The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe dead trystThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The dead trystAuthor: James GrantRelease date: August 19, 2022 [eBook #68789]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: George Routledge and Sons, 1883Credits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD TRYST ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The dead trystAuthor: James GrantRelease date: August 19, 2022 [eBook #68789]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United Kingdom: George Routledge and Sons, 1883Credits: Al Haines
Title: The dead tryst
Author: James Grant
Author: James Grant
Release date: August 19, 2022 [eBook #68789]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: George Routledge and Sons, 1883
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEAD TRYST ***
BY
JAMES GRANT
AUTHOR OF 'THE ROMANCE OF WAR'
LONDONGEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONSBROADWAY, LUDGATE HILLNEW YORK: 9, LAFAYETTE PLACE
1883
JAMES GRANT'S NOVELS,
Price 2s. each, Fancy Boards.
The Romance of WarThe Aide-de-CampThe Scottish CavalierBothwellJane Seton: or, the Queen's AdvocatePhilip RolloThe Black WatchMary of LorraineOliver Ellis: or, the FusileersLucy Arden: or, Hollywood HallFrank Hilton: or, the Queen's OwnThe Yellow FrigateHarry Ogilvie: or, the Black DragoonsArthur BlaneLaura Everingham: or, the Highlanders of GlenoraThe Captain of the GuardLetty Hyde's LoversCavaliers of FortuneSecond to NoneThe Constable of FranceThe Phantom RegimentThe King's Own BorderersThe White CockadeFirst Love and Last LoveDick RooneyThe Girl he MarriedLady Wedderburn's WishJack ManlyOnly an EnsignAdventures of Rob RoyUnder the Red DragonThe Queen's CadetShall I Win Her?Fairer than a FairyOne of the Six HundredMorley AshtonDid She Love Him?The Ross-shire BuffsSix Years AgoVere of OursThe Lord HermitageThe Royal RegimentDuke of Albany's Own HighlandersThe CameroniansThe Scots BrigadeViolet JermynJack Chaloner
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I.TWO COUSINSII.CHARLIE PIERREPONTIII.THE DREADED MEETINGIV.CHARLIE IN LOVEV.WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DOM KIRCHEVI.AN ALARMVII.AMONG THE BREAKERSVIII.CHARLIE'S VISITORIX.FOR LIFE AND DEATHX.TO THE RHINE!XI.SEPARATEDXII.THE BAPTISM OF FIREXIII.THE DREAM IN THE BIVOUACXIV.THE LETTER OF ERNESTINEXV.WHAT THE 'EXTRA BLATT' TOLDXVI.IN FRONT OF METZXVII.FACING A BATTERY OF MITRAILLEUSESXVIII.IN THE ENEMY'S HANDSXIX.THE CHATEAU DE CAILLÉXX.ERNESTINEXXI.AT AIX ONCE MOREXXII.AT BURTSCHEIDCONCLUSION
THE DEAD TRYST.
On an evening in summer before the late siege of Paris, three ladies—one a matron of mature years, the other two both young and handsome girls, a brunette and a blonde—were seated in one of the lofty windows of a stately room on the firstétageof the Grand Hotel Royal, which immediately overlooks the Rhine at Cologne.
The senior of these—Adelaide, Countess of Frankenburg, a woman grey-haired now, and with features somewhat of the heavy German type—had just received a letter, and was intent upon it, while her daughter Ernestine, and her orphan niece Herminia, watched her face with interest, and forgot the little Tauchnitz editions over which they had been idling.
'What does my brother Heinrich say?' asked Ernestine.
'That he has got extended leave of absence from Potsdam, and next week will arrive at Frankenburg, to spend some time with us. He brings with him a young English friend, Carl Pierrepont, an officer of his regiment. I trust, Herminia, you will receive my dear boy with all the affection he so justly merits.'
But Herminia made no reply, so the Countess repeated what she had said, and fixed her eyes steadily and inquiringly upon her. She only sighed, opened, and then tossed aside her Tauchnitz edition of an English novel. The Countess's ideas of propriety would not permit her to allow her girls to peruse any other light literature; but having an idea that a married woman might read works of a higher-flavoured nature, she sometimes read the works of MM. Dumas and De Kock, to 'keep up her French,' as she phrased it
The cousins—known as 'the Belles of Frankenburg'—were alike in stature and delicacy, but very dissimilar in style of beauty and in complexion. Herminia was dazzlingly fair, of a pure Saxon type, with hair of that lovely brown tint which seems shot with gold in the sunshine, and soft eyes of violet-blue, that seemed almost black at night, and though brown her tresses, and wondrously fair her skin, her eyelashes and eyebrows were dark, almost black; but her pretty little nose bordered rather on theretroussé.
Ernestine was a dark beauty, with black hair and clear, but thoughtful and dreamy hazel eyes, which she inherited with the blood of some Hungarian ancestor; her whole style was more classic than that of her cousin. Her nose was slightly aquiline, with dark straight eyebrows that nearly met over it, imparting a great degree of character to her face, which was suggestive of decision of mind and firmness of purpose—a little self-willed and opinionated, perhaps; for Ernestine was not without her faults. She was fond of admiration; but what pretty girl is not? She liked dress and gaiety, and would dance all night if her partners pleased her.
The Countess carefully folded her son's letter, and fixing her keen grey eyes on Herminia, said, somewhat sententiously:
'Though an old man now, the father of my Heinrich was as brave a soldier as ever trod the soil of Germany, and his name is yet venerated among the Uhlans of the Archduke; and I am proud to say, Herminia, that his son is worthy of such a father.'
'Were my cousin the Archduke himself,' said Herminia, wearily, for she was pretty well used to hear these encomiums, 'he would be totally indifferent to me.'
'Herminia!'
'Totally, I repeat. Pardon me, dear Aunt Adelaide; but he has no particular claim on my regard.'
'He is your cousin, your own blood relation—near almost as a brother!' said the Countess, impatiently.
'But still, mamma, as I have said a hundred times before, he can have no claim upon her hand,' urged Ernestine, who had not yet spoken on the subject.
'Do you, Grafine, wish to abet Herminia in her strange contumacy?' asked the Countess, severely.
'I speak but my thoughts, dearest mamma.'
'Her father, the Staats Rath, gave her away to him as a child; but you, as well as I do, know the arrangement made by our family; they were betrothed when she was in her cradle, and he a schoolboy at Bonn; and now he comes to claim her hand, in virtue of that betrothal,' added the Countess, who, though a German, had considerable nobility and dignity in her bearing and aspect.
'Such foolish arrangements may have been made long ago, Aunt Adelaide, when robber-barons lived in those ruined castles which look down from every rock upon the Rhine; but such would be absurd in these days of ours, when its waters are ploughed up by steamers, and the lurlies and elves have all been put to flight.'
'Herminia,' said the Countess, with increasing severity, 'do you revere the memory of the Baron and Privy Councillor your father?'
'I do, indeed, Aunt Adelaide; my father's memory is very dear to me, even as that of my dead mother, whom I never saw,' replied the girl, with her eyes growing moist; 'but I decline to admit the right of either to give me, while yet a helpless child, away to anyone in marriage. The idea is eccentric; it is more, it is odious and preposterous!'
'You use somewhat strong language, Grafine.'
'Surely not stronger than the situation merits?' replied Herminia, her soft voice trembling with agitation and annoyance. 'If my cousin Heinrich is unmanly enough to insist upon the fulfilment of this most absurd family compact, I shall ever deem him most unworthy of my regard, or, indeed, that of any woman!' added Herminia, whose tears now began to fall.
'Then it is your resolution to violate, to trample upon, to utterly disregard the affectionate contract made by your parents and by his?'
'But I have never seen this—this most tiresome cousin, Aunt Adelaide!'
'That has been a misfortune caused by your being educated in England, while he was at the university, and then with the army.'
'Hence he is to me a stranger, and must be greeted and received as such.'
'I think my brother Heinrich is acting foolishly in bringing the English friend (of whom he writes so frequently) to Frankenburg,' said Ernestine.
'Why?' asked the Countess.
'Because Herminia, in the very spirit of opposition, may fall in love withhim.'
'My father could not have taken a surer way to make me shun and loathe my cousin, and even do something more dreadful still, than by forming this arrangement.'
'Something more dreadful still!' repeated the Countess, raising her voice, and surveying her niece through her gold eyeglass. 'In Heaven's name, whatdoyou mean, Herminia?'
'By compelling me to marry a man I don't love; for what happiness could follow a union with a total stranger? Besides, I don't want to marry.'
'Your own cousin a stranger?' persisted the Countess. 'But though we have discussed this subject a thousand times before, there is one feature in it to which I have never referred, and which, consequently, will benewto you.'
'I am glad to hearthat,' replied the contumacious little beauty, shrugging her pretty shoulders and almost yawning.
'I mean a clause in your father's will, by which, if you do not marry our Heinrich, your fortune will be divided between him and your cousin Ernestine,—leaving you, in fact, without a silver groschen.'
'I would not have a kreutzer of it—neither, I am sure, would Heinrich!' exclaimed Ernestine, emphatically.
'Neither of you would be consulted in the matter. But now, Herminia, will you brave the prospect of poverty—a life of utter dependence—go back to England as a governess, perhaps?'
'Yes,' said the girl proudly; 'I would brave anything.'
'You love some one else!' exclaimed her aunt.
'I have never said so,' replied Herminia, with a perceptible tremor in her sweet voice; 'but no doubt it is this fortune of which you speak that Heinrich wants.'
'Did he want it when you were in your cradle, and he was carrying his satchel at Bonn?'
'I should think not; but he may want it now, after some years spent in the army.'
'Shame! you forget yourself, Herminia—forget that you speak of your own cousin—ofmyson. It is much more likely that some adventurous friend, some acquaintance, whom you have picked up here is thinking of your fortune, than my dear Heinrich.'
The old lady's eyes were actually filled with tears, and after a pause she said:
'I regret, Herminia, that I ever sent you to England.'
'Why, dearest aunt?'
'Because those English girls, your school companions there, have indoctrinated you with preposterous ideas of female independence—right of choice, and so forth; and now that I think of it,whois that gentleman with whom you waltz so frequently?'
'Waltz, aunt?' said the girl, in a low voice.
'And who gave you, last night, that rose which you now wear in your breast?'
'Last night, aunt?' faltered Herminia, now blushing deeply, while Ernestine laughed mischievously.
'Don't repeat my words, please. Yes, last night, when the band of the Uhlans was playing in the garden of the Prinz Carl?'
'Herr Ludwig Mansfeld.'
'And how came you to know him?' asked the Countess, severely, adding, 'I hope he is not an officer from the barracks?'
(Such dreadful fellows 'those officers from the barracks' seem to be all the world over, from Canterbury to Cabul!)
'I met him first at a ball in the Kaiserlicher Hof, where the Master of the Ceremonies introduced him to me when you were playing cards in the ante-room. We dance frequently; and the introduction was unnecessary, according to our German ideas.'
'In—deed!'
'Is there any harm in all that when he dances so delightfully?
'And oh, how handsome he is!' exclaimed Ernestine.
'I fear some harm has been done already; and I do not think that any gentleman should dance with a young lady before he has obtained the permission of her chaperone.'
There was now a pause, after which the Countess said:
'The Count urges our return before Heinrich arrives; so we shall take the train to Aix-la-Chapelle to-morrow.'
'So very soon, aunt?' said Herminia, growing pale.
'My dear, I am sorry to spoil your pleasure here; but to-morrow morningwe go,' said the Countess, rising haughtily; 'come with me, Ernestine. I need your assistance with my correspondence.'
The mother and daughter swept out of the room, their dresses—the rustling moiré of the Countess and the maize-coloured silk of Ernestine—gliding noiselessly over the varnished floor, and Herminia was left to her own sad reflections.
'Ich bin sehr böse!' (I am very angry) she heard the Countess exclaim, as the door closed, and then she heard her cousin make some laughing response.
'How can Ernestine be so heartless?' thought the girl; 'but, alas! she knows not what love is! To-morrow,' she exclaimed aloud—'to-morrow, I shall lose him, and perhaps for ever, my dear, dear Ludwig!'
Her handsome eyes were now welling over with hot, salt tears. She had her arms above her head, with her white slender fingers interlaced amid the coils of her beautiful brown hair; her eyes were cast mournfully upward; then she tore her fairy fingers asunder with a sob in her throat and let her hands drop by her side as she sank back in her chair.
'Would to Heaven that I had never known him—that we had never, never come to Cologne,' she exclaimed.
She felt that she must see Ludwig once again; but this dreadful cousin, how was he to be avoided?
These two ideas filled her whole soul as she sat, silent and motionless, looking out on the view that lay before the hotel windows: the broad waters of the famous Rhine, shining redly in the light of the setting sun, covered with sailing vessels and steamers shooting to and fro, its great pontoon bridge, through which the current surged, the wilderness of roofs that formed the city—that Rome of the north which Petrarch apostrophized to Colonna—stretching far away, with the great masses of the unfinished cathedral, the dome of St. Gereon, with its three galleries, and the stately tower of St. Cunibert rising high in the air and casting mighty shadows eastward. But Herminia surveyed them all as one who was in a dream, and kept repeating to herself, as she drew the rose from her breast and pressed it to her trembling lips with all a young girl's fervour:
'Yes—yes—I must see him once again, and then all will be over—over for ever!'
She glanced at her watch, took her hat and gloves from a console table close by, and hastily and noiselessly quitted the room. Descending the great staircase of the hotel, she issued into the beautiful garden attached to it, and proceeded at once to a certain fountain, near which a gentleman was lingering. He hurried towards her, and took both her tremulous little hands within his own. He gazed tenderly into her eyes, and then scanned the windows of the hotel. Alas! too many overlooked them, so the longed-for kiss was neither given nor taken; and neither knew that at this very time, they were both seen by the Countess and the laughing Ernestine.
Though in plain clothes, attired as a civilian, the soldier-like air of Ludwig Mansfeld would not conceal. He was dark-complexioned, especially for a German, with straight handsome features. He was closely shaven, all save a thick moustache, and he had tender brown eyes—tender, at least, when they looked into those of Herminia, who was now weeping freely.
'Tears?' said he, inquiringly.
'Yes, Ludwig, tears; I have much reason for them.'
'How, darling?
'We leave Cologne to-morrow.'
'Ah! why so soon?'
'It is the resolve of my aunt.'
'And for where, darling?'
'Aix-la-Chapelle.'
Her lover's features brightened as she said this.
'Well, my own one, I shall be there in a few days,' he whispered cheerfully; 'and if we are prudent, and watch well our opportunities, it will indeed be a very remarkable thing if we don't meet as often as we may desire.'
'But my cousin—this most odiousfiancé—Heinrich von Frankenburg, joins us in a week from Potsdam, where, I understand, his regiment is stationed.'
'I have seen Frankenburg, and know that he has the reputation of being dangerously handsome; but I thought he was on leave of absence?'
'So he has been. As for Aunt Adelaide, she is a tyrant, and I do believe would keep me in pinafores, if she could!' said Herminia bitterly.
'Herminia, dearest,' said the young man, while gazing at her lovingly, earnestly, and very keenly, 'you have never seen this wondrous cousin, to whom your family wish to assign you like a bale of goods?'
'Oh, never even once, Ludwig; and to me he is an object of abhorrence!' she exclaimed passionately.
'Excuse me, my love,' said Ludwig sadly; 'but I have a strange foreboding—a presentiment which comes to me unbidden, and seems to say that when youdosee him, your present abhorrence may pass away, and—and a tender emotion take its place. The propinquity and charms given to a cousin are perilous for a secret lover like me.'
Herminia now wept bitterly.
'Ludwig, I could quarrel with you for such a cruel suspicion,' she sobbed out, 'but that we are, I fear me, now speaking together for the—the—the last time,' and, heedless of who might see the action, in the abandonment of her great grief, her head sank on his shoulder, and she nestled her sweet face in his neck.
'Your tears, my own darling,' said he, 'are a rebuke, and more than a sufficient rebuke, for my suspicion; and bitter, indeed, would this parting-time have been to me, but for the knowledge—the sure conviction—that, even if a thousand cousins came, still we shall meet at Aix.'
Herminia shook her head mournfully, and said, 'I pray to Heaven that it may be so, and with the hope these words inspire, I must now, dear, dear Ludwig, say—farewell!'
And so they parted, with hearts that doubtless were aching sorely, for their future seemed dark and dubious. Yet he seemed more hopeful than her. He kissed her very tenderly, and, though his naturally brown cheek looked pale, she thought he smiled at their temporary separation—if temporary it was to be—more than she could account for.
But doubtless, lover-like, he had some bold plan in view.
'Yet it was a sad, sad smile my darling gave me,' thought the girl, as, with her veil closely drawn, she slowly and wearily ascended the great oak staircase to theétageoff which her bed-room opened; 'but no doubt he only thought of cheering me.'
Next morning the Countess's carriage took the trio to the Eisenbahnhof for Aix-la-Chapelle; and as Herminia from the swift-speeding train looked back to the sinking spires of Cologne, a curtain seemed to have fallen between her past and present existence.
And oh! how weary was the night that followed, when tossing restlessly, defiantly, and petulantly on her laced pillow, she lay in broken slumber, with tears matting her long and lovely eyelashes.
A week after this, a drochski deposited a smart-looking young officer, in the uniform of the 95th Thuringian regiment—blue with red facings and silver epaulettes, spike-helmet and black belt—at the entrance of the Pariser Hof of Cologne, a comfortable and moderate hotel, suitable to that style of economy continental military men are usually constrained to practise.
Though wearing the well-known uniform of the Prussian army, it was impossible not to recognize in the new arrival, as he sprang lightly up the steps of the hotel, that he was an Englishman, a genuine Briton, for he was the Carl Pierrepont mentioned by young Frankenburg in his letter to the Countess. Carl—or Charlie, as he was known when he was wont to hold his wicket in the playing-grounds of Rugby against the best bowler in the three hundred, and to con his studies in the white brick Tudor school-house, or in the long avenue called Addison's Walk—was a great favourite with all his regiment, and already had the honour of being specially noticed on parade by our Princess Royal when her husband was reviewing the Prussian troops, and of receiving from his hand the much-coveted Iron Cross when almost in his boyhood.
One great cause, perhaps, of Charlie's popularity among the Thuringians was, that as an Englishman he was destitute of that aristocratic hauteur which causes the well-born German officer to regard all under his command as an inferior order of beings, a style of bearing and sentiment unknown alike in the armies of Britain and France.
His face was fair, his features handsome, and he was verging on thirty years of age. His character, like his figure, was fully developed and formed; the expression of his eyes betokened intelligence and promise; while his lithe and manly form had all that muscular strength and activity that women often prefer to intellect in men, and which is frequently the result of the out-door sports in the playgrounds of Rugby, Eton, and Harrow, a portion of our English system of education.
Though the son of a fox-hunting Warwickshire squire, who knew every cover in Stoneleigh, the Brailes, and the Edgehills, the head of an old but certainly embarrassed family, so far as mortgages and so forth went, he was barely deemed among the wohlgeborn, according to the Prussian standard; and poor Charlie had nothing as yet but his epaulettes and sword, his pay as a soldier of Fortune, with the privileges usually accorded to Continental officers, such as going everywhere at half-price in virtue of their being in uniform—privileges which ours would decline 'with thanks.'
Charlie Pierrepont was everywhere a great favourite with the other sex; and perhaps there was no species of flirtation in which he was not a skilled hand, and he had carefully studied the whole 'scale of familiarities, the gamut of love,' as he was wont to call it, from a touch of the hand or the elevation of an eyebrow, upward, to the extremity of tenderness; and thus much of his time had been passed pleasantly for some ten years in every garrison town between the Elbe and the Vistula; but he had always come off scot-free, for he was possessed, as we have said, of but his epaulettes and sword, while many of the girls he met were as finished flirts as himself; and some, after a short acquaintance, would show their hands with a laugh, and, as it were, throw up their cards.
'Kellner! let me have a room on the lowestétagethat is unoccupied,' said he, as his portmanteaus were carried in by the hausknecht.
'Yes, mein Herr,' replied the oberkellner, or head-waiter.
'Is the young Count Von Frankenburg here—an officer of the Thuringians?'
'Yes; he is now at thetable d'hôte. The bell has just rung, so mein Herr is exactly in time for dinner.'
'Very good.'
'This way, mein Herr,' said the waiter, bowing; 'but, though in the Prussian uniform, I think the Herr is an Englishman.'
'How do you know that I am so?'
'Because I myself am one, and I recognized you by your voice.'
And, sooth to say, Charlie was very unlike a German in that respect, and had the pleasantly modulated voice of a well-trained English gentleman, and few voices are more agreeable to listen to.
He entered the stately speise-saal, or dining-hall of the hotel, where the landlord, in the kindly German fashion, sat at the head of the table, presiding over all his guests, more than a hundred in number, and already the waiters were busy. A single glance showed Pierrepont where his comrade sat—a smart and handsome young officer in undress uniform, who was caressing a dark moustache, and making himself agreeable to a lady beside him. He rose and beckoned to the new arrival.
'Welcome to Cologne, Carl!'
'Thanks, Heinrich. How are you?'
They shook hands simply, as Charlie had a genuine English repugnance to salute a man in the German fashion on the cheek. He then took the chair which his friend, the Count, had reversed and placed against the table, for service beside his own.
'Kellner! die speise-karte!' The wine card was called for next, and the serious business of the meal began, amid all that noise and hubbub peculiar to a Germantable d'hôte, where Counts and Barons, with ribbons and orders, may be seen handling their knives and forks like English ploughmen, and pretty frauleins tugging away at chicken bones with the whitest of teeth, and the most perfect air of self-possession. The first conversation was, of course, about the expected war concerning the Spanish succession, the political sketches in theKladderadatch, the official accounts in theStaats Anzeiger; how all Paris was brimming over with enthusiasm, rage, and vengeance; that crowds were always in the streets shouting, 'Down with Prussia!' 'To the Rhine! to the Rhine!' 'To Berlin!' How the 'Marseillaise' was being sung, and the hotel of the Prussian ambassador was only saved from total destruction by the intervention of the gendarmerie; for the time had now come when the Prussians spoke exultingly of Leipzig, even as the French did of Jena, and also raised the cry of 'To the Rhine!' while the national songs of the Fatherland were constantly sung in hoarse but martial chorus.
Dinner over, the lighted candles came, as a hint for the ladies to retire, and rising like a covey of partridges they withdrew. The cloth was removed, and fresh bottles of wine, or lager-beer, with tobacco and cigars, were provided on all hands, and the conversation became more general, and, if possible, more noisy than before.
As the subject of the coming war was discussed, many eyes were turned to the two friends in the uniform of the 95th Thuringians, for both seemed gentlemen and soldiers, and no troops in the world look more like our own in bearing, and in firm, manly physique, than the Prussians. Charlie Pierrepont had acquired many of the ways of the latter, and would join, when on the march, 'Was is des Deutschen Vaterland,' as lustily as if his father had been some Rhenish Baron, and not a hearty Warwickshire squire.
'I am already sick of this subject of the war,' said Charlie, as he lingered over a cigar; 'one hears so much of it everywhere. By the way, have you yet seen your fair cousin, Heinrich?'
'Yes.'
'And found her charming?'
'Beyond my fondest hopes; but she knew not that I had seen her, nor, in truth, did I care much to intrude upon her.'
'Intrude!—upon your intended?'
'That is the word,' said the Count, with a strange smile.
'Why, Herr Graf?'
'Don't "Herr Graf" me. Call me Heinrich.'
'Well?'
'A deuced fellow, named Ludwig Mansfeld (I found it so in theFremden Buch, at the Grand Hotel), has cut me out—quite.'
'Have him out in another fashion, and I am the man to measure the ground for you.'
'Thanks, Carl, but I would rather fire at my own figure in a mirror,' said Frankenburg, laughing.
'You are sure your friends expect me at the Schloss?'
'Yes, at Frankenburg; they are familiar with your name there. I have written so often of you to Ernestine, my sister.'
'She was educated in England, I believe?'
'With Herminia at the west end of London; so you and she will get on famously together. As you are a musician, you will like her immensely, Carl.'
'I have no doubt of that.'
Little indeed could poor Charlie Pierrepont foresee all Ernestine was yet to be to him.
'I am a bad fellow, I fear,' said the Count reflectively; 'I have trifled with too many women in my time, and fear that I am not worthy of this sweet cousin of mine, even if she would have me.'
'Nay, nay, Heinrich——'
'Somebody writes, that "if we were all judged by our deservings, there is scarcely a man on earth would find a womanbadenough for him."'
'That is taking a low estimate of mankind in general.'
'And of the 95th Thuringians in particular,' added the young Count, laughing; 'to-morrow we shall start for Frankenburg in an open britzka—it is only twenty-five miles from this; and now, one bottle more of St. Julian, and then we shall go and see the girls at the gardens of the Prinz Carl.'
'Half German and half French—some of them are, no doubt, very pretty.'
'Nay, I hope they are wholly German now. It was in those gardens I first met my beautiful cousin, with that devil of a fellow, who, somehow, got introduced to her. Let us go then; the band of the 76th Hanoverians plays there every evening. This time to-morrow will find us at dear old Frankenburg, where, as I shall have the girl all to myself, I hope to turn the flank of this Herr Mansfeld. I am in love with my cousin—actually in love with her at last.'
'My simple comrade, of what are you talking? Is this any age of the world in which to wear your heart upon your sleeve? Is this fellow Mansfeld good-looking?'
'Rather,' said the Count, twirling the points of his moustaches, and eyeing himself complacently in the depths of a great mirror opposite; 'but I wish I had your general success, Carl.'
'In what—I took honours in nothing at dear old Rugby.'
'Indeed—not even in flirtation?'
'In that I might have had the golden medal, had golden medals been given for such excellence.'
They assumed their spike helmets and swords, which the Prussian officers wear through a perforation in the left skirt, as their belt is worn under the coat, and thus bantering each other, cigar in mouth and arm-in-arm, they proceeded laughingly towards the crowded gardens of the Prinz Carl Hotel.
Next day saw them off for Frankenburg in an open britzka. The day was a lovely one in summer, and the scenery around them grand. Charlie, of course, apostrophized the Rhine, and quoted Byron. They passed Düren and the valley of the Ruhr, with the picturesque hamlet of Riedeggen perched on its lofty rock; Merodé, the cradle of the Merodeur; industrious Stolberg, with its château crowning a hill, and the beautiful wood named the Reichswald.
Young Frankenburg was in excellent spirits, and bantered the driver, calling him schwager (brother-in-law), a singular title for post-boys, and so forth, the origin of which is unknown. He was rather too liberal to him in the matter of trinkgeld (drink money); thus the britzka was driven at a thundering rate down that basin of beautiful hills which surround Aix, while Heinrich waved his forage-cap, and sung verses from the war-song of Arndt:
'My own Fatherland, my brave Germany on!We'll sing them a terrible strain.For what ages ago, their vile policy won—Of Strasburg, of Metz, and Lorraine.They shall hand it all back to the uttermost mite,Since for life or for death they compel us to fight.To shout, "To the Rhine, to the Rhine, and advance!All Germany onward, and march into France!"'
A week had passed away at Frankenburg, and the subject of the young Count's return—that event so dreaded by poor Herminia, from motives of delicacy, perhaps—had not been resumed, till the evening which saw him and his comrade driving through the beautiful scenery just referred to.
Dinner had been delayed, as the Count had telegraphed from the Pariser Hof that he was coming, and both the young ladies had made most careful toilettes, and perhaps sorely tried the temper of their attendants—Herminia, to please her watchful and somewhat suspicious aunt; Ernestine to please herself, and perhaps with a secret desire to please her brother's boasted friend, who, being an Englishman, would, she feared, be rather critical and fastidious.
And still further to achieve the laudable end of subduing him, she was now at her piano, practising sundry vapid fashionable songs which she had learned in England, just as our English girls strum German and Italian, learned, perhaps, at second hand from some poor needy governess. Most warmly had Heinrich written to her again and again about his English comrade, who had once actually fought a duel for him at Altona, when he was too ill to fight for himself, so Ernestine was all anxiety to know, receive, and thank him; for she doted on Heinrich, her only brother, as a loving, tender, and devoted sister alone can dote.
During all the past week, Herminia had but one thought, especially when riding, driving, or walking abroad. Her lover had confidently promised to see her again, and to follow her to Frankenburg; but she had seen nothing of him, and no letter or note, however brief, had reached her.
Why was this? She could find no answer in her heart, and doubt and anxiety cost her many tears in secret.
There had been great bustle and anticipation all day long in the somewhat secluded mansion in consequence of the expected arrival of the young Herr Graf and his friend. The family were to be 'not at home' to any visitors. Already Grunthal, Rheinburg, and sundry other Grafs had called in their ramshackle old-fashioned coaches and droschkies, covered with coats-of-arms exhibiting the usual German infinity of quarterings; and certain officials of Aix-la-Chapelle, with their wives, who, like other wives all over Germany, insisted upon taking the titles of their husbands' occupation, had been day after day leaving their cards, having heard that 'the Belles of Frankenburg had returned;' but now all were to be denied, and this afternoon was to be devoted to the only son of the house.
The Countess, who, though a modern lady of fashion, requiring her novels, cushions, Spitz lap-dog in a basket, and theKladderadatchto get through the day, was nevertheless, on the other hand, as thrifty a German housewife as any of the old school, had bustled about overseeing the culinary preparations, while her husband, Count Ulrich, who was passionately addicted to the pleasures of the chase, spent only half that day in the woods, and was now, with a huge pipe (having a china bowl and tassel) in his mouth, watching, like a sentinel, from a terrace before the drawing-room windows, the road that wound away towards Aix-la-Chapelle.
The once smart officer of Uhlans, who had ridden on old Blucher's staff at Waterloo, on that eventful day when the 'Iron Duke' wept with joy to hear the boom of the Prussian cannon—the smart Lancer, of whom the Countess had boasted at the Grand Hotel, was somewhat obese now. He was, in fact, a very stout, bald-headed, and rather coarsely featured old Teuton, with a red ribbon (of course) at his button-hole, and a thick plain hoop on his marital finger, as all married men wear one in Germany.
He had been kept uninformed, so far as Herminia knew, of her aversion to his son, and her very decided preference for a certain obscure Herr Mansfeld, whose image was rising painfully before her, as she, too, from time to time, looked down on the distant view, to where the spires of the Dom Kirche of Aix rose darkly up amid the ruddy haze of evening.
The Countess could detect in the face and deportment of her niece that which the preoccupied or uninformed Count did not. It was but too evident that Herminia had passed a disturbed night, a restless and feverish day. Indeed, Ernestine admitted that she had heard her sighing and moaning in her sleep, and Herminia had quitted her couch that morning resolving to appeal to the chivalry, the manhood, the charity, and honour of her cousin to release her from the yoke, the thraldom his family had placed upon her, even with the loss of her fortune.
Ignorant of this resolution, the Countess took her niece's passive hand—and a lovely little hand it was—in hers, and said kindly but firmly—
'Meine liebe, I trust that when our dear Heinrich arrives, you will not exhibit any unpleasant coldness towards him.'
'Can you expect me to exhibit warmth? Is he not an utter stranger save by name? Would warmth in me be modest or becoming, aunt? Besides——' she paused, for tears choked her utterance.
'Do not be alarmed, mamma,' said Ernestine, as she looked laughingly back from her seat at the piano; 'I know our Heinrich to be so handsome and winning, that he will soon obliterate all recollection of our friend at the Grand Hotel.'
'Ernestine,' said Herminia reproachfully, while she glanced nervously at the portly figure of her uncle, who was still watching the Aix road from the lofty terrace, where the box-trees were cut into strange and fantastic shapes, like lions and egg-cups, and where some stately peacocks strutted to and fro.
Frankenburg is situated on the summit of a tall rock that towers above the line of the Antwerp railway. The actual castle is a ruined and ivy-mantled tower of unknown, but fabulous, antiquity, as it is actually averred to have been a hunting seat of Charlemagne. A more modern edifice has been engrafted on it, and this formed at the time the residence of the Count's family. It had all the usual comforts of a fashionable German household; but there was still attached to it a banqueting-hall of the seventeenth century—the pride of Count Ulrich's heart—with its black oak roof, its rows of deer skulls and antlers, with all the implements for fishing, shooting, and hunting, hung upon the walls, pell-mell with fragments of armour and weapons of every kind, from the great glaives of the middle ages to muskets and sabres gleaned up by the Count at Ligny and Waterloo.
And there, at Christmas time, a tall fir-tree from the Reichswald; covered with toys and cakes, grotesque masks,papier-machédolls, candles and shining lights, gladdened the hearts of the little tenantry, who were cuddled and kissed up and down by the hearty old Baron acting Father Christmas, with a mighty white beard, a cowl, and long wand; while Ernestine and Herminia glided about like good fairies, dispensing viands and wine to the sturdy Teutons and their blooming fraus, when the trees of the Reichswald were leafless and bare, and the branches glittered like silver and crystal in the frostwork, and the first snowdrops of the season were peeping up in sheltered spots, and the brown stacks of the last harvest were mantled with snow.
And on these annual festive occasions there was seen the Countess Adelaide, as lively and jovial at fifty, if not so pretty, as she was at fifteen. There, too, were the grim ancestry, the men and women of other days and years, looking down from their garlanded frames, in ruffs and stomachers, in breastplates or fardingales, just as Hans Holbein, Rubens, and others had depicted them, and looking as demure as if they had never flirted, squeezed hands under the tablecloth, known the use of the mistletoe, or been like other folks 'world without end.'
'Hoch! hoch! Gott in Himmel! here they come—here is our dear boy at last!' exclaimed the Count, clapping his fat pudgy hands, as the open britzka, drawn by a pair of sparkling bays, came suddenly in sight, with two officers in blue uniforms occupying the back seat. One of these—Heinrich, no doubt—was waving his forage-cap, and the vehicle was driven straight to the grand approach. The enthusiasm of the old veteran of Waterloo swelling up in his breast when he saw the uniform of the 95th, for
'He thought of the days that had long since gone by,When his spirit was bold and his courage was high.'
Herminia grew deadly pale, and took advantage of the Countess hurrying out upon the terrace to retire to her own room, whither, however, her watchful aunt almost immediately followed her.
'Dearest Aunt Adelaide, oh! spare me this great mortification!' intreated the trembling girl.
'Spare you?' repeated her aunt, now seriously angry, in expectation of a public scene before Charlie Pierrepont, a stranger.
'Yes, I implore you to spare me the horror of this meeting. Oh, Ludwig!' she moaned in her heart, 'my own Ludwig!'
'I do not know whether you are most weak or defiant,' replied her aunt. 'I give you a quarter of an hour to recover your composure and to make your appearance properly in the drawing-room, with such a bearing as will not be an insult to my son, to the memory of your father, and our whole family.'
And with these words the Countess swept haughtily away.
Herminia bathed her face and hands with eau-de-cologne and water, gave a finishing touch to her hair, kissed the envelope which contained the now dry and faded leaves of Ludwig's rose, placed it in her soft white bosom as a charm to strengthen her for the purpose she had in hand, and descended noiselessly to the drawing-room, when the sound of several voices, laughing loudly, jarred sorely on her ears and excited nerves.
She entered with her heavy eyelids drooping, and advanced with her gaze bent on the oak planks of the polished floor; then she shuddered as some one approached and took her unresisting hand.
'Herminia, dearest, look up! look uponme!' said a familiar voice.
'Ludwig! my own Ludwig!' she exclaimed in astonishment—almost terror, to see him there, and in the uniform of the Thuringians, as he said—
'And now, cousin, let me introduce you to my dear friend, Herr Carl Pierrepont of ours.'
'Ludwig?' said the thoroughly bewildered girl.
'No Ludwig at all,' he replied, laughing, and embracing her; 'but your own cousin, my belle—Heinrich of Frankenburg.'
'Aunt Adelaide!—Ernestine!—whatdoesall this mean?'
'It means, my dear child,' said the Countess, laughing heartily at her niece's perplexity; 'it means that it was all a plot of Ernestine's and Heinrich's, too. They had early learned your repugnance to the plan of betrothal, when you were too young to consent or refuse, and we all saw the folly of a constraint that seemed so heart-sickening to you. Thus we arranged that you should meet him as a stranger under an assumed name. You have met, and know and love each other, so the tie of that love alone binds you now.'
'Oh, Ernestine, my sweet cousin, forgive and forget my reproaches!' exclaimed the blushing and trembling, but happy girl, as she laid her head on the bosom of the beautiful brunette, who laughed and kissed her, fondling her as if she were a child.
'Well, Carl,' said Heinrich, 'what doyouthink of all this?'
'That I wish you every joy; but I must own, that when proposing to "have out" this Herr Mansfeld, your reply about shooting atyourselfin a mirror puzzled me,' said Pierrepont, laughing heartily at the whole situation, and enchanted with the happy scene amid which he was introduced to two such beautiful girls as the famous Belles of Frankenburg.
But now the bell clanged for dinner. The Countess took his arm, the Count leading with his niece, Heinrich and his sister following, all laughter and smiles.
The only silent one there was the radiant Herminia, who had been, as her affianced said, 'so pleasantly tricked.'
That night, at the very time the three gentlemen were in the smoking-room busy with their china-bowled pipes, and with silver tankards of beer before them—Heinrich full of happy dreams about his fair-haired cousin and the trick they had played her; the old Count full of memories of Waterloo and the coming war, French insolence, the Vaterland, and all the rest of it; Charlie thinking how divinely Ernestine sang and played, how sweet her downcast lashes looked, how bright her upward glances, how lovely were the white hands that wandered over the ivory keys, and made the said keys look very dark and yellow by comparison, and while to him and Heinrich it seemed that life at Frankenburg would be almost insupportable without the two 'belles' thereof. While all this was being thought of in the smoking-room, we say, the two young ladies were comparing their notes in their mutual dressing-room before retiring for the night to their beds—those most uncomfortable couches which, in 'the Vaterland,' are mere wooden boxes with pillows half-way down, and so arranged that one can neither sit nor lie at full length therein.
That Charlie was handsome, agreeable, pleasant, and so forth, was voted and carriednem. con., and Ernestine was full of fun and pleasure at the success of her scheme—for with her it originated—for luring Herminia into love with her brother by having him introduced to her as a stranger.
'But oh, Herminia!' she exclaimed, 'to think of you getting the start of me!'
'In what way?' asked Herminia, putting the whitest of feet into the daintiest of slippers.
'In getting engagedfirst; it is most unkind!' continued Ernestine, laughing, as she let down the masses of her dark silky hair.
'You forget, dear cousin, that I was engaged when in my cradle or berceaunette.'
Then the two girls, now nearly half-undressed, laughed as only young and happy girls can laugh, and with two snowy arms upheld, and dimpled elbows shown, Ernestine went on brushing out that thick, dark silky hair of hers.
'I declare, Herminia, Idothink I am pretty,' said she, suddenly pausing and surveying herself in her laced night-robe in the long cheval glass.
'You are too beautiful not to be quite aware of it,' replied Herminia.
'I wonder if Carl Pierrepont admired me?'
'Why?'
'Because—I should like him to do so.'
'Who could fail to admire you?' responded the happy Herminia.
'How sweetly he sang that song with me.'
'Heinrich tells me he is poor,' was the suggestive remark of Herminia.
'Alas!' after a pause, the former said, smiling.
'Herr Pierrepont scarcely took his gaze off you all the night; when you sang alone he seemed entranced, and when with you, in those duets, his voice became tender and tremulous.'
'Herminia, do you really think so, or do you jest?'
'I do not jest; hence my suggestion about his being poor, for that man is loving you at first sight.'
'Your own sudden happiness, and the revulsion of feeling consequent to the greatdénouementof to-day, lead you to think so,' replied Ernestine, her smile brightening nevertheless, for she liked the idea.
'Nay, nay, his visit is to last some time; and time will prove that I am right,' persisted Herminia, twisting up her coils of golden brown hair.
Ernestine sat for a time toying with a velvet slipper half on and half off her pretty foot, and then suddenly she said—
'Oh, Herminia, how can such a man care for me?'
'Why not, cousin dear? who would not, or could not, fail to care for you?'
'But he seems so proud and cold, and so very English.'
'You quite mistake, and only wish to hear me contradict you. He is much less so than your special admirer, Baron Grünthal, the Director of the Upper Consistorial Court.'
'A hideous old frump!' said Ernestine, tossing her head.
'Old! He is only forty.'
'But that is more than twice my age. My husband must be young and handsome.'
'Like Carl Pierrepont?'
'Yes, like Carl Pierrepont.'
'He certainly seems to have impressed you,' said Herminia.
'You forget how often and how much Heinrich has written of him in his letters to me. He seems quite like an old friend. How strange it would be,' continued the girl, while a dreamy expression stole into her beautiful dark eyes, as she sat with her slender fingers interlaced over her knees, 'how very strange it would, if in him I should have met—met——'
'What, cousin?
'My fate.'
'Let him take heed, that, in meeting you, he has not met with his own,' said Herminia merrily.
'I have been longing to go to a wedding, and yours more than all, dear Herminia; for being aware of your betrothal, it was one to which I always looked forward. I shall be one of the bridesmaids, of course; and the two daughters of the Justiz-rath, and the two girls from Rheinberg, though their toilettes are odious, and Hermangilda's hair is always muffled up like a mop.'
'A golden mop, though; but, dearest cousin, how your tongue does run on! Does it never occur to you that no marriage can take place with this French war—oh, meine Gott!—before us?'
And her eyes of violet blue suddenly filled with tears as she spoke, as vague images of death and battle rose before her.
'Forgive me, Herminia. Yet I was not jesting.'
'Forgive you, dear? Yes. I may as well do so,' replied the other girl, kissing her cousin on both cheeks; 'for to you and aunt I owe the love that Heinrich bears me—the love that I bear him.'
'And which Herr Mansfeld so nearly carried off!'
'And now, as we have our prayer's to say, good-night.'
Herminia was right; the girl, indeed, a close observer, was seldom wrong in her deductions, for 'Herr Carl Pierrepont' was hopelessly smitten at last by Ernestine, who, like the lively blonde, her cousin, was rich in those charms, and mere than all, those pretty mannerisms, or tricks of women, that win and secure a man's love for ever.
Charlie was neither proud nor reserved—only a little shy at first; he had been engaged in manyaffaires du coeur, but a genuine attack of the tender passion was new to him. He soon found himself regularly installed and adopted, anami du maison, with this delightful family at Frankenburg. As an Englishman, his natural love of hunting, shooting, and fishing won him the friendship of the old Count, with whom he drank as many flasks of Rhine wine and jugs of beer as he wished; but he had one blot in the eyes of the latter—he could never take cordially tosaur kraut.
He was a prime favourite with the Countess from his generalbonhommieof manner; and with Ernestine—ah! well, with Ernestine—he speedily became more of a favourite than the girl would have dared to acknowledge even to herself.
Society at Frankenburg was narrow and monotonous; most of the visitors who came, especially Baron Grünthal and the Justiz-rath, spoke only of politics, of Bismarck's plans, and the coming war, which did not interest the ladies, save in so far as the 95th Thuringians were concerned.
The days were devoted to rides and rambles amid the beautiful scenery around the old Schloss; the evenings to music, to singing, and frequently to dancing when the daughters of the Justiz-rath, or those of Baron Rhineberg, were present; and then our two 95th men were always in full uniform,à la Prussien; and the ladies were all unanimous that Charlie lookedsohandsome.
Those epaulettes! those epaulettes! To many a young English officer the pride and glory of wearing them was only secondary to the kiss of the first girl he loved; and where are theynow?
So Charlie was proud of his epaulettes.
Heinrich had fairly won his lovely cousin—under 'false colours,' certainly; but, nevertheless, hehadwon her; perhaps, from the girl's peculiar temperament and pride, he might never have done so otherwise; but having so won her, he was compelled to be thankful, for with this odious French war on thetapis—a war which, but for his love, he would have hailed with genuine German ardour, and the 95th under 'orders of readiness' for the Rhine—marriage, as Herminia herself had said, was not to be thought of: so they had but to trust to time and wait.
The Countess being always busy about the management of her household, the Count having frequently to visit Aix about a lawsuit in one of the courts there, and Heinrich being usually much with hisfiancée, threw Charlie and the young Grafine so much together that their hearts were hopelessly entangled; yet no word of love escaped the latter: he knew too well his lack of civil rank, and how many, or rather howfew, kreutzers he had per diem as a Prussian lieutenant of infantry. He could but abandon himself to the witchery of her society, to dream of the joy of loving and being loved by her, and drift away on the tide, too well aware that the charm of such a life and the tender influences of such society could not last for ever.
With all their exalted and somewhat absurd ideas of their own family, their rank and antiquity, the household of the Count and Countess Von Frankenburg was a homely and kindly one; and, after his garrison life, there was, to Charlie, a wonderful charm in accompanying the cousins, Ernestine especially, to see the plough and carriage horses taken to water at a certain pond below the old Schloss, to feed the peacocks on the terrace, to throw corn to the hens, and watch them picking and pecking between the stones in the yard at the home farm.
And Ernestine was to him the Eve of this Eden!
But for the soft and gentle influences under which Charlie and his friend were at Frankenburg, they would certainly, like Prussian officers in general (though gaming is strictly forbidden in the army), have spent many an hour at the New Redoute, or Gaming House, in the Comphausbad-Strasse, where games of hazard, rouge-et-noir, roulette, and so forth, are played from morning till midnight.
In lieu of this dissipation, they had quiet walks in the woods or visits to old ruins in the neighbourhood; and Ernestine, who was German enough to have a strong love of the mystic, the ethereal, and the romantic, and a desire to dabble with the unseen world, told Charlie many a strange weird story; and though with all an Englishman's mistrust of such things, it was impossible not to be charmed by her earnestness, the modulation of her voice, the bright expression of the dilated hazel eye, and the occasional but perfectly innocent pressure of her pretty hand upon his arm, when she sought to impress him by some remarkable episode.
In the old ivied tower at Frankenburg she showed him the window of the room in which the third wife of Charlemagne, Fastrada, daughter of Count Raoul, died, while the Emperor was absent at Frankfort; and told how he caused her body, which was so fair and beautiful, to the end that it might never decay, to be enclosed in a coffin of the purest crystal, which he kept in that chamber, and he never quitted it by day or by night, neglecting his empire and government, and forgetting all the concerns of war or peace, till Turpin the Wise resolved to cure him.
Watching his opportunity, while the Emperor slept, he opened the coffin, and took the golden wedding-ring from the finger of Fastrada, and cast it into the lake below the castle, and thus broke Charles' spell of sorrow. From that day the great lake into which the magic ring was cast, and which quite surrounded the Schloss, began to shrink, and nothing of it remained but the tiny horse-pond already mentioned.
And while she was telling this legend, a little grey owl sat in the window of the ruin, winking and blinking in the sunshine, as if he was weary of having heard the story so often.
The ruin, too, was haunted by the spectre of a former Count of Frankenburg, who, resolving to get rid of his Countess, to the end that he might marry again, invited her to share a dish of love-apples with him. These he divided with a silver-knife poisoned on one side; but by some mistake, he ate all the poisoned halves himself, and so fell dead at the table; and there in the upper story of the tower, his cries of pain and despair were sometimes heard on the wind in the stormy nights of winter.
So, amid this sweet intercourse—like one gathering beautiful flowers on the brink of a giddy precipice—did Charlie Pierrepont drift into a deep and hopeless passion.
He never spoke of it, but surely his eyes must have told, and his manner too, that he loved her. Oh yes, how he loved her, this earnest and warm-hearted young Englishman, yet was silent. He dared not seek to lead her into a promise to wait till the sun of Fortune shone on him, to waste her young and happy life till slow promotion came: and even were he a colonel, the Count might—nay, would—look for wealth or rank, or both; and while he—Charlie—was thus waiting, could he ask a girl so lovely to trust to the doctrine of chances, for a lucky spoke in the wheel of the blind goddess, and to growfadeand withered with the sickness of hope deferred?
Yet the sweet face, the dark shining hair, the tender, bright eyes, the pretty winning ways—oh, those pretty winning ways, that twine so round the heart of a man!—haunted him in the waking hours of the night, and in his tormenting, yet delicious, dreams by day.
Strong though the sentiment of friendship that existed between him and Heinrich, Charlie shrunk from making a confidant of him, as he knew but too well that his aristocratic prejudices and native ambition would preclude him from having any sympathy with such a secret love, or giving it the least encouragement.
So the days of joy stole away at Frankenburg, till Charlie began to reckon sadly the few that yet remained, when time would inexorably separate him from Ernestine, and, too probably, for ever.
Did she suspect that he loved her?
A hundred times had Charlie asked this question of himself in doubt: he was not an egotist; but every glance of her soft hazel eyes—that seemed, he knew not why, something between a caress and a compliment, together with a dash of entreaty—might have told him that he was far, far indeed from being indifferent to her.
In the spirit of the old song, he often thought,
'He either fears his fate too much,Or his desert is small,Who dare not put it to the touchTo win or lose it all.'
If 'things did not turn,' in time—and for him how could they turn? it was torment to think of losing her by his own silence and diffidence; of seeing her, perhaps, won by another, far his inferior in bearing and spirit, while he hungered for her smile, doted on her shadow, and alternately blessed andbannedthe hour that brought him to the Castle of Frankenburg.
He thanked Heaven that there was this impending war with France before them. On the banks of the Rhine, or before the walls of Paris, if he ever reached it, a French bullet might end it all for him, and he would never have the horror and sorrow of knowing that she was the bride of another; and so on, and on, day by day, when by her side, talking with her and enjoying all the sweet charms of her society, did this honest fellow torment himself, for we may, in the matters of love and jealousy, torment ourselves far more than others can.
Of this, a terror of every possiblepartiwho approached her was one element, especially if rich or titled.
There was Baron Grünthal, who came about Ernestine more than Charlie relished. He was a man of great influence, and Oberconsistorial Director of the Court at Aix, not over forty, and rather good-looking. Even the daughter of a Count might be pleased to become Baroness Grünthal.
Then one or two young Counts, friends of Heinrich, were among the frequent visitors, and Charlie gnawed his moustache viciously, as he pictured to himself, perhaps meeting her years hence, as the wife of one of these, when he was getting grey, weary of waiting for the promotion that never came; or if it did, he would value so little then: for with her, the glory of life would depart.
Getting grey? But she would be a matron then in years; and does not Jean Jacques Rousseau tell us that a pair of grey-haired lovers were never known to sigh for each other? But Charlie thrust that thought aside; he preferred to live in the pleasant present than to picture the gloomy future. No romantic incident, no runaway horse, no death averted from accident, or other melodramatic episode to draw largely on the young lady's gratitude, as in novels, led to Charlie's avowal of his love.
It all came about suddenly, in the most unromantic way, a quick outpouring of passion, a rush, as it were, of the heart to the lips, through the influence of which he told her that he loved her, her only, and craved her love in return; and it all came to pass in this fashion.
One day—Charlie Pierrepont never forgot it—they had contrived to get away alone, to visit the great Dom Kirche at Aix, the shady aisles and vast depths of which, with all its sequestered chapels, were as well calculated to lure them into sweet and earnest converse as the leafy alleys of a forest.
They had visited the tomb of Charlemagne, where, as Ernestine, while leaning on Charlie's arm, and looking up in his face, from under one of the prettiest of hats, told him with bated breath, that when it was opened in the tenth century, the Emperor was not found in the usual fashion of the dead, reclining in his coffin, but seated on a throne as if alive, clothed in imperial robes, a sceptre in his hand, and the gospels on his knee. On his fleshless brow was a crown, and by his side his famous sword, Joyeuse.
'And now,' added his charming guide, 'I shall show you the throne on which he was seated; it stands in the Hoch Munster.'
Now the said Hoch Munster is a gallery running round the octagon, facing the choir, and to reach it a narrow stair had to be traversed. Charlie, who, strange to say, had drawn off his gloves, held out a hand to guide Ernestine, who, by another coincidence, had drawn off one of hers, and when Charlie's fingers closed on her soft and velvet-like little hand, the desire to press it naturally occurred to him, but a thrill, as if of electricity, went to his heart, when he felt—with the gentlest assurance in the world—the pressure returned!
The stair to the Hoch Munster was surely steeper than usual, they ascended it so slowly. Amid its obscurity, Charlie pressed to his lips twice the accorded hand, which was not withdrawn, and ere they gained the upper step that led to the gallery, the great secret of Charlie's heart had escaped him, and flushed and palpitating; Ernestine heard him with downcast eyes.
The vehemence with which the avowal was made, though his voice was low and earnest, and the tender expression with which he regarded her, when they did emerge into daylight, bewildered her a little, which, perhaps, was the reason that she permitted Charlie to take prisoner her other hand; but after a time she regained her composure, and, looking up at him with a most bewitching expression in her tender brown eyes and pouting lip, said, as if she had doubted her ears, in a whispered voice,
'You—you love me?'
'Yes—oh yes! Dearest Ernestine, you must have known from the first—from the very first hour I saw you, that I loved you.'
'I always thought,' she continued, in the same low and certainly agitated voice, 'that you preferred my society to that of Herminia or the Rhineberg girls.'
'Preferred your society—oh, Ernestine!'
'I did think that you were very fond of me—yes, very fond of me; but that you actually loved me, I could not conceive.'
So the lovely little gipsy pretended, and cast her eyelids down, while her soft bosom heaved so much with emotion that her diamond brooch sparkled like prisms. After a pause, the tender eyes were again uplifted to Charlie, and as if she rather liked the sound of the avowal, she said timidly,