The Courtship of Morrice Buckler: A Romance

  CHAPTER XVII.

  FATHER SPAUR.

  IT was on the sixth day of June that I arrived in London fromCumberland; it was on the sixteenth of July that I landed at Calais;and so much that was new and bewildering to me had happened withinthis brief interspace of time, that I cannot wonder how little Iunderstood of all which it portended. For here was I, accustomed tosolitude, with small knowledge of men and a veritable fear of women,plumped of a sudden amidst the gayest company of the town, wherethought and wit were struck out of converse sharply as sparks from aflint not reached by my slow methods, which, to carry on my simile,more resembled the practice of the Indians who produce fire, sotravellers tell, by the laborious attrition of stick upon stick.

  From Calais I journeyed to Paris, where I stayed until a bill ofexchange upon some French merchants, which I had asked Elmscott toprocure for me, came to hand. With it was enclosed a letter from mycousin and yet another from Jack Larke.

  "This letter," wrote Elmscott, "was brought to your lodging the dayafter you left London. L'affaire Marston has caused much astonishment.Your friends almost refused to credit you with the exploit. Thefamily, however, is raised to a clamorous pitch of anger against you;it has influence at Court, and the King has no liking for duels."

  The letter from Larke recounted the homely details of thecountry-side, and dwelt in particular upon the plan of Sir J. Lowtherof Stockbridge to appoint a new carrier between Kendal and Whitehaven,so that the shipment of Kendal cottons to Virginia might befacilitated. The obstacle to the scheme, he declared, was that theroad ran over Hard Knott, which in winter and spring is frequentlyimpassable for the snow. I wrote back to him that he should refund toElmscott with all despatch the amount of the bill of exchange, andrelating shortly the causes which kept me abroad, bade him, if he wereso minded, join me towards the end of September at Venice. Of my visitto Lukstein I said never a word, the consequence of it was toodoubtful. I shrank from setting out my hopes and fears openly uponpaper. If I succeeded, I could better explain the matter to him inspeech, and take him back with me again to the Castle. If I failed, Ishould avoid the need of making any explanation whatsoever.

  From Paris I travelled into Austria; and so one sunset, in the latterdays of August, drove up to the door of "Der Goldener Adler" atGlurns. From this inn I sent Udal forward with a note to CountessLukstein, announcing my arrival in the neighbourhood, and askingwhether she would be willing to receive me. The next day he returnedwith Otto Krax, and brought me a message of very kindly welcome. Ottohimself, for once, unbent from his grave demeanour, saying that it waslong since the Castle had been brightened with a guest, and that forhis part he trusted I would be in no great hurry to depart.

  I gathered no little comfort from his greeting, you may be sure, and Iset off forthwith to the Castle. The valley which, when I last rodethrough it, showed stark and desolate in its snow drapery, now laybasking in the lusty summer, and seemed to smile upon my visit. Thelime-trees were in leaf along the road, wild strawberries, red as thelips of my mistress, peeped from the grasses, on either sidecornfields spread up the lower slopes to meet the serried pines, whichwere broken here and there by a green gap, where the winter snows haddriven a track. Behind the ridge of the hills I could see mountainstowering up with bastions of ice, which had a look peculiarly rich andsoft, like white velvet. The air was fragrant with the scent offlowers, and musical with the voices of innumerable streams. EvenLukstein, which had worn so bare and menacing an aspect in the greytwilight of that November afternoon, now nestled warmly upon its tinyplateau, the red pointed roofs of its turrets glowing against thegreen background of firs.

  I was received at the Castle by a priest, who informed me that theCountess was indisposed, and wished him to express her regrets thatshe was unable to welcome me in person. I was much chapfallen andchilled by this vicarious greeting, since on the way from Glurns I hadgiven free play to all sorts of foolish imaginings. The priest, whowas a kinsman of the Countess, conducted me very politely to the roomsprepared for me.

  "Mr. Buckler," said he, "it is only your face that is strange to me;for I have heard so much of you from your hostess that I made youracquaintance some while ago." Whereat I recovered something of myspirits.

  He led me through the great hall, paved with roughish slabs of stone,and up a wide staircase to a gallery which ran round the four sides ofthe hall. From that he turned off into a corridor, which ran, as Iguessed, through the smaller wing of the building towards the tower.At the extreme end he opened a door and bowed me into a large room litby two windows opposite to one another. One of these commanded thelittle ravine which pierced backwards into the hills beside theCastle, and was called the Senner Thal; the other window looked out onto the garden. Moving towards this last, I perceived, on the lefthand, the arbour of pinewood and the parapet on which I had lainconcealed; the main wing of the Castle stretched out upon the right,and I realised, with an uneasy shiver, that I had been given thebedroom of Count Lukstein. The moment I realised this my eyes wentstraight to that corner, where I knew the little staircase to be. Thedoor of it stood by the head of the bed, and was almost concealed inthe hangings.

  "It leads," said the priest, interpreting my glance, "to a little roombelow; but the room gives only on to the garden, and the door has notbeen used this many a month."

  He went over to it as he spoke, and tried the handle. The door waslocked, but the key remained in the lock. It creaked and grated whenhe turned it, as though it had rusted in the keyhole. Together we wentdown the little winding stairway and into the chamber at the bottom.What wonder that I hesitated on the last step with a failing heart,and needed the invitation of the priest to nerve me to cross thethreshold! Not a single thing had been moved since I stood there last.But for the clouds of dust, which rose at each movement that we made,I could have believed this day was the morrow of our deadly encounter.The table still lay overturned upon the floor, the rugs and skins wereheaped and disordered by the trampling of our feet, the curtain hunghalf-torn from the vallance, where I had cowered in it with clutchinghands as the Countess passed through the window on to the snow.Nothing had been touched. Yes, one thing; for as I glanced about theroom, I saw my pistol dangling from a nail upon the hood of thefireplace.

  "The room, you think, Mr. Buckler, does little credit to ourhousekeeping?" said the priest. "But 'tis unswept and uncleansed of aset purpose. As you see it now, so it was on the fifteenth night oflast November, and the Countess our mistress wills that so it shallremain."

  "There is some story," I replied, with such indifference as I couldassume, "some story connected with the room."

  "Ay, a story of midnight crime--of crime that struck at the roots ofthe Lukstein race, that breaks the line of a family which has ruledhere for centuries, and must in a few years make its very name toperish off the earth. Count Lukstein was the last of his race, and inthis room was he slain upon his bridal night."

  Sombre as were the words, the priest's voice seemed to have somethingof exultation in its tone, and unwarily I remarked on it.

  "God works out His purposes by ways we cannot understand," heexplained, with a humility that struck me as exaggerated andinsincere. "Unless Countess Lukstein marries again, the Castle and itsdemesne will pass into the holy keeping of the Church."

  He looked steadily at me while he spoke, and I wondered whether hemeant his utterance to convey a menace and warning.

  "What if the Countess married a true son of the Church?" I hastened toanswer. "Would he not second and further her intention?"

  "I think, Mr. Buckler, that you have more faith in mankind thanknowledge of the world. But 'twas of the room that we were speaking.Until that crime is brought to light, the room may neither be sweptnor cleansed."

  "You hope, then, to discover----" I began.

  "Nay, nay!" said he. "'Tis not with us that the discovery rests. Lookyou, sin is not a dead thing like these tables, to which each day addsa covering of du
st; it is rather a plant that each day throws outfibres towards the sun, bury it deep as you will in the earth. Surely,surely it will make itself known--this very afternoon, maybe, or maybein years to come; maybe not until the Day of Wrath. God chooses Hisown time."

  Very solemnly he crossed himself, and led the way back to the bedroomabove.

  This conversation increased my anxiety to unburden myself to Ilga. Forit was no crime that I had committed, but an act of common justice.But although the household, apart from the servants and retainers, whomade indeed a veritable army, consisted only of the Countess, Mdlle.Durette, and Father Spaur, as the priest was named, I found itimpossible to hit upon an occasion.

  In the first place, the Countess herself was, without doubt, ailingand indisposed. She would come down late in the morning with heavyeyes and a weariful face, as though she slept but little. 'Twas nobetter, moreover, when she joined us, for she treated me, though everwith courtesy as befitted a hostess, still with a certain distance;and at times, when she thought I was interested in some talk and hadno eyes for her, I would catch a troubled look upon her face whereinanger and sorrow seemed equally mixed. Nor, indeed, could I ever comeupon her alone, and such hints as I put forward to bring such aconsummation about were purposely misunderstood. In truth, the prieststood between us. I set the changed manner of Countess Luksteinentirely to his account, believing that he was studiously poisoningher mind against me, and maybe persuading her that I did but pursueher wealth like any vulgar adventurer. I suggested as much to Mdlle.Durette, who showed me great kindness in this nadir of my fortunes.

  "I know not what to make of it," she replied, "for Ilga has shut mefrom her confidence of late. But there is something of the kind afoot,I fear, for Father Spaur is continually with her, and 'twas ever hisfashion to ascribe a secret and underhand motive for all one'sdoings."

  The Father, indeed, was perpetually with either Ilga or myself. If hechanced not to be closeted with the Countess, he would danceindefatigable attendance upon me, devising excursions into themountains or in pursuit of the chamois, which abounded in greatnumbers among the higher forests of the ravine.

  On these latter occasions he would depute Otto Krax, who was, as Isoon learned, the chief huntsman of the Castle, to take his place withme, pleading his own age with needless effusion as an excuse for hisabsence. In the company of Otto, then, I gained much knowledge of thelocality, and in particular of the great ice-clad mountain whichblocked the head of the ravine. For the chase led us many a time highup the slopes above the trees to where the ice lay in great tonguesall cracked and ridged across like waves frozen at the crest; and attimes, growing yet more adventurous with the heat of our pursuit, wewould ascend still higher, making long circuits and detours about thecliffs and gullies to get to windward of our quarry; so that I sawthis mountain from many points of view, and gained a knowledge of itscharacter and formation which was afterwards to stand me in goodstead.

  The natives termed it the "Wildthurm," and approached it ever with thegreatest reluctance and with much commending of their souls to God.For the spirits of the lost, they said, circled in agony about itssummit, and might be heard at noonday no less often than at nightpiercing the air with a wail of lamentation. It may be even as theyheld; but I was spared the manifestation of their presence when Iinvaded their abode, and found no denizens of that solitary regionmore terrible than the eagles which built their nests upon the topmostcliffs. Towards the ravine the "Wildthurm" towered in a stupendouswall of rock of thousands of feet, but so sheer that even the chamois,however encompassed, never sought escape that way. From the apex ofthis wall a ridge of ice ran backwards in a narrow line and slopedoutwards on either side, so that it looked like nothing so much as agipsy's tent of white canvas.

  When we sought diversion upon lower ground, hawking or riding in thevalley, Father Spaur himself would bear me company. In fact, I neverseemed to journey a mile from the Castle without either Otto or thepriest to keep me in surveillance.

  Father Spaur, though past his climacteric, was of a tall, massivebuild, and, I judged, of great muscular strength. His hair wasperfectly white, and threw into relief his broad, tanned face, whichwore as a rule an uninterested bovine expression, as of one whomneither trouble nor thought had ever touched. One afternoon, however,as we were riding up the hillside towards the Castle, I chanced tomake mention of the persecution of the Protestants in France, whereofI had been a witness during my stay at Paris, and ventured, though aCatholic, to criticise the French King's action in abrogating theedict of Nantes.

  "Cruelty, Mr. Buckler!" he exclaimed, reining in his horse, with hiseyes aglare, and his fleshy face of a sudden shining with animation.'Twas as though some one had lit a lamp behind a curtain. "Cruelty!'Tis the idlest name that was ever invented. Look you: a generalthrows a thousand troops upon certain death. Is not that cruelty? Yetif he faltered he would fail in his duty. If the men shrank, they intheirs. Cruelty is the law of life. Nay, more, for with that word thewicked stigmatise the law of God. Never a spring comes upon thesehills but it buries numbers of our villagers beneath its slippingsnowdrifts. You have seen the crosses on the slopes yourself. Theyperish, and through no foolhardiness of their own. Is not that whatyou term cruelty? Take a wider view. Is there not cruelty in the verymaking of man? We are born with minds curious after knowledge, and yetwe only gain knowledge by much suffering and labour--an infinitesimaldrop after years of thirst. Take it yet higher. The holy Churchteaches us that God upon His throne is happy; yet He condemns theguilty to torment. With a smile, we must believe He condemns theguilty. Judge that by our poor weak understanding; is it not cruelty?What you term cruelty is a law of God--difficult, unintelligible, buta law of God, and therefore good."

  'Twas a strange discourse, delivered with a ringing voice ofexaltation, and thereafter my thoughts did more justice to thesubtlety of his intellect.

  Meanwhile the days slipped on and brought me no nearer to thefulfilment of my purpose. The time had come, moreover, when I must setoff into Italy if I was to meet Larke at Venice as I had mostfaithfully promised. I resolved, then, to put an end to a visit whichI saw brought no happiness to my mistress, and wasted me withimpatience and despondency. I was minded to go down into Italy, andtaking Jack with me to set sail for the Indies, and ease my heart, ifso I might, with viewing of the many wonders of those parts. Sochoosing an occasion when we were all dining together in the greatparlour on the first floor of the Castle, I thanked the Countess forthe hospitality which she had shown me, and fixed my departure for thenext day. For awhile there was silence, Ilga rising suddenly from thetable and walking over to the wide-open windows, where she stood withher back turned, and looked out across the waving valley of the Adige.

  "It seems that we have been guilty of some discourtesy, Mr. Buckler,since you leave us so abruptly," said Father Spaur with a greatperturbation.

  Upon that point I hastened to set him right; for indeed I had been sohedged in by attention and ceremony that I should have been wellcontent with a little neglect.

  "Then," he continued with an easy laugh, "we shall make bold to keepyou. If we bring guests so far to visit us, we cannot speed them awayso soon. Doubtless the Castle is dull to you who come fresh fromLondon and Paris----"

  "Nay," said I with some impatience, for I thought it unfair that heshould attribute such motives to me. "Madame will bear me out that Ihave little liking for town pleasures." I turned towards her, but shemade no sign or movement, and appeared not to have heard me. "I ampledged to meet a friend at Venice, and, as it is, I have overstayedmy time."

  "Oh! you have a friend awaiting you," said the priest slowly. "You arevery prudent, Mr. Buckler."

  The Countess turned swiftly about, her eyes wide open and staring likeone dismayed.

  "Prudent?" I exclaimed in perplexity.

  "I mean," said the priest, flushing a dark red and dropping his voice,"I mean that if one fixes so precise a limit to one's visit, oneguards against any inclination to prolong it." He spoke w
ith a meaningglance in the direction of the Countess, who had turned away again."The heart says 'stay,' prudence 'go.' Is it not the case?" hewhispered, and he smiled with an awkward effort at archness, which,upon his heavy face, was little short of grotesque.

  Now his words and manner perplexed me greatly, for at the moment of mycoming to Lukstein, he had seemed most plainly to warn me againstencouraging any passion for Ilga, and his conduct since in dispartingus had assured me that I had rightly guessed his intention. Yet herewas he urging me to extend my stay, and sneering at my prudence fornot giving free play to that passion.

  "Besides," he continued, raising his voice again, "if you go to-morrowyou will miss the best entertainment that our poor domain provides. Weare to have a great hunt, wherein some of our neighbours will join us,and Otto informs us that you have great partiality for the sport, andextraordinary skill and nimbleness upon mountains. In a week,moreover, the headsman of our village is to marry. 'Tis a great eventin Lukstein, and, indeed, to a stranger well worth witnessing, forthere are many quaint and curious customs to be observed which are notmet with elsewhere."

  He added many other inducements, so that at last I felt some shame atpersisting in my refusal. But, after all, the Countess was my hostess,and she had said never a word, but had turned back again to the windowas though she would not meddle in the matter. At last, however, shebroke in upon the priest, keeping, however, her face still set towardsthe landscape.

  "Could you not send forward your servant, Mr. Buckler, to meet yourfriend, and remain with us this week? As Father Spaur says, themarriage will be well worth seeing, and since you are so pressed, youmay leave here that very night."

  There was, however, no heartiness in her invitation; the words droppedreluctantly from her lips, as if compelled by mere politeness towardsher guest.

  "The most suitable plan!" cried the priest, starting up. "Send yourman to Venice, and yourself follow afterwards."

  I explained that Udal was little accustomed to travelling in strangecountries, and had no knowledge of either the German or Italiantongues; and to put a close to the discussion, I rose from my seat andwalked away to the end of the apartment, where I busied myself oversome weapons that hung upon the wall. In a minute or so I heard thedoor close softly, and facing about, I saw that the priest and Mdlle.Durette, who had taken no part in any of this talk, had departed outof the room. The Countess came towards me.

  "I sent them away," she said, with a wan smile, and a voice subdued togreat gentleness. "I have no thought to--to part with you so soon.Stay out this week. You--you told me that you had something which youwished to say."

  "Madame," said I, snatching eagerly at her hand, "you also told methat you had guessed it."

  "Not now; not now." She slipped her hand from my grasp with animploring cry, and held it outspread close before my face to check mywords. "Not now. I could not bear it. Oh, I would that I had morestrength to resist, or more weakness to succumb."

  Never have I heard such pain in a human voice: never have I seenfeatures so wrung with suffering. The sight of her cut me to theheart.

  "Listen," she went on, controlling herself after a moment, though hervoice still trembled with agitation, and now and again ran upwardsinto an odd laugh, the like of which I have never hearkened to beforeor since. 'Twas the most pitiful sound that ever jarred on a man'sears. "On the night of the marriage the villagers will come to theCastle to dance in the Great Hall. That night you shall speak to me,and a carriage shall be ready to take you away afterwards, if youwill. Until that night be 'prudent.'"

  She gave me no time to answer her, but ran to the door, and so out ofthe room. I could hear her footsteps falling uncertainly along thegallery, as though she stumbled while she ran, and a great angeragainst the priest flamed up in my breast. "Strength to resist, orweakness to succumb." Doubtless the words would have bewildered me,like the oracles of old Greece, but for what I suspicioned in thepriest Now, however, in the blindness of my thoughts, I construed themas the confirmation of my belief that he was practising all his artsupon Ilga to secure Lukstein for the Church. 'Twas Father Spaur, Iimagined, whom she had neither the strength to resist nor the weaknessto yield to, and I fancied that I was set upon a second contest forthe winning of her, though this time with a more subtle and noteworthyantagonist.

  And yet for all my fears, for all Ilga's trouble, with such selfishpertinacity do a lover's reflections seek to enhearten his love, Icould not but feel a throb of joy for that she had so plainly shown tome what the struggle cost her.