Читать книгу Bagatelle and Some Other Diversions - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 6

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With an accompaniment for trumpets set for the Imperial Army of the Czar of All the Russias under Prince Zadikov at the Château Brockenstein. [BOHEMIA, 18th Century.]

Miss Pettigrew was familiar with Europe and Europe was tolerably familiar with Miss Pettigrew; she had permitted herself every indulgence save an indiscretion; those who knew most about her, applauded her the most warmly—for tact, elegance and an inflexible courage, concealed behind the most becoming air of timidity; those who knew least about her, admired her for a great lady whose dignity was never flecked with blame; all who knew anything of her, conceded her greater gifts than her too celebrated beauty; she never forgot any circumstance, however trifling, and she never lost her composure in any event, however disturbing. She was extremely well-bred and so finely trained that she never allowed any of her lovers to discover that she was an intelligent woman; she knew, exquisitely well, how to give an enchanting air of caprice to the most adroitly conceived plan, how to beggar a man negligently as if she had no idea of the value of money, and how to confer her favours with an air of sweet, overwhelmed reluctance, as if she succumbed for the first and last time; she had a high sense of honour, but this, masked behind the laughing grimace of folly, was a masculine code; that of her own sex, from her early years, she had found trivial and inconvenient. Her secret regret was that she had never met a man quite worthy of her talents; no one with that right mingling of honour and humour, grace and spirit, to deal with her exactly as she was, no more and no less than himself.

Miss Pettigrew had been visiting the Electoral Court of Dresden and had found it rather dull; the most interesting portion of the population was at the war; Miss Pettigrew discovered the time was long between the opening of the campaigns and the closing, when the troops came into winter quarters and made the cities lively. With unperturbed good spirits, however, she retired with the Ursins Trainel to their château of Brockenstein between the darkness of the Bohemian forests and the brightness of the river Moldau. Like thunder on a midsummer day the distant bolts of war rattled in the background of a fête champêtre; Ursins Trainel was an old man, his wife timid, the others of the household were servants; rumours began to deaden the air with panic, refugees pressed against the haughty scrolls of the iron gates of the Park, crept to sleep in the wide allées, and begged for bread at the doors of the château; refugees from Silesia...

Prince Zadikov, the commander of the troops of the Czar of All the Russias, putting under his heel a rebellious Poland, striking a rebellious Silesia, was advancing to face the Circle of Franconia in Munich; with every flash of news that came, fear grew more horrible at Brockenstein; the Ursins Trainel had no interest in the tedious war, but they were technically enemies of Russia...if Zadikov should chance to march that way...no one knew his objective...if it was Munich, then Brockenstein lay directly in his path; M. d'Ursins Trainel was faced with the alternative of abandoning his property, his peasants, his dignity, or risking a visit from Zadikov.

This general had the worst of reputations; cruel, unscrupulous, implacable, extravagant..."a Tartar, in one word," said M. d'Ursins Trainel, sitting gloomily in his great shadowed salon and drinking tea from a cup of powder blue; the small agitated company began to decry Zadikov; there was no crime they did not charge to his account, no vice with which he was not familiar.

Miss Pettigrew sat at a desk slightly apart; her wardrobe was a little depleted; she was making a list for her next visit to Paris: a roll of watered bronze silk for a cloak, a pair of green velvet slippers, a garland of jasmine flowers in pearls...She looked up to listen to what they were exclaiming, in terror and rage, of Zadikov.

"They say he plays the harpsichord exquisitely," she remarked, "I should like to hear him."

"The man is—beyond our discussion," declared M. d'Ursins Trainel coldly, "there is nothing detestable that he has not done—"

"I hear he has good manners," said Miss Pettigrew, reflectively. "I should like to see him."

"You may have the opportunity," replied one of the ladies drily, "and then you would repent your wish—though you have always been slightly enamoured of the Devil—"

"He is, at least, grand seigneur," remarked Miss Pettigrew, "while le bon Dieu—eh, a pity that the Almighty never understood good breeding."

"I fear you have no soul, Miss Pettigrew, possibly no heart," sighed Madame d'Ursins Trainel, "you put virtue at a discount."

"Because it has done so much harm," smiled Miss Pettigrew, "encouraged ill manners, muddy complexions and sour speeches...virtue, eh? What is it but an invention of those who have nothing else to boast of?"

While they conversed there came further news of Zadikov—the worst; he was marching straight on Brockenstein with his Russian and Imperial troops (for the campaign, at least, the Emperor leagued with the Czar), his Cossacks, Uhlans, Black Cuirassiers...a trail of fire, blood and ruin across Silesia as across Poland; he had crossed the Vistula on pontoons, he would soon be crossing the Moldau.

"He grows flowers," said Miss Pettigrew, "he will be interested in your glasshouses, Monsieur."

She added to her list: "blue velvet corsets cut very low, saffron silk garters with knots of coral beads..."

The Château was to be abandoned, every one must fly as best they could, back into Bavaria, to Munich or Nuremburg; every coach, horse and waggon was brought out of the stables; the men looked up all guns, powder, swords, knives; the women ran from room to room, snatching up and packing ornaments of gold and silver, of fine porcelain and alabaster.

Miss Pettigrew disliked confusion and agitation. She retired to her chamber; it was a delightful day in September and from her high window she looked on a voluptuous prospect of shimmering gold—wood, mountain, river, azure horizon...it would be an evening, a night, such as many vaguely love but few know how to enjoy...but Miss Pettigrew was an expert in such delicacies of delight; she leant from the window and allowed the afternoon breeze that floated from the upper plumes of the airy trees to disturb her locks of dark English gold...when her hostess hastened in on her she found her thus with her possessions untouched.

"Are you not packed, Miss Pettigrew? Are you not ready? There is no time, not a moment! Everyone is departing...most are gone."

"Nay, dear Madame, do not be alarmed. I have never heard of women of our position being inconvenienced."

"We deal with Zadikov," Madame d'Ursins Trainel spoke in despair. "He sent a detachment of Cossacks this morning to demand the surrender of Budweis, our nearest town...we have just heard—they refused."

"Fools!" remarked Miss Pettigrew.

"Fools indeed I The town is unfortified...it will fall in half an hour...the Cossacks returned to Zadikov with the threat to pillage the entire country...he will make his headquarters here...Eh, Mon Dieu! come at once."

"I have seen a pillaged town," said the English lady thoughtfully. "I remember it very well—those crazy wretches in Budweis—children, too, and old people...I might have had daughters myself."

Madame d'Ursins Trainel did not listen to this, she was weeping.

"The Burgomaster is here, he has repented his obstinacy and is imploring us to help him; we can do nothing but advise the inhabitants of Budweis to fly with us—"

"Such as have horses or carts," smiled Miss Pettigrew, "I believe the Russians are in excellent condition—how long before they overtook this poor rabble?"

"They must take their fortune!" cried Madame d'Ursins Trainel, distracted. "Do you come and not waste your time."

"I will follow you," replied Miss Pettigrew, to be rid of her. The lady fled, and, in the hurry of her mischances, forgot her foreign guest; Miss Pettigrew called her maid; the girl had gone. Miss Pettigrew herself took from the wardrobe a shift of Indian mull worked with a million white flowers, transparent as a breath of vapour, and a holster pistol inlaid with ivory which had belonged to her father, slain at Philipsbourg; she placed both on her bed and went downstairs; in a short space of time the tumult had stilled; everyone had left the château. From a window on the stairway Miss Pettigrew could see the procession of coaches, of carts, of horses, winding along the high road towards Bavaria; their laborious overladen progress gave them a depressed and defeated air; not every one had left the château. In the salon where lately they had been drinking tea sat the Burgomaster of Budweis—a man overwhelmed by disaster; but he had had the fortitude not to follow the others; he had remained to face the consequences of his own folly; few, thought Miss Pettigrew, can do more.

He rose, the stout elderly man, amazed at the appearance of a lady in the château he had believed so swiftly deserted, stood stammering, for an explanation?

"There is none," Miss Pettigrew reassured him. "I dislike hurried journeys—they have overlooked my absence, no one is of importance in a panic. You, sir, retire to Budweis—?"

"You remain here—alone?"

"My fancies make a crowded company. Why were you so imprudent as to refuse to surrender the town?"

"I was badly advised...the burghers were afraid of their property..."

"And now must be afraid for their lives."

"Alas! if I could die for all—"

"You cannot. Budweis will be sacked to-morrow, unless—"

"Unless?" he demanded, eager at the sparkle of hope in her words.

"Prince Zadikov should prove merciful."

The Burgomaster began sorrowfully to relate some of the cruel stories current about the Russian; Miss Pettigrew interrupted:

"Eh, we all have our legends! Perhaps I can save Budweis."

"You! Pardon me, but you! You remain here...?"

"To meet this Tartar, this monster, this dragon...Compose yourself, sir, and return to Budweis to tell your citizens to hope."

"Pardon me again, Madame, but what do you know of Zadikov?"

"That he is an expert in music—in flowers—we shall have points of contact—the décor, too, the evening, how exquisite! The man must have some sensibility."

The Burgomaster did not quite understand what the lady meant, but he gathered courage from her beauty, her resolute air, her serenity.

"It is a tradition of Budweis," he faltered, "that in the ancient days it was saved from a ravening beast by a virgin martyr—"

Miss Pettigrew kept a smile from her eyes.

"I hope Prince Zadikov will be no more a ravening beast than I am a...a martyr," she replied gravely, not to offend the old man's simplicity. "Now, sir, return to Budweis."

"Shall I not send you some women...at least?"

"Mon Dieu!" murmured Miss Pettigrew, with recollection of some of the good wives of Budweis, "tell them to keep within their walls."

She got rid of him, saw him riding away amazed on his mule, and returned to the emptiness of the château...a virgin martyr She laughed, not without irony and her face became serious; she had experienced so much, the rise and break of passion, the ebb and flow of emotion, the smooth conveniency of compromise, the surge of rebellion, the look of disillusion in her own mirrored eyes the moment before satiety when disgust must be strangled at birth, the moment before consummation when some gorgeous hope must be foregone—she had learnt so much, balance, humour, grace, tolerance, to overlay the tedious years with rich trifles, to enjoy every possible beauty and delight, to keep her dignity immaculate. She had evolved a philosophy and morality in one: miss no pleasure, weary no one and allow no one to weary you, be an epicure in your indulgences...never confess and never repent...flee boredom as the most deadly of the sins...She had not always had as pleasant a background as this, so many clothes in her trunks, so much money in her pockets...she had known her reverses, like Zadikov...she, like him, had been sometimes in retreat, and would be again in full flight one day, before the enemy tracing wrinkles in her face and fading the dark amber of her hair...but, to-day—"Perhaps," said Miss Pettigrew, "we can both be victorious."

She was not alone in the chateau; a negress waited in the corridor, seated on a stool between two gilt model cannon and caressing a silver deerhound; the lady remembered her for doing her a kindness, when Madame d'Ursins Trainel had chided her for laziness; the creature was faithful, then...She looked up at Miss Pettigrew with tears in her handsome eyes and caught the end of her scarf, imploring to be permitted to stay; she, of all of them, had noticed that the English woman had remained in the chateau.

"Poor Corinne," said Miss Pettigrew, "certainly you may stay—there is nothing to be afraid of—the dog, too?"

Yes, the dog was loyal to the negress; he had refused to leave her; they looked charming, the lady thought—Corinne, strong and graceful, her bronze body wrapped in a glittering scarlet tissue, an agraffe of yellow plumes bound to her black curls, the hound fine and light as a curling feather, pale as a moonbeam.

Miss Pettigrew reflected.

"The salon shows signs of disorder, see to that, Corinne; we must be clever and leave nothing to chance. Then you will see what they have left in the house and prepare some supper—set it out, wine and fruit, as elegantly as possible, set it out in the salon."

The negress sprang up, eager and delighted at being used; Miss Pettigrew directed her to arrange the great room that opened so nobly on the terraces and the steps; here a chair overturned, there a vase toppled down, a tapestry awry, a couch upset, a screen fallen, all soon deftly arranged, and the beautiful harpsichord painted with garlands of tender amorini and stately laurels opened, and set in place; fresh candles put in the lustres and in the brackets. Before they had completed these adjustments the patrols of Zadikov were entering the park, frightening the deer, disturbing the cool silence of the long glades; the sun had disappeared behind the high boughs of the chestnuts and elms and filled the air with the vaporous glow of unearthly gold. Miss Pettigrew glanced at herself in the mirror behind the harpsichord; she had made no alteration in her attire, she appeared as an English gentlewoman, in grey sarcenet with slim ruffles, her hair but slightly powdered, her face as it had smiled from the canvas by Mr. Gainsborough when he had painted her but last year.

The patrols had reported the château deserted; Zadikov and his staff rode negligently through the park; Zadikov, whose life had been all action, admired the contrast of this fine repose, the graceful vistas, the flying deer, the lofty, whispering trees, the fastidious château, elegant behind the wide terraces and shallow steps, with the fountain in front where a nereid in marble blew up long jets of water into the azure air. Zadikov and his officers dismounted. The long windows beyond the terrace stood open as if to receive them; the Russians ascended the steps, slowly, carelessly, jaded after the long march. Miss Pettigrew came to the window and looked at them; she was slightly shortsighted and narrowed her eyes in an effort to discover which was Zadikov. Perceiving her, the Russians stopped and spoke quickly, one to another; she guessed what they said—"A trap!" She knew that Zadikov lived under the constant menace of assassination; she came out on to the terrace, to the head of the steps, and one man detached himself from the hesitant group and came straight up to meet her—Zadikov—she knew him better by that action than by his cords and laces, his orders and sashes.

"Prince Zadikov," she said, in French, "I regret that I can only offer you a poor entertainment, such as it is, you are welcome."

He answered in French as correct as her own.

"Whatever it is, I am grateful, Madame."

His officers were crowding up behind him, as if to threaten and protect; Miss Pettigrew smiled.

"I regret, Monseigneur, that I cannot receive your friends—I am inconvenienced by lack of service, of provisions—I am alone in the château."

"You are alone?" he repeated.

"No, I forgot—there is a negress and a dog—the only creatures not afraid of you, Prince Zadikov; will you enter?"

He looked at her steadily; he was as well-trained in quick scrutiny as she; he did not pause but leisurely followed her across the terrace, telling his officers to wait for him.

"You are French, Madame?"

"English."

"Ah—and alone?—here? You knew I was coming..."

"Certainly. And your reputation. I wanted to receive you."

Zadikov smiled.

"Seldom have I had a prettier compliment." He entered the great salon, then filled with golden dusk, following her.

She saw his glance flicker to the large gilt screen behind the supper table; she had not thought of that, nor of the attempts on his life—it would be very natural that he should take this for a trap; she could see the angry suspicious faces of his officers as they, despite his orders, crept closer to the open windows.

"Will you believe that I am alone here?" she asked courteously. "Will you accept my company this evening? I know nothing of politics, little of war—your Highness will risk nothing but—boredom!"

"I am never bored," said Zadikov; he moved so that he stood with his back to the screen; had there been anyone behind it, he could have been killed instantly.

Brave! thought Miss Pettigrew; her blue eyes kindled into a flashing look that gave a radiant lustre to her charming face; she negligently moved the screen, revealing the emptiness of the room.

"Your officers are still alarmed for you, Prince Zadikov; will you tell them to find their quarters elsewhere—there are the farms, the outbuildings, other houses between here and Budweis."

"You command very well," smiled Zadikov, "and you may command my leisure—the day is over." He went to the window and spoke to the officers; Miss Pettigrew saw them reluctantly depart; she smiled to think that they should be afraid of her who was so utterly in their power—an army surrounding her complete helplessness.

She asked her guest to be seated; she took from him his hat with the stiff black cockade, the light cloak covered with autumn dust. She laughed quietly to see how perfectly he controlled what must be a baffled amazement, with what audacious readiness he accepted this improbable adventure; some of the tales she had heard of him ran through her mind; she studied her monster, her Tartar, her dragon, her ruthless devouring tyrant. The appearance of Gregory Zadikov gave the lie to these ferocious epithets; he had a charming, slightly melancholy countenance, devoid of any definite expression, a person more elegant than powerful, a manner of instinctive magnificence well curbed by careful good breeding; those who described him as a bearded Muscovite, or a yellow flat-faced Eastern, were grotesquely wrong; and they forgot what Miss Pettigrew had always remembered, that he had been educated at Versailles. He was set off with the most extravagant of military bearing; his hair was as exactly rolled and pomaded as if he had just left the barber's hands; Miss Pettigrew had seen many a gentleman at St. James's less precisely ordered than Zadikov after his march; nor was there any offence in the reserved scrutiny he gave her; she had read a coarser appraisal of her charms in the eyes of men of a better reputation.

"Why did you want to know me?" he asked, carelessly on his guard.

"I hear you play the harpsichord divinely," smiled Miss Pettigrew, "I should like to hear you."

"Who told you that?" he asked. He had faintly coloured, and amused, she wondered who had last brought the blood to his serene face.

"You grow flowers also, there is one here in the glass-houses I should like to show you—Corona Imperialis, rare, Monseigneur, if not unique."

Zadikov was pulling off his fringed gloves. When Corinne opened the door behind him he did not look round; Miss Pettigrew noted that; he had not had the château searched; did he trust her, or was he outrageously foolhardy? She hoped the latter; she had always wanted to meet a man worthy of her utmost art. Corinne lit the candles, soft blooms of mellow light in the tender dusk; the twilight beyond the windows was a hyacinth azure, the sky above the trees of an infinite depth of voluptuous purple. Corinne had arranged the supper exquisitely—a melon in a silver basket, Bon Chrétien pears on a jade green dish, Venetian glasses with ruby stems, such cold meats and pasties as she had found in Madame d'Ursins Trainel's larder, fastidiously set out, wine in long tawny gleaming bottles...

"Have you enjoyed your life, Monseigneur?"

"Immensely; and you, Madame?"

"I also immensely; an evening like this—lovely, is it not?"

Zadikov looked at her earnestly.

"Lovely, indeed!"

"You have a fine taste—a delicate appreciation—of beauty, Prince Zadikov?"

"No one has denied me that quality."

"I am not concerned with what others you have—only with that. You are fastidious in your choice, and neither scruples nor fears would prevent you taking your choice once you had made it?"

"You read me exactly," he replied; he had lost his artificial look of composure, and she saw that his eager dark face was beautiful.

"And will read you no further, so much knowledge will serve our brief acquaintance."

"Who are you?"

"Mary Pettigrew, of Waygood Boys, Somerset—but it is a long while since I was there. Will you take your supper, Prince Zadikov?"

"I cannot," he said, "read you as you do me; no, not even that little way—"

She poured his wine.

"You are married, Monseigneur?"

"Inevitably and inconveniently, Madame."

"My condolences—for the lady."

"You would not be in her place?" he smiled. "No, I do not see you there—you have never married for you are not a woman—you are an enchantment," he ended with sudden gravity.

"Take me as that and we shall do very well."

"How can I take you as anything else? One must call in magic to explain—an unprecedented situation."

He was close to her now, the other side of the small table, and her level look considered him more keenly; was there not, after all, something dangerous in that face?—the cheek-bones too high, the lips too full, the eyes too dark—a savage, perhaps, beneath the brilliant veneer.

"You sack Budweis to-morrow?"

"Yes. Need we talk of it?"

"I ask you to spare the town."

She saw disappointment darken in his glance, as if he had found the solution of her mystery, and found it commonplace.

"That, then!" he answered, not without an inflection of contempt, "the mouthpiece of those whining burghers—what you ask is impossible. I have heard of Deliliah and Judith—I am not to be wrought on, even by an enchantress."

"I do not try to seduce you," smiled Miss Pettigrew. "Never have I taken less trouble with any man—I did not even change my gown. I have put greater pains into pleasing—those less powerful—"

Her eyes became thoughtful; she was recalling a night in Venice, a rendezvous beneath the Colleoni statue, when she had worn a cavalier's attire—severe, trim, gaitered, buttoned from toe to chin—but, afterwards, in the locked chamber of the Capo del Moro she had worn nothing save a cloud of gauze and diamond garters...Zadikov saw that reflective look, as if she had forgotten him, and he was piqued.

"And yet you make a monstrous request. What is Budweis to you?"

"Nothing. I am a stranger here. I have scarcely seen the place. I ask you not to sack Budweis."

"I have promised my soldiers the plunder. That is sufficient."

"Your word is so inviolable? What is one town more or less to you, Monseigneur?"

"Exactly the same as one lover more or less to you, Madame."

"A trifle, then. And you can let Budweis go?"

"No," smiled Zadikov.

"No?" Miss Pettigrew raised her fine eyebrows. She leant back in her chair, her hands folded languidly in her lap; twilight and candlelight fluttered over her in mellow shade and glow, on all her hues of pearl and amber and rose; she looked past Zadikov at the warmth of the night beyond the open window where troops, trees and heavens were all hidden in one trembling depth of blue, the deep blue of hyacinth, of dying summer, of her own eyes—a little weary, a little veiled by the memory of tears.

Zadikov got to his feet; Miss Pettigrew did not stir; gentle and tranquil she gazed into the night.

"What would you give me if I spared Budweis?"

"Nothing."

"Why did I ask? You could give me nothing I could not take—"

She detected arrogance and impatience in his tone; he had revealed exasperation and given her an advantage she serenely used.

"I never thought to hear a man of quality speak so crudely! I believed you were more subtle. Do you think I stayed here to save Budweis? I wanted to meet you. Do not disappoint me."

"I regret I spoke so—falsely. I know you could give me what no cost or menace could buy—I am not so barbarous—forgive me."

"I see you will not disappoint me. And when I said 'nothing' I was wrong. If you will spare Budweis I will give you the new lily, Corona Triumphalis, Corona Imperialis, which grows very well in the glasshouses here."

"A town for a flower!" smiled Zadikov. "It is true that I am an ardent collector—but, no."

Miss Pettigrew pressed him no more; she went to the harpsichord and set out a sheet of music, and lit the candles either side; the quivering reflections gleamed on the wreaths of amorini, of laurels. "Will you play for me?" smiled Miss Pettigrew—"it is a lovely night; do you not sometimes consider how soon they pass—nights such as this, so warm, so still, the sweeter the dream the briefer—and, who knows if, in the last sleep, we dream at all?"

"I've thought of that," replied Zadikov unsteadily, "is it that which torments us?"

"We miss so much," said Miss Pettigrew. "A hundred years hence we shall be ghosts in an old story—no one will care if Budweis was sacked or no—this music will be out of tune and my face fading on a canvas—'Ah, giovenezza, come sei Bella!'—Do you know that melody? How many women have you loved, Prince Zadikov? And if the sum of them all were here to-night would you not find these few hours worth one cruelty foregone?"

Her voice was full of caresses, of tenderness, of invitation, but when he approached her she looked at him with irony.

"Corinne has prepared the apartments of M. d'Ursins Trainel for you, Monseigneur—do you wish for your friends, your secretaries, your valets—you have work to do to-night?"

Zadikov repeated:

"The day is over, and with it those affairs of the day."

"You are well-guarded, eh?" smiled Miss Pettigrew. "How many sentries about the chateau? How many soldiers encamped in the park?"

"You, too, have your defences," he answered. "I think I have never met a woman so well protected."

"You can hardly have met a woman more alone, Monseigneur. I move solitary in all my designs."

"Yet you are unapproachable," he sat down by the harpsichord; he was weary, clouded by melancholy. She had roused (he knew not how) old torments that he usually lulled by swift action; the nostalgia for the unattainable, the secret, surprised regret (never confessed) that success, power, glory, were not in achievement what they had seemed in anticipation; the gloom and sadness latent in his blood stirred an intolerable pain; he grinned as if tortured physically, and asked her what she thought of while she pondered by the mute music?

"Of our deaths. If you die first I shall hear of it—the battle, eh?"

"Please God," Zadikov crossed himself.

"But, perhaps, an assassin, an illness, possibly the scaffold, Monseigneur—at least pomp, high above the crowd—clamour and amaze, But if I die first you will hear nothing—it will be obscurely one night when the candles are put out for the last time, when the wreaths and garlands are withered, to be no more renewed, when the silks are folded away and the gems set aside for another woman's pleasure...Play to me, Prince Zadikov, and give me another memory."

"Of what?" asked Zadikov sombrely; he was deeply troubled. Life had never been a moral problem to him, nor women anything but a simple matter; but this woman had roused in him that lust for the impossible, the intangible, the unearthly, that had sunk him to embittering excesses and raised him to maddening ecstasies...

"Of an illusion of happiness," breathed Miss Pettigrew, "what more can anyone give another?"

He played and sang; first from the Operas, "Armide," "Alexandre," then the wild melancholy songs of Russia, in his despised native tongue—songs of snow, of black rivers, of dark pines like metal against a rigid sky, of great bears and packs of wolves and sledge bells, and passionate bridals in gaunt castles with one lit window gleaming on to the lonely storm, quenched suddenly by a trembling hand...to Zadikov these things were in the music.

Miss Pettigrew thought of England; an autumn morning, the first falling leaves on the trim swept path before the manor door, a bright chestnut horse waiting at the gate, a happy child lifted into the saddle—herself...the pang of joy...the sense of all life before her...a golden secret of unutterable delight...She sighed her thoughts back to the present and looked at the man playing his sombre melodies.

Zadikov.

His face had changed; it was flushed, heavier, darker, had lost that careful look of formality, of authority. She could now believe that those wide lips could snarl...the full nostrils were slightly distended, his too heavy brows met in a frown; it was the front of an animal, noble but savage; but Miss Pettigrew reflected that the countenance of an animal—a bull, a lion—had as much of the godlike as the countenance of humanity.

Zadikov appeared to sense that she spied on his soul and recovered himself with admirable composure. He looked at her with eyes slightly bloodshot and only a negative expression; Miss Pettigrew applauded the performance of something difficult, the recovery from the music, not the music itself. Her light delicacy of touch saved him from the regret of having revealed too much; she made no comment on his music; she told him the story of the Burgomaster of Budweis and the Virgin Martyr, and they laughed together without self-consciousness. Zadikov appeared quite amiable when he laughed. From the park came the appeal of drum and trumpet; the companions of Zadikov were becoming as exasperated as the companions of Ulysses when he visited Circe.

Corinne came and removed the supper appointments; as she passed beside Miss Pettigrew, her gleaming darkness, her scarlet tissue, her hard outlines made the Englishwoman appear faint, vague, frail as the ashes of a roseleaf. Corinne left them, moving the candles so that they were drowned in shadows.

Miss Pettigrew waited; she believed that he would know exactly what to do; he came towards her with no more of parade than was allowable, and asked if he should go?

"When you have promised to spare Budweis," said Miss Pettigrew. "Promise? Nay, I believe you think little of that—you shall sign orders that the town be left—the château, too, the park, I'll not have it touched—then you may go, Prince Zadikov."

"All this because you have a lovely face?"

She looked at him out of the shadows, impalpable, tantalizing as those most daring, most unrealizable desires that tormented him even in the moment of his keenest triumph.

"Those whom I love, those who hold me, do not know if my face be lovely or not—do not care if I am ugly or beautiful—"

He could have caught hold of her with a movement that seemed to be of destruction, but Miss Pettigrew stayed him by adding:

"Those whom I love—he who takes me against my will enbraces disgust and death."

"Come with me," said Zadikov hotly, "I will spare every town I take—you shall have a court in Munich—"

"I have always avoided such obvious triumphs—you cannot prolong dreams into the light of day—nor do I bargain, Prince Zadikov," she laughed, amused. "Are you used to buy your mistresses at so cheap a rate? Budweis for Mary Pettigrew—nay, every town you take! Match me against Rome, Vienna, Paris—and still bid too low!"

"You have a high pride," he said, but not in mockery, rather in admiration of an emotion that matched his own emotions, that so often seemed too vast to know any possible satisfaction.

"But my worth outstrips it—now, give me Budweis, nor keep me, Monseigneur, quibbling for a bagatelle."

As indifferently as if she had asked what he could at once concede Zadikov sat down at the desk she had prepared and wrote his orders to leave Budweis—to leave Brockenstein and all the gardens and houses, farms and fields; Miss Pettigrew held the candle while he wrote. When he had scrawled the last "Zadikov" she suggested that he sent these orders at once to his adjutant.

"How slightly you trust me."

"How slightly you are to be trusted—in the morning you may think: 'Why did I concede so much for nothing?'"

"In which case I could countermand these orders."

"You would never do that, for you do not wish to give an impression of weakness, of indecision."

"And what impression of weakness do I give as it is? Every one will know I have given up the town because you asked me—"

"No—as the price of the flower; I have heard of a regiment given for a drinking cup—a town for a bulb is a prettier exchange—will you leave it at that?"

Zadikov replied in formal tones: "I will leave it at that," and Miss Pettigrew sighed at the achievement of one of her most difficult victories; she allowed him to stare at her, the fine English gentlewoman so well-bred, so fastidious, so composed, a mere breath, a mere sparkle of loveliness in the warm dusk of the beautiful night; he glowered and stiffened.

"I will take these orders myself, I will not remain in the château—" Then, on the threshold of the window, "What an irony that you could not have liked me!"

Miss Pettigrew did not reply to that; she said: "Corinne will take you to the flower," and left him leaning against the window-frame, inwardly raging. He had always flattered himself that he could seize the utmost from any opportunity and this had escaped him; he had long since found that he required more for the least satisfaction that brutality could give him; he was glutted by violent victories, satiated by the trophies and spoils he could rudely wrest from the reluctant hands of fortune; strong, brave, shrewd, but wilful, reckless and extravagant, he lived on the edge of disillusion; 'an illusion of happiness' this woman had said—what, if there was not only no happiness, but even no illusion possible?

Moving always amid large events it was natural for him to think grandly; he had been answerable to few for his actions, to none for his desires, yet he had always realized his own sharp limitations. And never so keenly as to-night; he gloomed into the tranquil beauty of the skies; the moon was rising behind the avenue of trees.

"We are here to enjoy what is—not to yearn after what might be"—Zadikov's philosophy could get no further than that; he thought he would give orders to strike camp, forget his discomfiture in seeing the discomfiture of the others in his power, in sending his armies staggering sullenly on the march in the hot night, with Budweis untouched behind them—they also mortified and cheated. But he decided that it would be more noble to keep his word, and so sent his orders by one of the sentries thickly posted round the château; though no one dared intrude on him, all were disturbed as to his safety; he saw a group of Heyducks on the steps watching the lighted window; impressive and aloof, he was admired by the soldiers because he gave them confidence in his brilliant and steadfast star and never allowed them to guess that he often saw it overclouded in its progress and dimmed in its flashing.

As Zadikov paused on the terrace he could hear the agitated bells of Budweis; the people were, of course, crowding to their churches, endeavouring to mitigate the wrath of God...praying perhaps, to their Virgin Martyr, immobile in her niche. Odd that their clamours should be answered in such indirect and cynic fashion; Zadikov, who despised all the superstitions of men, stared at the moon rising into a sky emptied of the warm, rich and tender hues of early evening, and cast over in his mind the word "enchantment."

With her easy movement, both stealthy and candid, Corinne crossed the terrace and reminded him that he had not waited for the bulb, the flower that her mistress had promised him; this fantasy pleased Zadikov and he re-entered the house behind the negress; she led him seriously across the salon, past the open harpsichord and the screen, and up the stairs lit only by one bracket of candles placed high, so that he mounted through falling shadows; somewhere a window was open and the church bells, with their tedious appeal, broke the serene repose of the lovely night. Corinne opened a door on to a room lit only by moonlight and turned away down the corridor; Zadikov, pausing, saw her extinguish the candles on the stairs, as in his music the light in the window of the gaunt Russian castle had been extinguished. As he closed the door the flower welcomed him—a crown of crowded buds, half curling open, depending from a stem wreathed with thin leaves like a victor's baton with laurels, sprays shaping, in the unfluctuating light, an Imperial diadem raised on a conqueror's staff.

Miss Pettigrew was seated beside the flower; she regarded Zadikov gravely, without coquetry; she was no longer the English gentlewoman, but Antiope—

Danae—Ariadne—serious, absorbed in a dedication to the transient delights and beauties lent by the immortal gods; her hair was in a knot of classic severity and she wore a mull robe embroidered with millions of white roses.

Zadikov crossed the room, knelt beside her and put his face in his hands on her knee; she looked down at him with compassion for the brevity of mortal joy, with irony for the length of the longing, the depth of the yearning, the incompleteness of any human satisfaction; she tenderly told him to rise; as he did so his foot struck the pistol which she had not troubled to conceal.

"What is that for?" asked Zadikov, drowsily indifferent to all harsh matters.

"In case I had not liked you," said Miss Pettigrew, sighing into his arms. She appeared diaphanous in the light from the remote moon—a creature ravished from ineffable depths of unimagined heavens; but the vague perfume of her locks was the perfume from the coronal on Eve's tresses, blooming in the shade of gilded trees, as she slept through an imperishable afternoon in an earthly Eden.

The citizens of Budweis, in solemn thanksgivings, laid offerings on the altar before Santa Rosa, virgin martyr, who had once saved the city from a dragon, and now, it seemed, from Zadikov. The rearguard of the great army had disappeared over the plains of Bavaria, leaving Budweis unscathed—a miracle! When the Burgomaster remembered the lady at the château he hastened up from the city through the park—possibly it had been her good offices?

She had gone; the château was deserted; the harpsichord stood open in the salon which was full of a sunshine definitely tinged with the sensuous melancholy of autumn.

A lingering forester had seen her departure; neat, composed, in her trim habit, with a negress and a dog, in a small travelling coach going in the opposite direction to that taken by the armies of the Russians and Imperialists.

The utmost care of Prince Zadikov could not preserve the lily; disdainful of life outside a glasshouse it vanished into a scroll of dusty brown; Zadikov sullenly wrapped this ghost of beauty and delight in a robe of Indian mull embroidered with a million white roses and kept it, secretly, in his private baggage, where the bulb perished completely and became ashes to the heart. One day, after a bitter and indecisive battle, Zadikov furious and exhausted, found this pinch of dust in the wisp of lawn, cast one away and rent the other with unsteady hands, while he cursed all dreams.