CHAPTER XVIII.
CAPTAIN GUEBHARD.
When Cecil thought of the despatches with which he had been entrusted by Royal hands, of the approved plans of the campaign which Tchernaieff anxiously and eagerly awaited; when he reflected, too, how he, a foreigner, a stranger, a humble and nameless volunteer, had been promoted, decorated, and honoured with high trust; and when he thought of the ready suspicion, jealousy, and mistrust of the Russians and half-oriental Servians of whom he was now the comrade, he groaned in agony of spirit over the helplessness which caused his detention at Palenka, and neither the society, the rare beauty, nor the blandishments, for it was fast amounting to blandishment—of the dazzling Margarita could console or wean him from the path of duty, or drown the sense of peril, perhaps, involved.
All the young men of Belgrade, and all the 'eligibles' of elsewhere, were with the army of Milano as officers or volunteers, all fighting the infidel Turks 'for freedom and Servia;' consequently, save the old pope, Palenka was without male visitors just now; and in the adjacent village, a place with a name not easily pronounced, it was 'noised abroad' that the strange officer who had so suddenly appeared at Palenka had succeeded in winning the heart of the beautiful Margarita, who had been hitherto deemed so unimpressionable by all, and it was thought not to redound much to the credit of the old countess, or to that of the youth of La Belle Serbe, that such a prize should be carried off without a struggle.
'The young Herr Lieutenant is playing with fire here!' said the grey-moustached Theodore to Ottilie, gloomily.
'How so?' responded the girl, gaily; 'is not youth the season for love? and our mistress is beautiful.'
'And manhood is the season for marriage, girl; but he dare not marry her, and she dare not marry him,' he added grimly, twitching his beard; 'and I wish him well away from Palenka!'
'Why?'
'Because he is a fine fellow—every inch a soldier—and I would not see evil come to him.'
'Evil?'
'I said evil, and I know—well, what I know.'
The curiosity of Ottilie was piqued, but Theodore was in no mood to gratify it.
To Margarita, Cecil was a species of interesting enigma. He had some sorrowful past, which he carefully kept from her; she felt that instinctively, and she was never weary of hearing him tell of the places he had been in—India, Scotland, England, and Italy—and smiled sweetly and softly at his descriptions of distant lands, that she had only heard of at school. She knew that he was accomplished, and the superior in education and ideas of any man she had yet met; thus, she admired and evidently liked him very much: but the villagers and the household were adopting conclusions too abruptly.
She had a perfect consciousness of her own beauty—a beauty of that remarkable type and quality which seems to belong to no country, so rare and striking was it—and, to enhance it, she had already decided that a few of her most becoming toilettes might be necessary for her purpose, which was no doubt to attract and dazzle, as she felt that his presence at Palenka would greatly brighten the hours she deemed lost, by a temporary exile from Vienna, in consequence of her brother's presence with the army.
Preoccupied though he was by thoughts of another, and only anxious to take his departure, as he now hoped to do in a day or so, her coquetry became one day very apparent to Cecil, and it amused while it flattered him, as she invited his attendance on her at the piano.
On this day she had arrayed herself for conquest; and whether it was the well-assorted costume she wore and the subtle perfume of some fragrant flowers she held in a white and ungloved hand, or the soft light in her dark and liquid eyes, but Cecil thought certainly that he had never seen her look so piquante, brilliant, and lovely, with a loveliness picturesque and all her own.
She began to run her fingers over the keys, and then suddenly exclaimed, with a little laugh:
'Oh, this will never do!'
'What?' asked Cecil, as he hung over her.
'I have been playing with one glove on—how absurd! Please to help me off with it,' she added coquettishly, holding out her hand to him in a pretty, helpless way.
Such a tiny, lavender-tinted glove she held forth to him to unbutton. Faultlessly it fitted the white dimpled hand, and reached far up the arm, with many little white buttons, the undoing of which was now the task assigned to him; and as he felt in his hand the firm, white, tapered arm, he saw a little mocking smile about her beautiful mouth; and, as their eyes met, something he read in hers made Cecil feel inexpressibly foolish. He must, he thought, say something tender—but why?
He was just undoing the last button, when Theodore came in with a card on a silver salver, announcing 'der Herr Capitan Guebhard;' and the figure of the latter was now seen looming darkly in the doorway, as he took in the whole situation and advanced slowly, with his spurs and sabre clanking.
'Playing with hearts, as usual,' said he, with a laugh that had no sound in it, as he took her hand and bowed curtly to Cecil.
'How dare you say so!' she replied, while a flush crossed her face, and an expression of irritation came into it for a moment.
After a little pause, the visitor said, after she requested him to be seated:
'I have just heard from old Theodore of what had befallen the Herr Lieutenant. I have also heard, but at head-quarters, that he has important despatches from the King to General Tchernaieff. There was a fear that you had lost your way, or fallen into the enemy's hands, and I volunteered to come in search of you.'
'For that I thank you, Captain Guebhard; and as for the despatches——
'You will please to hand them over to me.'
'Pardon me,' said Cecil, and paused, while a dark gleam crossed the eyes of Guebhard.
'How is your arm—well, I suppose?' he asked, with the slightest approach to a sneer.
'If well, I should not be loitering at Palenka.'
'You are nearly able to handle your sword, I presume?' he continued, in a more marked tone, while playing alternately with the tassel of his sabre and his long black moustache.
'Very nearly, Captain Guebhard; but it is not the habit with British officers to bring their swords into a drawing-room among ladies.'
'Very likely; but I am a Servian officer, and I hope you consider yourself one now.'
There was something quietly offensive in the tone and bearing of Guebhard that irritated Cecil. The latter remembered the pieces of music inscribed with the monogram of the captain, and their disappearance too. He also remembered that Margarita had spoken of Guebhard's jealousy—that he was jealous as Jelitza, of the Servian legend and proverb; and Cecil thought there could be no jealousy without some love, or what passed as such.
What were, or had been, the relations between Margarita and Guebhard in past time—and how were they situated now? That he came freely and installed himself as a privileged ami du maison was evident, and as such he was warmly welcomed by the countess. But on what footing—as a friend of the absent count, as the fiancé of Margarita, or as a relation of the family?
So Cecil felt puzzled as well as irritated, and when again asked for his despatches, he plainly and firmly declined to give them up to Guebhard, though a superior officer.
'I fear I have interrupted your performance,' said the latter, abruptly changing the subject; 'does the Herr Lieutenant sing?' he asked of Margarita.
'Yes—with power and skill,' she replied promptly; 'but when you entered I was just about to sing to him.'
'What?'
'"The Wishes."'
Cecil urged her to begin, and placed the music before her, on which she sang both sweetly and effectively the little Servian song so-called, and of which the first verse runs thus, and is peculiar in its idea:
'"Oh that I were a little stream,
That I might flow—my love—to him!
How should I dance with joy when knowing
To whom my sparkling wave was flowing!
Beneath his window would I glide,
And linger there till morning-tide;
When first he rouses him to dress,
In graceful garb, his manliness—
Then should he weak or thirsty be,
Oh, might he stoop to drink of me!
Or baring then his bosom, lave
That bosom in my rippling wave!
Oh, what a bliss if I could bear
The cooling power of quiet there!"'
And as she sang, Guebhard, who doubted whether these six wishes referred to himself, listened and looked on with a visage, the lowering expression of which reminded Cecil of Hew Montgomerie under somewhat similar circumstances.
The captain of Servian Lancers had, as elsewhere stated, a silent manner and an unpleasant expression on his usually pale face, and analysis—not necessarily a very keen one—detected several defects in it. Among these, apart from his cunning black beady eyes, were thin cruel lips, and a general aspect of the face being perpetually a mask. He was not appearing quite to advantage just then, for if his manners were quiet, and generally polished, he had the stealthy gentleness and grace of a cat, and his bearing was suggestive of the adage that 'still waters run deep.'
He was a man of mixed race, and not a pleasant one to have, as Cecil felt him to be, a secret enemy; for he was half Italian and half Bulgarian, with a considerable dash of the Ruski. Cecil could little conceive how far his secret enmity was yet to carry him; but he did not relish being reminded of his duty by Captain Guebhard, and still less to have hints given that he should soon leave Palenka behind him.
To allow the unexpected visitor to approach Margarita, and freely converse with her if he wished to do so, Cecil drew near to the countess and joined her in watching the reapers in a field, but he could not help overhearing, though said sotto voce, something that had reference to himself.
'Playing with hearts again, as I said before?' whispered the captain.
'Don't be absurd!'
'I remember what mademoiselle was at Vienna.'
'Then your memory, like your sex, is—is——'
'What?' asked the captain, softly.
'Treacherous.'
'And so the Herr Lieutenant has been idling here,' said Guebhard, 'while we were enjoying ourselves by the Morava?'
'Enjoying yourselves?' asked Margarita.
'Yes—cutting up the Turkish dogs. Life is too short to let slip any opportunity nowadays.'
'Especially life in Servia—it is full of perils; and so you were solicitous for his safety? How kind!'
'I was solicitous to see you. I heard that he had been seen in the vicinity of Palenka.'
'By whom.'
'Some wood-cutters—so I made the excuse and came here.'
'Thus shunning your duties in the field?'
'Not more than he does.'
'With a disabled arm?'
'For you to nurse,' replied Guebhard, with a smile on his lips and a glitter in his eye, that, had Cecil seen it, might have warned him of mischief to come; and low though they spoke, he heard his despatches referred to more than once: thus he was scarcely surprised when he changed places with Guebhard and rejoined Margarita at the piano, that, under cover of a very brilliant sonata, she questioned him about them.
'Where are those despatches about which Mattei Guebhard seems so anxious?' she asked.
'In my sabretache.'
'And it?'
'Is in my apartment,' he replied, with surprise.
'As you cannot wear it constantly, take them therefrom,' she said, in an emphatic whisper.
'Why?'
'They may be abstracted.'
'By whom?'
'I do not—cannot say by whom,' she replied, with half-averted face.
'Do you suspect?'
'Yes.'
And a crash on the instrument closed a conversation, on which Cecil resolved not to lose a moment in acting, and repairing to his own room, transferred the packet from the sabretache attached to his sword-belt to the breast-pocket of his uniform tunic.
He felt grateful to her for the interest Margarita had thus evinced in him, but he was sorely puzzled to know why Guebhard was so anxious to obtain the documents committed to his care; and he was soon convinced that her suggestion had not come too soon, when about two hours after he discovered the Servian captain in the act of quitting his—Cecil's—apartment.
'You here, Captain Guebhard?' he exclaimed, with surprise and indignation in his tone, all the more so that he read a baffled and confused expression in the face of the other.
'Pardon me,' said he, bowing and passing on, 'but the dressing-bell has rung for dinner—I was in haste, and mistook your apartment for mine.'
It might be so; but Cecil thought it a curious circumstance that his belt and sabretache, which he had left hanging on the wall, were now lying on a sofa, and he smiled as he felt the packet safe in his breast, and resolved to secure his door for that night, the last he meant to spend in Palenka.
Cecil resolved to be in every way on his guard against this man Guebhard, and yet ere the night passed he was very nearly having a quarrel with him—a quarrel which, but for some forbearance on the part of the former, might have ended in a resort to pistols between them, after the ladies had retired and he and the captain were left to their cigars and wine; but the latter preferred raki, and under its influence he lost much of his subtle suavity and oily politeness, and the real Bulgar in his blood came out.
And, sooth to say, Cecil was not sorry when the ladies did retire, for Margarita, either to please and amuse herself, or to tease and anger Guebhard, had addressed the whole, or nearly the whole, of her conversation to him, though it ran chiefly on the progress of the war.
Lying or half-reclining on a divan, with a rummer of raki and water at hand, a cigar between his lips, and his cunning almond-shaped eyes half-closed, though they glittered brightly, Guebhard, after some remarks about Margarita and her singing, to all of which Cecil listened silently, said:
'She is a dazzling girl—don't you think so?'
Cordially, Cecil admitted she was so.
'I wonder blood has not been shed about her long ere this!' he exclaimed, in a curiously suave yet vicious tone.
'Bah!' said Cecil, 'people don't fight duels nowadays.'
'In your cold-blooded country, perhaps,' was the quietly scornful interruption.
'And we shall have daily blood enough spilt in other ways,' continued Cecil, without heeding him.
Guebhard drained his rummer, refilled it, and was not long in thinking of something else offensive to say, and gave each long, black, lanky moustache a vigorous twist, as if he gathered courage from the performance.
'You have not been idle while here, apparently, Herr Lieutenant,' said he, with one of his curious smiles, while carefully selecting a cigar from his case and proffering Cecil one.
'I do not understand you, Captain Guebhard,' replied the latter.
'You will understand this, that I heard your names—yours and Margarita's—bandied about in the common cafane of the next village.'
Cecil coloured with anger, but said quietly: 'We are not accountable for the gossip of the vulgar or the ignorant.'
'It is a pity, however, to compromise a young lady by your attentions, Herr Lieutenant.'
'Who do you mean?' asked Cecil, angrily.
'Who but Margarita Palenka?' replied Guebhard, suavely, but decidedly, emitting great circles of smoke from his lips.
'Compromise her?'
'I have said so, Herr.'
'With whom?' asked Cecil, endeavouring to suppress his annoyance; 'her mother or—you? I am here, like yourself, as a guest, and I do not recognise your right, Captain Guebhard, either to advise me, or suggest to me any line of conduct.'
'If I attempted to do so, it would be as your friend, and still more as the friend of Count Palenka's sister.'
Guebhard's voice was becoming thick under the influence of the fiery raki, and he sat for half-a-minute glaring at Cecil in a curious half-defiant and half-stolid manner, especially when the latter was not looking at him.
'At all events,' he said bluntly, 'General Tchernaieff expects you to report yourself in due course at Alexinatz.'
'Did he send you to me with this message?'
'No.'
'Then I require no advice from you, sir, as to any course I may choose to adopt.'
Guebhard's eyes glittered like those of a rattlesnake beneath their half-closed lids, and Cecil began to eye him back steadily and sternly.
'Captain Guebhard,' said he, 'to recur to the first matter in hand, the rumours at the cafane, what is your peculiar interest in the matter?'
'What matter?' stammered Guebhard.
'My intimacy—friendship—what you will, with the sister of Count Palenka?'
'Simply that I love her!' exclaimed Guebhard abruptly, with all the impulse of his really passionate nature; 'that I love her, and will brook no rival!'
'Then you need not fear me as one,' said Cecil, laughing aloud; 'and if it will ease your mind, be assured that I had already arranged to leave this place to-morrow; my arm is so nearly well now, that I shall be able to reach my saddle with ease. And to end this rather absurd conversation,' he added, as he rose to retire for the night, 'be assured, I repeat, that on my honour you need fear no rival in me!'
'He lies, in his heart—the English dog!' thought Guebhard, as he silently gave Cecil his hand; 'and there are no lunatics like women, when an interesting foreigner comes their way. But I'll mar his wooing, between this and headquarters—by all the devils I will!'
'And you leave this to-morrow for the front?' said he.
'To-morrow, by noon, at latest; and you, Herr Captain?'
'I—I go on to Belgrade; but you ride by Resna?'
'Yes.'
The captain, whose voice and steps were alike unsteady, withdrew, and Cecil was not ill-pleased that they had parted without the quarrel which the other seemed anxious to provoke.
Next morning he found that the captain had quitted Palenka at an early hour, and soon after he was further to learn that Guebhard had not taken the road to Belgrade.
Ere noon next day, old Theodore was leading Cecil's horse, accoutred, to and fro before the door.
'We are so sorry that Palenka is about to lose you,' said Margarita, in her softest tone to Cecil, who had been saying some well-bred things, but in the genuine fulness of his heart, for the hospitality he had received.
'It is most kind of you to say so,' he replied, doubtful of how she might lead him on, for her eyes and manner were full of coquetry at the time.
'Don't you regret it?' she asked, with a would-be shy, upward glance.
'After all your kindness to me, a stranger, I should be most ungrateful not to do so!'
'But we may meet again,' said the countess, joining in the conversation.
'Perhaps,' said Cecil, with one of his sad smiles; 'but considering the chances of war, of life and events here, too probably never.'
Margarita stood by fanning herself, as she usually did. She knew that a fan suited well the style of her beauty, and she seldom neglected to display her skill in the use of one, and she had fans of all colours to suit her dresses.
So his sojourn at Palenka was ended now.
Intelligent and well read, Cecil was also master of that kind of small talk which marks a man of the world; and he had pleasantly wiled away many an hour with Margarita, the memory of which would haunt her in the time to come. It was a companionship, brief but pleasant, which she would be sure to miss, and to recall with genuine regret.
'She has been trying to lure me into a flirtation pour passer le temps,' thought Cecil, as he rode down the slope on the summit of which Palenka stood; 'and I am well rid—well clear of her alluring meshes.'
At a turn of the path he waved his cap in farewell, as he knew that her soft bright eyes were watching him from a window; but he knew not that from another point eyes were watching his departure in which a less pleasant expression might have been read.