Читать книгу General Crack - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 7

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Hensdorff, a man of sedentary habits, fatigued by an uncommon journey and a vexatious day, slept late, so there was no early departure; he breakfasted in his chamber, with luxury and discontent, reflecting on his three companions of last night.

Pons, the Hanoverian, and Banning, the Swede, were useless to him, he knew; for one reason or another they were entirely attached to General Crack; but it was impossible for Gabor to be faithful to any one—he was nervous and jibbing at the effrontery of his master; adroit and subtle as he was, he might be of some service.

The suggestion that he had made, last night was by no means a bad one; not something to be acted upon at once, but something that might come in very well later on; it would be worth while making a little present to Gabor to encourage him. Hensdorff had just that small scrap of comfort to take back to his master—that Ferdinand Gabor might be useful.

He thought that he would delay his going in the hope of seeing Gabor, and seeing him alone; Banning, of course, drunk or sober, acted as a spy, but if the Transylvanian had any wits he would surely make an opportunity of seeing him; so Hensdorff left his room and proceeded cautiously through the large empty chambers of the Château. There was no one about save lackeys, but the Imperial messenger knew that it was very likely that he was being watched.

He looked round quickly to see if he could discover Gabor lurking in any of the corridors or cabinets, but was disappointed; at length, however, he saw, across a stately chamber, the figure of a man on the terrace beyond, leaning on the balustrade that overlooked the valley of the Danube; this figure was very erect and slender, and though Hensdorff could not see the face, he believed that he had found his man.

He advanced across the polished floor, lifted the brocade curtains, and stepped through the tall windows onto the terrace.

The man turned and looked at him.

It was not Gabor.

It was a young man, very elaborately attired, who stared blankly at Hensdorff; a young man who was not only extremely handsome, but who had taken the greatest pains to make himself appear more so. Very finely was he appointed with a multitude of dark ringlets, lightly powdered and buckled with diamonds behind his neck, with cascades of lace on his bosom, with sash and sword belt fringed and tasselled and a coat exquisitely cut to show off his admirable figure.

His features were remarkable for a rare perfection of line and colour; his full curls, that hung in front of his ears, on his breast, were carefully arranged to set off his oval face. His expression was blank; only his eyes, faintly lined beneath, showed a slight insolence. His air was too austere for a fop, but for this he would have seemed no more.

Hensdorff surveyed this man, in his magnificent frippery, with deep contempt; he coldly returned the blank stare with which he was greeted, and inclining his head, sarcastically said:

"Good morning, General Crack."

"I thought," replied the young man drily, "that you had left for Vienna."

"Your Highness," remarked Hensdorff with a wry smile, "is surely better informed of the doings of your guests."

"I am informed only of what interests me," was the cold reply. "You had your answer, I suppose, Count Hensdorff?"

"Certainly," replied the messenger; he folded his arms, leant against the window frame and seemed in no hurry to be gone; he was wondering if this meeting was accidental, and if it was not, why he had been granted an audience to-day when it had been refused yesterday; he thought of Gabor with gratitude.

Playing for time, he remarked: "I am sorry that my journey has been fruitless."

"Your mission was not a happy one," replied General Crack; he also seemed in no hurry to be gone, but lounged against the balusters and glanced idly towards the Danube.

Hensdorff was not deceived by his impeccable appearance, so imposing and stately; he knew that beneath this impressive interior was the most vulnerable of mortals who bore always at least one cruel wound.

"There's something in this business I can get him on," thought Hensdorff. "He's nibbling at something. Gabor has approached him."

General Crack spoke, with an appearance of cold candour.

"Your terms were not agreeable. You must have seen for yourself that I lack nothing that your master could give me."

"It was considered," said Hensdorff carefully, "that the hand of an Archduchess was not such a usual offer to a—to one not of royal birth."

General Crack perfectly understood the allusion in this altered sentence, but his icy look did not falter; he was, in every way, a man of high courage.

"I was not tempted, Count Hensdorff," he answered in a level voice. "Pons will have told you that I intend an alliance with Anhalt-Dessau."

"So does the Emperor, as Your Highness is aware," smiled Hensdorff. "With deference, I believe he has the better chance."

The young man moved and Hensdorff saw that the wrenched ankle had not been a lying tale, for he limped.

"What you said to Gabor he has repeated to me—as you intended."

Hensdorff bowed; he felt triumphant—the fish was swimming into the net; this interview had not been by chance.

General Crack had waited for him, knowing that he would be searching for Gabor.

"He said that you hinted the Emperor might withdraw his suit in exchange for my services."

"Ah, that tempts, does it?" thought Hensdorff. "Now why, I wonder?"

The young man continued, in the same level voice, with the French accent slightly emphasized.

"I might consider that—if I found it true that the Emperor had the better chance."

"Of course," said Hensdorff suavely. "I spoke without my master's opinion, he has earnest reasons for desiring that match—he also desires your services, and no doubt he could find some other matrimonial alliance—there was talk of the King of England's daughter—"

"No doubt, but England takes the other side, I think. And as for the political advantages of the match, if I entered the Emperor's service, I should bring with me all the Anhalt-Dessau interest."

Hensdorff was silent, puzzled.

"So, by withdrawing," added General Crack coolly, "your master would gain me, and all the advantages he would have had by marrying the Princess Eleanora—besides, he would be free to contract some powerful alliance elsewhere."

This was very smooth and agreeable; Hensdorff did not doubt that he could bring his master round to such terms; but where was the trick, the snare?

The man who made this offer was not one to do anything for the advantage of others. Hensdorff decided on that frankness which is sometimes the most wily diplomacy.

"I do not see the count of Your Highness in this," he remarked.

"My count is the Anhalt-Dessau marriage."

"But that is not comparable to the marriage you have just refused."

"It happens that I prefer it."

Hensdorff knew that he would say no more than this, and was therefore sparing of his own arguments.

"I am, then, to tell the Emperor that if he withdraws from the Anhalt-Dessau match, your services and the services of the Lutherans who will be your relations will be at his disposal?"

"By no means," returned the young man coldly, "for I am not yet convinced that your master's rivalry is worth buying off—I should not take your word for that, Monseigneur. If it should prove to be so, that is the price I should offer—"

"But no delay is possible," replied Hensdorff, further soured by this wariness on the part of his opponent. "The Allies may be in Flanders in a few weeks and in the Empire in a few months. You must take your part, sir, at once."

"Anhalt-Dessau is at Dürsheim," said General Crack, glancing across the silvery valley. "I am going there tomorrow. Do you care to wait here till I return, within the week? I shall know then whether I have an offer to make your master or no."

Hensdorff saw that he meant to force Anhalt-Dessau to "yes" or "no" to the offer for his daughter. Rapidly resolving to use all influence to make it "no," Hensdorff replied:

"I will wait, Monseigneur."

"Very well," answered the young man negligently, and saluting the Imperial messenger briefly, he turned into the grand room and walked away, stately and indifferent, halting slightly.

Count Michael Hensdorff was both elated and puzzled. He would regard it as a fine stroke of policy to obtain the services of the famous soldier and not have to sacrifice the Archduchess, and he was sure that the Emperor, with whom it had gone ill enough to have to offer his sister, would be glad to spare his pride at the price of withdrawal from the Anhalt-Dessau market—who, after all, was Eleanora of Anhalt-Dessau?

No great prize, surely; of no value at all if General Crack could bring in the Lutherans.

But where was the spring, the pit?

Why should that ambitious, bold, restless and insatiable young man refuse the Imperial marriage for a union with a little German princess? He could have made a better match than that, again and again, but had always held back in the hope of something more important.

Hensdorff could not understand the mystery; it would be very politic in the Emperor to ally himself with the Lutherans through the Anhalt-Dessau girl, but to a man like General Crack it would not mean very much; he had, since his conversion, already found favour with the Lutherans; he had very little to gain from that marriage, but everything from that with Maria Luisa—why, then, had he rejected the one and was prepared to pay a high price for the other, he who had never sought anything but his own advantage?

Hensdorff was baffled, and he was not often baffled; he usually found that a knowledge of human nature was sufficient to explain most mysteries; a little patience, a little observation, and there would be revealed the mere humanity at the bottom of the most acute problem, the ordinary emotion or instinct or lust of some ordinary man.

And some such simple explanation there must be for this preference for the Anhalt-Dessau marriage, but Hensdorff could not find it. That General Crack was in earnest he did not doubt, for otherwise he would not have made this concession of an interview, rising and adorning himself for the occasion and waiting about terraces to make the meeting appear casual so as to save his pride from suggesting an interview.

And now he, Hensdorff, had to do some waiting about on his own part, hanging round this dull place for the best part of a week with men like Banning and Pons; he felt both flat and irritated, and it was with some relief that he saw Gabor crossing a corridor with his light and rather stealthy step.

"I've seen your master," Hensdorff greeted him. "And so have you—I suppose you made him the suggestion; you hinted last night—about the Anhalt-Dessau affair?"

"No need," replied Gabor, flickering his ashy eyes. "Banning repeated the whole conversation—"

"Well, anyhow, he's bitten—he's off to Dürsheim, and if he can't get the girl he's prepared to serve the Emperor, if he can have the field clear."

"I told you that he would," smiled Gabor.

"What's behind it?" whispered Hensdorff; but the Transylvanian merely laughed; he had a gross and evil laugh. Hensdorff disgustedly gave up that point and hurried to another. "If you want this alliance, you must do your best to make Anhalt-Dessau decide in favour of the Emperor, so that your master will have to 'buy him off.'"

He looked round, afraid of a spying interruption, but Gabor answered easily:

"That won't be as difficult as you think. I've some news for you—your man is coming to Dürsheim incognito."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Hensdorff.

"True. You see, I am better informed than you are—His Imperial Majesty has a strong desire to see the damsel for himself and press his suit in person."

"Don't fool," cried Hensdorff impatiently. "You really know this?"

"I have my information from Vienna. I am General Crack's newsmonger and have many reliable agents."

"With matters as they are, with war breaking, the Empire in confusion, he leaves Vienna for a flimsy, trashy, adventure—but it is like him," added Hensdorff, changing his violent speech to a tone of deep bitterness;—"these Jacks in the saddle, these boys in office! Curse his father for dying and leaving him on my hands!"

"But this serves well," Gabor suggested. "Anhalt-Dessau will hardly resist Caesar in person—and the two will meet on neutral ground and can surely come to a bargain—"

"Are you anxious that they should?" demanded Hensdorff.

"Yes. I would rather follow both together than either separately. I think if they unite we may see a solid empire—if they don't, well, ruin, and the foreigners getting all the spoils."

"That is exactly the case," urged Hensdorff. "Men like Banning and Pons can't see it. They think their master can stand alone. He can't. And I don't think the Allies will bid for him."

Gabor, able scoundrel as he was, was not to be drawn when he did not wish to be drawn.

"That is not my province. But you can rely on me to help you in the Anhalt-Dessau business—and I hope the Emperor will remember it when General Crack is advancing at the head of his armies."

"You'll not be left out," sneered Hensdorff. "You never have been, have you? But I have my spies, too, Prince; I'll soon know if you side-step."

Gabor merely smiled; behind him was a coat of arms on a florid shield, carved in the blue-veined marble; three collared goats' heads as crest. Gabor's dry finger traced the name carved on a ribbon round this escutcheon: Christian Rudolph Augustus Christopher Ketlar.

"If you trust me as far as I trust you, we shall get on very well together," he remarked, then bowed and passed on.

Hensdorff did not, of course, trust him at all; but he believed the piece of information Gabor had just given him, because there would have been no sense in the invention of that bit of news.

It was rather humiliating to discover that General Crack had such an excellent service of espionage that he could find out a thing like that; but then, the Emperor was not very skilful—at anything.

When all was in such a critical condition, to abandon alike the cabinet and the field, and go wandering off to Dürsheim like a romantic idiot of a student...

Hensdorff was disgusted; he thought that he, too, would go, under some excuse, to Dürsheim, to keep his eye on the unstable youth he called master and to clinch the bargain between him and General Crack.

He agreed with Gabor; if the Emperor and General Crack did not work together, there was an end of the Empire, if indeed there was not an end already; Leopold might have been elected at Frankfurt and approved by France, but where were his dominions?

Even his native patrimony of Bavaria was overrun; after eight years' war the Allies were everywhere in the ascendant. The late Emperor had clearly died of vexation and being harried from place to place; he had had a brief period of success when he had seduced General Crack from the French to fight for him, but that adventurer had soon deserted the Imperial cause and joined the Queen of Hungary—he, Hensdorff reflected sourly, was the only person who had made anything out of the war; he had been crammed with bribes and spoils, besides inheriting a vast fortune from his father, a prince who had been fortunate enough to be Viceroy of Naples and Paymaster of the Imperial forces.

Yes, it looked very unpleasant for the Empire, Hensdorff thought; but, at the same time, the Allies were exhausted too, Holland had always been reluctant to fight and the war was unpopular in England. If they could hold out a little longer, give them one or two smashing lessons like Haberfeldt—

Hensdorff ventured to dream of Leopold on a secure throne, with himself as first Minister, a solid place where he could exercise power and pick up plunder; surely he had waited long enough!

He dined with Pons and Banning, and asked them both, flatly, why their master was set on the Anhalt-Dessau marriage?

Of course he did not expect the truth from them, even if they knew the truth, which was doubtful, but he often got something useful out of the lies people told and the way they told them.

The bulging blue eyes of Pons expressed vacuity.

"I suppose it secures a large interest," he answered.

"There are so many connections, and all powerful—"

"Bah," interrupted Hensdorff, "there's nothing there that will help him; the Archduchess is the biggest prize he could have hoped for—"

Banning interrupted.

"Have you seen her?"

"Seen her?"

"The Princess Eleanora."

"No." Hensdorff took no interest in the personalities of these poor little pieces in the game he played; they had no wills of their own, no choice in their destinies, why trouble about them? "I ascertained that she was healthy," he added. "What about her?"

"Nothing about her," answered Banning indifferently. "I only wondered if you had seen her."

"Has she any influence over her father?" asked Hensdorff.

"Not in the least, she is terrified of him."

"Then it is no use taking any notice of her," said Hensdorff impatiently, believing that Banning had spoken thus to lead him away from his question; to which, however, he returned:

"I suppose you don't know, Captain Banning, why your master is set on this match?"

"Oh, no," said the Swede, with an odd look and smile. "Oh, no!"