Читать книгу No Way Home - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 3

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THE TRAVELLER readily obtained lodgings for the night. The landlord asked to see his passport, which was British, in order, made out to Henry Campion, and stamped with the visas of the Duchies of Bavaria and Wurtemberg. He was a heavy, middle-aged man, wearing a light coat with capes, and he had come without a servant, in a small open carriage.

The Drei Mohren was the post house, and Mr. Campion paid his dues for hire and toll and ordered the carriage for the morning.

"It would be prudent, sir," suggested the host, civilly, "to engage a courier. The roads are well enough kept in Bavaria, and even through the Forest, but the confusions left by the late wars—" The Englishman put this advice aside with a quick movement of his gloved hand, as if it were matter he had heard often enough before, but Herr Kugler persisted in what he considered an essential warning.

"There have been accidents, disappearances; you must understand, sir, that whole tracts of the country are ruined."

"And you, that I am pressed for time; that I have an object, one object only, and that I conduct my affairs in my own way."

Herr Kugler bowed respectfully. No one travelling without a servant, and not speaking German, had stayed at his post house before. He continued, speaking English, he spoke a little of several languages, to impress on the traveller the dangers of a solitary journey, especially across the frontier, in Wurtemberg.

"Where are you going, sir?" he asked.

"I do not know," replied Mr. Campion abruptly. "You see, I am trying to find some one. I shall stay in Stuttgart, I suppose."

This remark caused the host some dismay.

"Ah, sir, you must realize! To be lost in Europe now is so easy—"

"Yes, so I have understood. But perhaps you can help me."

They stood in the empty, public parlour that was of the superior sort. The ancient house had been a nobleman's residence when the ancient city had been a free member of the Empire. Candles had been lit on the oak table; the windows stood open on the hot summer night and the lime trees in the square.

"Of course, sir." The landlord had seen letters from His Britannic Majesty's residents at Stuttgart and Munich with the passport Mr. Campion had shown. "But how strange if I could assist you! If you will, however, tell me the story—"

Mr. Campion's face became cruel. Herr Kugler swiftly felt that cruelty in the handsome, dark countenance, and the suffering of self inflicted torment. The traveller sat down carefully and drew off his gloves slowly, finger by finger.

"A rash and foolish person," he said, "decided to travel to Italy—"

"Italy!" exclaimed the landlord with relief. "Then you have a long way to go—Vienna to Venice—perhaps."

"You interrupt. Yes, I have a long way to go. This person, I have reason to believe, left Italy and Austria and came to Germany. It is true," he added with fierce weariness, "that I have followed many false clues."

"It is impossible that I should help you," said Herr Kugler firmly. "No one is here—has been here—save they who are accounted for."

"Naturally. Who is here now?"

This accent of authority frightened the landlord. His own secret and that of the stranger alike alarmed him. He wished now that he had said that the Drei Mohren was full, but he had thought it wiser to keep this formidable stranger under his close scrutiny.

"A lady occupies the first floor, sir. She has been resting here some days."

"A lady alone?"

"With a chamber woman, it is understood."

"Who is she, travelling now, unescorted, when, as you warn me, even the highways are dangerous? Dinkelsbuhl is an out of the way place for a lady to repose."

"It is Madame Daun, a most respectable widow. She travels from Stuttgart to Nuremberg on family matters—the selling of some property belonging to her late husband. She was indisposed on the way and rested here."

"A lady alone—she had no male companion?"

"No, indeed, sir."

"Well, I shall see her, I suppose."

"She keeps her chamber, sir, having a slight swelling of the throat."

"The maid, then?"

"Sir, are you of the Duke's police, or some courier of some foreign power that you make so many demands?" asked the host with dignity.

"I have power behind me. My errand is lawful. The Courts of Wurtemberg and Bavaria would support me."

"Then, sir, please be plain with me. Have you any business with Madame Daun, who is a most insignificant person whose papers are correct, above suspicion?"

"I do not think so," replied the Englishman. His fatigue seemed to increase suddenly and lie over him like a leaden cloak.

"Tell me one detail. What colour is this lady's hair?"

The landlord was astonished out of his carefully maintained composure.

"Madame Daun's hair, sir! It is the colour of that of most women in this country—pale brown—and over the temples, a little greyness."

"Send up my supper," ordered Mr. Campion abruptly, "to my chamber. I shall be gone early in the morning."

"Your luggage has been taken up. The room is spacious—on the second floor. Shall I conduct you there?" Relieved, but anxious not to show this, the landlord spoke with deference, as if wholly absorbed in his guest's comfort.

"No. I shall stay here awhile." The Englishman rose and went to the open window. The landlord withdrew, closing the door carefully on the unwelcome stranger who took no further notice of his surroundings.

The limes were in full bloom. The clusters of greenish-yellow flowers were visible in the light from the lamp in the square that fell faintly among the thick leaves.

The traveller suffered an intolerable loneliness, a bitter distaste for life. He was strong willed, determined, obstinate and inspired by a remorseless passion, but he was also fatigued by many disappointments, by a sense of futility and frustration.

The old city was like a prison. He had felt that as soon as he had driven into the gates that morning. He had disliked the Gothic pinnacles and towers of the churches, the medieval gables of the houses, the cobbled streets, even the stocking weavers going home from the work shops. It was all alien. He knew Europe only as battle fields. He had studied it only from military maps. He was now weary, with a deadly weariness, of road charts, bills of exchange, visas, frontier delays and questioning, arrivals and departures at inns and post houses, always alone, always among foreigners. If he heard of the whereabouts of any fellow countrymen he had to avoid them, for he travelled under a false name and on an errand that he could not reveal.

Herr Kugler was not the first to warn him of the perils of travelling without a servant. But his work was not to be shared, but something to be hidden from casual curiosity. Though wealthy and, therefore, used to excellent service, he made his solitary journeys with a fortitude not shaken, even now in the moment of gloom.

"It is only weariness," he whispered, for lately he had begun to talk to himself, though in the lowest of tones and when solitary. He was studious to keep a grave, aloof and taciturn manner when there was the slightest chance of his being observed. "Yes, and not yet—not even yet—being able to realize my misfortunes. My actions sometimes seem to me automatic. Still, it is not hopeless. Several times I have been nearly successful."

He glanced over his shoulder at the candle-lit parlour. "How many such rooms have I not stayed in for a day, a night, an hour—and how I detest all of them."

His dark features were pinched by suffering as he struggled to keep from his inner vision the images of the places where he had been happy. The boughs of the lime trees, gently stirred by the warm breeze before the window, appeared to him like walls. He picked up his beaver and gloves, still, amid his torment, a man of precise habits, and left the Drei Mohren. Once clear of the lime trees he turned to look at his last halting place.

It was a dignified mansion that had been refronted in a style of a hundred years ago. A façade of classic simplicity concealed the old irregular rooms, crooked passages and twisting stairs. A portico had been built over the large doorway, and the windows were set straightly. The shutters were not yet closed, and the traveller saw the gleam of the candles in the parlour he had just left. The windows of the first floor, the apartments of Madame Daun, were all lit. Their muslin curtains stirred to show the sparkles of a cut-glass chandelier, plain white walls and some pieces of austere furniture of Roman design. This glimpse into the pale chamber, so different from the dark, closed and miserable gabled buildings either side the inn, was like a glance into a theatre where the actors have not yet entered.

"Where did I make the mistake—or mistakes?" the Englishman whispered, staring up into the bright empty room. "Where did I take the wrong road, to the wrong city?"

He turned slowly across the public place. Songs were coming from the beer cellars as the flap doors opened and fell. The stranger was shut out of everything save his own narrow and terrible purpose.

He eased his stiff collar and passed his handkerchief over his face. There was no moon and the stars throbbed through a golden haze. The perfume of the lime blossoms was over sweet. He thought of water meadows, willow trees and smooth plots of grass sloping to the quiet river's edge, and knew they were nevermore to be his to enjoy. Slowly, several times losing his way in the twisting streets, he came out on the old fortifications and paced there, like a sentinel.