An Unexpected Meeting.
Spring upon the Rhine! How many a heart with fond, irresistible longing
reverts to this thought! The spring comes everywhere. In the storms and
billows of the ocean, in the soft, aromatic breath of leafy forests; in
raging, devastating freshets from the mountains, in the blossoming
splendors and jubilant lark-songs of the plain;--but nowhere does it so
smile as here, by the cradle of German romance, where a breath of poesy
hovers overall. The spring glides through the Rhineland, laying lightly
her hand in blessing upon field and vineyard; and the blessing becomes
a consecration. She floats sun-kissed, over forest and rocky cliff, and
glances smiling down from hoary castles, gray with age. But never had
the German spring been so greeted, so enjoyed as now, when she came
bringing to a united people the festival of resurrection and of
victory;--and peace to the world.
This spring had come to the land prematurely and unannounced, as if in
haste to greet the new empire with its sunshine and its flowers. B.,
that "learned nest," was to-day full of joy and exultation, for it was
to receive its university professor, Fernow, as a military hero; but
the town being the centre of all rejoicings, its environs were silent
as the dead. The day was magnificent, and yet the gentleman and lady
who were climbing the path to the Ruenberg, seemed the only pedestrians
far and near. Was it through accident or intention? Jane Forest had
to-day, for the first time, laid aside her deep mourning; her dress was
still sombre and without ornament, but it was no longer of that sable,
hopeless black, and it almost seemed as if with the gloomy dress had
vanished that stony, melancholy expression which, during the whole
winter, had shadowed her face. There brooded over this face something
like a breath of the spring; a tender, longing hope timidly ventured
forth from beneath the scarce-broken icy covering, but had not as yet
courage to look happiness and the future full in the face. There was a
strange, wholly new expression on these once proud, resolute features,
and it gave the face something which despite its beauty had hitherto
been wanting--gentleness.
Mr. Atkins, who trudged along at the young lady's side, looked very
grim and morose to-day; he seemed to feel this splendor of the spring a
personal affront. Everything he saw annoyed him, and he was still more
annoyed by what he did not see. He could not understand why this tender
green had started forth so soon; it must certainly be destroyed by the
night-frosts. This preposterous shining of the spring sun with a real
June heat, only portended speedy and violent rains, and the Rhine, just
now, was the object of his utter and supreme aversion. As Mr. Atkins
walked along its banks, it had taken the liberty to wet his boots
through and through, and had also shown an ardent longing to draw his
whole person down into its watery depths, things which naturally
excited the American's bitter ire.
"Your blood-thirsty Rhine grasps after every strange nationality that
ventures near it!" he growled, and at that moment, he made up his mind
to remain no longer upon this hated soil. "The sooner we return to
America the better!" muttered he.
Jane paid little heed to Mr. Atkins' outbursts of ill temper, and she
made due allowance for them all. She very well knew that their sole
reason lay in the hollow thunders whose reverberations were heard even
here, and which announced the return of Walter Fernow, the university
professor and hero.--But as Atkins began to groan anew over the
difficulties of the path and the excessive heat, Jane said with a touch
of impatience.
"You should have remained in the town. My mourning excludes me from all
share in the festivities. I did not wish to force my uncle and aunt to
remain at home on my account, and so I undertook this walk. But no such
consideration restrains you, and I need no escort to-day."
Atkins drew down his face. "I cannot say that I feel myself
irresistibly drawn toward the city," he said, "where every little
urchin you meet on the street is babbling of the 'new power,' and every
student demands that I shall make my most humble obeisance to the
genius of united Germany. These people are lost in admiration of
themselves? Their beloved Rhine has become to them the one river of
Germany, and they dream of enlarging its boundaries still more. German
idealism is really beginning to become practical; but for these last
weeks I have been so persistently entertained at all the clubs and
societies with the prospective greatness and glory of the new empire,
that I feel as if I would like, just for a little while, to hear
something else spoken of. I wish--" Happily, just here he recalled the
sharp reprimand he had once received from Jane, so he changed his pious
wish into a sigh--"I wish I was back in America; but after all that has
happened here in the fatherland, our Germans there will be so puffed up
with conceit and vanity, that there'll be no getting on with them!"
Jane smiled at this outbreak of bitterness, and calmly replied:
"You will have to make up your mind to recognize the new power, Mr.
Atkins, difficult as it may be to you. Nothing can now be changed, and
you will at last reconcile yourself to paying some homage to our newly
awakened German genius in your own land."
"_Our_? _Your_ land?" drawled. Atkins. "Ah, yes! I keep forgetting that
you have wholly and entirely gone over to the Germans, and are full of
enthusiasm for your new countrymen. Well, just here we differ. I don't
understand, Miss Jane, how you can enjoy the prospect here, the sun
dazzles one so horribly, that one can see nothing but its beams; the
river glares up at you so as to give you pains in the eyes, and this
old wall glares at me just as if it would afford it an especial
pleasure to fall down and crush us both. Just look before you!"
Jane made no answer; she sat down and left it to her companion to rail
at the sun, the river and the ruin as much as he liked; but as Mr.
Atkins found nothing more in his surroundings, over which he could
growl, he came to her side.
"I only regret," he said, and the expression of his face betrayed how
maliciously he rejoiced over it--"I only regret that B. must to-day be
deprived of its principal hero. Lieutenant Fernow is really not with
his regiment; the garlands with which Doctor and Mrs. Stephen have
taken such a world of pains must wither, the stupendous reception which
the students had planned must, like their enthusiasm, result in
nothing; the learned salutation speeches of his colleagues will become
somewhat antiquated. I am convinced that one of these evenings the
professor will step quietly in at the back door, and the next morning
will be found sitting at his writing-desk, pen in hand, placidly as if
nothing had happened. That would be just like him, I think; he is the
only German who now seems to have the least bit of sense left him."
Atkins, taking advantage of Jane's unusually gentle mood, ventured to
speak a name which, during the whole winter, had not been mentioned
between them, and he had his reasons. They had begun to treat him as
they treated Doctor Stephen, to keep him in entire ignorance of the
course of family affairs, revealing nothing to him until it was
absolutely settled. This vexed him beyond measure; he wanted to know
what had passed between Henry and Jane, wanted to know how matters
really stood, and as he could venture no direct questions he tried this
man[oe]uvre.
But he missed his aim. Jane certainly blushed when Fernow was
mentioned, but she remained calm and did not open her lips. It required
more than the mere mention of a name to rob her of her self-possession.
Atkins saw that no subterfuge would avail him; he must advance openly
to his goal.
"Our travelling arrangements will perhaps require some change!" he
began again in his sharp, searching tone. "Henry's sudden departure has
disarranged all our plans; I have not been told,--I certainly have not
been informed," he added with an irritation that showed his
sensitiveness on this point, "why he last evening stormed so violently
into my lodgings, demanded his travelling effects, and immediately
drove to the station--and in such a humor too that I thought it best to
keep as far away from him as possible; but, for my own interests I
would now like to ask you, Jane, what you think of all this."
Jane's glance fell. "You are the first to inform me of Henry's
departure," she said. "Did he leave no line for me?"
"No! not even a good-by; he declared that he should return to America
on the first steamship that sailed from Hamburg."
Jane made no answer, but a deep sigh escaped her breast which had in it
more of sorrow than relief.
"What had you done to Henry, Jane?" asked Atkins in a low voice, as he
bent down to her. "He looked terribly when he came from you."
She glanced timidly up, but her voice was subdued and unsteady. "You
always declared that he cherished a passion for me," she said. "I had
never believed it. I thought the dollar the only divinity to which he
knelt."
"It will perhaps be so in the future!" replied Atkins dryly. "Such
weakness overpowers a man like Henry but once. He should have held to
his American traditions; then the heir and future chief of the house of
Alison & Co. would have received no refusal. It is not well, this
mixture with German blood; you yourself very well see that now, Miss
Jane, and Henry evidently has had enough of your German romances to
last a lifetime. But his is not a nature to burden itself with an
unhappy, love for any long time, and I do not doubt that within a
year's time we shall hear of his marriage with one of our home
heiresses."
"Would to God it might be so!" sighed Jane from the deepest depths of
her heart, as she rose and stayed her arm against the wall.
For some moments, Atkins stood near her in silence. "Shall we continue
our walk?" he asked at length. "This old castle is doubtless very
interesting, but there is a draught about the romantic, mediaeval haunt.
I think we had best return to the sheltered valley."
"I shall remain!" declared Jane with her usual positiveness. "But I
will not allow you to expose yourself longer to this 'romantic
draught.' You will of course direct your walk to M. and we shall meet
upon our return."
The hint was plain enough, and Atkins very readily accepted it. He
thought it inexpressibly dull up here, and gladly availed himself of
any excuse to withdraw.
"I have an idea that I shall have to return to America alone," he
muttered to himself, as he took a by-path leading directly down into
the valley. "And besides, I am to have the extraordinary pleasure of
sending Mr. Forest's whole fortune across the ocean. The fortune Henry
Alison made the object of all his energies and calculations, and which
is now to fall into the lap of this German professor who was stupid
enough to care nothing at all about it, and who would have married
unhesitatingly upon his professor's salary! And he will have a
brilliant career in the world--there is no doubt of that. They are now
lauding him as the future poet, and there must be something in the
uproar his verses cause. If a million stands behind them, and a wife
like Jane sits near him--all this will urge him on more surely and
speedily to the wished for goal. Our deceased Mrs. Forest would have
been triumphant; but I'd like to know what Mr. Forest would say at
seeing his riches exclusively in German hands and subserving German
interests. I believe he would"--here Mr. Atkins bethought himself, and
concluded with this emphatic ejaculation--"I believe he would say amen
to it!"
Jane had remained behind alone. She drew a deep breath as if relieved
of a heavy restraint, and sat down again in the old place. The bright
spring radiance fell around the gray, ancient ruins of the castle,
while above and beneath them, throughout all the landscape, reigned a
thousand-fold life of fragrance and blossoming. The ivy again wove its
green meshes around the dusky stone, and let its wavy tendrils flutter
far out over the abyss. At her feet, lay a grassy expanse bathed in the
sun's golden lustre, while far beyond flashed and shimmered the dear
home river, as if only hours had passed since that day when they two
had sat here; as if autumn and winter, with all their tears and
conflicts, with their melancholy symbols of mourning, had been only an
evil, oppressive dream.
And, as at that time, the gravel now creaked under advancing footsteps.
Could Atkins have come back? Impossible! This was not his calm,
deliberate tread. It came nearer; a shadow fell upon the sunny space
before her; Jane sprang up, brow and cheeks suffused with a treacherous
glow, trembling, incapable even of a cry of surprise. Walter Fernow
stood before her!
In eager haste he had climbed the hill, but this time, he did not
arrive breathless and exhausted, as once from his most quiet walks;
such exertion was now sport to him, and it must have been something
quite other than fatigue, which at this moment stopped his breath and
sent that deep flush to his face. He would fain hasten to Jane's side,
but he paused suddenly and gazed silently on the ground; it seemed as
if with the old student's dress which he had to-day for the first time
resumed, the old timidity had returned.
"Professor Fernow--you here?"
A shadow of painful disappointment passed over Walter's face; perhaps
he had expected a different greeting. The deep flush vanished and the
old melancholy expression again darkened his features. Jane had
meantime in a measure recovered her self-control, although she could
not overcome the agitation that thrilled her frame and gave a
treacherous vibration to her voice. "I--we heard that you were not with
your regiment; my uncle and Doctor Behrend at least declared that you
were not," she said.
"I did not come with my comrades; I arrived an hour ago. Doctor Stephen
and his wife were not at home, and I was not in the mood to enter at
once into the festivities. I undertook this walk; it accidentally led
me here--"
His face betrayed the untruth! He had incidentally heard at the house
that Jane was not at the festival, and it was not without good reasons
that he had undertaken this walk so immediately after his arrival. It
had perhaps been more presentiment than accident which had led him
here. Jane might have felt this, the flush upon her face deepened, and
the dark lashes sank slowly, while her trembling hands sought a point
of support in the wall. Walter hesitatingly approached.
"I have frightened you!" he said in a subdued voice. "It was not my
intention to return so suddenly; I felt that I could not for the
present come to B.; but a meeting I had with Mr. Alison--"
"With Henry!" cried Jane in painful apprehension. "Did you speak with
him?"
"No, I only saw him! He arrived last night at the hotel in K., where I
had taken lodgings; we met upon the stairs, but he passed me silently
and morosely, without greeting, and as if he did not know me. This
morning a note was brought me with tidings that the gentleman who had
left it had already gone; it explains the reason of my being here so
soon."
He handed her the note; it contained only a few lines.
"I release you from your promise to meet me after the close of the war;
there is need of no such meeting. In future, the ocean will lie between
us, that secures to you the fruit of your victory. I do not hinder your
return to B. There you can demand an explanation of what has happened.
In a few days, I leave Europe forever.
"Henry Alison."