My Lady Rotha: A Romance

I nodded and mumbled something, and went on into the house. Perhaps I was still a little sore on my girl's account, and resented the easy way in which she had dropped out of others' lives. At any rate, my instinct was to keep the thing to myself. The face at the window, and then this strange assignation, could have only one meaning; but, good or bad, it was for me. And I hugged myself on it, and said nothing even to my lady.

The day seemed long, but at length the evening came, and when the men had gone to drill and the house was quiet, I slipped out. The streets were full at this hour of men passing to and fro to their drill-stations, and of women who had been out to see the camp, and were returning before the gates closed. The bells of many of the churches were ringing; some had services. I had to push my way to reach Herr Krapp's house in time; but once there the crowd of passers served my purpose by screening me, as I loitered, from farther remark; while I took care, by posting myself in a doorway opposite the window, to make it easy for any one who expected me to find me.

And then I waited with my heart beating. The clocks were striking a half after seven when I took my place, and for a time I stood in a ferment of excitement, now staring with bated breath at the casement, where I had seen Marie, now scanning all the neighbouring doorways, and then again letting my eyes rove from window to window both of Krapp's house and the next one on either side. As the latter were built with many quaint oriels, and tiny dormers, and had lattices in side-nooks, where one least looked to find them, I was kept expecting and employed. I was never quite sure, look where I would, what eyes were upon me.

But little by little, as time passed and nothing happened, and the strollers all went by without accosting me, and no faces save strange ones showed at the windows, the heat of expectation left me. The chill of disappointment took its place. I began to doubt and fear. The clocks struck eight. The sun had been down an hour. Half that time I had been waiting.

To remain passive was no longer bearable, and sick of caution, I stepped out and began to walk up and down the street, courting rather than avoiding notice. The traffic was beginning to slacken. I could see farther and mark people at a distance; but still no one spoke to me, no one came to me. Here and there lights began to shine in the houses, on gleaming oak ceilings and carved mantels. The roofs were growing black against the paling sky. In nooks and corners it was dark. The half-hour sounded, and still I walked, fighting down doubt, clinging to hope.

But when another quarter had gone by, doubt became conviction. I had been fooled! Either some one who had seen me loitering at Krapp's in the morning and heard my tale had gone straight off, and played me this trick; or-Gott im Himmel! – or I had been lured here that I might be out of the way at home.

That thought, which should have entered my thick head an hour before, sped me from the street, as if it had been a very catapult. Before I reached the corner I was running; and I ran through street after street, sweating with fear. But quickly as I went, my thoughts outpaced me. My lady was alone save for her women. The men were drilling, the Waldgrave was in the camp. The crowded state of the streets at sunset, and the number of strangers who thronged the city favoured certain kinds of crime; in a great crowd, as in a great solitude, everything is possible.

I had this in my mind. Judge, then, of my horror, when, as I approached the Ritter Strasse, I became aware of a dull, roaring sound; and hastening to turn the corner, saw a large mob gathered in front of our house, and filling the street from wall to wall. The glare of torches shone on a thousand upturned faces, and flamed from a hundred casements. At the windows, on the roofs, peering over balconies and coping-stones and gables, and looking out of doorways were more faces, all red in the torchlight. And all the time as the smoking light rose and fell, the yelling, as it seemed to me, rose and fell with it-now swelling into a stern roar of exultation, now sinking into an ugly, snarling noise, above which a man might hear his neighbour speak.

I seized the first I came to-a man standing on the skirts of the mob, and rather looking on than taking part. 'What is it?' I said, shaking him roughly by the arm. 'What is the matter here?'

'Hallo!' he answered, starting as he turned to me. 'Is it you again, my friend?'

I had hit on Herr Krapp!' Yes!' I cried breathlessly. 'What is it? what is amiss?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'They are hanging a spy,' he answered. 'Nothing more. Irregular, but wholesome.'

I drew a deep breath. 'Is that all?' I said.

He eyed me curiously. 'To be sure,' he said. 'What did you think it was?'

'I feared that there might be something wrong at my lady's,' I said, beginning to get my breath again. 'I left her alone at sunset. And when I saw this crowd before the house I-I could almost have cut off my hand. Thank God, I was mistaken!'

He looked at me again and seemed to reflect a moment. Then he said, 'You have not found the young woman you were seeking?'

I shook my head.

'Well, it occurred to me afterwards-but at which window did you see her?'

'At a window on the first floor; the farthest from the door,' I answered.

'The second from the door end of the house?' he asked.

'No, the third.'

He nodded with an air of quiet triumph. 'Just so!' he said. 'I thought so afterwards. But the fact is, my friend, my house ends with the second gable. The third gable-end does not belong to it, though doubtless it once did.'

'No?' I exclaimed. And for a moment I stood taken aback, cursing my carelessness. Then I stammered, 'But this third gable-I saw no door in it, Herr Krapp.'

'No, the door is in another street,' he answered. 'Or rather it opens on the churchyard at the back of St. Austin's. So you may have seen her after all. Well, I wish you well,' he continued. 'I must be going.'

The crowd was beginning to separate, moving away by twos and threes, talking loudly. The lights were dying down. He nodded and was gone; while I still stood gaping. For how did the matter stand? If I had really seen Marie at the window-as seemed possible now-and if nothing turned out to be amiss at home, then I had not been tricked after all, and the message was genuine. True she had not kept her appointment. But she might be in durance, or one of a hundred things might have frustrated her intention.

Still I could do nothing now except go home, and cutting short my speculations, I forced myself through the press, and with some labour managed to reach the door. As I did so I turned to look back, and the sight, though the people were moving away fast, was sufficiently striking. Almost opposite us in a beetling archway, the bowed head and shoulders of a man stood up above the common level. There was a little space round him, whence men held back; and the red glow of the smouldering links which the executioners had cast on the ground at his feet, shone upwards on his swollen lips and starting eyeballs. As I looked, the body seemed to writhe in its bonds; but it was only the wind swayed it. I went in shuddering.

On the stairs I met Count Hugo coming down, and knew the moment I saw him that there was something wrong. He stopped me, his eyes full of wrath.

'My man,' he said sternly, 'I thought that you were to be trusted! Where have you been? What have you been doing? Donner! Is your lady to be left at dark with no one to man this door?'

Conscience-stricken, I muttered that I hoped nothing had gone amiss.

'No, but something easily might!' he answered grimly. 'When I came here I found three as ugly looking rogues whispering and peering in your doorway as man could wish to see! Yes, Master Martin, and if I had not ridden up at that moment I will not answer for it, that they would not have been in! It is a pity a few more knaves are not where that one is,' he continued sourly, pointing through the open door. 'We could spare them. But do you see and have more care for the future. Or, mein Gott, I will take other measures, my friend!'

So it had been a ruse after all! I went up sick at heart.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE HOUSE IN THE CHURCHYARD

The heat which Count Leuchtenstein had thrown into the matter surprised me somewhat when I came to think of it, but I was soon to be more surprised. I did not go to my lady at once on coming in, for on the landing the sound of voices and laughter met me, and I learned that there were still two or three young officers sitting with her who had outstayed Count Hugo. I waited until they were gone-clanking and jingling down the stairs; and then, about the hour at which I usually went to take orders before retiring, I knocked at the door.

Commonly one of the women opened to me. To-night the door remained closed. I waited, knocked again, and then went in. I could see no one, but the lamps were flickering, and I saw that the window was open.

At that moment, while I stood uncertain, she came in through it; and blinded, I suppose, by the lights, did not see me. For at the first chair she reached just within the window, she sat down suddenly and burst into tears!

'Mein Gott!' I cried clumsily. I should have known better; but the laughter of the young fellows as they trooped down the stairs was still in my ears, and I was dumfounded.

She sprang up on the instant, and glared at me through her tears. 'Who are-how dare you? How dare you come into the room without knocking?' she cried violently.

'I did knock, my lady,' I stammered, 'asking your pardon.'

'Then now go! Go out, do you hear?' she cried, stamping her foot with passion. 'I want nothing. Go!'

I turned and crept towards the door like a beaten hound. But I was not to go; when my hand was on the latch, her mood changed.

'No, stay,' she said in a different tone. 'You may come back. After all, Martin, I had rather it was you than any one else.'

She dried her tears as she spoke, standing up very straight and proud, and hiding nothing. I felt a pang as I looked at her. I had neglected her of late. I had been thinking more of others.

'It is nothing, Martin,' she said after a pause, and when she had quite composed her face. 'You need not be frightened. All women cry a little sometimes, as men swear,' she added, smiling.

'You have been looking at that thing outside,' I said, grumbling.

'Perhaps it did upset me,' she replied. 'But I think it was that I felt-a little lonely.'

That sounded so strange a complaint on her lips, seeing that the echo of the young sparks' laughter was barely dead in the room, that I stared. But I took it, on second thoughts, to refer to Fraulein Max, whom she had kept at a distance since our escape, never sitting down with her, or speaking to her except on formal occasions; and I said bluntly-

'You need a woman friend, my lady.'

She looked at me keenly, and I fancied her colour rose. But she only answered, 'Yes, Martin. But you see I have not one. I am alone.'

'And lonely, my lady?'

'Sometimes,' she answered, smiling sadly.

'But this evening?' I replied, feeling that there was still something I did not understand. 'I should not have thought you would be feeling that way. I have not been here, but when I came in, my lady-'

'Pshaw!' she answered with a laugh of disdain. 'Those boys, Martin? They can laugh, fight, and ride; but for the rest, pouf! They are not company. However, it is bedtime, and you must go. I think you have done me good. Good night. I wish-I wish I could do you good,' she added kindly, almost timidly.

To some extent she had. I went away feeling that mine was not the only trouble in the world, nor my loneliness the only loneliness. She was a stranger in a besieged city, a woman among men, exposed, despite her rank, to many of a woman's perils; and doubtless she had felt Fraulein Max's defection and the Waldgrave's strange conduct more deeply than any one watching her daily bearing would have supposed. So much the greater reason was there that I should do my duty loyally, and putting her first to whom I owed so much, let no sorrow of my own taint my service.

But God knows there is one passion that defies argument. The house next Herr Krapp's had a fascination for me which I could not resist; and though I did not again leave my lady unguarded, but arranged that Steve should stop at home and watch the door, four o'clock the next afternoon saw me sneaking away in search of St. Austin's. Of course I soon found it; but there I came to a check. Round the churchyard stood a number of quiet family houses, many-gabled and shaded by limes, and doubtless once occupied by reverend canons and prebendaries. But no one of these held such a position that it could shoulder Herr Krapp's, or be by any possibility the house I wanted. The churchyard lay too far from the street for that.

I walked up the row twice before I would admit this; but at last I made it certain. Still Herr Krapp must know his own premises, and not much cast down, I was going to knock at a chance door and put the question, when my eyes fell on a man who sat at work in the churchyard. He wore a mason's apron, and was busily deepening the inscription on a tablet let into the church wall. He seemed to be the very man to know, and I went to him.

'I want a house which looks into the Neu Strasse,' I said. 'It is the next house to Herr Krapp's. Can you direct me to the door?'

He looked at me for a moment, his hammer suspended. Then he pointed to the farther end of the row. 'There is an alley,' he said in a hoarse, croaking voice. 'The door is at the end.'

I thought his occupation an odd one, considering the state of the city; but I had other things to dwell on, and hastened off to the place he indicated. Here, sure enough, I found the mouth of a very narrow passage which, starting between the last house and a blind wall, ran in the required direction. It was a queer place, scarcely wider than my shoulders, and with two turns so sharp that I remember wondering how they brought their dead out. In one part it wound under the timbers of a house; it was dark and somewhat foul, and altogether so ill-favoured a path that I was glad I had brought my arms.

In the end it ran into a small, paved court, damp but clean, and by comparison light. Here I saw the door I wanted facing me. Above it the house, with its narrow front of one window on each floor, and every floor jutting out a little, gave a strange impression of gloomy height. The windows were barred and dusty, the plaster was mildewed, the beams were dark with age. Whatever secrets, innocent or the reverse, lay within, one thing was plain-this front gave the lie to the other.

I liked the aspect of things so little that it was with a secret tremor I knocked, and heard the hollow sound go echoing through the house. So certain did I feel that something was wrong, that I wondered what the inmates would do, and whether they would lie quiet and refuse to answer, or show force and baffle me that way. No foreign windows looked into the little court in which I stood; three of the walls were blind. The longer I gazed about me, the more I misdoubted the place.

Yet I turned to knock again; but did not, being anticipated. The door slid open under my hand, slowly wide open, and brought me face to face with an old toothless hag, whose bleared eyes winked at me like a bat's in sunshine. I was so surprised both by her appearance and the opening of the door, that I stood tongue-tied, staring at her and at the bare, dusty, unswept hall behind her.

'Who lives here?' I blurted out at last.

If I had stopped to choose my words I had done no better. She shook her head and pointed first to her ears, and then to her lips. The woman was deaf and dumb!

I would not believe it at the first blush. I tried her again. 'Who lives here, mother?' I cried more loudly.

She smiled vacuously, showing her toothless gums. And that was all.

Still I tried again, shouting and making signs to her to fetch whoever was in the house. The sign she seemed to understand, for she shook her head violently. But that helped me no farther.

All the time the door stood wide open. I could see the hall, and that it contained no furniture or traces of habitation. The woman was alone, therefore a mere caretaker. Why should I not enter and satisfy myself?

I made as if I would do so. But the moment I set my foot across the threshold the old crone began to mow and gibber so horribly, putting herself in my way, that I fell back cowed. I had not the heart to use force to her, alone as she was, and in her duty. Besides, what right had I to thrust myself in? I should be putting myself in the wrong if I did. I retired.

She did not at once shut the door, but continued to tremble and make faces at me awhile as if she were cursing me. Then with her old hand pressed to her side, she slowly but with evident passion clanged the door home.

I stood a moment outside, and then I retreated. I had been driven to believe Herr Krapp. Why should I not believe this old creature? Here was an empty house, and so an end. And yet-and yet I was puzzled.

As I went through the churchyard, I passed my friend the mason, and saw he had a companion. If he had looked up I should have asked him a question or two. But he did not, and the other's back was towards me. I walked on.

In the silent street, however, three minutes later, a sudden thought brought me to a stand. An empty house? Was there not something odd in this empty house, when quarters were so scarce in Nuremberg, and even my lady had got lodgings assigned to her as a favour and at a price? The town swarmed with people who had taken refuge behind its walls. Where one had lain two lay now. Yet here was an empty house!

In a twinkling I was walking briskly towards the Neu Strasse, determined to look farther into the matter. It was again the hour of evening drill; the ways were crowded, the bells of the churches were ringing. Using some little care as I approached Herr Krapp's, I slipped into a doorway, which commanded it from a distance, and thence began to watch the fatal window.

If the old hag had not lied with her dumb lips I should see no one; or at best should only see her.

Half an hour passed; an hour passed. Hundreds of people passed, among them the man I had seen talking with the mason in the churchyard. I noticed him, because he went by twice. But the window remained blank. Then on a sudden, as the light began to fail, I saw the Waldgrave at it.

The Waldgrave?

'Gott im Himmel!' I muttered, the blood rushing to my face. What was the meaning of this? What was the magic of this cursed window? First I had seen my love at it. Then the Waldgrave.

While I stood thunderstruck, he was gone again, leaving the window blank and black. The crowd passed below, chattering thoughtlessly. Groups of men with pikes and muskets went by. All seemed unchanged. But my mind was in a whirl. Rage, jealousy, and wonder played with it. What did it all mean? First Marie, then the Waldgrave! Marie, whom we had left thirty leagues away in the forest; the Waldgrave, whom I had seen that morning.

I stood gaping at the window, as if it could speak, and gradually my mind regained its balance. My jealousy died out, hope took its place. I did not think so ill of the Waldgrave as to believe that knowing of Marie's existence he would hide it from me, and for that reason I could not explain or understand how he came to be in the same house with her. But it was undeniable that his presence there encouraged me. There must be some middle link between them; perhaps some one controlling both. And then I thought of Tzerclas.

The Waldgrave had seen him in the town, and had even spoken to him. What if it were he who occupied this house close by the New Gate, with a convenient secretive entrance, and used it for his machinations? Marie might well have fallen into his hands. She might be in his power now, behind the very walls on which I gazed.

From that moment I breathed and lived only to see the inside of that house. Nothing else would satisfy me. I scanned it with greedy eyes, its steep gable, its four windows one above another, its carved weather-boards. I might attack it on this side; or by way of the alley and door. But I quickly discarded the latter idea. Though I had seen only the old woman, I judged that there were defenders in the background, and in the solitude of the alley I might be easily despatched. It remained to enter from the front, or by way of the roof. I pondered a moment, and then I went across to Herr Krapp's and knocked.

He opened the door himself. I almost pushed my way in. 'What do you want, my friend?' he said, recoiling before me, and looking somewhat astonished.

'To get into your neighbour's house,' I answered bluntly.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

UNDER THE TILES

He had a light in his hand, and he held it up to my face. 'So?' he said. 'Is that what you would be at? But you go fast. It takes two to that, Master Steward.'

'Yes,' I answered. 'I am the one, and you are the other, Herr Krapp.'

He turned from me and closed the door, and, coming back, held the light again to my face. 'So you still think that it was your lady's woman you saw at the window?'

'I am sure of it,' I answered.

He set down his light on a chair and, leaning against the wall, seemed to consider me. After a pause, 'And you have been to the house?'

'I have been to the house-fruitlessly.'

'You learned nothing?'

'Nothing.'

'Then what do you want to do now?' he asked, softly rubbing his chin.

'To see the inside of it.'

'And you propose-?'

'To enter it from yours,' I answered. 'Surely you have some dormer, some trap-door, some roof-way, by which a bold man may get from this house to the next one.'

He shook his head. 'I know of none,' he said. 'But that is not all. You are asking a strange thing. I am a peaceful man, and, I hope, a good neighbour; and this which you ask me to do cannot be called neighbourly. However, I need say the less about it, because the thing cannot be done.'

'Will you let me try?' I cried.

He seemed to reflect. In the end he made a strange answer. 'What time did you call at the house?' he said.

'Perhaps an hour ago-perhaps more.'

'Did you see any one in the churchyard as you passed?'

'Yes,' I said, thinking; 'there was a man at work there. I asked him the way.'

Herr Krapp nodded, and seemed to reflect again. 'Well,' he said at last,' it is a strong thing you ask, my friend. But I have my own reasons for suspecting that all is not right next door, and therefore you shall have your way as far as looking round goes. But I do not think that you will be able to do anything.'

'I ask no more than that,' I said, trembling with eagerness.

He looked at me again as he took up the light. 'You are a big man,' he said, 'but are you armed? Strength is of little avail against a bullet.'

I showed him that I had a brace of pistols, and he turned towards the stairs. 'Dorcas is in the kitchen,' he said. 'My sons are out, and so are the lads. Nevertheless, I am not very proud of our errand; so step softly, my friend, and do not grumble if you have your labour for your pains.'

He led the way up the stairs with that, and I followed him. The house was very silent, and the higher we ascended the more the silence grew upon us, until, in the empty upper part, every footfall seemed to make a hollow echo, and every board that creaked under our tread to whisper that we were about a work of danger. When we reached the uppermost landing of all, Herr Krapp stopped, and, raising his light, pointed to the unceiled rafters.

'See, there is no way out,' he said. 'And if you could get out, you could not get in.'

I nodded as I looked round. Clearly, this floor was not much used. In a corner a room had been at some period roughly partitioned off; otherwise the place was a huge garret, the boards covered with scraps of mortar, the corners full of shadows and old lumber and dense cobwebs. In the sloping roof were two dormer windows, unglazed but shuttered; and, beside the great yawning well of the staircase by which we had ascended, lay a packing-box and some straw, and two or three old rotting pallets tied together with ropes. I shivered as I looked round. The place, viewed by the light of our one candle, had a forlorn, depressing aspect. The air under the tiles was hot and close; the straw gave out a musty smell.