The Fateful Hour.
The silence that ruled throughout the castle was in striking contrast
to the merry, animated life of the afternoon. A light already burned in
the major's chamber, the adjutant and another of the officers were
there; the other gentlemen seemed to have withdrawn, for the large
ante-room, which opened upon the terrace and usually served as the
evening rendezvous, was quite solitary, except that for the moment
Frederic was there trying to light a fire in the grate as a protection
against the cool, evening air. He undertook this service very
unwillingly, and with much grumbling against the castellan who had
remained behind, but saw fit to shirk the duties he had been ordered to
perform, and as usual, was nowhere to be found.
Frederic had at last succeeded in kindling the dry wood heaped up in
the grate; the flames leaped forth merrily, and Frederic had just
resigned himself to melancholy reflection over the worthlessness of
French servants in general and the shortcoming of French stewards, in
particular, when a light hand was laid upon his shoulder, and turning
around he saw that Miss Forest stood close behind him.
"Has Lieutenant Fernow yet returned?" she asked.
"Yes," answered Frederic greatly surprised at the question; "ten
minutes ago."
"Tell him that I wish to speak with him."
Frederic was still more surprised. "With my master?"
"Yes, I wish to speak with your master. Tell him that I await him
here.--Hasten!"
An imperious wave of the hand accompanied the command, for command it
was, and Frederic trudged away. Just as he was outside the door, it
occurred to him that it was no longer fitting for him, one of the
heroes of this glorious Prussian army, to be ordered around in this way
by that American Miss; but it was with him as with Mr. Atkins; his will
sank powerless before her imperious tone and glance; so, growling and
muttering, but obedient, he went to his master's room on the required
errand.
Jane had remained back alone in the large gloomy apartment which was
only partially lighted by a chandelier suspended from the ceiling.
Outside profound darkness already reigned; the moon had not yet risen,
the winds sighed through the trees, and through the one open window
floated the cold evening air. She shuddered involuntarily, and
approaching the grate sank down into an arm-chair, whose richly carved
back displayed an French coat of arms.
She was now just on the verge of certainty! All must become clear
between them,--the next fifteen minutes would unveil the long buried
secret! With what emotions Jane looked forward to his unveiling was
known to her alone. The flames as they rose and fell lighted up a face
upon which was now mirrored one only expression, firm, unyielding
decision. "_It must be!_" With these words, Forest had taught his
daughter to endure every conflict and to bear every sorrow; but in his
lifetime she had known little of sorrow or conflict. Now the trial had
come; but dumbly, without lamentation, she bowed to the iron law of
necessity.
For one moment, that unexpected reunion had overpowered her; but it had
been for only a moment, it was not in Jane's nature to recoil from any
decisive step; she was no coward, and she would now have a certainty,
even though that certainty was to prove her destruction. The features
wrought to their fullest energy, the compressed lips, and the
determined icy glance, at this moment, gave her a really frightful
resemblance to her dead father. There was not a breath of weakness, of
submission; all was hard, rigid, icy; these features said--"let come
what will, it shall be borne!"
The door opened from the outside, and Fernow entered. He closed the
door behind him, but remained standing close to the threshold.
"You wished to see me, Miss Forest!"
"I wished an interview with you, Lieutenant Fernow. Shall we be
undisturbed here?"
"I hope so for the next fifteen minutes."
"Ah--I beg you to come nearer."
He approached her slowly, and paused at the fireplace, directly
opposite her. Between them crackled and glistened the flames, their
lurid reflection sharply lighting up both these forms. They alone were
visible in the half-darkened room; visible also to him who was pacing
up and down the terrace just outside.
"I was not prepared for this summons, Miss Forest. After our meeting in
the village it seemed to me as if you wished to avoid every approach on
my side. I followed your command; it is you now who have summoned me."
There lay perhaps some bitterness in these words, but Fernow's
bitterness was seldom cutting or harmful. Jane recognized only a
gentle, deeply painful reproach nothing more.
"My conduct may seem enigmatical to you Lieutenant Fernow," she said; "I
owe you an explanation; but before I make it, I beg you to answer a few
questions."
He nodded in silent assent.
"In the first place, will you tell me your given name?"
Of all questions, Fernow seemed least to have expected this. "My given
name?"
"Yes."
"I am called Walter."
"Walter?" A deep breath of relief came involuntarily from Jane's
breast. "Walter! I do not know that name."
"And why should you know it, Miss Forest?" he asked in evident
surprise. "We were strangers until the moment you trod the soil of
Germany."
"Perhaps so!" Her glance fastened itself gloomily upon the lurid
flame-images which in endless transformations darted forth and fell
back dissolved in nothingness; "and perhaps not! You told me once that
you had been thrust out into life without parents and without a home;
that you had fallen into the hands of a learned man who had led you
also into the paths of science.--Was this learned man a clergyman?"
"Yes; but after a time he left his parish and his vocation to give
himself entirely up to science."
Jane convulsively pressed her left hand against her breast. "And--his
name?"
"Pastor Hartwig!"
A deep, momentous pause! The flames darted yet higher and threw their
quivering light upon a deathly-pale, deathly-cold face; not a syllable
came from her lips; she remained motionless in her place.
"Miss Forest, what does all this mean?" Walter's voice was low and
anxious. "Why these strange questions? Did you know my foster-father?
Were you in any way connected with him?"
At these last words, he had stepped nearer, and now stood close to her;
Jane seemed not to have heard the question; she gave no answer.
"Johanna!"
A light shudder passed over her. This name! Only once before had she
heard it from his lips, in that parting-hour, and it sounded like a
melody out of the sweet, faraway days of her childhood. Her mother had
once called her so, but only for a short space; the German name of his
child had fallen a sacrifice to the rigid will of her father; it had
been changed to the English, "Jane." Never since then, had she heard it
again, and now as it came from his lips, it had such a soft, entreating
tone--all her strength gave way before this one word.
Slowly she lifted her glance to him; it met his eyes, and for a moment,
rested in them. Those blue eyes that with mournful tenderness hung upon
her face--even now they exerted their mysterious power, a power which,
at this moment, when all doubt must be solved, when the inevitable
decision must be made, forced this proud, obstinate woman to forget the
desire which had so long haunted her, to forget the momentous decision,
which wrested her from all the conflict and torture of the few past
hours, and with irresistible might, impelled her on into the dream he
himself was dreaming at this moment.
She sat again by the willow-hedge where the first green buds of spring
were opening, and he stood at her side. All around them brooded the
fog, weaving its gray veil over tree and shrub; the rain-drops fell
lightly upon the thirsty sod, strange whisperings and echoes thrilled
the air, while above all, fell upon their ears the undulating murmurs
of the distant Rhine. The present and the real dissolved in
nothingness; she knew nothing, felt nothing, but that dumb,
inexplicable anguish she had there experienced. She was willessly,
powerlessly under the spell of these eyes.
They both started with a sudden tremor, affrighted at the same moment,
by an unknown something.
The dream-picture dissolved with its swaying mists and its soft, tender
reminiscences of the spring; they were again in that lofty, gloomy
apartment of the gray stone castle; inside the fire blazed and
crackled, outside, the autumn wind murmured through the trees; perhaps
it was the wind that drove a bough against the window, and recalled
them from this dream of remembrance. Jane was first to glance out in
that direction, and Walter's eyes followed hers.
"We are observed!" she said softly.
"Hardly! But I will find out!"
He walked to the window, opened it wide and bent far out into the
darkness, Jane had risen and leaned heavily against the back of the
easy chair blazoned with its coat of arms. Now the most difficult thing
was to come! He must learn that which to her was no longer a subject of
doubt.
"I will see whether he is able to bear it." Perhaps only the voice of
nature spoke in this tenderness; perhaps--there was a convulsive
shudder at her heart--"he will smile at the discovery. Well, then, if
he can bear it, I will not betray my weakness even though I should die
at my brother's first kiss!"
Walter had closed the window, and now came back to her. "It is
nothing," he said calmly. "Who could have interest enough in our
affairs to watch us?" Jane knew already the way in which she had to go;
she entered upon it with unfaltering step.
"Who? Mr. Alison!"
Walter started back and glanced at her in consternation.
"Mr. Alison? Your travelling companion?"
"Yes."
That deep glow, sudden and fiery, again mounted his face, until it
covered forehead and temples.
"And he is not a stranger to you, this man? I thought it must be so the
first moment I met him--Johanna--" his voice trembled in feverish
excitement--"and what relation does Alison stand to you? What right has
he over you?"
"I am his betrothed."
The flush vanished from his face, quickly as it had come, and a deep
pallor look its place.
"His betrothed!" repeated he in a hollow voice.
"And do you love him?"
"No!"
"And still have you given him your promise--your future?"
There lay a bitter lament in this reproach. Jane's glance fell. "I have
done so," she replied in a low voice.
"Then would to God we had never met!" said Walter despairingly.
Jane was silent for a moment "And why?" she asked at length almost
inaudibly.
He stepped close to her, and his voice also fell to a low, but
impassioned whisper.
"And do you ask? Need I tell you in words what you long since must have
divined, or--is it I alone who will be wretched through your
confession?"
Slowly Jane again turned her face to him; her voice sounded unnaturally
calm, but her eyes were fixed upon his face with an unremitting,
anxious inquiry, as if every fibre of his inner being must answer her.
"We need not make ourselves wretched on this account, we _must_ not.
Destiny has brought us together cruelly, perhaps, but if it denies us
the highest happiness, it has not ordained our separation. Perhaps--"
her glance sank deeper and deeper into his--"perhaps I can persuade my
future husband to a long residence upon the Rhine. I know that a single
word from my lips will make him approach you as a friend. You need not
thrust back this hand! Walter. You will learn to control your emotions,
you will learn to regard me as a friend as a--brother should--"
"Johanna!" interrupted he with a wild, passionate outcry. She was
silent, but her eyes did not leave his face; it had now the same
expression as upon that first meeting in N., as if the next moment
would bring with it a decision for life or death.
"And you say this to _me_!" he broke out in uncontrollable anguish.
"Must I hear it from your lips? Would you deride the enthusiast, the
dreamer, in me, or do you yourself dream of a tie of ideal friendship,
where love becomes sacrilege? Do not deceive yourself! Between spirits
such a tie may be possible, but not between hearts; there it could
spring only from coldness or from crime. Once in the solitude of my
study, shut out from all the world, I too indulged in just such sickly
fancies; then came this love to you, impelling me out into active life,
into earnest, glowing reality. And this life and this reality now
demand their right; I must either possess you or lose you eternally! No
third person can come between us."
It was the deep, ardent tone of passion, a passion that thrilled his
whole being, that palpitated through every word he uttered, and before
this onrushing tide of emotion, fell the last prop to which Jane had
clung. But all at once, she stood erect and without support. Right
through the certainty of her infinite misfortune, broke a feeling that
was mightier even than despair. His words only echoes the sentiment of
her own soul; she was beloved even as she herself loved.
She heaved a sigh, "You are right, Walter!" she said. "In our case love
becomes sacrilege; I see it now! Between us two there can henceforth be
but one command--separation!"
He shuddered at the words. "And can you speak this so calmly! and do
you think I shall yield to it without having sought the utmost?
Johanna, no sacred oath binds you; a promise can be dissolved, a word
can be taken back--are your vows irrevocable?"
"They are!"
"Reflect"--his voice trembled in anguished entreaty--"this concerns the
happiness of my whole life and yours also! You can save us both by one
only decision. Can you not rend the tie which binds you to this
Alison?"
Here with a violent noise the door was burst open, and Frederic's
powerful voice was heard.
"Herr Lieutenant, the major begs you to come to him this instant!"
Walter turned around. "What is it!" he asked bewildered. "Where am I to
go?"
"To the Herr Major; all the officers are gathered there."
"Very well, I will come."
The door closed again, and Frederic's heavy receding step was heard.
Yet once more Walter turned back to Jane; his face was pale as death,
but a wild unrest glowed in his eyes.
"You hear; I must go! We are in the midst of war, the next hour, the
next moment may rend us asunder. Johanna, I ask you for the last time,
can you, will you not be mine?"
"Never, Walter! Even though Alison set me free, and every other barrier
fell--never!"
"Then farewell!" he sobbed despairingly, and stretched out his arms, as
if he would clasp her to his breast; but with a trembling movement Jane
recoiled from him, and raised her hand with a repelling gesture. For a
moment he stood as if petrified before her; then he bowed low and
distantly.
"You are right, Miss Forest--farewell!"
He was gone, and Jane remained alone--alone with this stony burden on
her breast, for the final veil had not been lifted, the final word not
spoken. It had pressed violently to her lips, but a strange might had
held it back, the fear of seeing him suffer still more, than through
her mere _no_. She who usually spared none, because she was always
pitiless against herself, trembled now before a strange sorrow. For the
first time the hard "_it must_ be!" of her father lost its power; for
the first time she felt that she could not yield to an inevitable
necessity. She had firmly faced all conflicts and tortures; but when,
as it now happened, she must also deliver him to this struggle, the
woman in her rose in all its anxiety, all its timidity, she shrank back
trembling and cowardly before the decisive word--for his sake.
To-morrow! Until then, he must school himself to familiarity with the
loss; he would then more easily bear the "_why_." Now it had crushed
him utterly.--And Jane's powers of endurance were also at an end. She
broke out into a low sobbing; but amid the sobs she moaned softly. "I
should have died if he could have borne it!"