The Nameless Castle

CHAPTER I

It was a delightful May evening. Marie was practising diligently her piano lesson, in order to surprise Ludwig with her progress when he should return from the war. That he would return Marie was quite certain.

Katharina had gone into the park for a solitary promenade. She had complained all day of a headache—a headache that began to trouble her after she had read the letter she had received that morning from the Marquis de Fervlans. She held the letter in her hand now, and read it again for the hundredth time.

Yes, she had accomplished her mission successfully; the fugitive maid and the important documents were in her possession; and yet her trembling hand refused to grasp the promised reward. A fortune awaited her for the comedy she had played with such success—a comedy in which she had acted the part of the charitable lady of the manor.

And what if there had been something of reality in the farce? Suppose her heart had learned to thrill with emotions hitherto unknown to it? Suppose it had learned to know the true meaning of gratitude—of love?

But five millions of francs!

If she were alone in the world! But there was Amélie, her dear little daughter, who was now almost fifteen years old—almost a young lady. Should she leave Amélie in her present disagreeable position, a member of “Cythera’s Brigade,” or should she send for her, and confess to the man whose respect she desired to retain that the child was her daughter, and that she was a widow? Could she tell him what she had once been? Would he continue to respect, to love her?

Five millions of francs!

It was an enormous sum, and would become hers if she should order the carriage, and, taking Marie and the casket with her, drive leisurely along the highway until stopped by a troop of soldiers that would suddenly surround the carriage. A politely smiling face would then appear at the window of the carriage, and a courteous voice would say:

“Don’t be alarmed, ladies. You are with friends. We are Frenchmen.”

But to renounce the love and respect so hardly won! Ah, how very dearly she loved the man to whom she had betrothed herself in jest! In jest? No, no; it was not a jest!

But five millions of francs!

Would all the millions in the world buy one faithful heart?

Katharina was suffering for her transgressions. She had intended to play with the heart of another, and had lost her own. Besides, she could not bear to think of betraying the innocent girl who loved and trusted her and called her “mother.”

But time pressed. Three times already Jocrisse had interrupted her meditations to inquire if her answer to the marquis’s letter was ready. And still she struggled with herself. When Jocrisse appeared again, she said to him:

“My letter is of such importance that I cannot think of intrusting it to the hands of a stranger. You yourself, Jocrisse, must take it to the marquis.”

“I am ready to depart at once, madame.”

Katharina wrote her reply, sealed it carefully, and gave it to Jocrisse, who set out at once on his errand.

In the letter he carried were but three words:

“Io non posso” (“I cannot”).

Katharina locked herself in the pavilion in the park, and gave orders to the servants not to admit any visitors, whether acquaintances or strangers.

An hour or more had passed when she heard a timid knock at the door, and an apologetic voice said:

“A strange gentleman is here. I told him your ladyship would see no one; then he bade me give your ladyship this, which he said he had brought from Paris.”

Katharina opened the door wide enough to receive the object. It was a small ivory locket, yellow with age. Katharina’s hand shook violently as she pressed the spring to open it. She cast a hasty glance at the miniature,—the likeness of her daughter Amélie,—then said in a faltering voice: “You may tell the gentleman I will see him.”

In a few minutes the visitor entered the pavilion.

“M. Cambray!” exclaimed the baroness.

“Yes, madame; I am Cambray, with my other name, Marquis Richard d’Avoncourt. I am he to whom you once said: ‘I shall be grateful to you so long as I live.’ ”

“How—how came you here?” gasped the baroness.

“I managed to escape from my prison at Ham, went to Paris, where I saw your daughter—”

“You saw my daughter?” interrupted the baroness, excitedly. “Did you speak to her? Oh, tell me—tell me what you know about her.”

“You shall hear all directly, madame. I told the countess that I intended to search for her mother, and asked if she had any message to send to her.”

“Did she send a letter with you?” again interrupted the baroness.

“She did, madame. But before I give it to you I should like to have a shovel of hot coals and a bit of camphor.”

“But why—why?” demanded the baroness.

“I will tell you. Do you know what Napoleon brought home with him from the bloody battle of Eilau?”

“I have not heard.”

“The ‘influenza.’ I dare say you have never even heard the name; but you will very soon hear it often enough! It is a pestilential disease that is rather harmless where it originated, but when it takes hold of a strange region it becomes a deadly pestilence—as in Paris, where a special hospital has been established for patients with the disease. It was in this hospital I found your daughter as a nurse.”

“Jesu Maria!” shrieked the mother, in a tone of agony. “A nurse in that pest-house?”

“Yes,” nodded the marquis. Then he took from his pocket a letter, and added: “She wrote this to you from there.”

The baroness eagerly extended her hand to take the letter.

“Would it not be better to fumigate it first?” said the marquis.

“No, no; I am not afraid! Give it to me, I beg of you!”

She caught the letter from his hand, tore it open, and read:

Katharina’s nerveless hands dropped to her lap. This sharp rebuke from her only child was deserved.

Then she sprang suddenly toward her visitor, grasped his arm, and cried:

“Tell me—tell me about my daughter, my little Amélie! How does she look now? Is she much changed? Has she grown? Oh, M. Cambray! in pity tell me—tell me about her!”

“I have brought you a portrait of her as she looked when I saw her last.”

He drew from his pocket a small case, and, opening it, disclosed a pallid face with closed eyes. A wreath of myrtle encircled the head, which rested on the pillow of a coffin.

“She is dead!” screamed the horror-stricken mother, staring with wild eyes at the sorrowful picture.

“Yes, madame, she is dead,” assented the marquis. “This portrait is sent by your daughter as a remembrance to the mother who exposed her on the streets, one stormy winter night, in order that she might spy upon another little child—a persecuted and homeless little child.”

The baroness cowered beneath the merciless words as beneath a stinging lash: but the man knew no pity; he would not spare the heartbroken woman.

“And now, madame,” he continued in a sharp tone, “you can go back to your home and take possession of your reward. You have worked hard to earn the blood-money.”

Here the baroness sat suddenly upright, tore from her bosom a small gold note-case, in which was the order for the five millions of francs. She opened the case, took out the order, and tore it into tiny bits. Then she flung them from her, crying savagely:

“Curse him who brought me to this! God’s curse be upon him who brought this on me!”

“Madame,” calmly interposed the marquis, “you have not yet completed the task you were set to do.”

“No, no; I have not—I have not,” was the excited response, “and I never will. Come—come with me! The maid and what belongs to her are here—safe, unharmed. Take her—fly with her and hers whithersoever you choose to go; I shall not hinder you.”

“That I cannot do, madame. I am a stranger in a strange land. I know not who is my friend or who is my foe. You must save the maid. If atonement is possible for you, that is the way you may win it. You know best where the maid will be safe from her persecutors. Save her, and atone for your transgression against her. Ludwig Vavel gave you his love and, more than that, his respect. Would you retain both, or will you tear them to tatters, as you have the order for the five million francs? Will you let me advise you?” he asked, suddenly.

“Advise me, and I will follow it to the letter!”

“Then disguise yourself as a peasant, hide the steel casket in a hamper, and take it to Ludwig Vavel, wherever he may be.”

“And Marie?”

“You cannot with safety take her with you. The maid and the casket must not remain together. You must conceal Marie somewhere until you return from the camp.”

“Will you not stay here and keep watch over her until I return?”

“I thank you, madame, for your hospitality, but I must not accept it. I come direct from the influenza hospital. I feel that the disease has laid hold of me. I have comfortable quarters at the Nameless Castle, where my old friend Lisette will take care of me. Don’t let Marie come to see me; and if I should not recover from this illness, which I feel will be a severe one, let me be buried down yonder on the shore of the lake.”

When the Marquis d’Avoncourt left the pavilion he was shaking with a violent chill, and as he took his way with tottering steps toward the Nameless Castle, Katharina, broken-hearted and filled with anguish, wept out her heart in bitter tears.

CHAPTER II

Marie had finished practising her lesson, and hastened to join Katharina in the park. She found her in the pavilion, and was filled with alarm when she saw her “little mama” kneeling among the fragments of her fortune. Katharina’s tear-stained eyes, swollen face, and drawn lips betrayed how terribly she was suffering.

“My dearest little mama!” exclaimed Marie, hastening toward the kneeling woman, and trying to lift her from the floor, “what is the matter? What has happened?”

“Don’t touch me,” moaned the baroness. “Don’t come near me. I am a murderess. I murdered her who called me mother.”

She held the ivory locket toward Marie, and added: “See, this is what she was like when I deserted her—my little daughter Amélie!”

“Your daughter?” repeated Marie, wonderingly. “You have been married? Are you a widow?”

“I am.”

Katharina now held toward the young girl the portrait M. Cambray had given her. “And this,” she explained in a hollow tone, “is what she is like now—now, when I wanted her to come to me.”

“Good heaven!” ejaculated Marie, gazing in terror at the miniature, “she is dead?”

“Yes—murdered—as you, too, will be if you stay with me! You must fly—fly at once!”

“Katharina!” interposed the young girl, “why do you speak so?”

“I say that you must leave me. Go—go at once! Go down to the parsonage, and ask Herr Mercatoris to give you shelter. Tell him to clothe you in rags; and when you hear the tramp of horses, hide yourself, and don’t venture from your concealment until they are gone. I, too, am going away from here.”

“But why may not I come with you?” asked Marie, in a troubled tone.

“Where I go you cannot accompany me. I am going to steal through the lines of Ludwig’s camp.”

“You are going to Ludwig?” interrupted the young girl.

“Yes, to deliver into his hands the casket containing your belongings. After that I—I don’t know what will become of me.”

“Katharina! Don’t frighten me so! Do you imagine that Ludwig will cease to love you when he learns you are a widow, and that you had a daughter?”

“Oh, no; he will not hate me because I had a daughter,” returned Katharina, shaking her head sadly, “but because my wickedness destroyed her.”

“Don’t talk so, Katharina,” again expostulated Marie.

“Why, don’t you see that she is dead? Look at these closed eyes, the white face! Ask these closed lips to open and tell you that I did not murder her!”

“Katharina, this is not true! Your enemies have told you this to grieve you. Look at these two pictures! There is not the least resemblance between them. This pale one is not your daughter. He who told you so lied cruelly.”

Katharina sighed mournfully.

“He who told me so does not lie. It was your old friend Cambray.”

“Cambray?” echoed Marie, with mingled delight and astonishment. “Cambray is here? My deliverer, my second father! Where is he?”

“He is gone. He accomplished that for which he came,—to crush me to the earth, and to serve you,—and has gone away again.”

“Gone away?” repeated Marie, incredulously. “Gone away? Impossible! Cambray would not go away without seeing me! Which way did he go? I will run after him and overtake him.”

“No; stay where you are!” commanded Katharina, seizing her arm. “You must not follow him.”

“Why not?”

“Listen, and I will tell you. Cambray brought these pictures and this letter from Paris. The letter was written by my daughter in the hospital, where she caught the dreadful disease which caused her death. She had been nursing the sick, like a heroine, and died like a saint. It is well with her now, for she is in heaven. If I weep, it is not for her, but for myself. The deadly disease Amélie died of has seized upon your friend Cambray; and the noble old man is unselfish even in dying. He does not want you to come near him, lest you, too, become affected by the pestilence. He is gone to the Nameless Castle, where Lisette will take care of him—”

“Lisette?” interrupted Marie, excitedly. “Lisette, who was afraid to go near her own husband when he lay dying!”

“Well, what would you? Shall I send some one to nurse him?”

“No—no. I am the one to take care of him! He was a father to me. For my sake he was imprisoned, persecuted, buried alive all these years! And I am to let him die over yonder—alone, without a friend near him! No; I am going to him. That which your other daughter had the courage to do, this one also will do!”

“Marie! Think of Ludwig! Do you wish to drive him to despair?”

“God watches over us. He will do what is well for all of us!”

“Marie”—Katharina made a last effort to detain the young girl—“Marie, do you wish to go to Cambray to learn from him that I am the curse-laden creature who was sent after you to capture you and deliver you into the hands of your enemies?”

Marie turned at these desperate words, held out her hand, and said gently:

“And if he were to tell me that, Katharina, I should say to him that, instead of destroying me you liberated me, and instead of hating me you love me as I love you.”

She made as if she would kiss Katharina; but the excited woman turned away her face, and held toward Marie the letter Cambray had given her.

“Read this, and learn to know me as I am,” she said in a choking voice.

While Marie was reading the letter, Katharina covered her burning face with both hands; but they were gently drawn away and held in the young girl’s warm clasp, while she spoke:

“A reply must be sent to this letter, little mother. I shall say to her, through the soul now on the eve of departure to the better land where she dwells: ‘Little sister, your mother will wear the pure white garment, as you desired, in mourning for you. Instead of you, she will have me, and will love me, as I shall love her, in your stead. Bless us both, and be happy.’ Shall I not send this message to your Amélie with my good friend Cambray?”

“Go, then; go—go,” convulsively sobbed Katharina, and fell upon her face on the floor as Marie hastened from the pavilion.

CHAPTER III

When her grief had exhausted itself, Katharina stole back to the manor, where she removed the steel casket from its hiding-place, wrapped it in her shawl, and, passing noiselessly and unseen down a staircase that was rarely used, crossed the park to the farmer’s cottage.

Here she told the farmer’s wife that she was going to play a trick on her betrothed, that she wanted to borrow a gown and a kerchief. She bade the farmer saddle the mule which his wife rode when she went to the village, and to hang the hampers, as usual, from the pommel. In one of these she placed the steel casket, in the other a pistol, and filled them both with all sorts of provisions. Thus disguised, she mounted the quadruped, and set out alone on her way toward the camp.

Almost at the same moment that Ludwig Vavel had learned of the deceit of the woman he loved, he became convinced that his ambitious designs had come to naught. The rising of the German patriots against Napoleon had ended in their defeat, and not a trace was left of the uprising among the French people themselves.

It was the third day after the battle of Aspern when Master Matyas entered Count Vavel’s tent.

The jack of all trades had proved himself a useful member of the army—not, indeed, where there was any fighting, for he much preferred looking on, when a battle was in progress, to taking an active part in the fray. But as a spy he was invaluable.

“I have seen everything,” he announced. “I saw the balloon in which a French engineer made an ascent to the clouds, to reconnoiter the Austrian camp. He went up as high as a kite, and they held on to the rope below, down which he sent his messages—observations of the Austrians’ movements. I saw the bridge, which is two hundred and forty fathoms long, which can be transported from place to place, and reaches from one bank of the Danube to the other. And I saw that demi-god flying on his white horse. He was pale, and trembled.”

“And how came you to see all these sights, Master Matyas?” interrupted Vavel.

“I allowed the Frenchmen to capture me; then I was set to work in the intrenchments with the other prisoners.”

“And did you manage to deliver my letter?”

“Oh, yes. The Philadelphians are easily recognized from the silver arrow they wear in their ears. When I whispered the password to one of them, he gave it back to me, whereupon I handed him your letter. I came away as soon as he brought me the answer. Here it is.”

This letter by no means lightened Vavel’s gloomy mood. Colonel Oudet, the secret chief of the Philadelphians in the French army, heartily thanked Count Vavel for his offer of assistance to overthrow Napoleon; but he also gave the count to understand that, were Bonaparte defeated, the republic would be restored to France. In this case, what would become of Vavel’s cherished plans?

It was after midnight. The pole of “Charles’s Wain” in the heavens stood upward. Ludwig approached the watch-fire, and told the lieutenant on guard that he might go to his tent, that he, Vavel, would take his place for the remainder of the night. Then he let the reins drop on the neck of his horse, and while the beast grazed on the luxuriant grass, his rider, with his carbine resting in the hollow of his arm, continued the night watch. The night was very still; the air was filled with odorous exhalations, which rose from the earth after the shower in the early part of the evening. From time to time a shooting star sped on its course across the sky.

One after the other, Ludwig Vavel read the two letters he carried in his breast. He did not need to take them from their hiding-place in order to read them. He knew the contents by heart—every word. One of them was a love-letter he had received from his betrothed; the other was the Judas message of his enemy and Marie’s.

At one time he would read the love-letter first; then that of the arch-plotter. Again, he would change the order of perusal, and test the different sensations—the bitter after the sweet, the sweet after the bitter.

Suddenly, through the silence of the night, he heard the distant tinkle of a mule-bell. It came nearer and nearer. He heard the outpost’s “Halt! Who comes there?” and heard the pleasant-voiced response: “Good evening, friend. God bless you.”

“Ah!” muttered Ludwig, with a scornful smile, “my beautiful bride is sending another supply of dainties. How much she thinks of me!”

The mule-bell came nearer and nearer.

By the light of the watch-fire Vavel could see the familiar red kerchief the farmer’s wife from the manor was wont to wear over her head. The mule came directly toward the watch-fire, and stopped when close to Vavel’s horse. The woman riding the beast slipped quickly to the ground, emptied the provisions from the hampers, then, lifting the object which had been concealed in the bottom of one of them, came around to Vavel’s side, saying:

“It is I. I have come to seek you.”

“Who is it?” he demanded sternly, recognizing the voice; “Katharina or Themire?”

“Katharina—Katharina; it is Katharina,” stammered the trembling woman, looking pleadingly up into his forbidding face.

“And why have you come here?”

“I came to bring you this,” she replied, holding toward him the steel casket.

“Where is Marie?”

“She is safe—with the Marquis d’Avoncourt.”

“What?” exclaimed Vavel, in amazement, flinging his carbine on the ground. “Cambray—d’Avoncourt—here?”

“Yes; he is at the Nameless Castle, and Marie is with him.”

“After all, there is a God in heaven!” with deep-toned thankfulness ejaculated Ludwig. Then he added: “Oh, Katharina, how I have suffered because of—Themire!”

“Themire is dead!” solemnly returned the baroness. “Let us not speak of her. Here, take these treasures into your own keeping; they are no longer safe with me. Open the casket and convince yourself that everything is there.”

“I cannot open it; I have not got the key.”

“Have you lost your ring?”

“No. I have trusted the most notorious thief in the country with it. I have sent him with the ring to Marie. I bade him show it to her, and tell her that she was to follow him wherever he might lead her. Satan Laczi has the ring.”

Katharina covered her eyes with her hand, and stood with drooping head before her lover.

“I have deserved this,” she murmured brokenly.

Vavel passed his hand over his face, and sighed. “It was all a dream! It was madness to expect impossibilities,” he murmured. “I am familiar enough with the stars to have known that there are constellations which never descend to the horizon. The ‘Crown’ is one of them! Of what use are these rags now?” he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, pointing to the casket, which Katharina still held on her arm. “Whom can they serve? They have brought only sorrow to him who has guarded them, and to her to whom they belong. I cannot open the casket; but I need not do that to destroy the contents. Pray throw it into the fire yonder.”

Katharina obeyed without an instant’s hesitation. After a while the metal casket began to glow in the midst of the flames. It became red, then a pale rose-color, while a thin cord of vapor trailed through the keyhole.

“The little garments are burning,” whispered Vavel, “and the documents, and the portraits, and the heap of worthless money. From to-day,” he added, in a louder tone, “I begin to learn what it is to be a poor man.”

“I have already learned what poverty means,” said Katharina. “Look at these clothes! I have no others, and even these are borrowed.”

“I love you in them,” involuntarily exclaimed Vavel, extending his hand toward her.

“What? You offer me your hand? Do you believe that I am Katharina—only Katharina?”

“That I may wholly and entirely believe that you are Katharina, and not Themire, answer one question. A creature who calls himself the Marquis de Fervlans and Leon Barthelmy is lying in ambush somewhere in this neighborhood, waiting for you to settle an old account with him. If you are the same to me that you once were, and if I am the same to you that I was once, tell me where I shall find De Fervlans, for it will be my duty then to settle with him.”

Katharina’s face suddenly blazed with eager excitement. She flung back her head with a proud gesture.

“I will lead you to the place. Together we will seek him!” she cried, with animation in every feature.

“Then give me your hand. You are Katharina—my Katharina!”

He bent toward her, and the two hands met in a close clasp.

Count Fertöszeg ordered the drums to beat a reveille; then he selected from his troop one hundred trusty men, and galloped with them in the direction of Neusiedl Lake. Katharina on her mule, without the tinkling bell, trotted soberly by his side.