The sun was setting when the Countess Wanda returned from her distant
ride. She dismounted at the foot of the terrace-steps and ascended them
slowly, with Donau and Neva behind her, both tired and breathless.
'You are safe home, my love?' said the Princess, turning her head
towards the steps.
'Yes, dear mother mine; you always, I know, think that Death gets up on
the saddle. Is anything amiss? You looked troubled.'
'I have a message for you,' said the Princess with a sigh, and she gave
Sabran's.
Wanda von Szalras heard in silence. She showed neither surprise nor
regret.
The Princess waited a little.
'Well,' she said, at length, 'well, you do not even ask me why he
goes!'
'You say he has been called away,' her niece answered. 'Surely that is
reason enough.'
'You have no heart, Wanda.'
'I do not understand you,' said the Countess von Szalras, very coldly.
'Do you mean to say you have not seen that he loved you?'
The face of Wanda grew colder still.
'Did he instruct you to say this also?'
'No, no,' said the Princess, hurriedly, perceiving her error. 'He
only bade me say that he was called away and must leave at once, and
begged you to accept through me his adieus and the expression of his
gratitude. But it is very certain that he does love you, and that
because he is too poor and too proud to say so he goes.'
'You must weave your little romance!' said her niece, with some
impatience, striking the gilt wicker table with her riding-whip. 'I
prefer to think that M. de Sabran is, very naturally, gone back to the
world to which he belongs. My only wonder has been that he has borne so
long with the solitudes of the Szalrassee.'
'If you were not the most sincere woman in the world, I should believe
you were endeavouring to deceive me. As it is,' said the Princess,
with some temper, 'I can only suppose that you deceive yourself.'
'Have you any tea there?' said her niece, laying aside her gauntlets
and her whip, and casting some cakes to the two hounds.
She had very plainly and resolutely closed the subject almost before
it was fairly opened. The Princess, a little intimidated and keenly
disappointed, did not venture to renew it.
When, the next morning, questioning Hubert, the Princess found
that indeed her favourite had left the island monastery at dawn,
the landscape of the Hohe Tauern seemed to her more monotonous and
melancholy than it had ever done, and the days more tedious and dull.
'You will miss the music, at least,' she said, with asperity, to her
niece. 'I suppose you will give him as much regret as you have done at
times to the Abbé Liszt?'
'I shall miss the music, certainly,' said the Countess Wanda, calmly.
'Our poor Kapellmeister is very indifferent. If he were not so old
that it would be cruel to displace him, I would take another from the
Conservatorium.'
The Princess was irritated and even incensed at the reply, but she let
it pass. Sabran's name was mentioned no more between them for many
days.
No one knew whither he had gone, and no tidings came of him to
Hohenszalras.
One day a foreign journal, amongst the many news-sheets that came by
post there, contained his name: 'The Marquis de Sabran broke the bank
at Monte Carlo yesterday,' was all that it said in its news of the
Riviera.
'A winner at a _tripot_, what a hero for you, mother mine!' she said
with some bitterness, handing the paper to the Princess. She was
surprised at the disgust and impatience which she felt herself. What
could it concern her?
That day as she rode slowly through the grass drives of her forests,
she thought with pain of her companion of a few weeks, who so late had
ridden over these very paths beside her, the dogs racing before them,
the wild flowers scenting the air, the pale sunshine falling down
across the glossy necks of their horses.
'He ought to do better things than break a bank at a gaming-place,' she
thought with regret. 'With such natural gifts of body and mind, it is a
sin--a sin against himself and others--to waste his years in those base
and trivial follies. When he was here he seemed to feel so keenly the
charm of Nature, the beauty of repose, the possibility of noble effort.'
She let the reins droop on her mare's throat and paced slowly over the
moss and the grass; though she was all alone--for in her own forests
she would not be accompanied even by a groom--the colour came into
her face as she remembered many things, many words, many looks, which
confirmed the assertion Madame Ottilie had made to her.
'That may very well be,' she thought; 'but if it be, I think my
memory might have restrained him from becoming the hero of a gambling
apotheosis.'
And she was astonished at herself to find how much regret mingled with
her disgust, and how much her disgust was intensified by a sentiment of
personal offence.
When she reached home it was twilight, and she was told that her cousin
Prince Egon Vàsàrhely had arrived. She would have been perfectly glad
to see him, if she had been perfectly sure that he would have accepted
quietly the reply she had sent to his letter received on the night of
the great storm. As it was she met him in the blue-room before the
Princess Ottilie, and nothing could be said on that subject.
Prince Egon, though still young, had already a glorious past behind
him. He came of a race of warriors, and the Vàsàrhely Hussars had been
famous since the days of Maria Theresa. The command of that brilliant
regiment was hereditary, and he had led them in repeated charges
into the French lines and the Prussian lines with such headlong and
dauntless gallantry that he had been called the 'Wild Boar of Taròc'
throughout the army. His hussars were the most splendid cavalry that
ever shook their bridles in the sunlight on the wide Magyar plains.
Their uniform remained the same as in the days of Aspern, and he was
prodigal of gold, and embroidery, and rich furs, and trappings, with
that martial coquetry which has been characteristic of so many great
soldiers from Scylla to Michael Skobeleff.
With his regiment in the field, and without it in many adventures in
the wilder parts of the Austrian Empire and on the Turkish border, he
had become a synonym for heroism throughout the Imperial army, whilst
in his manner and mode of life no more magnificent noble ever came from
the dim romantic solitudes of Hungary to the court and the capital.
He had great personal beauty; he had unrivalled traditions of valour;
and he had a character as generous as it was daring: but he failed to
awaken more than a sisterly attachment in the heart of his cousin. She
had been so used to see him with her brothers that he seemed as near
to her as they had been. She loved him tenderly, but with no sort of
passion. She wondered that he should care for her in that sense, and
grew sometimes impatient of his reiterated prayers.
'There are so many women who would listen to him and adore him,' she
said. 'Why must he come to me?
Before Bela's death, and before she became her own mistress, she had
always urged that her own sisterly affection for Egon made any thought
of marriage with him out of the question.
'I am fond of him as I was of Gela and Victor,' she said often to those
who pressed the alliance upon her; 'but that is not love. I will not
marry a man whom I do not love.'
When she became absolutely her own mistress he was for some time
silent, fearing to importune her, or to seem mercenary. She had become
by Bela's death one of the greatest alliances in Europe. But at
length, confident that his own position exempted him from any possible
appearance of covetousness, he gently reminded her of her father's and
her brother's wishes; but to no effect. She gave him the same answer.
'You are sure of my affection, but I will not do you so bad a service
as to become your wife. I have no love for you.' From that he had no
power to move or change her. He had made her many appeals in his
frequent visits to Hohenszalras, but none with any success in inducing
her to depart from the frank and placid regard of close relationship.
She liked him well, and held him in high esteem; but this was not love;
nor, had she consented to call it love, would it ever have contented
the impetuous, ardent, and passionate spirit of Egon Vàsàrhely.
They could not be lovers, but they still remained friends, partly
through consanguinity, partly because he could bear to see her thus so
long as no other was nearer to her than he. They greeted each other
now cordially and simply, and talked of the many cares and duties and
interests that sprang up daily in the administration of such vast
properties as theirs.
Prince Vàsàrhely, though a brilliant soldier and magnificent noble, was
simple in his tastes, and occupied himself largely with the welfare of
his people.
The Princess yawned discreetly behind her fan many times during this
conversation, to her utterly uninteresting, upon villages, vines,
harvests, bridges swept away by floods, stewards just and unjust, and
the tolls and general navigation of the Danube. Quite tired of all
these details and discussion of subjects which she considered ought to
be abandoned to the men of business, she said suddenly, in a pause:
'Egon, did you ever know a very charming person, the Marquis de Sabran?'
Vàsàrhely reflected a moment.
'No,' he answered slowly. 'I have no recollection of such a name.'
'I thought you might have met him in Paris.'
'I am so rarely in Paris; since my father's death I have scarcely
passed a month there. Who is he?'
'A stranger whose acquaintance we made through his being cast adrift
here in a storm,' said the Countess Wanda, with some impatience. 'My
dear aunt is devoted to him, because he has painted her a St. Ottilie
on a screen, with the skill of Meissonnier. Since he left us he has
become celebrated: he has broken the bank at Monte Carlo.'
Egon Vàsàrhely looked at her quickly.
'It seems to anger you? Did this stranger stay here any time?'
'Sometime, yes; he had a bad accident on the Venediger. Herr Greswold
brought him to our island to pass his convalescence with the monks.
From the monks to Monte Carlo!----it is at least a leap requiring some
elasticity in moral gymnastics.'
She spoke with some irritation, which did not escape the ear of her
cousin. He said merely himself:
'Did you receive him, knowing nothing about him?'
'We certainly did. It was an imprudence; but if he paint like
Meissonnier, he plays like Liszt: who was to resist such a combination
of gifts?'
'You say that very contemptuously, Wanda,' said the Prince.
'I am not contemptuous of the talent; I am of the possessor of it, who
comprehends his own powers so little that he breaks the bank at Monaco.'
'I envy him at least his power to anger you,' said Egon Vàsàrhely.
'I am angered to see anything wasted,' she answered, conscious of the
impatience she had shown. 'I was very angry with Otto's little daughter
yesterday; she had gathered a huge bundle of cowslips and thrown it
down in the sun; it was ingratitude to God who made them. This friend
of my aunt's does worse; he changes his cowslip into monkshood.'
'Is he indeed such a favourite of yours, dear mother?' said Vàsàrhely.
The Princess answered petulantly:
'Certainly, a charming person. And our cousin Kaulnitz knows him well.
Wanda for once talks foolishly. Gambling is, it is true, a great sin at
all times, but I do not know that it is worse at public tables than it
is in your clubs. I myself am, of course, ignorant of these matters;
but I have heard that privately, at cards, whole fortunes have been
lost in a night, scribbled away with a pencil on a scrap of paper.'
'To lose a fortune is better than to win one,' said her niece, as she
rose from the head of her table.
When the Princess slept in her blue-room Egon Vàsàrhely approached his
cousin, where she sat at her embroidery frame.
'This stranger has the power to make you angry,' he said sadly. 'I have
not even that.'
'Dear Egon,' she said tenderly, 'you have done nothing in your life
that I could despise. Why should you be discontented at that?'
'Would you care if I did?'
'Certainly; I should be very sorry if my noble cousin did anything that
could belie his chivalry; but why should we suppose impossibilities?'
'Suppose we were not cousins, would you love me then?'
'How can I tell? This is mere non-sense----'
'No; it is all my life. You know, Wanda, that I have loved you, only
you, ever since I saw you as I came back from France--a child, but
such a beautiful child, with your hair braided with pearls, and a dress
all stiff with gold, and your lap full of red roses.'
'Oh, I remember,' she said hastily. 'There was a child's costume ball
at the Hof; I called myself Elizabeth of Thuringia, and Bela, my own
Bela, was my little Louis of Hungary. Oh, Egon, why will you speak of
those times?'
'Because surely they make a kind of tie between us? They----'
'They do make one that will last all our lives, unless you strain it
to bear a weight it is not made to bear. Dear Egon, you are very dear
to me, but not dear _so._ As my cousin, my gallant, kind, and loyal
cousin, you are very precious to me; but, Egon, if you could force me
to be your wife I should not be indifferent to you, I should hate you!'
He grew white under his olive skin. He shrank a little, as if he
suffered some sharp physical pain.
'Hate me!' he echoed in a stupor of surprise and suffering.
'I believe I should, I _could_ hate. It is a frightful thing to say.
Dear Egon, look elsewhere; find some other amongst the many lovely
women that you see; do not waste your brilliant life on me. I shall
never say otherwise than I say to-night' and you will compel me to
lose the most trusted friend I have.'
He was still very pale. He breathed heavily. There was a mist over his
handsome dark eyes, which were cast down. 'Until you love any other, I
shall never abandon hope.'
'That is unwise. I shall probably love no one all my life long; I have
told you so often.'
'All say so until love finds them out. I will not trouble you; I will
be your cousin, your friend, rather than be nothing to you. But it is
hard.'
'Why think of me so? Your career has so much brilliancy, so many
charms, so many interests----'
'You do not know what it is to love. I talk to you in an unknown
tongue, and you have no pity, because you do not understand.'
She did not answer. Over her thoughts passed the memory of the spinet
whose music she had said he could not touch and waken.
He remained a week at Hohenszalras, but he did not again speak to her
of his own sufferings. He was a proud man, though humble to her.
With a sort of contrition she noticed for the first time that he
wearied her; that when he spoke of his departure she was glad. He
was a fine soldier, a keen hunter, rather than a man of talents. The
life he loved best was his life at home in his great castles, amidst
the immense plains and the primeval forests of Hungary and the lonely
fastnesses of the Karpathians, or scouring a field of battle with his
splendid troopers behind him, all of them his kith and kin, or men
of his own soil, whom he ruled with a firm, high hand, in a generous
despotism.
When he was with her she missed all the graceful tact, the subtle
meanings, the varied suggestions and allusions that had made the
companionship of Sabran so welcome to her. Egon Vàsàrhely was no
scholar, no thinker, no satirist; he was only brave and generous, as
lions are, and, vaguely, a poet without words, from the wild solitudes
he loved, and the romance that lies in the nature of the Magyar. 'He
knows nothing!' she thought, impatiently recalling the stores of most
various and recondite knowledge with which her late companion had
played so carelessly and with such ease. It seemed to her that never in
her life had she weighed her cousin in scales so severe and found him
so utterly wanting.
And yet how many others she knew would have found their ideal in that
gallant gentleman, with his prowess, and his hardihood, and his
gallantry in war, and his winsome temper, so full of fire to men, so
full of chivalry for women! When Prince Egon, in his glittering dress,
all fur and gold and velvet, passed up the ball-room at the Burg in
Vienna, no other man in all that magnificent assembly was so watched,
so admired, so sighed for: and he was her cousin, and he only wearied
her!
As he was leaving, he paused a moment after bidding her farewell, and
after some moments of silence, said in a low voice:
'Dear, I will not trouble you again until you summon me. Perhaps that
will be many years; but whether we meet or not, time will make no
change in me. I am your servant ever.'
Then he bowed over her hand once more, once more saluted her, and in a
moment or two the quick trot of the horses that bore him away woke the
echoes of the green hills.
She looked out of the huge arched entrance door down the green defile
that led to the outer world, and felt a pang of self-reproach, of
self-condemnation.
'If one could force oneself to love by any pilgrimage or penance,' she
thought, 'there are none I would not take upon me to be able to love
Egon.'
As she stood thoughtfully there on the doorway of her great castle,
the sweet linnet-like voice of the Princess Ottilie came on her ear.
It said, a little shrilly: 'You are always looking for a four-leaved
shamrock. In that sort of search life slips away unperceived; one is
very soon left alone with one's dead leaves.'
Wanda von Szalras turned and smiled.
'I am not afraid of being left alone,' she said. 'I shall have my
people and my forests always.'
Then, apprehensive lest she should have seemed thankless and cold of
heart, she turned caressingly to Madame Ottilie.
'Nay, I could not bear to lose you, my sweet fairy godmother. Think me
neither forgetful nor ungrateful.'
'You could never be one or the other to me. But I shall not live, like
a fairy godmother, for ever. Before I die I would fain see you content
like others with the shamrocks as nature has made them.'
'I think there are few people as content as I am,' said the Countess
Wanda, and said the truth.
'You are content with yourself, not with others. You will pardon me
if I say there is a great difference between the two,' replied the
Princess Ottilie, with a little smile that was almost sarcastic on her
pretty small features.
'You mean that I have a great deal of vanity and no sympathy?'
'You have a great deal of pride,' said the Princess, discreetly, as she
began to take her customary noontide walk up and down the terrace, her
tall cane tapping the stones and her little dog running before her,
whilst a hood of point-lace and a sunshade of satin kept the wind from
her pretty white hair and the sun from her eyes, that were still blue
as the acres of mouse-ear that grew by the lake.