A GUEST.
I am now going to tell you something so strange that it will require all
your faith in my veracity to believe my story. It is not only true,
nevertheless, but truth of which I have been an eye-witness.
It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as he sometimes
did, to take a little ramble with him along that beautiful forest vista
which I have mentioned as lying in front of the schloss.
"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped," said my
father, as we pursued our walk.
He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks, and we had expected his
arrival next day. He was to have brought with him a young lady, his
niece and ward, Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt, whom I had never seen, but whom
I had heard described as a very charming girl, and in whose society I
had promised myself many happy days. I was more disappointed than a
young lady living in a town, or a bustling neighbourhood can possibly
imagine. This visit, and the new acquaintance it promised, had furnished
my day dream for many weeks.
"And how soon does he come?" I asked.
"Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare say," he answered. "And I
am very glad now, dear, that you never knew Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt."
"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious.
"Because the poor young lady is dead," he replied. "I quite forgot I had
not told you, but you were not in the room when I received the General's
letter this evening."
I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf had mentioned in his first
letter, six or seven weeks before, that she was not so well as he would
wish her, but there was nothing to suggest the remotest suspicion of
danger.
"Here is the General's letter," he said, handing it to me. "I am afraid
he is in great affliction; the letter appears to me to have been written
very nearly in distraction."
We sat down on a rude bench, under a group of magnificent lime-trees.
The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendour behind the sylvan
horizon, and the stream that flows beside our home, and passes under the
steep old bridge I have mentioned, wound through many a group of noble
trees, almost at our feet, reflecting in its current the fading crimson
of the sky. General Spielsdorf's letter was so extraordinary, so
vehement, and in some places so self-contradictory, that I read it twice
over--the second time aloud to my father--and was still unable to
account for it, except by supposing that grief had unsettled his mind.
It said "I have lost my darling daughter, for as such I loved her.
During the last days of dear Bertha's illness I was not able to write to
you. Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now
learn _all_, too late. She died in the peace of innocence, and in the
glorious hope of a blessed futurity. The fiend who betrayed our
infatuated hospitality has done it all. I thought I was receiving into
my house innocence, gaiety, a charming companion for my lost Bertha.
Heavens! what a fool have I been! I thank God my child died without a
suspicion of the cause of her sufferings. She is gone without so much as
conjecturing the nature of her illness, and the accursed passion of the
agent of all this misery. I devote my remaining days to tracking and
extinguishing a monster. I am told I may hope to accomplish my righteous
and merciful purpose. At present there is scarcely a gleam of light to
guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my despicable affectation of
superiority, my blindness, my obstinacy--all--too late. I cannot write
or talk collectedly now. I am distracted. So soon as I shall have a
little recovered, I mean to devote myself for a time to enquiry, which
may possibly lead me as far as Vienna. Some time in the autumn, two
months hence, or earlier if I live, I will see you--that is, if you
permit me; I will then tell you all that I scarce dare put upon paper
now. Farewell. Pray for me, dear friend."
In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never seen Bertha
Rheinfeldt my eyes filled with tears at the sudden intelligence; I was
startled, as well as profoundly disappointed.
The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had returned the
General's letter to my father.
It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered, speculating upon the
possible meanings of the violent and incoherent sentences which I had
just been reading. We had nearly a mile to walk before reaching the road
that passes the schloss in front, and by that time the moon was shining
brilliantly. At the drawbridge we met Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle
De Lafontaine, who had come out, without their bonnets, to enjoy the
exquisite moonlight.
We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we approached. We
joined them at the drawbridge, and turned about to admire with them the
beautiful scene.
The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our left
the narrow road wound away under clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to
sight amid the thickening forest. At the right the same road crosses the
steep and picturesque bridge, near which stands a ruined tower which
once guarded that pass; and beyond the bridge an abrupt eminence rises,
covered with trees, and showing in the shadows some grey ivy-clustered
rocks.
Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing, like
smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there
we could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight.
No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just heard
made it melancholy; but nothing could disturb its character of profound
serenity, and the enchanted glory and vagueness of the prospect.
My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking in silence
over the expanse beneath us. The two good governesses, standing a little
way behind us, discoursed upon the scene, and were eloquent upon the
moon.
Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and romantic, and talked and
sighed poetically. Mademoiselle De Lafontaine--in right of her father,
who was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical, and
something of a mystic--now declared that when the moon shone with a
light so intense it was well known that it indicated a special spiritual
activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was
manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous
people; it had marvellous physical influences connected with life.
Mademoiselle related that her cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship,
having taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on his back, with his
face full in the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old
woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one
side; and his countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium.
"The moon, this night," she said, "is full of odylic and magnetic
influence--and see, when you look behind you at the front of the
schloss, how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery
splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy
guests."
There are indolent states of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk
ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I
gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies' conversation.
"I have got into one of my moping moods to-night," said my father, after
a silence, and quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping up our
English, he used to read aloud, he said:
"In truth I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I got it--came by it."
"I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great misfortune were hanging
over us. I suppose the poor General's afflicted letter has had something
to do with it."
At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon
the road, arrested our attention.
They seemed to be approaching from the high ground overlooking the
bridge, and very soon the equipage emerged from that point. Two horsemen
first crossed the bridge, then came a carriage drawn by four horses, and
two men rode behind.
It seemed to be the travelling carriage of a person of rank; and we were
all immediately absorbed in watching that very unusual spectacle. It
became, in a few moments, greatly more interesting, for just as the
carriage had passed the summit of the steep bridge, one of the leaders,
taking fright, communicated his panic to the rest, and after a plunge or
two, the whole team broke into a wild gallop together, and dashing
between the horsemen who rode in front, came thundering along the road
towards us with the speed of a hurricane.
The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear,
long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window.
We all advanced in curiosity and horror; my father in silence, the rest
with various ejaculations of terror.
Our suspense did not last long. Just before you reach the castle
drawbridge, on the route they were coming, there stands by the roadside
a magnificent lime-tree, on the other stands an ancient stone cross, at
sight of which the horses, now going at a pace that was perfectly
frightful, swerved so as to bring the wheel over the projecting roots of
the tree.
I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, and
turned my head away; at the same moment I heard a cry from my
lady-friends, who had gone on a little.
Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw a scene of utter confusion. Two of
the horses were on the ground, the carriage lay upon its side with two
wheels in the air; the men were busy removing the traces, and a lady,
with a commanding air and figure had got out, and stood with clasped
hands, raising the handkerchief that was in them every now and then to
her eyes. Through the carriage door was now lifted a young lady, who
appeared to be lifeless. My dear old father was already beside the elder
lady, with his hat in his hand, evidently tendering his aid and the
resources of his schloss. The lady did not appear to hear him, or to
have eyes for anything but the slender girl who was being placed
against the slope of the bank.
I approached; the young lady was apparently stunned, but she was
certainly not dead. My father, who piqued himself on being something of
a physician, had just had his fingers to her wrist and assured the lady,
who declared herself her mother, that her pulse, though faint and
irregular, was undoubtedly still distinguishable. The lady clasped her
hands and looked upward, as if in a momentary transport of gratitude;
but immediately she broke out again in that theatrical way which is, I
believe, natural to some people.
She was what is called a fine looking woman for her time of life, and
must have been handsome; she was tall, but not thin, and dressed in
black velvet, and looked rather pale, but with a proud and commanding
countenance, though now agitated strangely.
"Was ever being so born to calamity?" I heard her say, with clasped
hands, as I came up. "Here am I, on a journey of life and death, in
prosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly to lose all. My child will
not have recovered sufficiently to resume her route for who can say how
long. I must leave her; I cannot, dare not, delay. How far on, sir, can
you tell, is the nearest village? I must leave her there; and shall not
see my darling, or even hear of her till my return, three months hence."
I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered earnestly in his ear:
"Oh! papa, pray ask her to let her stay with us--it would be so
delightful. Do, pray."
"If Madame will entrust her child to the care of my daughter, and of her
good gouvernante, Madame Perrodon, and permit her to remain as our
guest, under my charge, until her return, it will confer a distinction
and an obligation upon us, and we shall treat her with all the care and
devotion which so sacred a trust deserves."
"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and chivalry
too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly.
"It would, on the contrary, be to confer on us a very great kindness at
the moment when we most need it. My daughter has just been disappointed
by a cruel misfortune, in a visit from which she had long anticipated a
great deal of happiness. If you confide this young lady to our care it
will be her best consolation. The nearest village on your route is
distant, and affords no such inn as you could think of placing your
daughter at; you cannot allow her to continue her journey for any
considerable distance without danger. If, as you say, you cannot
suspend your journey, you must part with her to-night, and nowhere
could you do so with more honest assurances of care and tenderness than
here."
There was something in this lady's air and appearance so distinguished,
and even imposing, and in her manner so engaging, as to impress one,
quite apart from the dignity of her equipage, with a conviction that she
was a person of consequence.
By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position, and the
horses, quite tractable, in the traces again.
The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I fancied was not quite so
affectionate as one might have anticipated from the beginning of the
scene; then she beckoned slightly to my father, and withdrew two or
three steps with him out of hearing; and talked to him with a fixed and
stern countenance, not at all like that with which she had hitherto
spoken.
I was filled with wonder that my father did not seem to perceive the
change, and also unspeakably curious to learn what it could be that she
was speaking, almost in his ear, with so much earnestness and rapidity.
Two or three minutes at most I think she remained thus employed, then
she turned, and a few steps brought her to where her daughter lay,
supported by Madame Perrodon. She kneeled beside her for a moment and
whispered, as Madame supposed, a little benediction in her ear; then
hastily kissing her she stepped into her carriage, the door was closed,
the footmen in stately liveries jumped up behind, the outriders spurred
on, the postillions cracked their whips, the horses plunged and broke
suddenly into a furious canter that threatened soon again to become a
gallop, and the carriage whirled away, followed at the same rapid pace
by the two horsemen in the rear.