CHAPTER XVII

CAUGHT OUT

That avowal of Linnet’s that she didn’t want Andreas Hausberger to know

of Will’s presence in the town put Will’s relations towards her during

the next few weeks on a different, and to some extent compromising,

footing. It introduced into their meetings a certain shadowy element of

clandestine love-making which was in many ways distasteful to Will’s

frank and manly nature, though it was at the same time, as Florian felt,

a hundred times more “dangerous” for him than any open acquaintance. For

Andreas, after all, was Linnet’s ostensible guardian and nearest male

protector. To meet Linnet on the hills, without his knowledge or

consent, was to place oneself in the position of an unrecognised lover.

Will knew it was a mistake. And yet—he did it. We, who have made no

mistakes of any sort in all our lives, but have steadily followed the

beaten track all through, with sheep-like persistence, can afford to

disapprove of him.

So, day after day, during the next few weeks, Will went up on the hills

to walk and talk with Linnet. Rue Palmer was delighted. She thought,

poor soul, her scheme was succeeding admirably. Will was out every

morning on the mountains alone, working hard at his _magnum opus_, which

was to astonish the world, and with which _she_ had inspired him. It was

glorious, glorious! And, indeed, in spite of the time wasted in talking

with Linnet, though the best spent time, as everybody knows, is the time

we waste, Will did really succeed in writing and composing at odd

moments and in the night watches no small part of his graceful and

beautiful little operetta, “The Chamois Hunter’s Daughter.” But alas for

poor Rue, it was not _she_ who inspired it.

On these morning expeditions up the surrounding hills to some appointed

trysting-place, Florian sometimes accompanied him, and sometimes not.

But, in any case, he abstained from mentioning their object to Rue; as

he put it himself, never should it be said that Florian Wood could split

upon two ill-advised but confiding young people. It suited Florian’s

book now, indeed, that Will’s attention should be distracted from Rue to

Linnet. He wanted to make the running for himself with the American

heiress, and he was by no means sorry that so dangerous and important a

rival as the author of “Voices from the Hills” should be otherwise

occupied. So he kept his own counsel about Will and Linnet; he had

abdicated by this time his self-appointed function of moral censor; and

seeing they would go to the devil in any case, he was inclined to let

them go their own headlong way, into the jaws of matrimony, without

preliminary haggling. He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar. Deverill

would marry his cow-girl in the end—of that Florian felt certain; and

when a man’s quite determined to make a fool of himself, you know, why,

you only earn his dislike, instead of his esteem, by endeavouring to win

him back again to the ways of wisdom.

And Will? Well, Will himself had as yet no very fixed ideas of his own

as to whither he was tending. Being only a poet, he was content to drift

with the wind and tide, and watch on what shoals or shores they might

finally cast him. Most probably, if things had been allowed to go their

own way, he would sooner or later have justified Florian’s pessimistic

prophecies by marrying Linnet. He would have gone on and on, falling

more and more deeply in love with the pretty peasant every day, and

letting her fall every day more and more deeply in love with him, till

at last conventional differences sank to nothing in his eyes, and he

remembered only that heart answereth to heart, be it poet’s or

alp-girl’s. At present, however, he troubled himself little with any of

these things. He was satisfied for the moment, Florian said, to bask in

the sunshine of that basilisk’s smile, without care for the morrow.

Sooner or later, he felt sure, in so small a town, either Florian or he

must run up unawares against Andreas Hausberger. Whenever that happened,

no doubt, there must be some sort of change or new departure. Meanwhile,

he religiously avoided the Promenade, where he was likeliest to come

suddenly on the wise impresario. So he stuck to the hills, with or

without Linnet.

The very next morning, indeed, after this their chance meeting, he went

up the Küchelberg once more, impressed with an ardent desire to aid and

abet Linnet’s laudable wish for self-education. He brought a book up

with him to read to the two girls under the bright blue sky, as they sat

on the hillside. He chose a pleasant spot, in the full eye of the autumn

sun, on a rounded boss of rock, whose crumbling clefts were still

starred with wild pinks and rich yellow tormentils. Florian had

contributed to the feast of reason and the flow of soul a kilogram of

grapes—they cost but threepence-halfpenny a pound in the vintage

season—unknown luxuries till then to Philippina and Linnet. Philippina

found the grapes delicious, but the book rather dry; its style was

stilted, and it appeared to narrate the story of a certain Doctor Faust,

his transactions with a gentleman of most doubtful shape (who caused

Philippina to look round in some fear), and his wicked designs against

the moral happiness of a young girl called Gretchen. Philippina yawned;

it was a tedious performance. Florian, having reduced his share of the

grapes to their skins alone, yawned in concert with the lady, and began

to play with his eyeglass. As his German didn’t suffice to understand

the lines, even when aided by Will’s dramatic delivery and clear

enunciation, he found the play slow, and the reader a nuisance. So he

was very well pleased when Philippina suggested, at a break in the first

act, they should go off for a walk by themselves alone, and continue

their course of oral instruction in the German language. Florian liked

Philippina; there was no silly nonsense about her. After all, in a

woman, if all you want is a walk on the Küchelberg, the total absence of

silly nonsense, you must at once admit, is a great recommendation.

But Linnet sat on. She sat on, and listened. She drank it in, open-eyed,

and with parted lips—every line and every word of it. Dear Herr Will

read so well, and made her feel and understand every point so

dramatically; and the book—the book itself was so profoundly

interesting. Never in her life before had Linnet heard anything the

least bit like it. It was grand, it was beautiful! She didn’t know till

then the world contained such books; her reading had been confined to

her alphabet and grammar at the parish folk-school, supplemented by the

good little tracts on purgatory and the holy saints, distributed by the

Herr Vicar and the sisters at the nunnery. Theological literature was

the sole form yet known to her. This weird tale about Gretchen and the

transformed philosopher opened out to her new vistas of a world of

possibilities. Long after, when she sang in great opera-houses, as

Marguerite in Gounod’s “Faust,” she remembered with a thrill how she had

first heard that tale, in Goethe’s deathless words, from Will Deverill’s

lips, on the green slopes of the Küchelberg.

She sat there for an hour or two, never heeding the time, but listening,

all entranced, to that beautiful story. Now and again Will broke off,

and held her hand for a moment, and gazed deep into her eyes, and said

some sweet words of his own to her. He was a poet, Herr Will, in his own

tongue and land; she knew now what that meant—he could make up such

lovely things as he read from the book to her. “Tell me some of your

own, Herr Will. Tell me some of your own verses,” she said, sighing, at

last. “I should love to hear them.”

But Will shook his head. “The English is too hard. You wouldn’t

understand them, Linnet,” he answered.

“Let me try,” Linnet pleaded, with such a winning look that Will

couldn’t resist her. And to humour her whim, he repeated the simplest of

the laughing little love-songs from his book of “Voices.”

The ring of it was pretty—very sweet and musical. Linnet half

understood—no more; for the words were too hard for her. But it spurred

her on to further effort. “You must lend me some books like that in

English,” she said, simply. “I want to be wise, like you and Herr

Florian.”

So Will brought her next day from the book-shop in the town the dainty

little “Poetry Book of Modern Poets,” in the Tauchnitz edition. He wrote

her name in it too; and Linnet took it home, and hid it deep in her box

in a white silk handkerchief, and read bits of it by night, very

stealthily in her own room, spelling out what it meant with Andreas

Hausberger’s dictionary. Long after, she had that precious volume bound

in white Florentine vellum, with a crimson _fleur-de-lys_ on the cover,

at a house just opposite the Duomo at Florence. But at present she read

it in its paper covers. She read other books, too—German books which

Will chose for her; not instructive books which were over her head, but

poetry and romance and imaginative literature, such as her ardent

Tyrolese nature could easily assimilate. Day after day, Will read her

aloud something fresh—Undine, the Maid of Orleans, Uhland’s Ballads,

Paul Heyse’s short stories—but of all the things he read to her, the

one she liked best was a German translation of an English play—a

beautiful play by another English poet, whose name was also Will, but

who died long ago—a play about two luckless and devoted lovers, called

Romeo and Juliet. Linnet cried over that sad story, and Will kissed her

tears away; and a little later, when Andreas Hausberger took her to

Verona on their way south to Milan, Linnet went of her own accord to see

Juliet’s tomb in a courtyard in the town, and wasted much excellent

sympathy and sentiment over the shameless imposture of that bare Roman

sarcophagus. But she meant very well; and she believed in Juliet even

more firmly than she believed in Siegfried and Chriemhild and all the

other fine folks to whom Will introduced her.

So three weeks passed away, three glorious golden weeks, and day after

day, on those lovely hillsides, Linnet saw her lover. At the end of a

fortnight, Rue heard, from various friends at other hotels, of a

wonderful singer in a Tyrolese troupe, then performing nightly in the

various _salons_. “Why, that must surely be Linnet!” she said before

Will, to the first friend who mentioned it.

“Yes; Linnet—that’s her name,” Rue’s friend assented.

“I knew she was in the town,” Will admitted somewhat sheepishly; for he

felt as if he were somehow deceiving Rue, though it never would have

entered his good, modest head to suppose she herself could care anything

about him, except as a poet in whose work she was kind enough to take a

friendly interest.

“Ah, I should love to hear her again!” Rue cried, enthusiastically. “She

sings like a nightingale—such a splendid soprano! Let’s find out where

she’ll be to-night, and go round in a body to the hotel to hear her!”

But Will demurred strongly. He’d rather not go, he said; he’d stop at

home by himself and get on with his operetta. At that, Rue was secretly

pleased in her own heart; she felt it throb sensibly. After all, then,

her poet didn’t really and truly care for the pretty alp-girl. He knew

she was in the town—and, in spite of that knowledge, had spent every

evening all the time with herself at the Erzherzog Johann! Nor would

Florian go either; he invented some excuse to account for his

reluctance. So Rue went with two new girls she had picked up at the

hotel, in succession to the giggling inarticulates at Innsbruck. Linnet

recognised her in the crowd, for the room was crowded—’twas a nightly

ovation now, wherever Linnet sang—and knew her at once as the

fair-haired lady. But Florian and Will weren’t with her to-night! That

made Linnet’s heart glad. She had come without him! After all, her

Engländer didn’t always dance attendance, it seemed, on the fair-haired

Frau with the many diamonds!

So easily had Will made two women’s hearts happy, by stopping at home at

his hotel that evening! For women think much more of men than men

imagine—their poor little breasts live for the most part in a perpetual

flutter of love and expectancy.

As the weeks wore away, however, it began to strike Franz Lindner as a

singular fact, that Philippina and Linnet severed themselves so much

every day from the rest of the troupe, and went up on the hills all

alone for exercise. That fierce young Robbler was a true Tyrolese in his

treatment of his women. Though he never abated one jot or tittle of his

attentions to Linnet, it hardly occurred to him as forming any part of a

lover’s duty to accompany his _mädchen_ in her morning rambles. Franz

was too much engaged himself, indeed, with the young men of the place in

the _cafés_ and beer-gardens, to find much time hanging idle on his

hands for female society. He had made many friends in the gay little

town. His hat and his feather were well known by this time to half the

gilded youth in the Meran restaurants. Andreas Hausberger had turned out

the young women on the hills; and there they might stop, so far as Franz

Lindner was concerned to prevent them. Andreas Hausberger had been

wondrous careful of Linnet’s health of late, since he saw he was likely

to make pots of money from her. He had bound them all down by a three

years’ engagement, and he knew now that Linnet was worth at least five

times the sum he had bargained to pay her. But Franz Lindner’s health

might take care of itself; and Franz didn’t think much, personally, of

the air of the mountains. He’d had enough of all that in his jäger days;

now the chrysalis had burst, and let loose the butterfly; his

wander-years had come, and he meant to sip the sweets of advanced

civilisation. And he sipped them in the second-rate bars and

billiard-rooms of a small town in South Tyrol.

On this particular morning, however, it occurred to his Robblership to

inquire in his own mind why the womenkind loved to walk so much by

themselves on the mountains. Philippina hadn’t told him, to be sure;

Philippina had an eye to Andreas Hausberger herself—was he not the

_wirth_, and the master of the troupe?—and she was therefore by no

means averse to any little device which might distract poor Linnet from

that most desirable admirer. Still, Franz had his suspicions. Women are

so deep, a man can never fathom them! He mounted the Küchelberg by the

zig-zag path, and turning to the left by the third Madonna, came at last

to a little knoll of bare porphyry rock, looking down on the wide vale

and the long falls of the Adige.

A very small and dainty, not to say effeminate, young man, in a

knickerbocker suit of most Britannic aspect, was strolling some distance

off, with his arm encircling a woman’s plump waist, which suspiciously

reminded Franz of his friend Philippina’s. The Robbler could hardly

believe his eyes; could that be Herr Florian? Oh no; for they had left

the foreign Herrschaft at the hotel at Innsbruck. But here, close by,

behind the shadow of some junipers—stranger sight still!—stretched at

length on the ground, and reading aloud in German to some unseen person,

lay another young man in another tourist suit, with a voice that most

strikingly and exactly recalled the other Engländer’s at St Valentin.

Franz drew a deep breath, and strode a long step forward. At sound of

his foot, the unseen person sprang back where she sat with a quick,

small scream. Black as night in his wrath, Franz peered round and faced

them. It was undoubtedly Will; quite as undoubtedly Linnet!

The Robbler spoke angrily. “You again!” he cried, clenching his fist,

and knitting his brow hard, with bullet head held forward. “Are you

following us in hiding? What do you mean by this trick? You daren’t show

your face, coward, at our inn in the town! You steal up here and skulk!

What do you mean with the _mädchen_?”

At that imputation of secrecy, and still worse of cowardice, Will sprang

up and confronted him. “I dare show my face anywhere you like,” he

answered in hot blood. “I have _not_ followed this lady; I came here

before her, and met her at Meran by the purest accident. But I refuse to

be questioned about her by you or by anyone. What right have you to ask?

She is no _mädchen_ of yours. Who gave you any power or authority over

her?”

For a moment the Robbler instinct rose fierce and hot in Franz Lindner’s

breast. He drew back half a pace, as if making ready to spring at him.

In a few angry words he repeated his cutting taunts, and spoke savagely

to Linnet. “Go home, go home, girl; you are here for no good! What can

this Engländer want, save one thing, with a _sennerin_?”

He laid his hand roughly on Linnet’s shoulder. Will couldn’t stand that

sight; he clutched the man’s arm fiercely, twisted it round in the

socket, and pushed him back like a child, in the white heat of his

anger. Franz saw the interloper was strong—far stronger than he

supposed. “If you dare to lay your hand on this lady again,” Will cried,

standing in front of her like a living buckler, “I give you due warning,

you do it at your peril. Your life is at stake. I won’t permit you to

behave with brutality before me.”

In his native valley the Robbler would have flown at Will’s throat on

those words, and fought him, strong as he was, to the death, for his

_mädchen_. But since he came to Meran he had learned some new ways: such

were not, he now knew, the manners of civilisation. Will’s resolute

attitude even produced a calming effect upon the young barbarian. He

felt in his heart he had a better plan than that. To beat Will in fair

fight would, after all, be useless; the _mädchen_ wouldn’t abide, as

_mädchen_ ought, by the wager of battle. But he could wound him far

worse. He could go down to the town—and tell Andreas Hausberger how his

ward spent her mornings on the slopes of the Küchelberg!

Already he was learning the ways of the world. With a sarcastic smile,

he raised his hat ceremoniously, turned feather and all, in mock

politeness. “Good morning, mein Herr,” he drawled out, with a fine north

German accent, picked up in the billiard-rooms. “Good morning,

_sennerin_.” And without another word he strode away down the mountain.

But as soon as he was gone Linnet burst into tears. “Ah, I know what

he’ll do!” she cried, sobbing and trembling. “He’ll go down to the town

and tell Andreas Hausberger. He’ll go down to the town and tell how he

met us here. And, of course, after this, Andreas will put the very worst

face upon it.”