Barbara Blomberg, Volume 9.

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BARBARA BLOMBERG

By Georg Ebers

Volume 9.

CHAPTER X.

Three years passed.

Barbara occupied with her husband and the two sons she had given him a
pretty little house in the modest quarter of Saint-Gery in Brussels.

Here the capital of wealthy, flourishing Brabant certainly looked very
unlike what she had expected from Gombert's stories; and how little share
she had had hitherto in the splendour which on the drive to Landshut she
had expected to find in Brussels!

Since the musician had described the city, she had seen it distinctly
before her in her vivid imagination. The lower portion, intersected by
the river Senne and numerous canals, belonged to the rich, industrious
citizens, the skilful artisans, and the common people; the upper, which
occupied a hill, contained the great Brabant palace, the residence of the
Emperor Charles. This edifice, which, though its exterior was almost
wholly devoid of ornament, nevertheless presented a majestic aspect on
account of its vast size, adjoined a splendid park, whose leafy groups of
ancient trees merged into the forest of Soignies. Here also stood the
palaces of the great nobles and, on the side of the hill which sloped to
the lower city, the Cathedral of St. Gudule towered proudly aloft.

Much as Barbara had heard in praise of the magnificent market-place in
the lower city, with its marvellous Town Hall, it was always the upper
portion of Brussels she beheld when she thought of the capital. She had
felt that she belonged to this quarter, where all who had any claim to
aristocracy lived; here, near the palace and the beautiful leafy trees,
her future home had been in her imagination.

The result was different, and now the longing for the brilliant Brussels
on the hill was doubly strong. True, there dwelt also those who had the
greatest power of attraction for her.

She was just returning home from the palace park, where stood a pleasant
summer house in which Adrian Dubois lived with his wife and one child.
It was this child especially that drew Barbara to the upper city as often
as possible, and constantly forced her thoughts to linger there and still
to follow the "higher" of the imperial motto, which everywhere else she
was compelled to renounce.

True, a limit was fixed to these visits to the Dubois couple. For one
whole year Frau Traut had successfully concealed the child from the
mother; then Barbara had once met the boy outside the house, and the way
in which he was hurried out of her sight led to the conviction that this
was her child, and Frau Dubois had imprudently betrayed the secret.

From this time Barbara knew that her John had been confided to the care
of the valet and his wife. At last Frau Traut had been unable to resist
her entreaties, and allowed her to see her son and hold him a short time
in her arms.

He was a strong, splendid child, with his mother's thick, curling locks
and large blue eyes. Barbara thought that she had never seen a handsomer
boy; and not only the Dubois, who had yielded their whole hearts to their
nursling, but strangers also admired the magnificent development of this
rare child. The young mother saw in him something grander, more perfect
than the children of other human beings, even than the two boys whom she
had given her husband, although little John usually repulsed her
caresses.

In granting Barbara permission to see her child often, Frau Traut
transgressed an explicit command of the Emperor and, to prevent the evil
consequences which her sympathy might entail, she allowed the mother to
rejoice in the sight of her little son only once a month, and then always
for a short time.

During these interviews she was strictly forbidden to bestow even the
smallest gift upon the boy.

To-day John had voluntarily approached the stranger to whom he owed his
life, but whose passionate caresses at their first meeting had frightened
him, to show her the little wooden horse that Adrian had just given him.
This had made her happy, and on the way home the memory of her hidden
treasure more than once brought a joyous smile to her lips.

At home she first sought her children. Her husband, who had now been
appointed mustering officer, was on one of the journeys required by the
service, which rarely permitted him to remain long in his own house.

Barbara did not miss him; nay, she was happiest during his absence.

After glancing into the nursery, she retired to her quiet chamber, where
her harp stood and the lutes hung which often for hours supplied the
place of her lost voice, and sat down at her spinning wheel.

She turned it thoughtfully, but the thread broke, and her hands fell into
her lap. Her mind had again found the way to the house in the park and
to her John, her own, wonderful, imperial child, and lingered there until
from the next room the cry of an infant was heard and a woman's voice
singing it to sleep. Frau Lamperi, who had made herself a part of the
little household, and beheld in its master the incarnation of every manly
virtue, was lulling the baby to rest. Beside it slept another child, a
boy two years old. Both were hers, yet, though the infant raised its
voice still louder, she remained at the spinning wheel, dreaming on.

In this way, and while playing on the harp and the lutes, her solitude
was best endured. Her husband's journeys often led him through the whole
Netherlands and the valley of the Rhine as far as Strasbourg and Basle,
and her father had returned to Ratisbon.

She had found no new friends in Brussels, and had not endeavoured to gain
any.

Loneliness, which she had dreaded in the heyday of her early youth, no
longer alarmed her, for quiet reveries and dreams led her back to the
time when life had been beautiful, when she had enjoyed the love of the
greatest of mortals, and art had given her existence an exquisite
consecration.

With the loss of her voice--she was now aware of it--many of the best
things in her life had also ceased to exist. Her singing might perhaps
have lured back her inconstant lover, and had she come to Brussels
possessing the mastery of her voice which was hers during that happy time
in May, her life would have assumed a totally different form.

Gombert, who had induced her to move hither, had urged her with the best
intentions during their drive to Landshut to change her residence. When
he did so, however, Barbara was still connected with the Emperor, and he
was animated by the hope that the trouble in her throat would be
temporary.

It would have been easy to throw wide to a singer of her ability the
doors of the aristocratic houses which were open to him; for, except his
professional comrades, he associated only with the wealthy nobles in the
upper part of the city, who needed him for the brilliant entertainments
which they understood how to arrange so superbly. The Oranges, Egmont,
Aremberg, Brederode, Aerschot, and other heads of the highest nobility in
Brabant would have vied with one another to present her to their guests,
receive her at their country seats, and invite her to join their riding
parties. Where, on the contrary, could he expect to find a friendly
reception for the wife of a poor officer belonging to the lower nobility,
who was said to have forfeited the Emperor's favour, who could offer
nothing to the ear, and to the eye only a peculiar style of beauty, which
she could enhance neither by magnificent attire nor by any other arts?

Had she been still the Emperor Charles's favourite, or had he bestowed
titles and wealth upon her, more might have been done for her; but as it
was, nothing was left of the favour bestowed by the monarch save the
stain upon her fair name. Deeply as Gombert regretted it, he could
therefore do nothing to make her residence in Brussels more agreeable.
He was not even permitted to open his own house to her, since his wife,
who was neither more jealous nor more scrupulous than most other wives
of artists, positively refused to receive the voiceless singer with the
tarnished reputation.

Worthy Appenzelder associated exclusively with men, and thus of her
Ratisbon friends not one remained except Massi, the violinist, and the
Maltese choir boy, Hannibal Melas.

The little fellow had lost his voice, but had remained in Brussels and,
in fact, through Barbara's intercession; for she had ventured to
recommend the clever, industrious lad to the Bishop of Arras in a letter
which reminded him of his kindness in former days, and the latter had
been gracious, and in a cordial reply thanked her for her friendly
remembrance. Hannibal had remained in the minister's service and,
as he understood several languages and proved trustworthy, was received
among his private secretaries.

The violinist Massi remained faithful and, as he became her husband's
friend also, he was always a welcome guest in her house.

Her father had returned to Ratisbon. After he had acted as godfather to
the oldest boy, Conrad, he could be detained no longer. Homesickness had
obtained too powerful a hold upon him.

True, Barbara and her husband did everything in their power to make life
in their home pleasant; but he needed the tavern, and there either the
carousing was so noisy that it became too much for him, or people often
had very violent political discussions about liberty and faith, which he
only half understood, though they used the Flemish tongue. And the
Danube, the native air, the familiar faces! In short, he could not stay
with his children, though he dearly loved his little godson Conrad; and
it pleased him to see his daughter more yielding and ready to render
service than ever before, and to watch her husband, who, as the saying
went at home, "was ready to let her walk over him."

The husband's intention of making the unbending iron pliant was wholly
changed; the recruiting officer whom his companions and subordinates knew
and feared as one of the sternest of their number, showed himself to
Barbara the most yielding of men. The passionate tenderness with which
he loved her had only increased with time, and the stern soldier's
subjection to her will went so far that, even when he would gladly have
expressed disapproval, he usually omitted to do so, because he dreaded
to lessen the favour which she showed him in place of genuine love,
and which he needed. Besides, she gave him little cause for displeasure;
she did her duty, and strove to render his outward life a pleasant one.

Even after her father had left her she remained a wife who satisfied his
heart. He had learned the coolness of her nature in his first attempts
to woo her in Ratisbon and, as at that time, he whom the service
frequently detained from her for long periods regarded it as a merit.

So he wrote her father letters expressing his gratification, and the
replies which the captain sent to Brussels were in a similar tone.

Barbara had obtained for him his own house, for which he had longed. He
felt comfortable there, and what he lacked in his home he found at the
Red Cock or the Black Bear. An elderly Landshut widow, a relative, acted
as his housekeeper and provided in the best possible manner for his
comfort.

Whoever met the stately mustering officer alone or arm in arm with his
beautiful young wife, whose golden hair had grown out again, must have
believed him a happy man; and so he would have been had not some singular
habits which Barbara possessed made him uneasy. At first the reveries
into which she often sank, and which were so unlike her former self, had
been still worse. He did not know that the improvement had taken place
since she had discovered her John's abode and been permitted sometimes to
see him. Barbara's husband and father supposed that the child which she
had given to the Emperor was dead; both had placed this interpretation
upon her brief statement that it had been taken from her, and afterward
delicacy of feeling prevented any other allusion to this painful subject.

Besides this proneness to reverie, Barbara's husband was sometimes
disturbed by the carelessness with which she neglected the most important
domestic matters if there was an entertainment or exhibition which the
Emperor Charles attended; and, finally, there was something in her manner
to the children, whom Pyramus loved above all things, which disturbed,
incensed, and wounded him, yet which he felt that neither threats nor
stern interposition could change.

He possessed no defence against the reveries except a warning or a
jesting word. Delight in brilliant spectacles was doubtless natural to
her disposition, and as Pyramus not only loved but esteemed her, it was
repugnant to his feelings to watch her. Yet when, nevertheless, he once
followed her steps, he had found her, according to her expressed
intention, among other women in St. Gudule's Cathedral. Her eyes, which
he watched intently, were constantly turned toward the great personages
whose presence adorned the festival--the Emperor and Queen Mary of
Hungary.

These expeditions were evidently not to meet a lover, yet from that hour
he cherished a conviction, mingled with a bitter sense of resentment,
that she went to the festivals which his Majesty attended in order to see
the man whom she had once loved, and whose image even now she could not
wholly efface from her imagination, perhaps also from her heart.

For her manner to the children, on the contrary, he could find no
plausible explanation. Her love for them was unmistakable. Yet what was
the meaning of the compassionate manner with which she treated them,
talked to them, spoke of them, until it nearly drove him frantic? She
often treated the healthy, merry older boy as if he was ill and needed
comfort, and the pretty infant in the cradle was addressed in the same
way.

If he summoned up his courage and openly reproved her, she always
answered in general terms, such as: "What do you mean? Are we not all
born to suffer?" or, "Shall we envy them because they have entered life
to endure pain and to die?"

Not until Pyramus, with sorrowful emotion, entreated her not to speak of
the children as if they had been given to them for a punishment and not
for a joy, she imposed a certain degree of constraint upon herself and
changed her manner of speech; yet the expression of her eyes revealed
that she felt no really glad, unconstrained joy in her sons.

Though she denied it, she knew how to explain this manner to herself;
for, after her attention had been directed to it, she secretly admitted
that the sight of the two dear children who were wholly hers always
reminded her of the third who had been taken from her, whom she was
permitted to see very rarely, and only in secret, yet who, beside the
others, seemed like a young lion beside modest lambs.

She cherished no desire for a new love, though the lukewarm blending of
gratitude and good will which she bestowed upon her husband did not even
remotely deserve this lofty name.

There was no lack of gallants in Brussels who noticed and were
attracted by her, but whoever knew or had heard of Pyramus Kogel avoided
interfering with his rights; for he was numbered among the best swordsmen
in Brussels, and the air with which the tender-hearted husband wore his
long rapier was decidedly threatening.

Besides, Barbara herself also knew how to protect herself against any
intrusiveness with haughty sharpness.

To-day she was especially glad that Pyramus was absent on an inspecting
tour. She had gratefully enjoyed the meeting with her John. Never had
the light of his blue eyes seemed so sunny, his head with its fair curls
so angelic in its beauty. His voice, too, had enraptured her by its
really bewitching melody. The maternal gift of song would certainly
descend to him, and perhaps it was allotted to the Emperor's son to amaze
his generation by the presence of hero and singer in one person, like a
second King David.

Twilight had already shadowed the paths when she left the Dubois house,
and on her way home she saw the Emperor approaching. She had slipped
behind a statue as quickly as possible, and he could scarcely have
recognised her, for the gloaming had already merged into partial
darkness; but the mere thought of having been so near him quickened the
pulsation of her heart.

The little gentleman at his side with the stiffly erect bearing and
pompous walk was his son Philip, who was now visiting his father in
Brussels, and expected to leave in a few days. How insignificant was the
figure of the heir of so many crowns! How the brother whom she had given
to his imperial father would some day tower above him!

She again imagined all these things in the quiet of her room. The
thought of this child cheered her heart, but it contracted again as she
remembered the series of bitter humiliations which she had experienced in
Brussels. Among the courtiers whom she had known so well in Ratisbon not
one vouchsafed her anything more than a passing greeting; and the Queen
of Hungary, to whom she would gladly have poured out her heart, had
refused her repeated entreaties for an audience.

CHAPTER XI.

After the short walk in the park of his palace, during which Barbara had
met him in the dusk, the Emperor Charles had dined with his son Philip
and the Queen of Hungary. Now he entered his spacious study.

His feet were refusing their support more and more, and the fingers of
his right hand, which the gout was now crippling, found it hard to grasp
his cane.

He sank back in his arm-chair exhausted, closed his eyes, and laid his
hand upon the clever pointed head of the greyhound which lay at his feet.

The short walk and the fiery wine which he had again enjoyed in abundance
at dinner had increased the pain from which he was now never free, day or
night, and it was some time ere Adrian could succeed in propping his
infirm body comfortably.

At last Charles passed his handkerchief across his perspiring brow, and
called to the majordomo.

Quijada eagerly approached, and the valet was respectfully leaving the
room, but the Emperor's summons stopped him.

"I have something," Charles began, no longer able to maintain complete
control over his voice, which was sometimes interrupted by the shortness
of breath that had recently attacked him, "to say to you also--"

Here he hesitated, pointed to the window which overlooked the park, then,
with a keen glance at the valet's face, continued:

"A ghost wanders about there. I have already seen it several times under
the trees. True, it avoided approaching me. What still remains useful
in this miserable body! But my eyes are sharp yet, and I recognised the
spectre--it is the Ratisbon singer."

"Your Majesty knows," replied Quijada, "what befell her after the birth
of the child, and that she is now living here in Brussels; but I was
strictly forbidden to mention her name in your Majesty's presence."

"That command closed my lips also," said the valet.

"But what the hearing rejected forced itself upon the sight," remarked
Charles, gazing fixedly into vacancy. "Wherever I appear m public I see
this woman, always this woman! It is not only the basilisk's eye that
has constraining power. I can not help perceiving her, yet I have as
little desire to meet her gaze as to encounter vanity, worldly pleasure,
folly, sin."

"Then," cried Quijada angrily, "it will be advisable to transfer her
husband, who is in your Majesty's service, from here to Andalusia or to
the New World."

"As if she would accompany him!" exclaimed the monarch with a scornful
laugh. "No, my friend. This woman did not marry for her own pleasure,
but to cause me sorrow or indignation. She succeeded, too, to a certain
extent; but I do not war with women, least of all with one who is so
unhappy. If we send her husband--who, moreover, is a useful fellow--
across the ocean, she will stay here in Brussels, and we shall fare like
the maid-servants who killed the cocks, and were then waked by the
mistress of the house still earlier than before. Besides, one who
earnestly seeks his true salvation will not remove from his path such a
living memento, such a walking monitor of past sins and follies; and,
finally, this woman is not wholly wrong in deeming herself an unusual
person, cruelly as Heaven has destroyed her best gift. On no account--
you hear me--shall she be wounded or injured for my sake so long as she
reminds me only by her eyes that in happier days we were closely
connected. But to-day the ghost ventured to draw nearer to me than is
seemly, and I recognise the object. It entered the park, not on my
account, but the boy's--and, Adrian, from your house. I demand the whole
truth! Did she find the way to the boy, and was your wife, who is
usually a prudent woman, unwise enough to allow her to feast her eyes
upon him?"

"She is the child's mother," the valet answered gently, "and your Majesty
knows--"

"I know," Charles interrupted the faithful attendant in a sterner tone
than he commonly used to him, "that you were most positively forbidden to
permit any one to approach the boy, least of all the person who gazes at
him with greedy eyes, and from whom might proceed measureless perils.
Your wife, Adrian, who is tenderly attached to the child, will now suffer
the most painfully for the disobedience. It must go away from here, go
at once, and to a distant country--to Spain. If politics and Heaven
permit, I shall soon follow.--You, Luis, will now arrange with Adrian the
best plan for the removal. The work must be accomplished in the utmost
secrecy. The boy shall grow up in the wholesome air of the country. No
one who surrounds him must be permitted even to suspect to whom he owes
his life. This child shall be simple in his habits, devout, and modest,
far from flattery and spoiling, among other lads of plain families, who
know nothing of heresy and court follies. This innocent child's soul,
at least, shall not be corrupted at its root. I consecrated him to the
Saviour, and as a pure sacrifice he must receive him from his father's
hand. I have given him a beautiful charge. In the monastery his prayers
will remove the guilt of him who gave him life. The pardon for which the
mother refused to strive, the son, consecrated to Jesus Christ our Lord,
will struggle to obtain."

With uplifted gaze he interrupted himself. His eyes flashed with a fiery
light, and his voice gained an imperious tone, which showed no trace of
the asthmatic trouble that had just affected it as he added: "But the
secret which even the reckless mother has hitherto known how to guard
must be kept. Not even your wife, Luis, not even our sister, Queen Mary,
must learn what is being accomplished."

Then he added more quietly: "The opportunity to take the boy to Spain
is favourable. Our son, Don Philip, will return in three weeks to
Valladolid. The child can be carried in his train. It will disappear
among the throng, for an actual army forms the tail of the comet. I will
hear your proposal to-morrow. Who is to take charge of him on the way?
Where can a suitable shelter for the boy be found in Spain?"

This announcement fell upon the valet like a thunderbolt, for little
John, who regarded him and his wife as his parents, had become as dear to
the childless couple as if he was their own. To part from the beautiful,
frank, merry boy would darken Frau Traut's whole life. He, Adrian, had
warned her, but she had been unable to resist the entreaties of the
sorely punished mother. Cautiously as Barbara's visits had been managed,
the infirm monarch's eye had maintained its keenness of vision here also.

Now his wife must pay dearly for her weakness and disobedience. Frau
Traut was threatened, too, with another loss. Massi, the most intimate
friend of their house, also expected to return to Spain in the Infant
Philip's train, to spend the remainder of his days there in peace.
Permission to depart had been granted to him a few hours before.

Little John was fond of this frequent visitor of his foster-parents, who
could whistle so beautifully and knew how to play for him upon a blade of
grass or a comb; but this was not the only reason which made Adrian think
of giving the Emperor's son to the musician's care for the journey to
Spain, where Massi's wife and daughter were awaiting his return at
Leganes, near Madrid. In this healthfully located village lived a pastor
and a sacristan of whom the musician had spoken, and who perhaps later
might take charge of the child's education.

Adrian informed Don Luis and then the monarch of all this, and as Quijada
knew Massi to be a trustworthy man, and described him to his royal
master, Charles entered into negotiations with him.

The result was that a formal compact was concluded between Dubois and the
musician, which granted the violinist considerable emoluments, but bound
him and his family by oath to maintain the most absolute secrecy
concerning the child's origin. Moreover, Massi himself knew nothing
about the boy's parents except that they belonged to the most
aristocratic circles, and he was inclined to believe little John to be
Quijada's son.

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