Читать книгу General Crack - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 9

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Count Michael Hensdorff always felt less sour, less forlorn when he had some definite work on hand, especially when the work was inspired by hope, as in the present case it was inspired. He had already fitted the Anhalt-Dessau intrigue into his schemes, taken in all its bearings, and settled his handling of the matter; he foresaw no great difficulties, but the vexatious question was that of time.

An effete congress was sitting at Brussels; when the supine diplomats who were gathered there had finally disagreed, the war, lulled for the moment, would break out again; and Hensdorff did not wish to weary through a winter before opening the campaign; he wanted the Imperialists, before the last peace protocols were torn up, to take the field in Italy and the Spanish Netherlands, and harry the Allies before they had had time to rally and consolidate their immense forces.

To attain this end everything must be sacrificed to gain the services of Prince Christian; and here the procedure was simple enough; Anhalt-Dessau must be persuaded to give his daughter to Leopold, and then Leopold must give her up to the invaluable general in return for his invaluable services.

Count Hensdorff foresaw no trouble with Leopold, who had never been ardent for this match but wished to marry one of his own Faith, and but little with Anhalt-Dessau, if the surrender of his daughter to an adventuring mercenary was sufficiently gilded by honours and titles for himself.

Hensdorff wrote letters to the Prince Palatinate with the object of securing his daughter, Bernardine Charlotte, for the Emperor, and was vexed that he had no means of dispatching them; but Lieutenant Gabor was able to help him there, and supply him with a messenger; the Transylvanian, who appeared to be at the head of a very efficient service of espionage, was also able to inform him that the Emperor had proceeded as far as the monastery of Mölk where he intended to pass the next twenty-four hours before proceeding to Dürsheim, where the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau was at present residing with his ancient relative, the Duchess of Schönbuchel, in her château of that name.

Leopold himself had a residence near: the grand Castle of Bosenberg on the dangerous and lordly sweep of the Danube to the south, not far from the little town of Yps. Hensdorff believed that it was to rival Leopold that Christian had purchased and embellished this estate of Ottenheim, whose splendour now certainly eclipsed that of the Imperial château.

Leopold, however, was not going to Bosenberg but to Mölk, and there Hensdorff decided to join him, both to reprimand him for his lightness in undertaking such an adventure at such a moment, and to unfold to him how matters were with regard to General Crack.

Gabor applauded this plan; he seemed eager to help Hensdorff in every way in which he could to bring Christian and Leopold together; in that union he saw ultimate rewards for himself; besides, his restless, cunning nature delighted in a complicated intrigue.

In the early morning, while Christian was wearily returning to his room from the astrologer's tower, Hensdorff and Gabor had met and talked out their plans; the Austrian disclosed as little as possible of his intentions to Gabor, while finding him extremely useful at the moment.

He was careful to say nothing to him that he did not wish repeated to General Crack; Gabor would, of course, tell him that Leopold was at Mölk, and that he, Hensdorff, was going to meet him there, and Christian would be fully aware of the efforts made to obtain Eleanora of Anhalt-Dessau in order to sell her back again, while he would use all his wits to obtain her without paying for her at all; it would be a keen and close struggle. Hensdorff had no doubt of ultimate success; but he wished he knew why Christian was so desirous of the marriage.

Standing by one of the wreathed and curled statues on the colonnade, Hensdorff watched Christian and his suite depart for Schönbuchel.

It was a very imposing display; no king could have set out with greater dignity. Hensdorff smiled sourly to see the valets and grooms in Kurland liveries, dark green and silver, the Uhlans in their laced and braided uniforms beplumed and bespangled, swaggering up and down the winged marble steps or clattering in the forecourt at the bottom. Colonel Pons and Captain Banning strutted and flourished as became the favourite officers of this flashing array. Hensdorff appeared eclipsed in his civilian attire; he had left the army some time since; none of the soldiers took any notice of him, even Gabor appeared absorbed in the spectacle of the moment.

The Austrian was forced to admit that everything was very well done; the horses were splendid, and handsomely appointed; the uniforms new and fine, most of them of Polish fashion. There were three troops, Uhlans, Croatians and Black Cuirassiers, attended by Heyducks oriental servants; a certain number of each were mustered to escort their General.

"I daresay," thought Hensdorff, "that all this bravery will be very pleasing to the young lady, but I doubt if her careful relatives will care to house so many rufflers."

When all was in exact order, General Crack appeared at the door by which Hensdorff had entered two days before, booted and wearing the ornate uniform of the Uhlans; he looked at Hensdorff in his usual dry, impassive way, and remarked that the day promised great heat, while he pulled on fringed gloves with a silver star on the back. Hensdorff returned his insolent stare and inwardly observed that he was pale, for all his careful pose of invulnerability.

The Austrian admitted, however, that he appeared very magnificent; Leopold, though well drilled to make a fine show, could not rival this sumptuous appearance.

General Crack just touched his hat and passed on slowly down the steps.

"He may thank his God and his tailor for doing very well by him," thought the Austrian cynically; but despite this reflection he was awed.

There was something grand about that handsome figure, something implacable and pitiless and arrogant, but something heroic too, even something awful, as if he was already gloomed by the faint foreshadowing of a terrible destiny; that slight halt gave that effect, perhaps; he was not yet walking with great sureness.

"Nonsense," thought Hensdorff, and brushed aside the impression.

When General Crack had mounted his great bay horse with the stiff braided saddle cloth, there was a slight delay; Colonel Pons had reminded him that it was the hour for the execution of the Uhlan he had condemned to death, and ventured to ask a respite.

"I cannot alter it," replied Christian. "It is better that one man lose his life than discredit come on all of you. How can I keep discipline if there be no punishment for licence?"

The man had abducted, from a neighbouring village, a girl who had persistently refused him her favours, and the parents had come clamouring to Ottenheim for redress.

"Well," said Colonel Pons, regretfully, "he is a very useful fellow, for whom I had some liking. And the girl speaks for him."

"The girl speaks for him?" repeated Christian curiously, holding in the impetuous horse.

"She has been complaining past reason, and swears that if he is to hang she will split her heart—"

"How do you account for that?" asked Christian, with animation.

"It is past my province," grumbled Pons. "But it seems that if the fellow is likely enough the wooing can't be too rough—"

"It is past my province, too, I think," smiled Christian, who seemed suddenly in a good humour. "Let the man go and make it up with his sweetheart."

Hensdorff inquisitively watched this episode to which he had not the clue; he looked indifferently down at the cavalcade, with tossing plumes, rigid cockades, gilded ribbons and flashing steel, and watched them wheel round in the forecourt and canter off down the long avenue of high trees, the sun gleaming in the shining flanks of the horses, in the metallic shoulder knots, in the basket hilts of the long swords, and in the clasps of the agraffes of feathers in the laced hats.

At a discreet distance, Herr Lippmann followed on a mule, with his assistant trudging behind; his civilian aspect would have spoilt the military splendour of General Crack's gorgeous escort, and he had been warned by Pons to keep well behind.

Hensdorff greeted him ironically.

"You, too, for Dürsheim?" he asked, leaning over the low white balustrade.

"I follow my fortune," replied the alchemist, who was an adept at noncommittal phrases; he paused, considering what Hensdorff would give to know the secret that Christian had confided to him last night; he was a thrifty man who looked ahead to the days when he should be too old to play for the favour of princes.

Hensdorff saw his hesitation and came down the steps; the alchemist sent on his assistant to trudge ahead.

"Have you guessed why there is all this to-do?" he asked cautiously.

"Why he is set on the marriage? No."

"Well, I can tell you. And expect a reward later. My news can't harm him, and may be useful to you."

"I'm curious," said the Austrian, "for it is against his interest, which is all I ever heard he considered."

"He knows that," whispered Herr Lippmann slily. "But he's in love. He wants the girl."

At this Hensdorff could not refrain from laughter; the explanation was so simple and yet the last explanation that he had thought of; had he not always said that behind every mystery was some ordinary human passion?

So General Crack, with his invincible air, was most vulnerable after all. Hensdorff was indeed amused.

"Interesting to see her," he remarked. "I should not have thought him easily pleased."

"He isn't," smiled the alchemist, "but he may be easily deluded by a fit of fantastic passion."

And he touched up his mule and hurried down the long avenue from which the brilliant cavalcade had just disappeared.

Hensdorff at once felt sure of General Crack, and began to cast up the terms he would force on him before he relinquished the desired lady.

Stimulated by these reflections he set off at once for Mölk, which was not far distant on the road to Vienna; by midday he saw the majestic domes and spires and open colonnade of the monastery rising imposingly from the right bank of the Danube.

Mölk rose on a jutting dark porphyry rock round which were clustering mean and squalid huts and the mouldering walls of some ancient castle that had once dominated this magnificent position.

The Benedictine monastery was a new building in the Grecian style or Eastern style, by Prandauer, the fashionable architect, on the site of an old Gothic building, opulently adorned with gilding, frescoes and statues, and rising bold and massive into the bright summer sky and higher than the distant hills that edged the windings of the Danube.

The cupola-crowned church, the commanding sweep of the walls, set off with the dark woods beyond the rock on which they were built, gave the edifice an air of towering grandeur, impressive to the casual traveller.

But Hensdorff was not moved by the rich beauty of the scene, the noble, winding river crowned with islets, the violet hills melting into the horizon, or the ostentatious monastery; he blamed the steepness of the ascent and the exhausting heat of the day as he laboriously rode up the rough road to the gates of Mölk.

To crown this vexatious travelling he had some altercation with the porter at the splendid gates who was disposed to deny that the Abbot or Brothers entertained any guests.

But Count Hensdorff persisted in his demands for admittance; he asked for Captain Leopold, for he knew that this name, his own and that of the titular saint of Austria, was the name under which his master usually travelled.

He was, however, considerably fatigued before he obtained an entrance and persuaded the Benedictine who was called to attend to him that his errand was of importance; he was finally conducted, courteously enough, to the Königsaal, which was one of the splendours of the newly finished building, and hence to the blue and gold library.

This harmonious apartment, a hundred feet long, of dovetailed walnut wood and profusely gilt, well furnished with expensive books and overlooking the majestic sweep of the Danube at the base of the rock below and the superb woods beyond, was in every way imposing, and Hensdorff, as he drank the coffee thoughtfully provided, reflected that, considering the pinch of the times, the ruin of a confused war, and the general misery of the Empire, Holy Church was wonderful to have yet the means to raise this lofty and rich edifice, which surpassed even the magnificence which General Crack was able to display from the accumulated plunder of two successful and unscrupulous careers.

After some delay Hensdorff was joined by Father St. Nikola, Leopold's confessor, and was not at all pleased to see that his master had chosen this travelling companion, for the politician was as mistrustful of the priest as the priest was disdainful of the politician; it seemed to Hensdorff a stupid action to bring a Jesuit into a Lutheran household.

But Father St. Nikola explained that he was remaining at Mölk until Leopold should require his presence at Bosenberg.

"Bosenberg!" exclaimed Hensdorff impatiently. "As soon as this affair is settled he must get back to Vienna or the headquarters of the army—"

"He has a pious fit," said the Jesuit, "and has spent many hours in the church here, he is much for solitude—"

"Bah!" cried Hensdorff, his harsh face wrinkling with annoyance. "Do you want to make a monk of him that you encourage these humours?"

"I have done my best to animate him with interest in worldly concerns," replied the confessor. "But you, as I, Count, must take notice of this melancholic strain in him. Is this marriage concluded?"

"I have no doubt that it will be," replied Hensdorff, who had no intention of letting the priest into the intrigue he had on hand. "But do not let it vex your delicate conscience, Father, the lady will leave her heresy."

He could easily promise this, since he never intended the marriage to take place, and it gave him a certain pleasure to deceive the keen and energetic priest.

Father St. Nikola let this pass; he remarked on the gorgeousness of the commodious monastery, the pulpit of sheer gold in imitation of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, the wine cellars where a horse and carriage could be turned with ease.

"It seems," remarked Hensdorff drily, "a flaunting to spend so much in the midst of starvation and ruin."

But the priest replied, with justice, that the great building with its sumptuous decorations had employed many hundreds of people and given a certain impetus to the Arts which had here been so liberally employed; to say nothing of the much needed lustre cast on the Imperial family.

At this point a young man entered the library and stood, rather reluctantly, within the cornice of the pilastered door.