Swithin was long in deciding to go forth next day. He had made up his
mind not to go to Rozsi till five o'clock. 'Mustn't make myself too
cheap,' he thought. It was a little past that hour when he at last
sallied out, and with a beating heart walked towards Boleskey's. He
looked up at the window, more than half expecting to see Rozsi there;
but she was not, and he noticed with faint surprise that the window was
not open; the plants, too, outside, looked singularly arid. He knocked.
No one came. He beat a fierce tattoo. At last the door was opened by
a man with a reddish beard, and one of those sardonic faces only to be
seen on shoemakers of Teutonic origin.
“What do you want, making all this noise?” he asked in German.
Swithin pointed up the stairs. The man grinned, and shook his head.
“I want to go up,” said Swithin.
The cobbler shrugged his shoulders, and Swithin rushed upstairs. The
rooms were empty. The furniture remained, but all signs of life were
gone. One of his own bouquets, faded, stood in a glass; the ashes of
a fire were barely cold; little scraps of paper strewed the hearth;
already the room smelt musty. He went into the bedrooms, and with a
feeling of stupefaction stood staring at the girls' beds, side by side
against the wall. A bit of ribbon caught his eye; he picked it up
and put it in his pocket—it was a piece of evidence that she had once
existed. By the mirror some pins were dropped about; a little powder had
been spilled. He looked at his own disquiet face and thought, 'I've been
cheated!'
The shoemaker's voice aroused him. “Tausend Teufel! Eilen Sie, nur! Zeit
is Geld! Kann nich' Langer warten!” Slowly he descended.
“Where have they gone?” asked Swithin painfully. “A pound for every
English word you speak. A pound!” and he made an O with his fingers.
The corners of the shoemaker's lips curled. “Geld! Mf! Eilen Sie, nur!”
But in Swithin a sullen anger had begun to burn. “If you don't tell me,”
he said, “it'll be the worse for you.”
“Sind ein komischer Kerl!” remarked the shoemaker. “Hier ist meine
Frau!”
A battered-looking woman came hurrying down the passage, calling out in
German, “Don't let him go!”
With a snarling sound the shoemaker turned his back, and shambled off.
The woman furtively thrust a letter into Swithin's hand, and furtively
waited.
The letter was from Rozsi.
“Forgive me”—it ran—“that I leave you and do not say goodbye. To-day our
father had the call from our dear Father-town so long awaited. In two
hours we are ready. I pray to the Virgin to keep you ever safe, and that
you do not quite forget me.—Your unforgetting good friend, ROZSI.”
When Swithin read it his first sensation was that of a man sinking in a
bog; then his obstinacy stiffened. 'I won't be done,' he thought. Taking
out a sovereign he tried to make the woman comprehend that she could
earn it, by telling him where they had gone. He got her finally to write
the words out in his pocket-book, gave her the sovereign, and hurried
to the Goldene Alp, where there was a waiter who spoke English. The
translation given him was this:
“At three o'clock they start in a carriage on the road to Linz—they have
bad horses—the Herr also rides a white horse.”
Swithin at once hailed a carriage and started at full gallop on the road
to Linz. Outside the Mirabell Garden he caught sight of Kasteliz and
grinned at him. 'I've sold him anyway,' he thought; 'for all their talk,
they're no good, these foreigners!'
His spirits rose, but soon fell again. What chance had he of catching
them? They had three hours' start! Still, the roads were heavy from the
rain of the last two nights—they had luggage and bad horses; his own
were good, his driver bribed—he might overtake them by ten o'clock! But
did he want to? What a fool he had been not to bring his luggage; he
would then have had a respectable position. What a brute he would look
without a change of shirt, or anything to shave with! He saw himself
with horror, all bristly, and in soiled linen. People would think him
mad. 'I've given myself away,' flashed across him, 'what the devil can
I say to them?' and he stared sullenly at the driver's back. He
read Rozsi's letter again; it had a scent of her. And in the growing
darkness, jolted by the swinging of the carriage, he suffered tortures
from his prudence, tortures from his passion.
It grew colder and dark. He turned the collar of his coat up to his
ears. He had visions of Piccadilly. This wild-goose chase appeared
suddenly a dangerous, unfathomable business. Lights, fellowship,
security! 'Never again!' he brooded; 'why won't they let me alone?'
But it was not clear whether by 'they' he meant the conventions, the
Boleskeys, his passions, or those haunting memories of Rozsi. If he had
only had a bag with him! What was he going to say? What was he going
to get by this? He received no answer to these questions. The darkness
itself was less obscure than his sensations. From time to time he took
out his watch. At each village the driver made inquiries. It was past
ten when he stopped the carriage with a jerk. The stars were bright as
steel, and by the side of the road a reedy lake showed in the moonlight.
Swithin shivered. A man on a horse had halted in the centre of the road.
“Drive on!” called Swithin, with a stolid face. It turned out to be
Boleskey, who, on a gaunt white horse, looked like some winged creature.
He stood where he could bar the progress of the carriage, holding out a
pistol.
'Theatrical beggar!' thought Swithin, with a nervous smile. He made no
sign of recognition. Slowly Boleskey brought his lean horse up to the
carriage. When he saw who was within he showed astonishment and joy.
“You?” he cried, slapping his hand on his attenuated thigh, and leaning
over till his beard touched Swithin. “You have come? You followed us?”
“It seems so,” Swithin grunted out.
“You throw in your lot with us. Is it possible? You—you are a
knight-errant then!”
“Good God!” said Swithin. Boleskey, flogging his dejected steed,
cantered forward in the moonlight. He came back, bringing an old cloak,
which he insisted on wrapping round Swithin's shoulders. He handed him,
too, a capacious flask.
“How cold you look!” he said. “Wonderful! Wonderful! you English!” His
grateful eyes never left Swithin for a moment. They had come up to the
heels of the other carriage now, but Swithin, hunched in the cloak, did
not try to see what was in front of him. To the bottom of his soul he
resented the Hungarian's gratitude. He remarked at last, with wasted
irony:
“You're in a hurry, it seems!”
“If we had wings,” Boleskey answered, “we would use them.”
“Wings!” muttered Swithin thickly; “legs are good enough for me.”
X
Arrived at the inn where they were to pass the night, Swithin waited,
hoping to get into the house without a “scene,” but when at last he
alighted the girls were in the doorway, and Margit greeted him with an
admiring murmur, in which, however, he seemed to detect irony. Rozsi,
pale and tremulous, with a half-scared look, gave him her hand, and,
quickly withdrawing it, shrank behind her sister. When they had gone up
to their room Swithin sought Boleskey. His spirits had risen remarkably.
“Tell the landlord to get us supper,” he said; “we'll crack a bottle to
our luck.” He hurried on the landlord's preparations. The window of the
room faced a wood, so near that he could almost touch the trees. The
scent from the pines blew in on him. He turned away from that scented
darkness, and began to draw the corks of winebottles. The sound seemed
to conjure up Boleskey. He came in, splashed all over, smelling slightly
of stables; soon after, Margit appeared, fresh and serene, but Rozsi did
not come.
“Where is your sister?” Swithin said. Rozsi, it seemed, was tired. “It
will do her good to eat,” said Swithin. And Boleskey, murmuring, “She
must drink to our country,” went out to summon her, Margit followed him,
while Swithin cut up a chicken. They came back without her. She had “a
megrim of the spirit.”
Swithin's face fell. “Look here!” he said, “I'll go and try. Don't wait
for me.”
“Yes,” answered Boleskey, sinking mournfully into a chair; “try,
brother, try--by all means, try.”
Swithin walked down the corridor with an odd, sweet, sinking sensation
in his chest; and tapped on Rozsi's door. In a minute, she peeped forth,
with her hair loose, and wondering eyes.
“Rozsi,” he stammered, “what makes you afraid of me, now?”
She stared at him, but did not answer.
“Why won't you come?”
Still she did not speak, but suddenly stretched out to him her bare arm.
Swithin pressed his face to it. With a shiver, she whispered above him,
“I will come,” and gently shut the door.
Swithin stealthily retraced his steps, and paused a minute outside the
sitting-room to regain his self-control.
The sight of Boleskey with a bottle in his hand steadied him.
“She is coming,” he said. And very soon she did come, her thick hair
roughly twisted in a plait.
Swithin sat between the girls; but did not talk, for he was really
hungry. Boleskey too was silent, plunged in gloom; Rozsi was dumb;
Margit alone chattered.
“You will come to our Father-town? We shall have things to show you.
Rozsi, what things we will show him!” Rozsi, with a little appealing
movement of her hands, repeated, “What things we will show you!” She
seemed suddenly to find her voice, and with glowing cheeks, mouths full,
and eyes bright as squirrels', they chattered reminiscences of the “dear
Father-town,” of “dear friends,” of the “dear home.”
'A poor place!' Swithin could not help thinking. This enthusiasm seemed
to him common; but he was careful to assume a look of interest, feeding
on the glances flashed at him from Rozsi's restless eyes.
As the wine waned Boleskey grew more and more gloomy, but now and then
a sort of gleaming flicker passed over his face. He rose to his feet at
last.
“Let us not forget,” he said, “that we go perhaps to ruin, to death; in
the face of all this we go, because our country needs—in this there is
no credit, neither to me nor to you, my daughters; but for this noble
Englishman, what shall we say? Give thanks to God for a great heart. He
comes—not for country, not for fame, not for money, but to help the weak
and the oppressed. Let us drink, then, to him; let us drink again and
again to heroic Forsyte!” In the midst of the dead silence, Swithin
caught the look of suppliant mockery in Rozsi's eyes. He glanced at the
Hungarian. Was he laughing at him? But Boleskey, after drinking up his
wine, had sunk again into his seat; and there suddenly, to the surprise
of all, he began to snore. Margit rose and, bending over him like a
mother, murmured: “He is tired—it is the ride!” She raised him in her
strong arms, and leaning on her shoulder Boleskey staggered from the
room. Swithin and Rozsi were left alone. He slid his hand towards her
hand that lay so close, on the rough table-cloth. It seemed to await
his touch. Something gave way in him, and words came welling up; for the
moment he forgot himself, forgot everything but that he was near her.
Her head dropped on his shoulder, he breathed the perfume of her hair.
“Good-night!” she whispered, and the whisper was like a kiss; yet before
he could stop her she was gone. Her footsteps died away in the passage,
but Swithin sat gazing intently at a single bright drop of spilt wine
quivering on the table's edge. In that moment she, in her helplessness
and emotion, was all in all to him—his life nothing; all the real
things—his conventions, convictions, training, and himself—all seemed
remote, behind a mist of passion and strange chivalry. Carefully with
a bit of bread he soaked up the bright drop; and suddenly he thought:
'This is tremendous!' For a long time he stood there in the window,
close to the dark pine-trees.