Christine of the hills

by Max Pemberton

“Father Mark used to twinge at these rough-and-ready rejoinders; or, when the Count persisted, he would shut his ears and go out to pray in the chapel. Not that he personally was any lover of fine stuffs or of gilding; but he looked upon the house of the Zaloskis with the eye of an artist and the soul of a great builder. He loved every stone in those ramparts, which had stood invincible before Turk and heretic through so many centuries. He had pride in the traditions of a family which had witnessed for the faith with its blood, and had surrendered nothing to the example of Eastern barbarism and teaching. Had he been consulted he would have made the castle a centre of power and of learning, whence his religion might have spread abroad an influence to the uttermost ends of the province. The Count was the only obstacle—the Count, whose heart was shut to women—the man who was the last of his race, who cared nothing that an heir should be born to him.

“But I am telling you of things which have small concern with this story, excellency. Rather let me show you Christine, not asleep, but awake and well clothed, and wondering, in the white room to which she had been carried on that day the Count found her. Her aimless flight from the mountains had brought her very near to death. What food she had got by the way had been thrown to her by those who had compassion upon her pretty face and her obvious need. And for a week she lay in the Count’s house hovering between life and death. I have heard it said that nothing was more remarkable than the care bestowed by the master of the château upon this little vagrant he had snatched from the roadside. Always an incurable lover of the medical science, he found in this case an occupation most congenial to him. Scarce an hour passed, they tell me, but he was at her bedside; he watched her through the dangerous changes of the night; he brought physicians from Jajce and Livno. And all this, excellency, without one thought of the sweetness of the face before him, or the pretty figure which lay racked with pain in the great gold bed of the white room. Such things were nothing to him; but the disease—that was worthy of his skill and of his knowledge. And when at last he knew that he had won a victory—when the fever was gone, and the pulse beat calmly, and the flush had left the cheeks—then he returned to his own work with no more thought of little Christine than of a wench in his scullery.

“‘She is no peasant’s daughter,’ he would say to the priest; ‘I must have her history when she is well enough to tell it. She wears a silver ring on her finger; but so does every slut in Dalmatia, for that matter. You shall make her speak, Father, and we will send her to her home—but that must be some days yet. Meanwhile—no little flirtations on your own account; you understand me?’

“Father Mark held up his hands in horror at the suggestion; and the Count, with a sly twinkle in his eye—such a twinkle as this, excellency—went off to hunt the bear in the mountains of the Verbas. It was just then that Christine was lying like one bewitched in the great bed.

“From misery, beggary, and a couch of the brushwood she awoke to see those splendours which were to her like the splendours of Paradise itself. Remember her education—recall her training in those fine superstitions which are the wealth of the islanders—and then how shall we wonder that there was a time when she believed that the spirits had carried her up to a mansion of the heavens? Such comfort she had never known; of such marvels her imagination had taught her nothing. For hours she lay dazed and fascinated and spell-bound, asking herself if the angels in the paintings lived, if her limbs really rested upon a bed, or were not rather floating in a gauze-like cloud. Of memory of that which she had passed through there was at the moment none. It was as though the years which had come between her childhood and that pleasant hour had never been. Her lover; her island home; the people who had cried upon her; the shepherd; the hut in the hills—these she had forgotten. Her prevailing sense was that of rest and gladness—of a great gladness and of a perfect content.

“Once or twice during the first hours of waking she had seen a kindly face bend over her. It was the face of Mother Theresa, the housekeeper at the château. She, good soul, watched unceasingly when the Count had resumed his old occupation. She had children of her own; she fancied that she could read the story of this child. And when at length she saw that her patient was coming back to life again, her joy was that of a mother who has found a daughter.

“‘My little girl,’ she said, kissing the white forehead and holding the shrunken hand—‘nay, sweet, you must not raise that pretty head; by-and-bye we will get up together, dear, but rest now.’

“She pressed cooling drink to the parched lips and smoothed the long brown hair; and, excellency, the words were sweet to her who had never known what a mother’s word may be. They were sweet, for love and kindness seemed to be breathed with them. Yet of their meaning Christine knew nothing. She had never spoken any other tongue than the dialect of Zlarin, which is wholly Italian. Mother Theresa was an Austrian of Linz; and although she had a smattering of the uncouth speech of Bosnia, German served all her purposes in the château. As well might she have spoken Russian to her patient, who did but lie and smile lovingly upon her, and open her eyes wider at the wonders, and tell herself that here, indeed, was the palace of her visions, here the destiny which she had crossed the mountains to fulfil.

“In this happy state she lay for three days, but upon the third day she rose from her bed. The Count was away at Serajevo then, and Father Mark having business with his bishop, it befell that Mother Theresa was left to do her will with the patient. So soon as Christine was strong enough they went abroad in the park together, and the first breath of autumn being upon the lake, the child shewed the old mother how well she could sail a boat, and how familiar she was with all things concerning the woods and waters. Nor, when they drove to the town of Jajce together, did the number of the people or the shapes of the buildings frighten her. You know Jajce, excellency? Ah, she is a queen of the hills, a white city of the mountains; her minarets rise up abundantly like silver spires above the unsurpassable green of the heights; she listens ever to the foam of the great cascade which thunders at her gates; the spray of the waters bathes her as in a foam of jewels. In her streets are Turks and Christians, Greeks and Jews. Friars raise their voices against the allah il allah of the muezzin; a new hotel rubs shoulders with the catacombs where lie the dead who fought against Mohammed. Yet she is the one citadel which time has not touched nor civilisation conquered. Her walls stand to-day as they stood when Kings of Bosnia looked out from them upon the armies of the infidels. Her people dress as they dressed when Corvin was their lord; her castle still marks her glory and the glory of her chiefs. She is a city of the East and of the West—a gem of the mountains, like to nothing that was or is or shall be.

“Christine saw Jajce, and found new delights in its contemplation. The invigorating winds of autumn now began to fill her blood with youthful strength and vigour. The colour came again to her cheeks when the crisp mountain air wooed them; her eyes sparkled with health restored. And she was quick to make friends in the château. Old Mother Theresa adored her; Hans, the steward, being convinced that his master had no such thoughts as he feared, remembered that he was once at Trieste, and had three words of Italian for his dictionary. He called her carina, and treated her like a little schoolgirl come home for the holidays. As for the priest, who made it his first business to inquire, as well as he could in his broken Italian, what was her faith and who were her parents, even he admitted that she had brought a new spirit to lighten the gloom of the house of the Zaloskis.