O Thou, My Austria! Part 15

It is ten o'clock,--time for bed at Zirkow. Frau Rosamunda rubs her eyes; Zdena stands, unheeded and weary, in one of the window embrasures in the hall, looking out through the antique, twisted grating upon the brilliant August moonlight. Paula is still conversing with the gentlemen; she proposes a method for exterminating the phylloxera, and has just formulated a scheme for the improvement of the Austrian foundling asylums.

They are waiting for her pony-carriage to appear, but it does not come.

At last, the gardener's boy, who is occasionally promoted to a footman's place, comes, quite out of breath, to inform his mistress that Baroness Paula's groom is in the village inn, so drunk that he cannot walk across the floor, and threatening to fight any one who interferes with him.

"Very unpleasant intelligence," says Paula, without losing an atom of her equanimity. "There is nothing left to do, then, but to drive home without him. I do not need him; he sits behind me, and is really only a conventional enc.u.mbrance, nothing more. Good-night, Baroness! Thanks, for the charming afternoon. Goodnight! good-night! Now that the ice is broken, I trust we shall be good neighbours." So saying, she goes out of the open hall door.

Frau Rosamunda seems to have no objections to her driving without an escort to Dobrotschau, which is scarcely three-quarters of an hour's drive from Zirkow, and even the major apparently considers this broad-shouldered and vigorous young woman to be eminently fitted to make her way in the world alone. But Harry interposes.

"You don't mean to drive home alone?" he exclaims. "Well, I admire your courage,--as I admire every thing else about you," he adds, _sotto voce_, and with a Blight inclination of his head towards her,--"but I cannot permit it. You might meet some drunken labourer and be exposed to annoyance. Do me the honour to accept me as your escort,--that is, allow me to take the place of your useless groom."

"By no means!" she exclaims. "I never could forgive myself for giving you so much trouble. I a.s.sure you, I am perfectly able to take care of myself."

"On certain occasions even the most capable and clever of women lose their capacity to judge," Harry declares. "Be advised this time!" he implores her, as earnestly as though he were praying his soul out of purgatory. "My groom will accompany us. He must, of course, take my horse to Dobrotschau. Have no scruples."

As if it would ever have occurred to Baroness Paula to have "scruples"!

Oh, Harry!

"If you really would be so kind then, Baron Harry," she murmurs, tenderly.

"Thank G.o.d, she has gone at last!" sighs Frau Rosamunda, as she hears the light wagon rolling away into the night. "At last!"

CHAPTER VI.

ENTRAPPED.

Before Harry seated himself beside the robust Paula in the pony-carriage, a slender little hand was held out to him, and a pale little face, half sad, half pouting, looked longingly up at him.

He saw neither the hand nor the face. Oh, the pity of it!

The night is sultry and silent. The full moon s.h.i.+nes in a cloudless, dark-blue sky. Not a breath of air is stirring; the leaves of the tall poplars, casting coal-black shadows on the white, dusty highway, are motionless.

The harvest has been partly gathered in; sometimes the moonlight illumines the bare fields with a yellowish l.u.s.tre; in other fields the sheaves are stacked in pointed heaps, and now and then a field of rye is pa.s.sed, a plain of glimmering, silvery green, still uncut. The bearded stalks stand motionless with bowed heads, as if overtaken by sleep. From the distance comes the monotonous rustle of the mower's scythe; there is work going on even thus far into the night.

The heavy slumberous air has an effect upon Harry; his breath comes slowly, his veins tingle.

Ten minutes have pa.s.sed, and he has not opened his lips. Paula Harfink looks at him now and then with a keen glance.

She is twenty-seven years old, and, although her life has been that of a perfectly virtuous woman of her cla.s.s, existence no longer holds any secrets for her. Endowed by nature with intense curiosity, which has been gradually exalted into a thirst for knowledge, she has read everything that is worth reading in native and foreign modern literature, scientific and otherwise, and she is consequently thoroughly conversant with the world in which she lives.

Harry's exaggerated homage during the afternoon has suggested the idea that he contemplates a marriage with her. That other than purely sentimental reasons have weight with him in this respect she thinks highly probable, but there is nothing offensive to her in the thought.

She knows that, in spite of her beauty, she must buy a husband; why then should she not buy a husband whom she likes?

Nothing could happen more opportunely than this drive in the moonlight.

She is quite sure of bringing the affair to a satisfactory conclusion.

Click-clack--the ponies' hoofs beat the dusty road in monotonous rhythm, tossing light silvery clouds of dust into the moonlight. Harry is still silent, when--a plump hand is laid upon his arm.

"Please," Paula murmurs, half laughing, and handing him the reins, "drive for me. The ponies are so fresh to-night, they almost pull my hands off."

Harry bows, the ponies shake their manes, snort proudly, and increase their speed, seeming to feel a sympathetic hand upon the reins.

"And I fancied I could drive!" Paula says, with a laugh; "it is a positive pleasure to see you handle the reins."

"But such toys as these ponies!" he remarks, with a rather impatient protest.

"Can you drive four-in-hand?" she asks, bluntly.

"Yes, and five-in-hand, or six-in-hand, for that matter," he replies.

"Of course! How stupid of me to ask! Did you not drive five-in-hand on the Prater, three years ago on the first of May? Three chestnuts and two bays, if I remember rightly."

"Yes; you certainly have an admirable memory!" Harry murmurs, flattered.

"Not for everything," she declares, eagerly; "I never can remember certain things. For instance, I never can remember the unmarried name of Peter the Great's mother."

"She was a Narischkin, I believe," says Harry, who learned the fact on one occasion when some foolish Narischkin was boasting of his imperial connections.

Heaven knows what induces him to make a display to Paula of his historical knowledge. He usually suppresses everything in that direction which he owes to his good memory, as a learned marriageable girl will hold her tongue for fear of scaring away admirers. Harry thinks it beneath his dignity to play the cultured officer. He leaves that to the infantry.

"You distance me in every direction," Paula says; "but as a whip you inspire me with the most respect. I could not take my eyes off your turn-out that day in the Prater. How docile and yet how spirited those five creatures were under your guidance! And you sat there holding the reins with as much indifference apparently as if they had been your shake at a state ceremony. I cannot understand how you contrive to keep the reins of a five-in-hand disentangled."

"I find it much more difficult to understand how a man can play the guitar," Harry says, dryly.

Paula laughs, though with a sense of vexation at being still so far from the attainment of her purpose. She takes off her tall hat, tosses it carelessly into the seat behind them, and slowly pulls the gloves off her white hands.

"That is refres.h.i.+ng!" she says, and then is silent. For the nonce it is her wisest course.

Harry's eyes seek her face, then take in her entire figure, and then again rest upon her face. The moon is s.h.i.+ning with a hard, bluish brilliancy, almost like that of an electric light, and it brings into wondrous relief the girl's mature beauty. Its intense brightness s.h.i.+mmers about her golden hair; the red and white of her complexion blend in a dim, warm pallor. Her white hands rest in her lap as she leans back among the cus.h.i.+ons of the phaeton.

Click-clack--click-clack--the hoofs of the horses fly over the smooth, hard road; duller and less regular grows the beat of the horses' hoofs behind the wagon,--of Harry's steed and that of his groom.

The fields of grain have vanished. They are driving now through a village,--a silent village, where every one is asleep. The dark window-panes glisten in the moonlight; the shadows of the pointed roofs form a black zigzag on the road, dividing it into two parts,--one dark, one light. Only behind one window s.h.i.+nes a candle; perhaps a mother is watching there beside a sick or dying child. The candle-light, with its yellow gleam, contrasts strangely with the bluish moonlight. A dog bays behind a gate; otherwise, all is quiet.

And now the village lies behind them,--a chaos of black roofs, whitewashed walls, and dark lindens. To the right and left are pasture-lands, where countless wild chamomile-flowers glitter white and ghostly among the gra.s.s, in the midst of which rises a rude wooden crucifix. The pungent fragrance of the chamomile-flowers mingles with the odour of the dust of the road.

Then the pastures vanish, with the chamomile-flowers and the oppressive silence. A forest extends on either side of the road,--a forest which is never silent, where even in so quiet a night as this the topmost boughs murmur dreamily. It sounds almost like the dull plaint of human souls, imprisoned in these ancient pines,--the souls of men who aspired too high in life, seeking the way to the stars which gleamed so kindly when admired from afar, but which fled like glittering will-o'-the-wisps from those who would fain approach them.

The moonlight seems to drip down the boles of the monarchs of the wood like molten silver, to lie here and there upon the underbrush around their feet. A strong odour rises from the warm woodland earth,--the odour of dead leaves, mingling deliciously with all other forest fragrance.

"How wonderful!" Paula whispers.

"Yes, it is beautiful," says Harry; and again his eyes seek the face of his companion.

"And do you know what is still more beautiful?" she murmurs. "To feel protected, safe,--to know that some one else will think for you."