Tales of Two Countries Part 4

Then he pa.s.sed out upon the steps with a joking speech to the company at the table, and she heard their laughing answers; but she herself remained behind in the garden-room.

Poor young man! how sorry she was for him; and how strange that she of all people should be the only one in whom he confided. What secret sorrow could it be that depressed him? Perhaps he, too, had lost his mother. Or could it be something still mote terrible? How glad she would be if only she could help him.

When Rebecca presently came out he was once more the blithest of them all. Only once in a while, when he looked at her, his eyes seemed again to a.s.sume that melancholy, half-beseeching expression; and it cut her to the heart when he laughed at the same moment.

At last came the time for departure; there was hearty leave-taking on both sides. But as the last of the packing was going on, and in the general confusion, while every one was finding his place in the carriages, or seeking a new place for the homeward journey, Rebecca slipped into the house, through the rooms, out into the garden, and away to the King's Knoll. Here she seated herself in the shadow of the trees, where the violets grew, and tried to collect her thoughts.--"What about the violets, Mr. Lintzow?" cried Miss Frederica, who had already taken her seat in the carriage.

The young man had for some time been eagerly searching for the daughter of the house. He answered absently, "I'm afraid it's too late."

But a thought seemed suddenly to strike him. "Oh, Mrs. Hartvig," he cried, "will you excuse me for a couple of minutes while I fetch a bouquet for Miss Frederica?"--Rebecca heard rapid steps approaching; she thought it could be no one but he.

"Ah, are you here, Miss Rebecca? I have come to gather some violets."

She turned half away from him and began to pluck the flowers.

"Are these flowers for me?" he asked, hesitatingly.

"Are they not for Miss Frederica?"

"Oh no, let them be for me!" he besought, kneeling at her side.

Again his voice had such a plaintive ring in it--almost like that of a begging child.

She handed him the violets without looking up. Then he clasped her round the waist and held her close to him. She did not resist, but closed her eyes and breathed heavily. Then she felt that he kissed her--over and over again--on the eyes, on the mouth, meanwhile calling her by her name, with incoherent words, and then kissing her again. They called to him from the garden; he let her go and ran down the mound. The horses stamped, the young man sprang quickly into the carriage, and it rolled away. But as he was closing the carriage door he was so maladroit as to drop the bouquet; only a single violet remained in his hand.

"I suppose it's no use offering you this one, Miss Frederica?" he said.

"No, thanks; you may keep that as a memento of your remarkable dexterity," answered Miss Hartvig; he was in her black books.

"Yes--you are right--I shall do so," answered Max Lintzow, with perfect composure.--Next day, after the ball, when he put on his morning-coat, he found a withered violet in the b.u.t.ton-hole. He nipped off the flower with his fingers, and drew out the stalk from beneath.

"By-the-bye," he said, smiling to himself in the mirror, "I had almost forgotten _her_!"

In the afternoon he went away, and then he _quite_ forgot her.

The summer came with warm days and long, luminous nights. The smoke of the pa.s.sing steams.h.i.+ps lay in long black streaks over the peaceful sea.

The sailing-s.h.i.+ps drifted by with flapping sails and took nearly a whole day to pa.s.s out of sight.

It was some time before the Pastor noticed any change in his daughter.

But little by little he became aware that Rebecca was not flouris.h.i.+ng that summer. She had grown pale, and kept much to her own room. She scarcely ever came into the study, and at last he fancied that she avoided him.

Then he spoke seriously to her, and begged her to tell him if she was ill, or if mental troubles of any sort had affected her spirits.

But she only wept, and answered scarcely a word.

After this conversation, however, things went rather better. She did not keep so much by herself, and was oftener with her father. But the old ring was gone from her voice, and her eyes were not so frank as of old.

The Doctor came, and began to cross-question her. She blushed as red as fire, and at last burst into such a paroxysm of weeping, that the old gentleman left her room and went down to the Pastor in his study.

"Well, Doctor, what do you think of Rebecca?"

"Tell me now, Pastor," began the Doctor, diplomatically, "has your daughter gone through any violent mental crisis--hm--any--"

"Temptation, do you mean?"

"No, not exactly. Has she not had any sort of heartache? Or, to put it plainly, any love-sorrow?"

The Pastor was very near feeling a little hurt. How could the Doctor suppose that his own Rebecca, whose heart was as an open book to him, could or would conceal from her father any sorrow of such a nature! And, besides--! Rebecca was really not one of the girls whose heads were full of romantic dreams of love. And as she was never away from his side, how could she--? "No, no, my dear Doctor! That diagnosis does you little credit!" the Pastor concluded, with a tranquil smile.

"Well, well, there's no harm done!" said the old Doctor, and wrote a prescription which was at least innocuous. He knew of no simples to cure love-sorrows; but in his heart of hearts he held to his diagnosis.

The visit of the Doctor had frightened Rebecca. She now kept still stricter watch upon herself, and redoubled her exertions to seem as before. For no one must suspect what had happened: that a young man, an utter stranger, had held her in his arms and kissed her--over and over again!

As often as she realized this the blood rushed to her cheeks. She washed herself ten times in the day, yet it seemed she could never be clean.

For what was it that had happened? Was it of the last extremity of shame? Was she now any better than the many wretched girls whose errors she had shuddered to think of, and had never been able to understand?

Ah, if there were only any one she could question! If she could only unburden her mind of all the doubt and uncertainty that tortured her; learn clearly what she had done; find out if she had still the right to look her father in the face--or if she were the most miserable of all sinners.

Her father often asked her if she could not confide to him what was weighing on her mind; for he felt that she was keeping something from him. But when she looked into his clear eyes, into his pure open face, it seemed impossible, literally impossible, to approach that terrible impure point and she only wept. She thought sometimes of that good Mrs.

Hartvig's soft hand; but she was a stranger, and far away. So she must e'en fight out her fight in utter solitude, and so quietly that no one should be aware of it.

And he, who was pursuing his path through life with so bright a countenance and so heavy a heart! Should she ever see him again? And if she were ever to meet him, where should she hide herself? He was an inseparable part of all her doubt and pain; but she felt no bitterness, no resentment towards him. All that she suffered bound her closer to him, and he was never out of her thoughts.

In the daily duties of the household Rebecca was as punctual and careful as ever. But in everything she did he was present to her memory.

Innunmerable spots in the house and garden recalled him to her thoughts; she met him in the door-ways; she remembered where he stood when first he spoke to her. She had never been at the King's Knoll since that day; it was there that he had clasped her round the waist, and--kissed her.

The Pastor was full of solicitude about his daughter; but whenever the Doctor's hint occurred to him he shook his head, half angrily. How could he dream that a practised hand, with a well-worn trick of the fence, could pierce the armor of proof with which he had provided her?

If the spring had been late, the autumn was early.

One fine warm summer evening it suddenly began to rain. The next day it was still raining; and it poured incessantly, growing ever colder and colder, for eleven days and nights on end. At last it cleared up; but the next night there were four degrees of frost. [Note: Reaumur.]

On the bushes and trees the leaves hung glued together after the long rain; and when the frost had dried them after its fas.h.i.+on, they fell to the ground in mult.i.tudes at every little puff of wind.

The Pastor's tenant was one of the few that had got their corn in; and now it had to be threshed while there was water for the machine. The little brook in the valley rushed foaming along, as brown as coffee, and all the men on the farm were taken up with tending the machine and carting corn and straw up and down the Parsonage hill.

The farm-yard was bestrewn with straw, and when the wind swirled in between the houses it seized the oat-straws by the head, raised them on end, and set them dancing along like yellow spectres. It was the juvenile autumn wind trying its strength; not until well on in the winter, when it has full-grown lungs, does it take to playing with tiles and chimney-pots.

A sparrow sat crouched together upon the dog-kennel; it drew its head down among its feathers, blinked its eyes, and betrayed no interest in anything. But in reality it noted carefully where the corn was deposited. In the great sparrow-battle of the spring it had been in the very centre of the ball, and had pecked and screamed with the best of them. But it had sobered down since then; it thought of its wife and children, and reflected how good it was to have something in reserve against the winter.--Ansgarius looked forward to the winter--to perilous expeditions through the snow-drifts and pitch-dark evenings with thundering breakers. He already turned to account the ice which lay on the puddles after the frosty nights, by making all his tin soldiers, with two bra.s.s cannons, march out upon it. Stationed upon an overturned bucket, he watched the ice giving way, little by little, until the whole army was immersed, and only the wheels of the cannons remained visible.

Then he shouted, "Hurrah!" and swung his cap.

"What are you shouting about?" asked the Pastor, who happened to pa.s.s through the farm-yard.

"I'm playing at Austerlitz!" answered Ansgarius, beaming.

The father pa.s.sed on, sighing mournfully; he could not understand his children.--Down in the garden sat Rebecca on a bench in the sun. She looked out over the heather, which was in purple flower, while the meadows were putting on their autumn pallor.