FLIGHT.
It was a change indeed! Life all at once became solemn and full of
mystery to her--full of trouble, too, and perplexity. So soon as a
messenger had been despatched to Donaueschingen, for a surgeon who was
skilled in the extraction of buck-shot, Annie Brunel went up to her own
room, and sat down there alone. And she felt as if the air had grown
thick around her, and was pressing on her; she felt that the old
audacious cheerfulness had gone from her; and that the passion, and
glow, and terrible earnestness of her stage-life were invading this
other life, which used to be full of a frivolous, careless happiness.
Do the other animals become frightened and nervous when the love-making
season comes suddenly upon them? Does the lark, when her lover comes
down from the sky and sings, "My dear soft-breasted little thing, will
you be my wife; will you come and build a nest with me, and let me bring
you scraps of food when you are tired?"--does she get into a state of
great tremor, and fancy that the world has suddenly shifted its axis?
We know how the least impressionable of men are overawed by this strange
natural phenomenon. The old ridiculousness of love--its silliness and
comic aspects--are immediately blotted out from their mind by the
contemplation of the awful truth--the awful change that lies before
them. They shrink from physiology as a species of blasphemy. They will
not accept scientific explanation of their idealisms; nor will they
believe that any man has ever experienced the sensation they now
experience.
But the ordinary awakening of a man or woman to the consciousness of
being in love was a very different thing from the sudden revelation
which confronted the young actress, as she sat there and pondered, in a
bewildered way, over the events of the past hour. To love this man was
a crime--and its fatal consequences seemed to stretch on and on, and
interweave themselves with her whole future life. How had she fallen
into the snare? And he was equally guilty; for his eyes, more fully
than his words, had in that supreme moment told her his tragic story.
She thought of the violet-eyed Dove down in that Kentish vale. She
thought of her, and mentally prayed for forgiveness.
She had but one sad consolation in the matter--her secret was her own.
There now remained for her but to leave Schoenstein at once, and the
morning's events had paved the way for her decision. So she sent for
Mrs. Christmas, and said to her--
"Don't you think a cooler air than what we have here would suit you
better?"
The old woman scrutinized her face curiously.
"What's the matter with you, Miss Annie? You look as if you had just
come off the stage, and were half-bewildered by the part you had been
playing!"
"I want an answer, Mrs. Christmas. But I may tell you that I ask
because I wish to leave this place at once. You needn't ask why; but if
it will not incommode you to travel, I should like to go away now.
There is Switzerland, not a day's journey from here; and there are some
mountainous districts in this neighbourhood--you may choose which you
please----"
"Only I must choose to go," said the old woman, patting her cheek.
"That's yourself all over as you used to be in the days when you
tyrannized over me, and would always have your own way about arranging
your parts. Well, Miss Annie, I'm ready to go now, if you like--only
Hermann promised to give me two of the most beautiful deer-skins to be
got in the Black Forest----"
"They can be sent after us."
The evening was drawing towards dusk when the Count returned. He was
greatly shocked on discovering that the accident Will had met with was
much more serious than had been fancied, and that the surgeon only
stared in astonishment when asked if his patient could come downstairs
to dinner.
"A man who has lost so much blood," said he, significantly, and speaking
slowly, that the Count might understand him, "and who suffers from four
or five gunshot wounds, is not likely to sit at table for a day or two."
Annie Brunel did not hear this conversation, and as she still believed
that Will had only been slightly hurt, and would be able to go about as
usual, she informed the Count at dinner of her intended departure. The
Herr Graf looked from one to the other of his guests, without being able
to utter a syllable. He had been congratulating himself on the
brilliant success of this excursion--on the evident gratification
experienced by Miss Brunel, on her expressed admiration for Schoenstein
and all its surroundings. This decision of hers quashed his dearest
hopes.
"You surely do not intend to leave us so soon?" he said. "Mrs.
Christmas, are you the traitor in the camp?"
Mrs. Christmas prudently forbore to reply.
"Think of leaving Mr. Anerley, after having knocked him over in that
sportsmanlike fashion!" exclaimed the Count. "He will think it very
ungenerous of you."
"I am extremely sorry," she said, with a look of pained embarrassment on
her dark beautiful face; "but I hope he will forgive our going."
"He may, but I shan't," said the Count. "However, if you will, you
will. In any case, I hope I may be allowed to escort you towards your
new resting-place."
"We should be more cruel still," said the young girl, "if we took you
away from your friend. Believe me, we shall want no assistance."
The tone with which she uttered the words was decisive. It said, "You
are very kind; but we mean to go alone."
The Count did not enjoy his dinner that evening. He fancied there was
something wrong in the arrangement of things--something
incomprehensible, provoking, beyond the reach of his alteration. When he
persuaded Annie Brunel and her guardian to accept his escort as far as
Schoenstein, he fancied his skilful calculations had delivered her into
his hand. Was there a creature on earth--especially a woman--who could
fail to be smitten with a covetous desire for the possession of
Schoenstein? During that moody meal, while he sate almost angrily
silent, two suggestions occurred to him.
Could she have failed to perceive that she might be mistress of
Schoenstein if she liked? The Count confessed that he had not made any
demonstration of affection to her, simply because he wished the natural
effect of living at Schoenstein to influence her first, and predispose
her towards accepting his more openly-avowed attentions.
Or was it possible that she had discovered her true position, and
learned for herself the wealth and rank to which she was entitled? But
if she had made this discovery, he argued with himself, she would not
have allowed herself to be the guest of a parvenu Count; while he knew
that she had received no letters since his arrival.
Seizing the more probable alternative, he bitterly regretted his not
having made it more clear to her that a handsome fortune awaited her
acceptance. In the meantime these regrets had the effect of making the
dinner a somewhat dull affair; and it was rather gruffly that he
consented, after dinner, to go round to the inn in order to inquire of
Hans Halm the various routes to Switzerland.
As they were going out, she said--
"Will you send word to Mr. Anerley that we shall only be absent for a
short time, and that I hope he may be able to come down and see us when
we return?"
"The surgeon is still with him," said the Count. "I shall go up and see
him myself when we come back."
It was a clear starlight night; the waning moon had not yet risen. As
they neared the few houses of Schoenstein, and saw the orange lights
gleaming through the dusk, Mrs. Christmas caught her companion's arm.
They were by the side of the garden adjoining the inn, and from a
summer-house which was half hid among apple and plum trees, there came
the sweet and tender singing of two young girls--a clear and high but
somewhat undeveloped soprano, and a rich, full, mellow contralto. The
three stood for a moment to listen, and the singers in the darkness
proceeded to another song--the old _Volksweise_ that Grete and Hermann
had been wont to sing:
"Im sohoensten Wiesen-grunde
Ist meiner Heimath Haus,
Da zog ich manche Stunde,
In's Thal hinaus:
Dich, mein stilles Thal, gruess ich tausend Mal!
Da zog ich manche Stunde, in's Thal hinaus."
"It is Grete who sings, and I want to see her," said Annie Brunel,
stepping softly into the garden, and advancing to the summer-house.
Grete was quite alone with her companion--a young girl who, Miss Brunel
could see even in that partial darkness, was very pretty, and of a type
much more common in the north of Baden and Bavaria than in the
Schwarzwald. She was not over twelve years of age; but she had the soft
grave eyes, the high forehead, the flaxen hair, and general calm of
demeanour which characterize the intellectual South German. She was
Grete's confidante and companion; and together, whenever they got a
chance, they were accustomed to steal away to this summer-house, and
sing those concerted melodies which the children of the Black Forest
drink in with their mothers' milk.
Grete gave a little cry of surprise when she saw the dark form of the
young English lady appear; and then her thought was that something had
gone wrong with the gentleman who was wounded.
"I want you, Grete, for a moment," said Annie Brunel in French to her.
"Ah, mademoiselle," she said, dislocating her French in sudden
compassion; "ce n'est pas que Monsieur Anerley se sent encore malade?
L'homme qui mon pere envoyait chercher le medecin me dit qu'il ya
meilleur----"
"Don't disquiet yourself, Grete," said Miss Brunel. "Mr. Anerley is not
severely hurt. I wanted to ask you if you would come with me to
Switzerland----
"To Switzerland!" said Grete; and her companion's soft eyes looked up
with a mystic wonder in them.
"Would you like to go?"
"Yes, mademoiselle, very much; but I have promised to go to see my
cousin Aenchen Baumer, at the Feldberg, in a day or two."
"Come indoors, and let us hear what your father says. Your friend will
forgive me for a few minutes."
They all then left the garden and went round to the front of the inn.
They found the Count and Mrs. Christmas standing outside, and listening
to the prodigious singing-bout which was being held within by the
keepers and the beaters; the chorus following each verse of the various
hunting-songs being accompanied by the measured beating of hands and
feet on the tables and wooden floor.
"If mademoiselle goes forward to the window," said the little grave
German girl with the yellow hair, "she will hear better, and Herr
Spiegelmann is about to sing 'Der Weisse Hirsch.'"
They all went forward to one of the many small windows, and looked in.
The men were sitting in a picturesque undress round the table, their
long-bowled china pipes in their fingers or mouth, and chopins of
pale-yellow wine before them. Grete's father was standing by, laughing
and joking with them; the old grandmother from time to time replenishing
the tall transparent bottles. They had all been singing the elaborate
chorus to the hunting-song, "Im Wald und auf der Haide"--all except the
ancient Spiegelmann, who sat solemnly over his pipe-tube, and winked his
small black eyes occasionally, as if trying to shut in the internal
pleasure the rattling melody gave him. His large black moustache caught
the tobacco-smoke that issued from his lips; and his wrinkled
weather-tanned face, like the other sunburnt faces around, caught a
bronzed glow from the solitary candle before him.
"The Spiegelmann missed a buck in the second drive," said one. "He will
pay the forfeit of a song."
"I was driving, not shooting, the roe," growled the Spiegelmann, though
he was not displeased to be asked to sing.
All at once, before any of his comrades were prepared, the venerable
keeper, blinking fiercely, began to sing, in a low, querulous, plaintive
voice, the first stanza of a well-known ballad, which ran somewhat in
this fashion--
"'Twas into the forest three sportsmen went,
On shooting the white deer they were bent."
Suddenly, and while Miss Brunel fancied that the old man was singing a
pathetic song of his youth, there rang out a great hoarse chorus from a
dozen bass voices--the time struck by a couple of dozen horny hands on
the table--
"Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!"
Then Spiegelmann, gravely and plaintively as before, took up the thread
of the wondrous story--
"They laid themselves down beneath a fir-tree,
And a wonderful dream then dreamed the three,
(_All._) Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!"
Here a tall Italian-looking keeper, who hailed from the Tyrol, and who
was sitting next to Spiegelmann, sang forth the experiences of the first
dreamer--
"I dreamt that as I went beating the bush,
There ran out before me the deer--husch, husch!"
His neighbour, Bagel, who had once been complimented by Kaiser Francis
of Austria, and was never done with the story, personated the second
dreamer--
"And as from the yelp of the beagle he sprang,
I riddled his bide for him there--bang, bang!"
The third from Spiegelmann, a short stout little man, called Falz, who
had once been a clockmaker in Whitechapel, was the next dreamer--
"So soon as the deer on the ground I saw,
I merrily sounded my horn--trara!"
The burden of the tale now returned to Spiegelmann, who thus finished
it, and pointed the moral--
"Lo! as they lay there and chatted, these three,
Swiftly the wild deer ran past the tree:
And ere the three huntsmen had seen him aright,
O'er hill and o'er valley he'd vanished from sight!
(_All._) Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!
Husch, husch! bang, bang! trara!"
"I declare," said little Mrs. Christmas, standing on tiptoe, to peep in
at the window on the bronzed faces, and the dim candle, and the long
narrow tables in the low-roofed room, "it is quite like a scene in a
play, though they don't sing very well."
"They keep capital time," said the Count, who looked upon them as so
many performing animals, belonging to himself.
"Voulez-vous entrer, mademoiselle?" said Grete, hesitatingly. "La
fumee--j'en suis bien fachee----"
She went into the inn, nevertheless; and Hans Halm was summoned to give
his opinion about the various roads leading down to Basle or Schaff
hausen. Meanwhile, the keepers had sent a polite message, through
Margarethe, to the young English lady, hoping that she enjoyed the day's
sport; that her companion's accident had not been serious; and that she
would not be annoyed to hear one or two of the old Schwarzwald songs.
It was now for the first time that Annie learned the true extent of the
injury which Will had suffered; and this had the effect of immediately
altering her resolutions. It was with a dangerous throb of the heart
that she was told how he might not leave his bed for days, or even
weeks, so prostrated was he by loss of blood; and anxious--terribly
anxious, as she was to get free from the place, she could not bear the
thought of stealing away, and leaving him to the unknown chances of the
future.
The Count had almost begun to fancy that it was the horror of the
accident that she had caused which was driving her away from the too
painful witnessing of its results; but she now said that she would not
leave until Will was entirely out of danger. He could not understand
her, or her motives; above all, he was puzzled by the unwonted
earnestness of her expression--its new life and intensity. He knew
nothing of the fire at the heart which kept that slumbering light in the
dark eyes.
"And in a few days, Grete, you go to the Feldberg?" she asked.
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"Is there an inn there at which one can stay?"
"There is, mademoiselle--right on the top of the mountain, if you choose
to go so high. My cousin Aenchen lives down in the valley."
"I hope, Miss Brunel," said the Count, anxiously, "you won't think of
leaving Schoenstein so long as you remain in this district. The
accident which has happened, I know, may rob the neighbourhood of some
of its attractions; but what better will the Feldberg be?"
She paid no attention to him. She was only determined not to see Will
Anerley again; and yet there was in her heart a vague desire to be near
him--to be under the same daylight--to look on the same scenes, and hear
the same quaint strange talk that he listened to.
"When must you go to see your cousin?" she asked.
"Very shortly," said Grete. "Aenchen Baumer goes to a convent in
Freiburg, where she will learn English, and fine needlework, and many
things. She is a good friend of mine, and a companion once; and I want
to see her before she goes."
"If you wait a few days, we shall go to the Feldberg together."
Grete clasped her hands with delight.
"And will madame, your mamma, go also?" she asked, rejoiced to think she
had not the journey to make alone.
"Yes; but the lady is not my mamma, Grete. _She_ died when I was
scarcely your age; and this is my second mother, who has been with me
ever since."
All the next day she waited, lingering about, and unable to do anything
in her feverish anxiety and impatience. She was not afraid to see him.
She had suddenly been awakened to a sweet and new consciousness of
strength--a fulness of life and will which she knew would sustain her in
any emergency. She had no fear whatever, so far as she herself was
concerned. But she dreaded the possible effect of their meeting again
in these too seductive circumstances; she dreaded it, while she thought
of Dove. Already there lay over her the shadow of the wrong done to the
bright young English girl whose pretty ways and violet eyes she so well
remembered--a wrong inscrutable, not to be condoned or forgotten. Whose
was the fault? She only knew that she dared no longer stay there after
having once read Will's secret in that quick mutual glance in the
forest.
Another day passed, and yet another: the torment was becoming
unbearable. She could not leave the place while danger yet hung over
him: on the other hand, her delay was provoking the chances of that very
meeting which she had resolved should not take place. Many a time she
thought she could go away happy and content if only she might shake
hands with him and look once in his eyes; then there came a misty
remembrance of Dove's face floating before her, and the young girl
seemed to regard her reproachfully.
She began to think that a little far-off glimpse of him would do:
moderating her desires, she grew to long for that as the one supreme
boon, bearing which with her she could go away with a glad heart. Only
a glimpse of him to see how he looked, to bid a mute farewell to him,
herself unseen.
"Our patient is much better this morning," said the Count to her, on the
fourth day. "Won't you come upstairs, and see him?"
"No," she said, softly, looking down.
She was more incomprehensible to him than ever. Formerly she seemed to
be quite familiar with him; she was happy and careless in his presence;
she responded to his nonsense with nonsense of her own. Now she seemed
to have been translated to another sphere. He was no longer jovial and
jocular with her. He watched and studied the Madonna-like calm of the
clear dark face, until he felt a sort of awe stealing over him; the
intense dark life of her eyes was a mystery to him.
In these few days she began to wonder if she were not rapidly growing
old: it seemed to her that everything around her was becoming so serious
and so sad.
"And if I do look old, who will care?" she said to herself, bitterly.
The Count, on the other hand, fancied she had never been so beautiful;
and, as he looked on her, he tried to gladden his heart by the thought
that he was not a mercenary man. To prove to her and himself that he
was not, he swore a mental oath that he would be rejoiced to see her a
beggar, that so he might lift her up to his high estate. Indeed, so mad
was the man at the time--so much beside himself was he--that he was
ready to forswear the only aim of his life, and would have married Annie
Brunel only too willingly, had it been proved to him that she was the
daughter of a gipsy.
"Another day's rest is all that the doctor has prescribed," said the
Count. "I hope to see our friend down to breakfast to-morrow morning."
"Is he so much better?" she asked.
She inquired in so earnest a tone that he fancied her anxiety was to
know if the damage she had done was nearly mended--and so he said:
"Better? He is quite better now. I think he might come down and see us
this morning, unless you would prefer paying him a visit."
Immediately after breakfast Miss Brunel went over to the inn, and there
she found Hans Halm and his daughter.
"Grete," she said, "could you go to the Feldberg to-day?"
"Yes," said Grete.
"Could you be ready to start by twelve o'clock?"
"My father's _wagen_ has gone to Donaueschingen, mademoiselle," she
said.
"The Count will lend us a carriage, and you must come with me."
The matter having been arranged, she returned to the Count, and told him
of her intention, firmly and quietly. A week previous he would have
laughed, and pooh-poohed the notion; now he was excessively courteous,
and, though he regretted her decision, he would do everything in his
power, &c.
"Will you let Hermann come with us as far as the Feldberg?"
"I devote Hermann entirely to your service for a week--a month--as long
as you choose," said the Count.
English Polly was got up from the kitchen--where she had established a
species of freemasonry between herself and the German servants--to
assist in the packing; and while she and Mrs. Christmas were so engaged,
Annie Brunel sate down, and wrote these lines on a slip of paper:
"_I am glad to hear you are letter. You wished us not to meet again,
and as it is easier for me to go than you, I leave here in an hour. You
will forgive me for having caused you so much pain. Good-bye._
_A.B._"
She put the paper in an envelope, and took it down to the Count.
"I have written a note to Mr. Anerley, explaining our going away so
abruptly. Will you please send it to him?"
"I will take it to him myself," said the Count, and he took it.
A few minutes afterwards, when the Count returned, she was seated at the
window, looking out with vague absent eyes on the great undulations of
the black-green forest, on the soft sunlight that lay upon the hills
along the horizon, and on the little nook of Schoenstein with the brown
houses, the white church, and the large inn. She started slightly as he
entered. He held another envelope in his hand.
"I have brought a reply," he said, "but a man does not write much with
his left hand, in bed."
On a corner of the sheet of paper she had sent, there were written these
words, "_I thank you heartily. God bless you!--W.A._" And her only
thought as she read them was, "Not even in England--not even in
England."
Grete appeared, blushing in her elaborate finery. Her violet bodice was
resplendent, with its broad velvet collar embroidered with gold; her
snow-white sleeves were full-blown and crimp; and her hair was braided,
and hung down in two long tails from underneath the imposing black
head-dress, with its ornamentation of gold beads. Grete had
manufactured another of those embroidered miracles, which she was now
carrying in her trunk to Aenchen Baumer. It was with a little sob of
half-hysteric delight that she drove out of the stone courtyard, and
realised the stupendous fact that Hermann Loewe was to accompany them to
the Feldberg.
Mrs. Christmas, studying the strange expression of her adopted
daughter's face, thought she was becoming remarkably like the Annie
Napier whom she knew long ago.
"May she have a very different fate!" said the old woman to herself, as
she thought of the weary and solitary life-struggle, the self-denial,
the heroic fortitude of those bygone and bitter days.