AT AIX ONCE MORE.
So, like Heinrich, Charlie had fallen into the 'enemy's hands;' but
fortunately for him, they were the soft and gentle ones of little
Célandine de Caillé.
The passage of the ball had seriously injured him internally; thus he
was long in recovering, and the winter of the year was almost at hand
ere he could venture to travel; but it now seemed imperative to
Charlie that he should trespass on his host and hostess no longer.
'You would spoil any man with kindness, Mademoiselle de Caillé,' said
he, one day; 'or any dog, too.'
'Often the most loving animal of the two,' replied the French girl,
laughing.
During that protracted convalescence how often, in the waking hours
of the night, had he thought of Ernestine, and strove to sleep in the
hope to dream of her; of their moonlight walks in the garden of the
old Schloss, when she had held his arm, with her little hands
interlaced so confidingly on his sleeve, and he used to pet and
caress them as she leant with all her weight upon his wrist; or of
the mad gallops they were wont to have through the glades and dingles
of the lovely Reichswald, when the green woods seemed to sleep under
the dusky purple of the summer sky; but one night he had a dream that
startled, and, like that one in the bivouac, made a deep impression
upon him by its vividness and the sense of pain it left.
In imagination she bent over him sadly and caressingly; her dark eyes
were tender and beautiful as of old; but the rose-leaf tint had left
her cheeks, as if for ever. Her smile was full of sweetness. Then a
change came suddenly over her; the soft light died out of her eyes;
her cheeks became hollow, her lips pallid; her whole expression and
aspect painful and ghastly; the grasp of her hands became cold and
chilling, and her voice grew faint and husky, as she said,
'At Burtscheid, dearest Carl; meet me at Burtscheid, where last we
met.'
Then she seemed to melt away from before him, and Charlie started and
awoke, to find it was happily but a mere dream, born too probably of
his nervous and enfeebled condition, yet one so vivid, we have
said--so terrifically vivid and painful, that he was trembling in
every limb, a cold perspiration covered his whole frame; and by some
strange association of ideas, the dying curse, if curse it was, of
the French captain came rushing on his memory.
And now the time came when he was to leave the Chateau de Caillé.
'And you go, you go to her,' said Célandine, making a great effort to
appear calm, on the day of his departure.
'To her whose miniature I showed you, dear friend yes.'
'Oh, may you both be happy--very, very happy!'
'I thank you, dear Célandine; you will ever have her gratitude, as
well as mine; but there are many things to oppose, many interests to
thwart our happiness.'
'Alas!' said the French girl, sadly; 'but remember that nothing is
_impossible_.'
And so when Charlie Pierrepont left his kind friends and that
charming part of Lorraine, he little knew that he left behind a warm
girlish heart that yearned for him, and him only, and thought nothing
of Monsieur Adolphe, with all his thousands of francs, her father's
choice; and keenly she envied her--the unknown lady--whose miniature
was in Charlie's heart.
From the surgeon of a Prussian regiment at Saarbrück, Charlie
Pierrepont got a medical certificate, to the effect that he was
incapable of rejoining the Thuringians, or of serving for some time.
Leave was given him by the general in command, and he took the train
from Saarbrück to Aix, to be near Frankenburg and her, of whom he had
heard nothing for all those months, that seemed like so many ages
now; for Charlie was so much of a lover, that to breathe the same
atmosphere with her was a source of joy.
Yet it was a cold and frosty atmosphere now, for Christmas was close
at hand, the time when Christmas trees are lighted, when arcades and
toyshops, fruiterers and pastry-cooks drive a roaring trade, when
circles long separated are reunited, and happy parents sit at the
head of happy tables surrounded by shining faces.
The Reichswald was leafless and bare now, and a mantle of snow
covered all those heights that surround Aix, which seems to lie in 'a
fertile bowl surrounded by bold hills;' and ice lay in masses about
the boats of the pontoon bridge of the Rhine. It was on the evening
of the third Thursday before the great festival of the Christian year
that Charlie found himself in the brilliant speise-saal of the Grand
Monarque.
He was now within a very short distance of Frankenburg; but how was
he to communicate with Ernestine? See her he must before
Christmas-eve, or she could not meet him then; and the hunger, the
craving of his heart, was too great to be endured long. He feared to
write to Herminia, lest his handwriting might be recognised by the
Countess, and to write to Ernestine would too probably be useless, as
her correspondence was too probably under her mother's supervision.
What if she should now be the Baroness Grünthal? For months no one
had known anything of his existence. All might have believed him to
be dead, and she, perhaps yielding to the influences around her; but
no, no--he thrust that thought aside, and recalled the solemnity of
their vows interchanged at Burtscheid.
Had she not then, and on that eventful night in the boudoir, promised
to be faithful to him in life and death? and Charlie smiled at his
momentary doubt.
How many people there are in this world who treasure up and con over
and over again an impossible day-dream that may never come to pass!
Charlie thought of this as, from the hotel windows, he gazed moodily
into the snow-covered street, with all its bustle and lamps, and
shrank from the passing fear that his aspirations after Ernestine
might only be an impossible and unrealizable longing; but see her
again he must, even if he went to the Schloss--but no, that would
never do after the treatment he had experienced there, and the
epithets applied to him by the Countess.
Suddenly he observed near him, while lingering over his wine in the
speise-saal, which had emptied of guests, the Baron Rhineberg and, of
all men in the world, Baron Grünthal, busy with their meerschaums and
tankards of beer. Both seemed very quiet and taciturn; they had been
speaking very little, which perhaps was the reason that, in his
abstraction, they had hitherto been unnoticed by Charlie, who now
held up the _Staats Anzeiger_ between them and him, as he had no wish
to be recognised by either. However, they were a link between him
and Frankenburg, so he could not help listening intently to whatever
they said.
They were talking at slow intervals of some recent sorrow they had
sustained; but so great was the slaughter of the French war, that
everyone in Germany then was wearing crape or mourning for the loss
of some friend.
'Ach Gott--yes,' said Rhineberg; 'it is certainly a great calamity
even to the city of Aachen.'
'When I saw the black flag flying on the old Schloss,' responded
Grunthal, 'and the hatchment with its sixteen quarters over the gate,
I--I knew that the dreaded event had taken place at last.'
'That we had lost a dear friend?'
'Yes. The poor old Graf!' said Grünthal, with a sigh.
Charlie felt startled--almost inclined to speak and discover himself,
but restrained the inclination, and listened intently, thinking,
'Well, the poor old veteran of Ligny and Waterloo could not be
expected to live for ever.'
'He has never suffered more, I think,' said Rhineberg, after taking a
long pull at his pipe, and watching the smoke thoughtfully as it
ascended in concentric rings towards the lofty ceiling of the
speise-saal, 'never, since that morning when the devilish _Extra
Blatt_ had in it the mutilated telegram concerning the capture of
Heinrich by the Francs-Tireurs.'
'And the severe wounding--was it not mortally?--of the Englander,
Herr Pierrepont,' added Grunthal, with something in his throat that
sounded, as Charlie thought, exceedingly like a chuckle of
satisfaction.
But Heinrich, his dear friend and comrade, had been taken by the
Francs-Tireurs! Knowing, from experience, how the Francs-Tireurs and
the Prussians were in the habit of handling each other, this was an
event to cause him anxiety, but, as it happened, only for a few
minutes.
Would the death of the Count in any way release Ernestine from
parental thraldom? Though he felt genuine sympathy for her natural
grief, he could not very much regret the event; 'and yet,' thought
Charlie, 'the poor old fellow was always kind to me.'
'It is most fortunate,' said Rhineberg, after a little pause, 'that
the young Graf Heinrich is at home during such a terrible crisis.'
'Most fortunate for his mother, and all.'
So Heinrich was at Frankenburg, and not with the old 95th before the
walls of Paris! This was indeed most welcome news for Charlie! More
than once he had been on the verge of speaking, as his curiosity had
been keenly excited, but repressed the inclination; he did not wish
that his presence in Aix should be known to the Countess, and to
address Grünthal, his acknowledged rival, or competitor, rather, was
altogether an intolerable idea, so quitting the speise-saal softly,
he hastened to his own room.
Then he wrote rapidly a long and explanatory letter to Ernestine,
full of all the deepest, most tender, and passionate thoughts of his
heart, telling her of his presence at Aix, and beseeching her to meet
him. He recalled the dream in which she had asked him to meet him at
Burtscheid.
'At Burtscheid, be it,' he wrote, 'at the same hour, dear, dear
Ernestine, when last we met there; and I shall give you a strange
souvenir of the war--the bullet that pierced my breast, and has been
the means, perhaps, of keeping me so long from you. At Burtscheid,
then, my darling.'
This letter he despatched under cover to Heinrich, and felt more
happy and composed than he had been since last he saw her.
He knew that his letter would be delivered by the post at Frankenburg
in the morning.
Probably Heinrich would visit his hotel during the day, and he knew
that at all risks--unless something most extraordinary
intervened--Ernestine, who had such strength of will, would contrive
to meet him in the old church.
All the following day Charlie lingered about the Grand Monarque, but
Heinrich never came; doubtless the business or calamity to which the
Barons referred had detained him.
Then a fear came over Charlie that the same event might prevent
Ernestine meeting him, as she might be deprived of her brother's
escort.
But if she failed to come, a messenger of some kind might meet him at
Burtscheid.