Chapter 101
"Where are the ladies!"
He had seen that the carriage was empty.
"They got out--above--in such a hurry, by the causeway in the meadows to the park. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! if only they can get across it! Lord have mercy upon us!"
A wave of the stream which had broken through between the hill and the castle, and which the coachman had nearly driven into, poured into the hollow way, and eddied up under the horses' feet, who could no longer be restrained but dashed up the road, the coachman running by them, having fortunately caught up the reins, and doing his best to stop them.
Ottomar had only understood so much from the coachman's confused words, made almost unintelligible by the storm, as to gather that Elsa was in danger. What was this causeway? Where was it? He ran after the coachman, calling and shouting to him, but the man did not hear.
CHAPTER XI.
As Giraldi moved with restless steps up and down the deserted rooms of the castle, there was added to the grey spectres of fear and anxiety which lurked around and followed him, another, that as the twilight deepened grew and grew, and seemed to come nearer and nearer with every movement of the minute-hand of the watch that he never put down. Not merely seemed. He could see it advancing from the windows which looked towards the sea, from the roof of the round tower to which he had made the old servant show him the way; he could see the tide advancing like storming columns which, step by step, slowly but irresistibly, gained ground, following up the skirmishers, which as soon as the main body reached them were swallowed up in it. Over there, where an hour ago he had seen a narrow line of water running through the lower ground--it was the brook, the old servant said--the foaming waves of a broad gulf were now tossing; there, straight before him, where, to right and left of the little farmyard, he had seen half an hour before dark ma.s.ses of water in the hollows which he had at first taken for large ponds, was a great lake out of which the farm appeared like a little island. And ten minutes later the foaming lake had joined the gulf, and if this went on for another half hour we should have the flood up here, and not a mouse could creep out of house or courtyard--so said Herr Damberg.
This was said in the courtyard itself. Giraldi had seen the farmer there from the window of the dining-room, and had gone out to question the man.
"For you see," said Herr Damberg, "there is rising ground certainly between us and Politz's farm, which reaches from the Golmberg almost up to the brook right across the hollow; but behind it--towards us--the ground sinks again pretty rapidly, to the height opposite where the village stands, and between which and us again is the lowest part of all. If the flood rises above that higher ground which has checked it as yet the hollow will be filled to the brim like a basin; and I shall think myself lucky if it does not get into my stables and barns, particularly those on the park side, for that will go too. It is very fortunate that the ladies are away; what could they do here? I told Frau von Wallbach too that she had better go up to the village, but she won't. My goodness! there goes another roof!"
The farmer rushed off to the endangered building, from whose thatched roof the gale had torn off whole bales of straw and whirled them like chaff over the courtyard. The terrified farm-servants came running up from all sides, while the farmer grumbled that they had better keep their wits about them now; what was to happen later if they had lost their senses already?
Giraldi looked at his watch, it wanted twenty minutes to six. Francois, who had returned half an hour before, had sworn that he was convinced that madame would start immediately after him. The road was not so bad as he had thought; they might very well be at the castle at six o'clock.
Giraldi went into the house to question Francois once more. Francois was not to be found; some one had seen him a short time before go through the garden-door towards the park, with a cloak round him.
"The fellow is prudent," said Giraldi to himself; "he has got his money and takes himself off. I am in the same position, I ought to follow his wise example."
He must come to a decision; if Valerie came too late, or not at all, he would find himself in about half an hour face to face with the General, who must have heard this morning at any rate--perhaps from Ottomar himself--of the affair of the bills, and, his suspicions once aroused, would certainly make inquiries, and learn from the banker, to whom he would of course apply first, that the Warnow money had been withdrawn, from the bank. Elsa's telegram too! All these things coming together would rouse the most sluggish of men, how much more one so active and energetic! And yet everything was not lost, everything might still be won, was won already, if Valerie were on his side; the half million of mortgage money, which he had withdrawn from Lubbener's yesterday, belonged to her by rights; and for himself, without overstepping by one hair's breadth the powers given him by the other trustees, he could withdraw the half million of purchase-money from Haselow, and keep it in his desk, or carry it on his person if he did not think it secure elsewhere; but Valerie must give her consent--she must, she must, she must!
He cried it aloud, stamping his foot on the wet ground, while in the branches of the trees overhead the wind whistled and howled, and louder and louder grew the roar of the sea breaking against the barrier which it only needed to surmount to fill the hollow like a basin. Even the park would be swept away then.
He hardly knew why he had entered the park; perhaps to look for Francois, perhaps because he had been told that from the balcony of the summer-house in the south corner a long stretch of the road to Wissow over the hills could be seen. If indeed in the darkness, which seemed deepening at every moment, anything could be seen at a distance! And where was this south corner? As if between the brambles of these rustling hedges, and in the gloom of these creaking boughs, a man could find his way as one would between the laurel bushes and the pines of the Monte Pincio!
In this howling northern wilderness the image of the Eternal City stood suddenly before his mind, as he had seen it that night when, for the first time after years of separation, he saw Valerie again--by no effort of his, against all expectation or hope--at a fete given by the French Emba.s.sy in the enchanted gardens of the Villa Medici. There, when a jealous husband had carried away his beautiful wife only too soon, he himself had left the festive crowd, and ascended the stone steps in the shade of the evergreen oaks till the lights of the festival below him had been lost and the sounds had died away; there, in the darkness and silence which surrounded him, he had mused as he went yet farther and higher, and reached the Belvedere, where his beloved Rome, bathed in moons.h.i.+ne, lay at his feet; there he had sworn by St. Peter's, on whose gigantic dome streams of soft golden light were pouring down from the blue heavens, that the love of this fair northern woman should be the golden stepping-stone to his power, which he, the layman, in the service of St. Peter's, and yet free--free as an eagle here above the world--would extend over the whole earth. It had taken him longer than he had then hoped--much too long; he had held fast to his once formed plans with too obstinate tenacity; he might have attained more brilliant results, quicker and more surely, by other ways such as had a thousand times offered
He looked at his watch--he could no longer distinguish the numbers on the dial-plate; he sounded the repeater--he could not hear the faint stroke through the roaring of the storm which crashed and howled around him. He would count five minutes more; if she did not come then--so be it!
And there was the summer-house for which he had been looking so long, a wooden erection on four slender columns, to which a narrow steep staircase led up, at the extreme edge of the park, some ten or twelve feet above the enclosing hedge, high enough as he could see from the balcony to overlook the ground outside between the park and the hill; a long trough-shaped bit of ground, some fifty or a hundred yards broad, through which, from the hill to the park, a dark winding causeway led, formed apparently of large stones arranged at even distances to facilitate the crossing of the low-lying meadow-land.
He examined the position narrowly. In the meadow-land below he could see larger and smaller pools of what must be water already acc.u.mulated there; but the stone pathway was decidedly pa.s.sable. In the comparative lightness of his post of observation he could see his watch now; it wanted ten minutes to six, and there was not a moment to be lost. He would go back through the park to the castle and find out if Valerie had arrived, or perhaps the General. Then, if necessary, back through the park over the causeway to the village; he would hunt up a carriage of some sort, and then--to the devil with this miserable country of barbarians, he would leave it for ever!
He glanced once again over the hills without, along whose edge he ought to have seen the carriage coming. Folly! who could have distinguished anything there now, when over all a dark veil had spread itself which was growing more dense at every moment! Even the stepping-stones in the meadow were hardly visible, he should have trouble in finding them; the dark line waved up and down, the stones seemed in movement. Something was really moving there--that was not the stones. There were people there--women--two--coming across the stones--she, no doubt, with that detested girl--no matter! she was coming, obedient as ever! to tell him that she would obey him in future as she had always obeyed him! What else should she come for? For fear of him? For love of her newly-found son? no matter!--no matter!--she was coming!
He would not need now to steal away like a thief with the stolen treasure; he might lift his head proudly, he who always and everywhere was master of the position which his ruling spirit had created. He rushed down the steep steps, through the beech avenue, where it was almost completely dark, to the little door which he had noticed before at the entrance to the avenue, and at which he supposed the causeway must end. And at the moment when with a powerful effort he shook the locked or warped door from its rusty hinges, they stood without.
Valerie started back with a shudder, as she so suddenly saw before her the terrible man, who seemed to belong to the darkness and the raging elements. But he had already caught her hand and drawn her into the path, while Elsa, at her aunt's entreating "Let me be alone with him!"
unwillingly obeyed her, and remained standing at the shattered door, following with her keen eyes their retreating figures through the dark pathway, ready and determined to hasten to the poor woman's a.s.sistance; straining her ear through the rustling and crackling of the bushes, and the roaring and creaking of the trees, and the raging and howling all round her, for any cry for help.
She stood there gazing, listening--for some fearful minutes, of which she could have counted each second by the beating of her heart. Now she could see them both walking quickly up and down at the lower end of the path; she thought she could catch a few broken words in Italian--an entreating "_Il nostro figlio_" from him--a pa.s.sionate "_Giammai!
giammai!_" from her. Then again the wild raving of the storm and the tide drowned every sound; the figures vanished into the darkness. She could bear her anxiety no longer, she hurried down the path--past something that glided by her--past him, the traitor! the murderer!
She shrieked it aloud, "Traitor! murderer!" The wild scream sounded no louder than an infant's cry. She rushed down the path to the summer-house, crying: "Aunt! aunt!" though she expected to find nothing but a dead body. There--at the foot of the stairs--was her aunt, her dear aunt!
She crouched on the lower steps of the staircase, and lifted upon her knees the fallen form, from whose icy forehead a warm stream trickled.
But she still lived! she had attempted to press with her slender fingers the hand which had grasped hers; and now, now! thank heaven!
there came a few low words, which Elsa, bending low over her, tried to catch.
"Do not be alarmed! It is nothing--a fall against the railing as he flung, me from him; free--Elsa, free!--free!"
Her head sank again on Elsa's bosom, but her heart still beat; it was only a swoon, the result of the terror and loss of blood; she tried to rise and sank back again.
Elsa did not lose her courage; as she bound up the wounded forehead with her own and her aunt's handkerchief and a strip torn from her dress--she had had plenty of practice in the hospitals during the war--she considered whether she should try to carry the slender figure to the castle, or whether it would be better to hasten home alone and procure a.s.sistance. She would lose a great deal of time either way; but in the first case she would remain with the sufferer, and need not leave her alone in this terrible situation, without, perhaps, being able to make her understand that it was necessary to leave her.
Still she decided upon the second alternative as the safer. The bandage was arranged; she was just about to raise her aunt gently from her lap and arrange her as comfortable a couch as possible, when through the bushes, through the hedges, between the trees, there came upon her what seemed like thousands and thousands of serpents, whose hissing sounded even through the howling of the storm, with a strange and horrible noise that made Elsa's blood run chill. For a moment she listened breathlessly, and then with a wild shriek started to her feet, s.n.a.t.c.hing up her aunt, and with the strength of despair dragging her up the steps to save the helpless woman and herself from the flood which had broken over the park. She had hardly reached the last step before the water was pouring through the lower ones, and seeming to be everywhere at once, foaming and roaring through the hedge which ran from the summer-house to the castle, as if over a weir, rus.h.i.+ng into the hollow, which was no longer a valley but the bed of a broad stream whose waters, pouring in from either side, met with a crash like thunder, throwing up jets of water to the balcony, over the edge of which Elsa leant with a shudder.
A bench ran round the inner side of the balcony. Elsa laid her aunt here, who was falling from one fainting fit into another, after wrapping her up as warmly as possible, for the greater part with her own clothes.
And there she sat, with the poor thing's head again in her lap, as the storm howled and the flood roared around her, and shook the frail slender wooden edifice in every joint of its worm-eaten planks, praying that G.o.d would send some one to them--the only man who could save them in their fearful need.
CHAPTER XII.
As Ottomar's steps died away upon the creaking stairs and across the hall, Ferdinanda sprang up, and wringing her hands, paced two or three times up and down the little room; then she threw herself down again as Ottomar had last seen her--her face in her hands, her head leaning against the back of the sofa. But she had not cried then, neither did she cry now; she had no tears to shed; she had no hope left, no wish save one--to die for him since she could not live for him, since her life could only be a burden and a torment to him. Why had she not believed his brother officer, with the clear brow and keen, pitiful eyes, who had said to her:
"You deceive yourself, my dear young lady! Your flight with Ottomar is no deliverance for him from his difficulties, but another complication, and that the most fatal. The worst point for Ottomar is the terrible wound to his honour as an officer. Appearances at least must be saved here, and this is still possible according to the arrangements I have made. At the best his life can only be half a life, one which I do not know how he will bear. I doubt even if he can bear it; but in such a case as this one may perhaps stifle one's better judgment. There can be no doubt, however, that if you now fly with him, and the circ.u.mstance becomes known--as it must be--there will be no longer any possibility for us, his friends, to save even appearances. That an officer should be forced to retire from the service on account of debts, that his betrothal should on this account be broken off, that he should even in his delicate position neglect to call to account the gossips and scandal-bearers--all this may occur, does occur unfortunately only too often. But at the same time, forgive me for saying so, the door is open wide for scandal. A man who at such a moment can think of anything but of saving what still is possible out of the s.h.i.+pwreck of his honour, or, if there is nothing left to save, of giving up with dignity perhaps even life itself--who instead of this drags down with him another person whom he professes to love, a stainless woman, a lady who has always been highly respected--that man has thrown away every claim to sympathy or fellow-feeling. Ottomar himself must see this sooner or later. This journey of his to Warnow is, in my eyes, absolute folly.
What does he mean to do there? Call Giraldi to account? The Italian will answer, 'You are no child, you must have known what you were about.' Call out the Count? For what cause, when he travels with you?
But let him go if he will, only alone! only not with you! I conjure you, not with you! Believe me, the love in whose power you trust to save Ottomar from all his difficulties will prove itself absolutely impotent, even worse; it will finally break down the remains of the strength which Ottomar might otherwise still possess. For his sake--if you will not think of yourself--do not go with him!"
Strange, when he had drawn her on one side at the last moment, while Ottomar and Bertalda in the next room were arranging a few last things, and spoken to her thus--hastily, yet so clearly--his words had pa.s.sed by her like an empty sound; she had hardly known what he was speaking of; and now it all came back upon her memory word for word! It was all coming true already, word for word! All-powerful love! Good heavens, what a mockery! What answer had he had for the pictures of the future which she had painted for him in colours whose glow was drawn from her overflowing heart, but a sad, gloomy smile, or monosyllabic absent words, evidently only spoken because he must say something, while his spirit was weighed down with the burden of his thoughts about his angry father, his pitiful or scornful brother officers, and of the possibility of forcing a duel upon Herr von Wallbach or Count Golm. His very caresses when, with a heart full of unutterable fear, she put her arms round him--as a mother round her child whom she is carrying from the flames--his very caresses made her s.h.i.+ver as she thought, "He treats me like a love-sick girl, who must be humoured, like a mistress whom he has taken on his journey, and from whom he wishes to hide that he is weary of her before their first station is pa.s.sed."
She! she! who had once dreamed that her love was an inexhaustible spring, and had blamed herself that she had been so chary with it, and had turned away her suitor from her door, had left him without in the barren wilderness of life to despair and perish without her! She who had been so proud! so proud, because she knew that she had boundless wealth to give; that her love was like the storm now raging without, throwing down all that was not stronger than itself--like the flood rus.h.i.+ng by, destroying, devouring all that did not rise into the clouds!
That had been her fear all this time, that he too, even he, would never quite understand her; there would always remain a gaping breach between the real and the ideal, and she ought not therefore to sacrifice the ideal, however yearningly her heart might throb, however stormily the warm blood might rush through her veins. She had but this one best thing to lose, to be for ever after poorer than the poorest beggar, she for whom inexorable experience had once for all destroyed the fair dream of so many years--that of being an artist by the grace of G.o.d!
How she had fought! how she had struggled through so many weary days, so many wakeful nights pa.s.sed in gloomy brooding, in writhing despair!
days and nights whose terrors would long since have brought even her strength low, if his beloved, fascinating image had not flitted through her feverish morning dreams, alluring her on to other weary days, to other tortured nights.
It was no longer his image now, it was himself; no longer fascinating, but still beloved as ever!
And oh, how dearly loved! more than ever! immeasurably more in his helpless misery than in his brighter days.
If she could only help him! For herself she had no wish, no desires; G.o.d was her witness! And if to-night she lay in his arms, and he in hers, she could think of it without one more heart-beat, without for a moment losing the despairing thought that weighed down her heart: "He will breathe no new strength, no new life from my kisses! He will rise from his bridal couch a weary, broken-down man!" How could she maintain strength and courage to live--no longer for herself alone--for both of them now?