Morals and Mysteries

Front matter

MORALS AND MYSTERIES. EY HAMILTON AID_ti, AUTHOR OF " RITA," " THE MARSTONS," " IN THAT STATE OF LIFE," ETC. LONDON: SMITH, ELDEE & CO., 15, WATEBLOO PLACE. 1872. [ALL BIGHTS EESEBVED ] [The*e Tales, Reprinted from various Periodicals, have been Revised and Arranged by the Author.! CONTENTS. PAGE Geoffrey Luttrell's Narrative 1 The Mystery of the Moated-Schloss 121 The Legend of Dunblane 155 A Struggle for Mastery 191 The Tragedy at Mere Hall . 259 Valerian's Honeymoon 279 The Two Sisters of Cologne CHAPTEE I. A few weeks since we foUowed to his last resting-place in Kensal-green our old friend Geoffrey LuttreU. There were but four of us : but four persons in the world, I beheve, who knew his real worth, and heartUy felt the dear old fellow's loss. Of these, three were brother artists, the fourth was the landlady of the lodging between Not ting-bUl and Shepberd's-bush, which LuttreU had inhabited for upwards of thirty years.

It had stood on the edge of green fields when he went to live there ; it is now almost choked up with pert little streets, and very small preten tious villas. But he would not abandon it, perhaps for old habit's sake, perhaps for the yet worthier sake of Mrs. Brace. She was a good, warm-hearted woman, and an observant. She had waited on him aU these years, and knew more of the recluse's ways than any of us. His shyness with his fellow-men, and his passionate love of nature — a love which bore him fruits in the tender, faithful work, which, with the faltering hand of upwards of three score years, he yet produced — his pure-mindedness, his unfailing charity and sympathy with all suffering, these features in our friend's character were weU known to us, who saw him as often as the busy wheel of London hfe would allow.

But who could teU the daily round of his silent, solitary hours like Mrs. Brace ? In a long talk we had together, that dreary November afternoon in the sad little parlour, where we all sat after I had read our friend's brief will, the good woman said : " It's my beUef, sir, as he'd had some heavy sorrow in his early life. Other people's troubles seemed to come so nat'ral to hhn. When my Betty went away, Lord ! how good he was to me ! He was just like a child, you see ; his books and his watering-colours, them was aU his life. Everything was a pictur' to him — the Uttle chUder in the gutters, the sunset over the' chimneys yonder, that layloc tree when it was a-comin' into bloom, it was aU a pictur' to him. He'd no visitors but you three gents : it was drawrin' or readin' from morning to night.

Chapter I

Count Albeecht von Babensbebg 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 bead 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, be had led a wandering life on the face of the globe, never remaining for many months in the same place. He con sorted but little with men of bis own age, he neither gambled nor drank, and he was said to be proof against aU the attentions of women.

Whether this was reaUy 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 bim, could no longer be a matter of surprise. Tbe world selected a very suitable wife for him — a lovely daughter of the house of L. He scandalously disappointed the world, and chose a wife for himseU. 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 be fixed on was by no means beautUul. 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 tbat moment his infatuation began. He foUowed her home ; he never rested untU he had made the good citizen's acquaintance ; he caUed at the house daUy during holy week, and on Easter Monday he asked Magda to become his wUe. The girl was almost frightened. It was scarce a fortnight since she had first met tbe count's intense and searching gaze bent upon her ; since she had been conscious of his foUowing her and her mother home ; scarce ten days since he first caUed, 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 theh rank a httle oppressed her. She had scarcely accustomed herseU to his daUy visit, scarcely felt at ease in bis presence, when he startled her by laying all he possessed at her feet. And with some trembling, some unaccount able misgiving at heart, she faltered " Yes." The cackling this event caused throughout all classes (for high and low were equaUy 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 Babensberg 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 wUe with a passionate cru-iosity, so to speak, which seemed aUied to some other mysterious feeling, deep-seated and unexplained. Now and again he would he at her feet for hours, gazing into her eyes, as Hamlet may have done into Opheha's, with a sUent, half-sorrowful ecstasy; rising on a sudden, with a wUd rapture, to cast his arms about ber and cover her with kisses. By degrees she became used to his ways, more at ease under bis long silences, less startled by his sudden passionate outbursts. There were times, too, when he would talk with an eloquence, the hke of which she had never heard, of aU 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 by degrees closer to his ; her happiness expanded daUy, sending forth stronger shoots and tendrils, which clasped themselves around whatsoever belonged unto ber " maun" — her Albrecht. His word would have been ber 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 Babensbergs at Prague ; worm eaten, gloomy, uninhabited for years, with rust on its hinges, and grass-grown courts, and the sorrow of many genera tions hanging over it like a paU. The count was more pre-occupied, more strange in his demeanour than usual that night.

After supper, when tbe 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 Eabensberg, which is but a few hours' journey . . . . to prepare it for thy reception, my darhng .... and then " He abruptly broke off : pressed her to his bosom, and struggled to cast aside the care which had weighed upon his spirits aU 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 feehng 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, in despair. She could not sit down to ber knitting to-day ; she wanted something to employ ber thoughts, and not her fingers only. She turned to the pictures ; she examined them all in detaU ; 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 teU. There were splendid looking warriors, but it was not one of these ; gay courtiers, and fah 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.

Tbe 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 theh 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 tbe 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 ; untU 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 ber 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 shaU be glad to get out of this gloomy house, Albrecht." " Schloss Rabensberg is stiU gloomier, Magda. It is surrounded by a moat, and stands in the midst of a wUd forest. The waUs are thick and the windows small. It is not a cheerful residence, my poor chUd." " Never mind. I shaU 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 awhUe — 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 eventuaUy do . . . wUl not be one of many days, probably, but whUe it lasts, we shaU not meet." " Oh, Albrecht !".... she began ; but sbe saw tbat 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 treasure. 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 tbe positive with the sphitual world as close and constant, nothing seemed impossible. But what coidd he mean by saying that she alone could remove the fatal speU ? 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 wUl turn our faces the other way, and go far from hence, and begin a new life with another people . . . and try to forget Schloss Babensberg !

" he added bitterly. She raised her head. " No, I wiU do it, Albrecht. . . . Forgive me, and try and forget my folly ... it is past now. I wiU do whatever thou biddest me, du allerliebster Albrecht ! " She flung her arms about him; and he, in return, expressed his gratitude in the most impassioned language. A11 that need be recorded here were these words : " I shall be near thee, mein scbatz, very near, and thou shalt know daily tidings of me in some sort, though we may not meet. . . . Neither may Lottcben accompany thee ; but thou wilt find four old and faithful servants in the schloss, one of whom wiU undertake Lottchen's duties. .... For the rest, my Magda, aU 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 Babensberg.

Such thoughts are mighty angels to drive out all idle fear. Be simple, unsuspicious of evU ; trustful of the good God ; be thyself in short — and all wUl be well with thee ! " The night passed ; and soon after breakfast tbe next morning, they set off on theh strange and melancholy journey, unaccompanied by any servant. As Magda de scended 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, aU was now forgotten ; her mind was absorbed by one subject alone. At the end of half a day's journey they came to 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 hoUows, rank with over growth of poisonous vegetation, and rising out of them, anon, great strips of slaty rock, tumbled about, as by a THE MYSTERY OF THE MOATED SCHLOSS. 131 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 stiUness of moveless boughs, in the hot summer evening. The road shot like an arrow through the pines, whose taU red stems, in a serried mass, rose to an in tolerable height, before they stretched forth theh 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 tbe horizon. They had sat silent for a long time, theh hands in each other's ; their faces, the one anxious and excited, tbe other, repressing by a heroic effort any symptom of nervousness ; when Albrecht jumped up, and caUed to the postillion 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 hke of which Magda had never seen, but which she subsequently learnt bad been called in former days, " a spencer."

Moreover, there was a short and narrow skirt of silk, having an absurd httle flounce round the bottom, such as Magda believed ber mother had worn years ago. She asked, with a smUe of wonder, what all tbis meant. " Thou dear heart ! " cried Albrecht, embracing ber, " 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 httle old hat, and slipped on the spencer. The carriage was then rolling on, and she blew bim kisses, and sent bim April smUes 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 after wards 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 hue.

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 tbis 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 more over 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 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 caleche drew up, they let down the steps, and handed her out. The postUlion 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 tbat bung 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 beard the gate locked behind her. She found herself in a low stone haU, the groined roof of which rested on arches. At the further end was a winding stair, which led to the dweUing-rooms. A woman, past middle-age, stood expectant in the middle of the haU, 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 tbe woman did — nothing of pleasure was evinced. One might have thought tbat 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 theh eyes — which foreign servants are not afraid to let hght up theh faces.

But it was not so here. The old men looked grave — grave and rather sad, it seemed to Magda. The woman looked stern, 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 move ments, 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 vaUses.

The geography of the schloss was less intricate than that of most old buddings. 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 tbe House of Hapsburg, in tbe 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 Allee 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 bave 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 aU time, bave seemed an exceUent 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 tbe corresponding chamber above, the only difference in the shape of the two being tbat 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 dels towered up in one corner, a dressing table and tarnished mirror in another. The bed, which was hke a black box with the hd turned back, dis closing a yeUow eider-down quUt, discouraged, rather than invited, the weary to lie down and take theh rest. It was raised on a single step, a dais, and stood at right-angles between the door and window. The back, which I have compared to the hd of the box, was of sohd black oak, carved with grotesque figures ; there were curtains at the head and none at the feet ; but a board rose up, like tbe stone at the foot of a grave, with the date " 1600 " carved thereon. Upon a naU 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 witb age, and many of them had dropped ; simUar 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 kammermadchen to the Fraulein 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, nor lowing of cattle ; no cheerful sound of other living thing. The stUlness, broken only by that horrible hoarse music, was almost unbearable. Sbe 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 aU 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.