A crown of straw

Franz Gitten sat on a wooden seat at the side of his cottage porch, and puffed discontentedly at the long pipe with the china bowl. Through the open door of the lodge came an occasional sound of the rattling of crockery, and the clashing of knives and forks. It was the hour after the midday meal, and his daughter was busy in the kitchen.

Franz smoked and listened, and over his face there deepened a look of resentment. It was the look of a man who feels that he has been hardly used. He had worn the same look all day, and whenever his eye had caught Dorothea’s, he had thrown a reproachful expression into it, as of a father who had striven hard for his child’s welfare, and had been rewarded by that child with ingratitude.

Nothing had passed between the two on the subject which was uppermost in both their minds. Since Johann’s stunning revelation of the day before, a barrier had for the first time sprung up between them. Dorothea’s trustful confidence in her father had apparently gone forever, but whether out of a lingering respect for him, or from a forlorn wish not to have her suspicions of him turned into certainties, she had refrained from seeking any explanation of his conduct with regard to the King’s visits.

Franz, on his side, did not venture to broach the topic first. He perceived the shock which had been given to Dorothea’s mind, and he dared not risk making the breach wider. But his watchful eyes noted that the King’s gift had disappeared from its place, and he drew the augury that things were not going altogether favourably, and that his promotion to the post of ranger of the forest was further out of reach than it had seemed the day before.

Not daring to quarrel openly with his daughter, he was endeavouring to wear down her obstinacy by an attitude of sulky aloofness. In the mean time his bitterest wrath was reserved for the person whom he looked upon as the author of all the trouble, his nephew Johann.

It was while he was thus brooding sullenly over his grievances that he heard the click of the gate-latch, and looked round to see the enemy coming boldly towards him.

Instantly he rose from his seat, and pulled-to the door of the cottage.

“Now, sir, what have you come here again for?” he demanded, as soon as his nephew came up.

The other gave him a look, half contemptuous, half angry.

“I wonder you dare to look me in the face,” he said. “You, with your miserable cunning; what have you been expecting as the result of these secret visits of the King?”

“That is not your business. What right had you to thrust your oar in, and terrify that silly girl with your blustering talk?”

“It is my business, as long as Dorothea is my cousin. You had better speak plainly; did you wish to see your daughter ruined?”

“Don’t talk like that to me. Do you suppose I don’t know what I am about? If you had only left things alone a little longer, his Majesty might have made her a countess—think of that! The Countess von Gitten!”

Johann replied with a look of loathing, beneath which the old man fairly shrank.

“You wretched, shameless—bah! I am ashamed to bandy words with you. You may thank your stars that Dorothea’s simple innocence has done more for her than all your hateful scheming. If you will only leave well alone, if you would only go and bury yourself for the next six months, there would be a chance of her becoming something higher than a countess.”

The old forester drew back astonished. He hardly grasped the full import of his nephew’s words, but he gathered enough to feel his hopes rapidly reviving within him.

“How? What do you mean? Why do you say that?” he asked eagerly.

“I say it because I have had the honour of talking on the subject with King Maximilian himself.”

“You! With King Maximilian!” The forester’s manner suddenly became deferential.

“Yes. Since yesterday I have been staying in the Castle as the King’s guest. He has taken me into his confidence, and as it will be impossible to keep you in ignorance, I may as well tell you—but beware how you repeat it—that it is possible that he may make Dorothea his Queen.”

Franz lifted his hands in utter bewilderment.

“God in heaven! I always thought he was queer in the head; but I never thought he was so mad as that!”

Johann started. He heard the voice of public opinion, coming from the mouth of a knave.

“Remember,” he said sternly, “on your life you are not to say a word about this.”

“My dear nephew,” exclaimed the delighted Franz, “you may trust me absolutely. But I suppose I may tell Dorothea. Let us go inside.”

And he laid his hand on the knob of the door, inwardly resolving to persuade Dorothea that this was what he had foreseen all along.

“Stop!” cried Johann. “That is the very thing you are not to do. The King wishes her to be absolutely free, and he has sent me here to sound her feelings without letting her know of his intentions.”

The forester’s face fell. Forbidden to bring his parental authority to bear, he felt less confident of the issue.

“The King will be here later on,” added Johann, “and, if you take my advice, you will let him see as little of yourself as possible. You are not exactly a father-in-law for King Maximilian to be proud of.”

“For all that he shall make me a count when he marries Dorothea,” muttered Franz, as his nephew brushed past him into the cottage.

On consideration, however, he thought there was wisdom in Johann’s remark; and instead of lying in wait as usual to welcome the King, when he arrived, he threw a gun over his shoulder, and made off into another quarter of the forest.

Johann walked straight into the kitchen, where he found his little cousin in the act of polishing a large metal dish-cover. Something seemed to have changed in her since yesterday, for, instead of running to embrace him, she stood still and received his kiss with a slight air of constraint.

“I have come to have a quiet talk with you,” remarked Johann, dropping on to an old-fashioned settee which ran along one of the walls of the kitchen. “You can leave that cover alone.”

But Dorothea seemed to have developed a vein of obstinacy since yesterday.

“I can do this, and listen to you at the same time,” she retorted, rubbing away vigorously.

“Ah, you will soon leave off that when you hear my news,” remarked Johann, complacently. “Where do you think I spent last night?”

“At the Castle.”

“What! Who told you? Have you been listening?”

“I was told so by the Princess Hermengarde. She said the King and you were great friends.”

Johann sprang half out of his seat with surprise.

“The Princess Hermengarde! Where did you see her?”

“She came here last night. She was exceedingly kind. After all, there is no reason why you should be the only one to have friends at the Castle.”

The young man scarcely heeded this gentle sarcasm. He was greatly perplexed by the news of Hermengarde’s intervention. It was true he knew very little about the Princess; but he felt sure that she was not the kind of woman to act from mere benevolence. He could only suppose that she had fathomed the King’s ulterior design, and was proceeding to ingratiate herself with the future Queen of Franconia. Where the King goes, the courtiers will soon follow.

“Well, do not trust her too far,” he said at length. “Be civil to her, but do not have too much to say to her.”

“Why do you say that?” demanded Dorothea.

“Because I know more about her than you. You do not understand these people as I do.”

“Oh!”

Dorothea turned away to the dish-cover with renewed energy. The young man tried to attract her attention.

“Dorothea! Listen. Yesterday I spoke to you rather harshly about King Maximilian. You told me he had been coming here day after day to see you, and I naturally put a bad construction on his conduct. Now I find I was unjust. I have found out more than I can say at present, but enough to convince me that he is one of the noblest and sincerest of men.”

“I am glad to hear that, because I always liked him.” She said this quite calmly, and without ceasing from her occupation. “Perhaps you will find out you have been unjust to the Princess as well.”

“My dear girl! What has come over you? Do you doubt my word when I tell you that I distrust the Princess? I only warn you for your good.”

“Thank you, Johann.” And she gave him a bow over the dish-cover.

“Now, there is a thing I want to ask you. The King has been coming here a good deal, and you have had plenty of opportunities to understand him. Have you guessed how he feels towards you?”

Silence for a time. The polishing continued more earnestly than ever. Then, in a low voice—

“I think I guessed yesterday.”

“That he loved you?” Johann spoke triumphantly. “Well, then, what do you think of it? Supposing he were not the King, should you be willing to accept him?”

Silence. That cover seemed to require a great deal of brightening. There must even have been spots on it, for Dorothea’s face was bent so closely down to it that Johann could not see how she received his question.

The clumsy ambassador thought he could take silence for consent. Stepping a little outside the bounds of his instructions in his confidence, he said—

“Well, perhaps before very long you may find that he will ask you to be his wife!”

He spoke in the tone of one who expects to produce a sensation. But he was destined to be disappointed. Dorothea received his intimation with strange calmness, and did not even interrupt her labours for more than an instant.

He felt driven to remonstrate with her.

“Come, you take it very coolly. Do you mean to say that you anticipated this?”

“I hardly know. But it makes no difference. I shall not marry the King.”

“What! What do you say?” His astonishment passed into rebuke. “Be serious. Put down that miserable thing, and consider what you are saying. You do not seem to understand. He will make you Queen of Franconia.”

She left off her work for a moment, and looked him full in the face.

“I do not want to be Queen of Franconia. I am not fit for it. I am only a peasant girl, and I should be miserable if I had to spend my life in a Court.”

“Nonsense! This is absurd. If I am not miserable there, why should you be? Is it because you are too young to understand what you are refusing, or because you do not love the King after all?”

The polishing still went on, but more fitfully, as if the arm of the polisher were getting tired.

“I did not think that you attached so much importance to rank, Johann. You used to be a republican.”

He flushed angrily.

“So I am still. It is not the rank I think of, but the influence it will give you for good. Do you know that the King is already half-converted to my ideas? He has asked me to stay with him and assist in reforming his government. And think what it would be to have you, a daughter of the people, on the throne, always by the King’s side to persuade him to the right course! No woman ever had a more glorious opportunity. We should work together like one family. Do not let any girlish folly hold you back, when your marriage with the King is the one thing I rely on, the foundation stone on which everything rests. What is there to prevent you, really? You do not dislike the King?”

“No, I do not dislike the King.”

“Then why should you hesitate? Come, Dorothea, you and I have always been good friends ever since we were children, but I do not think I could forgive you, if you refused to help me in this. Think it over before the King comes, and at all events do not break off with him altogether. Promise me that?”

The polishing had grown feebler. It ceased.

“Very well. I will promise not to break off with him yet.”

And then Johann thought it prudent to get up and go out of reach; and no sooner was he gone than Dorothea laid down the gleaming cover right in a pool of water, so that all the polishing would have to be done over again.

After which she went quietly out of the kitchen and upstairs to her own room, to prepare for the visit of the King.

On this afternoon Maximilian came by himself, only attended as far as the forest by his favourite Karl.

He came along with beating heart, murmuring to himself the fragment of an old German song:—

Over and over again he reckoned up all the smiles he had ever received from Dorothea, and every look and word which could betoken the secret growth of love. And as he thought, and as he counted, his heart grew great within him, and his step grew buoyant, and the old earth seemed to bend and swing beneath him, and all the branches of the trees to wave salutes, and every leaf and blade to toss for joy, as he strode onward to meet his bride.

And ever and anon, from the very bottom of his heart there crept up a cold doubt like a mist, and blotted out all his tender pictures one by one; and his spirit wavered and went down like the flame of a fire when the rain falls on it; and bitterly he reproached his fortune that had done so much for him, but yet could not do this one last thing—like the mighty roaring Nasmyth hammer, that can crush a cannon-ball and stroke an eggshell, but yet cannot give a new curve to the stalk of the tiniest flower.

So he came on, impatiently, and yet dreading to reach his journey’s end.

When he arrived at the forester’s lodge, he found no one waiting to receive him. He passed through the gate and took his way to the arbour, where he sat down alone.

But Dorothea had watched for his coming, and when she saw him she set the flagon and the unbroken glass on a tray, and brought them out to him.

He rose up at her entrance, and looked at her steadfastly, but he did not venture to embrace her as of old. She greeted him with a new deference, which had taken the place of her former shy friendliness, and poured out the cider for him to drink, and waited.

“Sit down, my child,” he said gravely, setting her the example. “So they have told you who I am at last?”

“Yes, Sire.”

She sat down, but not on the same seat with him, nor did he seem to expect it.

“No, Dorothea, you are not to call me that. Let me still be the Herr Maurice when I am here, at least.”

There followed a pause which it was difficult for either of them to break. At last Maximilian said—

“Do you remember what you said to me yesterday about sinking through the earth if the poor King caught sight of you? You won’t feel like that any more, will you?”

And he gazed at her with a look at once so beseeching and so desponding, that her heart melted towards him, and she suddenly made up her mind what to do, and dropped her eyes and fell on her knees beside him, and caught his hand and cried—

“My King! Forgive me, I am young and ignorant, and I am not worthy of your love.”

Then an infinite tenderness, which was the greatest happiness he had ever known, filled Maximilian’s soul, and he stooped and lifted her up, and clasped her to him once, and kissed her on the forehead and on the lips, and set her down beside him.

“My darling, I have loved you all this time, and never dared to tell you, for fear I might frighten you and lose your confidence. And I did not mean you to know who I was till I had won your love in return. And now, what do you say? Do you think you can bring yourself to love me after all?”

“I will try.”

She said it in a whisper so low and faint that only the ear of a lover could have caught the words. But he was satisfied. And they sat on there together for more than an hour, while he talked to her, and tried to diminish the gulf that lay between them, and to soothe her into security. And every now and then he ventured to put in a word of love, and watched her colour rise, or saw her shyly droop her head, and felt that he could wish for no greater joy than to sit on like that forever.

But at last he felt that he must leave her, and began to say farewell. And it occurred to him to give her a warning.

“All this is our secret, is it not, little one?” he said gently. “No one but our two selves need know anything of what has passed between us, as yet. When the time comes that you have conquered your doubts, and can look me in the face, and tell me that you feel towards me as I feel towards you, then the world shall hear of it. In the mean time, if any strangers should come here to satisfy their curiosity or to make their court to you because they think you have influence with me, have nothing to do with them. You will remember this, will you not?”

Dorothea nodded, with a troubled look. Already the meshes of Court intrigue were beginning to close around her, already the simple peasant girl was beginning to draw her breath with difficulty in a courtly atmosphere. Ought she to tell Maximilian of his aunt’s invitation? Or ought she rather to be guided by the Princess’s warnings against bestowing too much confidence on any one not of her own sex?

Before she could make up her mind between these conflicting appeals the King had given her a parting embrace, and was gone.

She had left her seat and accompanied him as far as the garden gate, and when he turned back he saw her looking after him with a sweet, pathetic smile.

She stayed in the same attitude for many minutes. But when her cousin, seeing from a distance that the King had gone, came up to her, eager to find out how matters stood, she received him with an outburst of temper quite foreign to her gentle character, refused to answer a single question, and rushed from him into the house, where she took refuge in her own room.

Much puzzled, Johann turned his steps into the park, where he happened to come across his uncle.

“Well, Johann, what has happened?” demanded Franz, anxiously. “Has the King been to see her?”

“Yes, he has been and gone; and that is all I can tell you,” was the ill-tempered answer, as Johann strode onward in the direction of the Castle.

Franz was alarmed by his nephew’s words and manner. He hastened towards the cottage, determined to have it out with his daughter.

On his arrival, however, she was still upstairs, and by the time she had come downstairs he had had time for reflection. Her serious air somewhat intimidated him, and contributed to make him delay his parental inquiries. He therefore left her alone till supper-time, consoling himself for the violence to his feelings thus caused, by numerous applications to a bottle, containing something which he considered more wholesome than the cider for which his cottage was famed.

By this means he at last brought himself up to the requisite pitch of courage, and bluntly attacked his daughter.

“Now, Dorothea, I am not going to stand any more of this nonsense. I am your father and your best friend, and I have a right to know what is going on.”

The girl directed a glance at him in which he thought he detected alarm, but she made no other answer. He assumed a more determined tone.

“I insist on your telling me exactly what has happened. The King has been here—you know he is the King now—and I want to know exactly what he said.”

“I am sorry I cannot tell you, father. His Majesty forbade me to talk about it.”

The forester snapped his fingers.

“That for his Majesty! What right has he to give orders to my daughter? I will teach you that I am the authority here; and I will teach him too, if he tries that game on.”

Dorothea looked at him gravely, and rose from her seat.

“Where are you going? Sit down. You can talk to Johann fast enough when he comes here; but when your own father is speaking to you, you want to run away. I won’t have that fellow coming to my house; do you hear? It is my belief he would like to marry you himself; but you have got a better tune to sing to than that.”

“You are wrong, father; indeed, you are,” broke out the girl, indignantly. “I don’t believe he has ever thought of such a thing. He is not—he does not care for me in that way at all.”

“Never mind whether he does or not. It’s not him I am talking about, but King Maximilian. Now, is he going to marry you, or not? That’s what I want to know.”

Dorothea gave a shiver of discomfort, and turned to the door.

Her father sprang at her and seized her by the wrist.

“Now, are you going to answer me or not?”

“I cannot.” And though her lips were quivering, she returned his angry look with one so firm that he dropped her arm, and with a muttered oath returned to his seat.

Dorothea escaped from the room, and did not come back. The forester finished his supper, growling all the time to himself, and then fastened up the house and went to bed earlier than usual.

An hour after he had fallen asleep, Dorothea softly opened her bedroom door and crept out. She was dressed for walking, and in her hand she carried a small bundle. Tiptoeing past her father’s door, she went softly down the stairs and approached the front door. It was easy work to draw the bolts and open it, and as soon as this was done she stole outside, and pulled the door gently after her.

Then she ran rapidly down the garden path and out through the gate, and plunged into the thickness of the forest.

Dorothea had made up her mind to accept the invitation of the Princess Hermengarde.