Greifenstein

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Produced by Tonya Allen, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

GREIFENSTEIN

BY

F. MARION CRAWFORD

CHAPTER I

Frau von Sigmundskron was not really much past middle age, though the
people in the village generally called her the old baroness. Her hair
was very white and she was thin and pale; her bold features, almost
emaciated, displayed the framework of departed beauty, and if her high
white forehead and waxen face were free from lines and wrinkles, it
must have been because time and grief could find no plastic material
there in which to trace their story. She was a very tall woman, too,
and carried her head erect and high, walking with a firmness and
elasticity of step such as would not have been expected in one whose
outward appearance conveyed so little impression of strength. It is
true that she had never been ill in her life and that her leanness was
due to the most natural of all causes; but these facts were not patent
to the observer, and for reasons which will presently appear she
herself would have been the last to mention them. There was something,
too, in the look of her blue eyes, shaded by long brown lashes which
had retained their colour, that forbade any expression of sympathy. The
least experienced of mankind would have seen at a glance that she was
the proudest of women, and would have guessed that she must be one of
the most reticent. She moved and spoke as though Sigmundskron were
still what it had been in former days, and she had brought up her only
child to be as much like herself, as it was possible that anything so
young and fair could resemble what was already a type of age and
gravity.

Poverty is too insignificant a word to describe the state in which the
mother and daughter lived, and had lived for many years. They had no
means of subsistence whatever beyond the pension accorded to the widow
of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron, 'fallen on the field of honour,' as the
official report had expressed it, in the murderous war with France. He
had been the last of his name and at the time of his death had no
relations living; two years earlier he had married a girl as penniless
and as noble as himself, and had lived to see a daughter born, destined
to inherit his nobility, his penury, and the bare walls of his
ancestral home.

Sigmundskron had been a very grand castle in its day, and the half-
ruined walls of the old stronghold still rose majestically from the
summit of the crag. Indeed the ruin was more apparent than real as yet,
and a few thousands judiciously expended upon the masonry would have
sufficed to restore the buildings to their original completeness. Many
a newly enriched merchant or banker would have paid a handsome price
for the place, though the land was gone and the government owned the
forest up to the very foot of the rock. But the Lady of Sigmundskron
would rather have starved to death in her vaulted chamber than have
taken half the gold in Swabia to sign away her dead husband's home.
Moreover, there was Greif, and Greif was to marry Hilda, after which
all would be well again. Greif, with his money, would build and restore
and furnish the old castle, and bring back the breath of life into the
ancient halls and corridors. But in order that Greif might marry Hilda,
it was necessary that Hilda should grow up beautiful, and to grow up at
all, it was necessary that Hilda should be fed.

It had come to that, to the very question of food, of mere bread to
eat. There was not enough for two, but Hilda must not starve. That was
the secret which no one, not even Hilda herself must ever understand.
During the first years, it had not been so hard to live. There had been
a few poor jewels to sell, a few odds and ends that had brought a
little money. While Hilda was a little child it had been easier, for
she had needed but few clothes and, being little, had needed to eat
less. But at last there had come a day when Frau von Sigmundskron, not
so thin nor so pale as now, had seen a hungry look stealing into the
eyes of the fair-haired girl. It was little enough that they had
between them, but the mother said to herself that she could keep alive
with less. The careful economy which bought nothing not capable of
sustaining life and strength could go no further. There were but so
many pence a day for food, and to expend more to-day was to starve
tomorrow. From that moment Frau von Sigmundskron began to complain of
headache, and especially of loss of appetite. She could not eat, she
said. She did not think there was anything the matter, and she would
doubtless be better in a few days. But the days ran on to weeks, the
weeks to months, and the months to years, and Hilda grew tall and fair,
unconsciously eating her mother's portion of the daily bread. No
hermit ever lived upon so little as sufficed for the baroness; no
perishing, shipwrecked wretch ever measured out so carefully the ounce
of biscuit that must maintain life from day to day; no martyr ever
submitted more patiently and silently to his sufferings. But Hilda
grew, and the years sped on, and Greif would come in time.

Greif, upon whom such great hopes were centred, was a distant cousin as
well as a neighbour. The relationship was on the side of Hilda's
mother, whose grandfather had been a Greifenstein, and who might have
been expected to accept some assistance from her rich connexions,
especially as she was quite willing that her daughter should marry
their only son. But the baroness was a woman whose pride forbade her to
accept under the pressure of necessity what had not been offered freely
in other times. It must be admitted also that the Greifensteins, though
well aware that the Sigmundskrons were extremely poor, were far from
suspecting that they were in need of bread. They knew that the castle
was still the unhampered property of the two ladies, and they supposed
that if things were really in a bad state, the baroness would raise
money upon it. She never alluded to her affairs when she was with her
relations, and excused herself from asking them to stay with her, on
the ground of her poor health. On rare occasions Greifenstein and his
wife drove over to the castle, and were invariably admitted by the same
soberly-dressed, middle-aged woman, who showed them into the same old-
fashioned room, whence, having made their visit, they returned to the
outer gate by the way they had come. That is all they ever saw of
Sigmundskron. Twice in the year, also, Hilda and her mother were
invited to stay a fortnight at Greifenstein, but no one would have
supposed from their behaviour that the luxury of the latter place
surprised them, or seemed in any way preferable to what they enjoyed at
home. Hilda's education had not been neglected. Among her earliest
recollections was her mother's constant injunction never to make
remarks upon what she saw in other houses. The child was not long in
learning what the warning meant, and as she had inherited a plentiful
share of her mother's pride she almost unconsciously imitated her
mother's behaviour. Greif himself was the only person who might have
known something of the true state of the case; but as he had been
accustomed to be in love with his cousin ever since they had been
children he would have feared to hurt her feelings by asking questions.
For Hilda was reticent even with him, not from any shame at the idea of
being thought poor, but because she was too proud to have it thought
that either she or her mother could ever need the help of the
Greifensteins.

Furthermore, if the baroness's reluctance to ask for assistance has not
been sufficiently explained, there is one more consideration which
might alone have sufficed to account for her conduct. Between her and
Greif's mother there existed a great and wholly insurmountable
antipathy. She could not understand how Greifenstein could have married
such a woman. There was a mystery about it which she had never
fathomed. Greifenstein himself was a stern, silent man of military
appearance, a mighty hunter in the depths of the forest, a sort of
grizzled monument of aristocratic strength, tough as leather, courteous
in his manner, with that stiff courtesy that never changes under any
circumstances, rigid in his views, religious, loyal, full of the
prejudices that make the best subjects in a kingdom and the bitterest
opponents of all change.

In appearance and manner Frau von Greifenstein presented the most
complete contrast to her husband. She had been pretty, fair and
sprightly in her youth, she was now a faded blonde, full of strange
affectations and stilted sentiments. Possessing but indifferent taste,
she nevertheless devoted much time to the adornment of her person. She
was small of stature, but delicately made, and if her nervous desire to
please had granted to her outward personality a moment's repose during
the day, she might still have passed muster as a fairly good-looking
woman. Unfortunately she was animated by an unceasing activity in
trivial matters, and was rarely silent. Some women make one think of a
printed page in which there are too many italics, and too many useless
marks of exclamation. At first, their constant cries of admiration and
outbursts of enthusiasm produce a vague sense of uneasiness in the
listener, which soon develops to a feeling of positive distress and
generally ends in a real and deep-rooted dislike. At the beginning one
looks about anxiously for the object which could produce so grotesque a
smile. There is nothing, for the conversation has been as lead, but the
smile does not subside; it only passes through the endless variations
that succeed each other from the inane grin to the affected simper
which is meant to be tender. The whole face moves perpetually, as the
facial muscles of a corpse, excited by an electric current, seem to
parody all the expression of living human sentiment.

But Frau von Greifenstein was not in reality so foolish as might have
been thought. Her silliness was superficial. One part of her life had
been full of strange circumstances, and if the whole truth were told it
would appear that she had known how to extract a large amount of
personal advantage from situations which to many persons would have
seemed hopeless. She and her husband rarely left their castle in the
Black Forest, and it might naturally be supposed that their life there
was exceedingly dull and monotonous. In her own heart Clara von
Greifenstein recognised that her present luxurious retirement was a
paradise compared with the existence she must have led if she had not
known how to help herself at the right moment. During the earlier years
of her marriage, the recollection of her antecedents had been so
painful as to cause her constant anxiety, and at one time she had even
gone so far as to keep a sum of money about her, as though expecting to
make a sudden and unexpected journey. But five and twenty years and
more had passed, without bringing any untoward incident, and she felt
herself very secure in her position. Moreover a son had been born to
her and was growing up to be very like his father. Without Greif there
is no knowing what turn affairs might have taken, for although Clara's
husband maintained towards her the same stiffly considerate behaviour
which had always characterised him in their relations to each other, he
certainly admitted to himself that she was not growing old gracefully;
and it is even possible that, in some remote glen of the forest, his
grave features may have occasionally allowed themselves a look of
sorrowful regret, or even of actual repugnance, when he thought of his
wife's spasmodic smiles and foolish talk. Possibly, too, he may have
sometimes speculated upon her probable condition before she had married
her first husband, for he himself had found her a widow of apparently
little more than five and twenty years of age. But if any suggestion at
all derogatory to Greifenstein had presented itself to his mind, his
pride would assuredly have lost no time in smothering the thought. Was
she not the mother of Greif? And besides, if all were to be told, was
there not an unpleasantly dark spot in his own family, in the shape of
his half-brother, Kuno von Rieseneck? Indeed the existence of Kuno von
Rieseneck, concerning whom Clara knew nothing, was the reason why
Greifenstein had lived for so many years in the country, only
travelling outside of Germany when he travelled at all. He wondered
that his wife, being ignorant of the story, should be willing to share
the solitude of the Black Forest without a murmur, and her submission
in itself suggested that she, too, might have some good cause for
preferring a retired life. But if he had been satisfied with what he
knew of her five and twenty years ago, he was not the man to allow
himself any dissatisfaction now that Clara was the mother of that
stalwart young fellow who was heir to all the Greifenstein property.

In the month of July Greif was to come home from the University, and
immediately afterwards Hilda and her mother were to come over for
their half-yearly visit. The ancient place where this family meeting
was convened was so unlike most castles as to deserve a word of
description.

The Swabian Black Forest is literally black, save when the winter snow
is heavy on the branches of the huge trees and lies in drifts beneath
them, covering the soft carpet of fir needles to the depth of many
feet. The landscape is extremely melancholy and in many parts is
absolutely monotonous. At intervals of several miles the rock juts
suddenly out of the forest, generally at places where the Nagold, more
a torrent than a river, makes a sharp bend. Many of these steep and
stony promontories are crowned by ancient strongholds, chiefly in
ruins, though a very few are still in repair and are inhabited by their
owners. The name of Greifenstein will not be found on any map of the
district, but those who know that wild and unfrequented country will
recognise the spot. The tumbling stream turns upon itself at a sharp
angle, swirling round the base of a precipitous and wedge-like cliff.
So steep are the sides that they who chose the summit for a fortress
saw no need of building any protection, save one gigantic wall which
bestrides the wedge of rock, thus cutting off a triangular platform,
between the massive bulwark and the two precipices that meet at the
apex of the figure. This single fortification is a solid piece of
masonry, enormously thick and of great height; its two extremities
being surmounted by pointed towers, connected by a covered walk along
the top of the wall, which, even at that height, is fully six feet wide
and nearly a hundred in length. This was the rampart behind which the
Greifensteins had dwelt in security through many generations, in the
stormy days of the robber barons. So sure were they of their safety,
that they had built their dwelling-place on the other side of the
bulwark in a manner that offered no suggestion of war or danger. The
house was Gothic in style, full of windows and ornamented with spacious
balconies and much fine stonework. The three-cornered platform was
converted into a flower-garden, surrounded by a parapet. Protected on
the north side by the huge wall, and fully exposed to the southern sun,
the plants throve in an almost artificial spring, and in the summer
jets of water played in the marble basins and cooled the hot,
pine-scented air.

One narrow gate, barely wide enough for two persons to pass abreast,
gave access to this paradise through the grey, window-less mass of
masonry by which it was separated from the melancholy forest without.
One small building only was visible on the side of the woods, scarcely
fifty yards from the gate. This was a small, square, stone tower,
half overgrown with brush and creepers, and evidently abandoned to
decay. It was known in the family and neighbourhood as the 'Hunger-
Thurm,' or Hunger Tower, as having been used as a place for starving
prisoners to death, in the fine old days when the lords of Greifenstein
did as they judged good in their own eyes. Frau von Sigmundskron used
to look curiously at the grey building when she was staying with her
relations. She could have described the sufferings of the poor wretches
who had perished there as well as any one of themselves or better. Not
twenty miles from all the luxury that dwelt behind that lofty bulwark,
she had been starving herself for years in order that her only child
might live. And yet the well-fed woodmen touched their caps and their
rosy wives and daughters curtsied to the 'Lady Baroness' who, as they
told each other, spent her life in the towers of Sigmundskron hoarding
untold wealth which would one day belong to the golden-haired Lady
Hilda. They knew, for the knowledge could not be kept from them and
their kind, how very few were the silver pieces which were ever seen in
the hands of old Berbel, when she came down to the village market to
buy food, and they naturally concluded that the baroness was a miser
even like some of themselves, keeping her store of gold in a broken
teapot somewhere among those turrets in a spot known only to the owls.
It is also possible that Berbel--her name was Barbara--encouraged the
idea, thinking it better that her beloved mistresses should be thought
avaricious than poor. The burgomaster of the hamlet, who had to take
off his coat in order to sign his name when that momentous operation
was unavoidable, but who was supposed to know vastly more than the
schoolmaster, used to talk about certain mines in Silesia, owned by the
Sigmundskrons; and once or twice he went so far as to assure his
hearers that gold and even diamonds were found there in solid blocks as
big as his own Maass-Krug, that portentous jug from which he derived
inspiring thoughts for conversation, or peaceful satisfaction in
solitude, as the case might be. All, however, agreed in predicting that
things would go much better when the young gentleman of Greifenstein
was married to the young lady of Sigmundskron.

On that warm afternoon in July when Greif was expected, his father took
his gun, though there was little to shoot at that season, and sallied
forth on foot along the broad road that led to the distant railway
station. The portly gatekeeper smiled pleasantly as he stood looking
after his master. For many years, whenever the student was to come
home, old Greifenstein had gone down that road, in the same way,
without a word to any one, but having that same twinkle of happy
anticipation in his eyes, which was never seen there at any other time.
Very generally, too, the laden carriage came rumbling up to the gate
with Greif's belongings, and an hour or two passed before father and
son emerged on foot from the first trees of the forest. To-day also,
the master had started betimes and it would be long before he heard the
horses' bells below him in the valley. He walked quickly, as active men
do when they are alone, and there is no one to hinder them, stopping
now and then to see which way a hare sprang, or pausing to listen when
his quick ear caught the distant tread of a buck. He knew that he might
walk for miles without meeting a human being. The road was his, the
land was his, the trees were his. There was no felling to be done in
the neighbourhood, and no one but himself or his men had any right to
be prowling about the woods. In the perfect solitude his features
relaxed a little and their expression changed. The glad anticipation
of the meeting with his son was still in his eyes, but in the rest of
his face there was a weary look which those who knew him best would not
have recognised. He was thinking how different life would seem if Greif
and he were to be the only inhabitants of the old home during the next
dozen years. Then he stiffened his neck suddenly and strode on.

At last the far off tinkling of bells came up to him from the depths of
the forest, with the dull thud of horses' hoofs that echoed among the
trees. He quickened his pace, knowing at how great a distance the
sounds could be heard. Ten minutes elapsed before the carriage came in
sight, and then almost instantly a loud shout rang through the woods,
followed by an answer from old Greifenstein, deeper, but quite as
strong.

'Father!'

'Greif!'

Greif had leaped down from his place and was running up the hill at a
pace that would have tried the horses. In a moment more the two tall
men were in each other's arms, kissing each other on the cheek.

At three and twenty the student looked as much like his father as a
young and fair man can look like an elderly dark one. Their features
were the same, both had the same sinewy firmness of build and the same
eyes; but Greif's close-cut golden hair and delicate moustache gave him
a brilliancy his father had never possessed. He seemed to bring the
light with him into the deep shade of the glen where they met. One
looking at him would have felt instinctively that he was made to wear
the gleaming uniform of a Prussian Lifeguard, rather than the sober
garments of a civilian. As a matter of fact, he was dressed like an
Englishman, and would probably have been taken for one, to his own
intense disgust, in any European crowd.

'And how is the mother?' he asked in a somewhat formal tone, as soon as
the first embrace was over. He had been brought up with dutiful ideas.

'Your mother is exceedingly well,' answered Greifenstein, whose manner
also stiffened perceptibly. There was a moment's pause.

Perhaps it was in the hope of dissipating that awkward feeling which
somehow or other always made itself apparent when the Lady of
Greifenstein was mentioned, that her husband pulled out his case and
offered Greif a cigar.

'I have brought you a pipe,' said the latter, and as the carriage came
up to where they were standing he snatched his bag off the back seat.
'It will make you feel young again,' he laughed, as he took a paper
parcel from the receptacle. 'It is a "Korps" pipe, colours and tassels
and all.'

Greifenstein, one of whose favourite hobbies was the advantage of pipes
in general, was as delighted as a boy with the little gift, and
instantly produced a huge silver tobacco box out of the depths of his
shooting coat, from which he began to fill the china bowl.

'Thank you, my boy,' he said as he drew the air through the unlighted
pipe to assure himself that there was no obstruction.

Then he took out an old-fashioned flint and steel, lighted a bit of
tinder with a practised hand and laid it upon the tobacco. He made a
sign to the coachman, who urged his sturdy Mecklenburg horses up the
hill and was soon out of sight. The two men walked slowly forwards and
smoked in silence for a few minutes.

'When is Hilda coming?' asked Greif at last, when he thought he had
allowed a decent interval to elapse before putting the question which
chiefly interested him.

'She will come to-morrow, with her mother,' replied Greifenstein, not
noticing, or pretending not to notice, the faint blush that rose in his
son's face.

'I suppose we must wait another year,' remarked Greif with a sigh. 'It
seems absurd that at my age I should not have finished my education.'

'You will be glad, when you are married, that you have your military
service behind you.'

'I do not know,' answered the young man absently.

'You do not know!' exclaimed his father in surprise. 'Would you like
to go and live with Hilda in a garrison town while you served your year
as a volunteer?'

'I was not thinking of that. I have thought lately that, after all, I
had better take active service. Would you object?'

Greifenstein was taken by surprise and would possibly have uttered a
loud exclamation if he had not long ago schooled himself to be
incapable of any such breach of gravity. But he did not answer the
question.

'Father,' began Greif again after a pause, 'is it true that you ever
had a brother?'

Greifenstein's tough face turned slowly grey.

'A half-brother,' he answered with an effort. 'My mother married
again.'

Greif glanced sideways at his father and saw that he was oddly affected
by the inquiry. But the young man had his own reasons for wishing to
know the truth.

'Why have you never told me that I had an uncle?' he asked.

'He is no uncle of yours, my boy, nor brother of mine!' answered
Greifenstein bitterly.

'I fought about him the other day. That is all,' said Greif.

'He is not worth fighting for.'

'Then the story is true?'

'What story?' Greifenstein stopped short in his walk and fixed his
sharp eyes on his son's face. 'What story? What do you know?'

'A man told me that your brother had been discharged from the army with
infamy--_infam cassirt_--and condemned to imprisonment, for
betraying some arsenal or armoury into the hands of the rebels in 1848.
I told him--well--that he lied. What else could I say? I had never
heard of the scoundrel.'

'You were quite right,' answered Greifenstein, who was very pale. 'I
never meant that you should know, any more than your mother. That is
the reason why we live in the country all the year. But I thought it
would come--I feared that some one would tell you!'

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