CHAPTER XVIII.
DAGGER AND POISON CUP.
By the time Sabina and her father had bidden adieu to Radegund, the grey wintry twilight had deepened into blackness, and the artist found it was too dark to seal up and direct Sabina’s letter. Merely folding it, therefore, she laid it on the ledge of her easel, and turned to take up her old brooding attitude in the flickering firelight, until a message was brought that the Bishop waited below to speak with her on some question concerning the Horologe.
She hurried down, and my lord, who always enjoyed a chat with her, prolonged his interview for some time after Radegund had heard her brother Otto striding impatiently to and fro in the adjoining room—sign unmistakable that he was waiting for her to come to supper. Indeed it was already past the usual hour for the meal, and Radegund was not sorry when at last her august visitor took his departure.
“The poor boy must be famished! he has been waiting this half-hour,” thought she, with the strong motherly solicitude she had for him.
To many, despite his handsome face, Otto was not an agreeable young man. Well-born and reared, he yet had about him a touch of that ill-breeding which is conceit’s unfailing attendant. Of firmness of character and self-reliance he had little; and his weak nature had allowed a natural jealousy of disposition to become an uncontrollable passion. He was impulsive, and not destitute of generosity. People were apt to mistake his transient fits of ardour for real deep-seated enthusiasm, but this quality for good and for evil belonged to his sister, and not at all to him. He was, however, quick-witted and to a degree clever, as who of the race of von Steinbach was not? but genius he utterly lacked; and his mediocre talents ran small chance of increase, since he had never been able to grasp the practical meaning of mental application. Compared with Radegund’s intellectual qualifications, his were as pinchbeck to gold, but that is in no way to refuse recognition to the qualities of pinchbeck.
Radegund, however, whose perception of people’s shortcomings was ordinarily acute, saw few faults in Otto; or if she did, never admitted their existence, and if it pleased her to tell him of his little failings now and again, that was her affair; but other folks, marriageable maidens notably, were to be filled with admiration and sighs for her Adonis-faced brother, and when first she heard that Sabina, instead of jumping down the irresistible creature’s throat, had dared “little chit of a thing!”—to refuse the offer of his delectable self, she could hardly credit her own ears, until—until she came to understand who was the favoured suitor.
Otto, when he could spare a thought from the consideration of his own perfections, would say that he admired Radegund, and that those who sought her favour were not so far wrong, and in his own rather shallow way he loved her. He always found her a patient listener, when he poured forth, as he very often did, a list of his numerous individual grievances. Sometimes, it must be confessed, he did not escape a sound rating for his pains, on account of his weak vacillating ways; and Radegund would declare that he ought to have been the woman and she the man; but oftener she would pity him, and even join in denouncing the unappreciating world he was thrown upon.
All this Radegund would do; but one thing she never did, and that was to confide in return, her own hopes and fears and joys and sorrows to him. “Poor child! no”—she always cheated herself into saying. “Why should I worry him with my vexations? He has enough of his own.” But she knew that was a self-deception; and had Otto been of her own calibre, she would have been glad to make a friend of him, this proud-hearted friendless woman. As it was, however, the two rubbed on their somewhat gloomy lives together in the magnificent old ancestral mansion, and people would point them out as a model brother and sister; which perhaps, as far as imperfect human nature let them be, they were.
At zero though Otto’s love affairs of late had been, he had not lost the rare appetite with which Providence had blessed him; and if he were kept waiting for his meals for even three little minutes, he considered himself very criminally dealt by; and on this particular evening he had come in, and found his sister not waiting for him as usual, and as he considered it behoved her to do. Otto always regarded Radegund’s absence from the guest-room at this hour of the evening as a personal affront; and the worst of it was that lately she had got into a trick of doing so, especially while the Saint Laurence picture had been on her easel.
Had there been, however, any shadow of an excuse for it then, there could be none now that the Saint Laurence was safe on the cathedral wall, and Otto did not mean Radegund to get into that aggravating way of neglecting him for pictures and things. Seizing a lamp therefore, he tore, three steps at a time? up the wide oaken staircase, and in his own privileged way, burst open the studio door.
“Aller Teufel!” he cried. “I’ve been in ever so long—I’m famished, Radegund, and it’s an abominable shame——”
But no Radegund was to be seen. Raising his lamp aloft, he peered among the shadows it cast, and called her by her name, knowing that it was perfectly possible for his sister to be within half-a-yard of him, and yet for her not to reply. It was another of her tiresome whims; and one which of late had much grown upon her, to pay not the slightest heed when spoken to; and you might as well be a wooden stick at once, for all the notice Radegund would sometimes take of you for hours together. Now, however, not even her bodily presence was there; and since Otto had no fancy for being alone in that great dark chamber, he turned to go downstairs again, when suddenly the flare of his lamp caught the picture on Radegund’s easel.
“What termagant creature is she putting on her canvas now?” he muttered to himself, as he approached the picture. “I never can, for the life of me, see any beauty in these viragos myself. One of your soft dove-eyed women now, is worth a dozen of ’em,” sighed poor Otto. “By Jupiter! didn’t I say it? Some she-demon or other!”
And he recoiled a step, as a pair of fierce eyes, more ghastly from their vagueness, glared out at him from the canvas.
“A Cassandra,” he went on, out of his little Latin, and less Greek which he had contrived to drum into his brains during his schoolboy years, “or is it Medea? Anyhow she’s pointing down at some piece of devilry she’s been at,” and involuntarily Otto’s eyes fell to the base of the picture whither the figure’s shadowy finger pointed. On the ledge of the easel lay a piece of folded parchment. Bringing his lamp-light closer to it, Otto saw that it was addressed in Radegund’s handwriting to Conrad Dasipodius.
“Now, what can she be having to say to him?” he mused, and as he stood considering it with wide open eyes, a cunning smile gathered about his lips. “Ah ha! sister mine!” he muttered, “I have you at last, have I?” Then he took the letter, and fingered it laughingly.
For long past Otto had had his suspicions that Radegund’s admiration for the stately Professor Dasipodius was not an exclusively artistic one. That Nature broke the mould after having created him, Radegund took a delight in declaring; especially in the hearing of those among her admirers who chanced to be insignificant in stature or of physiognomy; and this very plain-spoken avowal set those interested to find out the truth completely off the right scent. “For no woman,” as they argued, “ever blazons abroad such open admiration for a man she is in love with.” Shallow arguing! and the ways of woman, when she so chooses, are past man’s finding out; unless, possibly, to a disinterested man like Otto von Steinbach.
Disinterested indeed, as far as Radegund was concerned, Otto might be, since so long as she would one day settle quietly down with a decently wealthy and well-born suitor—the wealthier of course so much the better, because then he might rather help than hinder Otto’s own worldly prospects; the young man cared little enough who might be the favoured one. Otto, however, did care very much to arrive at any means which might compass the breaking of Dasipodius’ love plighting with Sabina von Steinbach. That once achieved, he had no fear whatever of making his own way with her. Why not?
And so when Otto’s eyes fell on this letter addressed to the mathematician in his sister’s own handwriting, he fancied himself quite on the right tack, or at least hope whispered very encouragingly to him. Still he could not quite see how he was going to bring things into train, and he stood and pondered, until his thoughts assumed an exceedingly definite shape. The letter was unsealed, could be opened and read as easily as looked at almost—and why—why should he not read it? What hindered?
Honour did for full two minutes, nearly three, and then the meaner spirit of him whispered that there must be no further shilly-shally, that such scruples were absurdly, fastidiously delicate, when in all probability, that letter contained nothing but Horologe business; and supposing, after all, it did touch on extraneous but interesting matter, was it not right and proper that he, Otto von Steinbach, as master of that house, should know what was going on under his own roof? Was he not guardian of his sister’s honour? and was it not high time that he should set about acquainting himself with some of those proceedings of hers which she kept so mysteriously to herself? Then too, there was his cousin Sabina’s imperilled happiness to be borne in mind. Yes, the sudden clearness with which Otto now saw these points utterly extinguished any intrusive little scruples, and anxiety on that score being thus quite set at rest, he set his lamp on the table, opened the letter—not without many glances first round the dark still chamber, and began to spell it carefully through. Otto, as already hinted, being rather a ten o’clock scholar, had some difficulty in mastering the hard words, but finding the contents interesting, it seemed to him worth while to persevere; and something over a quarter-of-an-hour left him in possession of as much as the missive had to tell; but to grasp all at once its full meaning was too great a tax on his brain, and for some moments his countenance wore an utterly dazed expression, and there, as though rooted to the spot, he stood, striving to set a little in order the bewildering suggestions it had called up within him. “Blind!” gasped he. “Now, who would have guessed that? And yet—ha! ha! so much for friend Conrad’s inspiration, as the fools call his star-gazing. Inspiration? Magic perhaps! What do I say? Perhaps? Why it must be. Seeing without eyes indeed! Oh! it’s horrible to think of—horrible! Why, the cleverest person, ever so clever—I myself can’t tie even a shoestring with shut eyes; and you mean to tell me—no, it won’t do. Besides, aren’t his eyes as good-looking—almost, as mine? Impossible.” Then with forefinger pressed against the corner of his wrinkling brow, and demonstrating the hollowness of his own proposition, since he shut his eyes fast in order to see the better into his own mind, he stood lost in meditation.
At last, carefully folding the letter, he replaced it where he had found it; then catching up his lamp, hurried with a light heart downstairs, and as he went, “Blind!” was the refrain of his pæan. “Dasipodius blind!—blind!”
This knowledge of the master’s affliction appeared certainly to have put his pupil into a charmingly good humour; he had not felt so pleased with himself and all the world for quite a long time, and went so far out of his ordinary way as to tell his sister, who now awaited him in the dining hall, that she was a splendid creature, by Venus! “And upon my honour, I don’t wonder at all the fellows being mad about you, my girl. Such a knack, too, as you have of putting on your clothes. You make a rare picture yourself, Radegund.”
And Radegund, standing there beside the supper-table, freighted with its costly silver-gilt and shining Venice glass, did look rarely handsome. Unlike so many sisters of her craft, artist inconsistencies, who drape their figures in graceful robes of happily-blended colouring, while they render real life hideous by dingy dress, crumpled lace, and disordered hair, Radegund well understood the value of personal adornment.
To-night her dress, whose sheeny folds swept the oaken floor, was of some dark tawny-coloured brocaded stuff, cut slightly open at the neck, and squared about the throat, and finished there by a band of dead gold passementerie. The sleeves puffed and slashed with velvet a shade or two lighter than the dress, and reaching to her shapely wrists, were edged with a narrow band of the same rich trimming, while a narrow frill of fine Flemish lace shaded the white, rather transparent hands. A broader ruff also of this same lace set off, more than concealed, the rounded outlines of her beautiful throat. This same ruff of the artist’s had afforded food for much discussion in certain circles. The feminine fashionable craze of the city vowed it was excessively absurd and antiquated of Radegund to persist in wearing such a stupid mimping scrap of lace; positively not four inches wide, and certainly, all unplaited, not above an ell long! But there, that always was Radegund von Steinbach—to go choosing to be different from everybody else, she did so dearly love anything that made her peculiar. Dispassionately regarded, one would have held the accusation of peculiarity to lie rather on the side of the existing fashion, than on that of the old-world frill to which Radegund was pleased to remain faithful. The ruffs of the really modish dames of that day were miracles of building-up, and had to be “under-propped round their goodly necks,” as an irate chronicler of the period has it, “and pinned up to their ears, or else let fluttering, like windmill sails in the wind”.
Now the ridiculous part of all this was, that the male sex, with that proverbial ignorance and ill-taste which invariably marks it in questions of the sort, took a positive delight in abusing the charming new fashion, and stuck so obstinately to their opinion that Radegund’s ruff was a thousand times more decent and becoming, that certain weak young Strassburg female minds began to entertain serious thoughts of going back again to the older style, in spite of such romantic nonsense being pooh-poohed by the stronger spirits.
“Decent and becoming! Radegund von Steinbach! Who’s she, pray, that she’s to set the fashions?” contended these. “Decent and becoming! A good joke!” and then the huffy outraged matrons at once became more ruffy and stiffly-starched than ever. Then, too, Radegund was possessed with “ideas” about her hair, and scorned to lend herself to the wearing of wigs of many colours, or to gold-powderings, or dyeings, or any other abominations of the sort practised in that unenlightened age, but gathered it all up, and wound it in coils about her beautiful head, and fastened it with a golden dagger-headed spillone, she had brought from Italy; and altogether there was a distinctiveness and magnificence about Radegund von Steinbach which made her a pleasant sight to eyes dazzled and wearied by the glitter of beads and bangles and gewgaws.
But to-night, notwithstanding, Radegund’s face wears a haggard look, and the crimson spot burning on either cheek, renders its paleness still more deathlike.
“You have kept me waiting,” is her sole response to her brother’s gallant little speeches. “Where have you been?”
“I—I was home rather late,” stammered he.
“Nay,” persisted Radegund, “but I heard you stamping about in here more than half-an-hour ago.”
“When a man’s ravenous,” says Otto, seating himself at the table, and commencing operations without further loss of time, “he’s apt to stamp about. It saves him from doing some awful mischief or other; and I’m so starving, I could eat a board to-night. But this capon is first-rate. You’ve found a decent cook at last—eh, old girl?” hurried on Otto nervously. “Do have a slice of this bird, Radegund.”
“No!” said Radegund. “I’m not hungry, Otto. Did I not hear you go upstairs to my studio?”
“Yes,” replied Otto. “I went to look for you; but you weren’t there; and—and so I came down again.”
“But not directly,” she said, fixing her eyes upon him with languid curiosity.
“No,” admitted the truthful Otto. “I—I stayed to look at your new sketch, Radegund. She’s an awful woman. Who is she?”
“Eleanor of England,” absently answered the artist.
“And what may she be pointing down at so savagely?”
“Ah! At fair Rosamond, while she drinks the poison.”
“A nice cheerful subject!” said Otto, fortifying his nerves with a brimming beaker of Burgundy. “But who is fair Rosamond?”
“That is too long a tale,” yawned Radegund; then with a sudden fierce energy she added: “Rosamond wronged Eleanor.”
“Oh! a love affair was it?” said Otto, with something of unfeigned interest. “And this Eleanor, she was jealous—eh?”
“Perhaps—I don’t know. I do wish you’d eat your supper, and not worry about the stupid picture. I thought you were so hungry.”
Otto stared at his sister. This was the first time within living memory that he had ever found her unwilling to talk about her art.
“I’m so tired to-night,” she went on more gently. “Tell me, Otto, did you notice a letter lying about up there?”
“A letter?—a letter?” said Otto, knitting his brows. “Yes, I—I think I saw something of the sort. Have you tasted the new bin of Burgundy yet, Radegund? By St. Laurence! what a bloom it has. Drink, my girl,” and he brimmed a goblet with the blood-red wine. “’Twill do you worlds of good.”
Radegund drank it thirstily. “It was addressed to the Professor Dasipodius,” she said.
“Oh, the letter. Ah, yes, it might have been for aught I know,” said Otto, nervously twiddling a spoon. It seemed to him that her eyes were reading him through and through.
“It was not sealed,” she said.
“Oh, h’m—was it not. Do you wish it sealed?” enquired the accommodating Otto. “I will fetch it down, and do it for you.”
“Nay, I will go myself presently.”
And after supper Radegund fetched the letter, and tying it with a silken thread, lighted a taper and sealed it fast.
“After all,” she said with a contemptuous weary smile, “it is nothing particular,” as though it were a trifle there had already been too much talk about.
“Ah, really!” said Otto in sleepy tones.
“It has to do with Horologe affairs.”
“Just so,” gravely assented he.
“And you are to give it yourself to Conrad Dasipodius.”
“Oh, certainly. Into his own hands.”