Читать книгу General Crack - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 6

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The apartments of General Crack were in the left of the Château beyond the theatre, on the ground floor; they were approached by a guardroom with stars of bayonets on the walls and a design of pistols on the ceiling, where four Uhlans sat in full-fed leisure.

Beyond was an antechamber from which opened a laboratory, for General Crack was of a scientific turn, and then another room full of maps, terrestrial and celestial globes, small models of forts and a miniature park of artillery, together with a library of military books from Xenophon to Cartelius.

Here sat Herr Lippmann, the astrologer and alchemist, who looked like an unfrocked priest.

This was exactly what he was; he had been expelled from the Order of Jesuits for some reason so trivial that he never troubled to mention it; he had a great deal of skill in his present profession, and was of an amiable disposition; he had been useful to General Crack in several capacities and considered himself well provided for life with a comfortable position—as far as one ever could consider oneself provided for in these decayed times.

He kept on agreeable terms with the other favourites of his master and had been able, at one time or another, to make himself, in one way or another, useful to most of the inmates of the Château; for he refused no work and his fees were low.

Colonel Pons passed him, with a quick greeting, and hurried, with his strutting way and important air, into the next room.

This was the bedchamber of General Crack, and very luxuriously appointed; the ceiling was painted with a cloud of goddesses whose charms were by no means obscured by the flowery vapours through which they floated, and the tapestries on the walls represented a series of heroic engagements where the victors were generously rewarded with laurels, rushed from an approving Heaven by amiable angels, and more substantial pleasures obligingly dispensed by earthly charmers with loosened robes and enticing gestures.

These agreeable battle pieces were interspersed with female portraits fancifully bedecked; between the two windows was an alabaster statue of a Saint, that had been preserved even after the reformation in the religion of her master, not because she was that rather fabulous creature, A Virgin Martyr, but because she was a very pretty woman with a very shapely figure.

There was a profusion of mirrors scrolled round with gold, chairs with satin covers that gleamed into posies of silk blossoms, curtains with rich fringes, a carpet that was a very summer of roses, and hanging crystal lamps that glittered like constellations on a frosty night.

There was present a doctor, a page, a barber and two very elegant apes, but these were all silent in their several places for the brocade curtains of General Crack's bed remained closed.

Seeing this, Colonel Pons discreetly paused; he knew that his master, like all great men, had his moods and humours and was not afraid to indulge them; if, in public, he cultivated, with great effect, a dark and icy indifference of demeanour, his intimates and dependents were familiar with a more human aspect of his character.

"His Highness," said the doctor with decorum, "prefers to lie in the dark, but he is awake and you may speak to him through the curtains."

"I was sent for," replied Colonel Pons, eyeing the bed with respect. "I hope my presence is still required—"

"It is," conceded the doctor. "Pray be seated; when His Highness desires to do so, he will speak to you."

Colonel Pons rather gingerly took one of the frail looking chairs, folded his hands on his rotund person, turned his bulging blue eyes towards the bed, and waited.

This bed was in the centre of the room and closely curtained on all four sides with rose cloth of gold; at each corner a panache of azure plumes brushed the rosy bodies of the goddesses on the ceiling; the two bed steps were of polished chestnut wood.

Colonel Pons waited; he was inured to this sort of thing; moods, whims, caprices—"like a girl," he thought viciously, "lying there, sulking, I suppose, because he's sick—"

But whatever his thoughts, he held himself very humbly, for he did not know that General Crack might not be looking at him through a chink in the bed curtains.

The page cuffed the apes, who dared to chatter on their cushions, and the barber crept into the adjoining closet where he began to mix hair lotions in a marble basin; faintly came the sound of the bottles clinking one against the other.

"Is Your Highness awake?" ventured the doctor, fingering a phial of rich thick medicine.

A voice answered from the bed:

"Yes, but I want no more of that concoction, Doctor."

Pons congratulated himself on the correctness of his expression, since it was now obvious that General Crack could see everything in the room.

"It is an excellent and potent physic," remarked the doctor regretfully, "containing fifty rare ingredients—"

"And all of them devilish in taste and action," replied the voice. "I'll have no more plasters, bleedings, doses or pills for a mere wrenched ankle—Pons, what did Hensdorff say?"

"Shall I draw the curtain, sir?" asked the Colonel.

"No, I prefer the dark. I can hear you and you can hear me, and what more is required for a conversation?"

"Nothing, sir," replied Pons; he attributed this whim to vanity; General Crack was suspected of thinking a great deal of his appearance and probably did not wish to be seen when this was at a disadvantage; his accident had not been severe, but he had been something reduced by potions, bleedings, and close confinement.

His voice, however, sounded amiable enough. It was a most agreeable voice, though rather expressionless, with a French accent.

"Hensdorff," said Colonel Pons, "has come with a very desperate offer from the Elector of Bavaria, whom he calls 'the Emperor,' and requires an immediate answer."

"He shall have it—no offer of his is likely to require thinking over—"

"Well, I don't know. I expect, sir, you'll be a little surprised."

"Shall I, Pons?"

"He offers his sister, the Archduchess—"

"The lame one?"

"Maria Luisa. With the title of Archduke as dowry."

"Nothing else?"

"Your Highness knows they've got nothing else." Silence from behind the bed curtains.

"Of course, if they succeeded, the thing would be very handsome, no doubt. On the steps of the throne—"

The voice interrupted:

"When I'd smashed the Allies they'd find an excuse for backing out—"

"Naturally the marriage would take place before the campaign opened," said Pons. "Hensdorff is as full of tricks as ever; he told Banning one round lie at least. He said the Emperor had settled with Anhalt-Dessau."

"For his daughter?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps he has, behind my back. Anhalt-Dessau is capable de tout."

"And so, sir, is Hensdorff. I told him you were sure of the lady."

"And that," said the voice with sudden weariness, "was another lie, Pons."

"Not so deep a one as his, I daresay, Monseigneur. Well, that's his offer, neither more nor less. And I was to give Your Highness the picture of the Archduchess, as they name her, and a letter from her brother."

"I believe I saw her once, Pons, but not thinking of her in this way, did not notice her. Give me her picture—"

"It does more credit to the painter than the sitter, but if you took her it would hardly be for her beauty, so it is less matter."

A hand, half hidden in a lace ruffle tied with a black ribbon, came out between the folds of brocade and took box and letter; it was then withdrawn, and Pons heard the curtains being pulled apart on the far side of the bed.

"They have made the best of a plain woman," remarked General Crack. "A bitter contrast to the others, eh, Pons? It's no—and no—"

He drew the curtains together, letting miniature and letter fall on the bed step while he sank back on his pillows in darkness again.

Colonel Pons, despite his bravado to Hensdorff, was slightly alarmed at this summary rejection of the Imperial offer, because he knew that his master had received nothing so solid from any one else and that the Anhalt-Dessau affair was in a very dubious condition; Pons believed, in fact, that it was really much more likely that the disputed girl would be given to the Emperor than to the mercenary soldier—to General Crack—Captain Fracasse!

"I am to say 'no' to Hensdorff, then, sir?" he asked doubtfully.

"Say 'no,'" repeated the weary voice from the bed. "I will not fight under Hensdorff's Emperor—rather, I will make my own Caesar."

"That will be a defiance."

"So I mean it. We always disliked each other, more than once he slighted me—at Belgrade, for instance. Neither do I trust weak men."

Pons screwed up his mouth.

"Who are we to fight for, then?" he asked. "It is true that there are two other emperors in the field, but neither so likely as this one. Your Highness never cared for the Queen of Hungary's husband nor for the King of Spain."

"We can wait. Let every one declare his play; I will reserve mine. It's too early yet to wager on the winning side, Pons."

"Your Highness will not reflect on it till the morning?"

"No."

Pons came round the bed and picked up the rejected miniature and the letter that was unopened.

He admired his master for this arrogant attitude, but it made him rather nervous. Although he followed rocketing fortunes, he was a cautious man; he would have liked to have tormented Hensdorff to the last but in that last he would have accepted his offer, which was, after all, something clear and definite, while everything else was a mass of chaotic intrigue; and though Pons sneered at the Emperor, he was secretly impressed by the man the King of France had recognized as Imperial Caesar.

On this pause the doctor offered a scrap of his wisdom.

"His Highness is probably fatigued, and now inclined for his physic."

General Crack laughed behind the curtains.

"Give it to the apes, my dear Doctor, their contortions may amuse you. And good night, Pons. Show that fox Hensdorff all civility, and don't leave him alone with Gabor."

"Gabor knows nothing."

"But he might invent something dangerous. Hensdorff must leave early to-morrow. Where is his Emperor?"

"At Vienna—the Hofburg."

"Well, some day I may be at Vienna—the Hofburg. Good night, Pons."

The Colonel bowed to the bed curtains and then to the doctor, and left the room. In the antechamber he lingered by the table of the astrologer, who was neatly working out a table of gibberish.

Pons, having no belief in anything, was always ready to be credulous of everything, and cautiously sinking his voice, he asked Herr Lippmann if he had recently consulted the stars on behalf of General Crack.

"Regularly," replied the sage, "though His Highness doesn't take the interest that he used to take—a pity."

"You don't find any threatened fall in his fortunes?" whispered Pons, lowering his purple face close to Herr Lippmann's flaccid countenance. "For he seems to me to presume rather beyond prudence—"

The astrologer was not to be betrayed into revealing the verdict of the stars; he gave a vacant look at the diagram before him and remarked:

"A very extraordinary man, not for a moment to be doubted—"

"I'm glad you think so," said Pons. "I admire him greatly, myself; still, these times, and he carries it rather flourishingly—"

"Well," replied Herr Lippmann, "watch me. When I leave this place you'll know I've found a better one—as long as I stay here you may doubt if there is any such thing."

Colonel Pons returned to the salon, where he had left his three companions.

The supper was now over, the candles lit, the room full of smoke. Banning was on the green silk sofa, pulling at his pipe; he appeared to be too intoxicated to care to talk, and seemed to be failing asleep. Michael Hensdorff and Gabor were talking earnestly together at the table; the lean Transylvanian was alert and keen, Hensdorff playing with his polished signet ring.

Pons, recalling the command not to leave these two alone together, glanced indignantly at Banning, who smiled fatuously in return. Pons could not think what his master saw in the Swede.

He sat down deliberately between Hensdorff and Gabor, who seemed quite at ease.

"Well, I've got your answer," he remarked.

"Oh, you have?" The Imperial messenger stroked his pendulous nose. "And a disagreeable one, no doubt."

"What I told you to expect. No."

Hensdorff was calm, but his yellow face expressed bitter contempt.

"No compliments?" he asked. "No courtesies? That one bare word?"

"As many compliments and courtesies as you care to invent, but that's the sum of it—"

He put the miniature box and the letter on the table; when he saw that the last was unopened, Hensdorff scowled: "This is insolence—a base-born—"

Gabor lightly seized his arm.

"My dear Count! That fool on the sophy, who appears so drunk, will report every word—"

"And who are you to warn him of it?" asked Pons heatedly.

"And what do I care if he does?" cried Hensdorff, rising violently. "My one regret is that I cannot tell your master to his face my opinion of him—"

Again Gabor endeavoured to restrain him.

"A question of management, surely a question of management, you heard my little suggestions just now—"

"Be quiet, Gabor!" cried Pons. "Keep out of this. His Highness said that Hensdorff was to be treated with all civility. There's nothing more to be said."

"Oh, no!" sneered Hensdorff. "You'll all have something to say about it, some day, I expect."

Gabor, who paid no attention to Pons, handed the miniature to Hensdorff with a bow.

"Not the least slight is intended to the lady," he smiled. "Pray make that clear—we all hold her in the highest respect, General Crack himself—"

"Be damned to your General Crack—he had another name in Poland—General—"

But Gabor lightly put his lean fingers over the offending mouth of Hensdorff, and Pons touched his sword with an offended air.

"You don't wan't a fracas, my dear Count, I'm sure," said the Transylvanian quickly. "That is such a stupid way of settling matters."

Hensdorff controlled himself and returned the letter and picture to the big flap pocket in which they had travelled from Vienna.

"I'll leave early in the morning," he announced with a reaction to deep weariness. "After all, what does any of it matter? Colonel Pons, if I might have a lackey to show me to my chamber?"

He looked round at the three of them; a man defeated and at bay, but not a man humbled—indeed, they felt him to be their superior.

With ceremony he took his leave, and, by the time he had reached his magnificent bedroom, he had begun to take heart again, for he had turned with approval to the suggestion made by Lieutenant Gabor.