all?"
"Why do you say that?"
"I don't think he would find anyone—unless, perhaps, it was his mother, and I understand she is old and ill—who would admit his identity. Even his father might find it expedient to deny him."
Lydia raised her hand and let it fall.
"What more can you tell me?" she asked.
"Only one or two scraps of information that you must put together as you can and will, mademoiselle. One is that Weber—perhaps you have guessed it—is the man who appeared at Chiswick under the name of Véfour. The woman who passed as his wife was Martha Brander and the servant was Christian Möller, the Swiss."
"No, I hadn't understood that," cried Lydia, rising. "And the murders?"
A shrewd smile lifted the corners of Baron Kassel's pale, shapely lips.
"As I told you, this Weber was supposed to be working in our interests—that is the British and Imperialists—but I should say we had been humbugged by him. He was a useful fellow who knew the ins and outs of international diplomatic relations extremely well. Brander was clever; she moved in the underworld. Möller, the Swiss, I would trust absolutely. I should think Mr. Canning had him there to watch the other two. It seems clear that Weber was going to betray to your sister, in the hopes of a large sum of money, something he knew about her husband, and that there were those spying on him who were aware of this treachery. He may have caught the Swiss at his papers, tried to shoot him, and in desperate self-defence he may have killed him and Martha Brander. Or, it is possible a fourth person may have killed all three—or some combination like that, I don't know. You see, your Foreign Office hushed it all up and poor Möller was buried at the cross-roads!"
"And the skeleton in the cellars of The Great Bear? Can you explain that, Baron Kassel?"
"I think so. I believe the body to be that of Anton Scharre, who was mixed up in this and was probably blackmailing The Great Bear people before they left Prussia. Probably when he came out of the House of Correction he went round there to get his share of money for what he had done—I am not sure what part he had played—and to get rid of him they murdered him. That explains why the police didn't find the skeleton—it was put there after the search for Lord William."
"Who," asked Lydia with desperate emphasis, "was Comte Véfour?"
"I couldn't tell you, mademoiselle. That was more or less a general name which we used. First one and then another of us would take it. There was no such French title, but the use of it might impress a provincial or an ignorant servant, and when any of us—in, that is, the secret service of Austria or Britain, heard it, we knew that it would be one of our men. I only heard of this Comte Véfour through Lord William. This agent, or spy, was living very secretly for a short time in Vienna. When he saw how closely I was connected with Lord William, he sent me his credentials with certain particulars, that I may not divulge now and that would not interest you, that proved his bona fides. He was a person of great political integrity, courage, energy and resource, completely trusted by Mr. Canning."
"Yet he could not prevent my poor brother-in-law from falling a victim to the French spies?"
"That we don't know, do we, mademoiselle? There is a part of the mystery that I must leave to you to solve. I have told you, surely, sufficient to give you a great deal of help."
"But I can't think," said Lydia, who was much shaken, "who it could have been, who would have known his—our affairs. You may have learnt them, as you said, by what he let fall in his agitation and through reading his mail. But this man, this spy, this agent of Mr. Canning—how should he have known all that?"
"Can't you guess?" asked Baron Kassel with a sudden cold and rather disagreeable smile.
"No. I am quite at a loss!"
"Then I'm afraid I must not inform you."
"There are, surely," she implored, "some things that you may tell me! What, for instance, was your part in this? What did you do when William was missed?"
"You know what I did! From then on the story is quite open. I went to Von Alten; I disclosed to him my identity. I said that although the British envoy was missing I had had his papers, all that was of value to us—I asked him to put me and Möller, also a secret agent, under some sort of arrest, to protect us. I gave him some of the papers I had taken from Bracebridge, and he took them to Berlin the next morning, gave them there to an Imperial agent, and they were returned to Vienna. The letters relating to the project of the rising in the Tyrol I had contrived to send to England—via Hamburg; perhaps you can guess how. Some of the private documents I destroyed in my rooms at The Three Crowns. When Von Alten returned from Berlin he told me that it had been decided that the whole affair should be hushed up—too much public and private scandal would come to light if I told the truth. It was particularly desirable that the identity of this Comte Véfour should not be known."
"The grey overalls?" whispered Lydia.
"That is a mystery to me as well as to you, mademoiselle. Obviously they were placed there deliberately, and the letter was, I should say, written by your brother-in-law with some message to his wife. He hoped that by using the name Comte Véfour, attention would be drawn to his persecutor."
"Why didn't he name him openly?"
"I can't tell you. Delicacy of feeling, perhaps, loyalty to the oath of secrecy he had taken!—remember that this man Véfour was not only connected with Lord William personally in his private affairs, but was also, as Lord William knew, a secret agent for the British Government. I take it that he used his name in order to give someone a clue."
Lydia paced up and down the small, modest salon, while Baron Kassel, with a slightly amused smile on his cool features, leaned against the mantelpiece and watched her with an expression that seemed to say ' How is it you can't guess? '
"What of the Governor of Magdeburg's comment that misled us all, even such an astute man as Herr Leermann, for a while?" asked Lydia.
"That was a false trail laid by myself," replied Baron Kassel calmly. "We had to do something to distract you all. There were those who wanted to prove Lord William's death."
"Oh!" sighed Lydia. She sat down on the prim, wide, satin-striped couch and clasped her hands on her knees. "Wanted to prove! At any cost!"
"Now it is becoming a long time ago," said the young Austrian, "and I consider it only fair to let you know these things. You have always been to me an interesting heroine of an interesting mystery. I was much attracted by your picture," he added coolly, "that Lord William had at the end of that chain, made, no doubt, of your own hair and some river pearls."
"He showed it to you?"
"No, but I had several occasions of seeing it."
Baron Kassel put his hand into the pocket of his fashionable green coat and drew out a small package wrapped in silver paper.
"Here it is, mademoiselle. I have been waiting for an opportunity to give it to you."
"Oh!" said Lydia. "Oh!"—and sat motionless.
"Pray take it. Your secret is safe with me."
"How did you guess it?" said Lydia as her cold fingers closed round the package. She opened it and looked down at a representation of her own face, taken in far happier times, given with remorse and fear, and yet rapture, as a secret love-token to her sister's husband before he departed on the journey from which he had never returned.
"I took it from him that night he was asleep in Rommel, I thought it was a very dangerous thing for him to be wearing. The robbery of it, or the discovery of it might have caused a scandal that would have blasted the good names of two families."
"Take it away!" exclaimed Lydia, dashing the miniature down on the floor. "I don't ever want to see it again; I can't endure it!"
"Destroy it, then, mademoiselle, yourself."
He pushed it towards her with the toe of his boot and Lydia set her heel on it and thrust it into the carpet; she felt that the situation, that life itself was slipping from her control.
"And all this for nothing!" she exclaimed, with desperate passion; from a woman's point of view how paltry and stupid the whole tangle seemed: "These papers, these documents! I suppose they were lost? Nothing was got through to England? We always thought it extraordinary that you and William allowed yourselves to be so conspicuous."
She heard the cool, direct voice of the young Austrian flowing over her broken thoughts.
"Not so extraordinary as you think, mademoiselle! Your brother-in-law lost his head, but I did not lose mine; neither did Möller. I have told you that the Austrian documents relating to the insurrection in the Tyrol were given by me to the Governor of Rommel and by him taken in person to Berlin, where they were forwarded to Vienna. As to the documents to Mr. Canning that your brother-in-law was in charge of, they were given by me to one of the Jews waiting in the post-station, who, while the hunt was going on for your brother-in-law, was proceeding quietly to Hamburg; I had arranged for him to meet me there. I had the papers in my map-case. It was easy to slip them over."
"I see," sighed Lydia. "William was, in a way, a sort of decoy." She felt withered, hardly conscious of what was happening.
"Precisely, my dear young lady. When we, my Government that is, discovered the weak kind of man he was, observed his agitation and distress after Austerlitz, knew of his disastrous private affairs, it was decided that he should be used as a blind, allowed to dress conspicuously, to wear the expensive sables—I saw to it myself that they were purchased before we left Vienna—encouraged to wear his jewellery and to show his English money. As I told you, I possessed myself of all his papers and passed them without any trouble to the spy whom I had asked to await me at the frontier, and who, travelling to England by the Baltic—the way you came—soon had the documents in the hands of Mr. Canning. The Jew, needless to say, was an English agent, a very clever fellow."
"Mr. Canning never told me—or any of us—this story!" said Lydia; she thought 'none of this has been real, I've been entangled in fantasy.'
"No, it was not his business to do so. Perhaps it is scarcely mine. But you seem to me so detached from the world, so unlikely to make any use of this, so obsessed by your affection and, as I remarked before, the whole affair is so dead now, that I have no hesitation in letting you know these particulars."
"But still you cannot let me know the important things—who this Comte Véfour was, and what became of my brother-in-law. The man Weber, you know," she added feverishly, "assured me that he was alive. That may have been a trick, it may have been the truth—who can tell? Poor Weber was so soon afterwards silenced."
"And now I must be silent, mademoiselle, and leave you. I have to go to Tunis."
Lydia interrupted sharply:
"That is where Herr Leermann was going! Who do you think killed him? He, too, was assassinated like Weber, or the man you call Weber, just when he was about to impart something to me. I came to Italy on purpose to meet him."
"I know, mademoiselle, I know," said Kassel stonily. "There are some things that cannot be explained, that must be forgotten." He took up his hat, gloves and cane and an increasing sense of dismay and desolation darkened down over Lydia's soul; she felt trapped. She believed the Austrian had told her the truth, but how had it helped her? Many points in the mystery were cleared up; in fact, the whole tragedy was more or less explained—or would be, when she had sat down and written it out, as she had written out all the circumstances of William's disappearance when she had been in Ardress Hall.
How was she benefited? She was left lost and he was missing. And all she cared to know—where her love was or how he had died—was not revealed. She believed Baron Kassel had spoken the truth when he said he did not know the answer to these two poignant questions, but she was also sure that if he had known them he would not have revealed them to her.
The tall young man took her hand and looked at her with a compassion that was not in keeping with his impassive, slightly cynical expression. It was evident that he did respect her and had been moved by her steadfast devotion. She no longer felt regret or shame that he should know her story; she was almost indifferent, indeed, to the opinion of anyone as to her conduct. Rosa's open acknowledgment of her love for Frank had released Lydia from much of her reserve and loyalty.
If William were thrust down into the grave, regarded by all the world as dead, well, then she might be permitted to hold his memory in her heart; Rosa had proclaimed her indifference to her husband and her attachment to another man—William belonged to the woman who loved him.
As these thoughts ran through Lydia's mind she turned suddenly to where Baron Kassel stood, by the door now, but lingering a little and looking at her with a penetrating gaze. Lydia felt in a void; strain, fatigue, bewilderment and disappointment had made her dull; her tired mind flickered back over all that had happened since the news of William's disappearance had come to England; all her faculties were clouded by a miasma of fear, distrust, suspicion. How many people must have lied, betrayed, murdered, since this tale began; even the man who declared that he was enlightening her had admitted coolly to a long deception.
Baron Kassel seemed touched by her miserable eyes, her helpless attitude.
"You must understand," he said gently, "that all these people had their codes that did not concern you—the women—at all. That was Bracebridge's fault and tragedy. He was brought down by domestic disasters. He should never have mingled these with public business."
"His fault!" Lydia could say no more for grief and rage, but Kassel answered her thought.
"You think that impossible? But some men can manage these affairs. Bracebridge should have resigned. Unfortunately his wife's lover was also his colleague."
'Who was Véfour?' This question beat in Lydia's aching head. 'Who was this man who was at once Canning's agent, working with Kassel and the Swiss spy and who yet knew William's private tragedy?' She felt sick and empty, incapable of using her reason, of making any effort; then came a flash of intuition.
"Why, Frank!" she exclaimed. "Frank!" as if a third person had entered the trim narrow room. Baron Kassel gave a thin smile as if he would have said 'Well, you have got it at last!'
"It was Frank! Frank was Véfour—Canning's agent."
"You may think so if you will," replied Baron Kassel. "I believe you will find that the role fits him extremely well. Sir Francis is one of the ablest men in the service of your Foreign Office."
Lydia hardly heard what he said; a thought as bewildering as appalling forced the words:
"Did Frank murder him?"
"You need not, even supposing that this Véfour was Sir Francis, assume that," said Baron Kassel. "To my certain knowledge French agents were on your brother-in-law's track; he might easily have been kidnapped and silenced for the sake of the papers I had already sent through to England."
Lydia, Mrs. Prosser and the courier Hoffman, went to Rommel—the lady so sunk in a dark absorption that her attendants were alarmed, fearing for her reason if not for her life if she continued in this melancholic brooding, for she took no notice of what was about her. She believed that she had put the fragments of the mystery together only too exactly; the triple crime at Barnes. That man Burton—how foolish of her not to have thought of it before—was a trained spy or detective. He had known her every movement, he had watched her when, like a fool as she was, she had gone to that house on the Mall. Weber had heard of the approaching marriage between Francis and Rosa—he knew something. Perhaps, and here Lydia's blood flowed faster in her veins, he even knew that Lord William was alive. How was he to turn that knowledge to account?—by blackmail—his position as an international spy made it easy for him to obtain secret information. He probably intended either to threaten blackmail or to sell his information for a good round sum; perhaps he had it in his power to stop the marriage, certainly he had it in his power to create a terrible scandal. When Lydia and not Rosa had answered the letters he had been a little nonplussed and so he had put her off until another visit while he and Martha Brander put their heads together.
Meanwhile, probably Möller, the Swiss servant, had communicated with Sir Francis; Burton had had the house under observation. It was likely, Lydia thought, that Francis himself had visited Weber and Martha Brander and been confirmed in his suspicion that they were betraying the British Government which then employed them, as well as trying to use his own particular secret with regard to Lord William to squeeze money out of his private purse.
What had happened then? Had Martha, frightened, intended to make a clean breast of it and been murdered by Weber to close her mouth, he and the Swiss then destroying each other in the fracas that followed, or had—and Lydia believed this to be the truth—Francis and Burton destroyed the two spies on the secret orders of Mr. Canning, or even on the sole responsibility of Sir Francis himself? And had Weber, though taken by surprise, been able to kill Möller before he himself perished? All was dark and horrible here.
Then the murder of Leermann! Lydia believed she saw the hand of Sir Francis in that too.... No doubt he had his agents everywhere.... Her mind checked at the thought of Burton, the stolid-faced manservant, the purple satin-smooth jowl, the small eyes. He had had time to follow her to the Continent, to murder Leermann and return home. What had Leermann known? Why had Sir Francis wished to close his mouth for ever? Her mind was sick with dreadful fancies.
To return to Rommel was like stepping again into a nightmare, an old hideous dream that had been forgotten and then long after revived. Here was the Great Square with the stone statue of Roland, there was the Town Hall and the Cathedral, and there was the road to the post-station and that other to the shoe-market. There was the Dutch Coffee House where Sir Francis had stayed with Burton; and there the Governor's house and there The Three Crowns. Lydia refused her former suite of rooms. She lodged on the ground floor with Mrs. Prosser and Hoffman had a room in the Dutch Coffee House.
On the morning after her arrival—it was by now June—she went to the Cathedral and with a fascinated horror looked at the painted angel. There he stood in his niche, gaudy sentinel of the shadows, his arm upraised with the clumsy sword, his smooth mask-like face, once brightly painted and now smoothly polished to an amber hue, staring out across the rich empty twilight of the church.
'How is it,' thought Lydia, 'that I never noticed before that it is the face of Frank? His look, his smile, his amiable malignancy.' She was frightened when she thought of Francis Lisle. He had been so familiar to her that she had deceived herself into thinking that she knew his entire life, but in reality she had known nothing, only the surface—the painted angel's exterior. She could recall now that she had only seen him at intervals, never enquired about or even been interested in his diplomatic work, the nature of his travels, his connexion with Mr. Canning. How perfectly he had posed as the distressed friend, the chivalrous escort, when he had gone with her and Rosa to the Continent! And how perfectly his presence with them had served him, enabling him to check their investigations... yet, possibly, if he had not himself murdered William, he had been baffled, too, and eager to prove the death of the man whose wife he wished to marry.
"Rosa!" Lydia cried out after her sister in the agonised recesses of her mind; would Rosa know what Francis really was? Would their greedy sensual passion, so difficult for Lydia to understand, one day be sated and they come to know one another?
She tried to free her mind from that problem; these two had left her life. Very likely she would never see them again, for she had resolved to lose herself as her love had been lost. She had long been spiritually lost, wandering in a dark labyrinth, groping for a way out and never finding it; now she intended to disappear even from the knowledge of her own people, to escape from the formal pattern of a life in which she had no longer any part.
Lydia hired a horse and rode alone, despite the protests of Mrs. Prosser and Hoffman, to the Quitzow woods, where the wind-blown pines thinned to the scrub and sand.
One detail had not been explained to her by Baron Kassel—she had no inkling as to the identity of the old woman, that leprous, ragged creature who seemed to have so shrewd an idea of Lydia's own intimate affairs and of how matters stood between Rosa and Sir Francis; Lydia was goaded by the hope she might find this old creature again.
There was the scene, set as she remembered it—the mighty pines rising up to the sky now pale as skimmed milk, the carriage road passing swiftly into the shadows, the little paths soon lost in twilight and the undergrowth, the distant sandy slopes of bramble and gorse that ran down to the wide waters of the Elbe, with the stunted trees at the banks.
If only the old woman and the black dog would appear again, how much more boldly and desperately would Lydia question her now! Now she would refuse to let her go... loathsome and diseased as she might be, she would cling to her until she had obtained from her something of what she knew. What had she seen? A rendezvous? A quarrel? A murder in the dark wood?
What should she do, how proceed, how investigate further?
As she thought over her case it seemed to her that Baron Kassel had been guilty of a fine cruelty in telling her so much of the truth and arousing such detestable suspicions in her broken mind. He had left Europe; it was not likely she would ever see him again! He was a strange man, occupied in mysterious business, and she knew if she were to use the information he had given her, he would never support her, but rather give her—as he had threatened—a blank denial.
What use, therefore, to her were these dark doubts without proof! If she were to return to England now and challenge Sir Francis she would be treated as insane. There would be good colour for such a charge; even her own mother had begun to think that her mind was unsettled, when she had announced her intention of remaining indefinitely in Germany. She could read that between the lines of the tender agitated letters she received from that distant home that was to her like yesterday's dream.
Yes, they already thought her mind unbalanced by melancholia... if she were to touch even on such a tale as Baron Kassel had told her, their suspicions would be confirmed... She was, then, helpless!
"There is nothing for me but to live here, in this town where he was last seen, until I die. And I hope," said Lydia, looking up at the blue-black plumes of the pines, "it will not be long before I do fall asleep, never to wake, never to know yearning, or nostalgia, or fear again."
After she had stayed some weeks in Rommel and her life had arranged itself along monotonous and rigid lines which she did not feel inclined to alter, Lydia felt she could no longer afford to retain the services of Hoffman. Besides, she really no longer required the courier. And so he was dismissed, with letters to England that she felt might very well be the last she would ever write, to her parents and friends.
A formal note from Rosa had apprised her of her marriage to Francis and of the erection of a cenotaph to Lord William at the Bracebridge mausoleum. There was little more that Lydia could do. The chapter seemed closed, the story ended. Perhaps some day she might return to Ardress Hall and that false peace of the familiar house and garden, the dunes and meadows, but she did not think that it would be soon; indeed, it might be that never again she would see England.
She was not happy at Rommel, or tranquil, but she felt bound to remain there. She was no longer surrounded by hostility. The people who had so resented the three travellers on their first visit now regarded her with a sympathy and respect. As all enquiries into the disappearance of Lord William Bracebridge had come to an end and as many points in that mystery had been cleared up without any reflection on the honour of the town or the integrity of its police, Governor or Burgomaster, Lydia was no longer avoided as a person whose investigations might bring trouble and disgrace on Rommel.
Graf Von Alten was still in command of the garrison and Lydia had asked him to come and see her and had told him the tale she had heard from Baron Kassel without, however, letting him know who had given her this information.
The Governor confirmed the story, assuring her that thus it had happened and explaining to her satisfaction why he had felt obliged to keep silent. He also gave her his most solemn assurance that he knew nothing of the fate of Lord William; he also declared himself ignorant of the real identity of 'Count Véfour.'
But he did add one scrap of information to the story that Baron Kassel had told Lydia.
"I think that there was some question of a duel. I believe he felt his honour so involved that nothing but a duel would do, and mad as it may sound, I believe there was to be some meeting by lantern or torchlight in the environs of Rommel, perhaps in the Quitzow woods, in which case he might easily have fallen by his adversary's sword or pistol. When he came to see me he was quite distracted. Yes, I think there was a duel and he fell."
"But not, surely, without someone's having knowledge of it; and how was his body disposed of afterwards?"
"It might have been placed in a carriage and taken to the Elbe and thrown in. I'm afraid," he added, with a sort of stern kindness, "that we shall never know. Lord William was fantastic. When he is spoken of as half-insane I do not reply. Let us leave it."
Lydia accepted this decision; she acquiesced in her dreadful fate. Only sometimes she realised how young she still was and how many years of this half-light, this twilight of thought and emotion there might be before her patience. She decided to write an account of the whole affair. Nothing else, indeed, would give her satisfaction since she could not take her mind from this obsession.
So she asked the landlord if he could tell her of anyone who would act as her secretary. Her knowledge of German, though fluent, was not perfect; she found that since her last visit to Rommel she had forgotten much.
"I want someone, it doesn't matter the nationality, who knows German and English, who has time and patience."
The landlord then suggested a certain young Alsatian known as Herr Dittmar, though that was not supposed to be his real name, who was at present teaching in the school at Bannenburg, a village beyond the woods.
"I had thought of a woman," said Lydia, who felt a chill distaste for masculine company. "Is there no educated woman somewhere near here?"
The landlord thought not and continued to press the case of the young Alsatian, whose story had roused, he said, a good deal of compassion in Rommel.
"Who is he?" asked Lydia, without interest but forcing herself to kindness.
The landlord replied that the stranger had appeared two years ago, arriving, he said, from a Bavarian monastery. Some dreadful catastrophe of the war that he did not care to name had blotted out his entire family—he had lost wife, child, parents, everything. It was supposed that the French troops had blown up or fired some house in which the family had taken refuge, or that the ship in which they were flying from some dangerous coast had gone down at sea. No one knew, but it was clear that the young man was the survivor from some terrible tragedy. They thought that his mind was something seared, yet he had retained his learning and could teach music, elementary mathematics, French, German and English. He said that he had acquired the latter language as a tutor in England before his marriage.
He was not above thirty years of age and very well in his person, but given to sink in such brooding melancholy that often his reason was feared for; but he was always gentle and courteous.
"No one can really make friends with him," said the landlord, "he is civil to all but intimate with none. He writes, I think, but the couple with whom he lives don't know what he really does with his evenings. He wanders abroad a good deal in the woods and on the banks of the Elbe. When he first came here he was tutoring in a private family and did not stay above three months. He went away again and then came back, soon after your ladyship arrived, and is now established at the little school."
"There are many such people to be found in Europe now," said Lydia. "I have come across them even in my recent travels. People with broken minds and lost memories, derelicts, separated from their homes and families."
She thought to herself: 'Am I not one of them? Has not all I loved and cared for gone down in this hideous war and chaos?' Idly she asked the landlord if he had seen the young man.
"Oh, no, indeed! He never comes to Rommel. Not many people have seen him, except just in the evenings, you know, walking in the woods. He lives the life of a recluse, but of course we all talk about him. He has been kind, too," added the landlord a little awkwardly, "teaching one or two poor lads who have promise and would like to go to the University and don't know where to get the training."
"I'll think about employing him, but he should find someone who is happier than I am. My state is too like his for me to be able to afford him any consolation."
"I think he'd be glad of the money, my lady," said the landlord. "The good woman with whom he lodges says that his clothes are pretty threadbare. He soles his shoes himself."
"Well, there are many doing that, I suppose," smiled Lydia.
"Yes, my lady, but this is a gentleman. His eyes are bad, too; he always wears glasses and his acquaintances are trying to persuade him to go into Berlin and see a doctor there."
But Lydia shrank from employing this poor broken creature. No doubt he was happier than these robust people thought; no doubt he, too, was feeding on dreams.
Lydia soon forgot about the young Alsatian. She decided that she would send to Berlin or go herself to that city to employ a secretary.
She also wrote to a bookseller whom she knew there and asked him to send her some quires of paper and a cover she specially designed, lined with gold and blue embossed paper with purple ties. This she intended to hold all the notes she made on the case of the missing traveller.
And while she was waiting for this parcel to arrive by the mail from Berlin she took out the brocade shoes that Johann Voss had feigned to mend for her and placed them on her dressing-table, together with the mutilated ivory tablets on which had been written hastily and roughly effaced the word 'Lydia' seven times repeated.
On a pale afternoon in April she went down to the post-station to see if her parcel had arrived from Berlin. It had not and she felt an added chill of disappointment at having to go back empty-handed. The cover of her own design and the blank pages soon to be filled with the particulars of his story were like a link with her lover; she seemed more bereft now that she had not got them. She smiled at her own foolishness but lingered a little between the post-house and the tavern of The Great Bear. She remembered standing there before, late in the year, when there was as yet no sign of Spring—the hardness of winter was over everything; now the pale northern summer gave an even radiance to the austere landscape.
Lydia felt a sick distaste at the thought of returning to the town; Rommel fascinated her, held her by the firm chains of imagination and memory, yet she loathed it too. 'I have never seen it as it really is,' she thought.
She turned along the bleak road by The Great Bear, went along the highway and paused on the bridge looking down at the rapid waters of the Steppenitz that flowed towards the mill-race. The green summer-flowering rushes showed vivid among last year's tangle of weeds and grasses on the sandy banks. In the eddies and shallows where the waters cut into the sand, strong water-weeds showed small white flowers that rocked amid the myriad of tiny leaves.
Lydia stood on the little bridge, musing, while the twilight darkened about her and her mind was as empty as the landscape, while the thoughts that came across it were like the dark birds flying home across the marshes—passing as swift and disappearing into the nothingness from which they came.
So intense was her self-absorption that it was some time before she realised there was someone walking on the sandy path that ran through the reeds by the Steppenitz. The sight of this solitary man, who was wandering as if in a melancholy mood, with his hands clasped behind him, seemed to increase instead of alleviating her own loneliness.
His hair was long and blowing in the rising night wind about his face. His head was bowed, his long skirted coat had several capes that concealed his figure.
He came closer to the bridge and as she looked down on him she saw more details of his appearance. He held a tall beaver hat behind him; he wore riding boots; he was shabby, but his clothes had once been elegant.
Lydia suddenly became conscious of him as another human being. His air was very different from that of the inhabitants of Rommel; he was neither peasant, nor tradesman, nor had he the military precision of the Governor and the provincial nobility. The twilight seemed to increase so suddenly that Lydia felt as if her own sight and not the daylight were failing.
When the stranger had almost reached the bridge that spanned the little river at a height of about sixteen feet, he looked up and Lydia, through the floating shadows in the grey air, looked down into the wan face of the missing traveller. She knew him instantly. He was revealed to her in a flash as a dart of lightning will reveal a landscape. Then he was lost again, and it was as if she looked on a dead man or a ghost.
He was so changed that it was, although he made no sound, as if he cried aloud the words that had been for years now associated with his name—'Lost! Lost!'
Without speaking, without any sign of recognition, but with his expressionless stare turned from the bridge and directed ahead of him, he passed under the shadow of the arch.
Lydia could not move. Shock held her rigid, almost without emotion. When her stunned mind could function again all the wild fancies and dark superstitions of her childhood came crowding on her and she thought: 'It is an apparition come to show me where he was murdered!'
She crossed the bridge and saw him going towards the mill-race, still with bent head and holding the beaver hat clasped above the skirts of the full overcoat, walking slowly, as if in no way disturbed or moved by meeting her, towards the old mill that showed darkly against the pallor of the sky from which all light was fading, and where a small lamp had been lit in an upper window.
"Oh! Fool! Fool!" cried Lydia, startled into activity by the sight of him walking away. "Why don't you follow him, fool?"
This was not so easy. She had to leave the bridge and pass down the high road and find some way of scrambling on to the flat fields that edged the river. Undergrowth was in her way, pollard willow trees with their weight of foliage, the red tendril-like branches and long golden leaves; when she was through this there was sand and marsh and harsh grass in the way, and the light or her sight failing every instant. The wind blew, too, and seemed to cast the sand and vapours before her eyes.
When at last she was by the river-bank, guided on her way by that light in the old mill-house, he was out of sight. He was easily lost amid the willows and the leaves, for he was clothed in green-grey clothes, the colour both of the twilight and the foliage.
When Lydia, panting and exhausted, reached the wooden footbridge that spanned the river to the mill she sank down, overwhelmed by her own desperate emotion. The missing traveller was nowhere in sight; he had disappeared into the gloom of the evening that seemed to be moved, like waves of water, by the constant wind.
Lydia sank lower, pressing her face on the damp grass, and forced herself into a dull tranquillity. Then she rose and stared into the black depths of the river where the one lamp was reflected in broken lozenges of gold.
Little was left now of her native boldness that had carried her so far, or of her painfully acquired resignation. She crossed the bridge, holding on to the handrail with a hard clutch, for her limbs were so feeble that she feared she would slip off the planks into the darkness below.
When she reached the door of the mill she beat on it with bare hands that were not for a while heard.
Then the miller came, holding up his lantern, and looked at her curiously.
"Is there anyone within? Have you a visitor?" she asked, peering over his shoulder.
But there was only the miller's family seated round the table with the coarse white cloth and the blue and white pottery and the milk and the bread standing ready. The curious faces of the children were picked out from the darkness by the lamp that their father held and that he had been about to set upon the table when the knock came.
So wild did Lydia look, with her bonnet fallen back upon the tangled hair and only held by the strings across her throat, with her bare hands—for she had dropped her gloves and her reticule—with her skirt torn and stained, with her face, that had the greenish pallor of illness, staring into that peaceful humble family room, that the children as well as the miller himself were frightened and thought they beheld the ghost of some drowned lady or one of those phantoms from the dark woods of which their grandmother would tell them round the fire of an evening.
"Visitor?" the man stammered. "We've no visitor! Who should visit us at this time of night, save those we know!"
"It is a stranger I'm looking for," murmured Lydia. She leant against the lintel of the door.
"It is the foreign lady," said the miller's wife, coming up behind her husband; "she who is looking for the missing traveller. Come in, my lady, don't stand there, you're cold and wild." The woman added in a whisper to her husband: "She thinks she's seen something, she's got distraught with wandering by herself—always searching."
"I won't stay," said Lydia, straightening herself. "I'll go back! He's here somewhere, I saw him! He came down by the mill-race and I lost him by the bridge! How could I wait so long? I don't know! But seeing him again—after all these years—and so changed too!"
The miller nodded at his wife, who shuddered. They were sure that this unhappy woman had seen the ghost of the murdered man.
They helped her into the little parlour, taking no notice of her protests, for she was so weak she could not resist. One of the children set a rude chair for her near the little window.
"Don't let me spoil your meal"—'and your gaiety,' she added in her heart.
She sat apart with her face turned to the wall. The miller's wife gave her a cup of hot milk and she drank it slowly and looked out of the window. They left the curtains undrawn because she was staring so at the sky, watching the stars come out in that deep violet blue that the heavens show when viewed from a lamp-lit room. As she rested there her thoughts drifted into some order.
Presently she rose and thanked them, regretting she had no present to give the children for their kindness.
"I dropped my bag on the bridge—the bridge over the river by the high road, you know—perhaps if you go there you'll find it."
The miller went home with her. He took a stick and a light and accompanied her as far as the square and there beside the Roland statue she took leave of him, smiling and holding out her hand in thanks. The scene was to her more unreal even than usual: music and yellow radiance were coming from the beer cellar under the town hall; there were lights in the windows of the houses, the Governor's apartments, the rooms of The Three Crowns. It was all like a drop scene of painted cardboard and canvas to Lydia; she was acutely conscious of the wind, that blew through her clothes and chilled her heart.
She went slowly to the Cathedral. It was dark there, save for the glow of a few lamps round the altar that shone on painted wooden seraphs that might have come off a sugar cake, so plumb were they in their crude pink and white, with vivid gold hair and smiling doll faces.
Lydia felt cold to the heart as she sat beneath the painted angel and then sank to her knees and hid her face in her hands, while her thoughts raced, chasing one another like pursuing shadows in the secrecy of her mind.
Mrs. Prosser was much alarmed that Lydia was so late in returning to her rooms and more alarmed still when she saw her young lady's face.
"You are ill, Miss Lyddy, you have caught a chill wandering about in the dark and the damp down by the river."
"Don't reproach me, Prossy, it is nothing like that. Is there a fire, my limbs are so cold." Yes, Mrs. Prosser had a fire.
"I think you need one in this country," she grumbled, "even at midsummer."
Lydia sat down on the easy chair and crouched forward so that the warmth of the flames was over her; Mrs. Prosser untied the strings of the bonnet that held it across Lydia's throat and fetched a comb and smoothed out the dishevelled hair but asked no questions. With her hands closely clasped together and her gaze fastened on the leaping flames, Lydia said:
"It would be easy for you and me to get lost, wouldn't it, Prossy! We could go away under other names—far, perhaps to Scandinavia across the sea, perhaps to some German town. I've got good friends who would send me my money under careful cover."
"What are you talking about, Miss Lyddy? What do you mean—disappear? I suppose anyone can disappear, but it's a queer word for you to use."
"Lost! Lost!" whispered Lydia. "There is no way to even a shadow of happiness unless I am lost too! But this is not for you, Prossy, it's only for me. You can return to England when you will."
"I don't know what's in your mind, Miss Lydia, and I won't ask. But you don't need telling that I'll stay with you. What's England to me now?—Miss Rosa married again, and married to Sir Frank—and all my other children grown away from me, and forgotten me, too, maybe. And I've not so many more years to live, Miss Lyddy."
The woman turned her large, pale, calm face towards her young mistress, took off her steel-rimmed glasses and rubbed them on her large white handkerchief, her flabby freckled hand moving steadily up and down.
"I can't tell you what's happened to me," said Lydia. "Not yet! I've got to think. Or maybe that's the wrong word—perhaps I've got to dream! But you can do something for me, Prossy. You can ask them in the hotel how near Bannenburg is and hire a carriage. I shall want it to-morrow, early."
"Have you found something out, Miss Lyddy?—I can't forbear asking."
"You've every right to ask, Prossy," replied the young lady absently, "but I can't find the words in which to tell you. We were defeated from the first, he and I."
The old woman looked at her young mistress anxiously and paused before she left to execute her commission.
"Won't you go to bed, Miss Lyddy? Won't you let me take off your pelisse? See how wet and stained it is at the skirt, as if you had been walking on the marshes."
"I've been walking on the river-bank, by the mill, Prossy. I'll take off my clothes presently, but I'm coming to no harm—see, the fire is drying my shoes and my stockings and the hem of my skirt."
'She's not thinking of what she's saying, she's talking like one of those speaking dolls,' thought Mrs. Prosser, and she left the room, quietly closing the door behind her, and Lydia sank forward again, her face in her hands, her eyes gazing into the flames.
Late that night, when the hotel people were about to put the shutters up, a young man knocked at the door. He had a letter for Miss Lydia Ardress, correctly addressed in the English style. The landlord knew him as a peasant lad who used to come to and from Rommel with vegetables and fowls.
"Ah, you're from Bannenburg, aren't you?" he said. "Why, what are you doing with a letter for the English lady?"
"It's from Herr Dittmar, the young schoolmaster," said the boy. "I'm not to wait for any answer." He pulled at his cap and was gone into the night.
The landlord went upstairs with the letter. 'So, after all, she's going to employ that poor young gentleman! She seemed very unwilling when I mentioned him.'
The letter was given to a chambermaid and by the chambermaid to Mrs. Prosser, who looked at it long and with a ghastly stare before she took it in to her mistress. Lydia was still seated before the fire that Mrs. Prosser had at intervals come in to replenish with billets of pine-wood. The letter passed from the pale freckled hand of Mrs. Prosser to the cold fingers of Lydia and between the women was a little sound like a sob or an exclamation. Then Lydia broke the wax that bore no seal.
"Light the candles," she whispered under her breath, "the firelight is not strong enough. My eyes are weak, I think, Prossy; often to-day I have felt a black cloud across them."
Mrs. Prosser lit the candles, two in a branch of copper, and placed them on the small table by her mistress's elbow and Lydia read the letter that the peasant lad had brought from Bannenburg.
I did not mean to let you know of my existence. When you left Rommel I thought you would never return and that everything was over. If you have heard the Alsatian's story, it is mine. Pursued by my wife's paramour, Canning's agent, who pretended to be watching over me and helping me in my mission, and also by spies who intended to rob me of the papers I carried, I had little hope of reaching England alive.
There were several people, you see, who intended to murder me. Nor did I see any great object in living.
She was his mistress; the child was not mine and we were for ever separated. I had, too, failed my Government and accomplished nothing of what I was sent out to achieve.
He appointed the Quitzow woods as the place in which we should meet. I believe he intended to murder me there, though he called it a duel and I was armed. But I went and he did not come. I was hidden in the woods for several days and then I made my way to the coast. I thought of revealing myself to the Consul there, but I changed my mind and took ship for Sweden.
Though I had been robbed in Weber's house I had some money concealed on my person. Two of our ships were wrecked but I got ashore.
I thought that they would marry and you would forget me. But I found no good hiding-place in Sweden and returned under a disguise that none penetrated and came back to Rommel and placed the overalls in the Quitzow woods. I wrote so often to Rosa and always tore the letters up. I left that scrap. I thought it might be a clue without betraying Canning.
I then went to Bavaria where I stayed for a while in a monastery. I wandered here and there after that, and found it easy to conceal myself, though everyone was searching for me—you see, they were looking for a dead, not a living man.
When you first came to Rommel I was there again, hidden in the Quitzow woods. And I spoke to you. I had a black dog with me—you may remember my disguise now.
Lydia, I did not mean to reveal myself. What is there before us! For me to come forward now would ruin us all; the truth would blast many reputations. I have found a little resignation and a little philosophy. There is still much I do not understand. That you could never ask. Nor I explain. Leermann saw me in Bavaria. They murdered him before he could tell.
To be near you I came here where I have work at the village school. I seldom go abroad and all those who knew me are dead or have left Rommel—except the Governor, and I have avoided him.
I avoided you, too, though the temptation was strong. How could I be unmoved by your return to search for me when everyone else believed that I was dead?
There were rumours that I was not sane, that I had lost my head. Indeed, perhaps, they only voiced the truth. But you know the reason for that despair that was near insanity. For Leermann I am sorry. No one who recognised me now would be safe. From the first they meant me to be dead.
I did not mean to write to you, but since I saw you on the bridge...
The writing ended abruptly, and there was no signature. Lydia stared at the letter a while in silence, then she folded it up and put it in her bosom.
"Have you ordered the carriage, Prossy?" she asked quietly. "I want it early in the morning. And pack up all that we have of use or value. We are leaving Rommel and I don't know where we are going."
The following day a little hired carriage drew up outside the school house at Bannenburg that stood in the village square shadowed by a group of lime trees then in full leaf. The wind had passed away, towards the coast, and the day was still and fair.
Two women were within the carriage and there was some luggage in the boot. The younger got out, went straight to the schoolroom door, over which was the shadow of the lime trees, and knocked. One of the pupils answered her; she said:
"I want to speak to Herr Dittmar, the Alsatian gentleman who teaches here."
The child told her that the teacher was in his little room in the house beside the school and the young woman went there; the children, crowding to the door with a casual curiosity, noted her strange attire, her haggard beauty, her low voice with the foreign accent.
She was closeted for about half an hour in the schoolmaster's house that looked on the square with the lime trees, and then they came out together into the sunlight. He had his glasses in his hand, showing for the first time since he had taught there his fine pale grey eyes; his long hair fell smoothly over his collar.
Neither of them spoke; they waited for a while under the lime trees while one of the elder boys, at the master's request, went up to his bedroom and packed his valise; it was so quiet in the village, under the delicately moving leaves of the lime trees.
The eager lad brought the valise and placed it in the boot with the lady's luggage; the other woman, who seemed to be a servant, got out and, mounting the box, sat beside the driver.
Herr Dittmar and the young lady then got into the carriage, which drove away in the direction of the coast. None of these travellers was ever seen in the neighbourhood again. The driver of the hired carriage came back to Rommel after twenty-four hours, saying he had left the three foreigners at a post-station on the Hamburg road. He believed they were going on by the common stage, but to what destination he did not know.
That autumn the painted angel was removed from the Cathedral at Rommel. The pastor wished it to be repaired; with a new sword and a few fresh coats of paint it would make a fine figure to stand by the side of the altar. But when it was lifted the rotten wood split and crumbled and the carpenter declared that it would be impossible to repair it. Laid on its face it seemed but a hollow decayed tree-trunk of no great interest. It was therefore burnt on the next bonfire of the town's rubbish.
The sacristan said that the young English lady would miss it if she came again to Rommel, seeing that by the side of that figure she used to sit and sometimes pray. But she never returned nor was heard of again, nor were there any further enquiries for the lost traveller whose strange disappearance continued to perplex the citizens of Rommel.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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