Chapter XXVI: The Old Nurse Discovers a Clue

The Castle of Hohenstein had been left, since the death of the last Graf, in charge of an old seneschal, who had gained much influence over his master, and who contrived, even during the latter’s short tenure of the place, to oust several of the former servants, and replace them by friends of his own.

Amongst others Frau Müller had been dismissed, and she went to live in a little cottage belonging to some of her late husband’s family near Grätz. She took with her a beautiful miniature of her young mistress, which had been given to her by Dorina’s father; and one day, when at her brother-in-law’s, a little girl, who had been sent from a distance to sell some smuggled goods in Grätz, happened to see the portrait, and said,

“Oh! that’s our pretty lady!”

On being questioned by Frau Müller, the girl seemed suddenly resolved to say nothing, and tried to make some lame excuse; but her confusion tended to arouse the good Frau’s suspicion, and she contrived, at last, to draw from the girl that a beautiful lady was concealed at her mother’s cottage, but that if her father heard that she had said anything about it he would kill her.

Frau Müller said no more to the girl, but she contrived, one day, unobserved, to follow the child to the cottage, nearly four miles out of Grätz. But as the little one began to mend her pace when she came to a more lonely part of the road, the panting Frau Müller feared she should lose sight of her, and, by running and calling after, she attracted the girl back, and holding up a large gold piece, promised to give it, and one like it, if she would let her pass the night at her home.

The girl at first shook her head, and said her father would beat her to death if he ever found it out.

“But your father is not at home,” guessed Frau Müller at these words; “and I only wish to stop one night. I will make it worth your while.”

“Very well, then,” said the child; “if you will let me tie your hands behind you, and bandage your eyes for the last quarter of an hour, and submit to be led by me, I will risk it.”

Frau Müller consented. They proceeded in silence about a mile further, when the girl turned up through a narrow ravine, at some parts so narrow as to be evidently impassable in Winter, when the mountain torrent must come rushing down the gravel bed it had worn for itself in the rock.

Here the footing was difficult, and when, at a turn of the path, they suddenly came to an apparently solid wall of rock, over which a tiny streamlet trickled, the girl stopped, and proceeded to bandage Frau Müller’s eyes. She then took her arm, and led her carefully through what felt like thick bushes; then made her stoop very low, and then down some winding steps, as if cut in the rocks.

At the bottom of these she paused, and after proceeding along a path for about ten minutes, unwound the handkerchief from Frau Müller’s eyes. She found herself in the doorway of a wooden hut, built against the side of a high and precipitous rock. A little valley, closed by steep declivities, lay in front of them, and round the cottage there extended a patch of greensward, on which a couple of goats were feeding. The girl entered the cottage, and the old nurse heard an angry altercation between her and a hard-featured woman, whom she supposed to be the mother, which was checked by the piece of gold which the child held up before her eyes, pointing to Frau Müller.

They spoke to each other a kind of wild _patois_, which the latter scarcely understood. She looked anxiously round the room to see if she could discover the object of her search--the pretty lady. And oh! how her heart leaped within her when, as soon as her eyes became accustomed to its gloom, she discovered, lying on a pallet at the further end, a poor, thin, ill-clad form and pale face, in which she had no difficulty in discovering the loved features of her long-lost Dorina!

But, alas! though the eyes were open, they certainly did not recognise her, nor did she seem to hear the words of passionate love and joy with which Frau Müller addressed her.

The old nurse determined that nothing should induce her to leave her young lady any more; and now the question was how to move her from this wretched abode.

She feared, from the savage and suspicious looks of the older woman, and another who now appeared, that the expression of a wish to send for a doctor might lead to their both being murdered, and yet it was indispensable both to do this and to remove the invalid to a more airy and accessible abode.

She discovered that the older woman had heard of the loss of the Gräfinn Dorina, and imagined that she might be the stranger they had found in the cave; and, by the promise of a large reward, Frau Müller at last persuaded them to let her carry Dorina to her own cottage, which was in a secluded village near Grätz, where she could be nursed and attended to in quiet.

As an earnest of the reward they would eventually have, she promised them five gold pieces if they would carry the lady to the place she designated, and lead her, Frau Müller, back the way she came. To this the women at last consented, on condition of the strictest secrecy, and that she should never tell where she had found the lady. They wrapped up the unconscious sufferer in a couple of blankets, the fineness of which, in so poor an abode, would, at another time, have astonished Frau Müller. One woman tied the top ends round her shoulders, where Dorina’s head rested, the other supported her feet. The old nurse would willingly have carried the precious burden herself, but to this they would not consent, as her eyes must be bandaged and her hands tied; while the little girl, her first guide, must lead her as before, that she might never be able to betray the entrance to their abode. They said it would be impossible to carry the young lady through the narrow winding passage by which she had come, and that they must lead them round by a much longer way.