‘YES.’
‘And I was a full-leav’d, full-bough’d tree,
Tranquil and trembling and deep in the night.
And tall and still, down the garden-ways,
She moved in the liquid, calm moonlight.
‘Her moonshot eyes, strained back with grief,
Her hands clench’d down, she pressed from sight;
And I was a full-leav’d, full-bough’d tree,
Tranquil and trembling and deep in the night.’
Sara laid her cloak on a table, and followed the servant into Frau
Wilhelmi’s reception-room. The well-known scene smote upon her eyes
with a weird strangeness and sense of unfamiliarity; it was the same,
with the accustomed sounds of loud talking, merry laughter, and
resounding music. Light and sounds blended together and beat upon her
brain in a combined thunder. She could distinguish nothing clearly or
distinctly, beyond the faces and the voices of those who actually came
up to her and addressed her.
By a vast effort of will she kept her composed, impassive demeanour.
When she set out she had a vague idea that on finding herself in
the midst of a gay and animated company, she would be able to smile
and speak and do as they did, even if mechanically. But the effort
failed. Her lips felt stiffened, her tongue tied, so that smiling was
impossible, and only the merest ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ would pass her lips.
‘_Nun_, Miss Ford!’ exclaimed Frau Wilhelmi, taking her hand. ‘You look
ill, _recht elend und leidend_. Have you got a cold?’
‘No–a little headache. I thought it would do me good to come out,’
she murmured.
Had she followed her own impulse, she would have turned and left the
house again instantly, but she had an underlying determination to go
through with the ordeal, having once braved it, albeit it proved more
scathing than she had expected.
Then Luise came up to her, laughing, with some absurd story,
to which Sara listened, thankful that she was not expected to
speak–interruptions being received unfavourably by the volatile Luise.
Luise did not notice Miss Ford’s excessive pallor, or if she did was
too absorbed in her own affairs to observe it particularly, or be
shocked by it.
Then came Max Helmuth, who saw instantly that something was wrong, but
did not feel himself on sufficiently intimate terms with Miss Ford to
ask any questions.
To Sara, the whole thing continued to grow more and more like a hideous
dream. She thought she must have been there an hour, and that she
might plead her headache as an excuse, and go away. Looking at a great
_Schwarzwälder_ which hung against the wall of the hall, she saw that
it was just ten minutes since she had entered the house.
The rooms were unusually full that evening, and less notice was taken
of her than usual; but several pairs of eyes were fixed upon her in
wondering astonishment, and she was collected enough to see it, and to
desire more strongly than ever to get away. But a mere trifle prevented
her–the idea, namely, of the surprise and pity she would see in
Frau Wilhelmi’s eyes if she went up to her now ten minutes after her
arrival, and took leave. She looked around for a chair, feeling like
some hunted creature which would escape, but is paralysed with fear
when most it needs all its power of wind and limb.
And as she looked round, some one took her hand, and a voice said:
‘Pardon me, Miss Ford–you look ill to-night. Would you like to sit
down?’
It was Rudolf who addressed her. For a moment the horrible strain of
the nervous tension under which she was suffering relaxed; as she
looked up at him her eyes wavered; her lips and nostrils fluttered for
an instant, and she drew a long breath. The end of her endurance was
coming, she felt.
‘Yes, please,’ she said, in a voice that did not rise above a whisper.
He drew her hand through his arm, saying, ‘Let us go to the
hall–there is a bench there;’ and as he spoke, he glanced casually
and unthinkingly down at the hand which a moment ago his own had
covered–at Sara’s left hand. She wore a pair of old white-lace
mittens–one of the few relics of old prosperity which remained to her,
and this allowed her hands and their adornments to be fully seen. As
Falkenberg glanced at that hand, he missed something. He paused, as
they passed out; his eyes leaped to her face, to her hand; back to her
face again. Sara’s eyes had followed his. The first flush of colour
that had touched her cheeks since Ellen had brought her message of
sorrow, rushed over her face now. She understood the look, the glance
which asked, ‘Your ring–where is it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, beneath her breath, and then, as if mastering a
momentary weakness, she recovered herself; her face took the same
marble whiteness again. She let him lead her to a cushioned bench near
a pyramid of ferns and a little fountain, which stood in the centre of
the hall. She sat down, but it was only for a moment. Then she started
up again, ‘Will you–would you mind taking me home again? I–I feel
ill,’ she faltered, her powers of endurance at an end.
‘Surely I will,’ he answered, finding her cloak and wrapping it round
her.
Sara gathered up her dress, took his arm, and they passed out of the
house.
Five minutes’ walking brought them to the door of her home. Falkenberg
rang the bell, and as they waited, he said:
‘Miss Ford, may I come in? There is something I want to say to you.’
‘Oh yes! Come in and say what you like!’ she replied; and now that
she had found speech again, the impulse to reveal her agony was
uncontrollable–or, rather, the power of concealing it, of speaking of
other things, had disappeared. ‘Say what you like,’ she repeated. ‘If
you had come to say you had brought something to kill me with, I would
thank you on my knees.’
‘Yes, I know you would, but I have not brought that,’ he answered, as
the door swung open from within, and they entered.
Ellen started up on seeing them.
‘Oh, sir, I am glad you have brought Miss Ford home!’ she exclaimed.
‘Leave us, Ellen,’ said her mistress. ‘Herr Falkenberg wishes to speak
with me.’
Ellen left the room. Sara looked at her guest. He, too, was pale,
and his eyes full of a deep and serious purpose. His heart, too, was
aching, with a pain almost as intolerable as that of her own.
He read the whole story; that which caused his pain was his own
powerlessness to help her. He knew her better than she knew herself.
He knew that it was not grief which gave the keenest sting to her
present agony, but her outraged pride–the blow which had been dealt
to her honour and her self-respect. It was upon that feeling that he
calculated now, in what he was about to do. It was upon that, that he
staked his whole hopes, as he threw. He had told her once that she
might, some day, do something which conventional people would call
outrageous. He was bent now upon persuading her to such a deed, and he
trusted chiefly to that infuriated pride to help him.
‘Well?’ she said, with a harsh laugh, ‘have you come to talk about my
missing ring, Herr Falkenberg? Do you want to know where it is, and who
has it now? I can inform you that it has gone back to the man who gave
it me–because–because he has sent me word that I am free. He thinks
of marrying some one else.’
There was a discordant, grating sound in her voice, and she laughed
again. The laugh encouraged Rudolf in his purpose.
‘I guessed it was something like that,’ he said, ‘when I saw that it
was gone. The man could neither appreciate nor understand you. I have
felt it for a long time.’
‘Is that to console me?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘It should console you, in time. Women of such stuff as you are made
of cannot grieve for ever for a coxcomb. If they do, they degrade
themselves to his level.’
He saw the scarlet colour that rushed over her face and throat, and
the strangely mingled glance she threw towards him. He had not
miscalculated.
‘You did not know him. You have no right to call him a coxcomb,’ she
said. ‘You slight me by—’
‘By supposing you capable of making a mistake? There you are wrong.
The only thing that can be infallibly predicted by one human being of
another, is that during his life he will make a great many mistakes. I
should slight you if I supposed you capable for a moment of breaking
your heart for Jerome Wellfield.’
He had spoken the name advisedly. It had never passed between them
before. Its effect was to make her cover her face with her hands, and
cry faintly and pitiably.
As Falkenberg saw this sight–saw this girl crouching and weeping, and
heartbroken and desperate in consequence of having been deceived and
deserted by Jerome Wellfield, his heart was hot within him. He went up
to her, took her hands from before her face, and as she looked at him
she saw that his eyes were full of wrath, and his brow clouded with
angry feeling.
‘Sara!’ he said abruptly, and almost sharply, ‘you demean yourself by
this behaviour. Listen to me: answer me: You will never cast a thought
to that man again. If he were at your feet to-morrow you would turn
away from him, for you are no patient Griseldis. Is not this true?’
‘Of course!’ she exclaimed, brokenly; ‘why do you ask me such
questions? Do you wish to insult me?’
‘No. I only wanted your word for what I felt to be true. Nothing–no
repentance on his part would induce you to—’
‘I will not bear it,’ she exclaimed, passionately. ‘Let me go. You have
no right to—’
‘Sara, I have no right to say any of these things to you. I know
it too well. Will you give me the right–not to ask any more such
questions–but to protect you and stand by you in this and every other
trouble you may have? Will you leave Jerome Wellfield to reap what he
has sown, and let me try to prove to you that there are men left in
this world who know how to set a woman’s happiness higher than their
own convenience? Will you be my wife?’
Falkenberg had once or twice tested the extent of his influence over
Sara, but he had never pushed the experiment so far as this; and he
felt that it was a crucial test: his power over her trembled in the
balance; with her final decision now it must stand or fall. As she did
not speak, but sat still, gazing at him, while he, stooping towards
her, held her hands, and looked intently into her face, he went on:
‘You have been too absorbed to see that it was no mere “friendship”
I felt for you. But I tell you now, that I would wait for you to my
life’s end–only, I cannot keep up this show of indifference. Choose
now, Sara. Promise to be my wife, or dismiss me once for all. It must
be one or the other.’
‘Oh, do not leave me here alone!’ she cried, involuntarily.
‘Then consent to what I ask. You told me once that you had faith in me,
that you believed in me. Have you lost it all?’
‘Not a jot.’
‘Then take my word when I tell you that you shall not repent. Let me
call you my wife. Give me the duties of your husband; I ask for no
privileges. I will wait–wait twenty years, and never repent. Neither
shall you.’
‘But you know–you must know–I do not love you. I am not sure that I
do not love him, even yet–may God help me!’
‘Yes, I can understand it all. But decide, Sara, now–at once. Once
again I give you the alternative; it depends on you whether I go or
stay.’
This was intimidation, and he knew it. He used it because he had a
great end in view, and he saw no other way of gaining it.
‘Speak!’ he added. ‘Do you consent?’
A long pause, till she answered coldly, and turning, if possible, a
shade paler than before:
‘Yes.’
‘I thank you from my very soul,’ he answered, kissing first one and
then the other of the cold nerveless hands he held. ‘And now I will
leave you. You would prefer to be alone, I know. Good-night! Remember,
all I am and have are at your service.’
She made no answer, and the deathly hue of her face never changed or
altered. She did not reply to his good-night, nor take any notice of
him, as he went out of the room. He found Ellen, and sent her into the
room, saying:
‘I think your mistress will be ill. If she is, send for me. She will
quite approve of it.’
Wondering, Ellen went into the sitting-room, and her heart echoed
Falkenberg’s words when she saw her mistress. Ellen had come to feel
that the most utter breakdown–fever, delirium, or raving–would be
better than this prolonged conscious suffering. She could almost have
found it in her heart to pray for death or madness to come and relieve
her darling from this torture.
‘May he be paid his just wages!’ she kept wishing within herself,
‘measure for measure–not a grain more or less; and he’ll have had
about as much as he can endure. I ask no more.’
The end of that long-drawn agony came at last, as come it must. After
Falkenberg had gone, Sara began to pace about the room; once or twice
the consciousness of what had passed between her and him, crossed
her mind, and a vague accompanying idea, which scarcely attained the
consistency of a positive intention–that when she was better, and
better able to reason, she would tell him that she had made a mistake;
that what he bargained for was out of the question; she would do him
no such wrong. His threat of leaving her had been the last straw; she
had been unable to face the alternative. She could not do without him;
for in crises like these we see every day the adage belied that ‘vain
is the help of man.’ It is man alone that can sustain and comfort man
in such an emergency; it is then that there is brought home to us the
utter powerlessness of supernatural aids to touch our woe.
Ellen, in her room, towards morning, heard an abrupt pause in the
measured footsteps, and something like a long moaned-out sigh. She
hastened to the other room, and found that Sara had at last, dressed as
she was, flung herself upon her bed, and lay there motionless.
When Ellen spoke to her she murmured some incoherent words, but it was
evident that she did not understand what was said to her.
The woman felt a sensation almost of relief. At last she could take
matters into her own hands, and her first step of course was to send
for a doctor–a doctor to cure a strange disease. Where are such
physicians to be found? and when shall we cease our quest after them?
She sent for Falkenberg, too, as he had desired her to do; and she
heard what he said to the doctor who had come out of Sara’s room,
looking grave. Falkenberg asked him what was the matter–was the case a
serious one?
The doctor looked from Rudolf to Ellen, and answered by another
question:
‘Has the young lady any relations? If she has, they should be sent
for.’
‘I do not know how that may be,’ replied Falkenberg; ‘or whether
she would desire her relations to be sent for, even if she were in
extremity. But she is my promised wife, and that being the case, I beg
you will consider me responsible in every matter that concerns her.’
The doctor–a grave man–bowed, also gravely, and said, that that being
the case, he might say that the lady was very dangerously ill, and
before deciding upon any measures, he would prefer to consult with his
colleague, Dr. Moritz.
‘So be it,’ replied Falkenberg, repressing an impatient sigh.
The note was written: the appointment made for an hour from that time.
Leaving directions for what was necessary to be done at once, the
doctor departed.
‘Sir,’ said Ellen, turning with some agitation to Falkenberg, ‘excuse
me, but is it true what you said to the doctor, that my young lady had
promised to marry you?’
‘Quite true. I wrung it from her last night, by telling her that
she degraded herself by grieving for that other fellow. And if she
lives, my friend, I intend her to be my wife; therefore don’t distress
yourself on the subject. You will keep faith, and are her oldest
friend, therefore I wish there to be confidence between us.’
‘Thank you, sir. I hope indeed you may succeed. I wish you well with
all my heart,’ she said.
* * * * *
The two doctors looked very grave. It was as Ellen had dreaded–they
feared for the permanent loss of her reason, after the long,
unendurable strain, and the cruel blow she had had. Falkenberg, without
naming names, inspired only by an intense desire for her recovery,
had judged it best to be tolerably explicit as to facts. One of
the doctors–he named Moritz–looked down at the unconscious face,
remarking:
‘Ay! She has been betrayed, and there are natures to which betrayal is
death.’
‘But Miss Sara was never one to give way,’ said Ellen, appealingly.
‘She was as strong as a man, sir, and as simple as a child, in her
mind.’
‘Then she stands so much the better chance. From what you say I
conclude she was not a morbid subject,’ he answered, as he went away.
Falkenberg’s visits were, of course, daily. Wilhelmi called many times.
His wife and daughter went once into the sick-room, and came out again;
Frau Wilhelmi with all her mother’s heart showing in the pity of her
eyes, Luise crying aloud, and vowing that she would never forget it
till her dying day. The sight of her proud and beautiful friend tossing
senselessly to and fro–of the great grey eyes gazing with meaningless
fixity at her–of the vacant stare and smile upon the face that had
once beamed with intellect, had shaken her careless girl’s heart, and
given her a glimpse into depths she had never dreamed of before.
‘_Ach_, mamma!’ she murmured, as they went sorrowfully away: ‘I don’t
think Falkenberg will ever have his wish–_der Arme_!’
‘Who knows?’ answered Frau Wilhelmi. ‘I am glad her mother cannot see
her.’
It was a desperate battle, if not a very long one. For more than a week
life and reason in the one balance, death or madness in the other,
oscillated with a terrible uncertainty. But Sara Ford was not doomed
to lose either life or reason in the struggle. ‘Strong light,’ says
Goethe, ‘throws strong shadow.’ And a strong, intense nature makes a
strong, obstinate struggle against all kinds of adversities which ‘the
subtlety of the devil or man’ may bring about. There came an evening
when the doctors, going away, pronounced her _safe_–sane, living, if
with no more strength than a two-weeks’ child may possess.
It was after they had departed, and while the nurse kept watch over
her patient, that Ellen, after literally feasting her eyes upon her
‘child’s’ face, shrunk to a shadow of its former beauty, went into the
parlour for a few minutes, to take a moment’s rest, and to indulge
in the luxury of some thankful tears. It was quite late, yet she was
scarcely surprised to suddenly see Herr Falkenberg, who strode into the
room, and, standing before her, asked breathlessly:
‘Is it true, what I heard outside–that she is _safe_?’
‘It is quite true, sir, I thank God!’
‘Oh!’ he said, biting his lips, and drawing in his breath with a long
inspiration.
The next moment he had cast himself upon a chair beside the table, and,
with his face buried in his hands, was sobbing aloud.
Awe-struck, Ellen stood by for a few moments, till he looked up and
demanded to hear every particular of this recovery, this conquest, this
triumph over death, which, though they had always professed themselves
so sure of it, came upon him at last with a sense of joy and relief
that was almost overwhelming.
‘I must see her as soon as she can see or speak to anyone,’ he said.
‘You said you were my friend, Ellen, and you must manage this for me.
If she gets well and strong, she will try to break off her compact, out
of mistaken consideration for me–you understand?’
Ellen did not understand, but she had an intense desire to know her
mistress Rudolf Falkenberg’s wife, because she was convinced he was
good. She knew, from innumerable stories, that he was rich, and, in
his way, as great a man as some great nobleman, and therefore a
suitable husband for Miss Ford, though not at all beyond her claims.
But firstly and chiefly she wished it from a feeling, vulgar enough,
and natural enough too, to one of her position, up-bringing, and mental
calibre–she wished it as a kind of revenge upon Jerome Wellfield–to
show him that a man worth a hundred of him in every respect was only
too glad and eager to win the prize which he had cast aside.
From this motive, if from no other, she would strain every nerve
to forward Falkenberg’s cause. Therefore, when he said to her ‘You
understand?’ she affirmed that she understood perfectly, and so let him
go.
[Illustration]