'I must ask you to accept the hospitality of my roof to-night,' he said gravely; 'to-morrow I will seek a fitting abode for you.'

'Ah! a mistress's separate establishment.' Her voice was bitter again.

Was there ever such a difficult woman for lover to deal with? But that was half her charm.

'Wilhelmine, do not torture me. I will do all I can, and I pray you, never call your house a mistress's establishment--call it rather the palace of my heart's queen.'

'Prettily put, and meaning exactly the same!'

She was laughing once more; she loved when Eberhard Ludwig spoke in this chivalrous tone, as every woman does, thinking it a tribute to her own especial dignity when it is often only a deft trick of speech. Laughing and talking and teasing her beloved, she allowed him to lead her away through the gardens.

Within the castle commotion prevailed. Serving-men and maids ran hither and thither in an excited and aimless fashion; they started back in surprise and dismay when they perceived Wilhelmine's tall figure beside the Duke, but neither his Highness nor the lady stopped to question the servants on the cause of the disturbance. When they reached the first floor, where dwelt the d.u.c.h.ess Johanna Elizabetha, and would have pa.s.sed on to gain Wilhelmine's apartments, they found themselves confronted by a group of persons talking in excited whispers. Prelate Osiander, certainly not one whom Eberhard Ludwig desired as a witness to Wilhelmine's re-entry; Madame de Stafforth, the Countess Gemmingen, one of the d.u.c.h.ess's ladies; Dr. Murger, second court physician; two of her Highness's waiting-women. Madame de Ruth was also there, and it struck Wilhelmine as ominous that the lady of many words and ready wit stood silent and constrained.

'What is this?' queried Eberhard Ludwig angrily in a loud tone. The a.s.sembled persons turned in startled surprise. Osiander came forward.

'Your Highness's wife, the d.u.c.h.ess Johanna Elizabetha, is sick unto death, and your Highness was not to be found for all our search,' he said sternly, and without deigning to cast a glance upon Wilhelmine.

'What ails the d.u.c.h.ess?' asked Eberhard Ludwig, turning to Dr. Murger.

'It would seem to be a stroke of blood to the brain, your Highness--a dangerous thing to one of the d.u.c.h.ess's robust physique. Dr. Schubart is occupied in bleeding her Highness. My a.s.sistance was dispensed with,' he added in an offended tone.

At this moment the door of the d.u.c.h.ess's chamber opened, and Monsieur le Docteur Schubart, first doctor to the court and a very pompous person, appeared.

'I am relieved to be able to declare her Highness the d.u.c.h.ess to be returned from her strange swoon. I have the honour to announce that her Highness's cherished life will be spared to her devoted subjects.'

The man was odiously unctuous and self-satisfied. Madame de Stafforth burst into weak weeping, while Osiander gravely offered his congratulations to Eberhard Ludwig upon the recovery of 'his n.o.ble and devoted wife.' There lay something of true dignity and sober goodness in the Prelate's whole being which never failed to impress Wilhelmine, and she felt his entire ignoring of her to be a heavy public reproof from a competent judge. There was a moment's awkward silence when the Prelate ceased speaking, and every eye was turned to the pair of handsome lovers as they stood side by side, framed in the oaken panelling of the doorway leading to the stairs. Madame de Ruth, who hated pauses, came forward and held out her hand to Wilhelmine.

'My dear, I am glad to see you,' she said kindly.

Wilhelmine, whom Osiander's disapproval had irritated, replied calmly: 'Yes, I have returned, and to stay this time!' It was said defiantly.

Now it is well known that love makes the wisest of mankind foolish, and that the poet in love is a perfectly unaccountable being. Eberhard Ludwig was poet and lover, and he lost his head on this occasion.

'Returned to stay, dear lady, as long as my poor court can harbour and amuse so fair a visitant!' he said; then, turning to Madame de Ruth, he added in a lower tone, which was yet perfectly audible to most of the a.s.sembled company: 'The rain-cloud brought back sunshine to us. A flash of lightning carried her from Elysium to earth once more. A mysterious Black Cupid led her to me! but we must be very careful, for she can vanish at will, this beautiful enchantress.'

It was said in extravagant homage, half in pleasantry, but several of those present, and notably the d.u.c.h.ess's waiting-women, heard the unwise words. When Wilhelmine swept past them on her way to her chamber they drew back in superst.i.tious awe, and she heard them murmur, 'Witch and sorceress! we must not offend her.'

CHAPTER X

THE ATTACK IN THE GROTTO

THE court of Stuttgart soon saw to its cost that Wilhelmine had of a truth 'come to stay this time,' as she herself had announced on the evening of her return from the Judenga.s.se. After a few days spent in her old quarters in the castle, she removed to a hastily improvised abode on the first floor of the Duke's Jagerhaus. Here had been the official residence of his Highness's Grand Maitre de la Meute, and this personage, who was relegated to a small and inconvenient dwelling-place, naturally resented his eviction. Public disapproval was excited by the summary commandeering of a well-known official residence; and when, following upon their keeper's ejection, the stag-hounds and hare-coursers were removed from the Jagerhaus, the Stuttgarters murmured ominously. It had long been a highly prized privilege of the townsfolk to repair, each Sunday and Feast-day, to view the hounds--in fact, this custom had become one of their social entertainments. The burghers and their families were wont to meet together in the stretch of garden which bordered the open rails of the enclosure, where the hounds took their afternoon airing on idle, non-hunting days. The citizens loved to watch the dogs' antics, and regarded it as their recognised Sunday afternoon amus.e.m.e.nt. In the Graben, or disused town moat, turned road, stood the Jagerhaus--a long, barn-like building, the entire ground-floor whereof was occupied by the dog-kennels, which opened to the back on paddocks. On the first floor were many s.p.a.cious apartments, hitherto used for the administration of the affairs of his Highness's hunt, and for lodging the Jagermasters of distant posts in the forests, who came to Stuttgart on official business; and here, too, was the residence of the Grand Master of the Hunt and hounds. On the third floor, beneath the high sloping roof, were a few garrets and several large lofts filled with the straw destined for the dog-kennels. The mingled odours of hounds and straw displeased Wilhelmine's acute sense of smell, and one of her first commands upon entering her new abode was that hounds and straw should be removed instantly. She declared that therefrom the whole house was infested with fleas, and when the Duke, wishful to propitiate the angry lady, proposed to send for the late occupant of the Jagerhaus to inquire if he had been aware of his neighbours, the fleas, she remarked angrily that fleas were dainty feeders and, like Jews, were not in the habit of selecting pigskin for food. This remark was evidently heard by some unfriendly person, for on the morrow it was the common talk of the town. A few days later the hounds were seen progressing through Stuttgart on their way to temporary kennels hastily arranged in the Rothwald. The populace followed this cortege shouting, 'They are taking away our beautiful hounds, and leaving an accursed b.i.t.c.h in the old kennels!' And that day when Serenissimus drove out, accompanied as usual by Wilhelmine, he was met by an angry murmuring crowd. Here was the beginning of that unpopularity of Wilhelmine's which gave the lie to the devotion of her friends, and notably her personal attendants and servants. This unpopularity which had so terrible an effect on her character, hardening her heart, accentuating the underlying cruelty, the indifference to aught save her own pleasure and power. Feeling herself accounted evil, she became so. It was this, taken together with her magnificent success and her extraordinary prosperity, which caused her to become a cruel and self-seeking woman.

Monsieur Gabriel, in the far-off days at Gustrow, had feared this development, had trembled before the world-hardness which would mar the being he loved. How many have trembled at the same thought, and in sadness and loneliness have realised that their dread has become a cruel reality! We can face Death for those we love, mourning them in agony and tears, but we can find no beauty in that bitter and hideous grief which comes to us when those we loved, we trusted, we admired, change to us--worst of all, change in themselves. This is the inexorable Death in Life, and in this Death we cannot dream of a fair consoling Hereafter.

The thing we loved has not only perished--alas! we realise that it has never existed! What we worshipped was the shadow of our own making, a mirage conjured up by our heart's desire. To those who love most, love best, this tragedy comes.

Wilhelmine, who arrived in Wirtemberg a strong, pa.s.sionate creature, generous, vital, was too responsive to remain unaltered by the alchemising touch of the world. Had she been met with tenderness and purity, and by n.o.ble men and women, she might have become a power for good; as it was, she was received by intrigue, contending interests, disapproval, distrust, the l.u.s.t of love. As a good woman there was no place for her at Wirtemberg's court, so all the evil, lying dormant in every human heart, rose up in her, and she became a Queen of Wickedness.

Monsieur Gabriel would have mourned another lost illusion, had not Death taken him from this world a few months after Wilhelmine's departure from Gustrow. He bequeathed to her his well-worn books, _Les Pensees de Pascal_, _Le Roman de la Rose_, the poems of the singers of La Pleade, and the few other volumes wherefrom he had instructed his beloved pupil.

He left, besides, a little sealed packet, in which she was surprised to find several beautiful jewels, among them a white enamel cross, in the centre whereof was the image of a dove with outspread wings.

Eberhard Ludwig told her these were the insignia of a high order in France, and she was thereby confirmed in her notion that her beloved old schoolmaster's great air and immense refinement were those of a grand seigneur. She often pondered on why a Huguenot had been permitted to bear the holy order of the St. Esprit upon his breast, but she remembered that Monsieur Gabriel had spoken of the court festivities with that sure accent which told that he had been of the caste which took part in those scenes. She never learnt his secret; to her credit, she never sought to unravel it. The Gravenitz was what the world calls wicked, but vulgarity and vulgarity's attendant, curiosity, could not touch her, and she respected the silence of her friends, though she ever spied upon her enemies. The news of Monsieur Gabriel's death was brought to Wilhelmine soon after her advent at the Jagerhaus, and for many days the favourite refused to see any one save Eberhard Ludwig. She mourned her old friend sincerely, and wept bitterly when she saw the worn volumes he had bequeathed to her. The cross she fastened round her neck on a thin gold chain, and this badge of a sacred order rested for many years on the heart of the strange, evil woman. You can see the tiny line of this chain in the few known portraits of Wilhelmine von Gravenitz. These pictures are very rare, Time and Hatred have hidden them but too well. Indeed, it is as though all the Swabian virtue had conspired together to obliterate the memory, with the portraits, of the abhorred 'Gravenitzin.'

For the nonce, life was very peaceful for Wilhelmine in the Jagerhaus; and the Duke, entirely enthralled by his mistress, humoured her every whim. Madame de Ruth said mockingly to Zollern that a more exemplary young married couple than 'Monsieur et Madame Eberhard Ludwig' she had never seen. But the feeling against the favourite in Stuttgart grew each day, and the fact that his Highness had caused much that was of beauty and value in the castle to be removed to the Jagerhaus gave umbrage to the courtiers. Even Zollern remonstrated, but in vain. Meanwhile the Jagerhaus had become a splendid abode: rich yellow silken hangings hid the bare whitewashed walls of the chamber Wilhelmine had selected for her reception-room; the old wooden floors had been polished till they appeared to be the finest parquet; gilt chairs deeply cushioned, and also of that delicate yellow colour which the favourite loved, had been brought from Paris; a spinet with a beautifully painted case stood near the window; a quaint sixteenth-century stove which had been in the state room at the castle had been chosen by her as harmonising well with the yellow hangings, being made of light blue tiles. In an alcove, especially constructed by grumbling, slow-handed Stuttgart workmen for the 'Duke's Witch,' was the pick of the ducal library. The court ladies heard with jealous rage, that the Gravenitzin had a dressing-room entirely panelled with mirrors, that her bed was hung with light blue silk, that she had a silver bath surrounded by mirror screens. How had the Mecklemburg Fraulein learnt such things? they asked. How indeed, but in her inborn genius for luxury! The favourite's servants were magnificently attired in ducal liveries. The lady had her own carriage with painted panels and yellow satin cushions. She gave rich entertainments, and the invitations were coveted, of course, by the good people who were so horrified at their hostess. The d.u.c.h.ess Johanna Elizabetha would not be present at a court feast where the Gravenitz appeared? Very well! there _were_ no court feasts! All the gaiety of the autumn of 1706 and the winter of 1707 took place at the Jagerhaus.

The d.u.c.h.ess-mother, from her dower-house of Stetten, descended periodically upon Stuttgart, rated her son, condoled with Johanna Elizabetha, and returned utterly unsuccessful to Stetten.

Forstner's warning voice was never silent. Osiander failed to return Wilhelmine's salutation when she encountered him in the l.u.s.tgarten. It was open war between virtue and the Gravenitz.

Stuttgart in the winter is a vastly different place to the smiling, gay Stuttgart of spring and summer days, and Wilhelmine often wondered whither had vanished the charm, the delight of Southern Germany. That winter there fell but little snow, a cruel black frost was over the whole valley; sometimes the frost relaxed his iron grip, and then came torrents of rain. The frost returned when the rain ceased, and taking the wet earth into his gaunt hands turned everything into dirty sheet ice. In Wilhelmine's yellow room at the Jagerhaus the blue stove radiated a pleasant warmth, and, if a feeble sunray struggled through the gloomy, leaden sky, the yellow hangings caught it like a lover, and seemed to treasure it, filling the whole room with a hint of spring sunshine. In the castle the d.u.c.h.ess sat in her sombre apartments which she had made as dull, as dreary, as charmless as herself. Eberhard Ludwig seldom visited her, and she spent her time in cosseting the sickly Erbprinz, or bemoaning her fate to Madame de Stafforth.

Slowly the winter left the land, but the spring that year was a meagre starveling, n.i.g.g.ardly of smiles. He seemed to have borrowed winter's breath, and the pale young leaves shuddered in the unfriendly blasts. The fruit blossom struggled into a nipped existence, and fell like thin snow to the ground. An eerie spring, and men said there was a spell upon the country, and looked towards the Jagerhaus as they spoke.

During the winter the French army under Marechal Villars had again threatened Wirtemberg. On a cheerless day towards the end of April Eberhard Ludwig arrived as usual in the early morning to visit his beloved at the Jagerhaus. For several days she had noticed a cloud upon his brow, he had answered her absently, and she knew instinctively that there was something on his mind, which he desired to tell her. Too wise to question him, she watched him closely. When he entered the yellow-hung salon that cheerless April morning, he greeted her almost coldly, and began to play roughly with his huge black wolf-hound, Melac. This animal was the Duke's constant companion--an extraordinarily sagacious beast, whom Wilhelmine declared to be a hater of dullness because he had ever been surly towards Johanna Elizabetha. For the favourite the dog had a marked affection; he would lie near her with his large head resting on her foot, while his patient eyes looked up at her with that strange, unblinking gaze which is characteristic of the wolf-hound.

There was something brutal in the way Eberhard Ludwig teased the dog that morning; he hurt the poor brute, pulling his short, sensitive ears, drawing Melac roughly back then flinging him away. It was a cruel game, more like a combat between man and hound; and Melac, good, generous beast though he was, began to get angry. The Duke's hand had been scratched by the dog's sharp teeth, and the wolf-hound tasting blood, grew ferocious.

With a growl Melac suddenly reared up on his hind legs and placed his front paws on the Duke's breast, his teeth bared in an ugly snarl.

Eberhard Ludwig laughed, but the dog's fangs were dangerously near his Highness's throat; and indeed it was no laughing matter, for a wolf-hound, once his teeth are fastened in a man's throat, does not leave his prey alive. It was a grim comedy. Wilhelmine rose from her chair near the window and came forward.

'Leave him to me!' shouted the Duke, at length aware of his danger. He gripped Melac by the ears and held the beast from him; but the hound was thoroughly aroused, and Eberhard Ludwig felt that it was an unequal contest in spite of his strength.

Wilhelmine advanced fearlessly, and laying her hand upon the dog's head, she leaned round till she faced the snarling brute.

'What are you doing, Wilhelmine?' panted the Duke. 'For G.o.d's sake do not put your face so close to his teeth!'

'I know what I am doing, mon Prince,' she said calmly.

As at Gustrow, when Muller had attacked her, she now narrowed her lids and forced her will into her eyes. Gradually she felt her mastery working on Melac; his jaws dropped, no longer fiercely baring the teeth but as though he had run a long distance, the whole mouth became weak, the red tongue protruding. With a whine the dog fell, his front paws slipping from the Duke's shoulders. Shuddering, the great animal crouched on the floor, his eyes still resting on Wilhelmine with an expression of abject terror.

'Lie quiet, Melac! There--good dog!' She stroked his head, and the hound fawned upon her, dragging himself round her feet, crawling, abased.

Eberhard Ludwig caught her hand, and his own trembled a little. 'What an extraordinary thing! Did you put a spell upon Melac? I have never seen him thus cowed! Beloved, I believe I owe my life to you this morning,' he said.

Wilhelmine pa.s.sed her hand across her eyes. 'So may all your enemies be defeated!' she said, laughing.

'Could you make me tremble like that with your wonderful eyes?' he asked.

He was fascinated, yet there was something terrible to him in this woman's power.

'Mon Prince, you are my master always,' she returned; and the subtle flattery of being the avowed ruler of so potent a being delighted him, as it pleases all men, who are obviously slaves, to be called master by the woman who controls them.

'Alas! but I am not the master of destiny,' he said sadly, 'and I come this morning to prove it. Wilhelmine, beloved, I must return to the army.

We have information that Villars is to invade Wirtemberg once more, and I must be with the forces.'

'Is our happiness over then?' she queried.

'Ah! no, no, beloved of my life! You will wait for me here, I shall return in a few months.'