Iron Butterflies (10 page)

He did not wear any livery, but was dressed in black,
his coat cut higher at the throat and buttoned down a longer length than any fashion I had seen before. Beside him on the bench lay a wide-brimmed hat which was also not in fashion. His hair was well salted with strands of gray-white, and his face was harshly cut, thin of cheek, sharp of chin and nose, his eyes small and set under very scanty brows. Not a pleasant face, nor could I ever imagine it wearing a smile.

His dress, his being in what was clearly the “garden” of the lodge taking his ease (if such a man could ever be thought to do that) argued that he was no servant, not even any upper one such as Frau Werfel, who clearly held the reins of the household in her competent hand. Nor did I think he was a bailiff or man of business. His clothing also was not new, though the linen folds of his cravat, which showed only a little, were cleanly white and evidently freshly laundered.

I stood where I was. Should I take the gravel path which led to my right, I would join him and I had no desire to do that. As I hesitated he looked up. Had my searching study in some way alerted him to my presence?

He arose, and now that I saw that one shoulder slanted higher than the other, while his head sloped forward so that he had to deliberately raise his chin to an uncomfortable angle in order to look directly at me. Still there was something about him which erased any pity—rather gave one a feeling of bitterness, or malice—

I nearly shook my head in counter to my own thoughts. Ever since I had come into Hesse-Dohna, it was as if my senses had been alerted to an unnatural degree, that I saw enmity and peril where none could possibly exist for any sensible person. I disliked these new feelings, yet they clung to me and I could not throw them off.

The man bowed, only it seemed that there was something of mockery in that bow, as if he did it as a piece of acting meant not even to impress me with any sincerity of good manners. He did not speak, and I had no
idea of how to address him. A little flustered, I inclined my head in answer to his gesture of civility, and resolutely turned, not to walk the path into that half-garden, but rather down the carriage drive toward the woodlands. Nor would I allow myself to glance back.

I had gone only a very short distance when a second man emerged from under the trees. He wore a green livery jacket belted in, the belt supporting a long hunting knife, and he carried with the ease of one to whom the weapon was like another familiar limb, a shotgun. He touched the brim of his caplike headcovering, which was of leather, also bearing a crest set in the front, and spoke with an accent so pronounced I had trouble understanding him.

“The gracious lady wishes?”

Since he had planted himself in the middle of the drive, a barrier I could not avoid, nor proceed around without crowding him, I was forced to stop. That he would address me first at all, was, I knew, a breach of etiquette so marked that it could be deemed an insult. I had seen enough of the Gräfin’s servants to understand that his attitude now was well out of the ordinary.

“You are?” My voice was peremptory enough to allow him to understand that I knew his manner was wrong.

“I am Gluck, Gluck the forester, gracious lady.” He made no move to take himself out of my path. “May the gracious lady understand, this woodland has its dangers for those who do not know it—” He was finding words now, words in plenty. “It is not wise to walk without a guide or protection—”

I did not know whether he was offering himself as both. Instead I was now sure of something else. There were guardians set here—sentries one might almost say—who would make sure that I would not stray from the Kesterhof. In a sense I had expected this—but to be so confronted was still something of a shock. I hoped that I did not show my reaction.

His attitude was that of a man doing his duty. There was nothing now I could fault in his conduct or words.
So I must put the best face on my own actions as I could, not let anyone know of my realization that I probably was a prisoner.

“Thank you, Gluck.” I did not add to that, only inclined my head slightly and turned back toward the house. Nor did I have any desire to join the stranger under the tree. Doubtless he also would gladly keep an eye on me for the benefit of the master of Kesterhof, though it was my suspicion that the Gräfin perhaps had more to do with any such orders than the Gräf.

But when I came again in sight of the garden the black-coated man had disappeared, while I had no more than set foot on the first of the steps leading up to the door of the Kesterhof when I heard sounds behind me heralding new arrivals. I faced around to see two coaches emerge from the wood-lined road. Unlike that in which I had been conveyed from Axelburg both of these were crested and the coachmen and footmen liveried, as if they were on a near-formal occasion.

The door opened and Frau Werfel, accompanied by a ranking of the indoor staff, filed out in stiff order. I withdrew a little to one side. The Gräfin Luise was handed out of the foremost coach by one who had traveled with her—the Baron von Werthern.

Her eyes lighted on me and she withdrew her hand from the arm of her companion and ran lightly up the steps, holding out both hands to me, her face expressing surprised delight.

“Amelia!” We might have been the oldest and dearest of friends the way she drew me swiftly into a highly scented embrace. Never liking such an exuberant manner, I stiffened, but she appeared to take no notice of my action. Instead she continued:

“The most wonderful news, my dear, you will not believe it! But it is the truth, the real truth! Come—we must talk—at once! There is so much to be done! Oh!” She released her hold on me and looked around in a rather surprised fashion, as if she had only this moment realized that we had an audience and that
perhaps it would be better to contain whatever news had so excited her until we were more private.

Again her hand came out, this time to catch my arm and draw me with her up the next two steps, as she swept by the assembled servants, not even giving Frau Werfel either a word of greeting or a nod.

So we continued up the inner stair to the upper quarters of the house. Some of the excitement had faded from her face; instead she said no more, only looked as if she were thinking, planning something in detail. Hearing heavier steps behind, I glanced over my shoulder to see that we were being trailed by the Baron.

It was he who pushed a little past us when we reached the second hall, and, with the familiarity of one who knew this house very well, he opened for us the door into the sitting room of the suite in which Frau Werfel had installed me.

The Gräfin shed shawl and her gloves, pulled at the looped bow of her bonnet strings as she dropped upon the nearest chair. However, the Baron remained by the door, his eyes on her as if he awaited some clue as to further action which only she could give him. She looked to him now and nodded.

Without taking any leave or, in fact, saying a word since his arrival, he slipped out, leaving us together. Once more the Gräfin was smiling.

“Amelia—it is true! Even as we thought—it is the truth! How kind, how thoughtful he was—how just! What a pity that you did not have time to learn more of his kindness from his own lips! Oh, it is the truth, I assure you—there is no mistake in that!” Her words came in short blasts, as if she could hardly contain her high spirits. It would seem that some event she had longed for had at last come to pass.

“What is true?” I asked bluntly.

For a moment she again appeared startled, as if she could not understand some blatant stupidity on my part. Then she laughed again.

“Poor child, but of course you would have no way of
knowing—he did not tell you that, did he? The truth is that His Highness did indeed make provision for you. It is in his will—Konrad has actually seen it so written—” She nodded violently. “Oh, I cannot tell you how—but His Highness held Konrad in very high esteem, he meant that he should know at once—for your protection. His Highness knew that half of them would be down on you like wolves about one lamb when he was no longer here to protect you. He knew that so well that he made very good arrangements.

“How I would like to see the holy Abbess’s face when she learns about the will. For all her claims of other-world interests she will not take kindly to this. First His Highness does not allow her to pray him into the grave, and then he leaves this to torment her afterward—”

“Gräfin—Luise—” I could make so little of what she was saying that now I interrupted with a demand for enlightenment. “Please tell me—just
what
has happened.”

She put her head on one side a little and looked at me with a coy smirk which I found at that moment highly irritating. Then she actually raised her hand and shook her finger at me as if she were the governess in some schoolroom and I was a very young, unruly charge.

“How naughty of you, Amelia, to go on secret errands in the night and say nothing to me. However, I can understand the reason.” She lost her unseemly air of playfulness then, and quite a different expression, foreign to her plump face, showed for just a moment. One I did not like in the least, though it was gone before I could read its meaning. “You will not have to worry about interference from
that
quarter ever again, my dear. What has happened is what is important. His Highness, in his will, has left the whole of the treasure which was of his own collection to you! Think of it, Amelia—one of the most wonderful of all the collections in Europe—and yours—also he names you granddaughter and gives very firm safeguards for you—the
very firmest! You need not hide away here— By the end of this week all the court will know who you are and that you must be received with honor—the highest.”

That she had discovered my night visit to the Elector’s bedside was the first fact I sorted out of her river of words. The treasure—I thought of what we had seen on that one visit. That had no reality for me. But that my grandfather had acknowledged that he accepted me and made plain to everyone that it was a relationship to be honored—yes! That was what I had come for. For this moment I echoed the Gräfin’s wish—that I had had a chance to know him better.

“But you did see him.” The Gräfin had one of those quick flashes of insight which always surprised me. I wondered how she could catch my thoughts from time to time in that fashion.

“And—see—what I have brought you—these are yours—”

From the skirt pocket of her traveling dress she drew out a packet tied around with a bit of red cord, a roll so small it was hardly as thick as one of my fingers. I took it and smoothed the few sheets which made it. I was holding those painfully written words which my grandfather had set down as his welcome and only words with me.

Chapter 10

Four sheets over which that painfully made scrawl wan
dered—I looked at them once more. Four sheets—but here was a fifth! I had spread them fanwise in my hand and now that extra one lay to the fore. Across it ran the same wavering letters as made up those others. Only this I had not seen before. Something my grandfather had written after I had been hurried out of his sight?

“Must be safe—marry—arranged—he will make you safe—”

Then came a last single word which was in so mutilated as scrawl that I could not be sure of what it was meant to be.

“You see!” The Gräfin’s voice was one of complete triumph. “You hold there his wishes—that you marry with Konrad, who will see you safe. Konrad is very close to the new Elector, he has visited him many times this past year. His Highness knew that, knew that he could count on Konrad to see that you were safe, that all which he wanted for you would be safe—”

“No!” My rejection of such an action was instant and loud. I went to the nearest table and laid out those creased slips of paper on its surface, looking carefully from one to another. My grandfather’s writing had been
of a necessity distorted by his illness, by the circumstances under which those messages had been written. And that last one had not been done under my own eyes as had the others.

“Amelia.” The Gräfin had arisen hurriedly and now faced me across the table. “What doubt can you have that this is a good and right thing? You will have enemies, many enemies when the will is made public and it is known that the treasure is yours. His Highness knew this, he had planned for long that you should have a husband to stand between you and those who would drag you down.” She leaned closer across the table, her eyes so fiercely on mine that she somehow compelled me to meet her gaze, and held me so fast.

“Do not doubt that you could be in deep trouble were it not you do have such friends as Konrad, yes, and as us! The Abbess, she is as spiteful as her mother, and has her party. There are others, too, greedy for power. Your claim will be questioned at once. Do you think that you, a stranger, a woman, of birth deemed doubtful—that
you
can face them?”

She laughed then and there was a malicious edge to her laughter.

“Poor Amelia, here the Elector’s will is law. Do you even think that our new ruler would respect your rights had you not someone of power to speak for you? His Highness knew this well. Even before he sent for you this marriage was arranged; Konrad was made aware of what part he was to play. Was I not instructed to see that you had knowledge of him, know him? I had my orders—to keep you safe, to make sure that you had protection after His Highness’s death, to see that the marriage—”

Her gaze had been so compelling, her voice so assured that I felt for a moment or two like a helpless bird under the paw of a hunting cat. Now the absurdity of what she babbled struck me. Did she really think I was so simple, so easily influenced that I would meekly agree to so preposterous a plan?

“There will be no marriage—” I interrupted her, raising my voice loud enough to cut through her flurry of words. “I have not the slightest idea of such a thing.”

Her hand shot out and her fingers closed in a grip about my wrist that held more the strength of steel than the touch of flesh and bones.

“You will obey His Highness’s wishes—why else were you here?”

I did not try to throw off that clutch. Instead I answered her steadily: “I came here for one reason only, Gräfin, because my grandmother wished for recognition, to have it made plain she was a lawful wife—as she was by the laws of my own country—”

“Your own country?” She flared back and there was no amiability now in her round face. “You are of the Family, of Hesse-Dohna, subject to the wishes of His Highness—”

I shook my head. “I am subject to no wishes but my own. What I came here for was not to be a part of any scheme set by others but for the one reason I have told you. As for the treasure—let it go to the Abbess, or the new Elector, if it will make either of them happy. I shall be glad to sign any deed of gift if such is necessary—”

She tugged at my wrist with a sharp jerk which, coming so suddenly, near pulled me off balance.

“You must obey his last wish—” With her other hand she stabbed down at that last bit of paper. “Have you not read it, foolish girl? Do you think that any of the court will believe such stupidity as you just voiced? They can do things. You have no rights here, understand? There is only the new Elector’s wishes— And he is a man easily influenced—always by the last to gain his ear, so he blows this way and that from one day to another. Only if you have someone with strength and resolution to stand by you will you be out of danger.

“Konrad has been preparing for this day. He knew what he must do when His Highness sent him the necessary word. Why do you suppose he came here now? Because there is no time to be lost. You must be safe,
guarded, before the news is made public. Konrad has strong influences, he has many friends. No one can reach you when he stands on guard—”

On guard. The phrase stuck out of all her nonsense sharply. Guard—the Colonel! Was he a party to this wild scheme of my grandfather’s—had he brought me to Hesse-Dohna knowing that I was to be married against my own will to a stranger I had disliked from the moment I saw him? Royal marriages were often made so—those most concerned in them sometimes not even seeing the prospective bride or groom until just before the ceremony. But I was not royal and neither was I going to be a party in such an affair. The Colonel—I could not believe that he knew of this. Yet I had wit enough now not to mention his name before the Gräfin, knowing her antipathy to the man.

“You have under your hand His Highness’s last order to you.” She again indicated the note. “It is for you to obey now.”

Anger was rising in me. To burst in upon my life with what seemed to me an utterly outrageous plan for my future was beyond all one had to bear. Exerting my strength, I twisted free of her hold on my wrist, which she had somewhat relaxed, gathered the messages from the table, that last and most questionable one on top.

“We need discuss this no farther, Gräfin.” Summoning all my power of composure, I again faced her squarely. “There is no need for argument. My existence will mean nothing to the new Elector—unless I claim what you say my grandfather left me. Thus he will have no reason to try to force me to anything. I need only let him know that I withdraw all claims I may have, either on family recognition, or upon any bequest left to me, and return quietly to my own land. It is a very simple and easy solution after all.”

“Fool!” Now her face was contorted, truly ugly. “Why I cannot make you understand? This
is
your country—you are subject to its ruler. You are in a position to make trouble for him. Do you think that he would let
you get beyond the boundaries—away where you might stir up trouble?”

“I would give my word—sign any agreement he required of me—”

“Faugh!” Almost she spat that word in my face. “Words given can be easily broken, agreements repudiated when one is beyond reach—”

Now my anger did flash out, “My word is not the kind to be broken! Nor would any agreement I made go unhonored. I do not marry a man I do not know in a foreign country at the whim of a dead man, who, until his dying hour, had no ties with me by his own will. This is utter madness, Gräfin. Can you not see that for yourself?”

Her face was flushed, her plump hands doubled into fists now. That she was completely sure of herself I had to accept. What impression had I given that she could believe I would fall in easily with her wild suggestion? Still there was this, she had been bred up at court, under the complete domination of the custom which made every whim of a ruler an unbreakable order. Perhaps she could not even accept that anyone would be free of the fears and domination such a life would instill in those who had accepted it as the proper way of life.

Now she made a visible effort at control.

“Countess.” She used my makeshift title formally. “I will leave you to think seriously of what I have said. Once more I must make it plain that you are vulnerable to whatever His Highness, the new Elector, may choose to do with you. The consequences of obstinacy are never pleasant—they can be dangerous.”

In quite a different mood from the exuberance she had shown when she had arrived in the room, she now swept out of it, determined, I believed, to allow me time to think upon the error of my ways.

Think I did. It was true, I must face that fact, that in this country the ruler’s word was law. The new Elector could well resent the fact that his kinsman had dared to leave the treasure to a strange young female, one moreover whose very existence threatened to bring
to light an old scandal. That he would be ably seconded by the Princess Adelaide was a conclusion I must also accept. I was in a land foreign to me, one in which I might have no rights at all, and there was no one to whom I might appeal for assistance. Unless—the Colonel—

However, if he had also been a party to this marriage scheme, aware from the first that I was to be summarily disposed of to a man of my grandfather’s choice, then he would not be any help either. I could see that there was danger here, I did not need the Gräfin’s warnings to understand that. Also she certainly would not have brought me those scrawled bits of paper had not in some manner they passed out of the Colonel’s hands into those whom I might well consider my enemies.

I smoothed out the last of those slips again—the one which I had not seen written. The disjointed words, as I compared them carefully to those on the other scraps of paper, were, as certain as I could be, in the same painful handwriting. I read them aloud—trying to think what had brought my grandfather to make this last urgent message such a one.

“Must be safe”—a wish for me? Yes, that I thought true.

“Marry—arranged—” Those bore out the Gräfin’s story.

“He will make you safe—” A husband to stand between me and the wrath of those who would have good cause to anger. Then that last scrawl—the beginning of a name? It was only a loop of line, trailing downward to the very edge of the page—as if the pen had fallen from fingers too weak to hold them.

Had the Elector realized after we had gone that death was so close and so had made a last effort to speak to me so? Or—

I sat very still, the papers spread out on my lap, my mind busy with another speculation, one which might mean even more trouble ahead. Suppose in an intrigue-ridden court the first scraps of paper had somehow been gathered up, concealed for a space, then passed on to
those who would pay the most for them in either gold—or coming influence? The Gräf had been one sent to apprise the new Elector of his ascension. Therefore the Von Zreibrukens might be thought people well worth cultivating by some ambitious underling.

So—with the papers to hand, the story of my night visit to the dying man made plain by the written evidence, someone else could have seized the chance to write that last one—for all its apparent resemblance to the others. The ambiguous “he” in that message—did that argue against the Gräfin’s clever use of what she saw as an opportunity to advance the Baron? Would not the name have been the point to make? Or was her mind subtle enough not to mention the name, only hint and then enforce that hint with her protestation that this was all arranged before I ever left Maryland?

It was a very twisted skein they had looped about me. I was sure of only one fact, that I had no intention of marrying the Baron, and I determined to get out of Hesse-Dohna as soon and as best as I could. The treasure—that ill-fated inheritance—I wanted none of it. Could I ever make any of those so long bedazzled by it believe that anyone would deny ownership? The Gräfin had designed the new Elector as a weak man, easily led—

With one hand I crumpled together those bits of paper. What could I do? Just what resources did I have? There was the gold which weighed in my dress pocket. Foreign coins unfortunately, ones to be quickly traced, but still gold. The inn Truda had spoken of, on the road to a spa, to Vienna. Only, how could I even get out of Kesterhof? My actions would be even more under scrutiny since the arrival of the Gräfin.

Truda was my only hope. I went to ring for her, though I was not quite sure just how much of my present dilemma I might disclose to her. If it came to the point of actual escape, would her loyalty rest to my advantage or with those of her own people whose wrath might descend upon her if she gave me active aid? Never before in my life had I felt so alone and helpless
as I did during those moments which seemed to strain into hours before the familiar scratching on the door heralded Truda’s arrival.

She was once more wholly the subservient maid, awaiting orders. I beckoned her to mo, standing as close to the balcony window as I might. If there were any eavesdroppers, this place was as safe as any I could find.

“Truda—” I still had not marshaled my thoughts, reached any decision of what I dared hope to plan. But I needed some one, so just to see her there gave me a small spring of comfort.

She glanced at me and then at the door. There was no mistaking the meaning of that gesture. Then speaking so softly that her lips barely moved and the faintest of whispers could reach me: “Scold me—I have not done something to your satisfaction—”

I caught her meaning. That Truda had been in any way taken into my confidence must not be suspected. I looked about me for inspiration, then demanded hurriedly why a fresh dress had not been laid out already—that I had chanced to brush against dew-laden bushes with the skirt of that I had on and must change. Into my voice I put what irritation I could summon, and that came easily enough since my interview with the Gräfin.

Truda made no answer, but her hand went out swiftly and she laid a small bit of much-folded paper on the bedside table. Then she went to the wardrobe and brought out another dress, laid it across the bed and moved behind me to unhook my bodice. I had the paper now, unfolded it. The message inside was short, and though I had expected something like it, this was still a blow.