'May I present her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin to your Majesty?' said Eberhard Ludwig; but the King turned a deaf ear.

'Go home, cousin, go home!' he bawled at the Erbprincessin; and putting spurs to his horse galloped away to inspect some new pattern of field-gun which his sharp eyes had espied with the artillery.

Eberhard Ludwig looked at the Landhofmeisterin in genuine distress. He had warned her of the Prussian King's rough manners, but this was more than he had expected. Her Excellency's face was inscrutable.

'I should advise your Highness to follow that most kingly personage. Keep him in view, Serenissimus, or he may steal a tall man or so for his grenadiers from among your favourite guards. It is one of his graceful habits, I am told,' she said coldly.

The Erbprinz had flushed deeply when the martial king ignored the Landhofmeisterin. The Erbprincessin's face, on the contrary, had lightened considerably. It was delightful to see the Gravenitz put down for once! They drove home through the meadows, past the blossoming orchards, and never had the Landhofmeisterin been more charming; even the Erbprincessin could not forbear a smile at her witty sayings, and the Erbprinz laughed gaily. The Prussian King rode past the coach, glaring at its occupants with his protuberant eyes, and the Landhofmeisterin adroitly launched a witticism just as his Majesty was pa.s.sing, in order that he should suffer the mortification of hearing and seeing their merriment half an hour after his unmannerly slight. Her ruse succeeded admirably, and she had the pleasure of observing the King's brick-coloured face flush to purple with anger.

The Duke and his guest remained together all the morning, His Highness showing the King each detail of the palace. In the orangery they came across two remarkably tall garden boys, and Friedrich Wilhelm immediately offered Eberhard Ludwig three hundred thalers apiece for them. Now, they happened to be her Excellency's own gardeners, and to be proficient in the art of cultivating roses, so Serenissimus prayed the King to let him find other giants for him; these, he said, were not his to offer.

'Whose then? Whose then? What the devil! Why, the houndsdirts must belong to you! Whose can they be? If they are my little cousin's I will soon make her see I will have them,' the Prussian monarch shouted.

'They belong to her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, sire.'

'What, that woman? Ha! you took her to Mompelgard, I hear! Ridiculous things, women--want the lash, the whip. Do you hear, old comrade?--every woman wants the lash. Look at my daughter now--absurd hussy! will not marry. I ought to lash her, but she hides behind her mother's petticoats.

Ridiculous things, women.'

Serenissimus endeavoured to lead the shouting monarch from the orangery, but he was not to be outdone.

'Come to Berlin, boy; fine uniforms, good beer, and tobacco. Come, you will love me like your father!' he yelled at the tallest gardener, bestowing a heavy blow on the youth's shoulders with the stout cudgel which he always carried. The end of it was that Eberhard Ludwig made him a present of the Landhofmeisterin's gardeners, and the King in high good humour retired to take an hour's nap before starting to enjoy some wild-boar sticking in the forest.

All that day the Landhofmeisterin did not see Serenissimus, only in the afternoon she received a billet from him in which he forbade her to attend the supper in the state banqueting-hall. 'The Erbprincessin will be the only lady; she, being the King's cousin, must attend, but I command you to remain away. You will understand my reasons when you consider the events of this morning.--E. L.'

The letter was short, formal, cold in tone, and the Landhofmeisterin was deeply wounded. She had known that Friedrich Wilhelm would be unfriendly to her; his rough virtue, and hatred of illicit relationships, were famous throughout Germany, and she was aware that he would view with displeasure the magnificence and the French manners of Ludwigsburg. Had he not stamped, beaten, and roared out of existence every trace of the elegance and pomp of the Berlin court as it had been under his father, Friedrich I.?--that monarch who, by the way, had granted the Gravenitz that Letter of Royal Protection twenty years ago.

Still, though Friedrich Wilhelm had refused to ratify or acknowledge this doc.u.ment when begged to do so by the Duke of Zollern, the Landhofmeisterin had counted him as more or less bound by it, and the idea that he could utterly ignore her had never entered her head.

Moreover, she thought she would not need the protection of Prussia. She had prepared a vast fortune out of Wirtemberg, and if death claimed Eberhard Ludwig before her own demise, she intended to retire to Schaffhausen and finish her days in magnificent seclusion. Yet it was infinitely galling to be hidden away in this manner. She raged at the thought of the courtiers' sneers. Not attend the supper? She, the ruler of Ludwigsburg and Wirtemberg, to be hidden like a common mistress! And then how coldly Eberhard Ludwig wrote to her. 'Alas! all things pa.s.s,'

she said, and wept bitterly. The day wore on. She tried to read, to occupy herself, but she could not fix her mind on anything; her thoughts reverted to her humiliation. At last she heard the noise of the sportsmen's return, and Friedrich Wilhelm's loud voice shouting and laughing. Would Eberhard Ludwig come to her now? But no; she waited, and no one disturbed her solitude.

At length Maria brought her a tray covered with dishes of delicious viands.

'If her Excellency refuses to be served properly in the dining-room, as usual, she must at least have a mouthful to eat,' the honest soul declared, and she hovered round the Gravenitz, imploring her to taste this or that, to drink a little wine; but the Landhofmeisterin pushed away her plate, saying that the food choked her, and Maria, grumbling, carried away the untasted supper.

Once more, Wilhelmine fell to listening. She heard the noise of a crowd gathering in the courtyard. She rang her handbell, and when Maria appeared she questioned her on the reason of a crowd being admitted to the palace precincts. His Highness had commanded the gates to be thrown open, she was told; it was the Prussian King's custom to permit the populace to see him eat.

'Disgusting!' quoth the Landhofmeisterin haughtily. 'I can smell the varlets from here. Sprinkle rose-water about the room, Maria.'

The hours dragged on monotonously. The noise of the crowd in the courtyard was drowned by the loud strains of the ma.s.sed bands of the regiments in Ludwigsburg, who had been commanded to play before the windows of the banqueting-hall. The Landhofmeisterin's musicians with their harps, violins, and flutes were banished during the Prussian King's visit, for he hated all music save that of trumpet and drum. At length the Landhofmeisterin could bear her solitude and suspense no longer. She slipped into the statue gallery, and through a secret door to the Duke's private stairs. The topmost flight led to a small gallery which looked into the banqueting-hall. She had often watched from here the hunting dinners which his Highness gave, and from which ladies were naturally excluded. It was many years since one of these entertainments had taken place, and the staircase had fallen into disrepair; it was dirty and dusty, and creaked under her Excellency's tread. 'Disgraceful neglect!

the housekeeper-in-charge shall be fined,' murmured the tyrant as she mounted. The door leading to the gallery was ajar. The Landhofmeisterin's face darkened with anger. Had some serving-maids dared to creep up to watch the doings in the banqueting-hall? But there was no one in the gallery, and she bent down, peering through the stucco bal.u.s.trade into the hall below. Her attention was arrested by a cackling sn.i.g.g.e.r behind her--a horrid, mocking, wheezy t.i.tter in the shadow of the overhanging ornamentation of the banqueting-hall roof, which came low down over the little gallery. She turned quickly and saw the grotesque, ape-like figure of one of the court dwarfs. Her Excellency had introduced these hideous abortions into Ludwigsburg, having read that they were a feature of the Spanish court in its grandest days. Eberhard Ludwig, disgusted at the sight of the puny monstrosities, had refused to permit them to go about the palace, and they had been relegated, poor displeasing toys, to the servants' regions. Here they were kicked and cuffed and made cruel sport of. During the foregoing winter one dwarf had died, and the other roamed around like some miserable outcast cur, lurking in dark corners, hiding from all living things, which he accounted rightly as his tormentors. He cowered before the Landhofmeisterin, laughing his horrible, cackling sn.i.g.g.e.r, which was half mockery, half terror. He expected the Landhofmeisterin to push him brutally aside, but her sorrow had made her suddenly gentle; she felt dimly that this wretched creature was an outcast, and so was she. 'Poor dwarf,' she said gently, 'I had thought you were dead! So you still wander in this vale of tears?' She spoke almost mockingly, and yet there was that in her tone which gave hope to the wretched being.

'O Madame, I am so miserable! They beat me, cuff me, the serving-maids pinch me, scratch me with their bodkins! They say you are hard and cold and cruel, but oh, have mercy on me!'

'_I_ hard and cold and cruel?' she replied incredulously. 'Do they say that?' She had no idea that success and prosperity had thus changed her; the world-hardened never know it themselves.

'Ah, yes, they say that; but, I pray you, have mercy on me.' The poor, distorted figure threw itself down, grovelling at the Landhofmeisterin's feet.

'Go to my apartments in the pavilion and await me, I will attend to you in an hour's time. Stay, here is my ring; show that to the sentry and he will admit you,' she said. She would send him back to his Swiss mountain valley with gold enough to last him for his lifetime. Perhaps, if she did good to this outcast, G.o.d would relent, would give her back Eberhard Ludwig's love? The dwarf went, and the Landhofmeisterin turned her attention to the scene in the banqueting-hall.

The banquet was finished, but the guests still sat round the table with wine-reddened faces. The Prussian King loved to drink deep; he said he abhorred the milksop who could not follow him to the dregs of a tankard, and that was indeed no paltry measure. The Erbprincessin sat to the King's right, his Highness himself was on his Majesty's left. The Erbprinz, white and weary, sat opposite. The holders of important court charges were grouped around according to their respective ranks.

Friedrich Gravenitz, as Count of the Empire and Prime Minister of Wirtemberg, sat to the left of Serenissimus; Prelate Osiander came next, then Schutz and Sittmann, and the brothers Pfau. Reischach, the Master of the Hunt; Baron Roeder, Master of the Horse; the Oberhofmarshall, the other Geheimrathe; the generals and officers of his Highness's staff; the colonels of the Silver Guard, of the Chevaliergarde; the young captain of the Cadets a Cheval. Among the Wirtemberg courtiers were seated various members of the Prussian suite: Grumbkow, the powerful favourite; General Donhoff; and the Austrian Amba.s.sador at Berlin, Count Seckendorff, who always followed Friedrich Wilhelm I., a spy and intriguer in friendship's guise.

It was a brilliant a.s.semblage, but it was well to be seen that deep drinking had been indulged in. Besides the Erbprincessin, only Osiander and the Erbprinz had calm and unflushed faces. The Landhofmeisterin's eyes wandered from Friedrich Wilhelm to Eberhard Ludwig; his face was flushed, and he swayed a little in his chair. His Highness was usually a moderate drinker, and, though during his various campaigns he had drunk and revelled like the rest, the Landhofmeisterin had never seen him with that vacant, sottish look, and her soul sickened at the sight. The Erbprincessin rose and took her leave, Friedrich Wilhelm shouting rough, good-natured pleasantries to her. Then his Majesty's friend, Grumbkow, craving the Duke's permission, called the lackey in charge, who produced the King's huge pipe, and in a few minutes the Landhofmeisterin saw the stately banqueting-hall take the aspect and smell of a tabagie. Dense clouds of smoke rose up, and she saw that the Prussian King was again served with an enormous jug of beer. The banqueting-hall was transformed, no trace of elegance or courtly grace seemed to remain; it had become a pothouse, of which Eberhard Ludwig was the jovial host. The Landhofmeisterin quivered with disgust, his Highness appeared sunken to a different level. She watched and listened; the music in the courtyard had ceased, and she could hear what they said in the banqueting-hall.

'What! Sapperment! you compose fiddling tunes, young man?' Friedrich Wilhelm was roaring at the shrinking Erbprinz. 'Just like my fool of a son. He blows squeaks on a tube which he calls my beloved flute' (the King gave a rough imitation of his son's refined speech). 'No good at all, this younger generation--eh! what, old comrade? A good fight, a good gla.s.s of beer, a good pipe, a good wife--that's what a man needs; no French jiggery and music nonsense. Fool's play--eh, what? what?' He spoke in German; such German as it was, too, vitiated by French words which he could not avoid, as he knew no others, adorned with unquotable oaths, short-clipped, rough phrases--the language of the man-at-arms in the guard-room. Yet he possessed a certain breezy charm, and Eberhard Ludwig seemed to respond to it. In truth, the King, when he was not in one of his furious rages, was a boon companion, and appealed to the brutish swagger which lies dormant in every man's being.

At length the company rose from table and gathered in groups of three or four, while the King and his host retired into the embrasure of one of the windows. The Landhofmeisterin saw that Friedrich Wilhelm spoke earnestly to Serenissimus; she noted the embarra.s.sment on the Duke's face, he seemed like a chidden schoolboy, and with dismay the Landhofmeisterin observed that he was evidently impressed by the King's words. Could this rude monarch persuade so polished and refined a being as Eberhard Ludwig? Did he endeavour to separate her lover from her? A presentiment came to her; she knew instinctively that this was what the King essayed. After nearly an hour, the two men came forth from the window's embrasure, and she saw how the King held out his hand to Eberhard Ludwig, and how his Highness gripped and held it, saying something in a low, earnest tone.

She strained her ears, yet she could not catch the words; but she saw Friedrich Wilhelm's satisfied face. He clapped his Highness between the shoulders with a heavy hand. Evidently Serenissimus met with his Majesty's entire approval. The company broke up for the night, and the Landhofmeisterin rose from her cramped, kneeling position and took her way back to her apartments. A cruel foreknowledge of disaster overshadowed her; something unusual, elusively sinister, haunted her.

As she pa.s.sed his Highness's door she hesitated. Should she go in bravely and speak her fear to him? Pride forbade, and a certain sense of hopelessness. She drew herself up proudly. No, he loved her; how could he change after twenty years? He could not escape her, for she was his life; all his memories were hers, his past, his present; therefore she argued, as a woman always argues, his future too must be hers.

She pa.s.sed into her apartments and, opening her window, leaned far out.

How silent it was in the garden! The moonlight played gently over the terraces, only the splash of the fountains broke the stillness. The air was delicious, scented with freshness, and after the noisome fumes of wine, beer, victuals, and tobacco in the banqueting-hall, she thought the night air was laden with rose fragrance. So it had been on that far-off night in the Stuttgart palace gardens after the theatricals. Time had not played havoc then with Nature. How weary she was! Suddenly a moan in the room behind her attracted her attention. She started nervously, and, as usual, the thought of the White Lady worked in her mind. They said the poor ghost moaned when death drew near to any of her descendants, and she was Eberhard Ludwig's ancestress. The Landhofmeisterin dared not turn her head for fear she should see a tall, white, shrouded figure with bloodstained hands. Again the moan.

'Who is there?' the Landhofmeisterin said tremulously.

'Pardon, Madame, you said I was to await you.' It was only the dwarf, then. Her Excellency almost laughed in her relief.

'Ah! I had forgotten you. Well, tell me your story now. I am listening,'

she said. It would serve to pa.s.s the time till his Highness came, for he would come, she told herself.

The dwarf stood trembling before her, ridiculous, grotesque, infinitely pathetic. He poured forth the tale of his miserable life, of the taunts, the jeers, the kicks, the cuffs, the lack of food which he had often suffered in the midst of the lavish splendour of Ludwigsburg.

Incidentally he let her see how the very servants of the palace spoke of her, and how they mocked her authority when they dared.

His was a pitiful life-history, and the Landhofmeisterin was moved to compa.s.sion; her own heart was sore, and already the crust of world-hardness had begun to melt under the tears which were welling up ready to be shed.

She told the dwarf that he was free to return to that humble cottage in the Swiss valley which he called home. There and then she wrote out a pa.s.sport for him and an order for a seat in the Duke's diligence as far as the frontier; she gave him a purse of gold, and, more precious still, an official command to all to treat the deformed traveller with consideration; also, as postscriptum, an intimation that if the dwarf did not reach his home safe and unrobbed, she would cause the whole Secret Service to track the offender, who would suffer the utmost penalty of the law. With this doc.u.ment the dwarf could have travelled from one end of Wirtemberg to the other in safety; nay, more, he was sure of even servile acceptance from high and low, for never was monarch so feared in his domains as the Gustrow adventuress in the Dukedom of Wirtemberg.

'G.o.d reward you for this great good,' the dwarf said as he turned to leave her presence, and she answered sadly:

'It is too late; G.o.d's hand is heavy upon me.' But she did not believe it.

The hours pa.s.sed, and still the Landhofmeisterin waited for Eberhard Ludwig. She watched the grey dawn slip into the sky, then the glow of the awaking sun came, and she knew that she waited in vain.

CHAPTER XX

SATIETY

'A Cloud of sorrow hanging as if Gloom Had pa.s.sed out of men's minds into the air.'

Sh.e.l.lEY.

FRIEDRICH WILHELM and his Highness of Wirtemberg started early on the morning after the state banquet. A number of wild boars had been tracked in the Kernen forest and good sport was antic.i.p.ated. The Landhofmeisterin from her couch heard the stir of the sportsmen's departure. In happier days she had waved farewell to her lover from her window, now she turned her face to the wall and moaned in anguish. But the day's routine should be carried out as usual, that she vowed; no one should pity her, no one notice that she feared her sun had set. She dressed according to her wont in a magnificent gown, sat patiently for an hour in her powdering closet while the obsequious Frenchman dressed her hair elaborately and powdered the curls afresh.