# The Mystery of the Moated-Schloss

First published in All the Year Round.
THE MYSTERY OF THE MOATED-SCHLOSS.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.CHAPTER I.
Count Albrecht von Rabensberg was the object of some attention in the winter of '44, when he appeared, for the first time, in the salons of Vienna. He was the head of an old Bohemian family; rich, not much past thirty, and handsome. He was, moreover, unmarried. Little was known about him, except that he had large estates, and more than one schloss, where he never resided; that his father had died when he was very young, and his only sister had been drowned, by accident, many years before; and that, left without kith or kin, since the age of eighteen, he had led a wandering life on the face of the globe, never remaining for many months in the same place. He consorted but little with men of his own age, he neither gambled nor drank, and he was said to be proof against all the attentions of women. Whether this was really so or not, such a reputation was, in itself, enough to pique curiosity and excite interest in Vienna, where feminine intrigue spreads its endless network among the roots of an aristocratic society. Add to this, the stern, sad expression of the young man's handsome face, and his reluctance ever to talk about himself, and the mystery with which it pleased the Viennese world to invest him, could no longer be a matter of surprise.
The world selected a very suitable wife for him—a lovely daughter of the princely house of L. He scandalously disappointed the world, and chose a wife for himself. He married a simple burgher's daughter; and the indignation which this outrage upon common decency aroused can only be conceived by those who know what the pride of "caste" in Vienna is. How could his infatuation be accounted for? The girl he fixed on was by no means beautiful. A sweet, pale face, a slender, graceful figure, were all young Magda had to boast of. He saw her first in one of the Lust-Gartens of the town, and from that moment his infatuation began. He followed her home; he never rested until he had made the good citizen's acquaintance; he called at the house daily during holy week, and on Easter Monday he asked Magda to become his wife. The girl was almost frightened. It was scarce a fortnight since she had first met the count's intense and searching gaze bent upon her; since she had been conscious of his following her and her mother home; scarce ten days since he first called, that cold March morning, when Magda's hands were red from the household washing, and she felt ashamed of them, as she knitted with downcast eyes, and replied in monosyllables to the questions of the deep-eyed, melancholy Graf. It had all passed like a dream, so fantastic and unreal it seemed. She was still a little afraid of him. He was very handsome and charming, no doubt; and no young maiden could be insensible to the devotion of such a knight; but his gravity and the difference of their rank a little oppressed her. She had scarcely accustomed herself to his daily visit, scarcely felt at ease in his presence, when he startled her by laying all he possessed at her feet. And with some trembling, some unaccountable misgiving at heart, she faltered "Yes."
The cackling this event caused throughout all classes (for high and low were equally interested therein) was increased by the haste with which the marriage was hurried on. Of course, it was said the poor young man had been entrapped into it; there were hints that he had been made drunk; there were even darker hints thrown out, without one shadow of foundation; but these lies had scarcely time to permeate society, when the news burst like a bomb into the midst of it that the ceremony had actually taken place in private, and that Count von Rabensberg and his bride had left Vienna.
The count's conduct was no less strange after marriage than it had been before. He worshipped his young wife with a passionate curiosity, so to speak, which seemed allied to some other mysterious feeling, deep-seated and unexplained. Now and again he would lie at her feet for hours, gazing into her eyes, as Hamlet may have done into Ophelia's, with a silent, half-sorrowful ecstasy, rising on a sudden, with a wild rapture, to cast his arms about her and cover her with kisses. By degrees she became used to his ways, more at ease under his long silences, less startled by his sudden passionate outbursts. There were times, too, when he would talk with an eloquence, the like of which she had never ​heard, of all that he had seen or read, and tell strange tales of adventure with a charm which would have won the heart of a less willing listener. The sweet German nature, looking out of those calm blue eyes, grew daily closer to his; her happiness expanded daily, sending forth stronger shoots and tendrils, which clasped themselves around whatsoever belonged unto her "mann"—her Albrecht. His word would have been her law under any circumstances; it became a law of devotion, and not of discipline alone.
They spent three weeks on the Danube: they visited a large estate of the count's, near Pesth. Then, towards the end of the second month after their marriage, they moved to the old mansion of the Rabensbergs at Prague; worm-eaten, gloomy, uninhabited for years, with rust on its hinges, and grass-grown courts, and the sorrow of many generations hanging over it like a pall. The count was more pre-occupied, more strange in his demeanour than usual that night. After supper, when the servants had left the room, he said suddenly:
"We shall only be here two nights, Magda. . . . . To-morrow I must leave thee alone for the day. I go to Schloss Rabensberg, which is but a few hours' journey . . . . to prepare it for thy reception, my darling . . . . and then——"
He abruptly broke off: pressed her to his bosom, and struggled to cast aside the care which had weighed upon his spirits all the evening. The young wife was not very keen sighted; she soon forgot the shadow, in the sunshine, artificial though it was; and slept that night the calm sleep of a child, unconscious that her husband never closed his eyes, but lay and watched with a look of intense anxiety, the sweet untroubled face beside him.
He was off by daybreak; and Magda wandered about the house feeling a little lonely, and dreaming old-world dreams in the great desolate rooms, half the day. She drew a spinning-wheel from a dusty corner in one of the rooms, and set it near a window; bravely resolving to employ herself. It proved a failure; the thread broke every minute, and she pushed the wheel aside, at last, in despair. She could not sit down to her knitting to-day; she wanted something to employ her thoughts, and not her fingers only. She turned to the pictures; she examined them all in detail; they were mostly portraits, and among them was one which struck her young imagination forcibly; she came back to it again and again—why she could not tell. There were splendid-looking warriors, but it was not one of these; gay courtiers, and fair ladies in farthingale and ruff, but none of them possessed for her the attraction of a portrait representing a plain woman in the hideous dress in fashion fifty years since. The face was wholly unlike Albrecht's, unlike any one Magda remembered; unless indeed—but the fancy was absurd! Her own eyes, as the glass told her, were soft, light blue; these were grey, and anything but soft; passionate intensity was their characteristic, and the secret of their rivetting the spectator. Those eyes would not let themselves be forgotten; the only beautiful spot in the picture, it was natural she should think and speculate about them; but why should they seem to her like the broken, confused reflection of her own eyes, given back by the troubled waters of a steel-cold lake? There was neither name nor date affixed to the portrait, and no servant in the house knew who the original was. She returned to the room twice to look at it; and the memory of it haunted her long after the shades of twilight had gathered round; until the clatter of a horse's hoofs in the court-yard roused her to Albrecht's return.
He came in looking excited, but worn and anxious, and after embracing her tenderly, he almost immediately began thus:
"We leave this to-morrow morning, my dearest Magda. Art thou prepared to start?"
"Surely. . . . . We go to Schloss Rabensberg? . . . . I shall be glad to get out of this gloomy house, Albrecht."
"Schloss Rabensberg is still gloomier, Magda. It is surrounded by a moat, and stands in the midst of a wild forest. The walls are thick and the windows small. . . . It is not a cheerful residence, my poor child."
"Never mind. I shall get accustomed to it, Albrecht. It is the country—and we can walk about the woods all day long in the sweet summer time; and at night I shall not mind the gloom, with thee."
" Ah! . . . . that is it." . . . . He paused; and then continued with an effort, "Magda, I have to put thy love to a strange test. . . . . Art thou ready to undergo a separation from me, for awhile—for my sake?"
"What dost thou mean, Albrecht?"
"That for reasons I cannot explain, I earnestly wish thee to go to Schloss Rabensberg—but alone. Thy stay there . . . . unless, indeed, I am able to join thee, which ​I pray to Heaven I may eventually do . . . will not be one of many days, probably; but while it lasts, we shall not meet."
"Oh, Albrecht!" . . . . she began; but she saw that in his face which stopped her; a look of such intense, suffering anxiety for her reply, that the words of entreaty died on her lips. He went on.
"Perhaps I have no right to ask this of thee, my darling. It is early days to demand such a sacrifice—but if thou knewest—if . . . ."
She laid her little pale face on his shoulder. "Only tell me what good my going can do?"
"I cannot . . . . I can only say this. There is a fatal spell over my poor old house, which I believe thou—and thou alone in the world, Magda, canst remove."
She opened her blue eyes wide. What could he mean? Did he take her for a child? But no; his tone was too serious for jesting. Some of Hoffman's wild tales recurred to her. Was the place haunted? To her German imagination, brought up to regard the relations of the positive with the spiritual world as close and constant, nothing seemed impossible. But what could he mean by saying that she alone could remove the fatal spell.
He felt the little heart palpitate against his; and he continued at length in a sorrowful voice,
"No, my Magda, I see the ordeal is too severe. . . . We will turn our faces the other way, and go far from hence, and begin a new life with another people . . . and try to forget Schloss Rabensberg!" he added bitterly.
She raised her head.
"No, I will do it, Albrecht. . . . Forgive me, and try and forget my folly . . . it is past now. I will do whatever thou biddest me, du allerliebster Albrecht!"
She flung her arms about him; and he, in turn, expressed his gratitude in the most impassioned language. All that need be recorded here were these words:
"I shall be near thee, mein schatz, very near, and thou shalt know daily tidings of me in some sort, though we may not meet. . . . Neither may Lottchen accompany thee; but thou wilt find four old and faithful servants in the schloss, one of whom will undertake Lottchen's duties. . . . . For the rest, my Magda, all the counsel I will give thee is never to let the pure and holy thoughts which are thy constant companions give place to superstitious terrors, at Schloss Rabensberg. Such thoughts are mighty angels to drive out all idle fear. Be simple, unsuspicious of evil; trustful of the good God; be thyself in short—and all will be well with thee!"
The night passed; and soon after breakfast the next morning, they set off on their strange and melancholy journey, unaccompanied by any servant. As Magda descended the steps of the gloomy old mansion which had seemed to her as little better than a prison the day before, she felt almost a pang of regret; for here, at least, she and Albrecht had been together, and here no mystery had reigned. Those lonely hours—the picture which had so fascinated her, all was now forgotten; her mind was absorbed by one subject alone.
At the end of half a day's journey they came to a rugged upland country. Here were ravines down which the thread of some now shrivelled mountain stream forced its way through grey slags, and the prone stems of blasted firs. Here, too, were swampy hollows, rank with overgrowth of poisonous vegetation, and rising out of them, anon, great strips of slaty rock, tumbled about, as by a giant's hand, and crowned with the dislocated trunks of trees. It was clear that the storms here every winter were very violent, and the hand of man did nothing to repair the injuries of nature. A more desolate district it was impossible to find in the kingdom of Bohemia. And it formed an appropriate prelude to the black, silent forest, in the centre of which stood Schloss Rabensberg. Here was no song of bird, nor sound of water; nothing but the utter stillness of moveless boughs, in the hot summer evening. The road shot like an arrow through the pines, whose tall red stems, in a serried mass, rose to an intolerable height, before they stretched forth their sinuous arms, clasping their hard dark fingers so closely as almost to shut out the blue face of heaven. Now and again there was a cross-road, or narrow path losing itself speedily in the red blackness of the pine-trunks; and still the main road swerved not, but bore on for upwards of an hour, without break or point of light on the horizon.
They had sat silent for a long time, their hands in each other's; their faces, the one anxious and excited, the other, repressing by an heroic effort any symptom of nervousness; when Albrecht jumped up, and called to the postilion to stop. Magda, leaning forward, saw that the wood was at last breaking; what seemed to be an open space lay some few hundred yards before them. ​Albrecht stooped, and drew out a box from under the seat of the carriage. He then unlocked and took from it, to Magda's infinite surprise, a queer little hat, and still queerer little garment, the like of which Magda had never seen, but which she subsequently learnt had been called in former days, "a spencer." Moreover, there was a short and narrow skirt of silk, having an absurd little flounce round the bottom, such as Magda believed her mother to have worn years ago. She asked, with a smile of wonder, what all this meant.
"Thou dear heart!" cried Albrecht, embracing her, "it means that here we must part, and that I beg, as a further favour to me, that thou wilt exchange thy pretty hat and mantle for these faded old-fashioned ones: nay, if it be possible, thy skirt also. Do not ask any questions. It is a fancy of mine—an absurd fancy, that in the old house where all belongs to another date, another generation, thou shouldst not seem to flout the poor old servants and the pictures on the wall, with thy new fangled clothes. . . . And now farewell, my beloved one! . . . God keep thee! Be of good courage, and Heaven will reward thy going!"
With that, he kissed her with an energy akin to desperation, and leaped from the carriage. The tears forced themselves into her blue eyes, though she tried to smile as she tied on the little old hat, and slipped on the spencer. The carriage was then rolling on, and she blew him kisses, and sent him April smiles through her tears, as long as he was in sight. Then when the carriage turned sharply to the left, and she could no longer see him, the sun went in, and the shower was heavy. The poor child felt that she was now, indeed, alone. A moment afterwards the carriage drew up on the edge of a small square lake, in the centre of which, without an inch of earth to spare on any side, rose an equally square grey stone building with a high red-tiled roof, and innumerable towers, turrets, and pinnacles, breaking the sky line. Through the moat—for such the lake was termed—a stream flowed constantly, born among the hills, and growing in its passage through the forest, till it had been widened and deepened by the hand of man into this broad basin, and was then suffered to escape, a dwindled rivulet, and hide itself in the forest once again. Looking down from the windows of the schloss, one saw to the very bottom of the dark green water, where long weeds and grasses, like dusky plumes, swayed to and fro with the current, and the great brown shadow of a fish darted, ever and anon, athwart the mystery of tangled rushes; and carrying the eye on towards the bank, one caught moreover a confused outline of crawling animal life, wherewith the black ooze teemed. It was like looking down into a human heart (if such a thing could be), and watching its network of multifarious miseries and desires, drifted by the secret currents of passion—the swift thought darting across it—the crawling meanness lurking in the impurity of its muddy places.
A long-disused portcullis showed that that there had once been a drawbridge: but a narrow one, for foot-passengers only, had supplanted it, some time in the preceding century, and had already acquired a respectable air of antiquity.
Two old men, in liveries of a strangely old-fashioned make, were standing on the bridge. They were evidently waiting for Magda, and as the calèche drew up, they let down the steps, and handed her out. The postilion had received his orders, no doubt, beforehand. The grey-headed men had no sooner lightened the carriage of its human freight, and cut the cord of the valises that hung behind, than, without a word, he turned his horses' heads, and drove off into the forest by the way he had come. To poor Magda, it seemed as if the last link that held her to the dear outer world—that held her to her Albrecht, was now severed. She looked up at the stern unfriendly building and down at its black shadow in the moat, and she shuddered as she passed under the iron teeth of its portcullis, and heard the gate locked behind her. She found herself in a low stone hall, the groined roof of which rested on arches. At the further end was a winding stair, which led to the dwelling-rooms.
A woman, past middle-age, stood expectant in the middle of the hall, and came forward to kiss Magda's hand, after the old German custom, as her new mistress entered. But though there was no want of alacrity shown in rendering this conventional act of respect—as there was no want of alacrity, indeed, in anything the woman did—nothing of pleasure was evinced. One might have thought that the greeting a pretty young creature to that grim old place, tenanted hitherto only by grim old servants, might have brought some spark of cordiality into their eyes—which foreign servants are not afraid to let light up their faces. But it was not so here. The old ​men looked grave—grave and rather sad, it seemed to Magda. The woman looked stem, keen, and resolute. In spite of her years, she was evidently still strong, and unusually active. Her eye was quick and bright; her walk, and all her movements, betokened decision and promptitude. She was dressed in black stuff, and her grey hair was put back under a black cap; no speck of white relieved the general mournfulness of her aspect.
Magda tried to smile, and say something gracious to the old woman. She was perfectly respectful in her reply, but as hard as nails; the swift eye was raised, and the tight-shut lips unclosed, just so much as was absolutely necessary, no more; then she pounced upon shawls and cloaks as an eagle might swoop upon his prey, and led Magda up-stairs, without further ado, the two old men following with the valises. The geography of the schloss was less intricate than that of most old buildings. At the top of the stairs ran a long passage, which turned and twisted, it is true, and from which sundry other flights of stairs debouched, to the bewilderment of a stranger who was not closely observant. But at the end of this passage was a door, which the woman unlocked from a bunch of keys hanging at her side; and after this all was simple enough. A short flight of steps led into one of the many towers which Magda had seen from the bridge. This tower—that portion of it, at least, into which Magda was now taken—contained two good-sized rooms, one over the other, a winding stair communicating. The lower room was oak panelled, and in it were an old piano, a harp, a few direfully bad prints of the House of Hapsburg, in the beginning of this century, and one of the Retreat from Moscow. Klopstock's Messiah and an odd volume or two of Lessing were upon one table, together with a very faded work-basket, and an old Spa-box, with the Allée des Soupirs (in which the trees looked like tufts of blue-green feathers upon hairpins), much defaced by time, upon its lid. Upon the other table a cloth, with preparations for supper, was laid. It was the only thing in that strange room, where all seemed to have remained forgotten and untouched for the last twenty years, that spoke a living language—the same, unchanged by fashion, wherein our fathers made ready to eat. A substantial pie, some slices of raw ham, and a carp from the moat stewed in red wine, would, from all time, have seemed an excellent German supper. But Magda felt in no wise disposed to do it justice. She asked to see her bedroom, and the old woman led her up-stairs to the corresponding chamber above, the only difference in the shape of the two being that this latter had a wide oriel window overhanging the moat—an excrescence supported by a corbel, like the "Parson's Window" at Nuremberg.
The room was hung with old Flemish tapestry; a quaint stove of green delf towered up in one corner, a dressing-table and tarnished mirror in another. The bed, which was like a black box with the lid turned back, disclosing a yellow eiderdown quilt, discouraged, rather than invited, the weary to lie down and take their rest. It was raised on a single step, a daïs, and stood at right-angles between the door and window. The back, which I have compared to the lid of the box, was of solid black oak, carved with grotesque figures; there were curtains at the head, and none at the feet; but a board rose up, like the stone at the foot of a grave, with the date "1600" carved thereon. Upon a nail at the head of the bed hung a crown of immortelles, and the name "Louise," fashioned out of the same flowers, after the German manner. The flowers were brown with age, and many of them had dropped; similar chaplets, blown and beaten with the rain and wind, Magda had seen on every headstone in the graveyard where her mother lay.
"Whose name is that? Who was Louise?" she asked of a second old woman, less active than the first, who now appeared, proffering her services as kammerjungfer, while the other left the room.
"It was the gracious young lady," replied the old servant, dropping her voice till it ended in a low sigh. Magda felt more drawn towards her by that touch of feminine softness, less afraid to question her than her falcon-eyed predecessor.
"And when did she die?" continued Magda.
"Twenty-one years ago," whispered the old woman, glancing round. "But, may it please the gracious lady, it is forbidden to speak on the subject."
"Why?" said Magda, grown almost bold by her curiosity, and by her confidence in the kindly wrinkled face before her. "Who forbids you?"
"It is forbidden," she repeated. "The gracious lady does not know . . ." She glanced round once more, and shook her ​head—a more effective close to her sentence than any spoken words.
"What is your name?" asked Magda, after a pause, during which her heart seemed to stand still. "And whereabouts do you sleep? Is it anywhere near me?"
"My name is Bettine. . . . I sleep a long way off, in another tower. But Hanne sleeps close at hand to the gracious lady. She is the head. All the gracious lady's orders must be given to her. I am but the second. . . . I was kammermädchen to the Fräulein Louise, and so I have remained here."
Magda went to the window and looked out. Twilight was slowly creeping up over the black wood in front of her; the frogs were croaking on the edges of the moat below; there was no song of birds, no brisk barking of dogs, or lowing of cattle; no cheerful sound of other living thing. The stillness, broken only by that horrible hoarse music, was almost unbearable. She said to her attendant:
"Is it always like this? Is there never any noise? Does no one ever come here?"
Bettine shook her head for all reply.
Then Magda descended the turret again slowly, and returned to the parlour. One of the white-haired men was waiting to serve her at supper, and so she sat down, and made a semblance of eating. When this ceremony had been gone through, the night was fast closing in; the shadows deepened in the corners of the old room; a purple bar widened and spread over the gold floor of Heaven. Perhaps it was then that the young Gräfin felt her loneliness to the full for the first time. She opened the old piano; she passed her fingers over the loose, yellow notes of the hand-board. What dreamy old waltzes it had known in times when that dance was not the mad whirl it has now become, but a slow, swimming measure! What Ländlers and wild Bohemian tunes, which had now passed away into the realm of things forgotten! No doubt the hands that once loved to wander over those notes were long since still. Had it the gift of speech, how much that old piano could tell her!
She turned to the table, and opened one of the books.
Louise von Rabensberg, 1822, Andenken ihrer geliebten mutter,
was written in faded ink. Who was this Louise, of whom everything here seemed to speak? No doubt, that elder sister of Albrecht's whom he had never named, but of whom Magda had heard as having been drowned twenty years ago. Why was Bettine forbidden to speak of her? What was the mystery concerning this dead daughter of the house of Rabensberg? And was it connected in any way with that "fatal spell" Albrecht had spoken of? His words had been incomprehensible to her at the time; she racked her brain in trying now to determine what definite construction they would bear; and, above all, in trying to find an answer to that question of far closer personal interest, What was the meaning of her being sent here? How could it be given to the humble burgher's daughter to remove any mysterious shadow that hung over the proud old family?
She had once read that to the pure and holy in heart the spiritual world has no terrors; that the weapons of the powers of darkness fall harmless before the innocence of a little child. Could it be that because Albrecht had called her "good," because he believed her to be thus pure and spotless at heart, that he had sent her here to drive out by her presence the dark spirit that hovered over his house?
Alas! alas! if so, she much feared the test would fail. How many sins did not her conscience reproach her with! How often had she been slothful over the house work at home, and negligent of the washing! How much more had she thought of looking neat and pretty when she went to mass, than of the holy service! How reluctant to confess these very sins to Father Paulus, when she had found herself behind the grating in the Ludwig's Kirche! Alas! if it depended on an immaculate conscience! . .
A clock in one of the towers struck nine. The servants brought in, with much pomp and ceremony, two massive silver candlesticks, which they lighted, and then departed. The gloom was only more oppressive than before; an island of pale yellow light was diffused just round the candles, and an impenetrable darkness swallowed up the rest of the room. Magda shivered, and went to the window. The moon had risen, and was pouring a flood of silver upon the little bridge, and the trembling reeds and sedges on the bank, and driving back reflections, like knives, into the heart of the steel-blue moat, and waking into a mystery of splendour the crests and shafts ​of the fir forest yonder. It was a pleasanter scene than that ghostly parlour, and Magda felt, an irrepressible longing to go forth into the moonlight; to stand, but for five minutes, on that bridge under the clear vault of Heaven, to be so much nearer to Albrecht for a little space, before going to her bed—for in this room she felt it would make her too nervous to sit up any longer. She touched a hand-bell, and Hanne entered.
"Can I" . . . faltered the young Gräfin, annoyed to find her summons thus answered. . . . "Can I step out upon the bridge for a few minutes? Can the castle-gate be unlocked?"
For a second it seemed as if Hanne hesitated.
"The gracious lady's commands shall be obeyed."
She left the room, and a minute or two afterwards Bettine brought in the queer old hat and spencer.
"I want nothing," she said; but she threw the spencer over her arm; "it is so warm. Come with me, Bettine;" and, passing through the unlocked door of the tower, they traversed the long passage, and descended to the hall. The gate had been unbarred by the old servants, who stood one on each side of it, rigidly erect, as their young mistress passed out.
It was as though a great weight were lifted from her head when she felt the warm night wind blow upon her face, and the myriad stars of Heaven above her, instead of the low-beamed roof and worm-eaten panels of that oppressive room. She stood, flooded in moonlight, upon the bridge, and, leaning over the parapet, looked down at the stars in the water, and up at the schloss, on which the moon fell slantways. She could examine its exterior now more leisurely. There was her tower, with its low parlour window below, and the wide-mouthed oriel above, casting a sharp projection of black shade upon the building. Her eye wandered over the many other windows of the schloss, no two of the same size, or at the same level, but set irregularly over the face of the building at uncertain intervals.
One of them, and one alone, stood open; and even now, as Magda looked, a strange thing came to pass.
The fancy seized her that she caught sight of a white face at this window, staring down at her with eyes that glittered in the moonlight.
It was a delusion, no doubt. There was a thin white curtain at this window, which the night breeze fluttered now and again. And, more than this, Hanne's hard grey-haired head appeared, unmistakeable in the clear moonlight, a moment later. To either of these causes it was possible to refer the strange impression produced on Magda; and then the excited state of her nerves rendered her singularly susceptible to such a fancy as this.
While she argued thus with herself, the spencer, which had been gradually slipping from her arm, fell on the parapet, its black arms flying in the breeze, and dropped into the water with a heavy splash. Bettine gave a little cry, but it was echoed by one louder and shriller, and this certainly came from the open window!
"What was that?" said Magda, startled.
Bettine made as though she heard not, but began calling lustily to one of the men to bring a boat-hook, and fish up the gracious lady's mantle.
"Did you not hear a very peculiar sharp cry?" asked Magda, again. "Who could it be?—not Hanne?"
"Yes, begging the Frau Gräfin's pardon—that is the Hanne's room . . . no doubt it was the Hanne's voice . . . it is somewhat shrill, by times."
The face was turned away, and it seemed to Magda that she spoke with a certain hesitation; but these were her words, and she added nothing to them, busying herself thenceforward with the recovery of the garment, which had been carried by the current half way round the moat. Magda felt by no means satisfied or reassured. There, at the window, was the stern grey face of Hanne, watching her, she knew; it seemed difficult to believe that so self-contained a woman should have yielded to the weakness of screaming! The young gräfin turned away with a shudder, she scarce knew why, and walked slowly to the further end of the bridge. And here her eye was attracted by something white on the furthest stone of the parapet, upon which the moonlight fell. She stooped; it was a piece of paper, on which some pebbles had been placed, to prevent the wind's carrying it away. She took it up, and read easily, in the clear moonlight, these words:
"Be of good courage, for my sake. Remember, I am near you. "A."
There came a rush of blood to the poor chilled heart; it was as though new life ​were infused into her veins. She pressed the paper to her lips, and murmured:
"Du lieber Himmel! . . . 'For his sake,' whate'er betide, I will not flinch from it."
CHAPTER II.
With a firmer and more rapid step, Magda recrossed the bridge, and passed under the portcullis once more. She would not return to the parlour. By her desire, Bettine conducted her straight to the tapestried room, which was now flooded with moonlight. She threw the window wide, and then, dismissing Bettine, she knelt down beside the great old-fashioned bed, and prayed—prayed for forgiveness of her many sins, poor little soul!—for courage to meet present trial, whatsoever it might be—for faith that should resist any devil's machination, and strength to overcome temptation. And to this was joined a fervent prayer that "unser Vater" would shield her Albrecht from all evil, and remove that dark and nameless cloud under which he suffered.
She rose and blew out the candles, which flared in the night breeze, and sent flickering shadows upon the tapestry. She did not need them to undress by, for the room was as light as day. She could see the faces of Ahasuerus and Esther in their royal robes on the wall opposite, with the black-bearded Mordecai, and the evil-eyed Haman hanging on the gallows, which last ​was a ghastly image enough without the trembling light, by which the corpse appeared to be swaying to and fro.
It was warm; she would leave the window open all night; the moon was friendly; she could hear the wind stirring the topmost boughs of the forest yonder, where Albrecht was; and that was something. She had double-locked the door, and now she slid off the narrow quaint garment wherein she had been attired, and crept into the great black bed, which looked to her so like a grave, with its headstone and its garland in memory of the departed. The clock struck ten, as she lay down, and turned her face towards the window. The moon itself she could not see, though its light streamed in upon the floor; but there were spaces of clear sky, sprinkled with stars, across which the dusky shadow of a bat every now and then flitted. Except the hoarse croaking of the frogs, there was no other sign of life. For a long time she lay awake . . . she heard eleven strike, and then twelve . . . a prey to all manner of fancies. Now she thought that Esther stirred from her place upon the wall, and that she heard the rustle of her royal robes; now it was Ahasuerus who was stepping from his throne, and advancing to meet her; now Haman's dead limbs seemed to become animated, and the miscreant was descending from the gallows. But, one by one, these fancies wore themselves out. The woven figures came not to life; no sound, not even that of a mouse behind the wainscot, broke the perfect stillness of the night. The imagination, without aliment, cannot keep up for ever at high-pressure pitch; and when youth and health are in the other scale, nature will sooner or later have its way, and claim its right of rest. She fell asleep.
How long she remained so, she never knew; but she started from her sleep with the horrible consciousness that something was near her—something between her and the window—something bending over her, with its face close, close to hers. She lay there breathless, motionless. She tried to scream, to spring from the bed; she could not stir a muscle, and the thing stood there, immovable, with its glittering eyes looking down into hers. She knew she had been dreaming; she asked herself, in those few doubtful moments, whether this was a continuation of her nightmare? For, paralysed with terror as she was, strange to say, the deadly face of this shadow brought vividly to her mind the picture which had made so deep an impression on her at Prague. Though this was the face of a shadow, white and hollow, there were the same extraordinary eyes, unlike any Magda had ever seen. The rest was shrouded in black, and the moon from behind touched the edges of one white lock of hair with silver. "Louise!" murmured the shadow; and Magda felt a death-cold hand laid upon hers, outside the coverlet. She trembled so that the very bed shook under her, but she gave no other sign of life.
Lower and lower, closer and closer, bent the shadow. And now, indeed, Magda shut her eyes, and felt that life was ebbing fast from her heart; for the corpse-like face touched hers, and those dead lips rained kisses on her cheek. Then, with a great cry, as though something within her had snapped, Magda felt a sudden momentary power given her to spring from the bed, and run shrieking towards the window. It was but momentary; there was another shriek, the piercing echo of her own; she was conscious of the spectre's rushing towards her, white hair flowing, wild arms tossed into the sky; and then Magda sank in a swoon upon the floor.
Bettine was bending over her with sal-volatile, when she opened her eyes. Hanne stood by the bed, whereon something black lay stretched.
"Mein Gott! sie ist todt!" were the first words Magda heard. They came from the lips of the grim Hanne. The door opened quickly at the same moment, and Magda found herself in Albrecht's arms.
But the next minute he turned towards the bed. Hanne and he interchanged looks; it was enough; and then, leaving Magda to Bettine's care, he ran towards the bed, and threw himself on his knees beside it. . . . Too late! too late! All his hope, then—his heart's first wish for years past—was now frustrated, at the very moment of fulfilment! He buried his head in the coverlid, and Magda heard a low sob. There was no other sound in the room. Then, after a while, she caught these disjointed sentences, wrung from the agony of the young man's soul:
"Du barmherziger Himmel! . . . Is it all over then? . . . After so many years, so many!—without one kind look—without a word! It is hard. To go thus from me before the cloud was lifted. . . . Ach! mutter—thou knowest now the truth—open thy lips, but once more—only once, to bless me, even me, thy only son, now ​that I kiss thy dear hand after so many, many years!" And it was with a tender and sorrowful earnestness that Albrecht performed that simple act of German reverence.
But from the black bed, now more truly like a grave than ever, came no response, no sound, no sign that a living soul lay there; that the ear heard, or the heart felt the passionate adjuration addressed to it.
Magda, as she looked and listened, felt so ill so utterly bewildered that she could only keep asking herself whether it was not all a dream—whether, in truth, it was her Albrecht whom she saw and heard. Yet, at the window where she lay, the night, with its myriad stars, was gone; the pale opal light of morning was breaking in the east; she could even hear the soft dewy twitter of awakening birds. It was no dream; she could recal it all, the lonely, dreary evening, the terrible night—no, she was not dreaming, and that was her Albrecht, in the flesh, before her. But she felt an aching giddiness in her head; she raised her hand, and withdrew it, covered with blood. In falling she had struck herself, and, concealed by the masses of unrolled hair, the wound had escaped Bettine's attention. The old woman now ran to fetch the necessary means of staunching it, but the loss of blood had been considerable. Magda attempted to raise her head, but the room swam round with her; a film gathered across her eyes, and before Bettine's return, her young mistress had relapsed once more into unconsciousness.
Many hours after, in another and very different room in the schloss, a room surrounded with implements of the chase, the walls bristling with antlers, the polished floor pleasantly islanded with skins of deer and chamois, the young gräfin lay upon the jäger's bed, and her husband sat beside her. He had had her carried there, as being the most cheerful room in the house, and here he had been tending her, and (seeing her weak and excited condition) had enforced absolute silence, after her return to consciousness, and had answered her questions in monosyllables. But now, the day was far spent; the darkness, that season of feverish terror during which she had suffered so acutely twenty-four hours before, was at hand; it was well to tell her all, and to calm her mind by a knowledge of the truth. So there he sat, beside the little bed on which his young wife lay, holding her hand, and with a face on which could be clearly traced the impress of a recent and heavy trouble, he told her his story of the past in these words:
"It is all over now, my Magda—the mystery of our moated schloss—the hope and the despair of my life, which I dared not confide to thee; it is all over now. I can tell thee everything. . . . Why did I beseech thee to come here? What end was there to be gained by this? Listen. It is a sad enough story, which has embittered all my life, and the effects of which, in some sort, I shall carry to my grave. . . .
"Thou hast heard of poor Louise? She was my only sister, my senior by five years, and my mother's favourite, who doated on this daughter with an intensity which blinded her to every other object, and made her regard even me—strange as it may seem—in the light of an interloper, whose coming to divide the inheritance with her first-born was an injury and a wrong. My father, on the other hand, was very fond of me; but he died when I was nine; and for many years there was only Louise's sweet nature and her love for me to counteract the coldness and neglect of my poor partial mother. . . . God knows I never resented this. . . . I never ceased to love her; a kind word from her at any time made me as happy as a king . . . and I know now that even at that time, poor soul, her brain was in a measure diseased, and she was suffering under the chronic monomania which afterwards assumed an acute form.
"My sister occupied the tower where you slept last night; her sitting-room below, her bedroom above. A panel behind the arras, and a winding stair cut in the thickness of the wall, lead from these rooms to those that my mother inhabited. Thus she could visit her favourite child at all hours of the day and night without traversing the long corridor and public stair; and of this privilege she availed herself so constantly that I never knew her come to Louise's room by any other way.
"One evening, when I was about fifteen, I was in this room, plaguing my sister while she was dressing, by performing all manner of gymnastic feats, of which I was very proud, but which only alarmed her. At last, I bethought me of a water-pipe outside the window, which ran into the moat, and down which I thought it would be good sport to slide. Before Louise saw what I was about, I sprang on to the window-sill, and, clinging hold of the mullion with one hand, sought the pipe with the ​other, and tried to fasten my feet around it. The operation was not an easy or rapid one, and before it was accomplished Louise, with a shriek of terror, had flown to the window, and was endeavouring to hold me back. But it was in vain her fragile fingers clutched me; I was resolved to succeed in my attempt; and now, indeed, I felt my feet were fastened round the pipe securely. Closer and closer I drew myself towards it, and further from the window, until, at last, I let go the mullion.
"Then it was that my poor sister, in her nervous terror, bent her whole body out of the window, and, stretching forth both hands, she lost her balance, and fell, with one wild scream, headlong into the moat below!
"Never, if I were to live a thousand years, can I forget that moment! How it was I managed to slide down the pipe, I scarcely know, now. I can just remember catching sight of my mother's awful face, and hearing her shrieks at the window; the next minute I was in the water, and striking out in the direction of something that floated near me.
"Half a dozen men were in the moat as soon as I was, and between them she was quickly brought to shore, and laid upon the bank; but, alas! the truth was evident at a glance; there could not be a doubt about it; she was dead. She had struck her head in falling, and death had mercifully been instantaneous. Would to God it had come to my poor, afflicted mother! . . . She had entered that room by the panelled door, at the very moment that Louise lost her balance and fell; and she lost her reason from that hour. It was Hanne who held her back when she would have thrown herself out after her idolised child. It was Hanne who again held her back when she rushed at me with an open knife. The dislike in which she had always held me was now fomented to positive hatred. She regarded me as the wilful murderer of Louise, and the mere mention of my name was enough to bring on a paroxysm of mania. The doctor decided at once that she must never be permitted to see me. I was sent away to college, and when, at rare intervals, I returned here, my presence never failed to rouse her out of her habitual condition of quiet harmless melancholy into one of ungovernable fury. Thus, for years past I have never been able to set my foot within these walls. The world has long believed my mother to be dead; the poor faithful servants here alone have tended and guarded their old mistress, seeing that she came to no harm, and keeping me regularly informed of the state of her health. She never left the schloss, but wandered to and from Louise's room, by day and night, folding and unfolding her child's clothes, looking at her books in a vacant way, and careful that every little article that had belonged to her should be kept in the very place where Louise left it. The servants told me that she never spoke of Louise as dead; she was always looking for her return. . .
"When I came to man's estate, my first object was to consult, either personally or by letter, all the most eminent surgeons in Europe who have devoted themselves to the study of insanity, as to my hapless mother's condition. There were several consultations, but little comfort came of them. All agreed, indeed, that such a condition was not absolutely hopeless. Cases had been known when, by powerfully affecting the heart upon the one subject which had caused madness, the brain had regained its equilibrium. But such cases were rare, and how, in my mother's case, was this end to be compassed? At last, Dr. ——, a man full of original expedients, said to me: 'Find, if you can, some girl who closely resembles what your sister was. . . . Introduce her into the schloss, as nearly as possible under the same circumstances as your sister . . . see what that will do. . . . It may open the sluices of all the poor lady's tender maternal feelings, and thus work a cure. Any way, it can do no harm. I will answer for it, she will not dislike, or try to harm the girl.' . . .
"To comprehend my intense anxiety on this subject, Magda, and the earnest longing wherewith I set about my search, thou must try and enter into my feelings during all these years. Not alone had I been the cause of my poor Louise's death, but also of this enduring and yet more frightful calamity, whereby my mother and I were living on in the world as strangers to each other. . . . It is hardly too much to say that my whole life was embittered by remorse . . . To feel her hand laid upon my head, to hear her say that she forgave me—this was the dearest hope I then had. . . .
"For many years my search was fruitless. I found fair-haired and gentle girls in abundance, but whenever I tried to trace the desired resemblance, it failed; either voice, or face, or manner, or the soul within, was utterly unlike Louise's. It is ​rare, after all, to find any two human beings cast in moulds that are at all similar. . . . But, at length, my Magda, I found thee; and in thee, to my great joy, a living image of our lost Louise. . . . Shall I tell thee the truth? I had little thought of love or marriage, at first. Thy father was poor; I was willing to sacrifice two-thirds of my fortune to the accomplishment of my scheme; with that intention I sought thee. . . . But when I came to know thee, my treasure—ah! then it was different. When I came to see thee in thy quiet home, to note thy tender modest graces, Love found me out and conquered me. I thought, if thou wouldst consent to be my wife, here was the true solution of the difficulty. . . . and whether that scheme succeeded or failed, in thee I should, at all events, find a joy and peace that had long been absent from my soul. It has been so—it is so, my darling! The good God has seen fit to take my mother—has not seen fit to bless my original scheme. But he will bless what has grown out of it, that I know.
"I thought it best to conceal the truth from thee. When I brought thee and left thee here alone, it could but have added to thy alarms at first to know of an insane woman's presence in this dreary place, and of the part thou wert called upon to play. Thou wouldst learn it all, naturally, in the course of a day or two; but by that time some change might have been wrought in her condition. Of course I felt dreadfully anxious, yet I knew there was no danger to be apprehended. . . . Hanne has told me everything. From her window, my poor mother saw thee alight, and her eye kindled as she watched thee. All the evening she was strangely agitated, as they had not known her to be for years. By-and-by, on the bridge, she again watched thee stealthily; but could not repress a scream when the mantle fell over the parapet—it looked (Hanne says) from the window like a body falling into the water! Her excitement increased as night advanced; yet it seemed as though she doubted, and would test thy identity before approaching thee openly. Instead of going to Louise's room, as usual, every evening, she waited till night was fully come, when she stole up (followed by Hanne), and stood behind the arras, watching thee until thou wert asleep. Then she came forth, and touched thy clothes—the clothes that had been Louise's—and approached the bed softly, and stood looking tenderly upon thee. It was strange, Hanne says, to see the working of her face, and hear her muttered words, until, bending lower and lower, she touched thee with her lips, and whispered 'Louise!'
"This was the crisis. . . . How it might have ended, God knows! but for thy natural terror, my poor child, which made thee spring from the bed and rush screaming towards the window.
"No doubt, in the 'horror of the moment, it seemed to her, poor soul! that the old tragedy was being re-enacted—the scene whereon her mind had dwelt for twenty years rose up before her, and the mainspring of life, long worn, suddenly snapped. With a great cry, she fell back upon the bed, and died, almost instantaneously, I believe. . . .
"Peace be with her! God's decrees are wise, and in denying our prayers, He sometimes grants to us a yet better thing for our consolation," said the young graf in conclusion, as he pressed his wife to his heart.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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