THE LETTER OF ERNESTINE.
The events of the war succeeded each other with frightful speed.
Marshal MacMahon's spirited address to the army and his promise,
'with God's help, soon to take a brilliant revenge,' failed to
inspire with courage the troops of France, whose military prowess
seemed gone. The excitement in the army and at Paris grew terrible.
Saarbrück was retaken by the Prussians; the French were again
defeated at Forbach; vast bodies of prisoners taken in battle or by
capitulation began to pour through the towns of Germany, where they
were kindly received; the once great Empire of France seemed
tottering to its fall, and on the 13th of August the Prussian scouts
were at Pont-à-Mousson, on the Moselle.
Then, more fully to cut off MacMahon's communications with Metz, the
95th Thuringians, now greatly reduced in strength by fighting, and
other troops, took post in the pleasant valley where the river
divides the town in two parts. The town was soon filled by Prussian
troops, but the hardy Thuringians pitched their tents near a village
on the bank of the river, on a pretty wooded slope; and there on the
first evening of the halt, Charlie received some intelligence from
Frankenburg, which caused him much perplexity and thought.
Most of the furniture from the village had been brought into camp;
before the tent of Captain Schönforst stood a table and chairs, and
there he, with Charlie, Heinrich, and two other officers, sat smoking
and drinking, and making merry, while their servants prepared a
repast for them.
The aspect of the camp was very picturesque; it was now the beginning
of evening, the August sun was sinking behind a wooded mountain
range, the 'blue Moselle' looked bluer than ever between its green
and fertile banks, and the rooks were cawing noisily overhead in the
stately old beeches, amid which the tents of the 95th were pitched.
A single day's halt had enabled the officers to remove all the mud of
the march; parade suits of uniform with fresh lace had been donned in
lieu of old 'fighting jackets;' boots were polished and spurs
burnished, and Schönforst wore a sword of which he was justly vain,
as he had received it from the hands of King William after a battle
in the campaign of 1866, when he was but a feldwebel, but won his
silver shoulder-straps by bravery.
On all sides the men were cleaning their muskets, cutting wood,
lighting fires, carrying water from the stream, singing merrily, and
many of them in chorus.
'Well, Schönforst,' said one of his guests, Herr Donnersberg, a
thoughtless young fähnrich, 'I feel that I have an appetite--what is
your speise-karte for to-day?'
'The bill of fare shows rather an omnium gatherum,' replied the
Captain, thrusting nearly half a pound of tobacco into the bowl of
his pipe; 'but the chief feature in it is a goose, now broiling on
ramrods. One of our foragers gave it to me this morning for a couple
of kreutzers and a bottle of cognac.'
'Excellent!' replied the other, 'though it is a bird, which an
English gourmand said "was too much for one, but not quite enough for
two."
'Here is my contribution to the repast,' said Heinrich, producing
from his tent a square case bottle of prime Geneva 'per Johann de
Kuy, Rotterdam,' which he had picked up somewhere on the march.
'So, as we have nothing better than Geneva and beer,' said the
Captain, 'it will be useless to discuss the question as to the aroma
of Veuve Clicquot, as compared with that of sparkling hock or
Sillery.'
'Hock!' cried the other; 'wait till our drums are ringing among the
vineyards of Champagne!'
The goose was pronounced excellent, and soon disappeared with all
Schönforst's own viands; the bowled pipes were again resorted to, and
when Charlie produced a bottle of cognac from his tent, the serious
business of the evening began, with the usual amount of rough
military joking; and Schönforst was making them all laugh noisily and
heartily, with an account of how Herr Major Rumpenfalz, just before
the Westphalians marched, had married the frolicsome widow of a
Hofrath, and on waking in the morning found his bride's golden hair
on the toilette table, and her pearly teeth in the tumbler out of
which the Herr Major was about to take his matutinal draught of cold
water. While they were still laughing at this, or rather at the
manner in which Schönforst related it, an officer who was passing
suddenly paused, and--
'A glass with you, gentlemen!'
'With pleasure,' replied Schönforst, handing him a bumper of brandy
and water.
'The Kaiser!' said the stranger, on which all started to their feet
and drank the toast, standing with their caps off. Though wearing
the usual spike-helmet, a plain blue surtout, with silver
shoulder-straps, and a little eight-pointed cross at his neck, in the
closely shaven face, the resolute mouth and square jaws, the stern
grey eyes and aquiline nose of their visitor, they all recognised the
Count Von Moltke--the spirit of the war, 'that embodied fate who
prepared in mystery and gloom the blows that were to fall on mighty
armaments, and in a few weeks to reduce great military powers to ruin
and humiliation.'
'I have news for you, gentlemen,' said he. 'The Emperor has resigned
the command of the French army to Marshal Bazaine, so he will have to
make the great stand at Metz, where he has one hundred and forty
thousand men, with two hundred and eighty pieces of cannon.'
He then put two fingers to the peak of his helmet, and walked slowly
away, leaving them to discuss the probable turn events might take
now; but jollity was soon resumed.
Charlie was rather silent and thoughtful; for sooth to say, the vivid
nature of his dream still haunted him; and Heinrich, who knew well
where his thoughts were, gave him a clap on the epaulette, and began
to sing a verse of an old love song:
THE CARRIER PIGEON.
'They that behold me little dream
How wide my spirit soars from them,
And, borne on fancy's pinions, roves
To seek the glorious form it loves.
'Know that a faithful herald flies
To bear her image to my eyes,
My constant thought for ever telling
How fair she is, all else excelling!'
'Pass the bottle, Carl,' he added; 'let us be merry; weep when you
must, but laugh when you can. Vive la bagatelle! as these Frenchmen
have it.'
At that moment a Uhlan came spurring into camp with letters for the
brigade from the field post; those for the 95th were soon
distributed: there was one for Heinrich from Herminia, with another
for Charlie enclosed, and both became at once deep in their contents
by the last light of the sun. Ernestine's letter was very long, and
so crossed and recrossed that the perusal of it occupied a long time.
Ere he had read a few lines, Heinrich said:
'I do not know whether I should show you this, Carl.'
'What?'
'A passage in Herminia's letter.'
'About whom?' asked Charlie anxiously.
'Ernestine--my sister.'
'Read it, pray; anything is better than suspense.'
'Herminia writes, "Poor Ernestine seems to fret fearfully. There is
a flush on her cheeks such as often precedes but more often follows
pallor; and all her actions, figure, and manner are indicative of
listlessness and ill-health."'
'My poor darling!' said Charlie, in a low agitated voice.
'"Surely her mamma will have some pity upon her," continued Herminia;
"the Baron Grünthal has returned to Aix, and though his gout still
continues----"'
'Praised be Plutus!' commented Charlie; 'I wish the nasty old beast
was at the bottom of the Red Sea.'
'"And though it does not improve his temper, he has become very
anxious and importunate."'
'Curse him! I hope the gout may get into his Excellency's stomach.'
'"The Count and Countess begin to hint now that as the war will too
probably be a protracted one, it was unwise to wait for Heinrich's
presence at this odious marriage. How Aunt Adelaide pores over the
_Gazettes_--those dreadful _Gazettes_!" And now, Herr Carl, all that
follows are little _bon-bons_ for my own perusal.'
Innocent Herminia little knew that her aunt watched the war
_Gazettes_ with the double hope that Heinrich's name was not in them,
and that Charlie's _was_--or might be.
Poor Charlie! Her ladyship was to be gratified one day, however.
'What news from Ernestine?' asked Heinrich, when Charlie had finished
the perusal of _his_ letter; 'I feel as anxious about these girls at
Frankenburg, as if I was Rip Van Winkle after his long snooze in the
Sleepy Hollow.'
But Charlie made no reply; he sat with the letter in his hand, and
lost in thought.
'What is the matter, my friend?' asked Heinrich. 'There is something
more in your letter than there is in mine?'
'There is, indeed!' replied Charlie, in a strange voice, as he
drained his glass.
'Good news?'
'No, Heinrich.'
'Bad news, then?'
'No, thank Heaven!' replied Charlie fervently.
'What, then, agitates you?'
'That which I cannot tell you. That which you cannot understand.'
'Carl!' exclaimed Heinrich.
'Pardon me--another time, and I may tell you. Oh, Heinrich, your
sister, Ernestine, is indeed the world's one woman to me!' he
exclaimed, with deep emotion; and, heedless of Schönforst and the
rest, he rose from the table, walked into his tent, and threw himself
on the pallet which was his couch, to re-peruse the letter of his
betrothed.
The following was the passage at the end of her letter which caused
him so much thought and bewilderment:
'Oh, Carl! Carl! what is separation but a living death--a blank in
life--a place vacant?' ('How prone the girl is to speak of death!'
thought Charlie.) 'But I am ever and always with you in spirit, my
love. Do you ever dream of me, Carl? I ask this because last night
I had such a delicious dream of _you_.'
'_Last_ night,' thought Charlie, glancing again at the date of her
letter--'7th' August; 'last night must have been the 6th, when we
bivouacked in the stackyard, and I had such a vivid dream of her.'
'I imagined, love, Carl,' continued the letter, 'that I came upon you
suddenly, when you were lying on the cold earth in your cloak, as I
fear you too often are compelled to do. A great horror seized me! I
thought you were dead, you looked so white and wasted; but a sudden
joy came into my poor heart when I found you were but asleep. I drew
your dear head upon my bosom, as a mother might do her baby's, and
caressed you, calling you "My darling!" "My very own darling!" so
distinctly that Herminia heard me speaking in my sleep.
'And then you kissed me, Carl, with such tender and passionate kisses
as you gave me on that dear day in the Hoch Munster, and called me
your little wife and your guardian angel. I was then startled by the
great hall clock striking three in the morning, and awoke to weep on
finding that it was all a dream, but a dear, dear dream to me.'
These were the actions and words of Charlie's dream, and he
remembered that when he awoke the hour of _three_ was tolled in the
village spire!
'What can it mean?' he exclaimed, tossing his thick curly hair back
from his forehead, impatiently--a way he had; 'the mystery of dreams
is unfathomable; they are, indeed, "strange--passing strange!" The
same dream, yet we are miles upon miles apart! The same words spoken
and heard!--the same night!--the same hour and moment of time!'
Was there some magnetic influence at work? Some spiritual affinity,
born of this great love, between these two? It almost seemed so.
Charlie Pierrepont, a matter-of-fact young officer, knew as little of
the famous Dr. Emmerson's theories of polarity and odic force, as he
did of the Philosophy of the Infinite, or any other abstruse
speculation of the present day.
Though bewildered and perplexed, as we have said, it gave him a
thrill of strange delight to think how strong, and yet how tender,
must be the tie of love between him and Ernestine to produce a
spiritual intercourse like this; and lest they might be laughed at by
the heedless Heinrich, it was not until some days subsequent to the
arrival of her letter that he revealed its contents to her brother,
to whom, fortunately for the corroboration of the story, he had told
of his vivid dream on the morning it occurred, before the regiment
marched from the village.