CHAPTER XIII.
[IDYLLIC.]
"Are you well protected, Fräulein Stella?" Rohritz asks his young companion, after a long silence.
"Oh, yes," says Stella, contentedly wrapping herself in her shabby, thin, twenty-franc water-proof and pulling the hood over her fair head, "I am quite warm. It was a good thing that you gave us warning, or I should certainly have left my water-proof at home."
"You see an 'old bore,' as Les called my barometer, can be of use under certain circumstances."
"Indeed it can," Stella nods assent; "but it would have been a pity to give up the picnic at the bidding of your weather-prophet, for, on the whole, it was a great success."
"Are you serious?" Rohritz asks, surprised.
"Why should you doubt it?"
"Why, you have had less cause than any of us to enjoy the day. You have cut your foot, have spoiled a very pretty gown, and are in danger, if it goes on pouring thus, of being wet to the skin in spite of your water-proof."
"That is of no consequence," she declares from out the brown hood, her fair dripping face laughing up at him through the rain and the gathering darkness. "Where is the harm in getting a little wet? It is quite delightful."
He is silent. She is to be envied for her gay, happy temperament, and she looks wonderfully pretty in spite of her grotesque wrap.
Not the faintest breath of wind diverts from the perpendicular the downfall of rain. The road leads between two steep wooded heights, whence are wafted woodland odours both sweet and acrid. Intense peace--an unspeakably beneficent repose--reigns around; in grave harmonious accord blend the rushing of the brook, the falling of the rain, and the low whisper and murmur of the dripping leaves, informing the silence with a sense of enjoyment.
"How beautiful! how wonderfully beautiful!" Stella exclaims; her soft voice has a strange power to touch the heart, and in its gayest tones there always trembles something like suppressed tears.
"Yes, it is beautiful," Rohritz admits, "but"--with a glance of mistrust at the wretched hacks--"when we shall reach Wolfsegg heaven alone knows!"
Is he so very anxious to reach Wolfsegg? To be frank, no! He feels unreasonably comfortable in this rain-drenched solitude, beside this pretty fair-haired child; he cannot help rejoicing in this tête-à-tête. Since the day when Stella thanked him with perhaps exaggerated warmth for returning her locket, she has never seemed so much at her ease with him as now.
The desire assails him to probe her pure innocent nature without her knowledge,--to learn something of her short past, of her true self.
Meanwhile, he repeats, "But it is beautiful,--wonderfully beautiful!"
The wretched horses drag along more and more laboriously. Rohritz has much ado to prevent their drooping their gray noses to the ground to crop the dripping grass that clothes each side of the road in emerald luxuriance.
"Delightful task, the driving of these lame hacks!" he exclaims. "I can imagine only one pleasure equal to it,--waltzing with a lame partner. This last I know, of course, only from hearsay."
"Did you never dance?" asks Stella.
"No, never since I left the Academy. Have you been to many balls?"
"Never but to one, in Venice, at the Princess Giovanelli's," Stella replies. "After the first waltz I became so ill that I would not run the risk of fainting and making myself and my partner ridiculous. My enjoyment then consisted in sitting for half an hour between two old ladies on a sofa, and eating an ice to restore me. At twelve o'clock punctually I hurried back, moreover, to the Britannia, for I knew that my poor sick father would sit up to be regaled with an account of my conquests. He was firmly convinced that I should make conquests. Poor papa! You must not laugh at his delusion! The next day the other girls in the hotel pitied me for not having had any partner for the cotillon; they displayed their bouquets to me, as the Indians after a battle show the scalps they have taken. They told me of their adorers, and of the passions funestes which they had inspired, and asked me what I had achieved in that direction. And I could only cast down my eyes, and reply, 'Nothing.' And to think that to-day, after all these years, I must give the same answer to the same question,--'Nothing!'"
"You have never danced, then!" Rohritz says, thoughtfully.
Strange, how this fact attracts him. Stella seems to him like a fruit not quite ripened by the sun, but gleaming among cool, overshadowing foliage in absolute, untouched freshness. Such dewy-fresh fruit is wonderfully inviting; he feels almost like stretching out his hand for it. But no, it would be folly,--ridiculous; he is an old man, she a child; it is impossible. And yet----
Both are so absorbed in their thoughts that they do not observe how very dark it has grown, how threatening is the aspect of the skies. Leaving the ravine, the road now leads along the bank of the Save. The pools on each side grow deeper, the mud splashes from the wheels on Stella's knees: she does not notice it.
"Your last remark was a little bold," Rohritz now says, bending towards her.
"Bold?" Stella repeats, in dismay: 'bold,' for her, means pert, aggressive,--in short, something terrible.
"Yes," he continues, smiling at her agitation; "you asserted something that seems to me incredible,--that you never have inspired any one with a----"
He hesitates.
A brilliant flash quivers in the sky; by its light they see the Save foaming along in its narrow bed, swollen to overflowing by the recent torrents of rain. Then all is dark as night; a loud peal of thunder shakes the air, and the blast of the storm comes hissing as if with repressed fury from the mountains.
The horses tremble, one of them stumbles and falls, the traces break, and down goes the carriage.
"Now we are done for!" Rohritz exclaims, as he jumps down to investigate the extent of the damage.
Further progress is out of the question. He succeeds by a violent effort in dragging to his feet the exhausted horse, then unharnesses both animals and ties them as well as he can to a picket-fence, the accident having occurred close to an isolated cottage with an adjacent garden. Rohritz knocks at its doors and windows in vain; no one appears. In the deep recess of one of the doors is a step affording a tolerable seat. He spreads a plaid over it, and then, going to Stella, he says, "Allow me to lift you down; I must drag the carriage aside from the road. There! you are not quite sheltered yet from the rain; move a little farther into the corner,--so."
"Oh, I don't in the least mind getting wet," Stella assures him; "but what shall we do? We cannot sit here all night long in hopes that some chance passers-by may fish us out of the wet."
"If you could walk, there would be no difficulty. The inn this side of the ferry is only a quarter of a mile off, and we could easily hire a couple of horses there. Can you stand on your foot?"
"It gives me a great deal of pain to stand, and, since Uncle Jack has my other shoe in his pocket, how am I to walk?"
"That is indeed unfortunate."
"You had better go for help to the inn of which you speak," Stella proposes.
"Then I should have to leave you here alone," says Rohritz, shaking his head.
"I am not afraid," she declares, with the hardihood of utter inexperience.
"But I am afraid for you; I cannot endure the thought of leaving you here alone on Sunday, when all the men about are intoxicated. One of the roughest of them might chance to pass by."
"In all probability no one will pass," says Stella. "Go as quickly as you can, that we may get away from here."
"In fact, she is right," Edgar says to himself. He turns to go, then returns once more, and, taking his mackintosh from his shoulders, wraps it about her.
He is gone. How slowly time passes when one is waiting in the dark! With monotonous force, in a kind of grand rhythmical cadence the rain pours down to the accompaniment of the swirling Save. No other sound is to be heard. Stella looks round at the horses, which she can dimly discern. One is lying, all four legs stretched out, in the mud, in the position in which artists are wont to portray horses killed on a battle-field; the other is nibbling with apparent relish at some greenery that has grown across the garden fence. From time to time a flash of lightning illumines the darkness. Stella takes out her watch to note the time by one of these momentary illuminations. It must have stopped,--no, it is actually only a quarter of an hour since Edgar's departure.
Hark! the rolling of wheels mingles with the rush of the Save and the plash of the rain. The sound of a human voice falls upon the girl's ear. She listens, delighted. Is it Rohritz? No, that is not his voice: there are several voices, suspiciously rough, peasants rolling past in a small basket-wagon, trolling some monotonous Slav melody. By a red flash of lightning the rude company is revealed, the driver mercilessly plying his whip upon the back of a very small horse, that is galloping through the mire with distended nostrils and fluttering mane.
Stella's heart beats, her boasted courage shrivels up to nothing. A few more minutes pass, and now she hears steps. Is he coming? No; the steps approach from the opposite direction, stumbling, dragging steps,--those of a drunkard.
A nameless, unreasoning dread takes possession of her. Ah! she hears the quick firm rhythm of an elastic tread.
"Baron Rohritz!" she screams, as loud as she can. "Baron Rohritz!"
The step quickens into a run, and a moment later Rohritz is beside her. "For God's sake, what is the matter?" he says, much distressed.
"Oh, nothing, nothing,--only a drunken man. My courage oozed away pitifully. Heaven knows whether, if you had not appeared, I might not have plunged into the Save from sheer cowardice. But all is well now. Is a vehicle coming?"
"Unfortunately, there was none to be had. I could only get a peasant-lad to take care of the horses. If there was the slightest dependence to be placed upon these confounded brutes I could put you on the least broken-down of them and lead him slowly to the inn. But, unfortunately, I am convinced that the beast could not carry you: he would fall with you in the first pool in the road. With all the desire in the world to help you, I cannot. You must try to walk as far as the inn. I have brought you one of the ferryman's wife's shoes."
And while Stella is putting the huge patent-leather shoe on her bandaged foot, Rohritz directs the peasant-lad to fish his plaid and rugs out of the mud and to lead the horses slowly to the inn. As he walks away with Stella they hear the boy's loud drawling 'Hey!' 'Get up,' with which he seeks to inspirit the miserable brutes.
Leaning on the arm of her escort, Stella does her best to proceed without yielding to the pain which every minute increases, but her movements grow slower and more laboured, and finally a low moan escapes her lips.
"Let me rest just one moment," she entreats, piteously, ashamed of a helplessness of which a normally constituted woman would have made capital.
"Do not walk any farther," he rejoins, and, bending over her, he says, with decision, "I pray you put your right arm around my neck, clasp it well: treat me absolutely as a porte-faix."
"But, Baron----"
"Do not oppose me, I entreat: at present I am in command." His tone is very kind, but also very authoritative.
She obeys, half mechanically. He carries her firmly and securely, without stumbling, without betraying the slightest fatigue. At first her sensations are distressing; then slowly, gradually, a pleasant sense of being shielded and cared for overcomes her: her thoughts stray far, far into the past,--back to the time when her father hid her against his breast beneath his cavalry cloak, and she looked out between its folds from the warm darkness upon the world outside. The minutes fly.
"We are here!" Rohritz says, very hoarsely.
She looks up. A reddish light is streaming out into the darkness from the windows of a low, clumsy building. He puts her down on the threshold of the inn.
"Thanks!" she murmurs, without looking at him. He is silent.
The inn parlour is empty. A bright fire is burning in the huge tiled stove; the fragrance of cedar-berries slowly scorching on its ledge neutralizes in part the odour of old cheese, beer, and cheap tobacco plainly to be perceived in spite of the open window. In a broad cabinet with glazed doors are to be seen among various monstrosities of glass and porcelain two battered sugar ships with paper pennons, and a bridal wreath with crumpled white muslin blossoms and arsenic-green leaves. The portraits of their Majesties, very youthful in appearance, dating from their coronation, hang on each side of this piece of furniture.
Among the various tables covered with black oil-cloth there is one of rustic neatness provided with a red-flowered cover, and set with greenish glasses, blue-rimmed plates, and iron knives and forks with wooden handles.
The hostess, a colossal dame, who looks like a meal-sack with a string tied around its middle, makes her appearance, to receive the unfortunates and to place her entire wardrobe at Stella's disposal.
"Can we not go on, then?" Stella asks, in dismay.
"Unfortunately, no. I have sent to the nearest village for some sort of conveyance, and my messenger cannot possibly return in less than an hour. And I must prepare you for another unfortunate circumstance: we shall be forced to go by a very long and roundabout road; the Gröblach bridge is carried away, and the Save is whirling along in its current the pillars and ruins, making the ferry impracticable for the present."
"Oh, good heavens!" sighs Stella, who has meanwhile taken off her dripping water-proof and wrapped about her shoulders a thick red shawl loaned her by the hostess. "Well, at least we are under shelter."
Thereupon the hostess brings in a grass-green waiter on which are placed a dish of ham and eggs and a can of beer.
"I ordered a little supper, but I cannot vouch for the excellence of the viands," Rohritz says, in French, to Stella. "I should be glad if you would consent to eat something warm. It is the best preventive against cold."
Stella shows no disposition to criticise what is thus set before her. "How pleasant!" she exclaims, gaily, taking her seat at the table. "I am terribly hungry, and I had not ventured to hope for anything to eat before midnight."
It is a pleasure to him to sit opposite to her, looking at her pretty, cheerful face,--a pleasure to laugh at her gay sallies.
Would it not be charming to sit opposite to her thus daily at his own table,--to lavish care and tenderness upon the poor child who had been so neglected and thrust out into the world,--to spoil and pet her to his heart's content? "Grasp your chance,--grasp it!" the heart in his bosom cries out: "her lot is hard, she is grateful for a little sympathy, will she not smile on you in spite of your gray hair?" But reason admonishes: "Forbear! she is only a child. To be sure, if, as she has avowed, her heart be really untouched, why then----"
Whilst he, absorbed in such careful musings, grows more and more taciturn, she chatters away gaily upon every conceivable topic, devouring with an appetite to be envied the frugal refection he has provided.
"It is delightful, our improvised supper," she declares, "almost as charming as the little suppers at the Britannia which papa used to have ready for me when I came home from parties in Venice, as terribly hungry as one always is on returning from a Venetian soirée, where one is delightfully entertained but gets nothing to eat."
"It seems, then, that the Giovanelli ball was not your only glimpse of Venetian society?" Rohritz remarks, with a glance that is well-nigh indiscreetly searching.
"Before papa grew so much worse I very often went out: papa insisted upon it. The Countess L---- chaperoned me. And at Lady Stair's evenings in especial I enjoyed myself almost as much as I was bored at the Giovanelli ball. I cannot, 'tis true, dance; but talk,"--she laughs somewhat shyly, as if in ridicule of her talkativeness,--"I can talk."
"That there is nothing to eat at a Venetian soirée I know from experience," Rohritz says, rather ill-humouredly, "but how one can find any enjoyment there I am absolutely unable to understand. Venetian society is terrible: the men especially are intolerable."
"I did not find it so," Stella declares, shaking her head with her usual grave simplicity in asserting her opinion; "not at all."
"But you must confess that Italians are usually low-toned; that----"
"But I did not meet Italians exclusively; I met Austrians, English, Russians; although in fact"--she pauses reflectively, then says, with conviction--"the nicest of all, my very particular friend, was an Italian, Prince Zino Capito."
"He calls himself an Austrian," Rohritz interposes.
"He was born in Rome," Stella rejoins.
"I see you know all about him," Rohritz observes.
"We saw a great deal of each other," Stella chatters on easily. "We were in the same hotel, papa and I, and the Prince. His place at table was next to mine, and in fine weather he used to take us to sail in his cutter. He often came in the evenings to play bézique with papa. He was very kind to papa."
"Evidently," Rohritz observes.
"You seem to dislike him!" Stella says, in some surprise.
"Not at all. We always got along very well together," Rohritz coldly assures her. "I know him intimately; my oldest brother married his sister Thérèse."
"Ah! is she as handsome as he?" Stella asks, innocently.
"Very graceful and distinguished in appearance; she does not resemble him at all." And with a growing sharpness in his tone Rohritz adds,--
"Do you think him so very handsome?"
The hostess interrupts them by bringing in a dish of inviting strawberries. Stella thanks her kindly for her excellent supper, the woman says something to Rohritz in the peasant patois, which Stella does not understand, and he fastens his eye-glass in his eye, a sign with him of a momentary access of ill humour.
After the woman has withdrawn he remarks, with an odd twinkle of his eyes, "How many years too young did you say I was, Baroness Stella, to be your father? four or five, was it not? Eh bien, our hostess thinks differently: she has just congratulated me upon my charming daughter."
But Stella has no time to make reply: her eyes are riveted in horror upon the clock against the wall. "Is it really half-past ten?" she exclaims. "No, thank heaven; the clock has stopped. What o'clock is it, Baron Rohritz?"
"A quarter after eleven," he says, startled himself, and rather uncomfortable. "I do not understand why the messenger is not here with the conveyance."
"Good heavens!" Stella cries, in utter dismay. "What will mamma say?"
"Be reasonable. Your mother cannot blame you in this case; she must be informed that it was impossible to cross the ferry," he says, anxious himself about the matter, however.
"Certainly; but while she does not know of our break-down she will think we have had plenty of time to reach Wolfsegg by the longest way round. You certainly acted for the best, but it would have been better, much better, if Uncle Jack had stayed with me. He knows all about the country, and he has a decided way of making these lazy peasants do as he pleases."
"I do not believe that with all his knowledge of the country, and his decision of character, he could have succeeded in procuring you a conveyance," Rohritz says, with growing irritation.
"If the ferry is useless, perhaps we might cross in a skiff," Stella says, almost in tears.
"I will see what is to be done," he rejoins. "At all events it shall not be my fault if your mother's anxiety is not fully appeased in the course of the next half-hour."
With this he leaves the room. Shortly afterwards the hostess makes her appearance.
"Where has the Herr Papa gone?" she asks.
"He has gone out to see if we cannot cross the Save in a boat."
"He cannot do it to-night," the woman asserts. "He would surely not think of----" Without finishing her sentence she puts down the plate of cheese she has just brought, and hurries away.
Stella is perplexed. What does he mean to do? What is the hostess so foolishly afraid of? She limps to the open window, and sees Rohritz on the bank of the stream, talking in the Slavonic dialect, which she does not understand, with a rough-looking man. The rain has ceased, the clouds are rent and flying, and from among them the moon shines with a bluish lustre, strewing silver gleams upon the quiet road with its net-work of pools and ruts, upon the wildly-rushing Save with its foaming billows, upon the black roof of the hut which serves as a shelter for the ferrymen, and upon a rocking skiff which is fastened to the shore. A sudden dread seizes upon Stella, a dread stronger by far than her childish fear of her mother's harsh words. The hostess enters.
"Not a bit will the gentleman heed,--stiff-necked he is, the water boiling, and not a man will risk the rowing him: he be's to sail alone to Wolfsegg, and ne'er a one can hinder him."
Stella sees Rohritz get into the skiff, sees the fisherman take hold of the chain that fastens it to the shore. Not even conscious of the pain in her wounded foot, she rushes out, and across the muddy road to the bank, where the fisherman has already unfastened the chain and is preparing to push the boat out of the swamp into the rushing current.
"Good heavens! are you mad?" she calls aloud to Rohritz. "What are you about?"
Rohritz turns hastily; their eyes meet in the moonlight. "After what you said to me there is nothing for me to do save to shield your reputation at all hazards.--Push off!" he orders the fisherman.
"No," she calls: "it never occurred to me to consider my reputation. I was only a coward, and afraid of mamma."
The fisherman hesitates. Rohritz takes the oars. "Push off!" he orders, angrily.
"Do so, if you choose," Stella cries, "but you will take me with you!" Whereupon she jumps into the boat, and, striking her poor wounded foot against a seat, utterly breaks down with the pain. "I was a coward; yes, yes, I was afraid of mamma; but I would rather have her refuse to speak to me than have you drowned," she sobs.
Her streaming eyes are riveted in great distress upon his face, and her soft, trembling hands try to clasp his arm. About the skiff the waves plash, "Grasp it, grasp it; your happiness lies at your feet!"
His whole frame is thrilled. He stoops and lifts her up. "But, Stella, my poor foolish angel----" he begins.
At this moment there is a rattle of wheels, and then the captain's voice: "Rohritz! Rohritz!"
"All's right now!" says Rohritz, drawing a deep breath.
As it now appears, the captain has come by the long roundabout road, with a borrowed vehicle, to the relief of the unfortunates. The general, who, whatever disagreeable qualities he may possess, is a 'gentleman coachman' of renown, has declared himself quite ready to conduct the landau with its spirited span of horses to Erlach Court.
"What have you been about? What has happened to you?" the captain repeats, and he shakes his head, claps his hands, and laughs by turns, as with mutual interruptions and explanations the tale of disaster is unfolded to him.
Then Stella is packed inside the little vehicle, Rohritz takes his place beside her, and the captain is squeezed up on the front seat.
Before fifteen minutes are over Stella is sound asleep. Rohritz wraps his plaid about her shoulders without her knowledge.
"She is tired out," he whispers. "I only hope her foot is not going to give her trouble. Were you very anxious?"
"My wife was almost beside herself. My sister took the matter, on the contrary, very quietly, until finally Stasy put some ridiculous ideas of impropriety into her head, and then she talked nonsense, alternately scolding you and the child, marching up and down the common room at the Wolfsegg inn like a bear in a cage, until I could bear it no longer, but left the entire party on the general's shoulders to be driven home, and set out in search of you. How did Stella behave herself? Did she give you any trouble?"
"No; she was very quiet."
"She is a dear girl, is she not? Poor child! she really has had too much to bear. Of course I would not confess it to Stasy, but it is a fact that if any other man had been in your place I should have been excessively annoyed."
"My gray hair has been of immense advantage to your niece," Rohritz assured him. "The hostess at the ferry persisted in taking me for her father."
"Nonsense!"
"Nonsense which at least showed me at the right moment precisely where I stood," Rohritz murmured. "And, between ourselves,--never allude to it again,--it was necessary."
The captain, who naturally enough sees nothing in his friend's words but an allusion to his altered circumstances, sighs, and thinks, "What a pity!"