IN LOVE.
It was scarcely possible that the result of his visit could be
otherwise than it had proved; for Natalie was no common-place beauty,
but one who had subdued the hearts of many more men than Charlie
Balgonie--men, who now at Moscow and St. Petersburg were counting the
days of her exile from the Court of Catharine: and when Charlie
thought of her in after years, the calm repose of his days of
convalescence, the aspect and furniture of his chamber in the old
Castle of Louga, the genial glow of the peitchka, the double window
sashes with their bright false flowers between, the Byzantine picture
of the Holy Virgin with its shining metal halo, and the varnished
panels of the walls, were all associated, as in a pleasant dream,
with the dark and beautiful eyes, the round taper arms, the white and
delicate hands on which so many diamonds glittered, the jetty hair
that was twisted in massive braids (yet fell in ringlets too) round
the superb head,--the graceful, floating, and statuesque figure of
Natalie Mierowna, always so richly, even coquettishly attired.
Natalie, so soft, so tender, and so true, in all the relations of
life and the amenities of society; and yet who could be so keen in
her hate, so fiery in her political rancour, when thinking of her own
injuries, and the terrible wrongs of the captive Ivan, whose adherent
she had become.
Charlie Balgonie blessed the exile and choice of circumstances, all
so sudden and unforeseen, which had cast him in her path. He loved
her with all the passionate adoration so beautiful and winning a
woman could inspire in a young and ardent heart; nor was it long
before Natalie became aware of this, and was affected by the same
emotion. There was one glance given, by which "each read and
understood each other's soul." Lovers soon find means to comprehend
each other, and Mariolizza, who speedily guessed their secret, which
she certainly thought a dangerous one, found many excuses to leave
them often together.
The long, long dream of his youth and early manhood,--the waking
dream of many a lonely hour of reverie in the summer woods, by the
seashore, or in the still hours of military duty, in camp and
bivouac--a fair face that would smile on him,--a girl to love, and
worship, and trust,--one who would trust and love him in return, was
embodied at last; and in Natalie he saw this hitherto imaginary
sphinx of whom he had been thinking, and for whom he had been waiting
so long.
Her voice, her smile, her presence, seemed to fill the air he
breathed with a new charm, that made every nerve thrill, investing
the most simple and common wants of every-day life with sudden
delights and joys; in short, and in common phraseology, the poor
young man was "over head and ears in love."
The declaration of his passion, and Natalie's acceptance of it, came
about just as others have done; and for three days after,--without
looking the future confidently or inquiringly in the face,--Balgonie
abandoned himself to the delight of his new and successful passion,
and forgot all about the troublesome Empress, her pressing dispatch,
and the terrors of Lieutenant-General Weymarn.
How could he think of such, when seated in the half-curtained alcove
which opened off the drawing-room, on those calm April evenings; when
the soft breeze that floated over the vast forests came laden with
the odour of the spruce and fir boughs? Seated, with Natalie--in all
the glory of her youth, her beauty, and the flush of her first
love--by his side, often deftly and with rapid fingers weaving up the
coils of her heavy black hair (which would come down, somehow, on
these occasions); as she did so, displaying to greater advantage than
ever the magnificent contour of her bust, her white shoulders, and
taper arms, and adding even to the coquettish side glance of the
half-veiled eye, the most splendid of all her natural ornaments were
those great, heavy loose braids on which the sunlight shone.
What was to be the future of all this?
On the strong friendship of Basil Mierowitz he could fully rely; but
then Natalie was on bad terms with the vindictive Empress, and he,
Balgonie, was a soldier, and, according to the rules of the Russian
service, could not marry without permission from his colonel, who, at
present, would not dare to accord it, circumstanced as the bride
would be.
Marry? What would the proud old Russian boyar say, or do, or think,
when he heard that the penniless Scot--the mere adventurer--the
soldier of fortune, was the accepted lover of his daughter, and that
he had dared to lift his eyes to her otherwise than in the way of
solemn and awful respect?
If his High Excellency could have but peeped into the aforesaid
alcove on some of the occasions referred to! The mere fact of being
a Scot would not have conveyed much to the mind of the Count. If to
any unlettered Englishman of the present day, the names of Moldavia,
Croatia, Bulgaria, Servia, Pomerania, Grodno, Mingrelia, and so
forth, give but a vague idea of their whereabouts or history, it was
perhaps worse in the Count's instance; for so far as he, worthy man,
was concerned, or for all he knew to the contrary, the Land of Cakes
might have been in the flying island of Laputa.
"He would be furious, no doubt," thought Balgonie; "but he might
soothe his troubled mind by flogging a few serfs, shooting a few
brown bears, and draining sundry horns of quass."
Charlie had been present at more than one Russian marriage and
betrothal, and the coolness of the ceremony had excited his
astonishment and repugnance; for, in that country, those
life-enduring arrangements are concluded by a mere match-maker, who
makes the proposal, not to the girl, but to her father. He
remembered particularly the case of Lieutenant Tschekin's espousal
with the daughter of General Weymarn, who, having stated her dower to
the go-between,--a thousand peasants or so,--the gallant subaltern
was satisfied, and thus, as usual, the whole affair was settled
without the taste or inclination of the young lady being consulted or
considered. In Russia, the papa consents, and, according to some old
custom, mamma pretends to object and weep.
"My daughter," said the General, "I have given you away in presence
of my aide-de-camp."
"To one I know, father?" she asked.
"No."
"To whom, then?" she continued, perfectly undisturbed.
"One you shall soon know--here he comes; and this is thy bridegroom,
daughter: art satisfied?"
The young lady, of course, declared she was satisfied. She and the
Lieutenant placed their hands behind them, stretched out their necks,
pouting their lips for a very frigid kiss, and the matter was soon
concluded by a priest.
When Balgonie thought of the delicacy and gentleness of Natalie, and
remembered the marriage of the Lieutenant Tschekin, he shrunk alike
from the idea of seeing her subjected to the mummery of a Greek
espousal and the vulgar horrors of a wedding feast and drinking bout
_à la Russe_.
At last he began to wake from his dream, to find the stern necessity
of departing; and, indeed, the snub-nosed Podatchkine, who was always
hovering about, seemed as a perpetual reminder of the duty he was
neglecting. The lovers were solemnly betrothed in
secret,--Mariolizza was their only confidant,--and at present they
could but arrange to wait until they could mutually confide in Basil
Mierowitz, whom Natalie, ere long, expected to see. To write to each
other, save by special messenger, was deemed at present unwise; but
Balgonie would visit her as he returned again to Novgorod.
So the last evening they were to spend together came; and they were
seated, wreathed in each other's arms, with Natalie's cheek resting
on Balgonie's shoulder, in an embowered rustic seat, not far from the
very place where he had so boldly crossed the swollen river on that
eventful night.
Charlie's heart was full of sadness and bewilderment; he could but
mutter and whisper of his love and their hopes, and again and again
kiss Natalie on the cheek, on the lips and snowy neck, her hands and
arms, while her tears flowed fast; for she had all the cooing
tenderness of a ringdove now, and could only murmur from time to
time:--
"Oh, Carl, Carl--my own Carl!" and so forth; and, like other young
ladies similarly circumstanced on the eve of separation, believed
herself to be the most miserable being in the world. But amid all
this, she suddenly started and grew pale, on seeing a figure approach.
"See, Carl, see!" she exclaimed: "that horrible woman must be ominous
of evil at such a time. Why has she been permitted to approach?"
Balgonie saw, at a little distance, only a Russian gipsy girl,
possessed evidently of considerable personal attractions. She stood
timidly, and irresolute whether to advance or retire; and bowed her
head with great humility, while crossing her fine but dusky hands and
arms upon her breast. In old age the Russian female gipsies are as
remarkable for their extreme hideousness, as in youth they are famous
for personal beauty; so this young girl was full of picturesque
loveliness, and instead of being clothed in rags, as the wanderers of
her race are elsewhere, her costume was brilliant in colours and rich
in material. She had large glittering ear-rings; a gaudy kerchief
bound her black tresses; and her rounded cheeks being freely rouged,
added to the wonderful lustre of her dark and dusky eyes, and to the
generally theatrical character of her singular beauty and bearing.
"Oh!" resumed Natalie, with something of a shudder, "'tis Olga
Paulowna: don't let her speak to us in our parting hour, Carl, lest
we be compelled to hear her sing, and that may perhaps bode evil.
The dvornick, I understand, has thrice by dog and whip driven away
this gipsy girl, who has come to the house again and again,
ostensibly to seek alms, but doubtless only to steal or work mischief
by her cunning; for though our Russian gipsies are not allowed to
pitch their tents on any land without the express consent of the
owner, this girl's brother, Nicholas Paulovitch (as he calls
himself), a half-blood, has permanently settled on our estate,
somewhere in the forests, though he is despised and loathed by the
peasantry, whom, doubtless, he loathes and hates most cordially in
turn. I do wish she would go away without being ordered to do so."
Little did Natalie know that those ill-requited visits of the poor
gipsy girl had direct reference to the life and safety of him whose
hand clasped hers so tenderly and confidingly.
"Faugh!" said Natalie, with increasing annoyance; "she is about to
sing,--something naughty no doubt,--but her voice will soon summon
the dvornick."
Many of those female wanderers in Russia can sing divinely; and it is
on record that even the great Catalani was so enchanted by the
melodious voice of a gipsy girl at Moscow, that she took from her own
shoulders a superb shawl, which had been given to her by the Empress,
and placed it on those of the nomadic singer, "as a tribute from art
to nature."
And Olga now began to sing with great sweetness one of those Russian
songs, by which the gipsies, to flatter the people, sought to
foretell the downfall of the Crescent; and many such prophetic
strains were current even during the war in the Crimea, as
foreshadowing the fate of the "sick man" at Constantinople.
"Years after years shall roll,
Ages o'er ages glide.
Before the world's control
Shall check the Crescent's pride.
Banished from place to place,
Where'er the ocean's roar,
The mighty gipsy race,
Shall visit every shore.
"But when the hundredth year
Shall three times doubled be,
Then shall the end appear
Of all their slavery.
Then shall the warlike powers
From distant climes return,
Egypt again be ours,
While the Turkish domes shall burn!
"Again the Christian's cross
Shall over Stamboul wave,
And ruin, weeds, and moss,
Mark the last Sooltan's grave!
Again shall Christian bells
Ring where the Muezzins cry,
When across the Dardanelles
The Moslem hordes shall fly!
"So Egypt shall be freed,
Her tribes return once more,
Their flocks and herds to feed
Where their fathers dwelt of yore:
When all our warlike powers
From distant climes return,
Then Egypt shall be ours,
While the Turkish turrets burn!"
The last line ended in a shriek, with which a cry from Natalie
mingled; for the cruel dvornick had been stealing through the thicket
unperceived, and now bestowed a heavy lash across the tender
shoulders of the cowering and shrinking girl; but ere he could repeat
it, Balgonie sprang forward, arrested the descending whip, and then,
placing in the hand of the singer a few Livonian groschen, bade her
hasten away, on which she departed, with tears of pain and gratitude,
after pressing his fingers to her lips; and, in her terror and
confusion, leaving her task undone--her warning of coming treachery
untold.
"Oh, Carl!" said Natalie, laying her head again on Balgonie's breast,
"dearest Carl, I am so glad she has gone without anathematizing
us--or, or weaving some mischievous spell; for, smile as you may, I
can't help fearing those people! I am a true Russian, and dread the
evil eye!"
Richer by a lock of dark and silky hair and a diamond ring (both the
objects of many a secret kiss), but leaving his heart behind him, in
one swift hour after this little episode, Balgonie had departed to
meet, and, for greater security, to travel in consort with, a caravan
of a hundred and fifty boors, who were conveying sugar from Moscow to
St. Petersburg.
He was guided again by the sly Podatchkine, who had resolved to take
especial good care that the said caravan should be avoided.
"God be with you, Hospodeen--God be with you--adieu," said the old
Count, lifting his square velvet cap courteously, as he bade farewell
to his guest at the porte-cochère.
Balgonie so respectfully kissed the hands of Natalie and Mariolizza,
that none could have detected a difference in his manner to either;
and certainly none could have suspected that the tears of the former
were yet wet upon his cheek--her kisses lingering on his lip, that he
seemed to leave his soul upon her hand, and that the wrung hearts of
both were swollen with concealed emotion.
"Uich!" thought Corporal Michail Podatchkine as he rode after the
officer into the deep forest, "I'd as soon think of kissing the foot
as the hand; who knows among what carrion either may have been stuck?
By St. Nicholas, I would rather eat a sheep's tail or a rump steak
from an old troop mare than kiss either."
Some hours after Balgonie's departure, and when Natalie in the
solitude of her own room was abandoned to tears and unavailing
regrets, a trusted messenger from her brother arrived with a brief
note, written so enigmatically that none save herself could have
understood or deciphered it; but the spirit of it was briefly this:--
"All is arranged for freeing the prisoner of S. (chlusselburg) by a
stratagem. A dispatch that may counteract, if not baffle our plans,
and fatally compromise us all, has been sent by old Weymarn to St.
Petersburg. I know not who the bearer is; but be assured of this,
_he will never reach it alive_. We have set Podatchkine on his
track, and he, worthy Livonian, for two hundred roubles, would skin
his own father alive."
After reading this pleasant epistle, little wonder is it that Natalie
was found by Mariolizza, as the twilight deepened, half senseless
upon her bed, cold, in tears, and utterly miserable.