Boleslav was almost happy. He had hit on a new and brilliant idea, and
the hopes of carrying it out brightened for a time the deadening
monotony of his existence. He believed he could clear his father's
memory.
How it had first occurred to him he hardly knew. He had found certain
letters from Polish noblemen addressed to his father, which seemed to
suggest that the deceased had felt himself bound by a hastily-made
promise which at the time he had not meant seriously, and that a chain
of tragic circumstances had compelled him against his will to be a
party to the treachery. If this did not exonerate him from all guilt,
it at least put the slandered man in a new light--the light of a
martyr.
If by minute study of the documents he could trace the affair to its
source, and make public a true history of the disaster, in which he
would demonstrate that Eberhard von Schranden, far from having played
the devilish role that rumour attributed to him, had only been a victim
of circumstances, surely there would at least arise some who would hold
out their hand in remorse to the sufferer's heir. The more he absorbed
himself in this task of vindication the more he began to feel united
with the dead man, and accustomed to the idea of sacrificing his own
innocent reputation for his sake.
His brain was so much occupied with these schemes that he slept little
at night, and in the daytime tore about the park like one possessed.
The less hope he cherished in his secret heart that his plan would
succeed, the more did he long for some human soul into whose ear he
could pour his doubts and fears. But there was no one to speak to but
the taciturn woman, who glided past him with eyes guiltily cast down.
One evening, when his solitude almost maddened him, he said to her--
"Regina, aren't you frozen in your kitchen?"
"I never let the fire out, _Herr_."
"But what do you do in the evening, when it's dark?"
"I sit by the fire and sew, till my fingers get quite stiff."
"Then you have a light?"
"I burn fir-cones."
He was silent; he gnawed his under-lip, and hesitated as to what he
should say next. Then he took courage.
"Regina, if you like you may bring your sewing into the sitting-room,
after supper," he said.
She grew pale, and stammered out, "Yes, _Herr_."
He thought her wanting in gratitude.
"Of course, if you'd rather not--" he said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Oh, _Herr_--I should like to come."
"Very well, then, come; but you must make yourself look respectable.
Why have you given up wearing your new clothes?" Since that evening she
had taken to shivering about in the cotton jacket again.
"I thought it would hurt them."
"Hurt them! How?"
"I mean," she said incoherently, "that when you are angry with me,--
such as I, am not fit----"
"Nonsense!" he interrupted quickly, feeling that if she went on he
would be angry with her again.
After supper she appeared in some trepidation at the door. Snowy linen
shimmered in her hand. She remained standing till he had impatiently
invited her to sit down.
"You want people to stand on ceremony with you, as if you were some
fine lady," he said.
She laughed in confusion.
"I am only nervous, _Herr_, because I am not quite sure--how to
behave." And she turned to her work.
No more passed between them that evening, and it was more than a week
before they broke into conversation again.
He sat brooding over his yellow papers, and she let her needle fly
through the crackling calico. When the clock struck eleven, she
gathered up her sewing, and whispering "Good-night," slipped out on
tiptoe without waiting for an answer.
"What are you working at so industriously?" he asked her one evening,
after he had watched her intently for some minutes.
She looked up and pushed a curl off her forehead with damp fingers.
"I am making shirts for you, _Herr_," was the answer.
"So you undertake that too?"
"Who else should do it, _Herr_?"
A short silence; then he questioned her further.
"Who taught you all you know, Regina? Your mother?"
She shook her head. "My mother died very young, _Herr_. I can hardly
remember her. People say my father beat her to death."
He thought of the thin pale face and tired eyelids in the
picture-gallery, of which the last trace had perished in the great
fire.
"Can you remember what your mother was like?" he demanded again.
"She had long black hair, and eyes like mine, at least, so I have heard
people say; and I can remember her hair, for she often wrapped me in it
when I was undressed. I used to sit in it as if it were a cloak, and
laugh; and when father--" She stopped in sudden alarm. "But you won't
care to hear more, _Herr_?"
"Go on, tell me the rest," he exclaimed.
"And when father came home and wanted to beat me, because he was drunk,
you know, she stood in front of me, and told me to get under her dress;
and inside her dress it was like being in a cave, quite dark and still,
and father's swearing sounded a long, long way off. And then she died.
It was on a Sunday--yes, it was on a Sunday. For I was standing by the
hedge and wondering whether she'd have a beautiful coffin--a green one,
like the coffin on the trestle in the garden--when you, _Herr_, went by
on your way to church. At that time you were little, like me, and you
had on a blue coat with silver buttons, and a little sword at your
side; and you stopped and asked me why I was crying, and I couldn't
answer, I was so frightened, and then you gave me an apple."
He had not the smallest recollection of the incident, but he remembered
how he had taken the young sparrow away from her, and related the
story. She had not forgotten it. Her eyes became illumined, as if lost
in contemplation of some blissful sight.
"I wonder, now, that you gave it up so meekly," he said.
"How could I have done otherwise?" she answered.
"You might easily have refused," he said.
She bent over her work. "I was only so glad for you to have it," she
said, in a low soft voice. "It's not often that a poor little village
girl gets the chance of giving anything to a rich young nobleman."
He bit his lips. Truly he had taken more from her since than his pride
and manliness should have permitted.
"And besides," she went on, "even if I hadn't wanted to give it to you,
it was yours by right. You were the _Junker_."
How perfectly natural the argument sounded from her lips.
"Regina, tell me honestly," he said, "if you haven't entirely forgotten
the days when you ran wild in the village."
"Oh no, _Herr_; indeed I haven't," she replied, with an almost roguish
smile. "For instance, I remember a great many things about the
_gnaediger Junker_."
He withdrew far back into the shadow of the lamp-shade. "What splendid
stuff she has in her!" he thought, and devoured her with his eyes. And
then he made her relate all her reminiscences of him at that time. He
did not appear in a very amiable light. Once he had pushed her into
a duck-pond; another time sent her floating down the river in a
flour-vat, till her cries of terror had brought people to the bank with
life-saving apparatus; when she had on a new white frock, given her by
the Castle housekeeper, he had painted her hands and face with white
chalk, and told her to stand motionless like one of the statues in the
Park. She had submitted meekly till the chalk got into her mouth and
eyes and made them smart, and then she had burst out crying and run
away.
She recalled all this with beaming eyes, as if his pranks had been a
source of infinite happiness to her. Although when reminded of such and
such an escapade he recollected it perfectly, he could not remember
that it was Regina who had been the victim of his caprice. A sensation
of shame rose within him. Instead of the dreamy, generous young
cavalier he had been in the habit of picturing himself, he saw a cruel
little village tyrant, who exercised his power over his small
contemporaries with a relentlessness that was almost vicious.
"And did I make no amends for my wicked deeds?" he inquired, hoping to
hear he had at least been capable of doing good sometimes.
"Oh, you used to give us things," she answered. "'Divide that,' you
used to say, and scatter on the ground either apples and nuts, or
broken tin soldiers, or a handful of counters. But, of course, the
strongest and biggest got everything. Felix Merckel was the best at a
scramble; the girls only had the leavings."
"And did you ever get anything from me, Regina?" he asked.
She flushed scarlet, and bowed lower over her work. "Yes, _Herr_,
once!" she said softly.
"What was it?"
She was silent, and dared not lift her eyes.
"Good heavens! why do you look so ashamed about it?"
"Because--I ... have it still."
"Oh, not really!" He smiled. A feeling of pleasure shot through him.
Without answering, she felt in the pocket of her dress, and laid before
him on the table a little straw box plaited out of coloured blades. It
was hardly bigger than a baby's fist.
He held it in his hand, and examined it all over attentively. Something
rattled inside.
"May I open it?"
"You needn't ask, _Herr_!"
It was a ring of glass beads--blue, white, and yellow, such as a little
girl, following the first instincts of vanity, threads for herself. He
took it out, and tried to force it on his little finger, but it was far
too narrow, and he couldn't get it over his nail.
"Did I give you the ring too?" he asked.
"No, _Herr_, it belonged to my dear mother. It cut into her flesh once,
and that's why I used to wear it day and night till the thread broke.
Then she had been dead a long time, and as it was the only keepsake I
had of her, I threaded the beads again, and have never parted with the
ring, and I always have it on me."
"In my little box?"
She nodded, and her head drooped. "Why shouldn't I, _Herr_?" she said
in a whisper, "it brings me luck."
He looked at her with a compassionate smile. "Luck? Brings _you_ luck?"
"I'll tell you how, _Herr_," she exclaimed triumphantly. "Every bead
you count----"
But at that moment he leant back in his chair, and the ring slipped
through his fingers on to the floor.
Regina started up and hurried round the table to pick it up, but could
not find it.
"The earth seems to have swallowed it up," she said in alarm, and she
dropped on to all fours close by Boleslav's side.
He saw the nape of her beautiful neck with its fringe of crisp, dark
curls, gleaming near his knee. His heart began to beat, a cold shiver
thrilled through his limbs. He stared down on her with a fixed smile.
"Here it is!" she exclaimed, and raised herself into a kneeling
position to hand him the treasured bauble.
He lifted his hand. He felt as if some occult power had lifted it for
him, and that it weighed hundreds of pounds. Then with a timid,
caressing touch he laid it on her cheek.
She drew back trembling. A great light swam in her eyes, that rested on
him in dreamy inquiry. His arm sank heavily to his side.
"Thank you," he murmured hoarsely.
She went back to her place, and there was a profound stillness. It
seemed to him that he had committed a crime, and that every moment of
silence between them made it worse. He must force himself to speak.
"What was I asking you? Ah! to be sure. Who taught you to sew?"
She had unthreaded her needle, and was trying hard to pull the cotton
through the eye again. But the small glittering shaft oscillated
between her unsteady fingers like a reed shaken by the wind.
"I learnt at the parsonage, _Herr_," she replied. "Helene had a
class----" She paused, embarrassed, for at the sound of the beloved
name, which he heard for the first time from her lips--such lips--he
winced as if from the lash of a whip. She took his excitement for
anger, and added apologetically, "I mean the Pastor's daughter."
"Never mind," he said, controlling himself with difficulty. "Go to bed
now."
That night Boleslav fought a severe battle with himself. He felt as if
his ideal of exalted purity had been polluted since his eyes had rested
with favour on this abandoned woman. And he himself was polluted too by
that involuntary caress.
It was absolutely necessary to regain his peace of mind and purity. He
must come to some distinct understanding with Helene without delay, in
order that he might be strengthened in his struggle against his
treacherous senses and benumbing doubt.
So urgent did it seem that his resolutions should at once be put into
force, that he rose in the middle of the night, and by the glimmer of
his night-light wrote to Helene assuring her of his undying love and
eternal devotion, and imploring her to make some sign to show that she
stood by him in trouble as she had once done in happiness, so that he
might know for certain it was worth while his continuing to wage for
her sake the fight against such enormous odds. With every line he
wrote, his anxiety lessened, and when he lay down in his bed again, he
felt that, through bracing his energies for the task, he had relieved
himself of a load of care that had long heavily oppressed him.
"Can you undertake, Regina," he asked the next evening, "to deliver
this letter unseen to the _Fraeulein_ at the parsonage?"
She regarded him for a second with wide eyes, then looking down, she
murmured, "Yes, _Herr_."
"But supposing they attack you down in the village?"
"Pah! What do I care for _them_?" she exclaimed, shrugging her
shoulders contemptuously, as she always did when the villagers were in
question.
Soon afterwards he saw her glide by the window like a shadow and
disappear in the gloaming.
Hours passed. She did not return. He began to reproach himself for
having engaged her in his amatory mission when her life was at stake.
At last, towards midnight, he heard the front door latch click.
She appeared on the threshold with chattering teeth, blue with cold,
the letter still grasped in her cramped fingers.
He made her sit down by the stove, and gave her Spanish wine to
drink--and gradually she found her voice.
"I have been lying all this time in the snow under the parsonage
hedge," she said, "but there was no possibility of getting at her. Just
now she put the light out in her bedroom, so I came home. But don't be
vexed, _Herr_. Perhaps I shall have better luck to-morrow."
He wouldn't hear of her repeating the adventure, but when she came to
him the following evening equipped for her walk, he did not forbid her
to go.
This time she came back with glowing cheeks, panting for breath. Two
peasants on their way home from the Black Eagle had seen her and given
chase.
"But to-morrow, _Herr_, to-morrow, I shall succeed."
She was right. More breathless than the evening before, but radiant
with delight, she came into the room, and stood at the door, stretching
out two empty hands in triumph.
"Thank God," he thought, "that I shan't have to send her a fourth time
on a fool's errand."
In joyous excitement she told him all about it. Sultan, the big dog in
the kennel, knew her; and as a hostage she had taken him a bone, then
he had permitted her to stand at the back door and look through the
keyhole. She had seen Helene standing at the great store-cupboard. "I
knew that Helene,--I mean the pastor's Fraeulein,--went to the
store-cupboard every night to put out coffee and oatmeal for the
morning," she explained, "and sure enough I just timed her right, for
there was her candle flickering in my face, and she standing within
three steps of me----"
He gave a deep sigh. Happy creature! She had _seen_ her!
I opened the back door very softly, and called, 'Helene, Fraeulein
Helene!' And when she caught sight of me, she screamed and let the
candle fall. 'Helene,' I said, 'I am not going to hurt you. Here is a
letter from Junker Boleslav.'
"She trembled so, she could hardly take the letter out of my hand. And
then she shrieked in horror, 'Go! Go _at once_!' And almost before I
could tell her about the letter-box on the drawbridge, she had slammed
the door and bolted it in my face. Ah, dear God!" she added with a
melancholy little smile. "I am used to being treated in that way, but
she might have been kinder because I brought a message from _you_!"
He leant his head on his hands. Helene's conduct gave him food for
meditation. Of course her reception of her fallen playmate was in every
way excusable. No wonder that her chaste and maidenly soul revolted at
the sight of this unfortunate girl!
Every day Regina now ran down to the drawbridge to peep into the
letter-box that was fastened to a pillar there, to see if there was an
answer from Helene. But the letter-box remained empty; and Boleslav's
brighter mood soon clouded again. He became more bitter and defiant
than ever, and a prey to tormenting reflections. In his pride he would
not allow that he had been spurned by the woman he loved; yet it was
hardly any longer a matter for doubt that she wished in no way to be
associated with him in his dishonour. He saw his great plans for the
future fall in ruins in this abandonment of hope of winning the love of
his youth.
Many days went by before he roused himself from this fresh
depression--it was not till the feverish unrest of waiting had subsided
that he slowly recovered his calmness and fortitude.
Then he threw himself with renewed energy into the search for proofs of
his father's innocence. The evidence was contradictory and confused.
Letters in which his father was referred to as the staunchest of
Prussian patriots were counterbalanced by others in which he was
addressed as the pioneer of Polish liberty. That might possibly have
been a mere figure of flattering speech, designed to win over the
vacillating nobleman, but to make it public would be once more putting
the deceased's reputation in the pillory.
During these disheartening investigations of the truth, his only
refreshment was the evening hours in which Regina's presence gave him
something else to think about. So soon as she came and sat down
opposite him he felt a curious satisfaction mingled with uneasiness.
Sometimes, before she made her appearance, and he with bowed head
listened to the sounds that came from her kitchen, he would be suddenly
seized with anxiety, and feel as if he must jump up and call out, "Stay
where you are! Don't come!" And yet, when she walked into the room he
breathed more freely. "It is loneliness that attracts me to her," he
often told himself. "She has a human face and a human voice."
As she sat over her work silently putting in stitch after stitch, he
would pretend to be napping, and with closed eyes listen to the rise
and fall of her breath. It was a full, slow, muffled sound, which fell
on his ear like suppressed music. It resembled the ebbing and flowing
of an ocean of restrained life and energy. After she had been sitting
for a long time in a stooping attitude she would suddenly straighten
herself, and stretch her arms with closed fingers over the sides of the
chair, till the curve of her bosom stood out in powerful grandeur, and
threatened to burst its bonds. It was as if from time to time she was
obliged to become conscious of the fulness of life that pulsated and
throbbed within her.
Then she resumed her old attitude and quietly sewed on.
It lasted all too short a time. These hours spent in her society had
unconsciously become dear to him, and almost indispensable. The lamp
seemed to give a brighter light since its rays fell on that pile of
shining white linen; the hand of the clock accelerated its pace now he
was not always looking at it to hurry it onwards. The wind that used to
howl and whistle so dismally in the branches of the trees now murmured
soft lullabies, and even the laths in the rotten roof cracked less
ominously. He dreaded the evenings when at dusk she started on her
journey to Bockeldorf, and more than once had meditated accompanying
her.
But in their relations, that had become so friendly, there was one
blot, and the knowledge of it pierced him at times like a poisonous
arrow. Often, after he had been watching her in silence, he was
tormented with a desire to penetrate into the secrets of her past, and
to cross-examine her on the subject of her intercourse with the dead.
For long he kept back the questions that burned on the tip of his
tongue, feeling that little good could come of asking them; but at last
he felt driven to speak.
"She is the only living witness of the catastrophe," he thought;
"what's more, the only accomplice. She alone can give authentic
information."
And one evening he broke the silence which had been so enjoyable to
both, with a brusque demand that she should tell him all she knew.
She changed colour, and dropped her hands in her lap.
"You'll only be angry with me again, _Herr_," she stammered.
"Do as I bid you."
She still hesitated. "It's ... so long ago," she whispered piteously,
"and I don't know how to tell things."
"But you can at least answer questions."
Then she resigned herself to fate.
"Who was it that first suggested to you the midnight sortie?"
"The _gnaediger Herr_."
He clenched his teeth. "When and how?"
"The _gnaediger Herr_ ordered me to wait at table. The great candelabra,
that was hardly ever lit as a rule, was burning, and shone on the gold
uniforms of the French officers, and it was all so dazzling I felt
quite giddy when I carried the soup into the hall. They all laughed and
pointed at me, and spoke in French, which I didn't understand."
"How many were there?"
"Five, and one with grey hair, who was the General, and had the most
gold on his coat; and when I brought him the soup he caught hold of me
round the waist, and I put the plate down on his finger and pinched it.
Then they all laughed again, and the _gnaediger Herr_ said, 'Don't be so
clumsy, Regina.' I felt so ashamed and vexed at his saying that that I
said, quite loud, I didn't see why I should wait if I was only to be
scolded for it. Then they laughed louder than ever, and the General
began to speak German, like little children speak it. 'You are a
plucky, pretty little girl,' he said; and the _gnaediger Herr_ told him
I was a girl who might prove useful to him and them all--or something
of the kind. And when I brought in the liqueur at the end of dinner, he
drew me down to him and whispered in my ear. I was to go to him in the
night."
He started up. "And you went?"
She cast down her eyes.
"Ah, _Herr_," she said imploringly, "why do you ask me? I wish you
wouldn't. I had often done it before, and I saw no harm in it then."
He felt his blood boiling.
"How old were you at that time?"
"Fifteen."
"And so corrupt--so----" His voice died away in wrath.
She cast an unspeakably sad and reproachful glance at him.
"I knew you'd be angry," she said, "but I can't make myself out better
than I am."
"Continue your story," he cried.
"And when I went to him at midnight he was still up, striding round the
table, and he asked me if I should like to earn a great sum of money.
'Of course, _gnaediger Herr_,' I said, 'I should like it very much,' for
then I was very poor. Whereupon he asked me if I was afraid of the
dark. I laughed, and said he ought to know best; and after a few more
questions it came out what he wanted me to do. Could I be trusted to
show the French the way over the Cats' Bridge and through the wood in
an hour? I began to cry, for the French had behaved dreadfully since
they had been quartered in the Castle, running after and insulting all
the servant-girls, and I was afraid they might insult me too."
"Oh, you were afraid of that, were you?" he interposed with a
contemptuous smile.
"Yes; and I told the _gnaediger Herr_ nothing would induce me to do it.
But then he became terribly angry, and thumped me on the shoulders till
I sank on my knees, and he cried out that I was an ungrateful hussy,
and that he would have me sent back to the village in disgrace, and
would tell the Herr Pastor what sort of a wench I was, and he would
make me confess and do penance; and then he took me by the throat, and
when he had almost throttled me, and I could scarcely draw a breath,
then, _then_ ..."
"Say no more," interrupted Boleslav; and seizing the letters that were
to establish his father's innocence, he tore them to pieces.