CHAPTER XII.
Julie went slowly and thoughtfully down the stairs. The moment she was alone, all in which she had just taken part sank into the background before the one thought how it fared with her friend, how he had passed the day, and what might have occurred between him and his wife, who held his fate in her hands. She reproached herself for having let her visit detain her so long. It is true he did not generally come until evening. But what if he had sought her out earlier to-day?--what if he had had some news to give her, or had needed her advice or consent? A cold shudder passed over her at the dreadful thought!
As if to make up for lost time, she hastened down the remaining steps. But, upon reaching the landing of the first floor, she involuntarily stopped. A very strange kind of music issued from one of the neighboring doors. This was Nelida's salon; the waiter who had taken her to Irene had told her so. The piano within, which only skillful hands were generally allowed to touch, seemed to have fallen into the hands of a maniac, who cared more for making noise than music, or who was trying to test the instrument's power of resistance.
But, rising above all this stormy charivari of the keys, what noise was that? Did her ears deceive her, or did she really hear a child's voice that pierced to her very heart? Greatly excited, she advanced a few steps toward the nearest door; now she heard it more plainly--the sobbing of a child, that ceased for a moment only to begin again immediately afterward. Was it possible? Did she know that voice? She approached her ear to the door and discovered that the crying child must be in one of the side rooms, to which there was no separate entrance from the corridor. A few seconds more and the last doubt vanished. Without taking time for reflection, without knocking, she opened the door and stepped into the narrow hall between Nelida's salon and bedroom.
The doors of both the adjoining rooms stood half open. In the salon sat Stephanopulos before the piano, improvising like a madman with the most utter disregard of harmony, for he had been his own teacher on the piano. He did not notice Julie, but went on abusing the keys. It was not clear whether he was doing this in order to drown the noise of the crying, or to divert the distressed child's thoughts. For through the other door Julie now unmistakably heard the sobbing of little Frances, and the voice of a woman trying to soothe and comfort her. But before she had time to enter, an elderly lady, in hat and shawl, appeared on the threshold.
"Is it you, Nanette?" cried the old singer. "Is the carriage ready? Are the trunks strapped on? It's high time. The child--Good God!--what is this? You here?"
Julie did not give her time to slam the door and bolt it. She hastily pushed past the astonished woman, and entered the sleeping-chamber.
She was received with a cry of fright. Before a table, on which were piled all sorts of presents, flowers, cakes, and toys, as if for a birthday celebration, stood the child, a big doll in one arm and a paper of candy in the other, but weeping as bitterly all the while as if these presents had been given her as a punishment. A woman, still young but past her first youth, knelt on the carpet beside her, her soft face bent down over the curly head of the child, apparently doing all in her power to quiet the little creature. But now she sprang to her feet and stared at Julie as if she had been a ghost.
The countess lay stretched out on a sofa, in the back part of the room, holding in her hand a newspaper, that fell into her lap when she suddenly became aware of this unexpected caller, who was now standing in the middle of the chamber.
The next moment the child let everything it had in its arms fall on the carpet, and, uttering a loud cry of joy, rushed into Julie's arms.
"Have you come at last, my dear, beautiful mamma? What made you come so late? I was so frightened here all alone! Are we really going now to Auntie Angelica? Or will you take me to papa?"
She clung fast to her protectress, who found it hard to quiet her. Her little face was wet with tears, and she trembled in every limb.
The countess raised herself upon her couch.
"To what do I owe this honor, Fräulein?" she said, in a trembling voice.
Julie released herself from the child's arms, and looked the questioner calmly in the face.
"I ought to excuse myself, countess," she said, "for coming here unannounced. However, the manner in which I am received relieves me from this formal courtesy. In passing by outside I heard a child crying, and recognized to my amazement and alarm Frances's voice. Her foster-mother and her father, who evidently do not know where the child is, will be alarmed about her. Pardon me if I take my leave with as little formality as I came. Come, Frances, let us go. What have you done with your hat and little cloak?"
She had had difficulty in uttering the first words, she was so agitated by her indignation. But the sound of her own voice gave her back her self-control. She felt herself, all at once, to be perfectly at ease and a match for all hostility.
The piano-playing had suddenly ceased, and in the room itself the stillness of death ensued, broken only by little Frances, who ran to the lounge where her wraps were lying.
The young woman took a step toward Julie. Her face, but slightly flushed, appeared quite composed, and neither hate nor fear spoke from her eyes.
"I must introduce myself to you, Fräulein," she said, with her soft voice. "I am Frau Lucie Jansen, the mother of this dear child. From this you will understand--"
"Is that true, mamma Julie?" the child interrupted. "Is the woman really papa's wife, as she says? But papa hasn't any wife; he had one once, but she is dead this long time, and I haven't any other mother but my good foster-mother and my beautiful mamma Julie. I don't want to have any other mother, and I don't want any presents from her--I only want to go away! You must take me away. I--I--"
She began to cry again, dropped her little cloak, and running back to Julie threw her arms round her neck and sobbed bitterly.
"Be quiet, Frances dear," Julie whispered to her. "We will go away to your father. You can ask him; he will tell you all that I can't tell you here. Come, be a good child--be my brave, sensible little Frances--"
"I must confess that this is the most extraordinary proceeding I ever heard of," said the countess, in a loud but perfectly indifferent voice. "Such language from such a mouth--une femme entretenue qui ne rougit pas de vouloir enlever un enfant à la mère légitime--"
"Countess," interrupted Julie, likewise raising her voice, "you said that in French; that relieves me from the disagreeable necessity of giving you the plain German answer that such an insult deserves--an insult which you yourself know to be false. Besides, I haven't to do with you, although you have permitted your rooms to be the theatre of this intrigue. I merely have to reply to the mother that I have a right to this child, a right that was voluntarily given me by its father, and that I certainly regret having to make use of this right in opposition to one who might have appealed to a holy right of Nature, had she not of her own accord relinquished it. You wished to steal the child from the father, and I, the betrothed of your former husband, fulfill only my motherly duty when I resist such a robbery. Get ready, Frances; we have nothing more to do here."
The face of the young woman had grown deadly pale, her soft eyes flashed fire, and she ground her little white teeth so that the sound was plainly audible.
"You allow yourself," she said, "to judge of circumstances you do not understand, that have never been told you except in a one-sided and distorted way. I have never renounced my natural right to call this child mine; I have merely been obliged to yield for a time to force, and I have always secretly hoped that time would come to my aid, that the father of my darling would acknowledge the deep wrong he had done me, and that the separation would tend to soften him. And who knows that this would not have come about had you not stepped in between us? Now, to be sure, that things have gone so far, there is no longer any hope of settling the matter amicably. If I would have back what belongs to me by sacred rights I was obliged to steal it as if it had been the property of another; and how hard it will be for me to make it mine again I have already discovered to my sorrow, for they have estranged the heart of this poor, motherless creature from its most natural home. Nevertheless, I will not cease to proclaim my right to the child and to its father. Why do you stand in the way of a deeply-injured woman, a robbed mother? Don't pretend you really care anything about becoming my successor to the child, as you have become to the father. Skillfully as you now play the rôle of the tender mother, in your heart you will be grateful to me if I relieve you of this burdensome duty; and he too, the most fickle of men--believe me, if he only had a reasonable pretext before the world, he would console himself in your possession, and would rejoice that I had been so good-natured as to have removed from his sight, without his express consent, the remembrance of an old guilt!"
She made a movement as if to draw the child to her arms, but it only clung the tighter to Julie.
"Take me away," it whispered to her, in a low voice. "Let us go away--to dear papa--I don't want to go to that woman again."
Julie stroked the little head, and pressed it to her side. She covered the child's ears so thickly with its soft hair that not a word of all this sad and bitter talk could reach its young soul.
"Thank you," she said, "you have drawn a thorn from my conscience by these disclosures. 'Perhaps, after all, he did her an injustice,' I said to myself. 'Perhaps he was too violent, too hasty; and even if she has been guilty of a great sin toward him, is it not punishment enough that the mother has been deprived of her child for so many years? And can I answer for it to this child for having forever destroyed all hopes of a reconciliation between her parents?' This often gave me some misgivings; but I candidly confess to you, from this day forth my conscience will be easy on that score. No matter what you may say in order to palliate what you have done, you cannot have the only real justification, a true and genuine love for your child; if you did, how could you entertain the thought that I would be glad to get rid of her? Such a thing could only be said and believed by a woman who let five years pass away without once trying to see, at any cost, the child she had borne; and who never even waited in the streets that she might have a chance to press it to her heart and kiss it once again. Such a thought could only be entertained by the woman who believed that the father of this child was capable of sacrificing it to his new-born happiness, and would look on with indifference while it pined and languished for want of a true mother's love. And you reproach me for having plighted my troth to this man who never belonged to you, for you never understood him, and never knew his worth, his nobility, and his greatness. You may do your best to destroy his happiness and to undermine his peace by your petty acts; in this plot you have failed, and, for the future, we shall take better care of ourselves and of the child. You have given us warning!"
She did not wait few an answer to these words, which she poured forth in ever-increasing excitement. Before the women could collect their thoughts and interfere she had seized little Frances's hat and cloak, had put them on the child, and had borne her away in her arms.
The moment she had gone, Stephanopulos entered the room with a nervous laugh.
"Quelle femme!" he said. "Elle nous a joliment mis dedans."
"Angelos," commanded the countess, "go after her! She is perfectly capable of seating herself in the carriage that stands before the door and riding home in it. We need the carriage. There is no time to lose."
"But, my dear countess, I don't understand. What is the use now?--and you, madame--"
He approached Lucie, who had sunk down on the lounge in speechless stupor.
"Don't be a child, Angelos!" said the countess, excitedly. "What is there about it you don't understand? The game is lost! To be sure, if it had only been played somewhat better--"
"What would you have?" retorted the young woman, in an irritated tone. "Didn't we do everything you advised us? If it hadn't been for this horrible incident, everything would have turned out well. I should have carried off the child, and by doing so have proved to the world that I knew myself to be innocent, that I would not quietly submit to everything they chose to put upon me, and that I had the courage to defend myself against the incredible insults--"
"Calm yourself, my good friend!" said Nelida, decisively. "Why should we go on with a comedy that deludes no one? Enough, le coup a manqué! We must take care that the recoil does not strike you. The journey which you intended to take with the child you must take alone. Or, don't you think that your husband will do all in his power to make you suffer for the mere attempt, if he hears--"
"He will rage like a tiger!" cried Stephanopulos. "I once saw a little specimen of his rage when a hostler whipped a cart-horse until the animal fell to the ground. He sprang upon the man and would have torn him in pieces if we had not interfered. The countess is right--you must fly; of course I will accompany you, until you are in safety."
The old singer, who had kept herself in the background during the whole scene, now stepped forward and zealously joined in urging flight. Lucie let her have her way without moving a finger.
In ten minutes all was ready; the carriage rolled away from the house, and Nelida dragged herself to the window and stood gazing after them.
The young Greek leaned out of the carriage, and nodded a last farewell.
"Bon voyage!" said the solitary woman, carelessly returning the salutation. "So this episode is played out, too! Poor creature--totally without élan in good or bad. And yet I pity her. To have been the wife of this man, and now to have sunk so low as to have to be glad when an insignificant young-- And I?--what is the end of it all? To grow old and ugly--always older and uglier--the last spark dies out, and finally the heart is buried beneath the ashes of its own passions. A hell on earth! I would give the rest of my life to be, just for a single year, as beautiful as this Julie--to be so loved, and by this man!"