'And so you love me—love me, Carl?'
How Charlie's heart now leaped to hear his Christian name uttered by her lips for the first time!
'Ernestine, my own darling!' (et cetera, and so forth).
They remained—as the sacristan who was patiently waiting for his fees said—quite long enough to have made an acute archaeological investigation of the whole place; but somehow their minds were otherwise occupied.
Singularly enough, they had forgotten all about the throne of Charlemagne, and actually descended—slower than they had ascended—the stairs of the Hoch Munster without having seen it.
They were both very silent on the drive homeward, but their young hearts were brimming over with joy, and deep blushes suffused the face of Ernestine, and her lips were trembling; and as if her mother's eye might read how they had been occupied in the Dom Kirche, she hurried upstairs to her own room, to seek in solitude the power of reflecting over all that had passed, and her new position, for within an hour she had passed a certain rubicon in life.
Charlie, too, desired to be alone, and ascended into the recess of the ruined Schloss, where, among the owls and the ivy, he slowly lighted a cigar, and while his heart was full of love and happiness, and of gratitude to Ernestine for returning his passion, he began to consider what was to be done next.
He first abandoned himself to a dream of joy. In imagination Ernestine was with him still; her hands so soft and small yet lingered in his; her lips were still before him, and the perfume of her dark hair came back to him, as he rehearsed, over and over again, all that episode in the Dom Kirche.
The secret that had trembled so long on his tongue—the secret that cold prudence and dread of German pride withheld so long, had escaped him at last. His love had been avowed; that love was accepted and reciprocated.
But now, alas! there came home to Charlie's heart those thoughts that had occurred to him before—thoughts that had not, as yet, entered the mind of Ernestine. The future—how and what was it to be? How cold and miserable was reflection—miserable, but for a time only. Was not the fact of mutual love and perfect trust existing between them enough to make all seem glorious, and the path of life most flowery?
She loved him—that bright and beautiful girl! Beyond that love she might never be his; but with that love for him, she would never be the wife of another. Yet, as he before asked himself, was it just or generous that her young life should be wasted, and for him?
If he suggested an elopement, in what light would such an episode place him with his friend Heinrich, with her whole family, with his regiment, and society, even, which was very, very doubtful, if she would accede to such a measure.
So long as he had not spoken of love to Ernestine, but lingered on the pleasant borderland that adjoins the realms of Cupid, Charlie felt that he was guilty of no breach of faith with her family, and no violation of the hearty hospitality extended to him. Butnowhis position seemed entirely altered. Their love was a fact; he had won her heart without the consent of her parents, and that consent, in his subaltern rank in social and military life, he knew but too well would never be accorded to him.
'Well, well,' thought he, with something of grim joy, 'the war is before me, and who can foresee what honours I may win in defending Germany, or on the soil of France!'
When the party in the Schloss met at dinner that evening, there was a conscious expression in the faces of Charlie and Ernestine that they alone could read, and to which their hearts had alone the key; and to both there was something novel, joyous, and inexpressibly sweet in this secret understanding between them. Each felt a delicious interest and right of proprietary in the other.
Among the visitors was Baron Grünthal, the Oberdirector of the Consistory Court at Aix, a stout and florid, but rather handsome man, in the prime of life, with an ill-trimmed moustache hiding his whole mouth, and the inevitable red ribbon at his button-hole, who mentioned incidentally that he had seen the Grafine and Herr Pierrepont leaving the Dom Kirche by the great door, on either side of which are a she-wolf and a fir apple in bronze. Ernestine stooped over her bouquet to hide her conscious blush.
'You know, mamma,' said she, in a tone of explanation, though none was required, 'we drove into town, Herr Pierrepont and I, that I might show him the tomb and throne of Charlemagne.'
'Ah! yes,' said the Baron, making his champagne effervesce with a piece of biscuit; 'did you think the marble slabs of a good colour, Herr Pierrepont?'
'Beautiful!' said Charlie. 'The finest black I ever saw,' he desperately added, at a venture.
'Black?' said two or three voices. 'Why, they are of the purestwhite!'
'Exactly; that was what I meant to say. My German is not perfect, Herr Baron,' said Charlie.
And Ernestine, who had grown pale, now laughed and glanced furtively at her lover.
Dinner over, the Count and Baron retired to smoke and talk politics; but the latter, whose suspicions had been roused by the confused manner of Charlie, and the evident absorption of him and his fair companion when quitting the Dom Kirche, began to talk of something that might seriously affect their happiness.
Charlie and Ernestine betook themselves to the piano, where eye could look into eye, and finger touch finger occasionally in the duet, or soft whispers be exchanged amid a sonata of Beethoven; the Countess retired to doze in the boudoir, with her Spitz pug on her knee; while Herminia and her betrothed found sufficient attraction in each other; so the evening of this eventful day passed off peacefully and happily, as many others had done.
During the protracted progress of the sonata, the two antiquarians from the Dom Kirche agreed that their engagement—for such they fully considered it now—should, as yet, not be divulged to anyone, not even to Herminia, from whom Ernestine had never before had a secret to withhold.
Outwardly, our hero and heroine seemed merely intimate friends who were soon to part; inwardly, they had their own happy thoughts, while the family had not the slightest suspicion of how matters stood, though that night all was on the very verge of discovery!
In the recess of a window, whither they had gone to study the stars, Charlie suddenly pressed Ernestine to his breast.
'Oh, dearest, don't do that again!' she exclaimed. 'Aunt Adelaide may see us; and she has the eyes of a lynx!'
After this night, matters progressed fast with the lovers. In the same house, they had a hundred means of meeting each other, were it but for five minutes at a time. Rings and locks of hair, of course, with coloured photos—the best that could be got in Aix-la-Chapelle—had been exchanged; promises were made and vows exchanged again and again, with other delicious tokens equally intangible.
In the flush of his love, Charlie forgot for a time the cruel doubts that had at first oppressed him. Ernestine should be his wife at all risks, even if he carried her off to England; and, in the ardour of his imagination, he began to marvel whether his father's old place in Warwickshire would ever be free from those debts which drove him to become a wanderer, a soldier of fortune, and to feed himself by his sword in the ranks of the Prussian army.
Amid the pure satisfaction arising from the knowledge that Ernestine loved him, and the natural anxiety to discover how she was ever to be his wife, there was fated to come to Charlie Pierrepont the fear of greater opposition to his—as yet—secret hopes and wishes, in the person of a formidable rival, who, in a few weeks after the visit to the Dom Kirche, came suddenly into the field.
One evening, when the Count, his son, and Charlie were seated cosily in a place which the former called his study (but which more resembled a harness and gun room, and littered with pipes of all kinds, as the literature there consisted of a few volumes on hunting, shooting, farriery), with their pipes and flasks of Rhine wine, which they drank from silver tankards, the Count startled our hero by a revelation which he made to him as a friend of the family.
A wealthy and great man—an intimate friend of the house of Frankenburg, who, though not noble, was nevertheless Hochwohlgeboren, had made proposals for the hand of Ernestine.
The cloud of smoke in which the trio had enveloped themselves perhaps prevented the father and son from seeing the sudden contraction of Charlie's brow on getting this unpleasant information.
'Does it meet with your approval, Count?' he asked, with a violent effort to appear calm.
'In every respect.'
'And yours, Heinrich?'
'No, Carl.'
'Why?'
'Because the man is more than double her age,' replied the young Count.
'That is——' Charlie was about to say 'unfortunate;' but the fib remained unuttered. Then after a pause he asked, 'And what says the Grafine?'
'She dismissed him with kind words, certainly,' replied the Count, 'and well-bred wishes for his happiness. He then came to me, begging me to use my authority over her as a parent, which I shall certainly do.'
'Herr Graf!' exclaimed Charlie, who felt a keener interest in all this than his hearers imagined; for even Heinrich, in the absorption of his passion for his cousin, had not the faintest suspicion that his friend did more than admire his sister; 'Herr Graf, would you actually attempt to control your daughter's affections?'
'Der Teufel! attempt it? I shall do it!' replied the Count angrily, as he laid his hand emphatically on the arm of his chair.
So this was the first intimation Charlie had of the coming storm. A rival in the field, and his leave of absence on the verge of expiry! The situation—with all his trust in Ernestine—was, to say the least of it, alarming. Would she actually be torn from him after all? Fearing to speak, he remained perfectly silent; but, as his curiosity was irrepressible, he asked after a time—
'May I ask, Herr Graf, who this suitor is?'
'The Baron Grünthal, Oberdirector of the Consistory Court in Aix-la-Chapelle.'
Then Charlie remembered that the Baron had been at the Schloss that morning, and been long in the Graf's 'study' in consultation, and that he failed to see Ernestine as usual, save at dinner, after which she had hastily left the table. It occurred now to Charlie, too, that she had seemed both disturbed and taciturn during the progress of the meal.
Such an offer was deemed flattering, even for a daughter of the house of Frankenburg. Ernestine had dismissed the Baron; but, backed by her father's authority, he returned to the charge, and came the following day to dinner; and until the bell rang for that meal, Charlie, to his perplexity and annoyance, could see nothing of Ernestine, who remained sequestered in her room. Had her mother any suspicions? thought he; but as yet the Countess had none.
On this day, in honour of the suitor, whose aspirations met with her full approval, her white hair was done over atoupéethat was higher than usual, her train was longer than ever, and she wore the best of the family diamonds.
This was the most miserable meal ever made by Charlie Pierrepont. The Count was rubicund, smiling, and conscious. He had smoked many pipes and imbibed much beer over the idea of having such a son-in-law. The Baron had made a careful study of his costume, and was most gracious to the ladies, but more especially to the Countess, who addressed nearly all her conversation to him—the winner of one of 'the Belles of Frankenburg.' Herminia looked waggish, Heinrich somewhat provoked, as he deemed the suitor too old, and that his sister's wishes should be consulted; while Ernestine—whose toilette (a golden-coloured silk, trimmed with black lace), a most becoming one for a brunette, had been made under the critical eye of her mother—looked pale, 'worried,' and worn, and, like Heinrich, provoked too, for, as we have said elsewhere, she was a self-willed little beauty, and somewhat opinionated.
In spite of the desire of all to appear at their perfect ease, the meal passed off awkwardly; the conversation flagged, and was unequal; and if the eyes of Ernestine met those of Charlie, he would read in them an imploring and sad expression, and when they looked down, they seemed to sparkle with anger.
At last the meal passed over—and it proved the last that Charlie Pierrepont was to consume in Frankenburg; the ladies rose from the table to retire.
As Charlie opened the dining-room door for them, Ernestine contrived to be the last who passed out, and swiftly and unseen, she slipped into Charlie's hand a tiny scrap of folded paper. This he hastened to open and read covertly, on resuming his place at table. It contained but one pencilled line—
'Be in mamma's boudoir to-night at eleven, when all are in bed.'
He would have pressed it to his lips, but for the presence of those who were with him. Eleven o'clock? The hour was then eight, as a great ormolu clock on the side buffet informed him, and so he had three long hours to wait for this most coveted interview! And for two of those hours he would have to endure the society—or rather the presence—of this most obnoxious rival who had so suddenly started up in his path, and with whom he felt a violent desire to quarrel, but that such an episode would have been alike unseemly, unwise, and calculated to excite suspicion.
They could meet in conversation on the neutral ground of the French war; but in everything he stated, Charlie could not suppress a keen desire to contradict the Baron. The latter asserted that King William would lead the Prussian army in person. To this Charlie gave a contradiction as flat as if he had it from the royal lips. Metz would be, undoubtedly, the chief base of the French operations. This idea he utterly scouted! England would take part in the war, through the influence of the Crown Princess. England would do nothing of the kind, said Charlie—what was the Rhine to her?
The Baron began to elevate his eyebrows, and became silent. The Count looked uneasy; one glass more, he suggested, and then they would join the ladies. They did so; but on entering the drawing-room found the Countess asleep as usual, with the Spitz pug in her lap; Herminia idling over the piano, while longing for Heinrich; and that Ernestine was—which was never her wont—absent.
She had pleaded a headache, and retired to her own room. The Baron looked glum and disconcerted. He had been framing many fine speeches to make to his intended; but now they were no longer required. He should see her no more for that night.
Charlie fingered the little note in his waistcoat-pocket, and felt defiant and jubilant.
The truth was that the Countess and her daughter had almost had high words on the subject of the Baron.
'Mamma,' the latter had said, 'the idea of such a thing is intolerable and absurd!'
'Why absurd, Grafine?' asked her mother, with asperity.
'A man of forty or more, getting bald already,' said Ernestine mockingly; 'a stout man in a blue coat and brass buttons, with a red ribbon, of course, at his lapelle; a man who, for twenty years, has never made up his august mind to marry, comes now to make a matrimonial victim of me. Thanks—no. I am the Grafine Ernestine of Frankenburg, and such I shall remain.'
'Do you prefer anyone else?' asked the Countess, her eyes glittering with sudden suspicion.
'No—none,' she falteringly said, with her cheeks aflame.
'Is there notone?'
'What do you mean, mamma?'
'I mean this,' said the Countess, with grim asperity, hiding her suspicions, if she had any, 'my dear child, the regiment of Heinrich is under orders for foreign service! his leave is conditional, and may be cancelled by telegraph at any moment; so that if we wish his presence at the marriage, the ceremony must be performed without much delay.'
'It shall never take place with me,' replied Ernestine resolutely.
'To your room, Grafine,' said the Countess with hauteur; so her daughter gladly withdrew, leaving her to make excuses for her absence as she pleased, so the usual female ailment of a headache came at once into play.
The Baron had been driven home to Aix in his britzka, promising to return for some final arrangements on the morrow, when he hoped to find the health of the Grafine restored; prayers were over; the household were all a-bed, or supposed to be so, and Charlie sat in his own room, looking sadly out upon the distant lights of Aix, which seemed to twinkle like the stars above them.
He had ample food for reflection. Fear of the Baron's influence on Ernestine he had none; but he had real fear of the influence her family, and long-trained habits of implicit obedience, might have on her, and genuine love and truth are commodities too scarce and valuable in this world to be wasted.
How much, thought Charlie, were Herminia and her cousin to be envied; they had been, and were, so successful in their love, and all through the fortunate little scheme of the Countess and Ernestine.
How he longed to show the latter to his sisters; for Charlie had three, in that dear old home in Warwickshire, all softly featured and gently mannered girls, such as England excels in, more than all the world besides. Would they love her? But could they fail to do so? Well, his father might, perhaps, oh, no! he could not look coldly on her, because she was a foreigner. Pure innocence and beauty belong to no country in particular; and Ernestine looked more thoroughly English than many an English lady Charlie had seen in Regent Street and the Row.
What was to be the end of all this?
In spite of all his prudence and the suggestions of reason, Charlie had fallen madly in love, without considering what a costly whim a high-born wife would prove to a Prussian subaltern; or how the prize was to be obtained, the whim gratified.
Eleven was struck by the great old clock in the hall of the Schloss, and Charlie, who had been awaiting it, watch in hand, took his wax taper, and softly and swiftly descended the great staircase to the boudoir of the Countess, a small octagonal apartment that opened off the drawing-room.
It was, of course, without a fireplace; but, in lieu thereof, in one corner stood the prettiest of little German stoves, a black iron cylinder, or column, surmounted by a large coronet of ornamental brass, and set on a block of white marble. Numerous statuettes under glass shades, and pretty bijou articles, littered all the marble and marqueterie tables, with Dresden china vases of flowers, gathered fresh that morning by Ernestine and Herminia in the garden at the foot of the castle rock. The furniture and hangings were all pale blue silk, trimmed with white lace or silver; water-colours decorated the wall, and, in a place of honour, hung a Berlin engraving representing the meeting of Wellington and Blucher at La Belle Alliance.
A moderator lamp, upheld by a bronze Atlas, was suddenly flashed up, and Ernestine stood before Charlie Pierrepont. She had let all her hair down, probably previous to coiling it up for the night, and now its silky masses floated over her shoulders far below her waist, and out of their darkness, her pale, minute, and delicately cut face came with strong distinctness in the subdued light of the lamp. How lovely she looked just then; her form, thoughmignonne, round and full. She threw her arms round Charlie, and putting her head on his shoulder, in a way she had like a petted love-bird, placed her sweet face amid the masses of her hair on his neck, and her lover gazed at her for some seconds ere he seated her by his side, with a kind of adoration, for she was in all the pride of her beauty and purity; and, as a writer says, with truth, 'There is nothing in the universe so exquisite, so fascinating, so irresistibly alluring, as a young girl! A girl in the first dawn of earliest womanhood, fresh and fragrant as a flower, and, alas! as fragile, for that bloom of youth is as evanescent as it is lovely, and its loss is never, to my mind, compensated by any maturer charm. Let who will inhale the perfume of the opening rose, but the sweet shy mystery of the folded bud for me!'
And some such thoughts ran through the mind of Charlie as he gazed upon her.
In the perfect confidence of this love, they did not at first speak of this sudden suitor (who had come like a thunder-cloud into their sunny summer sky), for rival he could scarcely be deemed by Charlie; but they referred to the last time they had been happy together in each other's society. Oh,sohappy! and but two days ago!
They had ridden to Stolberg, after losing Heinrich and Herminia together in the wood (rather a common occurrence, by the way, when these four went out on excursions), and had taken shelter from a storm of rain in a village church, where a marriage ceremony had been performed before them, and they now recurred to this little episode.
'How sweetly pretty the bride looked!' said Charlie, playing with her rippling hair.
'And how happy the bridegroom!' she added, pulling Charlie's moustache, in her momentary joy, forgetful of the tears she had been shedding.
'How I envied them, Ernestine! Will our day ever come?'
'We can but hope.'
'And if it never comes?'
'I shall die—I shall die faithful to you, Carl. Faithful in life and in death!' said Ernestine, with passionate energy.
'You say this so often that you alarm me,' said Charlie, with great tenderness of tone.
'How can my promises of faith alarm you?'
'Nay. It is these references to death.'
Her eyes were tender, dreamy, and sad, yet full of love, as they looked into his. After a pause, he said,
'I, Ernestine, am more in danger of death and peril than you, dearest.'
'Oh, say not so! And yet, of course, it must be, Carl, my darling Carl!' she exclaimed, throwing herself upon his breast, in a passion of tears and affection.
'Heaven and earth! Sotheseare the terms on which you two are!' exclaimed a shrill, stern voice behind them, and a low wail of terror escaped from Ernestine, on perceiving the Countess, her mother, standing there in herrobe-de-chambre, a wax taper in her hand, and her usually pale cheeks and cold grey eyes inflamed with indignation. On this night she had, unfortunately, forgotten her unlucky Spitz cur (who was quietly looking on the scene from his basket of mother-of-pearl) and had descended from her room in search of him.
'So! so!' she exclaimed again, 'these are the terms on which you are; and such are the hopes in which you dare to indulge!'
How long she had been there, or how much she had heard or seen, they knew not. They had but one common thought—that they had been discovered, and all was over! Thisdénouement, occurring immediately after the proposal of the Baron, was too much for the patience or equanimity of the irate Countess. Even Charlie's friendship for her son Heinrich, and the duel he had fought in defence of his honour, were forgotten now.
There was a pause, during which they all surveyed each other with undisguised signs of discomposure. At last Charlie spoke, while Ernestine withdrew a little way from him.
'Gnädige Frau' (gracious madame), he began, 'blame not your daughter, but me, for all this; and pardon me for having so far forgotten my position in this house as to love her without your permission; but could I resist doing so—even without the hope of obtaining it? What can I say to mitigate your probable severity to her—your resentment to me? What am I to do?'
'Much!'
'Oh, say it!'
'Leave my roof at once!'
'Mamma, it is close on midnight,' urged Ernestine piteously.
'Silence, minx!'
Charlie's face had flushed to the temples at a tone and command so unusual and so humiliating.
'Oh, mamma,' urged Ernestine, attempting, but in vain, to catch her mother's hand, 'spare me and pardon him!'
'Him? Who!'
'Carl.'
'You call him Carl already—and this to my face! This intruder, who, though in the king's uniform, is little better in the scale of society than a poor Handwerks-Burschen!'
Charlie now grew deadly pale at this insulting comparison, but restrained his rising anger for the sake of Ernestine, who said, piteously:
'Dearest mamma, I implore you not to adopt this tone to Heinrich's firm and tried friend. It is inhospitable! It is rude! It is cruel!' she added, amid a torrent of tears.
'You are no judge,now, of what is rude or not rude—proper or improper—to a violator of our hospitality. Oh, Herr Pierrepont, how little could I have foreseen all this!'
Unless the old lady had been as blind as a mole, she might, or ought, very well to have foreseen it.
'You know my views of all this matter, and I am certain they will be fully shared by the Count,' said the old lady, with intense hauteur. 'You also know the measures we expect you to take with as little delay as possible.'
She made a brief and haughty half-contemptuous bow, and taking her daughter by the hand, and, without permitting her to give even one farewell glance, led her away.
Charlie stood for a moment as if rooted to the spot. He then very quietly extinguished the moderator lamp, in a mechanical kind of way, and, taking his taper, ascended the great gaunt staircase to his room, where, with his heart torn by the contending emotions of love and sorrow, rage and mortification—for the insult to which he, an English gentleman, had been subjected by that intolerant and insufferable old German woman—he sat for a time without thinking of undressing.
Were she not the mother of Ernestine, he would have scattered a few pretty hard adjectives with reference to her. He then suddenly began to pack his portmanteau. He had but one desire and craving—to get as far away from Frankenburg as possible, though it was the cage that held his love-bird! And as if his wish had been anticipated, just as twelve o'clock was struck by the sonorous timepiece in the echoing hall, a knock came to his door.
'It is Heinrich,' thought he; 'come in!'
The visitor was not Heinrich, but the old family butler, who entered, bowing low, and looking very sleepy, cross, and very much surprised.
'The Herr Graf's compliments to the Herr Lieutenant. At what time would he require the carriage to take him to Aix?' (He called it Aachen.)
'Now!'
'Now—at this hour, mein Herr?'
'Now, I repeat—instantly—thanks; you may go.'
The old butler, who had served as man and boy in the Frankenburg family from shortly after the days of Waterloo and Ligny, who had attended Marshal Blucher when on a visit, and had made the fortunes and honour of the denizens of the Schloss his own, as hereditary retainers of the Caleb Balderstone type occasionally do, even in this age of iron, opened his grey eyes very wide, alike at the fierce energy and the order of Charlie Pierrepont, but vanished at once to rouse the grooms and comply.
So he was actually turned out of the house, however politely, at last; thrust out fromher homeas if his presence there degraded it. He thought of the old arms of the Pierreponts carved about his father's gate—the lion rampantsable, between two wings, the mulletssemée, and the motto 'Pie repone te,' though he had never valued such things much; and his anger boiled up—nor did it cool down till he found himself on the eve of departure.
Why did Heinrich not appear? for good or for evil? Had he also been informed, and, like his father, mounted a high horse? It seemed so. The carriage was duly announced, at last.
As Charlie descended to it, the silver-haired butler appeared again with a salver, on which were a decanter and glass, saying:
'The Herr Graf requests that mein Herr will take a little glass of cognac, before leaving the Schloss; the night is cold.'
To have declined to accept this last act of old German hospitality would have been churlish, and the cause of comment among the domestics; so Charlie, with the name of her he loved on his lips, drained apetit verre, and sprang into the carriage.
'Aachen,' said the butler to the driver, as he closed the door, and bowing, said—
'Gute nacht—leben sie wohl, mein Herr.'
And Charlie, as he thought, turned his back on Frankenburg for ever.
Ernestine was as much, if not more, than anyonlydaughter could be to Count Ulrich. He was selfish enough to have looked with stern, black, and utter discouragement on any swain who had no high rank; then how much more with anger on a penniless soldier of Fortune—a sub. of the Thuringians, like Charlie Pierrepont.
'All is at an end between the Frankenburgs and me,' thought the latter, as the carriage bowled on in the dark; 'but the war once over, if I escape it, I shall carry her off at all hazards—by Heaven, I shall.'
As a soldier accustomed to change of quarters, billets, camps, and barracks, Charlie could make himself at home anywhere; but nowhere (save his father's house) had he found himself so much at home as in that old German castle: a shrine he deemed it—a shrine of which Ernestine was the idol; and now he was exiled from it.
The carriage deposited Charlie Pierrepont at an hotel in Aix-la-Chapelle, where he meant to remain for a little to make some attempt to see Ernestine once more—to arrange, if possible, about their future correspondence, and then to rejoin the Thuringians.
The dawn stole in over the city, and the Rhine began to glitter in light—the dawn of that day on which the Baron Grünthal was to return to Frankenburg, and 'the final arrangements' were to be made. What would they be?
Five o'clock tolled from the great bell of the Dom Kirche. But five hours since she had been in his arms, with her head resting on his breast; how long it seemed ago; what storm of alarm, bitterness, and mortification had agitated his heart since then! The bell of the Dom Kirche brought instantly back to memory that day in the stair of the Hoch Munster, when the returned pressure of her little hand, though ever so lightly, nearly put him beside himself with joy, and lured him to divulge the great secret of his heart.
So all their stolen glances and sweet daily intercourse were at an end now; all the quaint weird stories that she had been wont to tell him in their rides and rambles, of sprites and elves, of lurlies and knights, who had loved and been drawn thus into peril, all their mutual songs and music, would never come again!
Too probably their paths on earth might lie for ever apart. A chasm separated the past from the present; still more did it seem to yawn between the present and the future; so Charlie could but wring his hands, and wish, at times, that Heinrich had never brought him to Frankenburg.
Ah, those lovely eyes that were ever varying in expression, now dreamy and tender, and anon bright with mischief, or soft with inexpressible love; the pouting rosebud lips, that were so firm and delicately cut; the skin, smooth as satin; the hands, of velvet: the pinky tint on the rounded cheek; the winning ways and the quaint sayings of Ernestine—were they all, indeed, to be as things of the past to him? It was intolerable!
They would be all as air-drawn pictures—nothing more. To Pierrepont, it seemed as if all the brightness had gone out of his life; or, as if half that life had left him. Would time ever cure this, or must it be war or death? God alone knew! In his sorrow for the loss he had sustained, and for the terrible emotions which he knew she would be feeling—torn from him on one hand, and menaced by a hateful marriage on the other—he could almost have wept, and perhaps would have done so, but for a glow of wrath and indignation, at the manner in which the imperious Countess had treated him.
He had been bluntly turned out of the house! That was what the termination of his visit plainly amounted to. Charlie felt that his epaulettes had been insulted, and his native English pride revolted at the idea. He felt his blood boiling at times, but against whom? It could not be against the father or the mother of her he loved so tenderly. Oh no! for surely they would relent in time, on seeing how deep and tender was his passion for their daughter.
'Howwould it all end?' he asked of himself a hundred times.
The day without was bright and sunny, but to Charlie Pierrepont it seemed as if the hours stole dully, darkly, and drearily on. The guests in the Speise-saal were numerous and noisy. Their voices irritated him; and often he started to his feet with the intention of vaguely proceeding to the vicinity of Frankenburg, and as frequently relinquished the idea; for he dreaded lest he should meet the Baron, and be tempted into the commission of some wild outrage.
With much of the same gloom that Herminia had in her mind, when, from the windows of the Grand Hotel, on the evening our story opens, she looked dreamily down on Cologne, on city, church, and river, did Charlie, from a balcony of his hotel, opposite the new theatre, look down upon the strasse that leads to Borcette, and the crowded boulevard that now occupies the place of a levelled ditch and rampart, and is prettily laid out with pine trees, and many tiny sheets of water.
Dinner was set before him under the awning which shaded the balcony, and there was a bottle of hock. Yes; he had ordered the kellner, mechanically, to serve it up; but the dinner remained untasted, though the hock was drained in draughts, as if to drown the ever-recurring thoughts—would he never again see that sweet girl whose witcheries were entwined around his heart? should he never more look into her eyes, whose tender glances were magnetic; never feel on his lips those clinging kisses, while he pressed her hand to his breast?
Near him, under an awning in front of the hotel, seated on hard wooden stools, at a bare deal table, were some poor Handwerks-Burschen, or travelling workmen, in blue blouses and wooden sabots, smoking, drinking beer, and making merry with their wives or sweethearts, and singing—
'Draw the social chair yet closer;Vow by this full draught of mirth,That all evil is forgiven,Hell is banished from our earth.'
It was Schiller's beautiful 'Song of Joy' they were singing to the clanking accompaniment of their cans and wooden shoes. How happy those humble fellows seemed; and how much he envied them!
But Charlie was roused from his reverie by the Oberkellner announcing—
'Der Graf von Frankenburg.'
'Which?' asked Charlie, starting; 'Count Ulrich?'
'No, mein Herr—Count Heinrich.'
'Very good—show him up.'
Charlie would rather that the old father of Ernestine had come than her brother, whose errand would no doubt be a hostile one. That Heinrich, his friend and comrade, came on such an errand seemed horrible and unnatural. The wild justice of the pistol, as some one has named it, was ceasing to be appreciated even in Germany. The time had gone past when the pistols of skilled homicides were notched as registers of the lives they had taken, or had cards attached to them, with the names of the slain, the date and the place of meeting, and the distance of fighting, all neatly written thereon.
Let Heinrich taunt him how he would, a duel must not take place. 'In the battle-field,' thought Charlie, 'I shall cheerfully meet death, front to front and face to face; but I shall not carry there the mark of Cain, by perhaps shooting the brother of her I love—my brother in the spirit.'
Charlie forgot that in the Heilinghaist-feld at Altona he had fought a duel for that brother, and winged an officer of the King's Grenadiers; and he was just remembering that if hostilities were contemplated, a messenger would have been sent by Heinrich, when the latter entered the room, and coming quickly forward to Charlie, grasped both his hands with his usual frankness.
'Well, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance—' he was beginning, when Charlie said—
'How can you jest, Heinrich, at a time like this?'
'I do not jest; but have come, in defiance of all family views and prejudices, to cheer you, and have some conversation over this wretched affair. Poor Ernestine! I wish you and she had taken me into your confidence. By our past and present friendship, I surely merited that from you, at least.'
'A bottle of wine, Heinrich?
'Thanks—I have just galloped in from the Schloss, and had some difficulty in finding your quarters.'
'There are cigars, and here is an easy-chair. I am thankful you did not come on a hostile visit. To decline would have been disgraceful, to accept might have been fratricide; but I should have fired in the air.'
'What stuff you are talking!' said Heinrich, as he manipulated and lit a cigar, while the waiter was pouring out the wine.
'Now let us talk,' said he, when the latter had withdrawn.
'And how are the ladies this evening?' asked Charlie, trying, with a swelling heart, to talk common sense.
'As you may suppose, the Grafine, my mother, is in a furious pet; and I knew nothing about your sudden departure till I found your place vacant at the breakfast table.'
'And—and your sister, Heinrich?'
'Has been all day fretting in her room.'
'And the Grafine Herminia?'
'With her. I saw Herminia for a little time to-day, and she desired me to assure you of her fullest sympathy.'
'God bless her!' exclaimed he, whilst his eyes became moist.
'The poor little thing endured too much, when she believed me to be Herr Mansfeld, and knew me not in my proper person, to be without due sympathy for all afflicted lovers.'
'You do not speak of the Herr Graf.'
'Oh, he is inexorable!'
'And our infernal Baron—no doubt he was at Frankenburg to-day, hoping to play the lover,' said Charlie viciously.
'He was not.'
'How so?'
'His Excellency has a violent fit of the gout!'
'Long may it continue!' said Charlie fervently.
'Amen!' added Heinrich, lying back in his chair and laughing heartily; 'the idea of an adoring swain having an ailment so unromantic! And now for the object of my visit. I have simply come to apologize for all that has occurred at the Schloss; but I might have foreseen it, had my own affairs not occupied too much of my attention. Ernestine is too enchanting a girl to have failed to attract. What is done cannot be undone. I do love you, Carl, and deplore all that has taken place.'
The two friends shook hands warmly. With Charlie, his comrade, brother officer, and most particular 'chum,' was now the link between him and Ernestine—between him and Frankenburg—the Eden from which he had been banished, and without his Eve. How he loved the generous fellow! How gladly he would lay down his life for him; but in doing so, he would leave Ernestine, and, perhaps, to another. Another? Oh! that was not to be thought of! Heinrich began again—
'Herminia says that Ernestine has never closed an eye since last night, which I am sorry to say, because if troubles can be slept upon they are curable. However, don't be alarmed about Ernestine,' he added, laughing, 'she's very low and sad, no doubt; but there is no chance of her drowning herself in Fastrada's pool below the Schloss—that odious pond where I used to puddle for many a day with a crooked pin and a string, catching many a cold, but never a fish.'
'Why, Heinrich?'
'For a very sufficient reason. There was none in it.'
'Do you think your mother will ever forgive me?
'Heaven alone knows. Time will show. She has the most absurd ideas concerning alliances and family rank. As for my father, he storms and gets into rages that I call apoplectic ones; but he'll sit in his study among the saddles, dogs' collars, and so forth, and smoke himself into quietude ere long. He is a wonderful hale and hearty old fellow for his great age; but he married late in life, and has only had a silver wedding, when his comrade, old Field-Marshal Wrangel, has had a golden one. And, then, you are a soldier, Carl—and to be a soldier is always a trump card with him. You have heard how he saved Blucher's life at Ligny?'
'Only vaguely.'
'It is a matter of history: Prussian history, at least; and was one of those impulses, or inspirations, which, if not acted on instantly, may never come again. It was at Ligny where the Prussians and French were engaged on the 16th of June, on that dreadful day of tempest; rain, and wind, when the British were retreating from Quatre Bras to their position at Waterloo. Victory was evidently declaring for the Emperor, when Blucher strove to arrest his success by consecutive charges of cavalry. In person he led on a regiment of Hussars, who were repulsed; his horse fell beneath him wounded, and the great Marshal could not be extricated, and the enemy were pressing on! The last of his flying Hussars had left the brave old man, who lay helpless on the ground; but his aide-de-camp, the Count, my father, resolving to share his fate, flung himself by Blucher's side, and covered him with his horse-cloak that he might not be recognised. Over them swept a brigade of Brass Cuirassiers, so named from the metal of their helmets and corslets. The routed Hussars rallied suddenly, wheeled about, and attacked their pursuers, and again passed their fallen leader, and the old Graf—a young Graf, then—in their pursuit of the French, whom they routed. My father instantly seized the opportunity. He dragged Blucher from under the fallen charger, mounted him on a dragoon horse, and thus saved his life!'
While Heinrich, with something of exultation, was detailing this episode of the Count's early life, the thoughts of Carl were very far away from the events of Ligny and Waterloo.
'Next week will see us on the march for France,' said he, 'and I may cross the purposes of your family and the path of Ernestine no more! You, Heinrich, who are so successful and so happy in your love, might surely pity us.'
'I do, Carl. A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'
'Arrange for me,' continued Charlie, with great earnestness, 'that Ernestine and I may have one more interview. Our last farewell—our separation, was so cruelly abrupt.'
'A meeting! When and where?'
'When and where you choose. See her once again, I must at all hazards; and you alone can arrange this for me. Dear friend, don't deny us this last melancholy pleasure!'
'Where, then, think you?'
'Settle that with my darling; and may God bless you, Heinrich!' said Charlie, in a choking voice, as he patted his friend on the epaulette.
'I shall write you to-night, to-morrow at the latest; for we must not lose time while the Baron's gout lasts.'
And Heinrich ordered his horse and departed, leaving Charlie Pierrepont in a more contented mood of mind than he had been in since he left the boudoir of the Countess.
So he shouldseeher once again!
Eagerly did Charlie Pierrepont await the arrival of the Brieftrager, or letter-carrier, who brought him a brief note from Heinrich, saying that he meant to take his sister for a drive that evening, and that Charlie would find her in the little church at Burtscheid at the hour of seven. The note was signed, as usual, 'Ihr treuer Freund, HEINRICH.' After all that had occurred, how delightful and encouraging it was to find her brother signing himself 'Your devoted friend,' as of old!
'The little church of Burtscheid?' said Charlie, after perusing the note for the third or fourth time; 'it is a strange place to choose.'
But Ernestine was a strange girl, and, with regard to this farewell meeting, had that in view which Charlie could not foresee. Ten hours had to elapse before the appointed one came; and to Charlie, who passed the day almost watch in hand, the time seemed interminable. Evening came, however, at last; and the shadows of the church spires were falling eastward when Charlie set out for the trysting-place, which is a mile and a half from the gates of Aix, and connected therewith by a handsome avenue of trees. The village is now chiefly celebrated for its mineral waters; but 'the abbey of Burtscheid,' says Forster, a writer at the close of the last century, 'is beautifully situated, and finished with all ecclesiastical splendour. Close by, a small wood runs towards a large reservoir, and as you advance you come to a narrow valley enclosed by woody hills, where several warm springs are soon discovered by the vapour that rises from them, and the large reservoir is quite filled with hot water. As you walk along a series of beautifully shaded reservoirs you see the romantic ruins of the old castle of Frankenburg.'
Thus the trysting-place selected by Ernestine was quite near her home. The church was an appendage of the abbey mentioned by Forster. It was a lonely place, surrounded by a burial-ground, where, as usual in German cemeteries, the inventions of the mason and carpenter rarely go beyond an urn, a cross, or a broken pillar in fashioning a tombstone, and where, for reasons to be afterwards mentioned, few came to promenade, as the public usually do in public burying-grounds.
At the gate stood a handsome britzka, with a pair of horses, the reins of which were held by Heinrich, who was without groom or other attendant.
'Ernestine?' said Charlie, grasping the hand of his friend.
'She is in the church. We have not been here three minutes. Do not detain her long, Carl, as I would not have suspicion excited. Meantime, I shall smoke a cigar.'
Charlie hastened into the edifice, for the Herr Pastor of which, in happier times, Ernestine and Herminia had worked many altar-cloths, pen-wipers, slippers, and smoking-caps. It was a plain, whitewashed edifice, ancient Gothic in some parts, patched with modern brickwork elsewhere; and a subdued light stole through the windows on the portraits of certain defunct Herr Pastors hung upon the pillars, the oaken pews, and the rows of black iron spittoons in some, with kneeling hassocks in others. Before the rail of the altar, Ernestine was kneeling, in prayer apparently.
There was no one else in the church, and on hearing Charlie approach, she threw herself into his arms, and for some time could but sob passionately and utter his name in a choking voice, while he patted her cheek and kissed away her tears. Then she became more composed, and taking Charlie's face between her soft and ungloved hands, gazed into his eyes with a tender smile.
'You will yet love me, Carl, in spite of all that mamma has said?' she whispered.
'Love you!' he exclaimed, 'what on earth could make me cease to love you?'
'How enchanting it is to be with you again, my own Carl! You will write to me from—from France, when Heinrich writes to me or Herminia, and I can reply in the same manner.'
'Thank you, darling, for the delightful promise.'
'No power on earth must separate us, Carl. I have resolved that such cannot, shall not be.'
'The Baron——'
'Ah, don't speak of him at this precious time,' said she, contemptuously; 'that odious Grünthal—such a mouth he has! When he laughs you can almost see it behind him.'
'Behind him, darling—how?'
'The corners of his mouth might meet behind his head.'
This was somewhat of an exaggeration, but as it was like some of Ernestine's speeches in merrier times, she made Charlie laugh.
'Yet, to such a mantheywould assign you!' said he.
'If they dare!' she replied, with a little gesture, peculiarly her own, as it was partly imperious and partly child-like.
Her tears began to flow again, and she said:
'It is in vain that the Graf storms, and that mamma tells me every vow that has passed between us must be forgotten, that when you left Frankenburg you lost all claim on me, and I was, and am, perfectly free. I am not free, Carl; I have promised to become your wedded wife, and no other shall have my heart or hand while I live!'
She spoke with strong passion, and as she lay in the arms of her lover, her whole delicate form was trembling violently.
'But for this war, I would implore you to take me away with you, and make me your wife in spite of them all—your dear little wife, Carl. Wherever you went, there Ernestine would be with you, and we should live but for each other, and love each other as we have always done.'
'And this war once over, if God spares me, I shall come, at every risk, at every hazard, and take you away—on this I had already resolved, darling.'
'When that time comes, dearest Carl, I will live on your smiles by day, and rest my head on your bosom at night.'
There was a smile on the eyes and on the lips of the girl as she spoke, though her heart was torn by the misery of the coming separation. Suddenly she said:
'Kneel with me before this altar, ere some one interrupts us. Let us make a promise to be true to each other in life and in death——'
'Death, darling?'
'In sorrow and joy, peril and safety; sickness and health, in death and in life! Repeat after me, what I say.'
Clasped hand in hand, and kneeling face to face, they each promised to be faithful, loving and true to the other, under all circumstances, exactly as if they had been wedded, till death parted them. The words she dictated were strangely nervous and solemn—solemn even to being fantastic—chilling, yet somehow charming, and they were never forgotten by Charlie, who repeated them after her as one in a dream.
In the usually tender eyes and soft face of Ernestine there was, for a time, a sad yet stern expression of resolution and self-mastery, which Charlie failed to analyze, though the memory of it long haunted him.
'We have forged our spiritual chain, beloved Carl,' said she, 'and cannot break it now.'
'Nor shall it ever be broken!' he replied, caressing her tenderly.
'For life and deathour bond be recorded in Heaven!' said the strange romantic girl; 'kiss me, Carl, kiss me—I feel much happier now.'
'Surely Heaven will spare me for your sake, my love.'
'If not, we shall meet there, Carl—for I should not be long behind you, there, where there are no harsh parents, "where there is neither marriage, nor giving in marriage,"—then we shall be re-united, Carl, and live our dreams of love over again.'
The girl's manner was exquisitely tender, yet sad, and so earnest that there came a time when Charlie remembered it, occasionally with terror. The voice of her brother was now heard.
'Heinrich is very impatient,' said Charlie.
'One moment, Carl. If I were to come to you when dead, would you fear me?'
'When dead?' said Charlie, looking down on the sweet upturned face that lay on his shoulder; 'whatdoyou mean, Ernestine?'
'I scarcely know; but I should not fearyou, love. I have some strange emotions in my heart this evening. I do not think even the grave would keep me from you; but would it keep you from me?'
'I fear it would, darling,' said he, with a half smile, though rather bewildered by all this; 'battle trenches are often pretty deep and full.'
'Oh, horror, Carl; don't talk of such an end as that!'
He regarded her anxiously, fearing that sudden sorrow was affecting her mind. Again the voice of Heinrich was heard. She drew down the veil of her hat to conceal the redness of her eyes, and Charlie led her out to the britzka. All was over now, and they were separated till Fate or Chance should enable them to meet again.
Those who saw Ernestine looking back from the britzka, and Charlie lift his hat more than once, as he walked slowly down the avenue that led to Aix, could little have imagined the strangely solemn betrothal that had just taken place between these two, in the little church of Burtscheid.
'To Paris! To Paris! Hoch Germania!'
Such were the cries that rang along the line of march, when on the 1st of August the various columns of the German army began to meet those which left Paris shouting 'To Berlin!'
After detailing much that savours of what may seem romance, we have now to borrow a paragraph or two from the history of Europe.
Perfect in organization, the forces which the Prussian Government were able to bring to the frontier a few days after the declaration of war against France were divided into three great armies, making a grand total of four hundred and twelve thousand infantry, and forty-seven thousand eight hundred cavalry, with one thousand four hundred and forty pieces of cannon.
The first of these three armies was commanded by Major General Steinmetz, the second by Prince Frederick Charles, and the third by the Crown Prince—the whole being under the orders of the King of Prussia, assisted by General Count Von Moltke, a distinguished Dane, as chief of his staff.
Strong reserves were posted at Hainau, Frankfort, at the old electoral city of Mayence, and amidst the vast defences of Coblentz between the Rhine and the Moselle. Another army defended the north, under Von Falkenstein; so taken altogether, including the Landwehr, Prussia, with her million and a quarter of well-drilled soldiery, seemed impregnable.
Charlie Pierrepont's regiment was formed in brigade with the 7th, or King's Grenadiers, and the 37th, or Westphalians. The war establishment of a Prussian regiment is never less than 3,006 men, with 69 officers. His brigade was among the first troops actively employed, with orders to occupy the line of the Saar, resting its right on Saarbrück, with advanced posts at that place and in the schloss of the Princes of Nassau, at Saarlouis, which had been fortified by Vauban, at Bliescastle, where the Prussians and French fought a great battle in 1793, and at Merzig.
The second army, with the royal headquarters, crossed the Rhine at Mayence, and took a position on the left of General Steinmetz, occupied Zweibrucken (which the French had named Deux Ponts), and Pirmasens, with its main body echeloned along the line of railway from the ruined castle of the Counts of Sickingen at Landstuhl to the strong fortress of Landau.
The third army came on by the way of Mannheim and Germesheim, and formed to the left of the second, at the latter place, Speirs, Neustadt, and Landau. All these formidable columns could communicate with each other by railway, and were well secured in the rear in case of having to retreat. But no thought of retreating was in the Prussian ranks.
From the suddenness and efficiency of these arrangements, it was clear 'that Count Bismarck and his master had been long and actively preparing for war, and had not been entirely absorbed in peaceful and innocent designs, as we were constantly assured by certain writers in this country, who desired to present France to the world as a crafty and ravening wolf, and Prussia a meek and inoffensive lamb.'
Something of this kind was said by Heinrich to Charlie, as their brigade approached Saarbrück. But the latter would scarcely admit it, as his love for Ernestine, and his high military enthusiasm, made him, for the time, 'German all over—German at fever-heat,' as he said.
And splendid was the aspect of the strong brigade, with the King's Grenadiers in front, the Westphalians in the centre, and the 95th Thuringians in the rear, as it defiled across the bridge that led to the suburb of St. Johann, each battalion with its carts of reserve ammunition, drawn by six horses. After each battalion, also, came thirteen baggage and one canteen waggon, all the brass drums beating smartly to make the men step quick. The colours of the King's Grenadiers, black and white; of the other corps, black, white, and red—the standard of the North German Confederation—were floating in the wind, above the long lines of spiked helmets, and of bright bayonets and brighter musket barrels sloped in the sunshine, for the Prussian arms are not browned as ours are now, but pure, white steel. Hence the glitter over all the column was great, though the uniforms were sombre and blue.
Anon the brass bands struck up between the echoing streets of Saarbrück; but amid all the enthusiasm of the time, the crash of the martial music, the measured tramping of thousands of marching feet, Charlie's mind could not help reverting to those happy moments in the stair of the Hoch Munster, and the sadder ones in the quiet little church of Burtscheid, and, in memory, he still saw the rosy, trembling lips of the girl he loved, and the full bosom that rose and fell with sobs and sighs.
When would he be marching home, and what might happen then? Would it come to pass that he might never return, but find a grave in the soil of France? They were now within thirty miles of Metz. He cast a backward glance to where the rearguard was descending a slope, and, as if to reply to his surmises, there came marching with it a corps of grave-diggers, for a force of this kind was attached to every column, while 'by an arrangement characterised by a grim horror, yet unquestionably useful,' every Prussian officer and soldier was ordered to wear round his neck a label, to establish his identity in case of his being killed.
These reflections were but momentary, so Charlie's spirit rose again, and his heart beat responsive to the sharp and regulated crash of the drums; for there is much elasticity of mind in healthy twenty-eight or thirty years, and Charlie's were no more.
The enthusiasm all over Germany was unquestionably great at this time, and as a specimen of it, Heinrich told Charlie, exultingly, how his father's old comrade and brother officer, Field Marshal the Count Von Wrangel, then in the eighty-fourth year of his age, on seeing his old regiment, the 3rd Cuirassiers, marching through Berlin, had petitioned the king for leave to join them as a private, as he was now too aged to lead; but the king declined the offer of the brave old man, and requested him to remain in Berlin, and make himself useful in a more peaceable way.
On the early morning of the 2nd of August, Charlie Pierrepont was subaltern of the out-picket posted on the road that leads direct from the open town of Saarbrück towards Metz, where then the Emperor Napoleon III. commanded in person. He had returned from visiting his line of advanced sentinels, all of whom stood motionless, with musket ordered and bayonet fixed, with their faces turned in the direction of Metz, each longing, no doubt, for the relief and a pipe. Stiff, and chilled with the rain and dew of the summer night, Charlie shook himself, as a dog might do, and proceeded to light a cigar and look around him, as the dawn brightened, little foreseeing that this would be one of the most important days in the new current of events.
He could see the Saar winding in and out at the foot of a chain of hills, covered to their summits by beautiful oaks and beeches. Here and there the red precipices started up from the bed of the stream; for the rocks and the soil were red, and even the river was red, too, for rain had fallen overnight.
The scene looked lovely and peaceful. Red stones, spotted with orange-coloured lichens, lay plentifully in the bed of the Saar, where a solitary kingfisher wound about among the water-weeds. Here and there at the narrower parts of the stream, an occasional peasant was fishing with a tub and sink-net, and beyond lay the plain, where Saarlouis' ramparts rose above the swampy fields, where herds of cattle plashed disconsolately about.
'Guten morgen, Carl!' cried a familiar voice, and on looking up, he saw Heinrich hurrying towards him. 'I have news for you.'
'Are the enemy in motion?
'As your post is an advanced one, you should be the first to know of that. My news is from the rear.'
'From the rear!'
'How dull you are, Carl—from Frankenburg! Here, take a pull at my bottle; your own is, no doubt, empty by this time.'
'Thanks!'
Charlie took a few mouthfuls from the metal flask of brandy-and-water that Heinrich wore slung over his shoulder in a belt, and said—
'Now for your news, friend; it is not pleasant, I fear, when you fortify me thus.'
'Anything must be pleasant that comes to us from the girls we love. The field-post has just come. I have a letter from Herminia, Carl, with a little enclosure for you.'
It was a note—merely a note, on scented and tinted paper, for Ernestine was not above these feminine prettinesses, written in her graceful style and lady-like hand—to say that he was never absent from her thoughts, and how she and Herminia had wept and prayed in secret on the night the army crossed the Rhine.
'I fear, Carl, that I am looking ill and pale,' she continued, 'but sunny-haired Herminia seems to thrive on her grief; but you know she is ever all dimples—dimples on her white elbows and chin, cheeks, and hands—soft jolly dimples. Mamma, tired of knitting—she always knits as if her livelihood depended upon it—has dozed off to sleep, with her Spitz pug under her lace shawl in the boudoir. (The boudoir! Do you ever think of it, and that horrible night when she surprised us while searching for that miserable little cur?) Papa, as dinner is over, is smoking in his study, among his fishing and shooting gear, pistols, guns, whips, collars, and whistles, no doubt drinking to the health of the Kaiser and studying theStaats Anzeiger. All is unchanged since you left Frankenburg, from whence my heart goes with this to you, my dearest Betrothed of Burtscheid.'
Charlie was perusing this for the third time, Heinrich was lolling beside him on the grass, humming 'Du du,' and idly playing with his silver sword-knot, while watching the bright morning sunshine stealing along the wooded hills and winding river, when suddenly there was the report of a needle-gun in front. Another, another, and a third followed, as the whole line of advanced sentinels opened fire, and the out-picket rushed to their arms and fell in their ranks.
'Sapperment!' exclaimed young Frankenburg, springing to his feet; 'it has come at last! This is war! The French are in motion in front; there will soon be work for the grave-digger corps!'
So opened the day on which the young Napoleon was to receive his 'baptism of fire.'
For a time the preparations for her marriage had gone on openly—though Ernestine, in her tenderness of heart and reluctance to wound one she loved so well, made no reference to this in her short letter—so openly that there were times when she contemplated flight; but whither could she fly? and then she shrunk from the dreadfulesclandreof such a proceeding; so settlements were made and deeds signed, and from time to time she found beautiful ornaments and jewels, the gifts of the Baron, on her toilette tables; but she never wore them, and the morocco cases remained unopened; till at last a serious illness, or sickness of the heart, in fact, supervened, and the espousals were delayed, and the Count cursed the hour that his thoughtless son had brought his troublesome English comrade to Frankenburg.
She was no longerespiègle, as of old; the piano remained unopened now, and no entreaties on the part of her father could lure her into playing 'Die Wacht am Rhein,' the war-song of Arndt, or any of those stirring and patriotic airs with which all Germany was resounding now. The very sound of the instrument fretted her.
Times there had been when she had tried over some of those songs she had loved to sing to Charlie Pierrepont—the same that she had been rehearsing on the evening of his arrival (how much had happened since then!)—but she fairly broke down and made the attempt no more.
A summons from Prince Bismarck, for the Baron Grünthal to attend at Berlin, in consequence of some affairs connected with the Oberconsistory Court at Aix, gave poor Ernestine a temporary respite from the annoyance of his presence and clumsy attentions; and as she was at times easier in mind, and more content to wait the issue of events, after that remarkable and somewhat solemn interchange of promises at Burtscheid Church, her parents began to hope that all was at an end between her and the Herr Lieutenant of Infantry, and that she would be content to receive the Baron as her husband in time, perhaps when Heinrich returned, if God spared him ever to return.
This was satisfactory to her on one hand, while on the other she had the pleasure of sharing her secret sorrows and hopes of future joy with Herminia, with whom she had now a double link and bond of sympathy.
They led but a dull life now in the old Schloss.
Baron Rhineberg, 'a beer-bloated Teuton' of the first class, came occasionally to talk politics with the Count, over a pipe and flask of Rhine wine; the two daughters of the Justiz-rath, and a few other visitors, dropped in, but Ernestine found it weary work to talk commonplaces with these people, not one of whom had any vital or particular interest, beyond a national one, in the army now in the field; and to chat of music and books, of Berlin wools and soup for the poor, when, perhaps,at that very moment of time, the bullets might be whistling about him she loved; or when he might be stretched wounded, dying or dead, upon the bloody sod—to talk, we say, of aught that was frivolous, with such fears in her heart, was impossible.
Strong, yet tender, was thus the bond of sympathy between the cousins; for those whom they loved—the one openly, the other secretly—and to whom they were affianced, were facing side by side the foes of Germany, and risking the same perils and toils.
Once only did she rouse herself thoroughly and feel startled when the portly Baron Rhineberg, taking his vast pipe out from his bushy moustaches, asked her abruptly if she 'ever visited the church of Burtscheid.'
'Sometimes,' said she, colouring deeply for a moment, and then becoming pale as before; 'but why do you ask, Herr Baron?'
'Because Herr Pastor Puffenvortz is preaching a series of stirring sermons there just now.'
Poor Ernestine, who had begun to fear that her interview there with Charlie had been overheard or overseen by some eavesdropper unknown, felt greatly relieved by the Baron's simple reply; but her sudden change of colour was not unnoticed by the Countess, who drew certain conclusions therefrom, though she could scarcely give them any form.
The sudden and blunt reference to the church at Burtscheid, the scene of her last and farewell interview with Charlie, gave her so sudden a shock—her sensibility had become so delicate now—that she had to retire to her room.
Burtscheid! All the scene then came again before her—when words were spoken that were known to Heaven and themselves alone! He was gone—torn from her, the first and only man she had ever loved, so the girl pined in her heart. So now she sat, as she had been wont to sit for hours, listlessly, as if without consciousness of thought; yet her mind was keenly active and full of images of the absent one.