comfortable _tete-a-tete_," he observed. "Though English people may
suffer from madness, there is usually method in it."
"No doubt she had her good reasons for her return five minutes later,"
was the retort. "There was method in that madness, at any rate."
The two men looked each other straight in the eyes. Arnim's hand rested
on his sword-hilt, and the smile had died away from his lips.
"Perhaps I ought to remind you that Miss Ingestre is my aunt's guest,
and therefore under my protection," he said slowly.
"The reminder is quite unnecessary," the dragoon returned with perfect
sang-froid. "I meant no offence either to you or Miss Ingestre; and
poaching is, anyhow, not one of my vices."
Arnim hesitated an instant, then, with a curt bow, he slipped his arm
through that of the officer standing beside him.
"Come, Seleneck," he said, "I have wasted time enough."
The two men made their way out of the Casino into the street. A sharp
east wind greeted them, and Wolff von Arnim drew a deep breath of
relief.
"I need fresh air," he said. "A man like Bauer stifles me, sickens me.
I cannot imagine why he always seeks my society. He must know that I
have no liking for him. Does he wish to pick a quarrel?"
The elder man shook his head.
"You are a harsh judge, Wolff," he said. "As far as I know, Bauer is a
harmless fellow enough. It is true that he swaggers a good deal with
his money and is rather pushing in circles where he is not wanted, but
for the rest--I have heard nothing to his discredit."
"That may be," was the quick answer. "There are dishonourable men who
act honourably out of caution, and honourable men who act dishonourably
out of rashness. I do not want to be unjust, but I cannot help putting
Bauer in the former category. My instinct warns me against him--and not
only my instinct. A man who talks about duty as a drudgery and is
content to get through life without success and with as little effort as
possible is a useless drone. In our calling he is worse than that--a
parasite."
Seleneck sighed.
"Oh, you ambitious, successful fellows!" he said with a lugubrious tug
at his moustache. "You talk as scornfully of 'getting through life
without success' as though it were a crime. Look at me--grey hairs
already, a family man, and still nothing more than a blundering old
captain, who will be thankful it he is allowed at the end to retire with
a major's pension. _I_ am one of your drones--a parasite, if you like,
and certainly a failure, but Heaven knows it is not my wish."
"You are no more a failure than the best of us," Wolff von Arnim
answered vigorously. "I know you, _alter Kerl_, and I know you have
given your best strength, your best thought to your calling; I know
'duty' is the Alpha and Omega of your life--no one could ask more of
you."
"I have done my best," was the simple answer. "It hasn't come to much,
but still, it was my best. You, Wolff, will go much farther."
They were passing under the light of a street lamp as he spoke, and
Arnim glanced at his companion's face. There was perhaps something
written on the plain yet honest and soldierly features which touched
him, for his own relaxed, and the softened expression made him seem
almost boyish.
"If I do my duty as well as you have done, I shall be very proud," he
said earnestly.
They walked on in silence, each absorbed in his own thoughts, and then
Seleneck came to a standstill.
"Our ways end here," he said. "I suppose you are going to Frau von
Arnim's?"
"Yes; I must let her know my good luck. She will be very glad."
"And the little cousin--will she be 'very glad'?"
Arnim met the quizzical not unkindly glance with an almost imperceptible
change of countenance.
"I suppose so. Why shouldn't she?"
"She will miss you."
Arnim did not answer, nor did he show any sign of continuing on his way.
He seemed suddenly caught in a painful train of thought, from which his
companion made no effort to arouse him.
"Poor little soul!" he said at last, half to himself. "It is terribly
hard luck on her. No one loved life as she did, and now"--his brows
contracted--"sometimes I feel as though I were to blame," he added
abruptly.
"What nonsense!" Seleneck retorted. "Are you responsible because a
horse shies and a girl has the misfortune to be thrown?"
"Perhaps not; but the feeling of responsibility is not so easily shaken
off. I never see her--or her mother--without cursing the impulse that
made me take her out that day."
"It might just as well have happened any other day and with any one
else," Seleneck retorted cold-bloodedly.
"Of course. Only one cannot reason like that with one's conscience. At
any rate, there is nothing I would not do to make her happy--to atone to
her. Besides," he added hastily, as though he had said something he
regretted, "I am very fond of her."
The elder man tapped him on the shoulder.
"_Alter Junge_," he said pointedly, "I can trust your career to your
brains, but I am not so sure that I can trust your life to your heart.
Take care that you do not end up as Field-Marshal with Disappointment as
your adjutant. _Lebewohl_."
With an abrupt salute he turned and strode off into the gathering
twilight, leaving Arnim to put what interpretation he chose to the
warning. That the warning had not been without effect was clear. Arnim
went up the steps of the square-built house with a slowness that
suggested reluctance, and the features beneath the dark-blue cap,
hitherto alight with energy and enthusiasm, had suddenly become graver
and older.
He found Frau von Arnim in her private sitting-room, writing letters.
She turned with a pleased smile as he entered, and held out a hand which
he kissed affectionately. The bond between them was indeed an unusually
close one, and dated from Wolff's first boyhood, when as a pathetically
small cadet he had wept long-controlled and bitter tears on her kind
shoulder and confided to her all the wrongs with which his elder
comrades darkened his life. From that time he had been a constant
Sunday guest at her table, had been Hildegarde's playfellow throughout
the long Sunday afternoons, and had returned to the grim Cadettenhaus at
nightfall laden with contraband of the sort dearest to a boy's heart.
Afterwards, as ensign and young lieutenant, he had still looked up to
her with the old confidence, and to this very hour there had been no
passage in his life, wise or foolish, of which she was not cognisant.
She had been mother, father, and comrade to him, and it was more by
instinct than from any sense of duty that he had come to her first with
his good news.
"I have been appointed to the Staff in Berlin," he said. "The order
arrived this afternoon. It's all a step in the right direction, isn't
it? At any rate, I shall be out of the routine and able to do head-work
to my heart's--I mean head's content."
Frau von Arnim laughed and pressed the strong hand which still held
hers.
"It is splendid, Wolff," she said. "I knew that the day would come when
we should be proud of _unsren Junge_. Who knows? Perhaps as an old,
old woman I shall be able to hobble along on a stately General's
arm--that is, of course, if he will be seen with such an old wreck.
But"--her face overshadowed somewhat--"when shall we have to part with
you?"
"Not for some months," he said, seating himself beside her, "and then I
think you had better pack up your goods and chattels and come too. I
shall never be able to exist without you to keep me in order and
Hildegarde to cheer me up."
"I have never noticed that you wanted much keeping in order," Frau von
Arnim said with a grave smile. "And as for the other matter, it is to
you that Hildegarde owes much of her cheeriness. She will miss you
terribly."
A silence fell between them which neither noticed, though it lasted some
minutes. Overhead some one began to play the "Liebeslied" from the
_Walkuere_.
Wolff looked up and found that his aunt's eyes were fixed on him.
"Hildegarde?" he asked, and for the first time he felt conscious of a
lack of candour.
Frau von Arnim shook her head.
"Poor Hildegarde never plays," she reminded him gently. "It is
Nora--Miss Ingestre. You remember her?"
"Yes," he said slowly. "She is not easily forgotten." After a moment's
hesitation he added, "I never knew English people could be so charming.
Those I have met on my travels have either been badly mannered boors or
arrogant pokers. Miss Ingestre is either an exception or a revelation."
The room was in part darkness, as Frau von Arnim loved it best. A small
lamp burned on her table, and by its light she could study his face
unobserved.
"She has won all hearts--even to the coachman, who has a prejudice
against foreigners," she said in a lighter tone, "and Hildegarde has
become another person since her arrival. I do not know what we should
do without her. When she first came she was, of course, baked in her
insular prejudices, but she is so open-minded and broad-hearted that
they have fallen away almost miraculously. We have not had to
suffer--as is so often the case--from volleys of Anglo-Saxon
criticisms."
"She seems musical, too," Wolff said, who was still listening with close
attention to the unseen player.
"She is musical; so much so that I am having her properly trained at the
Conservatorium," his aunt answered with enthusiasm. "When she has got
out of certain English mannerisms she will do well. It is already a
delight to listen to her."
A tide of warm colour darkened Wolff's face as he glanced quickly at
Frau von Arnim's profile.
"I wonder what little pleasure--or perhaps necessity--you have denied
yourself to perform that act of kindness?" he said.
"Neither the one nor the other, _lieber Junge_. If I deny myself one
pleasure to give myself another, it can hardly be counted as a denial,
can it? Besides, I believe her people are very badly off, and it is a
shame that her talent should suffer for it. There! I am sure you want
to go upstairs. Run along, and let me write my letters."
Wolff laughed at the old command, which dated back to the time when he
had worried her with his boy's escapades.
"I'll just glance in and tell Hildegarde my good luck," he said, a
little awkwardly. "I promised her I would let her know as soon as the
news came."
"Do, dear Wolff."
She turned back to her letters, and Arnim, taking advantage of her
permission, hurried out of the room and upstairs.
Hildegarde's little boudoir was an inner room, divided off from the
neighbouring apartment by a heavy Liberty curtain. Governed by he knew
not what instinct or desire, he stepped softly across and, drawing the
hangings a little on one side, remained a quiet, unobserved spectator of
the peaceful scene.
Nora had left the _Walkuere_ and had plunged into the first act of
_Tristan und Isolde_. She played it with inexperience and after her own
ideas, which were perhaps not the most correct, but the face alone, with
its youth, its eagerness, its enthusiasm, must have disarmed the most
captious critic. And Wolff von Arnim was by no means captious at that
moment. Though he was listening, he hardly realised what she was
playing, too absorbed in the pure pleasure which the whole picture gave
him to think of details. He knew, for instance, that her dress was
simple and pretty, but he could not tell afterwards whether it was blue
or green or pink, or of no colour at all; he knew that he had never
before found so much charm in a woman's face, but he would have been
hard put to to describe exactly wherein that charm lay, or whether her
features were regular or otherwise. He simply received an
impression--one that he found difficult to forget.
A lamp had been placed on the top of the piano, and by its light the
bright, wide-open eyes and eager fingers were finding their way through
the difficult score. The rest of the room had been left in shadow.
Arnim knew where his cousin was lying, but he did not look in her
direction--perhaps he did not even think of her, so far did she lie
outside the picture on which his whole interest was centred; and when
the music died into silence, her voice startled him by its very
unexpectedness.
"Wolff, won't you come in now?" she said.
Was there pain or annoyance in her tone? Arnim could not be certain.
The knowledge that she had seen him standing there was sufficiently
disconcerting. When we are unobserved, we unconsciously drop the masks
which the instinct of self-preservation forces us to assume in the
presence even of our dearest, and our faces betray emotions or thoughts
which we have, perhaps, not even acknowledged to ourselves. As he
advanced into the room, Arnim wondered uncomfortably how much the
invalid's quick eyes had seen and if there was, indeed, anything in his
looks or action which could have wounded her.
"You must think my manners very bad," he said in English as he greeted
Nora, "but I knew if I came in you would stop playing, and that would
have disappointed me and annoyed Hildegarde. You see, I know my
cousin's little foibles, and one is that she does not like being
interrupted in anything. Is that not so, Hildegarde?"
"You are a privileged person," she answered with a gentle smile on her
pale face. "Still, I am glad you let Nora--Miss Ingestre--finish. She
plays well, don't you think?"
"Splendidly--considering," was the answer.
Nora looked up.
"Considering? That sounds a doubtful compliment."
"I mean, English people as a rule have not much understanding for
dramatic music."
"Yes, they have!" Nora blazed out impulsively.
"Have they?"
Still seething with injured patriotism, she met the laughter in his eyes
with defiance. Then her sense of humour got the better of her.
"No, they haven't," she admitted frankly.
"There, now you are honest! Have you tried _Tristan_ for the first
time?"
Nora nodded. She had gone back to the piano and was turning over the
leaves of the score with nervous fingers. For some reason which she
never attempted to fathom, Wolff von Arnim's entries into her life,
seldom and fleeting as they had been hitherto, had always brought with
them a subtle, indescribable change in herself and in her surroundings.
There were times when she was almost afraid of him and welcomed his
departure. Then, again, when he was gone she was sorry that she had
been so foolish, and looked forward to their next meeting.
"I have tried to read the first act before," she said, "but it is so
hard. I can make so little out of it. I am sure it all sounds poor and
confused compared to the real thing."
"Your piano score is inadequate," he said, coming to her side. "The
duet arrangement is much better. Hildegarde and I used to play it
together for hours."
Nora looked at him with wide-open eyes of wonder.
"Can you play?" she asked, very much as though he had boasted of his
flying abilities, so that he laughed with boyish amusement.
"I play like a great many of us do," he said, "sufficiently well to
amuse myself. I have a piano in my quarters which I ill-treat at
regular intervals. Do you remember how angry you used to get because I
thumped so?"
He had turned to the girl lying on the sofa, but she avoided his frank
gaze.
"Yes," she said. "It is not so long ago, Wolff." And then, almost as
though she were afraid of having betrayed some deeper feeling, she added
quickly, "Couldn't you two try over the old duets together? I should so
like to hear them, and I am too tired to talk."
"Would you like to, Miss Ingestre?"
"Very much--only you will find me dreadfully slow and stupid."
He hunted amongst an old bundle of music, and having found the required
piece, he arranged it on the piano and prepared himself for the task
with great gravity.
"You must let me have the bass," he said; "then I can thump without
being so much noticed. I have a decided military touch. Hildegarde
says I treat the notes as though they were recruits."
Nora played her part without nervousness, at first because she was
convinced of her own superiority and afterwards because he inspired her.
His guidance was sure and firm, and when he corrected, it was not as a
master but as a comrade seeking to give advice as to a common task. Her
shyness and uneasiness with him passed away. Every bar seemed to make
him less of a stranger, and once in a long rest she found herself
watching the powerful, carefully kept hands on the keyboard with a
curious pleasure, as though they typified the man himself--strong,
clean, and honest.
Thus they played through the whole of the first act, and when the last
chord had been struck there was a long silence. It was as though both
were listening to the echo of all that had gone before, and it was with
an effort that Nora roused herself to speak.
"How well you play!" she said under her breath. "And how grand--how
wonderful it is!"
He turned and looked at her.
"Did you understand it?"
"Not all. I feel that there are many more wonders to fathom which are
yet too deep for me. But I understand enough to know that they are
there--and to be glad."
"It is the noblest--most perfect expression of love and of the human
heart that was ever written or composed," he said.
She looked up at him, and their eyes met gravely and steadily for a
moment, in which the world was forgotten.
"Thank you very much," a quiet voice said from the background.
Arnim turned quickly, so quickly that it was almost a start.
"Now for your criticism, Hildegarde!" he cried gaily. "I assure you, we
are both trembling."
Hildegarde shook her head.
"I cannot criticise," she said. "You played so well together, much
better than when I was able to take my part." She hesitated. "One
could hardly believe that you had never practised together before," she
added slowly.
Nora rose and closed the piano. Without knowing why, the words pained
her and the brief silence that followed seemed oppressive.
Arnim followed her example.
"I have been here a disgraceful time!" he exclaimed, looking at his
watch. "And there! I have never even told you what I really came
about. I have been passed into the General Staff. What do you think of
that? Are you not proud to have such a cousin?"
His tone was gay, half teasing, but there was no response from the quiet
figure on the sofa. Nora's eyes, rendered suddenly sharp, saw that the
pale lips were compressed as though in pain.
"Of course, Wolff, I am so glad. It is splendid for you. How long will
you be there--in Berlin, I mean?"
"A long time, I expect, unless there is a war."
Then, as though by some intuition he knew what was passing in her mind,
he came to her side and took her hand affectionately between his own.
"You and the mother will have to come too," he said. "I have just been
telling her that I cannot get on without you. Imagine my lonely state!
It's bad enough here, now that I have no one to ride out with me. Old
Bruno is eating off his head in anticipation of the day when you will
gallop him through the woods again."
Hildegarde shook her head, but his words, spoken hastily and almost at
random, had brought the soft colour to her cheeks.
"I shall never ride again," she said.
She looked at her cousin and then to Nora, and her own wistful face
became suddenly overshadowed.
"But then," she went on with a quick, almost inaudible sigh, "that is no
reason why Bruno should eat his head off, as you say. It is true I
cannot ride him any more, but Miss Ingestre can, and it would do her
good. Wouldn't it, Nora?"
Was there an appeal in her voice which both heard and understood? Arnim
said nothing. He did not take his eyes from his cousin's face.
"It is really very good of you," Nora said quickly, "but I think I had
better not. You see, I love it so, and it is best not to encourage
impossible tastes. Besides, I have no habit."
Warned, perhaps, by her own involuntary start of pleasure, by Arnim's
silence and Hildegarde's voice, she had sought wildly for any reasonable
excuse, and unwittingly chosen the one most likely to arouse the
generous impulses in both her companions.
"Whilst you are here you must enjoy everything you can get," Arnim said,
smiling at her. "And who knows what Fate has in store for you?"
"And the habit is no difficulty," Hildegarde chimed in. "You can have
mine. We are about the same size, and it could easily be made to fit
you. Do, dear!"
She was now all enthusiasm for her own plan, and Nora, glancing at
Arnim's face, saw that it had become eager with pleasure.
"Do!" he begged. "I should so like to show you all the woods about
here. Or--can you not trust yourself to me?"
A second time their eyes met.
"Of course I should trust you," Nora said quickly, "and there is nothing
I should love more."
"Then that is settled. You must let me know the first day which suits
you. Good-bye, _gnaediges Fraeulein_. Good-bye, Hildegarde. I am
sending my orderly round with some books I have found. I think you will
like them."
"Thank you, Wolff."
Then he was gone. They heard the door bang downstairs, and the cheery
clatter of his sword upon the stone steps.
Nora came to the sofa and knelt down.
"How good you are to me!" she said. "You are always thinking of my
pleasure, of things which you know I like, and, after all, it ought to
be just the other way round."
"I am very fond of you," Hildegarde answered in a low voice. "Though I
know you so short a time, you are the only friend I really care for. It
made me bitter to see other girls enjoy their life--but you are
different. I don't think I should grudge you--anything."
Her voice broke suddenly. She turned her face to the wall, and there
was a long silence. Nora still knelt by the sofa. Her eyes were fixed
thoughtfully in front of her, and there was an expression on her young
face of wonder, almost of fear. Something new had come into her life.
There was a change in herself of which she was vaguely conscious. What
was it? What had brought it? Was it possible that in a mere glance
something had passed out of her, something been received? She sprang
restlessly to her feet, and as she did so a smothered, shaken sob broke
upon the stillness. In an instant she had forgotten herself and her own
troubled thoughts. She bent over the quivering figure and tried to draw
away the hands that hid the tear-stained face.
"Hildegarde--you are crying? What is it? What have I done?"
"Nothing--nothing. It is only--I am so silly and weak--and the
music----" She broke off and looked up into Nora's face with a
pathetic, twisted smile. And then, seeming to yield to a passionate
impulse, she flung her thin arms about her companion's neck. "Oh, Nora,
you are so pretty and good! Every one _must_ love you--and I love you
so!"
The words were an appeal, a confession, a cry breaking from an
over-burdened heart. Nora drew the fair head against her shoulder,
pitying and comforting a grief which she as yet but partly understood.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*THE AWAKENING*
Frau von Arnim sat at the round breakfast-table before a pile of open
letters, which she took in turn, considered, and laid aside. Her
expression was grave, and in the full morning light which poured in
through the window opposite she looked older, wearier than even those
who knew her best would have thought possible. The world of Karlsburg
was accustomed to regard the Oberhofmarshall's widow as a woman of whom
it would be safe to prophesy, "Age shall not wither her," for, as far as
her envious contemporaries could see, the years had drifted past and
brought no change to the serene, proud face. Perhaps they would have
admitted, on reflection, that their memories could not reach back to the
time when Frau von Arnim had been a girl--that, as far as they knew, she
had always been the same, always serene and proud, never youthful in the
true sense of the word. And therein lay the paradoxical explanation for
what was called her "eternal youth." Magda von Arnim had never been
really young. The storms had broken too early on her life and had
frozen the overflowing spirits of her girlhood into strength of reserve,
patience, and dignity. But she had not allowed them to embitter the
sources of her humanity, and thus she retained in her later years what
is best in youth--generosity, sympathy, a warm and understanding heart.
Frau von Arnim put aside her last letter, and with her fine white hand
shading her eyes remained in an attitude of deep thought, until the door
of the breakfast-room opened.
"Hildegarde!" she exclaimed, and then, quickly, painfully, "Why, how
stupid of me! It is Nora, of course. Good morning, dear child. I must
have been indulging in what you call a day-dream, for when you came in I
thought it was really poor little Hildegarde grown well and strong
again." She held Nora at arm's length. "I do not think the resemblance
will ever cease to startle me. The riding-habit makes you look so
alike--though really you are quite, quite different."
She tried to laugh, but the hurried tone, the sudden colour that had
rushed to the usually pale cheeks betrayed to Nora the painful
impression she had caused. They hurried her to a decision that had
already presented itself to her before as something inevitable,
something she must do if she were to be just and loyal. Time after time
she had shrunk back as before some hard sacrifice, and now she felt she
could shrink back no longer.
"_Gnaedige Frau_, I wanted to tell you--if you don't mind, I will give
up the riding. After to-day I don't think I will go again. I think it
better not."
"But--why?"
It was now Nora's turn to crimson with embarrassment. She was herself
hardly clear as to her reasons. The night before she had played the
second act of _Tristan und Isolde_ with Wolff von Arnim, and when it was
at an end they had found Hildegarde lying in a sleep from which they
could not at first awaken her, so close was it allied to another and
graver state. And Wolff von Arnim had had a strange misery in his eyes.
Such was the only explanation she knew of. She knew, too, that she
could not give it. Nevertheless, she held her ground desperately.
"Because I believe it hurts you, and if not you, at least Hildegarde,"
she said at last. "She cries sometimes when she thinks I shall not find
out, and though she never owns to it, I know it is because I enjoy
things she used to have and cannot have. And, besides, it isn't fair,
it isn't right. You have both been so good to me. You have treated me
just as though I were a daughter of the house, and I have done nothing
to deserve it. I have only caused Hildegarde pain, and that is what I
do not want to do."
Frau von Arnim took her by the hand and drew her closer. A faint,
rather whimsical smile played about the fine mouth.
"Dear Nora, the fact that you are the daughter of the house proves that
you deserve the best we can give you. Neither Hildegarde nor I are
given to adopting relations promiscuously. And as for the other matter,
anybody suffering as Hildegarde does is bound to have her moments of
bitterness and regret--perhaps envy. Thank God they are not many. In
the first months I have known the sight of a child playing in the street
bring the tears to her eyes, and it is only natural that you, with your
health and strength, should remind her of what she has lost. And there
is another thing"--her manner became grave, almost emphatic--"a useless
sacrifice is no sacrifice at all; it is simply flying in the face of a
Providence who has given to one happiness, another sorrow. It will not
make Hildegarde happy if you stay at home--on the contrary, she will
blame herself--and you will deprive my nephew of a pleasure. There!
After that little lecture you must have your breakfast and read your
letters. You have only half an hour before you start, and my nephew
suffers from military punctuality in its most aggravated form."
Nora obediently made a pretence of partaking of the frugal rolls and
coffee. As a matter of fact, the prospect before her, but above all the
two letters lying on her plate, had successfully driven away her
appetite. The one envelope was addressed in her father's spider-like
hand, the other writing set her heart beating with uneasiness. At the
first opportunity she opened her father's bulky envelope and hurried
over its contents. Sandwiched in between rhetorical outbursts of solemn
advice, she extracted the facts that her mother was unusually out of
health, that he was consequently distracted with worry and over-burdened
with work, that Miles had obtained sick-leave and was enjoying a long
rest in the bosom of the family, that the neighbours, Mrs. Clerk in
particular, were both surprised and shocked at her, Nora's, continued
absence. "Home is not home without you," the Rev. John had written
pathetically. Then at the end of the letter had come the sting. There
was a certain paragraph which Nora read twice over with heightened
colour and a pained line between the brows.
"Dear child, you tell me that you are going out riding with a certain
Herr von Arnim, your protectress's nephew. Apart from the fact that an
indulgence in pleasure which your family can no longer afford seems to
me in itself unfitting, I feel that there is more besides in the matter
to cause me grave anxiety on your behalf. Herr von Arnim's name occurs
constantly in your letters; he appears to use his musical talent as an
excuse to pay you constant attention; you meet him at the theatre--which
place, I must say in passing, you attend with what I fear must be a
wholly demoralising frequency; he lends you books, he instructs you in
the German language. Now, my dear child, I myself have never met a
German officer, but from various accounts I understand that they are men
of a disorderly mode of life who would not hesitate to compromise a
young, inexperienced girl. Knowing, of course, that your affections do
not come into question as regards a foreigner, I warn you not to allow
yourself to become this man's plaything. As his aunt's dependent, he
may no doubt think that you are fit game for his amusement. Remember
that you are an English girl, and show him that as such you are too
proud to play a degrading role, and that you will have none of his
attentions. Ah, Nora, I would that I were with you to watch over you!
Oh that you were in a certain good man's keeping!"
Nora dropped the letter. Her cheeks burned with indignation. It was in
this light, then, that her father judged Wolff von Arnim's grave, almost
formal, courtesy, their innocent, straightforward friendship together!
And yet, beneath the indignation, new fears and doubts stirred to life.
She did not attempt to analyse them. Impatiently, as though seeking to
escape from all self-interrogation, she picked up the second letter and
tore it open. It was from Arnold. Like the man, the handwriting was
bold and clear, the sentences abrupt, sincere, and unpolished. In a few
lines he thanked her for her last letter, outlined the small events of
his own life. He then plunged into the immediate future.
"Unexpectedly, I have been granted a year's leave to travel in Central
Africa," he had written. "You can understand that I shall be only too
glad to get out of England and to have some active work outside the
usual military grind. I leave Southampton in two days' time, so that
you will not have time to answer this. In any case, I do not want you
to hurry. I reach Aden on the 10th. That will give you time to
consider what I am going to say. Hitherto I have been silent as to the
matter that lies nearest my heart, but now I am going so far from you I
must speak, Nora. I believe that one day you will become my wife. I
believe that it is so destined, and I believe you know it as well as I
do. Our parting at Victoria convinced me, or at least it gave me the
greatest possible hope. I believe that if I had jumped into the
carriage beside you and taken you in my arms, you would have yielded. I
was a fool to have hesitated, but perhaps it is best that you should
decide in cold blood. You know what I have to offer you--an honest,
clean devotion, not the growth of a moment's passion, but of years. I
know you and I love and understand you--even to your faults. You know
me, and whether you love me or not, you at least know that I am a man
who never changes, who will be twenty years hence what he is to-day. Is
this to be despised? Is not reciprocal trust and understanding worth
more than a shortlived passion? Nora, do not count it against me if I
cannot write to you eloquently, if I am poor in all the outward
elegancies of speech and manner. I have no metaphors to describe my
love to you; no doubt I shall always fail in those graceful nothings
which you seem to appreciate so much. I can only speak and act as a
straightforward Englishman who offers a woman his honest love. For the
second--but not the last time, if needs must be--will you be my wife?
Consider well, dearest, and if you can, let me go into my exile with the
blessed knowledge that in a short time--for I shall not wait a year--I
may come and fetch you home. Nora..."
Hoofs clattered impatiently in the street outside. The Arnims' little
maid opened the door and grinned with mysterious friendliness.
"_Der Herr Hauptmann ist unten und wartet_," she said. "_Gnaediges
Fraeulein mochten sofort kommen!_"
She spoke in a tone of command which her intense respect for "_den Herrn
Hauptmann_" more than justified. Was not her "Schatz" in the Herr
Hauptmann's battery, and did not he say every Sunday, when they walked
out together, that the whole Army did not contain a finer officer or a
more "_famoser Kerl_"?
"_Ich komme gleich_," Nora answered. She thrust the half-read letter
into the pocket of her loose-fitting coat and ran downstairs. All the
way she was thinking of Robert Arnold with a strange mingling of
affection and pity. She thought how good and honest he was, and of the
life of a woman who entrusted herself to his care--and then abruptly he
passed out of her mind like a shadow dispersed by a broad, full ray of
sunshine. Wolff von Arnim stood in the hall. His face was lifted to
greet her, his hand outstretched. She took it. She tried to say
something banal, something that would have broken the spell that had
fallen upon her. Her lips refused to frame the words, and he too did
not speak. Side by side they went out into the cold morning air. The
orderly stood waiting with the two horses. Arnim motioned him on one
side, and with sure strength and gentleness lifted Nora into the saddle.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked; and then, with a sudden change of tone,
"Why, what is the matter? Did I hurt you? You are so pale."
Nora shook her head.
"It is nothing--nothing. I am quite all right. I lost my breath--that
is all. You lifted me as though I were a mere feather."
She tried to laugh, but instead bit her lip and looked down into his
face with a curious bewilderment. He had not hurt her, and yet some
sensation that was near akin to pain had passed like an electric current
right to the centre of her being.
"I am quite all right," she said again, and nodded as though to reassure
him. "Please do not be so alarmed."
To herself she thought, "What is the matter with me? What has
happened?"
These were the questions she asked herself incessantly as they walked
their horses through the empty streets. She found no answer.
Everything in her that had hitherto been was no more. All the old
landmarks in her character, her confidence, her courage, her
inexhaustible fund of life were gone, leaving behind them a revolution
of unknown emotions whose sudden upheaval she could neither explain nor
control. Her world had changed, but as yet it was a chaos where she
could find no firm land, no sure place of refuge.
They left the town behind them and walked their horses through the long
_allees_ of stately trees. Almost without their knowledge their
conversation, broken and curiously strained as it was, dropped into
silence. The deadened thud of their horses' hoofs upon the soft turf was
the only sound that broke the morning stillness, and the mists hanging
low upon the earth, as yet undisturbed by the rising winter sun,
intensified the almost ghostly forest loneliness. It was a loneliness
that pierced like a cold wind through Nora's troubled soul. Though they
had ridden the same way before, at the same hour, surrounded by the same
grey shadows, she had never felt as she felt now--that they, alone of
the whole world, were alive and that they were together. The clang of
the park gates behind them had been like a voice whose warning, jarring
tones echoed after them in the stillness, "Now you are alone--now you
are alone!" What was there in this loneliness and silence? Why did it
suffocate, oppress her so that she would have been thankful if a sudden
breeze had stirred the fallen leaves to sound and apparent life? Why
had she herself no power to break the silence with her own voice? She
glanced quickly at the man beside her. Did he also feel something of
what she was experiencing that he had become so silent? Usually a
fresh, vigorous gaiety had laughed out of his eyes to meet her. To-day
he did not seem to know that she had looked at him, or even that she was
there. His gaze was set resolutely ahead, his lips beneath the short
fair moustache were compressed in stern, thoughtful lines which changed
the whole character of his face, making him older, graver. Believing
herself unobserved, even forgotten, Nora did not look away. She saw
Arnim in a new light, as the worker, the soldier, the man of action and
iron purpose. Every line of the broad-shouldered figure in the grey
_Litewka_ suggested power and energy, and the features, thrown into
shadow by his officer's cap, were stamped with the same virile
characteristics translated into intellect and will.
"What a man you are!" was the thought that flashed through Nora's mind,
and even in that moment he turned towards her.
"It seems we are not the only ones out this morning," he said quietly.
"There is a rider coming towards us--Bauer, if I am not mistaken. Let
us draw a little on one side."
She followed his guidance, at the same time looking in the direction
which he had indicated. The mists were thinning, and she caught the
flash of a pale-blue uniform, and a moment later recognised the man
himself.
"Yes, it is Lieutenant Bauer," she said.
The new-comer drew in his horse to a walk and passed them at the salute.
Nora caught a glimpse of his face and saw there was an expression of
cynical amusement which aroused in her all the old instinctive aversion.
She stiffened in her saddle and the angry blood rushed to her cheeks.
"I am glad he is not in your regiment," she said impulsively.
"Why, Miss Ingestre?"
"Because I dislike him," she answered.
He did not smile at her blunt reasoning--rather, the unusual gravity in
his eyes deepened.
"I have no right to criticise a comrade," he said; "only I want you to
remember that in a great army such as ours there must always be
exceptions, men who have forced their way for the sake of
position--idlers, cads, and nonentities. There are not many, thank God,
and they are soon weeded out, but I want you to believe that they are
the exceptions."
"I do believe it," she said gently.
"Thank you." He waited a moment and then added, "It is a great deal to
me that you should think well of us."
"I could not well do otherwise," she answered.
"I am a foreigner." The simple pronoun betrayed him, but Nora did not
notice the change. She was gazing ahead, her brows knitted.
"That does not seem to make much difference," she said. "I used to
think it would--only a few weeks ago. I must have been very young then.
I am very young now, but not so young. One can learn more in an hour
than in a lifetime."
"It all depends on the hour," he said, smiling.
"No--I think each hour has the same possibilities. It all depends on
oneself. If one has opened one's heart----" She left the sentence
unfinished, her thoughts reverting suddenly to her mother, and for a
moment the man beside her was forgotten. But not for more than a
moment. Then, with a shock, the consciousness of his presence aroused
her, and she looked up at him. It was only his profile which she saw,
but some subtle change in the bold outline and a still subtler change in
herself quickened the beating of her heart. As once before that
morning, she suffered an inexplicable thrill of pain and wondered at
herself and at the silence again closing in about them. It was a
silence which had its source more in themselves than in their
surrounding world, for when the thud of galloping hoofs broke through
the deadening wall of mist they did not hear it, or heard it
unconsciously and without recognition. Only when it grew to a
threatening thunder did it arouse Arnim from his lethargy. He turned in
his saddle, and the next instant caught Nora's horse sharply to one
side.
"It is Bauer again!" he said. "Take care!" He had acted not an instant
too soon. The shadow which he had seen growing out against the grey
wall behind them became sharply outlined, and like a whirlwind swept
past them, escaping the haunch of Nora's horse by a hair's-breadth. The
frightened animal shied, wrenching the reins from Arnim's grasp, and
swerved across the narrow roadway. Whether she lost her nerve or whether
in that moment she did not care Nora could not have said. The horse
broke into a gallop, and she made no effort to check its dangerous
speed. The rapid, exhilarating motion lifted her out of herself, the
fresh, keen air stung colour to her cheeks and awoke in her a flash of
her old fearless life.
"_Ruhe! Ruhe!_" she heard a voice say in her ear. "_Ruhe!_"
But she paid no heed to the warning. Quiet! That was what she most
feared. It was from that ominous silence she was flying, and from the
moment when it would reveal the mystery of her own heart. Rather than
that silence, that revelation, better to gallop on and on until
exhaustion numbed sensibility, hushed every stirring, unfathomed desire
into a torpor of indifference! She felt at first no fear. The power to
check her wild course had long since passed out of her hands, but she
neither knew nor cared. She saw the forest rush by in a blurred,
bewildering mist, and far behind heard the muffled thunder of horse's
hoofs in hot pursuit. But she saw and heard as in some fantastic dream
whose end lay in the weaving hands of an implacable Destiny. In that
same dream a shadow crept up to her side, drew nearer till they were
abreast; a grip of iron fell upon her bridle hand. Then for the first
time she awoke and understood. And with understanding came fear. Her
own grip upon the straining reins relaxed. She reeled weakly in the
saddle, thinking, "This is indeed the end." But the shock for which she
dimly waited did not come. Instead, miraculously supported, she saw the
mists clear and trees and earth and sky slip back to their places before
her eyes. The world, which for one moment had seemed to be rushing to
its destruction, stood motionless, and Nora found herself in the saddle,
held there by the strength she would have recognised, so it seemed to
her, even if it had caught her up out of the midst of death. Arnim's
face was bent close to hers, and its expression filled her with pity and
a joy wonderful and inexplicable.
"_Wie haben Sie mir das anthun koennen?_" he stammered, and then, in
broken, passionate English, "How could you? If anything had
happened--do you not know what it would have meant to me?" With a hard
effort he regained his self-possession and let her go. "You frightened
me terribly," he said. "I--I am sorry."
"You have saved my life," she answered. "It is I who have to be
sorry--that I frightened you."
She was smiling with a calm strangely in contrast to his painful but
half-mastered agitation. The suspense of the last minutes was still
visible in his white face, and the hand which he raised mechanically to
his cap shook.
"It was Bauer's fault," he said. "He rode like a madman. I shall call
him to account. We seem fated to cross each other."
"Then why call him to account--since it is Fate? After all, nothing has
happened."
Had, indeed, nothing happened? She avoided his eyes, and the colour
died from her cheeks.
"Let us go home," he said abruptly.
They walked their panting horses back the way they had come. As before,
neither spoke. To all appearances nothing had changed between them, and
yet the change was there. The sunlight had broken through the mists,
the oppressive silence was gone, and life stirred in the long grasses,
peered with wondering, timid eyes from amidst the shadows, where deer
and squirrel and all the peaceful forest world watched and waited until
the intruders had passed on and left them to their quiet. And in Nora's
heart also the sun had risen. The chaos had resolved itself into calm;
and though so long as the man with the pale, troubled face rode at her
side she could give no account even to herself of the mysterious
happiness which had come so suddenly and so strangely, she was yet
content to wait and enjoy her present peace without question.
Thus they passed out of the gates and through the busy streets, Arnim
riding close to her side, as though to shield her from every possible
danger. But the silence between them remained unbroken. It was the
strangest thing of all that, though throughout they had scarcely spoken,
more had passed between them than in all the hours of the gay and
serious comradeship they had spent together.
At the door of the Arnims' house Wolff dismounted and helped Nora to the
ground. And as they stood for a moment hand in hand, he looked at her
for the first time full in the eyes.
"I cannot thank God enough that you are safe," he said.
She heard in his low voice the last vibrations of the storm, and the
thought that it was _her_ danger which had shaken this man from his
strong self-control overwhelmed her so that she could bring no answer
over her lips. She turned and ran into the house, into her own room,
where she stood with her hands clasped before her burning face,
triumphant, intoxicated, swept away on a whirlwind of unmeasured
happiness.
It is the privilege--the greatest privilege perhaps--of youth to be
swept away on whirlwinds beyond the reach of doubt and fear, and Nora
was very young. Over the new world which had risen like an island
paradise out of the chaos of the old, she saw a light spread out in
ever-widening circles till it enveloped her whole life. For Nora the
child was dead, the woman in her had awakened because she loved for the
first time and knew that she was loved.
It was a moment of supreme happiness, and, as such moments needs must be
if our poor mortal hearts are to be kept working, shortlived. Even as
her eager, listening ears caught the last echo of horses' hoofs outside,
some one knocked at the door.
"Fraeulein Nora, please come at once," a servant's voice called. "The
Fraeulein Hildegarde has been taken very ill, and she is asking for
you."
"I am coming," Nora answered mechanically.
Her hands had fallen to her side. The whirlwind had dropped her, as is
the way with whirlwinds, and she stood there pale and for the moment
paralysed by the shock and an undefined foreboding.
*CHAPTER IX*
*RENUNCIATION*
Frau von Arnim was waiting at the door of Hildegarde's bedroom. In the
half-light Nora saw only the dim outline of the usually grave and
composed face, but the hand that took hers betrayed more than the
brightest searchlight could have done. It was icy cold, steady, but
with something desperate in its clasp.
"Nora, are you accustomed to people who are very ill?"
"My mother is often ill," Nora answered, and the fear at her heart
seemed to pass into her very blood. "But surely Hildegarde--it is not
serious?"
Frau von Arnim shook her head.
"I do not know," she said. "She fainted suddenly, and since then she
has been in a feverish state which I do not understand. Poor little
Hildegarde!"
She spoke half to herself, quietly, almost coldly. Only Nora, strung to
that pitch of sensitiveness where the very atmosphere seems to vibrate
in sympathy, knew all the stifled pain, the infinite mother-tenderness
which the elder woman cloaked behind a stern reserve. And because the
best of human hearts is a complicated thing answering at once to a dozen
cross-influences, Nora's pity was intensified by the swift realisation
that even her wonderful new happiness might be struck down in an hour, a
minute, as this woman's had been.
"Let me look after her," she pleaded. "I can be such a good nurse. I
understand illness--and I love Hildegarde."
Something like a smile relaxed Frau von Arnim's set features. The words
had been so girlish in their enthusiasm and self-confidence.
"I know," she said, "and Hildegarde loves you. She has been asking after
you ever since she recovered consciousness. Let us go in."
She opened the door softly and led the way into the silent room. The
blinds had been drawn down, and the great four-posted bed loomed up grim
and immense at the far end, seeming to swallow up the frail, motionless
figure in its shadow.
Nora tiptoed across the heavy carpet.
"Hildegarde," she whispered, "are you better?"
The closed eyes opened full and looked at her.
"Yes, I am better. It is nothing. I fainted--only a little time after
you had gone--and since then I have not been well." She stopped, her
gaze, curiously intense and steadfast, still fixed on Nora's face. Her
sentences had come in jerks in a rough, dry voice. She now stretched out
her hand and caught Nora's arm.
"You enjoyed your ride?" she whispered. "Nothing happened?"
Troubled by the steady eyes and the feverish clasp, which seemed to burn
through to her very bone, Nora answered hastily and with a forced
carelessness.
"Nothing very much. Bruno bolted with me in the woods, and I do not
know what might have happened if Herr von Arnim had not come to my
rescue. It was all my fault."
Hildegarde turned her flushed face a little on one side.
"I knew something had happened," she said almost to herself. "It all
came over me when I fainted. I knew everything."
Nora made no answer. She was thankful for the half-light, thankful that
the large, dark eyes had closed as though in utter weariness. They had
frightened her just as the conclusive "I know everything" had done by
their infallible mysterious knowledge. "And even if you do know
everything," she thought, "why should I mind?--why should I be afraid?"
Nevertheless, fear was hammering at her heart as she turned away. Frau
von Arnim took her by the hand.
"She seems asleep," she whispered. "Let us leave her until the doctor
comes. Then we shall know better what to do."
It was as though she had become suddenly anxious to get Nora away from
the sick girl's bedside, and Nora yielded without protest. She felt
that Hildegarde's need of her had passed; that she had indeed only
waited to ask that one question, "Did anything happen?" before sinking
into a feverish stupor. Silent, and strangely sick at heart, Nora
followed Frau von Arnim from the room into the passage. There the elder
woman took the troubled young face between her hands and kissed it.
"Hildegarde loves you," she said gravely. "I perhaps know best how
much; but she has lost a great deal that makes life worth living, Nora,
and sometimes bitterness rises above every other feeling. When that
happens you must have pity and understanding. You must try and imagine
what it would be like if you lost health and strength----" She stopped
short, but Nora, struggling with the hard, painful lump in her throat,
did not notice the break. She saw only in the sad eyes the same appeal
that had met her on the first evening, "Be pitiful!" and, obeying an
irresistible impulse, she put her arms about Frau von Arnim's neck in an
outburst of conflicting feeling.
"I do understand!" she cried brokenly. "And I am so dreadfully sorry.
I would do anything to help her--to make her happy!"
"I know you would, dear Nora; but that is not in your power or mine.
She must learn happiness out of herself, as soon or late we all must do.
We can only wait and be patient."
They said no more, but they kept together, as people do who find an
instinctive consolation in each other's presence. An hour later the
doctor arrived. He pronounced high fever, apparently without any direct
cause, and ordered quiet and close watching.
"So far, it seems nothing serious," he said, with a thoughtful shake of
the head, "but she is delicate and over-sensitive. Every mental
excitement will work inevitably upon her health. She must be spared all
trouble and irritation."
According to his suggestion, Frau von Arnim and Nora shared the task of
watching in the sick-room. There was nothing for them to do, for
Hildegarde lay inert and silent, apparently unconscious of their
presence, and the hours slipped heavily past. At ten o'clock Nora took
up her post. She had slept a little, and the dark rings beneath Frau
von Arnim's eyes caused her to say gently:
"You must rest as long as you can. I am not tired. I could watch all
night."
Frau von Arnim shook her head.
"I will come again at twelve," she said, with a faint smile. "Youth
must have its sleep, and I shall be too anxious to be away long."
The door closed softly, and Nora was left to her lonely vigil. She
stood for a moment in the centre of the room, overcome by a sudden
uneasiness and fear. She had watched before, but never before had the
silence seemed so intense, the room so full of moving shadows. Except
for the reflection from the log fire and the thin ray of a shaded
night-light, the apartment was in darkness, but to Nora's excited
imagination the darkness was alive and only the outstretched figure
beneath the canopy dead. The illusion was so strong that she crept
closer, listening with beating heart. There was no sound. For one
sickening moment it seemed as though her fear had become a reality--then
a stifled sigh broke upon the stillness. Hildegarde stirred restlessly,
and again there was silence, but no longer the same, no longer so
oppressive. Death was as yet far off, and, relieved and comforted, Nora
drew an arm-chair into the circle of firelight. From where she sat she
could observe every movement of her charge without herself changing
position, and for some time she watched anxiously, self-forgetful in the
fulfilment of her duty. But then the fascination of the glowing logs
drew her eyes away, and almost without her knowledge her thoughts
slipped their leash and escaped from the gloomy room with its atmosphere
of pain, out into the forest, back to the moment when life had broken
out into full sunshine and happiness such as she had never known, and
love incomparable, irresistible, swept down upon her and bore her with
them into a new paradise. Who shall blame her if she saw in the bright
flames not Hildegarde's pale, suffering face, but the features of the
man who had wrought in her the great miracle which occurs once, surely,
in every woman's life? Who shall blame her if a half-read letter and
its writer were forgotten, or, if remembered, only with a tender pity
such as all good women must feel for honest failure? And in that pity
there was mingled a certain wonder at herself that she could ever have
supposed her feeling for Robert Arnold to be love. What was the
childish regret at parting, the casual affection for an old comrade,
blown to a warmer glow by the first harsh winds of exile, compared to
this--this wonderful Thing which in an instant had revealed to her the
possibility of a union where the loneliness, conscious or unconscious,
surrounding each individual life is bridged and the barriers between
mind and mind, heart and heart, are burnt down by the flames of a pure
and noble passion? Poor Arnold! It was well for him that he could not
know what was passing in Nora's mind nor see her face as she gazed into
the fire. He might then have wished that his letter, with its bold
self-confidence, had never been written. For the glow upon the young
features was not all fire-shine, the starlight in the dreamy eyes not
all reflected gleams from the burning logs upon the hearth. Both had
their birth within, where the greatest of all human happiness had been
kindled--but not by Arnold's hand.
Thus half an hour, and then an hour, slipped past. Lulled by her
thoughts and the absolute quiet about her, Nora sank into a doze. The
firelight faded into the distance, and half-dreaming, half-waking, she
drifted into a chaotic world of fancies and realities. She dreamed at
last that some one called her by name. She did not answer, and the call
grew louder, more persistent. It seemed to drag her against her will
back to full sensibility, and with a violent start Nora's eyes opened,
and she knew that the voice had not been part of her dreams, but that
Hildegarde was calling her with monotonous reiteration.
"Nora! Nora!"
"Yes, I am here. What is it?"
Nora drew softly to the bedside and took the outstretched hand in hers.
It burnt, as though the feverish sparkle in the wide-opened eyes was but
a signal of an inner devouring fire, and there was something, too, in
the feeble smile which hurt Nora by reason of its very piteousness.
"I ought not to have disturbed you," Hildegarde said in a dry whisper.
"It was selfish of me, but you looked so happy that I thought you could
spare me a moment. I have been so frightened."
"Frightened, dear? Of what?"
"I do not know--of myself, I think."
She turned her fair head restlessly on the pillow, as though seeking to
retrace some thought, and then once more she lifted her eyes to Nora.
They seemed unnaturally large in the half-darkness, and their expression
strangely penetrating. Nevertheless, when she spoke again Nora felt
that they sought rather to convey a message than to question.
"Nora, you will laugh at me--I want to know, have I been talking--in my
sleep, I mean?"
"No."
"I am glad." Again the same half-pleading, half-frightened smile played
about the colourless lips. "I have been having such mad dreams--not bad
dreams--only so--so untrue, so unreal. I should not have liked you to
know them. You might have thought----" She stopped, and her clasp
tightened.
"You know how I love you, don't you, Nora?"
"Yes, I think so--more than I deserve."
"Not as much, but still, very dearly. That was what I wanted to tell
you. It seems foolish--in the middle of the night like this; but I was
so afraid you would not understand. You do, though, don't you?"
"Of course." Nora spoke soothingly, but with a dim knowledge that she
had not wholly understood. There was, indeed, a message in those broken
sentences, but one to which she had no key.
"You have been good to me," Hildegarde went on rapidly. "Though you
possess all that makes life worth living, you have not jarred on me with
your wealth. You have not tried to comfort me with the truism that
there are others more suffering than I--such a poor sort of comfort,
isn't it? As though it made me happy to think that more suffering was
possible--inevitable! When I am ill, I like to think that I am the
exception--that the great law of life is happiness. And you are life
and happiness personified, Nora, and so I love you. I love you so that
I grudge you nothing--shall never grudge you anything. That is--what--I
want--you to understand!" The last words came like a sigh, and there
was a long silence. The earnest eyes had closed, and she seemed to
sleep. Nora knelt down by the bedside, still holding the thin white hand
between her own, and so remained until, overcome by weariness, her head
sank on to the coverlet. Half an hour passed, and then suddenly a rough
movement startled her from her dreams. Again she heard her name called,
this time desperately, wildly, as though the caller stood at the brink
of some hideous chasm.
"Nora! Nora!"
Nora made no answer. She stumbled to her feet and stood half-paralysed,
looking at the features which in an instant had undergone so terrible a
change. Hildegarde sat bolt upright. Her hair was disordered, her eyes,
gleaming out of the ashy face, were fixed on the darkness behind Nora
with a terrible entreaty in their depths.
"Nora! Nora! what have you done?"
Nora recovered herself with an effort. Usually strong of nerve, there
was something in the voice, in the words, which terrified her.
"Hildegarde, what do you mean? What is the matter?"
"Oh, Nora, Nora, what have you done?"
The voice had sunk to a moan so piteous, so wretched, that Nora forgot
the cold fear which for a moment held her paralysed. She tried to press
the frail figure gently back among the pillows.
"Dear, I don't know what you mean. But you must lie quiet. To-morrow
you can tell me everything----"
Hildegarde pushed her back and put her hand wildly to her head.
"Of course, you can't help it. You don't even know. How should you? A
cripple--you would never even think of it. Nobody would--they would
laugh at me or pity me. Wolff pities me now--but not then. Oh, Wolff!
Wolff!"
The name burst from the dry lips in a low cry of pain. Hitherto she had
spoken in English; she went on in German, but so clearly and with such
vivid meaning in tone and gesture that Nora, cowering at the foot of the
bed, felt that she would have understood had it been in some dead,
unknown language.
"Wolff, how good you are to me! Shall we gallop over there to the
bridge? How splendid it is to be alive, isn't it? Yes, of course I
shall keep the supper waltz for you, if you really want it. We always
have such fun together. Look! There is the Kaiser on the brown horse!
And Wolff is leading the battery with Seleneck! How splendid he looks!
Oh, Wolff! Wolff!"
Again the old cry, vibrating with all the unspoken love and pride and
happiness which the short, disjointed sentences had but indicated! They
had painted for the dazed, heart-stricken listener vivid pictures from
the past--the long, joyous gallops over the open country, the brilliant
ballroom, the parade, all the laughter, the music, the lights, and
chivalresque clash of arms--but in that one name a life had been
revealed, the inner life of a girl ripening to a pure and loving woman.
The tears burned Nora's eyes. Every word that fell from the delirious
lips struck a deeper, more fatal blow at her own happiness, yet she
could not have fled, could not have stopped her ears against their
message.
"You must work hard, Wolff," the voice went on, sunk to a sudden
gentleness. "Perhaps one day you will do something wonderful--something
that will help to make us the greatest country in the world. How proud
we shall be of you! I am proud already! Steady, Bruno! How wild you
are this morning! One last gallop! Oh, Wolff, don't look like that! It
is nothing--nothing at all! Only my back hurts. Am I not too heavy?
You are so strong." And then, with a smothered exclamation of anguish:
"Wolff, the doctor says I shall never ride again!"
A long, unbroken silence. The young, suffering face had grown grey and
pinched. There were lines about the mouth which made it look like that
of an old woman. A log fell with a crash into the fireplace. The voice
went on, toneless, expressionless:
"How the light shines on her face! She is so pretty, and she can walk
and ride. She is not half dead, like I am. No wonder he stands and
watches her! Wolff, why do you stand there? Why do you look like that?
Won't you come and sit by me? No, no, why should you? It is better so.
You play well together. _Tristan und Isolde_--I wonder if it is Fate.
They have gone out riding. I am glad. I wished it. When one is a
cripple one must conquer oneself. I can see them riding through the
park gates. They look splendid together--so handsome and young and
strong. Now they are galloping. Oh, my God, my God! Nora, what are you
doing? Something has happened! Oh, Wolff, Wolff! I know--I know you
love her!"
The voice, which had risen from note to note as though urged by some
frightful inner tumult of fear, now sank to silence. Hildegarde fell
back among the pillows. With that final tragic recognition her mind
seemed once more to be shrouded in oblivion. The look of agony passed
from her features. She was young again, young and beautiful and at
peace.
Nora stumbled. She would have fallen at the bedside had not a hand,
seeming to stretch out of the darkness, caught her and held her. It was
Frau von Arnim. How long she had been there Nora could not tell. She
felt herself being drawn gently but firmly away.
"Go to your room, Nora. Lie down and sleep. I should never have left
you. Poor child!"
In the midst of her grief the tones of deep, generous pity awoke in
Nora's heart a strange awe and wonder. She did not dare meet Frau von
Arnim's eyes. It was as though she knew she would see there a tragedy
greater than her own, a pain too sacred for words of comfort. She crept
from the room, leaving mother and daughter alone.
"Nora, Nora, what have you done?"
The words followed her; they rang in her ears as she flung herself down
by her table, burying her face in her arms in a passion of despair.
"What have I done?" she asked again and again. And all that was generous
and chivalrous in her answered:
"She loved you, and you have stolen her one happiness from her. You are
a thief. You have done the cruellest, meanest thing of your life."
Justice protested:
"How could you have known? You did not even know that _you_ loved, or
were loved--not till this morning."
Then the memory of that morning, that short-lived happiness already
crumbled and in ruins, swept over her and bore down the last barriers of
her self-control. Poor Nora! She sobbed as only youth can sob face to
face with its first great grief, desperately, unrestrainedly, believing
that for her at least life and hope were at an end. Another less
passionate, less governed by emotion would have reasoned, "It is not
your fault. You need not suffer!" Nora only saw that, wittingly or
unwittingly, she had helped to heap sorrow upon sorrow for a being who
had shown her only kindness and love. She had brought fresh misfortune
where she should have brought consolation; she had dared to love where
she had no right to love; she had kindled a love in return which could
only mean pain--perhaps worse--to those who had given her their whole
trust and affection. She had done wrong, and for her there was only one
punishment--atonement by renunciation.
The grey winter dawn crept into the little bedroom, and Nora still sat
at her table. She was no longer crying. Her eyes were wide open and
tearless. Only an occasional shudder, a rough, uneven sigh, told of the
storm that had passed over her. As the light grew stronger she took up
a crumpled letter and read it through, very slowly, as though each word
cost her an effort. When she had finished she copied an address on to
an envelope and began to write to Robert Arnold. Her hand shook so that
she had to tear up the first sheet and begin afresh, and even then the
words were scarcely legible. Once her courage almost failed her, but
she pulled herself back to her task with a pathetic tightening of the
lips.
"I know now that I do not love you," she wrote. "I know, because I have
been taught what love really is; but if you will take me with the little
I have to give, I will be your wife."
And with that she believed that she had raised an insurmountable barrier
between herself and the love which fate had made sinful.
*CHAPTER X*
*YOUTH AND THE BARRIER*
It was Hildegarde's birthday. The November sunshine had come out to do
her honour, and in every corner of her room rich masses of winter
flowers rejoiced in the cold brightness which flooded in through the
open window. Hildegarde herself lay on the sofa, where the light fell
strongest. The two long weeks in which she had hung between life and
death had wrought curiously little change in her, and what change there
was lay rather in her expression than in her features. Her cheeks were
colourless, but she had always been pale, and the ethereal delicacy
which had become a very part of herself, and which seemed to surround
her with an atmosphere of peaceful sanctity, was more spiritual than
physical. Nora, who stood beside her, watching the sunlight as it made
a halo of the fair hair, could not think of her as a suffering human
being. It was surely a spirit that lay there, with the bunch of violets
clasped in the white hands--a spirit far removed from all earthly
conflict, upheld by some inner strength and softened by a grave, serene
wisdom. And yet, Nora knew, it was only an heroic "seeming." She knew
what pictures passed before the quiet eyes, what emotions lay hidden in
the steady-beating heart, what pain the gentle lips held back from
utterance. Admiration, pity, and love struggled in Nora's soul with the
realisation of her own loss and the total ruin of her own happiness.
"But I have done right," she repeated to herself, with a kind of
desperate defiance, "and one day, if you are happy, it will be because I
also brought my sacrifice in silence." It was her one consolation--a
childish one enough, perhaps--the conviction that she had done right.
It was the one thing which upheld her when she thought of the letter
speeding to its destination and of the fate she had chosen for herself.
But it had not prevented the change with which grief and struggle mark
the faces of the youngest and the bravest.
Down below in the street the two quiet listeners heard the tramp of
marching feet which stopped beneath their window, and presently a knock
at the door heralded a strange apparition. A burly under-officer in
full dress stood saluting on the threshold.
"The regiment brings _Gnaediges Fraeulein_ its best wishes for her
birthday," he thundered, as though a dozen luckless recruits stood
before him. "The regiment wishes _Gnaediges Fraeulein_ health and
happiness, and hopes that she will approve of the selection which has
been made." He advanced with jingling spurs and held out a sheet of
paper, which Hildegarde accepted with a gentle smile of thanks.
"It is a nice programme, isn't it?" she said, as she handed the list to
Nora. "All my favourites."
"It was the Herr Hauptmann who told us what _Gnaediges Fraeulein_
liked," the gruff soldier said, still in an attitude of rigid military
correctness. "The Herr Hauptmann will be here himself before long. He
commanded me to tell _Gnaediges Fraeulein_."
"Thank you, Huber--and thank the regiment for its good wishes.
Afterwards--when the concert is over--well, you know what is waiting for
you and your men in the kitchen."
He bowed stiffly over her extended hand.
"_Danke, Gnaediges Fraeulein_." He strode back to the door, and then
turned and hesitated, his weather-beaten face a shade redder.
"The regiment will lose the Herr Hauptmann soon," he said abruptly.
"Yes, Huber. And then what will you do?"
"Go too, _Gnaediges Fraeulein_. I have served my country many years,
and when the Herr Hauptmann leaves the regiment I have had enough. One
gets old and stiff, and the time comes when one must take off the
helmet."
"That is true, Huber."
Still he hesitated.
"And _Gnaediges Fraeulein_----?"
"I, Huber?"
"_Gnaediges Fraeulein_ will go with the Herr Hauptmann?"
A deep wave of colour mounted the pale cheeks.
"It is possible we may go to Berlin for a few months."
"_Ja_, _ja_, for a few months!" He laughed, and his laugh was like the
rumble of distant thunder. "It is well, _Gnaediges Fraeulein_; it is
well." Then suddenly he stiffened, growled an "_Empfehle mich
gehorsamst_," and was gone.
Hildegarde bowed her head over the violets and there was a long silence.
Then she too laughed so naturally and gaily that Nora forgot herself and
looked at her in wondering surprise.
"He is such a strange old fellow," Hildegarde explained. "Wolff calls
him his nurse. Once in the manoeuvres he saved Wolff's life, and ever
since then he has attached himself to the family, and looks upon us all
more or less as his children. He is never disrespectful, and so we
allow him his little idiosyncrasies. One of his pet ideas is that Wolff
should marry me."
Nora repressed a start. What strange thing was this that Hildegarde
should speak so lightly, so carelessly, of the tragic loss overshadowing
both their lives?
"I think it would quite break his heart if we disappointed him,"
Hildegarde added quietly. "Is it not amusing?"
"Amusing?" Nora's hand gripped the back of the sofa. "I do not see why
it should be amusing--it is natural. Of course"--she struggled to
overcome the roughness in her voice--"every one sees how much your--your
cousin cares for you."
Again the same easy laugh answered her.
"Why, Nora, you are as bad as our military matchmaker! Of course, Wolff
is fond of me just as I am of him. We are like brother and sister; but
marriage--that is quite another matter. I am afraid I could never bring
myself to marry a man whose heart-affairs I have known ever since he was
an absurd little cadet."
Nora pushed the hair from her forehead. She felt as though the ground
had suddenly been torn from under her feet. Every resolution, every
principle, the very spirit of sacrifice to which she had clung, had been
shaken by those few simple words. Had she dreamed, then, that night
when delirium had broken open the innermost sanctuary of Hildegarde's
heart? Had it all been a wild fancy, and was this the truth? Or----
She looked full into the face raised to hers. There was a quiet
merriment in the steady eyes--a merriment which yielded gradually to
concern, but there was no sign of pain, no trace of struggle. It was
impossible to believe that those eyes held their secret, or that the
smiling lips had once uttered a cry of the greatest human agony. Yes, it
was impossible, and if impossible, why, then---- Nora could think no
further. She turned and walked mechanically to the window. The
military band had begun the wedding-march out of _Lohengrin_, but for
her it was no more than a confused sound beating against her brains.
She heard the house-gate click, and saw a well-known figure slowly mount
the steps, but she could not rouse herself to speak or think. She stood
stunned and helpless, knowing nothing of the pitying eyes that watched
her. In those moments a faint change had come over Hildegarde von
Arnim's features. The smile had died, and in its place had come a grave
peace--a peace such as is given sometimes with renunciation. Then her
eyes closed and she seemed to sleep, but her hands held fast to the
purple violets, and the sunlight falling upon the quiet face revealed a
line that is also renunciation's heritage.
Meanwhile Wolff von Arnim had entered the state drawing-room, whither
the little housemaid, overwhelmed by the plumes and glittering
epaulettes, had considered fit to conduct him. It was the one spot in
the whole house which Frau von Arnim had not been able to stamp with her
own grace and elegance. The very chairs seemed to have entered into a
conspiracy to appear stiff, and stood in comfortless symmetrical order,
and the fire smouldering upon the hearth could do nothing against the
chill atmosphere of an unloved and seldom inhabited dwelling-room.
Arnim went straight to the window. It was as though his surroundings
pressed upon him with an intolerable burden, and he remained staring
sightlessly out into the grey morning until the quiet opening of a door
told him that he was no longer alone. Even then he did not at once
turn. Only the slight convulsive tightening of the hand upon the
sword-hilt betrayed that he had heard, and Frau von Arnim had almost
reached his side before he swung round to greet her.
"Aunt Magda!" he exclaimed.
She gave him her hand, and he bent over it--remained so long with his
head bowed that it seemed a conscious prolongation of the time before
their eyes must meet.
"I hardly expected you this afternoon," she said gently, "certainly not
in such _grande tenue_. Are you on special duty?"
He did not answer at once. He stood looking at her with a curiously
absent expression.
"I came to ask after Hildegarde," he said. "Is she better?"
"Yes, much better--still very weak, of course. A fever like that is not
quickly forgotten."
She had slipped her arm through his and led him to the sofa before the
fire.
"The violets you sent are most beautiful," she went on. "They gave
Hildegarde so much pleasure. She asked me to thank you for them."
He sat down beside her and for a moment was silent, gazing into the
fire.
"Aunt Magda," he then began abruptly, "you have never told me what it
was that caused Hildegarde's illness--nor even what was the matter with
her. I--I want to know."
A faint, rather weary smile passed over Frau von Arnim's lips.
"Illness with Hildegarde is never far off, _lieber Junge_," she said.
"She is like an ungarrisoned castle exposed to the attack of every
enemy. The least thing--something which leaves you and me
unharmed--throws her off her balance no one knows how or why."
"And she was once so strong!" he said, half to himself. "Nothing could
tire her, and she was never ill--never."
"Wolff, there is no good in remembering what was and can never be
again."
"Never?" he queried.
"Not so far as we can see."
His strongly marked brows knitted themselves in pain.
"Would to God it had all happened to me!" he broke out impulsively.
"Then it would not have been so bad."
"It would have been much worse," Frau von Arnim answered. "Women suffer
better than men, Wolff. It is one of their talents. After a time,
Hildegarde will find consolation where you would only have found
bitterness."
"After a time!" he repeated. "Then she is not happy? Poor Hildegarde!"
"Even women cannot learn patience and resignation in a day."
He sprang up as though inactivity had become unbearable.
"Aunt Magda--if she is strong enough--I want to see Hildegarde."
"Why?"
Involuntarily their eyes met in a quick flash of understanding.
"Because I think that it is time for our relationship to each other to
be clearly settled," he said. "Ever since our childhood it has been an
unwritten understanding that if Hildegarde would have me we should
marry; and so I have come to ask her--if she will be my wife."
He spoke bluntly, coldly, not as he had meant to speak, but the steady
gaze on his face shook his composure.
"Have you the right to ask her that?"
"Aunt Magda!"
"Or, after all, have you been playing with the affections of a girl who
has the right to my protection?"
"Aunt Magda--that is not true--that----"
He stopped short, pale with agitation, his lips close compressed on the
hot words of self-vindication.
For a minute Frau von Arnim waited as though giving him time to speak,
and then she went on quietly:
"Wolff, we Arnims are not fond of charity. We prefer to eat out our
hearts in silence rather than be objects of the world's pity. And
Hildegarde is like the rest of us. She will not ask for your sympathy
nor your care nor your devotion. She will ask you for your whole heart.
Can you give her that?"
He made a gesture as though about to give a hasty answer, but her eyes
stopped him.
"I--love Hildegarde," he stammered. "We have been friends all our
lives."
"Friends, Wolff! I said 'your whole heart.'"
And then he saw that she knew; and suddenly the tall, broad-shouldered
man dropped down, sword-clattering, at her side and buried his face in
his hands. The smile in Frau von Arnim's eyes deepened. So he had done
in the earlier days when youthful scrapes and disappointments had sent
the usually proud, reserved boy to the one unfailing source of
understanding and consolation. Very gently she rested her hand upon his
shoulder.
"Shall you never grow up, Wolff?" she said with tender mockery. "Shall
you always be a big schoolboy, with the one difference that you have
grown conceited and believe that you can hide behind a full-dress
uniform and a gruff military voice--even from my eyes?"
He lifted his flushed, troubled face to hers.
"You know--everything?" he asked.
"Everything, _lieber Junge_. Hildegarde knows, Johann knows, the cook
knows. I should not be surprised if the very sparrows make it a subject
of their chattering. And you can go about with that stern face and
mysterious, close-shut mouth and think you have deceived us all! Oh,
Wolff, Wolff!"
"You are laughing at me," he said. "God knows I am in deadly earnest."
She took his hand between her own.
"If I laugh at you it is because I must," she said; "because it is the
only thing to do. There are some forms of quixotic madness which it is
dangerous to take seriously, and this is one of them. Wolff, you have
tortured yourself with an uncalled-for remorse until you are ready to
throw your own life and the lives of others into a huge catastrophe. In
all this, have you thought what it might mean to Nora?"
He started, and the colour ebbed out of his face, leaving it curiously
pale and haggard.
"I think of her day and night," he said hoarsely. "I pray God that she
does not know--that I shall pass out of her life and leave no trace
behind me."
"You believe that that is possible? You deceive yourself so well? You
pretend you do not love Nora, and you do not know that she loves you?"
"That I love her? Yes, I know that," he confessed desperately. "But
that she loves me--how should I know?"
"Any one would know--you must know." She put both her hands on his
shoulders and looked him firmly in the face. "Wolff, if you were honest
you would admit it. You would see that you have acted cruelly--without
intention, but still cruelly."
"Then if I have been cruel, I have been most cruel against myself," he
answered. "But I meant to do what was right--I meant to act honestly.
It is true when I say I love Hildegarde. I do love her--not perhaps as
a man should love his wife, but enough, and I had sworn that I would
make her happy, that I would compensate her for all that she has lost. I
swore that to myself months ago--before Nora came. When Nora came, Aunt
Magda"--his voice grew rough--"there are some things over which one has
no power, no control. It was all done in a minute. If I had been
honest, I should have gone away, but it would have been too late. And
as it was I deceived myself with a dozen lies. I stayed on and saw her
daily, and the thing grew until that morning when Bruno bolted. I lost
my head then. When it was all over I could not lie and humbug any more.
I had to face the truth. It was then Hildegarde fell ill. I felt it as
a sort of judgment."
He spoke in short, jerky sentences, his face set and grey with the
memory of a past struggle. He sprang to his feet and stood erect at
Frau von Arnim's side.
"Whatever else I am, I am not consciously a cad," he said. "What I had
done wrong I was determined to put right at all costs. I loved
Hildegarde, and I had dedicated my life to her happiness. Nothing and
no one must turn me from my purpose. That is why I am here this
morning." He made an impatient gesture. "I have been a fool. You have
seen through me--you have made me tell you what torture would not have
dragged out of me. But that can alter nothing."
For a moment Frau von Arnim watched his stern, half-averted face in
silence. Then she too rose.
"I have a message for you from Hildegarde," she said quietly.
He started.
"For me?"
"Yes. Those who suffer have quick eyes, quicker intuitions. She saw
this coming, and she asked me to tell you--should it come--that she
loved you too much to accept a useless sacrifice. For it would have
been useless, Wolff. You deceive yourself doubly if you believe you
could have made Hildegarde happy. Yes, if you had brought your whole
heart--then, perhaps; but it is almost an insult to have supposed that
she would have been satisfied with less. Since her illness she has told
me everything, and we have talked it over, and this is our answer to
you: Take the woman you love; be happy, and be to us what you always
were. In any other form we will have nothing to do with you!"
She was smiling again, but Arnim turned away from the outstretched
hands.
"It is awful!" he said roughly. "I cannot do it--I cannot!"
"You must, Wolff. Let time pass over it if you will, but in the end you
must yield. You dare not trample on your own happiness, on Nora's, on
Hildegarde's--yes, Hildegarde's," she repeated emphatically. "In the end
she will find happiness in her own renunciation. She loves you both,
and the first bitterness is already past. And why wait? There may be
struggles enough before you both, though I shall do my best to help you.
Go to Nora and make her happy. Believe me, _lieber Junge_, the
heart-ache has not been all on your side."
He had taken her hands now and was kissing them with a passionate,
shame-faced gratitude.
"You make me feel the lowest, meanest thing on earth," he said. "And
Hildegarde is an angel--far too good for me."
"Yes; that is the best way to put it," she said. "Hildegarde is too good
for you. And now perhaps it would be wise for you to go in search of
the woman who is your equal."
"Not now," he said. "I could not. I must be alone a little. It has
all happened so suddenly. My whole life and future has changed in a
minute."
"Do as you think best, dear Wolff. But do not wait long."
He pressed her hand again in farewell.
"You love Nora?" he asked.
"Yes; otherwise I would not have let things drift. There are many
barriers between you--race and language are not the least--and we had
thought of a match--since Hildegarde's illness--more, perhaps, in
accordance with our family traditions. But Nora is a dear, sweet child,
and, I believe, will make you a good wife. At any rate, I shall do all
I can to smooth your path, and Hildegarde and I will be happy to welcome
her as one of us."
He smiled, half in gratitude, half in doubt.
"You seem very sure that she will have me," he said. "Everybody does
not think me such a fine fellow as you do."
"_Lieber Junge_, I am a woman, and when I see a girl grow thin and pale
without apparent cause--well, I look for the cause. Nora has been very
unhappy in the last days. I suspect strongly she has been suffering
from your conflict, and no doubt looks upon her life and happiness as
ruined. That is why I tell you not to wait too long."
There was so much affection in her tone that the faint mockery in her
words left no sting.
"I will not wait long, I promise you," Wolff said.
At the door he turned and looked back at her. It was almost as though
he had meant to surprise her into a betrayal of some hidden feeling; but
Frau von Arnim had not moved, nor was there any change in the grave
face.
"Tell Hildegarde that I shall never forget," he said earnestly, "that I
owe her my happiness, and that I thank her."
"I shall give her your message," Frau von Arnim answered.
The fate that arranges the insignificant, all-important chances of our
lives ordained that at the same moment when Wolff von Arnim passed out
of the drawing-room Nora Ingestre came down the stairs. She held an open
telegram in her hand, and the light from the hall window fell on a face
white with grief and fear.
Arnim strode to meet her.
"What is it?" he demanded. "What has happened?"
"My mother is very ill," she answered faintly. "They have sent for me."
She had descended the last step. The next instant Wolff von Arnim was
at her side, and had taken her in his arms.
"_Mein Liebling!_" he whispered. "_Mein armes Liebling!_"
She yielded, overwhelmed by the swiftness of his action, by her own wild
heart-throb of uncontrollable joy. Then she tried to free herself.
"You must not!" she cried. "It is not right!"
"My wife!" he retorted triumphantly. "My wife!"
She looked up into his face. At no time had he been dearer to her,
seemed more worthy of her whole love, than he did then, with his own joy
subdued by an infinite tenderness and pity. But the name "wife" had
rung like a trumpet-call, reminding and threatening even as it tempted.
"Oh, Wolff!" she said, "you must let me go. It is not possible--you do
not understand. I----"
She was going to tell him of the barrier she had raised with her own
hands, of the letter that was on its way. She was going to say to him,
"I am not free. My word is given to another. Seek your happiness where
it awaits you." In some such words she meant to shatter her own life
and lay the first stones of the atonement to the girl whose happiness
she had stolen. Or, after all, had it been no theft? Was it not
possible that she had been deceived? And even if it were true, had it
not been said, "A useless sacrifice is no sacrifice at all"? Had she
not a right to her happiness? And Wolff was speaking, and it seemed to
her that his joy and triumph answered her.
"Nothing can come between us and our love!" he said. "Nothing and no
one! Oh, Nora, _ich habe dich so endlos lieb_!"
The barrier, the letter, Hildegarde, every heroic resolution was
forgotten, swept away by the man's passion and her own exulting love.
Nora leant her head against the dark-blue coat in reckless, thankful
surrender.
"_Ich habe dich so endlos lieb!_" he repeated. "_Kannst du mich auch
lieb haben?_"
And she answered fearlessly:
"I love you!" and kissed him.
Such was Nora Ingestre's brief courtship and betrothal.
*CHAPTER XI*
*WOLFF MAKES HIS DEBUT IN DELFORD*
The family Ingestre was once more united. As far as could be judged
from appearances, the union was a complete one. Domestic peace and
prosperity seemed to hover like benignant spirits over the tableau which
concluded the day's round. Mrs. Ingestre lay as usual on her couch
beneath the light of the tall red-shaded lamp, her husband was seated at
the table, poring over a volume of the latest dogma, whilst his son,
still suffering from the results of a nervous breakdown (attributed to
overwork), reclined in the most comfortable arm-chair by the fireside,
and imbibed military wisdom from a London daily. If there was any note
of discord in this harmony, it came from Nora. She stood opposite her
brother, with her elbow resting on the mantelpiece, and the firelight
betrayed a warning flash in the wide-open eyes and a tense line about
the mouth which boded not altogether well for peace. Her father had
glanced once or twice over his spectacles in her direction, but had
seemed satisfied. On the whole, she had taken her abrupt and alarming
recall with surprising docility and had accepted the obvious
exaggeration of the Rev. John's report concerning her mother without
resentment. Mrs. Ingestre had been ill, but then she was always more or
less ill, and the degree more had scarcely justified the good
gentleman's excited telegram. Were the truth admitted, he had been glad
to seize upon an excuse to withdraw Nora from the "pernicious influence"
of her foreign surroundings, and the strain of copying his sermons and
attending to his own affairs generally had given the casting vote. As
it has been said, Nora's docility had been as agreeable as it was
surprising, and he attributed it to causes very satisfactory to himself.
It was obvious, as he had explained triumphantly to Mrs. Ingestre, that
Nora had had a bitter lesson "amongst these foreigners," and was only
too glad to be home. Hitherto Nora had allowed him to cherish this
delusion--hence the undisturbed peace in the family circle.
The French clock on the mantelpiece struck nine. Nora started and looked
up, as though she had been waiting for the sound. Then she turned and
stood with her back to the fire, her hands clasped behind her, her head
held resolutely. "Father and mother," she began, "I have something
important to tell you."
The Rev. John turned over a page before considering the speaker. The
formality of the address and Nora's general attitude would have startled
him if he had been any judge of outward and visible signs, but he was
one of those men who only see what they have made up their mind to see,
and just at that moment he was determined to look upon Nora in something
of the light of a returned and repentant prodigal.
"Well, my dear," he asked indulgently, "what is it?"
"I want to tell you"--Nora took a deep breath--"that I am engaged to be
married."
The Rev. John removed his spectacles.
"To whom?"
"To Captain von Arnim."
For a full minute her father said nothing. Miles sat up as though a
bomb had exploded in his close proximity. Only Mrs. Ingestre remained
unmoved. She was watching her daughter with grave, thoughtful eyes, but
there was an unmistakable, half-whimsical, half-pitying smile about her
mouth. The Rev. John passed his hand over his head, thereby ruffling a
thin wisp of hair, which, usually decorously smoothed over a wide
surface, now stood on end in a fashion wholly inconsistent with the
seriousness of the moment. But of this he was fortunately ignorant. To
do him justice, his agitation was unfeigned. The blow had demoralised
him, and to cover the momentary mental paralysis he took refuge in an
obstinate refusal to understand what had been said to him.
"My dear," he began amiably, "you mentioned that some one was going to
be married--I did not catch the names. Would you mind repeating----?
"I said that Captain von Arnim has asked me to be his wife," Nora
answered steadily.
"The impertinence of the fellow!" Miles had by this time recovered his
self-possession sufficiently to speak. "I hope you sent him to the
right-about?"
"I kissed him," Nora explained, with a gleam of humour.
"Nora!"
"There was no reason why I shouldn't. He is to be my husband."
Miles swore under his breath. The Rev. John rose with what would have
been dignity but for his ruffled hair-dress.
"Nora--you--you--are talking nonsense," he jerked out. "I cannot
believe that you know what you are saying. A--a--foreigner--a--a man of
whom I know nothing!----"
"You will get to know him in time," Nora put in hastily.
"Do not interrupt me. I am grieved--shocked beyond words. I can only
suppose that you have been led astray--eh--blinded by the glamour of a
uniform. It is terrible. This is the reward of my weakness. Have I
not always seen this coming?"--(here the reverend gentleman exaggerated,
since the gift of prophecy had not been granted him)--"have I not always
protested against your absence? But I at least supposed that--that Frau
von Arnim was a woman who could be trusted--who would protect you from
the--eh--attentions of a----"
"Frau von Arnim is the best woman I have ever met, except mother," Nora
broke in again. "As to Wolff----"
"Wolff!" Miles laughed loudly. "Just think of it, people! 'Wolff' for
my brother-in-law! A German bounder in the family! Many thanks!"
There was a moment's electric silence. The Rev. John had by this time
recovered his professional eloquence, and was preparing to settle down
to the work of exhortation with a zest. It was perhaps fortunate that
Nora's face was turned away, otherwise he might have found less pleasure
in listening to his own rounded periods.
"Miles puts the matter a trifle pointedly," he began, "but, on the
whole, he expresses my own views. For many reasons I strongly disapprove
of an English girl marrying out of her people, and as you are too young
and inexperienced to appreciate those reasons, you must submit to my
simple authority. I must, dear child, absolutely refuse my consent to
this premature and regrettable engagement. I have no doubt that Frau
von Arnim will see for herself that in her anxiety to effect an
advantageous alliance for her nephew she has been over-hasty--I must
say, inexcusably hasty, in giving her sanction."
"Thank goodness _that_ is knocked on the head!" Miles said, rising
triumphantly to his feet. "I swear to you, the bare possibility makes
me feel positively faint. We all know what German officers are
like--bullying drinkers and gamblers----"
Nora turned and looked at him. There was something very like hatred in
her dangerously bright eyes.
"I forbid you to speak like that of a class to which my future husband
belongs!" she said. "Besides what you said being nonsense, it is also
cowardly to attack where no chance is given to defend. As to my
engagement"--she turned again to her father, and her voice grew calm and
firm--"whether you give your consent or not makes no real difference. In
a short time I shall be of age, and then I shall marry Wolff. We can
afford to wait, if it must be."
"Nora!" The Rev. John recovered his breath with difficulty. "How can
you--how dare you speak to me like that? Have you forgotten that I am
your father--that----"
"I have not forgotten anything," Nora interrupted, in the same steady
accents, "but it would be hypocritical of me to pretend a submission
which I do not feel and which I should consider disloyal. Hitherto my
duty has been towards you--it is now due to the man whom I love above
every other earthly consideration. It does not matter in the least to
me that Wolff is a foreigner. If he were a Hottentot it would make no
difference."
Neither the Rev. John nor his son found any immediate answer. They
looked at the proud, determined face, and perhaps in various degrees of
distinctness each realised that Nora the child was a creature of the
past, and that this was a woman who stood before them, armed and
invulnerable in the strength of her awakened passion.
The Rev. John, completely thrown out of his concept by this unexpected
revelation, looked at his wife with the weak appeal of a blusterer who
suddenly discovers that he has blustered in vain. Mrs. Ingestre saw the
look--possibly she had been waiting for it.
"I think that, if all Nora says is true, we have no right to interfere,"
she said quietly, "and the best thing we can do is to ask Captain von
Arnim to come and see us. What do you say, Nora?"
Nora's whole face lit up, but she said nothing, only looked at her
father and waited. Had she burst out into a storm of girlish delight
and gratitude, the Rev. John might have plucked up courage and held his
ground, but that steady self-repression indicated a strength of purpose
of which he himself was incapable. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Since my authority is denied in my own house, there is no object in
appealing to me," he said peevishly. "Do what you like--only, in the
future remember that I warned you. You have taken your life into your
own hands, Nora. I can no longer hold myself responsible."
"All I beg is that I shall be allowed to keep out of the way when the
beggar comes here," Miles said, as he followed his indignant parent out
of the room.
The moment the door had closed Nora left her place of defence by the
fire and came to Mrs. Ingestre's side.
"I know you are wondering why I did not tell you before, mother," she
said rapidly and clearly. "It was because I did not want to drag you
into it more than I could help. I know what you have to bear when
father thinks you are 'abetting' me. I wanted to fight my battle
alone."
"And I suppose you think you have won, Nora?"
"Yes, I think so. Father can do nothing."
"I was not thinking of that."
Nora looked down into the pale face and wondered at the pity which
mingled with the tenderness of its expression.
"Of what were you thinking, mother?"
Mrs. Ingestre sighed.
"Are you so sure of yourself, little girl?" she asked gently. "Is your
love really above every earthly consideration? Can you give up your
home, your country, your language, your ways, us--your people, without a
heart-ache? Do you realise that you are bringing your love the greatest
of all sacrifices?"
"Mother, it is a sacrifice Wolff will never ask of me."
"Life will ask it of you--not even Wolff can alter the laws of life.
The day may come when Circumstance will say to you that you must choose.
And what then?"
Nora was silent. Then she lifted her head.
"Then, mother, I should have to choose. It is true--my love is
strongest in me."
Mrs. Ingestre sank back among her pillows.
"God help you, dear!" she said under her breath.
Nora waited a moment. There was something more that she had to
tell--the story of a letter written in a fervour of self-sacrifice, and
of another letter written two weeks later, a pitiful letter containing a
confession and a plea for forgiveness. But she recognised the signs of
exhaustion, and crept softly back to the fire. After all, it would do
another day. Another day! That most pitiful of all excuses had haunted
her from the moment that she had felt Wolff von Arnim's arms about her,
and she was honest enough to despise it and herself. But she was
afraid. She was convinced that Wolff would not understand either her old
friendship with Robert Arnold or her subsequent folly in accepting a man
she did not love. Nor could she explain, for the one explanation
possible was the sacred secret of Hildegarde's heart. She was equally
convinced that her mother would disapprove of her silence and demand
that she should deal honestly with the man she was to marry. She knew
that her mother would be right, and indeed she meant to tell the
truth--but not now. The new happiness was too insecure. And then, the
episode, foolish and even disloyal as it had been, was closed and done
with. Robert Arnold had obviously accepted her final acknowledgment of
the truth, and had silently gone his way. He had not answered either
letter, and probably they would not meet again, or, at any rate, not
until the wound had healed and been forgotten. Was it not wiser,
therefore, to keep silence also--for the present? Thus Nora argued with
her own conscience, and, torn between a natural rectitude and a
headstrong love, came to no conclusion, but let the matter drift until
that well-known "some time" which, had she been wiser, she would have
recognised as an equivalent for "never."
But at least the great battle for her liberty had been fought and won.
An invitation was promptly sent to Karlsburg and as promptly accepted,
and the day dawned which was to see Wolff's triumphal entry into the
enemy's stronghold. Even Miles, though the permission to "keep out of
the way" would have been willingly granted him as far as Nora was
concerned, insisted on making his future brother-in-law's arrival an
excuse for returning on leave.
"The sooner I get the blow over the better," he said, and gratuitously
undertook to accompany Nora and her father to the station when the
unloved guest was expected.
There were more people on the platform than was usual at that time of
the day. From one source and another, Delford had got to know all about
Nora's engagement; and though, from the station-master's "Well, I call
it a real downright shame that a pretty girl should throw herself away
on one of them there Proosians!" to Mrs. Clerk's "Dear me, how
dreadful!" the chorus of disapproval had been rung on every possible
change, still, a good many of the disapprovers had found it necessary to
be present at the arrival of the London express. Nora herself noticed
nothing unusual. She was overwhelmed by a sense of unreality which made
the incidents of the last months seem like pictures from a confused
dream. Everything had happened so swiftly. Love, despair, and happiness
had trodden on each other's heels; and in the same moment that she had
grasped her happiness with both hands, she had been swept away, back
into the old surroundings where that happiness had no place. And now
that it was coming to her, seeking her out, as it were, in the enemy's
territory, she could hardly be sure whether it were really true, whether
Wolff himself were not some dream-figure who had won her in another and
less everyday existence.
In the midst of her bewildered thoughts the express steamed into the
little station, and the next minute Wolff had become a living, breathing
reality, who swept down upon her and kissed her, regardless of all the
Delfordites in the world. When he gave her time and opportunity to look
at him, she felt that he, too, had undergone a change, and had taken on
something of his surroundings. She would hardly have recognised him in
the plain tweed suit and bowler hat. Neither became him so well as his
uniform--to tell the truth, neither fitted him with any great
exactitude, and it was all too evident that the suit was "ready-made."
But the face, strong and tanned, flushed now with his joy at seeing her,
was the same. It carried her memory back to that wonderful hour when he
had lifted her out of the deepest despair to an intoxicating happiness,
and she, too, forgot the Delfordites and the disapproving glances of her
relations, and clung to him in a transport of delight.
"My little Nora!" he said, "the weeks have been months!"
"I am not sure that they have not been years!" she cried, laughing. And
then she remembered her father and brother, and hastened to perform the
ceremony of introduction. The three men shook hands, the Rev. John with
solemnity, Miles with a covert sneer and a glance which took in every
detail of the newcomer's person. Either the solemnity or the sneer
worked depressingly on Wolff's spirits. He grew suddenly quiet and
grave, though his eyes, when they met Nora's, flashed with a smothered
happiness which she read and understood.
But the drive home in the narrow confines of the Delford brougham
remained in Nora's memory as one of the most painful in her experience.
The Rev. John persisted in his funereal solemnity, and talked of the
weather, the journey, and the crops, very much as though he were trying
to take their minds off the unpleasant circumstances which had brought
them together. As to Miles, he sat in the far corner with his hands in
his pockets and stared out of the window--when he was not staring the
new-comer out of countenance.