"I will soon procure the solution," cried Reinhold. "I know where to
seek it. You go first to Ella, Hugo! I will follow--perhaps with the
child."
The more thoughtful Hugo caught him quickly by the arm.
"Reinhold, I implore you, do not be too hasty! We do not know the
particulars so far. The child may have strayed away, and, as it does
not speak Italian, not have found its way back yet. Perhaps it has
already been brought home to its mother. What are you going to do?"
"Demand the restoration of my son," cried Reinhold, with fearful
wildness. "That, then, was the vengeance which this fury had thought
of. Ella and me--she would strike us both with one single deadly blow!
but I will succeed in reaching her. Let me alone, Hugo! I must go to
Beatrice."
"That would be of no use," cried Captain Almbach, whom the expression
on his brother's face alarmed, and who endeavoured in vain to restrain
him. "If your suspicion be well founded, she will know, too, how to
play her part. You will only irritate her more. We must adopt other
means."
Reinhold broke away by main force. "Leave me alone; if any one can, I
shall compel her to deliver up my child! If I do not compel her--well,
a catastrophe must ensue."
He rushed away. Beatrice's house lay rather far from his; yet he
traversed the distance in less than a quarter of an hour. Usually, he
required no announcement there; all the doors flew open before him; he
was wont to be considered as master here. To-day the servant who opened
the door assured him positively the Signora could not be spoken to by
any one, not even Signor Rinaldo; she was very ill, and had strictly
forbidden--
Reinhold did not let the man complete his sentence. He thrust him
aside, hurried through the ante-room, and tore open the drawing-room
door. The room was empty, equally so the adjoining boudoir; the doors
of the remaining rooms stood wide open, nowhere was she whom he sought,
not a sign of her; she had evidently left the house.
Reinhold saw that he came too late, and in the overwhelming
consciousness of this discovery, he felt vaguely that Beatrice's flight
had saved him from a crime. In his present state of mind he would have
been capable of anything towards the abductor of his child. By calling
all his strength together, he forced himself to be calm, and returned
to the servant, who had not dared to follow him, but stood frightened
and uncertain in the anteroom.
"Signora has gone then--since when?"
The servant hesitated in his reply. The questioner's face appeared to
betoken no good.
"Marco, you must answer me! You see that I shall not be deterred by any
excuse; you seek to deceive me, according to the Signora's commands.
Once more, when did she go, and where?"
Marco was evidently not initiated into the secret, as he was not at all
prepared for this question. However, he may have listened to part of
the scene which took place the preceding evening between his mistress
and Signor Rinaldo, and explained to-day's affair in his own way. It
was quite in keeping with Beatrice's violent character, that she should
now have left the town for a few days, if only to render it impossible
to continue the performance of Rinaldo's opera, and that the latter
should be beside himself with anger was easily comprehended. It was
not, indeed, the first disagreement between the two, and all quarrels
so far had always ended in a reconciliation. With the prospect of such
a readjustment of affairs, the servant was clever enough not to injure
himself with the ruling side, and therefore intimated that Signora had
left the house early this morning, with the distinct order that all
enquiries were to be replied to "that she was ill." She had driven away
in her own carriage; where, he did not know.
"And where did she drive to?" asked Reinhold, breathlessly. "Have you
not heard what address she gave the coachman?"
"I believe--to Maestro Gianelli's house."
"Gianelli! then he, too, is in the plot. Perhaps he may still be
reached. Marco, so soon as Signora arrives, or any news of her, let me
know at once! At once! I will pay you with gold for every word. Do not
forget this!"
With these words, almost thrown at the servant in his flight, Reinhold
hastened away. Marco looked astounded after him. To-day's scene was
enacted much more tempestuously than any former ones under similar
circumstances, and Signor Rinaldo's excitement surpassed anything he
had seen before. What then had happened? The maestro could not possibly
have eloped with Biancona? It really almost looked like it.
In Consul Erlau's house naturally intense confusion and excitement
reigned. Captain Almbach, who had hurried there without delay,
undertook at once the management of the enquiries which had been
already set on foot with the greatest energy and caution, but even he
could not discover anything. In the meanwhile, the one fact was
clear--that the child had disappeared tracelessly, and so remained. As
to whether it had left the garden voluntarily, whether it had been
tempted out, all supposition was at a loss. No one had noticed anything
unusual, no one had missed the little one until the moment when
Annunziata returned to fetch him. The poor little Italian was dissolved
in tears, and yet she was quite blameless in the occurrence, as her
young mistress herself had called her into the house. The boy was old
enough not to require constant supervision, and he often played alone
in the perfectly enclosed place. Hugo had not yet dared to give words
to the suspicion which he shared with his brother, and which every
moment became more lively. He had only hinted slightly at an abduction,
and was at once met with utter incredulity. Robbers in the middle of
the street, in the most aristocratic quarter--impossible! A misfortune
was more likely. Once more they began a search, notwithstanding the
approaching darkness, in the neighbouring gardens and the rest of the
vicinity.
In the meanwhile, Erlau essayed in vain to pacify his adopted daughter,
and to point out to her the possibilities and probabilities which still
might let her hope for a happy termination; Ella did not hear him.
Silent and deadly pale, without shedding a single tear, she sat by his
side now, after having taken part for hours in the vain researches,
which she even to some extent had conducted herself. Although Hugo had
not alluded to that possibility by a syllable, the mother's thoughts
took the same direction, and the more inexplicable the child's
disappearance remained, the more irrepressibly did the recollection of
her yesterday's encounter force itself upon her, the recollection of
Beatrice's wild hatred, and burning threats of vengeance; and clear,
and ever clearer arose the presentiment that this was no case of
accident or misfortune, but that it was one of crime.
A carriage dashed madly up the street, and stopped before the house.
Ella, who started at every noise, imagined in every arrival a messenger
bringing news, flew to the window; she saw her husband descend and
enter the house. A few minutes later he stood before her.
"Reinhold, where is our child?"
It was a cry of deadly fear and despair, but also a reproach more
wounding than could be conceived. She demanded her child of him! Was he
alone to blame that it had been torn from the mother?
"Where is our child?" repeated she, with a vain attempt to read the
answer in his face.
"In Beatrice's hands," replied Reinhold, firmly. "I came too late to
rescue it from her; she has fled already with her prey, but at least I
know her track, Gianelli betrayed it to me; the rogue was cognizant, if
he were not literally an assistant, but he saw plainly that I was in
earnest with my threat to shoot him down if he did not tell me the road
she had taken with the child. They have fled to the mountains in the
direction towards A----. I shall follow them at once. There is not a
moment to be lost, only I wished to bring you the information, Ella.
Farewell!"
Erlau, who had listened to all much shocked, wished now to interpose
with questions and advice, but Ella gave him no time for it. The
certainty, fearful as it was, restored her courage; she stood already
at her husband's side.
"Reinhold, take me with you!" implored she, determinedly.
He made a gesture of refusal. "Impossible Eleonore! It will be a
journey as for very life, and when I reach the goal, perhaps even a
struggle between it and death. That were no place for you; I must fight
it out alone. Either I shall bring you your son back, or you see me now
for the last time. Be calm! The possibility of his rescue is now in his
father's hands."
"And the mother shall, in the meanwhile, despair here?" asked his wife,
passionately. "Take me with you! I am not weak--you know it. You need
fear no tears or fainting from me when action is required, and I can
bear all, only not the fearful uncertainty and inactivity, only not the
anxious waiting for news, which may not arrive for days. I shall
accompany you!"
"Eleonore, for God's sake!" interposed Erlau, horrified. "What an idea!
It would be your death."
Reinhold looked at his wife silently for a few seconds, as if he would
examine how far her strength went.
"Can you be ready in ten minutes?" asked he, quietly. "The carriage
waits below."
"In half the time."
She hurried into the adjoining room. The Consul wanted to forbid, beg,
entreat once more, but Reinhold cut him short.
"Leave her alone, as I do," said he, energetically. "We _cannot_ give
way now to cold consideration. I do not see my brother here, and I have
not time to seek him. Tell him what has happened, what I have
discovered. He must take the necessary steps here at once to ensure us
help, which we may perhaps require, and then follow us. We shall first
take the direct route to A----. There Hugo will find farther
information about us."
He turned, without waiting for a reply, to the door, where Ella already
appeared in hat and cloak. The young wife threw herself, with a short
tempestuous farewell greeting, on to her adopted father's breast, to
whose protest she would not listen; then she followed her husband.
Erlau looked out of the window as Reinhold lifted her into the
carriage, entered it himself, shut the door, and the horses started off
in full gallop. This was too much for the shaken nerves of the old
gentleman, especially after the alarm and excitement of the last few
hours; almost unconscious, he sank into an arm-chair.
Hardly ten minutes later Hugo entered; he had already heard from one of
the servants of his brother's sudden arrival and equally sudden
departure with Ella. At his first hasty questions, Erlau recovered a
little. He was beside himself at his daughter's decision, still more at
the independence of her husband, who had borne her away without any
more ado. Arrival, explanation and departure, all had taken place as in
a hurricane; this mode of action resembled a regular elopement, and
what could the poor wife do on such a journey? What might not occur,
what happen, if they really overtook this dreadful Italian? The Consul
was nearly in despair at the thought of all the possibilities to which
his favourite was exposed.
Hugo listened silently to the report, without betraying especial
surprise or horror. He appeared to have expected something of the sort,
and when Erlau had ended, laid his hand soothingly on the latter's arm,
and said quietly, but yet with a slight tremor in his voice--
"Let it be, Herr Consul! The parents are now on their child's track;
they will, it is to be hoped, find the little one and--each other
also."
* * * * *
A carriage moved up the steep twisting road of the pass, which led
through the mountains to A----. Notwithstanding the four powerful
horses and cheering cries of the driver, it proceeded but slowly. This
was one of the worst spots in the whole chain of hills. The occupants
of the carriage, a lady and gentleman, had descended from it, and
struck into a foot path, which shortened the road almost by half; they
stood already on the summit, while the conveyance was still some
considerable distance behind them.
"Rest yourself, Ella!" said the gentleman, as he led the lady into the
shade of the rocky wall. "The exertion was too much for you; why did
you insist on leaving the carriage?"
His wife still kept her fixed, comfortless gaze turned to the pass,
which on the other side descended into the valley, and whose windings
could be partly overlooked.
"We are a quarter of an hour sooner at the top, at any rate," said she,
feebly. "I wanted to look out over the road, perhaps even discover the
carriage."
Reinhold's glance followed the same direction, in which nothing,
however, could be discerned but the figures of two men, looking like
peasants, who coming down the hill lustily, sometimes disappeared in
the turns of the road, soon again to reappear.
"We cannot, indeed, be so near them," said he pacifyingly, "although we
have flown since last evening. You see, at least, we are on the right
track. Beatrice has been seen everywhere, and the child beside her. We
_must_ overtake her."
"And when we do--what then?" asked Ella, listlessly. "Our boy is
unprotected in her hands. God knows what plans she will pursue with
him."
Reinhold shook his head--
"Plans? Beatrice never acts upon plans or calculations. The impulse of
the moment decides everything with her. The thought of revenge has
suddenly overcome her, and like lightning she has carried it out, like
lightning fled with her prey. Where? To what end? That is not even
clear to herself, and for the moment she does not enquire. She wished
to strike you and me in our most vulnerable point, and she has
succeeded; more she did not wish."
He spoke with great bitterness, but with most perfect certainty. They
stood alone at the summit of the pass; the carriage was still far below
them, and just then disappeared at the last turn of the road. The
mountains here bore an abrupt, wild character; almost naked the sharp
rocks rose upwards, now in mighty groups, now wildly split and broken.
Only aloes could take root in the clefts of the yellow grey stone, and
here and there a fig tree spread its meagre shade. Yonder, on the other
side of the valley, a building hung in dizzy height on the mountain's
wall, a castle or monastery, grey as the rock itself, and barely to be
distinguished from it at this distance. Lower down at the edge of an
abyss, a little hill-town had nestled itself, which built in and upon
the rock seemed almost to form part of it, and its deserted decayed
appearance harmonised with the loneliness around. Still lower, whirled
the broad rushing stream, occupying almost the entire width of the
valley, so that there barely remained space for the road by its side.
Over the whole scene, however, lay that glowing sunlight of a southern
autumn day, which is not inferior at all to the power of a northern
midsummer one; although the sun had long left its noontide height, the
air was still quivering with heat; sharply and harshly illuminated,
every single object stood out almost painfully clear to the sight, and
the heated stones literally burned under the scorching rays to which
they were incessantly exposed.
"It would be folly to precede the carriage, even only by another step,"
said Reinhold. "It would overtake us in a moment on the downward route.
Now we have a view over the whole."
Ella did not contradict him; her countenance bore plainly enough an
expression of the most extreme physical and mental exhaustion. This
drive of twenty hours without rest, added to the deadly fear at heart,
the ever renewed agonising excitement when the track sought for now
appeared and again was lost--this was too much for the mother's heart,
and the woman's strength. She sat down on a piece of rock, leaned her
head silently against the mountain's side, and closed her eyes.
Her husband stood by her and looked down silently at the beautiful pale
countenance, which in its deadly exhaustion appeared almost alarming.
The sharp points of the rock buried themselves deeply in her white
forehead and left red marks there. Reinhold slowly pushed his arm
between the stone and his wife's fair plaits; she did not seem to feel
it, and encouraged by it he put his arm quite round her, and attempted
to give her a better support against his shoulder.
Now Ella started slightly and opened her eyes; she made a movement as
if she would withdraw from him, but his look disarmed her--this look
which rested upon her with such painful, anxious tenderness; she saw
that he did not tremble less for her at this moment than he trembled
for his child. She let her head sink back again, and remained
motionless in his arms.
He bent low over her--
"I fear, Eleonore," said he, with an effort, "you have had too much
confidence in your strength. You will break down."
Ella shook her head denyingly--
"When I have got my boy again--perhaps then. Not before."
"You will recover him," said Reinhold energetically. "How? At what
cost? I do not certainly yet know; but I know how to master Beatrice
when the demon is roused in her. Have I not often stood opposed to her
at times, when perhaps every other person had trembled before her, and
have known how to enforce my will? Once more, for the last time I shall
try it, should she and I become the sacrifice."
"You believe in danger, also for yourself?" Ella's voice sounded as if
full of trembling fear.
"Not if I meet her alone, only if you approach her; promise me that you
will stay behind at the last station, will not show yourself when we
arrive. Remember that in the child she has a shield against every
attack; every means of force on our side, and everything would be lost
if she were to see you at my side."
"Does she hate me so much?" asked Ella, astonished. "I irritated her,
it is true, but yet it was you who offended her most deeply."
"I?" repeated Reinhold. "You do not know Beatrice. If I came before her
penitent, wishful to return, there would be an end of her hatred and
her revenge. One single oath, that I and my wife are separated and
remain so, that I have given up all idea of a reunion, she would give
you back your child without a struggle, without resistance. If I
_could_ do this, the danger would be over."
Ella's eye sought the ground; she did not dare to look up, as she asked
almost inaudibly--
"And can you not do it, then?"
His eyes flashed, he let his arm drop from her shoulders, and stepped
back--
"No, Eleonore, I cannot, and I shall not, as it would be perjury. So
little as I shall ever return to the bonds which I had felt degraded me
long before I saw you again, so little shall I give up a hope which is
more to me than life. Oh, do not draw back so from me! I know I may not
come near you with sentiments to which I have forfeited the right,
but you cannot prescribe my feelings to me, and if you did not see
before--would not see--Beatrice's burning hatred to you, and you alone,
must show you, how much you are avenged."
Ella made a sudden deprecating motion--"Oh, Reinhold, how can you at
this moment--"
"It is perhaps the only one in which you do not reject me," interrupted
Reinhold. "May I not, in the hour when we both tremble for our child's
life, tell the mother what she has become to me? Even then when I first
trod Italy's shore, there lay upon me something like a suspicion of
what I had lost. I could not rejoice over the newly-won freedom the
artist's career gained at last; and the richer and more brilliant my
life became externally, the deeper grew that longing for a home which
yet I had never possessed. You, to be sure, do not know the dull pain
which will not be still even in the midst of the whirl of passion, in
the noise of triumph, in the proudest success of one's creations, which
becomes torture in solitude, from which one must fly, even if only by
means of intoxication, by the wildest excitement. I believed that it
was only the longing for my child; then I saw the child again--saw
you--and I knew what this longing craved for; then began the atonement
for everything of which I had been guilty towards you."
He spoke quietly, without reproach or bitterness, and the words seemed
therefore to act all the more powerfully on Ella; she had risen as if
she would flee from his tone and gaze, and yet could not.
"Spare me, Reinhold!" begged she almost imploringly. "I can feel and
think of nothing now but my child's danger. When I have the boy safe in
my arms, then--"
"Well, then?--" asked he in breathless eagerness.
"I shall perhaps not have the courage any longer to pain his father,"
added Ella, while a flood of tears rushed from her eyes.
Reinhold did not say another word; but he held her hand firmly in his
own as if he would never loosen it again. At the same moment, the
carriage appeared on the top of the hill, and the driver stopped to
give himself and the tired animals a little rest.
Almost simultaneously, the two peasants who had been visible before on
the road, arrived from the other side. They stared curiously at the
beautiful pale lady and strange, distinguished-looking gentleman who
stepped towards them and asked where they came from. They named a place
which lay at the exit of the valley, some miles distant.
"Have you seen no carriage?" enquired Reinhold.
"Certainly, Signor. A travelling carriage like yours; but they had only
two horses, you have four."
"Did you see the occupants?" interposed Ella, in a trembling voice. "We
seek a lady with a child."
"With a little boy?--quite right, Signora. She is a good way before
you; you must drive sharply if you would overtake her," said the elder
of the two men while stepping nearer, somewhat alarmed, as the lady
looked as if about to sink down at the news; but at the same moment her
companion threw his arm round her, and supported her.
"Courage, Eleonore! We are near the crisis; now we must act."
He lifted her into the carriage, and sprang in after her. The few words
which he addressed to the driver must have contained some unusual
promise, as the latter swung his whip sharply across the horses, and
away they went after the object of their pursuit.
The latter had indeed gained a considerable advantage, and their
carriage was also driven at a rapid pace. Beatrice was alone in it with
little Reinhold, who, tired with crying and the restless, fatiguing
journey, had fallen asleep. The fair, curly little head was pressed
deeply into the cushions; his hands were twined instinctively around
the side rests, as if they sought a support against the incessant
jolting and shaking of the uneven road. The child slept soundly and
deeply, but Beatrice hardly noticed it just now. She was in that state
of supreme mental irritation which even puts a limit to the wildest
passion. She was as if in a heavy, stupid trance, from which only one
object stands out with fearful distinctness--the recollection of that
hour when Rinaldo cast himself free from her, when he called her the
curse and misfortune of his life, and acknowledged to her with proud
defiance that his love belonged to his wife alone. These words pierced
the Italian's heart ever again as if with a burning thorn. Whatever she
had done, however she may have sinned, she had loved this one man with
all the ardour of her soul--to this one she had been unfailingly true;
she had considered his love as her right, of which no power on earth
could deprive her, and now she lost it through the woman whom she
feared the last of all others--through his wife. His wife and his
child! They had ever been the dark shadow which menaced this happiness,
and which now, coming forward out of the gloomy past, took form and
life in order to destroy it.
Beatrice had hated both, even before she knew them. Did she not know
best what place they still maintained in Reinhold's remembrance? Had
she not often enough tried in vain to tear him away from it? There
must surely be something in the once despised power of sacred
wedlock; it was victorious at last against the beautiful, charming
Biancona--against the admired actress; and now made her taste the whole
agony of being forsaken, to which she had once so indifferently
condemned another, without asking if that other's heart broke under
this unmerited fate. The fetters, apparently dissolved, had never quite
loosed the fugitive; now they encircled him again, and Beatrice felt,
with desperate certainty, that she had never possessed the place in his
heart which once more his wife occupied.