Hartmann pulled to the gate again and returned slowly to the house. He stood at the entrance watching the two figures until they disappeared down one of the park avenues.
"I thought, when you said no, you meant it, Ulric?"
The young man turned round and scowled at Martha standing by his side.
"What is it to you?" said he, roughly.
"To me? nothing. Don't frown like that, Ulric. You are angry with me because I reminded my lady of the handkerchief; but it belonged to her, and what could you do with that soft, white little thing? You could not even touch it when you came home from work, and I am sure you have looked at it often enough!"
There was a slight but unmistakable touch of irony in the girl's voice, and Ulric must have noticed it, for he exclaimed hastily:
"Let me be! I will have none of your sneers and your spying. I tell you, Martha"----
"Now, now, what is to do out there? Are you two quarrelling?" interrupted the Manager, as he joined them at the door.
Ulric turned away with a muttered exclamation of anger, but he did not seem inclined to continue the discussion. Martha, without answering her uncle, hurried past him into the house.
"What is the matter with the girl?" asked the old man, looking after her wonderingly, "and what were you two about? Have you been giving her hard words again?"
Ulric threw himself sullenly down on the bench.
"I am not going to be taught what I should do or leave undone, least of all by Martha."
"Well, well," said his father quietly, "she is very sure not to do anything to vexyou."
"Why should not she vex me as well as any one else?"
The Manager looked at his son and shrugged his shoulders.
"Why, boy, have you no eyes in your head, or will you not see it? It is true, you never did care about the girls, and, after all, it is no wonder if you understand nothing about them."
"What is there for me to understand?" asked Ulric, growing attentive.
His father took his pipe out of his mouth and blew a cloud of smoke slowly into the air.
"That Martha cares for you," he answered laconically.
"Martha? For me?"
"I do believe he did not know it," said the Manager, in unfeigned astonishment. "His old father has to tell him such a thing as that! But that is the way when people fill their heads with all sorts of nonsense, which only confuses them! Goodness knows, Ulric, it is time you gave up all the other folly and took a good managing wife who would bring you to a better way of thinking."
Ulric was still gazing over at the park, and his eyes were fixed and gloomy as before.
"You are right, father," said he slowly. "It is time."
The old man nearly let his pipe fall in his surprise.
"My lad," he said, "that is the first reasonable word I have heard from you. Have you come to your senses at last? Yes, it is time indeed. You could have kept a wife long ago, and where could you find a prettier, a better, or a cleverer than Martha? I need not tell you how happy it would make me for you two to come together. Think it over, Ulric."
The young man sprang up and began pacing rapidly to and fro.
"Perhaps it would be best. There must be an end of this, there must! I felt that to-day again ... and the sooner the better!"
"What has come to you? There must be an end of what?"
"Nothing, father, nothing. But you are right; when once I have a wife, I shall know I belong to her, and my thoughts too. So you think Martha cares for me?"
"Go in and ask her!" cried the Manager laughing. "Do you think that I should have the girl in the house still if she cared for any one else! She does not want for suitors. I know plenty who would be glad of her, and there is Lawrence who has been trying to win her for ever so long, he has never got her to say 'yes' yet. She will say it to-day for you, if you choose; trust me for that."
Ulric listened with eager attention; but in spite of his father's flattering assurance, there was not much joy or satisfaction to be seen in his face. He looked as though he were trying forcibly to keep down some rebellious feeling which would not let him make up his mind, and there was something wild and almost convulsive in his manner, as, a sudden determination burning up within him, he turned at last to the old man and said:
"Well, if you think I shall not be refused, I ... I will go and speak to Martha."
"Now, at once?" asked the Manager in surprise. "But, Ulric, a man cannot go courting all in a minute like that, when a quarter of an hour before he had no notion of such a thing. Think over the matter first."
Ulric moved impatiently. "What is the good of waiting? I must know where I am. Let me go in, father."
The old man shook his head, but he was far too much afraid that his son would repent him of his hasty resolve to offer any very serious opposition. In the joy of his heart he cared little if the long-wished-for union were brought about in a somewhat unusual manner. He determined to stay quietly outside, so that the young people within could settle the business at their ease, for he knew Ulric well enough to be aware that any inopportune interference on his part would spoil everything.
In the meantime the young man had crossed the passage rapidly, as if he neither could nor would grant himself one moment for reflection. He opened the door of the room they commonly used, and saw Martha sitting at the table. Her hands, usually so busy, lay idle in her lap. She did not look up as he entered, and seemed not to notice that he came and stood quite close to her chair. He could see quite plainly that she had been crying.
"Do you bear me ill-will, Martha, because I was out of temper just now? I am sorry for it. Why do you look at me so?"
"Because it is the first time you ever were sorry for it. You never cared before how I took your ill-temper. Let it be so still."
Her tone was cold and meant as a repulse, but Ulric did not allow himself to be intimidated by it. His father's revelations must really have had some powerful effect on his stubborn nature, for his voice was unusually gentle as he replied.
"I know I am a great deal worse than the others, but I can't help it. You must take me as I am; perhaps you will be able to make something better of me."
At his first word the girl had looked up surprised, and she must have seen something strange in his face, for she moved hastily as if to rise. Ulric held her fast.
"Stay here, Martha, I want to talk to you. I want to ask you ... Well, I am not one for many words, and between us they are not needed. We are first cousins, we have lived together for years in the same house. You know best whether you can care for me at all, and you must know too that I have always been fond of you in spite of all our quarrels. Will you be my wife, Martha?"
The wooing was abrupt, brusque and stormy, as became the suitor's nature.
He drew a long breath, as if with these decisive words a weight had fallen from him. Martha still sat motionless before him. Her blooming colour had faded, had changed to a deep pallor, but she neither trembled nor hesitated as she uttered a low half-stifled "No."
Ulric thought he had not heard aright. "You will not?"
"No, Ulric, I will not!" repeated the girl resolutely, though almost under her breath.
The young man drew himself up offended.
"Well then, I might have spared my words. My father has been mistaken and so have I. No offence, Martha."
Wounded in his pride by the curt refusal he had met with, he was about to leave the room at once, but a look at Martha arrested him. She had risen and was grasping the chair with both hands, as though needing its support. No word of reply or of explanation came from her lips, but they trembled so and there was such an expression of unspoken pain in her white face that Ulric began to feel his father might be right after all.
"I thought you cared for me, Martha," he said, with some slight reproach in his tone.
She turned hastily from him and hid her face in her hands, but he caught a sound like that of a sob repressed with difficulty.
"I might have known I was too savage, too rough for you. You are afraid, you think I might grow worse after the marriage. You will have a better husband in Lawrence. He will let you have your own way in everything."
The girl shook her head and slowly turned her face to him again.
"I am not afraid of you, though you are often a bit rough and wild. I know you can't help it, and I would have taken you as you were, ay, gladly, perhaps! But I will not take you as you are now, Ulric, as you have been ever since .... ever since the young mistress came home."
Ulric started, and a flaming blush spread over his face. He wished to break out in wrath, to bid her be silent, but he could not bring his lips to frame a syllable.
"Uncle thinks you care for no one because your head is taken up with other things," continued Martha, more and more excitedly. "Yes, indeed, quite other things! You have never given me a thought, and now you come all at once and want me to be your wife. You want some one to help drive away your thoughts, Ulric, don't you? and the first one who comes is good enough for that. Even I am good enough for that! But things are not so bad with me yet that I should be put to such a use. If I cared for you more than for the whole world beside, if it were to cost me my life to part from you, I would rather have Lawrence, I would rather have any one now than you!"
This passionate outbreak, contrasting with the girl's usually quiet demeanour, might have shown Ulric what deep root he had taken in her heart. Perhaps he did feel it, but the cloud still rested on his brow and the flush on his face grew deeper with every word. He gave her no answer, but, as she now broke out into loud weeping, stood at her side quite dumb, making no attempt to comfort or to calm her.
Some minutes passed in torturing silence. Martha lay with her head and arms resting on the table. Nothing was to be heard but the sound of her convulsive sobs and the monotonous ticking of the old clock against the wall.
At length Ulric stooped down to her. His voice was not so hard as it had been, but it was scarcely gentle; there was in it only a dull, low sound of pain.
"Never mind, Martha. I thought it might be better if you would help me. Perhaps it would only have been worse, and you are quite right not to risk it with me. Let things be as they have always been between us two."
He went without further leave-taking. On the threshold he stopped an instant and looked back, but the girl did not raise her head, and he went quickly out.
"Well?" said the Manager, eagerly, as he came forward to meet his son. "Well?" he repeated more anxiously, for Ulric's face was not happy as that of an affianced lover.
"It was of no good, father," said Ulric in a low voice. "Martha will not have me."
"Will not haveyou?" cried the old man, as though the most astounding news in the world were being announced to him.
"No, and don't tease her with a lot of questions and talk about it. She knows well enough why she has refused me, and I know too, so there is no use in a third person meddling with it. Now let me go, father, I must get away."
He hurried past, evidently wishing to escape all further discussion. The Manager grasped his pipe with both hands; he was almost inclined to dash it to the ground, by way of giving vent to his vexation.
"Who can understand these women and their fancies? I could have staked my head upon it that the girl was fond of him, and now she sends him away with a No! and he ... I should not have thought he would have taken it so much to heart. He looked quite scared, and he is tearing along the road as if he were mad. But he will never explain it to me as long as he lives, I know him well enough to be sure of that, and Martha won't either."
The Manager went on pacing up and down the little garden, until gradually his wrath sobered down to a more resigned state of feeling. What could be done in the matter after all? They could not be tied together by force if they did not wish to be so tied, and it was of no use racking one's brains to discover why they did not wish it. With a heavy sigh the old man bade farewell to his favourite scheme, now hopelessly shipwrecked. These things cannot be forced!
He was still standing at the garden-gate, busy with his troubled thoughts, when he saw the younger Herr Berkow coming down the road which led past his cottage to the back of the park. Arthur seemed better acquainted than his wife with the mode of ingress. He drew a key from his pocket, destined, no doubt, to fit the lock which had so recently been broken open.
The Manager bowed deeply and respectfully to the young heir as he went by. With his usual scant sympathy, Arthur, hardly glancing aside at him, gave a lofty negligent little nod by way of recognition, and was passing on. A quiver of pain came into the old man's face, as he stood there still holding his cap in his hand and looking after the other with a mournful gaze which seemed to say, "So that's what you have grown into!"
Either Arthur saw the look or it occurred to him all at once that the old friend and playfellow of his childish years was there before him; he stopped suddenly.
"Oh, it is you, Hartmann! How do you do?"
He stretched out his hand in his lazy, indifferent way, and seemed rather surprised that it was not immediately grasped, but for years such a favour had not been granted, and the Manager hesitated before accepting it; when he did so at last, it was shily and with precaution, as though fearing to hurt the delicate white hand by the touch of his rough hard palm.
"Thank you, I am pretty well so far, Herr Arthur----I beg pardon, Herr Berkow, I mean."
"Keep to the Arthur," said the young man, quietly. "You are more used to it, and I would rather hear it from you than the other name. So you are all right, Hartmann?"
"Well yes, thank God, Herr Arthur. I have as much as I want. There is a bit of trouble and care in every house, and I am a little worried just now about my children, but it can't be helped."
"About your children? I thought you had only one son."
"Quite right, my Ulric. But I have a niece in my house, too, Martha Ewers."
"And she gives you trouble?"
"God forbid!" said the Manager, warmly. "The girl is as good as can be, but I did think the two might have made a pair, she and Ulric"----
"And Ulric will not?" interrupted Arthur, with a strangely rapid glance from the usually weary-looking eyes.
The old man shook his head.
"I don't know. Perhaps he did not really wish it, or perhaps he set about it badly; any way, it is over between them. And that was just my last hope, that he would get a good wife who would put some sensible notions into his head."
It was odd that the miner's simple uninteresting family affairs did not appear to "bore" the young man. He had not once yawned, as he was in the habit of doing, when not obliged to place some restraint on himself. His face even expressed a degree of interest as he asked:
"Are the notions he carries in his head at present the reverse of sensible then?"
The Manager looked up rather consciously at the speaker, and then down at the ground.
"Well, Herr Arthur, I need hardly tell you that. You must have heard enough about Ulric!"
"Yes, I remember. My father spoke to me about it. Your son is not in the good books of the gentlemen up there, Hartmann; very far from it."
The old man heaved a sigh.
"No, and I can't mend the matter. He will not listen to me, he never has listened to me. He always would think for himself and have his own way in everything. I let the boy learn a great deal more than the others, more, perhaps, than was good for him. I thought he would get on faster for it, and he is Deputy already, and will very likely be made Overman some day, but all the trouble has come from the learning though. He bothers himself about all sorts of stuff, and thinks he knows better about everything; he sits up all night over his books, and is just all in all with his mates. How he manages to take the lead everywhere, I don't know; but even when he was quite a little lad, he had them all under his thumb, and now it is worse than ever. What he says, they believe blindfold; where he stands, they will all stand together with him; and if he were to lead them into hell itself, they would go, always supposing he marched first. But this is not at all as it should be, particularly here on our works."
"Why here, particularly?" asked Arthur, drawing figures with the key on the wooden gate, and apparently immersed in thought.
"Because the people here are too badly off," burst forth the Manager. "Don't be angry, Herr Arthur, if I tell you so to your face. It is just the truth. I can't complain myself, I have always had more than my deserts, because your late mother was very fond of my wife--but the others! They toil and trouble day after day, and yet they can scarcely get bare necessaries for their wives and children. God knows they earn their bread hardly, but we must all of us work, and most of them would do it willingly enough, if they could only get their rights, as on the other works. But here they are pressed and harried for every farthing of their miserable wages, and the mines below are in such a state, that each man says his prayers before going down, because he keeps thinking that the whole concern will fall down some day and crush him. But there is never any money for repairs, and when a poor fellow gets into difficulties and distress, no money can ever be found to help him with either, and all the time they have to look on while thousands upon thousands are sent up to the city, in order that"----
The old man stopped suddenly, and clapped his hand over his indiscreet mouth in mortal fear. He had gone on speaking in such a zealous haste, that he had completely forgotten who it was that stood before him. The hot flush which rose to the young man's face at his last words, brought him back to a consciousness of what he was saying.
"Well?" asked Arthur, as he paused. "Go on. Hartmann, you see I am listening."
"God bless me!" stammered the old man, in sad confusion. "I did not mean that, I had quite forgotten"----
"Who spent the thousands? You need not make any apologies, Hartmann, but speak out like a man what you were going to say to me. Or perhaps you think I shall carry tales to my father?"
"No," said the Manager, heartily. "That you certainly won't do. You are not like your father, such an imprudent word as that to him would have lost me my place. Well, I was only going to say that all this makes bad blood with the hands. Herr Arthur"--he stepped up nearer, with a look of half-timid, half-trusting appeal, "if you would but take some interest in these things! You are Herr Berkow's son, and you will inherit all one of these days. No one has so much concern in it as you."
"I?" said Arthur, with a bitterness which happily escaped his unpractised hearer. "I understand nothing of your customs or of what is necessary here on the works. It is, and always has been, all quite strange to me."
The old man shook his head sorrowfully.
"Lord Almighty! what is there so much to understand? You need not study all about machinery and the shafts for that. You only need to look at the people and listen to them, as you are listening to me now. But nobody will do that. If a man complains, he is sent away, and then they say it is for insubordination; when a poor miner is dismissed on that score he finds it hard to get another place. Herr Arthur, I tell you, it is a crying shame, and that is what Ulric can't endure to see; it eats his heart out, and, though I am always talking and preaching against his notions, in point of fact he is right. Things can't go on in this way, only the means he would use to bring about a change are godless and sinful. They would bring him into trouble, and the others with him. Herr Arthur,"--the salt tears stood in the Manager's eyes as, without any hesitation now, he seized the young man's hand, still resting on the gate,--"for God's sake, I implore you, don't let matters go on like this. It can be good for no one, not even for Herr Berkow. There are troubles and disputes now on all the works around, but when once they break out with us, the Lord have mercy on us, for there will be awful work!"
During the whole of this speech Arthur had stood silent, gazing straight before him. Now he turned his eyes to the speaker and looked fixedly and gravely at him.
"I will talk to my father about it," he said slowly; "you may rely upon that, Hartmann."
The Manager let fall the hand he had grasped, and stepped back. Having poured out his whole heart, he had expected some better result than this poor promise.
Arthur drew himself up and prepared to go.
"One thing more, Hartmann. Your son saved my life not long ago, and he has felt hurt, probably, at receiving no word of thanks. I do not attach a great value to life in itself, and it may be, therefore, that I did not estimate aright the service rendered. But I should have made good my negligence, if"----the young heir frowned and his voice took a sharper inflexion, "if your Ulric had not been the man he is. I have no desire to find myself and my acknowledgments repulsed, as happened to my messenger a short time back; but in spite of this, I would not be thought ungrateful. Tell him I thank him, and as to the rest, I will confer with my father on the subject. Good-bye."
He took the road leading to the park. The Manager looked after him despondingly, and sighed heavily as he murmured: "God grant it may do some good--but I hardly think it."
Up at the great house the carriage had been drawn out, and the coachman was busy putting to the horses.
"This is something quite new," said he to the footman who had brought him the order to make ready. "The master and mistress are going to drive out together. A red cross should be set against the day in the calendar."
The man laughed. "Yes, they won't find much pleasure in it; but you see they can't help themselves. The return visits have to be made in the town to all the great folk who were here at the dinner, and it would not do exactly for them to drive in separately, or, no doubt, that is what they would have done."
"A queer couple," said the coachman shaking his head. "And they call that being married! The Lord preserve a man from such wedded bliss as that!"
A quarter of an hour later the carriage containing Arthur Berkow and his wife was rolling along the road which led to the town.
The weather had been tolerable enough during the morning, but had now changed for the worse. The sky was lowering and overcast; the wind, which had risen almost to a hurricane, drove the grey clouds before it, and every now and then a heavy shower fell from them on to the already over-saturated earth. It was, in truth, a rough and stormy spring, of a sort thoroughly to disgust those accustomed to a town-life with a sojourn in the country.
Although the month of May had come, the bare leafless trees in the park showed hardly any symptoms of sprouting forth. The piercing wind and cold rains had destroyed all the flowers, to the distraction of the head-gardener who had been at so much pains to train them to perfection in the beds and on the terraces, and every bud was mercilessly nipped and blighted so soon as it showed itself. The impracticable roads and drenched forests made all excursions, possible only in a close carriage, as unpleasant as they were objectless.
Day after day nothing but storms and heavy rain; a grey cloudy sky, mountains veiled in mist, through which, ever and anon, a pale ray of sunshine would struggle faintly; and with all this a joyless, desolate home, where the mists gradually sank deeper and deeper, so that there, at least, no sunshine could penetrate, where every blossom, possibly ready to unfold, was frozen by the icy breath of bitterness and hatred.
In this home two people endured, as a kind of martyrdom from which each strove to escape as much as possible, that undisturbed seclusion which is looked on by most newly-married couples as the height of bliss. Surely this was enough to account for the bride's pale face and for that expression of pain about her mouth which no amount of self-control could obliterate; to account also for the melancholy look with which she gazed out at the landscape.
She had given her strength credit for more than it could bear. The sacrifice had been promptly made in the flush of courage and of filial love, but the days and hours succeeding the sacrifice, the passive endurance of her chosen lot, called now, for the first time, all her moral courage, all her power of will, into action, and however much Eugénie might possess of both, it was yet plainly to be seen that this after-time was very bitter to her.
Her husband, leaning back in the opposite corner as far off as possible, so that the folds of her dress hardly touched his cloak, did not seem to carry the burden of his happiness much more lightly. His face had, it is true, always been as pale, his eyes as expressive of fatigue, his bearing as languid as now, but there were lines in his countenance which had not been there before--dark, bitter lines, stamped on it by the events of the last few weeks, and which no amount of the coolest indifference would ever again efface.
He too looked out silently through the window, and made no more attempt than Eugénie to renew the conversation. They had met for the first time that day when about to set out on this journey, and some formal little speeches had been exchanged about the weather, the drive and the object for which it was being made; then they had relapsed into an icy silence which was to last, apparently, until they reached the town.
The expedition, conducted in this fashion, was not very agreeable; though in the comfortable close carriage nothing was felt of the inclement weather without, yet even the softest cushions could not prevent their feeling some inconvenience from the bad state of the roads, and the heavy barouche could only advance slowly, though drawn by fine and powerful horses.
They had accomplished nearly half the distance when a sudden jerk, more violent then any preceding, nearly threw the carriage over on its side. The coachman swore and stopped the horses. He and the footman both dismounted from the box, and then a lively discussion went on between them out in the road.
"What is the matter?" asked Eugénie, leaning forward uneasily.
Arthur, for his part, did not seem much to care what was the matter. He would no doubt have quietly waited until some announcement on the subject had been made to him, but he felt himself called on now to let down the window and to repeat his wife's question.
"Don't be alarmed, sir," said the coachman, stepping up to the door with the reins in his hand. "We have had a very lucky escape, we were within a hair of upsetting. Something must have snapped in the hind-wheel. Frank has gone to see what it is."
The report, which Frank brought back after due examination, was not precisely of a consoling nature. The wheel was so much injured that it was clearly impossible to move the carriage on even a hundred paces in that state. Both the men looked at their master helplessly.
"I am afraid, under these circumstances, we must give up the intended visits," said Arthur coolly, turning to his wife. "By the time Frank has gone back to the house and brought us back another carriage it will be too late to drive as far as the town."
"I am afraid so too. There is nothing to be done then but to get out and turn back."
"Get out?" said Arthur in amazement "Do you think of going back on foot?"
"Do you think of sitting in this carriage until Frank has returned with another?"
Arthur appeared to have entertained the idea; he would probably have preferred to wait two hours, stretched in his comfortable corner where he was sheltered from wind and weather, than to undertake a pedestrian tour through the cold wet woods. Eugénie noticed this, and her lips curled disdainfully.
"As for me, I prefer going back on foot to waiting in that wearisome useless manner. Frank will go with me, he must return any way. You will no doubt remain in the carriage. I would not take upon myself the responsibility of giving you cold for the world."
That which the misadventure had not had power to do, was effected by the overt irony of these words. Arthur was roused out of his corner. He got up, pushed open the door, and next minute was standing on the step, offering his hand to help her alight. Eugénie hesitated.
"I beg of you, Arthur" ...
"I beg of you not to make a scene before the servants and to show them that you prefer the footman's escort to mine. Allow me."
She gave an imperceptible little shrug; there was no choice for her, however, but to accept the proffered hand; the coachman and Frank were, in truth, standing close by. She got out, and Arthur turned to the two men.
"I will see your mistress home. You must contrive to get the empty carriage to some farm where it can stay for the present, and follow us as quickly as possible with the horses."
The men took off their hats and prepared to carry out the instructions they had received. Under the circumstances it was really the only thing to be done. With a slight gesture Eugénie declined her husband's offered arm.
"I think we can hardly walk here as on a promenade," said she, evading it. "We must each look to ourselves and make our own way as best we can."
She attempted this indeed, but only to sink at the very first step into the soft slippery mud; taking refuge on the other side of the road, she found herself suddenly in water an inch deep which splashed under her feet. She stood still in it helpless. The road had not looked so bad to her from the carriage.
"Here, at any rate, we shall never get on," said Arthur, who had tried a like experiment with the like result. "We must go back through the woods."
"Without knowing our way? we should lose ourselves."
"Hardly that. I remember when I was a child there used to be a path which led right through the wood, over the heights and down into the valley. We must try and find it."
Eugénie still lingered, but the evidently impracticable state of the main road, half flooded and full of ruts, left her no alternative. She followed her husband who had already turned off to the left, and a few minutes later they were in the midst of the dusky green and thickly planted pine trees.
Now at least it was possible to advance over the roots and moss-covered ground, nay, it would even have been easy to feet trained to such exercise. To a lady and gentleman accustomed to the smooth floor of a drawing-room, having carriages and riding horses at their disposal for every excursion, and whose pedestrian feats were limited to a turn round the park when the weather proved unusually fine, this path offered difficulties enough--and then the foggy tempestuous weather to boot! It had left off raining certainly, but everything about them was dripping wet, and the clouds threatened a fresh shower at any moment. Several miles from home, in the midst of the woods, straying like a pair of adventurers trusting to chance, without conveyance or servants, without the smallest protection from wind or rain, Herr Arthur Berkow and his high-born wife were in a situation so extraordinary as to seem almost desperate.
But the lady had already accepted the inevitable with characteristic resolution. The first ten steps had shown her how impossible it would be to save her light silk dress and white bernous, so she abandoned them to the mercy of the wet moss and dripping trees, and walked bravely on. Her attire was ill-suited to such wanderings on foot, and utterly incapable of affording her any protection from the inclemency of the weather. She wrapped herself more closely in the thin cashmere, and shivered in spite of herself as the cold wind met her.
Her husband noticed this and stopped. Although they had started in a close carriage, he had, in his effeminate way, thrown a cloak round him which covered him completely. He took it off in silence, and would have put it round his wife's shoulders, but she moved aside with prompt decision.
"Thank you, I do not want it."
"But you are chilly."
"Not at all. I am not so sensitive to the weather as you are."
Without saying another word Arthur took the cloak back, but instead of folding it about him again, he threw it negligently on one arm and walked on at her side, clad only in his light dress suit. Eugénie struggled against a feeling of rising anger. She hardly knew herself why this conduct vexed her so much, but she would far rather have seen him wrap himself carefully in the despised cloak and so take care of his precious health, than witness this reckless exposure of himself to wind and weather. It was for her, and her alone, to show a quiet, well-considered acquiescence in the decrees of Fate.
It was incomprehensible to her that her husband should for once lay claim to the same right, that he, who had been alarmed at the very idea of this journey home on foot, should appear now hardly to feel its inconveniences, while she was already more than half repenting of her resolve. A gust of wind tore his hat off and blew it down a steep bank where it could not possibly be reached. Arthur looked calmly after the fugitive and tossed his long brown hair back with an almost defiant movement. His feet sank deep into the wet moss at every step, and yet his gait had never seemed to Eugénie so firm, so elastic, as now. As they advanced into the forest, his languid air gradually vanished, his eyes brightened as they glanced sharply round in quest of the wished-for path. The dark damp woods seemed to have a re-animating power over him, in such deep draughts did he drink in the bracing pine-scented air, so briskly did he lead his wife along under the whispering trees. All at once he stopped and cried triumphantly,
"There, that is the way!"
Before them there was indeed a narrow footpath which ran straight through the forest, and, at some distance farther on, seemed to decline gently. Eugénie looked at it in surprise. She had not believed that her husband would prove a sure guide, and had quite made up her mind to losing their way completely.
"You seem very familiar with the country," said she, as she entered the path at his side.
He smiled, but the smile was less for her than for the place he found himself in; he looked round, scanning it on all sides with interest.
"I have not forgotten my old friends the woods yet, though it is long, very long, since we have seen each other."
Eugénie raised her head in astonishment. She had never heard such a tone in his voice; there was deep strongly-repressed feeling in it.
"Are you so fond of the woods?" she asked, involuntarily keeping up a conversation which would probably else have lapsed into the usual silence. "Why have you passed a whole month then without once setting foot in them?"
Arthur did not answer. He was gazing dreamily down at the green depths shrouded in mist.
"Why?" said he at last, sadly. "I don't know. Perhaps because I was too lazy. One loses everything in that city of yours, even one's taste for solitude in the woods."
"In that city of mine? I thought you were brought up there as well as I."
"Certainly, but with this difference, that my life ended when my so-called bringing up began. All that was really worth living for I left behind me when I entered those walls, for the joyous sunny years of my early boyhood were the only ones worth having."
He spoke in a tone half bitter, half resentful. But in Eugénie's mind the old angry feeling blazed up hotly again. How dared he speak as if he had ever had anything to give up? What did he know of sacrifice, of renunciation? For her, indeed, childhood and happiness might truly be said to have come to an end together. As her father's confidant, early initiated into all the family affairs, she had made acquaintance on her first entrance into life with that graduated scale of care, humiliation, and despair, with that bitter school of sorrow, which had steeled her character, but had also robbed her of all the joys of youth. How different had been her husband's position, how different all his past life! And yet he spoke as if he had known unhappiness!
Arthur seemed to read these thoughts in her face, as he turned to hold back a drooping branch which would have brushed against her.
"You think I, of all people, have no right to complain? It may be so. At any rate I have always been told that my existence is a most enviable one. But I assure you a life like mine is sometimes desperately void and wretched. When fortune heaps all her gifts before a man, he just treads them under foot, because he does not know what use to make of them. The life is so empty and miserable that one would gladly escape in the end from this gilded felicity they vaunt so loudly, and rush out of it anywhere--anywhere, even into the midst of storm and tempest!"
Eugénie's dark eyes were fixed in speechless astonishment on his face. He flushed suddenly, remembering perhaps that he had been guilty of an unpardonable mistake; he had betrayed some feeling in his wife's presence. The young man frowned and cast a reproachful angry glance at the forest which had thus led him astray. Next minute he resumed his old indifferent manner.
"Just now we have more storm and tempest than we care about," said he negligently, going on in front so as completely to turn his back on her. "It is blowing a gale up there on the hills. We shall have to wait until the worst is over; we cannot go down at present."
And truly the storm met them with such force, as they issued from the wood, that they had some trouble to keep their footing. It was plainly out of the question to go on now, for at this spot the road grew steep and led straight down into the valley; they would have been in danger of being caught up by the wind and hurled bodily into the depths below. There was therefore nothing for it but to wait here under the shelter of the trees until the hurricane should subside.
They stood under a mighty pine-tree which reared itself high aloft on the very verge of the forest. The storm roared and rustled in its great green arms, as it stretched them protectingly over its younger and weaker fellows, and swayed them groaning up and down every now and then in spite of their strength, but the giant, whitish-grey trunk, offered shelter and support to Eugénie, who stood leaning against it. Two persons might have found room there in case of need, but they would have been placed in the closest proximity to each other, and it was this consideration, no doubt, which induced Arthur to remain standing some paces off. He was but very imperfectly sheltered, and the raindrops, accumulated on the branches from the last shower, poured down plentifully upon him as the wind moved them to and fro; his hair was blown about and the drops chased each other over his uncovered brow, still he made no attempt to change his place.
"Would you ... would you not rather come here?" asked Eugénie, hesitating and squeezing herself to one side, so as to make room for him on the only dry spot.
"Thank you. I do not wish to inconvenience you."
"Put the cloak on then, at least." This time it sounded almost like an entreaty. "You will be quite wet through."
"Certainly not. I am not so sensitive to the weather as you imagine."
She bit her lips. It is not pleasant to be fought with one's own weapons, but far more than this it angered her to see him expose himself thus to wind and weather, just for the sole purpose of teaching her a lesson. True, this sort of defiance seemed to her supremely absurd; she did not really suffer by his persistency, and she did not very much care if he caught cold or fell ill through it or not. Still it irritated her that he should stand there calmly and keep his place in spite of the storm, with an effort, perhaps, but still keep it, while, but half an hour before, he had been lying, sleepy and shivering, in the cushions of the comfortable carriage and appearing painfully affected by every breath of air which found its way through the windows. Were storm and tempest really needed that he might prove to her he was not quite the weakling she had hitherto considered him to be?
Arthur hardly looked just now as if he had the intention of proving anything to her. He stood with folded arms, gazing at the chain of wooded hills, a commanding view of which was to be had from this eminence. As his eyes turned slowly from one summit to another, Eugénie suddenly made the startling discovery that they were very handsome. It was a great surprise to her; up to this time she had only known that the half-closed lids veiled two sleepy, tired-looking orbs which she had not troubled herself to examine more narrowly. When, by any chance, he raised them, he did it slowly, in a lazy fashion, as if it cost him an effort which he felt would be ill repaid, and yet this look of his was well worthy of notice. To judge by the expression of his face, one would have expected the usually drooping lashes to cover eyes of a cold pale blue, but instead of this they proved to be brown, clear and deep, though lacking animation, and it seemed as if they might yet light up with energy and passion, as if in their depths a whole world lay perdu, long forgotten and sunk out of sight, yet awaiting only the magic word which should break the spell and call it up afresh to life and action.
Once more there flashed into the young wife's mind the thought which had crossed it when, at their entrance into the woods, he had turned from her so suddenly, the suspicion of all the havoc made, of the great wrong done, by the education his father had given him, a wrong too great to be justified or ever to be redressed.
They stood together alone up there upon the hill. The forest lay before them with its veil of mist, closely wreathed in the grey shadows which clung to the sombre firs, waved from their crests in long gauzy stripes, floated ghost-like over the earth. And over the hills yonder the same misty veil hovered and fluttered, now torn asunder, now rushing together in one compact mass, clothing alike the hill-tops and steaming valleys. One continual surging and swelling, ebbing and flowing; mountains and woods seeming, at one time, to open forth their innermost depths, then again to close, withdrawing themselves from every mortal eye.
All around the storm howled and raged, tearing through the great secular pines as through a cornfield. The mighty trunks groaned as they swayed up and down, and bent their lofty crests murmuring before the wind, whilst overhead chased in disordered flight the great, seething formless masses of grey cloud. Such a storm as can only burst forth in the heart of the mountains--yet in all its uproar, it brought a message of spring. She came riding on its rustling wings, not sunnily smiling as on the plains below, but in rough wild humour. It was her breath which swelled the hurricane, her cry which resounded through all the clamour.
In these great disturbances of Nature may be traced a promise of the glowing sunshine and scent of flowers, so soon to be spread through the earth, a prevision of all those creative forces at work, struggling to bring their thousand germs forth to the light of day. And they heard her cry and answered her, those murmuring forests, those precipitous brooks and vaporous valleys. In all this commotion and fury and foam, there was yet Nature's shout of gladness as she threw off the last chains of winter, her hail of rejoicing as she greeted the coming deliverer. The spring is at hand!
There is something mysterious in such an hour. The legends of those mountain parts allot to it a peculiar romantic charm. They tell how the spirit of the hills travels through his kingdom at such times, and uses his power for a blessing or a curse to the lives of all tarrying within his dominions. "To meet then is to cleave together, to part then is to part for all eternity." For those two standing on the height together, there was indeed no question of such meeting. They were bound by the closest tie which can unite two human beings, and yet they were as far apart, as strange one to the other, as though worlds lay between them.
The silence had lasted some time. Eugénie broke it first.
"Arthur."
He started as from a dream and turned to her.
"Yes?"
"It is so cold up here--Will you not .... lend me your cloak now?"
Again the bright flush rose to the young man's face, as he looked at her in speechless astonishment. He knew she was so proud, she would rather have been frozen by the icy wind than condescend to beg for the once despised covering; yet she did so now in the hesitating tone, and with the downcast eyes, of one confessing a fault.
In a minute he was at her side, and holding out the cloak to her. She allowed him to put it round her shoulders in silence, but when he was about to return to his former post, he met a glance of dumb yet earnest reproach. Arthur still hesitated for one second, but had she not almost asked for forgiveness? He, too, allowed himself to be disarmed, and remained standing by her.
A great rampart of fog had risen out of the valley and closed in round them, fastening them to the spot. Mountains and woods disappeared in the grey vapour. Only the mighty pines towered high above it, and looked gravely down on the two human beings who had come to them for protection and a refuge. Overhead the dark branches rustled and whispered noisily as with a thousand mysterious voices, and ever and anon struck in the fuller-toned chords of the forest. It became painfully oppressive up here in the midst of this fog, beneath all this eerie fluttering and stir.
Eugénie started up all at once, as if she must extricate herself from some danger, from some toils which held her enchained.
"The fog gets thicker and thicker," said she anxiously; "and the weather more dreadful than ever. Do you think there would be any danger for us on the road?"
Arthur looked at the swelling masses of vapour, and stroked the drops from his damp hair.
"I am not well enough acquainted with our mountains to know how far their storms may be dangerous. If it were the case, would you be afraid?"
"I am not fearful, but one always hesitates when it is a question of life."
"Always? I should have thought our life, the life we have led for the last month, was not of a nature to make any one afraid of risking it. You especially have cause to feel this."
She looked down.
"So far as I know, I have annoyed you by no complaints."
"Oh, no. Nothing like a complaint has escaped your lips. If you could only force some colour into your cheeks as easily! You would do it, I know, if you could, but there even your power of will fails. Do you think it can afford me any great pleasure to see that my wife is drooping away at my side, and that just because a hard fate has driven her there?"
This time the hot glow mounted to Eugénie's face; it was not called up by the reproach contained in his words, but by the strange expression he had used towards her for the first time.
"My wife" he had said. Yes, she had certainly been married to him, but it had never yet occurred to her that he could have the right to call her "his wife."
"Why do you touch upon this subject again?" asked she, turning away. "I hoped after that one necessary explanation it would be done with for ever."
"Because you seem to be in error and to fancy that I shall hold you all your life long in chains which, truly, are as oppressive to me as they ever were to you."
His tone was cold in the extreme, but Eugénie looked quickly up at him. She could read nothing in his countenance, however. Why were those eyes instantly veiled whenever she attempted to search their meaning? Was it that they would not submit to be questioned, or that they feared to betray themselves?
"You allude to--to a separation?"
"Do you imagine I could look upon the union between us as lasting after the expression of--of esteem, which I was forced to hear from your mouth on that first evening?"
Eugénie was silent.
Over their heads the pine-branches rustled and waved hither and thither once more. The voice of the forest, exhorting, remonstrating, was wafted down to this wedded pair about to utter the word which should separate them, but neither he nor she would understand the meaning.
"We are neither of us free enough to lay all considerations on one side," continued Arthur, in the same tone. "Your father and mine are both too well known, each in his own sphere, our marriage attracted too much attention for us to be able to dissolve it immediately, without affording inexhaustible matter for gossip to the whole town, and making ourselves ridiculous as the hero and heroine of a hundred stories. People do not separate after four-and-twenty hours, or even after a week, without some appreciable cause; for appearances' sake they bear with one another for a year or so, in order to declare, with some show of likelihood, that there is incompatibility of temper. I had hoped we could have borne to live so long together, but it seems that our strength is not equal to the task. If we go on in this way, we shall both of us succumb."
The arm which Eugénie had wound round the trunk of the great tree trembled slightly, but her voice was steady as she answered.
"I do not succumb so easily when I have once taken a task upon me; and, as for you, I really did not think you were in the least affected by our painful position."
In his brown eyes there flashed once more that rapid lightning-like gleam which vanished as quickly, leaving no trace behind it. His look was quiet and expressionless as before, when he replied after a short pause.
"You really think so? Well, it does not signify whether I am affected by it or not. I should not have touched upon the subject, if I had not seen the necessity of reassuring you by a promise that our marriage should be dissolved as soon as circumstances permit. Perhaps now I shall not see you look so white as you have done for the last few days, and perhaps you will believe now what you have, so far, looked upon as a lie, namely, that I had no knowledge of the machinations by which your hand was obtained for me, but imagined that it was given voluntarily and of your own free will.
"I believe you, Arthur," said she in a low voice. "I do believe you now."
Arthur received this first mark of his wife's confidence with a smile of exceeding bitterness. It came to him at the very moment he was giving her up.
"The fog begins to clear," said he, changing the subject, "and the storm seems to abate too for a few minutes. We must take advantage of it to get down. In the valley below we shall be protected, and shall soon reach the farm, where, I hope, they will be able to lend us a carriage. Will you follow me?"
The way was steep and slippery, but Arthur seemed wishful to-day of giving his whole nature the lie. He walked down the hill with a firm sure tread, while Eugénie, with her thin boots and long dress, impeded still further by the cloak, could hardly advance. He saw that he must come to her assistance, but on such a road he could not simply offer her his arm. He must, of necessity put it well round her if his help were to be of any avail, and that ... that would hardly do!
The husband hesitated to render his wife a service which he would have done to any stranger; and that which a stranger, under the circumstances, would have at once accepted, the wife felt averse to receiving from her husband.
After some moments of indecision he did finally place his arm round her waist. She quivered a little at his touch, but neither of them spoke while making the descent, which lasted about ten minutes. At every step they took downwards Eugénie's face grew whiter. It appeared to be intolerable to her that his arm should thus support her, that she should be forced to lean on his shoulder, so near him that she could feel his breath on her face. Yet he did what he could to spare her. He never glanced at her once. All his attention seemed directed to the road, which, certainly, was of a nature to make care and prudence needful to prevent their both sliding down it unawares. But, quiet as he seemed, there was that same treacherous little twitch about the young man's lips, and, when at last they reached the valley below, he released his wife from his arms with a long, deep-drawn breath, which showed he had been anything but calm during their strange little journey.
Already the farm-buildings were visible glinting through the trees, and they hastened down the path which led to them, as though feeling that on no account must they remain longer alone together. Overhead the storm raged afresh, and high up on the hill the fog thickened again round the stout old pine which had spread its branches protectingly over these two, and given them shelter in the hour of which the old legends say:
"To meet then is to cleave together, to part then is to part for all eternity."