HOMEWARDS.
"If mademoiselle chooses," said Grete, "we can walk along the side of
the Titi See, and allow the carriage to go on by itself. The road is
very pretty from the lake onwards to the Feldberg."
Mademoiselle was in that frame of mind when any change involving action
was a delicious relief, and she gladly embraced the proposal.
"If the old lady prefers to drive all the way," said Grete, with a touch
of maidenly pride, "Hermann ought to accompany her. I can find the way
for us two, mademoiselle."
That also was agreed to, the distance being too great for Mrs. Christmas
to walk. And so Annie Brunel and Grete Halm set out upon the winding
path, or rather track, which runs along the shore of the beautiful Titi
See--here skirting the edge of the rocky promontories which jut out into
the still blue lake, there cutting through the dense coppices lying in
the sunshine along the foot of the hills, or again passing some
deep-roofed and sleepy farmhouse, with its small stone chapel standing
in the yard. Grete reverentially crossed herself every time they passed
one of these numerous private chapels; and her companion, peeping in
through the wooden bars, generally saw within the sanctuary a large
framed lithograph of the Virgin Mary in red and blue, with a vast number
of little gilt trinkets and other pious offerings lying on the altar.
Some of these chapels had forms within capable of accommodating a
congregation of from twelve to twenty persons. One or two people had
built no chapel at all, but had hollowed out a niche in the wall
surrounding their garden, and had placed therein a wooden crucifix, more
or less painted, exhibiting the details of the Crucifixion with
mediaeval exactitude. And Grete, being a good girl, crossed herself as
she saw these humble memorials of a devout faith.
"Why did you send Hermann away, Grete?" said Annie Brunel, as they
walked along.
"Because, mademoiselle, I wished him to know that I could do without
him," said Grete Halm.
"You are very fond of him, are you not?"
"Yes, mademoiselle, but----"
"And he of you?"
"He is very fond of me, I know," said Grete, simply.
"I don't wonder at it; but have you ever asked yourself why he is fond
of you?"
"Why, mademoiselle? Because--because I am a girl and he is a man, and
he wants to be married."
Annie Brunel laughed; it was the first smile her companion had seen on
her face for some days.
"But suppose he did not want to be married--suppose he could not be
married to you--would he be fond of you? Or suppose you knew, Grete,
that he was to marry some one else, what would you do?"
"I should do nothing, mademoiselle; I should be miserable."
"You would not cease to love him?"
"If I could, yes; if not,----"
"If not, you would only be miserable."
The tone in which the words were uttered caused Grete to look up
suddenly in her companion's face. She saw nothing there but the
inwardly-reflecting eyes, the beautiful, pale, dark complexion, and the
placid sweetness of the unkissed lips.
"In England, Grete, I am an actress. They say that an actress must
never reflect, that she lives for immediate gratification, that she
educates impulses, and that she cannot pause, and regard her position,
and criticise herself. If I cease to feel any pleasure in immediate
gratifications, if I feel ill at ease and dissatisfied with myself, and
fancy that the stage would no longer give me any pleasure--must I cease
to be an actress?"
"Is mademoiselle in earnest?"
Grete Halm could not believe that her companion was an actress. Had she
ever seen, even in Carlsruhe itself, an actress with such a noble air,
with such a face, and such a manner?
"I am in earnest, Grete. I have been an actress all my life; I feel as
if I were one no longer."
"What has changed you, mademoiselle, may I be permitted to ask?"
"I do not know myself, Grete. But I have turned an old woman since I
came to the Black Forest; and I shall go back to England with a sort of
fear, as if I had never been there before."
_Since she came to the Black Forest_. For a moment a suspicion crossed
Grete's mind that she must be miserable through loving some one; but so
completely had she been imbued with the idea of her companion being some
mysteriously beautiful and noble creature, who could not be moved by the
meaner loves and thoughts of a girl like herself, that she at once
dismissed the supposition. Perhaps, she thought, the shock of severely
injuring her friend still affected her, and had induced a temporary
despondency. Grete therefore resolved, in her direct way, to be as
amusing as possible; and she never tired of directing her companion's
attention to the beautiful and wonderful things they saw on their
way--the scarlet grasshoppers which rattled their wings among the warm
grass, the brilliantly-coloured beetles, the picturesque crucifixes by
the wayside, or the simultaneous splash of a lot of tiny fish among the
reeds as some savage pike made a rush at them from the deeper water.
In process of time they left the soft blue breadth of the lake behind
them, and found themselves in the valley leading up to the Feldberg.
Grete struck an independent zigzag course up the hill's side, clambering
up rocky slopes, cutting through patches of forest, and so on, until
they found themselves on the high mountain-road loading to their
destination. Nothing was to be seen of the carriage; and so they went on
alone, into the silence of the tall pines, while the valley beneath them
gradually grew wider, and the horizon beyond grew more and more distant.
Now they were really in the Black Forest of the old romances--not the
low-lying districts, where the trees are of modern growth, but up in the
rocky wilderness, where the magnificent trunks were encrusted and coated
with lichens of immemorial age--where the spongy yellow-green moss, here
and there of a dull crimson, would let a man sink to the waist--where
the wild profusion of underwood was rank and strong with the heat of the
sun and the moisture of innumerable streams trickling down their rocky
channels in the hillside--where the yellow light, falling between the
splendid stems of the trees, glimmered away down the narrow avenues, and
seemed to conjure up strange forms and faces out of the still brushwood
and the fantastic grey lichens which hung everywhere around. Several
times a cock capercailzie, with two or three hens under his protection,
would rise with a prodigious noise and disappear in the green darkness
overhead; occasionally a mountain-hare flew past; and Grete, with an
inherited interest, pointed out to her friend the tiny footmarks of the
deer on the sand of the rough and winding road.
"See, mademoiselle, there is Aenchen Baumer's house."
They had come to an opening in the pines which revealed the broad yellow
valley beneath, with its sunlit road running like a thread of silk
through it. Grete's friend's house was a little white building, with
green casements, and a few vines growing up one of the gables; it was
separated from the road by a paling which interrupted the long line of
rough stone posts which a paternal government had stuck in the ground to
prevent carriages tumbling still farther down into the bed of the
hollow.
"You have come a long way out of your road, Grete," said Miss Brunel.
"I came to accompany you, mademoiselle. I can easily go back to
Aenchen's house before the evening."
The upward road now grew more and more jagged, rough, and full of
mud-holes, until, at last, they left the forest region altogether, and
got into the high pasture districts of the mountain. Finally, as the
path became a track, grass-grown and rocky, they arrived at a square
grey building, with a small garden attached, which stood on the summit
of the shoulder of the hill.
"It is the Feldberg Inn," said Grete.
"Is it pleasant to live on the top of the mountain?" asked her
companion.
"Oh, yes, mademoiselle; only it is a little cold. And when you look out
at night--in the moonlight--it frightens one; for all the house seems
surrounded by a yellow mist, which floats about and makes figures, and
then it sweeps away, and you see the garden sharp and clear. It is the
clouds, you know. Franz Gersbach has told me of his having been on the
top of the Niessen one morning before sunrise, and while all the great
mountains opposite--the Jungfrau, and the Moench, and the Eiger, and all
these--were still cold and dark, he saw Monte Rosa and Mont Blanc, away
down in the south, with a pale pink flame on their peaks in the midst of
the green sky. Here we have no snow on our mountains, except in the
winter-time; and then sometimes the people up here have their supplies
cut off for a long time."
There was a tall, fair-faced, sleepy-looking man standing at the door of
the inn, with whom Grete shook hands. The giant blushed slightly,
answered her questions in laconic monosyllables, and then led the way
into the house, apparently relieved to be out of the observation of the
two girls.
"It is the landlord's brother," said Grete, "and a friend of mine."
"You have a number of friends," said Annie Brunel, with a smile; "and
they seem to be all big men. If you were as small as I am, one might
account for your liking big men."
Grete Halm looked at her companion. There could be no doubt about the
German girl being the taller and certainly the stouter of the two; and
yet until that moment she had fancied that Miss Brunel was ever so much
taller than she.
"It is the manner of your walk, mademoiselle, and your figure--and
perhaps the expression of your face--that make me think you tall. No, I
see you are not tall."
For a moment Margarethe's soft brown eyes dwelt on her
companion--perhaps with a touch of wistful, puzzled longing to know why
grace of form should so touch our sympathies; then she turned to the
large Heinrich Holzmann--whose big shoulders should have been more
attractive to a girl's eye than another girl's waist--and said that the
young English lady wished the best apartments in the house. Margarethe
further gave him to understand that his guests would be very particular
about their cookery; and, above all, that they would not submit to have
but one fork and knife to attend them through four or five courses.
Heinrich said "Yaw" in a grave manner to all her directions, and begged
her to tell the English lady that his brother, who spoke French, would
be home next day.
"But the lady and her friend--who will be here presently--must not
starve till to-morrow," said the practical Grete.
"Nein," said Heinrich, absently.
"I mean they must have dinner here, and you must look after it, Heinrich
Holzmann."
"Ja, ja."
"You have plenty in the house?"
"Ja."
"The lady says that after the carriage arrives, you can have dinner
prepared: that is, the lady and her friend at one table, and Hermann
Loewe, the coachman, and I at another. Do you understand?"
"Freilich.",
"If the girls want help, ask me."
"Danke schoen, Grete."
"And as you don't seem to have anybody here, shall I take the lady
upstairs and pick out what rooms she wants?"
"Yes, if that pleases you," said the fair-haired giant; and therewith he
opened the door for Miss Brunel, and made her a grave bow as she went
with Grete into the passage, and so up to the rooms above.
It was nearly half an hour afterwards that the carriage arrived, and
Mrs. Christmas, with much excitement, caught Annie in her arms and
kissed her, declaring she had never expected to see her again. The road
they had come!--the precipices they had skirted, with the three horses
slipping on the smooth rocks at the very brink!--the vehicle leaning
over as if it were about to topple headlong down!--the jolting into deep
ruts and over blocks of stone!
"I screamed," she said, "and insisted on being helped out of the
carriage; for they would have me sit still, declaring there was no
danger. Danger!----"
And the little woman shivered.
"So you walked all the way?"
"Until we got down into the valley."
Grete and Hermann were invited to dine with the two ladies; and, in the
evening, they all convoyed the young German girl down to the house of
her friend.
For several days they remained on the Feldberg, beguiling the time as
best they might. Mrs. Christmas had now quite recovered her normal
condition of health and spirits, and laboured hard to discover why her
companion was so preoccupied, restless, and absent in manner. Why, too,
was this journey down through Switzerland being indefinitely postponed?
Every morning it was----
"Miss Annie, do we start to-day?"
"Not to-day, mother. Let us have another day's quiet."
"You will kill yourself with dulness, Miss Annie. There is nothing for
you to do."
"Let us climb to the top of the peak, and see the tower----"
"I have tried twice, and failed. And if you persist in going up there
alone, you will tumble down into that horrible lake you told me of."
"Then let us descend to the lake to-day, if you please."
She could not leave the neighbourhood. She lingered there, day after
day, that she might have tidings from Schoenstein. Two letters she had
received from the Count told her nothing definite; they were very
polite, grave, respectful communications, in which he hoped she would
visit Schoenstein again on her return. Hermann, on going back to his
master, had written to Grete Halm, and merely mentioned that the English
gentleman was still in his room, and that the surgeon did not speak very
confidently of the case.
This day, also, she prevailed on Mrs. Christmas to stay; and together,
after breakfast, they set out in quest of the Feldsee, the small lake
that lies deep down in the heart of the mountain. They were furnished
with a few directions from Heinrich Holzmann's brother; but as neither
time nor direction was of much consequence to them, they plunged
carelessly into the forest, and proceeded slowly to descend the side of
the mountain. At last, they came upon a path which led down through the
jumbled and picturesque confusion of shattered rock, smooth boulder,
moss, fern, and herbage, that lay around the foot of the tall,
resinous-smelling pines; and this track they leisurely followed until,
from the twilight of the trees, it led them out into the obscure
daylight which dwelt over the gloomy tarn they sought.
Nothing could well be more lonely or melancholy than this dark and
silent lake lying in its circular bed--evidently an extinct volcanic
crater--overshadowed by tall and perpendicular crags hemming it in on
every side, and scarcely ever having a breath of wind to stir its
leaden-like surface. The tall thinly-clad rocks, rising to the circular
breadth of white sky above, were faintly mirrored in the black water
underneath; and the gloomy stillness of the quiet motionless picture was
not relieved by the least stir or sound of any living thing. This
hideous hole, its surface nearly four thousand feet above the level of
the sea, is of unknown depth: no wonder that the superstitious
Schwarzwalders have legends about it, and that the children tell you of
the demon-deer that was wont to spring over the tall precipices above,
and so lure on the unwary huntsman and his horse to destruction.
There was a boat lying moored in a creek at one corner of the lake, and
of this Annie Brunel at once took possession. She insisted on Mrs.
Christmas getting into it; and then, with a few strokes of the oars, she
pulled out to the centre of the lake. Mrs. Christmas did not at all like
the aspect of the place; and, if she had known that she was floating
over an extinct volcano, she would probably have liked it less.
"It looks like a place for murders to be committed," she said.
When they had reached the centre of the dark water, Annie laid aside the
oars, and seated herself in the stern of the boat with her companion.
There was no wind, no current: the boat remained almost motionless.
The old woman took the young girl's hand, and said to her--
"Come now, Miss Annie, you must tell me what has been the matter with
you lately--what has vexed you--or what troubles you?"
"I have been thinking of returning to England," she said, absently.
"Why should that trouble you?"
"I am afraid of going back."
"Bah! I have no patience with you. You are as much a child as ever--as
when you used to whimper in a makebelieve way, and cause your mother to
laugh and cry together over your natural turn for acting."
"My natural turn for acting is going--is nearly gone," said she, with a
smile; "and that is what I am afraid about. I am beginning to fear a
lot of faces."
"Then _why_ will you remain in such a dreadfully lonely place as this
mountain inn? That it is which breeds strange fancies in you, my girl,
don't doubt of it. Afraid of faces! Didn't you use to tell me that you
were never conscious of seeing a face at all when you were on the
stage?"
"I may have said so," she replied, musingly. "I don't think I ever did
see faces--except as vague orange-coloured lamps in a sort of ruddy
darkness--over the blaze of the footlights, you know. Certainly I never
thought of them, nor heeded them. When I went off, and heard the noise
of their hands and feet, it seemed like the sound of some machine with
which I had no concern. I don't think I ever feared an audience in my
life. My mother used to be my audience, as she stood in the wings and
looked at me with the half-smile and kindly eyes I remember so well; and
then I used to try to please you, you know, and never succeeded, as you
also know, Lady Jane; and lately I have not thought of pleasing anybody,
but of satisfying a sort of delirium that came over me."
"You never pleased me! You wicked creature! If I were blind and came
into a theatre where I heard you playing your 'Juliet,' my eyes would
open of their own accord."
"That time has passed over, Lady Jane. I am afraid of going to England.
I should see all the faces now, and wonder what the people were saying
of my hands outstretched, or of my kneeling posture, or of my elocution.
I feel that if I were to get up just now, in this boat, and speak two
sentences----"
"You would have us both laughing. But did you ever try before, my dear,
to act to a scene? You might as well try to speak to an empty theatre
as to that horrible loneliness over there. It was Mr. Bridges, the
stage-manager at N----, if you remember, Miss Annie, who used to
rehearse in the morning his speech before the curtain--used to wave his
hand and smile to the empty benches, and then bow himself out backward.
But at night, when the people were there, he always forgot the smile and
the wave of the hand, and mumbled like a schoolboy. And as for your not
being able to act when you hear the stir of a crowded house on the other
side of the curtain, and know there are a dozen bouquets waiting for you
in the boxes, why it's nonsense, my dear."
"I am afraid of it none the less, mother, and I shall dread putting
myself to the test."
"All the result of this living out of the world," said Mrs. Christmas,
dogmatically. "Say, shall we start to-morrow morning, Miss Annie?"
"Yes."
When they returned to the inn there was a letter from Schoenstein
awaiting Miss Brunel. She knew from the peculiar handwriting who had
sent it, and opened it joyfully, knowing that he was at least well
enough to write. These were the words:--
"Schoenstein, Thursday.
"MY DEAR MISS BRUNEL,--Ever since you left I have bitterly reproached
myself for having given you so much annoyance and trouble. I hear that
you are living, without amusement or companions, in the Feldberg Inn.
May I beg of you to return here, adding the assurance that you will not
be troubled by my presence in any way whatever? Whether you do or not, I
cannot permit you to leave without bidding you good-bye--especially as
we may not see each other in England--and so, if you will forgive me
this once, I propose to cross over to the Feldberg to-morrow and visit
you," &c., &c.
She read no more; the cramped left-hand writing had told her enough.
She hurriedly wrote a reply, peremptorily forbidding him to be at the
trouble and danger of such an expedition; and added that, before he
could possibly be at the Feldberg, she would be on her way to Freiburg
and Basle. Then she called the elder Holzmann, desired him to get a
messenger to take over this letter to Schoenstein that day, and informed
him that on the next morning she and her companion would set out for the
south.
It was a point of maidenly honour with her that she should go away with
her sad secret her own; and who could tell what disclosure might happen,
were she to see him suffering from the effects of the wound, entreating
her to stay, and with his own love for her speaking in his eyes? He was
a man, and it did not matter; as for her, she closed this fatal
tenderness in her heart, and would fain have deceived herself into
denying its existence. Truth to say, she felt a touch of shame at her
own weakness; was dimly conscious that her virginal purity of soul was
tainted by a passion which she dreamed was a guilty one; and knew that
her punishment lay in the loss of that innocent gaiety and
thoughtlessness which had hitherto made her life so pleasant.
"We may not see each other in England," she said to herself, gazing at
the crooked and trembling lines on the paper. "Not in England, nor
elsewhere, will be my constant prayer so long as I live."
So they left the gloomy mountain, and passing through the Hollenthal
once more, reached Freiburg; and from thence, by easy stages, they made
the round of the Swiss lakes until, as fate would have it, they came to
Thun. There they rested for a day or two, preparatory to their
undertaking the voyage to England.
Here a strange incident befel Annie Brunel. Their first walk lay along
the shore of the lake; and no sooner had they left the side of the rapid
bright-green Aar, than Mrs. Christmas noticed a strange intense look of
wonder settling over her companion's face. Wistfully, and yet
curiously, the dark-grey eyes dwelt on the expanding lake, on the long
curving bays, on the sunlit mountains opposite, and on the far-off
snow-peaks of the Bernese Alps.
"I have seen all this in a dream," she said.
"Or in a picture," suggested Mrs. Christmas.
"It is more than a dream or a picture," she continued, in a
half-frightened way, as they walked along. "I know the place--I know
it--the shore over there--the village down yonder at the point, and the
smoke hanging over the trees;--I am getting quite giddy
with--remembering----"
"My dear!" said Mrs. Christmas.
Her companion was now quite pale, and stood fixed to the spot, looking
over the long scene in front of her with a wild stare. Then she turned
round, as if almost in fear, and no sooner had she done so than she
uttered a slight cry, and seemed ready to sink to the ground.
"I knew it!--I knew it!" she said. "I knew the house was there before I
turned my head."
She looked up at the handsome building on the plateau above, as if it
were some horrible thing come to torture her. It was only the house in
which Harry Ormond had bidden her mother farewell.